She had been outsourcing control and knowledge of her body to the "experts" ever since she was a child. And even in becoming a "body expert" herself, she still was experiencing an internal disconnection from her body that became amplified during the birth of her daughter and her postpartum experience. She felt deeply that something needed to change.
She needed a sense of belonging and ownership within her own physical experience of life. Somatics, and specifically Hanna Somatics, has been a powerful doorway to regaining and actually creating an embodied sense of self and personal authority within her!
Today, I have with me Zoe Hewett, a yoga teacher, exercise physiologist, and mother of two who recently graduated from the Radiance program. She’s here to take us through how Hanna Somatics has impacted her life, career, and experience of motherhood.
In this episode, Zoe takes us through:
- Her traumatic birth experience and how she felt disconnected from her body and power.
- Her somatic exploration journey and how she found it profound and empowering.
- Her journey through the Radiance program and what she learnt, including honoring her own knowing, asking for what she needs, and setting boundaries.
- How the subtle, slow, Hanna Somatics movements allow the nervous system to release chronic tension patterns layer by layer.
- How she incorporates somatic principles when working with clients healing from injuries.
- How both effort and rest are beneficial, and finding the balance is crucial for preventing burnout and injury.
- How healing happens in a non-linear, quantum way as we renegotiate the past and build new capacities in the present moment.
And so much more!
Zoe Hewett is an exercise physiologist, Bikram yoga teacher, and mother. As a former elite athlete, via the PhD experience, and by observing her daughters’ early years, movement, and the study of movement’s effects on the human experience, has been her language for most of her life. In recent years she discovered somatic movement, which then distilled into a focused dive into Hanna Somatics, which presented a whole new - yet old! - way of treating stress and chronic pain.
Living with the benefits of her own evolving somatic movement practice, Zoe can’t help but share somatic principles with clients in both her exercise physiology and yoga work. She is excited to see where her life work takes her as she continues to work with people from a whole person, somatically aware perspective to facilitate each individual’s self-healing journey.
LISTEN WHILE READING!
A: 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 and experience of being alive. Here is where you find the beauty, the joy. Here is where you free your Soma.
A: Hello everyone, welcome to Free Your Soma, Stories of Sematic Awakening and How to Live from the Inside Out. I'm Aimee Takaya, the host of the podcast and the creator of the Radiance Program and today I have a very special guest. Zoe Hewett is a yoga teacher.
We actually did our training back in 2011. She is an exercise physiologist, a mother of two and graduated Radiance earlier this year in January, right? We are going to explore the Somatic movement, Hannah's Somatic movement today, its impact on her life and career from a few different angles. When I first created this program, I immediately thought of some of the people in my world who I had yoga relationships with and one of them was Beth Warner, who is a mutual friend of ours.
Beth was interested in trying out Radiance and doing the Hannah's Somatic movement because she had become a physical therapist, right? But it took her a little bit of time to organize that and then she joined in the winter of 2022 for I think the second official round of my group program and during that time she was connecting with you and you were becoming curious about this and it wasn't until later in 2023 that you joined the program as well.
I'd love to just kind of explore that for you there was a lot going on in your life at that time in the winter of 2022 when you first kind of got this initiation into this way of moving from Beth. Can you kind of explain like a little bit about where you were at that time? We can also go back even a little further eventually but like right at that time in 2022 what was your life like? What was going on inside of you?
Z: Well 2022 July my second daughter was born and I had what I would call what felt like a traumatic experience. I know I didn't come out with big birth injuries or anything like that but I felt as though something had happened to me and I hadn't really been an active participant in the childbirth process and it was kind of like a bit of a trigger I think to feel so.
So when I was I guess when Beth was enrolled which was six months later so my daughter was six months old there was I had in no way or shape or form process what had happened I had just tried to keep going with caring for my older daughter and for this newborn baby but deep down I really felt like something was not right and I it was going to come out at some point but I just felt so disconnected.
I felt like I'd given away my power, my trust into people who are the professionals which is a bit of a theme in my life looking back and is part of the reason why you know the Radiance Program and the Somatic Work has been so important and transformative to me.
So I was feeling I was just kind of treading water I was just I was treading water and I was looking for a way out and I just felt like I wasn't sure how I was going to help myself get there. I could kind of see that something would come good I just didn't know what it was and it ended up being a couple you know a couple of different things but learning that Beth was doing the program she's someone who I trust professionally and personally and I was like what is that thing I'm going to have a little bit of a look into it.
So before I joined Radiance I had actually looked started some Somatic Practice on my own and it was like almost immediately quite profound and it was it sort of rocked my world like it didn't fix everything for me but it gave me a taster of this movement the you know the practice and how I could experience immediate change in my body and how empowering that was to me to do that myself.
Of course I'm following the lead but I was doing it myself and I could create a better outcome and that was kind of the start like that seed planted to doing more and more of that to help myself process the childbirth and also you know they say that parenting becoming a parent you could kind of go on happily without becoming a parent and be able to manage all the things that have happened in your past. I've heard this before when you become a parent it becomes right front and center.
You have none of the tools you had before you can't go to yoga class all the time you can't go and do all these things for self-care and then you're kind of stuck with this like this is my history right like these things are coming back up coming back up so yeah it was the start of that like pulling the thread and it got like it didn't just get nice and neat and tidy like it got messy but it was a really like that was a powerful moment at the end of 2022 sort of when I started looking into that movement practice the magic movement practice
A: Yeah. And I mean I think that now you know in 2024 somatic is becoming more of a buzzword and I'm seeing these cute little videos on Instagram of like somatic movements and and what we do in hannah's some ways because it's very specific and the way that we are inviting a very specific part of your brain to release the musculature and it's different than just kind of moving around and feeling into your body which has benefit too.
But this is like a very specific way of kind of completing a stress loop so to speak in your brain completing the cycle of activity from going on right by the focus on the letting go part of the movement and the focus on the resting part of the movement rather than the focus being on the intensity of the movement which I would say that our background with hot yoga is a lot about the intensity of the movement and how intensely you can do something would be a sign of how good you were at it or how precise you were at it was how much force or power focus you could bring into the activity itself because it's almost like the opposite in a way
Z: I know and it's like so like this it's like what can you create with this with your effort and versus this idea of like what is already there like what can you allow like what are you not listening to like this total yeah opposite side of the coin which is really like it took. I mean even in the program I'm like oh I'm doing that too big I'm always doing it too big why can't I do it smaller.
