From Yoga Mat To Therapy Room: Embodiment, Burnout, And Belonging with Megan Campbell

What if a devoted practice is quietly pulling you away from your body instead of deeper into it. In this episode, we sit down with Megan Campbell, yoga teacher, trainer, retreat leader, and psychotherapist, to explore what embodiment really asks of us beyond perfect poses or polished language.

Megan shares how grief surfaced unexpectedly through practice, the allure and limitations of modern wellness culture, and the steady courage it took to move from the studio into the therapy room. Together, we examine the ways embodiment can become performative, and how returning to sensation, cycles, and nervous system awareness creates a safer path back to self.

This conversation offers a compassionate look at healing that values both story and somatics, honors fluctuation rather than fixing, and reminds us that sometimes the most therapeutic move is to slow down and feel more, not do more.

In this episode: 

• 0:00 – Setting The Embodiment Intent
• 7:08 – Teaching Early And Finding Voice
• 10:02 – Women’s Bodies, Ritual, And Safety
• 17:06 – Seasons, Cycles, And Chakras
• 20:28 – Naming Burnout And Aging Out
• 27:32 – Pedestals, Patriarchy, And Credit
• 34:27 – Fixing The Body Or Feeling It
• 39:42 – Seeing Nervous Systems In Motion
• 45:42 – Windows Of Tolerance In Practice

You can read the transcript here

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Transcript

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Setting The Embodiment Intent

Ailey Jolie 0:49

Welcome to In This Body, a podcast where we dive deep into the power of embodiment. I'm your host, Ailey Jolie, a psychotherapist deeply passionate about living life free from the wisdom within your very own body. The podcast In This Body is a love letter to embodiment, a podcast dedicated to asking important questions like how does connecting to your body change your life? How does connecting to your body enhance your capacity to love more deeply and live more authentically? And how can collective embodiment alter the course of our wall? Join me for consciously curated conversations with leading experts. Each episode is intended to support you in reconnecting to your very own body. This podcast will be available for free wherever you get your podcast, making it easy for you to stay connected to In This Body, the podcast with me, Ailey Jolie. Welcome back to How to Be in This Body. I'm your host, Ailey Jolie, and today I'm joined by Megan Campbell. Megan has spent over two decades leading women into their bodies, first as a yoga and mindfulness teacher, yoga training school founder, international retreat leader, and now as a psychotherapist. Her journey reflects both the power and the limits of yoga as a path of healing. Through her years of teaching, Megan witnessed the profound ways women come alive in community and in ritual. But she also encountered the shadow sides of yoga, the ways it can bypass grief, idealize bodies, or silence complexity. That recognition led her to retrain as a psychotherapist where she now blends embodied practice with psychological depth. As you'll hear in this episode, I have a personal relationship with Megan. When I was in my early 20s, I completed one of Megan's teacher trainings and often attended her classes. It was in that teacher training that I had my first embodied experience of connecting to my body. And when I think of my journey of coming home to my body, it's hard to imagine that journey beginning without the powerful transformation that I experienced both in Megan's teacher training, but also in her classes. In this episode today, we'll explore Megan's story of leadership. You'll hear a little bit about my experiences in Megan's work. We'll talk about the shadow side of yoga, the feminine ritual, and what it means to evolve as a guide for women. Megan, it's an honor to have you here on the podcast, and welcome back to In This Body, the Podcast with me, Ailey Jolie.

Megan Campbell 3:27

I think my biggest challenge of embodiment and being in my body has been accepting it. And all the ways it's shifted or it's changing or it's aging. Or yeah, like a like a an acceptance with this presence, like a loving kindness presence is so important to me and has been, I think, my work of being in my body and being embodied.

Ailey Jolie 3:56

I would love to know how you first came to the practice of yoga and what the first early years of your practice gave to you.

