Rewire Your Mind, Reclaim Your Life | Rachel Lundberg | 198

What if the anxiety, overwhelm, and patterns people struggle to break aren’t random, but the result of a nervous system that has been conditioned over time?

In this powerful episode of Manders Mindset, Amanda Russo sits down with Rachel Lundberg, owner of Thrive Yoga and Wellness and co-founder of Yoga Oak. With over two decades of experience in yoga and nervous system work, Rachel shares her deeply personal journey through anxiety, identity shifts, and ultimately discovering the science of brain retraining and alignment.

Together, Amanda and Rachel explore how the nervous system, subconscious patterns, and repeated thoughts shape everyday experiences, and why lasting transformation requires more than surface level change. From leaving a lifelong religion to healing chronic anxiety, this conversation sheds light on what it truly means to live in alignment and how small, intentional shifts can begin to change everything.

💡 In this episode, listeners will discover:

🧠 How nervous system dysregulation can contribute to anxiety, panic, and chronic overwhelm
 🔁 The role of neuroplasticity in rewiring thoughts, behaviors, and emotional responses
 ⚡ Why repeated thoughts and focus can reinforce patterns that no longer serve
 🧩 The FAR method and how focus, associations, and repetition shape reality
 🧘‍♀️ What alignment-based yoga is and why it goes beyond physical movement
 🌱 How internal alignment can influence relationships, choices, and everyday life
 🫁 The ABC method for creating pause and making more conscious decisions

⏰ Timeline Summary:

[03:10] Rachel shares the qualities that define her at the core: wisdom, compassion, and freedom
 [07:20] The decision to leave Mormonism and navigate the impact it had on family relationships
 [12:45] Anxiety, panic attacks, and the moment the nervous system reached its limit
 [18:30] The search for healing through counseling, medication, and alternative approaches
 [24:10] Discovering brain retraining and understanding the science of neuroplasticity
 [29:40] Breaking down the FAR method: focus, associations, and repetition
 [35:20] What alignment-based yoga really means and how it supports all bodies
 [40:10] The ABC method for creating space, breathing, and making aligned choices

To Connect with Amanda:

Schedule a 1:1 Virtual Breathwork Session HERE

📸 Instagram: @thebreathinggoddess

Follow & Support the Podcast:

📱Instagram: @MandersMindset
👥 Join the Manders Mindset Facebook Community HERE!

Transcript

Welcome And Meet Rachel Lango

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Manders Mindset Podcast, where you'll find both monologue and interviews of entrepreneurs, coaches, healers, and a variety of other people, where your host, Amanda Roosevelt, will discuss her own mindset and perspective, and her guest mindset and perspective on the world around us. Manders and her guests will help explain to you how shifting your mindset will shift your life.

SPEAKER_03 0:26

Welcome to Manda's Mindset, where we explore the power of shifting your mindset to shift your life. I'm your host, Ananda Roser, and I am here today with Rachel Lango. She is the owner of Friday Yoga and Wellness. She's also one of the founders of Yoga O. Thanks for joining me. Thank you. I'm excited to be here. So who would you say Rachel is at the core?

SPEAKER_01 0:52

Who is at the core of me? At the core of me is wisdom, compassion, and freedom.

SPEAKER_02 1:08

Would you say you've always embodied those? On some level, yes. Uh, which has led to a bunch of interesting experiences in my life. But uh with time and perspective, I've been able to appreciate that that those things are here.

Leaving Mormonism And Family Fallout

SPEAKER_03 1:26

I gotcha. Can you tell me a little bit about your upbringing, childhood, dynamic, however deep you want to take it?

SPEAKER_02 1:35

Sure. Um I had an incredible upbringing, very loving home. I'm one of five kids. Um, my parents are still married. They have been for over 50 years. I'm the middle child and um always been a little bit of a kind of the uh rebel child, I guess you could say, but always asking a lot of questions, very curious, very conscientious, wanting to understand why things are the way that they are and why choices are made. So um I was often asking difficult questions and having difficult conversations um in my family setting, but was uh always met with love and compassion by my parents and my, of course, my siblings, we had our normal uh sibling fights, but but uh but a very loving family, very religious family. I was raised Mormon. Uh and that's a big part of my story because it was a huge part of my life. Uh, it gave me a really great value system and uh marks for kind of where my life needed to be at certain times. And ultimately my my internal wisdom and uh freedom senses kind of led me in a different path, but I don't regret my upbringing. It was very beautiful.

