Are you over 40 and struggling with pain, stiffness, or a diminished quality of life? Discover how Samantha Legassie, a 67-year-old Hannah Somatic educator transformed her health journey.
In today’s episode, you’ll discover the secret sauce of Hannah Somatics that's helping people just like you ditch the pain, rediscover vitality, and age gracefully and pain-free.
In this enlightening podcast episode, Samatha takes us through:
- Samantha's journey from injury to wellness through Hannah Somatics.
- The importance of body awareness in preventing health issues.
- Challenging negative aging stereotypes.
- Heart coherence technique for stress reduction.
- Combining Hannah Somatics with personal training.
- The philosophy of embodied freedom in somatic work.
- Tips for maintaining an active lifestyle as a senior.
- Insights on human longevity potential.
- Where to find Samantha's work and resources.
And so much more!
I am a senior whose mission is to bring back the value of seniors ( elders) and appreciation for this stage of life and establish an understanding of the joy, vibrant health, and value that these years offer to the senior and everyone around them CHSE, ACE Personal Trainer (achieved at 66), CYT. Certification Heart Math Institute, Author of Ignite your Health and Wellness.
Find more info at www.mindonmovement.ca and get a free assessment over Zoom! Follow her on IG @loraleelegassie
Follow Aimee Takaya on:
IG : @aimeetakaya
Facebook : Aimee Takaya
Learn more about Aimee Takaya, Hanna Somatic Education, and The Radiance Program at www.freeyoursoma.com
LISTEN WHILE READING!
A: Hello everyone, welcome to Free Your Soma, Stories of Somatic Awakening and How to Live from the Inside Out. I'm Aimee Takaya and today I'm talking with Samantha Legassie, so excited for this conversation.
She is a certified Hannah Somatic educator, just like me. She's also a certified yoga teacher through the La Pages and Integrated Yoga Therapy. She's an A-certified personal trainer and she received this certification at the age of 66, which I think is super cool. And she's currently undergoing a certification through the HeartMath Institute.
She works with folks who are over 40, who may be suffering from injuries, extreme stress, working on computers, childbirth challenges, and she gives them practical tools and hope for a new way of growing older with improved quality of life.
Now, I don't fall into the category yet of being over 40, but I'm still very interested in having an improved quality of life as I get older. I think many young people are starting to kind of look ahead in that way and go, oh wow, what I'm doing now is going to plant seeds for what happens in the future, right? So I'm so excited to have this conversation with you and share your knowledge and expertise with our audience. Thank you for being here, Samantha.
Every day, there is a forgetting, and every moment, there is the possibility of remembering. Remembering who you truly are, awakening to your body, to the inner world, to the experience of being alive. Here is where you find the beauty, the joy, and here is where you free your Soma. I'm your host, Aimee Takaya. I'm here to help you move from pain to power, from tension to expansion, and ultimately from fear to love.
L: Thank you for having me, Aimee. I'm really happy to be here today and have this opportunity to share what I'm learning and also what I'm teaching.
A: Yeah, wonderful. Maybe you can tell our listeners a little bit about your personal journey and how you came to be involved in all of these really amazing things.
L: So I've always been fascinated by clearly health. I was in the nursing profession in the 70s. I'm 67 and I did that for a few years. It turned out it wasn't meant for me, and I literally ran away from nursing and became a ballroom dance instructor. Was that a fun time? I thoroughly enjoyed that. I'm sure people have seen the Dancing with the Stars. Well, that's what I was doing in the late 70s, early 80s.
Clearly, there's a lot of physicality involved with that. Then I became fascinated. About 1995, I got hooked on yoga, which was just coming in. I'm in Toronto, Canada, and it was just coming into the front line here and became involved with yoga and actually started with the Bicrams yoga for six or eight months and then moved on to a more therapeutic yoga. I got to tell you, I was 38 years old and first starting yoga, you're lying on the floor and you're thinking, what the heck is happening to my body?
So, I did yoga. I loved it. I taught yoga. I moved on. I became a single parent, needed to make more money than the yoga was affording me. I moved on to a very physical job here in Canada. Also, about 1995, I fell just not even a nice spectacular, got no good story, just a fall on the ski slope. I injured my knee and of course, six weeks later, it's okay. I started to realize the arch on my right foot had fallen. I'm looking at this and I'm thinking, what is this? I'm a yoga teacher, so my awareness of my body had increased.
I make reference to this because it comes into play. On my very physical job in 2010, I fell. Again, not even a spectacular fall. I don't get good stories of my fall. It's just a simple fall, but I landed very hard on my hands and knees in electrical shocks or traveling up and down my body for days afterwards.
But as we know, the place of my body that took the brunt of this fall was that it prior injured me. So from 2010 to 2014, I fought the good fight. I did everything the doctors required of me. I did not want surgery, and I did not want drugs. So I went to a sports medicine clinic, and I did yoga and Pilates and shockwave therapy, massage, and everything that I could do.
Everything seemed to work for a little while, but it wasn't holding. By 2014, my game was over. I'm 56 at that time and the doctors are telling me, it's over. You need to go on full disability. You probably are going to be very soon in a wheelchair.
I couldn't roll over in bed. My beautiful daughter, who is now a 32 year old university professor with a PhD, my beautiful daughter would have just been starting her master's degree. She'd had to quit school, take care of me.
I just couldn't have that. So, like everybody back in the day, I went on the internet, and I went searching for something, and I found the book that Thomas Hannah wrote, the Hannah Sematic book. And it came, and I got it, and within four days, I realized this stuff works. I need to do this.
So I got back on the internet and I'm trying to find somebody who does this work in Toronto, Canada. I mean, we're like three, four million people here. Nobody was doing it. And I couldn't believe this. So I went a little larger, Ontario. Again, nobody, Canada.
There's one individual who was way out in the West Coast. I can't do that. So I decided this works.
I need to do this. So I went off to the Nevada Institute. It started in 2014 of August. I went there and I was fully on full disability for my job.
Had worked since January. And as you know, when you go for the training, it's like nine days. And then you come back, like it's a three year event, but you come back.
