What Does It Actually Mean to Be Mentally Healthy? | Yakira Apfel

In this episode, Yakira Apfel — fitness studio owner and mom of four — opens up about a road

that wasn't always visible from the outside. She talks about the eating disorder that took root in

seventh grade and followed her into seminary, the shame of wondering if what she went through

was even "real enough" to count, and the honest admission that she didn't get help until years

later. She's candid about postpartum anxiety, a decade of hypochondria, and what it actually

took to come back to herself — including the role movement and purpose played in pulling her

out of it.

We also go into her religious journey — how becoming a mother reshaped her relationship with

observance, the moment her family was turned away from a school over a single photo, the

quiet grief of being judged on appearance instead of character, and what it meant to finally set

down something she'd been carrying for years.

By the end, Yakira lands on what she calls mental agility: not the absence of struggle, but the

capacity to actually feel the hard stuff — the anger, the grief, the fear — and come back from it.

A raw, honest conversation about eating disorders, motherhood, faith, and learning to trust

yourself.

Follow Tamara on Instagram @Talk2Tamara, subscribe on your favorite podcast platform for new episodes on relationships and personal growth. Watch new episodes on Youtube and visit my website for coaching and 1:1 support.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I think the big piece is that nobody gives a shit. Nobody gives a shit. You just be you. It's not like you know, I think uh this is uh I don't know if I've thought of it in these particular terms. It feels like someone's in value and status and the trajectory of their life and maybe their children's lives and shiduch him and I don't know what is riding on how they present religiously. It is. Whereas there, and maybe and maybe I'm like wet behind the ears and I'll have a reawakening in ten years. You don't think so. They're it's not even like it's not even a part of their like my kids aren't gonna be my their own people. I'm just their mom. Like what I do is they're gonna find their own path, and they're gonna find a nice girl or boy, and they're gonna have their own relationship, and it's gonna be about who they are as people. It's not like a system.

unknown 0:51

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:52

At least that's how it feels so different. It's not a system, it's people. Hello, and welcome back. Today's guest has built her life around fitness. She's a trainer and owner of two like studios, one in New York, one in Israel. But she's also walked through an eating disorder, postpartum anxiety, and she's landed on a question that cuts through all of it. What does it actually mean to be mentally healthy? Not the absence of struggle, the capacity to feel it and stay standing. This is Yakira.

unknown 1:23

Hi.

SPEAKER_00 1:24

That was so like dainty of you. I know. You don't normally do that. I know. I sometimes get into a giggly, giddy kind of way. Okay. Maybe when there's an intro. Okay. Did you like my intro? I was already thinking, like, what? Oh, I would maybe phrase it differently, but like, yeah, it made me feel important. Okay. Okay, good. Yeah. Well, you are important. Oh. Thanks, Tamara. Too. Yeah. So thank you so much for being here. Thanks for having me. All right. So let's get into it. So you've devoted your life to fitness, right? Two studios, one in New York, one, one in Israel. What first pulled you into that world? Oh, okay. So uh I grew up in a home where I was the youngest of three girls, and they were a lot older than I was. They are still a lot older. Yeah, seven and ten years old. That's usually what happened. Yeah, it stays consistent. And my mother lost over a hundred pounds. She was on a weight loss journey for a long time. And because I had much older sisters, they were doing the teenage thing when I was still in maybe what they would call formative years. So there was a lot of diet talk in my house. Yeah. And it was the 90s. So it was like heavy on diet culture and skinniness and whatever. So that from a very young age was kind of like percolating in my brain. So probably in seventh grade, I put myself on Weight Watchers, which was like really not necessary at that time. But I was probably like getting a tiny bit of a love handle. And I was like, oh my God, it's time to eat spinach and strawberries only. And I started going on the treadmill and the elliptical, like the lowest hanging fruit for fitness. And uh it kind of snowballed into uh more sophisticated ways of dieting. You know, I tried different programs and I got a gym membership. I started taking classes, and uh I also loved dance. So that played into my physical activity and I loved sports. So I I also, aside from like a punitive approach, maybe you could call it, to movement, I also had a love for movement. And then I guess over time those things converged a little bit more. And even when I was dieting because I wanted to be smaller and skinnier, I think I always love a good project. So even like woven into the self-punishing or like outcome orientation of all of these endeavors, I don't think I don't think I was ever fully unhappy. And it was always sort of like a task I was willingly taking on. And then uh when I went to, I think it was when I went to Israel for the year that I started giving it, gifting it to others. I mean, meaning like the diet program that I was on, which I shouldn't have been on and nobody should have been on. I because people were like, oh my God, you look so good, you look so thin. Because if I had disordered eating in high school, it became an eating disorder in Israel. So I lost weight. And because Israel is a time where a lot of girls gain weight, as the one who lost weight, people were rallying around me, like, oh my God, rallying is a strong word, but like, what are you doing? Can you help me? And I was like, Yeah, you know, you have two breads and two proteins and two if you might know what shy burger about talking about. And um, and I gave a couple of exercise classes also while I was in seminary, so I kind of became that girl. Yeah. But I also was the girl with an eating disorder, not to others, but to myself in reality. And um you asked me before we started recording this, like, was it a real eating? I don't remember the language you use, but was it a real full-blown? Are you part of the actual club? Was it a full-blown eating dessert? So my answer was I don't know. Like I wasn't, I wasn't hospitalized. I wasn't put into did they call it rehab? Um whatever. Yeah, yeah. A place. They fix you. A rehab. A rehab. Yeah. So I didn't do any of that, but I did lose my period. So it was significant enough to have like a real obvious physiological effect. Um for how long did you period? I would say months. Um, but it went from a highly restrictive eating disorder. Again, I don't know if it was like clinically anorexia, but this is a very roundabout way of answering your question. It's how did you start? Here's how I'm totally, totally mentally unhealthy. Um by it went from some version of anorexia, let's say deprivation, to a binge eating disorder. Like I kind of went from one end of the spectrum to the other. And that was maybe actually only about four months or five months later, or six or seven. I wouldn't, it wasn't even a full year. So at that point, while my habits weren't healthy, I was no longer malnourished. So probably not shortly during gained weight. So let's say I lost 10 to 15 pounds from someone who didn't even really need to lose like five. You know, I never looked super unwell, but it was very much not necessary. But then I gained about like 20, 25 over my original weight. So how did you go from anorexia to binge? Usually it's like one or the other. Is it? Yeah. Oh, okay. Cool, good to know. I think that I I have an answer, but I just want to make sure it's correct. It might be not correct anyway, but give me a second. When I had anorexia, my whole way of operating was hyper-restrictive. So okay, just a little bit of background. I grew up what people would call modern orthodox, uh-huh, but the whole trajectory of my family was moving more to the right. Yeah. So like my mom, my sisters, and then my dad just because whatever. He just thought was following my mom. Sorry, dad. I mean he's sincere about it. He just does whatever mom says. No, like he buys in, but yeah, like I don't know that he would have initiated it. Um but everyone became more religious over time. So that was a pattern I saw. So I was like, okay, I'm just doing my thing now, you know. Yeah, my parents wearing life. Obviously, it's defined by what you wear. But when I go to Israel, I'm going to become extremely religious. And so I went to Israel and right off the bat, I started. The thing that sticks out most in my mind is how I used to organize my days. So, like down to the half hour, I built out my schedule.

