Ask Me Anything | Season 7, Episode 1

 

We’re back with Season Seven!

This season it’s going to be me — and you. Liz is moving onto bigger and better things (hi and thanks, Liz!), so as we dive in here together, I would love for you to be more involved!

To kick us off with that, I have an invitation and a giveaway for you. Stay tuned until the end of the episode for how you can enter to win! Hint: it might be a one year free membership in our online studio, Curvy Yoga Studio (psst…yes, it’s definitely that!).

Before that, I get into the questions that came in for this Ask Me Anything episode. The questions cover everything from if it’s okay to not have a passion, whether or not I practice yoga with Nic, my best advice for new dog parents (and my dog’s favorite pose when he does yoga with me), my postpartum body acceptance journey, my thoughts on music in yoga, and more! It’s a wide ranging and fun conversation with some new music and a funny question at the end (stay tuned all the way to the very end for that).

So glad to be back! Thank you for listening!

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Transcript

We are really excited to be offering transcripts for our podcast episodes now! Our first one is below.

[00:00:04] Welcome to Love, Curvy Yoga, the podcast where we believe that you can do yoga today, right now. Nothing about you has to change. And if it does, then you need different yoga, not a different body. Now let’s get into it.

[00:00:26] Hi there, Anna here. Welcome back! We are here for Season 7 of this podcast, which is pretty hard to believe. And this season, it is just going to be yours truly. I loved doing season six with Liz. Many thanks to her. Hi, If you’re listening! Liz is moving on to bigger and better things. So the new structure of the podcast is going to be me exploring what’s fresh for me, the conversations that we’re having around the studio, and in conversation with you. So I would love for you to be more involved this season! And to that end, please stay tuned to the very end of this episode for your first invitation and a giveaway.

 

[00:01:21] This episode is brought to you by our online yoga studio, Curvy Yoga Studio. If you have been wanting a Curvy Yoga Studio next door now, you can have one in your living room. Visit the link in our show notes at CurvYoga.studio/join to join us.

 

[00:01:43] Today’s episode is an Ask Me Anything episode, and I asked for questions from our community, on email and on social media, and I got a number of great questions I’m really excited to answer. So we’re just going to get started.

[00:01:59] The first question comes from Kim and she says, What is your indicator that you are on track? Is it happiness? Is it being passionate about life? Is it checking all the boxes? I feel like I’m in a groove that I haven’t been in most of my life. And I feel satisfied and happy and joyful in the world sometimes. But I don’t have passion about anything, or not like I used to. I’m not sure that’s OK.

[00:02:26] So when I got this email, I responded to Kim right away and said, Oh my gosh, this has been me for the past five years. And she responded back and said she was really glad to hear that she wasn’t alone. So, yeah, this is a big one. I really have been feeling this way for probably at least five years.

[00:02:51] And it’s funny, I kept thinking this feeling would change and that it had to change, that it wasn’t OK if it didn’t change. And I have spent many long conversations with friends lamenting this to the point that they probably got tired about it, tired of hearing about it. I have talked about it in therapy. I have hired business coaches, really run the gamut, trying to address this issue of things are good, but I don’t have that same driving passion that I used to. And is there a problem with that?

[00:03:30] And I think what the point I’m at right now is relaxing, I was going to say settling, but I think relaxing is a better word, into that this might be my new normal and that that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. I can stop problematizing something that’s not a problem. Someone I love on this topic is Elizabeth Gilbert. So she says and I’ll just start a quote from her. “You spend a lot of your life having people tell you to follow your passion. It’s nice advice. It’s heartwarming advice. It’s great advice. If you happen to have one that’s very clear and obvious.” So she goes on to talk about how if you don’t have a very obvious passion, and I think that that can mean in this moment, not that you never have necessarily, the whole idea of passion can make you feel pretty bad, like you’re missing out on something. So instead, she shifts the focus and says, follow your curiosity. She says, “passion is rare. Passion is a one night stand. Passion is hot. It burns. Every day, you can’t access that.” And as I’m sure you know, for if you’ve been listening for a while, I love curiosity. I think it’s a really important part of yoga and of just life in general.

