Welcome to the Lift One Self podcast, where we break mental health stigmas through conversations. I'm your host, nat Nat, and we dive into topics about trauma and how it impacts the nervous system. Yet we don't just leave you there. We share insights and tools of self-care, meditation and growth that help you be curious about your own biology. Your presence matters. Please like and subscribe to our podcast. Help our community grow. Let's get into this. Oh, and please remember to be kind to yourself. Welcome to the Lift One Self podcast. Kashani, I am so thankful you're here with me.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me. Thank you for asking me to be on. I'm really excited for this conversation.
Speaker 1:Me too. Will you join me in a meditation so that we can settle our minds and connect our hearts? I would love to. And for the listeners most of you sometimes are driving or running while listening to a podcast I would ask you, please do not close your eyes. We want you and the others to be safe. Yet the other prompts that I bring Kashani and myself into you can follow also.
Speaker 1:So, kashani, I'll ask you to close your eyes and you're going to begin breathing in and out through your nose and you're going to bring your awareness to watching your breath go in and out through your nose and, if you can be as precise as feeling the air come in through your nostrils, going down into your lungs, into your belly, just keeping that awareness on your breath. There may be some sensations or feelings that are coming up. It's okay, you're safe to feel them. You're safe to release them, while still staying focused on your breath. Surrender the need to control, release the need to resist and just be, be with your breath, drop into your body, body, continue staying with your breath, still staying with your breath, at your own time, in your own pace.
Speaker 2:You're going to gently open your eyes, while still staying with your breath.
Speaker 1:That felt amazing. Thank you, thank you. I love doing these to remind people to take these mindful moments. As you know, we only meditated for maybe a minute and a half, and sometimes we forget what a minute and a half can do for us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's so powerful to just take that minute and to tell your mind who's boss for a second Cause. Sometimes we don't do those breathings and then we're just running on a hamster wheel up here and we just are like Whoa, you know that song, what one dance won't do. It's like what one breath, like what one breath can do, what minute can do?
Speaker 1:oh my gosh, yeah even a second, um, just doing those, you know, interrupting our reaction and our reactivity when our nervous system is activated so that we can slow down, like you said, that hamster wheel, that rat race that goes on in our head with like a thousand thoughts being fired all at once and it's like you feel like you have to go in all kinds of different directions, where it's like wait, let me come into my body, into my breath, and know that you know what I have to be right here, right now, and what's the next step I can take. How's your heart doing?
Speaker 2:my heart is doing. My heart is doing good. My heart is doing good. I'm in love with life and I haven't been always in love with life, and so when I am, I'm like is this really happening? Are we really healed and healthy? So I'm happy and healthy. I'm getting messages from Shalika right now, so I'm blessed. I have good friends. One sec, let me turn off my notifications.
Speaker 1:Can you let the listeners know who Kashani is?
Speaker 2:Okay, who Kashani is. Kashani is an amazing person who has overcome a lot and a lot of people wouldn't even know because I tried to show the world a warrior face and a warrior figure and somebody who can still laugh and smile, although I've gone through a lot of struggles and tragedies and mental health issues, and I'm born and raised in Ottawa. I went to Manor Park, I went to Fisher, I went to Carleton, I went to Glebe. I basically followed my mom's footsteps. Every school she went to I was like I want to be there Javelin and then found my voice in teaching group fitness classes. So I am also an instructor and I am also a singer. I'm just, I'm basically a lot of things and I just try to show the world little snippets of that at a time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you mentioned your mother, so I'm gonna bring Fiona into the conversation and so that she can strengthen us in this dialogue and we can feel her on the other side of love.
Speaker 2:Can you?
Speaker 1:let the listeners know who Fiona was, who your mom was or is.
Speaker 2:I should say let's keep it together. Kashani, you've got this, you can we can just pace yourself.
Speaker 1:Remember to breathe.
Speaker 2:My mom was an amazing person. Anyone who met her was immediately changed by her. Anyone who saw her was just like whoa. Who is that? And that's how I always felt about her, even though I was around her every day. Just everything awed me about her how she spoke, how she walked, how she sang, her work ethic. My mom was just one in a million and she just gave me so much inspiration and so much realness. And, as much as people from the outside might think like, oh, you and your mom were just friends, I very much was not just her friend, she was my mom. I had the utmost respect for her. I was not allowed to swear in front of her. I had a lot of rules and regulations. My mom was always putting me on a Fiona program and I just I miss her so much.
Speaker 2:My mom passed away in 2021 while she was on vacation in Jamaica, and I spoke to her the day before after, getting a phone call from her at lunch and then being like, oh, I could brush that phone call off and catch it later or get her to call me back, but I just called in sick to work and I was like, hey, like I can't her to call me back. But I just called in sick to work and I was like, hey, like I can't make it in the afternoon and I just spent an hour on the phone with my mom and I'm so grateful for that, because the next morning she passed away. She suffered from a laryngospasm which is similar to, to, or can present as, an asthma attack at first, and she did have asthma. And my mom was only 52. She looked like she was 32.