I left there after that very first nine days. And I went back to work at my very physical job and I never ever was on disability again. And I worked that job. It's very difficult, very physical. And I worked that job until 2018. I retired to pursue being a henesomatic educator in Canada full time.
A: Wow. This is an incredible story. I think it really speaks volumes to just the power of our nervous systems to heal when given the right input. You had tried all these other things, and yet it wasn't changing what your nervous system was doing. It wasn't making that direct change in the tonicity of your musculature that was happening really accumulated all over your body for decades.
And then you got that deep dive, nine days of doing henesomatic movement. And that first module, if I recall, you do do some hands on work. You get the trauma reflex protocol, which I'm sure was based on your falls was like a big factor of what was going on in your body.
And the power of a deep dive into this kind of nervous system retraining and neuromuscular resetting work. Your story is remarkable, but not if you know what this stuff can do. It's not surprising, but it's it but from the outside, it sounds like a miracle, right? Yeah, for sure.
L: And it was a miracle. And I would like to tell you one other story that happened within the training. When I came to the training, clearly, like I said, I was a mess. And I'm talking I'm wearing orthotics. I had mentioned the the arch on my right foot.
Also, I was developing a bunion on that side. So as the training happened about, you know, into the second year, I would go every year and get my orthotics changed like they want you to. And I went and get my orthotics changed, I believe it was like in the March session.
And I went again in August for the training, and I came out and my orthotics were killing me. So I went to the doctor, you know, the person that's doing the sure op edus or whatever. And I said, these are killing me. Well, they don't want to change them within that year. Like they assume that the shift is going to be every year.
So he didn't want to do anything. And I said, I'm telling you, these are killing me. And so he said, okay, will you come in and get assessed every day for a week? I'm sure he thought I wouldn't show up. But I did. And by the fifth day, I had blisters on the bottom of my feet from these orthotics.
And he did change them. And then I go back again in March. And I come out of it. And my orthotics are killing me again.
And I thought he's not going to like, I can't go through that again. So I literally stopped wearing the orthotics. My arch has come back, the bunion had receded on my foot. And the last like year or two of my physical job, I was wearing like those barefoot shoes, you know, the ones that are, oh yeah, yeah, that's what I was wearing. Well, all I was out, like literally delivering heavy things, okay, is the bottom line. And that's what I was wearing.
So that was what a crazy event to have to have gone through, because it wasn't something I expected. But, you know, I do not wear orthotics. I don't have any bunions. I'm back doing ballroom dancing, wearing heels, and I'm 67, you know, so. Oh, that's a blast.
A: Yeah, you know, I love it. And, you know, our bodies are capable of morphing and shifting deeply from the inside. And we hear these things like bunions, or we hear these things like fallen arches or flat feet, or we hear these things like even what is it stenosis, you know, and these things that are going on, I have a slipped disc. And often people will say, Oh, hanosomatics, that won't be able to help me.
I have stenosis, I have slipped disc. They think of it as some kind of permanent thing in their body structure, rather than something that's happening because there are imbalances that are going on that have been going on for decades, as we mentioned before, accumulated.
And if you stick with something like hanosomatics, you could your body starts to really morph and shift and change shape and things like even bone growth of like a, you know, of stenosis or like the bunion start to not not be a thing anymore, they start to shift and be, you know, broken down reset by your body, because that area is getting the kind of information feedback that it needs on a regular basis.
It's getting that flow of blood, it's getting all of the, you know, muscles shortening and lengthening as they're supposed to to allow for the circulation to occur. I mean, I don't know all the details of what's going on, but I know that I've experienced very similar things in my body. I had hypermobile joints and legs that bent backwards like bananas.
I don't have that issue anymore unless I get really stressed out and my green light pattern goes crazy. Okay. Okay. But otherwise, I don't have that issue. My legs are not bending backwards like bananas anymore. Yeah.
L: Now, I think the perception of the human body, we perceive it to be a solid object. But if you like take, you know, a piece of steak and put a knife to it, it's very clearly not. So we need to be more perceiving that the body is like jello.
And, you know, the injuries and the, you know, the, yeah, the compensations are tight muscles and they're pulling all the bones and stuff out of alignment, you know. So like, you know, arthritis, let's say knee problems is because the capsule in the knee has gotten smaller and smaller.
But let's pretend it's because of weight. And so the bones have come closer and closer together. So the health of the capsule and now you've got that meniscus is getting thin because of being rubbed out. And now you've got irritation and now you've got bone on bone and now you've got knee surgery. You know what I mean? So it and the body is designed to heal itself.
And we've lost sight of that as well. So what happens is in doing particularly the anesthetic movements, it creates space again in there and allows the knee to start to heal because you're not constantly irritating, causing the inflammation in that area just, you know, for one area. Yeah, so it's fascinating and we see these shifts in our body. People look down at their feet and go, something's going on with my foot. But we don't realize, A, it means something.
And B, and most importantly, is that we can do something about it. We just accept it as aging. And when I was going through what I was going through, I was 56. And people are going, Oh, you're just getting old. Like, and it's like, no.
First of all, I refuse. And secondly, I found it fascinating all my life that there are cars, vehicles that were built in 1920, but still look pristine. And yet here we are in the 2020s, and we're all broken down. Like it does not compute to me, you know, in nature. Oak trees are their most beautiful when they're 100, 200 years old. And that's the way it should be for human beings to end can be.
A: Did you know that your muscles are holding on to thoughts, memories and feelings? If you have a tight neck or back, you're not just getting old, you're experiencing a buildup of tension from the life you've lived. Most people don't know this, but there is a part of your brain that can reverse and prevent chronic tension.
When you relax your muscles, you not only move better and regulate your nervous system, but you also free yourself from the grip the past has over your body. So you can live with freedom, confidence and enjoy your life now. How does that sound? Join me, Aimee Takaya and discover what my clients are raving about at you can free your soma.com.
A: Absolutely. I think there's a lot of focus on, you know, I and I've gotten caught in this journey, there's like kind of little trap to myself of like wanting to go back to our youth, wanting to go back to a previous time, a previous version of ourselves where we imagine things were better than, you know, people get in that way about like the time that they grew up in their childhood or maybe the era they grew up in.
