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Reconnect Your Body and Mind with Certified Yoga Therapist Aimee Huffman · Millennial Mental Health Channel

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That's what you know when you think of yoga bringing balance to the system.
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For most of us, we're doing, doing, doing, We have to
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balance that with being in resting and how much time are we actually being in
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resting in our day to day aside from when we're sleeping, and even then
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it's pretty active states in sleep. This is Millennial Mental Health Channel. I'm
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doctor Justin Romano, a Child and Adolescent psychiatry fellow, and I'm Eddie Creo,
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a licensed clinical therapist. Our podcast is here because we wanted to start
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a much needed conversation about mental health. Our goal is to teach you as
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much as we can by sharing our own experiences and interviewing experts in the mental
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health field. We will discuss topics like mood disorders, psychotic disorders, substance
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use, personality disorders, and many more. Millennial Mental Health Channel buy Millennials
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for everyone. We hope you enjoyed today's episode. MMHC is a production of
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Spreaker from iHeartMedia. Ana. Welcome back to MMHC. Eddie and I have
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a very special guest for you today, but we want to introduce the topic
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today. We're going to be mostly talking about yoga and we wanted to have
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a yoga person, a yogi on the show because I had actually had a
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really good conversation with my mom and she told her that in her life that
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yoga has been incredibly useful for her own mental health and her own journey and
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a lot for her own self acceptance. And I thought that was a really
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cool thing. But she tried therapy and actually found that yoga was more useful.
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So serendipitously, we had a yoga instructor email us shortly after that conversation
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with my mom, and I thought, perfect, this is the stars aligning.
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So we have Amy Huffman, who helps high achievers, entrepreneurs, and
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career driven people develop mental strength, heal holistically from pain and disease, and
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perform at the highest level. She's a wellness educator and teaches corporate and mindfulness
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as a tool for overcoming stress and burnout. She's passionate about using yoga as
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therapy to help people be powerful so they can also do powerful things in this
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world. She's a yoga therapist and a health coast based in Austin, Texas.
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Welcome to the show, Amy Huffman, who thank you, Thank you
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great to be here. Yeah, Amy, Well, first off, hold
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on, just you don't even let me talk about like my experiences. I
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thought you were gonna like toss it to me and be like, what,
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how has yoga impacted your life? Eddie? But you didn't even give me
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that, So Amy started to cut you off. I'm gonna just give my
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one quick intro to yoga. Really, the only thing I told justin this
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earlier today. My friends and I, a bunch of us our senior year
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in college, took yoga as a human performance class you could basically take like
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physical education classes in our school. And it was really hard. It was
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like and it was during football season. So my friend like our thought process
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was like cool, we'll take yoga and it'll be good for us. Like
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it was on Wednesdays and Fridays, especially Friday mornings because we had like six
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am practice. We're like, cool, We'll go to practice in the morning,
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go to breakfast, come back to school, yoga, and then I'll
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go to class the rest of the day and it'll just get me in a
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good, good headspace. I'll be nimble, i'll be stretched out, and
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I had to work really hard in yoga class, but it was it was
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cool to be in it with my friends, So that is like my one
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intro to yoga. I have friends that have done yoga in the past.
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I know a lot of people have a lot of benefits from it. I've
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seen and I don't know if we'll touch on it today, but yoga has
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kind of that connection out with everybody, but with like definitely definitely mindfulness,
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but with some people there's also like a spiritual component to it. So there's
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a lot of people that I I've seen it impact positively. So I want
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to share my one story of yoga now, Amy, Please, we'd love
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to hear about you. I'd love to hear about like your life story and
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how yoga fits into it. Thank you so much for being on the show
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with us today. We're excited to hear We're just excited to hear from you,
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so again, thank you for being here. Well, thank you,
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and we actually have quite a bit in common, Eddie. I was also
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an athlete in college and took my first yoga class in college at the rec
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Center. Yeah. I like to say that my experience with mindfulness started much
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earlier, so I've been a competitor in my whole life, starting at the
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age of four, I was riding horses and barrel racing, and then it
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turned to volleyball, and then the mission was to get that Division one scholarship.
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And so I learned at a really young age how to push myself and
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how to do hard things and how to just muscle it and get it done
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and no pain, no gain, which I'm sure listeners can relate to.
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So getting to that next level just became so ingrained at a very young age.
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And while I did learn to channel my self, talk and focus to
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perform at this high level, once I got there made it to being a
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Division one college athlete. That's where my body kind of said enough, you're
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pushing yourself and you're reaching this threshold. You have crossed the threshold. Actually,
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so I started to get these whispers of you need to back off.