Speaker 2:Most of the times if we were in Jamaica, I'd have to remind people like that's my mom, like we can't be, like we're not having a party right now, like my mom is there to keep the weed away from me. But yeah, I miss my mom terribly. I think about her every day, I dream about her every night, and those people who are listening who knew my mom know exactly how much of a struggle the last two and a half years have been so, as you said it was in 2021, so in the prime of covid, yes, so, um, how was that experience?
Speaker 1:because you said she was in jamaica. So how was it? Was that experience?
Speaker 2:So COVID presented a lot of roadblocks that you know already with dealing with a sudden death of somebody who's so young and full of life. All these other steps of grief already are pouring in like like that's not fair, that's not life, why me all of this stuff? But it got even worse with the fact that I wasn't able to go to Jamaica to pronounce her body or to actually see this happening, because at the time you couldn't travel if you didn't have your vaccine, and I wasn't on the list yet. I was young, working from home and there was no need for me to get the vaccine yet, so I wasn't able to travel. Then really struggle with Well, why are we doing this? Like she wanted that. So we had to cremate her and then bring her back to Canada and then after that the funeral was delayed a year. So there was this open wound that had no closure for about a year.
Speaker 2:And you know, one of the steps of grief is bargaining. And I convinced myself my mom was on an undercover mission in India and that they needed to fake her death and have her go to India undercover to discover all of the things that were happening within immigration, because she was an immigration officer. And so I, you know, dabbled with that imagination and that idea for a while, and eventually things became very real. I was like, wait a minute here. My mom was obsessed with me too and loved me too.
Speaker 2:And my front door just opened and it's, and no one is here. So just hold on a minute, I've got to go close my door. Okay, I'm back, um, invite your mom in. Yeah, she just walked in the door, so, um, well, I'll go on. Fiona, um yeah, so not able to have a funeral and no closure. And then also bargaining with this idea that maybe she's not, maybe she hasn't passed away, maybe she's just like needed to do this mission, she loved her job so much. Maybe she's just like Shannon and Shamari are super strong. They'll be able to figure it out without me for a bit, but it's been two and a half years. She's not on that mission in India anymore and I need to start my own mission of healing, and that mission did not go as planned for a little while.
Speaker 1:So yeah, is feeling physically the body so that there is a closure. And I take it that you weren't able to have that part of the closure of feeling her body just seeing video or picture. So very understandable. Your mind would play any kind of imaginary stories to avoid the pain of, of the loss and knowing that this is what this new reality is, because it's a whole new life, it's a whole new space to interact with reality and you know our biology is very, you know, at times we want to curse it and get angry that it's doing certain things where it's like no, this is a defense, this is a system that will have defense mechanisms to protect you at all costs, because that deep pain of grief feels like a death for yourself, like the part of you died.
Speaker 2:Oh, a huge part of me died. That, even something I came to terms with the other day. There's a version of me that only my mom knew and got to see behind closed doors. There was a laugh that I laughed only around her. It doesn't happen around other people. I hear it in videos and I'm like whoa, I haven't laughed like that.
Speaker 2:We used to laugh like we were both our own comedy shows with each other and I'm so grateful the amount of videos I have of my mom. I could make a six hour movie just about her from the videos I have on my phone. But there is a laugh that I haven't laughed in a while and there's a. There's just a freedom and like the silliness that I would do in the living room around her that I'm still very confident and very silly around just about anyone.
Speaker 2:But there's just some stuff that I I won't be doing anymore and at the same time as it's sad, like how grateful and how amazing to have experienced that for 30, 30 years. You know, not a lot of people have very strong, close relationships with their parents. Not a lot of people are in love with their moms like I was, like that. Not a lot of people get to experience that. So, in the same time that I'm sad, I'm super grateful. I'm super grateful that half the data on my phone is, or half the space on my phone is, taken up with videos of her and not other stupidness.
Speaker 1:And you know she provided that safety for you just to be yourself and not other stupidness that she would know. And you know she provided that safety for you just to be yourself Without that analyzing brain trying to. You know, contort that I have to be a certain way that you could just be your authentic self. And you felt that safety that she wouldn't push it away, that there was acceptance At all.
Speaker 2:And even if she was laughing at me like it wasn't, it was just I knew she was laughing because of me and not like trying to dim my light or trying to be like Shan, like just sit down. But she would be very, very quick to be like okay, be quiet, it's enough. Now, please give me a break. But I it, it just was. There was so much love and so much acceptance that I'm missing it, but I'm also grateful I got to experience it.
