Balancing Life Through Yoga and Intuition

What if you could transform your life through a single practice? Our guest Rachel Friedman shares her incredible journey from an admiration for Madonna’s fitness to becoming a deeply connected yogi whose transformation went beyond mere physical fitness. We'll start with a grounding breath meditation and then dive into Rachel's evolution from a gymnast with a detached relationship with her body to an empowered yogi who discovered profound healing, far surpassing the benefits of traditional therapy. Listen as Rachel recounts her extensive training, including her transformative work with power yoga pioneer Baron Baptiste.

Ever wondered how somatic therapy can heal trauma? Rachel and I open up about our personal struggles, revealing the immense power of understanding and working with the nervous system. We emphasize the importance of feeling and integrating authentic emotions, recognizing them as messengers. From the necessity of safety and radical honesty to the underrated value of playfulness in trauma work, this chapter sheds light on how radical acceptance and compassion can lead to profound inner healing and a deeper understanding of true love.

Balancing entrepreneurship, family, and wellness is no small feat. In our final chapter, Rachel shares her strategies for managing a busy schedule, the role of support systems, and the liberation that comes from letting go of self-shame. We discuss the significance of trusting one's intuition and overcoming anxiety, illustrating the importance of resilience and discipline. Whether you are someone seeking to enhance your well-being, manage your time better, or foster a supportive community, this episode is packed with valuable insights and practical advice. Join us for a conversation that promises to enrich your life and well-being.

Connecting with Rachel here:
https://beyondtheyogamat.com/

Remember, the strongest thing you can do for yourself is to ask for help.
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Music by prazkhanal

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Chapters

• 0:00 Yoga, Therapy, and Self-Connection
• 12:02 Healing and Self-Discovery Through Somatic Therapy
• 22:21 Balancing Business, Family, and Wellness
• 30:34 Body Wisdom and Intuition Trust

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

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.

Speaker 2: 0:42

Welcome to the Lift One Self podcast. Rachel, I'm so thankful you're here with me.

Speaker 3: 0:48

Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 2: 0:51

Will you join me in a breath guided meditation so that we can ground ourselves before we start this conversation? Absolutely and for the listeners, as you always hear my spiel, if you're doing anything that requires your visual, please keep your eyes open. I want you to stay safe, as well as the other. The conversation is, yet you can always come back to do that mindful moment and do that meditation for yourself. So, rachel, I'll ask you to get comfortable in your seating which I see you're already doing Already there and I'll ask you to gently close your eyes and you're going to begin breathing in and out through your nose bringing your awareness to watching your breath go in and out through your nose.

Speaker 2: 1:56

Don't try to control your breath, just be aware of it. While staying focused on your breath going in and out, there may be sensations or feelings coming up. Let them come up. You're safe to feel. You're safe to let go. Surrender the need to control.

Speaker 1: 2:25

Release the need to control. Release the need to resist and just be.

Speaker 2: 2:38

Be with your breath, drop into the body now, rachel, I'm going to ask you, in your mind, to create an intention you want to bring forth in this conversation, for the listeners and for ourselves.

Speaker 1: 3:18

And when you've created that intention, I'll ask you to release it in your mind, allowing it to drop down into your nervous system down your neck, down your throat down into your chest, filling your heart filling your lungs, going down into your abdomen, down into your stomach, into your life force and continue staying with your breath allowing that intention to surround your energy field.

Speaker 2: 4:04

allowing that intention to surround your energy field and staying with your breath Now, staying with your breath at your own time and at your own pace. You're going to gently open your eyes. How's your heart doing Good? Can you let the listeners know who Rachel is?

Speaker 3: 4:40

That's such a big question. I am God, I'm a believer in anything is possible at the heart, but I am also a serial entrepreneur. I own multiple businesses. I am a mom, I'm a stepmom, I'm a wife, I'm a yogi, I'm a lot of things.

Speaker 2: 5:06

What brought you into being a yogi?

Speaker 3: 5:10

Yeah, so it's always like a funny slash, a little embarrassing. So I got into yoga about 25 years ago and I was about 30 pounds 40 pounds more than I weigh now and not super healthy at that point in my life and I loved Madonna. I mean, I'm a child of the 90s, how can you not love Madonna? And she was doing yoga, it said. I read an article that Madonna was doing power yoga and so I Googled power yoga near me and that was kind of it. I stepped on the mat and I was like, wow, that was really cool. And yeah, 25 years later still doing it and I. It's not what kept me on the mat, it was, I mean, the physical brought me to the mat, a desire to, in my 20s, look like Madonna. But I found so much more in the practice pretty quickly.

