Choose Your Hard with Ivy Watts

This week on Further Forward, Ashley sits down with mental health speaker and somatic coach Ivy Watts for an honest conversation about anxiety, perfectionism, nervous system healing, motherhood, generational patterns, and what it actually means to do “the work.”

Together, they explore:

•  the hidden cost of constantly pushing through 
•  how trauma and conditioning live in the body 
•  why healing isn’t about becoming perfect 
•  the difference between reacting and responding 
•  the pressure Black women often carry to stay strong 
•  how movement can help regulate the nervous system 
•  why avoiding discomfort creates its own kind of suffering 

Ivy shares her journey from struggling silently as a top-performing athlete to becoming a mental health speaker and creator of Squat & Reset, a somatic fitness experience designed to help people build capacity for stress without losing themselves in it. 

This conversation is a reminder that healing isn’t linear, self-care doesn’t have to be elaborate, and no one is coming to save us — but we can learn to hold ourselves differently through hard things.

Connect with Ivy: 

https://www.ivywattsspeaks.com/

https://www.squatandreset.com/

https://www.instagram.com/ivywattsspeaks/

About Ivy: 

Ivy Watts, Somatic Fitness Coach & Mental Health Speaker, looked like she had it all together, but behind the scenes, she was silently struggling with anxiety and crippling self-doubt. Through grief, single motherhood, and a series of major life transitions, Ivy lost herself until utilizing somatic practices to rebuild self-love, access deep joy, and live with authenticity and aliveness.

Now, as a Mental Health Speaker, Author and Somatic Coach, Ivy empowers others to prioritize self-care and rise into their best selves. Through her keynotes, workshops, somatic fitness classes and self-help book, You Are Worth Fighting For, she has impacted over 200,000 individuals, from students to corporate professionals, equipping them with the tools to manage stress, cultivate self-love, and thrive.

Ivy provides a unique approach to fitness - combining nervous system regulation and strength training to help people release stress that is keeping them stuck and step into joy, alignment and self-love. Her work centers unapologetic joy, and her approach is playful yet grounding, designed for those who are done pushing through and ready to live with more presence, clarity, and authenticity.

Further Forward: Honest Conversations on the Art of Becoming, is hosted by Ashley Mitchell. 

📩 Subscribe to Ashley’s newsletter, Mind & Motion: https://blackgirlmagicmama.substack.com/

 🎙️ Follow for new episodes + bts footage: https://www.instagram.com/furtherforwardpod?igsh=MWJuaDFiMjlzcjJ1dw%3D%3D&utm_source=qr 

 🌱 Support this work and share it with a friend who’s ready to move further forward.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Yay! Ivy Watts, welcome to the Further Forward Podcast.

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Uh thanks, Ashley, for having me.

SPEAKER_01 0:11

I'm so excited to be here. I'm so excited to have you. I'm just I'm open to the process with this one. So I'm excited for that just to see what comes up.

SPEAKER_00 0:19

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, when we were at the coffee shop, two hours went by just chatting. So it's like, oh my God, I'm still talking. We're still here.

SPEAKER_01 0:27

Um, that's the it's the best case scenario, honestly. It is. So I always start every podcast the same way. Who are you and how are you?

SPEAKER_00 0:39

I'm gonna start with the how am I. I am tired. I have a four-year-old who has been sick this past week, and so definitely have been exhausted. And, you know, with the when I get into the who am I, I've been making shifts in my business. And I think with shifts come some overthinking and some, you know, thoughts about where you're heading, but also groundedness and like the sureness. And so I think I'm just allowing myself to hold both. So I'm in a space right now where I'm like feeling good about where I'm going, but also nervous and you know, that the anxiety that comes up. So that's how I am today. And I'm all about like being real with where I'm at and being vulnerable about that. Um, but who am I? Um, I'm Ivy. I am uh from Massachusetts. As I said, I have a four-year-old daughter, so I'm a mom, I'm a single mom. Um, and I am a mental health speaker, so I've been speaking for the past seven years after my own struggle with my mental health as a top performing track athlete. And I speak to student athletes, coaches, corporate professionals. And then over the last year or so, I've been making this shift into somatic healing. So I'm also a somatic coach and just recently have pivoted to add in the fitness piece with the somatics. And so I've been teaching some somatic fitness classes to help people to regulate their nervous systems and transform how they respond to stress. So that's been a cool thing. So doing a lot of things, entrepreneur, single mom, um, and yeah, just navigating it all.

