Movement + Stillness: How Yoga & Journaling Unlock Mental Clarity (with Leslie Pincock)

In this episode, we welcome yoga instructor and nutrition coach Leslie Pincock to explore how movement and stillness work together to unlock mental clarity and balance in our lives.

Leslie shares her journey from busy mom to certified yoga instructor and reveals the powerful practice she's developed that combines intentional movement, breathwork, stillness, and journaling. Discover how this approach helps shift your nervous system from fight-or-flight mode into rest and digest—lowering cortisol, raising feel-good hormones, and creating space for breakthrough insights.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Why movement and stillness aren't opposites—they're partners
• The science behind sympathetic vs. parasympathetic nervous system responses
• How to capture brilliant ideas before they disappear (hint: write them down!)
• Leslie's best practices for balance: time blocking, hard boundaries, and ritualistic transitions
• Why presence matters more than perfection
• What Gen Z is teaching us about intentional living
• How post-menopausal women need different movement practices
• The power of journaling after movement to unlock mental clarity

Leslie's advice? "Motion is lotion—never stop moving. But also, don't be afraid to sit still. You need both. Just not at the same time."

If you're feeling stuck in constant stress mode, overwhelmed by life's demands, or searching for more mental clarity, this episode will give you practical tools to find balance through movement and stillness.

Connect with us: Download our free Wheel of Life worksheet at [your website] Use code DX2 for discounts on our recommended products

Guest: Leslie Pincock - Yoga Instructor, Group Fitness Teacher & Nutrition Coach

Transcript

Welcome And Wheel Of Life

Debra 0:04

Welcome to the D Times 2 podcast, hosted by Sisters Denise and Deborah. We are all about finding balance in the various parts of life. Using the Wheel of Life as our guide, we explore how to keep each spoke rolling smoothly. We discuss health and wellness, education and spirituality, as well as mental and emotional growth. Join us for real conversations, practical tips, and a few laughs as we share stories, insights, and strategies to help you create a life that feels balanced, purposeful, and designed by you.

Windy Yard Work And Real Life

Debra 0:37

Good morning, Deborah. Good morning, Denise. Good to see you today. It's so great to see you. How have you been? I've been good. I've been neck deep in working in on taxes. Ew, gross. But necessary. Yes, they do pay for all of our stuff. So that's good. I have a story to tell. Please do. So we've had some pretty strong winds around here lately, like 40 miles an hour, 60 mile an hour, like windy craziness. And it's also spring, and so there's stuff that has to be done outside, whether it's raining, windy, snowing, or what's not. Have you had that at your house? Things that need to be done that are being ignored? Absolutely. So I I would ignore them too, but my husband, he grew up on a farm, and so he knows it doesn't matter what the weather is outside, stuff has to be done. So on Saturday, when we had wind gusts of 40, 50 miles an hour, he was out there cutting branches and cutting raspberries and picking up stuff out of the yard. And I just kept watching, I was watching from inside the house. And his hat kept getting blown off, and he had to keep waiting and closing his eyes while the dust from the field behind our house was blowing. So you were watching the show. I was, it was a pretty fun show. But I do applaud him for getting out there. I knew it had to be done, and I didn't want to do it because I didn't want to go out in the wind. So I'm glad that he is a man. That's why I was working on taxes because I could do that inside. There you go. Still needed to be done, but I chose my playground. She played with taxes, and I played watching my husband do the yard work. It was awesome. So sometimes stuff has to get done, and I'm glad that in a partnership that one of us is willing to do stuff. I'm willing to do other things, but not work outside in the wind. I'm a wuss, maybe. I am a wuss in that way as well. Wind is my least favorite weather. Not fun. It whoops my hair all around and gets my ponytail in my eyes. Okay, at least you have a ponytail. True. True. Your hair got cut pretty short. But it looks super cute. It's gonna be nice on your trip you're taking.

Meet Leslie Pincock

Debra 3:02

Okay, today we have a special guest. Welcome to the microphone, Leslie Pincock. Hello, good morning. It's so nice to see you.

SPEAKER_01 3:13

Nice to see you both.

Debra 3:16

We're so excited to have Leslie on our podcast today. She is one I've known her for, oh my gosh, maybe 15 years.