Speaker 2: 6:29

I am a trained therapist and I found more healing on my mat than I ever found off of it, and that was, I think, what got me hooked. Can you give a definition of what?

Speaker 3: 6:34

yoga is oh God, that is a, that's a huh. What you know, in essence, what yoga is, if you just think of the word, is to yoke, to connect, and ironically, that was my intention to bring together. And so we bring together body, mind, spirit, we connect together. To me, it was about learning how to connect to myself, learning how to actually feel my body.

Speaker 3: 7:01

I grew up as a gymnast and a coach who was your typical asshole coach part of my French but who basically taught you to not feel your body because feeling your body was not safe and for the first time in my life, I was actually learning to connect with my body and to disassociate from it. So for me, that's where it started, but really it's the practice right is to connect, to go together. So, as I, really it's the practice right is to connect together. So as I began to connect to my body, I could start to actually hear a little bit more clearly what was actually going on inside my head. I could start to connect to my emotions, which has then allowed me to develop a more spiritual relationship with myself. So, yeah, to me the word yoga means really just, it's a form of deep connection, connecting parts together, pieces together.

Speaker 2: 7:53

And so did you do training. And if you did training, where did you do the training?

Speaker 3: 7:58

I have done a ridiculous amount of training. I am happen to be one who loves to learn. Ridiculous amount of training. I happen to be one who loves to learn. So I always say if I could just be a lifelong student and someone would pay for it, I'd be perfectly happy. But that's not what life has served me up.

Speaker 3: 8:16

So I started my training. My first training I did in 2010. And that was here in Atlanta where I lived at a local yoga studio. But it was good. It was a good start and a year later I went on to train with Baron Baptiste.

Speaker 3: 8:35

He was considered at the time kind of the founder of power yoga and that was kind of the style I had fallen in love with. It was a very physical practice, but it really power yoga. A lot of people think it's just kick your butt yoga, but it's really more about empowerment, so stepping into what is possible. So I trained with him. I did a training of his. I did three of them so each year. And then I went on to train with Sean Korn, who's if anyone is listening, she's very much become like a public activist. I really liked her style and then over the years I've done more.

Speaker 3: 9:12

I went to Peru for a month, did an advanced training there in Ayurveda and yoga therapy. So yeah, I've done a lot of training and kind of it's been several years since I've done it. I've led, probably for the last decade, other people how to now be, we could say, yoga instructors. I really just mean take them on a journey. And yeah, I was telling my girlfriend just this morning that I think I need to find something to fill my cup Because every couple of years that's just what you need it. I think, yeah, I mean I shouldn't say it's needed for me.

Speaker 2: 9:50

Yeah, I, I know, I think, um, I think people forget to do that. I call it a type of I need to go in the cocoon, there's a part where I need to eat myself, be in the goo, and, yes, I love that and it's because it's not delightful.

Speaker 2: 10:08

Yet I understand the benefits of it. And so solitude, you know a lot of people like can think it's always blissful and sometimes it is, but sometimes it isn't, because you have to be quite painful. It's that cocoon and you know everybody talks about the caterpillar and the cocoon and the butterfly, yet they don't really talk about what goes on in the cocoon and it's like well, if you want transformation, understand that the caterpillar is eating itself and it's turning into goo and I'm sure in its mind it's like there's nothing good that's going to come of this, like I'm dying. What is going on? Yet? Yet that's the transformation and you know having to rebirth, going through that cycle. Can you give us a definition of what somatic is? And did you experience it with your yoga? Because you said you had did therapy but the mat brought you even more profoundly into that, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3: 11:04

So somatic really just means soma, body, and it's connecting to the body. In somatic therapy we use the body to tap into what is happening on a more subconscious, on deeper layers of the mind, to then bring it to the surface so we can address it, um, maybe heal, heal from it. A lot for me is integration. I have come from a very unshaming approach so I don't really necessarily believe anything's broken. So I don't always love the word heal, because sometimes I don't think it's actually you need to heal it, it's just the part of you that you need to. I don't want to say own, but accept and acknowledge and see as sometimes wisdom, medicine, strength, um, so it's a very allopathic, um, kind of form of, we can say, work, healing, um, and so, yeah, I actually got introduced to somatic work through yoga, not through the psychotherapy world. Um, it was actually with Sean Korn.