Speaker 1:So, as you said at the beginning of the podcast, you're in love with life and I love seeing this energy on you and you can. It's palpable. You can feel it in your presence because we went to do karaoke the other night and just hearing the vibration and the joy that comes out of you and and the confidence of accepting yourself exactly where you are, whatever that looks like in that moment, and being around people that will have that acceptance and be there with you. Yeah, it wasn't like that at the beginning, so you're on the other side of somewhere. Can you give the listeners a peek of what that journey looked like and possibly what modalities or what tools you used or what inner healing you had to go through to go through that journey?
Speaker 2:So the journey is still going on. I just want to make that very clear, that I might be smiling and laughing, giggling, singing, all that stuff, but I still very much have my days and I still have to encourage myself that feelings are meant to be felt. I don't want to be numb through this, I don't want to just soldier through and, you know, not give the emotion that's due. Like I owe a lot of tears to this experience and the anger, it almost, it almost ruined me, the amount of anger that I had having to lose my mom so young. I was angry that she wasn't going to be at my wedding. I was angry that she'll never get to meet my grandkids. I was angry that she'll never have pictures with my grandkids. You know, my brother has three kids and two of them have pictures with her. And I was like, man, I want that. I want that. That's not fair, although I'm not jealous of my brother or the grandkids, I just I wanted that too. I was angry that we're not going to be going on trips anymore, you know, and all of that anger, it got me in trouble, it made me quit my job, it made me lash out and get angry at people that didn't deserve it. But you know, hurt people hurt people and when I'm hurt I realize that there's no rational thinking. I'm whoever's in my line and, oh, whoever is in my vicinity that I want to get angry at. There's just no self-control, which is, you know, it can be for some people, embarrassing. It was very embarrassing for me for a while, but then I realized there are some people that stuck around with me through that and didn't punish me for what I was experiencing and didn't punish me for how I reacted. And besides the grief layer and the COVID layer and the lack of closure and all of that stuff of closure and all of that stuff, prior to this happening I was already coping with bipolar disorder and that chemical imbalance in my brain when anger and grief and loss came up. I went crazy. I was hospitalized more than once and not the type of hospitalization where you get to leave. I was not allowed to leave for a few days and sometimes two weeks. And I was there knowing at the same time like this is for my own good, but also very angry that I had to experience that too and embarrassed that like, oh my gosh, people are going to think I'm crazy. But what people think about me, so cliche, it's none of my, my business. I don't care as much as I used to. I used to care. What did they think about that? Or what if they found out about this? Maybe? Maybe they saw me running away from the police, maybe all of these things. Uh, you know what? It's fine.
Speaker 2:The psych ward is open and available for everyone, and I hope that. You know, not everyone has to experience that. But it's not just a kashani thing. It could be just your friend, it could be your co-worker, it could be your neighbor. Anyone can end up there for a wide variety of things, not just hearing voices, not just self-harm, not. There was a lot of people in there that I was like whoa, you too? What happened? And you realize that we all have this story that we're just trying to work through, and some of us just feel things a little bit deeper than others. And that's what happened.
Speaker 1:What did the forgiveness process look like for yourself? The?
Speaker 2:forgiveness process was complicated, but it started with me realizing that some of my closest people had forgiven me and they hadn't even faulted me. They hadn't really held anything against me. I was doing that to myself. You know. I needed to forgive myself for the way that I treated myself, for the way that I? Um didn't give myself space and try to rush this process of case. I should be back at work next month. Fiona would have been back at work next month. To be honest, you know, um, she would have.
Speaker 2:When my grandmother passed away two years before her and my mom was back on a plane to Nigeria the next month because she worked abroad and, no, it probably wasn't the best idea for her, but I realized that in Nigeria her own grief process. I learned a lot of things from it. I learned that I'm on my own time. It's Kishani time and that's why, like, my Instagram name is Kishani o'clock, it's Kishani time. Like I don't need to be on anyone else's clock right now. I need to figure out how can I go back to work and not want to cry at my desk, because I don't think that's healthy to just grin and bear it. You know some people do it, but I'm. I didn't want to do it and I didn't think that it was going to serve me in the long run.
Speaker 1:For sure, and for you to have that awareness that you're always following your mom's footsteps. And then this happened, and it's like in your mom's footsteps. And then this happened and it's like I need to do it my way for this, even though I saw my mother model a way for her, for her mother. I don't know if you, you know, allowed yourself to see like my relationship with my mother was probably different than the relationship your mother had with her mother, which is all the the case, and it's like wait a minute, I don't have to be somebody else, I have to be me and I have to take care of my needs 100% and it didn't happen right away.
