Healing Beyond the Surface: Yoga Therapy & Ayurveda for Deep Support - with Rakhi Swales🧘‍♀️

In this deeply nourishing conversation, I’m joined by Yoga Therapist, Meditation Teacher, Reiki Practitioner and Ayurvedic Lifestyle Consultant, Rakhi Swales, to explore what it truly means to support the body through life’s more challenging seasons.

We move beyond the modern, fitness-focused perception of yoga and dive into the world of yoga therapy—a gentle, adaptive and highly personalised approach that meets you exactly where you are. Rakhi shares how these practices can be used alongside traditional medical care, offering support for those navigating complex health conditions, chronic illness, or recovery from treatments such as cancer.

We also explore the wisdom of Ayurveda and how simple, everyday shifts can help bring the body back into balance—without overwhelm or rigidity.

This episode is a powerful reminder that healing doesn’t always come from pushing harder… sometimes, it comes from softening, slowing down, and truly listening.

In this episode, we cover:

• What yoga therapy is and how it differs from traditional yoga
• The importance of adaptive and accessible practices in healing
• Supporting the body through illness, recovery and complex conditions
• How yoga can complement modern medicine
• Simple, practical ways to begin incorporating Ayurveda into daily life
• Reconnecting with your body through rest and awareness

Have a listen to our chat, or watch the full video on YouTube here.

Thanks for tuning in today to The Can I Get a Refill? Podcast, and be sure to jump on my website (below) to download a free 33 page eBook on 7 Steps to Protect Your Energy & Fill Up Your Cup. 

You cannot pour from an empty cup, so I’ve designed a guide to help you take care of yourself, in order to uplevel your life. Download it today and make yourself a priority!

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Get in touch with Rakhi via - rakhi@rakhiswales.com.au 📨

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

I'm recording this episode on the lands of the Daraual people and pay my respects to their elders. As this is a digital platform, I also want to pay my respects to the traditional custodians of the lands on which you, our listeners, are based, and acknowledge that you are telling stories on these lands too. Jumping in here to talk directly to my Sydney friends about one of my absolute favourite cafes, Pilgrims Cranolla. Now located in their gorgeous new location opposite South Crenolla Park, with expanded indoor and outdoor seating, including pet-friendly tables out front, and delicious food, juice and coffee. The menu is full of wholesome, vegger-friendly eats that feel both nostalgic and nourishing. Expect brecki wraps, vibrant salads, smoothies, fresh juices, and some of the best plant-based sandwiches going. I strongly recommend the corn fritters and the chai shake, which is definitely big enough for two. Check them out on Insta and be sure to visit when you're next in Crenola. A podcast for ambitious women who are tired of pouring from an empty cup but still want to grow, evolve, and build a life they're proud of. Through a mix of comforting solo episodes and inspiring conversations with industry professionals, authors, wellness experts, and entrepreneurs, we talk about what it really looks like to refill your cup while up-leveling your life. Topics include mental, emotional and physical wellness, hormonal health, manifestation, career and finance, boundaries, self-trust, and redefining success on your own terms. Hosted by me, Steph Bruno Newton, each weekly episode is designed to motivate, ground, and empower you to take care of your needs and go after the life you actually want. Pour yourself a cup, take a breath, and let's refill it together. Today's conversation is a really special one, and I think it's going to land deeply for so many of you, especially if you've ever felt like your body needed something more than the usual approach to health and wellness. Because so often we're taught to push, to do more, to train harder, to fix things from the outside in. But what happens when your body is asking for something different? Something softer, more supportive, more intuitive. That's exactly what we're diving into today. I'm joined by Raki Swales, yoga therapist, certified meditation teacher, Reiki practitioner, Ayurvedic lifestyle consultant, and my personal friend. Her work focuses on adaptive, accessible, and restorative practices, particularly supporting those navigating complex health conditions, chronic illness, or recovery. In this conversation, we explore what yoga therapy really is and how it goes far beyond what most of us think of as yoga. We also talk about how practices like yoga and Ayurveda can beautifully complement traditional medical care, offering a more holistic and compassionate approach to healing. This episode is an invitation to shift the way you think about your body, to move away from force and toward support. Thank you for tuning in again today to the Can I Get a Refill Podcast. If you haven't already, be sure to jump on my website, www.canagetarefill podcast.com.au, linked in the show notes, to download your free ebook on seven steps to protect your energy and fill up your cup. As I always talk about, the relationship with the self is the most important one, and every area of your life, from career, finance, health, and wellness, is all dependent on how healthy that relationship is with the self. Download it today and make yourself a priority. Okay, now let's jump in. Hello, my cup fillers, and welcome back to the Can I Get a Refill Podcast. We are joined by a personal friend of mine today, Rocky Swales. Rocky, welcome to the podcast. Thanks, Def. Thank you so much for inviting me to be here. Oh, I'm so excited. For anyone who listens regularly, you will have heard me reference one of my besties, Liz, who I've known from school since 98. And Liz introduced us. And recently I put on my Instagram we had a girls' Friday night uh yoga class with you, which was so amazing and the absolute epitome of filling up your cup. So so good.

SPEAKER_02 4:25

It's um it's so strange. I've been practicing yoga for so many years, I've been teaching for so many years, and then it it took me so long to think of doing this with girlfriends as an alternative thing to do, you know, uh, besides just catching up.

SPEAKER_01 4:41

No, well, it's funny too, because like the culture for you know in Sydney especially was always let's go out for a drink, let's go out for a drink. And then you get older, and I haven't touched a drink in so long, and I'm like, what else can we do where we can get together and have a real it was just a real like feminine bonding experience because you were just out of Zenley in is is it Alexandria? No, St. Peter's Zenley in the end. In St.

