Proven Not Perfect
Proven Not Perfect
Empowering Authenticity and Stretching Beyond Yoga Mats: A Journey to Empowerment with Tiara Brisco, aka Yogi TB
Stepping onto the mat with Tiara Brisco, aka Yogi TB, is more than a stretch; it's a leap into a world of empowerment and authenticity. Our heartfelt discussion shares her transformative path from a college woman seeking an elective for credits in physical education to emerging a beacon of wellness as a yoga instructor and social media influencer. With her candid reflections, Tiara sheds light on the intricacies of maintaining genuine identity amidst the backdrop of ever-present scrutiny and the unique pressures faced by women in their crucial years of growth.
Tiara's narrative weaves the delicate threads of vulnerability with the strength found in a supportive community, and a desire to gain clarity about what is serving her, versus what is not. She shares her courage to pivot in career, fearlessness to identify new pathways and humility to gift her community with what she has learned.
Tierra's story is both an inspiration as well as an invitation to get centered and to get real with our own self.
Drive, Ambition, Doing, Leading, Creating... all good until we forget about our own self-care. This Village of All-Stars pays it forward with transparency about misses and celebration in winning. We cover many topics and keep it 100. We are Proven Not Perfect™️
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I'd love to hear what you think!
Hey, proven, not perfect. This is Sean Trappell. I am excited to share this conversation with you. This conversation is just one that you will want to share with any young women, millennial, in your life. You know I'm talking probably late 20s, mid 20s, early 30s, mid 30s, you know, maybe even up to 40, quite frankly, and you might want to share it because I think it's those tender ages, depending on you. Know what.
Speaker 1:What you're calling is that you start to realize that things always aren't as pure as you maybe think they were intended to be. Also, you learn how to deal with stress in workplace environments in a different way. You learn about equity and inequity. You learn about positioning. You learn about finding your own voice. You struggle with that sometimes. All those things, y'all all those things and if you know, you know so, tiara Brisco is just a wonderful soul, very present. I tell her that, but get past the initial opening where she and I are greeting each other and I'm telling you, I'm telling you, once you get into the meat of this, it is a conversation that will really hit home and really, really challenge you to think about where you are right now with your own self. We talk yoga, we talk influencers. We talk millennial, we talk all the things y'all enjoy. Tiara Brisco, yogi TB. Tiara Brisco, mic check, mic check. Can you hear me?
Speaker 2:Can you hear me All?
Speaker 1:right. Yes, I hear you. I hear you loud and proud and loud and clear. But here's what I'm going to tell you I hear you, I see you, I hear you, I see you Like your whole being is. So I don't want to say big, because big almost can be confused with all sorts of things, but it's present, that's what I want to say. Your whole being is very present.
Speaker 1:I remember meeting you over the summer at an event and you happen to be enjoying the event as well as doing what you do at the event. I just remember walking into a space on a mission for one thing, and you were in the space and I was just drawn to your presence. I was really drawn to your presence and let's just say you're like my little little, little little sister. But there was something about how you were living and standing and who you are right now, at such a young age that it just caught my attention and I was curious. I was really curious and yeah, and then I would learn that all those mornings that I didn't get up to do yoga, yeah, that part it was my bad, my mess, because you were there. So God has a way of sort of really making a joke because he's like yeah, when you talk to yourself out of getting up to actually show up and do the yoga, that presence that you saw, that's what happened, but anyway, yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, because we're here now and we still. You still dropped so many gems on me and now we're here. That's all that matters.
Speaker 1:We are here. That's right on. Okay, so I dropped gems. That's hilarious because that's what you remember. You remember. I remember this presence of this young being and you remember me dropping gems. Well, that makes me happy, because I do hope that as I show up, I'm not only receiving, I'm offering as well. It's really you know how I try to recommit daily. So I want to, first and foremost, for the people. The people need to know that your handle is super cool Yogi TB right, is that it? Yogi TB? All over Instagram and, I'm sure, over so much more social. Are you like a social media person? Are you like all over social or is it just? You know, old school, I'm just seeing you on Instagram.