Speaker 3: 12:03

I was in a training with her in Chicago and I was born with something called a cystic hygroma, which is basically a fluid-filled cyst. Mine was on my neck, my shoulder, and it was removed twice and it left a lot of scar tissue and nerve damage. And I was asking her because I was having a lot of still struggles with it. I mean, at this point I was 30 years old 30 years of, maybe even older of this navigating it, and she suggested that maybe it just wasn't all physical, that maybe I see a somatic therapist and explore that trauma, um, and I didn't even under, didn't even really understand what that really was going to look like or what it meant. But take me on a pretty cool journey of testing the waters myself and then eventually doing a training in it myself, because I had such cool experience and we can say transformation, learnings, um, enlightenment, whatever I mean literally all enlightenment guys is turning on the lights.

Speaker 3: 13:07

So it turned on some lights for me and it really explained a lot of things for me, more than anything, of decisions I had made in my life and paths I had taken, and I found it so profound that I wanted to share it with people because it wasn't something that was, I think, as well known as a lot of other forms of help, assistance people reach out for, but very powerful.

Speaker 2: 13:34

Yeah, we speak the same language. I'm all about integration. As I tell people, there is no healed, because life is a process and it's understanding your nervous system and understanding its reactions and coming back into allowing the body to communicate with each other, not blocking certain sensory inputs. Because we have a society, especially in the west, that we don't face pain. We are very adverse and we are.

Speaker 2: 14:04

There's so much marketing about just numb the pain, just don't listen to the signals of the body, just just take this, just take that, and where? Then you're not hearing the messages that are trying to come up to know you know, you know what this signal is and I do understand, um, it's warrior work. Uh, I can speak because I've walked that lived experience. I had lesions in my brain stem and cerebellum. So I'm not just speaking from theory, I'm speaking from lived experience and I think that's one thing that's missing um, that self-help and wellness and spiritual. It's like 100% agree, nervous system needs safety. So you need to come back into the body, which that can feel very threatening because you could have been harmed, um, body. So it's like, oh, I'm not doing that, I'm going to stay up here in my head. So you need safety of the nervous system. Then you need radical honesty because you have to face yourself and there's certain parts that you don't want to, we don't want to, we don't want to admit to exactly and don't want to, we don't want to admit to Exactly. And we have this. You know these masks that we put on to feel a sense of belonging in society and you know that's its own journey to dismantle and remove that illusion that we've created for ourselves.

Speaker 2: 15:32

And then it's feeling. It's feeling your authentic emotions and recognizing that they're simply messengers. Yet just because they're messengers, it doesn't mean that it's always truth, it's just information that you're getting. So it's like how do I look at this with context? Because a lot of times we don't take, we're just black and white. It's good or bad, it's shameful or guilty. Rather than wait, let's see the context of what was the action, what was the underpinning of these things.

Speaker 2: 16:03

So feeling is another thing that's people are very adverse to. It's like I don't want to feel my emotions because has me feeling so vulnerable, yet not realizing? Well, your superpower is in your vulnerability. That's where you're authentic, like everybody's, like I want to be. I'm going to be authentic and I'm going to where you're authentic, like everybody's, like I want to be, I'm going to be authentic and I'm going to be true. To me it's like well, are you feeling your authentic emotions? Do you? Are you accepting all of you as a whole, with the w?

Speaker 2: 16:30

And that takes warrior work, because we, you know, once you start doing that profound inner work, you come to see the indoctrinations and the belief systems and you know what your defense mechanisms have created to protect you. That helped you, probably when you were younger, yet now it's not serving you anymore. And so to dismantle all that requires coming back into the body and and being able to have a profoundness of really understanding what love is Like. It's an action and it's an integration of all, not just a la carte that that looks nice and polished, yet this messy part nobody's going to know and I'm not even going to see, and it's like, well, life is messy, and the joy and the play is when you can have that radical acceptance and that radical compassion that, oh my gosh, this is not going to feel good all the time. There's going to be some ebbs and flows, yet that's where you have to bring in play. You have to be playful with this, because it can be very heavy 100%, heavy, a hundred percent.