Speaker 2:Like a lot of these revelations and epiphanies come after a couple of weeks, maybe a couple months, of doing it the wrong way, and then just surrendering and realizing like wait a minute, I need to figure this out for myself. Three days of bereavement, what is that? That's crazy. I wrote into my work and I said, hi, it's me. You're about to see someone take the most amount of time off work you've ever seen. You're going to see doctor's notes that you didn't even know could be written, and they were like what? And I'm like yeah, yeah, this, this is what works for me, and if I don't belong here or you don't want me to work here anymore, let me know too. But this, this is not going to be something I'm going to pass down. I'm going to handle this the right way and I'm going to take the time that's needed and I wish that more people advocated for themselves in that situation and didn't spend so much time wondering what everyone?
Speaker 1:else thought, or what is everyone else going to think about me taking a year off? And also there's space to feel, yeah, because your work lets you be busy and not really pay attention to what's going on. And, like you said, I didn't want to grin and bear it and look like I have it all together. I actually want to feel my feelings and some people it's a real threat to feel that stuff.
Speaker 2:It is. It's not comfortable, it's not cool, it's not a sexy feeling. It's so confusing because you're like wait a minute, I've dealt with other tough things before. Why can't I just get up and go? Why can't I just push this aside and disassociate? And all the detach? How many videos I watched on YouTube about detaching? Yeah, it's a really good tool in some instances. You do need to have some sense and ability to detach, but from something like this, I wouldn't suggest it because it's going to attach to you later it's going to come back. I wouldn't suggest it because it's going to attach to you later it's going to come back. It's going to be like hello, remember me? Yeah. So I just decided I'm not going to detach and I'm going to the opposite of disassociate. I'm going to associate with this grief.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're going to face the pain. You face the pain and that is warrior work. To do that in a society that says just take some pills, just keep going with your routine and just do it this way. Where it's like, uh, there's going to be a build-up, like you may want to numb, but this thing ain't going away until I actually feel it and face it and to speak to your point about taking pills and stuff, I'm not a no medication ever advocate.
Speaker 2:That's not me.
Speaker 2:I know some people are and they think they could breathe it away, they could incense and sage it away and all this stuff.
Speaker 2:But there is a place for medicine at some stages of your mental health crisis and your grief and for some people they might need to do this a little bit longer. I never speak directly to what I did because it's not going to help you. You're a totally different person and you might need to be on Tylenol for a bit, you know, but you also might need to be on Seroquel and you also might need to be on Latuda and Lorazepam and all of these other things. But I wouldn't say don't be open to that for the for the maybe instance that it's needed, because there was a time when I really did need some medication to sleep, because without sleep I wasn't healing and without sleep I wasn't able to give my body the rest it needed. My mind was coming up with all these scenarios of how to get my mom back, how to fly to India, how to bump into her, how to all these scenarios and I just I really did need a little little help in this department, yeah.
Speaker 1:And I'm not one of no medication either. My part is when there's medication given, are you allowing a space for these people to actually feel what they need to feel? Given, are you allowing a space for these people to actually feel what they need to feel? And a lot of times it's just take the medication, you'll feel better and it'll go away where it's like. That's not how grief is, and so it's understanding that the medication is a tool to still feel the process. It won't be as intense, the there will be an edge taken off so that you can function. Yet it's also use the tools to be able to feel this stuff, not just try to shove it in a junk drawer and just go away. And I I can bypass this, because a lot of times what you hear from people with medication, or as soon as somebody's feeling some uncomfortable feelings, oh well, we can just give medication for it.
Speaker 1:Yet that's a bypassing of. There's some emotions that are going to suck, stink, have jagged pieces that you're going to have to feel to let it process through your system so that your nervous system isn't dysregulated and hypervigilant all the time. It's like you keep keep holding onto these emotions and not feeling them. Your nervous system's just ramped up with energy of dysregulation, of feeling unsafe, and that there's these things you're avoiding, like I don't have time for this, like don't bother me, and it tries to come up, and so it's just this internal cycle.
Speaker 1:So when I say you know the the medication, like for me at times it's like, okay, somebody passed away, and the first thing is like medicate them. And it's like, okay, well, wait a minute. Is there a part where you're allowing them to just feel what they're feeling, without putting the pressure? You need to get back to work, work. You need to get to do this, you need to get to do that, like just be with the grief of that, and I don't think our society holds space enough. Like you just said, three days of bereavement and my mother passed away yeah, that part.
Speaker 2:I'm not sure we've advanced in so many other areas in society. What's that about? It just seems so inhumane. Maybe you know what. Maybe take three days for your cat or your dog or your hamster, you know. Maybe maybe that's what you, that's for that level. Maybe for some other people it's even longer. But for a parent that you really, really loved and that you just you had such this attachment to, I just think there needs to be a scale, you know, just like there needs to be a better way, because maybe some people would abuse that system and be like oh, I loved, I loved my mom so much I need a month off, but they never actually talked to them in the last year and be able to be.
