Latest / The MODERN YIN Podcast / Life After 40 Hits Differently

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Life After 40 Hits Differently · The MODERN YIN Podcast

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Hey, hey, Yenning at Life Gang. It's Kimberly Roberts, your host
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here, and I'm so excited to deliver little bits of insight
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on living your best, most extraordinary life with, of
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course, yen yoga, traditional Chinese medicine, reflexology,
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and even mindset acts. So thank you so much for
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pressing play on today's episode.
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Let's do this well, hello, everybody, and welcome to
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another episode of the Yinning at Life podcast.
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I'm so seriously happy you are here today because I want to
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talk about something that I think is really going to hit
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with a lot of people, especially if you're over the age of 40.
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So let's be real here for a second.
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Life after 40 feels different, doesn't it?
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I mean, I don't mean it's bad different.
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I mean the kind of different where one morning you wake up
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and you realize, oh, like my body isn't bouncing back quite
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the way it used to. Like I remember like hacking in
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my university days, like I would go to school all day and then,
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you know, afterwards we would, you know, do some partying and
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stuff like that. I could eat like a whole pizza
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and like a pint or two or three beers and literally go to bed 5
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minutes later and crash and sleep for like 3 hours and then
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get up the next day and just do it all over again.
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And I would just spring out of bed, right?
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But now it's like those late nights got food at the last
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minute. My joints when I'm getting out
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of bed, not the same, not the same at all.
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And also, let's talk about the mind chatter.
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Like, suddenly, you know, your brain starts to get busier than
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ever, and it doesn't always want to shut down when you're trying
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to rest, right? Like, if you ever had those
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nights where it's like, I'm so tired.
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So you crawl into bed and you're literally staring at the
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ceiling. And it's like, I can't sleep.
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My mind is just rattling, right? And you know what?
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This is all OK. This is normal.
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This is part of this season of our life.
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I often call the generation over 40 as like the sandwich
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generation. I mean, not everybody, but a lot
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of the people in this category still have kids and they have
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aging parents and they're in the middle.
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And so it's like, OK, well, I'm trying to navigate my own, my
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own life, my own self-care, my work, you know, personal
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responsibilities. Then I've got my kids and then
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I've got aging parents that I'm concerned that I have to take
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care of. Right.
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But here's the important thing. Just because you're getting
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older doesn't mean you're declining.
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It doesn't mean game over. Like it's just that you know
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what it means that your body and your mind are inviting you into
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a new way of living. That's all it is.
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And it's just basically adjusting to that.
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So that's what kind of what I want to talk to you guys about
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today. And, you know, just like grab
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yourself a latte or a tea or, you know, a kombucha, whatever.
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And I want to talk about this stage of life and I also want to
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tie in how I have personally myself found yin yoga, breath
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work, meditation, acupressure, and even reflexology, they've
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all been gold. Like literally not even gold.
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Like let's talk platinum here for navigating my 40s like and
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beyond with more ease, more energy, and honestly, like a lot
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more joy. Because let's face it, when we
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get older, like we, we want to be living our best life like, so
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I want to tell you a little story, a turning point for me.
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So when I hit my 40s, I kept trying to do the same things
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that worked when I was in my 20s and 30s, right?
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Like the intense high impact workouts, late nights of just
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pushing through, right? Living on adrenaline and in the
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corporate world, just doing and doing and doing and doing.
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And for a while, you know what? It worked.
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I thought, OK, I've still got this.
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I can still do this. So what?
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I'm 42 years old, who cares? I'm indestructible.
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This is what I thought, right? But slowly, it was very, very
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slow. I started noticing some things
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wasn't sleeping as deeply. I'd wake up, you know, 1 to 3:00
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AM, which if you know, in traditional Chinese medicine is
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liver Meridian time. And I'd wake up feeling stiff in
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my body, like not quite like wake up.
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And I felt like a tin man, but I was still like, wow, like things
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are a little tight. Stressed seemed to stick around
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longer than it used to. Like I would stress about stuff
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and it'd be like 3 days of stressing about it.