SPEAKER_03 2:59

That's good that you were able to ask a lot of questions and were met with loving and compassion. Are you still a practicing Mormon?

SPEAKER_02 3:08

I'm no longer a practicing Mormon. Um, I left Mormonism, so I'll be 50 in March. And I left Mormonism at the ripe age of 41. So most all of my life, I um was very much a part of the religion. I served a mission in Argentina. So if any of you are familiar with the missionaries that walk two by two with the tags on the on their chest, I was a missionary in Buenos Aires, Argentina, when I was 21. I was married in the temple, raised my three children in the church. They were 16, 14, and 12 when my now ex-husband, but my husband at the time, when we decided that we were gonna shift away from the church. So, and our children got to make that decision on their own, but but my my ex-husband and I made that decision together.

SPEAKER_03 4:01

How was that within your family dynamic, like with your parents and your siblings?

SPEAKER_02 4:08

So it was an incredibly difficult thing to share with my extended family. Like I said, I I was raised in a very loving, compassionate home. And um, my parents had chosen to become a part of that religion when they were in their teenage years. So they hadn't grown up in the religion, but they had raised us uh with a lot of pride and joy around having raised us in that community. And um, they all five of the children were very devout. So um, you know, I being the one that chose to not do that was just a very difficult journey for everyone involved. Um, I think my siblings were a lot more open and compassionate toward it. Um, my parents, it was a little bit more difficult, but we have an incredible relationship. We've worked through many years of the discomfort of my choice. And uh I feel like right now we're in a good place, but that took a lot.

SPEAKER_03 5:07

Is there anything that helped you be able to still transition out of this and have that conversation with your family?

SPEAKER_02 5:17

Well, I know what assisted me was my solidity and my choice. So when I realized that that was no longer the path that I was going to follow, it was very clear inside of me. It was very aligned. There was really no question that it was no longer the path that I wanted to follow. And I'm a person that once I have like that, once the things are in line and alignment, and you'll notice I use that word alignment a lot in my work. Yoga oak stands for the yoga of alignment collective. So it's all about alignment, not just in your physical body, but in your energy, spiritual body, mental body. So when I knew that leaving the church was the best choice for myself, then I had the courage to be able to have those difficult conversations. And they were really difficult because it required me to hold steady while other people were falling to pieces, having received that information. And the reactions, not just from family but from acquaintances and friends, varied from deep sadness to anger to, you know, basically pushing away, accusatory, just all kinds of different reactions. Um, I think for my parents it was mainly pain that they that, you know, at at what they at least at the time considered, you know, that I had chosen a path that would would essentially not allow me to to uh go to heaven.

Motherhood Anxiety And Finding Yoga

SPEAKER_03 6:47

So that makes sense though that you were aligned in your decision, you know, because I think regardless of what the difficult decision is or the decision that other people might not agree with, sometimes we struggle with fully committing to it, but you fully aligned enough that makes that now. I'd love to transition back a dad because you said you were 41 when you left. Now, did you go to college? I did.

SPEAKER_02 7:17

I um I got married very young. So I got married at 22. I was in college at the time and recently returned home from my mission in Argentina. So I had done some college, went to went away to Argentina, came back, enrolled in college again, got married. I had my first child while I was in college, and then I was pregnant with my second when I graduated. I got my degree in Spanish. Originally, I was training to dance professionally and choreograph. Um choreograph dance was my passion. That was before I went to Argentina. When I got home, I chose the route of wife and mother. And because I spoke Spanish, having lived in the having lived in Argentina, it was an easy degree for me to do while being a mother.

SPEAKER_03 8:06

Now, when did you get involved in practicing yoga before you like started owning a studio and all that?