Speaker 1:But I think there needs to be a reassessment of that and even if they didn't talk to their parent, there's still stuff that they need to process, because now this parent is in there, so they're gonna have to face things that they. You know there's a boundary work unfinished business.
Speaker 2:That's gonna come up. Yeah, but that that's going to come up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but no, it's back to business as usual the industrial complex support, get the stats, get the production and your personal life, just put it aside. Put your workforce, workforce um face on and just put your personal side, personal life aside, and it, like my personal life, is a part of my workforce life. There is no separation of personal life. It is always with me. My biology is carrying me through all of this. So, yeah, thank you for opening the dialogue about the medication, because I am nowhere one of, oh, just stop medication. If you need it, then take what the tools there is. My thing stop medication. If you need it, then take what the tools there is. My thing is if you're going to take the medication, don't ignore your inner work, because if you think you're taking this and it's going to make everything go away, well, I have a sad story to tell you that your body is going to release this in different ways in the long term, and it might not be right now, it could be decades later, but it's going to want to reveal itself.
Speaker 2:And to speak to that point as well when you're taking medication, don't just stop it because you feel better. And you think I've handled this. I've dealt with this Because, like you just said, that stuff can start to creep back up and shock your system and shock you and you might be so overwhelmed with all those feelings that were suppressed that you need to titrate off of your medication. You do need medical support. I will admit, I tried to just, you know, stop medication by myself and I was very quickly met with the reality like, wait, I actually need to listen to what it says on the bottle, I need to go call my doctor and we need to have a discussion. And I'm so grateful for my medical team because they are so supportive.
Speaker 2:I've never had an appointment where I feel like I'm not going to be heard or where I'm just going to be told well, what do you expect? Like it's just pure professionalism, and I, I love, I love that. Where I'm just going to be told well, what do you expect? Like it's just pure professionalism, and I, I, I love, I love that. And I'm so lucky for that because I've been able to say hey, you know what I'm doing, all the right things. I'm eating, I'm walking, I'm, I'm journaling. I'm doing all of those things consistently, not just one week of that and thinking, okay, I found the, I found the solution, but I'm doing these things.
Speaker 2:I want to entertain the idea of lowering this dose, maybe changing that, and they were very open to it and supportive of me trying to find my own wings again and find my own self. Because you know, some of these medications and people who have experienced this will know it can make you not feel like yourself, and nobody wants to wake up every day going like why don't I even like the taste of that anymore, why don't I my favorite perfume? I didn't like the smell of it anymore. And there's only other one thing that changed. So I'm like is this when I'm signing up forever, and it might not be forever, but you know, holding, holding that time and space and making sure you're you're listening to yourself, but also listening to your doctors.
Speaker 1:Yeah, to get that soundboard Cause. Sometimes our mind plays tricks with us and, like you said, exactly, if you don't have radical honesty with yourself, which is part of the healing you don't even. And when you're saying this overwhelm of things creeping up, there's emotions that you've never interacted with before, so that overloads the system, because it's like what the heck are these feelings and sensations and chemical releases that are going on that are just turning my world upside down, and so be have a space of like. No, you don't have language for this. We got to feel this and have a somatic release, and movement is needed so your body can give an expression for this, and it can.
Speaker 1:And I'm thankful that you brought up the conversation of anger, because people as I say with my clients it's have a healthy relationship with anger. Many of us don't have a healthy relationship with anger because we're taught that anger is not a good thing. Where it's like, it is an emotion that is very needed and it needs expression. So you have to work with it, not against it, and not shaming and chastising yourself and especially not projecting it out, because it's just, it's a heavy energetic load. So it's like how can you start befriending it to hear the messages it's telling you and also give it expression.
Speaker 1:Go to a smash room, do some dancing, do some breathing, scream in a forest. Whatever dancing, singing, I highly suggest screaming in a pillow so that it can stimulate your vagus nerve, which is in the back of your throat, which is part of your nervous system, and people will be like screaming a pillow, like that's kid stuff and I'm like did you ever do it as a child? No, so let's try. I understand it's counterintuitive and your mind is like this is so stupid, yet just try. And then when they do, and they do it and they're like, oh, something opened up in my body. I don't feel so much of the stress and I'm like these are the things that you need. These are tools that are accessible to you that unfortunately, aren't always articulated. How was your relationship with anger?