[00:04:56] So what she says here really relates to my interest and belief in seasonality as well. Because, you know how sometimes I talk about when I think about the long term view of my yoga practice, like if I think about it as something that will last the rest of my life, then it makes sense to me that sometimes I’ll do it more, sometimes I’ll do it less. Sometimes it’ll be more physically intense, sometimes less. And I think the same is true here. So it makes sense to me that I won’t be passionate all the time when I think about my life as having various seasons. And I don’t think that the passionate season of my life is over. It’s more I’m in a cycle. And what’s interesting is when I first started feeling this way, I actually could recognize that. And I was fine with it. I was like, oh, it’s fine. You know, I’m just not kind of feeling that fire I used to right now, I’m sure it’ll come back in a couple weeks. Then it was maybe a few months. And then it was like, is this going to last six months? A year?? More years??? So the longer it got, the more uncomfortable I became. And I realized that I am not comfortable sitting in this space of okayness and enoughness, which is, you know, interesting and something for therapy and also something that I’m giving my self more space around, because I also feel like part of this might just be where I am in my life.

[00:06:35] Because when I was in my early 20s, for example, I was passionate about everything all of the time to the point of being extremely obnoxious. And, you know, I think passion is equated with many good things in our society, like being passionate is seen as wonderful. And I’m certainly not saying that it’s not. But the way that that showed up for me did not result in me feeling good. So in the beginning of this question, Kim said, I feel satisfied and happy and joyful sometimes. So I did not usually feel that way when I was passionate. So that’s not to say that’s true for everyone, but for me that passion burned a little too hot. And I usually ended up burnt out with migraines, fatigued, really just through the wringer. And I am interested in this kind of parallel between these two. So it’s not that passion has to mean that you’re happy or unhappy. And I think that the reverse can be true as well. So it’s kind of a vise versa where it doesn’t have to mean that if you’re not passionate, then something’s wrong or you’re off in your energy or anything like that.

[00:08:00] So I would say where I am right now is that I am following my therapist’s advice on orienting toward aliveness. And what brings me pleasure and joy. So if what I’m doing brings me pleasure in work, for example, then I don’t know that it matters whether or not I feel passionate about it, because maybe passion doesn’t need to be my blueprint or framework or destination or end goal or any of those things. But maybe that sense of quiet satisfaction is where I am right now. And, you know, this all kind of ties back to what I’ve been talking about here on the podcast for a while, which is finding a simpler and slower pace of life. So it makes sense to me on that level, too, that I might not feel that same level of passion when I’m not living at that more frenetic level of energy that I was living at for a really long time. So for me, this is something that’s an ongoing exploration. I definitely still am curious about it, to go back to that Liz Gilbert quote, and I think it’s about finding my way here and just seeing what unfolds. So I think I mentioned earlier, it’s not that I may never have a passion again, I don’t think, but more it might have a different flavor and I’m interested in exploring that. OK. So thank you for that question, Kim.

 

[00:09:39] I’m going to move on to the next question, which is a fun one. This is from Cassie. And she says, Do you ever do yoga with your hubby? Classes or at home? So last night at dinner, I told Nic that I had this question and he laughed out loud immediately. So we occasionally practice yoga together at home. We have probably not practiced yoga in a class together in more than 10 years. So the few times that we did were some ill conceived hot yoga and partner yoga classes. And neither one of us is into either of those things. So I’m not really sure why we thought it would be a good idea. But after that, I think we were just kind of like, yeah, we’re good. We’re just not really going to go to yoga together.