SPEAKER_02 7:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:33

And no minute was wasted. And I had a very the word that's coming to me is brittle. It was almost like a like a highly irritable way about me because I was so locked into the way I wanted to be and the way I had to do things. It was, it was a self-imposed pressure to make the most of my time and I guess of myself in a religious sense. Yeah. But in a way that looking back now was disconnected, dry. If we're talking about like masculine and feminine energies, very masculine, like very hyperstructured to the point of losing touch. And so that worked for facilitat facilitating anorexia because it was this intense rigidity. And a sense of control also. It's a sense of control. Yeah. I, you know, I think that, like, yes, in a sense that, you know, dovetails is what I'm describing, like just controlling everything about my life. But I don't, and I could be wrong about this, I don't feel like the underlying issue with anorexia was me trying to establish control where I felt like I had none. It was more of just like that was the pattern of what I was doing and the way I felt like maybe I could be the most productive. But really, the driving force behind my disordered eating, I believe, is primarily attached to appearance. Like I know we typically talk about disordered eating or eating disorder is that it's a reflection of a deeper dysfunction. So, like a s seeking control, for example, is the most obvious one that I can think of. But I don't know. I I don't feel confident that that was the case for me. I think that um it was really a a lot of it was rooted around how I look. Why do you care so much about how you look, or why did you care so much about how you look? That that's its own conversation. But I don't have the answer at the tip of my tongue or head either. Do you still care about how you look? I do care, but definitely in a more in a more flexible way. Interesting. Yeah. Um my question to you was just a backhack. How did I get into fitness and that was the job? That was the job. How did you go from anorexia to bench eating? So I think that anorexia is so at odds with my typical way of being. And again, this might sound more superficial than the way people typically talk about eating disorders, but really my love for food, that um once there was a crack in this hyper rigid structure I'd created, I couldn't reclaim it. Like it's kind of like when you pull, I don't know, what what am I what am I miming? Um like a bow and arrow, like when you pull tension on it, right? So like I was pulling, pulling, pulling, pulling, and then cracked. Like it, like it snaps. You can't, you can't go back or you release it and it's too far gone. I don't know which way that metaphor goes. Yeah. But it was so out of sync with how I normally operate that as soon as it's like black and white thinking, like as soon as there's a crack in it, it's very hard to come back to center. So I kind of ricocheted into the opposite direction. And also, like in a more specific way, because I had been essentially like overriding myself so intensely for that time, you know, was kind of like taking a structure and imposing it on my days, my desires, my maybe more implicit beliefs, and just being like, this is right, this is what I should do. And so now I'm gonna do it. Yeah. I was so out of touch with my emotions that I turned heavily towards emotional eating. That was really the root of the binge eating. It was it was the inability to sit with and feel what I was feeling, and then immediately transmuting that into I'm hungry, and then numbing it with food. So that's kind of how why we have that arc. Yeah. That's really, really interesting. Oh, good, I'm glad because I spoke a lot. And I didn't even answer your first question about how you got into fitness. Yeah. Well, before we get into that, I just want to kind of talk a little bit more about this. Uh so how did you get away from the eating disorder? Like how did you yeah, the binge eating? So the first thing I did was I checked myself into therapy. So, okay, so this was I was in Israel for a year and a half. Yeah. Um, and then the summer between I worked in Hask and uh the binge eating was in full swing. And then once I got back to America for college, I checked myself into therapy because honestly, I uh don't know if I would have done it if I was thin. I think I said this in another interview, meaning I was so vain and so aesthetically oriented that like the driving force wasn't like, even when I was like, I remember it was a summer before I went to Israel and I was still cursing like a sailor, and my friends knew I wanted to flip out. Yeah. And they knew I was going to Michala. I remember my friend Jill. What's up, Jill? She was like, you can't still be talking like this. And I remember I got so angry. I was like, Yes, I can. I'm not there yet. I will change when I go there. And I did, if you can believe it, for many years. I did you you knew that you were gonna flip out? Like, yeah. How did you know that? Because that was the path. Because that's what and and it's not because like I like to do what other people do. On the contrary, but to me, it just seemed real and true. And it's something of a I don't want to call it a burden. I think if you do it the right way, it doesn't quite feel like a burden. I mean, almost time, like in a sense it is, but you like that as you then sarms just some uh how versed I am reading the Hebrew text. But um uh I think that like I was just still I still wanted to have fun. Like I still had time on the clock. Right. And then I was like, okay, I'll get like serious and like religious and I'll do the right thing, but like just give me a minute. Right. But it's so anti your personality because you I mean, from what I know, you don't you do not follow the beating, like you're off the beating pad for sure. Yeah, I mean, so for a while there I was very much not in a zoomed out way. So like until probably a little bit post-COVID, I essentially did walk the walk. Like, yeah, if you knew me, you'd be like, oh Yakira, she's so real, she's so authentic and deep and dangerous. But like if you looked at me, I was still a good girl. Like I went to SK, I got decent grades, I was, you know, fun, nice, blah, I went to McClala, I went to Stern, like, okay, right. You followed that path. Right. Like I mostly looked like everybody else. It wasn't like, wow, she's such a maverick and like, you know, a renegade. And it's only, and it's only I say, let's say a little bit after COVID, because that's when my dress, and it's it's sad that there's like such a strong orientation and and this is such a defining feature, but that was when my dress really departed from or diverged from the community or the subcommunity I was in, or that I had attached. It wasn't that long ago. I'm saying then you were a flip-out or whatever for a very long time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cause because it was I wasn't doing it for anyone else. Like right. It's what, like I said, it's what felt right and true to me. Okay. So I was bought in. Right. Um so we'll talk about like that after in terms of how that changed, yeah, the COVID part. Yeah. Just but just to go back to the eating disorder because we're yeah. For you. I should have staked in the Ritalin before we did this. Okay. So what do we leave off with? Um, check myself to therapy. Yeah, check myself into therapy. And I remember she wasn't, and this is a no for anyone going to therapy. If you don't need like heavy uh psycho, I don't know what you call it, like psychoanalysis or whatever, you don't necessarily need such a great therapist. You just need someone who has the right toolkit. So I remember thinking that this therapist, and I doubt she's listening to this. I really hope she's not. And if you are, I hope you forgot me. Right first, she was like kind of dumb. But she had she had a very clear system for getting you out of emotional eating. And she gave me a piece of paper and it had like 16 squares or you know, 30, I don't know what it was, with smiley faces in them, but they weren't all smiling. Like some of them were frowning, some of them looked anxious, like it was labeled with the different emotions, like what you showed at little kids. Like, how are you feeling? Yeah, it's literally that. Okay. And uh then it was a process. So, like the first time you feel yourself reach it, like feeling hunger when you don't expect to feel hunger. You just had a meal, right? You just like finished dinner and you're hungry, you pause 10 seconds, and then you go eat whatever you wanted to eat, and then you extend that 30 seconds, a minute, five, whatever. You start subbing in activities that would take you away from like filling the need with food. Or I used to listen to music, surprise, I love music. So, and that was also it had like an emotional component to it. So, like, because eating was emotional, music was emotional for me too. So that was a good thing to swap in. And then I mean it's like you know, neuroplasticity. Eventually you you just you rewire the loop. And uh at least now, like sometimes I will still choose to eat emotionally, yeah, because we're we're you males, but I'm aware of it. Yeah. And obviously it's not as it used to be that I would eat to the point that I felt physically sick. Um and it was like it was like a real numbing out as opposed to like this feels like an indulgence. So what's your relationship with food now? It's pretty good. It's not, you know, my biggest like issue with food, I guess, is that I'm very snacky. I'm very eat on the go. Yeah. And I definitely still have a strong pull to sweets. Yeah. And I would say, you know, aside from that being like not a not like a uh it's not a rooted way to eat. Like I don't, I'm not very good. I I I go through phases of the best I've been, it why why am I so snacky now? Probably, probably after moving and like being on the go a lot. There's a period of time where I was much more organized with my meals, and it actually helped with my hunger cues because when you have defined meals, you can eat when you're hungry because you have developed hunger. Right. So if you're snacking all day, it never becomes an acute sense. Yeah. And then you stop when you're full because there's like a clear uh disparity between how you started and how you finished the meal. Yeah. As opposed to if you're always grazing, it's kind of like you're never here nor there. Right. Anyways, so so now I'm like a little bit more in the snacky realm. Um, and I would say probably the most disordered thing, maybe about my eating, and I don't know if this is my genes because my dad is a little bit like this too, or if there's a deprivation mindset that sticks with me, that I am very drawn to like pastries. And like, while I won't eat them anymore until I'm sick, like far from it, I'll eat more than I want to. You know, I'm not like when people talk about like, yeah, and I took two little squares of chocolate and that was my treat after dinner. And you're like, fuck. Like that doesn't ever happen. So I don't know if that's my wiring or if that's messages of like my history. Right. Um people wouldn't think that of you, right? Because you're this fitness guru. Oh, yeah. Right.