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I think, as most twenty one year old will do. We kind of
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ignored the whispers until they started getting louder and louder, and for me,
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those turned into panic attacks. And so the whispers started to get more intense
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and more intense, until like full blown panic, very spontaneous random times throughout
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my day, driving in the car in the middle of class in the big
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lecture hall, feelings of someone sitting on my chest, my throat literally tightening,
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body, going um, you know, rushing to the emergency room because
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there was this inexpable thing happening inside of me and I had no idea what
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it was, and I thought it was dying. And so those were very
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scary times, and anxiety became really crippling for me in college. Specifically,
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oddly enough, that's also when I took my first yoga class. So it
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was this outlet that at first I connected to more on the physical realm,
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being an athlete and taking a physical type of yoga class, which is just
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one of the many types of yoga, really resonated with me and offered me
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an outlet to really start to explore what it felt like to sit with discomfort,
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to sit with feelings of anxiety or agitated energy, and then drop into
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that experience of like resting in a very easeful child's pose, that experience of
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what softening a little bit felt like. Because I had been so used to
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like going, going, going, just muscle and just get there, that
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I needed to relearn what it was like to let myself regulate and let my
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body regulate itself, let my nervous system regulate itself. So that was my
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first introduction into yoga, and that's when I took my first teacher training several
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years after college. And at that point, I was in adulthood and climbing
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that corporate ladder as you know we do as we graduate from college, and
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I found myself in a pretty toxic work environment. I was working at a
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startup and striving to get to the top, and my body started whispering again,
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and this time it was in the form of waking up with hives on
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my body. My lips would be swollen, you know, these inexplicable,
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seemingly random, physical manifestations of anxiety and worry and fear. Things that I
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was so used to pushing beneath the surface. It was rising up again like
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it needed to get out. All of these flags were waving. But this
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time I had a greater sense of awareness that I listened, and so I
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took a step back, and I realize this is not the environment for me,
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and I was able to use my practice as a tool to go deeper
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and to recognize that my purpose was actually to share this in my experience with
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others. And so that's when I found yoga therapy and went through an eleven
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hundred hour yoga therapy certification over two and a half years. So the equivalent
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of getting your masters in yoga using yoga as therapeutic modality, and that's what
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I've been doing ever since. I work with hyperformers, people who are pushing
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themselves, people who are competitors, entrepreneurs, and helping them find balance and
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helping them create more flexibility within their nervous system, and helping them address their
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mental health without necessarily needing to do it from a thinking cognitive way, by
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learning to drop into their bodies and getting to know their bodies, because I
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think we have this misconception that mental health and health in general is controlled by
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the mind in the brain, but it's the body that really is wired to
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be the operator the nervous system specifically, and so using yoga is a way
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to get familiar and engage with cues from my nervous system, and the form
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of anxiety helped me befriend my nervous system in a way that I'm no longer
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scared or fearful when I start to feel anxiety or a panic attack coming on.
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Because I still get them because I know now I have a solid tool
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to bring myself back in yoga, being that tool in methodology. You mentioned
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a startup and I made a joke before we started where Justin telemented on what
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I was wearing and if you're listening, you don't need to watch the YouTube
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video, but if you're listening, I'm wearing like a flannel and like a
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vest over it. And I told Amy and Justin that I was going for
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like the tech bro like finance vibe. But you mentioned startup, and I
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know I'm originally from the San Jose Bay Area where like tech and startups are
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like that is that is like the culture, that's like the second culture of
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the Bay Area, And I know like that hustle culture is like can be
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incredibly toxic one. I guess my first question is like where were you,
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Like what part of the country were you at when you were working in that
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startup and like what what was that like for you? Like, and I
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don't want to have to revisit like anything that was too like traumatic or negative
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for you were Like what was that like for you? So I was in
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Austin, Texas, which has become its own tech hub in the last five
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to ten years. And at first I was excited because it felt like startup
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and start up pass its connotation of success and fast paced and energizing and making
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money and like you're on the right path. And then when I got into
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it, it was like, whoa, this feels like very chaotic phonetic energy
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for me and my personality and my constitution. It was a successful startup and
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ended up being very successful, but I found that the energy around me just
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really threw me off balance, and there wasn't an emphasis on work life balance,
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which is kind of what you expect in the startup world, but you
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don't recognize how quickly fall into just doing mode twenty four to seven, like
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going, moving, thinking, planning, performing. Even in those moments where
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there was downtime, I felt like the frenetic energy even in that space of
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like pushing me to go out and socialize and do more and kind of fill
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this space that was really uncomfortable and didn't really allow me time to settle and
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relax because as soon as I would settle and relax and I would have to
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go back into the office the next day, and it was like do plan,
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think fast, paced, go, go, go, and it was
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just hard to align with that lifestyle for me, and I think for many
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people they get caught up in that hamster wheel of just going go and go
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and go and go, go and going, and it takes an event to
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hop off the wheel to recognize that you were on it in the first place.
