Christine Gautreaux

Hello, hello, hello and welcome to Dream Power Radio. This is the place where we talk about dreams, both daytime and nighttime dreams, and how you can use them to make the internal shift to a life you love and rediscover the truth of who you really are. Some of you may have heard me say on previous podcasts is something that I've observed over the course of my lifetime.

Most of us sleep walk through life. By that I mean that we tend to stick to our routines, whether that's getting up every morning and going to work, or taking care of our kids, or even going out and hitting the golf course and never really examined why we do what we do. If you love your life, that's probably okay.

Keep on doing what you're doing. But many of you go through the day with dull feeling that things could be better or think about the things that you want to do, but never take TA action on them and then wonder why you don't do them. You may go through your entire life like this. That is until the day you wake up from your sleepwalk and realize that this isn't the life that you want and feel sad because you don't know what to do about it.

This is where people like my guest career and life coach, Christine Gautreaux. Christine is dedicated to helping people of all ages manifest their dreams and find their authentic voices. She's also featured in the book, women Connected in Wisdom, co-author of the book Still, point and co-host of the podcast, women Connected in Wisdom.

Welcome to Dream Power Radio. Christine, thanks so much for having me, Debbie. Oh, it is a pleasure to be here and finally get to meet you in person after all this time. Well, Christine, your big proponent of using play to help your clients find themselves, so tell me, what does play have to do with self-growth?

Right. Oh, I love that question, Debbie. So probably about 20 years ago, I was introduced to an organization called Interplay, which uses movement and storytelling and voice to help people access their inner knowing and their wisdom. And I had a good friend and colleague, actually the co-author of my first book, still Point, Sheila k Collins, is the one that introduced me.

And I always like to say those connections because I'm a big believer in connections, right? Mm-hmm. So she introduced me to this modality, and I fell in love with it. And I'm trained as, I was trained as a clinical social worker. And when I found interplay, it was an aha moment for me. When you talk about people waking up, it was one of those moments that woke me up because I realized for most of my life, I had been not being present in my body.

I had been, I always used to describe it where I was like three steps behind my body where, you know, if things got difficult or I was in pain, or I was avoiding something, I was three steps behind myself. My body was in front of you, but I was not present. And what interplay did for me is it got me in my body.

And so about, I think maybe now it's eight years ago, how did it do? That's what I'm about to tell you. So, okay. About eight years ago, I became a certified interplay leader because I wanted to know how it do it, how does it work, how does it, and it really does it with incremental steps. But what we do is using the play.

So this morning I was just teaching before I came to you, and I have a group on Tuesdays where all over the world caregivers come together to play. And what we do is we tell our stories. So we start with just telling our stories because our bodies.  Have so many stories in them and if you've ever hung out with kids, I was with my three-year-old nib nibbling last week, and,  they tell stories all the time, like they're going to tell you and they're going to make up stuff.

And they're, some of it, they're just telling you what's happening. And as adults, we kind of lose some of that magic and spark. We forget that we can tell stories, we can sing, we can play. I had somebody in my class this morning that she said, oh my gosh, you let me play. And by that we mean you don't have to know the answer.

You can be spontaneous, you can use improv, you can move your body. Like, no. You know that saying about dance like nobody's watching. You know, I, I use a lot of movement and music and I help people relax, breathe deep and free themselves. Basically. So then they can start to listen to their bodies and the stories kind of bubble up.

Just like in your work with the dreamwork, how they bubble up at night. They can bubble up during the day and then we can start some really transformational healing because we know what we're working with. So what you're talking about stories, what kind of stories are you talking about in terms of Well, it depends, right?

I mean we all, when you think about how much. We, I mean, I'm in my fifties now and I mean, I have stories for decades, right? They're little bitty stories. They can be things like, how’d you wake up this morning? You know, what's your morning routine? We all, and then there's some more serious ones, you know, about what happened to us in our childhood or what happened to us throughout.

Life can be good or bad, but our bodies store those, like often we'll have pains or have injuries that we don't know why we're hurting. And often it's like a stuck story. It's something that we haven't examined. And healed. Okay. So when, when you're, you're coming up with a story you're telling, is it important to tell the story to somebody else or could you just say it out loud to yourself and get an effect from it?