Megan Campbell 4:05

It's definitely an assumption, but in 20 years, I think it's a valid one. But why many of us come to yoga for healing? My mom had been doing yoga for so many years and I was like, do it, do it. And I was very resistant because um it was trendy. It was just starting its like trendy climb. And I was like, I don't do trendy things. I was too cool at that time. I was about 24, 23, 24, and I had um my first like oh, just deep love loss, and I was heartbroken. And I went to yoga um down the road from where I was living, and I took the class. I remember nothing from the class except for Shavasana because it changed my life. Um, so I laid down at the end, and I remember having this like profound embodied moment and realizing that I had put so much of myself into this romantic relationship. I had lost myself in essence. And for some reason, that pose, like that moment, I felt like I came back home. It was such an awakening. But it helped me in that moment in that I I got up from class, I left, I went back to my home and I signed up for my your first yoga teacher training after my very first yoga class. I was like, I need to know everything. I need to know more. I need to understand. And whatever that was, I want more embodied and live experience of that. So that was my first like actual yoga embodiment experience. And then I dove it like with full throttle, which I tend to do. And so I was only practicing about a year before I started teaching. I graduated like nine, 10 months later from my teacher's training program. And I also remember this really cool moment doing my first practicum. And I was sitting there and I went to go teach. And, you know, I'm sure many people that are yoga teachers will get it. It's like your first practicum is like the scariest thing in the whole world, potentially. Uh, and I sat down and I had this moment, and it was like, I always say it's like a down mode. I don't, I don't really know, but I just heard this or sensed this, like, don't worry, you've done this before. And all of the nervousness just went away. And I've been teaching ever since without any sense of difference from that moment. Like it just full confidence, and it does feel like an inherent part of my nature. That's kind of what it's been. My practice has evolved very, very much over the years. Uh, where now it's mostly meditative. I am called to the stillness more than the movement of the past.

Ailey Jolie 7:06

And I met you in more of the movement piece. That is definitely where I was. And I actually did your teacher training as the second of the three that I did. Because very similarly, I have very impulsive parts, and it was the first place that I settled and felt safe. And I would love to hear from you because you have guided so many humans, but also

Teaching Early And Finding Voice

Ailey Jolie 7:29

so many women. What you have learned about women's bodies and psyches from being in the room and guiding that physical movement practice for so long.

Megan Campbell 7:39

You know, I think of this as being somewhat of like a channel for my teachers. I gravitated quite quickly to, I've three women teachers. I've never gravitated towards a man in this container. And those three women were very much about our process as women and very much about it not being a practice of leaving your body, but like the transcendence, the all of these things were not, you know, the original teachings were not for householders. So, like, how do we bring that component in? How do we bring the feminine practice? It's different than for men. And how do we do that? And so, like Sean Korn and Shiva Ray and Sarah Avan Stover, and like all of the these three really great teachers helped me experience for myself, again, going deeper, like how it was to come home to myself and in my own body and give less of that away energetically. And so they were also really in their own powerful way. There was no separation between body and mind. There was no separation between the psyche and the mind. So it's always felt like an integrated part. And if anything, my hope and my goal was always in the space and container of women was to like, okay, let's move from head down into the body now. And creating more safety to around that and like what that looks like. Because I think that we can use the practice and like this is a big conversation now that we we're all having, but we can use these kind of practices to leave our body and do those types of things. And I think another piece of that is how unique it is for each woman in the room, which is a really interesting thing to navigate to hold space. Like in the teacher trainings, for example, that you were doing, I was really intentional. So they were small group trainings. It was with the kind of old school mentality of like, you know, guru or teacher to student. So they were small groups really intentionally. So I could do my best to support women's unique journey. But in that uniqueness and over the very many trainings and retreats and all those things that I've done, I've also realized that we have a lot of similarities and this common threat. And I still see it to this day, you know, of like trying to push past our limits, these great huge senses of responsibility that we all carry, uh, deep longing for like connection and community.

Women’s Bodies, Ritual, And Safety

Megan Campbell 10:23

Our ability to like be challenged, but needed to like really be witnessed and seen. And it's so special to like know that these are, it seems anyway, for me, that these are threads that like we all hold and can bring us together.