Like why is that a challenge to move less to move smaller and I'm seeing that in my work now when I'm trying to share some of this this practice I'm. it's really challenging. I'm sort of seeing people I'll try to guide through people through it. I'm like no do less do less it's this is a part of this session that is not based on doing more working hard feeling a burn feeling sort of discomfort so it's that's really interesting to try to find where it sits in that space as well
A: Yeah. Because I think that both are beneficial it's kind of like the yin and the yang it's not like we want to have a life where we don't put out effort but we don't want that to be the only way that we function because then we will eventually burn ourselves out or have muscle cramping or joint you know wear and tear that might not be yeah. Might be preventable if we had another way of operating as well if we had a way to actually tone down and use the exact amount of effort needed for this moment versus just always plowing through every experience with 110 percent
Z: Yeah. I mean it's very like in that the way you just said that it's it's so relevant to the rehab space I mean a lot of the time people come in we can all relate to this we use our bigger muscles to to stabilize when really our smaller muscles have forgotten kind of what to do those muscles closer to the spine the stabilizing muscles but so it's that very idea like not trying to muscle through so it's really like it is closer um they do work together it's a symbiotic relationship so yeah
A: Yeah, and I think also that you know going back to what you said about that sort of giving yourself over to the professionals and leaving the shifts and changes that were to be made in your body like kind of giving that power over to somebody else.
And I do remember that being kind of you know right at the radiance program was like you were really recognizing that you had as you mentioned before a history of sort of giving over the authority. Or the agency of what your body should or shouldn't do to somebody else. And I mean maybe you want to share a little bit about like kind of where that history started for you in your life.
Z: Yeah, yeah. I was nervous about radiance because of that I'm like here I am again sort of signing up to something where someone else is going to share what they know with me and I'm like oh how many when you know. When do I stop with this cycle it turned out to be really different of course but that so I grew up doing competitive gymnastics and that was sort of from the age of like three when I started just recreationally until pretty much all the way until I was 20.
I went over to the states um to a college over there Boise State University, so I did have a break a major break in there because I had a major injury. Probably I should have taken that as a sign to you know move to something else but I came back into the sport and kept going for a few years. And I have you know no regrets about that I had a wonderful that was a wonderful time of my life overseas um but so from very early on. I have been in an environment where I've been coached and told what to do when to do it to keep pushing.
I think things are different now but to keep pushing to not know what pain meant to not be able to register when was too much or too little and to always feel an emotional connection to being in pain and also a reflection on myself. So let's say the coach I like I'm in pain I'm injured but I don't want to say something because that will reflect poorly on me as like as a child as a person it almost feels and it's a relationship of love of positive energy.
So if I sort of have that injury or pain I lose that attention and I lose that connection with these people that are I see like almost every day many hours a day so that was sort of my childhood and teenage years and in with that too like spending time with medical professionals when I'm injured go see the sports doctor see the physiotherapist and again it's these treatments which I think that are done sort of to you and you're part of the exercise rehab side of things of course you have to be. But I think particularly as a child it's hard to make adult decisions as a child and my parents like they it was hard for them too they like you know they're trusting the professionals as well so that sort of started.
I think really this cycle of leaning into what other people think about my performance my the condition of my body how I feel really led to sort of just not listening to actually how I feel when is enough enough can I say no like you know just having this yeah this yeah authority myself um I think I lost or it got hidden through those years and it you know sort of continued for a bit and showed up in childbirth oh after childbirth where felt just really out of control and couldn't regain that control what that's what it felt like so yeah yeah.
A: And I think like what you just described I think for a child children already are slowly building their proprioceptive awareness and building their ability to communicate about what they experience and if you're you know as you described as a child intentionally like you know not saying how you feel because you don't want it to be reflected poorly you know then it's basically like limiting that ability you know that ability to flourish in you for that.
That ability to say and express and work out how to say what you're experiencing internally it's being you know unintentionally stunted by you like because you're holding back because you're not saying what's going on so they can't know right and so then that that process of trusting that I can say what I'm what I'm experiencing and someone's going to help me right or that it's going to be heard instead you were doing the opposite you were keeping that stuff inside.
Z: Yeah, absolutely, yeah. I'm not sure how else it would have gone like they'd be great to be able to go back and do it do it again and be like what if I just said everything that was on my mind and how would that have panned out
A: Yeah, totally. I mean maybe you would have gotten more attention maybe this idea that you weren't like what is this maybe if you were like oh she's really high maintenance and they just you know gave you all the attention because you you know so vocal about your you know what was going on.
I don't know but what I do remember is that during radiance you kind of had these little realizations throughout the the program where you realized that you could ask your husband for things that you needed and that you could ask him for the space that you needed if you were feeling overwhelmed and that you could ask him to step in and take over for 15 minutes so you could go take care of yourself and it was like this revelation because you hadn't been doing that early.
Z: And he's the type of person who's just like yeah just say it just tell me it's got a thick skin it's not like like he's the like we're so well matched in that sense that you know I could do all these things I can you know and I can and will sort of continue to practice this skill that I want to improve because I want my daughters to be better at it than I am you know.
So I have to do the work so yeah that um perfect opportunity to practice asking and practice saying and not catastrophizing the thing before I say it like it's you know it's that whole sort of thought process that I guess the anxious thought process what would happen if I said this and what's the it's like hang on just go back a step just ask the thing let the person have their moment respond and go from there right.
A: But be quite cool but there was some event and I mean that beats something maybe you know your body might let you know at some point when you ask the question but like there might have been some event when you were very little say you were like three or something or four and you know you let somebody know that like you had hurt yourself or you know some scenario happened at some point and it was probably you know from the outside world's perspective like very mundane where like you let people know what you were experiencing and you kind of got shut down.
Or got put on the sidelines or you know we're kind of dismissed for a moment because they were busy with the other kids or whatever it was and you got the message that you don't do that if you you're this is going to be the consequence and so then that anxiety of not wanting to speak up started just moving in you and informing your actions you know it's kind of how these things go sometimes it's these very kind of mundane little moments that we get some kind of programming and then we just run with it it becomes a habit.
Z: Yep. I agree I agree and sometimes it's not even your thing like I've got a memory of watching my mom and my sister older sister having a fight like my sister was a teenager like it was all within the realms of normal family stuff right but I was so uncomfortable with what was happening and like no one checked in with like I was I'm sensitive growing up so like no one checked in with me about how I responded to this fight that wasn't even mine like.
But those moments where you're not even part of it and probably they do get overlooked because it's like hang on what I don't know what you're what you're upset about but I think you're exactly right like it could just be the smallest thing not even your thing but it like we are experiencing our own in each other's energy all the time.
And trying to navigate through that with the skills that we have at that time and I guess if we could do better at that time we would have yeah I do think that's important to remind myself of is like you know if I knew better if I could do better then I would have done better so it's okay just try to you know just do it better now that you know with what you know it'll keep changing.
