Episode 2: The Body as the Starting Point

In this episode, we explore the body as the foundation of regulation and begin to shift the way we relate to physical sensations. Instead of viewing discomfort, tension, or fatigue as something “wrong,” we learn to see these signals as meaningful forms of communication.

Angie and Amanda discuss how the body is constantly offering insight into our nervous system, our environment, and our internal needs, and how learning to listen can create more safety, awareness, and balance in everyday life.

By reframing physical symptoms as messages rather than failures, we open the door to a more compassionate and supportive relationship with ourselves.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:15

Our mission at Living Simply Well is dedicated to cultivating sustainable well-being through integrative research-supported wellness. Always honoring the body's wisdom, supporting nervous system health and guiding individuals toward a life lived with intention, balance, and ease. Welcome back. I'm Angie. Welcome to the Living Simply Well podcast. I'd like to welcome my co-host, Amanda.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

Ah, thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

As we begin, let's bring our attention to the body. Finding stillness and connecting to breath. Perhaps closing down the eyes. Just taking a moment. Notice any areas of attention. Softness. Warmth or heaviness. There's nothing to fix. Just notice how you feel in your body. In my experience as a clinical nurse specialist, uh working with with clients and patients across the board, often what brings us in to seek medical attention is is physical symptoms in the body. And as a yoga teacher, the first layer of of our being is the physical body. And it we become aware of it most often when there is a problem. So true wellness then does not begin with mindset. It often begins with the body. And it places us on a path of seeking. Seeking an answer for something that is limiting our happiness, our contentment, our joy. Our ability to take care of ourselves and others. Our ability to rest well. Our ability to climb stairs and wash clothes and wipe counters. And when the physical body does not perform, it's often when we have intentional awareness to make change. Likewise, then, if the body doesn't feel safe, perhaps over chronic immobility or or pain, uh, no amount of positive thinking will override that message. And we call that muscle memory. As the nervous system says that part of the body hurts, we're gonna support that part of the body so that we don't fall, so that we don't hurt more. And we start to create this tension that is very difficult to break. The nervous system is constantly asking one primary question: Am I safe? So talking about the physical body and how it moves through life in different seasons of our life, and as we age, as we grow, uh, perhaps we think about our children's development. You know, at first they can't roll over, they can't hold their head, and then slowly over time they start to be able to sit and to reach and to walk and to run to climb. Um, children have this natural flexibility in their bodies that we over time lose sight of, and therefore we stop moving our bodies in that way. And I like to mention that because that is truly the way that we are designed. We are designed to move fluidly, we are designed to be aligned through our spine and our hips and our shoulders, and our feet are connected to ground, and we're long, we're flexible, we're soft, and we're strong. So yoga is where we start at living simply well, is finding that connection and reuniting to that belief that our body is whole, no matter where we're gripping, that we do have the capacity to change through intention the way that the body moves and the way that the mind and the body work together through coordination of breath.

SPEAKER_01 5:13

Yeah, I I would agree. I think um the whole how you had said that um the body comes before mindset. And I think um I feel we live in an area where we always go to the mind and we think we have to figure it out or figure outers, right? And um, but your body has given you warnings way before the mind even realized it. And we don't think of that. Um I think we have this ability as as humans to just push things aside, especially when they come to us, and then um by the time that they come to you, they've already developed, you know, so much pain where they now their body has worn them enough. Like it's time, it's time. I had heard somewhere that said the three most important things about your health is your heart, your lungs, and the third is your hips, because your mobility um is your freedom, the ability to do things on your own, the ability to um get from point A to point B without needing help of somebody. And most people will get to a point where they're struggling, and that's when they look for help. And so it's finding the time to pay attention to your body before it gets loud. Um that's that's kind of the idea of what Living Simply Well has been trying to get people to understand is you know, treat your body right while it's doing right for you.

SPEAKER_00 6:42

And on the other side of that, I I would say that for those people who are having a hard time getting out of the chair and a hard time putting on their shoes, no matter where you are in your lifespan, uh, this is a safe place.

SPEAKER_01 6:57

Yeah, I mean, there's no there's no timeline on when to start.

SPEAKER_00 7:00

Right.

SPEAKER_01 7:00

And I have seen just in the few short months of working here, but I've been here for the last, you know, almost full two years of this the start of this. I have seen so many people that have come through the door of all ages and just watched their growth. And um, the instructors are so good about catering to each individual. We our class sizes are not large, so it's it's so nice to um have all the tools that are available to us. I mean, I'm a 38-year-old woman and I still can't touch my toes, but that you know, like the the we have the ability to have like the um bands or straps to help and things like that, and it's like even my flexibility has become so much better. So um, but and then just the guidance from each instructor. I think they do such a good job making everybody feel comfortable here.