SPEAKER_01 2:14

Yeah, thank you for being so real about number one, how you are, because one of my reasons for wanting to start this podcast is because I wanted to kind of uh move away from the sheen of like, I'm fine, everything's fine, everything's great, you know, uh, like because it's not real. And I think that what I hear from you is that there are wonderful and exciting things, and you're growing and you're stepping into a new version of yourself. And also the demands of being a toddler mom and being a single mom are really real. And so it doesn't have to be, or it's not going to be, sunshine and rainbows every day, but it also doesn't mean that everything is circling the drain either. It's this navigation of the both and and and always kind of being in the middle of it. Absolutely. I'm like, this is that's where I play. That's where I live. I wanted to ask about I want to ask several questions about your work, but I wanted to start with if you will indulge in however much or however little you want to talk about publicly, but what were the kinds of things that you were experiencing that kind of led to like the breakdown into the breakthrough, if I could frame it that way? Or maybe you frame it differently, but what happened? Where were you in life? I'm totally stealing that line, Ashley. The breakdown is the breakdown work.

SPEAKER_00 3:51

I love that so much. I mean, yeah. Yeah. So I struggled with my mental health from when I was a young girl. And, you know, times are so different now where, you know, you can, you know, just see a bunch of mental health resources on social media. People are giving you like motivational quotes around mental wellness, and the stigma has definitely broken. But back when I was, you know, a young girl and growing up in a black family, like we just didn't talk about mental health. And so I didn't realize like the anxiety, the way it was showing up in my body, you know, stomach aches and trembling and headaches. I didn't realize that was my body communicating to me that I was struggling with the anxiety. And the signs were not there. I mean, I think my parents always knew that I was stressed, but they didn't know how much it was affecting my ability to get through the day and to take a test. And being a top-performing track athlete, it was just like another mask. Like you said, like you have this podcast so people can, you know, take away that mask and not always just say that they're fine. But that's exactly what I had. I just had this perfect mask, and that's what I wanted people to see, but really crumbled underneath the pressures, underneath the expectations of being this per top performing track athlete. And the anxiety led to self-hate and to lack of self-worth and self-doubt. And it was just this vicious cycle, and I tied my self-worth to an accomplishment. And when I didn't reach it, I just fell more into a depression and struggling with suicidal ideation. And it was just this loop that I didn't feel like could be broken because I didn't know that that was even a possibility. So that was really the breakdown when I was struggling so deeply. And the breakthrough came so thankful for this one friend who was vulnerable and shared about her own struggle. And that was the reason why the stigma for me started to break down because I saw her as perfect, and she admitted that she wasn't, and that she was getting help through therapy. And I was like, I can I can do that too. And that was the day that completely changed my life. And I found a therapist and really started to do some deep healing and learn tools for self-care and self-love that I wish I had learned when I was eight years old and started struggling with the anxiety and feeling like I didn't fit in, feeling like I wasn't enough. And um, that's just been the path that was like, I don't want to gatekeep this. I want to share it with other people. And that's that's what led to the breakthrough, really.

SPEAKER_01 6:19

Wow. You know, I always have those kind of moments where I look back and everything makes sense. Not that I would ever want myself to go through anything, but the reality is we're all gonna go through stuff, you know, and like no one's getting out, you know, just kind of skipping through life and and nothing ever goes wrong. And so if we are gonna have to go through struggle, if we are gonna have to go through periods of hardship, uh for me, the best I can do is kind of look back and take meaning from it and bring it forward in a way that feels more productive or more of service, like bringing people with you and helping other people. Because we're as unique as we are, we're not unique. We're never the only ones going through what we're going through, but it feels that way when you're in the thick of it. It feels again, coming back to starting this podcast, is like there are so many times where I felt like, why does every other woman have it together and I don't? Why am I the one that's, you know, like crying or whatever, I'm angry or whatever, and everybody else seems to be perfectly fine. And and it was like, oh no, no, they're just not talking about it, or they're maybe just not as comfortable being vulnerable or open or whatever, but it doesn't mean that they're not struggling.

SPEAKER_00 7:50

Yeah. I think that most people feel that way. And I know I definitely felt that way too, right? It's like nobody else is going through something, nobody else will understand. I'm gonna be a burden. Yes, I'm gonna be as weak. Yeah. So it's just easier to keep everything on the inside. And I think when we do that, well, when we do that, I don't think I know because I experienced this, it just makes your struggles get worse. And so it is so much of like creating the spaces like you're doing right now of allowing people to know that it is okay to be not okay, but that you don't have to stay there, right? And so I think so much of this work is like allowing people to feel seen in all of them. And like it's our conditioning, it's society, it's the stigma, it's our cultures, right? That tell us to just push everything down. And so that's why you think you are the only one. When I look back to my time in college, like I absolutely had teammates who were struggling, but they looked perfect because that's what they were conditioned to do, just like me. And so it takes time to find that voice. But, you know, so much of what I do is working with like as young as I possibly can, even my four-year-old, like to help them to find their voice earlier on in ways that you know, I wish I could have had. And so I think that's like such a beautiful shift that everyone's starting to do and being more vulnerable and open and letting people know like you are not alone and you can take steps to do something about the struggle you're in. Totally, totally.