Oh, if we could just go back to like the 90s or the 70s or the 50s or whatever it was where we imagine things were better, I could just go back to 10 pounds ago when I was a little bit smaller, right?
People do that. And at the same time, there is no going back. Like our bodies are always building and developing and growing and changing and shifting. And so there really is no going back.
Even if you lost that 10 pounds, you would be so much wiser and smarter for having had to live with that 10 pounds and then lose it or whatever you had to go through in that time where you gained it, right? The life lessons, the things that occurred. It's always going to be developing and shifting and you're never, never going back. We're always going forward, whether we realize it or not.
L: Well, and going forward, like people look at that, you know, again, I'm going to come back to this concept of aging and people perceive that as a negative. When the truth is that you're always, from the moment you're born to the moment you die, you're always growing, you're always learning, you're always improving.
And this is where this whole like the senior aspect comes in, is we come to a certain place. And I mean, I got to tell you, you know, people go 40, you're over the hill, okay? 40? You know what I mean?
And like in the 30s with the low back pain, how could the fact that you've been sleeping all night and you wake up in the morning and you get out of bed and you've got pain in your back and I'll bother you. But we accept all this stuff as normal, okay? And I mean, I grew up and I'd like to just throw in that the music in the 70s was the best music just saying, okay?
I grew up in a small town in New Brunswick, where we were raised with a pride, a pride of our elders, a pride of how agile, strong and all of that kind of stuff. They were my great grandmother was 104 years old when she passed away.
She up until three months prior she lived in her own home, this big farm, and she could hear you walking up the driveway, okay? She was sharp as a tack and she was an educator teacher, you know, in her youth and had 13 children.
So she didn't have like an easy life. But there's a pride in that, you know, my father and you know, these people were all very hardy and healthy and, you know, my father's passed now. But yeah, and so I was raised with that.
And so within that is like, I don't accept this getting old concept. And now being here, because let's face it, being here, because of the work that I've done with the Hanismatics, I do things that I go to the beach with my kids. I'm in my bathing suit, I get down on the towel, and I can get up from the towel. And I can go in the water, you know what I mean?
Like walking on those rocks to get in. And I look around and there's nobody there my age. Why? Because the unsaid thing is that people can't get down. You know, and I remember like having this experience last summer and thinking, why are there aren't not older people here?
And I realized because they can't graciously get down and get up and they know subconsciously. And that's just something that nobody's ever really thought about in terms of quality of life, that you can go to the beach and lay in the sun for a little bit. You know what I mean? That's something very enjoyable, right?
A: Totally. Yeah, this speaks to like Thomas Hannah's idea about freedom, that you can have all the money and resources in the world. And if you can't stand up and walk across the room, you're not really a free human being, right?
If you can't enjoy a day at the beach with your kids. And this is interesting because I think that people get, you know, they have that physical experience of pain and tension and an inability to move their body. And also, there's nothing to do about this other than take a medication or accept that I'm old, right? And it sort of reinforces that belief or that pattern that it's just not possible. And then it's like that belief gets reinforced and then the pattern gets reinforced, right? The tension pattern, the stress pattern.
L: Exactly, exactly. And so like, you know, what you can, what you believe you can achieve, that's a big player in this whole game. You know, and again, I keep coming back to the senior thing, right?
Even the 40th thing, if you believe that you're getting old, then you're getting old, right? And so with the, you know, for instance, again, like I could travel anywhere I want to, I can carry any suitcase, I could probably carry your suitcase too. You know what I mean? Like, I have no restrictions on living my life.
I'm not afraid to, you know, get in my car and drive for 16 hours to go to New Brunswick from here. You know, I'm physically able just like I was in my 40s, but I'm also, like I said, there's been a lot of growth and development. So I'm not so much involved in road rage and that kind of stuff. I'm more emotionally mature, you know what I mean?
A: Yeah, yeah, that's a side effect of hanosomatic work that we don't often talk about, but it is maturing your brain. It's maturing the motor systems of your brain and a higher level functioning part of your brain.
When you do this slow release and you be attentive and careful and patient with yourself, you know, we're not taught to be patient with ourselves. And many of us are not, you know, like even as we get older, we may find that we're very impatient with the pace that life has, you know, the slowing down that occurs as we get older.
If we're used to running around doing everything we want all the time and suddenly our body, you know, is limiting us in some way, like people get very frustrated with that and don't have that patience, that maturity to handle the reality of slowing down. Exactly.
L: And to do the hanosomatic work requires focus. So how do you suppose that would affect this, the cognitive disorders that are happening today? You know, people are afraid of getting Alzheimer's. Well, simply being afraid of it will attract it.
The worry of that will cause it to happen. But doing this work, it's like a movement meditation. And so it literally improves your mental function. There'd be a good reason for doing hanosematics if there was no other reason. You know, and the compensations that we've referred to are muscles that are tight and being held permanently tight. There's a lot of energy expanded.
Oh, yeah. Muscles tight. Not to mention the discomfort, the burning, the inability to sleep because you can't get comfortable waking up all the time, running to the bathroom every hour or so.
So that's where you're getting into the pelvic floor. I don't have any of that going on. I sleep all night, you know, I go to the bathroom when I get up in the morning. It's like, I can honestly say that my experience allowed me to come full blown by the time I was 56. I couldn't leave my home and walk to the corner store because I knew that if I fell down, I would not be able to get up. I knew what it was like to be old.
Yes. And so I had that experience at that time building up to there, right? Even another thing that happens that people don't talk about much is you're sitting, say you're out at a restaurant or something, you're sitting, you're talking to friends, you've been there for an hour and then you stand up and I'm sure this hasn't happened to you yet, but when you get there, if you are unfortunate to do that, you'll remember me telling you this.
And you see the older people to get up and they sort of stand for a minute and they stand still. It's because there's pains that are coming up into the groin area and you can't really move for a minute or two. You had that and now it's just a distant memory for me and I thank God for that and clearly, the somatic work and I do my work every day.
I do the 20 minute event and yeah, I just do it every day and if I don't, because I'm also human, if I don't, if I fall off or something, which has happened rarely, but I don't know, the longevity has been impressive.