Speaker 2:You know. So I had to accept the terms, Like I would say, the past year or so, that I am an influencer. Oh, I guess it sounds and I only say that because when I first started sharing on social media, like Instagram, like I had. Instagram of course became, you know, instagram, but when I first started sharing, like my yoga practice, it was strictly for yoga and then somehow, during I think I want to say the pandemic, you know like, my trajectory started to change and I started to become more of an influencer. I guess you would say Wow, or like more in the wellness space, but, like my, always my sole purpose was to share yoga. And now I'm accepting that I can still have a healthy relationship with social media. Being an influencer, you know, being a yoga instructor, a wellness instructor at the same time. So I guess I'm, you're, an influencer, all right.
Speaker 1:So you're gonna have to double click on that because you are officially the first influencer that proven that perfect is talking to, at least at least self stated self, called professional influencer, right. So I want to talk about that because I know that you also have an amazing degree and probably you know lots of choices. I want to know what did you go to school for? So let's take her all the way back and tell us about tiara as like a young girl, like who were you when we met you.
Speaker 2:So, tiara, as a young girl I was very inquisitive, I was very adventurous, like I was always. I always like to say, like I was the black sheep in my family, not like just my media family, but my overall family on both sides.
Speaker 1:Why do you always want to tell us what does that mean? Like we know what it, we think it means, but but I've come to learn that when people use that term, they stand in their, in their experience they stood out in different ways. So I kind of you know there's some, there's some ways that I can relate to that too, but it might not be the same as yours.
Speaker 2:I just, I mean, I always went against the norm. Like even I wanted to be a prime scene investigator for my experience. I used to have like the microscope set and everything like dissect birds and and all of it and all of that stuff. Like I was really like the final speaking girl. So when it came to me the even like trisclastic honors, ap classes, so when it was time for me to go to college I was like you know, I want to study forensics, this is what I want to do. I want to be a forensic scientist when I grow up. All that good stuff.
Speaker 1:So then I went to in state that we are just have to do it for the hubby.
Speaker 2:So I studied crime law and justice pre forensics. It really was forensics at first, but then I got to calculus and I was like I don't like that Calculus and chemistry, I do not like math at all, but I was still able to to have forensics in my degree basically. So I still, you know, I'm still in a situation. So I got my bachelor's science and math and then I left college. Of course it's overworked for my background as law enforcement. A lot of people don't remember it. So I used to be an officer. I got promoted. I got promoted very fast to a sergeant and then, during my time as an officer though, I got my master's. So I got my master's in forensics, forensic studies. So I went to Stevenson University, got my master's in there and then I left the police force and I became the agent.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's so cool Girl. This is like some scandal wrapped in. I don't even know what to wrap it in. That's pretty doggone cool. So, I'm starting to see some black sheep elements there, right, because I can't imagine in the family there were a whole lot of people that were talking about first of all the forensic science and then criminal justice and then ascending to even agency. That's super awesome. What drew you to that? Is that that curiousness?
Speaker 2:That mean my senior year of college. My senior year of college, I had an internship with the Penn State Justice and Safety Institute and we had to do a project, an intern project because we literally put together, like from the ground up, a criminal justice office that took place in Kansas. I couldn't go because I was a work college student, but, um, actually none of us could go because we're not college students and we were being paid like $10 an hour, I think, for this internship. We did six hours a week, but anyways.
Speaker 2:So my project and the program that I created was child sex trafficking in DC, maryland, virginia and in Canada, because the conference was in Canada, and so I focused heavy on, you know, sex trafficking, of course, as a whole, as umbrella, child sex trafficking as a, you know, a sub topic, and so I was like this is really what I want to do.
Speaker 2:Like my goal in life is to get in a child sex trafficking task force, and so the only way to do that, like my, my path was always want to be law enforcement.
