Latest / The FEEL Podcast: Women’s Empowerment, Emotional Wellness and Self-Leadership with Melissa Crook / Healing from Within: Holistic Self-Care, Body Awareness, and Women’s Wellness with Alexandra Birch

Transcript

Healing from Within: Holistic Self-Care, Body Awareness, and Women’s Wellness with Alexandra Birch · The FEEL Podcast: Women’s Empowerment, Emotional Wellness and Self-Leadership with Melissa Crook

• 0:00
  As the joke goes, the two things that are inevitable are death
• 0:03
  and taxes, right? So.
• 0:06
  Yeah. Absolutely.
• 0:08
  I, I like to think about it sometimes and not in a place
• 0:12
  where like, Oh my God, I want to, I want to take my own life.
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  It's not that it's like, how can I actually live?
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  How can I actually show up today in a version of myself that is
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  allowing me to really expand and evolve and grow because that's
• 0:28
  what's going to make the impact. That's what's going to show up
• 0:31
  as magic. When you are taking the risk,
• 0:34
  when you are taking the chance and your risk and my risk and my
• 0:39
  change and challenge, they're going to look completely
• 0:41
  different. For me, it was moving across the
• 0:43
  world, living by myself and figuring it all out right for
• 0:47
  you, like you trying a new food right like it doesn't have to be
• 0:52
  let's blow up our lives and see what happens kind of
• 0:54
  conversation. It's.
• 0:56
  Whatever's. Causing you a little bit of
• 0:58
  discomfort. Is it setting that uncomfortable
• 1:02
  boundary with someone or having that difficult conversation?
• 1:06
  Is it, you know, trying something new?
• 1:08
  Maybe there's a sport that you want to try or an activity that
• 1:13
  you're nervous to do, right? These are the pieces where the
• 1:17
  more we lean into it and they can be really small.
• 1:20
  They don't have to be big. The more you do that, it becomes
• 1:23
  like a muscle and then you become more unapologetic.
• 1:28
  You become this person that you're like, wow, like I do
• 1:32
  that. I am that person that does tries
• 1:35
  new things or evolves or changes.
• 1:39
  Hello Field podcast audience. Welcome back today.
• 1:42
  I'm with a new friend here now. I met her several months ago and
• 1:47
  we've had a lot going on in both of our lives.
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  We are finally able to come together today and have this
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  conversation. I've been needed to have her on
• 1:55
  this plan ever the first day we met.
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  So I think we're both so excited to be here and life continues to
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  life for both of us. And so that played a role in the
• 2:05
  time it took us to get together, but also has a way of working
• 2:09
  out and being just the right time.
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  And I think that's going to be the case today as I have this
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  conversation with Alexandra Birch.
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  She describes herself as somebody who's really holistic
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  mind, body and spirit, but science is a part of what she
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  too and, and how she approaches the work that she cares so much
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  about. And that's really going to come
• 2:30
  through interestingly today as we introduce her as a person
• 2:35
  through these talking points. But you're going to be able to
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  see how it so succinctly connects with how she shows up
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  in the world and supports women. So starting with that, Welcome
• 2:45
  Alexandra to the Field podcast. I'm so glad to have you here.
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  Oh, thank you so much. I'm so excited.
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  And like you said in your intro, we've been trying to make this
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  happen and I'm so excited to be here and I can't wait to get
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  into this conversation with you. I know I agree.
• 3:03
  I agree. Well, let's get right into it.
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  Talk to me about your journey with self prioritizing
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  self-care. This is a big nut for women to
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  wrap their heads around so many times.
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  So talk to me about your journey with that.
• 3:19
  Yeah, totally. I think this has become such a
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  buzzword, right? self-care, take care of
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  yourself, prioritize yourself. It's it's something I see a lot
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  with women that I speak with on a day-to-day basis from clients,
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  but even just women I talk to, right?
• 3:35
  And my journey has been a very unique one in the sense of I
• 3:43
  started out as a competitive athlete and at a very young age
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  I got very clear that my body was about performance.
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  What I, what I put into it, whether it was sleep, food or
• 3:56
  anything like that, my body would perform.
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  And that became an obsession of mine of like, how can I maximize
• 4:02
  the performance as much as possible?
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  And that served me for many, many years.
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  And then when it didn't, and that's when I stopped
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  competitive sports. And all of a sudden I went from
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  training for working on training to go to the Canadian Olympics
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  to all of a sudden I had no, no purpose, no drive, no goal.
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  And I at that time I was going to university.
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  And then I got into partying and having a really great time.
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  And it was the first time that I had to pay attention to one,
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  what I ate, one what I drank, I started to gain weight.
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  And all of a sudden this, this spiral of fully like I, I can't
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  do whatever I want whenever I wanted became part of the
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  conversation because I never, I never had to learn that in that
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  way. And for me, that was my first
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  initiation into self-care, But I didn't know what that's what it
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  was called at the time. And then I battled a long
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  journey of eating disorders for a long time.
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  And that really started to become even more prominent when
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  I found out my dad was sick. My dad was sick with ALS for
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  over 20 years. And that the only reason I think
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  he actually lived that long was because of his commitment to
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  health, nutrition, his mind, his mindset around it.
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  And at the time, my mindset, my health was very unhealthy.
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  And I had a man who was so hyper focused on it.
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  And I got to see the direct impact of when you do to take do
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  take care of yourself. So that was my second initiation
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  into self-care, right in a different form.
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  And because of my dad is actually the reason I got into
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  the work that I do now, which is supporting women with nutrition
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  around preconception, fertility, all of that.
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  And the reason why that even became part of the conversation
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  for me was at the time I was working in corporate.
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  And we all know what a lovely corporate job can be when we
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  work a 95 very much surrounded around men's time frame and
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  hormones and all of that. And I had it very much in my
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  head that the harder you work, the faster you climb, which was
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  my reality. I got very high up in my
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  corporate job and at the time I was on birth control for many
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  years and I didn't have a period for, I would say over 4 years,
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  five years. And as a woman, that is a long
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  time to not have a cycle, not knowing what is going on, not
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  understanding what is happening. And it was, I remember this
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  distinct moment at the time, I didn't think I wanted kids.
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  And my ex partner and I broke up and I had this kind of coming,
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  coming to the light moment, I guess you call whether you
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  believe in God or anything. So I believed I had this moment
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  of clarity and I realized that I wanted children.
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  At the time, I was 32 and I was terrified of the idea of not
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  being being able to have children because a lot of
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  information out there talks about, oh, if you are past 30,
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  you know, your chances go down even more.
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  If you're closer to 35, it's even further.
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  And I just couldn't accept that. And so even though I had a
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  background in nutrition, I decided to go in and specialize
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  into fertility and preconception.
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  So I went back to school, restarted a whole journey and it
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  was more of a selfish pursuit than any anything.
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  And then the more I did it, the more women started to come to me
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  and ask me questions and started to get more involved.
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  And that's how my business really started was purely out of
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  a selfish reason of getting into understanding my body,
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  understanding self-care, understanding how can I come
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  back to myself, come back to my body and why I give you kind of
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  this synopsis of my, my whole life.
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  There was a lot there. But I think what I've learnt
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  over the journey of those decades of my life is that our
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  body is constantly giving us signs and signals of something
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  that is happening. So whether or not you have a
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  period that is your body giving you a sign and signal to just
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  pay attention that something needs to be rebalanced.
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  You know, if you have an ache in, in a certain area of your
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  body, it is often tied to an emotion, a feeling, something
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  that needs to be paid attention to.
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  And I think my journey with self-care and I'm not perfect at
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  this. I, I don't pretend to be because
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  our bodies are constantly changing.
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  We're constantly being introduced into a new version of
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  ourselves, but I think we're the goal here is to start to
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  understand, to slow down, to come back to stillness, get in
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  touch with yourself, get in touch with your body and then
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  prioritize whatever's coming up from there.
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  So I that was a very long winded way of saying that self-care is
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  so much more than just putting a face mask on and what you do on
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  a day-to-day basis. It's my belief is really around
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  how do you listen to yourself and then prioritize once you've
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  slowed down and listened. Thank you so much for that
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  because you hit on so many important points and how you
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  learned about your body and about yourself and moved through
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  that from the I, I'm, I was very not at the level you were, but I
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  was, I was a very competitive person growing up.
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  I'm still competitive today, just shows up in a different
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  way. And, and it came from a family
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  of athletes. Daughters were all college
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  athletes, husband was a college athlete.
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  I was until I got an injury for from just overdoing my body.
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  You know, I'm talking about not listening to clues that your
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  body's giving you. And so with all of that, you
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  have this kind of belief system that I'm moving my body all the
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  time and I fit in this physical way.