Speaker 2:My relationship with anger is a lot better now. It wasn't, and at the time I wasn't really doing anything to deal with it. I kind of did the opposite of everything I was doing. I wasn't, and at the time I wasn't really doing anything to deal with it. I kind of did the opposite of everything I was doing. I wasn't running anymore, I wasn't teaching fitness classes anymore, I wasn't going for walks, I wasn't biking, I wasn't doing anything. And I realized for me as, like, my natural athlete wants to come out, movement is how I deal with anger. I need to move through it, I need to sing. And then, for a really long time, because my mom sang and my mom was so in love with music I couldn't even listen to music or sing. Every song I sang reminded me of her, so I just started crying, I stopped singing, I stopped dancing, I stopped everything. And then I went back and I'm like, wait a minute, maybe that's why this process is taking so long, because I've stopped everything that I innately know is going to help me. And so I started doing those things again. I started teaching. Did I start teaching when I was 100% healed and I felt my best self and confident. I felt like, okay, I've overcome this. No, I started teaching when I was still crying at the end because, oh my gosh, this song is Fiona's song Like I started doing it, uncomfortable, but I was surrounded by people who just let me be me, like, let me be what I was going through, no judgment, and you can as much as people would be like, oh, we're not judging.
Speaker 2:Judgment is an energy. It's not just by saying something. So surrounding yourself with people who aren't judging you for real for real, not just oh, shen, I don't mind if you, I can tell if you mind. So just being around realness was very important for me. Having people to call at awkward hours and knowing that it wouldn't be a oh my God, she's calling me again. Yes, it's me again. I have something I'd rather talk to you about than the police. So let's, let's talk for 10 minutes, because that's just what works for me.
Speaker 2:And now you know how I deal with anger is sitting with it for a bit, being mad, talking to some people about it and then moving, not being stuck on the couch again. You know, I was dealing with something yesterday that literally had me on in the fetal position on the couch and halfway through the day I was like, wait a minute, you know what you need to do. You need to go do the dishes, you need to go for a walk, like, you need to do these things that, oh, you don't feel like it, you have to, you have to, or else you're going to end up right back where you were before and I just rather do the dishes and the laundry and all that stuff uncomfortable than be even more uncomfortable in what I was experiencing. Before I still did order Uber Eats. I still ordered some food, because I love food, but I didn't order what I might've ordered a year ago, which would have been like way, way more bad stuff for me and my mood.
Speaker 2:I ordered stuff that felt good, which for me is jerk chicken. You know, a year ago I would have ordered like Haagen-Dazs and I would have ordered cinnamon buns and I would have ordered all this stuff that maybe after eating it I would have felt bad about myself. Anyways, I'd be like, oh, why did I have? No, I ordered some jerk chicken because I knew that, like, that's what makes me feel at home, that's what makes me feel better, so's what makes me feel better. So, yeah, it's not like not everything's perfect and I'm not dealing with everything in a textbook matter, but I was proud of myself for doing that. I literally was like there's growth here.
Speaker 1:There is. It's huge, because you engage with your biology and realizing like, okay, I'm in a, in a fawn, like the four F's, the fight, flight, freeze or fawn. So that fawn place, that's really difficult to really engage with and have the awareness like I'm here and I know I have tools to bring me out of this dimension, out of this stage. Yet it's like to just shock it and be like, oh, get up. And it's like, physically you cannot override your biology. So when you are in a stuck space in your nervous system, it's, you know, expanding your awareness, having the gentleness and okay, what can we do? To do small steps and, like you said, like, okay, know, I'm going to need some food, yet I know I want sugar and that's a short-term, real good high. Yet the crash afterwards is not good. So where can I meet myself? Where can I still treat myself? Where can I find something that will soothe? Yet it feels like a better feedback, it's a more positive feedback loop yet it feels like a better feedback.
Speaker 2:It's a more positive feedback loop, yeah, and my brain's going to thank me for it later, because your brain doesn't really function on sugar. It doesn't really send you the positive feedback you need, and it's not your hype man anymore. The second you eat that I'm not saying don't, but when you're in that mood, when you're in a bad mood, where you're already, you know, on a crash, get something that's nourishing, and I'm not talking about a cucumber like or a salad like. Get some Jamaican food. And that's what I got and I was happy about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think what's really important for people to understand is protein and fats, and the proper fats. Yeah, Like there's a difference between an avocado fat and a McDonald's fat. They both will help you, you know. Yet the way it's going to nourish your brain and all of the rest of your systems is a different way. The language, like if you're in a fun position where you're like fetal, you're lethargic, you can't move anywhere and I just need some sugar. It's like it's not this all or nothing. Meet yourself there.
Speaker 1:Yet be able to create the language in the journaling of what is a different step I can take when I'm in this high alert so that I can access it in a way that it's there, right there. I don't have to make decision-making because you don't have that neural energy. So it's like what can I put in place to catch myself, to better understand? Yet it's again not chastising your body, not shaming and guilting yourself to guilt yourself out of making these actions, because that never works. It even puts you into a place that is even deeper. It's honoring your body, honoring your defense mechanisms and having acceptance of listening. Why are we here, what's going on and how can I provide the safety so that we can create this momentum and movement within us.