A: Totally you know. And there's there's something that is powerful about like getting to this point with your children where you have that breakthrough in raising them for them with them even in their presence that they can actually you know experience that shift from being sort of externally focused to having a more internal focus they get to actually see or experience energetically that pathway to to get there because there's this world is very focused on the external and we are often you know especially as you know women.
But also as you know anybody who's being physical in your body as a dancer as a yogi you know as a sports player there's going to be a focus on your body in terms of what it can do and if it's doing these things right which was another thing that I you know noticed came up for you a lot during the radiance program is am I doing this right because there had been a programming that there's a right way and a wrong way to move your body right and and so that's something also that's really interesting to start to break down and see a different perspective in the hanismatic movement because you can't really do it wrong.
Z: Yeah. That's it's hard to change the way I suppose I think about those things but but it is changing like the way the kind of um I guess the kind of not not quite perfectionism but the yes the outward expression or look of a posture in yoga or uh that used to be much more important many years ago but from a good place like I thought this is how I teach the technique and this is what it should sort of look like in this direction at least and that way I know you're getting benefit and this that the other now I just teach so differently to that that I can't I mean first of all I just immediately acknowledge I cannot possibly know when I step into the room.
What any person in there is going through what they're capable of what they're not capable of and what they're deciding to show up for themselves that day so it actually it's a immense release of pressure on the teacher I don't have to do anything but facilitate a you know um stress-free or lowest stress experience of this particular type of yoga for them to show up and do it themselves that has been like a great relief as a teacher um but also so like empowering so much empowering for the students in there I I sort of now balk at the idea that we think we know better than the person on the mat even if that's a first time coming to class.
It's like I you know you you already know so much about how to take care of yourself all of those things and I don't assume that role anymore and I don't think I did it from a place of sort of power or malice or anything like that it just was the way I learned it was the way kind of indoctrinated in in the way we practiced from the people who taught us then we went and learned ourselves and we sort of learned the same kind of model so it's um been a really interesting process in the last like since radiance um of trying to kind of untangle this teaching piece for myself.
And see what's left there like what's left in this practice that I value can I still connect with it in a different way and I'm still kind of like playing with that. And it's um I'm glad I think sort of in the past I'd have the tendency to be a little bit like oh that's not working. So I'm just going to throw that thing to the side whereas with the somatic like through radiance and the idea of somatic movement and the principles behind it it's kind of like well no it doesn't have to be like this isn't the one thing this is sort of the thing that brings you a bit closer to yourself and closer to your your truth and what you then will be good for you not so good for you you get to make choices.
So, I think that's probably been one of the most important things coming out of the program for me is this idea that it's not one thing or the other or the other it's could be any of those things and it could be a combination of the things and so it doesn't and and they could change over time like if it's not serving you you sort of move on or you take the pieces with you that you want and I've never really felt that um sense of like power for myself before to choose what in my life is going to create value and what isn't going to create as much value so yeah
A: Yeah. And how it changes also it's sort of something that is constantly shifting and evolving from moment to moment in our lives and that's you know I think the piece for me um because I had a similar experience. I would say as you in terms of I started practicing the movements on my own before getting like any official guidance in it from videos on YouTube and a little bit of like phone conversation with my dad right and then doing the movements on my own and you know kind of what happened for me as I got in touch with my body in a new way where I started really noticing the patterns in me the physical patterns.
But also the mental and emotional patterns that had that previously had been pretty unconscious but were starting to become unbearable in my physical experience and I would say that you know that's that's fairly common for people who first start this work is they come into it bound clenched tight in different areas of their body that have never known anything else and then they do this little seemingly inconsequential movement and they experience a change like a rapid change in the length of that musculature and also they experience being able to access that musculature and it can be quite startling because now you become aware.
So much more aware of the patterns in your body that are not really functional or are not are part of a way of being that you are coming to realize does not really serve you or serve your life and so you know the interesting thing is is that even in all of the little movements that we do the reason I say there's no wrong way to do it. That if I give you an instruction to do a movement say an arch of your back and what you get is flattening your back the opposite movement you didn't do it wrong you actually did what your body or your nervous system probably needed most your body went and did the thing that it did because it was the easier thing to do which means it probably the tighter musculature that was already doing that was already clenching your stomach.
And so that was how you interpreted what I said because it's what your body actually needed going back to that thing that how am I to know what you're experiencing and what your body needs it could need something totally different than an arch at the beginning of the practice I mean eventually it'll need the arch because we're usually tight everywhere but maybe at that moment what your body needed was the tiniest little flatten or a lifting of your head or something else right.
Z: And I love that so I love that principle of somatic movement it's like oh where are you tight let's go there like let's not try to pull against that which is so much of what I've sort of like we all I think have lived with in like exercise prescription and yeah there's still a place for those things but um but yeah it's just this different way of thinking about working with your body which um that like no right or wrong do the thing that your body's done like and and let that be the right thing.
It's so I really like that sort of example of oh yeah you did a flatten but how could that be right like that's not at all what Amy said to do like why did that happen but it's like oh yeah let's just like don't worry about like following the rules basically you know it's going to be a little bit different for everyone.
A: Totally and that's you know one of the reasons I think this work is really meant to be done you know one-on-one as well as in a kind of more group class setting or self-paced setting because there's so much individual like patterning that's in our bodys.
Kind of going back to even what you're saying when you walk in the room into the yoga studio everybody in that room has different muscle patterns that are more primary to their body and so that's why you see that some people are going to be really good at this pose and other people are going to be really good at this pose because we're good at whatever's closest to our patterns.
Z: I know in the western ways to kind of reinforce how good you are at that thing and so we keep going there the sort of in this like forceful more forceful kind of intentional way.
A: Right. Right. And then the things that we're not good at we can be really hard on ourselves and like really push hard into those spaces that we're not good at we think we need to do more and more of that thing that it's hard you know. And that I mean there were so many things about that were part of me ending up injuring myself multiple times you know.
And I talk about that on the podcast with Beth just the hypermobility and that at the time there wasn't a lot of knowledge about that you know and now I feel like and maybe you can speak to this you know with the yoga community that you have in you know Australia and then as your work as an exercise physiologist there is more awareness of that than there was 15 years ago or whatever right.
Z: Yeah, absolutely. And so Beth I used to own a studio here in Canberra and Beth taught at that studio and we really started to change the way like it didn't work 100%. But, we were changing the way this is maybe several years ago like five six seven like several years ago right. Changing the way that we looked at this particularly this hyper extension issue thing we were sort of trying to help people against the grain but to help people get into a position where their muscles could contract to support their joints better to create a sustainable practice that would be injury free more likely.
But it was hard it's so hard you need so you know you need a lot more awareness and strength and in the group setting that is challenging it's challenging to help the individual particularly when the way of teaching is is to the stiff body in this particular line of yoga.