SPEAKER_02 8:14

So by the time I had my third baby, my oldest had just barely turned three. Or yeah, was she three? No, she was four. So I had a four-year-old, a 20-month-old, and a newborn. And at that point in my life, I was maybe 28 years old at that time, almost 29. And what I didn't understand was that my nervous system had basically reached its maximum. Um, maximum as far as my physicality and being able to care for three children, my mental capacity, my emotional capacity. And so close to the end of my third pregnancy, and for a while, for a long time afterward, I suffered from major anxiety, incredibly intense panic attacks. And I, so this was all happening simultaneously while recovering from childbirth and caring for three toddlers. So it was just a vicious cycle of stress after stress. I decided to try yoga. So I had always been active in movement. I had attended one kundalini yoga class when I was in my early, early 20s, like early 20s. Um, and thought it was very strange and weird because it was just a bunch of breathing and people were making sounds. And it just seemed strange, but I was super into it because I liked trying new things. But I had never tried a physical yoga class. So I guess I was 20, like I said, 20. Mine's probably 29 at that point because my my baby was about five months old when I went to my first yoga class. And I was desperately searching for some sort of relief, some sort of grounding, some sort of sense of center. And I went to the, you know, the gym down the street and took a yoga class there. And luckily, the instructors were phenomenal. And um, they had been studying, the instructors in this particular uh gym had been studying in the Ayengar style system of yoga, which is very physically alignment-based yoga. And it really spoke to me. So the second I started taking classes, I really got into it, and then I found out where they were studying. I enrolled in where they were studying, and then I decided to become a teacher. So I've been teaching yoga now for 20 years.

SPEAKER_03 10:33

Wow, that's amazing. Now, you mentioned your nervous system reached its maximum. How did you know that? I didn't know it at the time.

Limbic System Healing Through Retraining

SPEAKER_02 10:45

So it took me about it took me about 10 years to realize that that's what had happened. So um initially I thought that I was just literally going crazy. I seemed to have no control over the anxiety. Um, I wasn't able to sleep. It was terrifying because I was a mother of three young babies and I needed to be capable and able. And it was really, really difficult because I've always been a very, you know, a very adept person. Like I can, I can move into a situation and handle it well, and I like to do well. Um, but I pretty much fell to pieces and was relied a lot on my mom and my mother-in-law at the time and other people to assist me just to get through the day to be able to care for the the kids. And so I went on this big, huge journey. I had never been in counseling before. I started with counseling, I've tried medications, um, but nothing really shifted a lot. Things started to get a little bit better, but they didn't shift a lot. And what I was noticing in my body was that it didn't matter what the trigger was, I felt the exact same sensations in my physical being. And so then I started to believe that maybe there was something wrong with my physical being. So I went down the road of exploring naturopathic medicine, um, all kinds of different types of healing: spiritual, physical, mental, emotional, all kinds of everything under the sun that you can imagine, and probably things, of course, I didn't try, but literally every so many tests, so many supplements, so many everything. And the diagnoses just kept stacking, you know, because um at first it was thought that I had autoimmune, you know, um hype uh hyperthyroid or hypothyroid. And then it went into much more of which felt like significant diagnosis, where my the doctor that I was working with toward the end of my illness was like, I don't even know how you're standing and walking and living life, you know, your test results look that bad. But after working with him for two years, he sat me down in his office one day and he said, I want to tell you that, and this is like the worst thing someone can tell you when you're going through the tell you that I think what's going on is all in your head. And he said, I don't mean that in the negative way that you think that I do. He said, It literally, your limbic system of your brain has flipped its lid. And basically, he shared with me that he had just come upon some research and some modalities that were assisting people who were in situations like mine where we had chronic mysterious illnesses that weren't going away and weren't able to be helped. And he was having people that were trying these practices and getting results really quickly, like within weeks. And it was a series of, at the time, DVDs and a workbook. He let me borrow them. I watched them, it was like it was literally like four days of DVDs watching this seminar. It's called the dynamic neural retraining system. And what I learned is that for the first time for me, what I learned and understood is that my brain had moved into a stuck state of nervous system reaction, and it was causing all of these physical, mental, and emotional experiences that I was having. And then through very guided practice, it's self-guided, I started doing the practices of speaking with my limbic system, retraining the brain. There's a whole bunch of pieces that go into it, but essentially what you're doing is you choose to change your brain, you choose to rewire your brain through the power of neuroplasticity. And I healed. So it took time. They the requirement for that program was they wanted a six-month commitment. It's self, like I said, self-led, but I really committed to it and I practiced for at least an hour every single day, which is what the they asked you to do. The science supported that you needed about an hour of practice, repetitive practice. And I did it because I started to notice differences within the first two weeks. And that's when I started to understand that my nervous system had reached its peak like a decade earlier. And if I had known, if somebody had introduced this to me at that time, this this stuff wasn't even really available at that time, at the time that I was first experiencing my symptoms. I don't even think they even people even called it postpartum anxiety. I knew postpartum depression existed, but nobody talked about postpartum anxiety. So by the time I started this nervous system retraining program, I had been experiencing nervous system overload for well over a decade. And so I was very diligent about it because there were results. Um, and the results fueled me to continue the practice. And I continued the practice, and from that experience, I have developed my own programs, obviously, my own passion about being in alignment, taking care of your own inner alignment and um in assisting others in doing the same.