Speaker 2:Some type of writers didn't know what that would look like, and but the only way to get on a sex trafficking task force was to need to eventually become an agent on that level. So, yeah, so that's what really drove me to that and also become an agent. We just have a little bit more freedom as far as like your experiences and your training, the agency you get to work with, like to collaborate with, whether it's on a case, or, you know, you get rejoin this other task force, whatever it may be, or you become a liaison some type of way. So that's that's really what drove my motivation. But also I just felt like, now that I look back in hindsight that I'm older, a lot of the things I was doing also was to seek like validation and acceptance, like from my family yeah, prefer every like like my dad's side of the family, because my brother and I were the only grandchildren to my dad's side. So I think I was like seeking like validation from like my aunt and my police and my dad.
Speaker 1:I consciously like to do anything, so you think, you think the achievement so it was all about. Subconsciously, there was this, this desire to have others kind of say okay, she's doing it, she made it, she's, she's good, she's representing you know all the things. Right, wow, how did you so? You said you look back at it. When did it become clear to you that your driver, your internal driver, was external versus internal?
Speaker 2:I think it was when the job because even when I was police officer it was a lot of people don't realize it's a, of course, a male dominated field yeah, but a lot of the stuff that I went through that I don't know I never really talked about it was so stressful. I remember one time because I had to work on weekends too. As an officer, you work like every other weekend, but when you become a supervisor you work, of course, like more than others. So I was at work and I was in like our control center because I was like my little hoods, like I was really good at doing it. I was so stressed out, my skin it was so dry and like it, it like cracked and it was just bleeding and I remember I just left.
Speaker 2:I left work Because once I found out what leave was and they can't question what's taking leave I was like I'm taking mental health days. I started doing that. So it was bleeding. I left work. It went to my mom's house, which is probably like less than 10 minutes away. I cried on her couch for like six hours, wow, and so, like that, I was like, okay, I'm stressed out, I'm highly qualified for this position. Like, educationally. I'm qualified, I carried myself as a professional, I'm highly qualified and on to other things. But it was just so much that I experienced because I got promoted so fast.
Speaker 1:Yes, there's something real about that. People don't talk about that here and I don't. It is agnostic to industries, right. But those of us who are just built with this gene to be goal oriented, to be results driven and to actually be really good at what we do, you definitely do see the results of promotion quicker than most people, right. But the part that people do not talk about is there's something that goes with the time of that promotion versus the quick based on results, right, the maturity, the actual readiness, the preparedness, the emotional, social aspects of it don't always line up to the. I got the role and I've seen so many people. If they are honest, they either flame out, burnout or they are just over aggressive and not self aware. Yeah, all the things right, like I think I was somewhere between the two at different points, right? Oh, my God, I love that you said that, because too many people do not talk about that. Yeah.
Speaker 2:It was something that I want you to like from my superiors to and.
Speaker 1:I'm talking early career, but life has taught you those things right, I'm talking early career, when you're being promoted for being really good at what you do. But you still have some life to get.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it was so much, and then I became an agent and then that's when I really started to get deeper into my yoga practice and I started doing more things, and you know-.
Speaker 1:How did you know about yoga? Tell me about that. How did you even know? How did you know?
Speaker 2:So yoga was my gym credit my freshman year at Penn State and I was like, let me take the class that I can be as in. Yes, isn't that my first year? Yes, I was in the gym for a while, but I still had a break when I was-. Yes, I was hanging out. Yes, going to Shippetsburg this weekend, going to Millersville this weekend going to Temple.
Speaker 2:Yes, you know, sometimes we went during the week. Yes, I still got my work done. But let me just take the class where I don't even have to show up mentally, but it was the total opposite. Yoga was actually very hard In the sense as the physical aspect, because I've always been flexible without a cheerleader when I was younger, all that stuff. But it was hard in the aspect of mentally and emotionally being vulnerable.
Speaker 1:Yes, in the whole room.
Speaker 2:I was wrong. I'm probably 12 people in my class because it was very intimate, but just, I didn't know any of these people, right? Yes, I was the only girl of color in my class and my children, you know white women. She was so, so, so, so amazing. I have been trying to find her honestly for a very long time. Wow, just to say thank you, yeah but, I don't know, wouldn't that be amazing?