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  So you think you're healthy, you think you're taking care of
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  yourself and you don't you miss all the other cues of what's
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  being sent to you. Like, for instance, my
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  overworking, my body and my foot blowing at my freshman year at
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  college. That had been like telling me a
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  story for a while, but I just kept pushing it back.
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  You know, no pain, no gain. All those things we learn that
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  are not necessarily healthy things.
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  And we keep pushing our bodies. And we don't pay attention to
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  the cues that she's trying to tell us along the way of other
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  areas that need to be tended to, that rest that how we feel her
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  is necessary, it taking time to be present with her that when we
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  start missing periods, something's out of whack in
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  there. And that's not something we
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  wear. We go into, you know, we go from
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  being especially when you're competitive, you go from being
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  competitive and you wear that like a badge of honors.
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  Like no one will outwork me. No one will out do me.
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  I know how to compete, I know how to win and I'll just
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  bulldoze everything through. But you go in kind of this silo
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  tunnel and you miss all these other cues, like your body not
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  having a period of like there's some missing pieces here and you
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  can't just go down this one Rd. taking your health and yourself
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  care is a broader spectrum than that.
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  But you mentioned that kind of those life, it's getting moments
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  that got your attention at different times.
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  So hold on a minute. There's more going on here then.
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  And I'm going to have to pay attention to all the pieces and
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  parts of it. And now I'm going to have to
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  learn and realize that there's a multitude of facets and layers
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  to my health beyond these things that I initially thought were
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  it. And we're part of the journey.
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  I'm going to unlearn and relearn some ways to show up for myself
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  in this. Yeah, absolutely.
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  You nailed it. And I think like one of the
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  biggest things is the unlearning, right?
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  Our society definitely pushes performance.
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  It will be the first thing that I would say is that in the
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  Western world, it's really around how much output can you
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  put, right? Like the more you work and the
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  more results you get. And it's almost an expectation
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  now, you know, the first one in, the last one out.
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  And I know there's certain industries is that if you don't
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  do that, you're gone. And the reality is, is the more
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  work I've done around learning women's hormones, again, this
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  was for me personally, but then with the women that I've worked
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  with over the years, is that our bodies are literally not
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  designed to work that way. We can't do it.
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  We can't sustain it. And that's why you see so many
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  women struggling with burnout, stress, overwhelm, you know,
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  lack of their cycle. You know, there's so much that
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  is happening. Even PMS.
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  Like, I really believe that PMS is not something that women need
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  to struggle with. But we've been taught, you know,
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  that's your monthly cycle. Suck it up.
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  And that's it. And the reality is, is those are
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  just your body telling you that something is out of balance.
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  And I remember one of my favorite things, the study that
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  I read that they said, you know, the result of your period right
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  now is actually how you've been taking care of yourself three
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  months prior. And that's really how your body
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  is giving you those clues that, you know, if you're in a really
• 14:08
  rough period, something's been happening for the last three
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  months that you really need to start to pay attention to and
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  bring back balance to. Yeah, and these are the things
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  we need to talk about because women don't know this.
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  And we're just now starting to crack the surface on having
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  these conversations and spaces to do it and providing
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  information that no one's ever told us.
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  You don't get it in Western medicine.
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  They don't tell you this at the doctor's office there.
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  And so it's really big. But I think, you know, we're in
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  a space and time now where women are finally saying no, no more.
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  With this there. We don't have to run into these
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  walls. These walls, we deserve to have
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  all the information. We should not be finding out
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  that we're in peri menopause when we're five years into it.
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  We should not treat cramps and PMS and miss periods as normal.
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  Oh, you've just been super active lately.
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  So, I mean, I ran track and I had one of my best friends was a
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  distance writer and they were like, oh, it's just because
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  you're running so hard, you're training so hard.
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  It's normal to miss periods. Then another friend who was a
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  college volleyball player. Oh, it's no, that's not normal.
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  But that's what we worked. And we're finally like to the
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  point now we're like, no, no. And I think the generations
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  behind us, I have three daughters and they're like, no,
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  we're not going to. We've watched what this has done
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  to our mothers and grandmothers and we see them starting to make
• 15:34
  noise now. But we're not going to wait till
• 15:36
  we're 40 and 50 to start making noise about this.
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  We're just not going to go down that road at all.
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  So we're starting to have the conversations, but there's still
• 15:44
  so many things out there. So I appreciate the honesty and
• 15:48
  your own curiosity and research and learning that you bring to
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  this. Talk to me about how learning to
• 15:55
  set healthy boundaries play a role and you putting these
• 15:58
  parameters in place because we wear working 80 hours a week and
• 16:04
  climbing ladder in corporate America like a badge of honor in
• 16:08
  the United States and it's taking us out.
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  And so we have to stop doing it and really redefine what we're
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  going to do for our health. And we'll get into the
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  expectations piece later, but talk to me about that journey of
• 16:20
  learning about setting healthy boundaries for yourself so you
• 16:24
  could live in a way that. Was honoring to your health.
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  Oh man, boundaries, such a loaded topic, but so necessary.
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  And oh man. OK, so boundaries is something
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  that I am continuously in work. And I think this is the biggest
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  thing that I really want any woman to hear listening to this
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  right now is that boundaries isn't something you magically
• 16:51
  just get one day to the next. And then you're like, OK, I
• 16:55
  don't have to think about it anymore.
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  Because let's be real. As we said at the beginning of
• 17:00
  this podcast, life, life's, but I don't know about you, but some
• 17:04
  people in my life, boundaries are really difficult.
• 17:08
  And then they change and then expectations change.
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  And then, you know, I'll give you an example, like my dad
• 17:15
  passed away this past year. Now the expectations and my
• 17:20
  boundaries have had to change for my mom, who's now alone and
• 17:24
  she's across the world from me. So like these things are ever
• 17:28
  evolving. And what I would say with
• 17:31
  boundaries more than anything is really discovering what keeps
• 17:36
  you most grounded. And for me, that was my biggest
• 17:40
  journey and learning what that looks like.
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  So I, when my dad got sick, I actually had to move across the
• 17:48
  world to set a boundary with my family, not because I didn't
• 17:53
  have, I didn't love them and I didn't, you know, want to be
• 17:57
  there with them. But what I got very clear on is
• 18:00
  that I devoted so much of my time and energy to my dad and my
• 18:05
  mom and, you know, taking care of my dad when he had this
• 18:09
  illness, that I completely disregarded myself.
• 18:13
  I wasn't pursuing my health. I wasn't pursuing friends or
• 18:18
  social life, my, you know, even my work.
• 18:21
  I was getting in, getting out, doing what I had to.
• 18:24
  But it wasn't me living my life. OK.
• 18:28
  So it took me a radical change. And I'm not telling everyone
• 18:32
  here listening to move Across the world.
• 18:34
  That's a great option, but it's also not actually addressing the
• 18:38
  boundaries that need to be addressed in those moments.
• 18:42
  And what I've learned over the future over the 20 years of
• 18:45
  working with boundary work is when something is out of
• 18:50
  balance, meaning your body is giving you a cue, you're off
• 18:54
  centered, whether that's emotionally or mentally or
• 18:57
  something like that, it usually means a boundary needs to be
• 19:01
  set. And it's not a bad thing.
• 19:03
  Boundaries are actually incredible.
• 19:05
  They are so powerful and so beautiful.
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  But for me, usually when I'm off balance, I get I overthink a
• 19:14
  lot. I am very erratic, meaning like
• 19:17
  I'm able to prioritize things that are very important to me.
• 19:22
  Usually that's nutrition, usually that's movement and
• 19:26
  medication for me. And so when I know three things
• 19:31
  are not being prioritized in my day-to-day life, it usually
• 19:35
  means the boundary needs to. Be set.
• 19:37
  And yeah, I believe most people and you can call whatever you
• 19:44
  want around meditation. It could be prayer, it could be
• 19:48
  being out in nature like whatever version, but it's some
• 19:50
  way to come back to yourself. But I believe most those three
• 19:56
  things tend to be the first boundaries that disappear and in
• 20:02
  some way. I don't think we're super unique
• 20:05
  in that, but it may look very differently than you and I,
• 20:09
  right? Or every person is very unique
• 20:10
  in that way. Sure.
• 20:11
  But I know for myself that when one of those threes disappears,
• 20:17
  I'm completely off balance and things are becoming a little bit
• 20:20
  more difficult in my life. Yeah, yeah.
• 20:24
  Thank you for breaking that down and sharing that.
