Latest / Alive & Kicking: Stories of Waking Up with Kay Eck / Interview with Jillian Bieritz | Awakening Embodied Love

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Interview with Jillian Bieritz | Awakening Embodied Love · Alive & Kicking: Stories of Waking Up with Kay Eck

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Hi, I'm Kay Eck, and welcome to my podcast, Alive and Kicking, Stories of Waking Up.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: I want to welcome everybody back to the podcast today.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: I want to take a moment before we get started to thank everybody for listening and reviewing and all of that stuff that help us keep the podcast going, help it grow so that it supports anyone who might need the support.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I just want to thank you all for being a part of this process.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's been really amazing for me and for our guests, and I hope it's been amazing for you as well.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: So feel free to drop us a line in the comments so we can improve.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: So I want to welcome today my good friend Gillian Beeritz.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: Is that how you pronounce your name?
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, you got it.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like German beer in the cracker, Ritz.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: Beer Ritz.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: Beer Ritz.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, gotcha.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: So um Jill and Jillie and I know each other from back in the day when I owned a yoga studio that she was a student at.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel like our time together was not long enough before you moved to moved with your family to Colorado.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: Am I imagining that?
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: How long were you at Shine before you left?
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I let's see, I started coming to Shine in 2013 and I moved in 2015.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: So I was there for two years.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: But it felt so much longer.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I was just gonna say, like your presence, your presence never left.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: You always felt like you were a part of it, and you would pop home um every now and then and come in.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: And so I just kind of felt like you were always there, but I just didn't see you as often.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: But it it's it's great to get um back together over this um avenue and to kind of talk to you a little bit about your life because there's such a big part of it that I am not familiar with.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: And so let's get started.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I want to talk a little bit about your childhood, and I love to ask people about what their sense was of themselves as a child, because that can be very different from you know how perhaps your parents saw you or the situ what the situation warranted.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: So, what was your sense of yourself as a child?
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: Gosh, I have actually thought about this quite a bit lately.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I was kind of this sunshiny, everything's fine girl on the exterior.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't think I even realized um, you know, the pain that I had kind of shoved deep down within until much later.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: But my parents were divorced when I was gosh two years old, and my dad um is an alcoholic, drug addict, and he hasn't really been in the picture for a majority of my life.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: He was in some capacity up until I was about 12 or 13, and then I've seen him once.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: So that being said, it was my mom and I for many years, and um, you know, I always felt very um different than my family, and I didn't ever really let anyone know that.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um just I felt like it was hard for me to feel connected in a body almost, if you will, but I never knew how to put it into words, and so I was just always this happy, you know, exterior when you know there was some some deep trauma happening, but I didn't recognize that until later.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: Did you feel as if you were you didn't incarnate fully into your body?
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: Because I've heard people describe that as their experience of childhood.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: Honestly, I've never thought about it in that context, but now that you say that, yeah.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, yeah.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: I I wrote about this in my book, I'm constantly saying that, but um, you know, it's like to be born human is to be like stripped of your sense of belonging to anything, it's like being dropped into a block a box where nothing that you knew works and giving like an entirely different everything, and you don't know how to work it.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_01: And um is that kind of how you felt about your childhood?
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: Like you had difficulty navigating it.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and again, when I was in it, it's hard for me to even honestly really go back to how I truly felt.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I've had um people in my life, you know, my mom, my family members who are always like, you're just this cheery, you know, little girl.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: And it's hard for me to even go back to really feeling what that was like.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: But now that I've you know grown and evolved a bit, looking back, that is totally how it felt for me.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: So um how do you think you learn to put on this persona?
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: Because children don't have any resources other than putting on personas to deal with the outside world.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: So, how do you think you learn to put on that sunny disposition?