Speaker 1:if it comes full circle and she hears this Wow, that will, you got one of these out there. She needs to be out there All her out.
Speaker 2:Look, I would say, call me but I'm not getting on my number.
Speaker 1:How about dropping my DMs, because I'm Yo UTV.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, yes, I know you got Instagram, we got Facebook and something. Fine, girl, yeah, that's how I found out about me and I had, you know like, stuck with it. That's a yoga one too, and so I stuck with it, because the only person I was going to do it in 2008, because generally it wasn't a thing, but it was like it was my uncle, my dad's brother, and I didn't see any other black person I knew they'd be a go-go traveling all over to the stars trunks, to the poly, all these places, and I was like you know, I want to do that. And when I first started now I come back home from school and I took you like what I was doing, they really think I was like worshiping the devil, because if you knew something about yoga back then you should think of you know, meditating and all that stuff, and that really is clearly. But, yeah, so it just became a thing, and some people still in 2023.
Speaker 1:Don't understand. Use better words. Haven't reconciled their opinion of yoga, right, Because it's different than what they knew. And, to your point, anything that starts looking like meditation, that looks like prayer, that looks like you know, we get worried about it, right, Especially if you're raised a certain way. But I'm going to tell you, never has my faith in God been deeper than when I tapped into the whole sense of my being right Like that mind blowing.
Speaker 2:That's what I tell people. I was like, you know, even after talking about my teacher training, I learned so much as far as, like, the spiritual aspect of yoga. I was like, oh, like really say those things. Like I'm spiritual. I haven't gone to church physically, but now I watch church online still but, like it gives you like a decent appreciation for, you know, your spiritual journey, your spiritual practice basically. And so, yeah, going off of what you said, it brought me closer in my relationship, you know, to God, like, especially like if you're one of those people who don't really know how to pray, yes, like me, like you know, some people have like a whole step a whole list always, that's you know one day prayer and just like yeah, god, I'm here.
Speaker 1:And I think that's what he wants. And that's why I think yoga is so good, because I don't think it's the list, I think it's just showing up and listening.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, that's really what it was. And then when I started with it, it's one and all. And then I got really really back deep into it, I would say my senior college. And then, definitely in 2014, 2015, you know, 2014, I started to do yoga. So, like you know, everybody knows it's the hot yoga or some more stricter style of yoga, and I did that like six days a week. Wow, for your shirt.
Speaker 1:Wow. And so during this time, you're starting the career, you're working hard and criminal justice, you're ascending up the ladder to sergeant, you're getting into the agency and it sounds like you're also growing your mental, physical connection, spiritual connection in this practice like almost parallel to it, right, and I think that resonates for me because that's a lot of my story as well. So is that what you contribute to, the reason that you were able to acknowledge when you were getting really stressed out, really burnt out, or now bring it full circle, when you finally decided to shift into a different way of being? How? What role, if any, did being so grounded and centered play for you?
Speaker 2:For me. I would say that I think this was like about 2016. I had my own place. Now I have really like started to create like a safe haven for me at home, and I started the practice like very, very heavy, because I was still going to the other two.
Speaker 2:I was getting back into the gym like working out and all that stuff, and I was just like you know, like I know all these people and explanation, like I shop every day and I'm a good person. I've always been a kind person and funny I say that is because the team lately has been being kind, like you don't have to be a kind person to be a good person, and like people please, and like being the kind person as well. So I just think like I was shining with everybody had to be forward, and I think that's how I realized like everything is just taking on me and I was more taken than like there's nothing that you said, I think, and so I started to really put myself first, like of course, I was doing my job, like I was a great supervisor, but it was just that that just didn't balance out, just the way I was intriguing, and so that's when I started to okay.
Speaker 2:I knew the atmosphere and planes like my A to C switch over to becoming an agent. And then that's the way, like I was interviewing and I got the positions, become an agent, and then I started back. I had to go to the academy all over again and I was 2017. And then I started like actually my agent, for it was 28. But then that's when I was teaching more and I started was just after, and it was a whole thing with that and I was just in both. I was like I'm leaving this place.