SPEAKER_02 18:14

And you should be eating like the protein and you should make sure that like you have the hundred, you know, however many grams and all that.

SPEAKER_00 18:20

And you're like, I'm just gonna go eat the pastry, you know. So I really try. Like I'm not, I don't want to be that person either who was like, Yeah, I'll just like whatever eat pastries all day. I'm right, amazing metabolism. And that's not it either. But it depends. Like sometimes I get into I feel like now I'm actually not in a great group because I'm thinking about this other podcast I did, and I think I was describing my food behaviors at that time a little bit differently. So it really just depends. But I do try to get around 100, 120 grams of protein a day. Yeah. I don't know, I I actually have no clue right now if I'm anywhere near that. And during the week, I'm not like surrounded by pastries for the most part. It's more like a weekend situation. Um, yeah, but just kind of like in general, like people who are super into fitness, like you are, you know. I mean, to me, you live and breathe fitness. Is that like the spoiler alert? Like, like I don't know if what it is is that exciting, but yeah, sure. It's a spoiler alert. That you um that you're into fitness, but like not into fitness. You're but you're not into fitness. Aren't I so cool and predictable? Should I go there nap or do you want me to take this? Totally. Go there. So uh I probably haven't worked out like a full workout class. I did like a hundred meters on the skierg in two weeks. Get out. Yeah. Um, yeah, I'm not, it's not so easy. I'm definitely not the person who's like, I can't start my day unless I have a workout. I will gladly start any day without a workout. I do feel better after I work out and I do enjoy it, and I do think it's important. And once I'm in it, like I just said, I enjoy it. I like it, I like the experience. But to get myself to do it, particularly when I always feel like I have so much work to do and I love it. And I'm also very pulled to my work. Like that's immediate. Like, yes, it's fun and creative and fulfilling. So, like if I'm tight on time and I have to choose between like a workout and working, especially if I'm being generally active by teaching, it's not the same as cardio and it's not the same as strength, but it's movement. So, you know, altogether, yeah, uh I can skip workouts for a long time. Wow. Yeah. That is a huge spoiler alert. Like I am like, I'm shocked by that. Yeah. Oh. I feel like I'm I give off that energy. No. What what what makes you think that? Um, because I'm like kind of a Balagan. Like no, like you're actually you're a Balagan, but like very structured. Yeah, there's a natural chaos situation. Yeah. Yeah. Um I think, ooh, I just had something that was in the tip of my brain. Yeah, like I would never be the person who goes to the gym alone. Like people who go to, I don't know, Kings and Queens or Planet Fitness. Well, that's why you you have group fitness. Yeah. And I actually think so. I think that's also part of why I am good at creating uh an engaging fitness experience because I know what it means not to be excited about fitness in its raw form. Right. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Okay. Cool. Should we go into um the post the postpartum or should we talk about your trajectory to being less religious? I don't know. That's more interesting to you. I feel like the trajectory is being less religious. I know the move to Israel, I guess. You know what? But I don't know, I shouldn't have asked you because I'm actually gonna go with the first one so I can close the fitness loop. Fine. I'll close the fitness loop. Fine. So um uh postpartum anxiety, I have a history of hypochondria. Still uh still still have it. Did I mention that? And no, okay, fine. I actually think I thought I would cover it with the PTA stuff. After my first and second children, like giving birth to them, I my hypochondria ramped up dramatically. First, it was like applied to them, like I was so nervous about them developmentally. And then after my second one, it kind of circled back to me. And I had about a period of 10 months where I thought I was dying basically. And but you know, within the conversation. About fitness and mental health, my second two children, I did not have it at all. And the difference between those pregnancies was the second two, I was working and working out. The first two, I was a stay-at-home mom and just, I don't know, waddling around or whatever. Waddling around. And uh, and the second two, I had a focus, I had a business, I had something that I was excited about, and I also had movement in my life. Whether I was actually working out or just teaching classes, I was very active. Yeah, I know. I remember I did a dance, I literally ran a dance fitness birthday party for someone when I was overdue. So I was like a week overdue of like I'm dicey, but like who could try? So uh so yeah, I think those two things for anyone who is has dealt with postpartum, whatever, whether it's depression or anxiety, movement. I mean, this is documented as far as yeah, and anxiety goes, but fitness movement plays a huge role in countering it. And it's also really good for your baby, not just you. And uh also having, I don't know if this is spoken about or not, but having something that you like to do, an other focus purpose. Yeah. You know, something that you're excited about that gets you out of looping in your head. Something else to orient around. Anyway, so oh, so this ties back to fitness because it was after my second kid. I had moved to Northwoodmere. We lived in Queens for a couple of years, and I moved to Northwoodmere and I became friends. Lauren, you know you're about to make an appearance with Lauren Balsam. And she was like, You're depressed. She's like, You're anxious and depressed. You should come to Zumba. And I was like, okay. And I did. The joke is that for like the hour-long class, I was just happy. Yeah, just like smiling ear to ear. And that kicked off. Yeah, I was taking I was taking the Zumba classes for a while, but I mentioned I have a bit of a background in dance. And at some point I was like, I would like to do this. I think I can do a good job of this. I was also when I was in high school, I did anticipate working as maybe a personal trainer.