Speaker 3: 17:42

And one of the things I really practice and I preach is that I don't actually believe that trauma work because this does kind of fall in that category a lot of this work that it has to all be dark and dreary and that has to be all heavy and serious. And a lot of people you know, especially practitioners, if they get into this work, that's their fear, right, like, oh, I don't know if I'm going to want to deal with that, I don't want all the sessions and I'm like you. This work can be, actually we can, there's ways to turn it. So it's, yes, sometimes it is going to be right. That's life. But we can have so much fun and it can be joyful and it can be learning how to experience that in a way that maybe you've never before.

Speaker 3: 18:21

Tapping into that piece, that joy. I mean, life is like you said. It's a beautiful mess and I think we've done such a disservice to society by this. I don't even know how many millions or billions. Let's be happy all the time. It's bullshit. We're not going to be happy all the time. That's not the human experience, and if you were happy all the time, you wouldn't even know it, because you wouldn't know what sadness is and you've been knowing anger is and frustration, and it's just we got to learn how to dance and both they're gonna both be happening all the time yeah, um, you know that toxic positivity has harmed so many people because they have this expectation for them Go ahead.

Speaker 3: 19:07

Hello, sorry, so sorry, all right Serial entrepreneur Exactly what it is.

Speaker 2: 19:19

People think that entrepreneurship that you can take breaks and it's like it's this is always going on, so you have to be able to pivot and I have a space of understanding that I know some other people appreciate it so offended, and it's like if you're an entrepreneur, you understand how to.

Speaker 3: 19:36

yes, I appreciate it and when you have like a brick and mortar, it's like you have to like.

Speaker 2: 19:40

When someone wants something, you have to like because an hour later they might decide they don't want it anymore yeah, you got to get on the like we were discussing the emotions um, because a lot of our buying off of emotions, so in the everything, all of it is.

Speaker 2: 19:57

Yeah, so understanding that now you mentioned earlier on that you said that you're going to need to fill your cup. So can you let the listeners know a little bit what that looks like for you and when you get those kind of callings and what it is what you're going?

Speaker 3: 20:17

Yeah, I love that. I call it our love tank. And what does it look like for me? Well, there's two parts to it, really, for me. So one is just doing it on a day-to-day basis, like I tell my clients all the time if you are not filling your cup, you will have nothing to give other people, literally like your car. Right, if you don't, I haven't just gotten an electric car, so if I don't charge my car, don't get gas anymore. Um, then my car will not take me where I want it to go. And my body's the same way. Right, my mind is the same way. So my day to day looks like I wake up every day, I meditate. It's pretty much a non-negotiable Um.

Speaker 3: 20:56

Most days of the week I like to get on my yoga mat and move my body, whether it's just for a few minutes, or I have the opportunity, like this morning, to take an hour class that's my favorite with one of my instructors, but some form of movement. And then the third piece which I've been epically failing at lately, which I used to do very consistently, was I have a journal and it's just like writing down what do I want to think for the day. I call it thoughts on purpose, because I always love the analogy that you go to Starbucks or wherever a coffee shop and you order what you want. They don't just hand it to you, they don't read your mind. But we wake up every day and we just go and we don't stop and order up what we want to think. And then we wonder why sometimes our life is shit and a lot of it is because of your thinking mind, right? So that's kind of my general. When I have it all honed in, it's great. The meditation for the last 15 years has been pretty good.

Speaker 3: 21:53

The other two pieces go in and out ways. I'm human, but in terms of like filling my cup, my, I would say my yogi, my yoga cup, it's finding a training, someone I respect, someone that I want to learn from, someone I feel has a gift, and that there's pieces that I can take and integrate and then pull from it and then make it my own right, share it in a way. And so I'm not quite sure yet where it'll be or what it'll be. I'm debating about a Wanderlust in Mexico next year in December. My girlfriend's going, invited me to go with her, so that's one I'm leaning in on.

Speaker 3: 22:31

There's a teacher. Her name's Janet Stone, wonderful bhakti yoga teacher. She's got some online stuff, so it might be that I don't know. Still, kind of, you know, it's usually one of those things where I don't end up ironically um, I don't say it's impulsive, but it just comes, it lands and I'm like that's it. Yeah, and that just hasn't quite happened yet, but I do know it will and I'm not also in a rush. So I'm okay with if it's in a month, if it's in six months, if it's in a year, it's okay.

Speaker 2: 23:05

Have you ever partook in any ayahuasca or any psilocybin journeys?

