Matt Connarton Unleashed: Teri Almquist of Wellness Hot Yoga

0:00 Speaker 1: On this Saturday morning. But joining us now live in studio,

0:04 Speaker 1: we have Terry Almquist from Wellness Hot Yoga. Welcome Terry.

0:09 Speaker 2: Not nice to be with you.

0:10 Speaker 1: I've been very excited to get you on the show because,

0:13 Speaker 1: as I've been telling people, and I was telling Jenny

0:15 Speaker 1: about this, You've got a pretty fascinating backstory and I

0:20 Speaker 1: want to get in all of that. But we should

0:22 Speaker 1: tell people up front too. So you're from Wellness Hot Yoga,

0:24 Speaker 1: which is in April, Yeah, April, Massachusetts. And for our

0:27 Speaker 1: local listeners in Manchester, it's not far. You know, you

0:31 Speaker 1: say Massachusetts, people think, wait, that's in another state, but

0:34 Speaker 1: it's right over the border. So I mean to get here,

0:37 Speaker 1: what did it take you a half hour?

0:38 Speaker 2: Yeah, like thirty minutes.

0:39 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's easy, you know, just a straight shot

0:42 Speaker 1: really on ninety three. So it's a wonderful place. And

0:45 Speaker 1: how long have you been there?

0:47 Speaker 2: We've been in that location for two years. Two years

0:50 Speaker 2: we were in North Andover started over there in two

0:53 Speaker 2: thousand and eight. I opened a yoga studio and it

0:55 Speaker 2: was just yoga back then, and then of course COVID

0:59 Speaker 2: hit yeah, and a lot of small businesses. It was devastating,

1:02 Speaker 2: and I ended up having to close that business and

1:05 Speaker 2: thought that I wasn't sure I was even going to reopen.

1:07 Speaker 2: And when I decided to reopen, my first thought was

1:09 Speaker 2: I was going to open a very small space and

1:11 Speaker 2: just teach, you know, one or two classes a week,

1:14 Speaker 2: and that would be what I wanted to do. And

1:16 Speaker 2: then this space became available that had a beautiful locker

1:19 Speaker 2: rooms and asauna already, and I saw the vision when

1:22 Speaker 2: I looked at the space of opening a wellness center.

1:25 Speaker 2: So more than just yoga were available for all these

1:29 Speaker 2: other modalities of healing. And that's really the reason I

1:33 Speaker 2: opened the studio in the first place, because I think

1:35 Speaker 2: that the body is self healing and that we have

1:38 Speaker 2: lots of tools we could use, and the more tools

1:40 Speaker 2: we have available to us to be healthy.

1:42 Speaker 1: Yeah, the better off we're going to be. Yeah. Absolutely,

1:46 Speaker 1: So when COVID hit, so so there was a there

1:49 Speaker 1: was a point where you didn't know if you were

1:51 Speaker 1: going to even continue.

1:52 Speaker 2: Yeah, there was a point where I knew I'd always

1:55 Speaker 2: teach yoga, but I didn't know if I wanted to

1:58 Speaker 2: reopen a studio or how that was to work out.

2:01 Speaker 2: Mainly because like a lot of small businesses. It was

2:03 Speaker 2: financially devastating, and I've been very lucky that I worked

2:07 Speaker 2: out that I've had people interested in investing in a

2:10 Speaker 2: way that allowed me to reopen.

2:12 Speaker 1: Did did you at any point? You know, because a

2:16 Speaker 1: lot of people kind of took their businesses online and

2:19 Speaker 1: ways that at that time, in ways that they hadn't

2:22 Speaker 1: previously considered, including myself, you know, because I I'm a

2:28 Speaker 1: hypnotherapist and I had always kind of resisted doing sessions

2:32 Speaker 1: with clients online. I don't know why, looking back, I

2:36 Speaker 1: don't know why, because I've always been one to really

2:38 Speaker 1: embrace all the technology that's available. But I was late

2:42 Speaker 1: to the party on that and I kind of you know,

2:44 Speaker 1: and then COVID. Yeah, so terrible. But we have to

2:47 Speaker 1: always say, we have to find those silver linings where

2:49 Speaker 1: we can, right and and one of the silver linings

2:53 Speaker 1: is it kind of forced a lot of people. You know,

2:55 Speaker 1: we interview a lot of musicians on the show and

2:57 Speaker 1: they talk about it too, how it forces them to

3:00 Speaker 1: be more creative, or it did force them to be

3:02 Speaker 1: more creative and find waste to kind of work around,

3:05 Speaker 1: you know, the ways that they were used to creating

3:07 Speaker 1: music with other people and playing shows and whatnot. And

3:10 Speaker 1: so I found myself finally just sort of giving in

3:14 Speaker 1: and saying, Okay, I guess I can see clients online.

3:17 Speaker 1: Turns out it works pretty well, and people are used

3:20 Speaker 1: to it anyway, especially with you know, different therapies. People

3:25 Speaker 1: use services like doxy and you know, to do this

3:29 Speaker 1: to interact. So it turned out to be a good thing,

3:33 Speaker 1: a positive thing, learning to do that. But in your case,

3:37 Speaker 1: and I have seen people who kind of do yoga

3:39 Speaker 1: classes online. But is that something you considered or maybe

3:43 Speaker 1: you did implement some of that.

3:44 Speaker 2: Yeah, we did. We were in a really interesting position

3:46 Speaker 2: because not only do I own a yoga studio, I

3:50 Speaker 2: have been a yoga teacher for now and almost twenty years,

3:53 Speaker 2: but then you know, over a decade, and I've mentored

3:56 Speaker 2: teachers from all over the world. So I've written a

3:58 Speaker 2: book on teaching yoga for the style of yoga that

4:01 Speaker 2: I teach, which is called Bickram Yoga, I've written a

4:03 Speaker 2: book on teaching, I've mentored teachers. I travel around the

4:06 Speaker 2: world to do seminars and webinars, and one of the

4:08 Speaker 2: things I do is a monthly webinar, and I've done

4:11 Speaker 2: it on Zoom, and I've done that since about two

4:13 Speaker 2: thousand and five. Sorry, that's the wrong date. Twenty fifteen. Okay,

4:19 Speaker 2: about twenty fifteen I started doing these monthly webinars for teachers,

4:23 Speaker 2: so I already had all the Zoom stuff set up

4:26 Speaker 2: to do that. And then when the first day we

4:29 Speaker 2: were closed from the yoga studio, we had morning classes

4:33 Speaker 2: and closed and our evening classes were online. And what

4:36 Speaker 2: we did is, because my manager and I have been

4:38 Speaker 2: doing these Zoom things for ages, we actually put it

4:42 Speaker 2: out to my larger worldwide community and said, listen, you

4:45 Speaker 2: can figure out how to do this too, but let

4:47 Speaker 2: your students know that they can kinder practicing with us,

4:50 Speaker 2: and we will help you set up your own stuff

4:52 Speaker 2: and then they'll transition back to practicing with you. Just

4:55 Speaker 2: to keep these businesses going. Of course, we all thought

4:57 Speaker 2: it was going to be you know, a couple of

4:59 Speaker 2: weeks wright when it started, remember, so our thought process was,

5:03 Speaker 2: you know, we'll teach them classes online. It'll be fine.

5:06 Speaker 2: The style of yoga I teach, I don't actually have

5:08 Speaker 2: to do the class when I'm teaching it. I just

5:10 Speaker 2: stand and I kind of tell people the directions. How

5:12 Speaker 2: to do it.

5:13 Speaker 1: Oh okay, so.

5:14 Speaker 2: It's just leading through a home practice. And actually the

5:16 Speaker 2: first Saturday that we were over, my Saturday classes are

5:19 Speaker 2: always busy. I remember having like four screens of zoom people.

5:22 Speaker 2: I had like seventy something people on line from all

5:26 Speaker 2: over the world taking classes.

5:28 Speaker 1: Wow.

5:28 Speaker 2: And we continued that. We also expanded out to this

5:31 Speaker 2: more idea of also mental health wellness, so we did

5:34 Speaker 2: a lot of community events online. So we did game

5:37 Speaker 2: playing that One of the most fun things we figured

5:38 Speaker 2: out how to do is how to do scavenger hunts

5:40 Speaker 2: in your own house. So we would say, like find

5:43 Speaker 2: an item and you have to you know, do you

5:44 Speaker 2: have a Harry Potter book and you've run and you

5:46 Speaker 2: go get the book and you bring it back, you know,

5:49 Speaker 2: And that was fun. We had people from Australia and

5:51 Speaker 2: Europe and I remember women from Hawaii. And we still

5:54 Speaker 2: have online classes so all of our classes, even if

5:56 Speaker 2: people aren't local, all of our classes are audio stream yeah,

6:00 Speaker 2: through the studio, and people still practice online because the

6:04 Speaker 2: sad thing that happened to during COVID is a lot

6:06 Speaker 2: of the studios that closed have never reopened, right right,

6:09 Speaker 2: so those students don't have a place to practice anymore,

6:12 Speaker 2: but we've given them a place to practice with us,

6:14 Speaker 2: and we think of them not just as students online

6:17 Speaker 2: but also part of our community. So we try to

6:19 Speaker 2: include them and a lot of things that we do

6:22 Speaker 2: by enabling to join online with us.

6:24 Speaker 1: Yeah, no, that's that's amazing, all right. So let's let's

6:29 Speaker 1: get to this. Because you so when you and I

6:31 Speaker 1: first met you, you kind of told me your whole

6:33 Speaker 1: history of of how you got here. And one of

6:39 Speaker 1: the things I noticed, and I think I even said

6:40 Speaker 1: this to you that day, it seems like like people

6:42 Speaker 1: who you know, if you want to use the term healer,

6:46 Speaker 1: people who are healers. So many of us we get

6:51 Speaker 1: to where we're able to help others because we started

6:53 Speaker 1: out needing, you know, not just necessarily wanting, but really

6:58 Speaker 1: needing a way to help ourselves. You know. That's that's

7:02 Speaker 1: how I got started as a hypnotherapist. Was you know,

7:04 Speaker 1: I started out I needed to help myself a had

7:08 Speaker 1: you know, tremendous social anxiety and a lot of things

7:12 Speaker 1: overcome that I felt were holding me back. So I

7:14 Speaker 1: learned self hypnosis and then I started, you know, and

7:17 Speaker 1: when friends would find out what I was doing, they

7:19 Speaker 1: would say, oh, can you hypnotize me? Turned out I

7:22 Speaker 1: was good at it. Then I went and got certified,

7:24 Speaker 1: and now I do it professionally. That's kind of the

7:26 Speaker 1: cliff Notes version of my story. But but I'm I'm

7:29 Speaker 1: interested in sharing your story because you yours is very

7:33 Speaker 1: emblematic of that too, where you started out needing to

7:36 Speaker 1: find solutions for yourself and that put you on this

7:40 Speaker 1: path that you're that you're still on today.

7:43 Speaker 2: So absolutely, I tell people all the time the reason

7:48 Speaker 2: I opened to yoga studio is because I honestly believe

7:51 Speaker 2: no one should live in pain, and whether that pain

7:53 Speaker 2: is physical or spiritual, emotionally that the body is self healing.

7:59 Speaker 2: But so in the nineties, I worked in the mental

8:02 Speaker 2: health field and I worked in a lot of lock

8:04 Speaker 2: psychiatric facilities, and in one of those facilities, unfortunately I

8:09 Speaker 2: got injured. I had a client who was going off

8:13 Speaker 2: of medication and had become very psychotic. Wow ended up

8:17 Speaker 2: pulling me over backwards and landing on top of me.

8:19 Speaker 2: And in the process of trying to get them off

8:21 Speaker 2: and sort of doing that, I thought I was absolutely fine.

8:25 Speaker 2: After the incident, they kept saying, do you want to

8:27 Speaker 2: go the emergency room, said no, I'm good. And the

8:29 Speaker 2: next morning when I woke up, I had really struggled

8:32 Speaker 2: to get out of bed, that my legs didn't want

8:35 Speaker 2: to work, and I was a single mom with two

8:36 Speaker 2: young kids, which was very frightening. So I go to

8:39 Speaker 2: the emergency room and when had happened was seven of

8:42 Speaker 2: the dish in my neck had herniated in the process,

8:45 Speaker 2: and so I was put in neck brace. Told well

8:48 Speaker 2: this for a couple of weeks, we'll do some physical therapy,

8:50 Speaker 2: you'll be fine. Unfortunately, my neck, like a lot of people,

8:53 Speaker 2: when it healed, healed very frozen, and that frozen neck

8:58 Speaker 2: after the even after they took the neck brace off,

9:02 Speaker 2: I couldn't move. So there was physical therapy and that

9:07 Speaker 2: didn't really help. And then I went to see some

9:10 Speaker 2: neurologists and they suggested that I have surgery at some

9:15 Speaker 2: point to probably remove the disc from my neck and

9:18 Speaker 2: put a rod in my spine to hold my to

9:21 Speaker 2: hold my head up. Over the course of several years,

9:24 Speaker 2: I was collapsing forward. But I had a wonderful neurologist

9:27 Speaker 2: at Mass General who said to me, go find anything

9:30 Speaker 2: else that you can do. Try chiropractic, try massage, try anything,

9:35 Speaker 2: and then when you you know, when you can't lift

9:37 Speaker 2: your head up anymore, when you're that, we'll do the surgery.

9:41 Speaker 2: But put it off as long as possible because there

9:43 Speaker 2: was a chance of being a quadriplegic. Any kind of

9:46 Speaker 2: massive surgery to your spine, especially your neck, can be problematic.

9:50 Speaker 2: H So he said, get your youngest out of school

9:52 Speaker 2: and then come talk to me again. So my daughter

9:55 Speaker 2: was getting older and I was at a place where

9:57 Speaker 2: I thought I'm going to have to do the surgery.

9:59 Speaker 2: I had lived with a headache for many, many years

10:03 Speaker 2: and unable to move, and so my sister said to me,

10:08 Speaker 2: come take this yoga class I'm taking. And I told

10:11 Speaker 2: her I've tried yoga, you know, with the ability to

10:13 Speaker 2: move my head and stuff, Yoga's really hard. I can't

10:16 Speaker 2: do it. She said, try this class with me. It's

10:18 Speaker 2: very different. So I went to the class, and at

10:21 Speaker 2: that time I had been in pain for over a decade. Oh,

10:25 Speaker 2: I was a packa day smoker. So people see me

10:28 Speaker 2: now and they think, you know, I don't want to

10:31 Speaker 2: say I'm very zen, but I'm that kind of I'm

10:33 Speaker 2: the yoga teacher you know, I try to live a

10:35 Speaker 2: healthy lifestyle. All of that. That was not where I started.