SPEAKER_01 9:16

That it makes me think several things. I mean, one I'm thinking about immediately, both of us being black women, the idea of kind of two sides of one, there's a patriarchy in and of itself kind of influencing how we show emotion or not, what that looks like, you know, being afraid to be vulnerable or cry or admit that you don't have it all together. Then also being black and just like our ancestry as like globally, uh, and and not every black person, African person was enslaved, but it colors a lot of who we are. And there's also that idea that many of our ancestors were also not allowed to be vulnerable, also had to suck it up through through death and through any other kind of hardship or oppression or discrimination. Like they just had to suck it up and keep moving. And so then you have women like us who are like, okay, we're gonna, we're gonna do something different. Yeah, but it's really hard to pivot in this generational container of don't do that. Don't don't be too big, don't be too loud, don't be too vulnerable. And it's just it's a weird thing to navigate, especially as mothers.

SPEAKER_00 10:49

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So I think the thing with the with generational trauma is it lives, it lives in us, right? And it does dictate so much of like how we move through life. And I think, you know, the generational trauma does dictate so much, but also there's such beauty in it that we can go first and that we can change the narrative for all the future generations to come. And like so much of the somatic work is meeting your inner child and allowing the inner version of you to express themselves in the way that they couldn't in that moment. So our ancestors or even our parents, right, they they're living off of their own conditioning from their parents and their grandparents. And so it's passed on to us. And so we learn from what we're seeing and what we're told. And so in those moments when we wanted to express ourselves, cry, scream, shout, push back, you know, set a boundary, speak our truth, all those things, whether it's when you're a toddler, a child, an adult, like it's going back and meeting those times and allowing that version of you to say the words that you needed to say, to set the boundary, to allow yourself to kick and scream and roar, and to really just allow your nervous system to start to see like it is safe to be able to express yourself. And there's a lot of like unlearning and relearning that happens in that space. And then I think it gives your body more of that safety to continue to do that as you move forward because it is hard. It isn't easy, but I think there's a difference of just like saying, like, I'm going to do different than my ancestors, and actually like creating the safety in your body to know like you can do that. Um, and so that's that's the difference. But there's just so much beauty in knowing that it is possible. Like you can change the story and you can go first and heal for those past generations that couldn't, and then for all the generations that you get to see and won't even get to see, but will know that you made an impact because you made different choices. 100%.

SPEAKER_01 12:48

Yeah. I love that. I love that you called out that that is beautiful because sometimes it feels heavy to know that that it's a responsibility. It's a responsibility to be different and it comes with it comes with its own stuff, you know. Even in sometimes talking with my own mom and the friction of wanting to do things differently, but also not it's it's not about um demonizing the choices that she made, whether I agree with them or not. It's like you did what you needed to do and what you could do based on what you knew and what you had lived. So me saying that I want to do something different, it doesn't mean that what you did was bad or whatever. It's not even a it's almost not about you in a way, but there's a lot of friction in wanting to break cycles and to do things differently. So sometimes for me in my body, it has felt heavy and it has felt like yeah, like a like a real responsibility to be catching myself in moments with Zion, with Mark, even, with with also myself and and the narrative that's going on in my own head and and being really for real about interrupting these patterns and being like, nope, that's not the person you want to be. Go apologize, go like, you know what I'm saying? Like it's a big deal.

SPEAKER_00 14:25

It's a big deal. It is a big deal. I mean, I think that you just said something so beautiful about the grace that you're giving to your mom of like, you did the best that you could with the tools that you had, and like so are you. And the ability to apologize recognize, interrupt the pattern, and apologize is something that is not something that like ancestors would have done, right?

SPEAKER_02 14:45

So that girl was breaking.

SPEAKER_01 14:49

So true. Nobody was apologizing to your ass. Okay. Like it just was what it was. Can you tell me more about this the idea of going back to your inner child? Because immediately when you were talking, I thought, okay, so I could do this work and I could give little Ashley space to say what she wanted to say or be who she wanted to be. But then I might turn around and the real world still has its own cultural and social constraints. And so, like that in itself is also friction. Maybe the theme of this episode is like friction somehow, because I keep saying it. But so, how do I work through both honoring that person, that little girl, while also the world is what it is, and I still have to operate within these systems that are that are here.