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I I do believe that it is part of my my soul.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like I um I've learned a lot about astrology in the last few years, and so um there's a lot of energetic signatures, you know, from the universe that I feel, you know, like I really do shine this light.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um so and I think it was a protection mechanism as well.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, it's like I don't didn't even consciously realize it as a child, but it's like I didn't want to dig deep in there and feel those big emotions.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: It was much easier to not.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, my it was my mom and I alone for many years, and so I would think that there was a protection of her as well in that.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, well, that almost breaks my heart, you know, that uh that a child would feel need to feel protective of a parent, you know, that's such a big responsibility.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: That must have been such a burden, and again, I don't think I ever felt that, you know, as a child growing up, but now you know looking back and really seeing the big picture of my my life in my childhood, it definitely was.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: So how did the experience of not really having a father kind of play out for you during like your school years?
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so we my mom actually ended up getting remarried when I was about 10.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: And that was a challenging relationship as well with my stepfather.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: And we, my mom and I lived in the city in Chicago up until that point, and it was my stepdad's dream to move to the country.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: He was an inner city, you know, at this point, gosh, probably around 40 years old, and or no, 30s, but his dream was to move to the country, and so we did when I was in seventh grade, moved from you know, an inner city where there was a lot of diversity to you know the western suburbs of Illinois, which isn't that far from Chicago, but it was like my school was planted in the middle of a cornfield, and it was so incredibly different.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: And once again, you know, it was a huge transition, and I never showed that it was challenging.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so to answer your question, how that played out, um, you know, I I felt like I had a pretty good entrance into those school years.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but over time, that repression of emotions and the challenges that stood at home with a father figure, you know, my um my real father who wasn't in the picture, and then challenges with my stepfather, it I it started to play out in ways, you know.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: I started getting pretty into drugs, um, and just escapism.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: Like I didn't ever want to be home.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's it's amazing how um drugs can find you no matter where you are.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, no matter how far out in the country you are, they'll find you if you, you know, totally.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and this is oh, sorry, go ahead.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: No, go ahead.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: So this is I just thought of this and I haven't thought about this in quite a while.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: But also when I was um probably about my junior year in high school, I I've always been super connected to dance and music, and it was always that outlet for me where I felt more you know embodied in that experience of dancing and music than I did, you know, in my own without it.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so I got connected kind of through a boyfriend that I had into the rave scene.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: Have you are you familiar at all?
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: And it was, you know, it started out as just this whoa, it was like I felt this connection on a spiritual level, you know, just being immersed in it was this underground, very different scene.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: And it started out very innocent with the music and the dancing, and then the drugs kind of found their way, like you you mentioned, they find you.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_01: It seems like that, you know, escalating the escalation of wanting to feel more, experience more, or feel less and experience less.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's like you've created sort of the the a custom made experience where almost like the drugs are inevitable, you know.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: Were you were you trying to feel more or to feel less?
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: Were or either?
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think it started out to feel more.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: It was, you know, my first experience was with psychedelics, and it was it was honestly, it started out just incredible.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: I felt again, just this connect connection to something bigger than myself that I had always kind of felt a part of, but wasn't quite sure what it was, and it was just this opening.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: And then from that point, um, you know, I I just took it too far and it became a numbing mechanism.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, I've never really um had the experience or really dived into um, you know, that the subject of how drugs can become a spiritual experience, but whether that experience is sustainable.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: Because once you have that spiritual experience, you want to live there, right?
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and you know, back then having you know, it was yeah, it was just constantly trying to get back to that experience, and it was in settings that weren't supportive of that.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas now, you know, and this is just with psychedelics, but now, you know, there's these containers and ceremonies where you know you're raising your vibration, you're in a ceremonial setting, and that's it's different than when you're recreationally, you know, yeah seeking that.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's almost like the drugs find your weakness and just like camp out there or something, like they're so clever.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yes.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: So, how did this this path that you were on?
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, where did that take you?
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: And where did it take you in terms of your home life and then your life outside the home?