unknown 24:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 24:01

Like I thought I would dabble in a lot of things. Like I thought I'd be a massage therapist and a personal trainer and a graphic designer and whatever, like have my hand a lot of trainer. Okay. Yeah, because I have a little bit of an artistic, like certain brand creative background too. So so then, so then I started teaching dance fitness. How that came about is like a semi-interesting source, so I'll leave it out. But interesting, interesting. And I started teaching dance fitness, my own like version of Zumba. I called it Hit Hop. I remember training. Okay, great. Great. Um hop. And that really took off. Okay, that's really like glossing over the gritty beginning because I remember like, I don't know if I was crying, but you know, for the first number of weeks or months during coming off, and my sister would be like, why isn't anyone coming tonight? Why are there only four people signed up for a class? Last week they were attended. Did they hate it? Why does it? So it was not sustaining from the beginning, but looking back, you know, if you kind of smooth out the bumps in the trajectory, it really exploded. Yeah. We went from it was I took over a class that had two people in it, then it was four because my mom and my sister came. And then it became like 45 50 something people classes with like 20 deep wait lists. Yeah. So that was a real hit. I don't even teach that anymore. I know. Uh yeah. Yeah, you might have heard. But um, that was the beginning. That was the seed of fit as we know it now. Yeah. I did not start fit with a vision. I did not anticipate having the classes that I have now. Um, I'll also add in now that between the time I got married and when I started Zumba again, that was the longest break I'd ever gone in my life without some involvement with fitness. Oh, interesting. Yeah. So it was like reintroducing that into my life and then pulling, you know, I had the history of it, but I took a break, and then that built into where I'm at now professionally. And so why did you take such a long break though? Like what was going on for you that like you couldn't work out or like didn't see the reason to go for a walk or what what whatever that was. Um I feel like because of my orientation, like my lengthy orientation, the better question is what was pushing me towards it before and after. I mean, I think when uh I was in high school, like I wanted to be hot. And then I think that's as good as a reason as any. And then I think in seminary, I was just very afraid of gaining weight. Yeah. And then and then I just kind of kept that up through college. I was dating. So fitness was all about weight back then. Yeah, but I I wasn't completely like I was saying, I wasn't completely detached from the enjoyment component. Like I knew what it meant to have movement that I loved. Right. Sports dance. I remember taking this amazing African dance class in New York Sports Club. But yeah, I mean, I would say the the like driving force behind it was a vanity thing. But I I didn't not enjoy, I'm trying to tap into like, okay, outside of that dance class, what was my relationship with movement? I think I enjoyed it when I was in it, probably similar to the way I feel about fitness now, but with less or almost none of the pressure that I used to feel to do it. Yeah, probably not because I know that actually I'm gonna leave that. I was gonna say partly not because I know that as far as fat loss goes, I'm not talking about muscle building and like overall body recomposition, but as far as fat loss goes, fitness doesn't play as big a role or quite the role that people think it means. Well, don't they say that the abs are made in the kitchen? Yeah. Um, and I mean, do I have to explain what that means or know what that means? I think. I I should hope so. Okay. I get shocked every day. So so yeah, I think that and now I just have options that I enjoy more. Like, I don't think fitness that was fun the way it is now was really available then. Right. Like, uh, this remind me there was a beach body video that I love for me. Did you do any of those? Yes, I do. Johnson I died for her. Yes, yes. She and she's amazing still. She was amazing. Yeah. So so yeah, so there was some fun. I tried to make it fun, but yeah, it was definitely driven by wanting to look a certain way. Okay. And when you had your first and second kid, you just like didn't care. Yeah, I don't, I was just so consumed. So I think it was I lived in Queens and there wasn't like a gym that was close or felt easy to get to, or like maybe culturally felt like a fit. I don't know what people were doing. Oh, I went to one in someone's basement. It was like so hamish, it was not for me. And then yeah, and then I was pregnant. I remember like dancing in my two-bedroom apartment in the mirror one time, trying to like exercise. That was probably the extent of it. Like literally, like five minutes of dancing. And then and then I was just like pregnant, and then I had a baby, and then I was exhausted and like, yeah, I wasn't, I wasn't super compelled. Right. Right. And my hands full. Yeah. Makes sense. Yeah. I also, from the from the fat loss perspective, this actually feeds into the eating disorder thing. I I resolved I would say 80% of my eating disorder with a therapist. But the thing that brought it to like 100% or close to 100% was being pregnant and then nursing my babies because pregnancy gave me what felt like a certain latitude to gain weight because I was getting fat anyway. Not that I gained a ton of weight, I gained like 25 pounds, but you know, I didn't feel that same pressure, like, oh my God, two pounds up, two pounds down. And then when I nursed my first two children, the weight fell off of me. So that also was a tremendous amount of latitude. And I remember having this distinct memory looking at like a like a like a pastry and being like, I can have it now, I can have it later, like whatever. I'm so, I'm so free with my food, like there's no deprivation, there's no, there's no, you know, tension. It's just like, I'll eat what I want when I want and I'll stop and I'll stop when I feel like stopping. It was like the most, the most, the least charged time in my life probably used to be food. But I will say that I still ate shit mostly. Right. As I have sweet tooth. Right. Like in terms of quantity was the least charged, but like in terms of food quality, like it was, it was pretty bad. Wow. I ate like a lot of cheese, crackers, and cookies. Yeah. So so that was that. And then just to know for anyone who's like pregnant, um, nursing, whatever, my second two kids, the weight did not fall off. And I don't know why that shifted for me. So it could be age, like it could be other event, you know. Yeah, my whole lifestyle was