SPEAKER_00 15:48

Yeah. The first piece that I want to say, kind of more on a higher level, then I'll go more granular, is that part of healing your nervous system, regulating your nervous system is increasing your capacity to be able to hold both. So both can be true. Like you're healing your inner child and the real world still exists, and there's still those pressures, and there's still those fears that you have. Um, and when you increase your capacity to hold both, you are allowing yourself to be held in the those challenges versus like spiraling and going out of control. And I think it's so much of what you said too, it's like noticing that you are spiraling. So with the somatic work, and when you're connecting with your inner child, it's in a safe space, right? So you you feel the safety of the space around you, whether it's in your home, feeling the feet, your feet on the ground and letting the earth hold you and connecting back with not necessarily always the story itself, but the sensation of what happened. So I think a lot of times we get caught up in the story, and that's where the overthinking brain comes in. And so, can you feel where it lives in the time that maybe someone crossed your boundaries or when you couldn't speak your truth? And so maybe that's your heart beating faster. Maybe there's a lot of tension and tightness in your shoulders, maybe you feel sadness behind your eyes. And it's allowing yourself to sit with that sensation and asking it how it wants to be seen, heard, loved, released. And so when you're connecting back with that memory of that younger child, maybe it's that it wants, it just needs a hug and you can actively give yourself a hug. Maybe it's that the inner child needed to say certain words and you say those words. Or there's been times that I've just like needed to roar at my parents. There's no words. It's just I need to yell, like I wanted to throw a tantrum as a child, and I was sent to my room and I needed to speak up and say something, but I didn't have the words. So I just need to roar. And it's it's just allowing that stress cycle, that trauma cycle to be completed. And so what that does is it lets it be released so that that scenario has less power over you. That that emotion, the sensation your body has less power over you. And you start to see that these sensations, these emotions are just part of you. They don't have to dictate how you move through life. And when you just allow yourself to sit with them and be with them again in a safe space, you allow them to start to shift and move. Instead of when we don't, they just get bigger and they turn into us reacting versus responding. And so what you say about the real world, the whole process that I just went through, one of the biggest pieces is coming into the space of grounding or openness or power, as I really like to come into is finding where that power lives after that release, after you've given yourself what you needed. And so for me, so much of my power when I'm feeling in the moments of in my head or starting to feel like I'm questioning my ability to do something and I can feel my body wanting to get really small, I let that happen. But then it's coming also back into your power. So for me, my power lives across my chest. So in those moments when you're out there in the real world and you're starting to feel your inner child come up and it's being triggered, can you allow yourself just to feel your feet on the ground and come back into your power? Because when you do the process in a safe space consistently, it allows it to be easier for you to tap back into your power. And when you're acting from a space of power, again, feeling into the sensation, it's going to allow you to respond in a more grounded way, respond in a way that allows you to speak up. It doesn't mean the fear won't be there, doesn't mean the expectations won't be there, but then you can learn to hold both. And you can say, I can feel the fear in my chest, but I can also feel the openness in my heart or whatever it is. And then you can hold both, and it just allows you to be able to respond better, to hold yourself better through it, um, and really to be able to come back to yourself versus always like grabbing for something else.

SPEAKER_01 19:52

Yeah. Yeah. That makes that makes so much sense. Thank you for kind of taking me through that journey of it. It kind of makes me think, you know, whenever I'm facilitating particularly a workshop, particularly in the corporate space, because corporate people, I love you so much, but you tend to be full of shit sometimes in terms of like I don't have time for this. I'm too busy. Well, like we're all busy. We're all doing a million things. We don't all have the same 24 hours in a day. And also nothing changes if nothing changes. Like you no one can do any of this for you. I don't care if we're talking about somatics, I don't care if we're talking about something as basic as exercise, food, sleep, fucking anything. No one's coming to save you. Your choices are you could start and you can let it be messy, shitty, whatever, and see where the journey goes. Or you could not do it and you already know how that story plays out over and over again.

SPEAKER_00 21:03

Yeah. Yeah. That's where I met. Seriously. I mean, both journeys are uncomfortable. It's like pick your heart.

SPEAKER_01 21:09

Yes, pick your heart. That's the name of the episode, everybody. Maybe it won't be. I don't know, but it sounds really good. Pick your hard.

SPEAKER_00 21:18

Yeah. Pick your hard. It's like if you if you choose to just ignore and suppress, like you've been taught, like you said, you already know where that's gonna go. You're just gonna be completely reactive. You're gonna be dreading the day, going through the motions, burnt out, disconnected from yourself, probably hate the relationships that you're in, attracting toxic partners, like all of that. And I've been in that space, you know, I've been in that space when I was struggling so deeply attracting toxic partner after toxic partner. And at some point you have to realize is this the uncomfortable that I want to be in? Is this the pain and the heartbreak that I want to be in? Or do I wanna do the uncomfortable, messy work of healing so that I can actually call in the life that I want? So I can actually be more present. More connected to myself, have more joy. And I think that's so much of this like unwiring and the rewiring of the conditioning is allowing yourself to see that you can be in your power, you can be in your joy, you can have more love for yourself, you can attract and healthier partners, but you have to do the work to get there. And I think a lot of people don't want to do that work because you do, you meet a lot of parts of you. And I have in my somatic work myself met a lot of parts of me that I didn't want to meet, that I hadn't met in years, that I had suppressed. But by meeting them and like letting them be fully felt through, there were so many breakthroughs. There was so many new neural pathways that were created. And it's really allowed me to attract in more of what I desire, the first healthy partner I've ever experienced, right? More of what I desire in my business for myself, more patience as a single mom, all of these things that I've wanted, but I was pushing away because I was pushing away the bad too. Like we can't expect the good and only like only want the good. Like we have to also feel the bad, you know. And I think I also try not to label it as good or bad because like sadness and anger, like those are just normal human emotions. And the sooner that you can accept that they're normal and you don't push them away, the easier the healing journey is gonna be. So yeah, if you want the good, you can't just pretend like that bad stuff, you know, never happened. You have to be able to meet it. Right.