• 20:26
  And, and I mean, I think it is really difficult when you have
• 20:31
  someone that you love so much in your life and they become sick
• 20:34
  with such a a difficult illness. Like there's, you know, there's
• 20:38
  no cure for it. And so you're like bidding your
• 20:41
  time and you're feeling like you got to go all in.
• 20:43
  But in that you can't abandoned yourself.
• 20:46
  And it can be really tricky to do that.
• 20:49
  You still have to continue to live your life and find that
• 20:51
  balance. I have had, I have several, you
• 20:53
  know, couple of guests and friends, Aaron Copeland and
• 20:56
  Lynette Weldon, who speaks specifically to caregivers
• 20:59
  because of what they have ran into in their life and the
• 21:02
  burnout and walls they hit and how they had to stop abandoning
• 21:06
  themselves and live their lives within this spectrum.
• 21:10
  It's still honoring and showing up in the ways that they needed
• 21:14
  to, but doing it without sacrificing them themselves and
• 21:19
  and sacrificing the rest of their life.
• 21:21
  So it's a tricky balance to find.
• 21:22
  It's not unusual. So thank you for speaking to
• 21:25
  that because you still have to find ways to live your life.
• 21:28
  Also, boundaries are are about us.
• 21:31
  They're about our well-being and our health and we communicate
• 21:34
  them. And that can be tricky for
• 21:35
  people in our lives that don't have boundaries and don't live
• 21:39
  that way. And so sometimes there you do
• 21:41
  have to do something strategically for yourself to
• 21:45
  help that will really empower for you to live them out in a
• 21:49
  way. So thank you for sharing all of
• 21:51
  that. You mentioned this already
• 21:54
  earlier about the emotional, mental, physical, spiritual
• 21:58
  health connections and how they show up in our bodies.
• 22:01
  You have been missing periods and all these things that are
• 22:04
  happening in your body that you were like, OK, what's going on
• 22:09
  here? And you were able to eventually
• 22:10
  make that connection. Talk to me about your journey
• 22:13
  and that realization of like, oh hold on, all this stuff is
• 22:16
  connected. I don't think there was 1 moment
• 22:21
  that actually kind of triggered that all to happen because it's
• 22:26
  it's hasn't been. And even still, I would say my
• 22:30
  body is, I'm still learning it. And I think more than anything,
• 22:37
  the more time I prioritize slowing down and getting to that
• 22:43
  version of stillness is when I realized it was more and more
• 22:48
  connected. I just happened to because of my
• 22:52
  background in in movement with athleticism and also my
• 22:57
  schooling with nutrition. I just know those are
• 23:01
  interconnected so powerfully because I've had that
• 23:03
  experience. So people that have had that
• 23:06
  experience need a little more support with that.
• 23:09
  But when I realized, when I slowed down and kind of silence
• 23:14
  what's happening in my brain, that's when I realized the
• 23:18
  connection was more powerful. And I'm going to circle back
• 23:22
  into just a little bit of what you said.
• 23:24
  Yes, I think it's very unique around caregivers and having
• 23:28
  those ability to slow down and create those those things for
• 23:33
  us. But I see that in in mothers.
• 23:36
  I, I can't, I'm not a mother yet, but I, I've seen a lot of
• 23:39
  that where mums give so much to themselves.
• 23:44
  So sorry. They give so much to their kids
• 23:47
  and their family and everyone else around them.
• 23:50
  And this is when I really recognize and I travel a bit
• 23:56
  because I love traveling. It's one of my core values of my
• 23:59
  life. But every time I sit there and I
• 24:01
  listen to the safety, they talk about putting your oxygen mask
• 24:04
  on for yourself, right? And.
• 24:08
  Yeah. I love that analogy.
• 24:09
  And I actually listen to the safety things just so I can hear
• 24:13
  that every single time. And it reminds me that the
• 24:18
  connection is there because if you're not actually giving
• 24:21
  yourself the oxygen, if you're not giving yourself the time and
• 24:24
  space to actually be with yourself, to understand what you
• 24:29
  need, you will never be able to show up super powerfully for the
• 24:34
  people that you care of the most.
• 24:36
  And that's a very bold, blunt statement.
• 24:39
  And I, I mean this with so much love and care to anyone that's
• 24:44
  listening, but I truly believe when you are grounded in
• 24:48
  yourself and you're taking care of yourself, it is not selfish.
• 24:52
  It's actually incredibly selfless because then you get to
• 24:56
  show up to taking care of your kids, showing up to people that
• 25:00
  are important to you, show up to the work that is important to
• 25:04
  you as well. And you are able to show up in
• 25:08
  the best version of yourself. And I think that's where when I
• 25:12
  made that connection of slowing down, listen, pain, all of a
• 25:19
  sudden I realized, hey, if I take care of my nutrition, I
• 25:21
  take care of my movement, I have those moments of stillness.
• 25:25
  Holy cow, I am a freaking incredible powerful human that I
• 25:29
  can show up and take care of this world in my version of me.
• 25:34
  That's pretty freaking cool. So I think that would be the
• 25:38
  biggest thing is like when I prioritize more of meditation
• 25:42
  and stillness. And to me, that actually
• 25:44
  sometimes looks like getting out in nature because I can't quiet
• 25:47
  my mind when I do that. That's what starts to happen.
• 25:55
  Yeah, you nailed it. You just, you've laid it out
• 25:57
  perfectly there. When we take the time to fill
• 26:00
  our cups, everybody wins. We show up as our healthiest,
• 26:04
  most authentic selves. We're present.
• 26:06
  We want to be there. We have the energy to give.
• 26:09
  We have the attention span to give.
• 26:11
  We're not operating from an irritated, exhausted space.
• 26:15
  We're fully available. Then everybody wins.
• 26:18
  And if we can start flipping, you know?
• 26:20
  And it's, it's so interesting to me that the narrative has been
• 26:23
  the opposite of that. But it's also a little bit of
• 26:26
  how cultural norms and societal norms and patriarchal norms have
• 26:31
  kind of kept things in the order that they wanted them to be in.
• 26:34
  And it's when we actually start believing what you just said.
• 26:37
  And then we share that with other women and bring them along
• 26:40
  with us. That's when we start shifting,
• 26:42
  seeing the narrative about these things.
• 26:44
  So thank you so much for that. I love how you laid that out.
• 26:47
  And this goes beautifully into showing up for yourself
• 26:50
  unapologetically and supporting other women in doing so.
• 26:54
  This is what you're doing. You just described it.
• 26:57
  It's how you show up in your work.
• 26:59
  You've learned this thing. You realize, oh gosh, this
• 27:01
  benefits me. And wait a minute, this can
• 27:04
  benefit other women too. I've there's a whole different
• 27:07
  way of doing things here that's much healthier that we need to
• 27:10
  know about that we need to share.
• 27:13
  So, and I think it's something that's so interesting because we
• 27:17
  go through and we do we go to college and get the degree and
• 27:20
  work the eight hour weeks and take the first controlling this
• 27:25
  and a sudden we decide to get, you know, at some point, OK,
• 27:28
  it's time to have a baby. And then we wonder why we can't
• 27:31
  get pregnant. And it's like, well, we really
• 27:34
  haven't been feeding our cysts And it's not it's all part of
• 27:37
  the narratives we're getting. The doctors are putting us on
• 27:40
  the birth control and that, you know, all these other things and
• 27:44
  poultry song to go, go, go. And we decided pregnant, go on,
• 27:51
  hold on a minute. If your body has, if you've not
• 27:54
  been taking care of your body and your vessel in a way that it
• 27:58
  can be ready for that, it is not realistic to just stop and
• 28:03
  think, oh, OK, it's time now. It's going to happen.
• 28:05
  Your body needs to be tended to and care to in a way that's
• 28:09
  going to allow that to happen. And so I'm so appreciative of
• 28:15
  the work you do that addresses all of that.
• 28:18
  You really combine the the holistic health and taking care
• 28:20
  of all the spaces with the just plain science behind it.
• 28:25
  So that's for me, that's really feels like to me, this
• 28:29
  understanding of that taking care of the whole self has
• 28:33
  really been that shift. You show up and apologetically
• 28:38
  would you would you if that's through and and and also the
• 28:43
  kind of what mood you can also help with that.
• 28:49
  Yeah, absolutely. I think for me more than
• 28:54
  anything is I work with women that come to me that sometimes
• 28:59
  have been trying to get pregnant for, you know, a year's time, 2
• 29:04
  years time and they think they're broken.
• 29:07
  And I think the way that we have been set up and the way we
• 29:12
  approach our bodies is actually broken.
