E027: Listen When Your Body Whispers, So It Doesn’t Have To Yell At You!

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Welcome back to The don't wait for your wake up call Podcast. I am super excited today to bring you another wonderful guest. This time Cathy white. Welcome, Kathy. Thank you, Melissa. Great to be here. I'm excited to share your knowledge with the audience. And to all of my listeners. Thank you for being here and joining us today. Kathy White is a Shiva yanda hatha trained yoga teacher. She's also completed her 300 hour kaiyote yoga instructor training plus a 100 hour yoga, mais training from Portugal. She is also a certified facilitator and the work of Katie Byron, as well as an art psycho therapist. So she has a wide realm of background training and experience to share with us here today. And I would love to invite you, Kathy to just start off by sharing your story with us. Who are you? And how did you come to all of these amazing trainings. And what you now do is, is teach yoga among other things.

Mm hmm. Thank you, Melissa, thanks for the invitation. Gosh.And obviously, we're going to do the short version could because I could spend a long time telling you all the different ins and outs, but I'll keep it brief. I'm from the UK, originally born in the UK to a Canadian mother's. So that's my link with Canada. So I now living back in Canada, we moved here three years ago, from Scotland where I had ended up living met, my husband had my kids there in Scotland. And we lived in a spiritual community called Findhorn for 23 years. So moving to Canada was a big change for us all. And part of the move was I wanted to shift what my work and what I was doing. And I really wanted to re emphasize the yoga and I was in the middle of doing this yoga, yoga training at the time. Chi yoga comes from Brazil, as does yoga mice. And not it's not it's yoga mice. It's in Portuguese. It's not from Portugal, sorry, was a Brazilian Yeah. And those trainings that I did in recent years just added to my

background, you know, I had a Hatha Yoga training, very classical, went to an ashram for a month. That was back in 2000. And these trainings, what they what they were, for my body at that particular time, were they really addressed the menopausal body, shall I say that I suddenly even though I had years of yoga in me, suddenly when I turned 50, or started to approach 50, around that age, and I was having perimenopausal symptoms, and you know, hot flashes, and my joints started aching, and I started to feel this inflammation and things like that, which I know you talk about a lot on your on your podcast.

And my yoga wasn't really working for me anymore. I felt I was just getting stiffer and stiffer. And I was approaching it from the perspective of well, if I just stretch a bit more, I'll get I'll get over it, you know, and then it was really painful. And I was just, you know, I'm giving up on yoga. Yoga is no good for me, which was actually I just want to stop there and say it's interesting how sometimes we think that when something isn't working for us, we have to do more of it. Yes, right. Exactly. Or when something is a good thing. We have to do more of it. And that's when it's actually everything in moderation.

The key is listening to our body, right? Because that's exactly it. So listening to my body, my body was going this isn't working, you know, your current practice, your current yoga practice is not addressing what was needed. So that was the kind of the wake up call as it were. And I think, what what then happened was, I came across this particular method called coyotes. And I immediately signed up to do this training, I flew to Toronto, I, which is where Francisco K, the teacher had come up from Brazil to hold the trainings. And over the next 18 months, I went back to Toronto, so a total of three times. And

it was radical, it was a really big change in my body and in my mind, about how I was approaching yoga, and cop coupled with my background in the Work of Byron Katie, which is a practice of questioning beliefs, questioning thoughts, I also radically shifted my approach to what I was thinking about my body and how I was expecting it to do certain things, I still believed I had a kind of 30 year old body. And now I realized, no, I have a 50 year old body, but it can be as vibrant and as alive. And as healthy as I was, when I was in my 30s, I just needs caring for differently, as you would care for an old vintage car, you know, you treat it differently than just a regular car that you've just bought, that's, you know, five years old.