SPEAKER_01 23:28

You like it's the sort of like trying to outrun it that everything starts to become inauthentic, maybe. Maybe that's maybe that's what I experience with folks. If I if I sit and try to think about uh, you know, certain relationships that I've been in, or even, you know, kind of looking at everyone else and being like, why does everyone else have it together and and I don't? And maybe what I was feeling was that I even though I didn't always have the best ways to sit in the hard, especially in the past, like I wasn't running from it. I just didn't have the the yeah, the healthiest tools to like sit in it. But I kind of knew that that was the only way to get on the other side of it.

unknown 24:21

Right.

SPEAKER_01 24:22

And what took me so long is just like not having the tools, but but sitting like sitting in it and being okay with it, and it's just it's kind of it's just so human. Like, why would we expect everything to be good? Yeah. Why would we expect it to be easy? Like why everything is like a pill, a shake, uh, an app, uh whatever. If it fucking worked, it would have worked already.

SPEAKER_00 24:51

I completely agree. And we like we're wired for like, you know, instant gratification. And, you know, it's the same thing. Like if you go to the gym and you don't lose 15 pounds in that one week, like you're you're just never gonna do it. No, you're quitting. It's it's it's like it's not gonna happen. And with your healing, it's not like when you have that like kind of like check mark, like that you can almost like you feel and you see the results, but you're not gonna reach this like destination because I've done so much healing. I've in such a better space than I was when I was, you know, struggling so deeply with depression, or you know, when I first became a single mom and like navigating all of that. And I'm in such a more grounded space, but yet I still struggle. And I think it is so important for us to remember that like as you heal, it doesn't mean that you will always be joyful, that life will always be simple and easeful, but that it means that you can just hold yourself better through it. You allow yourself to sit in those hard feelings, you allow them to move through you, and then you assess what you need and you give yourself what you need. And so it's like this constant meeting of where you're at. And I think when you learn the nervous system regulation tools, when you learn the mental wellness tools, it's again, it's not a checkbox, it's the constant implementing it into your life. And I love what you said about the corporate folks, because I work with corporate all the time, and that's like the biggest thing is I don't, I don't have time. How do how am I gonna take care of myself? Right. And, you know, I love to challenge that because you have so many moments in your day that you're mindless, whether it's when you're washing the dishes, driving to work, walking to your car at the end of the day, like you're mindless. You're on your phone, you're disconnected, and making them more mindful. Like even when you're doing the dishes, can you just feel the water running onto your hands or your hands in the gloves or your hand on the sponge? Like when you're brushing your teeth, can you say some affirmations to yourself in your head? Like, can you make them more mindful and powerful? And I talk about this so much in my talks because there's just so many ways to use what you already have. And we're like waiting for, you know, the the full day spa and the vacation. And it's just those are great. Don't get me wrong.

SPEAKER_01 27:03

So great.

SPEAKER_00 27:04

But it's not in the moment you have time. You do.

SPEAKER_01 27:07

You do, you totally do. And also there's I I like I say this to my husband all the time. I'm like, let's let's not also forget the idea that I mean, everything is a part of an ecosystem and and respect for everybody and what they do, but you're also giving so much of your life, your time, your energy, making someone else rich. At the end of the day, it's for most people, the biggest stretch of your life is making someone else money. So are you really gonna look me in the eye and tell me that you are gonna allow yourself to have nothing left for anything other than making someone else rich, making someone else look good? No, it's just it doesn't make sense to me. And I like, I just I I'm I I will call bullshit every time. I know it's not easy. It's so it's hard. I know we all want bigger chunks of time than you know. I know that you don't want to do a 15-minute workout. I know you don't. I know you would love to be in there for the full hour or whatever. But if 15 is all you have, then that's what you gotta do. Yeah. And things will start to shift, you know, like, or you'll shift things or whatever. But sometimes it's just it might be those five minutes. It might be just washing the dishes, and you're gonna have to be okay working with what you've got until it gets better.

SPEAKER_00 28:38

Absolutely. And I think those mindful moments, those, those little tiny breaks, they add up over time. And it might not feel like significant in that moment. But I always say, like, the more that you do anything, like your body starts to expect it. It's like your morning coffee or you're eating breakfast or you watch just a certain show before you go to bed, you're expecting that. Like this is my routine. So if you start to create those moments consistently, then your body's like, oh, washing the dishes, oh, walking to my car, gonna feel my feet on the ground today versus checking my phone. It becomes an expectation. And then self-care doesn't feel like this far-fetched idea. It's a part of you. It's something that you just do and it builds, just like alternatively, it builds into worse mental health challenges, it builds into more groundedness, aliveness, joy, power, self-trust, all of those things.