• 29:16
  And I believe more than anything, and it's interesting,
• 29:21
  there was a study that just came out there saying infertility
• 29:24
  rates are at the highest that they've ever been ever.
• 29:28
  And it is, I truly believe it has to do with our belief around
• 29:34
  our bodies where we need to snap our fingers.
• 29:38
  And when you want to get pregnant, you, if you're not
• 29:42
  pregnant in a month, you think something's wrong with you,
• 29:45
  right? And more than anything, I also
• 29:50
  believe, I don't know how how you grew up around getting
• 29:55
  pregnant and all of that, but I was terrified of it, right?
• 29:59
  We were taught to be terrified of it.
• 30:01
  It's the worst thing in the world that it is the worst
• 30:05
  possible outcome. And I took birth control for I
• 30:10
  think it was around 11:50 years. It was a long time.
• 30:13
  I was on different forms of birth control, so I know for
• 30:18
  myself when I came off of it, I was like, oh man, I got some
• 30:22
  work to do, right? And what I would say here is
• 30:26
  like why I got into this work was because I was so
• 30:30
  disconnected. I was so disconnected from my
• 30:33
  body. And so much of this work is I
• 30:37
  had to rewire a lot of my brain around a period is good.
• 30:42
  I got to the point where when my period came, I celebrated.
• 30:46
  It was an exciting thing. It meant my body was cursing and
• 30:49
  working. I worked with my body to make
• 30:53
  sure that I didn't have any PMS symptoms.
• 30:56
  And there's ways you can do that.
• 30:58
  There's ways that you can bring your body back to balance by
• 31:01
  nourishing yourself by, you know, it could be from the food
• 31:05
  you eat. It could also be a the type of
• 31:07
  exercises you're doing throughout the month.
• 31:11
  One of the biggest things I learned was that our body
• 31:15
  functions on a 28 day cycle, give or take.
• 31:18
  Some women are a little bit more, some women are a little
• 31:20
  bit less. But 28 days where our hormones
• 31:24
  are going up and down, up and down, our one day to the next is
• 31:29
  never the same. And once you understand that, it
• 31:34
  makes a huge difference. Men work off a 24 hour clock.
• 31:38
  Their hormones reset the moment they wake up the next morning,
• 31:41
  which is really cool for them. Which is awesome, but not
• 31:45
  awesome for us because we can't operate the same way they do, so
• 31:49
  our energy levels fluctuate throughout the month.
• 31:53
  Our. Movement should fluctuate
• 31:57
  throughout the month, and even the types of foods we're eating
• 32:00
  should also fluctuate. Now, if you also want to add in
• 32:05
  the point of trying to get pregnant, you also want to make
• 32:08
  sure you're nourishing yourself so you could actually support
• 32:12
  this incredible gift and miracle of having a baby, right?
• 32:18
  And I'll never forget a woman sent me a message and she said
• 32:24
  to me, Alex, like, I don't understand.
• 32:26
  We never focused on any of this 10:15 20-30 years ago, maybe 50
• 32:32
  years, 100 years ago. And I loved her like very raw,
• 32:37
  like question because it is very true and our ancestors never
• 32:44
  focused on this in a deep way. But my what I shared with her is
• 32:48
  1. Our food quality is completely
• 32:50
  different. There have never been so many
• 32:53
  chemicals or imbalances that can affect our hormones.
• 32:58
  They didn't have those back then.
• 33:00
  Our stress levels are at the highest that they ever can be
• 33:04
  and our productivity is at the highest that it's ever been.
• 33:09
  Women also, and I, I'm going to say this very gently, women also
• 33:15
  didn't work in the way that we do now.
• 33:19
  Right, right. What did women change?
• 33:21
  They stayed at home. They were with their family, you
• 33:24
  know, maybe they were taking care of siblings.
• 33:26
  Everything has completely changed.
• 33:27
  And I love progression. I'm so grateful I get to work
• 33:30
  and I get to do the things I want to.
• 33:32
  But I also think there's a pendulum that needs to swing
• 33:36
  back where we are coming back to the version of a woman that is
• 33:40
  able to support herself, able to support her home loans and take
• 33:44
  care of herself. And so there's this little bit
• 33:47
  of a learning, what is that version of you?
• 33:49
  And some women can go a little bit harder.
• 33:51
  Some women need to come up, come back a little bit.
• 33:54
  And maybe there's different times where you can push a
• 33:56
  little more and then come back a little bit more.
• 33:59
  But again, that's going to happen with understanding and
• 34:02
  learning about yourself and your body.
• 34:06
  Yeah, thank you so much for this.
• 34:08
  I've had this similar conversations with Valencian San
• 34:11
  Lui, who's my Co founder and she works, she's a cycles coach and
• 34:16
  also with Isabella Foer who is like, you can have pain free
• 34:19
  periods and they they talk about this very thing, this cycles
• 34:22
  piece. And I think what we've learning
• 34:24
  with that is if we can, if we can live our lives and honor our
• 34:29
  cycle. And this week I'm more creative,
• 34:32
  this week, more energy to be more projective.
• 34:34
  And we can quit trying to go up in space.
• 34:39
  A man wouldn't honor ourselves and show up in the workspace
• 34:42
  like a woman would. And that's just as good.
• 34:45
  It's just looks different. Different doesn't mean bad.
• 34:48
  Different doesn't not getting the done.
• 34:53
  But you know, when you're rested, you're giving from your
• 34:56
  rested authentic field. You can get twice as much done
• 35:01
  and have you're refreshed and focused and be able to channel
• 35:07
  your your sizes. OK creative which is my really
• 35:13
  go get it. We and really.
• 35:17
  And so if you end of the month compare your results to a man's
• 35:22
  results and doing the same. If you're honoring that way I I
• 35:25
  they're going to be the same. It's just going to look
• 35:27
  different. And so also getting society
• 35:29
  like, no, no, we need to be allowed to show up and work in a
• 35:33
  way. And I promise you everyone will
• 35:36
  benefit if we're allowed to do swing that narrative in a way
• 35:39
  that we are allowed to honor. And I think of us can show up on
• 35:45
  a politics honoring ourselves in this way.
• 35:47
  Slowly we can shape the narrative along with us.
• 35:53
  Yeah, absolutely. I I completely agree.
• 35:56
  And I also think too, it's like adding in the piece around women
• 36:03
  wanting to add life, right? And I don't know how much of
• 36:06
  your audience is even at that stage, but when I think about
• 36:11
  that is, you know, women more than anything need to be really,
• 36:18
  really safe and not stressed, not overwhelmed, you know, very
• 36:24
  present for themselves in those moments.
• 36:28
  You know, and this is when you hear a lot of women have really,
• 36:33
  really tough time either one, getting pregnant or two,
• 36:37
  sustaining pregnancy, right? And a lot of the time is because
• 36:43
  we're so out of balance and there's a lot that goes into it.
• 36:47
  And obviously there's a myriad of of things that can go wrong
• 36:50
  even from our partners and their health and how they are showing
• 36:54
  up in that. But I am a yeah.
• 36:58
  And I think that's an even bigger conversation that I'm
• 37:00
  sure we can. That would be a huge tangent for
• 37:03
  us. But more than anything, I think
• 37:06
  women really need to understand that, you know, if you are
• 37:11
  looking to get pregnant, if you want to have a baby, it is going
• 37:15
  to be one of the biggest changes, one of your biggest
• 37:19
  changes. You know, women go through three
• 37:21
  major ones. It's puberty, having a baby and
• 37:25
  then menopause. Those are the three big ones.
• 37:28
  And these moments I, I kind of call them like rite of passages,
• 37:33
  rite of passage for themselves, right?
• 37:36
  And these moments that happen in a woman's life, like we kind of
• 37:41
  just brush them under the surface like they are not a big
• 37:44
  deal. But in reality, they are meant
• 37:47
  to really shift and change everything that we have come to
• 37:51
  learn about ourselves as women. And so if looking to sustain a
• 37:57
  pregnancy and getting pregnant and staying pregnant, one of the
• 38:00
  biggest things I asked clients right off the bat is like, walk
• 38:05
  me through what your day-to-day looks like.
• 38:07
  How stressed are you? You know, are, are you taking
• 38:10
  time for yourself? Are you eating the way you
• 38:13
  should? And it's a lot of women come to
• 38:15
  me and be like, OK, give me the perfect meal plan, Alex, what is
• 38:18
  a perfect meal plan so I can get pregnant and stay pregnant?
• 38:21
  And that goes a little bit into the, the magic pill fix.
• 38:26
  And I, I don't believe that is the only thing that happens when
• 38:31
  we're talking about, you know, Women's Health in general.