SPEAKER_03 16:55

Wow. Oh that's so impressive that that I didn't see that whole way going this way, especially when you mentioned he the doctor said to you it was all in your head.

SPEAKER_02 17:08

And honestly, looking back, it's a relief because all of the physical sensations I was having, all of the physical ailments, they went away when I retrained my brain around all of these triggers that were happening in my life, known and unknown. So your nervous system is reacting to triggers and things before you're ever conscious of it. It's got its predicted, you know, prediction system that's intact at all times. It's scanning the environment at all times, unbeknownst to your you consciously. And um the more that we live in that state, the more we produce that state. So anytime we're practicing any behavior over and over again, our brain is taking note, and our brain is saying, this is what Rachel wants. Even if it's like the worst thing on the planet, and you don't consciously want it, because you're focusing on it and repeating it over and over and over again, the brain says yes and more please to that. And so it will just continue to create that reality for you for each of us.

SPEAKER_03 18:20

That's true. I've heard where attention goes, energy flows. And neurons that fire together, wire together.

SPEAKER_02 18:26

You've probably heard that too. So anytime those neurons meet up together, they're like, okay, great, let's create this pathway. And most of us live our entire lives with a nervous system and neural pathways that have been trained by just by default. And we wonder why our life is the way it is, or we feel the way we feel without ever having examined our belief systems and our habits and you know, the ways that we're speaking to ourselves and others, and all the things that we're doing on a regular basis that's just deepening the pathways and those habits. It's not a quick fix at all. It's a re it's a rewriting of your life. But what comes from doing the work around nervous system regulation and brain retraining is that you you become the author of your life. I like to use the example of each of us being the sculptor, and the clay is our brain, and we get to sculpt this brain into the life to reflect the life that we desire. And that's not wishful thinking. The science supports it. So I don't think I could have done it if the science didn't support it. And I I'm a yogi and I love philosophy and I love things that are ethereal, ethical, ethical, ethereal things that, you know, maybe don't have so much concreteness, but also when you can couple that with science, I get so excited because I have a part of my brain that just loves that science and that evidence. And I had a trainer during that time that I picked that I a coach that I used through this program. And she's like, your brain has no choice but to change if you do three things. And I'll share these with you if you're interested.

SPEAKER_03 20:19

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 20:20

Okay. So there's three principles of neuroplasticity. And I teach this in my programs and when I'm working with people one-on-one. And it's an acronym, and the acronym is for F A R. F is for focus, A is for associations, and R is for repetition. So you just said where energy, where focus goes, energy flows. So that's true. So whatever we focus on, we create associations around. And an association is an emotion or sensation. So there's some sort of emotional charge or some sort of sensory experience that we associate with whatever it is that we're focusing on. And when that is repeated over and over again, the brain has no choice but to change. And that's for things that serve you and things that don't serve you. So it's really helpful to remember that that if there's a habit in your life or experience that keeps happening over and over again, you can shift that when you shift your focus, your associations, and the repetition. So what you're focusing on. Repeat, repeat.