SPEAKER_01 29:30

Yes, yes, yes. Are you people listening? Just like, oh, you can do it. We can all do it. We can all do it. And we can talk about it because Ivy and I are both like living in and have lived just different versions of the same story. And we all kind of do in a way.

SPEAKER_02 29:51

We do.

SPEAKER_01 29:52

So we're not like talking at you. We're yelling because we love you and we know that you can do better. We can all be doing better. Um so can you tell me how this has shifted into adding fitness into the mix? Yeah. What like when did you realize that that would be a greater unlock? And then what's been happening since then? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:19

So, as I mentioned, I talk a lot about like the ability to hold both. So I'll I'll get there in a minute. But I think that as you said earlier, you know, everything that you do kind of leads you to a certain point. And I am a big believer. A student asked me this recently would you change anything in your story? And I said, no, because if I didn't experience the struggles I did as a track athlete, I wouldn't be a speaker if I didn't experience, you know, the my relationship ending and experiencing abuse and going through a become uh becoming a single mother, like I wouldn't, you know, be at this point to be able to have this new version of my story and be able to start going into somatics, which really was the biggest piece of my healing for me outside of therapy. And so once I found somatics, I got into somatic coaching and I liked it a lot. And I've been doing different somatic movements and doing like group containers and things like that. And that's been really fulfilling. But I was in my basement one day and I was thinking about this term called pendulation, which is a somatic tool, which is where you increase your capacity to hold both the activation and the regulation. And so you move into an activated state and then you allow your body to come down into that regulation. And so I was like, how cool would this be if it could be in fitness? Because when you're working out, your heart rate increases, you're breathing heavier. And it's very similar to when you're in a fight with your partner, when you're sending that tough email before you're about to give a presentation to your boss or whatever it is, like you're gonna be in that fight or flight. And so many of us are, most of us, all of us, are used to that fight or flight. But the issue is, as we've been talking about here, is we stay in that fight or flight. And so then it gets stored in your illness, your inflammation, your tight shoulders, your chronic back pain, all of that. And so I was like, okay, if we go into activation and then come down and allow it to release through somatic movement, which is a natural way to release that tension in your body, we're literally teaching your nervous system a new response. We're teaching it that I can hold the activation, I can hold the stress without losing myself. So when you're in that activation, you're really feeling your feet on the ground, you're feeling your hands on that dumbbell. And then you're coming into the somatic movement right after to help to release that activation that you just created. And so it's really helping to transform the way that you respond to stress in your daily life. Um, so I started doing it on my own and I was like, this is just so healing, and I'm loving the combination of the two. And I was like, what would it look like if I just, you know, hosted a class and did an event? And it just has been, you know, mind blowing how well received it's been and how many people have really ran at the idea over the last month and, you know, with the events selling out and things like that. So I'm just really grateful for people leaning in and doing something different. And it's just been, it's been beautiful to be in this space with women who are wanting to try a different way that they haven't before. And I think a lot of times in the fitness world, we hear, and this is what I heard too as an athlete, right? And this is why everything led me to this point is to push past the pain, right? Ignore your body's feelings, mind over matter. You just keep pushing, keep pushing, keep pushing. And whether you're an athlete or not, most of us have heard those messages. We live in a hustle, hustle culture. And so being able to allow them to create a different way to work out and move their bodies to really allow them to feel like I can do hard things without losing myself. And a lot of what I say in class is like you can modify versus overriding. Because when we allow ourselves to modify and listen to ourselves again, those sensations, right? Noticing not just that your heart rate is rising, but are you feeling any tightness anywhere? Are you feeling any discomfort? Are you feeling like you're really getting into an anxious mode? Can you allow yourself to listen to yourself here and take a step back? Because if you do that in this safe space in class, you'll start to listen to yourself out in daily life. And then you can step into your power and maybe take a step back, or maybe lead from a more authentic space. So yeah, that's been the compilation of it all. And yeah, it's really exciting to see, as someone said, this revolutionary way to work out.

SPEAKER_01 34:30

So yeah, that is that is really exciting and so different. Usually folks have to go to different places to get different things. Like this has been something that I've been very mindful of in what I've created as well. Because I mean, and you can't expect one space or one container to be able to hold everything. It's not that, right? Because I also believe in uh instructors and practitioners working within their scope of practice, and a lot of wellness people are like straight grifters and will just take the money. Right. Um but uh to be able to combine things that that aren't always seen together, I just think it's just incredibly smart for the client. And one, because it feels good, but two, because it also gets their brain into this space of like, these actually do go together. And um, so to have that I think is really, is really, really special and and needed. So that's really cool. Thanks. Yeah, I'm excited about it. Yeah, as you should be, as you should be. I want to ask, you know, how has you haven't been doing it terribly long, but how has it changed you?