• 38:35
  There is no magic pill fix. It is a myriad of things where
• 38:39
  we have to kind of put the puzzle together.
• 38:42
  And we're a beautiful puzzle, but every single one of us is a
• 38:45
  little bit different. Yeah, yeah.
• 38:50
  And I think you're, I'm, I'm learning and redesigning our
• 38:56
  expectations, relearning about what's actually true versus
• 39:00
  this, you know, we live, especially in Western culture
• 39:02
  and the fast food society, we want go and get the fix, do the
• 39:06
  thing and move on. And dot, it's like, OK, but what
• 39:09
  are we missing by just slowing down, being present in the
• 39:13
  moment when bodies don't do what we are demanding of them in the
• 39:17
  moment? We're like, oh, my body's
• 39:18
  failing me. I is she failing you or is she
• 39:22
  just sending you signals she needs to be tended to in a
• 39:25
  different way so that she can actually show up the way she was
• 39:29
  intended to. So I think it's really pulling
• 39:31
  ourselves out of this Western cultural narrative and meeting
• 39:36
  what's actually true. And that goes really nicely
• 39:39
  into, you know, your why and your values.
• 39:41
  This has become very important for you and, and and this is
• 39:46
  really informed for you how you show up in the world today.
• 39:50
  Talk to me about identifying those and how that is really
• 39:53
  giving you that compass. Yeah, my why of why do anything
• 40:01
  is like I believe women are freaking amazing and.
• 40:09
  I think a lot of our our magic has been dimmed down because
• 40:13
  we're trying to fit into a box that should never have existed.
• 40:17
  So. Yeah.
• 40:19
  My, my way that I show up and do that is through nutrition,
• 40:24
  through preconception, through fertility, because I think, you
• 40:27
  know, creating life and sustaining life is one of the
• 40:29
  most magical things in this world.
• 40:32
  I, I truly believe it and I think my, my journey of
• 40:37
  supporting people has always been in that way, but it always
• 40:42
  comes down to I always wanted to learn more about myself.
• 40:46
  And that may sound a little odd of why, why that value is
• 40:53
  something so personal. But every time I speak to a new
• 40:58
  person, every time I work with a new person, I actually learned
• 41:01
  so much about myself. And I truly take this as a gift
• 41:08
  of every time I speak to someone as much as I'm supporting
• 41:11
  someone else, I'm actually getting that back too.
• 41:15
  So it's a little bit of a selfish pursuit as well.
• 41:18
  But I also coming back to the conversation we had at the very
• 41:22
  beginning, I actually believe self-care and you know, learning
• 41:27
  about yourself is one of the most selfless things you can do.
• 41:30
  Because that is my mission here is to show women that they are
• 41:35
  magic, that they have this incredible ability to influence
• 41:41
  the world in the most powerful way in their own version.
• 41:46
  And it doesn't have to look like making a huge impact.
• 41:49
  It could literally be talking to someone on the side of the road.
• 41:52
  It could literally be raising a super grounded, powerful child
• 41:58
  into this world that actually can make a huge difference,
• 42:01
  right? So for me it was always like,
• 42:05
  how can I become the best version of myself so I could
• 42:09
  also then show up for others? I love that.
• 42:14
  Thank you so much. That's so good.
• 42:16
  And that goes nicely into you have very much leaned into and
• 42:21
  learned how to live out of your own expectations versus others.
• 42:24
  We've been talking about throughout all of these societal
• 42:27
  norms and expectations and boxes that should never have existed
• 42:32
  that we start hearing about when we're very young and and and we
• 42:38
  realize at some point, most, not always, some people continue to
• 42:42
  live in that comfort and never really get in touch with
• 42:45
  themselves. And I think comfort not in a not
• 42:49
  in a like a restful way, you know, like they're afraid to
• 42:51
  make a change way or they're afraid to shake up things
• 42:54
  because it doesn't feel Safeway. And So what would happen if we
• 42:58
  just were allowed to be and, and, and we were just asked what
• 43:03
  feels safe to you? What feels honoring to you?
• 43:06
  But that's not what happens. And so we end up getting to a
• 43:09
  point in life where we kind of have to unpack and figure out,
• 43:12
  wait a minute, this is not serving me.
• 43:16
  So how what will serve me? And I think that the why and the
• 43:19
  values play a really key role in helping you define that.
• 43:24
  And we'll talk about layers in a minute and getting acknowledging
• 43:27
  those and surfing through those really help you get to that
• 43:29
  point where like, wait a minute, I, I think I know what my
• 43:34
  expectations are now. And that's going to help inform
• 43:37
  where I set my healthy boundaries, making sure I make
• 43:40
  time for that care that I know I need so I can live authentically
• 43:44
  as me and not all these other expectations that everyone else
• 43:49
  has told me about. Yeah, I think so.
• 43:56
  I love everything that you've said, right?
• 43:57
  I think coming back to being and changed and all of that is
• 44:02
  really seen. Everyone wants it, but no one.
• 44:05
  Sometimes a lot of people don't actually pursue it, right?
• 44:10
  And I've had a very unique experience at a young age.
• 44:14
  So as I said, dad got sick at 17 and I was faced with mortality
• 44:20
  in a very different way, right? And for someone that's
• 44:26
  listening, that hasn't had that happen, you don't need to have
• 44:29
  that happen to really have your world kind of shaken up.
• 44:32
  I actually hope it doesn't, personally.
• 44:34
  Like I really don't, but for me at that age, I and it took years
• 44:41
  to kind of unpack this for myself through realizing like
• 44:46
  the questions I used to ask myself, is this all life has to
• 44:49
  offer? Like is this it?
• 44:51
  And I remember it was so uncomfortable asking those
• 44:54
  questions were so uncomfortable. And I'll never forget the moment
• 45:00
  I kind of leaned into that discomfort.
• 45:03
  No one likes to be uncomfortable.
• 45:05
  Humans we, we love comfort. And comfort is something we
• 45:08
  know, right? We really do.
• 45:11
  And I will be the first one to admit I like being comfortable.
• 45:15
  But usually when those discomfort questions kind of
• 45:20
  come up, usually when I'm quiet or I have time to myself, when
• 45:24
  I'm not keeping myself really busy.
• 45:26
  But the discomfort is when the growth really happens.
• 45:31
  And that's one of my personal core values is, is growth.
• 45:36
  And one of my biggest fears in life is that I do not grow and I
• 45:42
  do not evolve and I do not change.
• 45:44
  And I, I attribute a little bit of that to my dad getting sick
• 45:49
  that he got young, he got sick at a young age and he even
• 45:52
  passed away at a young age. But I never wanted to look back
• 45:55
  on my life and say, is this it Is this all I did with my life?
• 46:01
  And I believe it is a little bit of an Eastern philosophy, I
• 46:08
  believe, where, you know, coming to terms with mortality.
• 46:13
  Again, a thing we don't like to talk about as humans is death.
• 46:17
  But as the joke goes, the two things that are inevitable are
• 46:22
  death and taxes, right? So, yeah, absolutely.
• 46:27
  I, I like to think about it sometimes and not in a place
• 46:31
  where like, Oh my God, I want to, I want to take my own life.
• 46:34
  It's not that. It's like, how can I actually
• 46:36
  live? How can I actually show up today
• 46:39
  in a version of myself that is allowing me to really expand and
• 46:44
  evolve and grow? Because that's what's going to
• 46:48
  make the impact. That's what's going to show up
• 46:50
  as magic when you are taking the risk, when you are taking the
• 46:54
  chance and your risk and my risk and my change and challenge,
• 46:59
  they're going to look completely different.
• 47:01
  For me, it was moving across the world, living by myself and
• 47:04
  figuring it all out right for you, like you trying a new food
• 47:08
  right like it doesn't have to be let's blow up our lives and see
• 47:12
  what happens kind of conversation it's.
• 47:15
  Whatever's. Causing you a little bit of
• 47:17
  discomfort is it? Setting that uncomfortable
• 47:20
  boundary with someone or having that difficult conversation is
• 47:25
  it, you know, trying something new, Maybe there's a sport that
• 47:29
  you want to try or an activity that you're nervous to do,
• 47:33
  right? These are the pieces where the
• 47:36
  more we lean into it and they can be really small.
• 47:39
  They don't have to be big. The more you do that, it becomes
• 47:42
  like a muscle. And then you become more
• 47:46
  unapologetic. You become this person that
• 47:49
  you're like, wow, like I do that.
• 47:52
  I am that person that does tries new things or evolves or
• 47:56
  changes. And I think I've noticed this
• 48:00
  for me personally. And I've had conversations with,
• 48:03
  you know, some of my, my elders, they say, like, it's really easy
• 48:08
  to get stuck in a routine of life.