SPEAKER_03 21:39

Thank you for that. I love the acronym too. I big into things like that either rhyme or have an acronym. It's easy to remember.

The FAR Method For Neuroplasticity

SPEAKER_02 21:46

It is easy to remember. And so if I'm always focusing on not having enough money or being sick, then I've got a bunch of associations and beliefs around that, lots of pathways of thoughts, beliefs, and feelings. I'm repeating it over and over and over again. It just becomes the reality. My uh my external world starts to reflect my internal world. And we often think that it's the other way around, that our external world is impacting. And yes, it does. However, we are the most powerful when we are working with our inner world to affect the outer world.

Alignment Based Yoga And Safer Practice

SPEAKER_03 22:21

World. I completely agree. Now, I want to transition it to add, I'm curious, you mentioned alignment-based yoga. How would you say that's different than other types of yoga?

SPEAKER_02 22:37

So, one thing that people get surprised about when they don't know much about yoga is that there's a million different kinds of yoga. There's so many different styles of yoga and so many adaptations of yoga that people have created over time. Alignment-based yoga is based in, for me, based in my trainings and teachings with Ayangara yoga teachers. Now, that Ayangara is a person who has passed now, but he started a lineage of yoga that was based in alignment, based in proper form. He actually helped bring props into existence and really assisting to meet people where they were at. It wasn't a perfect system. It's not a perfect system, but it was a really great foundation from which many wonderful teachers have blossomed. And within that system, what I've really grasped onto and honed in on is the capacity to take all yoga postures and make them accessible to all bodies. And so one of the things is when we understand, well, one of the most important thing, in my opinion, is when we understand the way the body works. So we're working with a car. Let's say that like my body's a car. My car has certain parts that work in certain ways so that I can move down the road. Our bodies are the same way. Our joints move in certain directions. Some directions they shouldn't move in, and otherwise they get injured. So having a basic understanding of how the body moves, so the mechanics of body, the way the body moves, and then applying that to the yoga practice has allowed me to create the alignment-based yoga teacher training program that I have, which has been in existence for about 10 years. And when I do the trainings with my teachers, we do a lot of anatomy-focused and body mechanic study. So that when we are presented with a body in class, we will know what to do. What modification does this person need? Do they need a block? One of the big challenges teachers come up against is I can tell that the pose is off and maybe it looks like they're going to get injured, but I don't know how to help them. So that's something that I really am passionate about in the alignment-based program as well. I teach alignment-based yoga as a regular everyday teacher. I do teacher trainings in it. And then I also have higher-level mentorships where I train people to become alignment-based yoga specialists through a program that I created. So I'm really, I really am in love with that style of yoga. I don't think it's the only great one. I think there's so many different styles. You got to find the one that you like and that you love. But this one is the one that has spoken to me the most. And the creations that have come through me by my practice and my experience has allowed me to really have some wonderful interactions with both teachers and students. That's so fascinating.

SPEAKER_03 25:31

I'm curious what a yoga specialist is.

SPEAKER_02 25:35

Yeah. So an alignment-based yoga specialist, that's a certification that you can get through Yoga Oak University. It was created by me. And what that means is that essentially you can, like I said, have any body come into you to come to see you, whether it's in a class setting or a personal one-on-one setting, and you'll be able to adapt the practice to that body. And you can teach that person how to adapt the practice to the way that their body works, the things that they want and need to do. A lot of my training, I'm not a physical therapist at all, but a lot of my teachers were physical therapists. So I've received a lot of that influence. And as a specialist, the other thing that we're able to do is really break it down even more than you would even be able to imagine, breaking it down. And um, it's kind of like we're architects in a way. We can take the body, and let's say the pose is a static thing, you know, like a puzzle. Puzzle's not static, but let's say the puzzle once it's put together is static. So a yoga specialist, an alignment-based yoga specialist, can take that puzzle apart piece by piece and then teach the person how to put it all back together. So you're building strength, you're building flexibility, but you're also building physical alignment. And ultimately, on an energetic level, I believe that it's assisting for each of us to be in our own internal alignment as well with self, with God, with universe, with whatever it is that you're, you know, aligned with that you through physical alignment, you can be well assisted in deeper ways.