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And I thought, is this, is this how it's going to be from now
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on? Is this how my life is going to
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be? And then I kind of had like a
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light bulb moment here. My body wasn't breaking down.
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My body was just aging. Like all of our bodies age like
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there is no miraculous cure out there yet for reversing the
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aging process. We can certainly slow it down,
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but we can't reverse it yet. But my body was just asking for
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something different. It didn't want me to push harder
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anymore. It wanted me to soften.
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It wanted me to listen. It wanted me to care for it in a
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whole new way. And this is where I completely
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transformed my yin yoga practice.
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Now, if you don't know me, I've been practicing yin yoga for
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over 30 years. So I started well, well, like
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when I was like, you know, late teens, early 20s.
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And I've been teaching yin for over 20 years.
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And I will tell you that my practice has changed
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dramatically because my body is changing.
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So for example, like I'm very flexible and I also am very
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hyper mobile in my joints. So when I was younger, I was a
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gymnast and a ballet dancer. So the flexibility was awesome.
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But as I started getting older, I started to realize that my
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joints weren't as happy and I was experiencing like atrophy in
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my muscles. So weakness and my yin
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practices, yin practice was actually making it worse.
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What I needed to do was I needed to start strengthening my body.
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So I started to do weight lifting, resistance training.
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I fell in love with bar. If you've ever done bar, it's
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like low impact, high reps of, you know, weight lifting
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repetitions. And it was a game changer for my
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body in terms of like making it more stable and strong so that
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as I was aging, I wasn't falling apart in my joints and in my
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muscles. But on the flip side of that, my
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body started getting tighter, right because it's getting
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stronger. So I literally over the course
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of like a couple of months went from being Uber flexible to like
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super tight. And I was like, OK, this is like
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not the way to go. I need to find a happy medium.
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So this is where in my yen practice, I started to prop
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more. I mean, the way I teach yen,
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it's always not about how it looks.
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It's about how does it feel in your body, right?
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So, So what you have to prop more, you get a better
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experience out of the practice anyway.
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And not only do you get a better experience because you're not
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trying to push through it, but your body is softening more
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because there's less resistance. And it was literally like a
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pause button that I was turning on this slowing down, holding
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things more gently, using props and allowing my body to open up
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was game changing. And because yin yoga targets
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deep connective tissue like fascia, the joints and the
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ligaments, these are exact parts of our body that start needing
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extra love after 40, right? And that's what I was really
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noticing was that, OK, I'm not, I don't have to give up yin.
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Of course I'm going to stay with my yin practice.
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Like I mean, my God, like I'd, I'd be lost without yin here,
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but it was like I just need to tweak it a little bit.
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It's kind of like giving oil to the creaky door hinge, right?
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Like my joints were feeling kind of creaky because I was also
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strengthening and tightening my body, which I need to do as I
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get older. But I was like, well, I still
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need to be flexible because you know, too strong and too tight
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is not good. Too flexible and too weak is not
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good. You need like that happy medium.
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But in shifting my in practice, you know what else I started to
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notice that was seriously so cool was that my nervous system
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regulation was unreal. Like instead of it being like it
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takes me now like an hour to an hour and a half to decompress in
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a in practice, I could decompress in 5-10 or even 15
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minutes. And I was like, whoa.
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Like after a 15 minute practice. Now after even a 5 minute yen
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practice or breath work or meditation, I can literally
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shift my nervous system. It is so amazing.
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And I remember thinking, Oh my God, like this, just this is the
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way it's, it can be. Even though my body is aging and
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let's be real, here in society, there is still a lot of stigma
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around aging, right? And I just think that that's a
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bunch of crap because the reality is everybody is aging,
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right? And everybody's body is changing
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and everybody's mind is changing, and we have to find a
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way to shut off that overactive mind and to soothe that
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overstimulated nervous system and to release all that tension
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in our body. Now, the next part of my journey
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that I want to talk about is breath work.