[00:10:26] So for a while, Nic wanted us to practice together, kind of like as a quiet activity in the evening. And I loved that idea, except that he wanted me to basically, like, teach him a private class. And, you know, at first that was OK. But after a while, I was like, this is my work. I don’t want to be doing more work during our quiet wind-down time. So I was kind of annoyed with having to teach him. So I wrote him some sequences that he learned and he would like look at the Google doc because, you know, I live my whole life in Google Docs and, you know, he would ask me questions or whatever, which is fine. And we would mostly just kind of do our own thing together. So after a while, I realized because sometimes he wanted to do yoga without me, that he could just do some of my videos in Curvy Yoga Studio. And that would be a lot easier than following the written sequences. So sometimes he does Studio videos — without me because being taught by myself really weirds me out. It’s already weird enough for me that I can hear myself teaching from the other room. So the answer is sort of. OK.

 

[00:11:46] So next question comes from Carly. And this one is what is the most unexpected way your body acceptance practice shifted postpartum? So to start with my relationship with my body. I would say that the changes in my body postpartum are both expected and unexpected.

[00:12:09] And to kind of wind back even more, as of this recording, Hazel is 10 months old. So I still feel like I’m really in the postpartum window. But I’m happy to share from just what I’ve experienced so far and knowing that this journey will continue to unfold.

[00:12:31] So, expected: my belly is much softer than it used to be. Not like it was some Abs of Steel or something before, but it has shifted. But what has been unexpected is I also have a softer relationship to my body. So, you know, I had heard a lot about how hard it is postpartum to relate to your body because it has changed. And so I think I was just expecting things to basically be completely terrible, which was kind of my expectations in general about becoming a mother. And so the fact that it hasn’t been completely terrible, I’m like, oh, everything’s great. So I have to kind of try to thread the needle between those two things. But I definitely have, I would just say, I mean, I’m not going to cuss, but I would just say that I have less F’s to give in general about my relationship, not with not in a bad way like I don’t care about my body, but more like I don’t care what other people think. And I feel more free in my body in a lot of ways.

[00:13:43] So here’s a good example. Just the other day I found myself lamenting how my low belly seems a lot bigger than it used to be. I don’t know if that’s true, if it’s just my perception and it honestly doesn’t matter. That’s just how I felt. So it’s kind of like it has a life of its own, which as I’m saying that is actually kind of funny and cool. But as soon as I had that thought, I also almost simultaneously just thought, who cares? And also, is this how I really want to be living my life? Worrying about this one part of my belly? I’m pretty sure you already know the answer to that. So part of this is related to how I want Hazel to see me in relationship with my body. But that’s not the only part of it, because it’s also really important to me and I feel like there’s something about becoming a mother that has basically like lit a fire under my butt about truly practicing what I preach in an even deeper way for the benefit of both of us.

[00:14:56] Like I mentioned, I feel more open with my body, more visible. I change my clothes more freely. I just feel kind of loosened up, which isn’t to say that it’s all easy or that Hazel’s my only motivation. It’s more like I’m even more acutely aware of how important it is to live a life that feels in integrity for me first and foremost. Because honestly, who knows how what I do will resonate with her, or not? Or some combination. But I guess I’m hoping, and even more I’m just really wanting to feel, embodied and integrated. And like I’m living the fullness of my life.

[00:15:44] So right after I had Hazel, I had a really hard time breastfeeding. And I knew that I would because I had a breast reduction in 2001 and I honestly didn’t anticipate having any milk at all. But I did. So the fact that I did was this huge celebration. I was like, oh, my gosh, I’m making milk. This is wonderful. And I never made enough; we always supplemented. But just again, making any small amount was huge — until, very quickly, I was like, “Well, I’m making some, so why can’t I make more?” Then I got onto that whole train. And then she developed a latch problem. So that was difficult and so painful. Oh my gosh, extremely painful. So I just feel like I’ve been on a real roller coaster. We kind of we found a groove with breastfeeding. And then around six months, she just stopped. So my supply had decreased for a number of different reasons, and I would try to breastfeed her and she was just like, I’m good. And I was a little sad about it, but also ready. And I kind of just feel like there’s a lot of aspects to my relationship with my body postpartum, and some have been challenging and some have been liberating. And I like that as kind of a microcosm of how I think all of us relate to our bodies. Whether you’re postpartum or not is there’s always these things that are happening and changing. And in my experience, some of them are challenging and some of them are neutral and some of them are maybe freeing, joyful. And I think a lot of this body acceptance path is becoming more comfortable with those things weaving together.