Ailey Jolie 10:39

Because that was one thing that I firsthand experienced was my yoga practice was definitely one to leave my body. Like, I can't even pretend that it was anything else. I was going to yoga way too much to say it was anything else. And it's just a fact. And I remember I had such a hard, uncomfortable time in your training, and it like primed me to then go spend time with Ana Forest. Because I had this moment finally where I went in my body during wanted practice, and I was like, this is the worst thing ever. I absolutely hate this. And it was just so deeply uncomfortable. So I would love to hear from you how you structure things differently to actually create that environment where you can subtly, very slowly lead someone back into a place that, at least in my case, I was absolutely trying to move away from. And yet you were just like, I'm just gonna like just gently hide hold your hand and guide you down this place that you think that you're not going, as I'm actively trying to run away from it. So I'd love to hear from you just a little bit how you've been able to do that. What like teachings really helped you to do that? Because it isn't awesome. Now looking back, that it was all very, very intentionally and very, very skillfully curated. A couple of um things come to mind.

Megan Campbell 12:00

So I think the common thread that I definitely used it in many instances to leave my body. And actually, you know, it's funny that you say that and we talk about it too, because I had this really profound and um I'll share. So the way that I left my body was smoking cigarettes. So I smoked while I taught, I guess it was a major contention point of shame for me for a long time. I I haven't in eight years. Um, but I say that because like I still had, I eventually learned my own self to use my practice and it was safe enough to get into my body, but with accessing that, then I had my addictive part that could come in and help me if when it was too much or felt big or was scary or whatever. So I had something to lean on. And I think that what I would do differently now, going back, you know, 20 or so years, 10 years, and is to have more compassion and depth and of understanding that I do now of how hard it can be for so many of us to go into our bodies and how unsafe for so many reasons it can be. One of the, I think the teachings that I've really leaned on uh and that made me from myself through my own lived experience feel supported to go and and nurture and explore uh was really around like seasons and cycles and um more of like understanding, which was one of the main intentions of yoga and some of these like very first texts, right? Of uh of yoga was like, we are the microcosm of the macrocosm, relating to myself a little bit more. Like, okay, I'm not the clouds, you know, like this is just a moment or a feeling, and getting access to like, okay, in winter time, I'm gonna want to feel like hibernating and I'm gonna want, I feel like nesting and doing these things, and nothing's wrong with me, and like a very functional depression for a long time. And like, okay, that's okay to lean into a little bit in the winter, a bit more. Like, I might feel it less in the summer, and just trying to do that for my own feeling and body and honoring the seasons and the cycles and the rhythms. And then that ended up being kind of what I used again as like a blueprint for my offerings and why I really went in the direction of women. The chakras were another really good one that held a lot of space for me and helped me feel safe going into my body to explore because I love the idea of energy more than like something's wrong or scary. And there it was like, I want another. I my brain likes like blueprints, patterns, rituals, routines. So anything that had to do with that were was really, really helpful. And I started my career on uh with women with the chakras. That was where I was started with workshops and all of that. Felt really helpful to have those teachings to bring in uh and share with women. And I think for me anyway, and and I and I would sense that from other women, maybe like in, you know, in like more therapeutic speak, where like like something was like validating about them or normalizing and these sciences and like you know, Chinese medicine, all this stuff has been around so much longer, and like we're just catching up like you know, on the medical system, and now we're we're learning so much that's just validating all of this knowledge. And so we talk nervous system, and I think chakras was like the original nervous system talk 20 years ago, of where we had a lot of this language, and so it gave us like, oh yeah, okay, I've had that trauma or I've had that experience or whatever, and okay, my heart chakra, I'm gonna work on that. And also, again, just to give it back and hold some of it with really powerful teachers that did the same for me, you know, and created the safety to go in and finally touch things that were deeply uncomfortable and being ignored and smoked away with cigarettes.