I have like in moments of stress gone like three months and start to feel things come like nothing and then all of a sudden things start to come creeping back within two or three days. It's all disappeared. Right. Yeah, and those like little, I'd like to, I'm going to be arrogant and say that they were experiments, but they really, they really were just me slipping. You know what I mean? Yeah, totally. Well, you're working with so many clients.
You're doing it for them and you're not doing it for yourself. So, you know, those times, right? And how long it stayed in place is impressive and also to come back and like just be doing like the 20 minute event for two or three days and everything's back in order again. That blows my mind.
You go to the gym, it's going to be 10, 12 weeks before you start to see any shifts and changes. Right. Yeah, that's it. I think that's something that's important for people to know as well.
A: For sure. And I mean, I tell my clients that too, because I try to work with people long form has been my philosophy over the last two years is like, let's commit to working, let's be in a committed relationship, let's work together for six months at least, you know, and see how that goes, right? So that you get a really deep permanent shift and you get support in how, you know, to build a personal practice that fits your lifestyle, right?
And it fits your personality and all of that. And so I've had like a woman, she was saying recently, she's like, you know, I was amazed. I, I like stopped practicing for like four weeks and I didn't have any pain. And she's like, I think I stopped practicing because I was like, I don't need to do this anymore.
I feel so good. And then about four weeks in, she did this thing that apparently like she used to do all the time, but it stopped doing since she had started somatic, which was sit on her computer in a cross legged position, rounded forward on the couch for like three hours doing computer work.
And her back was like, no, we don't like that. And she was like, whoa, and all my back pain started to come back after that four weeks of not doing the somatic. She said, but she laid down and within like two or three days, it was just gone again. And I'm like, hey, that's, that's part of the learning.
It's part of it. Like you said, the experiment of I'm feeling so good. What's it like to not do this practice? How does my body retain these results? And when does my body start asking for this again? When does my body start demanding this again? And then it's accumulative. So, you know, you doing those movements after years of doing the movements, your brain knows how to let that stress go right away. Right.
L: Yeah, no. And this is part of the reason too, why I became an A certified personal trainer. Because first and foremost, people don't know what a hematomatic educator is. Everybody knows what a personal trainer is.
So this was sort of my introduction, but also a lot of people who have these events with the stress and the shifts in their body, the, you know, post injury, all of that kind of stuff, they all go to the gym and everybody's gung-ho. We want to lift heavy weights and, you know, and very quickly, they injure themselves. Or if you're 50 and it finally dawns on you that you need to get your, you need to get yourself on track. You need to become healthy.
And I don't know, for some reason, people like to go out running and you see them and they have to be in agony. You could tell by the way they're running, but we push, push, push until they injure themselves and then everything's gone. So how I have integrated anesthmatics is the first thing you come work with me, you're doing a full somatic protocol, you know, the full 10, 10 week event.
And then, and then you move into the 20, the daily, the daily event. And I don't call them the same thing that Thomas Hannah does. I personally object to the word stretch.
And so I stay away from that. The 10 week event is a deep clean. And, you know, then the 20 minute is, you know, a daily, a daily maintenance. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Right. So you would go through all of that with me. And then, now we're going to start to integrate you into a personal trainer event.
I want you to be your own personal trainer. It's a somatic event as well, meaning that everybody has their own experience. And one of the first markers is we're going to take zero weights, one pound, two pound, and you're going to do the necessary movements because there's six primary moves and all that kind of stuff.
And you're going to use the awareness that you have developed through these last weeks. And tell me, is there a difference between how this feels on the left side and right side? And if there is, you're going to stay at that one pound weight until we have fully integrated and rebalanced your body.
And you're going to be the one that's calling those shots, right, you know, based on your, and then the whole thing about how the weights are lifted, you see people doing this, right, it's done in a very slow and controlled, both contraction and release, right. And that then I teach you how to increase your weights through your own personal knowing. That's not something I have.
I don't have your personal knowing of your body. So that eventually, when you're released from the program, you have now become your own personal trainer. And you know what's going on, you know, when you go to the gym that day, because we also are aware, like simply not having enough sleep and maybe not enough water the day before can, you know, change the way the body's functioning today. And you have the intelligence now to make those decisions. And maybe you need to drop those weights five pounds for today.
You know what I mean? So it brings a whole different awareness of the body and awareness of fitness and gives you control of your own growth, really physical growth. So that's, that's another reason why I became a personal trainer to help with that, because there's so many people who know, okay, the doctors threatening them, you better get your act together.
You're going to have high blood pressure, you're going to have diabetes, yada, yada, yada. And they go, Oh, wow, I got to do something. And of course, they run out and do something and very quickly injure themselves. And then they're totally game over for a minute. Exactly.
And there's nobody that's working in that area. Nobody's helping people with that kind of thing, right? Post injury. There needs to be an integration in the body before you can go and start working out. You know, yes. Yeah.
A: You know, so totally agree that that's amazing. I love this. This is a program you offer in person or is it also something you do with people online?
L: Well, you know, it's very interesting because prior to COVID, it was strictly all in person. But I do, I've done and learned how to do it online. And, and initially, I was doing with, you know, one individual, you know, but I mean, I'm teaching right now, I'm teaching a group of 10 senior ladies, seasoned yoga students.
I'm doing it on Zoom. And they're all together in the same room even so I could do it so that you're, you know, in a group scenario, but individual in your own home, which is a real bonus. But they'd never heard of this. And they are just blown away right from the first lesson.
Can't believe because like I said, they're seasoned yoga students. So they have a certain expectation of what's going to happen, how it's going to roll out and how they're going to feel. And now apparently the word is spread like wildfire.
And the men want, the men wanted to do it now and other people. So through their own physical experience, they're talking about it and people are, so I may have to go to New Zealand.
A: Oh, too bad, too bad. I hear it's very unpleasant there, especially the nature. Yes.
L: Well, right now they got their winter happening. I'm waiting for the spring and summer. Yeah.
A: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, I was lucky enough to go there one time and it was absolutely marvelous and beautiful. I went there, yeah, to the South Island. Yeah.
