Dream Power Radio
Dream Power Radio
Patricia Gavin - A Journey of Healing and Strength Through Yoga
Everyone’s definition of a dream life is different. This week we get to explore how one woman transformed her life – and it all started with an injury.
While overseas Patricia Gavin slipped and fell in the shower and hurt her shoulder. Her introduction to yoga not only aided in her recovery, but set her on a transformative path as a full-fledged instructor.
Key Lessons and Ideas:
- From Injury to Empowerment: Patricia’s perseverance through Bikram yoga not only healed her but also ignited a lifelong passion.
- The Bikram Experience: Training under Bikram himself in LA, Patricia describes it as the “United Nations of yoga,” with practitioners from all over the world. Despite the challenges, it was a formative experience that shaped her teaching journey.
- Healing Power of Yoga: Patricia emphasizes how yoga, especially Bikram, can transform the body and mind. From improving breathing techniques to calming the nervous system, the benefits are profound.
- Daily Practice Insights: While a daily practice is ideal, Patricia suggests that even 2-3 times a week can yield significant benefits. The key is consistency and integrating the eight limbs of yoga into your lifestyle.
- Personal Transformation: Yoga has made Patricia less reactive and more observant. It’s a testament to how yoga can bring emotional balance and mental clarity.
- Teaching Across the Globe: Patricia’s teaching journey has taken her to diverse places. Her experiences highlight the universal appeal and adaptability of yoga.
Curiosities to Spark Your Interest:
- Yoga in the Jungle: Patricia is setting up retreats in Costa Rica, offering a unique opportunity to practice yoga in the lush, humid jungle. Imagine the serenity and connection to nature!
- Online Yoga Programs: For those who can’t travel, Patricia is developing online classes, making her expertise accessible no matter where you are.
Final Thoughts:
Patricia’s story is a powerful reminder that our bodies and minds are capable of incredible transformation. Whether you’re a seasoned yogi or a curious beginner, her insights offer valuable lessons on resilience, healing, and the pursuit of a dream life. Check out her remarkable story on this episode of Dream Power Radio.
Patricia Gavin is a Bikram certified hot yoga instructor and former Air Force public affairs officer and journalism instructor. She has taught around the world from Hollywood to Bollywood and is an author who has written two books about the benefits of yoga which are available as eBooks on Amazon. SIX AM IN LA chronicles her journey from healing a ski injury to training as a yoga teacher in Los Angeles. In 2019 she taught for the Kirov Academy of Ballet in Washington, DC and embarked on a global adventure teaching in Thailand, India and returning to Virginia to teach in Key West and for private studios in Alexandria, Virginia. She is working on a third book “pink Flamingo - Healing w Bikram Yoga” due out in March 2025.
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Announcer (00:00:04) - This is Dream Power Radio, the place where your dreams turn into reality. Here is your host, Debbie Spector Weisman.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:00:13) - Hello, hello, hello and welcome to Dream Power Radio. I'm your host, Certified Dream-Life Coach Debbie Spector Weisman. 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. Every once in a while, I like to take time in this podcast to explore the idea of what it really means to live your dream life. Most of the experts I've had on this program speak in depth about how they had to overcome traumas in their lives, learn from the mistakes they've made along the way, and grow into powerful beings who are unafraid to take life on and live it on their own terms. One person who checks off all these boxes herself is my guest today. Patricia Gavin Patricia's story exemplifies a dream life in action. Patricia has had many roles in her life air force officer, wife, mother, widow, real estate agent, world traveler.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:01:15) - But she credits her work with yoga as fueling her passion for personal wellness and growth. Patricia is also the author of several books, including 6 a.m. in L.A. and All the Right Steps 30 Days in Phuket. Welcome to Dream Power Radio, Patricia. Thank you very much for having me. It's my pleasure. It's my pleasure to. And Patricia, I understand it was an injury that led you to discover yoga for yourself. So tell me what happened.