 

[00:17:41] OK, so I’m going to move on to the next two questions, both of which are dog related. So we’re going to just switch gears for a second. And if you know me, you know that I love dogs. That’s why these questions came in. So the first ones from Cassie again, and she says, “does your puppy do yoga with you? Mine does. His favorite is Savasana, where he lays right beside me. What is your pup’s favorite pose?” So I have a dog named Henry. He’s a Golden Retriever; he’s almost two years old. He loves when anyone is on the floor for any reason. So definitely yoga is a big plus in his book. I would say that he probably likes best anything when I’m sitting, because then he knows, definitely he knows, that I am going to give him lots of pets. So I wish that he would come lay by me for Savasana. But he is not that chill; maybe when he’s a little bit older. But right now, floor time equals playtime.

[00:18:43] The other dog question that came in is from Kelly Ann and she says, what’s your best advice for a first time dog mom? So first of all, congratulations! I would say my advice is that if it feels hard, you’re not alone. I think that we don’t always share how challenging it can be to have a new pet. So when we got Henry, we hadn’t had a puppy in a really long time. So we worked with a dog trainer here locally for a few weeks. And she got us into this book called “Family Friendly Dog Training, A Six Week Program for You and Your Dog.” So I really recommend this book. What I liked about it is it’s very straightforward and I think it’s pretty realistic about the amount of time you probably have to work with your dog and that you’re not probably trying to become like a trainer aficionado or something. That’s what I think the family friendly part is. And it also gives some suggestions on including anybody else who might live with you or come over often or anything like that. So check out that book. I will give you a link in the show notes.

 

[00:20:02] OK, so our next question is from Alisha. And she says, What are your thoughts on Yoga Alliance? And do you think you need to be 200 hour hour RYT to teach corporate yoga to office people? OK. So I thought I would answer this question with what I tell our yoga teacher trainees when they are about to graduate. So I always say that the most important thing, post graduation, especially if you’re trying to determine how to allocate your resources, is yoga insurance. So if you’re going to teach yoga, you need yoga insurance, it’s usually less than two hundred dollars a year or thereabouts. And the coverage that you get for that price is totally worth it. So get that insurance. And then the second thing I say is if you have the interest and the resources, then look into Yoga Alliance.

[00:21:01] So Yoga Alliance is a registry which means that people can find you on there to verify that you have completed a yoga training program that meets the curriculum requirements that Yoga Alliance lays out. So Yoga Alliance does not certify people. So, for example, our two hundred hour program is approved by Yoga Alliance, but they don’t certify our graduates. I do. And then our graduates can register with Yoga Alliance if they would like to. So there’s definitely been some controversy around Yoga Alliance, and for many reasons, one of which is that in the past it’s been unclear about what they offer. But I have seen them doing more around this over the years and there are some professional development opportunities now in addition to other benefits. So I usually recommend to our grads that if they want to look into that, that that is something that might be of interest to them.

[00:22:03] So while some places that you might be interested in teaching will want you to be registered with Yoga Alliance, I find that most are primarily interested in confirming that you’re certified — both so that they trust how you’re working with their students, which is, of course, pretty important. But they probably also have some language in their liability that requires them to ensure that you’re a certified teacher. So for the corporate yoga question, I think it’s probably not too likely that you would need to be an RYT, which indicates registered yoga teacher, which is a Yoga Alliance designation. But I do think that you would need to be two hundred hourscertified, most likely. So it can be a little bit of a confusing distinction between registered and certified, but it is an important distinction for sure. So I think if you know anyone who teaches corporate yoga or you have places where you’re wanting to teach it, then you might be able to find out more information. It’s not something I’ve ever done personally. So I don’t know a ton about exactly what they’re looking for, but I’m hoping that this will be a good starting place.

