This episode, I think, may be our most personal yet. Talking about that process of building a
relationship with your body. I know for me and for you both, it has been, at times, maybe even, like, the
most challenging journey of our lives. And I'm stoked that for our listeners, that process and even the
mindsets are what it looks like is different for both of us.
And the idea that
our bodies aren't problems to be solved. They're they're places to come home to
that I love. I love that quote because for me especially, it feels to a large degree like that's the story of
my life in a lot of ways. How what would you say? How would you encapsulate that journey for
yourself?
Well, I love what you said about coming home, because for the first time ever, I experienced what it's
like to come home into the femininity of my body. That is something I have fought against my entire life.
And I've been driven towards these masculine dominated fields as a way to protect myself, to be a part
of the system so that I was safe and to protect myself.
So I have gravitated towards really masculine activities, bodybuilding and triathlons and just heavy duty
impact. And now I'm embracing this more femininity side where I slow down and flexibility and whole
being is more important overall than my mass. Because before mass moves mass. Yeah. And now I
just want to be a being. Who was I meant to be?
Yoga has made me leaner than I've ever been in my entire life. So I went from bodybuilding. How much
weight can I lift to how lean can I get? How healthy can I get? How much longevity can I get? And it's
funny that you say also that, there was there was a reason for that, right? It was the protectiveness.
And I'm just really excited for us to do a deep dive breakdown of what that process has looked like for
each one of us. And it's such a vulnerable place. This will be our most personal and vulnerable,
because our life experience is that everybody has a different experience and relationship with their
bodies, and it's fun to get curious and explore.
So yeah, I'm excited for today. It's interesting too, because I think historically for women, your body is
the first thing that people notice about you. And so there's, in some ways this like in turn, elevation of
other people's expectation for our bodies. And yet, interestingly, I just saw there's a documentary on
Netflix now about how boys like young boys now are being massively influenced by, like, social media
and all this, to make their bodies a certain way and our bodies in this world.
It's, I think it's just so hard to realize we don't have to conform. And also that our body is our friend
because of, you know, like last episode, we talked about trauma in the body. And there can be this
alienation process of the body. I know for me, that story, I didn't even know the complexity behind why I
felt the way I did towards my body.
I just knew that my body, I think through the entirety of my 20s, maybe even early 30s. My body was not
my friend and and I for sure up through my 20s, saw my body as and to a large degree my enemy. And
I didn't realize that.
My body could only go so far for me because it was ultimately stuck in this pattern of protecting me.
And so here I was, really just angry and upset at my body. And it was trying to do its job the whole time.
For me, it, I think, started with this mindset of controlling. I felt like I had so little in my power to control
as a kid. And so much responsibility that I really wanted to control, like, what my body looked like.And being, you know, biracial and having different hair. Be American, you know, standard was really,
really hard for me because I just immediately felt I felt othered by just what everybody else saw.
Unbeknownst to me, underneath those layers also was the feeling of being othered because of,
childhood trauma, too. And so I essentially just created this, this pattern of I felt othered, and I did things
that made me feel even more othered.
And that was I it was so crazy. And I know you've talked about eating disorder as well, so
What happens when we see our body as our enemy? Like we just put it through hell. And, you know,
when I was 16 and 17, going day's eating has absolutely labeled as possible. I remember feeling truly
profound, a profound sense of like deep distain and hatred and like being disgusted with my body in
ways that I didn't feel really to anyone or anything else externally.
And I didn't I didn't really have ways to healthfully process those emotions, so I just kept stuffing it and
stuffing it and stuffing it. And when I was, 14, I had horrible GI issues. Flare up. So, allergies to, you
know, like gluten and dairy and corn and soy and take, like, this massive list. And at 14, when, you
know, my mom had six other seven other kids that she was taking care of and so that created this
massive load for my mom.
And then more othering for me. Now, you stood out compared to your brothers and sisters. It was
horrible. I remember just sitting. There were days I would just say bawling like the I couldn't, you know,
eat what everybody else could eat. And that, you know, when you're a teenager and this is the story
that you're playing in your head the rest of your whole life begins to be built on that.