SPEAKER_02 5:02

Peter's, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:03

And the the the foyer area has all these, what do you call them? Swings, they're swings, they're so good. You're hanging them like like a pod or something. Oh, it's fantastic, it's such a beautiful place. But yeah, and I missed the second one, so we'll have to do another one soon. But it was really great. But yeah, you you do such interesting work, and I was like, no, you're coming on the podcast. So I'm very excited to have you here today. So we'll jump in. I've got lots to ask you. So we were just discussing off air. I think a lot of people associate yoga with flexibility or fitness. So, what actually is yoga and where does yoga therapy sit?

SPEAKER_02 5:40

Ah, wow, I could talk about this for a very, very long time. Yeah, but but let me um look, there are some very real fitness and flexibility benefits to practicing yoga asana. That's the movement part of yoga. Um, so having said that, those things have sort of become the main headline of yoga. When when people think of yoga, all they're thinking of is asana practice movement. But if you consider the eight limbs of yoga, uh asana is limb three. There's so much more yoga than just movement. There are so many more subtle practices. Yoga was never about fitness, it was really about developing a relationship with your body, your mind, and the world around you. So, all of the practices of yoga, whether it's movement, breath, meditation, intention, gratitude, stillness, rest, all of those are yoga, but very specifically, you know, practiced in a way that's right for you. I think everyone practices yoga, there's a different yoga for everyone. And and if you know, going back to yogic texts, uh, Bhagavad Gita talks about yoga as equanimity, you know, finding balance uh to sort of meet the highs and lows of life. And um, the yoga sutras talk about um yoga, yoga's chitta vritti nirodha, which is stilling the fluctuations of the mind, just finding that steadiness in the mind to help you get through whatever is coming at you, you know, and and that could be everyday life, that could be big things, that could be little things, you know. So so so yoga is really about developing that relationship, you know, first with yourself and then with the world.

SPEAKER_01 7:38

Yeah, you listen to my podcast, that is what I harp on about over and over and over again. It is really the foundation for all areas of life, that relationship with the self, but so much so many of us, and especially women and especially mothers, you let that slip by the wayside, and then everything else seems to go to shit when you've neglected yourself. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:57

Yeah, and and going back to where we started this conversation about fitness and flexibility, so much of yoga that we see in media, social media, it it's made yoga a lot more performative.

SPEAKER_01 8:09

Um when you were started talking, I was gonna say you hear yoga and now you think of white skinny influences in aloe yoga active gear.

SPEAKER_02 8:18

Well, the nice thing is the conversations about yoga are changing, you know. Yoga has become a lot more diverse, yoga is going back to more traditional roots, and and I'm I'm so uh grateful to see people actually talking about the you know the history. Yoga is a living tradition, you know, it is not something that belongs stuck in a gym or on an Instagram page, and and those conversations are changing. There's some amazing people doing some great work in changing those conversations, so it is changing. Five years ago, if you Instagrammed yoga, you would see what you said, skinny white woman in fitness gear, and now you see a lot more representation and a lot more going back to the roots of what yoga really is when you look at yoga in the media.

SPEAKER_01 9:04

And I like what you said there. I had someone on here once talking about meditation, and he said it's the great equalizer. And I feel like yoga is on the same sort of thing. You can't expect everything in life to be happy all the time. That's actually not the aim. The aim is how do we deal with the challenges as they arise and having that, and I was just talking to you off air about the anxiety I used to have is a constant hum, and it's about getting to that place through all different methods where you can deal with things as they arise because they will arise.

SPEAKER_02 9:32

Yeah, yeah. So what's yoga therapy? So yoga therapy is yoga, it's just the tools or the practices of yoga applied in a therapeutic setting. So with yoga therapy, we work very specifically with very specific needs and goals. So if you think of a yoga class, a yoga class could address a common theme, like you know, today we're going to explore steadiness and and balance, but you it's it's a common class goal. Whereas in yoga therapy, we're meeting one person and we're addressing something that they need. For example, someone comes to you and says that they have headaches, so so we look at headaches from a yoga therapy framework and say, okay, why might this person be having those headaches? Is it a postural thing? Is it a stress thing? Is it an emotional thing? And we sort of diagnose is the wrong word, but it it paints a good picture of how we try and sort of get to the root of what might be causing the problem and what can we do to alleviate the problem? Um, what practices should we offer this person or explore with this person to help them find relief to manage this issue? So if it's a postural problem, we could look at movement as a practice or realigning how they sit. Maybe the chair they're sitting on or the way they're sleeping is an issue. Address those things, but also give them ways to deal with the actual headache itself. If it's an emotional problem, maybe you look to practices like um meditation and journaling or uh breath work.

SPEAKER_01 11:20

Raki, do you do work? I think you do. I think we've discussed it once with chakras. Yes, yeah. We do look at chakras as well. I said to you once that I always used to get uh who was I reading? Oh, an upcoming guest. She had uh she was from India, actually. She had uh some sort of trauma and she stopped speaking or she had a stutter when she was young, and it was about her not having a freedom of her voice, which she later realized now and now she coaches women, which like in a way that resonates with me because I often would l when I used to do singing would lose my voice, or I mean a lot of it would be a technique issue, but I I just always had throat issues. And every time I do like a chakra meditation, every time I'd feel good going through all of them, and when I would get to either the heart, but especially the throat, I would just feel I can't explain it. Maybe it was some sort of irritability or some sort of shame or something. And so that's how I knew there was an issue with me not speaking my truth. So do you ever have people where they come with specific issues and you might think, okay, there's a blockage of a particular chakra because of a particular issue. Like, for example, me wasn't speaking my truth.