SPEAKER_01 3:24

15 years probably.

Debra 3:25

Yeah, she's awesome. And I've uh when we started doing our podcast, I was thinking about people that I wanted on, and she was one of the ones I thought for sure we had to have. So let's learn a little bit about Leslie before we get into hearing from her and what she's gonna share with us today. So Leslie is a yoga instructor, she's a group fitness teacher and a nutrition coach. She believes in the power of movement and nature to nurture the body and the soul. She goes right along with what we what we love. Whether she's leading a class or backpacking through the woods, Leslie stays fueled by her love for the outdoors and family, which includes her husband of 35 years. Woo-hoo! Four kids, four bonus kids, and three grandkids. Welcome, Leslie. Thank you again. That sounds like a very full and rich life that you lead.

SPEAKER_01 4:24

I think it probably is fuller and richer than I ever expected, but appreciating. I appreciate it, I suppose. It's a beautiful life. It can be great. Some days it's windy.

unknown 4:36

Oh.

Debra 4:37

And we suck it up and do it anyway.

SPEAKER_01 4:38

And we suck it up and do it anyway.

Debra 4:42

Oh, very, very good. So, what spoke of the wheel are we talking about today, Leslie?

Movement Plus Stillness As A Tool

SPEAKER_01 4:49

I think part of it is our physical being and our mental clarity. I think those are kind of two of the things and two of the principles that stood out that you two talk about often were movement and stillness. And for some reason, a thought came to me some months ago that movement and stillness are not necessarily opposites of each other, but that we could use them together to get us to a place where we wanted to be. And so that's kind of the idea that has been roaming around in my head for the last couple of months. And so this invitation came just about the right time for me to maybe bring some clarity myself to that idea.

Debra 5:36

So when you we talk about the spoke of the wheel, we're talking about the wheel of life. Yes. If you're a new listener here, go back to episode number four, where we talk all about the wheel of life. So, focus today is going to be on the mental, emotional, spiritual spoke, and then movement slash physical health spoke. And I wanted to ask you really specifically what prompted you to combine yoga, which is one of your things you teach, and journaling.

Why Yoga And Journaling Belong Together

Debra 6:13

Was there like a specific event or insight or something that triggered that?

SPEAKER_01 6:19

That is interesting. So this goes way, way back, and you guys like stories, so it's okay, I guess. But it when I was in my late 30s, I sort of was at that stage of life where I had a bunch of kids running around the house, and my body was not functioning the way that it used to. And fourth child had come and was now a toddler, and some of my other kids were getting a little bit bigger, and I had put on a little bit of weight, but I had also just sort of not been as intentional about my exercise routine as I had been in my younger years because I was just caught up in the busyness of life and motherhood, and I was a stay-at-home mom at the time, and that was a lot. And I started attending some yoga classes, and I had done yoga when I was a child back in the 1970s. She is a child of hippies. So I'll be honest about that. It was it was pretty kind of out there in the 70s. That was you know, the edge of the edge of I don't know what do you want to call it, the sort of new age thing that was coming around in the 70s.

Debra 7:36

I'm gonna say it's cool. We come from the 1900s too. It's fine. We're we're from the 1970s too. It's cool. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:45

So it's fine. So in my late 30s, I sort of came back to it and started practicing yoga. And I eventually was encouraged by one of my yoga instructors to go and start my certification. And that certification included a quite a long in-person retreat where we spent time doing a physical practice, but then stopping to write notes to ourselves and journaling to ourselves as we were learning to become instructors. And that was sort of an important part of that process. But then 20 years came and went, and I never really thought about that again until I started thinking about your ideas about movement and stillness and what a physical practice, exercise, walking, yoga. I know Denise walks nearly every morning, whether the wind is blowing or not.

Debra 8:43

True.

SPEAKER_01 8:44

Oh, I I'm with you, Deborah. I struggle with the wind.

Debra 8:48

So but that's also why I have a treadmill.

SPEAKER_01 8:52

There you go. Good for you. So I was toying with that idea. What does that physical practice lead us to? And the ancient yogis have been saying it for millennia that that physical practice of bringing the body into awareness and intentional movement, followed by very intentional stillness and quiet, brings us some mental clarity. They called it enlightenment. And whatever your personal belief system is, you might call that enlightenment. You might call it clarity, you might call it aha, you might call it light bulb, you might call it revelation, depending on what your personal belief system is. But I wanted to kind of experiment with that and see how that worked in other people's lives. So long story, that's what happened.