Yeah, like it's to the stiff body so it doesn't these these other people who create the beautiful postures kind of fall through the cracks sometimes because they've got things going on too where they could create more balance. Like more balance, more awareness, more ease, more flow, like better flow of breath like just a calm nervous system during the practice.
So, we really like I think that we did a lot of work together to try and change the way we were teaching particularly with the knee the knee. Like this locked knee hyper extended knee which didn't affect everyone in that moment but we thought like probably in the long term it's not going to be great for regular practitioners. So there is change around that I haven't done a lot of sort of traveling teaching in my recent years.
I've been busy with other things I'm not sure what's happening everywhere but there's certainly I think there is certainly this space being created to practice differently and for students to feel certainly. I hope to pass this to my students to feel like they have permission to try something different for their body to create a better more sustainable outcome. So I think there is like more awareness around this idea.
Like sort of I guess the the hot yoga world bikram yoga world has been in a state of sort of evolution in a way over the last many years and this would be I think this is part of it like people sort of standing up a bit and saying oh I'm not sure that's always the right thing for everyone and oh yeah a bit safer and a bit better and let people tell us as well like what's not working and responding.
A: Yeah, yeah. I mean my dad was the one who got me into bikram yoga and he never even tried to like do full standing head to knee he never tried to do wall walks or crazy back bends he was just this you know guy in his late 50s coming in to do some yoga because it helped with the pain in his foot.
He didn't have this kind of intense ambition around it that I had and so he didn't hurt himself he never experienced hurting himself because he was never pushing himself so hard he was just staying in the room and doing his thing and you know I was the one who came into it with all this vim and vigor and pushing and you know really getting attracted to those teachers who pushed me.
Z: I know. I can totally relate. I watch my partner Peter you know who does this practice as well and is like that's describing his practice in this way that he's just like totally listening to his body and from the outside like that's just looks like the strangest thing as a teacher it's like what is happening there like that looks different to what you know it can look so different but he gets so much out of it and it is this sort of thinking that one way is the right way but really it's you know if anything like it's too much so yeah it's yeah a lot more happening than we can ever know from watching the posture
A: Totally and the the shape of the posture and the banana leg and like the hyperextension that I had going on you know and it's a kind of a funny thing because people who have hypermobile joints they have less proprioceptive awareness of what their body is and what's happening it's actually goes with the hypermobility is having this lack of awareness that they then have to build that awareness and part of that is bringing a little bend into their knee but more than that it's releasing the muscle patterns that are pulling their bodies into that hyper extended position so I am happy to say that unless I get really really stressed out I don't have hypermobile joints anymore.
And I don't stand with my legs bent backwards anymore because I've released sufficiently released and we talk about this in Hannah Sematics the green light reflex and the red light reflex and those two pulling on each other in a body that doesn't have proprioceptive awareness right that has not had that same like structure structural awareness yeah yeah right and that was me from the early age you know that if you don't have that and you get pulled into these red light green light stress patterns that basically puts you in that hyper extended position that's like essentially like undoing that undid my hypermobility and I built so much more proprioceptive awareness so I can feel when I'm in those patterns right.
Z: Yes, and like it's so related to stress I mean you know that but these the patterns and the where we feel comfortable enough for a moment to deal with a big thing we kind of get stuck there right like it's that like where do you go do you go like here or do you go in that green light or the red light and then the knees push back and the quads contract and like what happens and then like you deal with that thing but then we never release it right.
And that's kind of the clearing that's the somatic work is like the the clearing of the tension that's going to will inevitably happen and I really like the reminders throughout radiance that you gave like for this idea that like you're always gonna you'll have stress but now you have a tool like you have stress you're gonna have patterns that your body does these amazing things to protect you and to help you move forward in life right.
It's just having this tool to kind of check in have more awareness and clear that tension every so often so you sort of then can start from a like a better more connected place to then go do the next thing so it's so related to the stress thing and I think we don't recognize that so much and what I do find a little bit challenging in the space that I'm in now working in the space. I'm in now is you know there's not much time like I'm working one on one with people but there's short there's a short sessions typically it's 30 minutes if I want to do any somatic work with them that's like oh that takes time.
I don't want to rush it but then there's this other piece that I sort of need to do and there's this education around like we do it but I don't know if we really understand it there's an education around your body but also this stress that you have in your brain will affect the tissues in your body will affect these contraction patterns will affect your rehab outcomes so we know it and we certainly do like incorporate that in the sort of in the world of exercise physiology but I'm and I'm still sort of navigating this new position, this new role which is sort of up and down and back.
And in and I'm trying to find a place for just helping people feel better so that then what we do is like we can layer on top of that regulated nervous system some work to target like for their target areas like it's an injury or it's like it's a pain caused by muscular imbalance like whatever we're working on to sort of start from a more regulated place where your body's more ready to accept what's going to happen next it's like yeah okay we're ready to I'm in a good good space to change basically to change the yeah.
A: That actually is I think when people can get into that peaceful kind of calmer place inside themselves that's actually where the healing goes deep that's where things really start to make a big difference I had a woman that I worked with at the festival that I was just at and I was doing these little micro sessions like 30 minutes so I mean I hear you on that I'm so challenged it's so challenging.
So like yeah here I have a person coming to me 30 minute session they've never heard of somatics I'm I'm showing them what it is and I need to make a difference in 30 minutes for them because they're paying me you know at the festival I was like getting $75 for 30 minutes that's a good price you know and I'm like I gotta do something interesting with you that's going to give you some kind of relief you know and so it's right yeah totally and give you some kind of insight but you know I had a woman come in she I was like well how are you and you know she was like oh you know I'm having such a great day.
I feel so good you know and then as she's talking it was cute because we do pies in radiance physically intellectually emotionally spiritually and she just basically gave me her pies I was like listening and I was like wow she's taking this like all these places you know she went into some things about her dad's dying and then her stepdad dying and you know how she'd been really like you know holding everything together you know but that she felt like she was in a really good place now and you know she went from just this like really good place of feeling really good to having a big emotional release in the 30 minutes that we had together.
And it reminds me of what you're saying of like when we can get ourselves to that place where we're actually feeling good it may seem counterintuitive but that's when stuff comes up because we're in a place that our nervous system knows we can actually handle it when we're all the way stressed out all the time our nervous system's like oh better not deal with the grief right now.
Z: Oh yeah just bounces off the shield that's like no can't won't like system will break down if if we go there yeah.
A: Yeah. It was amazing to just get to be with her in that and I brought it up I was like you know this seems like oh why is this happening I was in such a great mood but it's like oh this was happening because you were feeling actually pretty good and so your body felt safe enough to let this out you know and afterwards she felt so much clearer and so much better you know and I we we did like maybe I don't know, four or five movements, you know, hand facilitated movements, though, which you haven't experienced yet, but they're amazing.