SPEAKER_00 7:48

We love that. Yeah, because that's really what it is all about is I I love that you touched on the mind, Amanda. Because the physical body is typically what is the impetus for change, but the mind is almost always the barrier.

SPEAKER_01 8:04

Oh yeah, your your mind and your ego, they want to control the show. Um, that's that's a whole nother podcast.

SPEAKER_00 8:14

We'll get there.

SPEAKER_01 8:15

Yeah, but um, yeah, the mind um the body is important, and that's hard, I think, for people to understand because their mind is what is controlling them. But you have to shift from mind to body because your body talks first, and then the mind goes like an alarm or something's going off in your body telling you, and then your mind starts to take control. And so um trying to calm the mind to get back into the body is so important, not easy to do, not at all. Um, but yeah, movement and things, um, it's just such a core thing to like start focusing on, and it's just little things to start, it doesn't have to be big, it's just yeah, getting back in, get back into your body. It it talks to you more than you can imagine, right?

SPEAKER_00 9:01

From a personal perspective, you know, I suffered a a pretty significant injury to my pelvis when I was 32, and I was a very active, uh, soon-to-be mother of five. And I was very healthy. I I had no medical problems. I was healthy, I was active, I was strong. And I had my babies, I put on my jeans, I went home, I took care of them, I worked as a surgical ICU nurse, um, moving people connected to equipment and um so my point of reference and really the vision of living simply well comes from the suffering that I endured in my body. And after my injury, and especially after the delivery of of my youngest son, I couldn't get in and out of bed. I couldn't pick that baby up, I couldn't um go up and down stairs, I couldn't carry a laundry basket. And so I was seeking. I'm like, this is not congruent with my life, right? And it really set me on a different path because no longer could I trail run, no one, no longer could I lift heavy weights like I was used to, no, no longer could I do the things that I was used to doing. I couldn't carry two kids on both hips. And so one of my obstetrician actually was a yoga teacher, and she said, Angie, I think you should really step onto the mat. And I and she said, We can work one-on-one, and I was so resistant. My mind was like, No, I'm not a dancer, I'm not a gymnast, I'm not flexible. That's way out there spiritually for me, and I was very, very rigid. And so I like to tell my story because then as you fast forward about a decade, um, where now I had now I'm dealing with obesity, and I like to talk very frankly about the the impact that my physical body, my weight gain, and in my mind, the failure to to fulfill my duty, to bring meaning to my life through my motherhood, through the profession of my nursing practice, everything came falling down around me. And with inside, that the mental chatter was failure, and there's no way out, and there's nothing you can do to change this. So, what is the meaning of your life? And that is very sobering, however, now as I reframe my experience through a new lens, I needed that darkness to be willing, and the willingness to step back on the mat because in my head at the time I couldn't still had trouble getting in and out of bed. I was on five prescription drugs to help calm my nerves, to help lift my mood, to put me to sleep. Um and they weren't working. And I had my obstetrician in the back of my mind. She said, Angie, why don't you just step onto the mat? And I said, What do I have to lose now? You know, what what do I have to lose at this point? And I was in utter desperation.

unknown 12:47

Right.

SPEAKER_00 12:47

And we all need to get to that point where we just say you have to get sick of your own stuff, right? And I'm like, you know what? I don't care now. I don't care how big I am, I don't care if I can touch my toes. I actually couldn't sit with my legs crossed on the ground. And I found a yoga teacher that spoke to my soul, and I just did it. I just went in day after day, time after time, with with this humility and this intention that I would learn and grow a breath at a time, an extension at a time, a flexion at a time. And I tell you, within a year, I had decided that I wanted to become a yoga teacher, not because I wanted to teach people, but because I wanted to learn more, because it was working. And it and so when you come into living simply well, this story has provided the groundwork for our philosophy here because yoga is good for every human being. Yes, we move the body, we breathe, and we feel my entire body was numb. I had no awareness of the soles of my feet, the pain in the pelvis, the pain in the back. I was completely numb. And little by little that awareness has started to bring in life, vitality, resilience, hope. And so for those of you who are listening, and you don't you can't imagine coming to the mat, we have all the tools that you need to try. And we have nine teachers here who are committed to helping you feel your body again and fill you up with the hope and the inspiration to fill that intention of progress and movement. And anyone who tells you that the that the mind and the body are not interconnected, I'll be the first one to tell you that they absolutely are. And the first thing that you have to overcome is yourself.