Debra 9:49

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The New Class And What It Unlocks

Debra 10:46

So your love of yoga and mindfulness kind of brought you to create a class, right? That's what we're talking about, is your your class that you just created. And we did a test class last week, and I was privileged to be a part of that, and it was it was awesome. Like I have done yoga before, but never that kind of yoga movement, and then you're still and you're breathing, and your mind is just open to what the universe wants to give you.

SPEAKER_01 11:21

It was really awesome. Good. I'm glad you had that experience. That's what I was hoping to find. And we were able to do a little bit of visiting in the small group that we had, and that seemed to be generally everybody's experience.

Debra 11:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:36

Was that it gave them that clarity and thoughts come and it was really it was really powerful.

unknown 11:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:45

Well, good. I'm glad you had that experience. That's what I was hoping for.

Debra 11:49

It was great.

Boundaries Time Blocks And Transitions

Debra 11:51

Can we go to another aspect of your life real quick? Of course. So we talk a lot about balance in our podcast. So how what are some of your best practices for balancing a husband and children and grandchildren and other family and work responsibilities? Like how do you find a yeah, what are your practices for doing that?

SPEAKER_01 12:19

I think I do have some best practices. I have some hard boundaries that I have to keep for myself personally.

SPEAKER_00 12:26

Did you always have hard boundaries? Oh, that's a good question.

Debra 12:32

I find that for a lot of people that's learned that they have to set them.

SPEAKER_01 12:36

Right. I think it's probably more learned. I think it's probably more learned. It is a lot of I made too many mistakes and didn't have that in the past. And I realized that that was detrimental to my health.

Debra 12:53

Same.

SPEAKER_01 12:55

Same. Good. I think as women, that's probably a lot of us.

Debra 12:59

I think that's part of adulting, right? Yeah. That new verb adulting. Like I we don't really talk about to our children, at least I didn't, how to kind of manage life and demands and make sure that important things get the attention they need. I we all learn that as we grow up.

SPEAKER_01 13:21

Yeah, I don't think it's too late to teach them that.

Debra 13:23

No.

SPEAKER_01 13:24

Because they're in the middle of adulting.

Debra 13:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:26

We're still learning it, right? Always. Yeah, I agreed. So I do have some best practices, I think, but part of it is, and this is not to throw a wrench in the idea of balance, because I know that is such an important part of what you two do and what you discuss. And I agree to some extent that it is a matter of balance. But when I think about balance, I think about the scale, right? And that both sides have to be equal. And for me, it's not like that because sometimes something has to take priority and it has to have the weight, which means the other side just kind of has to balance there for a moment on its own. So for me, it's a little bit like building something. Like my father was a carpenter, and so is my brother. So I sort of grew up with that mindset. And my dad used to take me to the job site with him all the time. And it's more like I never once saw my dad build a house where he used the saw and the wrench and the hammer and the screwdriver all at one time. He never did that. Nor did he twist the screw once, hit the nail once, then take the saw and make one cut and then continue on that way around in a circle.

Debra 14:44

I love this analogy you're giving because we absolutely do believe in balance, but we also can't multitask. You can only function or focus on one thing at a time.

SPEAKER_01 14:56

Right.

Debra 14:56

But the goal is that you're continually reassessing the different areas and focusing on the areas that take priority. Yeah. And then there are others that are in balance, they're good, they're humming along, they can take a back seat until it's their turn again.

SPEAKER_01 15:14

Yes, exactly. Thank you, Deborah. Yes.

Debra 15:18

That was great.

SPEAKER_01 15:19

So for me, it is a little bit like that. It's what takes priority. And I think that's one of the best practices. You just have to know what your priorities are. You have to know what is the most important. Where's your why? Where is your here and now? One of the other things that I have to make sure I do, and this is partly because I work from home, not my teaching practice, but I have another job and it is remote. And I have to make sure that there are time blocks set out for that. And when the time block is over and it's time to switch to something else, family time or personal time or whatever that is, there has to be a hard set as best I can time to shut that off. And part of that is making sure there's some sort of, I don't know that I know the right word for it, but ritualistic transition. For instance, when it's five o'clock in the evening, that's when I shut down work. I physically close my computer, I stash away my calendar and books and things that I use for work so that it's out of my sight line. That's part of a ritualistic transition that I make to this is now my personal time. And emails and texts will still come through. And you you flag them and you star them and you wait until the next day. That's good.