Ailey Jolie 16:14

When the moment came in your career after spending time with thousands of women and thousands of bodies and humans, that you decided to shift into the realm of psychotherapy and what that kind of transition period was like for you, and what it has been like for you. And what do you feel like you have taken with you and has been really helpful? And what do you feel like you've maybe had to leave behind? Because the even though there is a lot in the realm of yoga therapy and eastern psychology, the intersection of yoga and actual the individual one-on-one psychotherapeutic practice is kind of rare. And isn't it's hard to find dialogue on people who've actually you're the first person I know who've spent like most of your career life teaching yoga, who then has decided, you know what, I'm gonna put the therapy hat on. It's like I would love to know what that was like for you and why.

Megan Campbell 17:06

Well, I'm just gonna say it. I think it's one of the shadow sides of yoga, or at least, I mean, I'm not sure culturally where other people are, but where we are. Um there is a pressure of age uh and aging out.

Seasons, Cycles, And Chakras

Megan Campbell 17:27

Um it's never, I mean, I started when I was 25, right? Now I'm 45. So I it never really like hit me like you can age out. Um and also these huge monumental shifts and transitions uh away from traditional yoga and traditional teachings. And you know, monoliths coming in to really just like hold the space of I want our culture of like I want everything and I want it now, and these big monoliths gyms coming in and being like, okay. Um, and so a lot of adapting, myself included. Um my teaching is so different than 20 years ago, but a lot of adapting and doing as much adapting as I'm willing to do um in this career, but but honestly having a moment of I'm gonna age out, like this is just gonna happen. And we are in a culture that ironically in this world, uh, wisdom in this tradition was the the holder, the placeholder. And at least culturally on this side, that's not how we we aren't paying reverence to that um and honoring that instead of aging out. Um and so I had I had known for quite a while, I was also really burnt out. I want to speak to that. I also burned out. Um and I realized that I didn't have the same passion that I had had for a long time and that it was time to shift. Um, so I've known this probably for 10 years, that there was something needed to come after. Uh, and also it just was not sustainable. Like when I started teaching here in Ottawa, like I was different. I was new, I was young. I mean, I had, but now there's so many of us, and that's not a bad thing, but there's so many studios and there's so many teachers, and there and there's so many of us offering or using the same language because it's important. The hustle of it just like dis I was disinterested anymore. I wanted none of it, and I didn't want competition. It didn't feel like, ugh, you know, that's not what I'm doing. And so yeah, so back to what I was saying. It just it there was a big part of me that knew like not what's next, but like, and what? What are we adding on to this? And I shifted first to Chinese medicine, and that is a whole other story. But this has been remarkable, this transition, because one of my greatest years in life was going to university. I never had an idea of myself that I was smart enough for that type of education. And I moved to Nova Scotia right before the pandemic. And and was like, I blew up my career. I was like, I'm out of here. I'm never teaching yoga again. I hate this so much. I just want no part of it. And kind

Naming Burnout And Aging Out

Megan Campbell 20:49

of just ran away. And I really wanted to reinvent myself. That's why. And I knew I like had to leave. And then the pandemic happened, trap. So I was like, okay, what am I going to do? Uh, and I took a psychology class at Laurentian. And I was like, okay, I'm in. This is great. And I love a challenge, if anything. Uh, and so I I did it all in five years. Um, so I'm a new psychotherapist. Like it's been two years of practice, you know. But what I really appreciate is it's felt like a very natural and easy transition to move into this world and this realm of there's I I didn't know what I would take with me from one to the next. But I feel like, as we know, like the therapeutic relationship being such a huge, if not the most important piece, that I've spent 20 years practicing that already in these small containers that I created, um, unknowingly of holding space, supporting growth and evolution and healing and resolution, you know, and trying to help people feel seen and safe. So that's felt really nice to have as a foundation. And I really lean on it in a in a big way.