Z: I know. I'll just wait for you to come out here, Aimee.
A: I gotta come meet me and Bali. Meet me and Bali. How about that? Oh, yes.
Z: Hey, that's a happy, like, compromise for sure. Yeah.
A: Yeah, it'll happen. But yeah, like, I love that you're kind of starting to include and play with how to, you know, bring in those somatic movements. Because it's going to have the same effect on these people that you're working with that it had on us, which is that they will become aware of the patterns in their body and we can only change what we are aware of. Yeah.
Z: I think that's the scary part. You know, it's like you sort of feel this unraveling, especially throughout the program. Like, I went through some like the terrible rib pain and thoracic pain and like it was so intense and I started with the neck pain and the shoulder thing and it just, I sort of was like, wow, I don't feel like I can feel things happening.
But how many layers do I want to peel back? I don't, I don't, it's not exactly always feeling good. It just kind of reveals something else. And I think that is the what felt initially like a bit scary or intimidating or like, do I have the space in my life to go there right now?
And obviously I didn't until I did. You don't until you do until you're ready for it, right? But the other side to that is while you're doing that sort of release is you, the fear lessons because you then realize, oh, I've got this tool that I can use throughout the week or I can use in the car and just do a little bit of this and that and actually it takes me less time to reset that or to sort of like come out of pain and sort of listen to what's happening in my body.
So I don't get stuck there. So then the fear around pain has changed for sure. And the fear around like not understanding what's happening with my body and still if I don't understand it, I'm like, yeah, something feels like it's twisted that way and the shoulders that way like whatever something's twisted there. I can understand it a bit more now and I can do something to reduce the noise and sort of get myself out of a level of discomfort that is interfering with my day to day.
So even though it's that unraveling and feeling a little like, oh, am I losing control? It's like, no, no, no, no, you're also gaining you're gaining the control at the same time to keep clearing that like just to be clearing those layers to build up.
A: And not everybody was experiencing that in radiance. You know, you I think that you were experiencing that because you have such a history of injury in your body and you have such a history of physical training in your body from a very early age.
Z: Early and like the one sidedness and yeah, just doing things to create the shape and to create the outcome in a very specific way. Absolutely. So, yeah.
A: Yeah, I remember you saying how familiar some of those patterns felt like you were like, oh, I've experienced this particular kind of rib pain or neck pain before. Yeah, you know, but what your body did was it was just like, because there was no way to actually deal with that. It just layered the next pattern of life on top of that.
And so you were experiencing this accumulation. What I loved was like when you had those breakthrough moments like I remember you saying, you know, you've been having all this stuff showing up in your, your like it band or like lower back area. And then there was this breakthrough moment where you were like, my legs are inwardly rotating when I'm walking.
Z: Yeah, it's like I actually can feel my legs doing something different. It's like I'm walking differently. Yeah, I do remember that. And like that feels pretty profound when you feel like you stand differently or walk differently. That's, yeah, that feels profound.
Something you do every day. Right. And you're not trying.
Yeah, you're not even trying. You've just done this little bit of sort of given a bit of attention to what's happening. And it has just made something a bit easier. It's like letting the joints be where they the bones be in a position where they are happy. And then your muscles can do what they like to do. And it's just this harmonious thing that sounds like it should be pretty natural for everyone. But of course, it isn't because we do life.
We do, yeah, all these things. And yeah, it's again, like we've said a couple times now, but it's not that those things are wrong or that they're damaging or that they're this or that that it's like do the things you want to do and help yourself do it by just taking care of yourself in those moments to like undo the stress, undo the tension reset. So you can start again tomorrow. And, and it's, yeah, it's not going to accumulate forever.
Yeah, because it does. That is the point like I before I started Radiance, I would get this, you know, my, I'd get these twingers in my back that would just like in my thoracic spine or in my neck and they would come, they were just becoming more regular. They were just and I'm like, wow, where's this going next?
Like, where does this go next? And that's just like that tightens everything up even more because you're aware of this thing and you just have no idea how to actually like stretching it doesn't help being on the trigger ball like doesn't help like these things. So you can kind of not quite fixing it all the way.
Yeah, so my gosh, I don't know really how it would be now if I hadn't been able to do the semantic work prior to and with you and Radiance like it's been really, it's been such a gift to experience it really. Yeah, no, I mean, I felt
A: we had our interview and I think, you know, there were some things that were like you weren't sure if you're going to do it, but then I just kept feeling that you were like, no way, there was some part of you that knew like this is necessary. This is like, I have to do this.
I have to find a way to do it. The time zone thing, all of that, because this is actually you could feel in your body that this was actually something that was going to make a difference and the alternative wasn't really an alternative to you at that point.
Z: I had to make a decision making, but I just I needed that framework to make it happen to say I'm doing this thing to my family, and I had to ask for the support I had to do those things to make it work which was uncomfortable I didn't really want to lean on anyone.
I'm just, you know, in motherhood you're already sort of just fear this feeling of losing a lot of yourself efficacy just to do things that were so easy to decide for yourself used to be so easy. So, really was a challenge by the container and the framework and once I sort of was like, yep, I'm doing it and I mean, it was so good to have that accountability and I just really look forward to showing up. So, yeah, great.
A: Oh, we loved having you in the group it was fantastic and like the, you know, the structure and this kind of goes back to one of the things that you first talked about where it's like, we maybe have this tendency in our culture to outsource our like lives or bodies to an authority, some authority outside of us to tell us what we're doing and if we're doing a good job and if we're doing enough and if we are enough and right we kind of look for those outside sources of validation.
And that's not wrong. We might also look for outside structures to help us make a sense of our lives or to, you know, give us that accountability and things like this. Those things are beneficial. And they need to be also married with our own freedom and our own inner knowing and it's kind of I mean I feel like I'm describing like, you know, the way that we have our somatosensory, like part of our brain and you know the right and left hemispheres.
Ideally, we want them to work together we want to have the ordering and we want to have a linear perspective on being alive that's that's helpful. And we got to let the creativity flow and we got to let that nonlinear part of us also exist. And we have too much of one or the other we're going to feel crazy.
Z: Yeah, I remember you talking about that early on in the program like this, this integration of the both sides and like when you're in stress and when you feel like you're out of control, it is so divided up there. It's just like I cannot do both I can't keep the house.
I can't sort of keep the family. Just lead the family with all the things all those tiny decisions that really just accumulate accumulate and do the thing where I feel free and this and that and be more creative and present and more in touch, like with how I'm feeling and with the kids like it just feels so when you're in stress like that doesn't happen it just doesn't work.