Well, I really believe in the power of a witness. You know, it's one of the things in the, in, we work with an interplay,  as a modality, but I also work with a lot as a coach. We, of course, can tell the stories to. But then what do you do with them, right? Or do we hear them the same way? Often? What I have folks tell me is I just needed to be witnessed.

Like I, I do focus sessions, , for my clients where I use interplay tools, movement and storytelling and voice and some traditional coaching, but I let them guide it. And when I do like a 30-minute focus session, it can be a celebration like often. We've been taught in our culture, you know, not to brag, not to talk about that, not to.

So sometimes I hold space for clients where they're just celebrating something that really happened in their life. And that story needs to, because whether it's good or bad, we can't hold too much in one body, right? So sometimes it just needs to come out. It needs to be shared, and it needs to be witness.

And sometimes if it's a, I don't know what to do, or like you said, I'm waking up. It's about me witnessing and hearing and reflecting back, this is what I saw. This is what I heard. Our bodies have movement patterns. Everybody has four basic movement patterns in their body, and if you're trained to know and watch for them, then they also give us clues about what's going on and what you.

Okay, you. That just sparked me. You said four different movements, so I'm not aware four basic movement patterns. Don't that. Why don't you tell me what they are. Absolutely. And I want to make sure I look up and give credit to the person who did this, and I should have her name memorized, but it's not quite here.

I'll, I'll circle back around to that. So our bodies have four basic movement patterns that includes swing, so, when you think about, so, and you could just do it with me, Deb, like you can swing part of your body or part of your hand. And when you think about if you were a kid and you, if you were a kid that loved to swing in a swing or even now, go out and sit on the front porch and swing.

Swing is a movement. People who love swing are connectors. They like, you know, they swing from this, hey, you need to meet this person. Hey, you need to be, you know, they kind of go with the flow. You think about rocking a baby or soothing swing tend to be a lot of people who are caregivers. A lot of people who are nurturers, they lead with swing movement.

Another movement that our bodies have is thrust. Like I always say, if you've ever raised kids, you've got thrust in your body because you've had to get 'em to school on time at some point in your life, right? So thrust is about getting things done. It's about, I've got a deadline, I'm going to, and you've met people.

Like sometimes thrust gets a bad name because people think it's anger. Thrust is dancing. When you think about dancing, you think about tap dancing or clogging or really any kind of dancing that's thrusting. You're having a big action and most of us use that every day at some point in our life. The next one is, , shape.

So it's like being still and holding a shape. Now, shape in our bodies is for our organizers. It's for people who create. It's for people that love their calendars, it's for people that organize their spices, like shape is needed. If you're creating something, like we know that as podcasters and people who create events, we have to have shape in our body, right?

The next one is hang. It's kind of like they're the visionaries. They're just hanging out, you know? Have you ever seen a teenager on the couch like that where they're completely sprawled in there? Like that's. Now most of us adults have to practice on our hang a little bit like we've lost. We're, and there's some that are really good at it, and sometimes you're looking at 'em, you're like, what are they doing?

Well, a lot of times they're solving the world's problem. They're just looking like they're just hanging out. Right? They're the visionaries, they're dreaming. And I want to make sure, I want to make sure and look up, the name of the person that did the body movement. So you have her name. 

, it came out of, I think the sixties about it came out of physical education where it came out of, but it's often used now for team building. It's used in different, places in corporate America, and we use it all the time in interplay. We were gifted permission to do that and teach it, , So it's funny, Christine, when you first said,  sway with me and I did a little swaying, I was feeling  a little bit lighter and a little bit, a little bit happier. And so when you're working with somebody, what kind of effects do you see that they have after doing these kinds of movements?

Well, one of the things I noticed almost instantly is their shoulders go down because they're relaxing, they're taking deeper breaths, and they're being able to access their joy. You know, it seems so simple, but as adults oftentimes, we get so bogged down in the task of life and what needs to be done next, that we forget to have fun and access joy, and that looks different for everybody.