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I ended up in a pretty um serious relationship with a guy that was, you know, ended up being really um immersed in his addiction with drugs.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: And um it was it was not good.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: It was not good for me.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: I started, you know, kind of feeling myself deteriorate.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: We um just had a lot of turmoil, and I actually ended up moving when I was 20 years old to California to like separate from this world that I had fallen into, and you know, this relationship that was really challenging.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: So I moved to California just to get away, and I was all by myself, and it was one of the hardest, it wasn't even that long, it was not even two years that I was there, but it was really challenging.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, it was kind of like the dark night of a soul, right?
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I just didn't have support there, and in the meantime, back in Illinois, back at home, my mom was going through second divorce with my stepdad.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: And then I have also when my mom remarried my stepdad when I was 10, they had a daughter.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: So I have a half sister who's 10 years younger.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: So back at home, they were splitting up.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: My little sister, who I kind of felt like a mother to in some ways, um, that was going on.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: I was miserable in California, so I decided to move back and kind of be with my mom and my sister and um reconnect.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: And that was when I moved back, then my life it just started to shift.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: I started to feel like okay, I'm just I felt more open, and that's actually when I met my now husband, and life just started to take a shift.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: So in what ways did it shift?
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I you know, um meeting my husband was the first time that I had a relationship with a man that was genuine and kind um and supportive.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think a big part of that shift had to do with the partnership with him and having, you know, not to compare him to a father figure, but you know, to have the support of that male role, and um he's just such a loving man.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: So um I just felt love for the first time, and I started to feel love for myself that again, not even realizing when I was younger and when I went through all those challenging times, you know, I I was not good to myself.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I would say that that's the shift is stepping into love.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_01: How was it?
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: What was it in you that allowed you to receive that love?
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: Because that's not, I don't, I don't feel like that's very common that somebody would come from a background like you did, you know, maybe some not healthy relationships with men, certainly feeling abandoned by one or more fathers.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: How how did that happen?
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: We I you know, I synchronicity.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: I and and but um yeah, I was always I was super, I was very resistant of relationship, and there was just something about him because I don't think I had ever been in the presence of someone loving me that way.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: So that's how I received it, but it's still my work.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: My work is you know, accepting love, receiving love.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a life, I mean, it's never gonna end this work, right?
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: But um he was definitely the way shower of love for me.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: So wow, that's I mean he was he's that's like an angel came in.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: But you had to figure out how to to do that, how to be also in that relationship.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: And so how did you find your way to self-love?
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: What was that path like?
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: And again, it's still it's still a work in progress, always will be.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think that removing the fog that I had created through my experience with drugs and um just escapism as when I moved back and at the time period that I met my husband, just some of that fog started to clear.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: And it felt um it felt just easier.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: Feels like there was a lot of divine intervention in your path.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: Definitely.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, definitely.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: So how old were you when you met your husband?
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: I was a baby, I was 21.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: Everything happens so normal for you.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like I know, I know, I know like up until the time you're 21, you've lived like six lifetimes, it seems like.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, and that's how it felt.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: It really truly did.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um so yeah, and he's almost seven years older than I am.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but yeah, I mean, we met, I was 21, maybe I was almost 22, and then we got married when I was 24.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_01: So wow, wow, I know.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: So was married life a challenge for you, having not had a model?
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: It was a ch yeah, our first few years were were a bit rocky.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um but with him, it just it's been very easy.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: It really has.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: And he's just so um, I mean, he's got his things, trust me.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: But but his his kindness and his love for himself.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Self, you know, has been such a gift and teacher to me.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: So wow.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: We yeah, we had some, you know, I mean, I was so young.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but we uh have just been able to to move through our relationship in a really positive, you know, taking some of the the negative experiences that we had, but really like looking at them and and um just understanding each other on a deep level and and growing both of us.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: So if you were to consider your path, when did you become aware that or or have you become aware, I should say, of your life as a spiritual path?