So, yeah that It's so true it's like, you know, ultimately you hold the space for yourself with your linear brain and then and then all that stuff happens in between like you can do both. And I think that's like that speaks to so many people whether you're looking at releasing pain in your body or not you're actually just teaching your brain to work better with itself. And who doesn't want that I mean, right. It just sounds like pretty like a bit of bliss.
A: Oh yeah well and what people you know I didn't realize we think of our brain is like this organ that's just like up here in our heads right but it's our brain is our body our body is our brain. And so whatever is going on if we have an area in our body that like we don't go there, because it's painful, or because it's tight, or because it's injured, right.
We're not accessing a part of ourselves a part of our brain structures not being accessed. And so there's hidden information there about what might be going on with us.
You know, I've come to think of it as like the way that we do releasing and connecting in combination in him a semantics is about accessing more of like our body intelligence and more of who we are we get to actually be in all areas of ourselves instead of a lot of people we just live in our head in our heart. And if we're lucky sometimes we go down to our genitals and that's like pretty much it.
Z: It's so true and that like accessing those like we can create it unconsciously or consciously like we probably all have examples of where we can think of somewhere in our body and we're just like, Oh yeah I don't I don't go there I don't think about that I don't like I don't know how to process it yet I don't know how to talk with other people about it like I just it's just down there where whatever it is I just don't know how to deal with it.
And we can do that to our whole body we can literally yeah just live from your heart that it's really remarkable that we can do that and I like that reminder again that our body does these things because we're hurting in some way and we can't process it yet. So it's kind of what I do see often coming into like people coming into the clinic is this fight between their body and they'll sometimes say like that it's like oh why won't my oh my shoulder or why won't my body do this thing or and I'm like there's this fight between the brain and the body.
And I'm just like how do I how do we we got to sort of try and mend that relationship because we'll keep it we're going to keep getting stuck if that's how we you know all kind of think about injury and pain and our bodies way of telling us that something's not quite right or really that it hasn't been right for a long time.
So we yeah there's this sort of we can sort of disrespect or hate what the body's telling us a lot of the time and really it's like I think just really learned to lean into this a lot more through radiance it's like yeah it's just a bit of information it's not the end of the world. It's some information if you can listen and tune in maybe you can change the outcome and work with your body go in towards you know the not I loved that that example like you can't pull the knot it's just going to get tighter and tighter sort of like lean into it and undo it from closer like coming close. Yeah, so you really know it.
A: And that's that's proved to be like magical in other areas of my life I don't know if you've experienced this since radiance but I think you were talking about it with your kids and stuff like instead of getting into that tug of war energetically with them or emotionally with them instead move in closer, you know, even if you're going to put up a boundary even if you're going to say no about something you get closer during it instead of the distance.
Z: Absolutely and it does like it's that feeling of like this is stressful for me so that it's like that also that differentiating between what stressful for me personally because I'm being triggered by something in my past versus what is actually happening here and is this causing me any you know stress so that's but that experience of like wanting to reel back and sort of seeing your child over there, doing this crazy thing using you know, being loud or violent or just like actually being so human and feeling uncomfortable with that.
Yeah, and instead trying to like the further back you go, they can't regulate obviously they need co regulation and that's the job of the like that's the main our main job really like to create healthy, resilient humans is to help them co regulate when they can't. And it's hard when you're trying to you know regulate yourself at the same time. But it is like coming in closer and saying okay, some you're having a tough time with something.
I'm just going to sit here, or maybe you want to hug and those things start to happen more naturally. Now, especially with my with both of my daughters actually but they do then kind of just come out of it more quickly because they've been heard. It's like hearing the body right it's like hearing your kids they've been heard.
They have a chance to say something if they want to or share something often they don't want to it's fine they're actually fine they get over things pretty quickly. If we let them, and then taking what they need if it's a hug or not or they just want to play something else just change and play and it does resolve it more quickly but it's not easy if you're not, you know, self regulated so for me that piece of like continuing this work and wanting to share it with other people is that we just will be better for everyone in our lives and ourselves. If we know when we're out of sync and know how to come back kind of into some regulations and sync. Yeah.
A: Yeah, beautifully said I think I can very much relate to that with my son and just the way that. Yeah, children are little humans and they're doing all these human things and it's so triggering sometimes, especially when it's your kid doing it.
A: Why are you doing it's me. It's an extension of me.
A: No stop yeah and then and then I love how you related that to kind of the way that things show up in our body, you know and how it feels so frustrating or inconvenient you know I've had that happen where it's like oh I have all these plans and I'm going to do all these things today and then my hips or my legs are just like “rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr” through my day being so angry and feeling so frustrated that my legs were just not on board today with my day.
Z: Yeah. And it's like who can I vent to about this already? Like I just need to like what an unjustice like unfairness that I'm experiencing today. Like it's so yeah it's so true. Just taking a moment. It's hard to remember to do that.
But even just lying down and doing nothing. Maybe you just lie down and you just sort of notice yourself, your body, where it's landing. You just again give your body a chance to say hey this is what's happening.
I just want to feel heard. And then it just takes a lot of that tension and stress out of the experience that you're having. It decatastrophizes it. It's just a whole new just a better way I've found of experiencing those ups and downs. And like what a joy and empowering thing to be able to change the outcome.
I think that's why we feel so stuck and like we're just going to be stuck because we can't change our circumstances or something. But this is really kind of like an insight into well yeah you can change a little bit. You can change a little bit.
A: You can change a little bit more. A little bit more yeah and that's the progressiveness of it. I mean you know that's part of why when I first was coming up with the idea of radiance you know. And this is funny because it kind of relates to like Bikram yoga too.
I've done these things in my life that are very challenging you know somatics and somatic movement is challenging in a totally different way than Bikram yoga is challenging to go really tiny to be patient to focus on relaxing your body to notice when you're not relaxing and keep inviting yourself.
To relax right to judge through the memories or feelings that arise you know some people more than others right but I do these things in my life and oftentimes when I would tell people about them they just be like oh well that's not I'm just not going to do that like people I would see at like a bookstore I had lost all this weight from high school and people were like oh my god you look amazing like tell me your weight loss secret and I'd be like oh well I stopped eating all processed foods and I became a raw vegan and I'm practicing Bikram yoga five times a week. And they're like oh my god.
Not gonna happen you know. So I was like how do I take this thing that nobody has really heard of. Hannah somatic education that has all these incredible benefits and outcomes and how do I get people to do it long enough to see a life changing body altering like outcome because it's a little bit every day even though it's immediate those changes you felt when you did those videos right before the program. You felt changes immediately you built neural pathways you didn't have before but it takes time to shift from how things have been in your body to how things could be right.
Absolutely. And so that was like I'm like I got to create something that's like half a year long I got to create a container that challenges people to stick with this because it's easy to think that this doesn't work if the benefits are right there if you're not just totally out of your pain and like a month.