But you know, I want you to just thank Debbie for just a moment. I want you to think about your favorite place in nature, and I want you to think about your favorite place and could you describe it to me if you needed. I could go right outside my door and describe it to you because I live out in the country and we were very fortunate many, many years ago to buy this really beautiful piece of property that's got these views of rolling hills and, and a local mountain.

It's kind of a landmark and I can go out there at any time and look at it and just get this wonderful feeling. And in fact, this is what really saved me during the pandemic. Because I was here and I was, I was feeling so lucky. As I was saying, , if there's any place in the world to be stuck where you can't go any place, this is it.

Because I was able to go out, , we have acres, I could walk around and, that just, it gives me a beautiful piece and now that it's spring, the weather's getting a little warmer and I actually go out and not freeze myself. It's , right, it is great. And what do you notice in your body, even just.

Oh, again, that same feeling I had, like when I was swaying, feeling a little right, a little, a little lighter, a little joy, energy. My energy level is up a bit, right? And it. It seems so simple, but it is something that we can teach ourselves how to do that we're wearing in the midst of stress or hard times because we all have them, right?

How to access that feeling, how to access those memories and those stories in our body to bring us relief, to bring us joy. And the other thing we talk about in interplay is the physicality of grace, like, and that's about what brings you the opposite of. So where are you? Who are you with? What are you doing?

Because if we can identify those things, we can have more of it in our lives. So you're so lucky that it's right outside your door. And I hope, like if you were one of my clients, I'd be encouraging you during meetings and during things to in between to take a deep breath and go outside, even if it's for five minutes.

Because you're right. And for somebody that doesn't have access, I would encourage them to take themselves to that place in their mind or put on their favorite piece of music and imagine it as they move around, because there are tips and tricks that we can do to access those things in ourselves, even if we're in a really hard situation in the present.

That is wonderful. Well, there's so much more to talk about here, but we have to take a short break. . You're speaking all about fighting our joy with Christine Etro, and we'll be right back.

Yes. Welcome back to Dream Power Radio. I'm your host, Debbie Spector Weisman, and we're talking about all about happiness with coach Christina Gautreaux. Oh, Christina, you were talking before about movement and , want to get into, , some of the other things.  Do you dance also? We do, we call it movement because some people get really wigged out about the word dance.

You know, some people think, oh, , I can't dance like Rihanna, so I can't dance. Right. Or , or I can't sing, like, so that's why we call it movement and voice work. And, but yeah, we use, we use that in, , to access those places. Anybody that's ever moved or danced, like whether you. How do I want to say this?

It's, it is so vital to our beings. Like, again, going back to kids, right? If you've ever watched kids move around, they dance, they move, they, and we often let  society as we get older, like. Shut us down as why, what are we allowed to do in public, you know? And if anybody's ever had kids, you already know this because your kids tell you what you're allowed to do or not do in public.

Oh, mom, don't do that. Right? Yes. You're embarrassing me. Right? And so we shut ourselves down, whether we shut ourselves down or society shuts us down. We forget to do the things that bring us. And different people lead with different PE things. Sometimes it's the movement and the dance. Sometimes it's the singing and the vocalizing.

Sometimes it's the telling of the stories, but that's what I help FO folks do is what do you like to lead with? What is your, what is your art? What is your play that brings you wellness? And I guess the goal is to bring you back to those same feelings you had when you were a child. Mm-hmm. Before society got ahold of you and, and gave you all those don'ts and, and should nots and the other things.

Well, because it just opens up possibilities for you, , it opens up those dreams, those daydreams and those night, like it helps you to. And often I have folks in my class, whether they're in my classes or individual clients, what they will do is they will, I have 'em noticed because that's the other thing that often we don't do as adults is we're so busy going, we don't stop to notice, do we like this?

Do we love it? Do we hate it? You know? So I have folks to stop and notice, and even this morning, one of the noticings was, I feel expand. And you know, when we can have that feeling of expansiveness, anything's possible because then we are open to our dreams again. Yes, that is so true. And these are such powerful tools for anyone.