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: So Blake and I, my husband and I, um, you know, we both wanted children, um, and we struggled to get pregnant for quite some time.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um and then my son was born in 2010, and that was just, I mean, again, just a love that I had no idea could be.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then moving forward a few years, we had a stillborn my son Ryder in 2013.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: It was actually right before I started coming into shine.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um we lost our child, a childbirth, and um it was traumatic to say the least.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: But the experience of it, and again, now being down the road and and going back to that time, the experience of what he brought to my life, just speaking for myself.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I just it was like all those emotions that I had repressed.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: And yes, I met my husband, and yes, I was learning how to love.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: But there there was still so much blocked down within me, and that I never wanted to open.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: My soldiers were like, Don't go there, don't go there, don't go there, don't go there.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: Well, with him, there was no no choice, and so his divine intervention through me just opened up this part of me that instead of running to escape with drugs and you know, whatever shopping, I mean a lot of different things.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it was like this is so powerful, and there's something so much bigger at play here.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I just started to again, synchronicities started occurring.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: I had just a good friend who um started getting into yoga and so invited me to shine, and then it was just it was like coming home when I discovered yoga.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I look back and you know, I wasn't aware of it when I was younger, but I've always had a pretty vivid dream time, and again, not feeling feeling like it was challenging to be in a body because I just felt I was so sensitive to spirit, and um, but not being able to understand that or have anyone in my life when I was younger that you know was open about those kind of things.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: So finding yoga, coming to yoga after being blown open with this, you know, trauma, like the floodgates were just open, and stepping into my yogic path has just it's been a transformation.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh, I have goosebumps thinking about that because I'm not really sure I knew all that when you, you know, first started coming to the studio.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, you know, you don't know everything about your your students, but so writer was another angel for you.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: Did you did you how did you how were you able to embrace that experience in that way?
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_01: Because it sounds like you know, it was simultaneously breaking you and healing you.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um, it's so hard to put into words, um, but again, I astrology has really helped me so much with a lot of the understanding some of these pieces of myself, but my life lesson is through emotions, it's it's my life lesson, it's really challenging.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but there's something called Saturn return.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: Are you familiar with a little bit?
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not super knowledgeable astrology, yeah.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: So every 28 to 30 years, the planet Saturn, which he's a timekeeper and he's a breaker of he's it's the life lesson.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're not kind of on your path, he comes knocking at your door and shakes things up like okay, you need to get you know, look you need to listen.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so I rider, it's interesting.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: Grace was at the start of my Saturn return, and then Ryder brings your first son, my first son, yes, was um at the start of my Saturn return, and then I lost, and then Ryder was at the end, and so um I've just always I've I've felt feel his spirit so strongly, and I I have, I mean, since he was in utero, um, and he is an angel, you know, he's my angel, and so um finding an uh a way to to connect with that through yoga was because again, I had trouble putting words to it, and I often was didn't really want, you know, obviously I went through immense pain and um emotional and so such a challenging time, but there was this piece of me that just felt his presence so deeply and knew that you know it didn't matter whether he was informed here, he's here, you know, he's with me.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_01: I think that the loss of a child, um it it just it doesn't make sense to us on so many levels.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_01: There, you know, like why why why in the world would you be led to you know feel something and then you know have it taken away?
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_01: Like what could possibly be the purpose of that?
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_01: And so I love that, you know, who cares what the method is or what the what the tools are that you use to understand your experience, if it's astrology or yoga or uh you know religion or whatever you're so did you have any other ways of looking at that?
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_01: How did you did you find yourself needing help with that?
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that I think that the help was yoga, yeah.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's it it's hard for people who have never really done it to understand.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_01: But I mean, of course, I know a lot of people who do yoga and it's it it's like a transformational experience, but I'm not quite sure.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_01: I understand why.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_01: What's your understanding of it?
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_01: Of yoga or of the transform why it's transformation, transformation.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: So again, connection, right?
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: Connection to an embodied state, and the awareness from the mind, spirit, and embodiment.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we came, we are human to have these experiences.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's that's why we're here, and it took me a long time to understand that, you know, like uh why?