Patricia Gavin (00:01:45) - Yeah, I was traveling, and I was in Paris. I had a lovely hotel room. It was during Fashion Week, and I was lucky to get it because most of the rooms were sold out. But I noticed it was tiled to the ceiling and I went to get my shampoo. And when I came back, I slipped, actually catching the shower head because it was lodged in a cradle and the water pressure had it dancing across the room when I came back in. So I slept, and when I came back from Europe, I had kind of a shoulder frozen shoulder.
Patricia Gavin (00:02:23) - So I was back in the hot yoga room and Georgetown here in D.C. and, I was having trouble opening my shoulders. So a friend of mine who does work for Secret Service had been a boss and also a yoga practitioner, said you should come to Bikram yoga. So I went to Bikram yoga, and I suffered through probably the first ten classes. But then my shoulders started to open from the postures that they had us do in class and I thought, oh, I'm sticking with this for the rest of my life. So that's kind of how I got my introduction into the hot yoga world. It was a slip and fall.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:03:04) - And then you actually went ahead that had trained as a Bikram yoga instructor under Bikram himself. So what was that like?
Patricia Gavin (00:03:12) - Well, I went to Bikram's last teacher training in LA, and it was really like the United Nations of Yoga, I have to say, because it was held for 60 days in what is now the Hyatt, but it was the Radisson at the LAX airport.
Patricia Gavin (00:03:27) - And so there were 300 of us from all over the world practicing yoga. And then we would have visiting teachers come in and teach a morning or evening class. Usually Bikram taught that evening class and either his wife Rajasri or daughter Laju or Anurag, his son, would teach in the morning. So we are really it felt very familial. At the same time, he was going through litigation and so it wound up being his last teacher training here in the states. I attended recertification and I will go, and I believe now he's doing the teacher training in Thailand twice a year. It was, for me, formative. I guess that would be one of the best words to capture the experience.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:04:15) - And for those of my audience who are unfamiliar with Bikram yoga, how does that differ from what we would consider regular yoga?
Patricia Gavin (00:04:25) - Well, there's all kinds of different modalities of yoga, but typically Bikram yoga is 12 standing postures preceded by a breathing exercise and then 14 floor postures on the floor.
Patricia Gavin (00:04:40) - So you have the standing and the floor postures. And basically, they're done in a heated room of 105 degrees. So it's very sweaty in there. It's a very sweaty environment, but it's very great. It's very good for changing the fascia in the body and realigning muscle tissue. I would say because the postures you proceed with the breathing exercise to oxygenate the body. And then through the standing postures you get the cardio up, but then the floor postures, you dam the blood up in different organs to clean the body from the inside out. So it has an invigorating effect on the body, I would say. And also the mind. The circulation and the respiration alone for most of us these days who are sedentary.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:05:28) - Well let's talk a little bit about how it changes the mind. So can you talk how being a practitioner of yoga has changed your life?
Patricia Gavin (00:05:38) - Well the first thing is the front of your breathing. Because most people breathe a lot of people breathe through their mouth.
Patricia Gavin (00:05:44) - So when you learn to breathe properly, long and slow through the nose is very calming on the nervous system because you're shifting your nervous system from the sympathetic fight or flight to the parasympathetic rest and digest. So that's the first part of the class, because your body heals faster in an environment where you're breathing slowly through the nose rather than through the mouth. It also lowers cortisol when you breathe through the nose. So for people who are trying to lose weight or manage anxiety, it helps with that as well. So I think those are the number one and two reasons for the yoga. One of the benefits of it is it speeds healing. And it comes the nervous system. And I think for many people that it becomes a moving meditation where it quiets the mind, so you don't have as much chatter and intrusive thoughts.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:06:39) - And so for people who want to get a good benefit from yoga. How regularly would you say they need to practice it?
Patricia Gavin (00:06:49) - Well, everybody wants to have a daily practice unless you're a teacher, if that always happens.