And so this, distorted relationship with food continued throughout most of my life. I have been on every
diet under the sun, weight loss diet, medical diet. You know, I have everything. I've literally spent, like,
thousands upon thousands upon thousands and thousands of dollars, on my body. And it was until in
my mid 30s. So maybe truly, maybe two and a half years ago that that completely switched.
And what was it that brought that shift upon and that switch?
Once I became aware of the emotions that I was feeling towards my body and going through what I
went through with Lyme disease, I started realizing that
I needed to rebuild this relationship with my body.
so I think I laid a lot of groundwork, but I didn't I didn't have this sense of connection with my body.
It was more the, like, I need to be compassionate towards my body. I should, you know, not feel these
feelings when you see them on the cover of every magazine, in every book. Everybody's talking about
it. You should. You should. But how do you actually get there?
part of one of the biggest reasons for going into the fire service.
I had just been,
cleared of Lyme disease and I was looking at what other jobs could I do. And one of the biggest
reasons for becoming a firefighter was that I had to work out, be healthy, and I could use my body in a
way that I wasn't ever going to be this tiny, skinny little person.
But I could be a fat, powerful person and that would be needed in this job. So even that was largely
motivated. It's like forced accountability. Yeah. So in my head, I was like, oh, this works great.But what really flipped that for me was, the first time I did, psychedelic therapy and, you know, in
Oregon, it's now legal.
it was insane. I had this. I will I will never forget the feeling when the medicine essentially just, like,
completely reconnected me to my body. And I had my eyes closed, and suddenly I felt my heart
beating, and suddenly I felt like the blood moving from my lands and inside, through my organs. And I
felt my muscles, like control, acting and relaxing.
And I became aware of in just existing of my breath and and it was like I met my body for the first time
ever coming home. Right? It was. It really was. And and I was just like. And it wasn't this overwhelmed
overtaking. It was just this soft, beautiful, like welcome. And from that point forward, really a lot switch
for me in seeing my body as not just my friend and not just as, you know, my, my longest companion,
but as at home.
And like it was such a profound experience that now I'm able to be cognizant and aware of the cues
that my body is sending me. And, you know, the excitement of, like, even on our podcasting,
sometimes you get a little nervous because you're like, oh my gosh, like, I want to communicate well.
And those cues and the things that we're feeling throughout our day, that's just our, our body talking to
us.
And for so long, I had no idea, no awareness that those, that communication was okay. And so it was it
was just the most beautiful journey. And I, I feel sad at times that it took so long. I can relate to that
100%. Yes. But it wasn't until I was like 38, 36, 37 before, you know, I really came home to myself.
But it has been such a, incredible place to be now because it informs the way that we live, you know,
both for the rest of the future. I mean, the next half of your life. Yeah. So that was that was the process
for me. And I think from that point forward, I the negative emotions that I felt towards my body,
sometimes they may like come up here and there, but like hatred has never been on the radar again.
Disgust has never been on the radar again. It's more that like, like really? Yeah. You really want me to
take a not that bad or, like, you know, we're really sore gum on, like, why are you recovering faster or,
you know, like, okay, just three more pounds. That's all for me. But it's it's not been what it was in the
past.
And I think that, like, who I am in this world and my judgments of myself and of others has just
dramatically shifted as a result of that. Yeah, I could see that for sure. And it's amazing just watching
you tell me your story. You just brighten and lighten up so much when you talk about coming home to
your body, and you can just tell when you're embodied, you can feel complete.
And it's like looking at you. You've become this whole person. That's amazing. And I've done my own
medicine journey and I had the opposite experience, right? My medicine journey told me how low I
actually was. I was so disconnect. I did on a different front from you. I didn't even realize I was
disconnected. So it just showed me how far I had gone and strayed from who I was supposed to be.
And that reflection led me ultimately to get help and recover from PTSD. But that experience showed
me how far the journey was to come back, and I recognized for the first time that I actually wanted to
come home. And it was through hearing stories like yours, which I've heard, you know, before, and
other friends of mine who have done these medicine journeys, and they came home and seeing that
embodiment and that reflection in their living, you know, I want that I see that, I want that.