SPEAKER_02 12:38

We do look at chakras. The the beautiful thing about yoga therapy is you're looking at the whole person, you know. So so if someone comes and tells me I have headaches, I'm not just looking at what's causing the headaches, I'm also inquiring what's going on in their life, what's happening with their work, you know, and and in that conversation, things come up that you can actually help address as part of that bigger picture. But I also do want to say that during a yoga therapy session, people will tell you a lot more than is within my scope as a yoga therapist to actually give them advice on. So for me, really, it is about taking what I can help them with as a yoga therapist from that conversation, and then you using that to help them explore practices. And yeah, sure, we definitely work with chakras as well, but it is one of many, many frameworks that you apply as a yoga therapist when you're actually looking you know using this sort of whole person-centered approach.

SPEAKER_01 13:40

And I love those holistic approaches because they can be multifaceted. Something like a headache might be environment, it might be stress, it might be the way you're seeing it. Some very often it's not just one issue, isn't it? Yeah. You specialize in adaptive and accessible practices. What does that actually look like in real life? And why is that so important in the healing process?

SPEAKER_02 14:02

When I tell people that I work when I sort of uh lean towards accessible practices, they they automatically think, Oh, she does chair yoga and gentle yoga and things like that. But accessibility is actually such a big conversation, you know. It is accessibility when it comes to body size, disability, culture, financial access, the uh time, you know, how much time do you have for a practice, trauma, illness, injury, all of that requires accessibility. For example, body size, you know, you're looking at bigger bodies, smaller bodies, bodies recovering from injury, older bodies. How how do we find practices that these people can access? When it comes to disability, like you said, the first thing we talked about was fitness and flexibility. If that's all people think yoga is, someone who's sitting in a wheelchair or someone who's just recovering from a broken leg is not going to want to come for a yoga practice. So making sure that people understand that there is a practice, irrespective of what body shape and size you are. Financial access is a really important thing. You know, if if you think about the people who go to yoga studios, they have lots of disposable income. But the people actually need yoga may not have access to the financial means to go see someone who can give them that support, help them with those practices. So making sure pricing is fair, you know, sliding scales or tiered paying uh methods, your pay as you pay what you can, uh options for certain people. The hospital that I work at has uh access to funds that they offer people who are in financial distress, um, so that they can actually access a lot of the services that we provide them free of cost. When it comes to trauma, you know, accessibility is about invitational language, giving people um agency over how they choose to practice, given that they've been in situations where they felt that they don't have control, you know, and accessibility in terms of culture is really about people knowing that yoga as a practice is not a religious practice, it's more spiritual practice, and no matter where you come from and what you believe in, you can still benefit from a yoga practice. It's about you know honoring where the lineage and the traditions of yoga have come from, and it's about representation. Um, yes, so where where accessibility fits in my practice is making sure that no matter who comes to me, you know, they feel like there's a space for them, they feel like there's a practice for them, and and that anyone who has at any point in time thought, you know, this is not for me, I would want them to know that there is something here for you.

SPEAKER_01 16:59

I love that. And it's a form of healing, isn't it? And healing is for everybody, and and you know, something as simple as financial, that that is a big issue for a lot of people. There's been so many times in my life where I needed to address certain areas, but I couldn't financially, and it's um yeah, it feels not fair in the moment. So it's kind of that there there are options out there, that's why I love that you position yoga as a complementary practice. Offair, we were talking about, I was saying with me with um anxiety, I've dealt with it in a multifaceted way, so herbal and medicinal, and you know, certain practices. How have you seen these practices support people alongside more conventional treatments, particularly with chronic illness, even cancer?

SPEAKER_02 17:43

Um, I want to first say that it's really important that when we're talking about something like yoga therapy, that that we're very clear that it's a complementary practice and not an alternative practice. Um that's that that distinction is extremely important to me. Um if you think about I I think Eastern and Western medicine actually work so beautifully together. In Western medicine, you're usually treating a very, very specific condition, you know, a very specific thing. You go to the GP because you've got the flu, or you know, you've got measles. The doctor is helping you speak heal a very specific thing, but that one thing that's happened to you has sort of rippling side effects, you know, it is impacting your whole life. If if you take a complex medical condition like cancer, the disease itself has so many repercussions, you know. It just knowing that you have a diagnosis will cause you anxiety and sleeplessness and all that worry that comes with learning you've had cancer. The the actual cancer itself is causing your body to work in a way that is not normal, and then when you start treatment, um, a lot of the treatments are fairly toxic to the body. You know, chemotherapy is killing the cancer, but it is also affecting the healthy tissues and cells in your body. The good news is that with something like cancer, medicine has come such a long way. People who get a cancer diagnosis now are actually living for so much longer than they did years years ago. Yes, yes, what yoga therapy and complimentary practices like yoga therapy, massage, reflexology, acupuncture, what these things do is ensure that those many years that have been added to your life are good quality years, you know, and and and that you're actually feeling a little bit better through the treatment, after the treatment, you know, helping you manage not just the symptoms of the disease but also the side effects of the treatment. So if you're doing treatment that's causing you nausea, how can I help with say very gentle movement or breathing practices that help keep that nausea feeling a little better? One of the side effects of some of the cancer treatments is peripheral neuropathy where you get tingling and numbness in your fingers. Can we do some mudra work or some breath work to actually help with stimulating those nerve endings and helping with sensation and those points? If you're suffering from sleeplessness, can we offer you a Yoga Nitra practice that actually helps you get rest without actually sleep? Non yoga nitra is a form of non-sleep deep rest. So, really, sort of looking at ways that practices like this can support you from diagnosis to after treatment. And and while Western medicine is doing a really specific job, you have these other practices that come and sort of wrap around the person. The whole thing is part of one care team.