SPEAKER_03 27:14

So it seems like it's much more focused on the body part of it.

SPEAKER_02 27:20

The specifically the alignment-based yoga classes are. So, like if you were to attend a class with me, we might spend an entire class period on the mechanics of downward-facing dog. And I would have you try and what does your shoulders feel like when you're doing the downward dog? What does it feel like in your legs? What do we need to open? What do we need to strengthen? So we're really learning the foundational pieces of the practice so that your alignment is stable and steady as you move in to like, let's say, you really want to become a vinyasa student. So you want to move faster and you want to move with the breath more fluidly. Um, the alignment-based practice leads, lends itself to a longer capacity to practice yoga with less injury over time.

SPEAKER_03 28:11

That makes a lot of sense. Now, I'm curious, is there any way to tell, like when you go into a yoga class if a yoga teacher is trained to understand different parts of the body, whether it's alignment yoga or different yoga?

SPEAKER_02 28:28

That's a great question. That's part of what I'm passionate about too, is creating, you know, a system, a database of teachers that are trained in alignment-based yoga. However, just going out into the world and looking for a teacher at your local gym or your local studio, I recommend that people research the teachers. So go in, look at their training, look at what they're passionate about. If you are someone who is newer to yoga or maybe injured or recovering from an injury, and you're specifically looking for someone who has a bit more of um, you know, an eye for that, I would definitely look for classes that move a little bit slower. It doesn't have to be a restorative class, like completely lying down, but something that's going to move a bit more slowly, a bit more intentionally, and look for words in their training like alignment or another word, you know, ones that people that have studied a little bit more of anatomy or body mechanics in general. So if it just talks a lot about flowing and feeling and breathing, that's beautiful and wonderful. But that does not necessarily mean that you're going to get any sort of assistance on the physicality portion of the very physical like mechanics of how your body moves. And everybody wants different things. So some people just they don't want to have to think about how the body's moving. And for other people, it's a lot more important, especially older populations, um, or people that are athletes, or people that just like the just like the specifics a little bit more. I find that for this style of yoga, my audience is either, like I said, athletes, older people that are really looking to slow things down and understand the foundations of it. And also people that are more interested just in um, like people in the healthcare industry that are curious about functional ways of moving.

SPEAKER_03 30:18

That makes sense. That makes sense.

SPEAKER_02 30:20

It's for everyone. Everyone that comes and gets into it, they typically love it. And but it's different than you know, flowing through all the postures, which if I start on a whole nother specific, I find that in the yoga world, there's this, there's kind of this one or the other. There's classes that are intended for slow movement, and there's classes that are intended for fast movement, and there's not a lot of in between. So one of the bridges that I'm aiming to gap in my career is the gap between the alignment-based yoga and the vinyasa, and starting to bring some of those elements together more so that more people can move through the spectrum of slower moving intentional practicing into intentional vinyasa practicing. So more to come on that if you to end up following my trajectory of my career.

SPEAKER_03 31:13

I love that because I've been practicing, I'm not a teacher, but I've been practicing yoga myself for like 12 years now. And I've noticed as well, it's either a lot of it is either intense or it's very slow. There's not a lot of in between, from what I've seen.

SPEAKER_02 31:31

Yeah, in fact, we're just about ready to our most current teacher training program, which is called Foundations to Flow, because of this gap that we've seen. And so myself and some of my key teachers have come together and we've created and are continuing to create a curriculum based in that foundational alignment-based training, giving the scaffolding to the teacher of how then would you take that, you know, maybe beginner, foundational student into a foundation's flow, into a full flow, and what adaptations would need to happen along the way. And it really lies in that in it lies in the lap of the teachers to take on that responsibility. And um, and there's a huge gap in the middle that I would love to see. I'd love to see more offerings in that middle space.

SPEAKER_03 32:19

Agree. I'm curious, how would you say someone can find their own yoga of alignment when there's so many options?