And so, having followed you on your journey and trying to find my way back to my own body. For me, it
was meditation. That was the biggest thing that helped me actually. Still stay present, but be able to
reflect and go back into different thoughts that come up. Whatever memory that I need to deal with and
work through with my therapist, whatever comes up, I'm able to meet it with a place of non-judgmentbecause I know it's just a thought and it's not a part of my actual embodiment.
So it's such a freeing process, and that's what I feel the most, is just this. For instance, this is my body.
This is how far I've come. I have so much respect for myself in recognizing you and going back through
meditation and watching the journey I've had from adverse childhood experience. Mom in jail, you
know, homeless at times, working all the way to be a career firefighter and high functioning single mom,
traveling, homeschooling, all the things, but never having been embodied and actually experiencing it.
Now, when I go back and reflect, I can't remember a lot of those moments. And the reason is because I
was so far in my head, I was never actually experiencing it. I was just taking snapshots of the
experiences along the way. Yeah, I find it so funny that you say meditation is largely what brought you
back at home, because I have friends who I'm like, oh, I'm too much of that.
Like my brain goes too many places. I think too much. When we were just at dinner last night, not
dinner, but got together with friends last night and, one of my friends said this and I just laughed
because in my head I just laughed because I was the same way. Like, we we think that our thoughts
are overwhelming all the time, but once you just start piece by piece, little by little, it it changes
everything.
Your journey, meditation got you back in your body. And then, as you alluded to before, being more in
your body allowed you to start becoming more comfortable with that feminine. Yeah. Femininity has
been a struggle my entire life. I was raised by my dad. I was his first born son. As I like to joke, in the
best intent 100%.
My dad wanted to be there for me, and the only thing he knew was what he knew. And that was
construction and the field. And get into a union position and make security for yourself. So I was
already kind of pushed towards this male dominated field from the beginning, and I didn't see another
path. So that was the one I took.
And in that, what comes with that accountability? You need to be strong. You need to be able to
understand mechanics and how things work and be able to fix things. And so that's what I learned. And
that is a skill as everything is a skillset. And wherever you focus your skill set you can sharpen. So
that's what I did.
I took a masculine dominated direction and I pursued it. And in my professional field it allowed me to be
very successful. I showed up for my job. I was physically fit. I was mentally fit and capable of doing all
the same things and tasks. But then in my personal life as a woman, I was so uncomfortable just in
fitted jeans and having to wear a dress to, you know, a dinner at work together.
I was so uncomfortable because it was foreign to me. I spent so much time with my head in the books
and my head in the field, and practicing these skills that I needed for my job, because I was so insecure
about showing up and being that girl on the job site. And I didn't want that for myself. So I wanted to be
the best.
And you mentioned above for like a lot of that also was protective layering and this protection piece of
it. When did you start realizing that? Not until recently, now that I've embraced my femininity and I'm so
aware of my feelings and what my body needs, I recognize that as a woman in society, just going out
every day is sometimes unsafe.
I mean, I had a car break down and it's 8:00 at night in the streets of Portland, and I was scared. I felt
very vulnerable and exposed and that was an experience for me that made me realize and connect the
dots to how I felt my entire life. I've had that underlying sense of I was not safe since I was a child
because my experiences validated that, you know, there was a lot of abuse in my home physical,
emotional, sexual, all the heavy adverse experiences like I went through them.So that taught me that the world was unsafe as a woman, I was unprotected. I didn't have my parents
there to protect me like they should have. And that is something that created these concrete beliefs in
my system that followed me all the way until my 30s, when I finally had my break down, which led to my
breakthrough, where now I feel more secure in the sense that yes, I am a woman and I have these
other skills and almost 40 years of experience that have hardened me and allowed me to show up like
embracing both those sides is really what allows me to feel safe in my own body and just be who I
am. I can't control what happens, and I can't live in this constant world of fear of all the what ifs. And
that's where my life had come to that concept of, feeling safe. It is so interesting when you have those
moments because I think our, our biology is, is wired to look for safety. Right. And so that we have
these moments where we can suddenly connect the dots between, oh, this sensation in my body and
this emotion that's coming up like those are they they are this feeling of not feeling safe.
And, so many of us carry that lack of feeling safe in our bodies unconsciously, that it informs everything
else that we do, how we show up in this world, and our nervous systems are stuck in those old stories
which are even don't even have anything to do with being on shift. Right. So it's this, like, quadruple
whammy of not safe, not safe, not safe, not safe.