And you said that, , you were trained as a social worker and that's part of a group of people who. Like can feel defeated or deflated because you are giving all the time And, other kinds of caregivers who also are doing those kinds of things and put who you're putting your soul into your work.

Talk a little bit about the toll that this takes on you and the kinds of things that you do to help people like caregivers.  refill their emotional fuel tanks. Right. Well, Debbie, one of the reasons I got into this work was,  my, folks always say, how do you do this? And why did you write your first book?

And, and where did this come from? When I was a teenager at a very pivotal time in my life, my grandfather was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. Before it was considered Alzheimer. They were just starting to use that word. And my grandmother, my maternal grandmother, Letha Young Mahoney, was caregiving him and she care him for two years and didn't allow a lot of outside help.

And he passed away from Alzheimer's naturally. And then six months later, this was right when computers were coming out. She's taken a computer class; she was on the cutting edge. She was a frontier, and she's redoing her house and she dropped dead from a brain aneurysm and the doctor said it was the past two years of care.

It had taken such a toll on her body because she was not sleeping. She was not, you know, she was taking care of someone else. And so I lost like this incredible person in my life. And I look back and I was kind of sleepwalking when I first started all this, not realizing my why, right? Becoming a social worker, being a caregiver, trying to figure this out.

And then when Sheila and I, , Wrote still point. This is the self-care playbook for caregivers to find ease and time to breathe and reclaim joy. I realized like, oh, I, the statistics on caregivers, y'all are awful. Like caregivers often die before the person that they're taking care of if they're not taking care of themselves.

And we have, before the pandemic, we had over 50 million. Caregivers in the United States, most of them unpaid. So what that means is there's a lot of undue stress and, and things that are just anybody that's ever been in a caregiving role, whether it's a parent or a child taking care of a parent, or someone who has accessibility needs, sometimes it's hard to brush their teeth, right?

So what I do for clients is we set. We set up what is your self-care routine, and we really work on that. Self-care isn't selfish. You know, even in 2023, people are still like, oh, you know, you can't talk about self-care. And it's like, I have a firm philosophy and belief. We have to take care of ourselves in order to sustain our community care.

In order to be that person, we want to be in the. We have to refuel our bucket first. So I work with folks in first and while accessing and acknowledging, you know, where are you taking care of yourself, where are you not? So my work with the eight Dimensions of Wellness in Women Connected and Wisdom, you know, often people think self-care and they think just the physical, but there's emotional and mental.

There's financial, there's environmental, there is social wellness. You know, all the different dimensions of wellness. And we can't all be perfect at 'em all at one time, but sometimes we ignore some of them for years. And the Pandemic had a really big hit on a lot of people around social wellness, and it was the first time we've had some studies and people really acknowledging how much our social connections and being out in the world means to.

So what I do is we kind of look at all of that. We look at all the eight dimensions of wellness, and we look at where are we really out of balance. I call it out of whack. You know, my chiropractor always laughs at me. I go in, I'm like, oh, I'm out of whack. Fix me. You know? But it's the same thing with our where are we?

Where do we need more support, and who can I connect you to get you that support? That is, that is something because.  When you're a caregiver, you're just thinking about the other person and mm-hmm. You probably, by the end of the day, you're so tired, you don't even have time to do it.

So when somebody is in the midst of, of caring for somebody else, how do you help them find the time to do it? Well, first of all, you got to schedule it. You know, I am a, if we don't schedule it, it gets sucked out by somebody else. So one of the things I do is, you know, traditional therapists tend to be 50 minutes sometimes with my caregiving clients, I'm a 15-minute session or a 30-minute session because that's all they have.

And I really believe in incremental steps. So if all you have is five minutes, we're going to start with those five minutes. And  what can you do in that five minutes to refill yourself. You know, sometimes it's what can you do in one minute and you start building it into your schedule and you start affirming and looking for the good, like where is it working already in your life?

And let's affirm that because depending on the situation, , it can be, I mean, we know the state of the world right now that sometimes it can just be too much for people and they're like, they can't even see. What's working or what's good. So that's where I start is where are we, we do a really good assessment and then we decide where can we start calendaring it and building it in and what does it look like?