SPEAKER_01 15:10

Oh, yeah.

unknown 15:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:12

Um, I just want to go on and just thank you for sharing. Um, it's definitely not an easy thing to do, but I think it's very important for everybody to understand that um you're not alone. Like people go through so many things, and and as hard as it is, especially if you're in something right now, like you have to go right through it and in your darkest on the other side is light. There, there it's an opposite, it has to happen. So it's like go through the darkness. It's okay because light is coming, and just speak to yourself in that way. I had similar situations with how I how I came to yoga in the body and the movement. Um I was in a dark place and I started running. And I had a lot of issues with my body, um, and just mentally and where my life was uh mom of three, busy, um, and I just there was nothing for me. And so I started running. And then I got to the point mentally, I was told, you know, I've always I've always been a smaller person, and you know, that's easy, and you know, all those things or whatever. And I was told, um, well, you don't know what it's like, you've never, you've never had to work at it. And it's like, okay, so then I didn't think I deserved my body, right? And so, so when I would run, I would run to a point until it hurt because that means I was deserving of it, right? So we tell ourselves these stories based off of somebody's opinions or things that are going on in our life, and so I ended up like doing a ton of running and I ran a half marathon, and the the movement of running ended up turning into therapy because that's where I finally would allow my emotions, that's where I finally would uh my mind could think and all those things. Um, but it didn't fix me because I was in the energy in such a negative way. But the good thing that came out of that is my children were watching, and I just remember one day my son goes, Mom, why do you run so much? And I couldn't tell him, well, my world's crumbling and I'm super unhappy and all these things. And so I just looked at him and I said, Gran honey, I said, you only have one body, and if you treat it right, you will be surprised at where it will take you. And that moment, in this time with my child, he would go on runs with me. He was always watching if I'm working out. They they they pay attention to you so much. He is now a 13-year-old boy that is so into health and fitness and doing it for his body and asking questions. And it was like my darkest moments created such an amazing stability, like starting point for this child. And it's like, you know, he had no idea what I was really going through, but like just like what what we can show people by by showing up for ourselves finally. Um, and so I ran that half marathon, 13.1 miles, and I never ran again because it didn't fix me. So then it was like I realized I was because I was in such a negative, I needed something else. Um, life was changing, friends were changing, things were changing, I was getting older, I didn't know what to do or where to go. And that's where I came to living simply well. Never, like I said, never been flexible. The whole yoga thing I had in my mind that I needed to be a granola eating granola crunchy yogi that had to look a certain way. And I came here and it is just incredible the change, the comfort of it in the change. I've been having issues with um my posture, things like that. And like the teachers are so smart on like an understanding of like your hips and your like your core and engaging, and they can see every little thing to help you. And it's like just that little bit of coming here. My body has changed so much. I've become so much more comfortable. And like you said, yoga is so good because it also pushes through breath and mindfulness, and it's it shuts out the world, and like breath is so important. Um, with like pushing, pushing your stored energy in your body, right? And so it's like there's there's so much good to what yoga has come, and like now I'm doing exercise and movement with my body, and it's all a healthy way, and my kids still do it. I'll turn on YouTube yoga at home, and they will all do yoga. It's so good for sports, athletics.

SPEAKER_00 19:32

It is.

SPEAKER_01 19:33

Um, everybody can do it, and there's so many different varieties of yoga.

SPEAKER_00 19:38

So I love that. Thanks for sharing. I think um learning to listen to the body means learning its language, and um when these things, when movement is inconsistent, uh the body often shifts into the survival mode, like we've both shared our own story there. And our energy is conserved, and inflammation rises in those instances. So, from a wellness perspective, and as a practitioner, I like to approach movement as movement rather than exercise. Um, I can honestly tell you in 30 years of practice that I've never met a single patient who wants someone to dress them and to help them to the bathroom. I've never met a patient who says, boy, I really wish that I had 24-7 caregivers.

unknown 20:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:37

You know, my goal in life is to fall down the stairs and traumatically injure my brain or my spine. Um so this this provides this provides a new lens to see life through. And I think it can happen to any of us. You know, this happened to me at 32 years old. So it can happen, it can happen to us at any time. And when we incorporate movement into life, into everyday life, uh, what we find is that we maintain our independence and our freedom. Some would say that the more control that we have in our lives about our schedules, that that we are manipulating life in a sense. But what what the body needs is this safety regulator. It knows what to predict, it knows, you know, this is what life predictably should show up as. That doesn't mean that we're not flexible, doesn't mean that we don't pivot. You know, if if an emergency arises or you know, we are hit by a blizzard, we're probably not gonna go on our on our walk that day. Right. But what are we gonna do instead? Right? Um, perhaps it's a YouTube yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:00

I mean that's fantastic. We we are so lucky that we have those abilities now, right?

SPEAKER_00 22:05

And if you're a member at Living Simply Well, you've got a whole video library.