Debra 16:48

That's good that you that you can do that. I remember as a young mom, and maybe you did this too, there were times in the day that you did certain things, like you clean up before lunchtime, you clean up before dinner time, you do baths and teeth and jammies and stories before bed. Kind of the same kind of ritualistic thing. You're switching gears and doing something else. So it's kind of the same concept as an adult when you don't have kids in the house and you work from home or you do anything else like that, the ritualistic shifting.

SPEAKER_01 17:22

Time blocking. I I kind of think of it in my head is this is my morning block.

Debra 17:30

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SPEAKER_01 19:11

You talked recently about, I don't remember which episode or topic it was. It might have been the one about energy that you talked a lot about having a very set routine on your sleep. And I am I am dead set on that.

Debra 19:29

Yeah. Our our sleep episode where we talk about sleep choreography, that ritualistic behavioral pattern literally trains your brain, your neurology to shift.

SPEAKER_01 19:43

Yeah.

Debra 19:44

Yeah. So you're having the same thing with your work from home.

SPEAKER_01 19:46

Yeah. And so for me, the 6 a.m. is when I wake up, 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. block, I have a very set routine of what I do for myself with my spouse. And then I'm out the door and I have a morning block that includes my exercise, teaching other people's exercise, et cetera. Then I have the next block that is personal errands. It's throughout the rest of the day. And that allows me very hard set transitions. But then it also allows me to really be present in that block because from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m., I know what to expect. It's my personal time, it's my spiritual study time, it's my time with my spouse. But I don't have to be worried about what the next block is going to bring because I it's in the future and I know where it is.

Debra 20:40

So you keep using the phrasing of hard set and lines, but I'm I believe that brings you a sense of ease in your day because you know what is expected when, and you know everything has its time and place.

SPEAKER_01 21:01

I do, and obviously it's not so rigid that I feel like if I don't get to something right at its, you know, right at its block, that it's going to throw my entire entire day off. It's not like that, it's just more giving me the opportunity to stay relaxed and focused on what this time means to me so that I can be present in that moment and not be thinking about what's next on my to-do list, because that will come and I'll get to that set, I'll get to that place.

Debra 21:35

I love that. I love that you use that kind of a schedule to be present. I I think a presence is something that we kind of miss out on with our uh high tech world. So presence is huge. Be there with the person or be there in the place mentally, physically. You're there. You ever sat with somebody who's with you but Not with you, like their brain is somewhere else, and you're like looking at vacant eyeballs. That's not fun.

SPEAKER_01 22:08

It's not, and I think we do that to ourselves, even when we're by ourselves. So if I'm running my own errands or I'm doing my own workout or I'm working, so that means I'm sitting at the computer and answering emails or whatever the thing might be. If I'm constantly thinking about what's next on my to-do list, I'm not present in what it is I'm doing right now. And for me anyway, those sort of little boundaries give me the opportunity to set that to-do list aside so that I can focus on where I am right this moment. If I'm exercising, I'm exercising. I'm not thinking about the email. Yeah, that's perfect. I love that. No, it works sometimes, sometimes it fails. But life is life.

Debra 22:57

We're not we're not looking for 100%, we're looking for a good solid B plus. Yeah. Like B's are good in life. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:05

Direction over perfection, we often say.

Debra 23:09

But even with the very best set intentions, sometimes a wrench does just get thrown in the works and we have to adapt and respond.

SPEAKER_01 23:17

We do.

Debra 23:18

But you got the basic outline of how things should be going for the daily ideal.

SPEAKER_01 23:25

And then there's always Fridays where I do not schedule anything.

Debra 23:29

Beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 23:30

That's Friday is roll with the punches, go with the flow, dream, analyze it, right, whatever happens.

Debra 23:38

I was talking to someone who does that on Tuesdays, and I thought, Tuesday? A random Tuesday? Are you kidding me? That's spectacular.