10:38 Speaker 1: Yeah. Can I just ask you to to interject when

10:42 Speaker 1: you talk about being in pain for over a decade?

10:44 Speaker 1: My god, what was it like? How severe you learn

10:49 Speaker 1: to function?

10:50 Speaker 2: People who live in chronic pain learn to function in

10:52 Speaker 2: chronic pain. So I was working and functioning. I had

10:55 Speaker 2: trained to be a sign language interpreter and actually couldn't

10:57 Speaker 2: full time do that job because it includes holding your

11:01 Speaker 2: arms up for long periods of time, which was not possible.

11:04 Speaker 2: So I got a job at a college that was

11:06 Speaker 2: teaching sign language interpreting, so I was able to still

11:08 Speaker 2: be in my field, but not having to put that

11:11 Speaker 2: strain on my body.

11:12 Speaker 1: But you were in chronic pain.

11:13 Speaker 2: It was a chronic prain I had. I quite literally

11:16 Speaker 2: had a headache for ten years. Wow. I remember. I

11:18 Speaker 2: used to say to people who were I was trying

11:21 Speaker 2: everything chiropractic and massage, and I always used to joke

11:24 Speaker 2: that if I could find someone who could get rid

11:25 Speaker 2: of my headache, I was going to give them a

11:26 Speaker 2: million dollars. I didn't have a million dollars, but acupuncture

11:30 Speaker 2: was something that I found. It did help with the pain,

11:32 Speaker 2: which was really helpful. I've tried so I've tried all

11:36 Speaker 2: these other modalities of healing, and in the beginning, chiropractic

11:41 Speaker 2: wasn't helpful for me. Later on, as I got better

11:44 Speaker 2: doing yoga, chiropractic has become an important part of what

11:47 Speaker 2: I do to keep myself well. So sometimes you try

11:49 Speaker 2: something in a moment and it didn't work, that doesn't

11:52 Speaker 2: mean you shouldn't try it again. It could work later.

11:55 Speaker 2: So my sister took me to this yoga class and

11:58 Speaker 2: I remember going into my first class and the teacher said,

12:00 Speaker 2: you must be Kathy's sister. And I said, how did

12:03 Speaker 2: you know? And she said, because she told me you

12:05 Speaker 2: look like a turtle. My head had hutted so far

12:07 Speaker 2: forward because I couldn't really hold it up that I

12:10 Speaker 2: actually did sort of look like a turtle. And she said,

12:13 Speaker 2: don't worry, I collect turtles and all over her yoga

12:15 Speaker 2: studio with these little turtle statues. Oh really, So I

12:18 Speaker 2: really went in there, Like I said, it's a packadet smoker.

12:21 Speaker 2: Drank a bottle of wine at night to try to

12:23 Speaker 2: get to sleep because I didn't want to take painkillers.

12:26 Speaker 2: I was not in good physical shape. And it was

12:29 Speaker 2: a ninety minute hot class, and ten minutes in I thought,

12:32 Speaker 2: how do I get out of here and go have

12:33 Speaker 2: a cigarette? But the teacher was great, and she had

12:36 Speaker 2: been teaching for a long time and she's still teaching.

12:39 Speaker 2: Diane teachers at Yoga for You. She set studio down

12:42 Speaker 2: in deada mass and we got to a posture where

12:46 Speaker 2: you had to roll forward and put your head down

12:48 Speaker 2: on the floor. And I said, She said, put your

12:50 Speaker 2: head on the floor, and I said no. And she

12:52 Speaker 2: said put your head on the floor and I said no.

12:54 Speaker 2: She said, do you trust me? And I said yeah.

12:56 Speaker 2: She goes, put your head on the floor. I put

12:57 Speaker 2: my head on the floor and we don't do any

12:59 Speaker 2: really versions, but it's just rolling forward touching the floor.

13:02 Speaker 1: Yeah.

13:02 Speaker 2: I felt something move in my neck that hadn't moved

13:05 Speaker 2: in all of those years. Really, and in that moment,

13:08 Speaker 2: I had that epiphany, and I think this happens to

13:10 Speaker 2: a lot of people who are in the wellness industry.

13:12 Speaker 2: I had the epiphany that I was going to do

13:14 Speaker 2: this yoga for the rest of my life, and I

13:16 Speaker 2: was going to learn to teach the sugar. Yeah, And

13:19 Speaker 2: so I started. I live in Haveral that studio was

13:22 Speaker 2: in West Roxbury, and I would go every day to yoga, yeah,

13:26 Speaker 2: to try to heal my own body, and I progressively

13:29 Speaker 2: got much better and a year later went to be

13:31 Speaker 2: a teacher.

13:32 Speaker 1: Wow, when you said you felt something move in that moment,

13:35 Speaker 1: you felt something move like a god.

13:37 Speaker 2: In a good way relief And yeah, well, like something stretched.

13:41 Speaker 2: Nothing had moved in my neck. Everything was scars. That's

13:43 Speaker 2: what it happened, with the neck brace on everything. And

13:46 Speaker 2: now I think they do less of that when people

13:48 Speaker 2: have neck injuries. Very rarely do you see people walking

13:50 Speaker 2: around with big collars anymore.

13:52 Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true.

13:53 Speaker 2: Yeah, because I think they know now moving it even

13:56 Speaker 2: a little is better than making it immobile. What happened

13:59 Speaker 2: was I just froze. All of that scar tissue just

14:03 Speaker 2: froze up in my neck and so that's what made

14:06 Speaker 2: me lose motion. Okay, but something stretched in the back

14:10 Speaker 2: of my neck that hadn't moved, and I'm talking about

14:13 Speaker 2: this was just a tiny movement. But I had that

14:17 Speaker 2: idea of this can fix it, This is going to

14:20 Speaker 2: fix it, and so I just have to do this

14:22 Speaker 2: for the rest of my life. And I started. I

14:24 Speaker 2: dedicated myself to going, still working at the college. And

14:28 Speaker 2: a year later I left my job at the college

14:30 Speaker 2: and went off to teacher training, which at the time

14:32 Speaker 2: was in LA And it was nine weeks. I left

14:34 Speaker 2: my family for a full nine weeks and it's over

14:36 Speaker 2: six hundred hours of training. Oh wow, to be a

14:38 Speaker 2: hot yoga teacher in the style that I teach the yoga.

14:42 Speaker 2: And came back and there was no studio in the area.

14:45 Speaker 2: Still driving miles to teach and take yoga. Yeah, and

14:48 Speaker 2: then open my studio in North Andover.

14:50 Speaker 1: Wow, So you said, so to get to get to

14:55 Speaker 1: be Are you paying free now or.

14:58 Speaker 2: I am pain free now? It was funny I last

15:01 Speaker 2: month I didn't take as much yoga as I normally take,

15:04 Speaker 2: and I said to somebody, boy, like, my neck feels

15:06 Speaker 2: like a little cliquie. If I go more than four

15:10 Speaker 2: days without a yoga class practicing, I can feel like

15:14 Speaker 2: it's well, it's not pain like I could feel that

15:17 Speaker 2: it's still tight. So it's not it's not a panacea.

15:20 Speaker 2: I didn't do a couple of yoga classes and don't

15:22 Speaker 2: need to ever go back for the rest of my life.

15:23 Speaker 2: I really honestly believe that I have to do this

15:26 Speaker 2: for the rest of my life to stay pain free

15:28 Speaker 2: and mobile. And I'm okay with that. And to be honest,

15:32 Speaker 2: I came back a week ago from being on vacation

15:34 Speaker 2: and not practicing for almost ten days, and so my

15:38 Speaker 2: neck was really stiff and really like bugging me. And

15:40 Speaker 2: then I've taken four classes in four days and it

15:44 Speaker 2: was fine. It's back to where it was before.

15:46 Speaker 1: Wow, that's great comes back. And what about So you

15:51 Speaker 1: mentioned too while you were still in pain, so you

15:53 Speaker 1: were a packa day smoker. Yeah, how did you quit?

15:56 Speaker 1: Did you?

15:57 Speaker 2: That's three months of yoga practice almost every day. My

16:01 Speaker 2: first month I practiced yoga. I did over thirty classes

16:05 Speaker 2: in thirty days. So I was driving so far that

16:07 Speaker 2: I would stay at the studio and take two classes

16:09 Speaker 2: back to back. What was really fascinating was people are

16:12 Speaker 2: very frightened of the idea of especially if you live

16:14 Speaker 2: in pain. I think ninety minutes in a hot yoga

16:17 Speaker 2: room doing yoga sounds so overwhelming. You think, like I

16:21 Speaker 2: need to start with maybe a thirty minute class or something.

16:23 Speaker 2: But the way this yoga is designed is so that

16:27 Speaker 2: you are slowly warming yourself up and the heat helps.

16:32 Speaker 2: So what I discovered was if I did a ninety

16:34 Speaker 2: minute class. At the end of class, I started feeling like,

16:37 Speaker 2: oh wait, I feel mobile enough now that I could

16:39 Speaker 2: actually do a class. So I started staying and doing

16:42 Speaker 2: two classes back to back because the first class was

16:45 Speaker 2: just really all warming up for me and then the

16:48 Speaker 2: second class. The way the class is designed, the first

16:51 Speaker 2: almost well it's the ninety minute class, so almost the

16:54 Speaker 2: first hour is what we consider the warm up. It's

16:58 Speaker 2: and then you do yoga, which it's done on the floor,

17:00 Speaker 2: so you spend all this time warming up slowly. So

17:04 Speaker 2: I would do a whole class is a warm up,

17:05 Speaker 2: then do the warm up of the next class, and

17:07 Speaker 2: then do the yoga. And that's what really changed everything

17:11 Speaker 2: was to be able to I'm not advising that everybody

17:13 Speaker 2: do two classes, but with a severe injury, that was

17:16 Speaker 2: the thing that worked for me and people. But like

17:19 Speaker 2: I said, people are intimidated with this idea of a

17:21 Speaker 2: ninety minute yoga class in the heat. That's going to

17:23 Speaker 2: be really hard because I'm injured, I'm sick and whatever.

17:26 Speaker 2: But the way the class is designed, it's therapeutic. So

17:29 Speaker 2: you do the little bit that you can do, and

17:31 Speaker 2: then over time, as your body improves, you do more

17:34 Speaker 2: and more and more.

17:35 Speaker 1: Okay, So what am I?

17:38 Speaker 2: Oh you asked about clinting spoken. Oh, you got three

17:40 Speaker 2: months into the practice. I had taken a class and

17:43 Speaker 2: then I took a second class. I used to go between.

17:46 Speaker 2: This is a terrible thing to admit. I used to

17:48 Speaker 2: go between the two classes. There's a break, I would

17:50 Speaker 2: go outside, have a cigarette, come back in and take

17:53 Speaker 2: the second class. I was quite literally at the end

17:55 Speaker 2: of two classes, sucking wind, laying on the floor, struggling

18:00 Speaker 2: to catch my breath. And I realized either I had

18:03 Speaker 2: to stop coming to yoga or I had to stop smoking. Wow,

18:06 Speaker 2: these two needed to go. I smoked. It was my

18:10 Speaker 2: daughter's birthday. As a matter of fact, I smoked my

18:12 Speaker 2: last cigarette, drove home, smoked a cigarette on my ride home.

18:15 Speaker 2: Never bought another pack of cigarettes. Yeah, yeah, and it

18:18 Speaker 2: was and it was fine. I made the yoga and

18:20 Speaker 2: the replacement. The other thing I think too, that three

18:22 Speaker 2: months was enough time for me to start to emotionally

18:26 Speaker 2: love myself again. And when you love somebody, you don't

18:29 Speaker 2: want them to smoke. When you love somebody, you don't

18:31 Speaker 2: want them to do these things that aren't good for themselves.

18:33 Speaker 2: I think that journey for a lot of people, and

18:35 Speaker 2: I've watched it over the last twenty years, watching the

18:37 Speaker 2: journey of people fall in love with themselves and stop

18:40 Speaker 2: doing those things that are harming themselves and easily not

18:44 Speaker 2: struggling to do it, making those habit changes because they

18:48 Speaker 2: love who they are, they love the way they feel,

18:51 Speaker 2: and so it makes it easy.

18:53 Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, it's funny you're talking about like smoking

18:58 Speaker 1: between classes. It reminds me of a uh I remember

19:01 Speaker 1: in high school, like going to going to the gym

19:04 Speaker 1: with friends to lift weights and you seeing people like, uh,

19:08 Speaker 1: not not a lot, but every once in a while,

19:10 Speaker 1: you know, you might see somebody they get done doing

19:13 Speaker 1: a set and then they go outside and they smoke

19:15 Speaker 1: a cigarette. And I remember talking with my friends and

19:19 Speaker 1: about this and saying, you know, to me that that

19:21 Speaker 1: looks like it's like driving your car over a cliff,

19:24 Speaker 1: but deciding intentionally, but deciding to put your seat belt

19:27 Speaker 1: on right before you do it. It's like, you know,

19:30 Speaker 1: you either care about your health or you don't, and

19:32 Speaker 1: but you know, you obviously got to a point where

19:34 Speaker 1: you had to make that choice. And and I think, unfortunately,

19:39 Speaker 1: I think for most people, it's not it's not stark enough.

19:43 Speaker 1: I think people, you know, I see that's the number

19:48 Speaker 1: one thing that I see people for for hypnosis is

19:51 Speaker 1: to quit smoking. And I think for most people it's

19:57 Speaker 1: not a stark choice because the are not they're not

20:01 Speaker 1: staring it in the face. The problem. You were staring

20:05 Speaker 1: it right in the face because you got to that

20:07 Speaker 1: point where I either got to do yoga, which is

20:09 Speaker 1: helping me tremendously, or I can keep smoking. But I

20:12 Speaker 1: can't do both. Whereas most people it's like, Okay, well,

20:18 Speaker 1: I'm doing this terrible thing. It's going to ruin my

20:20 Speaker 1: health eventually, but today I'm okay, Today, I don't Today,

20:24 Speaker 1: I don't have lung cancer. Today, I don't have emphysema.