SPEAKER_01 32:31

Well, personally, I will say yoga is I equate yoga to life.

SPEAKER_02 32:40

So when I'm talking about with somebody about their yoga of alignment, I'm basically talking about life of alignment. So your yoga of alignment might look very different than mine. Mine might be, I'll say mine. Mine is, you know, the things that I'm passionate about and that I'm doing and that create joy and fluidity in my life. The person next to me, they may never step foot in a physical yoga class. Maybe their yoga of alignment is, let's say, physically wise. They want to go running and they are passionate about saving the world in another way. It's about so many different paths. So, what is your path? Makes you feel alive. What feels like your call? And when you can align yourself in that way, you are in your own yoga of alignment. And that might have nothing to do with yoga postures. It's so multifaceted. So somebody might come into one of my programs to become an alignment-based yoga teacher, but ultimately my big question to each of them is you know, what feels like an alignment for you in your life? You know, how is that? What is your path? Because each one of our paths is very unique.

SPEAKER_03 33:53

Do you have any tips for people to find their alignment and tap into creating it? Absolutely.

Your Own Yoga Of Alignment

ABC Pause Breathe Choose Tool

SPEAKER_02 34:02

So one that I often share, which I think is just across the board, one that is easy to access and is similar to the FAR VAR acronym, is the ABCs. Lots of people use ABCs in different ways as an acronym. I've learned it in different ways, but the way that I've adapted it for myself is that the A is about allowing or noticing or acknowledging. So it could be any of those. I know noticing starts with an N, but I like to throw that in there. So noticing, allowing, I don't necessarily use the word accepting, but allowing and noticing, acknowledging what is here. So when we can just allow ourselves to see what is here right now, whatever that might be. And then we can take a moment to breathe. So B is for breathing. Allowing breathing. I like to take three slow breaths. I like to put my hands over my heart and take three slow, steady breaths. You're the breath, you're the breathing goddess. You probably know so much more about this than I do. I take three slow, steady breaths, maybe a few more. And what that does is it creates this pause. It creates a pause between the acknowledging, the allowing, the noticing, and the next step, which is C, which is choosing. So we acknowledge, we breathe. Now we've created enough space in our nervous system, enough of a gap of time to make a choice from a conscious space instead of an unconscious space. An act a proactive space instead of a reactive space. And when we're asking ourselves internal questions like what is my own alignment, that's a big question. And so in that kind of a question, I wouldn't expect there to be this like download of an immediate answer. What I would I what I would coach people to probably expect would be slow, simple, gentle inspirations. That in the moments of pause, of allowing, breathing, and then sitting, maybe sitting with the breath for a second, those inspirations come in and allow you to make choices that you might not have made before. And every time we make tiny little adjustments, we'll start to feel it. You'll start to feel that things are more in alignment, things are moving more fluidly, things are feeling lighter. And it's not that we won't experience challenge, difficulty, and adversity in different ways. However, as we're in more of alignment, we were able to meet those with confidence and with courage, um, with solidity, like I talked about in the beginning, you know, knowing what my choice was when I needed to change my religious structure and the way that I was seeing life in that way. When we're in alignment, you go, you move, you do, and you have the courage to do it because your heart is behind it. You are in your heart, and your heart is behind your actions. And um we know if more of us would just take a moment to pause, it doesn't have to be a long time, a few seconds, just to become aware of where we're at, breathe and make a choice, more of us would be living consciously in alignment.

SPEAKER_03 37:31

I completely agree with that. I really do. That would help so much, even outside of alignment with people paused before responding, reacting, whatever it may be. I think there'd even be more kindness in the world. Absolutely. I love the acronym ABC, though. I'm very big into the acronyms, the quotes. I love them.

SPEAKER_02 37:53

I love acronyms too.

SPEAKER_03 37:54

I love them.

SPEAKER_02 37:55

I I actually I use them to nausea, but they super they help me a lot. But they're little they're little ways for us to remember. And I work with clients one-on-one that are really dealing with some major difficulties in life andor big transitions and shifts. And I teach them all the same thing. It's this pause. It's I like to put hand on body. I think hand on body is an incredible somatic way to reassure ourselves and to ground ourselves into the present and say, hey, I'm right here. I'm gonna breathe through this and I'm gonna make a choice. And every time we consciously make a choice, our energy just solidifies, solidifies, and we're open to course correcting at any time because we're taking a second to reflect and to notice and choose.