Patricia Gavin (00:06:53) - But usually 2 to 3 times a week is plenty to get the benefits of the yoga. Usually the last 24 to 48 hours, you feel that kind of sense, and then it kind of wears off and it's time to, you know, go ahead and exercise the body again. There's eight elements of yoga. So the asanas or the postures and the breathing are just two of the six. So when you become a yoga practitioner, you focus on a lot of the other aspects of yoga, which are kind of like the do's and don'ts in terms of lifestyle and choices that you make. Maintaining cleanliness would be an observation. A restraint might be not hurting anyone. Ahimsa, you know, avoiding harm. So you practice those and then you also do meditation, which is kind of quieting the mind and looking inward at your behavior. So there's the eight limbs and obviously the limb. While the eighth limb of yoga is samadhi, which is like kind of bliss, and I think the more you take care of your body that comes with, with time and practice.
Patricia Gavin (00:08:01) - Right is the sense of well-being that comes from it.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:08:05) - And what kind of changes did you see yourself as a person?
Patricia Gavin (00:08:09) - I remember yeah. We're sending postcards back to my home studio in Alexandria and after having three children practicing as a bike instructor, I noticed my belly got a lot tighter during the nine weeks I was in L.A., I noticed I was eating a normal diet, but not overeating or eating too much. But the daily practice, the two classes a day, it tends to take 600 calories off the body. If you're a man, it probably takes more. But if you're doing two classes a day, you know it really eviscerates the fat off the body. So I lost a lot of fat off of my body that I probably hadn't lost that since I was like in my 20s, so it felt like it gave me back my shoulders. From my 20s, I would say.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:08:59) - So would you consider yourself now healthier than you were when you were in your 20s?
Patricia Gavin (00:09:04) - Well, I don't know about healthier, but I think that my mind is calmer than it definitely than it was in my 20s.
Patricia Gavin (00:09:10) - I think that comes with wisdom, comes with age, but an experience. But I think that the biggest thing is that I think yoga makes you very non-reactive. I think when I was younger, I was a lot more emotional, and I think that as I go on through my practice, it's sort of a leveling effect. Emotionally. I don't see myself as reactive. I guess that would be I'm more observant than reactive. I think that would be the way to describe it. As far as health goes, having been hit by a car in the last two years has been a challenge mobility wise. So it's also been a challenge dietary wise because you're more sedentary. So those two challenges kind of led me back. And I did my certification for Yoga Alliance through Yoga Renew, and I'd been an ambassador for the Yogi Insurance, which ensures yoga instructors. And they are part of the sponsorship of Yoga Renew, which offers online teacher training. And I did their online program after Covid, which I found very beneficial, especially with the meditation, because they have a zoom schedule where you can tune in and meditate.
Patricia Gavin (00:10:22) - So that's my thought for the Yoga renew.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:10:25) - So let's go back a second. But you said that you actually got hit by a car. Did your yoga training help you in your recovery from that?
Patricia Gavin (00:10:36) - Well, it's what happened. I got kind of tapped as I was leaving a crosswalk at the airport, and I landed on my left foot, and for a while I thought I was okay because I didn't have any symptoms right away. But I started standing and flying the flying for American Airlines. And I was standing 14 hours as a flight attendant, and I started having problems. And so when they started working on my feet and I went out to have physical therapy, I started having my knee lock, and an MRI revealed basically that I've been flying on a torn meniscus, and I talked with a woman who has a business called Flying Feet. And she's the podiatrist for Emirates Airlines. And she said, when you're really flexible, like it had become in yoga, your other parts of your body compensate.
Patricia Gavin (00:11:26) - So my calves and my feet were compensating for the tear, and I didn't know I'd torn the meniscus. So it's been a year of physical therapy to kind of get my mobility back. And that's been a little scary. I think, if any. I have a lot more empathy for sports people I want to see Challenger. It's a tennis movie with Zendaya. And she winds up hurting her knee and then going back out on the court thinking she can play on it. And it doesn't quite work that way. And so she becomes coach. I think that it's made me take the coaching aspect of yoga more seriously. The teaching side of it, after having an injury myself, it makes me more, I think, empathetic and understanding of those coming into the yoga room who aren't athletes because I've taught ballerinas who, my God, they're athletes at the Kirov. But then to teach older people even like yoga, it's the movement that's really critical.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:12:29) - Yeah, I want to I want to get into your teaching a bit more. But we have to take a short break now. We're all about the benefits of yoga with Patricia Gavin, and we'll be right back.