 

[00:23:24] OK, so next question comes from Sandy. What kind of role can music play in a yoga practice? Do you find it more hindering than helpful? So I think it really depends on what you’re going for. I find it helpful sometimes and I find that it hinders sometimes both when I’m teaching and on my own in my own practice. So on the hinders side of things, for me that’s mostly around the volume. So if it’s too loud, especially if the teacher is quiet, I think it can be distracting sometimes. Also it depends on the kind of music, but that’s really hard to say because what one person finds distracting, another person finds energizing or inspiring or something like that. So for teachers listening to this, I think that’s all part of the mix of your teaching. So if you are teaching and you have a particular style of music and students don’t like it, then I think that that’s OK. They can find another teacher who they resonate with because that might be a really important part of your teaching. I know that some teachers love making playlists and really, you know, working with the music as a piece of what they are offering and the kind of environment that they’re working to create for their students. I am personally not that kind of teacher, not because I’m against it, but I just don’t feel like that’s my gift.

[00:25:02] So on the helpful side, I think that it can soften silence for people. So we’re so rarely in silence that it can be really uncomfortable for people. It can be unsettling for some people. So having some music, especially, I think if it’s soft, maybe it’s instrumental or just something that’s sort of like coffee shop vibe, kind of blends into the background a little bit, then it can cover up little noises, help people tune out small distractions, especially during Savasana. And of course, music can also guide the mood in a really big way. So I personally have done everything. I for years taught with no music. Then I added some during Savasana and then I experimented with doing it all of the class. So I think it’s a tool just like anything, and that it’s versatile both in your own practice, whether or not you’re teaching and if you are teaching.

 

[00:26:10] OK, so the next question comes from Siri. And she says, I would love if you could make recommendations on how to manage maintaining practice comfortably during your menstrual cycle. So my main recommendation is, as always, to follow what feels good for you. And that is my advice for most times and most bodies. So whether or not you are someone who has a menstrual cycle. So for me personally, it really depends on each cycle. Sometimes I don’t have a lot of energy, so I focus on restoratives. Sometimes maybe my low back is achy, so I focus on forward bends. Sometimes I have cramps, so I do a gentle, hip opener like Supta Baddha Konasana (Reclined Butterfly). So if I’m at home doing this, then sometimes I will do one or more of these with a heating pad as well. I think the main thing is that there’s no one right way to do it. And following what your body is asking for, kind of like with the examples I just gave, I think is the best way to do it.

[00:27:20] And sometimes people hear in yoga that you should skip inversions when you’re on your period. And I do not agree with that. I think that you can trust your body and that if it feels OK for your body to do an inversion, especially if it’s a gentle one like bridge or Dwn Dog, but you’re not going to be there forever, then it’s fine. This advice comes around the idea that you shouldn’t interrupt the downward flow. This is a concept called Apana. And I think it’s you know, the inversions that people are doing are probably not really interrupting that. I mean, unless you’re doing like a 30 minute headstand, it’s probably not going to be an issue. Of course, you know, if you have a medical reason why this is contraindicated for you, then don’t do it. It’s all part of that listen to your body, know what’s going on, etc.

 

[00:28:19] OK, another question. This is the last one. This one comes from Sandy, too: When folding forward onto blocks, I often hear an instructor mention coming up half way, but she doesn’t seem to move much at all. Can you explain what I’m supposed to be focusing on here? Is it more like a tensing up to release down even further? This has always confused me.