SPEAKER_01 23:45

Yeah, that's crazy.

Debra 23:47

Friday makes more sense. Yeah. But do what you have to do or what you want to do. Design your life. That's really what we're all about is designing your life on purpose.

SPEAKER_01 23:58

And your day, your week, your month. Like intention, I think, is probably what drives me the most to be a little bit more best practices being standardized.

Debra 24:16

That I intention is kind of what the wheel of life is all about. Being intentional about your life. And that's how we find some sort of balance. Even when we have an emergencies or something that needs our attention, we still have the balance.

SPEAKER_01 24:31

Yeah.

Debra 24:31

Because we live with intention.

SPEAKER_01 24:34

Yeah. And I that I think that was something I was missing in my younger years. I was kind of running around a lot putting out fires rather than keeping everything smoldering. And then when you need it, you you come over here and you blow on it, right? You get that flame up while you need that one. Everything else maintains a nice little smolder. Instead of going around and trying to put out all these fires because everything was kept flaring up, and I wasn't being as intentional or focused as I should have been.

What Younger Generations Get Right

Debra 25:11

I'm gonna say something that may be controversial.

SPEAKER_01 25:15

I love it. Oh controversial is my middle name.

Debra 25:20

I I see Gen Z getting a bad rap for things they are doing in their lives and things they are unwilling to do because they're kind of breaking some of the molds that have been set over the course of time that kept some of this spinning, spinning all the time busy, never, you know, only focused on the most urgent emergency and not drawing those boundaries in life earlier. And I don't know if they're doing it because of observation and learning from their elders as to, I don't want to do that. I'd rather do it deliberately this way. But I think there is some, like some of it is silly, but but a lot of it I think is really cool because like there are college students, Gen Z college students, who are like drinking water and doing yoga and Pilates and getting enough sleep. And when I was in college, I drank water.

SPEAKER_01 26:32

You never drank water.

Debra 26:33

I didn't sleep on purpose, like it was it wasn't it wasn't a balanced kind of deliberate lifestyle. So I like some of what I see coming from the younger generation that some of the older generations give them a hard time for, but I think it's really wise.

SPEAKER_01 26:52

I can see that, and I can see that in my own children and their partners and spouses. So the majority of my kids are millennials. I have a little straggler Z. And then I have grandkids who are now alphas and whatever comes next after that. And the water cracks me up because they walk everywhere with a jug of water. And I think we Xers have now picked that up from them, and I appreciate it because I only drank water five times in my childhood and it was out of the hose. That was just our lives.

Debra 27:34

What did you drink?

SPEAKER_01 27:36

I don't know. Probably a lot of milk that came around. I just don't think we thought about it. If you needed a drink, you ran to the faucet and you lifted up the and it just wasn't a thing. We weren't intentional about any of those kinds of things.

SPEAKER_03 27:50

Very true.

SPEAKER_01 27:50

It was just run around like a chicken with your head half cut off and running through the streets barefoot, and it just was a different era. And they this generation coming up are much more intentional about things, much more intentional about what they buy, much more intentional about how they spend their time. Phones and screens notwithstanding, that has put a wrench in their mental health, I'm afraid. Yeah.

Debra 28:18

But I I've even seen some of that young, some of that younger generation, those young whippersnappers putting their phones in a different room when they go to sleep. Yes, yes, so that they're not constantly just there beside them. Like they put them to bed. They learned that from me.

SPEAKER_01 28:36

Trend setter.

Debra 28:38

So it it's good to watch them teach us how to live more intentionally.

SPEAKER_01 28:44

Yeah, I agree. I agree.

Debra 28:48

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SPEAKER_01 30:16

And there was something in the 1980s that I think I think it partially was because, especially with women, our mothers did not have as many choices to make as we did. There were there were a handful of careers available to my mother and grandmother. Other than that, they were intended to stay home and take care of the home. And there's nothing wrong with that. I did that for decades. And I'm glad I did. But growing up in high school in the 1980s, it was very much you will be a professional woman and a mother, and run a household, and be the CEO of a company, and and and there the 1980s very much sold us that you can have it all.

Debra 31:06

You can do it all.

SPEAKER_01 31:07

You can do it all. You just can't do it all at once.