It was there was a lot of learning and a lot of shifting a lot of changing. And so opening moving to Canada coincided with this new training, new approach to my body, and I was so excited to share it with other people, and especially people around my age. So people in their 50s or older, who are starting to feel like ah, joints, a bit achy, a little bit stiff here. So things are seizing up. And the way Yoga is taught today, unfortunately, in the majority of places where I see it around the world, it's taught as a fitness tool is taught as a fitness exercise. And we use that same mindset for fitness for yoga. And actually Yoga is far beyond fitness. It's much more of a mindfulness tool. Yes. And bringing mindfulness to the body helps us listen to the body. I know you speak a lot about, you know, what's your body saying to you? Well, slowing down in a yoga practice, you actually get to listen to it. And then this approach that I teach is very much about slowing down enough to listen and then going into poses just so you touch the restrictions. So you're actually actively seeking out what's tight and what's tense, not to push beyond it, not to force them not to effort, anything to break through nothing of that. But just to see what is actually there just to spend the time in a particular pose, you know, maybe a minute, maybe five minutes in a particular pose, just breathing and being with the feedback your body gives you, when you put it into that shape. Right, then the mind settles the sympathetic nervous system kicks out and the parasympathetic kicks in so you're really relaxed rest restore mode, and then the body can start to heal itself and rejuvenate.

Yes, we're in that state that it can do that. Yes. in that in that state. So though many of us spend most of our time unfortunately stuck in that sympathetic nervous system or state of chronic stress.

Yes, and we don't realize it culturally indoctrinated you know, it's like when did being busy get get so popular? You know, when did it get so sexy? How are you super busy? You know, it's like, people go on about it as though it's some great thing to be really really busy. It's like, no, how would it be that we're just like, Wow, really? You've got nothing to do today is that's amazing. You know, we don't and we did I put it on my kids too. So what have you got planned today? No. So Well, nothing. You sit in the hammer,

or even. I remember when I had just finished high school and I wanted to do nothing for the summer. I had worked so hard through grades 11 and 12 to finish In Australia, you do exams at the end that are statewide on everything you've learned in those two years. And you get one mark. And then that mark, that score for me was out of 500 will get you into university or not. Right. So so it's critical that you have to worry about. Yeah. So I had worked so hard. I just wanted to take a summer off and do nothing. But my mom was like, no. And she went and got me a job working for her brother that I had no choice but to go.

Yeah, and that's what we do as a society. As a society. I agree. 100%, right. We work. And that's how we approach ourselves. So yes. And so therefore, when people get onto the mat, it can be a little, like, what are we doing here? We're just lying on our backs. Yep. Because you realize how much gravity can actually work on your spine when you're just playing horizontal and how beneficial that is. Because the mind is going here, but I should be doing something. It can't feel and it takes a while for that feeling capacity of my students to drop in that they can actually feel. Oh, now I know what Cathy's talking about. Yes, I'm relaxing here. I can feel my spine adjust to the floor. I can feel my pelvis, relax. I can feel my muscles soften, and all of that, but that just comes with time and practice and breath. And and patients really, because we're so geared up and there's so much tension in that gearing up that Yeah, the discharge, they're letting go. The relaxation can take some, some practice. Yeah. To be able to get into that state. Yes. So yeah, that, you know, that's my sort of yoga journey.

Hmm. So I love that my yoga journey is not nearly as long as yours I actually only started four years ago. But it's a practice that I came to love and appreciate in my life very quickly, and something that I practice regularly. And I know that exact feeling of just lying on the floor and settling. Yes. And it surprises me even to this day when I can do that and feel so unbelievably comfortable and support it. Right. And every once in a while I might be doing yoga in the room, and I'll always shut my door. At this time of year, I do it on my desk, but in winter, I'm not doing it on my desk, because there's three feet of snow, my husband will come in and see me lying on the floor and go, what are you doing? To my yoga? And he's like, aren't you supposed to be in a pose? I am in a pose? Can you go away now?

Yeah, and you know that your husband's Exactly. And I think that's why it's hard for people in their 50s or over who've never done yoga before, who perhaps have a preconceived idea of what it's what it's about. And they think, and they've seen the images on Instagram or wherever. And they think, oh, my goodness, I'm gonna have to

get one leg and,

you know, yeah, I'm not bendy enough, I'm not flexible enough, I'm not strong enough, it's like all those things is like automatically dismiss yourself in the possibility of doing yoga, because you think you're gonna have to adopt all these crazy poses. And that's really unfortunate, because Yoga is probably one of the when it's taught correctly, it's probably one of the most beneficial practices that one can do, because it is for the mind, as well as for the body, it's using the body to access the mind the spirit, and bringing them all into alignment. And it really doesn't need fancy poses. And if you have a really good teacher, a teacher, who will be able to modify for you. So if you've got a back injury, or you know, had a knee operation, or you've had a replacement hip or whatever it is that people have in their 50s and beyond, then a really good teacher will absolutely go Yeah, no problem, we you know, we'll keep you safe. Well, I've got a modification for that. Here's a chair, here's a bolster, here's a thing, you know, use the wall. And we'll correct and align you according to your body type and any issues that are going on for you. And