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But what I love about yoga and mindfulness practices is that you get to
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practice, like you practice getting on the hamster will if you will, and
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like arousing and stimulating the system, and then you practice calming and you practice
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what it's like to step off like the visceral experience, because when you're in
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those spaces startups or just fast paced rolls, your body forgets what it feels
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like to be in a settled, grounded place. And so that's what I
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love about yoga therapy is a therapy, is that there is a visceral experience
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that happens, like you don't have to think yourself into learning how to relax
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or think yourself into handling anxiety or depression, but you get to practice with
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your body and your breath state shifts, if that makes sense, I love
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it. I think you made so many good points there where So many people
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think the mind is in control of your mental health, but it's such a
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duality. It is your mind and your body, and your body contributes so
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much, from the foods you eat, to your muscles to everything is connected
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through your nervous system and also through your hematologic system, your blood. There
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are chemicals being transferred from both, and so it's cool to hear you explain
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that sometimes it helps in yoga to get yourself worked up a little bit,
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get that heart rate pumping, and then learn how to calm yourself down.
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I feel like that is so much more useful than a lot of times we
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talked to I speak to kids specifically a little bit about meditation, and meditation
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is great, but sometimes it's hard for kids to get into that mindset and
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buy into meditation. I feel like they're more likely to buy into something like
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yoga. One question I had for you, Amy, is I appreciate so
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much that you shared your story and opened up about your mental health. What
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specifically has been useful for you in the sproad spectrum of yoga for helping you
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in those moments where panics coming on or anxieties coming on. I think it's
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shifted over the last decade or so is my practice has shifted and evolved,
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and as I've gotten deeper into self study and different teachers and introduced to different
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modalities and types of yoga. I think early on it was helpful to start
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with my body and my breath. So when I think of anxiety, you
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know it's fear. There's a certain arousal that that sympathetic reaction of, like
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something runs across the road and you slam on your brakes and there's that spike.
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And so for me, it was helpful with the physical practice of yoga
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to kind of work that energy through my body, to move the cortisol in
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my body in a more physical way. And then it was this ladder of
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like then I began to use the breath in creating this synchronicity between breath and
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movement that you'll see oftentimes in like a Vignasa class or a flow class.
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That created a really steady metronome for my mind. I think this is true
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for a lot of people who are newer to yoga. There is so much
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arousal and adrenaline cortisol in the body from stress that if you try to sit
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down and meditate or go into a restorative yoga class, you're gonna feel like
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you're crawling out of your skin, and so that's why it's helpful to move
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energy through the body before you try to sit with a mind and meditate.
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So it was really the physical practice first, and then it was the breathing
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practices. And for me personally, this is what I love about yoga therapy,
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where you're working one on one with an individual. There would be times
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when I would go into group classes and the way someone was queuing breath would
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spark anxiety in me, and I would feel like I was about to have
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a panic attack. And so I just learned that I didn't work with the
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breath during those periods of times. As I began to become more familiar with
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my nervous system and what it felt like to feel like there was an anxiety
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attack coming on, then I learned to work with the breath specifically through like
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an extended exhalation, which we did before we hopped on that straw breath.
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Because when you slow down the exhale, the research and the science shows that
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it applies almost this break to the sympathetic nervous system. It provides a slowing
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down and that rest and digest side of the nervous system activates, which allows
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us to just step back, to drop back and regulate. So it was
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the physical practices first, learning to be with the long, slow exhale,
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and I would say most recently since COVID times, it is resting and restorative
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poses like my legs up the wall and just letting myself be and what I
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like to practice and call do nothing time where I'm not even necessarily doing a
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specific practice. I'm just practicing being. And you know, it took me
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a while to get there, but I found that my system and where I'm
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at now oftentimes like that's what I need I need to practice, not I
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need to practice being in stillness. That's what you know, when you think
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of yoga bringing balance to the system. For most of us, we're doing
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doing, doing, we have to balance that with being in resting and how
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much time are we actually being in resting in our day to day aside from
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when we're sleeping, and even then it's pretty active states in sleep. So
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now and now it's more of the resting and the being and setting a timer
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for ten minutes and just letting myself drop back, and you know, notice
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my breath and notice my thoughts as they pass. There's some meditation in there,
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but it's a much less physical practice than what it used to be.