Debra 31:14

That's that's true. And that like the kids coming up, the young adults coming up are realizing that and shifting that back to normal.

SPEAKER_01 31:23

Yes, which is back to more intentional, more balanced. The the you talk about your spokes on a wheel. If one or two of those is too long, your wheel is gonna go, I'm sorry for this on a podcast.

unknown 31:39

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 31:40

And you will not be rolling smoothly down the road. And so it's okay if some of those spokes need more attention on occasion, but you have to find that sort of rhythm in your life where you're on and off, but not all on at the same time.

SPEAKER_00 31:58

Yeah, it's impossible to be all on at the same time.

Debra 32:04

You you like you can't. You can't give everything a hundred percent all at the same time. Everything will get 10% or 15%.

SPEAKER_01 32:14

Yeah. And there's times when you might have to give something because maybe you have a crisis, maybe there is an emergency, maybe there's something in your personal life or family life that comes up that needs your attention, or something at work that's due right now and it needs your attention. So you give that your 95, 100%, but only for a time.

Debra 32:35

A time or a season. So um I want to just circle back around and bring us full circle with the yoga, stillness, mindfulness, movement, connection.

Capturing Insights With Simple Journaling

Debra 32:51

You did it in that way during your training, and then you've been experimenting with it more recently. Have you noticed any insights in yourself or in others through that practice or breakthroughs, insights or breakthroughs?

SPEAKER_01 33:10

I I do think so, yeah. So one of the things that I was trying to or hoping to find was that when we are intentional about that movement followed by stillness, that we would find some sort of mental clarity. And that is normal during a yoga practice. But here's the problem: I am 56 and I receive mental clarity throughout the day, but then I forget it.

Debra 33:44

You didn't write it down through your death.

SPEAKER_01 33:46

Write it down, and therefore, there was nothing ever more relatable ever said. Because I will be in the shower, or I will be just waking up or just falling asleep, and I will be like, that is the most brilliant thing I've ever thought in my entire life. Oh, I'm so glad for that clarity and breakthrough. And then five minutes later, I'm like, it's nothing, there's nothing there. I have nothing to give or say. And so that's where the journaling part I was hoping would give us the opportunity to remember the breakthroughs or the clarity or the aha or the light bulb that hit us at that moment. If you've got a time to sit and jot it down, that is wonderful. And so as we spoke with the small group who did this practice a couple of weeks ago, we found that. The first time we stopped our movement to take a little break and just write it down, some of the feedback I got was ideas were just running through my head, but I had a pen and paper, and so I jotted down all of those ideas. And that was our intent was just to jot down the ideas, not try to dissect them or make them anything that they weren't, but simply just just write them down. Then we went back to movement, then we went back to stillness, and maybe one of those things stood out at that point, and you could maybe start to develop that idea a little bit and move a little bit in that direction. I don't know what Denise's experience was because we didn't share too much of what we actually were thinking, but it was it was really uh it was really interesting to do that kind of a practice.

Debra 35:38

I've never done that before. To do some some gentle yoga. It turned out, it turned out a little my body actually really needed it. My hips were sore because we did some hip stretching things, and I thought, I don't think I've ever moved my hip like that before in my life. It was awesome. I'm gonna have to do that some more because I feel the difference in my body, anyways. So we did some gentle movements, and then we'd hold a position and breathe, and our minds could be still and just focus on nothing or our body or be open. And it was really eye-opening. Now, part of it, you said in the class that there was some science behind the movement and the breathing and then being still. Do you remember that?

Nervous System Science Behind Calm

Debra 36:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:29

Did you want to share a little bit about what that science is for so a lot of the time, and we talk about this all the time in our society, that fight or flight response, right? That we spend that time sort of in that elevated awareness, which is not a bad thing. It is part of what has kept Homo sapiens alive for millennia.

Debra 36:52

Running from tigers.

SPEAKER_01 36:53

Running from tigers, lions, bears, whatever, the other men, whatever the thing might be. Even motherhood gives us that need for heightened awareness and perception because you have to be vigilant when you have a baby or a toddler in your home. For sure. And that is not a bad thing. So that fight or flight response of the sympathetic nervous system keeps us safe, it keeps us aware, it makes sure that we're getting what needs done. Done. We're hunting, we're gathering, we're lighting the fire.