Speaker 3: 23:12

I have not. So when I was in Peru for my 500 hour yoga training, unfortunately they did ayahuasca on the last night and I accidentally I can be very Vata if anyone knows anything about Ayurveda, it's very flighty and I booked my trip home and I was thinking it was the next day, but it was actually am. Thinking it was the next day, but it was actually am, so it was actually that night. So I couldn't participate because, well, I didn't want to be on ayahuasca and then having to go to the airport, that would not be good, so that was the only opportunity I've actually had to date. I would like to, though.

Speaker 2: 23:55

Okay, I'm surprised that they would, because usually with ayahuasca you want to have at least a day of integration so that you can process and really just yeah.

Speaker 3: 24:08

I think they did it that way because it wasn't part of the training. So it was like the people that did it a lot of them were staying and like traveling, and like traveling through Peru. I had, you know, two kids at home. I'd already been gone a month, so I was like I got to go home.

Speaker 2: 24:29

That's what I want to get into too. You mentioned that you're a serial entrepreneur, a mother to your children, stepchildren, a wife. How do you manage all of that and what? How do you regulate your schedule?

Speaker 3: 24:48

That's a great question. Some days very well, some days not so well. Yeah, how do I regulate? Well, I do think having a very consistent love tank if we want to call it filling my own cup is really cute. I really do.

Speaker 3: 25:05

I think, because I wake up every morning and I'm not people are probably thinking, oh, she gets up at four or five AM. I do not. I am not a morning person, people. My alarm goes off most days at 7 AM. 7 AM I get up, I do a little meditation. I have one kid left in the house. She's 17. She's pretty self-sufficient at this point. She's going to be a senior. I, you know, make sure she has something to eat and then off she goes, and then I head to the yoga studio usually.

Speaker 3: 25:36

But I think I am a very disciplined person and I was just talking to my girlfriend and we were talking about entrepreneurship and she said you know, you talk about how anyone can do it and I'm like I should say that with a caveat I do believe anyone can do it, but it requires a lot of discipline, a shit ton of resilience, but you're going to get knocked down a lot. And then it does require, I think, a shit ton of resilience but you won't get knocked down a lot. And then it does require, I think, a certain personality. So, yes, anyone can do that, because I believe anyone can create discipline. Anyone can become resilient if you're willing to do the work and personality wise, I think you know, I think we can. I don't want to say mold and shape, but step into that version if we choose that. This is something we desire. But it's not for everyone right.

Speaker 3: 26:25

For me, I thrive off of it. I had to unshame this idea that as a yogi, I'm supposed to want time to just like relax and be still all day. Relax and be still all day. And yes, I love to meditate. I love to meditate, I value meditation as I love it, I value stillness. But I thrive off of being busy. When I'm not busy, I don't do as well, I'm not as happy, I'm not as fulfilled. So I juggle my schedule by I time block. I have everything in certain times. I try to stay pretty true to it. Also, try to embrace the yogi where sometimes you gotta be flexible and be like, okay, that took five hours longer than I was expecting, right, and then you shift and pivot.

Speaker 3: 27:13

I epically fail at it on a day-to-day basis, in full honesty, and I give myself a lot of grace at it on a day-to-day basis, in full honesty, and I give myself a lot of grace. So one of the greatest things that the somatic work has taught me is how to unshame myself, and so I don't shame myself, I don't beat myself up anymore, and that has released so much space for me to do all these other wonderful things. When I used to do so much energy, used to do so much, spend so much energy shaming myself, I didn't have the energy to do all these things, but because I really have gotten very good, I believe, at recognizing it, giving myself a little compassion and then moving on. I don't even say releasing, just moving on. It allows me to have the energy, right.

Speaker 3: 28:01

I also believe that you know my businesses. Although they are all amazing, I have support. I don't do it by myself and I think that's really important, right. And when I mean support, I don't actually have people like running my businesses for me. I don't have managers or any of that, but, like you know, I have coaches. I have mentors. I have people like running my businesses for me. I don't have managers or any of that. But, like you know, I have coaches, I have mentors, I have people where I get to bounce ideas off of, I have my own therapist not a therapist right when I get to process stuff, and I think that's what allows me to kind of juggle honestly at all.