L: Oh, cool. Yeah. Yeah. And then like, through COVID was when I sort of really decided to get into the personal training aspect. You know, again, you know, the light comes on, I think for everybody through that, that we got to get our health together. So one of the first things that I did and I encourage, you know, it's certainly seniors, because we are not like at my age and older, we're not that technically savvy, okay?
So it's, but I got myself a Fitbit and I wear it and watch it daily. And so I think we can agree, Amy, that awareness It's the key to really to everything, but specifically to this work. So this is awareness on my arm. You know what I mean?
And so this is where I learned about the heart rate variability, which we're probably going to talk about and why I became interested in heart coherence in the Heart Math Institute. I'm doing a certification with them. But that's not stuff that people are talking about. Your personal trader is not talking about that.
Your doctor is not talking about that. And it's stuff that they know about and very important. So even to start there for like seniors to have something that tracks what's actually going on and be motivated to make changes like you may or may not know the whole 10,000 step thing is just if that 10,000 steps was the number that the guy who was creating this app decided on it. You don't have to arbitrary.
A: Yeah. Yes. So I think that's important for people to know because it seems very daunting. Right. So you start with, I don't know, 500 steps a day. But because you're aware of what's going on, you can gradually increase it like like you should
L: in nature, you know, in life and not be going out there and hurting yourself. You know what I mean? Enjoy it. Because if you enjoy it, you're going to do it again. Yeah. Yeah.
So that's a really important part because we push ourselves. You know. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. This whole thing happened when I was coming up through no pain, no gain, which is an absolute myth that because if you're having pain, you're not gaining anything. In fact, you're reinforcing what's causing the pain.
So you'll gain more pain. You know what I mean? So and that's just a mindset that people have, you know, have carried around with them. And it's unfortunate because a lot of people my age are very unhealthy.
Very, you know. But prior to me, like I was born in 1957 and the people coming up through, you know, they had a different way of life and they were more healthy and they, you know, we didn't go to restaurants tonight as a kid. Right. Even a restaurant to go out to. And now everybody eats in restaurants. Yeah.
You know, in their game, the restaurants game is to make money. So and I'm clearly, I'm not talking about across the board. This is a generality, but. Their game is to make money, so they're going to get the lowest quality ingredients they can find and, you know, cook it as quick as they can and serve it to you and make it taste good. So there's the salt and sugar, you know what I mean? Which is not necessarily what's best for you. Totally.
A: I was thinking about that earlier when you were talking about like growing up in this little place in New Brunswick and, you know, the way that your grandmother lived. And I was thinking about like farmers in general and the way that agrarian lifestyles had a rhythm. They had a rhythm that meant time for work and you work hard. And then there was rest time, like in places where they didn't even have electricity.
When the sun went down and you had candles, you went to bed and you went to and you woke up with the sun again. Like that was time that was purely designated for resting and our bodies desperately need recovery time and regeneration time and resting time.
And in the world that we live in now, where we can have the lights on all day long and people are asked to work late into the night and, you know, 40 hour work week is the standard, you know, and it's like, you know, someone might have been working on a farm all day, you know, but they are going to go to sleep at night.
They're not going to stay up all night working. They're going to go to bed. And when it's harvest season, they're going to work really hard. And then through the winter, they're going to hunker down and they're going to rest more. There was a rhythm to it.
L: Well, there was a circadian rhythm that involves the rising and falling of the sun. And that is incredibly important for our health. But also as a farmer, they did all kinds of duties. So you weren't stuck doing one thing all day.
So they kept the integrity of the body through doing all kinds of chores all day. And like you said, you know, it would have been very quiet on the farm at night. You know, so it would be deep and restful, fresh air, you know, all of those things and good quality food that they grew themselves. You know, so yeah, it was a different way. And we've strayed away from that.
You know, I remember, you know, them predicting the modern disease, you know, and the modern disease is stress, period. You know, like I can see from where I am. I'm on the 21st floor and I can see this corner, you know, where two roads come stress, I can go down there and try to get across that road.
Even with the light, there's some stress for you that just didn't exist back then. You know what I mean? And and so stress has become a big thing in everybody's life. You can think you're not stressed, but you are just by living in this environment, you know, and so I mentioned about the heart coherence is a breathing technique.
And it's really simple. The Heart Math Institute, that was the other interesting thing. If I can just jump back a second is in the fifties, science decided that it was going to investigate all the ancient traditions, the medical systems are a bit of being one.
And they were going to see if they were if they were true or not, or if they actually weren't. And what they discovered is that all of these systems are like on point. Everything is exactly, you know, what they were saying was going to be in very healthy. So like eating in seasonal foods is very important.
Right. But yeah, with that, with the Heart Math Institute, through their ability to put probes on brains and all kinds of things and your heart, because they've also recently realized that your heart is the primary brain, not your brain. Your heart tells your brain what to do.
There are 40,000 neurons in the heart, almost more than there are in the brain. And this is how it relates to stress is when we stopped listening to our heart, and I don't mean heartbeat. I mean, our intuition. What's right?
What's, you know, does this feel right? We've stopped listening to that. We let our intellect tell us what to do and where to go. And, you know, that we're going to be late and all that kind of stuff.
Right. And with the Heart Math Institute, this heart coherence, five minutes a day of simply, you know, put your hand on your chest, you're breathing in and imagine that the air is going to your heart and you think happy thoughts. So you think about somebody you love.
It might even be your cat. You know, you think about gratitude, gratitude for the fact that we have electricity and that we have food and that we have air and that we're in like through the winter here, I'm always every morning grateful that I have a bed to sleep in because there's so many people in the world who are struggling, you know, and not even having a home to sleep in and stuff like that.
So gratitude, doing that for five minutes a day, dramatically improves the heart variability, which is what happens between the beats. You know, if you've ever been hooked up and they're doing testing your heart and we watch, we're watching for that line and we're going, oh, I hope it's equal and all that kind of stuff. It should not be. It is not equal.