when I I've done a couple of your classes, and I love that with your classes, in that I've done many yoga classes over the last four years, and for the entire last 15 months, they've all been online, which I actually now love because I don't have to commute anywhere. And there are some live classes and then there's some online storage classes, but either way, I can just show up beyond my mat. Have that time. Be very mindful, get into that Zen state. I love to do yoga with my eyes closed because that's how I go inside and have that time without commuting and having to stand in line to get in You know, with all the COVID protocols and all of that, that meant that I didn't have time for it in my day. Now I do when I can just join an online class. And your classes in particular, what I really loved is that you are actually using zoom to see exactly how the students are doing. You're not just leading the class and hoping we're following, which is what my other classes are. You are actually watching the students. And as I was doing poses, you were correcting me. Yes, that was fabulous. Because I needed that feedback. I thought I was doing it right. I was doing the best that I could. But you were saying, Well, can you just do this? Or can you just do that, and then I was able to actually do the pose in an even safer way for me and my body as your eating style. And being able to do that is really powerful, especially people that are just starting out and that aren't sure. Right?

Yeah. And of course, most people start out and they think, Oh, yeah, well, I'll just get a beginner's yoga class on on YouTube, or I'll do yoga with Adrienne or whoever it is, that's the you know, the yoga hit celebrity of the day, which is wonderful. I mean, I so grateful that these people are out there, you know, putting yoga out there, into the world. However, it can be a dangerous, because you might be doing poses that are way beyond what's possible. And be you the focus becomes on the visual, the look. So you're looking at the screen, you're looking at what the teachers doing, and then you're trying to copy that into your body. And that's really difficult. Most of us learn we our sensory perception of the body is, is much better ingrained. When we close our eyes, right? We can actually feel Oh, yeah, okay, that's where I Oh, I see that's the sensation. And then once you have the feeling of you know, that's where I placed my arm, then maybe you can place the other arm in exactly the same place because you have the feeling of it, not just because, oh, look, I have to put my left arm on my right ear and my head up there and my right now and, and and you're trying to, you know, fit Lego pieces together. It's like it's much more organic than that, because it's feeling your way

through it, it makes so much sense because of course, our senses are all connected. And when we take away one sense, we know that the others become stronger, right? Yes. And so when we take away the visual, which is our most powerful one to take away, because the brain is processing, I don't know the exact number, but it's a really high percentage of everything that our brain is processing is through visual. So when we just shut our eyes, our brain doesn't have to work so hard. And then that allows the brain and the mind to come. And then as you said for us to drop into feeling. But to that point, when I do yoga on my back deck, I love it so much. Because I'm now hearing the sounds of the birds. I'm hearing the pine cones dropping on the deck. I'm smelling the pine cones to write because I've slowed down and I'm paying attention not only to my body, but these other things that are just happening around me that bring joy and add to my practice. Yes,

yes. Which is then you can start to understand like the ancient Yogi's, it's like, okay, so they have this pose that's called a crow pose, or they have a cobra or they have a tree is like, of course, they were taking stimulus from nature designed to, you know, how does it feel to be a tree, right? And, and it's not a particular pose. It's not like, Oh, you have to have your foot up on your thigh and you have to stand on one leg. And you have to do this and say, No, how does it feel to be a tree? Yes. And a tree could sway and a tree can have really deep roots and a tree can

be added Hall and it can be a slightly

bent over tree. You know, it's like there's many trees and possibilities of tree poses. As as there are people and as there are trees in the world, right?

Yeah. So I love Love, love all of this and what you're doing and I know that your niche market is women, or anyone actually it's not men and women. A lot of men are over 50 that are

Yeah. Oh, coming up 50 it just that that kind of CUSP age of like when people go, Oh, I'm getting old. Old and tight. Yeah. Yeah, that sort of middle age and beyond kind of feeling right.