SPEAKER_01 22:08

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:09

So that you're at you know you're at home and you can practice meditation and you can practice yoga and you can do it to your own extent. Yeah. As a yoga teacher, I often will say, you know, just find your edge and allow yourself to soften as you exhale. So what we what we know about listening to the body means learning its language. You know, oftentimes we can associate with fatigue, but if we're overwhelmed with fatigue, we often lose motivation. We can associate with tension, but we lose track of calm. We can sense when we're craving and we lose we lose sight of our clarity. And the beauty of yoga is that we find balance between because it doesn't mean that cravings, tension, and fatigue are bad. They're signals that we witness. And then we have a we have the choice to choose to see the opposite of that and to reframe our lives into a way that that says, you know, I'm really craving right now. And I have a choice of how I'm gonna cope with that low octave, that negative thought. The easy, the easy pattern that rushes our body with dopamine, immediate, and and immediate gratification, and then the cascade of inflammation attacks the body. So here at Living Simply Well, really, our practical application is just going back to the way that we're made, the beautiful creation that we are as human beings, and um implementing maybe some very simple things that may seem very simple, but we allow the mind to complicate. So these practical things might look like earlier bedtime, having regular meals that's balanced. We incorporate gentle movement. I know for me, I oftentimes think about someone sitting at the edge of the bed. It's kind of like a commercial, right? And they stretch the body long and they move their head and they bring the wiggles and into their body before they step up into their day, right? Um, where can we find ritual there? Right. For me putting my legs up the wall for five minutes before I go to bed, has probably been the most helpful thing that I've learned in five years of study that is that has nearly cured my insomnia. Oh yeah. And I used to sleep an hour and a half at a time, and a good night was four hours. So what we know is that we don't sleep well if we're if our bodies don't doesn't move. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 25:19

Yeah, that's stored energy.

SPEAKER_00 25:21

All that stored energy. So what what what can we do if if we know we're overthinking, we're not being able to live the way that we like, we're probably deficient in movement.

SPEAKER_01 25:34

Yeah. I uh I start each week with a Monday morning dance party. Yes, and it's yeah it music, they say like put music on from um your like teen into twenties because it's a mental thing of your yep, and it's like and it just allows you to like go back. Like your body does not know time, it doesn't know that at all, it doesn't know the difference between five minutes ago or ten years ago when it gets reminded of something from 20 years ago, you go back, you get to go back, and then your body wants to to move like you did then, and it just brings this whole and it doesn't even have to be long, one song or something or whatever, but like fully moving your body, not just your arms or whatever, and like you're home, who cares, right? And so movement is huge for me in music, but um, but yeah, definitely getting into I mean, not every day you can have a dance part. I mean, you could, but there's other forms of like like legs up the wall or some of the yoga poses, so simple. And even before bed, like opening up your chest, things like that. I've started doing so much more of that, and it is incredible how much better of a night's sleep I do have. It almost puts you in like a relaxed meditative stage. I think so many of us immediately go to our phones before bed, and then that that that light and that dopamine that's getting like it's keeping you up. You think you're getting tired, but like your sleep isn't restful because you have all of that going through you, and it's like we'll get out, get out of that and just like you owe it to yourself to give yourself those few minutes to just calm and relax and open your body in a state of just you, just be with you in your body.

SPEAKER_00 27:18

I love it.

SPEAKER_01 27:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:21

So I like to say that um when we're setting an intention, that one intention is enough. Maybe it looks like a minute or two of deep breathing before you start your day or end your day. Maybe, maybe it it looks like taking a few minutes on your lunch break outside, getting fresh air. Not all of these things, but maybe just one, right?

SPEAKER_01 27:52

Yeah, you just start with one.

SPEAKER_00 27:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:54

Start with something small. Give yourself something small.

SPEAKER_00 27:57

And then be the witness of that. How does that change your life? How does that change the course of your day? Because consistency matters more than intensity. And I like you to reflect, you know, intentional living requires reflection. And part of that, part of that question is what does my body need more of right now? Sometimes we need more rest. Sometimes we need more movement. And the joy of my work is being able to hear what people share with me and reframe it in a way that has an impact because the answers are within you. I like to say that your body is not an obstacle to wellness, it is the doorway. Thank you for listening. Thank you. Thank you for spending time with me today on the Living Simply Well podcast. My hope is that something you heard in this episode helps you slow down, breathe deeper, and return to what matters most. At Living Simply Well, we believe that wellness doesn't come from doing more. It comes from living with intention, caring for the body, steadying the mind, and nourishing the spirit. If this episode resonated with you, I invite you to share it with someone who could use a little more balance, clarity, or healing in their life. Until next time, live simply, live well, and stay infused with what truly supports your health.