Z: Or to also think that you only need to do a little bit to be out of pain like for me I was like wow I just did this like tiny little bit before radiance and like. But if not for radiance I would have sort of just still been come back to the stuckness like the side been now for me doesn't create that effect.
Like I don't get the same feeling from the side bed that I did when I first tried it I was like this is a miracle like what is this thing I don't know why the tension in my back is gone. But that doesn't happen the same way because I'm not the same body like it's not the same body so if you don't sort of give it a chance to like marinating it for a bit then you just won't go through the cycles.
Like you won't kind of go through the pain thing and then come out of the pain that discomfort and then go through the next layer and kind of get this sense of ongoing this progression sort of thing that will be important for the rest of your life as long as you want to keep kind of clearing that stress and moving a bit more freely and thinking a bit more flexibly and just kind of that having a bit more sense of like ease.
And I think like playfulness like you're more yourself that you know who you were as a kid like before any of this stuff happened life right. Pretty easy. Yeah. So yeah I think the content like that the duration is important. Yeah for sure.
A: Yeah. And then tell us a little bit about like in your relationship I mean you touched on this a little bit your relationship to motherhood now compared to how it felt for you after your second daughter was born and that way that you kind of felt like your body was given over to them versus how you experience your body and your motherhood now.
Z: Look some of that is time and just adapting to having two children versus one that was tough that was a hard change for me. But I think now like I feel with the processing and work that I've done. I feel more separate in a good way from my kids I suppose I'm always will always be intricately linked and because of like the things I see them do.
I'm like wow this we really are sort of bound by blood but also we you know just the deep care and love that you have for your children. But there's this sense of being able to assert myself even with my children better you know more and more as I practice the skill to set boundaries and to accept the emotion that might come with that.
And to have I guess a clearer reason for why the boundaries there or like that has been that has been helpful I feel certainly like I'm healing that wound of just feeling completely in the freeze stress response during my labor like when I think about that time. It still gives me like a bit of a stress response but I'm much more detached from it I can see what happened I can I'm starting to process that more I can see how things could have been different.
And that's valuable not. I think some people kind of think oh but you can't change it's like yeah I can't change that but I can imagine how a different possibility might have arisen and when I find myself in the future. I'm in a position where I feel like I'm not advocating for myself and no one else is advocating for me like what is this space.
Where are the people who are supposed to be supporting me through this and where am I like you know that may have passed and foremost it does. You know I do reflect on it to think what would I do differently and how do I create more practice making decisions that serve me. Rather than leaning in too much to what other people think about me listen to the professional opinion because that's what people are trained in doing.
And then also learn how to be a better manager for myself so I think that slowly is changing and my children give me opportunities every single day to practice being a better manager for myself like not I think one thing like we try to do things sometimes as moms or parents like sort ourselves out so that we can then be available and I think that's true to a degree.
I think it's also valuable to let your kids see that you sort yourself out as well as feeding them you feed yourself like you don't have to do all that stuff in sort of like packaged away in isolation and then tend to the kids or have a shower and then like like it can all they can see you taking care of yourself there you know that's also a really empowering place to be so that they can see oh yeah it's okay for me to take care of myself to as they grow.
So I think I'm fit yeah I'm certainly feeling much more in control of myself since we first met I can picture that I can feel that person that was on that call that first time with you and it was just like a shell like I feel I just remember being a bit of a shell and thinking how will I ever put myself back together because I don't even know who I was before this event happened. Right. Yeah. Yeah.
Just pull the rug out. But like it just it would not have the same effect on me at this stage at this point it just wouldn't just the wisdom that has come with that experience and with healing from it. It's important I just cannot see the possible like I cannot imagine myself being in that place again I just I mean maybe life will surprise me but I just think feel like I have so much more in my skill set now to like mediate stress.
When it's coming up and speak up when I need to so that I don't get to that place of feeling very alone very out of control unsure about you know what my body my brain will if that it'll be able to heal and change and support my kids. So yeah just um yeah it's been it's been very complimentary to this journey of like early years of motherhood.
A: Yeah absolutely I think that you know what you said about going back and imagining what you would do differently and I personally believe healing is nonlinear and kind of quantum in that way where we can like do things differently in this moment that we you know didn't do differently in that moment and in a way it's almost like we're going back and healing that that thing that we didn't do the way that we needed to then we're doing it right now.
And so that part of us getting stooped and and then we look back on that scenario and it's not nearly as sharp or painful because we're already rectifying it we're resetting it we're we're doing it differently right now.
Z: Yeah and that idea that it's not linear and neither of our lives really like if we believe that then we'll only believe that our next step is the accumulation of everything that came before like that's the only there's only one option right like so it is that like. You know continuously kind of going back and thinking forward not in that stress way where it's like well what's going to happen what did happen but.
In a way that you're entertaining these possibilities so that really what comes next is infinite pot in you know possibility like who knows what that next thing is there are many way many things that could happen and you're not bound to this road that you think you know one way you know at one point you might have thought that way maybe we do get to those brain bits where we're just like.
This is the only way this is the only one way the way I've arrived here and I can only keep going in this one way. It's really cool way to look at it that timeline like it's some quantum approach here.
A: Totally well and that makes me think of you know the last part of the cat stretch series that we do where we're training your eyes to move differently than the rest of your torso and the way that we're undoing that stress pattern of the tunnel vision. Of only one way and all the muscles of our torso getting linked up with our ocular motor nerve to look for like a periscope to look for the danger in front of us there right and and we're opening up the possibilities of what we can see on our horizon and we're letting go of that tunnel vision we're widening our internal gaze.
Yeah right and that is that is essentially what we just talked about is being able to see a wider framework of possibility in the moment that's not just only because of what was pre programmed in us before. It's not just all these things happen and so this now happens. It's something more creative and spontaneous that occurs.
Z: Totally and I love that because you're in that seated position right and then that's stable that's the present that's the thing and then you do have this. What are the possibilities as you can moving your eyes and dissociating those movements with the upper body and the head and in the eyes.
Like it's so true like it's such a like even just thinking about it and I love that too about somatic like can't move today just visualize it like even just thinking about it you're sort of giving yourself the opportunity to imagine.
That there are possibilities and that you'll know and that you'll you'll know what is right for you at the time because you've got this deeper sense of knowing for yourself what is sort of what does feel good for you what doesn't feel good for you and not just feeling good but actually being good you know. Feeling like satisfactorily like good and right and and of value like a value to your life in time yeah.
A: It's interesting because those eye movements are quite powerful I mean I like to warn people because you know some of it I just started doing on my own with YouTube videos and yeah there were things I went through that were really dramatic. Like for me personally that I didn't realize were actually related to that and now when I'm working with clients and they have kind of dramatic results from like eye movement stuff like being really nauseated having all kinds of memories flood back.