Debra 37:30

But there's a time and a place that shouldn't be always on high alert.

SPEAKER_01 37:33

Exactly. We cannot always be on high alert. And part of the problem is in our society, we have not learned, our bodies have not learned yet to distinguish real stressors, like I need to go find food, or there is a tiger chasing me, versus I'm stuck in traffic, or I just read the newspaper, or whatever other stressor might come your way. Our bodies don't distinguish those very well. And so we stay in that heightened awareness in that fight or flight response too often, too long, where our cortisol is raised and our adrenaline is too high.

Debra 38:18

I'm gonna say we actually have recently, it hasn't dropped yet, but we've done a whole podcast about the adrenal glands and that heightened stress response. Wonderful. And how to manage it.

SPEAKER_01 38:30

That is perfect. That is perfect. One of the ways we manage that is to systematically take time to move our body from that sympathetic nervous response into the parasympathetic nervous response, which is sometimes called rest and digest, sometimes called feed and breed. And a podcast, you can't see my wink, but it's there.

Debra 38:52

She's winking.

SPEAKER_01 38:54

So that is the time when we can pull back from that heightened sense of awareness and heightened sense of stress response and let the body digest and rest. And what that does is slows the heart rate, drops the cortisol, raises your good, feel-good hormones, your dopamine, your serotonin, brings those up and gives you that mental, that's part of what gives you the mental clarity. But it's also part of what lets your respiratory response slow down. Let your digestion start to work. Instead of if you're trying to save your body from eminent danger, the last thing your body wants to do is digest food. So it shuts all of those things down. And it just brings to the forefront what you have to get done right this moment. And this just allows, so part of the science behind that is eliciting that parasympathetic nervous response to give your body time to heal, to digest your mitochondria to wake up, power back up, power back up again. Yeah. And so that's part of it.

Debra 40:07

Never beat a dead horse. That saying has been around for a long time for a reason. People that are drinking energy drinks all day long just to stay functional, that's what they're doing. They are beating themselves up like they were a dead horse. We gotta stop doing that. The only energy drink that I recommend to my clients is update. It's clean energy without caffeine, so you don't have jitters and chaos and like the problems that caffeine causes in the body, and it also helps to give you focus and a clear mind. It's really the one I use and the one I recommend. To get a discount off of your order, go to drinkupdate.com and use the code DX2. That's D times2. That's us. So drinkupdate.com and then the code for your discount is DX2. So are you going to do more of those classes?

Training For Postmenopause And New Seasons

SPEAKER_01 41:03

I think so. I've been exploring different ideas in movement and yoga to just find what resonates with people, but especially, and this is too far of a detour, but you can handle that in post-edit. I am a post-menopausal woman.

Debra 41:28

Same.

SPEAKER_01 41:29

And that is a different stage of life than I have been offering exercise and yoga to this point.

Debra 41:40

Yes, and there's whole completely different needs. Completely different needs. Yeah, different. And so different bodies in different seasons need different things.

SPEAKER_01 41:49

And that that includes me. Yeah. That includes me. And the the person I was 20 years ago and the people that I was resonating with 20 years ago, wonderful. But now we are grandmothers and we are in our 50s and we are in our 60s and 70s. And just what we need and what resonates with this time and season of our lives is different. You don't need to be doing burpees and box jumps. You can if you choose to. I will do the occasional burpee, but I really have to be in the mood. But not a full class of it. Not a full class of burpees.

Debra 42:23

So I just want to say one of the things you said with the practice of the yoga and journaling, the movement and stillness was when the mind was opened up and allowed to just roam, and then you would write things down. You were just writing the ideas, you weren't delving into them and problem solving. It wasn't the time or place for that. It was just receiving the idea, taking note and moving on.

SPEAKER_01 42:52

A little bit. And I again I didn't look at what everybody, you know, wrote down in their personal journals, but that was sort of what the idea was. Is when you have that moment of quiet and stillness, there is a little bit of, oh goodness, this would be interesting or that would be interesting. But you don't have time right then to delve into that. But maybe you take a look at it a week later and see what take what might take priority right now. And the other ones can kind of sit on the to-do list for a little while longer. Yeah, I just simmer.