different. Like, I really have no clue, but just saying like it changes, it's not consistent. Yeah. So why why did I get into that? Because that was for closing the eating disorder conversation. Okay. Awesome. Yeah. Now can we get into the religion conversation? Yeah. Yeah. Fit me. So let's talk about that. Yeah. So you were a certain way up until COVID. What happened by COVID? So I wish I remembered more what was going on in my head because the thing I'm kind of like using as the as the defining point in my religious journey was when I changed what I wore. And I can, and there's and there's a clear reason why that happened in COVID, which I'll answer. But I do remember prior to that, grappling with bigger theological questions. Like, okay, even though I did the Aish seminars and I read, you know, Rabbi Lawrence Kalman's books on the proofs of God and the proofs of Judaism, whatever, it's like you can encounter the same idea later on in your life and realize you still have a question, even though it answered it for you then. Like now that you're 30, it's not answering it for you in the same way. So I was like kind of back to the drawing board on certain fundamental questions, like, is there a God? If there is a God, is it the God the way I understand God? Does this God want me to practice Judaism? So I just want to like put that out there because my my religious shift is not defined truly by what I'm about to what I'm about to say. But as far as like the the dress change and how that related to COVID, um But I just want to ask a question on that. Like what was what was the the impetus kind of like that you started to think about these these questions? Yeah. I don't have a good answer. Um I mean the myjecture answer is I'm just always thinking about things. And then like I I've always been driven by a deep sense of of why. And I would say, if I had to guess, whys become more pronounced when you're struggling with the behavior. So like if it was hard for me to practice Judaism, whether it was dress or keeping Shabbat in a certain way or whatever it was, then the question for me, at least of why becomes becomes more significant. Because if I don't have a good why, then it's gonna be hard for me to do this thing right that's hard for me to do. It's getting harder. But you only notice that at 30. I'm trying to think what might have shifted then. Um well, I I would say that there was probably a momentum piece for many years. I had a really fierce buy-in to what I was doing. And it was a very binary framing for a while. Like, this is true, so you do it the most. There was the the human piece was lacking. And even what what does the most like my conception of what the most was was a very two-dimensional. It was like more or less, you know, more, more is better, right? Um, so you know, I was riding that perspective and that momentum for a long time. And then, like I said before, I really had my hands full. So I guess it was at that point, COVID, I already had my daughter. Like I was on my second chunk of two, like I molder, and then I took a five-year break because I was so burnt out. And then I had my second um grouping, my pairing. So I did have my daughter already, but I guess also because I wasn't a stay-at-home mom anymore. I was a stay-at-home mom for my first two kids. Yeah. And then I like started what I started my business. Being a stay-at-home mom was way harder than working ever was. Yeah. At least the way I approached it. It was, it was 24-7, like legit, because my kids did not sleep. I would I I didn't sleep train them. And uh I it's like carrying their emotions also. Like it's not just your emotions, it's like their emotions, like when they're sad and like when they need something, and are they happy and entertained? So that was very, very consuming for me. So I think it was when they got older. And then even when I had my second pair of kids, I was already splitting my time with work. So it wasn't that same, like being totally consumed. There was more me right in the picture and more like time to think about my practice and what I was doing. Um, as I'm talking, I imagine that being in the fitness space created some of that tension, or it's hard to do certain things, particularly vis-a-vis dress, that might have, this is speculative, but that might have also brought me back to, well, why? Why am I doing this? Why have I chosen this particular path? Why do I believe in it? Or then, you know, going so far to this are those really fundamental questions. So I I kind of resolved those. I will also say what probably played a role was that up until COVID, my husband was on a certain path religiously. Yeah. Or, you know, in a certain spot, I would say. It's a more accurate way to describe it. And then COVID. That that time period was what shifted how he related to Judaism. And then I think once two people who are married are on board to some degree, it's it creates a little bit more space for, or at least for me, it felt like I felt like I had more space to kind of lean in to maybe a direction I I had already wanted to lean towards. Right. So I think all of those, oh, okay. So and then and then with the dress, when you're home, when you're stuck at home, you're wearing whatever the hell you want. And so then when you start venturing out to your driveway, it's like, well, I'm not putting on a skirt to go into my driveway, and then it's just to the supermarket, and then it's just to your gym, and then it's just to your whole life. So I think that was kind of like the the break the breakdown or like the release of that particular facet of my observance. Yeah. And why it happened then. Yeah. Did you feel like um when you were doing it, like you were doing something wrong or not true to yourself? Like when you're wearing pants to the supermarket or whatever it was. Definitely not not true. Not not true. Um and something wrong. Trying to remember how I felt then. I don't I don't remember. I I don't remember how I felt in that sense. I do remember feeling like I'd put down something heavy. I think also I always struggled with I haven't even like fully gotten to the crux of this in some ways, but part of why I feel like I struggled particularly with dress is because I'm not a I'm not a formal dresser. And when you have to cover a lot, I think to make it look good, unless you're going for that like really hippy-dippy floaty type of look, which is its own aesthetic, it needs to be kind of tailored and intentional. And like my natural lean with dress is super casual and almost thoughtless. So when you combine a lot of coverage with a casual and sort of thoughtless, I mean it's not, it's you know, it's picked based on my my feeling, but it's not curated, it's not tailored, it's not whatever. That combination looks kind of dumpy. Or it does, it did for me.