• 48:10
  And it's really easy to not change.
• 48:14
  It's really easy to do what you've always done.
• 48:17
  And those patterns become more and more solidified.
• 48:20
  And I think more than anything, if you're able to kind of push
• 48:24
  yourself out of your comfort zone every once in a while, that
• 48:28
  that shakes things up a little bit.
• 48:30
  And it keeps you really humble and as you said,
• 48:33
  unapologetically living yourself in your version of yourself.
• 48:39
  Yeah. Oh, so good, So good.
• 48:42
  Thank you so, so much for that. And I think, you know, when we
• 48:46
  have someone close to us that gets sick at in an early age and
• 48:51
  they know, you know, that there's, you know, there's no
• 48:54
  cure. There's no way out of this.
• 48:55
  It all of a sudden makes you take a stock in your life.
• 48:59
  And I, I, and I wish there was a way we all could.
• 49:02
  You hear all the time people get you've got X amount of time to
• 49:05
  live. You know, I've seen this happen
• 49:08
  with a classmate of mine I went to high school with.
• 49:11
  I haven't seen him in years, but he was diagnosed with ALS in the
• 49:14
  last six months. And this and, and friends of
• 49:17
  that, people that I grew up with are doing this amazing thing
• 49:20
  with him this summer where they're just doing all the
• 49:22
  things they've always wanted to do and it's all over.
• 49:25
  I mean, they were in Italy, they were in Mexico.
• 49:28
  I mean, the last three months they've been in Italy, Mexico,
• 49:30
  they were at some kind of a race car things some kind of all over
• 49:36
  the world. And it's beautiful to see them
• 49:39
  come together and do that. What if we didn't wait till we,
• 49:43
  what if we live that way all the time?
• 49:45
  What if we didn't wait till us or someone close to us had that
• 49:50
  diagnosis? And we could kind of have in our
• 49:52
  heads continue to be curious because curiosity and comfort
• 49:57
  can't coexist together. Curiosity will continue to keep
• 50:01
  you out of like settling into this comfort area.
• 50:05
  And you know, so thank you for sharing that.
• 50:07
  But I really, I and I have to challenge myself this.
• 50:10
  But it would be a really, I think it's so good for humanity
• 50:13
  if we could move from this place of not having to have the scary
• 50:17
  thing happen to us before we started living our lives.
• 50:20
  I think the way they were meant to be lived in the 1st place.
• 50:24
  So yeah, thank you so much for all of that.
• 50:28
  And this goes nicely into embracing are layers, all the
• 50:33
  pieces and parts of our story, all of the things that happened
• 50:37
  that we love, that we don't love, that we have shame around,
• 50:40
  fear around getting to that space.
• 50:42
  And when I'm working with women one-on-one or in groups, I
• 50:45
  actually start with this one. I'm like, we're going to start
• 50:48
  with the layers journey because it's getting comfortable with
• 50:53
  those, allowing all of them to breathe, uncovering the ones
• 50:56
  you've been stuffing, facing the fears and the shame that have
• 51:00
  kept them hidden or just the I want to move on and forget about
• 51:04
  that peace. Allowing them to breathe,
• 51:07
  allowing them to be processed and move through and approaching
• 51:10
  them with curiosity rather than judgment.
• 51:14
  And then we can do that. Your value, you know what you're
• 51:18
  made of. You know what, you're then more
• 51:20
  likely to prioritize yourself because we prioritize what we
• 51:25
  value. But layers are tricky.
• 51:27
  Like I said, we don't love them all, but getting to that place
• 51:31
  and it seems, seems to me and the way you were living, you've
• 51:33
  really gotten to that place of being able to to really, you
• 51:37
  know, embrace them and be curious about them and not be,
• 51:42
  you know, trying to shove and get rid of the different ones
• 51:44
  that are hard. Because, you know, you know,
• 51:46
  like I said, no one wants to have a layer in their life where
• 51:49
  their dad's diagnosed when they're 17 with a fatal disease,
• 51:52
  knowing they're, you know, not going to make it as long as you
• 51:56
  would hope they would. But that but it's still a part
• 51:58
  of your life that you have to come to some kind of grips with.
• 52:01
  That's just one example of a layer.
• 52:03
  So talk to me about your layers journey and how you've gotten to
• 52:07
  where you are today with it. Yeah, this is a great 1 and I
• 52:12
  love that you you cover this. This is so important, starting
• 52:17
  with my dad's lair of him getting sick at 17.
• 52:20
  I actually, it was 1. I had a lot of shame around.
• 52:25
  I was no longer the perfect family.
• 52:27
  I up until that point, I thought I had the perfect family.
• 52:30
  I was very blessed and I was very lucky to have been born
• 52:35
  into this family. My, my family is incredible.
• 52:38
  And you know, we used to travel around.
• 52:40
  My dad and I were really close. I was in sport, like all of
• 52:43
  these things were incredible and I no longer had the perfect
• 52:47
  family. You know something, my dad was
• 52:50
  not well anymore. So I, I actually hid it for
• 52:53
  many, many years. A lot of people, especially the
• 52:56
  closest people to me, my friends at the time did not know my dad
• 53:00
  was sick. And it took a lot of work for me
• 53:05
  to realize that Shane loves living in the in the shadows,
• 53:11
  right? And I, I know you probably do
• 53:13
  this work with people that you work with, but Shane loves
• 53:17
  living in the shadows. And I think what allowed me to
• 53:23
  look at these different layers and to be able to identify them
• 53:27
  is I, I actually worked with a coach for many, many years.
• 53:32
  I've also, I, I joke, I say I have a team of people behind me
• 53:36
  because I, I believe we all need people in our corner.
• 53:41
  We really do. So over the years, I've worked
• 53:43
  with different coaches to support me through this and I
• 53:48
  have a therapist that I work with as well.
• 53:51
  But more than anything, I started to learn that the more
• 53:57
  you hide these pieces of you, the shame loves.
• 54:01
  That. Right.
• 54:02
  Shane loves to hide. Shane loves to have you be alone
• 54:08
  and have you be sitting in the in excuse my language, but
• 54:12
  sitting in the shit. It likes that it thrives off of
• 54:16
  that it it's like that's the the food for it.
• 54:19
  And yeah, the more I realized was that we we all really want
• 54:27
  the same thing. We all want to be loved and
• 54:30
  accepted and cared for. At the end of the day, that's
• 54:35
  all we all really want. And the fear, and we talk about
• 54:41
  this, the fear of being found out is sometimes worse than the
• 54:45
  thing that actually is the layer right?
• 54:49
  And so. Yeah, yeah.
• 54:53
  That's the piece that I think I realized and learnt more about
• 54:57
  the layers rather than, OK, looking at all my layers, I have
• 55:01
  a lot of layers. Like even talking about eating
• 55:03
  disorders and all of that. And even now, if you were to ask
• 55:06
  me like, are you the perfect nutrition coach?
• 55:09
  And I was like, no, I'm not. You know, I, I enjoy pizza more
• 55:13
  than anybody. Heck, like I enjoy the heck out
• 55:15
  of it, right? But I think more than anything,
• 55:19
  it's recognizing that there's the fear and the shame.
• 55:23
  Those are the driving forces behind those layers.
• 55:26
  And when you're able to just be OK with it being really
• 55:31
  uncomfortable and having someone that you really trust that you
• 55:36
  can share it with that will not judge you, that will say I see
• 55:40
  you and not try to relate to you in any way.
• 55:44
  I think that was the biggest if that happened for me in
• 55:48
  addressing those layers is having a safe space and having
• 55:52
  someone say I see you and I still think you're incredible.
• 55:56
  Right. And.
• 55:58
  Yeah. Humans have this beautiful way
• 56:03
  about them where they tried to relate to everything, right?
• 56:07
  It's such a beautiful quality about humans.
• 56:10
  And sometimes relating is is really difficult for people that
• 56:15
  are dealing with shame or dealing with a layer that
• 56:18
  they're very uncomfortable with. And this is something I had to
• 56:23
  really learn early on before sharing with somebody, you know,
• 56:28
  especially I noticed it more so when I started with my dad,
• 56:31
  because that was my biggest one at that time.
• 56:34
  I had to almost tell people what I needed in those moments of
• 56:40
  when I was sharing, right? I, I would really say like, Hey,
• 56:43
  I actually don't need you to say anything.
• 56:45
  I just really want to tell you something, right?
• 56:47
  And sometimes it's understanding that having people in your
• 56:55
  corner that love you regardless of what's happening and having
• 56:59
  them just listen is one of the most powerful things.