SPEAKER_01 21:02

No, I love that. And I've always combined both. I've always gone to the doctor and taken what medicine, but I find that that's targeting the imminent issue, but that might be a result of an underlying issue. So, for instance, I mean I'm a I always quote Louise Hay, and she believes that cancer comes from resentment. So, yeah, if if I had cancer, I'd go and get the chemo and go and do all that. But then I would do all the work to figure out what that underlying issue is. But I always find when I do sort of Eastern things, it's long-term solution and then the Western medicine is let's get rid of it now. But I'll do both in conjunction with each other. So I like that you said that to make that distinction that it's um it's a complementary thing, it's not fixing anything, but it's it's working alongside medicine.

SPEAKER_02 21:49

Yeah. If you also look at practices like Chinese, traditional traditional Chinese medicine and Ayurveda, uh they're preventive practices, they're lifestyle practices. You know, you you don't wait to fall sick. Yes. To live, you know, to practice Ayurveda or to have Ayurvedic practices or traditional Chinese medicine practices. Yeah, those do those things do help you when you're sick, but they're not just for when you're sick.

unknown 22:16

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 22:17

Whereas Western medicine you don't pop a pill. Yeah, you don't pop a pill unless you're sick. I mean you're not preemptively taking I might get a headache, so I'm gonna have a panodon. You don't do that.

SPEAKER_01 22:27

That's exactly, yeah. And you know what you said before, it was so true about the other things that come alongside a diagnosis of an illness is the sort of the anxiety or the sleeplessness. And uh people in my family who have had cancer, they might have had it for years, but once they find out they've got it, they've plummeted quickly. And I think it 100% that fear is really something that goes along with it. It's almost like your body then submits because your mind has said, well, we're sick now, and it submits to it. And I heard this doctor saying that the the research in cancer treatment has come so far that they go, if you ever are purper, touch wood, god forbid, diagnosed, you would the first thing you should do is tell yourself, this is manageable, I can manage this. There are lots of things. And and I thought there was something about her saying that that made me feel so at ease that if anything purpa ever were to happen, I would say, okay. And that that's my go-to. My go-to is panic in the first instance, then action plan. I'm the girl with the notebook. What can we do, you know, to and I really like that. Like there are solutions. Like, is it Marie Forlio who says everything is figure outable? There's always solutions to things. And let's just yeah, but I like that. I I really, really like the combination of the two together. That's something that's always worked for me. I've always been a girl that's gone to naturopaths and acupuncture. And I've talked openly about my struggles with infertility, not when I had Leo, but the second time around. And so I've gone back to my wonderful acupuncturist. Actually, Rob Wynn it's her acupuncturist, she referred me to him. I used to go to him 10 years ago. He's so great. And yeah, doing all those practices and taking my herbs to calm my nerves and stuff. So yeah, the two go hand in hand, don't they?

SPEAKER_02 24:13

Yeah, and and I love that, you know, really big centers like you know, Chris O'Brien Life House and in America, uh Memorial Sloan Gathering, two massive pioneers in cancer care, are actively pushing supportive care therapies to really make sure that anyone who's coming through their doors is completely taken care of. It's not just about the oncology and the chemotherapy, radiation, and all of that. It's also how do we really look after these people and ensure that while they're healing, you know, their minds, their body, their breath, all of that is looked after.

SPEAKER_01 24:51

I didn't know that that they did a holistic approach like that. I love that so much because I th I would imagine with something severe as a cancer diagnosis, you would feel so isolated and just in fear. So having a support network, especially, you know, people who know what they're talking about, would feel really uh comforting. So that's beautiful. I like that so much. Jumping in with another message for my Sydney friends. If you're a pizza lover, you absolutely need to head out to Crenulla and visit my friends at Queen Margarita of Savoy for traditional Neapolitan pizza and other Italian classic dishes. With my Sicilian background, you know that I've travelled to Italy many times over the years. I've eaten pizza all over Italy, including in Naples, and I swear to everyone I meet that Queen Margarita is still my absolute fave. I like simple classic flavours, so I highly recommend the traditional margarita and the three cheese pizza. Pubby loves the prosciutto and the pork and fennel. I also have a soft spot for the travel orangini. Check them out at Surf Road Cranella and the link in my show notes. You definitely will not be disappointed. Uh, for someone completely new to Ayurveda, what are a few simple practical ways they can begin to support their body and energy in their day-to-day life?

SPEAKER_02 26:11

Um, you did a beautiful Ayurveda podcast. Um, I did a little while ago. So Ayurveda means Ayur means life, Veda is knowledge. So Ayurveda is really like an ancient life science, and it's part of the Vedas, which are these ancient tech Indian texts, and really it's it's about lifestyle practices to support your life, you know, and and um some of the key things in Ayurveda we Ayurveda believes that we are all made of five elements. I think that's lovely. We are of the earth, we are of the universe, and and those five elements are clubbed in different ways to create something called the doshas, which are really like sort of bio patterns, and uh we have three primary doshas, which is vata, which is air and ether, pitta, which is fire and water, and kafa, which is earth and water, which is me. And everyone has all of these doshas in some amount, but you usually have one or two dominant doshas. Um, there are some three three doshic people who have all three in about equal uh measure, but it's really even if you didn't know your doshas, Ayurveda is really about listening to your body and learning what the body likes, what it doesn't like. When you eat something, you automatically know, oh, my stomach didn't like that. Yes, and and then listening to when your stuff the time that your stomach didn't like that and saying, I'm not going to do that again.

SPEAKER_01 28:00

Rocky, I feel I'm gonna interrupt you for two seconds because I feel like the day I grew up was the day I stopped doing things that were bad for me. I feel like so many years I knew there were certain foods or people or alcohol that didn't suit me, and I'm like, well, maybe this time I'll be different. The day I and I would just constantly be sleeping with three pillows because my stomach was nauseous, and I just don't do that anymore because now I'm like, no, that doesn't agree with me. I feel like honestly, that was the day I grew up. And what I'm loving about Ayurveda is there's so much talk now of the divine feminine and feminine energy, and so much of that is tapping in and listening to things that we have quietened for so long.