SPEAKER_00 35:53

Yeah, uh I think it's been such a healing aspect for me as well. You know, there's as I mentioned, right, these these inner child parts of us are always going to come up. And so much of my need for perfectionism or, you know, my need to get it all right and the expectations from others comes from my college track days.

SPEAKER_02 36:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:14

And it's rooted in like deeper than that, but like a lot of it comes back into the college track days. And I think it's been so healing for that part of me that needed a different message, that needed to be seen, and that needed to be loved on and seen as more than just a track athlete and to know that it was okay to be imperfect and I could be myself and I I could speak up. And it's been so healing for that part of me. And I actually did a breath work session recently where, you know, I just invited in all the younger versions of me into that room with me as I'm teaching, and just to feel like the awe and the admiration of like, oh, we're doing that. Like all of the struggle was worth it for us to be able to do this now. Like, I would have never imagined I'd be in front of people, you know, shaking and making noises and releasing. And we get to do that. It's almost like this, I get to do this now. And all of these past versions of me get to feel the same pride that I get to feel for myself as well. And so I feel like we don't do that enough either. Like we don't celebrate ourselves enough because we think it's not near, you know, something that's shameful or you know, boastful or whatever. But it's just, it's such a powerful thing to do because when you're in your celebration, when you feel that pride, when you have that love for yourself, like life is gonna keep reflecting that back to you. And it it just really is like such a transformative way to move through life. So yeah, it's been really healing for those past versions of me. And I think just to have an idea and to act on it has been like really powerful for where I'm at right now. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:45

Amazing, amazing, amazing. What did you want to be when you were a little girl? Like, what did you originally see for yourself?

SPEAKER_00 37:53

Uh, well, I used to write songs in a notebook, so I thought I was gonna be a singer. No way. No, I was so bad, but it was like, you know, a pipe dream at like six years old. But yeah. Oh my gosh. But no, I honestly didn't really know what I wanted to do until like closer to um college. I thought I wanted to be in like the forensic psychology criminal justice space. Oh, interesting. Realized that was a quick no. Um, after one semester, I was like, get me out of here.

SPEAKER_02 38:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:21

Um, then interestingly enough, I dropped down to just like general psych. Um but because I was so dissociated from myself, it was like what I'm learning doesn't apply. Like I, you know, people other people struggle, but not me. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:34

Um, and then I went to grad school and I was really passionate about like working with the homeless community and creating um programs for them to help them to have new more nutritious foods and help to combat obesity. So I had like this entrepreneurs, entrepreneurship mindset starting to build. And then I didn't do any of those things. So um, yeah, I was just like, it's okay to change your mind. But yeah, I definitely did not think I would be doing anything like what I'm doing today. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 39:03

How did you then make the leap from programming for homeless folks into speaking?

SPEAKER_00 39:10

Yeah. So once I got help for myself and I wanted to change the narrative, um, I got into blogging and that was great, but it was like my mom and my close friends reading it, and I was like, this is great, but I like want to make more of an impact. And yeah, I never thought I'd be speaking ever. My mom like made me take a public speaking class in college, and I was like, I'll never need this. And she was, she was right that I did, I did need it. Um, but yeah, I just like reached out to some of my um athletic director contacts that I had and coaches' contacts, and just asked to like spend some time with their athletes and talk to them about my journey and give them some words of wisdom. And I was like, oh, this is actually kind of fun. I feel passionate about this. And it just continued to build and build from there. And yeah, now I'm eight years into it, so never look back.

SPEAKER_01 39:59

So cool. I love that. It was just meant to be.

SPEAKER_00 40:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:03

Oh my goodness. So in order to be where you are right now, because you're on the precipice of something completely different. Like, what are you having to let go of? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:22

I think I am constantly letting go of the need to like have it all figured out and being in more of like a trusting mode that everything works out exactly how it should. I think similar to when I started my speaking business and when I left my corporate career to start my speaking business full time, and people looked at me sideways, I just had a lot of trust. And I think I'm I'm leaning into that right now as well. And yeah, I think I think I have to let go of, yeah, just like the expectations that other people have. I think I've become like known as the speaker. And it's like, okay, well, are you still gonna speak? It's like, yes, this is something that I still want to do. However, like my priorities have just shifted and that's and that's okay. Um, you know, I have my daughter now and traveling for work is not as easy as it used to be. And so yeah, it's just I think letting go of like the need to have it all figured out right now and just like trusting that it'll all unfold and things change and grow and evolve, and all of that is okay.

SPEAKER_01 41:25

100%. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah. It's it's such a natural part of growth that I think is not talked about. There are parts that I've had to let go of but that I also loved. And you know, like, or people that I loved, and just like everything can't go forward with you, or everything won't everything won't serve the higher version of yourself, and and sometimes you're happy to let things go, or people go, or jobs go, and sometimes it's really hard to let the past be the past.