Ailey Jolie 22:17

There are two things that you stood out to me that I wanted to circle back. Well, one was is first the shadow side that you named of aging. And I feel like this piece like doesn't get spoken about or named in any significant way. And I noticed that even in my career, there's a little voice already going off that's like, Ailey, what are you gonna do when you age out? And you're not the young, well-educated therapist that they want to put in this position to talk because also you're young and fun to look at. And I know that that's a part of what's going on in my mind. And so I'm aware in these wellness areas that this shadow is there. And I would love to speak to you a little bit about what that process of just contending with the shadow was like, because I don't feel like this dialogue is in any way that I found like accessible or available, or people just spoke, speak openly about it, that it's very, very real in the whatever version of wellness you found yourself in.

Megan Campbell 23:17

I wanna, I I wanna yeah, validate what you said and it too, because it's so true. And and you know, it's really interesting because I'm having, but I I don't have the same experience, obviously, as you and where you are in your career and what you're doing. But I have been like this deep like softening of my system and my body being a therapist because I'm like, I can do this till the day I die. But also people being like, you have lived experience, like my age is helping me. Oh, like I think for women, there's something about finding whatever pocket or community or role or something that because I've noticed it coming from that world where it felt like pressure to this world where it feels like privilege, you know, of having age. And with that being wisdom. So, yes, like I I hear you, but I also feel like my experience has been so different of coming into it.

Ailey Jolie 24:24

Yeah, yeah. Definitely. And I know um I don't really experience it so much in the therapy realm anymore, but more in the wellness realm. Like when I'm speaking about embodiment or research, it's totally there. Well, I definitely know as a young therapist, I would have a lot of like, how old are you? Or you look so young. And I'd be like, I started working when I was a child. Like I had no childhood. That's why I am a therapist.

Megan Campbell 24:47

Like, don't worry about that. I've lived a life. Yes. Oh my gosh, the reverse. Yeah, in this world. I've heard that from colleagues too. You know something else I'd speak to as well that I've found, though, as a parallel between the two worlds. Both of my careers have an extraordinary amount of women in them. And it is much smaller population of men who are psychotherapists and yoga teachers. And yet, in both, I've noticed a again, uh pedestaling, privileging of these men. And it first struck me really hard in yoga when I graduated and I started teaching. And I was like, wait, like that should be my class. I have experience and I have dedicated time and I have studentship and I have numbers and I have all these things. And how did this man who's been teaching for a month get that? Like, I don't, I didn't understand. It was so confusing. And then having just gone through five years of psychology, academia, and not coming out with the single name of a woman who has made a mark on this was like mind blowing to me. How like these both these worlds are really carried by women, like literally carried by them. There would not be so little access without us to these um healing modalities, you know, and I bring that in because it's only been since like doing my own work again and being like, no, no, no, I want to know more about like the women, like Janina Fisher. And like, you know, I went to this great workshop with Jen Winhall, the Felt Sense Polybagel Theory. And she started, it was like, I can't even describe, she just started with slides of women that she's learned from. And I was like, this is my career. Thank you for acknowledging that like we hold so much embodied wisdom and healing, and it needs to be acknowledged and felt as well. And the world has a hard time, which I now am like, I'm intrigued by it in some respect, to be honest, of like how this continues.

Ailey Jolie 27:17

Absolutely. It was in that commodification of a healing practice. It's always kind of within that container of consumerism or capitalism or patriarchy. Until we've done that, and as as we like collective, regardless of gender, until we've done that work to undo or at least acknowledge where we've internalized misogyny, we will continue to pedestal men, which is actually it's uh funny that you brought it up because that's I had two sneaky intentions when I created the podcast, and I'll just share one of them. But one of them was this exact reason. I looked around and I, you know, adore Gabor Mate, and I speak very highly of him, and

Pedestals, Patriarchy, And Credit

Ailey Jolie 27:53

I was very blessed to know him before he became Gabor. And I've learned a lot from Peter Levine and Bessel. And where is Judith Herman? Where is Depp Dina? Where is Ariel Schwartz? Where is Marion Woodman? Where are all these women that actually, when we go back, have held the stewardesship for somatics and embodiment in the ways that we understand it now, as they've brought it forward. And it just, you know, you could look at the MBMA studies. They're originally designed for survivors of sexual abuse, mostly women. And the results were so good that they they got invested in funding to be for PTSD combat that's mostly men. It's a very different population. And so it's this continued thing that keeps happening. And I'd love to hear from you how you have kind of worked with that inside yourself. Yeah, I mean, it's something I continue to work inside myself of like, how do I unwind all this stuff so I can actually create a space for women and be of service?