Because, you know, traditionally people think of self-care as going to the spa or getting a massage or, and that's all well and good, but is it that you go outside today, and you put your feet in the grass for five minutes because you haven't been outside in a. Because you've been so engrossed in caregiving.

So it's things like that that we talk about and everybody's individual like, what do you need? And that's the other thing is I teach folks how to stop and really assess and check in with themselves, what do you need? And that's, I guess, maybe the key to it is, is for somebody to really take the time to ask themselves and get answers that question, what do you need?

Because those. Don't take the time to really ask themselves that question. Right? And sometimes it's really scary, Debbie, because if you've been taking care of other people or the world for, you know, 5, 10, 20 years and you haven't been taking care of yourself and you're not in your body, it can be scary or painful when you first get back in because, it can hurt, you know, and that's where it's good to have another person to be able to support you and acknowledge you and, and be with you through this process.

Because there's a reason people zip out of their bodies. You know, there's a reason that we want to sleep, walk through, walk, because it's not always fun, right? And so how do we, how do we get there and get through that and get back to the fun and joy? That's what I'm all about. Yes. And that, that is it. And it's true that it doesn't really take a long time to do it.

, a long time ago, I wrote a book called 101 Dream Dates, which is all about. Taking time to do things for yourself by yourself. And a lot of them were just five-minute things, 10-minute things that you could do and didn't cost any money, , but to just be able to do that makes a big difference. Oh, absolutely.

Well, and then knowing yourself well enough to know what. Works for you. Because what works for you may not work for me. I'm going to have to get that book though, Debbie because I love stuff like that, and I love referring things like that to my clients. My husband and I were just talking yesterday about creating a jar of things that we wanted to do together and  just.

Like once a week, picking one of those things out and going and doing it. And  so there's all kinds of ways to play. And it doesn't have to cost money. It can, if you've got the budget for it, but like you said, like sometimes they take five or 10 minutes, and it could make a huge difference in your life.

We have a saying in interplay where we say, change your practice, change your life. And it can be in one minute, five minutes. But it's, first you have to acknowledge where are you and what's going on, and is there something I want to shift? That's it. And that it's, that's all it takes. It takes the, the desire and the commitment to do it.

Right. Wonderful. That's great. Well, and also the awareness, because you know, sometimes, People have been taught that they're not allowed to do certain things, whether that was from their family or from their church or from the world,  and so they may think, oh, I'm not allowed to do that. Like whether it's gender-based or whether, you know, so even, first of all, acknowledging what do you want?

What do you need? What are the barriers? All those things I think are important to accessing that joy and being intentional about what do you want to co-create in your life. So true. , Christine, is there a final thought you'd like to leave for our audience? Oh, that's a great question. I think at this time when so much is happening in the world and people's individual lives, I think the final thought I would have is just take a moment for yourself and take a breath and look around and look for the good and look for beauty.

And that can be done in 30 seconds or a minute. But take that time and just breathe and look for something that brings you joy. Oh, what a beautiful, beautiful way to end it all. How can people find out more about you and your work? Absolutely they can find we're on social media all over the place at Women Connected in Wisdom Podcast.

And then you can also go to Christinegautreax.com and I'm sure you're going to spell that out in your show notes, so I don't have to spell it out. I thank you. And I also wanted to say, Debbie,  for the Foo for Movement Patterns, that is Betsy Wittig’s. Wonderful. Wonderful. And if you, , give me the spelling of her name, I could put that in the show notes as well.

Awesome. That would be great. Well, Christine, thank you so much for being on Dream Power Radio today. It has been such a joy. Debbie, thank you for your work in the world, and thank you for helping folks to manifest and create their dreams. I love it. Well, thank you to you too for the same thirties. Well, we've been speaking about creating a happier life, which coach Christina Gautreaux.

I hope you've enjoyed today's program. If so, please hit that subscribe button so you don't miss out on any future episodes. Until next time, this is Debbie Spector Weissman saying Sweet Dreams, everybody.