Speaker 2:I came to work one day after they had my like the special agent and charge set my sack of my office equal to his office. I was like, yeah, a lot of people are in the office, especially through the days. I was like, if I still come to work because I will work with athletes on Tuesday morning and Thursday morning and I will come to work after but I still did eight hours. It was not like I was in the working for hours, was reading and everybody's really into a car. I was saying to like 50 o'clock at night. He's like, yeah, they want to like I'm going eight hours and maybe just like, yeah, we don't know. You know we don't want you to be in office by yourself. After a certain time I was like, hey, we're going to be in the supervisor, we're over 60 people, but she can't trust me being off about myself and it was so many factors. And then I had to work on day and I was at my desk and I sent you my team's notice and I left.
Speaker 2:Wow, my journey. Yeah, teaching full time, I had to be done. But that's why I say I just always felt like I was for black people, because I take risks. Yeah, my cousin, my dad's brother, he had said something to me before. He saw me like a smoothie king around our way and I was in there looking very far away and I was telling him about everything that was going on. One thing he said to me he was like what's the risk of no obligation? And that just hits the root ever since then.
Speaker 1:So what's a risk, no obligation, and so was this your son. Yeah, was his guidance to take or to explore that? Tell me more about that.
Speaker 2:Because I was just telling him how you know, like my family just stopped talking to me when I left the garden, like my dad was sick and stopped talking to me and I was telling him how that was, you know, when he was really heavy on me because we're all like really close, that was like my work. But then when I made that decision to leave that's what we best for me in the moment I met someone in the house for my well being and they just it was my support and I was saying nobody's obligated to support me. But he was just saying, like you don't have any children, you have nothing that can hold you back. Like you always want to go back, you can go back if you want. So if you want to, it's like you know, explore it, but there's no, you have no obligation to any of these people that aren't talking to you.
Speaker 1:And that's right and that, and I think for the folks that are listening I don't want to cut you off, please don't forget what you just said, but for the folks that are listening that are earlier in career journey, you know, I think people spend so much time trying to find their other or trying to justify who their other is, and too little time actually exploring who they are in those spaces where it's just them. Right, you have to. You have to in order to not have regrets, and we're going to have regrets anyway, but there's not a person that wouldn't tell you on the other end that take the time to know yourself, because it makes you much more grounded when you connect with somebody else, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, yeah. So he was just basically saying that he don't. He's not doing these things to make them happy, like they already had their lives, lives expensive. And I was in like my late teens and I did this, so I was just there.
Speaker 2:I could always go back. I could always go back. I was very high up in the government at such a young age, but I was also. I just also feel like for my generation we go into these spaces the government space, the land of five states, the bay, everybody that's there before us. You know that's a different generation and how do you set life? So it's either you explain to people that were welcoming to you, or people that are something judging, or people who you know wanted you to work, or be a sort of really, when that's not how it works.
Speaker 2:Like I remember being between I was opening and closing my cases to things. I'm a writer, yeah, like it was a whole bunch of that. We're just being one and over about my social life rather than the work that I was doing. I don't come over to make things seem like recording, but I'm wearing that. You know we're not best friends. So you know, and like we'll see in a high society that would I have done it differently? I would have left. I still wouldn't let. So I still wouldn't let, but I would have done it differently. I would have had a plan, you know. But I don't regret anything.
Speaker 1:So tell me this. So now you, you leave, your you're in this entrepreneurial space, right and probably scary, probably scared, I don't know. I would imagine even for a risk taker. There are those times where we're just like what did we just do? What did we just do? Yeah, what happens? Like was it as one, two, three, easy? Or how did you get to the articulation of I am an entrepreneur, I'm a professional in yoga, I'm an influencer?