Announcer (00:13:10) - Welcome back to Dream Power Radio with your host, Debbie Spector Weisman.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:13:19) - Yes. Welcome back to Dream Power Radio. I'm your host, Debbie Spector Weisman. And we're talking about yoga with Patricia Gavin. Oh, Patricia, you did say that you have been teaching yoga in many places. How did you end up managing to teach for the Kirov Ballet?
Patricia Gavin (00:13:35) - Well, I traveled after 2018 when I first finished my teacher training in 2014. I think, like a lot of new teachers, I felt in my practice needed to be strengthened, and teaching was a little intimidating when you see like 30 people all in their bathing suits in a hot room, sweating, expecting you to deliver and talk for 90 minutes non-stop, it can be kind of a daunting experience.
Patricia Gavin (00:13:40) - So I did travel and instructed my practice the first couple of years after I completed Bikram training, teacher training, and then I went to recertification in 2018 and went to Vermont. And I taught up there for a little bit. And then it motivated me to open a small studio in Middleburg. And when I opened the studio, the first thing I did was a posture clinic, and I had the director from the Kirov come to the class. So when she came to the class, she asked me if I would be interested in teaching that summer at the ballet in Washington, D.C. It's now closed after Covid, but it had 100 ballerinas.
Patricia Gavin (00:14:46) - I had one group 8 to 13, and then I had the 13-group professional in a large gymnasium in D.C. and the very hot summer. So it was a great experience because they're athletes. These girls are. And guys. We had both men and women were training for a career in dance, so they were very dedicated in their practice. So that's kind of how I started. And then Covid hit and right before Covid, I had traveled to Thailand and India because I had an opportunity to teach and travel as an ambassador for Beyogi. So I went to Phuket.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:15:23) - And you chronicle guys that in one of your books, right?
Patricia Gavin (00:15:27) - Yeah. You know, I flew in, to Beijing on the 1st of January 2020 to an empty airport, and I knew something was wrong, but I didn't know quite what. And it wasn't until later in the month that Wuhan was shut down. Phuket is like Wuhan's vacation capital. It's kind of like their Miami where they go for vacation.
Patricia Gavin (00:15:50) - So they were getting ready for Chinese New Year, and everything shut down right before Chinese New Year. Most of the Chinese weren't big Bikram practitioners. They had all-inclusive resorts with Marriott, where they go to in that. But the studio started to get a little quieter towards the end of the month. As you know, Wuhan shut down and there was worry about the virus. So I left at the end of January 2020, and I flew to India, and I was going to be there for a year. My plan was to travel and teach, and I wound up in Mumbai teaching for Miss India, Mandeep Sindhu. And she's lovely. She's in a new movie, I think, out in India called Tipsy. You can see on her Facebook pages. I see her posting quite a bit, but I taught in Mumbai and that was a lovely experience. I would go back in a heartbeat and then when Covid was ramping up, I came back in February because I knew the lockdowns were coming.
Patricia Gavin (00:16:48) - And then I did write about the experience because I thought it was really kind of a unique. It was a unique time, I think, to be traveling and teaching. And the yoga industry changed with Covid because a lot of studios shut down. So people were going more to Zoom and online methodology.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:17:05) - And did you find that training people in these other countries was different from training, let's say, Americans?
Patricia Gavin (00:17:13) - Well, you know, Phuket was unique. Because it's a very international. You have a lot of Swedish there, a lot of Europeans, a lot of Chinese. And what I will say is that the thing that makes Bikram so unusual in terms of a type of yoga is when you have people teaching from all over the world, they learn in English, but then they teach two sets of the postures. So the first set's usually in the native language or in English, and then the second sets in the opposing language. So you can practice anywhere in the world. So with all of the instructors he's trained I think like 15,000 there studios all over the world.