And working through that, I think the building, the trust with our bodies and, beginning to build
relationships with our bodies is really how we begin to shift those gears, because it isn't just about work
self, it's also about probably even more so. It's just sounds. We don't live to work. We work to live about
how we have been taught to show up in the world based on decades old experiences.
And as we begin to, like, peel back the layers of that, we start seeing, that, okay. Oh, that why I reacted
in that way. Oh, that's why I said that thing. So I think this would be a really great transition point to start
discussing. Like, why do we need to do this in the first place?
It's so fascinating that we struggle with our bodies, because our bodies are literally how we show up in
the world and how we experience life with all of our senses and being and also our body. Like our
whole biology is built for survival. So it's constantly scanning our world for cues of safety
and and
us learning how to interpret those cues and the messages
essentially is how we learn to operate, I think more fully or fully in our selves, more fully, in who we
believe ourselves to be.
And at the same time recognize that, yes, our body can.
We can override the signals in the body. Right? Like we do it all the time. All the time. Just as simple as
hunger, right? Like that's a body cue that we all know. Our stomach grumbles and we realize we
haven't eaten in ten hours. We've had two eyes.
Coffee is like, what are we doing to ourselves? Let's listen to the cues or as basic as it gets and or even
like pulling someone out of a fire or the work you're doing on a fire. Yes, your muscles are screaming it.
Yes, you're breathing, you know, heavily. Yes, all of those cues are not necessarily that your body
doesn't feel safe, but that it's working.
And so we don't listen to everyday life cues, but the more we learn to interpret and even hear those
cues in the first place, the more we can choose how we show up for our bodies and like, rebuild this
trust. But if we don't do that.Problems begin to arise, right? Absolutely. Well, perfect example. Right. So you touch a hot stove
before it registered. The fact that it's hot, your hand is already off. The self that is your body's ability to
keep itself safe. It is constantly scanning. Like you said, it's always picking up its cues. The signals are
so fast we can't even have a thought process to catch up to it.
But the power is in the awareness. So now the next time you come up to that stove, you go to touch it
and your body cues from your past experiences, and it takes in the surroundings and it recognizes that
this is a warning, this is a threat. This is hot. Don't touch it. So you have the awareness that just comes
to you.
It's like intuition. That's your body's signals telling you from all these past experiences we already had.
Don't touch the stove. It's going to be hot and it's going to burn you. Exactly. And the more I love I love
the analogy of those messages. Learning to hear those messages is like learning to tune into a radio
channel, radios, radio station, the.
Yeah, sometimes it's like, when you have your little car adapter and you're trying to listen to your own
music, set the radio. The further you are from the channel, that's like the clearest, the more milk it will
be very fuzzy. And then the closer that you get to the actual channel, there's less interference, there's
less, fuzziness, there's more clarity.
And I think the same thing can happen with us. As we build that awareness little by little. And I think
maybe later on we can talk about, like, really, really practical ways of what some of these cues are just
to give people a starting point, because it really can feel overwhelming. My body's talking to me all the
time, and I don't know what it means.
And just just starting there. Absolutely. And just taking a moment to scan it and see what it actually is
picking up, like what is happening in our bodies. How often do we actually stop and pay attention? I
love how you described it's like, come in away from your radio. So imagine being in a commercial
building and you have one that crew on the other side and a crew way back in the Charlie side.
Well, you may have hundreds of feet between you and a Costco warehouse. Your radios, if you're
going radio to radio, the further apart you are, the less you're going to hear each other.
will find me just like sometimes it feels so inconvenient to actually listen to those cues. I couldn't agree
more. It's inconvenient. And now that I try to stuff it down, I recognize it comes louder each time.
And it keeps. It's going to tell me regardless if I listen or not. So it's whether I listen on the first volume
or I listen on the hundredth volume. It's going to keep talking to me. Yeah, because when we ignore it,
things become a problem. So like, you really can see it. And, you know, men and women who have
been on the job for 12, 13, 14, 15 years and it's like they are starting to become aware of the build up of
all that load and whether they, you know, say they they just have stopped being able to sleep or they
have the, the injury that just never seems to get better and it just
rotates. It goes from your shoulder to your nanny to your ankle to your back. It's just actually you're
constantly chasing recovery and PT or irritability like they just never but I, I actually, had a first
responder tell me once, but they went on vacation and about a week and a half in, they started feeling
different and they got real scared.