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I like the trying to consciously take a break because if you think about it,
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like a lot of us, I know, for me specifically, like
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I wake up and like I'm I'm just doing, like I'm doing stuff,
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like I'm getting ready for work. I gotta do this before I leave the
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house. I gotta pack my line to whatever, and then it's do do
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do do, And then I drive to work, and then I drive back
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home and I work in between. But then I drive back home and then
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I gets you know, we're just doing and then next thing, you know,
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it's time to go to sleep. But like to your point, like
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it's not always rest for it's not always like you're you're done, Like,
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yeah, I think taking a break being mindful of that it is very important
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to remember because I think I forget it a lot, even though we're trying
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to like help teens or help poor of our clientele, are we forget it
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a lot? One thing I was thinking about as you're sharing, like pieces
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of yoga and the different types of yoga there is in different modalities. There
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are One question that we've written down is like, what are some of the
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most common misconceptions about yoga? And then how do you like to address them?
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Because I think for people, when we don't understand something, we go
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off of like what we've heard or what like just the yeah, misconceptions are
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like how what have you heard? How do we address those? How can
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we how can we give our listeners something to take away or multiple somethings to
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take away? M I was gonna say, there's so many. We touched
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on one and this relates more so, I think to meditation, but meditation
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being part of yoga mindfulness kind of all fall within the same umbrella. Is
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that yoga meditation is about being calm and relaxed. And I hear so many,
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so often from high performers, people who are used to doing doing doing,
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which is many of us, is I just can't calm my mind,
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I can't stop my thoughts, like it's not going to work for me.
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And I'll say, well, what if that wasn't the goal, what if
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that's not the point. What if it's not about being calm and relaxed,
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what if it's about its being more present with what you're experiencing in the moment,
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whether that be good or bad, comfortable or uncomfortable, but just learning
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to sit with it and being present with what's already happening for you and kind
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of removing a layer of the story. Just being curious about what you're experiencing
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in your body in this moment. Are you aroused, are you lethargic?
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Are your thoughts racing about that conversation that you had an hour ago? Can
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you notice that and then come back to your body, come back to your
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breath. And so I think remembering that piece of like it's about being present
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with what is because when you're present, then you have choice. Then you
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can make a choice of what you want to do next in that situation.
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Not about being calm and relaxed. And I think that can help people stick
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a little pressure off that, like I need to get a certain result out
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of this class. I need to feel better, I need to feel relaxed,
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and if I don't, then I'm not doing it right. And I
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like to hit on that because I think that that can prevent people from stepping
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into the practice. And so that's that's a big one. What a knowledge
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drop. It's a big one. Yeah, I love it too, because
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so many things in the mental health arsenal are like a tool belt, Like
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meditation might be your thing, yoga might be your thing, therapy might be
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your thing, exercise might be your thing. In general, we wanted to
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have this episode largely because we wanted to give you guys another tool, because
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yoga can be so very beneficial for mental health. We always strive to be
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an evidence based show, and there was actually a large meta analysis by Britain's
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lay at All in twenty and twenty one in the British Journal of Sports Medicine
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showing that yoga was able to reduce depression symptoms in people who had been diagnosed
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with clinical depression. Along like the misconceptions like what you want people to know?
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What stories do you have of people's mental health benefiting from yoga? We
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heard about yours already a little bit, but like any other big stories,
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any other powerful things that you can recall, well, you know, you
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mentioned tools, and so speaking of a tool in a system, there's a
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few clients specifically that come to mind who were in that startup world. Is
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entrepreneurs who have found a lot of benefit in the tool of yoga, the
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tools of yoga in different capacities depending on the day. So working with a
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sales entrepreneur and actually did a research study around this individual, so I know
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he won't mind me sharing a research study twelve weeks of using yoga therapy specifically
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specific breathing postures and meditation, and at the end of it, he found
22:15
that the breathing tools were so helpful in being able to regulate in the moment
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situations of overwhelm or anxiety. Being a sales entrepreneur and talking a thousand miles
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a minute and moving at a really fast pace every day, the breathing tools
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in the regulation allowed him to drop back into to quote him, states of
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being where there was nothing to achieve, and in those states of recognizing that
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it wasn't about making the moment better or different, then he was able to
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find self acceptance that had been out of reach for a while. That just
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I mean, I get goosebumps even talking about it, So that the breath
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practice was really impactful for his mental health. In addition to a guided meditation
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that we did together where specifically we were moving through different parts of the body
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through the ventral veagel, the veagus nerve branches of the parasympathetic nervous system.