Speaker 2:Exactly. Yeah, you've said it better.
Speaker 1:Can you let the listeners know about your new adventures, that you have created and what you are bringing forth in the community?
Speaker 2:Okay. So yeah, this is super exciting because I haven't really told a lot of people. It's been something I've been working on the background and you know, growing behind the scenes, kind of like how bamboo works. Bamboo grows under the surface for a long time before it sprouts and I am excited to announce that I'm sprouting a fitness studio in Orleans. I have been teaching bamboo bar throughout Ottawa for the last 10 years. It is a fitness class that I came up with that uses the combination of yoga, pilates and ballet, with resistance bands and bamboo sticks, with resistance bands and bamboo sticks.
Speaker 2:So I have finally decided to take that leap and to work through the fear and the doubt of being an entrepreneur and just go for it, and I'm really excited that I'm going to be opening. The goal is to open on Mother's Day. I really want that to happen, but you know, as things progress and I get in the space, things might come up. I'm open to things coming up and maybe my deadline doesn't work. I'm not going to get sad about it, but my goal is to honour my mom on Mother's Day and open my studio in Orleans on Mother's Day.
Speaker 2:I've spent the last two years at a grave on Mother's Day and I just decided wait a minute, I can take this date and turn it around and I can make this something beautiful and I can honor my mom and I can let everyone know that Bamboo Bar was an idea that I first brought up to my mom and she was like, yeah, that's so cool, go for it, jen. And she supported it. She's come to my classes. She would be so proud of me to open this studio. So that's what I'm doing and the secret is out.
Speaker 1:Where can the listeners find out more information and where can they contact you?
Speaker 2:Yes. So I think, two ways Instagram you'll be able to see a lot of pictures and videos of the class to really get an idea of it. So my Instagram is at Bamboo Bar. Bar is spelled B-A-R-R-E. I know that people are going to pronounce it Barre for the first little bit, but it is Bamboo Bar, and you can also visit my website, which is wwwbamboobarcom. And if you really want to take some classes right away, before we even get into the studio, I have a few classes up on YouTube. If you just type in Bamboo Bar on YouTube, you'll be able to see some classes there as well.
Speaker 1:Thank you. You know I will be there Mother's Day supporting. It's just there's not much things in Orleans, so when things pop up and it's part of the community, it's like don't have to travel. So you have my support and my encouragement. And you know, as we started this podcast, I brought in Fiona and your door opened up, so it's allowing yourself to flow with the energy of it. It might feel uncomfortable to have the expansion and a little bit too good to be true, and it's like whoa, where is this energy, where is this flow? Yet it's allowing yourself to remember, when you pull a bow and arrow, there's a lot of energy and a lot of strength that needs to go back and it feels really uncomfortable, yet the thrust and the pivot that goes is way further than what you had to be pulled, and so allow yourself to run with that energy exactly.
Speaker 2:And it's cool that you use the example of a bow and arrow, because I spent about 15 years throwing the javelin and it's the same idea behind it. You actually have to run away from the javelin before you throw it. You don't, you hardly see it in your eyesight, you don't even see where the javelin is, and then it just propels forward when you actually put the brakes on and when you stop, and when you stop, all that momentum goes forward and this fear just goes right past you and you're like whoa, I didn't know I was capable of that. And that's kind of what's happening now. Like I didn't know that, after where I'm coming from, last year not working, not eating, not talking to people, not hanging out with anyone, not leaving my house Like I didn't know that from where I'm coming from that just a year later I would be embarking on this endeavor of opening a studio that, yeah, it scares me often, but now I've kind of reframed that scared feeling.
Speaker 2:It's excitement and I haven't been excited about something in a really long time, to be honest. Like things haven't been as exciting because I haven't been able to call Fiona to tell her about it. Like even I learned a new song. I'm like I just want to sing the song with her and like, just explain it. But I'm really excited about this and I'm really grateful that I'm able to feel this again.
Speaker 1:Remember excitement without breathing is fear. So just remember to breathe. You're not breathing.
Speaker 2:Oh, I love that. I didn't know that's what was happening. It's because I'm not breathing, got it. So excitement without breathing is fear. I love that.
Speaker 1:You have to open up your system to receive what? All the information? And you're going into the unknown and uncertainty and the nervous system's like. We don't think this is safe.
Speaker 2:So the unknown for the last two years. It wasn't safe. It wasn't safe, and so, even when I first started looking at locations ordering equipment, my chest started to clench up again and and that's literally what happened for two years Like I didn't take a full breath. I had to do physio in order to breathe properly again, because I was just very shallow, and this in fear all the time. So, yeah, I'm going to breathe through this and I'm going to. You know, just uh, I'm excited to get back into the community and I'm excited to meet new people and to share this passion of mine with people.