They were like, what's going on? Like what's wrong? And then like, the day goes by before they realize
that they were actually relaxing. Yeah, they never felt that before. And they were so far removed from
what that felt like. It freaked them out like that, that we were first to show. That really goes to show how
much when the signals stay on for too long, it becomes this problem.And then we start accepting that that's just the way it is now, which then makes the problem even
worse. Flight body keeps the score. Yes. Excellent book. I love how it talks about healing. It's
non-linear. So we don't have a timeline in our body. And these signals that are supposed to tell us, like,
if we step our toe and it goes all the way up to her head to tell us we stopped her toe.
Right. Well, if we have trauma or an experience or an injury or something that happens, it actually gets
stored in the timeline in our body as a physical sensation, attention, a pain. And just like you would a
highway, if you travel it long enough, it's going to be well drilled in. Right. But now you have, mudslide
that washes out the road and you can't drive it for long enough, or eventually it's going to wear down
and overgrow, and it's not going to be a road.
It's the same with our body signals. We're preventing the signal to go all the way to our head to be able
to remedy whatever's going on. We have so much tension and physical pain everywhere that it starts
dull our senses. Yes. So on our first responder scale, we say on a scale from 1 to 10, what is your pain
level?
A one is, you know, you've poked your finger and it hurt a little bit. And a ten is a shark is ripping off
your leg and you're bleeding to death. That's our scale. And people tell us they have an 8 or 9
headache, and they've had it for five weeks. And the relative scale in our mind is so skewed because to
us that's a 1 or 2 pain that we just have a constant.
Now we're talking a lot of firefighters and first responders have a freaking heart attack. Yeah. And they
say the pain is about a 3 or 4 and they're doubled over throwing up in pain because, you know, they're
imagining a shark biting off your leg and you're being mutilated as a ten. So where's the comparison on
the scale? And I feel like we're not even remotely taught that in the EMS, in first responders.
But first of all, your body cues are there as simply a signals, and then secondly, that they're not there.
They're just real time data like I was. In fact, I think that sometimes people even view that as weakness.
And that you know. Oh okay. Yeah. You're really struggling again. You know. Yeah. Versus the idea
that
it's not, it's not good or bad, it's just the body needs more support.
And we've talked about like Bill they need to remain boss. Yeah. To more more tools in their toolbox to
build that maintenance.
But.
Even the idea that we don't have to fix things right away, like we can say. All right, this has been a five
week problem. It's time to address it. Like you're getting to address something at some point is better
than not at all.
Yes. And just starting there is
crucial. And the more the more we listen to that awareness and the listening and then the doing
something about it, I think the more we prove to our bodies like, hey, you can trust me. And for so long
most of us have gone through life with this idea of body hardening, like the body is something to be
overcome.
Mind over matter and researcher. Great performance like these amazing athletes. Simone Biles, for
example. Yeah. You know, like literally stepping away from the Olympics because her mind and her
body were not in sync. Like that's actually what it takes to, like, be a goat. And we think we can go
through life doing the demanding things that we do mind over matter constantly.And that's just not the case. These signals so often are like the flashing check engine light like,
absolutely. I was going to say that that sounds like my entire life. You're some of your last story. I put off
all the car maintenance for a year and a half, just as I am going through this transition and my check
engine light has been on and I have ignored it because I just assumed it was like a low tire.
Maybe. But my car's been telling me the whole time I need some love. And I remember a year ago it
started to shudder and I just kind of ignored it because it only happened maybe once a month. Well,
you know, today I this week alone, I spend $1,000 into my car because my window wouldn't roll up. It
got stuck open.
We're coming into the rainy season. Yeah, in the northwest. Not work here. Not going to work. So I had
to get that fixed. My struts are off, which is the problem. A year ago I noticed and I've been driving. I
have put 30,000 miles in a year on my vehicle on poor struts that needed replaced a year ago.