Rapid Fire Questions And Legacy

SPEAKER_03 38:47

I completely agree. Pleicho, thank you so much. I've really, really enjoyed speaking with you. Thank you. It's so much fun for me, too. Thank you. Have you heard of a man named Jay Shetty? Mm-hmm. So he's got a podcast called On Purpose, and I'm a big fan. He ends it with two segments, and I've incorporated them into my podcast. Okay. First segment is the many sides to us, and there's five questions, and they need to be answered in one word each. What is one word someone who was meeting you for the first time would use to describe you as? Smiley. What is one word someone who knows you extremely well would choose to describe you as kind? What is one word you'd use to describe yourself? Fun. What is one word that if someone didn't like you or agree with your mindset would use to describe you as? Ignorant. What is one word you're trying to embody right now? Clarity. Second segment is the final five, and these can be answered in a sentence.

SPEAKER_01 40:06

What is the best advice you've heard or received? ABCs. Why is that the best?

SPEAKER_02 40:18

Because it allows me to pause long enough to make a conscious choice. And it's helped redirect my entire life.

SPEAKER_01 40:26

I love that.

SPEAKER_03 40:27

What is the worst advice you've heard or received to follow your gut? Why is that the worst?

SPEAKER_02 40:37

I think it's a that it can be a bit deceiving. I think we need a little bit more time than that. I think we need a little bit more space to reflect and and it's solid understanding in the nervous system. Because if you're anxiously wired, um, your gut is going to react anxiously.

SPEAKER_03 40:57

So yeah, I think it that it's okay to take some time. I get that. What is something that you used to value that you no longer value? Salvation. If you could describe what you would want your legacy to be as if someone was reading it, what would you want it to say?

SPEAKER_01 41:19

That you are your own yoga of alignment and to be wild and free.

SPEAKER_03 41:28

If you could create one law in the world that everyone had to follow, what would it be? And I want to know why. Connect with your heart.

SPEAKER_02 41:39

And the reason why is because the wisdom that surpasses the body and the brain, and um our habits and our circumstances comes from the space of the heart and our connection to something much deeper than what we see with this physical body.

Where To Find Rachel And Closing

SPEAKER_03 42:02

I completely agree. Thank you so much, Rachel. I really appreciate it. Thanks, Amanda. It's been lovely. You're lovely. I appreciate you. Thank you. And I do just like to give it back to the guest. Any final words of wisdom you want to leave the listeners with?

SPEAKER_02 42:20

That as cliche as it sounds, we really all of us possess within us the resources that we need and the wisdom that we need. Whether that wisdom guides us to another resource or guides us to an unknown inspiration inside of us, we are always able, that is something we can always access with just a couple of breaths and some intention and pause.

SPEAKER_03 42:46

Thank you very much, Joe. Thanks, Amanda. And if listeners want to get in touch with you, where is the best place for them to connect with you?

SPEAKER_02 42:55

So there's two places. My brick and mortar is called Thrive Yoga, and you can find us at thriveyoga.com. Everybody around the world is welcome to take their first class for free. You can tune in virtually to do that if you're not local. And the other place to find me is at yogaoakuniversity.com. That's the gonna house my teacher training programs as well as my brain body, my brain body heart programs, embody wise programs, nervous system retraining programs. So all of that you can find me there at yogaoakeuniversity.com.

SPEAKER_03 43:27

Awesome. I will link that in the show notes. Great, thank you so much. I look forward to meeting some of you out there. And thank you guys for tuning in to another episode of Meander's Mindset. In case no one told you today, I'm proud of you. I'm voting for you. And you got this. As always, if you enjoyed the show, I would really appreciate it if you would leave me a five-star rating, leave a review, and share it with anyone you think would benefit from that. And don't forget, you are only one nine-step shift away from shifting your life. Thanks guys, until next time.