And so I love that you niche into that segment of the population and really can help them with all of the expertise you bring to it. But I also today want to talk about your expertise in the field of digestion and yoga because so many of my clients and listeners and just people in The world today are struggling with digestive issues. And it's not just about what we eat, it's also about what we absorb. And so we need this whole segment I'm working on right now is all about digestion and how to optimize digestion. And so I would love you to share how yoga can help improve digestion

is such a great topic, such a great topic. So, first of all, it's like taking the whole aspect of nourishing ourselves and nourishment in general. And, and knowing what is nourishing for us. So of course, yes, we have physical foods, and there are certain foods that are good for you or not good for you, some of you are allergic to food, some of you, you know, trigger foods, and Melissa will help you with all of that. But there's something about the kind of Keystone word of nourishment is like, how are we getting nourishment from our lives from our daily life and at the howery, nourishing ourselves? How are we replenishing ourselves because that's what we want our nourishment to give us this new energy, new sources of vitality that we feel healthy and carry on with with our lives. And so as we were saying earlier, the mode in which the modern lifestyle operates is doo doo doo, you know, get busy, be active, get out, you know, you've got the kids, you got the job, you got house, you got the car, you got this, though, that the responsibilities got to run the business, you got to, you know, whatever it is, and it's exhausting. And there are very lit few moments of true nourishments in that cycle of buisiness. And so what yoga can do is just give you a pause button, as I give it, you know, I really encourage people to do it daily. That's what I try and do anyway, it's an hour a day. And of course, you know, busy lives, making it twice a week, something like that, or even just a 10 minute slot once a day. But just a pause in your day where you can just drop in because people try meditation and mindfulness. And that's fantastic as well to have that pause that way of nourishing the soul nourishing the whole system by stopping and pausing. But a lot of people don't have that maybe meditation doesn't work for them. Well, yoga is like a movement meditation when it's done slowly enough. So that's the first kind of vital part of yoga and how it can help with digestion is that you slow down enough, because you have to be to rest and digest to digest, you have to be relaxed enough to digest and I'm sure you you work with your your people here. And people who are listening can can relate to the fact that they're never relaxed enough to really, for the stomach to be relaxed to for the food to digest properly. And that could be such a key issue. So just to to be rested, before you actually even eat, yes, that you're not eating on the trucks, you're not eating in a hurry, you're not eating in a state of anxiety, that you're actually relaxed in yoga can absolutely just put you in a completely different state. Yes, I

fully agree with all of that. important it is and it's not something that we're taught through public or education system, right? And it does come back to that societal demand of do more, do more, do more. And no, we're just doing what's expected of us and we have no idea how that is negatively impacting our digestion.

Exactly, exactly. And then the other thing is, you know, when you're taking care of yourself, so Yoga is an act of self care. So if you can put that is like habit stacking, you know, we were you do one thing. So you brush your teeth every morning, but you want to do something else and say, Okay, I'm going to do this as well. So I'm gonna do a little self massage, after I brush my teeth. And so you don't think i'll do a self massage sometimes later in the day? No, you stack it onto your teeth brushing because you know, that's already established. So your habit stack. So habit, stack your yoga into your day, put it into a place where you know, it can slot in and not be forgotten, because it's stacking on other habits. And when you have that self care kind of attitude, it's like, I'm really going to give myself this I'm really going to make a difference. Then that very statement that very intention can ripple out into other areas as well. So then, the foods you choose Might be healthier choices, because you've got this whole attitude of, of self care and well being, and therefore, any of those trigger foods that you know, give you a tummy ache that you know are hard to digest. But you think, Oh yeah, but I'll just go for the taste. Because you know, it's really nice taste. If you have that attitude of self care, and you're doing your yoga daily, or you're doing your self care practices, and or doing a meditation, whatever it is, then you're more likely to make healthier choices. I agree. So that's also where yoga can help. And then of course, there are yoga practices, bringing your knees to your chest, which helps press into the abdominal muscles, forward bends, slight twists, you know, there are certain yoga postures that can help with massaging all the internal organs. And yes, it's digestion. But you also need your liver in good shape, you need to call bladder in good shape, you need your kidneys in good shape. And you know, your intestines, small intestines, your stomach, like it all works as a whole. And that's the beautiful thing about yoga is that it always comes back to the holistic view of the body. So yes, of course, you can have an emphasis on Yeah, an intention of Yeah, I want to improve my digestion, my gut health. But don't be surprised if that then takes you on a dance of like, Yeah, and I need to get my ankle sorted out. Because I know that having a constitutional walk after I eat every day is a really good thing for my digestion. But I don't go for a walk because my ankles not good. So I need to work on my ankle, you know, things like that we'd, when we start piecing the things together, it becomes a much bigger holistic picture, which at the heart of it is self care.