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And there was a prompt that I invited, which was to repeat that,
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to say your name, and to say the words I love you. And
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this happened. This came at the end of a practice, right, so
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we had already moved the body, we'd already moved the energy, we'd already
23:22
done some breathing regulation, and then we were in this soft space. And
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him repeating those words to himself, even if it felt contrived at first,
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that was possibly one of the most impactful things that he had learned to do
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again, and that in the spirit of self compassion and self acceptance and remembering
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to love himself because that had been so out of reach for so long,
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and just saying those words were so potent within that meditation that he would have
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taken it upon himself and would had felt the visceral experience of like just being
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a piece with what is I love it. I think that's so cool.
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And there's so many things about yoga therapy that I want to know. Give
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us a little idea about what's the difference between yoga and yoga therapy, And
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yeah, just so curious. It seems like such an amazing thing. It's
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also exactly where I want well. Yoga therapy is the application of the tools
24:29
of yoga, so the postures, the breath, the philosophy, the wisdom
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in a one on one setting or a very small group setting, working to
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help the individual address a specific imbalance or an injury or disease, whether that
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be physically or mentally, and helping them find balance and healing with the yoga
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therapist. There's an entirely different level of training. You know, an eleven
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hundred hour training is what I went through to get the certification through the International
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Association of Yoga Therapists. In a yoga therapy session, there is an intake,
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there's an assessment, there's a posture assessment, there's a breath assessment.
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So similarly to when you go in to see your doctor or your psychiatrist or
25:12
your psychotherapist, there's an intake. You want to know specifically where this person
25:17
is at, so you can meet them where they are and then you work
25:19
together on which tools are going to be most beneficial for this person. Are
25:23
they an entrepreneur who's going through performance anxiety. Maybe there's some depression, and
25:30
then there's some insomnia. The tools that I use to help them find balance
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are going to be different than, for example, someone who is recovering from
25:41
perhaps this surgery, who's experiencing chronic pain, who it's hard for them to
25:47
get out of bed in the morning. So I'm going to approach those differently
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and draw upon the wide range of tools within the yoga therapy bucket, if
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you will. Now in a yoga class, you know you're working with a
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yoga instructor in a group class setting. It just doesn't have the capacity to
26:03
personalize for an individual who whether it's physical pain, whether there's trauma and their
26:08
history, whether there is mental health conditions happening. As I experienced in my
26:15
own body, I went into a public class and doing hot yoga even or
26:18
doing certain breath exercises to no fault of the instructor, but it just sent
26:25
me into a literal panic and it wasn't for me. So when you're working
26:27
with the yoga therapist who's trained in that way, you're with them in a
26:32
safe container where if you feel panic or you feel like you're moving out of
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that safe range, and they're there to help guide you back not to mention
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give you the exact tools that are going to be the most beneficial. So
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there's several differences. Mostly I think the personalized individual touch to help someone who's
26:52
really looking to addressed something similar within themselves and it has a specific goal in
26:59
mind, or I work with people who are really just wanting general well being
27:03
and to feel better. Oftentimes, when we get going into a session,
27:07
different things rise to the surface, and it's my job to kind of be
27:11
the detective and where are the imbalances within the different sheets of the body.
27:15
And that's a big difference as well. With the yoga therapy, we're using
27:18
the Eastern approach to anatomy, which looks at the body in five different layers
27:22
or sheets, and so there's actually a free resource for your listeners, a
27:29
guide and meditation that kind of moves through those different sheets to give you an
27:33
experience of what that would be like. But that's the main difference as well
27:37
in yoga therapy that you're probably not likely to get in a yoga class unless
27:41
it's a very experienced instructor in a small group setting, how common or yoga
27:53
therapists or like, it's not something I've really known about until I've met you.
27:57
Yeah, you know the International Association of Yoga Therapist I believe late eighties.
28:06
It is a growing field, is very very much growing, and you
28:10
know, we're in that stage of creating the written test to become a licensed
28:17
form of therapy. And so that's really exciting that yoga therapy would be up
28:21
there with a licensed psychotherapist. You know, massage therapy has licensure occupational therapy,
28:27
so I don't think we're too far off from that, which is really
28:30
really exciting. It's definitely it's definitely growing. It's a growing field. And
28:36
also with research in yoga in general, it can be challenging to draw the
28:41
empirical research that's often needed some time to legitimize it because it can be a
28:47
subjective experience and so how do you how do you measure that within someone?
28:49
But there there are the research around using brain scanning and different technologies at different
28:56
universities, and research studies around that just continues to grow, grown, growth,
29:00
So it's a really exciting time. I will say we are big fans
29:04
of the subjective experience and data because I think I think that is such a
29:08
big part of like psychotherapy or mental health therapy is like we you know,
29:14
we can look at research and what I'm gonna stop myself before I go too
29:19
far. But just like, like what is evidence based? Like what does
29:22
that even mean? Who's Who's Like, I don't know. There's so much
29:26
more to it. So we our fans and believers in like subjective experience and
29:32
how important that is as evidence and it should be taken um just as important
29:37
as as objective data and random control trials and and all that good stuff.