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Like seriously, people like, I mean, I've always done breath
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work, but then it was like, oh, there's breath work and then
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there's breath work. And listen, I'll be honest, I
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was doing breath work before, but not with the same kind of
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intention as I am now. So you know that most of us
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spend our days chest breathing, right?
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Staying in that stressed out flight or fright mode without
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even realizing it. That's the sad part is that we
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don't even realize we're there because that has become the
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normal way of being. But when you take time for deep,
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slow, intentional breathing, like I'm talking about inhaling
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through the nose and then exhaling through the mouth, it's
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like telling your body, hey, you're so safe.
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You can relax now. You can let go of all this
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stuff. And here's the crazy thing, it
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works almost instantly. A few rounds of deep belly
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breaths where literally you're inhaling through the nose for
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maybe like 4 or 5 or 6 counts, and then you're exhaling through
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an open mouth. Maybe you're even like, like
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making a sigh or some kind of sound and it's literally like
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your shoulders drop, your heart slows down, your mind starts to
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get quiet. And I'll tell you, after 40 when
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the stress hormones do a real number on our bodies and women
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here listening, you know what I'm talking about, that
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perimenopause shifting into menopause state.
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Breath work becomes so simple. It's free.
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It's always an available tool to reset.
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It's kind of like a portable space and a portable place of
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peace that you can tap into anytime.
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Like seriously, like you could be sitting at your desk and
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you'll be like, I'm just going to pause here for a second.
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I'm going to take 4 deep inhales through my nose and I'm going to
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take 4 deep exhales through my mouth.
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Boom, right there. So now let's shift.
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I want to talk about meditation because who here doesn't have
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the rambling rattle around hamster on a wheel mindset,
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right? And I'll tell you that there is
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still a little bit of stigma around what meditation means,
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right? People think it's like, oh, I'm
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going to sit in a cross legged position, total silence and then
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empty mind. And I'm just going to be like,
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Oh well, I'll tell you it doesn't work that way.
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First of all, your brain is not meant to shut down completely.
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OK? It's literally hardwired for
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thought. But here's the truth.
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Meditation isn't about change, about stopping your thoughts.
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It's about noticing them and realizing you don't have to
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follow every single thought that comes in.
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Think of it kind of like a car passing by on the highway.
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You can just sit on the side of the road and let them go by
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instead of chasing one down, right?
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Like, how many times have I caught myself in a thought?
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And I'm like, what? I'm like, I don't have to
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believe that. No goodbye, move on.
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And for me now, meditation, I mean, meditation has always been
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important to me, but now even more so.
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It's been one of the most powerful ways to bring peace
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into my life, right? Like, and it's again, it's
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simple, just put on some music. I mean, on my app, the Soulful
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Yin Yoga app, I have a section for that's just for audios.
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I mean, I have lots of breath work and meditations, but I also
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have a section that's just audios where literally you could
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put your headphones or your earbuds in and just tune into
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the music and just listen and absorb the vibration of the
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music and allow it to move through your body and calm you
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down. And then, you know, like even
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with acupressure and reflexology, which I have on my
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app as well, I blend a lot of my yin yoga practices in there with
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acupressure. And then I have a whole section
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just on reflexology. I mean, I'm still developing
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that section, but it's coming along quite nicely.
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And these tools too, with the meditation have helped me
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basically heal my body. I mean, if you know anything
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about my healing story, I was, you know, you can go back and
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take a look right at the beginning of my podcast where I
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talk about my healing crisis that I had.
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And I will tell you that all of these modalities have been like
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game changing and life transformative and helping me
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heal my body. And what I love about all of
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these practices, all these modalities, is that they're so
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accessible. You don't need fancy equipment.
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You don't need an hour of time. You just need like a couple of
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blocks, a strap or a belt or a scarf.
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You don't even need any fancy Lululemon clothes.
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Just put on your favorite sweats and hop on that yoga mat.