Patricia Gavin (00:17:53) - When you're traveling where you can go in, you can take a class, and it doesn't matter if you speak the language or you don't because, you know, portion of the class, the half of the class will be in English. So I think that was a very bright move on his part. It made the Yoga International and accessible to everyone.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:18:09) - And obviously you've been all around the world teaching yoga and everything. Did you ever imagine this happening all those years ago when you were in the Air Force?
Patricia Gavin (00:18:21) - I wish I went to school in San Francisco and actually becomes first studio was in San Francisco, and I wish I had started earlier in my military career. I wish I'd known about it at that time, but I came from a pretty conservative background. I was raised in Washington, D.C., and I think even my family was skeptical when I said, hey, I'm going to yoga teacher training. That they were. she's crazy. But I think that maybe some of that is softened as it's become more, I don't know, popular, if popular is the word, But more widespread, the practice of yoga.
Patricia Gavin (00:18:55) - I think there's still a lot of fear. People think it's a religion, but really, it's a science. So just self-examination, that's how I would describe it. And what you do with the devotional part of it is really up to the individual in their own beliefs. There's no pressure in yoga to believe any one thing. You know, it's a physical science of the body to heal it. And so that's how I would kind of counter people's objections to being a form of religion. It can be, but anything can be if you choose to believe.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:19:26) - Again, like you say, yoga has all those different arms, and the asana poses one part of it. And many people are just happy to do that because of the physical and spiritual benefits they get from that. And then if they want there they go further.
Patricia Gavin (00:19:44) - I know people talk about spiritual, but I would say it's more emotional and mental. It's the physical that helps you basically clear kind of the clutter that's in the mind.
Patricia Gavin (00:19:54) - So if you've got a lot of activity going on, you know, or your mind doesn't shut down, kind of it's very helpful because it helps people focus on one point. But it's the other fallacies people think of as chanting and saying Ohm and all of that. Well, Bikram yoga is a Hatha yoga. You have different forms of yoga, but Hatha is a physical form of yoga. So it really is a physical class that's combined with the breath work which separates it from exercise. And so when you combine the breathwork with the physical postures, it helps. Through the silence. Body, quiet the mind. So that's how I would explain it to someone who is skeptical about trying it. And you don't have to be flexible to do yoga. That's another fallacy.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:20:41) - Yes. But it also helps improve your flexibility if you wanted to.
Patricia Gavin (00:20:47) - Yeah, I think that the four things that yoga really improves is your balance, flexibility. It improves strength. But mostly in the Warriors in the past that were the first practitioners in India, they practiced it so that they could maintain concentration and sit for longer periods, whether it be in the saddle or meditating, thinking about a problem.
Patricia Gavin (00:21:10) - So with our sedentary lifestyle. I know Steve Jobs with Apple was a big proponent of yoga. And I think I think you see that in the products that his company has developed.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:21:24) - And I understand you're in the process of writing another book. What's that one going to be about?
Patricia Gavin (00:21:29) - I'm working on a book called Pink Flamingo, and really, it's about the healing process of the yoga. It's been a bit of a journey, losing my mobility over the last year and then trying to get it back through the yoga. There's some postures that were within my range of motion that aren't anymore because of an injury with my knee and the torn meniscus, but it's also made me more aware of other yoga modalities like Vinyasa and Restorative yoga. And then there's also Yin yoga, which is like holding postures for a longer time to target the parts of the body that connect the tissue and the muscles and the bones together. It's kind of keeps your skin.