• 57:04
  Yeah, thank you for that. I think that's so important.
• 57:07
  And I can tell you I am as guilty as anybody of wanting to
• 57:11
  come in and fix and help. And my daughters have really
• 57:14
  learned with me to say I don't need you to fix this.
• 57:18
  I I'm just looking for you to listen today.
• 57:20
  I just need to let this out. I just need to let it breathe.
• 57:24
  And so they will say to me, and then I'm like, OK, I heard you
• 57:26
  got it. And then we know because I
• 57:29
  sometimes you just want to be seen and heard.
• 57:31
  You don't want to hear about the similar experience or the story.
• 57:35
  You just want to be present in the moment and allow it to
• 57:38
  breathe. I think that's so important.
• 57:39
  And that can come in so many different forms.
• 57:43
  I also want to go back to real quick, you brought up a piece
• 57:46
  that I think is still something we're learning how to talk
• 57:49
  about. And it's very common with women
• 57:52
  and it's very common with women athletes.
• 57:55
  And that's the eating disorders piece.
• 57:57
  Is there anything you want to say about that layer to women
• 58:01
  that are listening before we before we move on?
• 58:06
  Yeah, it's twofold, right? I think women athletes is.
• 58:15
  I don't know about you, but for me there was a point of I can
• 58:19
  eat whatever I want because I, I, I was really active today or
• 58:24
  I just need fuel or anything like that, right.
• 58:26
  So there's that one version of that which could have been at
• 58:30
  the beginning of an eating disorder back then.
• 58:34
  Yeah. I also think too, there's also
• 58:37
  an obsession of performance and I think even noticing and I
• 58:41
  don't know how involved your world is around this.
• 58:43
  My because I'm so involved in nutrition, all I see is
• 58:46
  nutrition stuff, right? And there's also such a drive in
• 58:50
  eating the right way, eating super clean, having all the best
• 58:54
  foods and all of that. That can also be considered an
• 58:56
  eating disorder where it's an obsession of having things a
• 59:00
  certain way, right? So I would say more than
• 59:04
  anything as as an athlete and eating disorders, I didn't
• 59:10
  realize I had one until I gained a bunch of weight.
• 59:14
  I gained, it was 30 lbs in a very short period of time.
• 59:17
  And on my frame, my like, it was very, very distinct that I had
• 59:23
  gained the weight. And for me, it was more so an
• 59:26
  aesthetic thing. Like I couldn't believe what I
• 59:28
  looked like in the mirror from being a super, an elite athlete
• 59:32
  where I had 6 packs and I didn't even have to think about it to
• 59:35
  all of a sudden I was like, what the heck happened, right?
• 59:39
  So I think there is a little bit of a misconstrued feeling where
• 59:43
  it's like people believe that eating disorders are only when
• 59:48
  you're throwing up or you're not eating.
• 59:51
  And the reality is not that. The reality is anything that has
• 59:56
  your mind believing you have to do something a certain way
• 59:59
  otherwise a negative result is going to happen.
• 1:00:03
  That to me. Is really what an eating
• 1:00:06
  disorder is and I'm not a clinical person, please don't
• 1:00:09
  take this as that, but my own version of going through it is
• 1:00:13
  that I think I had an eating disorder well before I even
• 1:00:17
  recognized I had one. And our society really pushes a
• 1:00:22
  certain aesthetic of the body, which forces women to believe
• 1:00:27
  that their body is not good enough, right?
• 1:00:30
  And So what I would kind of touching on that and that layer
• 1:00:35
  is that it's really easy to believe that you are not good
• 1:00:42
  enough. Your body's not good enough.
• 1:00:43
  And there's nothing wrong with having goals.
• 1:00:47
  There's nothing wrong to say I want to work towards something
• 1:00:51
  or eating a little bit healthier.
• 1:00:53
  But I think it's when it becomes an obsession or a restriction or
• 1:00:58
  anything where you're forcing yourself and it becomes a
• 1:01:03
  negative part of your day is when it can get into that
• 1:01:06
  territory that we need to be a little bit more mindful of,
• 1:01:09
  yeah. Thank you so much for that.
• 1:01:11
  You explained that so well and how you described it is very
• 1:01:15
  much how I experienced it. It wasn't the IT what I was put
• 1:01:20
  on a 4000 calorie diet when I was a freshman running cross
• 1:01:23
  country and track because I wasn't getting up calories.
• 1:01:26
  And that was the beginning of and then there was this, you
• 1:01:30
  know, my dad telling me my sophomore year of high school,
• 1:01:33
  your butt's getting too big. So it's like, oh, you know, it,
• 1:01:35
  it became this. So my relationship with food
• 1:01:38
  became very unhealthy. It so there's so many layers and
• 1:01:44
  peace that go into that conversation.
• 1:01:46
  So I, I'm thank you for going. It's like we need to be very
• 1:01:50
  aware that when we're looking at our relationship with food that
• 1:01:55
  we're looking at like, OK, I'm feeling myself.
• 1:01:58
  What's my why behind this? Is this coming from a healthy
• 1:02:01
  place or do I need to get curious about this and explore a
• 1:02:04
  little more? So thank you so much for that.
• 1:02:06
  I appreciate your your vulnerability and honesty and
• 1:02:09
  sharing that all right in living out feel, finding empowerment,
• 1:02:14
  embracing layers, which is what we've been talking about today.
• 1:02:18
  Talk to me about how going on this journey has impacted your
• 1:02:22
  relationship with yourself as well as your relationship with
• 1:02:26
  other people. And going on this journey is
• 1:02:34
  been one of the most powerful things for me.
• 1:02:36
  My life has I truly believe if I hadn't gone on this journey, my
• 1:02:41
  life would not be where it is today.
• 1:02:43
  I truly believe that my my trajectory of my life would be
• 1:02:51
  completely different. I could see it me being stuck in
• 1:02:54
  a corporate job day in and day out.
• 1:02:57
  I can't imagine myself being super happy.
• 1:03:01
  And obviously this is a little bit of a crystal ball
• 1:03:03
  conversation, but I absolutely, I truly believe that I have been
• 1:03:11
  literally guided to be in this version of myself.
• 1:03:15
  I have had these these moments in my life where it's challenged
• 1:03:20
  me to look at what am I doing and who I am.
• 1:03:24
  And the more I have these things happen, I kind of, it's become a
• 1:03:31
  little comical, right? I can tell you that I've, I had
• 1:03:34
  a plan for my life, you know, even the last, you know, a
• 1:03:38
  little bit more of what's been happening over the last year or
• 1:03:40
  so. But it's, it's kind of comical
• 1:03:44
  because I had this plan for my life of what I thought my life
• 1:03:47
  would look like. First it started with being a
• 1:03:49
  professional athlete. Then I thought I was going to be
• 1:03:53
  a housewife to a professional athlete.
• 1:03:56
  And then it became like, no, I'm going to be the head of the
• 1:03:58
  corporate ladder. Then I was like, no, I'm going
• 1:04:01
  to be a digital nomad, traveling the world, like doing all that
• 1:04:04
  things. And you know, I didn't think I
• 1:04:07
  was ever going to be a mom. Now I can see myself being a
• 1:04:10
  mom. Like life is a very interesting
• 1:04:12
  way and these versions of what I believed my life to be, it's
• 1:04:19
  made a very humbling experience where I can say that now I'm
• 1:04:25
  just on this journey of how can I connect deeper to myself?
• 1:04:29
  Because then I can connect deeper to others and I have I
• 1:04:35
  can honestly share with you like my journey of connecting deeper
• 1:04:39
  to myself as a woman first and foremost has allowed me to
• 1:04:43
  actually connect deeper with other women.
• 1:04:45
  I, I don't know if this is true for you, but for me, because of
• 1:04:51
  a competitive nature and I also think because of the eating
• 1:04:56
  disorder I worked through, made me very competitive with other
• 1:04:59
  women and made me almost shut down that version of myself
• 1:05:05
  where I wanted to connect. And women are intrinsically
• 1:05:07
  meant to connect. We are meant to connect with
• 1:05:10
  each other and share and be in community.
• 1:05:14
  It's a very natural thing. If you look at generations and
• 1:05:17
  you know, our ancestors, that's how women were.
• 1:05:20
  And I believe in today's day and age, it's very much woman
• 1:05:24
  against woman and OK, let's be a little fake nice and see what we
• 1:05:29
  can like, how do we level up with them?
• 1:05:31
  It's very much how I grew up and how my mindset was around women.