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to be this body, but but it's uh it's a tool of for me, just that connection that you know I was always escaping from, but finding a way to tune into to myself and my body and my emotions, and you know, something bigger than my body at play.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: Again, I mean I can get so deep into it, but um that was my experience during that time.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_01: I I think that this experience that um you had of you had somewhat of an awareness that you were not fully in your body, but people can be out of their body and not know that they're out of their body, and so um what yoga does is it helps you get back into the body, and I don't think that um many people really understand why it's important to be in the body, and so I'm wondering if you can describe the difference between being, I mean, disembodied make it makes it sound like you know your head's been cut off or something, but I don't know what the correct term is, but um can you describe how it feels to be out of the body versus in the body and what that actually does for you?
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, so I am I live a lot up in my head, and I think a lot of us do, and so I would often feel like I was out here looking in on you know this structure, this bone and skin that I didn't understand, that I, you know, it was like how, and this came later.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, when I was a child, I didn't quite grasp this.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_00: But now looking back, it was just you know, it was almost like I was looking at myself from outside of myself, and so yoga, you know, and even just breathing, bringing awareness to the breath, you know, that that feeling of getting curious about what things feel like and not having to put logic to it, you know.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: I think emotions are um they don't have they're not conscious, right?
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_00: They're just a feeling, and I think being in up in your head all the time, for myself in particular, I was always trying to put logic to to feelings, and that's not how it works, you know, and so becoming aware of my body through yoga, through uh this practice, just you know, it was like okay, you're holding a shape, a pose, right?
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_00: And how do you feel?
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_00: My right hip is tense, but instead of being like, what does that mean?
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_00: Why, why, you know, just saying, oh, my hip is tense, breathing into it and moving on.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I probably just went on a huge tangent and didn't answer your question.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_01: No, I no, I think that I think that's that did answer the question.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_01: I would, you know, was asking about how it feels to be disembodied and how it feels to be embodied.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I I think you bring up a really interesting point about the emotions and the feelings.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the word feeling has the word feel in it, and that's that's something that is inside the body, the thinking is outside the body, and that's where a lot of people reside is in the thinking and not in the in the body.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_01: I I actually have always been really solidly in my body, so even when I started teaching yoga, I didn't really understand what that meant, but I had a student who um I I started to understand it through, and I would ask her to, you know, the class to move your right arm over towards your right heel or some directional like that.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_01: And it took her a very long time to move the hand, the right hand to the right foot.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I started to realize it was because she was not in her body, she was in her mind, which was who knows where.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe it was in New Zealand.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_01: I don't, you know, it takes a long way from New Zealand back to your bike.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_01: But but the the problem is that you can't process the emotions when you're not inside your body, and so that that thing that you said, like trying to figure out the emotions, that doesn't really work.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_01: But I think a lot of people do that, absolutely, they try to think through the experience or they think about the emotions instead of actually feeling them, right?
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: So what does yeah, yeah, just allowing them, yeah.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_01: And so what is the what is feeling the emotions do for you?
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_01: And is that what helped you get through this great loss in your life?
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's been you know, this process, I would say, you know, really again, I yes, I have had this feeling since his loss of something greater at play, right?
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_00: And that I have this angel walking with me through this path of life.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it's only it's been the last couple years, really.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, when I started practicing yoga and um, you know, it is when it began, but the the feeling part um has really just come into play in the last couple years, and so what that has allowed for, I mean, hearing permission to let my my feelings just come and not attaching them to a thought has been so freeing.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, whether it's taking a shower to kind of rinse them off, whether it's anger that comes out and screaming into a pillow, or you know, going out into the woods and just yelling, but some way to process it out to get it unstuck, because that's where I for sure, and I know others get in trouble, is when those they get stuck in there and we repress them down, down, down instead of allowing them to flow through, and there's so many different ways and tools to do that, yeah.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I think that's a really great point, is um, you know, a lot of times, if for example, you feel sad, the inclination is to try and figure out why.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_01: Like, why am I sad?
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, you got to get this figured out.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_01: Am I um is it because I'm not being true to my oh knocked over my microphone.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_01: Is it because you know you're not being true to yourself, or because somebody's behaved a certain way, or you're not getting where you wanted to go?