Debra 43:23

I love that. I love that whole concept. I think what you said, you come back to it a week later or maybe a month later. Your brain has been working on that thing the whole time without you doing anything. So to write it down and then maybe put it away and then revisit it, uh you will get more insights from it than delving into it right away.

SPEAKER_01 43:45

Yeah, I think so. Sometimes things need to simmer or percolate in the background just a little bit before they're ready. Like a good soup.

Debra 43:51

Yeah, like a good soup, yes. Your subconscious is always working on stuff, always. So that's I like that a lot.

Retreats As Regroup And Recommit

Debra 44:00

Deborah and I have talked about doing retreats. We have. We I think it would be so fun to incorporate what you've done with journaling and meditation and yoga into that kind of a retreat. In fact, every time we've talked about doing a retreat, she has talked about including you as part for that very the movement portion.

SPEAKER_01 44:24

Well, I already have the place picked out, so count me in.

Debra 44:27

Well, Leslie and I have been talking about retreats for years. Probably at least a decade. Yes. And so we I think things are coming together to put that together. Wonderful. Wonderful.

SPEAKER_01 44:39

I I think that that concept of retreat, I I just even love the word.

unknown 44:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:48

Sometimes you can think of a retreat as oh, oh no, we're being attacked and we have to back off, right?

Debra 44:54

Oh yeah, like an army retreat.

SPEAKER_01 44:56

Like an army retreat. But even then it's the retreat in that respect is things are right now a little bit out of my control. And I need to step back and regroup and decide what my best, next best offense is going to be. Don't think of it as run and hide. Think of it as a back, take a back step, step back, reassess, recommit, understand where you need to go from there, and then jump back into the battle. Because it's a battle on some days.

Debra 45:30

It sure is a battle. I like that.

SPEAKER_01 45:32

Thank you for serving it. Not a bad battle, just it's just as life.

SPEAKER_00 45:35

It's just life. Yeah. So do you have anything else you want to ask? Okay.

Two Pieces Of Advice And Goodbye

Debra 45:43

So we we like to end our episode when we have guests asking the guest to give some advice. Like if you had two things of advice to share with our listeners, what would you share?

SPEAKER_01 45:56

Can one of them be never ask Leslie for advice?

Debra 45:58

No. Oh, Leslie gives great advice.

SPEAKER_01 46:03

Oh goodness. Well, I have heard lots of people say this, and I think I've heard you two say it as well. Motion is lotion. So never stop moving. I think is one of my best advice.

Debra 46:18

Absolutely. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 46:20

Except when it's time to sit still. And then sit still. Don't be afraid to take both of those things. That's great. Stillness and movement. You need both. But not either constantly. Correct.

SPEAKER_01 46:40

I mean, I could sit still constantly, but I wouldn't feel too bad about it. But nothing would ever get tight.

SPEAKER_00 46:47

Getting up and we don't want to be creaky, so okay. Beautiful. Thank you, Leslie.

Debra 46:56

Thank you both for having me. Thoroughly enjoyed having you on our podcast today. We really appreciate you taking the time and sharing your wisdom and insights with us.

SPEAKER_01 47:04

It's been wonderful and fun to be here. Thank you both.

Debra 47:06

It's always a good conversation with Leslie. So if you have learned anything on this podcast or anything stood out to you, please make sure you like it, share it, post it, all those good things. You know there's someone who could benefit from it. So share it with them. But also remember that on our website, dtimes2podcast.com, we have all sorts of free resources for you, as well as discount codes for some of the things that we love. So be sure to take advantage of those resources we have available for you. And follow us on all the socials. We're on Instagram and Facebook and YouTube and Pinterest all and TikTok. So follow us on all of them and comment, leave a comment, ask us questions. We'd love to have your questions. Yeah, come play with come play with us there. That's what I'm trying to say. Come play with us there. We would love to interact with you. Okay, until next time. Keep your wheel rolling smooth. Bye. Thanks for listening to the D-Times 2 podcast with Denise and Deborah. We hope you enjoyed today's episode. Be sure to subscribe and share it with someone who's ready to roll toward a more balanced life. Your support means the world to us. And just a quick note we're sharing our own experiences and ideas, not professional advice. Always do your own research and talk to a qualified expert before making big decisions. Until next time, keep your wheel rolling strong.