SPEAKER_02 28:41

If we go back to where we started talking about yoga, about developing that relationship, one with yourself and then with the world around you, we seem to have forgotten that you know, with yourself bit, we're so focused on the world around us, everything that's external, that internal part sort of taken a back seat, like falling low and loading on the priority.

SPEAKER_01 29:04

Yeah, yeah, too much of the world. The last two days we've been off my phone, just looked at it once in the morning and once in the evening. And not only was I so present with my son, I felt calm because I didn't have all the noise of everything else. So it's um, and then I would have like more silence in the house. I wasn't putting things on my phone in the background. I was like, oh, I feel like I'm in the 90s. I'm actually like A, I'm feeling calm, and B, my mind doesn't feel scattered. I can think of what I need to do because I don't have so much of the outside world. So yeah, having time with the self is so important.

SPEAKER_02 29:36

I mean, I have so much gratitude for possibly being one of the last generations who remembers a time without smartphones, without the internet.

SPEAKER_03 29:43

Yeah, you know, right?

SPEAKER_02 29:45

Um yeah, but yeah. So not only are we there's not only is there so much noise outside us that we're not paying attention to the noise that's within us, we are ignoring things that are happening within the body. Ah, you know what? I'm sleepy. No, I'm gonna push through it and finish this up this episode I'm watching on Netflix. Ah, you know what? I'm really, really tired. No, gotta finish this report and send it off. We're just always in the state of doing, acting, moving. And and that's the thing we have.

SPEAKER_01 30:20

It's we're in the doing more than the being. That's what we've been doing for the last few years. And I I would call it disrespect. I think we're completely disrespecting our bodies. When our bodies say it's tired and we push through, we wouldn't expect our little children. Like when my son starts crying and looking tired, I don't say push through. We're gonna watch this show. I put him to bed. So I I've started treating myself like that because what I realized was the number one thing I sacrificed to do things was sleep. Oh, I have to fit all this in. Well, I'll just cut my sleep an hour short. And now I, you know, and I was waking up before to do things, and now I'll sleep until 6 30 if I because my body needs it. And I'm like, well, I'm sharper throughout the day, so I guess I just had to do that. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 31:04

And and that's the thing, you call it disrespect. I think it's a lack of awareness when we're we're we're not thinking about it. It becomes disrespect when we willfully ignore uh these things, but but I think the the the bigger issue is we're not listening, we're not we're not important enough to ourselves a lot of the time. If we paid a little more attention, I don't think we'd be as neglectful or disrespectful of the things that our body need. Neglect. Bodies need. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:37

Yes. Well, I like to look at myself like as if there's two of me, and one is the romantic partner. And if, you know, if my my romantic partner was completely neglecting my needs, I would sit down and be like, hey, first bring it up and be like, this is how I feel when you neglect this. Then if it kept happening, then I would see it as disrespect, and then I would have to question the relationship. So I think you need to treat yourself with that respect that you would expect others to give you. And and listening to the body is the absolute first place to go. And the body knows too, even if it's like a um, I always say if you're in a job with toxic colleagues, if you're in a relationship with family or friends or romantic partner, you know, I I've talked about I was in a violent relationship years ago. I had four fibroadenoma breast tumors. One like for each year, we were together. I had psoriasis on the back of my head, I had IBS, I had reflux. My body was screaming, bitch, where I'm comfortable. Yeah, like so me ignoring that was just completely disrespecting my needs. So that's something that for me, it's been with age. As I've gotten older, I learned to tap in and listen to myself. What does she need today? And and regularly check in throughout the day, throughout the week. What do I need? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:54

I also think that we, you know, sometimes mistake self-care as being something that's selfish. You know, when when you sit back to take a beat for yourself, you're you're seen as oh, look at her, she's being lazy, or you know what, she she doesn't have time for us, she's she's just going to spa. Um, and I mean that's that's a really silly example, but it it's just self-care is so so underrated. Um but someone someone sort of uh reframed this whole idea of self-care in in a in a really nice way for me. Is if you take yourself out of something that's happening to you, and imagine it's happening to someone you really care about, what would you tell them? What is the advice you'd give them? What do you think they should do? And then step back into yourself and say, Hey, you know, I should be doing these things.

SPEAKER_01 33:53

You would say kind words to your friends, but you might say some very self-critical things to yourself. Um, do you think it's a Western thing more so though, that guilt for taking time for yourself?

SPEAKER_02 34:01

Um, I I I just think it's it's it's more a sign of the times. You know, we'll just say it's it's it's we're working harder than we've ever needed to work. There's more people on the planet, there's everyone is competing for resources, time, everything. You know?

SPEAKER_01 34:18

No, no, that's that's very true. I I do always say though, like in Europe and Italy that I'm more familiar with, I I do find that they they slow down and have that rest time more without sort of explanation. But I always think of, did you ever watch Eat Prey Love? Actually, I sorry this at the cinema, so I remember that. And there's this bit, it's in the book too, where she has this friend in Italy called Luca Spaghetti, which is just too brilliant. And he's like, Oh, you Americans, you know, you're always like, you feel guilty, like you work so hard all week, and then you spend the weekend in your pajamas in front of the TV eating donuts and things. You know, he's like, you you wait for permission to treat yourself. Whereas we walk along, we see a sign, hey, you should take a break. And I'm like, yeah, I know. Like it's they they don't wait for permission to either rest or treat themselves. And it's almost like we wear that hard work as a badge of honor and can only rest once we've worked hard and achieved. It's like we've burned the rest. Whereas you should really just fundamental.

SPEAKER_00 35:16

I know it is it's not something.

SPEAKER_01 35:19

I know that I know that on an intellectual level, and I still have trouble switching off.