Yes, and I love all of that and agree with everything you've said, because of course, when I work with people, I'm also working on the whole being. And the wonderful thing about the human body is when we create the environment for it to heal. It doesn't just heal one component, either. It's healing all of us. And so, in this process of discovery, as we improve our digestion, we improve our gut health, because in improving both of those, we're lowering inflammation. Well, that does then, as you say, make us realize, oh, but I have to address the angle, which is feeling a bit better, because the inflammation is down. But if I walk too far, or I don't have enough mobility, it does stiffen up. So there's still something going on, because I'm listening to my body. And I need to be addressing that. And you're right, that Yoga is that, you know, holistic practice that we might think of it as a mindfulness, but it's so much more right now that is benefiting digestion is benefiting our liver and kidneys. It's benefiting our joints when we do it properly and are guided to do it properly, it cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah.

And the reason the reason why Yoga is so sort of wonderful for body health and, and, and the practice of coming into alignment with with every Yoga means union, joining, connecting, so we're connecting body, mind and spirit. And because you meet yourself, when you do your practice, when you come into onto your match, you meet yourself exactly where you are today. We're not, we're not fantasizing about, oh, I'm gonna have some fancy body that's gonna look amazing in a bikini in six months time or whatever, is like, No, no, no, no, no, no, no, don't like don't get into that kind of future thinking. Just meet yourself now kindly, gently with awareness. And there is where the healing happens in the present moment, that's where you anchor, that's where you find the self love and cultivate the self care. It's all in the present moment. And that's why Yoga is so beautiful, because it's not, it's not like you're going to the gym and going, whoo, I'm gonna, you know, I have my big workout and in six months time, I'm gonna be able to pull up the 100 pound weight. I mean, that's great. If you want to do that I'm not dissing, you know, Jim weighs, you know, strength training

is important too, but it's coming from a different place, right.

So, but that whole mentality of kind of future guessing or future projecting into what you think your body is going to be like, can actually be detrimental to how is your body now how Is your body today and yoga will absolutely bring you back to? How am I now?

Yeah. And so if yoga, I think what you're saying there is, it's not about setting goals as to the outcome of what you're going to look like. It's about if you want to set a goal around yoga, it's gonna be more around how many times you can make the time to get to your mat, really, and on any different day when you arrive on your mat. It's gonna feel different.

Yeah. And, you know, you've probably talked to your people about making smart goals, you know, that specific, measurable, actionable, you know, don't don't say, Oh, I'm gonna do yoga for an hour a day. I mean, I, I have that as an intention. But that's with, I'm a yoga teacher. I have 2530 years of yoga practice behind me. And, and I still don't always get onto my mat every day for an hour. Read, I do my best, you know, as soon as someone beginning, it's so good try, try 20 minutes on a Friday morning, you know, just try something. That's because you can always build on what you established. But you've got to establish something that you actually you want to have that win first. Yeah, and you've

got a couple of days for 20 minutes and slow down for that 20 minutes and feel that because when you really feel into that you're gonna love it.

Exactly. you love you love you back and do exactly what you want, it's far more important that you actually enjoy the little bit of practice that you do, because then you'll go Oh, yeah, that felt really good. Let me do that again. Yeah, and if you go, Oh, I'm going to, you know, work hard, I'm going to do a full hour, and then you can't walk for the next day. Because you've pushed it too far. Right. And