SPEAKER_02 37:06

Right.

SPEAKER_00 37:07

You know, it's just like I'm wearing a bag for a shirt and a bag for a skirt, and we're off. So I think my particular aesthetic in the modest fat in the modest framework made me feel unattractive. Um that makes a lot of sense. Yeah. And also being in the fitness space with like women, you know, in their in their bra and their and their shorts, it's like definitely plays a role into your head of like, you know. I think for me, it was never like, oh my, I'm embarrassed, like I don't look like them, or like I want to whatever. I think that, like, I think about even when I'm designing my gym spaces. To me, the yeah, I say the aesthetic is important after describing like me putting on a white T or for the C even say that anymore. Like an Amazon tank top or the CW. But it's my aesthetic. Yeah, or it's something that speaks to me. So, like, so like I was saying, when I'm thinking about designing a gym space, to me, the way it looks is very important. Obviously, the experience is important too, but like the way the entry looks, the actual decor of the space, and then also the lights and how the room feels and how it taps into all of your senses. It's how you experience the whole thing with your whole self. And so when talking about like going to um let's say a fitness class and everyone's wearing their fitness gear, to me, part of the experience is being in the aesthetic as well.

SPEAKER_02 38:32

Right.

SPEAKER_00 38:33

So it's not like, oh, I want to look like that. It's like, well, part of me feeling like I'm really doing this thing is also looking like I'm doing this thing, right? It's more of the out in. I'm more of the in out as opposed to the like trying to align in like a again, the two-dimensional way. Yeah. And you know, it's just interesting because you grew up in the five towns, right? Or sort of right, sort of by orange until high school. But what I'm saying, what I'm asking you is that did you get pushback from the community and did that kind of influence you to maybe move to Israel or to, you know, leave this the bubble of the five towns, like we like to call it? I'm gonna separate those questions because they have two different answers. Okay. Uh moving to Israel had nothing to do with wanting to leave something here. I was very happy here, we were very happy here, and I'm here this summer, very happy. It was very much about wanting what was there. Did I get pushback? Um, I didn't have like rabbis calling me, being like, hey, you know, I was kind of an icon in the Sunni. I wish you need to dress differently. It was, but but it did come up when we apply to a certain elementary school, our daughter. And uh the reason we even apply to that school as opposed to one that was more like religion religiously aligned. There's in quotation of the law. Religiously aligned. And when I say religiously aligned, I mean we dressed like the rest of the parent body. Nothing to s nothing to speak of, any tells them regarding how didn't, but the reason we even were interested in sending there is because we understood that there was less social media amongst the girls, there was less materialism, and you know, for better or for worse, it does kind of go a little bit hand in hand. Like the quote, less religious places will have more materialism and more TikTok and more, and the more religious place, it's more insular, it's more, you know, old school. So that was for on a values level, we wanted that for our kids. Because I think people will often be like, well, if you don't align with what the school wants, I just don't go to the school. And it's like, well, there are a lot of features to a person's value system and that personality. We might want one thing, and like, you know, it would be better if like the whole thing wasn't collapsed under what you look like, you know, how you how you dress. Anyways, anyways, I digress. So that was why we even opted or wanted to send to that school. And it was a very bizarre interview experience. You know, in hindsight, it was clear that the decision had been made before we got there. Like we were just kind of like rushed in and out. Um, we got the rejection letter like a day later. And um, and they had said and they had told us that they were at the very beginning of their interview process, and the rejection said, like, we're full or something like that. Right. And to the point, even that my husband called up the principal, yeah, and uh, in and I mean this in the best way, kind of bullied her into like divulging what the reason was and hold on to your seat. And she said that based on our social media, she felt that we were not a fit for the school. And my husband was like, Well, I don't really have social media. He's like, My wife doesn't have a personal, I do have a personal account now. It was deactivated then. You know, she has one for her women's fitness studio. He's like, Are you talking about that? And she was like stuttering, probably sweating, I guess. And she was basically like, Yeah, maybe she even referenced like one particular post because I don't think I was even on my feed that much at that point, but like one post where I was wearing shorts, she might have used the word shorts. And listen, this ever every private institution, it's their prerogative whether or not they make this part of their checklist, right? They're they're they're right, you know, how they determine how they screen their applicants. And I'm sure people will say, you know, it's too hard to assess based on things that are less obvious, like character. I have thoughts on that too, but fine. Also, whether we should be assessing the children based on their parents. Like, I don't know exactly what the what the metrics should be, even like, you know, it's how do you how do you even judge people like that? But putting that aside for a second, so yeah, they're entitled to use whatever whatever sort of checklist they want. I just think that we suffer, we as like Jewish community, Orthodox Jewish communities in the tri-state area or in the hubs of Judaism in America, we suffer the fallout because it creates a certain lens for relating to and approaching your, I would say, religion, and yeah, religion, but your relationship with God. And when you're focusing on one aspect of it, by definition, you're not focusing on another aspect of it. And I mean, there are a lot of aspects to focus on, and we'll toggle and we'll shift and whatever, but it seems to me that there is an undue amount of attention and significance placed on strictly the dress component of religion. And I'm not saying it's insignificant, and you know, I I understand if people say that I don't know, that if you want to be part of a certain community, then you know, the cost of entry is dressing a certain way. And I don't want my children exposed to okay, everyone has their own calculus. I'm just saying on a Broader level from my value system, which is like a more relational, feeling, um, connection-based substantive type of orientation. It feels like we're really putting the cart before the horse. And it's not just about who gets accepted to what school, it's become our entire lens for how we and our children lead and approach Judaism. Yeah. Yeah. And that's that on that. No, that's actually really, really true. Um, do you think that like in the Jewish community specifically, I guess we can talk about the five towns because that's like what we know. Um, that there is a huge emphasis on how you dress and that relates to your character, right? It's just kind of like, you know, um, if you dress a certain way, then you must, then you must be like a certain way. You must be great. And if and if and if you dress slutty like me, you dress slutty, or if you dress whatever, then you must be, you know, like a a horrible mom or a horrible person or whatever it is, you know? Yeah. I just think this there is so much emphasis on how we look on the outside and so little emphasis on what goes on on the inside. Yeah, I think that, you know, and I can't like, I don't want to say, so I haven't been in like a school in so long, you know? And I want to believe, and I think I remember, and also it was different back then. Like we've taken on the culture of some adjacent neighborhoods and received more of an influx. Like the woodmere that I'm in now is not the woodmere that I grew up in. So, you know, I I do think the education, like my education was certainly not devoid of character emphasis. It was it was a different time though then. And but I have to imagine that that's still, you know, yeah, that that's still a topic in schools. I don't think we don't touch on it. But I don't think that it's kind of like it's not what you say, it's what you do. Like as a parent, you can preach until you're blue in the face, but your behaviors are going to believe what actually matters to you. So when the criteria, you know, the cost of entry to the community, to the institutions, uh become is A, it doesn't matter if you're preaching till you're blue in the face, that B is really the most important, you know. You can say Terach Ara's Kadmala Torah, but when the practice shows that it's not Kadmala nothing, that what you wear is kadmala everything, then like that's the implicit messaging. So, no, I'm not gonna say that we we don't talk about it and emphasize it. And and I I think that, you know, I'm thinking of my nieces and nephews who are in some like uh do you you call it ultra-orthodox, like more at all schools and go to the right? Like, they have such beautiful meat. So, you know, I don't I don't know exactly like where and how this sits. Like I'm trying to reconcile these different worlds in my head right now and why I have this pervasive sentiment that we were just describing. Um it's not absent. I just think maybe even more in this middle ground where some people would want to send to a certain school, but do dress a certain way, you know? Because on the fringes it's clear.