20:28 Speaker 1: You know, today I don't have heart disease that I

20:32 Speaker 1: know of. Right as far as I know, today is fine.

20:34 Speaker 1: So I'll just I'll keep smoking and then tomorrow comes.

20:37 Speaker 1: And it's like.

20:38 Speaker 2: It's also addictive. It's also that physical addiction to it

20:42 Speaker 2: as well, and I think being in the yoga of

20:43 Speaker 2: sweating and all of that helped with me. I started

20:47 Speaker 2: playing even before I quit, I started playing these games

20:50 Speaker 2: of you know, I'm gonna wait till I I would

20:52 Speaker 2: drive from the yoga's yoga, I wait till I get

20:54 Speaker 2: to this point before I have a cigarette. I'll wait

20:56 Speaker 2: till I this I'll wait till I get in my

20:58 Speaker 2: car in the morning, instead of how having a cigarette

21:00 Speaker 2: in the morning when I get up. So it started sort

21:02 Speaker 2: of playing these games to put off how much I

21:05 Speaker 2: was smoking, you know, but but I hadn't really gone

21:09 Speaker 2: less than I was still a packa DA smoker. And

21:11 Speaker 2: it was funny because I was somebody I knew I

21:13 Speaker 2: was an addict. I knew I was an addict when

21:15 Speaker 2: I was quite young. I started smoking at thirteen.

21:17 Speaker 1: Most people, most people do that. That's that's probably average. Yes,

21:21 Speaker 1: in my experience, I.

21:22 Speaker 2: Always think if we could keep kids from smoking until

21:25 Speaker 2: after high school, then they're not going to be that

21:27 Speaker 2: many smokers because you have to get addicted young. And

21:31 Speaker 2: so it was. It was an addiction for me, but

21:35 Speaker 2: it was also a mental addiction. So I started playing

21:38 Speaker 2: that game. I started breaking that. But the sweating they

21:40 Speaker 2: getting in there doing something hard and knowing that I

21:43 Speaker 2: could do something hard, and that made it easier to

21:48 Speaker 2: quit smoking because in my head that was going to

21:50 Speaker 2: be hard right, And there's never really been a time.

21:54 Speaker 2: There's only once that I've I've had the urged cigarette,

21:57 Speaker 2: which was in a stupid moment when my daughter actually

21:59 Speaker 2: had been diagnosed with cancer. It was her first treatment

22:02 Speaker 2: at the hospital and I had stepped outside just to

22:04 Speaker 2: like get to marriage. Somebody was smoking and I thought,

22:07 Speaker 2: and I thought, I don't sitting outside of cancer center cigarette.

22:10 Speaker 2: But it's that sort of like it's still that somewhere

22:14 Speaker 2: in my head. It's still that crutch, sure, you know, somewhere,

22:17 Speaker 2: So I don't think it ever goes away. But you

22:20 Speaker 2: have all these coping techniques. And that's what all the

22:23 Speaker 2: wellness stuff that I offer is. It's just tools. And

22:26 Speaker 2: even about the book I wrote is called The Toolbox,

22:28 Speaker 2: Tools for Teaching Bickram Yoga. It's just tools you're putting

22:31 Speaker 2: in your toolbox. And I tell people, if you smoke,

22:33 Speaker 2: it's okay, come to yoga anyway. The smoking doesn't get

22:36 Speaker 2: in the way of the yoga. The yoga might get

22:38 Speaker 2: in the way of your.

22:39 Speaker 1: Smoking, right, which is a good thing. Which is a

22:41 Speaker 1: good thing.

22:41 Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's just another tool to put in your toolbox.

22:44 Speaker 2: So letting go of the blaming yourself and thinking I

22:49 Speaker 2: can't because I'm this, I can't be this. We are unique, each,

22:53 Speaker 2: unique and open human beings that can be lots of

22:56 Speaker 2: things at once, not to open our minds. You can

22:58 Speaker 2: be a smoker and someone who does yoga, right right,

23:01 Speaker 2: that's perfectly okay.

23:03 Speaker 1: Well, the thing with smoking too is and you know, smokers,

23:06 Speaker 1: a lot of smokers in my experience, don't like to

23:09 Speaker 1: hear this because it takes away some of the excuses.

23:13 Speaker 1: But it's it's the addiction part of it. Obviously, the

23:18 Speaker 1: physical addiction is real. Nicko geane is highly addictive, But

23:21 Speaker 1: the psychological addiction is what's really the big problem. Because

23:26 Speaker 1: the physical addiction works itself out of you in a

23:30 Speaker 1: relatively short period of time. Oh yeah, you know doing

23:32 Speaker 1: something like yoga where you're sweating, sweating out those toxins

23:35 Speaker 1: and everything. The physical addiction you can get if you

23:38 Speaker 1: can just get past that, that takes days. That part

23:42 Speaker 1: of it. It's the psychological.

23:43 Speaker 2: That moment of wanting a cigarette was I probably hadn't

23:47 Speaker 2: smoked in twelve or fifteen years. Wasn't a physical addiction exactly.

23:51 Speaker 1: It was that something in your brain.

23:53 Speaker 2: It was something in your brain when like, this is

23:55 Speaker 2: how we relieve stressed, This is how we There's still

23:58 Speaker 2: that thing, yep, but it's just that it'stead idea of

24:00 Speaker 2: in that moment of stress, also searching outside of yourself

24:04 Speaker 2: for the answer as opposed to looking. And this must

24:06 Speaker 2: be some of the stuff you teach in hypnosis. When

24:09 Speaker 2: you have that anxiety, when you have that urge to smoke,

24:12 Speaker 2: you can't go outside yourself for the answer. It's not there.

24:15 Speaker 2: That's what all those things are, and so you have

24:17 Speaker 2: to go inside right to find it. And that's in

24:19 Speaker 2: your mind and your body and your spirit and your soul,

24:22 Speaker 2: whatever that is for you. That turning. And I think

24:25 Speaker 2: we live in a world that turns us externally. Advertisers

24:29 Speaker 2: and I know you have great advertisers on your radio show.

24:31 Speaker 2: Advertisers very often, especially if you pick up like a

24:34 Speaker 2: women's magazine, want you to feel bad about yourself to

24:38 Speaker 2: sell you something. And so I can make you feel

24:40 Speaker 2: bad about you know, your lips should be fuller, your

24:42 Speaker 2: hair should be a different color, your thing, I can

24:45 Speaker 2: sell you something. I always telling my students, I want

24:48 Speaker 2: to make you feel good about yourself, so I can

24:50 Speaker 2: sell you something. And that's what I do.

24:52 Speaker 1: Right, right, yeah, yeah, exactly exactly. Now what is so

24:57 Speaker 1: what is Bickram yoga and how is that different from

25:01 Speaker 1: I don't know if regular yoga would be the way

25:03 Speaker 1: to put it, but what is what is Bikram yoga? Exactly?

25:06 Speaker 2: Sure, Bickram yoga has been around for a very long time.

25:09 Speaker 2: Bickram Chowdery is the guy who started it. He's a

25:12 Speaker 2: controversial person and so a lot of us no longer

25:17 Speaker 2: use the term Bickram yoga. But Bikram yoga describes a

25:20 Speaker 2: very specific style of yoga. So we do a set

25:23 Speaker 2: of postures in a specific order every single class, so

25:26 Speaker 2: the class never changes. We also don't play music. The

25:30 Speaker 2: lights are on, bright bright lights. Really yeah, the lights,

25:33 Speaker 2: the bright lights, no music, a teacher talking for ninety minutes.

25:37 Speaker 2: I talked for ninety minutes and just tell you what

25:40 Speaker 2: to do with your body. That lets you there's a

25:42 Speaker 2: lot of philosophy to that, and we'll get to that,

25:44 Speaker 2: but that helps let you actually turn your brain off. Okay,

25:47 Speaker 2: it's hot and it's humid. When Bickram started teaching yoga

25:51 Speaker 2: to Western so Bickram's backstory, as I know it is,

25:54 Speaker 2: he went to the ghost College of Yoga and Physical

25:57 Speaker 2: Education in India, grew up there and was a weightlifter. Actually,

26:02 Speaker 2: he was into powerlifting and that kind of stuff. And

26:04 Speaker 2: he got injured and he asked me, you'll take me

26:06 Speaker 2: back to my teacher, my guru, and he'll help me

26:09 Speaker 2: get well. Because he understood that yoga could heal the body,

26:12 Speaker 2: and he became a yoga therapist. And in the process

26:14 Speaker 2: of being a yoga therapist, So if you were sick

26:17 Speaker 2: maunt and you went to see Vishnugos, his teacher, and

26:20 Speaker 2: you said, you know, my shoulder hurts and my neck hurts,

26:22 Speaker 2: and he would say, okay, do this yoga pos and

26:24 Speaker 2: this yoga pos, and Bickham's going to teach you how

26:26 Speaker 2: to do it. Bickrams started thinking about what if we

26:29 Speaker 2: took a group of yoga poses, then no matter what

26:32 Speaker 2: was wrong with you, one of these was the right

26:34 Speaker 2: one to fix your body in yoga therapy. And he

26:37 Speaker 2: put together a series that's fit together so that every

26:41 Speaker 2: posture prepares you for the next posture, and every posture

26:43 Speaker 2: works to the entire body. So when you're done with

26:46 Speaker 2: the class, you have done one hundred percent of your

26:49 Speaker 2: body has been worked out.

26:50 Speaker 1: Okay, nothing, they.

26:51 Speaker 2: Say, inside out, bones to the skin. So every muscle,

26:55 Speaker 2: every organ, every cell of your body has had something

26:59 Speaker 2: done to it to help it improve its health.

27:01 Speaker 1: Okay.

27:02 Speaker 2: The room when he went to Westerners try to teach

27:05 Speaker 2: it that he foundly couldn't move, and so he added

27:08 Speaker 2: in heat humidity. So there's a lot of hot yoga around,

27:12 Speaker 2: but not all hot yoga. All bickrim yoga's hot yoga,

27:15 Speaker 2: but not all hot yoga is bickerm yoga.

27:17 Speaker 1: Okay.

27:17 Speaker 2: Other yogas have added in heat for the same purpose.

27:20 Speaker 2: The heat is designed for a couple of reasons. Our

27:22 Speaker 2: room is much hotter than a lot of other hot

27:23 Speaker 2: yoga classes. People freak out when they hear the number.

27:27 Speaker 2: But it's one hundred and five degrees with forty percent humidity. Okay,

27:31 Speaker 2: but that's less than ten degrees over your body temperature.

27:34 Speaker 1: Okay.

27:34 Speaker 2: So one of the things we know that happens is

27:37 Speaker 2: when you heat the body is that fasha, that connective

27:40 Speaker 2: tissue softens, so that makes you more flexible. Scar tissue

27:44 Speaker 2: is made out of that fasha, so you can start

27:46 Speaker 2: to stretch scar tissue. For me, that's what was happening

27:49 Speaker 2: that first time I felt something was I had heated

27:52 Speaker 2: my fasha, that scar tish with my neck enough that

27:55 Speaker 2: it actually started to stretch. Okay, and it is that

27:58 Speaker 2: non stretching material that's kept me from being mobile.

28:02 Speaker 1: Okay.

28:02 Speaker 2: So that's how the heat works. The heat also focuses

28:05 Speaker 2: your mind really quickly, so that people come in and

28:09 Speaker 2: they do their very first class in ninety minutes. They've

28:11 Speaker 2: thought about nothing but what's going on in that room.

28:14 Speaker 1: Interesting.

28:15 Speaker 2: There's no way to worry about your gas bill or

28:17 Speaker 2: whatever while you're in that room, because you become very focused.

28:22 Speaker 1: And that's partly because of the heat.

28:24 Speaker 2: That's partially because of the heat, partially because the lights

28:28 Speaker 2: are on bright and the teacher's talking the whole class. Okay,

28:31 Speaker 2: there's no room for sort of your mind to wander off.

28:33 Speaker 2: We call it a ninety minute moving meditation. For some people,

28:36 Speaker 2: sitting and quiet in their mind is really really hard.

28:39 Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yeah.

28:40 Speaker 2: And you must notice through the hypnotherapy too, people who

28:42 Speaker 2: just have that racing mind.

28:43 Speaker 1: Yep.

28:44 Speaker 2: We talk at a I wouldn't say at a high

28:47 Speaker 2: rate of speed, but we don't stop talking the entire class. Yeah,

28:50 Speaker 2: and so there's sort of no room for you to

28:52 Speaker 2: separate outside the room from what's happening.

28:56 Speaker 1: Well, you're doing a form of hypnosis.

28:59 Speaker 2: Yeah, I think we kind of off.

29:01 Speaker 1: I mean, you probably don't call it. You don't call

29:03 Speaker 1: it that, but that's definitely Yeah.

29:05 Speaker 2: It's creating this a thing to focus on, and meditation

29:07 Speaker 2: is having a single item to focus on and then

29:11 Speaker 2: losing that focus and then coming back to the focus.

29:14 Speaker 2: That is meditation. That's mindfulness. So we're teaching mindfulness in

29:18 Speaker 2: the process. But this Western idea of the light slow

29:21 Speaker 2: in the music on is a lot of distraction for

29:24 Speaker 2: the mind. Yeah, and people always ask me, can you

29:28 Speaker 2: add a music I can't because I'm not going to

29:30 Speaker 2: distract your way from the most important person that you're

29:32 Speaker 2: working on in that moment, which is you. Yeah, and

29:34 Speaker 2: so that's what we do. There's a giant mirror in

29:36 Speaker 2: the front of the room, so you have to see yourself.

29:39 Speaker 2: Vickraam was once asked why is there a giant mirror

29:41 Speaker 2: in the room, and I loved his answer was, it's

29:43 Speaker 2: not enough that you suffer. You have to see yourself.

29:46 Speaker 2: But when you think about seeing yourself suffer, what is

29:48 Speaker 2: when we see suffering as human beings? Our first response

29:51 Speaker 2: is typically compassion so when you see yourself suffer, you

29:55 Speaker 2: become more compassionate with yourself, and then you become more

29:58 Speaker 2: compassionate with everybody else.