29:42
It is. It is super important. And I love that Eddie said I'm
29:45
going to stop myself, and then he keeps going I did whatever I had
29:52
in my head. I did stop myself. But yeah, I think you
29:56
made a good point, because sometimes that subjective stuff is how you get enough
30:00
people talking about it. Hey, this was a factful from me to then
30:03
hopefully go on to get some more of the objective some of the studies,
30:07
and hopefully find ways to be able to study it. I'm going to throw
30:12
a wrench into this conversation a little bit and say or an ask, have
30:18
you ever seen yoga lead to any negative outcomes? And the scope of this
30:25
question is I've heard that quanon really exploded in the wellness and yoga circles.
30:33
So just wondering if you've ever experienced anything like this or seen yoga do anything
30:37
bad. I have not personally, I would say, though I am I'm
30:45
quite young into my yoga career compared to you know, the lifelong yogas and
30:49
teachers out there. I haven't personally, but I have heard of groups Holtz
30:57
centered around yoga and have had dear teachers that were part of this and who
31:03
learned a lot from the experience. But I myself have not, fortunately in
31:08
terms of more personal harm that I've experienced. And I think that a common
31:14
harm that can happen if people are not mindful with the type of yoga that
31:18
they're doing is the opportunity for injury. And so for me personally, you
31:22
know, I was pushing myself and went to some classes that I shouldn't have
31:26
been with you know, some back injuries and ended up increasing the pain.
31:30
And I think that can happen, especially as yoga is being offered more in
31:36
Western medicine, which like yay, all for it, but there's a difference
31:40
when you know, a doctor tells a patient will good to a yoga class,
31:44
Okay, Well, what kind of of yoga if this person, what
31:48
is their history, if they are if they have some some herniated disks,
31:52
then probably shouldn't be starting out with a power class, you know, maybe
31:55
more restorative, or maybe seeking out a yoga therapist. Same thing someone who
32:00
PTSD or has experienced abuse going into a yoga class. I have seen some
32:07
harm happened just in retraumatizing the system that can come from going into certain certain
32:15
yoga classes and even certain styles that can unfortunately and unintentionally do harm. So
32:21
I think the point is just being mindful on like what type of yoga you
32:24
are needing perhaps and also being willing to experiment, right like just because you
32:30
go into a class and ended up hurting you a little bit and you actually
32:32
couldn't touch your toes and it was frustrating. If you don't give up just
32:37
yet, maybe it's just about finding the right teacher or the right class because
32:40
it's so broad and expansive and the types are just so rich and diverse as
32:45
you're sharing that, I think of just like the importance of or how I've
32:50
heard from people in the past of like, well, I had a mental
32:52
health therapist before, but it went poorly, so I don't want to do
32:55
that again, or these are the really harmful things previous counselor therapist told me.
33:01
And I think it's we almost have an uphill battle that that you and
33:06
I can relate to, Amy, not as much you justin, but that
33:08
we can relate to in terms of like there seems to be like if there's
33:15
one negative, bad experience in both of our fields, then then then that's
33:19
just kind of it for people. But when it comes to like maybe like
33:22
medical doctors or I guess medical doctor is really where I'm thinking of, it's
33:27
like they have one bad experience and it's like it's fine, I'll just find
33:30
another doctor, you know. And I think that's that's really important to share
33:34
of, like like don't give up, Like yeah, And it's hard because
33:37
like in my own field, like I see, there's there's bad therapists.
33:40
I don't want to say all the time, but there's bad therapists. I
33:43
mean for you, Amy, sure there's unfortunately like not so great yoga therapists.