And it's what happens within the center there. And your thoughts create your chemistry. If you're having fearful or negative thoughts all the time, you are literally creating fearful and negative chemistry in your body. You're giving yourself a negative pill that's affecting everything. Right. But five minutes a day of doing this will elevate and improve the heart rate variability, which is the chemistry of your body.
And that's really important because when you're young, you have many, many moments of exhilaration. You're going to the bar tonight. Yeah. You know what I mean? The moments of exhilaration, dancing, music, all of that kind of stuff. Whereas as you get older, those things seem to wane. There's there's you don't have that.
But this is what this, the heart coherence breathing creates that in your body. And it's tremendous value for your health and your mental attitude, which is really important as a senior. You know, yeah.
A: I can see how this would go beautifully with Hannah's somatics, especially if you introduce it to somebody who's already been developing their neural pathways to be able to sense and feel their body.
You know, because a lot of people that I work with, and you can probably relate to this, sometimes people are coming into this work for the psychological, mental, emotional benefits that they hear about somatic work offering.
And Hannah's somatics does offer that as well, because a lot of people live in their heads and they say that they're like, I'm not in my body. I live in my head. And with Hannah's somatics, you drop into the rest of your body. You get connected back to your heart.
And so introducing something like this breathing exercise, once you've already established and reconnected someone to their body would be tremendous. Just so beautiful, I can imagine. Yeah.
L: Well, and what I love about it, because, you know, the word meditation thrown around and people, oh, I tried meditation. I can't do it. It doesn't work. You know, all those preconceived, like, you know, they tried it. And this is five minutes. And when I go out and do public speaking, I teach this to people and people sit for five minutes and you can see the smile growing on their face.
You know what I mean? And these are like senior people and they get that feeling, that increased energetic feeling, right? And the Hannah somatic work itself is also a meditation, a movement meditation when in the way I teach it, at least, right?
And so all of this stuff is so, so helpful for brain function, physical function, you know, both pain free and feeling the joy. That's how you live long is remember the joy and, you know, a sense of humor, all of that kind of stuff, laughing.
Remember the joy of life. And it's not, it's not an easy thing when you've gone through a lot of people like go through life and they could have had a great life, but it's taken a toll on them. And then weren't they're ejected from that at like 65 or something, you know, because they're retiring, which they had never given a thought to, except they had to get there, you know, right? Now they're home alone and they're exhausted and they're dejected and they're lonely and all of that kind of stuff.
And you have to make a plan, you know, this is your time to take care of you and love yourself and go into the next phase of your life, physically emotionally, intellectually, like with joy and happiness. And that's how you live long. You know?
A: Yeah. I believe that. I mean, I remember hearing something about how, you know, older people. I think this was when I was caring for my grandmother, someone brought this up, but they really look, they have things to look forward to. They have things on their calendar, their grandchild's graduation.
Somebody's getting married. They have these little markers of something in the future to look forward to so that they can have a reason to kind of keep moving along, even when things are getting difficult.
And what you're describing here is making the getting along part easier and happier so that, yes, you can still have things to look forward to, but you could even just look forward to tomorrow to getting up out of your bed and going on a stroll around the neighborhood with your dog, that that could be a pleasant and happy event in your life rather than a physical struggle and a fearful event. What if I fall all of those things? Right? Exactly.
L: Yeah. And people need to realize that this is the me time. I gave everything that I could to my family. My daughter is successful and happy. Still waiting for a grandchild, my dad, but, you know, you know, she's doing very well.
She's a beautiful young woman. And, you know, now I needed to shift and it wasn't easy. I needed to shift my attention to me. So then you think, what did I give up? What was something that when I was young, I wanted to become an astronaut. OK, what can I do that I could start building towards that?
I could be maybe the first senior astronaut. I mean, just throwing that out there. That's why I'm back at ballroom dancing.
Right? I'm not teaching. I'm back now as a student. Right? And I would like to eventually compete.
But I love that ballroom dancing at the time. And so that's what I'm doing. And, you know, finding areas that you can contribute. And there's all kinds of things that people can do.
Seniors can go out and, you know, drive other seniors to their doctor's appointments. That gives you that heart coherence feeling that you're contributing. It gives you a joy.
You know what I mean? Going to a nursing home and talking to people who have nobody to come and visit them. There's things like we've lost the value of our elders. And in ancient traditions, the elders were revered. And I want to bring that back, especially since I am one of them. Right? But you know what I mean? It's the perspective has shifted. The whole of society now is based on the youth.
A: Oh, yeah. And I think I have some little inklings of conspiracy theories about that. And one of them is that if you have a wise elder person who knows who they are, who has lived through life, they are not going to be so easy to control unless you can convince them that they are weak and vulnerable and not powerful.
But if you have elders who know who they are, who are strong and who are solid in themselves, you can manipulate them as easily as you can manipulate young people into buying your products or doing your thing that you want them to do. You know, I think that the way this gets kind of conspiratorial is that we have this world that wants to use our youth and our money as like resources to further their wealth in various ways.
You know, and this is not like always nefarious. It's just business, so to speak. But how is it that when we become more free and more developed in our physical bodies and especially for people who are in their older years, that we're not as easily swayed by all of that? We're not as easily sold to or marketed to or convinced that we need this product and that product and all of these orthotics and everything. Right? All of these medications were just not going to be as easy to control in those ways.
L: No, you're absolutely right. I mean, and even not from, you know, from a conspiracy standpoint, but back in the day, it was the elders that you went to for your health information, for advice and all that kind of stuff. So if you can knock that whole demographic out of the game and make them think that this is not good, right? And that youth is the ultimate thing. And I mean, it is, I got to tell you, it is.
But it should always be improved upon. You don't come to 40 and it's all downhill from there. And you don't really think about it until like, you know, when you're when you start with that 40 thing, it's expected that you're going to go through a midlife crisis until everybody does. You know, there's expectations and even a joke that my daughter and her boyfriend told.
So, you know, when you're young and your friends are moving and you go over and eat pizza and you drink beer and you help move, right? And the joke that they pass around now, because my daughter's 32, he's 35, is that a couple of pieces of pizza and a beer is not worth throwing your back out. And it's like, aren't you worried that you're going to throw your back out? Like I'm 67, my friend's moving on Saturday.