30:00 Speaker 1: Yeah.

30:00 Speaker 2: So this bicram yoga was said. It's this series of

30:02 Speaker 2: postures that have put together, done in a heated room

30:05 Speaker 2: with a specific set of directions, and it's designed so

30:09 Speaker 2: even if you can do very little, that every single

30:12 Speaker 2: posture is broken into tiny little pieces and you never

30:15 Speaker 2: have to do the whole posture.

30:17 Speaker 1: You can do just just to the first step, okay.

30:19 Speaker 2: And after you do the first step, if that's all

30:21 Speaker 2: you can do, six or seven classes in, you're gonna

30:24 Speaker 2: find oh hey, I can do the second step. Okay,

30:26 Speaker 2: Now I can do the third step. So all these

30:28 Speaker 2: little steps that all the postures put together help you

30:31 Speaker 2: get there. Because I have to tell people all the time,

30:34 Speaker 2: yoga's not about yoga. Yoga's about creating a better quality

30:37 Speaker 2: of life because you practice yoga. So what the postures

30:40 Speaker 2: look like don't matter.

30:41 Speaker 1: Okay.

30:42 Speaker 2: What matters is you're doing the work on your body

30:44 Speaker 2: and your mind to make your life.

30:46 Speaker 1: Better, okay, and that's our goal. Interesting, yeah, because I

30:49 Speaker 1: would imagine a lot of people who come to you,

30:51 Speaker 1: they can't, like well, probably most people, they can't just

30:54 Speaker 1: do all the postures right off the bat right.

30:56 Speaker 2: I don't know that I've ever met anybody in my

30:59 Speaker 2: twenty years in this business who could do all of

31:01 Speaker 2: the postures in the theories beginning to end completely.

31:05 Speaker 1: I mean, I imagine if you happen to encounter someone

31:08 Speaker 1: who's unusually flexible, you know, maybe they could do it,

31:11 Speaker 1: but that's probably pretty rare.

31:12 Speaker 2: But there's a balance of strength and flexibility. And so

31:15 Speaker 2: what I find is people come in. The majority of

31:18 Speaker 2: people who come in are strong but not very flexible.

31:22 Speaker 2: They're looking for more flexiblity. I love when people say

31:24 Speaker 2: to me, I can't do yoga, I'm not flexible. I

31:26 Speaker 2: tell them that's like saying you can't take French lessons

31:28 Speaker 2: because you don't speak French. If you don't speak French,

31:31 Speaker 2: you should take French lessons if you want to learn

31:33 Speaker 2: to speak French. If you're not flexible and you want

31:35 Speaker 2: to be flexible, go to yoga to learn to be flexible. Yeah,

31:39 Speaker 2: it's harder for students who are very flexible. Actually, and

31:42 Speaker 2: I tell my classes all the time feel bad for

31:45 Speaker 2: them when the flexible people come in because it's easy

31:48 Speaker 2: to build more flexibility with your strength than it is

31:51 Speaker 2: to build strength with your flexibility. But the way our

31:54 Speaker 2: postures are designed, everybody gets what they need. So we

31:57 Speaker 2: don't have a beginner and intermediate and advanced class. Everybody

32:00 Speaker 2: in the same class. Okay, so I've you have people

32:02 Speaker 2: who it's their very first class in the same room

32:05 Speaker 2: with people who have taken thousands of classes. You have

32:08 Speaker 2: people who are incredibly flexible in with people who are inflexible.

32:11 Speaker 2: You have people who are very young in with people

32:13 Speaker 2: who are very old. Your people at my studio. We

32:15 Speaker 2: have people who sit in chairs. We have people who

32:17 Speaker 2: have to sit on the ground for the whole class.

32:19 Speaker 2: We have amputees, we have hip replacements, knee replacements, people

32:23 Speaker 2: you know, and everybody's just doing what they can. And

32:26 Speaker 2: that is an amazing experience that we all work together.

32:30 Speaker 2: So it doesn't matter how much or little you do.

32:32 Speaker 2: We don't separate people into groups. Everybody's in there together.

32:36 Speaker 2: I had a class this morning. My younger student was

32:38 Speaker 2: probably a college student. We have an older woman and

32:40 Speaker 2: I'd love to talk about more. Her name's Elaine. She's

32:43 Speaker 2: eighty eight years old. She's been practicing for fifteen years.

32:46 Speaker 2: She comes every single day. Yeah, and she was in

32:49 Speaker 2: the She comes in class and we have thirteen year

32:51 Speaker 2: olds and her in.

32:52 Speaker 1: The same exact class. Yeah.

32:54 Speaker 2: So everybody's just doing what they can do. The practice

32:57 Speaker 2: doesn't change, but you do.

33:00 Speaker 1: So Elaine. So she's eighty eight, she's eighty eight. She's

33:04 Speaker 1: been doing doing yoga for fifteen fifteen years, I would imagine,

33:07 Speaker 1: so she's probably a lot more flexible.

33:10 Speaker 2: Than most eight.

33:11 Speaker 1: Yeah.

33:11 Speaker 2: Yeah, she didn't come in flexible though. When she started.

33:14 Speaker 2: She had high cholesterol not controlled, high blood pressure also

33:19 Speaker 2: not control.

33:19 Speaker 1: Oh and diabetes.

33:22 Speaker 2: And she they wanted to put her in the hospital

33:25 Speaker 2: to get her on medication to control her high blood pressure. Yeah,

33:28 Speaker 2: because she was struggling with you know, it's too high,

33:31 Speaker 2: was too low. It was going back and forth. And

33:34 Speaker 2: she was caring for her husband with dementia and she

33:36 Speaker 2: didn't want to leave him the hospital. So she wasn't

33:40 Speaker 2: taking care of herself. She was taking care of him,

33:43 Speaker 2: but not taking care of herself. You don't get on

33:45 Speaker 2: the airplane, they say put your mask on first. Yep, exactly,

33:48 Speaker 2: got to take care of yourself first. But she wasn't

33:49 Speaker 2: doing that. Her kids convinced her to come and take

33:51 Speaker 2: three classes. She could not stand for the whole class.

33:55 Speaker 2: She couldn't kneel on her own knees, and she was

33:58 Speaker 2: really struggling just to be in the room. And so

34:02 Speaker 2: the first class she came in, she did the breathing

34:05 Speaker 2: exercise that we start with, and then she laid on

34:07 Speaker 2: the floor and just laid down for the entire class

34:10 Speaker 2: and did the breathing exercise at the end. And then

34:13 Speaker 2: her kids convinced her she had to do three classes

34:15 Speaker 2: before she could give up. So she said she went

34:19 Speaker 2: home even after just laying on the floor for an

34:20 Speaker 2: hour in the heat, took a shower and she felt better, kidding,

34:24 Speaker 2: And then she came back the next day, and she

34:25 Speaker 2: came back the next a couple of days later, and

34:28 Speaker 2: I think that got her hooked. After she practicing a

34:31 Speaker 2: short time, and she's still not doing much of the class.

34:33 Speaker 2: She's doing a lot of just laying down, which is

34:35 Speaker 2: perfectly fine. In our class. You can lay down if

34:37 Speaker 2: you need to get some air. Stip out, get some air.

34:39 Speaker 2: Come back.

34:40 Speaker 1: She's getting the still getting the heat.

34:41 Speaker 2: You're still getting. Yeah, this and I want to get

34:44 Speaker 2: to like the studies on heat and depression are really fascinating. Really, yeah,

34:48 Speaker 2: how being in heated environment lifts depression for a lot

34:53 Speaker 2: of people. But I want to finishing lad story. So

34:55 Speaker 2: she started coming. We also did a little challenge where

34:58 Speaker 2: we asked people to do ten classes in a row

35:00 Speaker 2: or twenty class row, thirty class and you got ten

35:02 Speaker 2: dollars off her, twenty dollars off her, thirty off your

35:05 Speaker 2: next month. Yeah, And she said, I can't do it,

35:07 Speaker 2: and I said, what can you do it? She said,

35:08 Speaker 2: I can do three. I said, okay, we'll do three

35:10 Speaker 2: in a row. And then she did three, and then

35:13 Speaker 2: she did five, and then she did the ten. Yeah,

35:16 Speaker 2: she did the thirty, and she decided she was going

35:18 Speaker 2: to keep coming because she was feeling so good.

35:19 Speaker 1: Wow.

35:20 Speaker 2: So she did sixty classes in sixty days. She started

35:23 Speaker 2: yoga seventy two years old, and I tease her, now

35:27 Speaker 2: I gave her and when she turned seventy five, we

35:29 Speaker 2: gave her the gift of free yoga for the rest

35:30 Speaker 2: of her life.

35:31 Speaker 1: Yeah.

35:31 Speaker 2: I had known she was going to live this long

35:33 Speaker 2: and might have waited till she was eighty, but she's

35:37 Speaker 2: still coming. And so then she started just coming almost

35:41 Speaker 2: every day. She's seen up and downs in her life,

35:44 Speaker 2: through COVID, through you know, illnesses, through the death of

35:47 Speaker 2: her husband, through you know, just things that happen in life.

35:51 Speaker 2: The yoga has been the thing that she can come

35:53 Speaker 2: back to over and over again. Wow, that grounds her

35:56 Speaker 2: and yeah, she's she's independent, she's strong, she's flexible. Good

36:00 Speaker 2: for her, and she really does. We talk a lot,

36:04 Speaker 2: We spend a lot of time together, and she will

36:06 Speaker 2: tell you a lot of it is too, is the

36:08 Speaker 2: community that we have. That's why it was important when

36:10 Speaker 2: we were on Zoom for me to have the community.

36:12 Speaker 2: We know that there are people who struggle with mental

36:14 Speaker 2: health issues. Yoga is very helpful and then to lose

36:17 Speaker 2: that in the process of a pandemic and lockdown, to

36:21 Speaker 2: give them still this community to come back to and

36:23 Speaker 2: be part of, even if they can't practice yoga online,

36:27 Speaker 2: to be able to come and check in with somebody

36:29 Speaker 2: and say I'm here. I think one of the greatest

36:32 Speaker 2: diseases in the United States and the world is actually loneliness.

36:36 Speaker 2: And when you look at overeating, smoking, all of that, Yes,

36:40 Speaker 2: the depression, loneliness is a huge part of that for

36:44 Speaker 2: a lot of people. Yes, and so by having everybody

36:47 Speaker 2: in the same room, you have a community that we

36:49 Speaker 2: start building, people of all different ages, all different We

36:53 Speaker 2: have doctors that practice next to janitors, Like it doesn't

36:57 Speaker 2: matter when you're in the room in a little outfit wedding.

37:01 Speaker 2: It doesn't matter what you do for a living, or

37:03 Speaker 2: what your education is, or what your income level is.

37:06 Speaker 2: It's kind of a great equalizer. Elane spends a lot

37:09 Speaker 2: of time going out for breakfast after class or whatever

37:12 Speaker 2: with people of all different ages, and so she's kept

37:15 Speaker 2: that social group going even at the loss of friends

37:18 Speaker 2: and who are her age. I think that happens to

37:21 Speaker 2: a lot of older people. They lose their social group

37:24 Speaker 2: and then they have no way to rebuild it. So

37:27 Speaker 2: we have people that range in all ages and they

37:30 Speaker 2: all work together, which I think is really helpful. So

37:33 Speaker 2: much of what we're doing in yoga is not about

37:35 Speaker 2: the physical postures that we do, and so having that

37:39 Speaker 2: community is really important and having people of all different

37:42 Speaker 2: ages and stuff. We know that there's a lot of

37:45 Speaker 2: studies that have studied the depression and going into saunas

37:49 Speaker 2: and going into heated environments, and there was actually a

37:52 Speaker 2: Harvard study. I wish I had more information than I could,

37:54 Speaker 2: but people can. Just if they googled Bickram yoga Harvard

38:00 Speaker 2: Depression study, it'll come up. They had people doing two

38:03 Speaker 2: classes a week and they self reported huge changes that

38:07 Speaker 2: they were far less depressed during yoga, even compared to

38:11 Speaker 2: people who are taking medication. We not only offer yoga, though,

38:14 Speaker 2: we also have other modalities of healing, so we have

38:18 Speaker 2: float tanks, we have a sauna, we have red light therapy,

38:20 Speaker 2: massage therapy, we're adding in skincare, we do meditations, and

38:25 Speaker 2: all of these things work together. So some people just

38:28 Speaker 2: coming into a sauna it can be really helpful for

38:30 Speaker 2: helping depressions.

38:32 Speaker 1: That's particularly interesting to me because I probably haven't told

38:36 Speaker 1: you this. Some of my listeners know because I'm pretty

38:38 Speaker 1: open about this stuff. But you know, I've by entire

38:42 Speaker 1: adult life and probably going back to when I was

38:45 Speaker 1: a teenager, I've struggled with depression unmedicated because I'm stubborn

38:50 Speaker 1: and terrified of side effects. But it's definitely and I've

38:53 Speaker 1: never been formally diagnosed, but I believe it's, you know,

38:55 Speaker 1: just it's clinical depression because you know, I can get

38:58 Speaker 1: depressed for no reason, so that's probably you know, I'm

39:00 Speaker 1: pretty sure it's a chemical imbalance, and it's definitely in

39:03 Speaker 1: my family. But I love My favorite time of year

39:07 Speaker 1: is summer, and I actually like the heat, like when

39:11 Speaker 1: it's ninety degrees outside, you know, and people are you know,

39:15 Speaker 1: i'd prefer a dry heat, but even the humidity doesn't

39:17 Speaker 1: really bother me. You know, I'm running around well, you know,

39:20 Speaker 1: you've seen me pop in at your place in Havel

39:24 Speaker 1: when it's you know, ninety degrees and I'm out running

39:26 Speaker 1: around all sweaty, but I'm fine and bother me. And

39:29 Speaker 1: I always I've always kind of assumed that part of

39:33 Speaker 1: why I like summer so much, it is my favorite

39:36 Speaker 1: time of year is because there's more sunlight, and I

39:38 Speaker 1: think the more sunlight helps alleviate depression. But I wonder

39:43 Speaker 1: too if maybe maybe the reason I like the heat

39:46 Speaker 1: it's not just because I'm weird, because people think it's weird.

39:49 Speaker 1: Really it's ninety degrees and you don't mind. I'm like, no,

39:51 Speaker 1: it's fine with me.