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, I'm an influencer. I'm an influencer, that's what I say. I would have had a plan. So anybody's listening. Before you leave, have a plan in place. I'm listening. I have to find the only option before you decide to transition. But when I first started, I was a young instructor in the game. I was taking on like any opportunity that came to me, but I got burnt out. Yeah, I stopped teaching for like a year at Burnt Out. I wrote about this in a blog like years ago. I didn't have money to go from playing with playing B and move back in with my mom, which I'm not embarrassed about, but it's just like shouldn't be, somebody who has somebody who has taken care of herself since I left the college.
Speaker 2:I hadn't lived with my parents since I was born, my mom says you know, so it was. It was a lot. It was still, to this point, like entrepreneurship for me as a staff and dance because I don't start, I don't step into the influencer space. Yeah, I was like this is 2018. I don't know where I was going, but I still, you know, I made a word. One thing I've always done is a lot, but one thing I had when I was young was not ever operating in survival mode, ever again, Like before. Early on, I definitely was operating in survival mode. Just, you know, taking on, like I said, any day day sounds, but that was awesome. This one appealed to everybody else. This has ultimately gotten me overlooked, undervalued, underpaid and I would never, never do that again. But yeah, it was. It was not all rainbows and uniforms. We had a fun moment because it was starting out. It was just very scary.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm glad you said that, because I think that you know, it's all. It's almost become a little bit sexy to be an entrepreneur in this day and age, right, and I think that too many people don't understand, misunderstand the true grit and grind that's required, right, just to even, you know, be self sustaining. It's a big grind. So you better know exactly what your North Star is. I mean, I think you had that right, so you at least you know, even though it was hard, at least you knew what was calling you, which I think is more than a lot of people.
Speaker 2:And you are always going to need to do some service, so it's not the way right. I'm sorry, doing a whole bunch of activations in DC and Maryland, which is great. The best answer is really help build up who I was and that's what we find my voice as a person. I carry myself as a person Even though I'm being a service. But now I have found those and how I teach and how I go up and all of it. So yeah, and I'm still trying to find like I never thought, never thought.
Speaker 1:We have to unpack this because this is actually a question that I have for this new generation of professional influencers. When you realize you have thousands of followers thousands, right, in some instances you'll never see their face right but when you realize that, how would you compare the responsibility that you feel there versus the responsibility that you felt in a corporate situation where you were a sergeant and you had, you know, hundreds following you or 30 plus following you right, like? Tell me about the feeling of responsibility and accountability, because I just wonder if everybody has that or if it's just something that you have to let go of because it's faceless.
Speaker 2:I would think I'm. You can think about it. I'm back to rest it. Yeah, earlier, like at first, when I started doing this, I was like, oh, I got a post, what's this, this and what's? I have to post this and it has to look like this. And it's a little bit like that because I'm one of those people who get a certain audience.
Speaker 2:But then it was like that's not who I am, like I'm going to be myself and just because One thing and I can't speak for all, but I know, going in the yoga and going in the states, like in social media, as a black woman, a lot of stuff has been over sexualized. So at one point I had to speak to the handful of different posters to help this reach and help this flow. You can see the thing that got to a point I was like I don't care, because I'm not doing this for people to, you know, validate after me or, you know, re-affectuate it with the thought of me. I'm really doing it because why I'm going to show a woman there? Because you're going to color, you aren't like this day you're like having the archetype.
Speaker 2:You know, we like cherds, we have French, we have length rules. We're going to be how can we do these programs? You can look this way and do these things. There's going to be possibility of having All these things. I always do is be transparent and do things. I'm changing the way things are going to be, not for the time, everything I say or anything I speak with my family, even the real heavy-blooded competition. So I'm going to have my body changed from this to this and this and this and this. But even how long I've been doing this now, even when I was approaching 15 times less than four years ago. At first I used to be very tense and distressed about how I personally don't have a shade up in social media, but now, in this way, it's like I'm a postman. I'm a postman unless I have a campaign and I have to post for a right. Or if I post, it has to be something that's really important in my beliefs. Really, sometimes, when people do post, you can just tell you know something to it.
Speaker 1:So true.