SPEAKER_02 35:26

It's something that afflicts everyone. I, you know, I I I meditate, I rest, I do all of that. I've I've been under the weather the whole of the last week, and yeah, you and me both. Even I struggled to actually, you know, sit down, put my feet up, you know, drink endless cups of ginger tea and and just not do anything, heal. Right.

SPEAKER_01 35:50

And yet, if you were talking to a client, you would absolutely insist you must rest. See, it's the self. Yeah, we this what I always say is I always feel if I rest, I'm on the back foot, someone else is achieving something. So I gotta I gotta be in the arena, I gotta hurry up and be doing things. But no, I realize it it is uh part of the productivity because I'm then better at what I do after a rest. So yeah, we just gotta do that.

SPEAKER_02 36:16

And that's the thing, there is actual science behind it, you know. If you rest, you create more space in your body, in your mind to actually do a better job at the things you want to be good at, you know. But we're we're like we're constantly playing catch up.

SPEAKER_01 36:34

Do you know Glenn and Doyle, who wrote Untamed? It's like the best book that every woman on the planet needs to read. No, I haven't read it. I will loan it to you. And actually, while we're on the topic, I'll loan you Dr. Harmony Robinson Stag's book on Ayurveda that he'll have that on the show. It's so thick, it's so in-depth. I'll give it to you. You'll love it. Glenn and Doyle hosts a podcast with her partner or wife, I think they're married, Abby Wombach. She was a soccer player in the US. But it sounds like I'm the Glennon and Abby's the Alan. And she's like, Abby will like work hard but rest hard. And like she's like, I'll come out and be like, why are you lying on the couch? What and and Abby like feels like she should like explain herself. And then Glennon was like, no, I need to stop doing that. And that's like Alan, he'll work really hard and then he'll just like sit and do nothing and play video games for hours. But that's his process, and I shouldn't attach my values of you should be productive, you should be doing something. Like, that's his autonomy and his life. And you know, at the moment he's bringing in more money, so he can do whatever the fuck he wants. See how like we all have that? And I think what Glenn and Doyle said was so true. I think a lot of us would have that, and especially women, and especially in a Western culture of all you gotta be busy, you gotta be productive. And you know, you see it in workplaces, it's so toxic of um can't stop and chat in the kitchen too long, gotta keep going. And like, it's just yeah, I hate that.

SPEAKER_02 37:51

It's so interesting that you said that because when you think about rest as well, rest can take so many different shapes. When when Chris and I have a weekend time off, rest time, my idea of rest is relaxing on the lounge, reading a book, drinking a cup of uh tea, uh watching a show. Chris's idea is getting out, going for a walk, you know, going record shopping and things like that. And for a little while, Chris will always get really antsy because I was just lounging around and and we had to have a conversation about rest means different things to different people.

SPEAKER_00 38:34

It's RR, it's rest for recreation.

SPEAKER_02 38:36

Yeah, yeah. And and you know, you could take a walk, and that's a rest for your brain from whatever it was doing before. And and and some people find it really hard to access rest in stillness. It's it's important for them to find that that that you know, that that entry point into where you can actually slow not just the body, but also the mind and the breath and the nervous system down.

SPEAKER_01 39:01

Yeah, I hate sitting for too long. I'm really funny about that. So for me, a long walk in nature, that is my rest. And yeah, Alan and I, when we first got together, had a free trip to Bali. It was so called my boss gave me this free trip, it was so awesome. And we by day three, we were both like, okay, we're rested. What do we do now? Like, we just we're not the lay by the pool couple. So, like, our favorite trip was New York, and like, and I had like, well, I'm a little more of a go-getter than him. He likes to rest more, but I had like A4 pages every day of the itinerary, right? And like we were averaging like 33,000 steps a day. He was hating on me because he had these like sores on his feet. But to me, that was I came home so refreshed and recharged because seeing different things going into like looking at antique bookstores or like walking around and looking at things like that, going into delis. That to me is so relaxing. Like that's rest to me and long walks. So but sitting, I don't know, there's something about when I sit, I just want to fall asleep, so it's just not restful to me.

SPEAKER_02 40:02

Yeah, with rest, it it's so interesting. Rest is really about not just slowing down, but giving yourself space for everything to catch up with you, and and rest can be very, very uncomfortable. Stillness is uncomfortable for people, you know. Stillness can be very, very uncomfortable for people because when you create that space, things are going to come into that space, and that's things like thoughts that you've pushed to the back of your mind, feelings that you don't want to feel, and and I think all of these practices, what they're trying to do is give you the resilience to be able to deal with all of that because eventually it is going to catch up with you, but it is gonna catch up with you as psoriasis on your head. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:49

No, the business is running from your issues 100%. You need to sit with them, and that's why I like my morning meditation and deep breathing. I like that, but uh, but I definitely still like my long walks. I don't know. It's just yeah, and I always said I always used to work in like customer service jobs, and so like the talking all day, as much as I love it, it also drains me because I'm I I give a lot to people too. So I just always needed those long lunch breaks where no one comes with me and I just go for a long walk to like decompress.

SPEAKER_02 41:18

So yeah, but then you what you're giving yourself is space to be out in a different environment and be with yourself, you know. That is restful. That that is restful because it's different from everything you were doing before and everything you're gonna go back and do again.

SPEAKER_01 41:37

Absolutely, yeah. You're right, it can look different for everyone. A lot of your work is around slowing down and to send the body, and a lot of people have feel uncomfortable in that. So, what's one gentle way someone could start reconnecting with their body?