• 1:05:36
  So I would say one of the biggest shifts, and this is
• 1:05:39
  again, not perfect, my competitive side still comes out
• 1:05:42
  every once in a while. But I think that was the biggest
• 1:05:47
  shift is realizing that women do not need to be in competition
• 1:05:52
  and that the deeper I connect to myself, the more work I do in
• 1:05:56
  myself. You know, coming from this place
• 1:05:58
  of empowerment, I can sit here and say I genuinely want you or
• 1:06:04
  any other woman that sits in front of me to succeed.
• 1:06:08
  It doesn't mean that I'm any less or I have to put myself
• 1:06:12
  down or you're better or anything like that.
• 1:06:15
  No, we're just different. Your journey is different than
• 1:06:18
  mine. My journey is different than the
• 1:06:20
  next person, but more than anything, it's really stepping
• 1:06:25
  into we all have a place. We all have the ability to step
• 1:06:29
  into this table and succeed and win and support each other.
• 1:06:33
  And I love that version of women that are able to say we all get
• 1:06:39
  to win. Yeah.
• 1:06:42
  Oh, that was so good. I love that so much.
• 1:06:44
  To me, that is the key. That is the key to us shifting
• 1:06:48
  the narratives that have been in place.
• 1:06:52
  You know, whether it's in the workplace, whether it's
• 1:06:54
  culturally faith spaces, you know, socio economic, all those
• 1:06:59
  things. It's us coming together.
• 1:07:01
  When I win, it creates more space for you to win and lifting
• 1:07:06
  each other up in the end. Plus, I'm as competitive as the
• 1:07:08
  next person. I always want to win, but I
• 1:07:11
  don't have to knock everybody else down along the way.
• 1:07:14
  I can break. I like, OK, I won.
• 1:07:16
  I found this new space. Come with me.
• 1:07:18
  Let's go and create more space for all of us to win at the
• 1:07:22
  things that we are aligned to do because no one is exactly like
• 1:07:27
  us in the world. We're all designed uniquely to
• 1:07:30
  show up as our authentic selves and let's celebrate that in
• 1:07:34
  trying to diminish that and knock it down.
• 1:07:36
  I love that so much. Thank you so much for all of
• 1:07:38
  that. So good.
• 1:07:39
  Oh my gosh. OK, tell me 5 activities that
• 1:07:44
  nourish you. I mean, these probably don't
• 1:07:48
  surprise you by any means. I love cooking.
• 1:07:53
  I, I love it. I am a huge sucker for a good
• 1:07:58
  farmers market walking through a market.
• 1:08:01
  So anywhere I travel, it's my mission in life to find the
• 1:08:05
  market. Like that local market, you know
• 1:08:07
  the secret one that tourists don't ever find that all the
• 1:08:11
  locals get all the good stuff. That's my mission in life is to
• 1:08:15
  find those markets. And usually like, I love cooking
• 1:08:18
  whatever fresh, amazing foods that I can find.
• 1:08:22
  So that's a huge thing that I love doing.
• 1:08:25
  Travel is another big one, being out in nature.
• 1:08:29
  So whether it is the mountains or the beach.
• 1:08:32
  And I would say I think that's four.
• 1:08:35
  I have another two. I love being around people, like
• 1:08:39
  my people. And that sounds very odd, but
• 1:08:42
  people that are very important to me in my life, they've tend
• 1:08:46
  to be spread out across the world because I've travelled so
• 1:08:49
  much and I don't always get to connect with them in person
• 1:08:53
  one-on-one. But when I get that time, that
• 1:08:57
  nourishes my soul, like absolutely just brings me back
• 1:09:00
  to life. And I would say the last one, I
• 1:09:07
  don't know why I thought of this, but dogs, I, I love dogs
• 1:09:10
  more than anything. And when I get to play with
• 1:09:13
  dogs, they just light up my soul and I love how goofy they are.
• 1:09:19
  And I think that's something that really brings me back to
• 1:09:22
  myself, not taking my life so seriously.
• 1:09:26
  They teach you how to be present.
• 1:09:28
  They teach you unconditional love.
• 1:09:30
  Like there's so many incredible things.
• 1:09:33
  My version is dogs. I know other people have other
• 1:09:36
  animals that they can connect with, but I am reminded when I
• 1:09:42
  have a busy day or I have a hard day.
• 1:09:44
  You know, my dogs have always been there for me.
• 1:09:47
  And that just completely brings me back to life as well.
• 1:09:54
  Yeah, oh, so good. I love that.
• 1:09:56
  Yeah. I like the playfulness of them
• 1:09:58
  too. It reminds us to play and be
• 1:10:00
  present too. I know that's an you know,
• 1:10:01
  that's another great impact for me and my husband.
• 1:10:04
  No one loves a dog more than my husband.
• 1:10:06
  He is everybody's alpha dog anywhere we are.
• 1:10:09
  So it's fun to hear other people talk about their experience with
• 1:10:12
  that. 5 words on how you want to feel the next six months.
• 1:10:21
  So OK, the next six months for me, it is grounded, at peace,
• 1:10:31
  glowy. I think there's a big, big piece
• 1:10:36
  of expansion that Will I'm excited for.
• 1:10:41
  And I want to bring in more calmness as well because there's
• 1:10:46
  a lot of change happening, but calmness feels really good.
• 1:10:52
  Oh, and I'll throw in it the sixth one.
• 1:10:54
  Trust. A little bit of trust.
• 1:10:57
  Oh, good. Oh, I love that.
• 1:10:59
  That's good. That's a great one.
• 1:11:00
  All right. Oh my gosh, Alexandra, I could
• 1:11:02
  talk to you all day. So many good things.
• 1:11:04
  What you do and how you show up in the world is just so In Sync
• 1:11:08
  with these things that we talked about here on this platform.
• 1:11:11
  Tell people where they can find you, follow you, learn more
• 1:11:15
  about you, all of that. This will also be on our website
• 1:11:18
  at embracinglayers.com. Don't worry listeners, you'll be
• 1:11:20
  able to find it. But I want to give you a moment
• 1:11:22
  to share that. Awesome.
• 1:11:24
  Thank you. Yeah, I'm primarily on
• 1:11:25
  Instagram, so it's I am Alexander Birch.
• 1:11:30
  I also have a website that you can do.
• 1:11:32
  I have a weekly newsletter that goes out as well where I talk
• 1:11:35
  about things around fertility and preconception and support
• 1:11:40
  around that. So if anything start with
• 1:11:43
  Instagram. It's always the kind of the hub
• 1:11:45
  for everything and I'm going to be back on there.
• 1:11:51
  OK, great. Any last thoughts you would like
• 1:11:54
  to leave with our listeners today?
• 1:11:57
  I'm just so grateful for you and I'm grateful that you open up
• 1:12:02
  these conversations that are so necessary and you have such an
• 1:12:06
  inability and a beauty to pull out these beautiful, powerful
• 1:12:10
  themes. And I, I truly believe that your
• 1:12:15
  work is so needed and so powerful.
• 1:12:17
  So thank you for doing that. And my last words for people
• 1:12:22
  just listening is that you are powerful, you are beautiful, you
• 1:12:27
  are perfect the way you are. And just continuing to connect
• 1:12:32
  deeper with yourself more and more as you can because that is
• 1:12:35
  going to really open up so much for you.
• 1:12:38
  And I I truly believe that you have a place in this world.
• 1:12:42
  More than anything, it's just allowing yourself to to really
• 1:12:46
  shine. Thank you so much for that.
• 1:12:51
  Listeners, take that, run with that.
• 1:12:53
  Let that absorb and sink in with you.
• 1:12:56
  Alexandra, thanks so much for your time.
• 1:12:58
  I'm so glad we were able to connect.
• 1:13:00
  I appreciate you so much. Listeners, take all this, go
• 1:13:03
  back and listen. There's lots of wisdom in
• 1:13:05
  today's episode. We hope you've enjoyed this time
• 1:13:08
  with us today. Take good care of yourselves and
• 1:13:11
  we'll see you next time here on the Field Podcast.
• 1:13:15
  Hello and thank you so much for being with us today on this
• 1:13:19
  episode of the Feel podcast. If you would like more
• 1:13:23
  information on how you can apply these talking points that I
• 1:13:27
  share with our guests in each episode to your own life, really
• 1:13:32
  utilize this Feel framework. Go to embracinglayers.com, fill
• 1:13:37
  out our contact form and let's set up a free 30 minute
• 1:13:41
  consultation to talk about how you can start being your most
• 1:13:46
  authentic, organic, healthy feel fueled life.
• 1:13:51
  Thanks again for being with us today.
• 1:13:53
  We'll be back to you soon with another episode here on the Feel
• 1:13:56
  Podcast.