I'm going to help lift boxes. OK, I don't think like you do when you're 18. You don't think you're going to throw your back out.
I don't think about anything. I lift whatever I need. I just renovated a room here in my condo.
I'm up on the ladder and I'm painting and I'm, you know, I'm putting in closets. And, you know, I've been single for a long time, so very independent. But anyway, you know what I mean? It's like, I don't have to think.
And even when you're going through this downward slide, you don't consciously think about it. You just you go to lift a box and your brain goes, no, you shouldn't do that. And you don't give it any thought. But there is an area in there that we should be really paying attention to. Why would my brain tell me that?
Right. Why is when I lay down on the bed or the floor, you know, the somatic work is best done on the floor because it's more supportive and you can feel. But people go to bed at night and they lay down and they realize the right side of my body feels different than the other side. And that's because the majority of people are right handed.
They're using that right side all the time and they're tighter. And I mean, you know that as a as a hematomatic educator. But where I'm I'm going is why don't people think to themselves? I should do something about that because they don't realize that they can.
Right. So these are what I call the whispers. The bodies who whisper.
I know there's something happening. Yeah, you don't pay attention to the whispers until they become a scream. And then what I always, even when I was in the medical profession, it's always puzzled me. Why would I go to somebody I don't even know and ask them what's wrong with me? You know, and I won't even get into because I think it's pretty clear that the medical profession is a big mess right now.
If you have an emergency event, absolutely, you need to go to see, you know, a doctor, but the medical profession is falling down on dealing with the chronic, the chronic ailments.
A: Right. And the prevention to prevention of things.
L: Yeah. And so I mean, everybody has gone and to the doctor and the doctors asked you all those questions and you've left and two minutes later, you've gone, shoot, I forgot to tell them about this or that.
OK, so already you're complicit in giving them an incomplete picture of what's actually going on. You know what I mean? And so we've passed our health responsibility to somebody else when actually it totally one thousand percent rests right here.
You know, I'm the one that should be. And we know this sensory motor awareness. It's the only thing that we're born with in terms of a survival skill. The infant is only aware of themselves. And the medical system is aware of this sensory motor awareness because it is documented by pediatricians. So I always say, nobody lays down beside the baby at one month on says, OK, Chicky, we got two more months and you better be able to roll over.
OK. That doesn't happen. There's it. It's called the intelligence of life. There's an internal learning that comes together and nobody's more surprised than the baby when they roll over for the first time.
But it's it's an internal learning that's not ever been addressed. But the doctors are watching for it. Will you take your baby to the doctor at three months of age?
If that baby is not like darn close to being able to roll over, they know that there's a problem with the integration of muscle function to the brain. Right. And on and on, it goes at five months. The land out, the green light, the baby needs to be lifting their head. Six months.
And, you know, I'm just talking generalities here in terms. It's not six months, but six months. It's expected that child can sit up seven to nine months. The child can start to crawl. And it's always very fascinating how different the way children crawl. That's when their individual personality is coming in. You know, some of them scoodle along on their butt and anyway.
But there's also an expected like bilateral supposed to be happening and then the walking thing. And then what happens is the child is now a year and a half and they're climbing and they're doing all kinds of things. And they're, you know, scraping their knees or whatever.
And we start with the, oh, suck it up. Don't pay attention to that. You're just being splinny. Yada, yada, yada. So we literally discourage them from paying attention to their internal sensations. Right. And we go, look, look at that red ball over there. So that's when it all becomes external. And we stop paying attention to the sensory motor awareness.
And, you know, about 20 years in now, there's stuff that's happened. And we don't think to ask ourselves, why is this happening? And and people go to work and, you know, I noticed that my one of my, my feet are changing shape. And the other person go, yeah, mine too. And we just accept that. Like, to me, there's a level of illogic in there. Right.
A: Right. Well, I think that, you know, people just don't recognize these things that you're describing as being so important and powerful. Like we're not taking a look at what that embodied awareness really is. We might think of it as like something that we read in a textbook or these milestone markers, but we're not looking at what is this saying about the way that this being's brain is developing?
And what is this also saying about our ability to grow and develop from the inside based on our own, our own awareness of ourselves? Right. You start to look at it that way. It's much more of kind of a philosophical, but also like broad way of looking at humanity, that we are these self-directed beings with an internal awareness that allows us to build and build and build on ourselves and on our knowledge of the world through our bodies.
Right. And most people are just looking at our body as some kind of like squishy machine. They're not seeing it as their brain. They're not seeing it as their consciousness. Right. Right. Yeah.
L: And so there within that is what we were talking about earlier about not listening to your heart. Right. Being in your head, looking for external validation in everything. Everybody wants to be like somebody else. And it's the beauty of being a human and being alive is that you are totally unique, which brings us clearly to the word somatic. Totally unique.
And we need to appreciate and thrive and grow within that concept. How unique I am. And not that I'm, you know, I got 20 extra pounds and, you know, as you do evolve and you realize how hard we are on ourselves and, you know, all that kind of stuff is you are perfect. Perfect.
As you are right now in every sense of the way, you're even what you know, every move you make is perfect. You know, and if you could somehow even just accept that every move you make is OK, that you're gradually moving in the right direction. You know what I mean?
Because none of it happens fast enough for us. Right. But I mean, even sad to say, even people who are on medications or struggling with alcohol, they're learning something within that. And if they could learn it, they will be released from the problems of that.
Right. Not instantly, but there's lessons. We're here to evolve.
And within that evolution, you are exactly where you're supposed to be. Yeah. You know. And I mean, I don't mean to get too philosophical, but when you're in your 60s, these are the things you think about, right?
A: Absolutely. Yes. Well, and Thomas Hannah was a philosopher, so it fits right in with, you know, the deeper message behind this work, which is that it's not all clinical. It's not all, you know, just do these movements in your back pain is going to get better. It's no become like a free embodied human being. Something bigger and more grand is going on here. Yeah.
L: And the secret is it all comes back to personal, individual awareness, physically, emotionally, everything, pay attention to here and less attention to out there. And so you were talking about, you know, they want us to spend our money and, you know, the youth and all that kind of stuff. That's an out there kind of event.