SPEAKER_02 41:50

Um, I think just sitting with the breath, that that's one of my favorite ways is you don't need anything, you just need somewhere to sit or even stand and and take take three breaths. Three breaths that you're completely focused on the in and the out, the in and the out. Um, it is amazing. Uh, so much of the work that I do is with the breath, and people were like, Wow, I never knew what it felt like to actually tune into my breath. So, so it's such an accessible and portable practice, breathing. You're sitting in the car, you can, you know, mindfully breathe. You're sitting at your desk, you can mindfully breathe. You know, when everything is just oh god, there's so much clatter in my mind. Take a breathe. Close your eyes. Even if it doesn't feel comfortable to close it eyes, keep your eyes open. Take a breath. Take three breaths. And and it's such it it's right there. You know, your body knows how to breathe, but your body also gives you permission to control how you breathe, you know, to be present with the breath. And I think it is one of the most powerful parts of any practice.

SPEAKER_01 43:04

But it's so like this primal vital thing, and yet when we're day-to-day doing things, we don't realize how much we're doing that shallow chest breathing until we stop and do breath work. And actually, I've got another guest, I've got to give you a book on breath work. The stats are crazy because it's actually changed. The amount of breaths have changed globally because of lifestyle has you know gotten faster and faster. So that's a bit scary. But yeah, it's something so you don't need anything, it's you and your breath, and it's there at the moment. And for someone who hasn't practiced it before, I'm a highly anxious person. And whenever I sit to do it, if I'm anxious, it feels a bit funny at first, but a few minutes in, uh the whole dynamic of my body has changed. Like you you start in one wavelength and end in another, like the whole energy of your body shifts. So stick with it. If it feels uncomfortable in the first few minutes, keep going because it's yeah, yeah, it's Life changing.

SPEAKER_02 44:01

These practices are really about meeting your body and your mind where they're at. So if you're feeling really anxious and you're not going to be able to do a five-minute practice, don't do a five-minute practice. Commit to three breaths. You know, do three. Come back to it when you feel a little bit better if you want. It can be as snack-sized or it can be as feast-sized as you a sized as you want. That's the thing. These practices fit you, they're meant to fit you. They're not meant to be these in inflexible do it this way or don't do it at all practices. It's about it's meant to be how much capacity do I have? What am I capable of? One of the things that I send to clients when I send them their practices is if if you feel like you can't do this on a particular day, don't do it. That is the practice. You've you said that I don't have the capacity. You have recognized that too much has happened, you've taken a step back. That is the practice. No just saying that I can't do this today. I love that.

SPEAKER_01 45:07

Oh, I love that. Because I have a very specific morning routine, and it's and part of it is doing the deep breathing and doing the meditating. But I did say to my husband the other day, I was so busy, and I said, There's certain days where I just allow myself not to do it because I can't get into the right frame of mind because I know that I've got so much coming up. He goes, Well, yeah, wouldn't that be counterproductive? I said, Yeah, in a way for me, if I know I can't rest and I'm in a race to do something else, it actually feels worse. So I allow myself to skip it that day, make sure I wake up 15 minutes earlier the next day and really prioritize it the next day. And that works for me because I have to be realistic about my schedule. And I I'm not giving myself a pass multiple times a week, but if it's just not happening, I don't force it.

SPEAKER_02 45:54

Yeah. Look, because when it becomes something that you've got to check off a to-do list, it it's not worth doing anymore. You know, yeah, exactly. It's it when I send practices to people, I will tell them this document is for you to sort of refer to when you need it. But my hope is that the practices that really work for you will find you. You will find them within you know the notes that I've sent you, and then you never need to look at this again, you know. And then when your needs have changed or evolved, we review those practices, we make little changes, dial something up, dial something down, add something new, and and go from there. But it's really not about saying, okay, now I'm gonna do this, now I'm gonna do that, now I'm gonna do this.

SPEAKER_01 46:36

No, but you're right, it's checking things off a list if it's like that. So what you're talking about, you know, is realistic because it's not black and white. So everything in life changes all the time. So you have to be able to, again, it's tapping in and listening to itself. So I like that you're giving a realistic method there instead of it must be done every single day at this time. That's too, you know, like those 75 hard and all those bullshit things. They don't they don't work for me. And they don't, in my opinion, they don't work for women because we're not working off a 24-hour cycle, we're working off a 28-day cycle. So to me, each day can look really different, and that's okay. It's still, I'm still practicing self-care. It doesn't mean that every single day has to be a 15-minute meditation, it's fine. Whatever works in that day.

SPEAKER_02 47:20

And and look, meditation can be just sitting with your eyes closed, listening to a piece of music. Yes, you know, meditation can just be sitting in silence, listening to the birds or the rustling on the leaves.

SPEAKER_01 47:34

It doesn't have to be guided meditation and I had a rough sleep last night, and I just felt this morning like I don't want to hear a voice at all. So I put 432 hertz music on, and I just laid on the floor with my feet up on the lounge, you know, for like lymphatic drainage, and I just laid there for like 15 minutes. Oh, I felt and I did deep breathing. I felt so good after that. So each day is different. I listened to myself.

SPEAKER_02 47:58

Absolutely. Meditation, like I said, we are different every single day. Yes, so our practice can't be the same every single day. Yeah, you know, and and and that's what you learn when you start listening to yourself is that today I am a person who has this much energy, this much battery in my back, and these are the things that I think I'm gonna achieve. And on another day when things are different, I've eaten different things, I've slept differently, I have a different bunch of things on my to-do list, I'm a different person. So practices like yoga, medit m movement, asana, meditation, breath work, they've all got to match who you are on that day. Not uh this inflexible, rigid list of things that I must get through every day. And again, yoga therapy, when when when someone receives a practice, one of the questions I ask is how much time do you think you have in your day to be able to do this? Sometimes I will send you a five-minute practice, and that's it. Because right now, that's what you have space for, and that is fine.