SPEAKER_02 47:25

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:26

I'm super religious or like I'm non-observant, whatever. It's kind of in this middle ground where we got into this issue. And um, I think, I think put like a little pin in that. Maybe I'll revisit it another day. Do you see a difference between the Israeli culture and here? And not in terms of like the culture, but like in terms of that aspect. Like, yeah. Well, first let me just like be specific. The Israeli culture that I'm in is Ranana. And the here that I'm in is the five towns. As soon as I talk about America, I'm like, wait a second, this is not I'm Oklahoma. I'm not talking about Minnesota. I'm talking about the five towns. So yeah, I mean, ooh. How does that play out differently? It's just the inverse. Like, like it's essentially because it's because it's a Jewish state, we send to the public school. And the public school, there isn't like you don't not get accepted. Right. You go. Even goes. Right. But the emphasis in terms of the value system is different there. Um, right. Yeah, I left the wrong thing there. The value system, yeah, because you don't have the same demarcations. It's more, again, that's where I am. When you start moving more to the right, the emphasis on dress and like the hard lines between religious and not is strong, but it's kind of like the inverse. Like here, maybe when you're on the edges, it's clearer, and in the middle, it's where it gets dicey. Yeah. In Israel, it's like, we're we're all data me. Like, like I I maybe you like, you know, press the elevator button on Shabbos, like you keep Shabbos, right? And like I wear pantas, but like I love God, you know. So it's like I we I don't, I don't, it's not the same lens. It's more of a melting pot in that way. I mean, it's like the most homogenous place in the world, but in that sense, it's more of a melting pot. Right. Okay, interesting. Um, okay. And nobody is sorry, I just want to add to that. Yeah. I I I think the big piece is that nobody gives a shit. Nobody gives a shit. You just be you. It's not like, you know, I think this is uh, I don't know if I've thought of it in these particular terms. It's like it's like someone's value here. It feels like someone's value and status and the trajectory of their life and maybe their children's lives in shidukim and I don't know what is riding on how they present religiously. It is. Whereas there, unfortunately, and maybe and maybe I'm like wet behind the ears and I'll have a reawakening in 10 years. I don't think so. But there, uh it doesn't even register. It's not even like it's not even a part of their like my kids aren't gonna be my their own people. I'm just their mom. Like what I do is they're gonna find their own path and they're gonna find a nice girl or boy, and they're gonna have their own relationship, and it's gonna be about who they are as people. It's not like a system.