Megan Campbell 28:57

Again, coming in from this 20-year career, I myself as a therapist feel so supported by myself, like by me in my container, where sometimes I wonder how not having that would be or what that would be like for people. But I think a good example would be like my own burnout, right? Of like really naming it and recognizing it for what it was. And having for so long, I held it passion, and it was, um, until it wasn't. I just named this actually in a year of a class a couple of weeks ago because I teach so differently now. But I I named it to them of I spent a lot of my first years teaching, especially I think in like the height of my um career and and you know, filling classes and teachings and being in that place in which I really wanted to go and grow into presence was a performance. Like, you know, part of me is still like, I can't wait to be done and go first. Like, you know, and I bring this up because like I will name it. Like I say to people all the time, like you might do that at handstand and you can still be an asshole. Like it, the embodiment practice is only one piece of that. And we are in a culture that's taking away everything else. And so what I love about moving into the psychotherapy world and having this one-on-one and creating these containers is being like, hey, you know, the somatic piece, a lot of it was introduced by women, has been cultivated and developed by women, and knowing that, and I also have that and experienced it for myself, that bringing it into that space and explaining it of like this is actually healing, is going in, right? Not fixing the body, but feeling the body is like huge. We've been taught to think or culturally pushed or shadow of the world, like the idea is let's just keep fixing. And just for me, honoring and for them validating that like we live in this energy, but a lot of time of like the patriarchy and like all of its unlike trying to unwind that and reminding them that this space, and now in yoga idea, both spaces and always kind of have in yoga, like this space isn't about doing more, you know, like we're not at it. And that can be really challenging because that's my energy too, and that is my work to do of like overworking and the hustle and like feeling that and really leaning into resisting it in psychotherapy. And like, so I think it's been so beneficial to have these practices in presence and actually be removed enough that it's no longer a performance and that it helps me really be able to be those state containers to like we're not adding more here. You don't need another breathwork practice. I just told a client not too long ago we stop meditating, and it was like mind blowing.

Ailey Jolie 32:22

What do you think leads for that? Like practice of extraction, because that's what I call it. Like, we need to extract things. Why do you think there is so little conversation around it? I mean, there's the obvious places that mine go, my mind goes to capitalism and consumerism and how that like continues on. But I would love to hear from you maybe what you've noticed, because I'm sure you've taught yoga classes where the person is just making everything harder for themselves. I may or may not have been that student at one time. And it's like, oh, okay, what are you doing over there?

Megan Campbell 32:58

How you view that and perceive the why behind that. Gang, I think in the last like two and a half years, my lens of watching bodies in a room is drastically shifted. And I have been able, as now a therapist, I think to drop any type of like idea, concept, judgment that I may have had before. And things we'll say, you know, in classrooms now is like, you know, I want you like the agency over your body or things that like I wouldn't maybe say. Uh I've always tried to really teach in a trauma-informed way, if not trauma-trained. But I, from this work as therapist, can see a nervous system. And it's really changed how I view the room, but also how I attune to my classrooms and how I teach them. And how, like I'll say, you know, in that that means you can do what you want with respect for me, for your neighbor, with respect. Because I'm very intentional as part of, you know, and many of my students know that. So I don't have the same you I remember. Oh, of course, this is so and I tell it because I've told it many times before. But I remember being a really young teacher first couple of years of my class, and this one woman, oh core woman. I wish I knew who she was. I would apologize. She did a was doing a forward fold and she was tapping her fingers on the floor beside her feet. And I was like, ugh. And I went over and like lightly put my feet on her hands. Like, just scamp on her, don't do that. And really thinking I was being helpful. Would I ever do that now? Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh, no, you know, because I I see the body so differently in the learnings

Fixing The Body Or Feeling It

Megan Campbell 34:48

of like somatic experiencing and all of the, you know, polyvagal theory and all of these things and neurosciences that I gravitate towards. But I think I have much more empathy for those people in person. And I would love to also have them as a client. I think it's what I end up kind of feeling for myself. Like, imagine the work we could do.