I fully agree with that. And you know, I set my self care, I put it in my calendar, because then it gets done in time doesn't get taken away from me, somebody can't book into that time, right. And so that was the shift for me and being able to give myself that time every day. And for me, I like to have that time first thing in the morning and start my day off, just coming into my day, my way. So that then I have the energy, the mindset to be able to serve my clients for the rest of the day without feeling drained at the end of the day. But I love my yoga, but I love other things too. So my yoga practice tends to be about three times a week, because I also want to get out on my paddleboard, I also want to get in my strength training. And there are only so many hours in a day, right? So it's about what finding what works for you and what feels good. Absolutely, there may be days where my back is feeling a little bit achy. And so I might flip it up that day and go, you know what I need to do yoga, I'm not going to do my strength training today. Yeah, but I have the time block. So then I can do whatever it is that I want. So, yeah, I love all of this. Thank you so much. And just that important lesson around how yoga calms the body, gets us out of our sympathetic nervous system, and into our parasympathetic nervous system, which then turns on digestion. Yes, bring yoga before a meal, is a great way to turn on digestion, and then have all of your salivary enzymes in your stomach acid working and all of the enzymes in your intestines already functioning by the time you put food in your mouth. And then your body can better break down the food that you're eating for energy, and break it down well, and absorb it into the bloodstream and get it to the cells that need it. So you're actually benefiting from the food that you've eaten, versus eating in a stressed out state, when the body isn't breaking it down properly. Because the salivary enzymes and the hydrochloric acid, none of that's even turned off. So your body's going through the motions, but without the mechanisms to break the food down properly. And in that case, you don't get the energy from that food. Right? And you probably end up eating more, because you're also not feeling satiated. As a result. Yes, and many people are doing and then they might end up with constipation, because the food's not broken down properly. And it's very hard for the body to get out what it doesn't need, or it might end up in diarrhea, or it might end up just in waking because the body just starts storing it as fat.

Yeah. Right. So um, what what I find to Melissa is that I haven't I haven't sort of followed this up. But you know, it'd be an interesting question to ask most of my students but I know for myself, and I've seen it when doing yoga trainings and yoga workshops that I've run is that after a practice of yoga, yeah, you eat, you don't eat before the practice. So you practice on an empty stomach if you can, or just you know, have a Very little something if you're absolutely starving before you practice, but generally practice on an empty stomach. But then after the practice is finished, you're not starving. It's not like you, oh God, I've just run a marathon. And now I need to, you know, stash up on my carbs or whatever it is that sometimes physical exertion can create that kind of hunger. It's not, it doesn't feel like that at all. So if anything is a lowers the appetite, and yes, you can eat something, but you, you generally naturally want to go for something like a little bit of fruit, maybe a meal, but a really light meal, a salad, you know, it just naturally lends itself to eat lightly.

It's funny that you say that, because I did yoga this morning, loved it. And this is my smoothie. So I did yoga from 745 to 845, is now 1223. And I still have a quarter of my smoothie left, because I've just been sipping it. Ever since I did my yoga this morning. I don't feel hungry at all. That's packed full of fruit and protein and goodness and some veggies and but I wasn't starving. So I didn't need to wolf it all down to get and I'm a big proponent for smoothies in the morning anyway, because of course digestion uses energy. And when we use the blender to do a lot of the pre digestion, it takes less energy for our body to break it down. So I get more energy for my cognitive function or if I was going to do a workout, it cetera. But after yoga this morning, yeah, I've just been chipping away at it. So I totally agree. Totally agree with what you're saying. So yeah. Well, thank you so so much for joining us today. I hope our listeners are inspired, if they aren't already in a practice of yoga, to just go and try it out. And you know, you've got great classes. So please let people know how they can reach out to you and maybe try one of your online classes.

Absolutely. If people want to contact me, they can contact me Kathy and Kathy white yoga.com. And that's Kathy with a K at Kathy white yoga.com. And just send me an email. And I will be happy for any of your podcast listeners to give them a free class. Normally, I say, booking for three, and I have a special new student rate for three classes. And which is just 20 US dollars for three classes. But I'd be happy to give a class away to any of your podcast listeners. So they just need to email me and I can send them a coupon. And then they get and then I'll show them where to go to book on. And if you want to have a look at how the classes are. Look at the schedule, you can go to Kathy white yoga, calm and just click the tab that says classes and all the information is there.

Well, thank you so much. That's very generous. And I hope all the listeners take you up on that. And I'll put your email address in the show notes so they can find it easily reach out to you and try one of your classes for free. So thank you so much for that generosity, I really appreciate it. Yeah,

I will. And there's also a free if people want to get a free ebook about the kind of yoga I teach. I call it my joint renewal system. And there's an E book that they can download as well. And that's on the website as well just click on the tab that says joint renewal guide

from Kathy white yoga.com on Kathy white yoga.com. Yeah, perfect. So before we wrap up, I

have questions that I love to ask all of my guests. And the first one is what does don't wait for your wake up call mean to you listen to your body. That's absolutely it. You know, get on your mat and listen to your body that's being doing yoga, being on your mat is your time for your body to speak. It's like you're giving your body a venue to talk to you. So don't wait for your body, the prayer need to be in agony. Don't wait for that hip to need to be replaced. And you know, I've got nothing wrong with knee replacements, thank God, we have orthopedic surgeons, and it's incredible what they can do today. But I really believe like you don't need to wait that long. If you start listening earlier and getting help to realign and getting help with why that hip is wearing out. What is it that's happening in the cartilage? What is the alignment of the hip and you know, what is it referred pain from something in the shoulder or the knee or the ankle and discover those things on your map but don't wait to for your body to start screaming.