Speaker 3: 28:34

You know my kids, thank God, they were pretty challenging. My one child was really challenging when he was younger. He's in college now. I mean, it doesn't require money, he still wants from me, but that's about it. My 17-year-old, you know she's pretty independent. And my stepkids, they're triplets, they are 20 also. So we have four kids in college right now. So financially it's quite stressful, I will not lie, but they don't require actually much of my mental, physical energy any longer. For the most part they're great kids and I am.

Speaker 2: 29:09

I do believe.

Speaker 3: 29:10

I'm very lucky. Five kids that all are, you know, pretty much doing okay and somewhat on their own is, I think, pretty much a miracle yeah, it's a.

Speaker 2: 29:25

It's a good feeling of safety, uh, within yourself, because, as a parent, when our children are not doing well, uh, that's right it's a nervous system and turns us bonkers and then the fear just grows and it's whoa. This is not a nice space to be in right now.

Speaker 3: 29:44

And I have been in that space, so I understand it quite well and I am so grateful for not being in it. I don't think I could do all I'm doing right now, honestly, but yeah, I do think, as you talk about regulating your nervous system, doing the things that regulate your nervous system, it's what allows us to be able to do multiple things or even one thing. Right, I just think we expend a lot of energy that is going, I say, out to places that I don't want to say is wasted but may not be in the direction that we're going is moving our life in the direction we want it to.

Speaker 2: 30:31

I know some listeners might be cause I have my curiosity. The businesses that you have, are they all in regards to health and wellness, or do they go?

Speaker 3: 30:39

They are.

Speaker 2: 30:40

Okay.

Speaker 3: 30:41

So I have a brick and mortar yoga studio and then I have a business for yoga teachers and studio owners that want to have a yoga business whether it's in person, online so I support them. And then I have a somatic therapy practice helping people. Not a ton of those are mostly just a referral. I don't do any marketing or advertising for that any longer. They just kind of land in my lap. I only take a few people at a time.

Speaker 2: 31:11

Understood. Okay, so cause that's a different thing when there's some entrepreneurs that they have in in all kinds of different directions.

Speaker 3: 31:18

Oh, yeah, no, mine are all very connected for the most part. And you know, I think, yeah, I don't know how anyone juggles Like my husband, for example. He kind of has two businesses and they're very like opposite. Yeah, he's so add, he's like all over the place all the time and I'm like maybe we should, you know, but your husband doesn't want to listen to you, right? Yeah?

Speaker 2: 31:42

I hear it. I want to bring you into a reflective question. I want to ask you to bring your awareness right now and to go back to your 18-year-old self. And you have three words to tell your 18-year-old self to carry you through the journey to now. What would those words be? Three, whatever you have to play with, can they be?

Speaker 3: 32:09

phrases Like worry less I used to have to play with. Can they be? Phrases like worry less? I used to have pretty bad anxiety. Maybe they go hand in hand. Trust more, trust yourself more. Let me be more specific. Trust yourself. Intuition that would be probably the number one. Trust your intuition. That's a big one.

Speaker 2: 32:37

You used to ignore it how was that coming back into relationship with your intuition?

Speaker 3: 32:44

yeah, there's been a lot of decisions that, when I look back, my intuition was guiding me in a different direction. Relationships, things and my head made the decisions, not my intuition. Now I lean more into my intuition than anything else. All of my work is very intuitively based and often other people don't get it, especially very logical headspace people, which is fine. I get it. I was very much there. Um, and life gets a lot for me. It's gotten a lot. I don't want to say easier, but um more beautiful by really leaning into it yeah, um, I change the narrative that people aren't supposed to fear and I'm like uh, if you're in your intuition, it's going to activate some fear because you're going into the unknown and uncertainty.

Speaker 2: 33:37

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 33:39

Fear is not a bad thing. Fear is a good thing. Fear is there to protect us.

Speaker 2: 33:45

That doesn't mean you have to always lean into it but it doesn't mean you don't do what you want to do it doesn't mean to lean into it, but doesn't mean you don't do what you want to do. It's an overwhelming sensation that we haven't allowed curiosity to give it, to validate it that it's there and to give it verbiage that yeah, ok. These messages of OK, well, I'm taking from the past and this is feeling like the past, where it's like. Yet I didn't know how to trust this voice and this guidance that was in me, so I didn't follow the direction that it was trying to. I was using my head, so reconnecting that it's going to activate some fear, yet you're able to ride it rather than being dragged by it um, I love that.

Speaker 3: 34:28

Ride it rather than drag play yeah, so it's really understanding.

Speaker 2: 34:34

That's why I say you know it's being a mad scientist with your own biology, really understanding the way your nervous system was shaped and wired so that you can reshape it and rewire, like I understand. There's a saying you can't train a new dog, an old dog new tricks, which is so wrong that people like I don't know, I don't know.

Speaker 2: 34:55

I think it's such a limiting belief where you're just giving a space of um, a space of like passivity, that we're just going to tolerate and accept people's behaviors and we're just not going to empower them to do the work. Like it's work, to do the transformation, to like even just feeling some big emotions, that's work, like a lot of people will be like oh no, it's like, that's like all that comes up, a lot of energy. It's like there's a lot of neural energy and physiological energy. Your heart's pumping, your blood's flowing. All these chemicals are being dumped. You just haven't been taught what's going on, so you don't have the body awareness to really understand and hold a sacred space for yourself. That you know there's that compassion. I know the listeners are like okay, enough now, nat, nat, can you tell us where we can find this wonderful woman? So?

Speaker 3: 35:57

can you?

Speaker 2: 35:57

let us know where they can find you, please.

Speaker 3: 35:59

Yeah, so beyondthematcom, because I really believe that all of this work is just the yoga off the mat. Also, soma Power Yoga that's my yoga studio, if you happen to be in Atlanta, or we do offer actually all of our classes virtually too. Um, yeah, and on Instagram, rachel B Friedman. That's probably the best place to find me. Um, that's where I I would say, if you hang out, um, I don't really hang out there, but it's where I try to share nuggets of wisdom and real life shit, because sometimes I'm just being real.

Speaker 1: 36:39

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 36:40

I'm really big on let's be more real, because the more real we all are, the more we give other people to be real, and it's so freeing.

Speaker 2: 36:49

Yeah, it's the honesty piece that we just you, you know, a lot of people don't realize. When we were young, we were fed the lie. Like we went into a room and we could feel the vibration that something was wrong. Yet the adult said no, no, no, there's nothing there. So, disconnected from our intuition, of emotions and frequencies, from the nervous system, and so we believe that they knew better than what our body was telling us. So we believe the lie that well, why would they tell us a lie that nothing's wrong? Because they're here to protect us.

Speaker 2: 37:22

So then that just, you know, like, turn things upside down for yourself. So now it's turning it back to the right way and seeing like, oh, I was always just taught to disconnect from myself, disconnect from my intuition, disconnect from my nervous system. That's giving me guidance is, um, it's and I don't think it ever ends that trusting, because life is impermanent and it's going to bring you experiences of change. So that activates the nervous system and all these emotions and fear. So it's like, okay, yeah, you can have the capacity to navigate through, um, the tsunami of waves and ebbs and flows. Yeah, it's.

Speaker 3: 38:10

It's the journey.

Speaker 2: 38:12

It is. Do you have anything to leave for the listeners?

Speaker 3: 38:17

Um, you probably, they probably have heard this from you. I'm guessing a million times, but I'm still going to say it. Start to slow down enough to really listen to what is your body communicating. The body has so much wisdom, it is the medicine for most of us of what we need, and we just need to learn to listen to it and not shame it, not tell it to go away, and let it even surprise you what it might be telling you. Sometimes I find what we think we need is really very different than what we actually need yeah, I, uh, I always emphasize there's a much difference from wants to needs.

Speaker 2: 39:02

We have a limited like there's only a small amount that we need, but our wants are never ending and how all there is in wants is just safety, which is always an illusion. Once you get that want, it's like, oh, it popped up the next thing right when, when you have the need, it's like, oh, I'm soothed, I'm taken care of, I can be here in this moment and not try to jump out of it. I want to thank you for you know bringing the light and using your lived experience to share it with others, to bring them into the journey of back home, back into their body, back into trusting themselves and back into you know, connecting into that one self is the defense mechanisms of the nervous system trying to guard you from your vulnerability. So once you understand that, oh, I'm the one that can deactivate and activate that, you're able to return back into that oneness and that connection with all. So thank you so much, rachel, for being with us.

Speaker 3: 40:07

Yeah, thank you so much for giving me this time and this space to just you know, be able to share and connect.

Speaker 2: 40:16

Please remember to be kind to yourself. Yes, 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. So please take action and share out the podcast. You can find us on social media on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok under Lift Oneself, 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, no-transcript.