Speaker 2:It's like the stories, so that even when I was a surgeon, I thought it would be a little difficult. But it was easy though, because I've never changed. The only thing that changed was the package on my uniform, yes, and I was like I'm not even all this, but like people. I saw it looked after people, they still, I saw it treated people the same. I never felt like I was superior to anybody, you know, but even then I was also doing a very outspoken person. I was very outspoken. I'm just because I'm in charge. I mean, I'm about to sign off on the space there, I'm not the ex question.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:Even like social media, like during the pandemic, I was very focused about, you know, discrimination within the world of space. Yeah, and I was calling people out. But that also worked out my following Could. I would be in who I am.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:I'm very past, like I'm a schoolgirl. You can be very passionate. You could come off like a little harsh sometimes, but we mean, bro, yeah, so if I don't speak with something, you're going to believe you have to.
Speaker 1:You have to pull that out, because I'd love to hear your thoughts on discrimination in the wellness space. Do you, are you thinking it's institutional, in that you can't be a professional? Are you thinking it's a direct correlation to access? Do you think it's all parts in between?
Speaker 2:A lot of people, like I said, I do a lot of community activations within DC and Maryland area. A lot of things in DC that I do community activations are underserved communities but they don't know. A lot of them know that yoga is their first time meditating, but a lot of them can't go to yoga. They're expensive yes, that's right or they're not nowhere, they're nowhere near them. So you know, it's so true. I'll always be an advocate, always be an advocate or make them brawlers and feel good, accessible.
Speaker 1:I love that.
Speaker 2:Like I said in 2008,. I knew there was a yoga, didn't look like. The only other person I looked like was my uncle, so I thought it was just for the people who do it, like you.
Speaker 1:Yes, but that's not true.
Speaker 2:So like you. Yes, it's not true at all. Or people think that you have to pray and look a certain way as far as, like how your body does not have your body. You have to move a certain way, you have to be able to talk a certain way, and really yoga is how to show for yourself in the world.
Speaker 1:I think that's the thing that I love about yoga so much, because you can call out five different poses, right, and they're going to look five different ways, and it's because we are five different people. And I think when you really get to the place of understanding that this is about your relationship with your body, you let go in a yoga class when somebody to your right looks like they've got the perfect camel pose and you are still scared to lean all the way back right. That's what I love about it. So how do you get people that have never been exposed to it before in these activations? How do you get them to relate to it first and to trust it second?
Speaker 2:When I teach my classes, I don't use same great terms.
Speaker 1:Perfect, I speak language, because that does not resonate for me. It did not.
Speaker 2:It does not resonate for me and, honestly, I can't remember half a day. Yes, true, I use these words on the basis. There are some of the shutters that I really do at Q&A. I don't do that because I can't get to South East DC. I can't get to South East DC and be like you know go and, as you said, to inhale and you exhale, slide it to stand up and look at me like I'm crazy, right, right.
Speaker 2:One of the main terms people say is I took an inhale and as you exhale, I want you to bend your left knee and lean on the left side. I want you to bend your left knee and lean on the right side.
Speaker 1:Perfect, I like to teach things that I'm going to do, and it's okay if the Sanskrit words are used in a space where people understand it. But what you're saying, right? There is a lesson, even in life, around inclusion, right, which is understand the language of who you're speaking with. And if you really want to connect, you're going to use the language that will invite a connection, not one that's going to be like bye.
Speaker 2:And that's how it brings us all the time. If you reach out to work with me, or reach out to work with anybody, you need to do your research on your audience. Yes, you love what I do, but you don't know anything about me or our audience, right? I don't know if the company was ever changed, but there's a reason. I just like to teach how to practice the same way. You met me and my lovely personality. I don't remember what I was doing when you saw me, but that's the same way I greet you.
Speaker 2:I come to my classes. Hey, can I take your math? How are you doing? Can I put your math down for you? I'm just making my field work and I always have one thing that I feel very jealous is that I can create it and I wrote a thing for you. Some women say spaces were deeply, regardless of how they spoke. I feel like if you can create a safe space for people from this time it will be their space to do some math, like something might end up even going to sleep. That says math.