unknown 50:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:20

Yeah, at least that's how it feels. It's so different. It's not a system, it's people. And it's not like that's the difference, is that here we're so into systems, right? American cultures, I would say their strength is that they're like so fun and there's so much vibrancy in life, and it's like a real YOLO kind of attitude. Yeah, but like there's a fuck ton of crime. Because everything is just like a party all the time. Right now, I don't know if I'm talking about the right place. Yeah, but and then you have like, you know, um, God, I'm gonna say the wrong thing. I'm so not PC. Like, got it. Just say it. If they leave like a thousand dollars just out on a bench and like no one back, no one's gonna touch it because like the justice, the justice system there is so brutal. I don't know, it's so like high octane. Yeah, but the the culture there is whatever the opposite of a party is. You know, it's like it's like hyper-rigid. Um, so I don't know if I'm using the exact examples, but like I'm sure there's stuff in Israel, this particular facet of Israel, yeah, I love. Um, I mean, there's war, which is tricky. Yeah. Yep. That's fun. Um, but that's a recent thing. That's it's I mean, it's been ongoing for years, but yeah, but but I do think that's also part of why we have what part of why we have what we have, because it kind of puts everything in perspective. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Like less narrative because like people are actually dying, dying and putting their lives on the line. And then there's also a glue that comes from that. You know, everybody knows someone. So it doesn't matter if you're wearing a sheetal or a lace or a lace top or a half. Like, so it's not that direct of a connection, but I just think um the high like priorities become a little bit clearer. Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah. So I actually wanted to go into um going back, I guess, to the to the to the fitness aspect. So you talked a little bit about this the struggle as a virtue versus the right pursuit. Right. So in an industry that often glorifies, like harder is better, you've shifted away from that struggle as a virtue. So what change? Yeah. I think I think it's been like a less, a less um, what's the word I'm looking for? Not aggressive, but like a less aggressive continuation of what I was describing earlier. So let's say in seminary, I had this like what's what felt an orientation towards what I perceive to be truth, and then just kind of taking that and imposing it an intense overriding of self. And so, you know, I kind of shed some of that, I guess. Not sure if it's the right word, but just because you shed the the structure doesn't mean you've reconnected with self fully. Okay, explain. So you can stop doing things that feel like they're creating too much friction, like that it's just too hard in a way that's depleting, but it doesn't mean that you've really gotten in touch with what you want, what you do want to bring in. It's like kind of cutting out junk food but not introducing produce. Right. You know, it's so and and I think, you know, uh in the vein of like the overriding category, it was kind of like once once you have a goal, the best thing you can do is fight for it, right? Discipline, effort. If you're doing something hard, essentially, it must be worth something because it means you're working towards something, it means you're overriding your really base, flawed, impulsive, pleasure-seeking nature, right? And it was kind of like again, it was binary and it was detached. And uh I think, you know, like through through my own process of trying to pause, actually, pause for a second. What I've come to realize about myself is that I uh I mean, this is not a revelation to myself or anyone who knows me, but I've spent most of my life in my brain.

SPEAKER_02 54:40

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 54:42

But it wasn't so clear to me that I was there because I also do feel intensely. I'm not afraid of feeling. Like some people are afraid of feeling, so they have to go rational. I actually love feeling. I love crying. Really? Yeah, love crying. Feel so good. I love laughing. I love laughing. Like I do love emotional expression. I even love being angry. Like there's no, there's no feeling really, I don't think. The only thing that that's very uncomfortable for me is stuckness. But like any feeling that flows, like I actually love it. But there was always like a truncation of the feeling. It was like, okay, I feel this now. What does it mean? Or like, I feel this, is it real? Where is it coming from? You know, it was kind of like pulling the feeling. Yes, I felt felt it, but also pulling it back into analysis. And so I think, like, as I am moving into a place where I'm connecting more to feeling. And also, feeling is such a catch-all word for so many types of non-rational experiences, right? There's like impulse, and then there's like long-standing feeling, and there's just like a spectrum. It's such a coarse, crude way to refer to all those things, but um, more in touch with feeling, embodiment, sensation, non-analysis, all of that stuff. And when you start recognizing how much overriding of self you're doing in pursuit of whatever you believe to be true, and you're well, I don't know, I'm saying you. I you realize that you've kind of pedestaled struggle as a virtue unto itself, but you in many areas, or even just some areas, you were not even moving in the right direction. Struggle in and of itself is not a virtue if it's not taking you to the right place. Right. And it's a hard thing to know when you don't have that connection to self. And not that the self becomes the final say on maybe it is. I'm still trying to, I'm still working through this, honestly, because I don't want to pedestal the self in place of like higher power, higher knowledge, deference. You know, I don't want to turn it into arrogance and complete self-orientation. But without any connection or a substantial connection to the self, you're really just kind of absorbing other messages. And a lot of them make sense. Like to the rational mind, they do make sense. But it doesn't mean that they make sense for you now. And that's why being in touch with the non-atalytical and the non-verbal and like the visceral, the embodied, the emotional becomes, I think, really important for anyone who wants to live live a full a full life and to their fullest potential. Yeah. Do you think most people aren't in that way? I mean, the real answer is my my judgmental knee-jerk answer is yes. I think that most people are not there within I'd say more so within this community because they're because of the systems. Because there's so much pressure riding on showing up in a certain way and the the the penalties essentially that you get if you don't. And I think that makes it extremely difficult for people to individuate. So how can people get there? I'm saying like you were able to do it. I mean, I I think I had a leg up in the first place. I think, you know, my non-conformist tendencies, and like what I said at the beginning, like, oh, you're so real. Like, I definitely have a propensity towards towards finding truth um and like circling back to the same questions over and over because my first brush wasn't satisfying, or I or I realized that there's something that isn't fully connecting. Um you're constantly questioning. Yeah, yeah. And most people don't. Most people just stay in that safe space, the familiar space. Yeah. They question it feels uncomfortable. Yeah. Like, I don't know. How do you get someone to care? And and I don't know, everyone has their own path. Like, this is meaningful to me. It's it's it's very meaningful to me to feel like I've kind of this is like a visualization I had this morning, actually, in breath work, but to feel like I've filled myself up. And then that becomes a sort of like light for not that I don't mean to imply that I have what to give and as valuable. You do? Okay, obviously I do mean that, but it feels like a really self-imperance to say that. But I mean, in the sense that everybody does. Everybody has has a gift. And to me, like that filling up of self in a way that comes to the point that it like spills over to others and creates a meaningful existence for me because of how it feels to me and because of how it impacts other people, that feels very important to me. And that goes back to, if we're gonna loop around to the whole podcast, that goes back to the group fitness part of like what you give to your members, what you give to your students, you know. