Differently - Get out of your head & write your life forward.

Get Out of Your Head and Into Your Body with Camille Smith

Carla Reeves | Creator of The Differently Coaching Experience

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If you are running in overdrive, need to calm the mental noise and/or get centered in the driver seat of your life or business - this episode is for you.

Your body has wisdom that can tell you exactly when you need to get quiet, take a beat, make a change, go forward and more… Our body and heart are talking to us all the time - the question is are we listening?

My friend Camille Smith joins us again today.  She is the owner and founder of Restoration Yoga: yoga that helps foster emotional and physical healing. Her passion is helping women overcome anxiety, stress and depression through the healing power of yoga and meditation.

Camille is a fellow hyper-achiever who discovered yoga to be a vehicle that helps to bring back all the parts of her that get swept away in busyness- and bring her back to feeling centered and calm.

Get ready to explore...

  • How to get out of the hamster wheel in your mind to tap new innovative, fresh ideas and energy
  • The power of simple morning ritual to set your day up for success
  • Building a loving relationship with your body to benefit all areas of your life.

Take note of how you feel in this moment and how you feel after the podcast. I always feel calmer and more centered after a conversation with Camille.  I believe you will too.

Enjoy!


Learn more about Camille:

Check out her other episodes: 
How to Slow Down Episode
Calm Your Anxiety

Free Gifts for Differently Listeners

Website:  https://www.restoration-yoga.com/

Free 5-minute Relaxing Body Scan Audio

Check out her classes on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbaOw6ss98hyiDGo3jXTEQA

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/camille.smith.357/

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Explore Coaching with Carla:  https://bookme.name/carlareeves/lite/explore-coaching

Learn more about Carla:
Website: https:/www.carlareeves.com/

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Thank you for listening!

Body's Wisdom

Speaker 1

Hi , camille , welcome back to Differently Thank you .

Speaker 2

I'm so excited about this . I love chatting with you and happy to be here today .

Speaker 1

This week . There's something in the air with my coaching calls where people are just so in their head on overdrive , myself included . We have company coming the next number of weeks and I felt myself yesterday just get into this overdrive . Thankfully I can recognize it now , but it wasn't always that way . I've lived in my head for most of my life and didn't know how to live in my body , and so I'm so excited you're here to share your wisdom , because I know that's that's where , like you love to talk about this and I I does that come from a need in your own life to practice that too that come from a need in your own life to practice that too , oh heck , yeah .

Speaker 2

You know I think I might have mentioned this before , but the reason I got into meditation and yoga was not because I was some like Zen yogi , it's because I was the opposite , just desperate for some kind of relief from this busy brain and just my energizer bunny , you know , mo . And so I was drawn to it because I was looking for it , and it's been good .

Speaker 1

Yeah , so today I feel like the conversation that we've talked about in so many words is like how , how can our bodies help us and support us in really building and living the businesses and the lives that we want to be living ? Does that sound ?

Speaker 2

aligned . That does . Yeah , and the first thing that popped into my head when you said that is self-care , which sounds maybe like a buzzword right now , but really , once you understand the importance of getting out of your head and a lot of the things we do as self-care do involve the body learning how to play , learning dancing , doing yoga , doing everything that we do is being in the body , being in the body , and it helps us when we do those things to get out of the busy mind . And maybe it's because we sit so much . You and I do , and probably a lot of people do .

Speaker 2

It's funny , I was explaining this to my son . You know how important it is to move the body . I was complaining my back hurts today because we were driving somewhere and I explaining it's because I've been sitting too much and he has a job where he moves around and stands and walks but I don't . So I was like , yeah , I got to go outside and I need to walk in the grass and I need to just be in the kitchen and clean and just do things where I'm moving my body so I can get more balanced . And he was so surprised by that and he was like , well , sitting down is good . My son has special needs , so he's like sitting down is good . I'm like yeah , but not too much of it . So we need to move , we need to . Sorry , I went off on a tangent there , but just came to me .

Speaker 1

No , but it's so true . And you've made me realize , like for months before I moved , that I was having this pain , like right below my butt , at the top of my leg , like a real pain , and I knew I was sitting too much . And now , since we've moved , I'm blending in more walks throughout the day and it's gone , like I hadn't really realized that it's gone until this moment . But it's gone . So you're right , there's so much we can do to heal our own bodies if we just listen . So I have a question .

Speaker 1

Yeah , go ahead , why I feel like most of my life I lived totally disconnected from my body and like not really aware of , like just sinking into my body and being in my body and letting my body communicate to me . Why does that happen ? Why ? Why do we get so disconnected from our bodies ?

Speaker 2

I think different reasons , but with the background that I have in the trauma work that I do , a lot of times when things don't go right , in the trauma work that I do , a lot of times when things don't go right , especially when you're younger , you know your experiences , inform your like , your filter and how you see things . And you know maybe you were praised a lot because you were really smart or you just learned to use that part of your body , your brain , which is part of your body more , and or maybe you had an experience where you were hurt or you're injured or someone you know even abuse , somebody hurt you and then you kind of shut down that part of your body because it doesn't feel good . So you don't want to feel it , so you just like I mean there's definitely times where you're just like I don't want to feel that . That's what you'll , even in your mind you'll be thinking I don't want to feel that . So I'm going to just escape and just be up here .

Speaker 1

Yeah , wow , it makes so much sense . I feel like a lot of the people that I work with to just they're just overthinkers , constantly in their head , strategizing , planning , moving ahead , achieving right , and none of it involves sort of sinking deeper into the body .

Speaker 2

Well , yeah , and that's the whole being quiet part too . Once you also learn how to quiet down and slow down and give yourself the space and I feel like that's what you do when you move your body . Especially for me , when I move my body and I'm not being super , you know up in my head trying to problem solve and go down the list that's when the inspiration comes . So you know , for people that are high achievers like you and I and just trying to do a lot , it's really tempting to spend a lot of time up there because you're like , well , of course , this is where I'm going to problem solve . When the truth is , when you pull your energy back away from there and you start to move and just create that space , that quiet space , that's when you get what you really need . It's so ironic , but it works every time .

Speaker 1

It works every time . So what else are we missing by staying in this headspace and sort of neglecting what our body is telling us ?

Speaker 2

Well , I think your body has wisdom and it talks to you . You know Candice wrote this book called the Body is a Subconscious Mind , which is kind of a crazy thought . Is that really true ? But the more I've thought about that and just studied it , the more I realized , yeah , when you allow yourself to listen to the cues that your body is giving you , then you realize there's a lot of wisdom there .

Speaker 2

You know , like if you have the urge to , someone asks you or invites you to do something and you have a sensation in your body of like a pit in your stomach or just like a sinking feeling , I feel like that's something we need to listen to . From my experience , when I listen to that and I say no , thank you or whatever , I feel better . But then there's been many times where I have ignored that sensation in my body and and I've done it anyway just because I wanted to people please . You know I wanted to not make waves and do it . Things didn't turn out well .

Speaker 2

So many times it's like what am I going to learn ? That my body has wisdom and it's telling me like when I tune in and I especially with decisions too you're making a decision about something important and you close your eyes and take a few breaths and you see , where do I feel this in my body ? Do I have a sensation of like excitement , like a little spark , like okay , I'm going to follow that , or if it's a feeling of shrinking or just like the pit ? Everybody has a different sensation and you know , I've been living in this body for 58 years and I feel like I know it pretty well . But then there's times where I'm like , yeah , I'm still not really all the way there , but there's so much wisdom that we're missing out on , if we don't tune in , things that can inform our businesses and our families and our relationships . So it's a feeling of comfort to know that the information need is there .

Speaker 1

Yeah , that's so true . It made me think of a coaching call where a client was describing something and literally like her whole being like deflated when she said a certain thing . Right , those moments are so important , though , because that's literally like we talked about that . That moment , right then , is where she has the power to make a huge shift in her life . If she could just do something slightly different in that moment instead of just shrinking .

Speaker 2

Absolutely . And as a coach , you know , when you're working with other people , that's something that you can notice . When you're paying attention other people , that's something that you can notice when you're paying attention and tuning into people and hearing them I know you're good at this . They'll say something and it's like you'll hear it . You'll see their countenance or even , if you're doing a call , you'll hear it in their voice . Oh , there's excitement , there's something behind those words they said For me . I'll write it down and then I'll repeat it to them and they might not realize they said it , but I heard that inflection , I heard that surge of energy when they said it , or what you just said , the deflation , and that's so valuable , so valuable .

Speaker 1

It's like a whole nother navigational system that you know . A lot of times we're not really tapping into right yeah .

Speaker 2

It's so powerful . It's an adventure when you start to attune yourself to listen . In that way you're doing , you're really helping the person you're working with because they're not aware . But you know , sometimes we need a third party observer . We need that too . We need other people to listen and reflect back what they heard when we spoke about . Whatever it is something that was painful or something that we're excited about , and they can hear it , you know .

Speaker 1

So true , there's . There's a um . I'm not going to get this right , but I remember hearing something that , um , that the and this might've come from Michelle Jones that um , that the and this might've come from Michelle Jones that the the heart is actually communicating way more with the head than the head is to the heart . Is that ?

Speaker 2

is that true ? Oh yeah , oh my gosh . I could talk for hours about the heart . Yeah , and that's one of the things that I teach when I teach yoga and even my um , my coaching clients is to drop from their head to their heart , because your heart is like this torsion field , which means you create from the heart . So the field of the heart goes way out and it's way more expansive as far as body parts if we're going to talk body parts than the brain is . And so when you make decisions or you problem solve more from this heart space , there's so much more available to you than you are when you're in your brain computer and we miss that sometimes or awe , it's like , okay , well , get serious , get your feet on the ground , we've got to do this problem , and it's like we're taught more to be in our brains and our minds than we are in our hearts . And when we can make that shift , there's so many possibilities available to us that we're not aware of until we're there .

Speaker 1

It's so true . I , like a year or so ago , was really making some changes of like calming that productivity engine more and more inside of me , and I realized that I would like literally sit at my desk all day , like literally on the edge of my seat , like stomach clenched , shallow breathing , and I've changed the state in which I sit and like operate at my desk now so that I'm like working , but I'm in a much more relaxed posture , and that has made a huge , huge difference . So I'd love to hear from you , like what are some ways that we can begin to like use our bodies to help build our business and live the life that we want to ? What are , like your favorite ways to teach people around that ?

Speaker 2

Well , because I teach yoga . Obviously yoga is going to be a big answer . Yes , but you know , learning how to , how to move . You know , and not just move , but learning how to tune in .

Speaker 2

So when you're moving , whether you're on your mat and you're doing yoga poses , or whether you're out for a walk or hiking , whatever your movement that you like is , it's to feel the sensations in your body , like to notice , be mindful , like when you're eating something you know you're tasting the food , you're experiencing the flavor of it and the way it feels when you , you know , crunch on it , or you know you move your jaws or whatever . It's just all those little nuanced movements . If you like to go outside and move , I like to walk around in the grass sometimes and just feel the way that feels underneath my feet and just doing those little things they really help build a bridge between you and your body and help you make more of a connection , because where we feel joy is in our bodies , it's in the present moment . You know , it's not all up here in the brain , and so the more we make that connection through our movements , the more we feel alive .

Building a Positive Body Relationship

Speaker 1

Do you make it a practice to do certain things like within your everyday or your morning routine , or like do you have certain things that you're everyday or your morning routine ? Or like do you have certain things that you're kind of really structured around ?

Speaker 2

Yeah , I do , you know , as far as like movement or like body wise .

Speaker 1

Yeah , just taking care of your body in the way you just described .

Speaker 2

I do , actually , before I even get out of bed . I lay in my bed as long as I'm , you know , not bothering my husband too much . I bend my knees , I pull my knees into my chest , which is a great way to relieve pressure in your lower back . Sometimes I'll stretch one leg at a time up towards the ceiling , just to kind of stretch the backs of my legs . I like to do twists in my bed , which is just to bring your knees to your chest and then take them to one side and then the other side .

Speaker 2

So all of those first morning movements you know , stretching like when you this is most people innately when they wake up , they want to just stretch their body , and so that's something you could do is just follow the lead that you're like . You're feeling like I need to stretch . Okay , what else do I need to do ? Let me listen to my body and see what movements those are . Child's pose , which is like a kneeling pose in my bed . I love that pose . So a lot of these things I do before I even get up . In fact , I'm just going to mention this right now for your listeners . I have a on my YouTube channel . I have a 10 minute morning moves thing . That is just that . It's just little moves you can do in your bed . So I feel so strongly about it and it really helps me get off on the right foot .

Speaker 1

I love that . I don't do it in my bed but I do like after my prayer and reading . I will do like this five minute workout which is really just a lot of stretching and kind of planks to down dog . You know that kind of stuff and just five minutes of moving my body totally changes my day .

Speaker 2

Oh yeah , because you're connecting Amazing . I agree , you're connecting to your body and I don't know if you're going to mention this , but it just keeps coming to my mind . To you know , if we have a beef with our body , if we don't like things about our body , which most people have , that we can't build a strong relationship with anybody or anything if we are directing hate at it . So if you're not happy with your body , if you're angry with your body for different reasons , it's hard to develop that relationship . Just like when you have a friend or a family member and you're telling them all the things that you don't like about them . If you're criticizing them , how do you think they're going to feel towards you ?

Speaker 1

They're not going to love that so much .

Speaker 2

That does not help the relationship grow strong . So we can't develop a relationship with our own body and that body trust by hating our body . We'll never get there by doing it that way .

Speaker 1

So if somebody's listening that feels that way , like how do you begin to shift that relationship ?

Speaker 2

Well , I would say , do your healing work . You know , start to follow the lead of what you feel like you need to do , because usually there's a reason , there's a point in your life where something happened and caused you to have these feelings . And I've worked with clients who struggle with their weight and in their body . They've never been happy with their body their whole life and you can pin it back to a time where somebody told them something . Sometimes there was a criticism , or the way they were raised was that your body had to look a certain way , and so you have to kind of be willing to go and find the root of the problem , to sort of dismantle that and find a new connection .

Speaker 2

But I would say , even then , you know , while you're going through that process , just moving your body and thanking your body Like I say that a lot in my yoga classes I'll say you know , send yourself some love right now . Look at your feet , tell your toes how much you love them . Tell your feet thank you for standing up for me . Thank your legs for moving you forward . Like , literally , your body is how you're navigating your whole life . Without your body , how are you going to do all the things you want to do . You can't , so you've got to do the things you need to , the steps you need to to create that feeling of appreciation and gratitude for the way your body moves for you and heals for you when it's injured .

Speaker 1

That is so powerful , camille . I mean , just what you're doing in the classroom and supporting people is such a like . I just got like what a big deal that is .

Speaker 2

You know this is kind of a funny little story , but I used to have a not good relationship with my hair . That sounds funny , but I did not like my hair . I hated my hair . It was always flat , it was always stringy . All my friends had bouncy curls and waves in their hair and I was always angry . And I always joked with my husband and said if you want me to have a good day , if you want to say something really nice to me , compliment my hair .

Speaker 2

And years later one of my daughters said to me mom , do you know how often you complain about your hair ? And maybe it was at the point where I was ready to hear it with open ears . But I heard that and I was like you're right , I complain about it all the time . I'm never nice to my hair . And so I changed after that and I started appreciating my hair . This sounds like a silly , stupid thing , but it made a big difference and I would say you can do that with any part of your body that you have some kind of antagonistic feeling towards . See if you can turn it towards gratitude for that part of your body and just see what a difference it makes . You will see .

Speaker 1

Wow , I absolutely believe that . I mean , in a way , I've done that with my relationship with time , like I used to just always be complaining about time and dissing it and mad at it and frustrated , and I just removed a lot of language that I was using and started to shift it and thinking about it as if it's a relationship , because why would time want to support me if I'm just complaining about it all the time and ungrateful for it ? Yes , and it's made a huge difference . So I think this is so great . So I think I think you have a tool around this whole idea of you know , a relationship with your body .

Speaker 2

Yes , so here's another thing you can do that I really love and has been so , so , very helpful to me , and that's to write . If you don't know where you stand with your body , or even if you do know , write a letter to your body just like you were talking about time being something you could have a relationship and talk , to write a letter to your body and just be truthful , just say everything that you need to say , and then you will learn a lot by once you read . You write it and then you read it you'll be like , oh wow , you know you might say that's really harsh , would I ever say that to somebody else ? Or you might have , you know , loving feelings . So , whatever it is , write that letter . And then here's the fun part , the second part of the assignment I guess I'm giving you an assignment is to write a letter back from your body to you .

Speaker 2

And the way you can do that there's a couple of ways , but the way that I do it is when I write the letter to my body , I sit at my , I do it on my , I type , I use it on my computer .

Speaker 2

You can hand write it too , so I'll just kind of like close my eyes and just sort of type whatever's coming into my head when you write the return letter , like your body's speaking to you . Same thing , like pause after you finish the first letter , take a few breaths and then you know , start writing and just like listen to whatever thoughts are coming in your head and you can picture your body speaking back to you , like I close my eyes and I really try to just not edit myself , not censor myself , not even think what would my body say or what should it say . I just whatever comes into my head . My intention is that is my body speaking back to me and then I just type it all out . I don't stop to edit it , I don't correct spelling , I get it all out and then when I go back and I read it , wow , I just think this is such an important exercise to shine the light of awareness on what's really going on .

Speaker 1

I'm such a believer in the power of writing and the power of really thinking about these different things , whether it's your body or time or money , that it is a relationship . You have a relationship with it and oftentimes , when you see a clue inside of this relationship with your body or time , it's often a clue for lots of other places in relationships too , which is so powerful .

Speaker 2

Yeah , it's like you pull up if you think about a weed or something that's growing in the ground and you're kind of going about it trying to figure out , okay , what's at the root of this , you pull it up and then it comes up a little ways and then you realize that the root is really deep and then you got to pull a little bit more and a little bit more so you can get to the bottom of why you feel this way or why this behavior . And sometimes it takes digging and it takes work , but it is so worth it . It's worth it . Otherwise , you're just , like you know , circling the mountain around and around and you're never getting to the top because you're never addressing what's at the root of the problem .

Speaker 1

Ah , that's like music to my ears , because I do . I think our world is like it's just pointing to these surface solutions , right these that just are a bandaid . They're not addressing the root , like you're talking about . And that's my belief in the work I do to Camille is that I want to help people address the foundation and the root of things so that they can make sustainable change , because when you're just popping band aids on and not really looking at the root , it's hard to sustain that positive change .

Speaker 2

Well , yeah , and then you just , it's like you rubber band back to where you were . You can't , you won't stay , because that same thing that's at the root it keeps flaring up , it's flaring up and you're still like whack-a-mole . I don't want to see that . I don't want to see that .

Speaker 1

So you got to be willing to do it , yeah , so if you're doing that in your life , that's a great indicator that you want to do something that's going to address the deeper , the deeper thing , and that might feel scary , but it's to me it's like , if it's , if it feels scary , that's because there's lots of treasure there , you know that's where you want to go right ?

Speaker 2

Yeah , that's where you want to go .

Speaker 1

Yes , that's right , yes , that's right .

Speaker 2

Let's leave listeners with something that they can do just today based on everything we've talked about . Maybe it is the letter , but maybe just a couple ideas , simple ideas that they could just start today to integrate what we're talking about . Absolutely Excuse me , absolutely . You know I always recommend just finding a place in your day for a little bit more stillness , a little bit more quiet , and you know that can I know this might not sound like it's directly related , but it is related Finding time to be still and start to make that connection with your body .

Finding Mindfulness in Quiet Spaces

Speaker 2

You can do it easily just by go outside , close your eyes , take a few deep breaths Every time you breathe and you focus on your breath . That's you connecting with your body , and the good thing about doing that deep breathing and paying attention to it is that helps you be mindful . It helps prevent you from going into the squirrel brain like the busy , busy , busy brain . It helps you stay present . So that is the first thing I would recommend is just to spend a little more time . A couple of minutes what five minutes a day ? Do you have five minutes a day where you could just sit outside ? If you can close your eyes and just notice your breath . That's the first thing to starting that connection .

Speaker 2

I do have a little audio that I share with people . It's called a body scan and it's just a guided sort of visualization where you're moving through the parts of your body where you're noticing the thoughts in your mind but you're not getting involved in them a lot of that kind of thing and it's I'm happy to share it with your listeners . But it also helps you to be present , to be present in your body , and that's a great way to start if you're not used to that .

Speaker 1

That's a beautiful idea . I am in a world full of so many distractions I feel like you know it's kind of going against the current to do stuff like this . I had a client once say like Carla , you're more radical than you realize because you're telling people to get quiet and get still and not listen to what everyone else is doing or telling you to do . And I think it's really true and I'm so grateful for your voice to remind us to be still and get quiet and because it's like we hear being present . Right , it's like one of those things you just like self-care . You hear all the time it almost like starts to not mean anything , but it truly . There's so much wisdom , there's everything I find when I'm able to be present , I have everything I need .

Speaker 2

Yes , I totally agree . And all the voices and the noise out there Talk about overwhelm . You know what I mean . There's this trend that I'm learning that you know . When , as a creator , as a coach , whatever you know we want to help people , we want to give them more . We want to give them more tools , more whatever , more value , make sure they're getting everything . But also overwhelm is a real thing . So you've probably been in a program or been taught by somebody where it's like they're just giving you a lot and you're just like I can't take it all in , it's too much . And that's where the silence , that's where the space comes in . Because during that quiet time , that's where the silence , that's where the space comes in . Because during that quiet time , that's where you're integrating what you've learned and figuring out how to use it . But if it's just like a fire hose pouring information on you , you can't make sense of it . And so I really feel like what you said that quiet space is revolutionary . When you learn to do it , then you're like I get it now .

Speaker 1

Totally . And also I think what you're saying is like I went through a fire hose program for a year and it sent me in a tailspin for a while . It took me a while to unwind from that , but also in that quiet space and , like you're saying , dropping into your heart , you can then discern , like , what in this is for me , what in this is right , is mine to do , instead of just thinking everybody else has got the right answer . We all have a unique compass and the only we can see and you have , I have to get still to discern that .

Speaker 2

Absolutely , and I don't care how good the presenter is , the coach is . If they don't recognize that's true for everybody , they're kind of missing the mark . You have to realize that for the people you're working with , they are going to take what they want and I always say take what you need from this message . Leave the rest , and that's what you're talking about . It's being discerning about the information you're ingesting and taking the nuggets that are going to inform your choices in the best way , and just letting the rest go . Maybe it's for somebody else , but not for you right now . That's okay .

Speaker 1

I think that's a perfect place to kind of pause and end and just apply to this conversation , like what in this is for you , what can you take today , what makes sense ? Don't do it because we're doing it or we've said it . Like , just listen to your heart and what is there for you . Okay , camille , tell us where we can find all your goodness .

Speaker 2

Well , you can find me . I'm on social media . My website is restoration-yogacom and I do have a few programs on there . I'm getting ready to launch a new program called Connect to Heal , which merges trauma healing and yoga , which I'm super excited about . So you can find information about all that , including the , the , the little freebies , the , the audio , the body scan , and I also have a little yoga workbook that you can download for free to practice some poses . So I would say , go to my website and check that out , and I love to hear from people

Inspiring Conversation With Camille

Speaker 2

. So please reach out with your questions and , as you can tell from this conversation , we love to talk about this , right , carla and as you can tell from this conversation , we love to talk about this right , carla , totally , I'm so grateful to know you .

Speaker 1

Thank you for all of this .

Speaker 2

It's been so fun , always a pleasure .

Speaker 1

Yeah , everybody . If you're inspired , go check out what Camille's doing . You're a gem and I will see you all next week . Everybody have an amazing day , thank you . Thank you , camille , for being here .

Speaker 2

Thank you , bye , everybody .