Right. And unfortunately, it lasts about 20 years, you know, from the age of 20 to 40 is how long that lasts. That's the other thing that's interesting, because up until 20, you know, you feel constricted by all kinds of things, your parents, you know, whatever, you don't have a job, you're studying, you know, but from 20 to 40, you truly have free will by the time you're 40, you've got kids, they're controlling you now.
You know what I mean? So this youth thing is a very short lived event and the physical body, again, something that science has learned is capable of living between 130 and 150 years.
And that's a biological study of the components of a human body and this environment and all that kind of stuff. Right. So why are we all kicking it, you know, 70 and 80 right now? I think they pretty well expect you're going to live to be 80. You know what I mean? And again, it's what you believe. I told my daughter, I'm going for 130. That's been I believe you.
A: I believe you can make it happen. Hey, with my great grandmother can do 104. I can do 130, you know. Oh, yeah, because she didn't even have Hannah Sematics behind her belt and all the cool, cool tools that you have.
L: 13 kids have worked, you know, she worked on a funner, but they knew nothing of health. You know what I mean? And she actually, the way she died was she got at 104, she got in where she couldn't function in the house anymore.
So they put her in a nursing home and she was there for three months and they dropped her when they were trancing her from the bed to the, you know, and that was her demise. But I'm sure that she wasn't happy being in a nursing home and she wasn't happy not being able to go around. So I'm not going to say it was a bad thing, but it was through no fault of her own that she, that she finally passed on, you know what I mean?
And yeah, yeah, yeah. But anyway, yeah, life is interesting and it's a very, it's very amazing for me to be here 10 years later when all the, all the signs were that I'm on my way out and I don't mean I'm dying. I mean that my life quality is going into the decline.
A: Yeah.
L: Well, and to be, I'm like fine wine, I'm getting better with age and like anything, all things in nature, this is a thing we need to look at as a possibility. Could it be that I could continue to get better and better and better until it's over? You know what I mean?
Yeah. And yeah, I mean, I'm already damn near perfect. We'll see.
Clearly I'm joking, but you know what I mean? I just feel such a joy to be as free physically as I am. You know, I bought snowshoes. I'm going to go out snowshoeing. Now, of course I bought the snowshoes and we didn't get any snow, but I kept them. I'm going to try again next year. But you know, my kids have a dog and we were out two two years ago and snow up to our waist waiting in the snow.
And I and I'm keeping up with them. People my age don't do that because their hips are so tight. You know, you go for a walk and you feel the tension building in your hips. You got to know that you need handosomatics.
A: Oh, yeah. Well, and I think it's so wonderful that you're doing this work in groups and that you're offering really this embodied perspective on what's possible for people, you know, at your age of 67 years old, that you're living this very full and rich and physical life. And I think that our conversation today has been incredibly inspirational.
I'm really excited for people to hear this when it comes out. So can we get a little bit from you about where people can find you? If someone wants to reach out to you, we'll have that in the show notes, but you could also just say verbally, you know, your website or how the best way to get ahold of you.
L: OK, so my website is mindonmovement.ca and my email is mindonmovementathotmail.com. I am currently working on like two ebooks and I'm potentially might have a book published in September.
I am also my story about what happened to me has been published in this book called Ignite Your Health and Wellness, and that is available on Amazon. I have a chapter in that book that, you know, I wrote that. It's a compilation of health and wellness professionals, holistic professionals from all over the world.
And that tells like in detail the story of how I became a henesomatic educator. And yeah, I mean, I'm in Canada. Anybody in Canada, you go on my website, reach out to me. I'd like to focus on particularly people that are having surgeries, hip replacements, knee replacements in Canada. Currently, what's happening a lot of the rural areas are not getting the support that they need post surgery.
So they're having the surgeries and some minor physiotherapy. And then they're sort of left alone because it's not available in their area. And I really want to connect with and support those people and, you know, people who are stressed and hunkered over computers and all that kind of stuff. It's this is amazing work and everybody should know about it. It should be taught in schools.
A: Agreed.
L: Yeah.
A: Yes. Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for this conversation today and sharing all of your expertise and just your light, your exuberance, your joy with us. It's been a pleasure to speak with you.
L: Thank you. I really appreciate this opportunity, Amy. And yeah, I mean, we met before. I don't know if you the last like, well, not the last, but I went in 2019, 2018, maybe 2019 to a hanasomatic convention.
A: And I wasn't there.
L: Okay. Well, I'm sure, I mean, you know, your father and I, my father, okay. But I'm pretty sure that I actually saw you. I mean, maybe, maybe it has been just on zoom or whatever. But, but yeah, I feel like I know you. How's that?
A: That's sweet. I love that. Yeah. I have never been to the convention. I will someday make it to the convention. But yeah, but yeah, I mean, I think that the first time we interacted was I made that little short movie of like the life of the Soma and then I shared it with people and you were one of the people who gave me some feedback on it. I think that was like our first interaction. Yeah.
L: I mean, I have seen you somewhere before. Maybe past life. Who knows, hun, but yeah, I came to that because when they said that you were doing that, I had knowledge of you at that point. And of course, clearly your father was talking about you too. When you know, yeah, the training.
So maybe that's why. But, but any, I really appreciate your time, what you're doing, how you're sharing it with the Hannah Somatic community. It's all wonderful. And we're all working together to move this work forward. And I'm happy to be part of the team.
A: I love excellent. Love it. Thank you. Me too. And let's just keep on going. Let's keep on sharing. Let's let people know this exists and, yeah.
L: Exactly, exactly. Okay. Thank you, Aimee.
A: Hey there, friends. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. I would love to hear your thoughts. Follow me on Instagram at AimeeTakaya and send me a DM about this episode. I'd like to thank you for being part of this Somatic revolution. And if you'd like to support the podcast and help more people learn about somantics, consider leaving a review or a rating.
And finally, if you'd like to have the experience of relief in your tight hips or back and learn to understand what your body is really saying to you, visit youcanfreeyoursoma.com. I can't wait to share with you what is truly possible. Bye for now.
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