I'm like oh I remember when that happened to me and I did not have anybody guiding me through it I would have had such a much easier time if I had had someone explaining to me and guiding me through this.
You know so I that's one of the reasons that you know there's plenty of stuff on YouTube I don't have my YouTube videos just for anybody to use because I prefer that people are using my videos who actually have some guidance with it even if they've just done a couple of sessions with me so that I can get a sense for you know. Developing that rapport where they can ask me a question and they don't have to go through their somatic unraveling like by themselves.
You know because that wasn't the most pleasant thing for me if I'm totally honest I could have used radiance myself when I first was going through this is probably why I created it.
Z: I mean totally I mean that's what we do that's how we kind of push the envelope is like I think that's such important work to share what we have known to be true like through our own work and then share that with others in a way that's better than the way we learned it because that's how we. Evolve and learn and that's like due diligence right in this space where we're like working with other people it's like let's try and.
Imagine that there's an even better way like this is great and let's try and do it even better and more support more yes so like definitely like radiance manifested because of your experience so yeah.
A: Yeah you know I just I also love that you know launching this in the way that I did and just the way that people like you who I mean I don't think we really talked much at our Bikram yoga teacher training there were like 400 people it was crazy number of people you know we weren't in the same group but we.
Connected over you know over the Internet you know and and there you go like we can end up in each other's worlds again and I just love that because you know there is so much to offer other yoga teachers in somatic if they're interested if they are curious if there's a way in you know I'm all here for I want to have that conversation I want to like take apart like the ways in which we have trapped ourselves into like the way it has.
To be done and how could we break free of that and start to explore and find our own voice in teaching and deepen our our soul in our teaching because I don't think that the somatic approach has to be opposing. Any kind of yoga practice even ones that seem pretty like aggressive I even think those ones can benefit from somatics you know what I mean just like anybody can benefit from like drinking water we could all benefit from releasing our muscle fibers a little bit you know.
Z: Yeah 100%. Yeah it's just like finding that way in like you said like you know we didn't really know each other but we went to this thing we both independently decided to attend this thing. And there's more to it than just that thing right like we obviously have interest that align that we didn't know about at that time whether we like would have had a conversation and known that then probably not like we were just.
Just into that one way but it's like it is a reminder that the things we do are not all of us and it's good to remind like I like to remind myself of that too because you know what we do does not define us it doesn't it's not. You know it doesn't put you in a box or label you this or that like you can you are so much more than the things that you do.
So it's some. Yeah, it's I think that's like such a good reminder the way that we met and how we're talking here to pay. Yeah these little moments where you come into contact with other people. Then there's so much more there than you realize at the time and more common ground really at the time than at the time so yeah. What amazing.
A: Yeah, I'm just so impressed with you and it's so great to see you on this call so full of just you know excitement and life and passion and so very different than the person that I was meeting on that you know call and you know how beautiful that you got to have radiance at that who's part of time. You know one one of the women who's in the summer round of radiance right now just had her first baby and she's doing radiance for the second time.
She did it before with with Beth actually she was in Beth's cohort, but now she's really recognizing that postpartum especially with her first child and I know she's going to listen to this and she's going to love your story. She's realizing that this is like such an essential way that she can support herself in this new process of coming into motherhood and she's going to have just like you know.
Z: Yeah, but she's like, she's got that wisdom already to sort of that seed planted to be like yeah I'm going to go again I'm going to go and remind myself even more like sort of how to use this skill in my life because it's a big yeah it's a big change when you sort of start caring for someone else and all of that so that's so exciting she's I'm excited to hear how she goes.
A: Yeah, do you ever do somatics with your kids have you ever tried it a little bit with them.
Z: No, they've seen me. Okay, well not hard no like my older daughter will lie down next to me and it's the sweetest thing she'll do like she'll kind of do the size she'll do her version of the side bend and you know what when she's doing that. Because we'll do other things that are physical right like we'll be like animals and we'll do she'll show me some of her exercises and there's a there's a pace to it right and when she lies down and does the somatics next to me.
What does it what I do notice is there's a change in her like pace and her face it's just a little bit slower so she's picking up I'm not teaching her anything or like I'm just doing it and she's sort of realizing this is a little bit different to the other movement that we're doing. Like she doesn't come in and like just crank out this like side bendy thing.
She sort of has this awareness of like, oh now mom's doing this like quieter sort of slower thing and she brings that. I mean maybe she's there for a minute, 30 seconds. But it, you know, it's palpable even to her that this is a different kind of kind of thing. So I wouldn't say I've done it with her intentionally, but she's been exposed to it.
A: Yeah, yeah. And she's going to grow up in a world where her mother has this knowledge that most people don't have. And when stuff comes up, you're going to be like hey try this out. And she's going to grow up with that as something that's just part of her reality, which is really really cool.
Z: Yeah, yeah, I hope so.
A: Well, this has been such an amazing conversation and I just appreciate you so much with your willingness to share about your experience and about the challenges that you were facing. And I'm so glad that you took the leap into the unknown and said yes to being part of this community.
And you know, I'm excited to continue to share this work with you and you know, like, would love to get you of any someday it'll happen I'll be running a training for the hands on work because I don't want it to die out in the world and I want to be able to have someone in Australia that can be like go to them. They can do this special hands on thing with you.
Z: I mean when you're doing it Amy. It'll happen at the right time. It'll all happen at the right time. Thank you so much for your work and for making it available and like, yeah, the presenting an opportunity I had to had to take and making it easy, easier for me to get there by understanding where I was at pretty much so you've always been good at that. And yeah, much appreciated. I'm sure everyone who's worked with you would would say the same thing.
A: Thank you. Yeah, I really bring my utmost because yeah this work is really changed my life and there's just yeah I just couldn't bring anything less than my utmost, you know and I mean I'm still human and you know stuff comes up but like it's, it's really my my passion and I feel like humanity needs this instead of the stakes are high and so that's what keeps me bringing my utmost every time I'm here. Yeah, awesome.
Love it. All right. Well thank you again for this conversation. You know if anybody has, you know, something they want to share with you are you comfortable with people reaching out to you on in what kind of way could they reach out to if you wanted to chat with you or comment about the experiences you had.
Z: Yeah, absolutely. So probably email. Okay.
A: Cool. Yeah, well we'll put that in the show notes and yeah thank you again and we will see each other soon.
Z: Thanks Aimee. Thanks so much.
A: You've been listening to the Free Your Soma podcast. To find out more information about today's guest, check the show notes. And to find out more information about me, Aimee Takaya and the Radiance Program, visit www.freeyoursoma.com.
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