SPEAKER_01 49:07

That's it, and you know what often happens is they realize that that five minutes feels so good, you get addicted to it, and then you might lengthen it over time because you're like, that's what happens. When I first, yeah, when I first started meditating and breathwork, it felt like a chore and it felt like punishment, and then oh, even like yoga, I do like 15-minute yoga things just on YouTube, and then my body became addicted to how I felt after it, that I would just make sure I made time for it, so yeah, it's a real gift to yourself.

SPEAKER_02 49:36

And I think you've said it so beautifully, it is not the practice that's important, it's what that practice makes space for in your whole life. That is what it's about. Is you do a 15-minute movement practice, your body feels good for the rest of the day. It's not about the 15-minute practice, it's about how good you felt the whole day. Yes, you know, you breathe to you know bring your anxiety down. It is not about the breathing that you did, it's about the fact that you felt a little more calm.

SPEAKER_01 50:10

You know, that is so clever that you said that. It's like it seems off topic, but it's not. With manifestation, they're like, are you trying to manifest you know that amount of money or the feeling that that amount of money will bring, like the security? So there's a real good hack in manifestation, is don't focus on the money, focus on that feeling, and then you're on that same energetic wavelength. So it's what you're trying to achieve, what's the desired outcome? And that's with the meditation, it's not about that or yoga or the practice, it's about what you get from it.

SPEAKER_02 50:43

It and and all of it is really about finding the rhythm of your life, you know?

SPEAKER_01 50:49

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 50:50

What what what makes my life travel in sync? And what are the things I need to do so that it stays in that rhythm? When we do a yoga class, when you do a yoga class, someone is guiding that class, you go attend a class someone is teaching. With yoga therapy, the practices you arrive at that you send to someone are collaborative. Like I will work with you and we will explore things, see how they work for you because they've got to fit into your life. You're going to take them away and do them. You know, you're going to make them a part of your everyday. So, so it is co-created. That practice is actually co-created. And then, like you said, when you start doing them, you start to notice little benefits at first. You enjoy those benefits, you do a little more of them. That's where agency and autonomy comes in. I like this breath practice. I was, you know, the notes say do it for five minutes, but I think today I'm going to do it for 10 minutes. And you start to build that into your life, and you you realize that, hmm, maybe you don't have to sit down and do this over here. I can do it while I'm stirring the pot making dinner. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Or I can do it when I'm sitting at my desk and I'm between tasks, and this is a lovely little circuit breaker for me.

SPEAKER_01 52:08

Or at a traffic. Yeah. Yeah. But I like that yoga therapy sounds very tailored to the individual. So it sounds like that's a good place to start and then maintain it through like yoga classes or something.

SPEAKER_02 52:20

Yeah. And with yoga therapy, it's you you do one session, go away, try the practice, then we work on the practice, make sure it works for you. And then follow-ups happen as and when you need. It can be a month later, two months later, three months later. Whereas like a yoga class you go a little more regularly, or or yoga practice you do more regularly. Yoga therapy is a practice for you. Yeah. It is for you. It may or may not have movement in it. So yoga therapy practices don't necessarily have movement, and I work with people who have a lot of chronic health conditions and and find moving their bodies quite hard. Sometimes we're only working with breath, you know. Sometimes we're working with rest. You know, rest and breath are a big part of my work, especially with like chronic health conditions. Any movement that we do is really gentle, just getting a little bit of energy moving through the body, but really small movement. Yeah, if you if you look at some of the pictures of the old yogis, they sat still for hours and hours and hours. So the movement practices that they did was to make it possible for them to sit for hours and hours and hours.

SPEAKER_01 53:30

That's what I hear. Yes. And that's why very often I might start my morning just by doing some movement just to get some energy out. Oh no, I can't sit still. That's really interesting. You know what I like what you said earlier too is about like so say you're having a bad day, you've had like a sleep, and you're only running at 20%, and you give something 20%, you're actually giving 100% because that if you're like 20%, if you're at 20%, is your 100% capacity for the day. So I like that um it's just grace with yourself, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 54:00

Yeah, yeah, because there's some days you're gonna be running at 120. Yeah. There are those days as well. I haven't for a while, but yes.

SPEAKER_01 54:10

All right. Well, it's you've given such great wisdom there. And I think it's really nice how you've articulated the difference between yoga and yoga therapy. And I think a lot of people just didn't realize that it could be just breath work or stillness rather than movement. It sounds like you're very good at filling up your cup anyway, but what's something you'll be doing in the next week to fill up your cup?

SPEAKER_02 54:29

I will definitely be prioritizing a little more rest because um I'm coming out of being slightly under the weather. And and the more I work with people, the more I realized realize how important it is to actually practice what I preach. Like, you know, we were talking about it earlier. Is is my work has sort of really gravitated more towards practices of rest and restfulness. Just just following more of it for myself is going to be really important.

SPEAKER_01 55:01

Not just in the next, but yeah. Yeah, ongoing. No, I'm the same, and I'm coming out of sickness too. I'm sure you can hear the nasal voice. Thank you so much. You enjoy that rest, and I look forward to our next yoga class together. But yeah, again, thank you just for coming on here today and just sharing so much wisdom with everyone. My friend, I haven't interviewed a friend in so long. This is so lovely. Thank you, Raki. Thank you. So much fun. Thank you. Thank you. And everyone, please listen to Raki's words and do something in the next week to fill up your cup, but also check out the show notes because I'll have links if you want to work with um Raki or learn more about her. So check that out. Thank you again for being here today. I hope that this episode brought some value to you. I look forward to your company in the next episode, and please connect with me on socials to keep this love fest going. Feel free to DM me with any questions at all. And if you enjoyed this episode, please consider sharing it with a loved one or in your Insta stories. And if you're feeling super generous, a review on other podcasts would be greatly appreciated. I'll catch you in the next episode.