Patricia Gavin (00:22:22) - You asked me about what I noticed when I watched your Bikram training, and that was something else that I noticed is that a lot of times when people lose weight their skin kind of becomes looser, loose, you know, where their tissue becomes looser and not attached to the bone and the body. And because of the heat, if you think of how a turkey is basted, I think that maybe is kind of a good example because the skin stays adheres to the tissue when you are in the hot room doing the postures. So it's good for the face, it's good for the body. If you're trying to maintain your health, I think that it helps that way. So I mean, I'm I'll be 65. I just turned. I'm now Medicare eligible. But I think it's really felt in the aging process for me. And probably I wouldn't have my mobility if I hadn't been active with yoga over the last ten years after the accident, I probably would not have been able to recover, you know? So I credit the yoga with that.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:23:22) - Yeah. And like you say, you don't have to be super flexible or super powerful. You just take it where you are and work it
Patricia Gavin (00:23:32) - Yeah. I mean, you start wherever you are in yoga. I mean, when I went into yoga room, I was having problems getting my arms above my head because of the falling in the shower, or so you know, the heat. The one thing about the heat in the hot yoga is it helps to speed healing and soften that tissue. So I would recommend it to anyone that's having mobility issues or even arthritis, because even just being in the hot room, it helps with the lubrication of the joints because you have calcium in your joints, which becomes crystallized like shards of glass. And when it's forced back into solution, it makes those joints smoother. So I would recommend it just from that standpoint for anyone really. If you have a heart issue, obviously you have to talk to your doctor and if you have medical issues, you should talk to your doctor before you go into any kind of program. But I think that it can be beneficial because with the postures repeated twice.
Patricia Gavin (00:24:35) - You go in as a beginner and you kind of watch what people are doing in the row who've been there and are seasoned practitioners, and then you can try the posture. And usually there's a bar in the back of the room, so you have a little bit more stability if you're having balance issues that you can try it. So it just takes a while to learn to breathe in the hot room. You have to adapt to breathing. It's like if you go from a cold environment to Miami, and it's sweltering hot. You have to learn to adapt to that humidity.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:25:06) - And so many times I've walked out of the Miami airport and been accosted with a huge whiff of hot and humid air. But now it's all possible, and it's all great. Well, Patricia, is there a final thought you have for our audience?
Patricia Gavin (00:25:22) - I think that the one quote that comes to mind is my first yoga instructor had had two studios, Jim here in D.C., one until they found and then one in Alexandria.
Patricia Gavin (00:25:34) - It's closed now. But he said slower is better. So the slower you go in yoga, the better you do. So I think that some people come in and they try and keep up and power through postures and whatnot. And really the slower you do the posture and the longer you can hold it is the challenge. So I think that that would be my advice even to practitioners or teachers. The slower, the slower you go the better. Sometimes teachers want to go fast through the dialogue, and which was kind of the teaching instructions. And sometimes people in hard postures want them to do that because they don't have to hold the posture as long. It's not as difficult. But I think that just as you go into the postures, the slower you go, I think better and the less likely you are to have injury too.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:26:25) - Oh, good advice for sure. And Patricia, how can people find out more about you in your books?
Patricia Gavin (00:26:32) - Let's see. I'm working right now. I'm going to be in Costa Rica this summer. I'm working on setting up retreats there. So I think the best way to follow me is probably on my Instagram account. I don't post a lot of postures on there, but I do kind of post a lifestyle tip and reading tips. So that's Yoga National USA and that's probably a good place to follow me. And then from there you can follow on Facebook. So yeah, I'll be posting, I'll be posting clusters and probably links to classes, online classes, because we're going to develop an online program with a property down in Costa Rica that's trying to invite people to come down and practice in the humid jungle outside of San Jose.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:27:16) - Oh, that sounds wonderful. Well, Patricia, thank you so much for being on Dream Power Radio today.
Patricia Gavin (00:27:21) - Thank you so much for having me. It's been my pleasure.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:27:24) - We've been speaking about the power of yoga with Patricia Gavin. 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 Weisman saying sweet dreams, everybody.
Announcer (00:27:40) - You've been listening to Dream Power Radio with your host, Debbie Spector Weisman. For more information on Debbie or to sign up for her newsletter, go to DreamPowerRadio.com. This has been Dream Power Radio.