SPEAKER_02 42:11

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 42:11

Mm-hmm. So I I'm always curious of like how folks are navigating that. It's hard for me.

SPEAKER_00 42:17

Yeah. I think too, like we we like tie so much of our self-worth and identity to those pieces of us, whether it's a career or a relationship. And so when you let go, it's it's it's a breakup, right? And so, but it I think deeper than that it can hurt the ego, right? And so I think it's like, well, you know, now I'm a failure, I'm not good enough, or what's wrong with me, kind of thing. Like, why couldn't I just push past it and keep going? And you know, what I always like to separate is like you as the person versus what you do. And so no matter what you do or don't do, what you accomplish, what things you pivot from, what lessons you learn, what mistakes you make, like you are still worthy as a person. And so, as you said, like you're gonna keep growing and your worth continues to grow with you. And sometimes things have to change. And so I think it's about like coming back and holding yourself in that self-worth, holding yourself in in the discomfort of like, yeah, this is really painful that I had to make this change.

SPEAKER_01 43:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:13

But like, I I still want to love on myself because I still deserve that because I'm worthy of it. So it's like really separating what you do from the worth that you inherently have.

SPEAKER_01 43:23

Amen to that.

SPEAKER_00 43:25

Is there some quote or piece of advice that you live by that you would share with us? I think for me, it always comes back to, you know, the affirmation around like everything always works out for me and just giving myself love. So I say a lot of affirmations around like, I love myself, my work matters, I matter. And I think it's about like to the to the women, you know, uh, and all past versions of me, um, really giving yourself, and I know this is something we hear all the time, but really giving yourself grace and really having that patience with yourself. And, you know, one of the biggest things is when I say like loving yourself and holding yourself through, I think there's just such a simple tool of like just really wrapping yourself in a hug and like letting yourself feel that love. Because we, I think one of the biggest messages is like we often wait for someone else to fix us. And we're waiting for validation, we're waiting for things to the sign, we're waiting for things to click, for everything to come together. And like instead of always just waiting for something else, can you just give to yourself? And so, like giving yourself that hug, I know for some it might feel silly, but like your body actually doesn't know that you're hugging yourself. It just feels that containment, that comfort, that safety. And that's what your nervous system, your body needs when you're feeling really anxious, when you're feeling like you're not enough, when you're doubting yourself, when you're when you're in a mode of self-hate, like can you can you interrupt that and give yourself a hug? And like even really like going deep in it and like, you know, squeezing your arms and like just allowing it to be this like loving presence that you get to give yourself. Um, so yeah, permission to feel deeply, permission to love yourself deeply through those challenges and permission to know like you are not alone and that everything works out for you, even if it goes different than you planned, everything works out for you. And if you're struggling, you can meet that that sensation that's in you and you can get the help that you need for it. There are so many resources that are available and you're not alone. So that's what I consistently tell myself.

SPEAKER_01 45:33

Love it. Thank you. Thank you. Can you tell everybody as we wrap up here where they can find you, what you have coming up on the horizon? Like, do all of your plugs, everything, everything that matters to you that you want us to know.

SPEAKER_00 45:48

Yeah, absolutely. Um, so for the purely somatic side of everything and mental health and speaking, um, you can find me at ivywattspeaks.com or at ivywattspeaks on Instagram or Facebook. And so there I post all about my somatic work. And if you have an organization that is looking for a mental health speaker, always happy to come and chat. Or you have a um, you know, a child that is in school and you're they're looking for a speaker, always happy to connect. I do travel, but I live in Boston. So things that are local are wonderful. Um, I also have um different somatic coaching programs that I host. So I do a 30-day activation called Reclamation, where we really walk through how to really deeply feel those sensations in your body, how to let them be moved through, feel safe in feeling that anger, releasing some of your conditioning and stepping more into your power and joy. And so I do those. Um, and then if you're looking for the somatic fitness piece, um you can check me out at squat and reset on Instagram or squatandreset.com. And I have local classes in Massachusetts, in Dedham, and Boston. And then also I have some virtual classes as well. So if you'd like to check that out or see what it's all about, you can check out the Instagram and see some videos and things like that.

SPEAKER_02 47:02

Yay!

SPEAKER_01 47:03

Thank you so much for coming on this podcast, for sharing yourself, for sharing your work, for being such a I hope people watch this episode on YouTube because you're so bright and lovely. And I mean, I know that it will resonate when people hear your voice as well, but I hope that people just really take away your wonderful energy and and also take away the fact that they really will be okay and that there is some pathway forward. There is always light in the darkness. There always is. Amen. Amen. Thank you so much for joining us. People, make sure you follow Ivy. Go get yourself to a squat and reset class, and we'll see you next time. Awesome. Thank you, Ashley. Thank you, friends.