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_01: And it doesn't actually have to be any of those, it can just be something that needs to move through you that's ancient or um not even yours, possibly that you're processing for the collective.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, I thank you for for bringing that up, and that that is super freeing because then you can just be like, it's not a big deal.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_01: I feel angry, like I want to rip somebody's hat off, and it might not have anything to do with them.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know what it is, but yeah, yeah, so so now you've started to share this practice with other people, right?
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_01: You became a yoga teacher, and what has teaching yoga taught you that being a yoga student could not?
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_00: So we have been so my family and I moved to Colorado about five and a half years ago, and I had just finished the training like the day before we left.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_00: So moving to a new place, I was still pretty fresh, you know, out of all that transformational um training and learning.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_00: And um so I just started actually teaching about a month and a half ago.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I say that, you know, but I think I'm also a hair stylist by trade, and I've shared a lot of the um, you know, not necessarily the physical asana of yoga, but I I feel like I've shared other pieces of of the practice through, you know, verbally or just giving suggestions for different tools.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_01: But to answer your question, um it's been wanna like speed past that because the you know the the practice of yoga is the the physical part is just a small part of of yoga.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_01: The yoga becomes a way of it's an like an approach to life, really.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um so to think that you're teaching yoga while you're doing hair, to me, it's not a stretch, but um yeah, because yeah, it just becomes like a way of thinking about the world, right?
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right, yeah.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_00: And um, but yeah, starting to to step into the the role of the teacher has been so cool, um also terrifying.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it's been just being able to share, right?
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_00: We're all on our own unique journeys through this crazy life that we're living through on this crazy planet.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_00: But having gone through such uh transformation and and continuing, I mean, it never ends.
• 43:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's a continuing.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: continuation, right?
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so being able to to guide others and you know to to help them um just connect with themselves is such it just if it's like I could eat up what that feels like.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_00: You know it just it fills my cup so much and not because um that I'm telling them anything they don't know or teaching them but just them being able to have the tools to connect or reconnect with themselves in a deep and meaningful way.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah wow that's amazing oh that's beautiful yeah well it feels like it might be um time to head into our lightning round all right lightning up for that all right let's do it okay Jillian have you ever considered changing your name no never I've considered changing my middle name what's your middle name Nicole what were you gonna change it to I was gonna change it to something I'm trying to remember the exact but it was like some kind of animal was it this must have been a while ago it was it was a long time ago I want to say wolf but I think that my son always talks about that so I'm getting confused with it it was like wolf or some kind of an animal I wanted that's funny okay what movie do you watch over and over again almost famous oh my gosh I haven't seen that in so long but I can understand why you like it and Twilight haven't seen that one in a while either I watch him over and over all right I'm gonna watch almost famous again because I loved that movie so good um in what ways do you consider yourself old fashioned if if any that's I don't consider myself old fashioned at all I have I'm not very sentimental and I am always kind of like this future pacing kind of person.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_00: So you're like a modern woman I'm a modern woman there we go.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_01: That's funny that um you say like the the pace like the the pace has has something to do with it but um for myself I I like love the dem I call them the domestic arts.
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_01: Oh I love it yes I love like keeping home making home I love cooking I love setting the table I love um caring for children and cleaning and entertaining and all all that stuff I love it I that's why I was like I could I was a stay at home mom because yeah I loved it the most important job in the world you know yeah so I'm well I guess I mean I do love some of those things I just wouldn't necessarily connect them to old fashioned right do you um for a while I did because um you know it felt like if you weren't working then you weren't a modern woman I actually was working I was freelance writing and up until my fourth child was born and so um but not that much and um yeah but being a stay-at-home mom is you know you do feel like you're a little bit in an old-fashioned model a little bit you know yeah that's a little challenging to deal with because of course you want to feel like you're a modern woman you know you don't want to feel like you're backward but yeah that was a little hard to for me to contend with sure yeah um when you imagine a better world what's in it love and just breaking down these these barriers of you know I think we're all have a place for disagreement but this divisiveness just smoothing that over and all stepping together in a in a way that from connection I mean we're all connected with each other and this division it just we can't move forward with it yeah yeah well that feels really potent i i feel like um there's something to living in the digital age where you are exposed to so many other people and so many other situations and circumstances of life it's so overwhelming at times especially if you have an inclination to help and that you know you don't necessarily like to see people suffering or struggling and um that it it so you start to feel that overwhelm and that you can't possibly do anything and so that sort of adds to the divisiveness because you want to do something and I I feel like if we if people understood that the the healing yourself shifts everything yes around you yes it's really I see it as I see it the only way forward absolutely absolutely that's just my opinion oh me too 100% yes oh my gosh okay what gives you goosebumps lots of things everything gives me goosebumps but music I would say is probably the number one number one i get the most goosebumps when um something I am saying or doing or realizing is in alignment with my true self yeah it's like it's like an electric current that lights up your whole body that's the goosebumps are always my barometer of my inner truth if something is like really true for me I will feel it in my body like those champagne bubbles that's so beautiful yeah and so yes handy yes yeah so did you bring a question for me today I did okay well we're on this deep level it's similar to when you asked me but and you kind of already answered it but um what I'll rephrase it what was your biggest takeaway from this challenging year of 2020 I was thinking about this today because I was listening to a podcast um with Todd Fink do you know kind I don't he has a podcast called Kind Mind and he was talking about the concept of elegance and that I can't remember all of the references that he was using because that's one of his gifts is that he brings together all these disparate um influences and inspirations and understandings um to a concept and he was talking about it as a not like if you were looking to improve your life what would you add to it instead of thinking that way he was talking about it as what would you strip away what would you take away and the whittling away of everything that isn't essential to me creates something more elegant and that's what this time has meant to me and and done for me.
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_01: It has whittled away all the non-essentials things that I wouldn't necessarily have given up if I were given the choice and I came to see that my life is elegant in its simplicity and it's most elegant when it's most simple and I have um that's been such a such a gift for me.
• 54:17
  SPEAKER_01: That's so beautifully put yes yeah I resonate with that so much and I think it could go further you know I I think it could go further um but it's gone pretty far yeah well and then having the the time right to to feel that to allow that to happen right and not being in that constant go go go yeah you know what the funny thing is that um where I've noticed it where it's come through strongest if you could say that is with food and I like my diet has simplified because um even though I spend you know years you're at home more and I would I tend to eat more when I'm bored I I eat out of boredom and so I was assuming that I would that would probably be a thing like I would be eating more and what happened was I became more mindful of my relationship with the food in terms of like slowing down to to choose what my body really wanted to prepare it mindfully because I had nothing else to do to eat it slowly I found that I was eating way less and I got into and my body was loving that you know it was feeling it was feeling really good.
• 56:07
  SPEAKER_01: So I got into this practice of or this habit of I would have like something really light for breakfast and maybe some decaf coffee and then maybe a smoothie or a juice later and then one meal around three and that was basically it was perfect for me.
• 56:28
  SPEAKER_01: And that had to that feels so good.
• 56:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I felt so nourished by it I really did.
• 56:36
  SPEAKER_01: It was very surprising to me oh I love that you just brought that all up and I find have you been um living by yourself a majority of yeah and see and I find I'm on such a better rhythm with that when my my dudes aren't around you know yeah it's so true it just feels so nourishing and I think so many you know our culture and we're so fast so it's like eat eat eat when you can or you know then when you're bored you're like you're just not used to being bored so you eat right yeah so thank you for reminding me of that well Julianne I want to thank you for spending this time with me it's been wonderful to reconnect with you and to learn about your journey and your your beautiful path and I want to thank you so much for sharing it with me.
• 57:33
  SPEAKER_00: Oh thank you so much it was an honor to be here really thank you I miss you I miss you too