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And if you don't know how reflexology and acupressure
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work, if you're kind of new to those, let me just tell you that
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using your own hands to connect with your body and to connect
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with your energy is wild. Like acupressure works just like
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acupuncture, right? Like you're pressing on certain
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points, Meridian points along the a specific Meridian channel
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and you're basically, you know, moving energy and bringing the
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body back into balance. It's so easy to do on yourself
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and I love incorporating it in with the end because it just
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makes it a more amplified practice.
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Now, if you're new to reflexology, this works with
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both hands and feet, but I work with the feet where we have all
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of these incredible reflex points that link to every part
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of your body. So you know, you want to improve
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liver function like there's a point for that.
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And I will tell you that I, I call it feet playing, but it's
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not really feet playing. But when you are stimulating a
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point on your foot and you do this before you go to bed, it
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can seriously calm down your nervous system and help you get
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a better sleep. It can even help you ease
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anxiety, support digestion, release tension.
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And it's kind of like you're discovering your own body with a
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built in toolbox and you just needed the map.
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And basically I'll tell you I'm the map.
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So it's super, it's super cool. And.
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You know, when you bring all of these practices together, yen,
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breath work, meditation, acupressure, reflexology, it's
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not that you're just helping your body stay flexible or your
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mind stay calm. You're creating a whole
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lifestyle that supports you as you age.
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And especially preventative. I think of it as preventative
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medicine, right? And I want to emphasize that
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aging doesn't mean declining. It just means shifting.
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It means learning to care for yourself in ways that are
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different than what you've been used to in the past.
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There's nothing wrong with that. And what's the play?
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Pay off of all of that? Well, more energy, more peace,
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more freedom in your body and in your life, More joy in your
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days, more passion. Because let's face it, when you
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feel good, life is more fun, right?
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And honestly, this is how I've been living for years.
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And This is why I created my app, because I know what it's
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like to work with these tools and I know the impact that they
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have. But I also know a lot of people
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are like, well, I don't have these tools and I have no idea
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where to start. And some people are even like,
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well, to feel like me, I have to have hours to devote into
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practice. No, you don't.
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That's why my app is designed for busy people over the age of
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40. Whether you got 5 minutes, 15
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minutes or an hour, you will find yin yoga classes, breath
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work, meditations, step by step, reflexology, acupressure.
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You can practice as much as you want as long as you want or as
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little as you want. But everything that Ioffer in
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there fits into what I call real life.
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Even on your busiest days. And here's the best part, you
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can try my entire app, get unlimited content to all my
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videos, my audios. I even have yin yoga series up
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there for seven days free. Seven days free.
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No pressure, no strings attached.
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Just a chance for you to feel yourself in a much more calmer,
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more flexible, and more energized state of being.
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Because let's face it, at the end of the day, it's not about
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talking about these practices. It's actually about embodying
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them, right? So here's my encouragement for
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you. Just pick one little thing
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today. Maybe you're going to just lie
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down in a simple yin pose for 5 minutes.
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Maybe you're going to take 10 deep breaths before your next
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meeting. Maybe you're going to press on
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your big toe, which is the brain reflex point.
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Before you go to bed tonight, I will tell you that all these
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little choices, they start to add up.
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They compound, there's a ripple effect, and they become your way
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of telling your body and your mind.
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You know what, I've got you. I'm taking care of you.
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Life after 40 doesn't mean you're slowing down.
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It just means you're showing up differently.
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You've got way more wisdom, far more compassion, and more tools
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in your pocket than ever before, right?
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So thanks so much for hanging out with me today and press and
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play on this episode. If you really want to dive
23:56
deeper and explore practices for yourself, I'd love to see you
23:59
inside the Soulful Yin Yoga app. It is the number one yin yoga
24:06
app for over 40. You get 7 days free unlimited
24:10
access. It's all waiting for you.
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I'll link it all up in the show notes.
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So until next time, folks, take a deep breath, be gentle with
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yourself and no exactly where you're meant to be.