Ailey Jolie 35:13

How do you feel like the lenses of a yoga teacher versus a psychotherapist are different? Because I know I've definitely had clients who have conflated the two or have spoken about their yoga teacher in a projected way that they assume that their yoga teacher knows everything that their therapist knows or should view them the same. And because I, at quite a young age, trained in both, like the intersection was like very, very close. My lenses, I think, are actually the same ones. But it does, I'm imagining your glasses are quite different.

Megan Campbell 35:45

Yeah, and you know, it's it's interesting too because I think that there's a couple of ways to answer that. One, I think that for many years, most first parts not being a psychotherapist, my spiritual bypassing was actually not like maybe what would have been assumed to be bypassing. And it was never my intention. However, I would use a lot of like the scriptures or the chakras or things like that to help people try to make sense of their experience or like understand it, like I said earlier, or have some sense of validation for it or whatever. But because in those spaces we can't really name, like thankfully, you know, the word trauma is now in the world in a really big way. So those are things that we could potentially bring in now, but we're not when I we didn't have this language 20 years ago. And so I think in order to try to create a language, that's what I was using and was the kind of traditional teachings. And at that time felt really aligned to me because they made sense for me, like I said earlier. But we were never naming what was actually in the room. I mean, I think I could more and more in the smaller spaces, and that's where the bypassing came in for me, not again intentionally, but recognizing that in these rooms of, you know, 10, 8, 10, 12 women, we know there's gonna be sexual assault. We know there's potential for rape, like all of these things because the averages are so high when you have, you know, one in 12 or something, right? And again, I could name it a bit more, but that's when the teachings would come in. So I didn't really have to lean in. And so the psychotherapy world has allowed me to lean into these stories with people and to really have a very different respect level, empathy level. Yeah, just it's so different to be with the story and not the body in the story, if that makes sense.

Ailey Jolie 37:56

I would love for you to pull that apart a little bit more because I I totally agree. Yes, I have a lot of training in cinematics, and I deeply honor it. And I think it'd be very hard for me to not based off my history with dance and movement and how having a practice of dance um saved me. Like, definitely, I think psychologically saved me when I was experiencing so much sexual abuse. And I can be quite a cognitive therapist. Like, I like a good story. I think it's very important. And so I'd love to hear from you just what you said there, that difference of like being with the story versus being with the body, and how you can be with the body in the story and how they all three are quite different and differently important at different times.

Megan Campbell 38:40

Absolutely. And, you know, there was part of me that was just thinking the other day, like, I wish I could create spaces where I could have all my clients come and do embodiment work because wow, I would love to see how bodies move, knowing their stories. But all of that, you know, to say is we know that women don't get to share this. Like, this is the power of sitting and having conversation. I I used to teach suits, like gossip was a good thing. Like that's how women found out about domestic violence in the communities was by, you know, gossip. Now it's like again turned into this bad thing that we do or whatever, right? I always want to make room and make space for the story. And we never had time or space in the other containers that I was creating. It wasn't necessarily even appropriate all the time to bring that in. Especially because, I mean, I think this is another potential shadow piece, but I very much created a space of like, that's not in the scope of my practice. I am not a therapist. I can recommend one. And so I really wanted it, it was really tricky, and I wasn't always sure how or if I did it well, or if it worked

Seeing Nervous Systems In Motion

Megan Campbell 40:03

even. But it's so nice for me now to have the capacity that it is in my scope to hear the story and create space and pull that. And it's also so wildly interesting how many people, and I'm not sure if you experience this too, but the people who are called to work with me want embodiment. And so when they come, and then we try to go there, and like some are doing your like it's still not accessible, right? Um, and so that's where I think more and more the story can create a safety to access and can be that protective layer. That we're just kind of softening around because you can do yoga, like I said earlier, and still have the story not told. So there's no resolution, right? Because that piece isn't being activated. And if anything, as we've talked about, might be being suppressed by doing the practice. So both, like you said, can be super, and having both at the same time can be super powerful in the resolution.