I love that great, great advice. And do you have any last advice that you would like to share with the listeners to inspire them to take action in their Health are their yoga practice starting today.

Starting today, so you Wherever you're listening this from, you're probably sitting in a chair. And I would say, if you can get up off your chair, have a little walk, even if it's just in your office or room or kitchen or whatever. Or if you're driving when you get you parked, stand up, walk around mindfully. And then as soon as you can lie down and put your feet up the wall. And rest.

I love that. And if you just want to elaborate on the benefit for the listeners of putting their feet up the wall,

if you put your feet up the wall, the body will immediately within probably a minute or a minute and a half, the body will move into the parasympathetic nervous system mode. So it'll go Oh, legs up the wall. And if you can insulate your hands under your head, even better, some people have shoulder restrictions, and that's not comfortable. And breathe in and out through your nose. And just let the spine relax on the floor, legs are up circulation is such that the blood will rush back into the torso, blood pressure will go up in the torso a little bit which creates the baroreceptors in the heart will go home blood pressure has risen need to reduce blood pressure and will secrete the the hormones and everything else in the system will kick in to reduce blood pressure, which lowers the heart rate. And immediately you're in that parasympathetic nervous system mode of rest and digest. And it helps the spine because you're elongated along the floor, any circulation issues in the legs, it helps that because you're draining the legs, the blood, are you helping the venous activity, and also the lymphatic activity as well through the legs with the circulation. So there's lots and lots of benefits, I could probably say a lot more about that particular posture. But that's probably enough for now. But just feel how good it feels to lie on your back and put your legs up the wall and just smile and enjoy it.

I love that. And it's something that's so easy to do. It's just simple. And it can be done. Even if you only have five minutes. Between now and your next call, I realize if you've driven somewhere, you're not going to get out and do this in the parking lot. But if you're at home, or if you're in your office, you can end you have five minutes till your next call, you could just spend that five minutes doing that. And then get on your next call from a place of so much more calm and relaxation. And the flow of that call is going to go so much better for you than if you just rushed the next call.

And even if you're out and about you know if you pass a park, yes, that put your legs up a tree. Yeah, grass, yeah, just take a few minutes it will make the

world of difference. Exactly. And lying on the grass, I could go into a whole other conversation about the benefits of that and all the micro seagrass that are getting on your skin and into your microbiome and benefiting your microbiome and just being out in nature. So yes, I love all of this. I love how these little things that we can do have so many benefits on different aspects of our body. And as I said earlier, it's not taught through public health and mainstream education. But on the holistic side of healthcare, these are all the simple steps that I love to bring to my audience through this podcast, that actionable steps that you can implement into your life to improve your lifespan and quality of life. Because once you learn at once you have this knowledge for life.

Yes. And once once you've decided to, like I said earlier, once you've decided to take more care of yourself, you know, once you've switched on that button of self care, then it perpetuates itself. It's like every little decision you make is through that lens of is this going to be good for me. Exactly. 100% true. So thank you so so much for joining us today, Kathy. So you're very welcome. It's my pleasure to be here.

Yes, thank you. And thank you to all of my listeners out here for tuning in every single week. I look forward to having you join me next week as we continue in this series on digestion. Have a wonderful rest of your day everyone. I hope that the content I bring to you in my podcast is inspiring you to take action in your health and to come to the realization that you and only you are responsible for your health and your health is your greatest asset. health isn't everything. But without it. Everything else is nothing. I also hope you're starting to realize how much is not taught to us through our action. education system and through mainstream health. And if you would like to learn more about your health, I welcome you to look into my upcoming health optimizer program. It's a four week program. And I dive into key aspects of optimizing your health knowledge that you will then have for life that you can share with your loved ones. And that will change your health outcomes. So check out the link to the health optimizer course in the show notes. And I look forward to seeing you on the program.