[00:28:41] OK. I love this question because I think this happens a lot. This used to happen to me all the time, and it still does sometimes where I hear an instruction and I’m just like, what does this mean? And so I’m really glad that we got this question because I’m sure (a) other people have this exact same question, but (b) it also just kind of makes space for all of these kinds of questions in yoga. So generally what is happening here is it’s really going to depend on your forward bend or the forward bend of the person you’re observing. So typically what will happen is you’re in standing, inhale arms overhead; exhale, fold forward. Hands are to the blocks and then the instructor might say inhale, come halfway up, exhale fold. So that halfway up is coming toward a flat back. So where the back would be roughly parallel to the floor. Now, whether or not it appears that the person moves very much is going to depend on what their forward bend is like.

[00:29:43] So, for example, if I’m on the highest height of the blocks and I am not folding forward too far, then coming to halfway, it’s going to be a small movement. So someone observing that from the outside may not see much happening. Someone who is on the medium or the low setting of the blocks or has their hands on the floor, then it might be a more noticeable movement. So the point here is not how much you move. It’s really more of what you’re getting at in the question. So it’s not so much a tensing up to release down, but more drawing length in the spine. So you’ve folded forward and you come up, you get more length in the spine because, you know, sometimes you can lose that length as you’re folding forward or you just want to take advantage of more, and then you come back into the forward bend. And I also like to treat this as an opportunity to just check in, make any adjustments, maybe make space for your belly as you’re coming down, stepping the feet a little bit wider. So that is coming halfway up and that’s it.

 

[00:30:53] So thank you to everybody who sent in questions. If you liked this, if it made you think of more questions, send them to me and maybe I’ll add them in a future episode. Or maybe we’ll just do a whole nother Ask Me Anything again sometime. So up next, an invitation and a giveaway.

 

[00:31:23] OK, so before we get into our invitation, a quick heads up that our annual sale on Curvy Yoga Studio memberships is coming up December 28 through January 4th. So this is the time of year when you can get the lowest rate that we offer all year for our online yoga studio. And, we open the doors of that sale a week early for people who are on the waitlist. So that’s going to be December 21st through 27th. So if you know you’re interested in joining, I recommend you go ahead and get on the waitlist. We have a link for that in the show notes because you’re going to get that early entrance into the Studio and also you might get an extra discount. (Hint: you definitely will!) So go ahead and get on that.

 

[00:32:11] OK. So, moving to our invitation, which is kind of tied together with our giveaway. I mentioned earlier that I’m going to be giving away a free membership for you here in Curvy Yoga Studio. I’m going to be doing that for the next two weeks. So I’m going to announce a winner on December 20th and December 27th. So to enter to win, I just have a question I would love for you to respond to. And the question for this week is, “What is your favorite yoga pose to counteract holiday busyness?” So just what’s your favorite pose when you’re feeling rushed or hurried or any kind of way over the holidays. So e-mail your answer to me at podcast@curvyyoga.com or text it to me at 615-852-8789 with your name. For both of them, I will need your name in order to know that you are the winner. So, and I know that you all are so considerate. So don’t worry about this text thing. It does not come directly to my phone. You will not be waking me up in the middle of the night. So send your answer in and next week I will share the answers that I received and also announce a winner. And you can definitely enter both weeks. I encourage you to do that. And although you can only win one week. But we will have a different question to answer next time. And if you’re listening and you’re already a yoga, a Curvy Yoga Studio member, you can still enter. That’s totally fine. So we’ll just give you your next year for free, even if you’re already a member. So I’ll put all that information in the show notes. But it’s podcast@curvyyoga.com or text 615-852-8789.

 

[00:34:05] OK. So that’s it for our first episode of Season 7. Thank you for being with us. Let’s close with one breath together. We’ll inhale and exhale. The light in me honors the light in you. Namaste.

[00:34:29] Thank you again for listening. Stay tuned next week, I’m going to be sharing the top ten things that I have learned this decade because it’s still blowing my mind that we’re at the end of a decade. And also ,inquiring minds want to know: So if you have ever had a pet, what was your first pet’s name? Mine was Leon, a goldfish. We called him Noel at Christmas. I’m pretty sure that Henry is glad that my naming choices have changed since I was seven years old.