Ailey Jolie 41:12

And you'll let me know if you agree or don't agree. But I often say in my practice, like we go, I go through the narrative or the story long enough so that I know the edges of your window of tolerance in the story. So when I invite you into into your body in the story, I'm not taking you somewhere that will re-traumatize you and you're not feeling like you're gonna relive it. And that's like that funny little edge because I often, maybe we've had a similar experience. People come for embodiment work and actually it's like they just need a space to tell their story. And that's it's this interesting little bind. And then the people that have no interest in embodiment at work at all, they like know their story. They've told themselves their story a thousand times in their mind. They've never been to a yoga class and they actually are ready for embodiment work. So this is interesting. Like the thing that we often say we need is we we are not in awareness of it, or it's the thing we unconsciously prefer.

Megan Campbell 42:07

Yeah. Absolutely a hundred percent agree. And I think another layer of that is, you know, the shoulding. Like this is now the language that we have, and this is now the understanding. And not to forget that, like, including yoga students, like everyone in the world has so much access to information that it's almost like, okay, well, I should do yoga, or I should do the embodiment practice, or I should see the somatic psychotherapist, or I should write like, and it's not even about needs anymore. Right. It's like, or I should be doing Pilates now, uh, yoga. Yeah. So not really even having the space to know what you want or need.

Ailey Jolie 42:47

I would love to hear from you before we leave for today. What threads do you feel like have remained throughout your entire career and in the offerings you have today?

Megan Campbell 42:57

And while I definitely have parts like all of us that were hidden, I have been authentically myself in all the spaces as um, you know, ethically or as vulnerably as I can be in those spaces while having to hold space. I've always felt this lingering background, like I don't belong in spaces because I can be so different in the way that I do work, therapy now included. So I really think that from the beginning, I have had an intention of belonging for people and myself included and creating communities that held me as much as I was able to help hold them. And I think of clients in the same way. I mean, there is not a single day or person that I sit with that I would not think I have learned as much as they have, or I have grown as much as they have. Um and I've always had that in yoga spaces, like really believing I can only take people as far as I've been and go have gone. So a commitment to doing my own work to motivate and I think inspire hopefully others to walk in that path in their own way.

Ailey Jolie 44:23

Is there anything today that we didn't touch on that you would like to touch on, or something that you would like to leave the listener with?

Megan Campbell 44:31

I think I would love just to leave with this concept of I bring this into the yoga spaces, and I feel like it's applicable for the somatic therapy spaces as well. It's like you can't do any of this work right because you can't do any of it wrong. And in that is so much power of presence and tapping into being with and acceptance and love, and a lot of the essence of what I think the oldest yoga texts can give us, right? Was like transcendence, and we're not trying to transcend ourselves or our thoughts or anything like that, but rather as householders, we're transcending the things that keep us limited from ourselves, that keep us outside of ourselves, distracted, disconnected from ourselves.

Ailey Jolie 45:32

Thank you so much for your time and thank you for everything that you offer. It was so lovely to get to reconnect with you today. And do you have anything the listener could potentially join?

Megan Campbell 45:42

You know, with such pride, I say no. I love that. Nope, I am not hustling. My practice is full. I am just teaching public classes. It feels life is good.

Ailey Jolie 45:58

I love that. Again, thank you so much for your time today. Thank

Windows Of Tolerance In Practice

Ailey Jolie 46:03

you. Thank you. If you found value in this episode, it would mean so much to me for you to share the podcast with friends, a loved one, or on your social platform. If you have the time, please rate and review the podcast so that this podcast reaches a larger audience and can inspire more and more humans to connect to their bodies too. Thank you for being here and nurturing the relationship you have with your very own body.