Speaker 2:If you go comfortable with that. Close your eyes around. You know women, people that do that, know from Adam and Eve.
Speaker 1:I say something about the trip here, and it also says something about you as an instructor, because you're seeing the whole person and you're accepting what that soul needed, which this might have been the only place where they could lay out something, and lay there and close their eyes with complete trust and get rest. Girl, that's deep.
Speaker 2:So I would say that if I don't get anything, at the end of the day, I know that I create a safe space and somebody is going on filming things like emotional and emotional experiences, Other aspects I got you my class might even chill play.
Speaker 1:So it definitely makes my heart sweat. What advice would you give to people who are still trying to decide what their relationship is with with yoga as a tool for being grounded and centered? What advice would you give them? And maybe it's because they've never been exposed to it before, because they never saw people like themselves enjoying it, or maybe they just have their own mental block around it.
Speaker 2:Honestly, it feels good to me. Your sound day is where I'm in my mind. I want to practice becoming practical with sounds, but then I might want to mat out and have a simulator. I realize that the meditation point is really good. What do you think about yoga? It's about your breath. How are you breathing? We don't all actually interpret it as gravity. Sometimes I'm going in the house. I try to sit in the house for 10 minutes. I'm listening to music. I'm just breathing. I'm checking in with myself. I'm not breathing. I'm alive. I'm breathing. I'm actually controlling my breath, rather than something controlling my breath for long. I'm not controlling my breath for long. These are things I just tell people. I mean so many people. I don't care. I don't care in the nasty ways I'm saying I don't care because you don't have to be flexible.
Speaker 2:I'm flexible is your mind and heart. I'm not accepting the thought of thinking about being a man.
Speaker 1:I can't tell you how much I really respect and appreciate your approach to evolving in this practice, quite frankly bringing a whole new viewpoint to a practice that I found as a black woman who was doing the corporate thing mom, wife, all the things and, like you said, highly stressed out on the right side and somehow, stumbling into this place next to my coffee shop and invited to stay, didn't see any of me around None of me around. This would have been probably in the 2008 timeframe. Very much, like you said, didn't see a lot of me around, but I am still clear that it was that practice of grounding that helped me to sustain through some of the toughest, toughest years of my life. Right, I'm still clear on that, and now that you know I'm getting a bit more mature and some things don't feel so hard to do anymore, you know, especially those things that become right muscle, it's definitely pushing me to be open to new things too, and new approaches, and so I love that too. Look you, you're a gift and I love that you are owning your influence in this space.
Speaker 1:If you have not already gone to Instagram, which is my jam you haven't already gone there to pull up yogi TV. You should, because she takes some amazing trips and she shares them with us, and you also make yoga a centered lifestyle and you also share some tips with us. It doesn't have to be fancy, and I love it's even so approachable, as I'm going to bed at night and there you are, showing what kind of poses go with you know, right on top of your bedspread, right. So you know those are all good things and they're in English, right? They're in English, they're in the language that your listener understands, your audience understands, so you're taking away even some of the intimidation that goes with that and to me that is brilliant. That's brilliant. Thank you so much for your time and your space on tick tock or you yogi TV to so I'm trying to figure out the tick of the top.
Speaker 1:Girl, me too.
Speaker 2:The top are not easy for me, I think my name, or yogi TV, I think my name on tick tock is yogi TV. By where something?
Speaker 1:like that You'll be.
Speaker 2:TV by. You see, if you see my face, it's not the age I mean. I think it's out there, but I have every set of things. But, you know it's coming back. I think that's not tick tock.
Speaker 1:It's coming the more we learn lessons and actually have something to share. That's what I believe now in my life. Right, it's coming the more we learn lessons and have something to share, because it's not about the fame just for that right, the purpose and intention that goes with it. And as we learn lessons and have something to share and a heart to give all of it away. Girl, it just pays, pays and spades. All right, sweetheart, I can't wait to see you at that same event this summer, hopefully, and I'll talk to you soon.