39:53 Speaker 2: I don't mind the heat either.

39:55 Speaker 1: Yeah, so you know, maybe it's because it's actually helping

39:58 Speaker 1: me maybe yeah, mentally.

40:00 Speaker 2: Yeah, it probably is. They know that heat. They don't

40:03 Speaker 2: know why, but they know that being in heated environment

40:06 Speaker 2: does help people with depression. The float tank that we

40:09 Speaker 2: have we put in an open float tank. A lot

40:12 Speaker 2: of float tanks and there's some great float places up

40:14 Speaker 2: here in New Hampshire. They have cabins and they have

40:17 Speaker 2: pods which have covers and for some people that's very

40:20 Speaker 2: claustrophobic and it's very difficult for people with mobility issues

40:24 Speaker 2: often to get in and out of them. So we

40:26 Speaker 2: put in a large open float tank that has a

40:29 Speaker 2: side that you can sit on. It has a metal

40:31 Speaker 2: grab bar that allows people with mobility issues to get

40:34 Speaker 2: in and out, but also for people who are claustrophobic,

40:36 Speaker 2: they can come in and use it. There's been studies

40:39 Speaker 2: where they've studied floating compared to medication for anxiety for

40:43 Speaker 2: mild to moderate, not severe anxiety, but mild to moderate

40:45 Speaker 2: anxiety compared medication to regular floating, and the people who

40:50 Speaker 2: were floating regularly saw more improvement than people on medication

40:53 Speaker 2: and no side effects. I love Western medicine. I think

40:57 Speaker 2: Western medicine is great. There are a lot of people

40:59 Speaker 2: in the world, all this industry that detagrade pharmaceutical companies on that.

41:03 Speaker 2: I think if you have an acute injury or illness,

41:06 Speaker 2: Western medicine is a great solution. If your appendix ruptures,

41:10 Speaker 2: go have a surgery. If you have pneumonia, please take

41:13 Speaker 2: an antibiotic like there are, but it comes with side effects.

41:17 Speaker 2: What the Western medicine hasn't been able to do as

41:20 Speaker 2: well is chronic illness, chronic injury. You know, immune thing,

41:26 Speaker 2: the autoimmune disorders, chronic depression, chronic anxiety. When you have

41:30 Speaker 2: those chronic illnesses, Western medicine has tools in their toolbox

41:34 Speaker 2: are pills and surgery. They are so good at diagnosis

41:38 Speaker 2: though they have X rays and cat scans and functional

41:41 Speaker 2: MRIs and all blood tests and all these things they

41:43 Speaker 2: can do to diagnose what's wrong. But their treatment toolbox

41:47 Speaker 2: is really just pills and surgery. And for some things

41:51 Speaker 2: that's great, like say your pendix ruptures, please have it

41:53 Speaker 2: taken out. That doesn't work for chronic illness, that doesn't

41:57 Speaker 2: work for chronic injury. And I was so blessed to

41:59 Speaker 2: come across a doctor when I got injured who said,

42:02 Speaker 2: go try all these other types of healing to see

42:05 Speaker 2: what works. And what I've found is and working for

42:08 Speaker 2: twenty years in wellness lots of my students have found

42:12 Speaker 2: finding the other monaalgias is how you treat chronic illness.

42:17 Speaker 2: You can't really treat it with western medicine because who

42:20 Speaker 2: wants all those side effects. But you find the other

42:22 Speaker 2: things that work, and then you have to incorporate them

42:25 Speaker 2: and make them part of your lifestyle, even when that's hard.

42:28 Speaker 2: One of the hardest things I think for people with

42:30 Speaker 2: depression is to make that consistent to keep coming. We

42:34 Speaker 2: have students that I have said to me, I struggle

42:37 Speaker 2: with depression. So when I don't show up, I'm probably

42:40 Speaker 2: And I said, I asked them, do you want me

42:42 Speaker 2: to call you? Do you want me to call you?

42:43 Speaker 2: And just like give you a little nudge. I don't

42:45 Speaker 2: like to chase students, but I'm happy to give you

42:47 Speaker 2: a little nudge and say, hey, you're doing okay. Why

42:50 Speaker 2: don't you come in and you know, commit and take

42:51 Speaker 2: a nap on the floor. Commit. And once they're in

42:54 Speaker 2: and they're with the people again, it helps. It's not

42:57 Speaker 2: going to fix it, and they not fix it for

42:59 Speaker 2: this is the The good news is it helps. The

43:02 Speaker 2: bad news is you have to do it for the

43:03 Speaker 2: rest of your life. Bad news is you're not going

43:06 Speaker 2: to be able to do. It's not a one and done.

43:08 Speaker 2: It's like brushing your teeth. You have to do it

43:10 Speaker 2: consistently to keep healthy. And so it's that idea. You

43:14 Speaker 2: have to show up for yoga two to three times

43:17 Speaker 2: a week. If you're injured, come more. If you're feeling good,

43:20 Speaker 2: go to the beach. Don't go to yoga that day.

43:22 Speaker 2: You know, the red light therapy that we do is

43:25 Speaker 2: designed to excite the mitochondria in your cells and makes

43:28 Speaker 2: people feel better, but it also heals injuries faster. There

43:32 Speaker 2: was a recent study done. It is funded by the

43:36 Speaker 2: company that makes red light therapy panels. So I always

43:39 Speaker 2: like to premise it with that full disclosure. It doesn't

43:41 Speaker 2: make it in a bad study. It just I like

43:44 Speaker 2: to disclose where the study came from. That they found

43:48 Speaker 2: the people who regularly use red light therapy, they're not

43:50 Speaker 2: sure why it decreases inflammation in the body. They're not

43:53 Speaker 2: sure why it does these things it does, but they

43:55 Speaker 2: know it works. So they found an increase of healthy

43:59 Speaker 2: gut back here and people who were regularly doing red

44:02 Speaker 2: light So it may just be that increasing your gut

44:06 Speaker 2: bacteria that's healthy. Having we know that having a healthy

44:09 Speaker 2: gut makes your whole body feel better. Yes, so the

44:12 Speaker 2: red light therapy and it's been used as a treatment

44:15 Speaker 2: medically for people with crones and colitis for a long

44:17 Speaker 2: long time.

44:17 Speaker 1: Interesting.

44:18 Speaker 2: Yeah, so they know that it's good for your gut

44:20 Speaker 2: and their gut stuff helps the whole body feel better.

44:22 Speaker 1: Yeah.

44:23 Speaker 2: The sauna is more heat to like hang out and

44:26 Speaker 2: just relax. It loosens the muscles, but also helps with depression,

44:30 Speaker 2: helps with mental health issues. The float tank, the massage,

44:33 Speaker 2: all of this works together with the yoga to get

44:36 Speaker 2: people moving and stronger and more flexible, not only in

44:40 Speaker 2: their body but also in their mind.

44:42 Speaker 1: I feel like all of this too, you know, because

44:44 Speaker 1: when you're talking about Western medicine and what it addresses

44:48 Speaker 1: well and not so well, I think it's it's probably

44:54 Speaker 1: I assume you have people who who come to you

44:57 Speaker 1: who are perfectly healthy the want to be healthier, because

45:01 Speaker 1: I feel like, and maybe maybe I shouldn't say Western

45:06 Speaker 1: medicine so much in this context. Is it may just

45:09 Speaker 1: be a broader just societal issue that we have in

45:12 Speaker 1: America where there's there's not enough. We were talking Jenny

45:16 Speaker 1: and I were talking about this recently on the show,

45:18 Speaker 1: there's never enough emphasis on preventative medicine and and just

45:25 Speaker 1: taking care of yourself up front. It seems like our

45:27 Speaker 1: whole way of doing things culturally is you address these

45:33 Speaker 1: problems when they occur, but you don't do enough. And

45:36 Speaker 1: it kind of goes back to what I was saying

45:37 Speaker 1: too about smoking. When you know a smoker who says, well,

45:40 Speaker 1: I'm okay today, there's no cancer today, you know, and

45:44 Speaker 1: then I'll address the problem when it kind of arises.

45:48 Speaker 1: And smoking is an extreme example of that, of course,

45:50 Speaker 1: but but I think most people, yeah, they're just like, yeah,

45:55 Speaker 1: you know, when when something happens, I'll address it, but

45:58 Speaker 1: until then, I assume I'm fine, when in reality, you know,

46:03 Speaker 1: it's We had someone on the show, doctor no Who

46:09 Speaker 1: from Portsmouth who was on the show with us one day,

46:11 Speaker 1: and I said to him, the the easiest thing in

46:16 Speaker 1: the world for any of us to take for granted.

46:19 Speaker 1: The number one thing that people take for granted, I

46:21 Speaker 1: believe is their health. And he said to me, not

46:26 Speaker 1: only is it the easiest thing to take for granted,

46:28 Speaker 1: it's the hardest thing to get back once something goes.

46:32 Speaker 2: From Dolly Lama. I think it was who said he

46:35 Speaker 2: has found that people will give up their health to

46:38 Speaker 2: chase money, and then when they get old and they

46:41 Speaker 2: need their health, they'll spend all their money. And yes,

46:45 Speaker 2: that quote, so I may not have got the quote

46:48 Speaker 2: perfectly right, but that's to just yeah, that idea that

46:51 Speaker 2: we things, that we monetize things in a way that

46:56 Speaker 2: will chase the money, but we'll give up ourselves in

46:59 Speaker 2: the process. And again, yoga is about finding a balance, right,

47:02 Speaker 2: so that balance of go and work but also take

47:05 Speaker 2: care of yourself. So in our classes too, there's a

47:08 Speaker 2: section of the class on the floor, the last part

47:10 Speaker 2: of the class, but we do a posture and then

47:12 Speaker 2: we lay down and rest. But we do a posture

47:14 Speaker 2: and we lay down and rest. We do a posture,

47:16 Speaker 2: we lay down and rest, and we do back and forth.

47:19 Speaker 2: And there's some physiological things going on there, but I

47:21 Speaker 2: all think it's important you're learning in that moment. Like

47:23 Speaker 2: you have to work, but as much as you work,

47:25 Speaker 2: you have to rest. You cannot constantly go go, go, go,

47:28 Speaker 2: go burn the candle. That both ends at some point

47:31 Speaker 2: you run out of candle. That's the problem. So you

47:34 Speaker 2: have to create that balance of work and rest. And

47:38 Speaker 2: it's all about balance, and that's what we're trying to

47:40 Speaker 2: teach people. How to find the balance in their life,

47:43 Speaker 2: in their strength and flexibility in their work, and relaxation

47:47 Speaker 2: in their mind and their body. How do you find

47:49 Speaker 2: the balance. It's not that you're going to be perfectly balanced.

47:53 Speaker 2: Your right arm and your left arm will be equally

47:54 Speaker 2: a strong and flexible. That's not the balance we're talking about.

47:58 Speaker 2: But it is that idea that you figure out how

48:01 Speaker 2: to live in your body in a way that you're

48:02 Speaker 2: not abusing yourself. And again that always goes back to

48:05 Speaker 2: that idea of falling in love with yourself. Right to

48:08 Speaker 2: look in the mirror over and over and over again

48:10 Speaker 2: when you come in classroom your beginner is hard. And

48:13 Speaker 2: if I struggle to watch those students who are really

48:15 Speaker 2: struggling to see themselves, I jokingly off and say look

48:18 Speaker 2: in the mirror, and if you see yourself, I'll give

48:20 Speaker 2: you extra points. Because we can look in the mirror.

48:23 Speaker 2: Many of us look in the mirror every single day

48:25 Speaker 2: to get ready to go out the door, but we

48:27 Speaker 2: don't see ourselves. So to spend ninety minutes seeing yourself

48:31 Speaker 2: that's who you truly are, is an amazing thing to

48:34 Speaker 2: watch people create that balance to get their health back.

48:37 Speaker 2: But we do have a lot of people who are fine,

48:39 Speaker 2: they're healthy, and they're coming to relieve stress maybe or whatever.

48:43 Speaker 2: They just want to Often it's something that goes with

48:45 Speaker 2: the other activity they do. They golf, but they need

48:48 Speaker 2: to get that flexibility. They run, so their hamstrings are tight,

48:52 Speaker 2: so they need to do the yoga. And they lift

48:54 Speaker 2: a lot of weight, so they need to do the yoga.

48:56 Speaker 2: So often these are people who are athletes, professional athletes

48:59 Speaker 2: and stuff. I had one hundred mile marathon. If he

49:01 Speaker 2: used to come all the time, I think, when you

49:03 Speaker 2: discover what's big and hungry and chasing you, please let

49:06 Speaker 2: me know and we'll take care of you. But he

49:09 Speaker 2: just loved to run, but he needed that. His hamsprings

49:11 Speaker 2: have started to be a problem, so you balance it

49:14 Speaker 2: out with this other stuff. You can never measure what

49:17 Speaker 2: didn't go wrong because you've taken care of yourself, right,

49:21 Speaker 2: that's the thing, right, I can't measure that. So I

49:25 Speaker 2: often say to people, I don't know where I would

49:27 Speaker 2: be without the yoga my life. And my manager, who's lovely,

49:31 Speaker 2: he always says, oh, you'd be dead by now, And

49:34 Speaker 2: I think he's probably right. I probably would have been

49:36 Speaker 2: dead by now. But he just believes that, you know,

49:39 Speaker 2: the smoking and the drinking and the chronic pain would

49:41 Speaker 2: have led me down a dangerous slope. Yeah, and I

49:44 Speaker 2: think he's right. Once my kids were no longer my

49:46 Speaker 2: responsibility to take care of every day without the yoga,

49:49 Speaker 2: I don't know what that would have looked like.

49:51 Speaker 1: But you can't measure that interesting, Yeah, because once the

49:55 Speaker 1: kids grow up, then you know, I don't have any children.

49:59 Speaker 1: I'm not a parent, but I assume and partly I

50:02 Speaker 1: hear people talk about this too. There's that sense of

50:05 Speaker 1: what is my purpose now? My purpose was to raise

50:08 Speaker 1: my children.