33:47
And I know justin we've talked like there's not great psychiatrists and medical doctors
33:52
in general. But I think for us too, it's that reminding people of
33:55
like one bad experience, like please don't let that ruin it for the rest
34:00
of your life. Like there's there's always going to be opportunity to find that
34:05
positive impact or that positive clinician or instructor or yoga therapists that can make a
34:10
positive impact on us. Such a great point that openness to experience. And
34:15
sure there's a there's a lot of bad drivers out there, but there's also
34:17
a lot of good drivers. My co work and I we were talking just
34:24
today of how like, you know, she was saying, how like,
34:28
you know, sometimes I forget how hard our job is, or like how
34:30
hard it can be working with students and families, And I told them,
34:35
like, you know, yeah, it's sometimes it is really hard, and
34:37
sometimes it's that ninety five point six percent my made up statistic, ninety five
34:43
point six percent of families like are amazing and great and understand and are totally
34:49
helpful. But then there's sometimes those those maybe not so great families that we
34:52
work with that are really tough and take a lot of our time and a
34:55
lot of our resource. Um. But yeah, we just have to be
35:00
we have to be open to knowing that like those things come and go and
35:02
that's okay. We'll have the positive experiences that will like refill our cup and
35:08
make us feel fulfilled and make us feel like it's not the only thing we
35:13
work with or deal with every day. And it does seem like yoga would
35:17
benefit the vast majority of people. I before I mostly started working with kids,
35:24
I would tell all my older patients get into yoga because it's all about
35:29
course, strength and balance, mindfulness. It's all these things that will help
35:34
you as you get older, help you prevent falls, like so many good
35:37
things. How do you feel about the community. Is there anyone that you
35:42
would actually say, maybe yoga is not a good thing for them? And
35:46
how do you feel just about the yoga community in general in terms of their
35:51
openness and accepting us. I think that it is really a modality for all
35:58
humans, for all bodies, for all types. Anyone who is experiencing pain
36:05
or disease or it's feeling a little off within themselves. People who are interested
36:12
in it being a spiritual path and journey. People who want to be a
36:15
little more flexible and want to keep their joint strength as they get older.
36:21
Anyone who who just is instinctively maybe knowing that it's time to make their well
36:28
being a little more priority. I don't think there's there's any limit. And
36:31
that's the beautiful thing. And it's so unique and its being a tool in
36:37
a system, is that it is so adaptable. Think about the word yoga
36:43
to join or to yoke, referring to the body and the mind. You
36:49
can be sitting intentionally noticing your breath, noticing your thoughts, noticing where you
36:54
are in space and time, and that's yoga. There doesn't need to be
36:58
any movement involved. I think the community in general is very welcoming and opening.
37:06
Not just saying that because I consider myself a yogi, but I find
37:08
when I'm going to new places, the first thing I want to do is
37:12
to try out a new studio because people who are there tend to have a
37:16
certain openness. Not always. You know, some people are having a bad
37:21
day and you know they wanted to go to yoga and that was that.
37:23
But um, I think in general people are coming for very similar reasons.
37:30
Um that creates even an unspoken camaraderie. I have one question, Well,
37:36
we have a lot of questions. We don't we don't want to keep you
37:40
forever but I think one question we get ready to should I could talk for
37:46
at least that's what my elementary school teacher said, but he's no. As
37:58
we as we get to wind down from being able to have you on our
38:02
show, Amy, what is And this might be hard to choose one,
38:06
but one to three whatever, whatever, whatever, if it's best, but
38:09
what are some things that you wish that you had known before you started your
38:15
healing journey. I think that that it's about riding the wave, that it's
38:20
about learning to ride the highs and the lows, and it's not about avoiding
38:25
being at the highs highs with the lows lows, but being able to find
38:29
a steady middle ground, being able to find a sense of discernment, if
38:34
you will. I think if I could go back in time and tell younger
38:37
Amy that that would be a big one. Just and learning to take the
38:44
journey as it is, as I'm creating flexibility within my system and not just
38:46
talking about you know, like my hamstring is getting more flexible, but knowing
38:51
that there's like deeper, deeper work happening and the there's not just some goal
38:55
that I'm searching for at the top, that it really is just learning to
38:59
create the sense of discornament because it will become so applicable throughout my life.
39:04
So I think, I think that's that's a big one. Let's see something
39:07
else. I wish I would have known in my journey that and I touched
39:12
on this and the misconception, um, it's not about being good or bad.
39:15
It's not about finding calm or relaxed. It's just learning to widen my
39:21
awareness of And this is a meditation queue that that is rather popular of the
39:27
sky of the mind. I don't know if y'all ever heard that. And
39:30
so meditation, you can think of the mind is this big blue sky,
39:34
and the thoughts are like the clouds that they come and they pass, and
39:37
they're transient nature and the weather changes, but the vast openness of the sky
39:44
is always there. That consciousness, that level of consciousness is always wide and
39:49
open, receiving whatever appears moment to moment. And so even though it might
39:52
be a cloudy day that is filled with blame or shame, U regret,
40:00
whatever it might be, being able to trust that the clouds are going to
40:04
pass and actually practice that in a sense of visualization, that would be something
40:08
I would spend more time with in my earlier days, and I think has
40:12
really been impactful and stuck with me throughout my my yoic journey. And it's
40:16
such a beautiful visual that I hope resonates with listeners of being able to remember
40:22
that you were not the clouds, you are that big blue, beautiful sky.