So now I'm looking at having to buy a new car and that is all because I missed the warning lights and
the queues. And just because we can ignore them and my car took me this whole year and a half
doesn't mean we should, because future U is going to suffer. So you either pay a little as you go or you
pay for it in the end and that develops like body literacy, right?
If you look at your body as like this amazing specimen that's capable of performance, you can oh, this
signal means my body needs more of this or it can perform better. Like it becomes this concept of
tactical readiness versus like an inconvenience that, oh, I gotta give it more this. Oh, I got to do more of
that. Like, you know, we actually when we are aligned, mind and body is when we can truly show up
and like be our best and give our best and do our best and feel our best.
That's the most important part is feeling our best. Right? And that that part we really do. It's about
showing up the best. Yeah. And that becomes so low on the priority scale. But those feelings are part of
the cues too. So if we don't pay any mind, we're never going to be able to show up our best. Like it all
goes hand in hand.
It does. I absolutely agree.
So we talked about what it looks like when you don't upkeep the maintenance on a vehicle, for
instance. So now, here I am, a year and a half later, I ignored all the signals, kept pushing through, just
like I did on every fire scene. Most shifts my entire life. So what does that actually break down to as far
as the human condition?
Like, how does that show up in our physical bodies when we ignore these signals? I loved, loved, loved
David Goggins book Can't Hurt Me. You know, you have this seal who just freak of nature. And it was
so funny because I was reading his book Can't Hurt Me and Not Got a lot right. Read this book. The
more I got into it, and with each passing chapter, I was like.
Oh no. That's like, there are some people who are going to hurt themselves, like taking this dream,
taking this mindset. And he is very extreme, right. It's gonna hurt. It goes further. Exactly. But towards
the end of the book there came this point where suddenly his body started breaking down. And like he
went to specialists and doctors and nobody could figure out what was wrong with him.
And the consensus was that essentially he was dying and he was dying because for so long he pushed
through. For so long he felt he went with this mindset of body hardening. Right. Mind over matter,
ignoring all the cues, pushing through the cues. And his body just like was finally giving out. Talk about
what a scared like. What a scary place to be that essentially the doctor like there's no solution.
One, you're ultra fit. You're in. I mean ultra marathoner, ultra godlike status quo. The world. Yeah. So
many people are watching him and he gets to this point and I loved I love that in the back. Heacknowledges that he had to start rebuilding that connection with his body. And he did it through
stretching and yoga. I have said hours and hours of just learning to come back into his body and be
present and listen to the cues and start giving it what it needed.
And you know, this person who we all like, you hear his story and you're like, oh, streams, like all that
pressure to know, how did he do this? Yes. And one thing I love is a key over did everything in his life
right. Took everything to the extreme. And now he's kind of done the same with yoga.
But there's no detriment to taking yoga to the extreme. You're just going to be this extreme version of
health and ultimate epitome of what you want to be. So I love that for him. And I have followed his
example into yoga myself. And even more than that, like that. That was just book one story like
rebuilding that body connection allowed him to keep doing the things and keep being a proponent of
like, you can do hard things and you can do we are things that you would think are possible and also
take care of your soul.
And we're we're not really taught to take care of our vessel in first response like we're praised, just like
he was for pushing through or being tough for being resilient. And yet I think where we get that
messaging wrong is the idea that resilience is about being unbreakable. And that's not the story.
Resilience is about being rebuilt. The ball absolutely coming back home, coming back home
So like Goggins, like you, yoga has played a massive role in that reconnection, right? Absolutely. We've
talked about breathwork being a part of that reconnection and that there are so many different ways
and routes and possibilities to use your breath in a way that you enjoy using it.
Have you what else have you done in that journey of reconnecting with your body that maybe even 30
minutes or an hour of yoga class, but it's like shorter little things? Oh my gosh. My favorite thing is just a
body scan. And I know we polluted to earlier or whatever the right word is, but a body scan. Just taking
a moment 30s is usually all that I need and I just go from the top of my head, all the way down to my
toes and just feel into my body and whatever the experiences I walk around most days, with the two out
of ten pain in my neck, it is.
I've had surgery and I'm getting over some injuries and I notice that tension. But that tension also tells
me a story that I haven't rested enough. Maybe I haven't done the right stretching, I haven't done the
right mobility, which in turn means I'm also focusing on my productivity. That's a problem for me with a
recovering perfectionist and OCD, and everything has to be in order.
For me, focusing on just allowing whatever is present just to be and not have to manipulate it or change
it. And just even saying to myself, I recognize I have neck pain and tension right now, and then keep
going and scanning. That in itself is empowering, just to notice it and accept it, because I've never
accepted myself before.
So just that little 30 seconds in accepting who I am and just remembering to embrace my authenticity is
everything I have found a combination of like journaling and tracking to be really helpful for me. I don't
know why I'm not like an over analytical person. I also don't have a super love of spreadsheets like
some people, but for some reason I really love tracking data.
I hate tracking, that's why I love that you track it. Gosh, I wish you could track mine and I could just call
you and tell you and you write it down for me, I that would be beneficial. I love tracking data. And for
me, for a while I was looking at, okay, like, did I poop today? How much water have I drank today?
Did I wake up with pain? Did I, you know, just like looking at taking a moment at the end of the day to
review my day and even if it's just five minutes, be really intentional to go back and connect some of
those dots and put some of those pieces together. Because still, in the moment, it can be really hard if
you maybe have too much going on, or maybe it's overwhelming.But that track thing just really allowed me to put some objectivity to something that felt really subjective.
A lot of the time and overwhelming. And then I could say, oh, you know, I had a headache today, and I
have two glasses of water, so tomorrow. You know what? I never do for water and see what about
headache went or.
It's been three days without doing my exercises and my neck is screaming today. Probably, you know,
let's try to do that before we go to bed tonight and, you know, make a goal for next week. So I found
journaling to be really helpful. Another kind of cool, unusual thing that some people may geek out on is
that, device or program called heart, math and heart math is where you.
It's a program that was built that essentially helps you learn how to build up your RV for breath and
positive emotion. So you breathe to a certain tempo, and then also you think about like you have a
gratitude practice, for example, and the goal is to align their gains. That can come with it too. But the
goal is to align your breath with gratitude.
And it's so interesting. And our treats. I will do this one with the gals, and it's so interesting when they
get distracted immediately, like the air drops. But when you can bring the breath in with that positive
emotion, the body responds. So that's another that's another awesome point that how we feel and how
we're showing up influence is our biology also.
And so when we can again pair the mind and the body together, the emotions even, our health and our
well-being really dramatically improves. So body scans, breath awareness, journaling, heart mat,
tracking, sleep hrb massive cues for rebuilding that relationship with your body.
What other things can we expect or our audience expect with that process? And specifically, I know
you've mentioned the ages of self. So what do those what do those look like that as you begin listening
and interpreting and collecting all this data and doing something with it. How do we see a difference or
what can we look forward to with seeing a difference?
Yeah,
our body at the optimal performing level has eight CS like you mentioned. So to list them they are calm,
clarity, curiosity, compassion, confidence, courage, creativity and my favorite connectedness. So these
are all the feelings that you can possibly have or embody when you are actually in your self or you're
performing at your optimal level higher as opposed to.
So these are the feelings that come across you when you're having a conversation with a friend. And
you're sitting down over a coffee and you ask them, how are you doing? It's the difference between
showing up with all this stress on your mind and your own life struggles and things going on in the
background, and you're showing up and you're just saying the words going through the motion.
How are you doing versus showing up present in the moment, feeling yourself physically in the chair,
your feet on the ground, feeling yourself connect and look at the other person and actually be curious
what is going on in their life. And then to continue with that, that connectedness you get from them,
getting the answer and being able to go back and forth in that dialog.
It's something that until you feel one of those eight CS, once you have one, you kind of want all of them.
So you start to gravitate or it's okay. For me at least, it's an addiction, almost. Where okay, today I feel
courageous and I have so much clarity on the direction of my future and I have so much compassion
towards myself or maybe somebody else who's struggling, and it's that place of, oh, how much more
can I get?So now maybe I maybe be intentional about sitting down and journaling. How much creativity can I
bring now? And really, the full embodied optimal performance is to have eight C's on board, all of those
things simultaneously running at once. It's going to be all your gears turning and that is how you want to
show up, which means your present.
It's interesting. First of all, there are eight. I know it's such a weird number and they're all C's. They just
happen to be C, but I love it. They're all C's because I can I can totally see myself in my mind's like,
okay, I was curious today. Yes. Okay. Like calm for sure. What are the others? I was reading through.
Oh yeah. Creativity was one. But it's interesting because I feel like calm, connected and curious. Those
are two of any of them. Those are the ones that probably we're more apt to see and look for. But the
others, which remind me creativity, creativity, courage and confidence, which are two that I would never
have thought of, but those come in line with having the other ones.
Right. Yeah. You're going to be more confident when you have clarity in the direction you're going. So
they all kind of systematically work together. I can totally see that. And curiosity is the bridge that
bridges them all together, Really. Just to get curious about, you know, how can I get clearer on my
vision and what I'm supposed to do?
So now you have this sense of clarity which ultimately brings apart your confidence and with
confidence, you have to have compassion for the part of you that is not up to
where you need to be. And looking like, if I were to have a vision for myself of my life, those eight C's
like that actually sounds pretty great.
Yeah, being confident to show up as who I am, feeling connected with people around me. Creativity is
definitely. I feel like one of my life values, but I do notice the more stressed and overinvolved I am with
life, the less creative and creative I am. And calm I feel like is we all try to be calm. We all try to be free.
I think, I think we think that's our baseline. Like to be calm and carry on. Like what is actually mean?
Clarity. Having an idea of like what I am doing when I am doing it, that like, you know, you're not brain
foggy about everything. What else do we say? Courage. Just the courage to have all of those things.
Just to be able to show up who you are without the fear of judgment. That sounds like a really great
like, where do you feel like you are a scale of 1 to 10 integrating those things? I mean, with compassion
and grace. Yes, we have more to go, but where do you feel like you are? I think effort is everything, and
I get to give myself a very high score and say I'm between an eight and a ten on most days because I
give it all of my effort and sometimes I fall flat and that is something I'm just learning to adapt and
accept is I'm going to make it for myself and especially if
learning a new career and starting this new transition in life and not having the security of a union or
somebody to work for, and actually working for myself and having a clear to bring up clarity and
direction of where I'm going, that is a scary place to be. And I am doing my best to just show up and
learn every mistake as a close, the closer I'm getting to figuring something else out.
So one no means I'm closer to yes, and between 8 and 10 is awesome. And you're right. Effort. Effort is
is a lot. I feel like seven and a half might be my like mean, average. I'll say it successfully executing I'm
probably like a four. But going out there I'll I'm going 8 or 10. I'll go there. Ultimately, I think it's this idea
that, you know, those different qualities all come from being embodied.
And if you look at this conversation from that lens, ultimately, like our body is our teammate, and if
there's one thing that our audience can take away, the necessity of learning how to see our body as,
through this lens, like we are human beings, being embodied. We're not machines. And we our bodies
do require tools and maintenance and time and rest, and we have to give it the respect that it deserves.Because otherwise, we are going to you live in those eight, you and those eight. You sound like they
will make life better for everyone around us and for ourselves. Yeah, most importantly for ourselves,
because we can't get from an empty cup. And I love how you said just being a human being, because it
made me think of when you said productivity and everything else.
A human doing is so often what we believe in this culture, but it's about just being. And we don't live to
work. We actually work to live and to have this personal life and to flourish and the point of living in
optimal health is to have that long, sustaining, bright, vibrant future that we deserve. So ultimately, yes,
it's tactical readiness, but also to bring it back around to the beginning of our conversation.
It's also finding ourselves back at home. And for both of us, like that has been such a life altering,
altering, life altering, point in our existence. And I know for myself, like, I would know and how it feels
now, I would be willing to go through a lot more things to get to that point, because it means so much
now, and it's made such a big difference for myself.
Absolutely. Yeah. I would not take back any of the things I've been through, including all the hard
things, because when I look back at them now, they have given me such a skill set moving forward, to
be able to tap into and come back and visit and come back home to to pool whatever tool I need for
whatever future endeavors.
Just keep coming back home.
it takes time and it's really hard, but it's so worth it.