50:09 Speaker 2: And that purpose in combination with living in pain, because

50:13 Speaker 2: when you don't have that, when you live in that

50:15 Speaker 2: level of pain, and for some people like me, that

50:18 Speaker 2: was physical pain. For some people that's emotional pain. For

50:21 Speaker 2: some people that spiritual pain. It's chemical pain, it's that

50:24 Speaker 2: brain chemistry, whatever it is. When they don't have that

50:27 Speaker 2: reason to get out of bed in the morning, it

50:29 Speaker 2: gets easier and easier to not to stop taking care

50:33 Speaker 2: of yourself, to stop, you know, it's painful to drive

50:36 Speaker 2: the car and turn my head to try to back

50:39 Speaker 2: out of my driveway. I'm just going to stop doing it.

50:42 Speaker 1: Right.

50:42 Speaker 2: I have to do it because I have to bring

50:43 Speaker 2: the kids to school. But once they're gone, yeah, you know,

50:47 Speaker 2: and I think that's and watching people age like that,

50:50 Speaker 2: it's sad for me because I see Elaine who made

50:53 Speaker 2: a different choice. Yeah, and we have lots of students

50:55 Speaker 2: in their sixties, seventies from almost sixty, myself in their

50:58 Speaker 2: seventies eighties. We're about to celebrate Elane's ninetieth birthday in

51:02 Speaker 2: just a few years, so well, you know, there's no

51:05 Speaker 2: reason to she started at seventy two. There's no reason

51:08 Speaker 2: to think I'm too old to start, right, because I

51:12 Speaker 2: think she had. She don't tell people the reason I

51:14 Speaker 2: can come every day is because I started. I was

51:16 Speaker 2: already retired. Interesting, I could come every day because I

51:20 Speaker 2: didn't have a job in kids and stuff.

51:22 Speaker 1: Yeah, I had.

51:23 Speaker 2: She learned to take care of herself, which made her

51:25 Speaker 2: better take care of her husband. Yes, yes, so it all,

51:28 Speaker 2: you know, it all works together.

51:30 Speaker 1: I always assume Mick Jagger, you know, he's in his

51:32 Speaker 1: eighties now, but if you see recent video of him

51:35 Speaker 1: on stage, he's still you know, he runs around like

51:37 Speaker 1: he's twenty years old and he and he uh, you know,

51:41 Speaker 1: he doesn't seem to get winded. You know, he's singing

51:44 Speaker 1: and running around on stage.

51:46 Speaker 2: And I know he hasn't always had the healthiest lifestyle.

51:49 Speaker 1: Right exactly. We all know that exactly. So I just

51:52 Speaker 1: assume I don't know this, but I assume he does

51:54 Speaker 1: yoga something.

51:55 Speaker 2: And yeah, and I think you can't abuse yourself a

51:58 Speaker 2: fair bit in your twenties and thirties. I think with

52:00 Speaker 2: anyone over thirty would agree like you could abuse yourself

52:04 Speaker 2: a fair bit. The body recover is better and all

52:06 Speaker 2: of that. Once you start getting in the thirties and forty,

52:09 Speaker 2: you don't bounce back. And it's that idea. Objects in

52:11 Speaker 2: motion stay in motion, Objects at rest, stay at rest.

52:14 Speaker 2: Your one job in this world is to take care

52:16 Speaker 2: of yourself. I asked this question in class. If I

52:19 Speaker 2: told you, at sixteen, you learn to drive a car,

52:22 Speaker 2: and I'm gonna give you a car, you can have

52:24 Speaker 2: any car you want, but you can only have that

52:26 Speaker 2: car for the rest of your life. How are you

52:28 Speaker 2: going to take care of that car? How often are

52:30 Speaker 2: you going to wash it, change the oil, to take

52:32 Speaker 2: care of it, all that stuff. Most of us would say, oh,

52:36 Speaker 2: I would take such good care of that car, knowing

52:38 Speaker 2: that's the only one I'm getting. You get one body, yeah, birth,

52:42 Speaker 2: and it's got to take you from beginning to end.

52:44 Speaker 2: How are you taking care of it? And that's not

52:46 Speaker 2: for a place of guilt because you can't abuse yourself

52:48 Speaker 2: a bit for a while.

52:49 Speaker 1: Yeah, you can get away with it when you're young.

52:51 Speaker 2: Smoking, the drinking and all of that. You know, you

52:53 Speaker 2: can get away with all of that until some point

52:55 Speaker 2: where you can't anymore. And the problem is you've created

52:58 Speaker 2: the habits and the lifestyle, the patterns, the patterns that

53:01 Speaker 2: make it difficult to transition to something new. So you're right.

53:04 Speaker 2: We are hypnotizing people when I have these conversations while

53:07 Speaker 2: they're in class, sweating and I'm saying these things to

53:09 Speaker 2: them in class, I'm brainwashing. But I tell them I'm

53:12 Speaker 2: up front, it's not a secret. I'm going to brainwash you.

53:15 Speaker 2: And if I have trouble brainwashing, that's when we turn

53:17 Speaker 2: the heat up because it makes the brainwashing easier. But

53:20 Speaker 2: my goal is to brainwash you. Someone said to me,

53:22 Speaker 2: you're brainwashing. I said, we have a cult, and I said, no,

53:24 Speaker 2: we're not a cult. Cult wants to tell you what

53:26 Speaker 2: to do all the time and what to think all

53:28 Speaker 2: the time. I want you to stop thinking for ninety

53:31 Speaker 2: minutes and fall in love with yourself, because that's my

53:36 Speaker 2: evil plan of yoga, is to make people fall in

53:38 Speaker 2: love with themselves, right, because that makes the whole world better? Yes, right, yes,

53:42 Speaker 2: And that's the same when you're hypnotizing somebody and they

53:44 Speaker 2: stop smoking, you probably see it. They change how they

53:47 Speaker 2: feel about themselves. They care about themselves in a new

53:51 Speaker 2: way that getting them to stop smoking gets them to

53:54 Speaker 2: eat better, to go for a walk, more than you know,

53:56 Speaker 2: whatever it is, you see those changes. When you start

53:59 Speaker 2: just making those small steps to start being better to yourself,

54:04 Speaker 2: it builds and then it builds and it builds, and

54:06 Speaker 2: all it takes is one step. I tell you, all

54:08 Speaker 2: you have to do is walk in the door. We're

54:10 Speaker 2: going to help you do the rest, but you have

54:12 Speaker 2: to walk in the door. I can't come to your house.

54:14 Speaker 2: I wish I could. I see people in the grocery

54:16 Speaker 2: store and I go, excuse me with me. I would

54:19 Speaker 2: like you to come with me for just for an

54:21 Speaker 2: hour and a half and see if we can help

54:23 Speaker 2: you out, because it makes me sad to see people

54:25 Speaker 2: who physically are struggling. And then you see people physically struggle,

54:30 Speaker 2: but you never you can't see what's going on for

54:32 Speaker 2: the people who are not physically struggling, but struggling in

54:35 Speaker 2: lots of other ways. If you're a human being, you

54:37 Speaker 2: have trauma, you're struggling in some way, and so being

54:41 Speaker 2: able to help get that out of your way so

54:44 Speaker 2: that you're not struggling to go through life.

54:47 Speaker 1: Every day and it feels so good. It's it's like

54:51 Speaker 1: to me, I mean, it's got to be the biggest

54:54 Speaker 1: endorphin rush in the world to be able to help

54:56 Speaker 1: somebody get better, you know, it's I mean, that's what

55:01 Speaker 1: you know. To me, hypnotherapy is addictive because I just

55:05 Speaker 1: love helping somebody make make positive change, you know. It's

55:09 Speaker 1: it's uh.

55:10 Speaker 2: Someone asked me what my return on investment was in

55:12 Speaker 2: my business, but when we were transitioning from the smaller

55:15 Speaker 2: studio closing financially not in a good place, to reopening

55:19 Speaker 2: in a much bigger space with all this under wellness modalities,

55:24 Speaker 2: they were like, what's your return on investment? Well, it's Elaine,

55:28 Speaker 2: my return investment. I was a student who had kidney

55:31 Speaker 2: failure and wow, I couldn't get hi a kidney and

55:35 Speaker 2: somebody another modality, a chiropractor or an acupuncturist, had said

55:39 Speaker 2: to him, you should maybe try this. I met this

55:41 Speaker 2: woman who teaches sweaty yoga. Maybe you should go do

55:43 Speaker 2: that and like sweat, maybe that'll help, right, And and

55:46 Speaker 2: we talk about detoxic and hot yoga. You're not toxic.

55:50 Speaker 2: It does help remove metabolic waste from your body and stuff.

55:53 Speaker 2: But the students walk in, you're not toxic. You're not

55:56 Speaker 2: sitting around toxic. This guy was toxic, like he didn't

55:58 Speaker 2: have functioning kidneys to clean out his system.

56:01 Speaker 1: Wow.

56:01 Speaker 2: And we progressively watched him get better back because I

56:04 Speaker 2: asked him. I said, so you've had a kidney transplant.

56:07 Speaker 2: He said no. And I said, so you're not on

56:09 Speaker 2: dialysis of kidney failure and you didn't get a transplant.

56:12 Speaker 2: I said, how does that work? He goes, basically, I'm

56:13 Speaker 2: just waiting to die, okay, but I want to feel better.

56:18 Speaker 2: I think maybe this will help me feel better.

56:20 Speaker 1: Okay.

56:20 Speaker 2: Come eleven years later, he finally got a kidney transport.

56:23 Speaker 2: Oh my god, yeah, and he did it. Actually, he

56:26 Speaker 2: was saying the show the birthday of that place where

56:29 Speaker 2: Jennie Show is. This weekend is Saturday. My birthday is

56:31 Speaker 2: on Saturday. He got his kidney on my birthday, which

56:34 Speaker 2: was really exciting.

56:35 Speaker 1: Wow.

56:35 Speaker 2: But I watched him progressively get better and better and

56:38 Speaker 2: better and better and better and better and better over

56:40 Speaker 2: years and years and years. Yeah, just doing hot yoga

56:42 Speaker 2: and Western medicine is a funny thing because he went

56:45 Speaker 2: to his doctor, his neprologist with the kidney doctor, and

56:48 Speaker 2: they said to him, you look great.

56:50 Speaker 1: What are you doing?

56:52 Speaker 2: And he said, I'm doing hot yoga.

56:53 Speaker 1: Yeah.

56:53 Speaker 2: And the doctor said, oh, I don't know if you

56:55 Speaker 2: should be doing that. Oh really, But He's like, but

56:58 Speaker 2: you just told me how good. I look look good.

57:00 Speaker 2: My numbers look good, and I look good and I

57:02 Speaker 2: feel good and I'm living of a good quality of life.

57:05 Speaker 2: Why would you tell me that's not the thing I

57:07 Speaker 2: should be doing. It's funny that Western doctors just have

57:10 Speaker 2: this idea and also this idea of what yoga is.

57:13 Speaker 2: I think most people think yoga and they think down

57:15 Speaker 2: dog and updog and I did too. Yeah, I can't

57:18 Speaker 2: do that. I have a neck injury, I have a

57:19 Speaker 2: shoulder injury. Whatever. And we don't do any of that.

57:23 Speaker 2: It's really accessible to everybody with injuries because that's what

57:26 Speaker 2: it was designed for. It was designed for injured bodies

57:29 Speaker 2: to bring them back to health and then to let

57:31 Speaker 2: them maintain that good health into.

57:34 Speaker 1: I'm curious, and if you're just joining us, we're talking

57:37 Speaker 1: with Terry Almquist from Wellness, Hot Yoga and Haveroyl. Yeah.

57:42 Speaker 1: I was curious to ask you. You may have already

57:43 Speaker 1: answered it with what you were just saying, but maybe

57:46 Speaker 1: there's something else, like misconceptions, Like what is the biggest

57:50 Speaker 1: misconception people have about yoga.

57:53 Speaker 2: I think the biggest misconception people have is that you

57:55 Speaker 2: have to be flexible to yoga.

57:57 Speaker 1: Yeah, and you don't.

57:59 Speaker 2: I was so in fire. I hadn't moved my head

58:00 Speaker 2: in thirteen fourteen years, so inflexible. It wasn't until I

58:04 Speaker 2: actually started doing yoga that we realized I had all

58:06 Speaker 2: this problems with my shoulder too. I think in the

58:08 Speaker 2: same injury, I had probably torn a rotator cuff. When

58:12 Speaker 2: you go to an emergency room and you can't move

58:13 Speaker 2: your legs because your spine is injured, no one asks

58:16 Speaker 2: you how your shoulder feels. It's not high up on

58:20 Speaker 2: the list. And so when you have those kind of injuries,

58:25 Speaker 2: you think, I can't do yoga because I'm injured this

58:29 Speaker 2: and that may be true of and I found that

58:31 Speaker 2: true for myself. And I'm not denigraating other styles of yoga.

58:33 Speaker 2: I think all yoga is good yoga, and not all

58:36 Speaker 2: yoga is made for all bodies. Right, So if you're

58:40 Speaker 2: an injured body, you're not You shouldn't be going into

58:43 Speaker 2: a class with the first thing they start with this

58:44 Speaker 2: ham stands.

58:45 Speaker 1: Right.

58:46 Speaker 2: If you've ever done yoga and you go into a

58:48 Speaker 2: class and they're starting and you have a spine injury

58:49 Speaker 2: and they start with headstands, you're in.

58:51 Speaker 1: The wrong yoga class.

58:53 Speaker 2: Because ours is designed from a therapeutic yoga standpoint, was

58:57 Speaker 2: done as yoga therapy. Every single post is designed for

59:00 Speaker 2: people who have almost no mobility. The first step of

59:04 Speaker 2: a lot of the postures when we're standing is stand

59:05 Speaker 2: with your feet together, and for some people that's it.

59:08 Speaker 2: That's hard enough. Yeah, bring your arms over your head.

59:10 Speaker 2: There's nothing we do that's really crazy. There's nothing we do,

59:14 Speaker 2: first of all, in this particular style of yoga that's

59:16 Speaker 2: outside the natural range of motion for the adult human body. Okay,

59:20 Speaker 2: And we do no weight bearing exercises on non weight

59:23 Speaker 2: bearing joints, meaning we're not standing on our head or

59:26 Speaker 2: our hands, we're not doing All of the poses we

59:29 Speaker 2: do are designed to work with the way the human

59:32 Speaker 2: body is actually designed to bear weight. Okay, So and

59:36 Speaker 2: you could just do that little bit. So people, I

59:38 Speaker 2: can't sit on my heels, can't. I can't get up

59:40 Speaker 2: and down off the floor. I hear that a lot.

59:42 Speaker 2: That's a common misconception. I can't do yoga because I

59:44 Speaker 2: can't get up and down off the floor. And in

59:46 Speaker 2: some yogas that's true. They're doing down dog up dog chataranga.

59:50 Speaker 2: That's a very traditional set of postures that are done

59:53 Speaker 2: in vidyasa in different styles of yoga. Yeah, we don't

59:56 Speaker 2: do that, So there's no up and down.

59:58 Speaker 1: You're up standing up for the first.

1:00:00 Speaker 2: Part of class, and then we get on the floor

1:00:02 Speaker 2: once and we stay on the floor till the end.

1:00:04 Speaker 1: Oh, so you only have.

1:00:06 Speaker 2: To get up once and down once. That's it.

1:00:09 Speaker 1: Oh okay.

1:00:10 Speaker 2: Yeah, that's why it's really a different it's a different

1:00:12 Speaker 2: conception concept of yoga than a lot of yoga that

1:00:15 Speaker 2: people are sort of conscious of.

1:00:18 Speaker 1: It yeah, yeah, and do do do kids do yoga?

1:00:21 Speaker 2: We kids as young as eight can do this yoga.

1:00:25 Speaker 2: Kids do the only do the portion on the floor.

1:00:27 Speaker 2: They're already flexible. They're just made out of rubber band

1:00:30 Speaker 2: in bubble gum. Yeah right, And they don't have the

1:00:32 Speaker 2: muscle strength to hold We only hold the postures twenty

1:00:36 Speaker 2: thirty seconds. But some of them that's the challenge, Like

1:00:38 Speaker 2: it's difficult to hold that posture for twenty to thirty seconds.

1:00:42 Speaker 1: Yeah.

1:00:43 Speaker 2: For children who don't have that muscle strength, what happens

1:00:46 Speaker 2: is they can get very deep into postures and they

1:00:48 Speaker 2: can't hold it. So we don't have them do And

1:00:51 Speaker 2: they don't need to warm up the heat all the

1:00:53 Speaker 2: first part of class is warming up and the heat

1:00:55 Speaker 2: to get ready for the yoga practice, which happens on

1:00:57 Speaker 2: the floor. Kids don't need to warm up. They're already warm,

1:01:00 Speaker 2: they're already limber, they're already all those things. So I'm

1:01:03 Speaker 2: seeing less and less. I'm seeing more and more younger

1:01:05 Speaker 2: kids who have less flexibility. I think they don't run

1:01:08 Speaker 2: around like we used to do. Oh interesting to they

1:01:11 Speaker 2: don't have gym like we used to. So I see

1:01:14 Speaker 2: kids who have less flexibility, but they come in for

1:01:18 Speaker 2: the back half of class, so they usually they're usually

1:01:21 Speaker 2: coming because their parents come and they're interested, and they

1:01:25 Speaker 2: start coming because of that. So under the age of

1:01:28 Speaker 2: fourteen thirteen fourteen, they just do that last part of class.

1:01:32 Speaker 2: Once they get old enough to sweat efficiently, that's the

1:01:34 Speaker 2: other problem. You don't want to put a kid that

1:01:36 Speaker 2: age in the heated room for ninety minutes because children don't.

1:01:40 Speaker 2: Part of the reason we have the heat is to

1:01:42 Speaker 2: make you sweat, and that sweat helps you efficiently.

1:01:45 Speaker 1: Cool your own body, okay.

1:01:47 Speaker 2: And so we want you to be heated up so

1:01:50 Speaker 2: you're limber sweating so you don't overheat, which sounds counterintuitive,

1:01:54 Speaker 2: like if I make you hot and sweaty, you won't overheat.

1:01:56 Speaker 2: But as the sweat is evaporating, your body is staying.

1:02:00 Speaker 2: It's normal for temperature. The room is hoppy, you are not.

1:02:04 Speaker 2: Children can't cool themselves like that because they don't have

1:02:07 Speaker 2: mature sweat lamps. Children can overheat much more quickly than adults.

1:02:12 Speaker 2: So we don't want little kids in the room. Yeah,

1:02:15 Speaker 2: we don't want little and they can go from being

1:02:17 Speaker 2: fine to being not fine and just really fast with

1:02:20 Speaker 2: a delta takes a little longer. So as teachers, the

1:02:23 Speaker 2: part of the training we have we're looking for certain signs.

1:02:25 Speaker 2: If somebody's overheating, if they stop sweating, if they you know,

1:02:29 Speaker 2: there's certain things we're looking for. A certain color of

1:02:32 Speaker 2: the skin, they get paler or they get pinker. I

1:02:35 Speaker 2: always tell my teachers if you have a little a

1:02:36 Speaker 2: younger person in the class and they start looking like

1:02:39 Speaker 2: they have a bit of a sunburn on their face,

1:02:41 Speaker 2: they need to go outside and cool off for a minute.

1:02:43 Speaker 2: They're not cooling themselves. Same with adults. We have a

1:02:46 Speaker 2: delta will turn Some adults just turn very red. They'll

1:02:48 Speaker 2: tell you I turn red. You know. Some people are

1:02:50 Speaker 2: just ready like that. But we're looking for certain signs.

1:02:53 Speaker 2: The teacher stands at the front of the room. We

1:02:55 Speaker 2: stand on a podium. I wear a headset and I'm talking,

1:02:58 Speaker 2: but I'm looking at everybody all the time, so I'm

1:03:01 Speaker 2: watching to make sure everybody's okay. Kids who are thirteen fourteen,

1:03:06 Speaker 2: they start sweating, they can come and try the whole class.

1:03:09 Speaker 2: I ask parents who want to bring their kids to class.

1:03:11 Speaker 2: Does your kid wear deodorant every day? Or did your

1:03:14 Speaker 2: kid wear deodorant to the school dance. So if they're

1:03:17 Speaker 2: still just wearing deodorant, if they only really need it

1:03:19 Speaker 2: for the school dance or something very physical, they're probably

1:03:22 Speaker 2: not sweating efficiently enough. Yet a kid who needs deodorant

1:03:27 Speaker 2: every day to go to school, they're probably.

1:03:29 Speaker 1: Sweating efficiently okay.

1:03:31 Speaker 2: And then if you practice enough and you come a lot,

1:03:35 Speaker 2: then you don't need deodorant at all, because your sweat

1:03:38 Speaker 2: is very clean.

1:03:39 Speaker 1: Okay, it's fascinating. Yeah, yeah, oh that's very interesting. Yeah,

1:03:44 Speaker 1: the subject of deodorant came up recently on the show too.

1:03:46 Speaker 1: I forget who we're talking with, but how it's really

1:03:50 Speaker 1: not great for you, Like this, the regular store brand deodorant.

1:03:54 Speaker 2: Stuff is fine. To not smell is good. Yeah, we

1:03:57 Speaker 2: live in a social world.

1:03:58 Speaker 1: But there's like like or but you are.

1:04:01 Speaker 2: Designed to sweat to cool yourself. Sweat is actually a

1:04:05 Speaker 2: natural reaction to either temperature or change phys a logical

1:04:09 Speaker 2: change in your body, like stress and that kind of stuff.

1:04:11 Speaker 2: And we all know stress sweat spells different than just

1:04:15 Speaker 2: like every day sweat, and if you sweat regularly, this

1:04:19 Speaker 2: is like way too much information. The spell is actually

1:04:23 Speaker 2: bacteria that's growing on your skin.

1:04:26 Speaker 1: Oh, that's what the spell is.

1:04:28 Speaker 2: And if you sweat regularly, that bacteria is it's cleaned

1:04:32 Speaker 2: up there. And so I have to be like too

1:04:36 Speaker 2: much information about me. I don't think I've won the

1:04:38 Speaker 2: yodor In in fifteen years. Except to fly. I don't like

1:04:42 Speaker 2: to fly. I'm a nervous flyer. Maybe I should get

1:04:44 Speaker 2: a little hypnosis. I doing a retreat in Thailand. It

1:04:48 Speaker 2: may I'm gonna have to fly to Thailand. I usually

1:04:50 Speaker 2: fly with my manager, which I refer to on the

1:04:52 Speaker 2: plane as my emotional support. I'm going by myself on

1:04:56 Speaker 2: this trip. Maybe a little hypnosis will help.

1:05:00 Speaker 1: I have helped people that specifically I do fly.

1:05:03 Speaker 2: I'm not afraid of flying. I'm just I don't. I

1:05:05 Speaker 2: just I'm nervous on the plane. Yeah, but where to

1:05:08 Speaker 2: Yoda because that's nervous sweat. It's not my every day.

1:05:10 Speaker 2: Oh but I go in a heated room several times

1:05:13 Speaker 2: a day and sweat.

1:05:14 Speaker 1: Yeah.

1:05:14 Speaker 2: And I haven't won Toyoda in the years. And you've

1:05:17 Speaker 2: been around me. Nobody's been playing so far, No, everybody.

1:05:21 Speaker 2: So that constantly sweating is good for your skin and

1:05:24 Speaker 2: your body too. Like we talked about detoxing if part

1:05:27 Speaker 2: of that.

1:05:27 Speaker 1: Is that idea that yeah, yeah, yeah, that's interesting. Yeah.

1:05:32 Speaker 1: I have helped people with that fear of flying. I

1:05:34 Speaker 1: have my my only issue with see, I don't mind

1:05:37 Speaker 1: being Like being in that big metal tube in the

1:05:39 Speaker 1: air doesn't bother me at all. I don't like airports.

1:05:42 Speaker 1: Airports are stressful. Well like that Manchester. Have you ever flown?

1:05:46 Speaker 2: I love flying out of man.

1:05:47 Speaker 1: Manchester is awesome. That airport is so it's so small,

1:05:50 Speaker 1: it's easy.

1:05:52 Speaker 2: I think for me, it's on the plane. I call

1:05:53 Speaker 2: it big in the tube. Just being in the tube, Yeah,

1:05:56 Speaker 2: I don't it's a really uncomfortable thing for me.

1:05:59 Speaker 1: Although physically that it can be hard for me because

1:06:01 Speaker 1: my ears, especially on the descent. You know, people get

1:06:05 Speaker 1: the ear popping. I get the pressure in my ears

1:06:08 Speaker 1: sometimes gets really bad, like I've I've had I've been

1:06:12 Speaker 1: in intense pain. Intends to happen on the descent. Not

1:06:17 Speaker 1: every time I've flown, but a couple of times.

1:06:19 Speaker 2: I was a sick kid and I had a lot

1:06:20 Speaker 2: of chronic ear infection.

1:06:22 Speaker 1: Oh that's right, We're talking about that the other day.

1:06:23 Speaker 2: Yeah, And so I actually understand that too much pressure

1:06:27 Speaker 2: flying is better for me now though, unfortunately, because of

1:06:31 Speaker 2: I had COVID and I flew during while I had

1:06:33 Speaker 2: COVID and I had problems with drugs, I ended up

1:06:36 Speaker 2: with tubes in my ears that are pretty permanent. Yeah,

1:06:38 Speaker 2: but now I don't have that pressure change because I

1:06:40 Speaker 2: have tubes.

1:06:41 Speaker 1: Yeah that's good.

1:06:42 Speaker 2: Yeah it's good, but it's not good, you know, I'd

1:06:44 Speaker 2: rather not have the tubes.

1:06:45 Speaker 1: And yeah, of course, of course we should talk about too. Uh,

1:06:50 Speaker 1: you've got the big open house. You've got a big

1:06:52 Speaker 1: event that starts tomorrow.

1:06:54 Speaker 2: Tomorrow, So our capp is tomorrow. So as I said,

1:06:58 Speaker 2: this coming Saturday to fourteenth is my birthday, and every

1:07:02 Speaker 2: year for my birthday at the yoga studio, what I

1:07:03 Speaker 2: do is gift other people yoga because the greatest gift

1:07:07 Speaker 2: you can give me for my birthday is to take

1:07:09 Speaker 2: care of yourself and learn and learn the tools to

1:07:12 Speaker 2: do that. Put those tools in your toolbox. So we

1:07:15 Speaker 2: have an open house all next week, kick off tomorrow

1:07:18 Speaker 2: from seven to noon. We're gonna have healthy snacks and

1:07:21 Speaker 2: some healthy beverages and come and see the float tank,

1:07:25 Speaker 2: try out the red light, take a free suna, take

1:07:27 Speaker 2: a free yoga class. All next week yoga is free

1:07:31 Speaker 2: all of our yoga classes, so we teach primarily this

1:07:34 Speaker 2: Bickram hot yoga. We also have several Yin classes a

1:07:37 Speaker 2: week in the evening. Yin is a slower yoga class.

1:07:41 Speaker 2: Deeper stretches held for long, postures are held for long

1:07:46 Speaker 2: periods of time. Oh wow, it's a nice compliment to

1:07:49 Speaker 2: the hot yoga. Yeah, not, it's therapeutic. Good. All yoga

1:07:53 Speaker 2: is good and therapeutic. But if you're really badly injured,

1:07:56 Speaker 2: the hot yoga is the one you want to do,

1:07:57 Speaker 2: and then the yin is good for creating more flexible

1:08:00 Speaker 2: once you are generally healthy. Okay, So all our classes

1:08:05 Speaker 2: are free next week, also all month. For my birthday,

1:08:08 Speaker 2: we're doing twenty five dollars float therapy sessions. So it's

1:08:12 Speaker 2: usually seventy, we're doing twenty. We're pragnically giving it away.

1:08:15 Speaker 2: Come and float for an hour. In case you don't

1:08:16 Speaker 2: know what float is, it's a tank filled with saline solution.

1:08:20 Speaker 2: There's one thousand pounds of Ebsen salt in this tank,

1:08:23 Speaker 2: so it's high in all those minerals and magnesium. Most

1:08:27 Speaker 2: people know like an Ebsence salt bath is great if

1:08:29 Speaker 2: you're injured, if your muscle's hurt. It's also good for

1:08:31 Speaker 2: people have trouble sleeping. It's good for anxiety.

1:08:33 Speaker 1: Okay.

1:08:34 Speaker 2: By getting in a tank full of salt water, you

1:08:36 Speaker 2: become weightless. Yeah, So it takes the pressure off the

1:08:39 Speaker 2: nerves and the muscles and the joints. So people with

1:08:43 Speaker 2: chronic illness like fibromyalgia, oh arthritis, bad backs, pregnancy, pregnant

1:08:49 Speaker 2: women can float. We actually have a prenatal yoga class

1:08:52 Speaker 2: that we do once a week, and we have prenatal

1:08:54 Speaker 2: massage float and massage float and.

1:09:02 Speaker 1: Not the sauna.

1:09:03 Speaker 2: I can't remember what the other thing is. I'm so sorry.

1:09:05 Speaker 1: Well, you got a lot going on.

1:09:06 Speaker 2: I know, we got a lot going on. We do

1:09:08 Speaker 2: postpartum Oh, that's what I'm saying. Postpartum. The red light

1:09:10 Speaker 2: therapy is good. But no red lighte therapy during pregnancy,

1:09:13 Speaker 2: just because there's never been any studies and nobody's going

1:09:16 Speaker 2: to take that risk to try and study that.

1:09:17 Speaker 1: I'm sure.

1:09:18 Speaker 2: Yeah, But postpartum red light therapy helps the body heal faster,

1:09:22 Speaker 2: which is good for nursing mothers. It's very good. So

1:09:25 Speaker 2: we offer a lot of that stuff. So the massage

1:09:29 Speaker 2: and the float therapy are on special all month, Okay,

1:09:33 Speaker 2: ninety nine dollars for one hour massage and twenty five

1:09:38 Speaker 2: dollars for one hour float nice, and the float therapy

1:09:41 Speaker 2: is I want people to do yoga because I think

1:09:44 Speaker 2: you have to do the work to make yourself well.

1:09:46 Speaker 2: You can't. You were talking about medicine. Can't taking medicine

1:09:49 Speaker 2: instead of taking care of yourself because one is passive

1:09:51 Speaker 2: and one is active, and it's so easy to just

1:09:54 Speaker 2: do the passive thing. And I think Western medicine and

1:09:56 Speaker 2: pharmaceutical companies have sold us on this idea of you

1:09:59 Speaker 2: don't have to care yourself. It's better living through chemistry.

1:10:02 Speaker 2: Remember those commercials, Yes chemistry. So they've sold us on

1:10:07 Speaker 2: this side of the here that we don't have to

1:10:08 Speaker 2: do the work. We offer both. We have the passive stuff.

1:10:11 Speaker 2: You could sit in the flow tank, you could sit

1:10:12 Speaker 2: in the red light. But doing the work and the

1:10:14 Speaker 2: yoga is so important because all this other stuff that

1:10:17 Speaker 2: we offer was put there to help support the work

1:10:21 Speaker 2: you're doing in the yoga practice. Yeah, but everybody's welcome.

1:10:24 Speaker 2: You don't have to do yoga to come and use

1:10:26 Speaker 2: the other stuff. Just you don't have to be a member.

1:10:28 Speaker 2: That's often a misconception, right to be amember the yoga studio. No,

1:10:31 Speaker 2: anybody can walk in and do a float. Anybody can

1:10:33 Speaker 2: walk in and get a massage. We have five massage therapists.

1:10:36 Speaker 2: We offer massage seven days a week. Wow, it's hard

1:10:38 Speaker 2: to find.

1:10:39 Speaker 1: So yeah, I was gonna say, yeah, that is. Yeah.

1:10:42 Speaker 2: So we do days and evenings and weekends and we

1:10:45 Speaker 2: are open as a center and sixty five days a year.

1:10:49 Speaker 1: Yeah.

1:10:49 Speaker 2: We actually have yoga classes on Christmas and Thanksgiving and

1:10:52 Speaker 2: for a lot of people those are the days they

1:10:54 Speaker 2: needed either, because loneliness is a major disease.

1:10:57 Speaker 1: Oh that's interesting. Oh so you actually offer that, yeah somethings.

1:11:00 Speaker 2: Yeah, And some people really have said to me, I'm

1:11:03 Speaker 2: so grateful that I can come to my yoga before

1:11:05 Speaker 2: I spend the day with my family, because the family

1:11:08 Speaker 2: can be stressful, and families can be messy and they're

1:11:10 Speaker 2: you know, but when you're taking care of yourself and

1:11:12 Speaker 2: you come from a messy family, sometimes that's hard to

1:11:14 Speaker 2: back in there to be able to come on Christmas

1:11:17 Speaker 2: morning and then go spend time with people that you

1:11:21 Speaker 2: know and be okay in yourself and yeah, calm and

1:11:24 Speaker 2: okay in yourself.

1:11:25 Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely, that's all.

1:11:27 Speaker 2: We're messy. We clean them up right right.

1:11:30 Speaker 1: There you go, there you go. So the open house

1:11:31 Speaker 1: starts tomorrow and then it goes through. It's for the week.

1:11:34 Speaker 2: The whole week. The whole week is free yoga, and

1:11:36 Speaker 2: the whole month for the float and the massages on sale.

1:11:39 Speaker 2: And to cap off the end of the week, which

1:11:41 Speaker 2: is my actual birthday, we'll have free yoga next Saturday

1:11:44 Speaker 2: as well, but also in the evening the community because

1:11:46 Speaker 2: we do community events. We're doing a riverboat cruise down

1:11:49 Speaker 2: the Merrimack that goes from behind the tap in downtown

1:11:52 Speaker 2: heybral and then afterwards this cake back at the studio

1:11:55 Speaker 2: and anyone's talking.

1:11:56 Speaker 1: Oh cake, very cool.

1:11:58 Speaker 2: Yeah, So we're more than just you know, it's really

1:12:00 Speaker 2: community and that's that idea of loneliness is really hard,

1:12:03 Speaker 2: but we create a community. So especially, I think it's

1:12:05 Speaker 2: hard to make new friends when you're an adult, and

1:12:08 Speaker 2: it's hard to a lot of people lost a lot

1:12:10 Speaker 2: of their community during COVID and they're not working in

1:12:13 Speaker 2: the office anymore. They've stayed home to work. So if

1:12:16 Speaker 2: you're somebody who's feeling a little on the lonely side

1:12:18 Speaker 2: and think you need a community. Come and check us

1:12:20 Speaker 2: out just to meet some people and make some new

1:12:23 Speaker 2: friends and find a space where you can come and

1:12:25 Speaker 2: be chilled out and relaxed and be with people. Yeah,

1:12:28 Speaker 2: and you don't even have to be that social. We

1:12:30 Speaker 2: come in for an hour and a half class. You

1:12:32 Speaker 2: don't have to talk to anybody with them.

1:12:35 Speaker 1: Yeah, I would imagine this. There's probably some people who

1:12:38 Speaker 1: it's their first time, maybe they're a little shy or whatnot,

1:12:40 Speaker 1: and then they you probably see it right. Over time,

1:12:43 Speaker 1: people kind of open up and they they become more

1:12:45 Speaker 1: social if we.

1:12:46 Speaker 2: Try to help that along. One of the things we

1:12:48 Speaker 2: do at the studio is when you come in your

1:12:50 Speaker 2: first time, or we make an effort to introduce you

1:12:53 Speaker 2: to somebody who's been coming for a while, just to

1:12:55 Speaker 2: say like, oh, by the way, hey Matt, this is Elaney.

1:12:57 Speaker 2: Lane comes every day and people come down when they

1:13:00 Speaker 2: meet a link because she's she tells yoga every day.

1:13:03 Speaker 2: But she absolutely looks like an eighty eight year old lady,

1:13:06 Speaker 2: Like that's you know, that's what she looks like. And

1:13:10 Speaker 2: you started to go like, oh, she can do this,

1:13:12 Speaker 2: I can do this, and just didn't have somebody else

1:13:15 Speaker 2: there that you know their name, you know, And I

1:13:18 Speaker 2: always tell people we do a posture where we put

1:13:19 Speaker 2: our arms out to the side and say say hello

1:13:21 Speaker 2: to your neighbor, and if you don't know your neighbor's name,

1:13:23 Speaker 2: please introduce yourself after class. Yeah, that's how we take

1:13:25 Speaker 2: a class and make it a community. We have people

1:13:28 Speaker 2: that are members of our community that do not practice yoga.

1:13:31 Speaker 2: We have spouses, some people who practice to come to

1:13:33 Speaker 2: our potlucks and our other events. We know them, and

1:13:35 Speaker 2: we know them. We feel like we know them well

1:13:37 Speaker 2: and they're part of our community. So you don't have

1:13:40 Speaker 2: to practice yoga to be part of that community. You

1:13:42 Speaker 2: just have to come in the door.

1:13:43 Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that's really cool, especially you know, we

1:13:46 Speaker 1: live in an era where you know, there are there

1:13:48 Speaker 1: are online communities, and I think I think for some

1:13:50 Speaker 1: people that's interacting with online communities and social media has

1:13:56 Speaker 1: kind of supplanted what was at one time more actually

1:13:59 Speaker 1: going out and seeing people. So I think it's I

1:14:02 Speaker 1: think what you're doing when you talk about community, I

1:14:04 Speaker 1: think that's really important.

1:14:06 Speaker 2: And I think a lot of community is built around that,

1:14:09 Speaker 2: going out drinking and eating and all this stuff, and

1:14:11 Speaker 2: if you're struggling with those things in your life, to

1:14:13 Speaker 2: have another place that isn't that it's it's often very hard,

1:14:17 Speaker 2: especially for people, if you give up smoking and drinking

1:14:20 Speaker 2: that what do I do? That You often sometimes lose

1:14:23 Speaker 2: your social group. Yeah, and I think that in recovery,

1:14:28 Speaker 2: a lot of people find loneliness. They come from families

1:14:31 Speaker 2: that have drinking or drugs as part of their social interaction,

1:14:35 Speaker 2: and you know, and so to find a place where

1:14:38 Speaker 2: you can feel like you fit in. I'm not saying

1:14:40 Speaker 2: you have to give up smoking and drinking to come

1:14:42 Speaker 2: to yoga either, but it's a new place to go

1:14:45 Speaker 2: that isn't the old patterns. And it's all focused on

1:14:49 Speaker 2: being good to yourself and feeling good about yourself as

1:14:51 Speaker 2: opposed to hiding how you're feeling and hiding who you

1:14:55 Speaker 2: are and hiding all that stuff. Come and be exactly

1:14:57 Speaker 2: who you are.

1:14:58 Speaker 1: Right right. No, I think that's wonderful. I think that's wonderful. Well,

1:15:02 Speaker 1: so before we run out of time, Oh, the website.

1:15:06 Speaker 2: Website wellness hot yoga dot com. We just got a

1:15:11 Speaker 2: new website. I hope everybody enjoys it. All the information

1:15:13 Speaker 2: about the open houses on there, as well as anything

1:15:16 Speaker 2: about our other services that we offer. You're always welcome

1:15:20 Speaker 2: to call the phone number nine seven eight six eight

1:15:23 Speaker 2: nine nine six four two. I tell people what rings

1:15:26 Speaker 2: through to my cell phone, so you know, if somebody's

1:15:28 Speaker 2: there to answer the phone, somebody will try to answer

1:15:30 Speaker 2: the phone. And just stop in. It's at thirty four

1:15:34 Speaker 2: Miramax Street in downtown Haveril, in this beautiful new Harbor

1:15:37 Speaker 2: Place building across from the big giant new coming parking garage.

1:15:42 Speaker 2: Right now they've taken down the parking garage. We have

1:15:43 Speaker 2: quite a bit of construction going on across the street.

1:15:46 Speaker 2: But come by and just stop in. We have a

1:15:47 Speaker 2: lovely meditation You and I have sat in the meditation

1:15:50 Speaker 2: area chatted. We always have tea back there. People can sit,

1:15:54 Speaker 2: Anyone can wander and have a cup of tea, talk

1:15:56 Speaker 2: to us, find out what we're offering. There's no obligation

1:15:59 Speaker 2: to do.

1:16:00 Speaker 1: Anything, but yeah, yeah, absolutely no. I think it's awesome.

1:16:04 Speaker 1: I think it's awesome. Well, I'm glad. I'm glad you

1:16:06 Speaker 1: got here early because I knew we'd have a lot

1:16:08 Speaker 1: to talk about. This has been wonderful, so thank you

1:16:11 Speaker 1: Terry and I also want to remind people too before

1:16:14 Speaker 1: we go. Of course, this coming Friday night, John Poussette

1:16:17 Speaker 1: Dart will be at the or actually the John poussett

1:16:20 Speaker 1: Dart Duo will be performing at the Rex Theater right

1:16:23 Speaker 1: here in Manchester. And if you miss it, John called

1:16:25 Speaker 1: in at the top of the second hour and really

1:16:28 Speaker 1: enjoyed talking with him. And of course don't forget also

1:16:31 Speaker 1: one week from today and we'll talk about it. Of

1:16:33 Speaker 1: course next Saturday, but September fourteenth, from four to eight

1:16:37 Speaker 1: pm on Hannover Street, the Mosaic Art Collective proudly presents

1:16:43 Speaker 1: their annual full Circle the Speed of Light as they

1:16:46 Speaker 1: celebrate their birthday as well. And Jenny has one of

1:16:50 Speaker 1: one of her amazing paintings hanging up there. So proud

1:16:53 Speaker 1: of her. And she'll be back next week. She's a

1:16:55 Speaker 1: little under the weather, but she'll be here with us

1:16:58 Speaker 1: next week and we'll uh, we'll close out with a

1:17:01 Speaker 1: song in a moment, but Terry, thank you again so much,

1:17:04 Speaker 1: and we will uh, we will leave you with this.

1:17:07 Speaker 1: I haven't played this in a while. This is a

1:17:08 Speaker 1: song called Reconnection from Eons Encoded and uh, this is uh,

1:17:12 Speaker 1: this is a great way to uh to end the show,

1:17:14 Speaker 1: I think, but uh, Terry almquis Wellness, Hot Yoga and haverl.

1:17:18 Speaker 1: Absolutely thank you and if you missed any part of

1:17:21 Speaker 1: today's show, it'll be up in just a little bit

1:17:23 Speaker 1: w mnhradio dot org and my website Matt Connorton dot com.

1:17:26 Speaker 1: I'll talk to you a little bit later. Bye, everybody,