Speaker 2:This is not something I just started doing last week and I just want to open a studio, because you know that. No, this has been growing under the surface. In 2012 is when I came up with Bamboo Par. In 2012 is when I stuck my javelin in the ground and started demonstrating bar poses to kids that I was coaching. And even now, I open my old laptop and I found my old, old business plan. That was almost done, but something else came up. I think my grandmother passed away and the goal was to finish my business plan by January 2013,. Something like that. Okay, Just add on 11 years. That's, that's that's what happened, and it's still happening. I'm really, I'm really excited about it yeah, you've done alchemy.
Speaker 1:You've taken the impurities and you've turned them into gold and you're offering it to other people thanks, thanks a lot thank you for being a guest and allowing yourself to be so vulnerable and sharing, you know, your mother with us and the love that you have for your mother and sharing her presence with us, because it's just. You know, this is the other side of love that people don't talk about and it's a space that doesn't have a ground. It's a space that doesn't have a ground. So you know, falling in that and the expansion and rediscovering a new space, it takes a time to adjust and to be able to relate to the new space. In the meditation, are you willing to share what the intention was? Yeah, I'd love to.
Speaker 2:The intention was realness. I just wanted to be real about everything and to allow people to hear my realness and also feel like wait a minute. I've been talking myself out of my own realness all this time when I've heard somebody speak their truth and immediately I feel like whoa, I have a story too. So I really, I really wanted to channel realness and for people to hear a relatable story. Grief is something that all of us are going to experience at some point or, and even if it's the grief of losing a job, the grief of losing a relationship, grief like we're all going to experience it and I just want people to know like it's a very real emotion. You're allowed to feel it. You're allowed to not feel like yourself for a little bit as well. You're allowed to maybe lose relationships because people don't know how to feel that too, because maybe they don't experience realness or know what that's like. But yeah, and I'm really thankful that you've given me this opportunity to share and to find my voice and to you know, have one person at least listen to this story and feel like wait a minute, I need to get back on my goals, I need to get back up and I need to get back moving, and one of the acronyms that I use is called getting my cash back. Going through this experience, I felt broke mentally, spiritually, physically and financially actually. But the ones that I was really dealing with was the mental brokenness, and I started coming up with these acronyms, and the one that really landed with me was just using my own name, cash. And so the K stands for keep pressing, play, stay in the present moment, act as if you don't have the rewind or the fast forward. You just got to stay here right now. Be here, right where you're supposed to be.
Speaker 2:The A is for apologize to yourself. As Canadians, we're so quick to apologize to everyone else. Oh sorry, sorry for not opening the door for you even though you're two minutes away, but we just apologize. Start getting comfortable. Apologizing to yourself. Sorry for the way I nourished you yesterday. I know that you deserved a better meal. I know that you deserved eight glasses of water instead of two Cokes. So saying sorry to yourself.
Speaker 2:The S is for start moving, you know. Start moving your body, start moving your thoughts. Go out for that walk. 10 minutes of a walk does count. One minute of a plank, it does count. It might be all that you're able to do for a bit, but really push through and start moving.
Speaker 2:And the last one is to have a routine. All the other things that I said before really can't happen without carving out that routine, and whether it's having the routine at first, just your morning routine, just having a routine, because you realize, like you probably have an Instagram routine I know I have an Instagram routine it goes, grab my tea, sit on the edge of the couch and scroll for a bit. You know how to have a routine. So just translate it into stuff that is going to be more beneficial. So that's the cashback method, stuff that is going to be more beneficial. So that's the cashback method. And I just think that more people could use my name and my acronym just to get their own cashback. Increase your frequency, increase your currency and just you know, just love yourself again.
Speaker 1:You can do it. Thank you so much for being the guest on this podcast. I really appreciate it, and I know one is a million. I know it's going to be more than one listener, yet even if it's just one listener that listens, there's an impact that's going to ripple through. Thank you so much. Remember to be kind to yourself.
Speaker 2:I'm going to yeah.
Speaker 1:Hey, you made it all the way here. I appreciate you and your time. If you found value in this conversation, please share it out. If there was somebody that popped into your mind, take action and share it out with them. It possibly may not be them that will benefit. It's that they know somebody that will benefit from listening to this conversation. They know somebody that will benefit from listening to this conversation, so please take action and share out the podcast. You can find us on social media on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok under Lift One Self, and if you want to inquire about the work that I do and the services that I provide to people, come over on my website, Come into a discovery call liftoneselfcom. Until next time, please remember to be kind and gentle with yourself. You matter.