40:25
I love that positive visualization stuff is so very powerful, and I even
40:34
I was thinking recently there was an instance where I realized when I was a
40:37
kid, I used to do it when I would be scared at night of
40:42
people breaking into the house or something weird thoughts that you have as a kid.
40:45
I used to imagine myself like underneath an angel's wing. And how useful
40:52
that was when I was a kid. And I learned that strategy from my
40:55
dad, who told me that he used to do the same thing. So
41:00
I love that you're you're imparting that to your your patients, the people that
41:06
you work with, that positive visualization because it can be so powerful. Yeah,
41:10
And I will say that visualization and meditation and the felt experience of it,
41:15
the feeling of like the protective wing visualization and what it feels like within
41:19
your body, and the same thing of being able to feel yourself as the
41:22
sky of the mind. You know, those are techniques that I didn't learn
41:25
until later on when I got into yoga therapy, experiencing it myself and studying
41:30
it, And so I think it's something that can be I've seen shift someone's
41:37
perspective in state in a moment because they were able to remember what it felt
41:42
like in the body to be safe and protected using visualization, or remember what
41:47
it felt like to find joy, joy or contentment. Asking someone to call
41:54
in a joyful memory and visualize where they were and the sights and the sound
42:00
and the smells and who's around them, and then and then what does that
42:02
feel like in your body? Where do you feel tinkling and warmth? And
42:06
so just that mind body connection is just a so so powerful. I love
42:10
hearing this story. Yes, we are getting to the end of our show.
42:17
Towards the end of things, we always like to give a couple examples
42:22
of celebrities that are connected to the theme for the show. So, in
42:28
no particular order, here are a couple of celebrities who swear by yoga.
42:35
So the ones that I found were apparently David Beckham way into yoga Matthew McConaughey,
42:43
Jennifer Aniston, Justin Timberlake, Lady Gaga, Beyonce, and Russell Simmons.
42:50
So a pretty impressive list of celebrities. Yeah, quite the diverse crowd.
43:02
It is adaptable and inaccessible for all. Yeah, that's gonna be that's
43:07
my take home point. I was gonna I was gonna steal that and say
43:09
yogas for everyone. Um, I'm gonna leave it at that. That's what
43:15
I'm taking from. I like it, Amy, what's your take home point?
43:17
The one thing you want people to walk away with after listening. I
43:21
really love Eddie's yogas. That's okay to use. I'll find a new one.
43:27
Um, you go first, come back to me justin what's your take
43:30
hoome point? Unfortunately has nothing to do with yoga. I was gonna use
43:35
my take home point to shout out Eddie and his family because I'm gonna have
43:40
a son in two days. My wife is scheduled for a c section on
43:45
Friday, and Eddie's family just sent us an entire package of these just amazing
43:51
blankets, and so like, I'm so excited to wrap that sweet little boy
43:54
up in those cute little blankets. So I just wanted to say, like,
43:59
thank you Eddie, and thank you Missus Eddie's mom, Missus Koreo.
44:04
I know that you've been listening to the show and that means so much to
44:07
us. We love you guys, and from the Romanos to the Koreos,
44:09
we'd love you guys so much. We love you too. Thanks mom.
44:15
Oh, that's so sweet. I don't want to follow that. That's okay,
44:20
weekend. This is a perfect opportunity. Tell our listeners where they can
44:23
find you. We're gonna tag you all over the place on our Instagram,
44:28
but tell our listeners where they can find you. Yeah, So find me
44:30
at Amy Huffman dot com. And I also have a free download guided meditation
44:37
for everyone Amy Huffman dot com slash Transform Stress and Anxiety Perfect. We'll add
44:45
that to the show notes. We'll make sure it's available to everyone. This
44:49
is the part where I say the same exact thing at the end of every
44:51
episode. You can find us wherever you can get your podcasts on Apple Podcasts,
44:57
on Spotify, whatever other podcast sending apps there are. On Apple Podcasts.
45:01
If you feel inclined to do so, you can leave us a five
45:04
star review You can also leave us a comment and we'll see it at some
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point. On Spotify, you can leave us a five star review. There's
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apparently also an option where you can leave a question. Fool for you to
45:13
do that. I don't know how we respond to it, but it's there
45:15
on social media on TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. I think
45:21
it's all at Milano MHC. Thank you all for listening. Thank you again,
45:24
Amy for being a guest on our show. We enjoyed it very much.
45:28
We're excited for everyone to hear this episode and as always, take care
45:31
of your mentals. Thanks everyone, bye'll, thank you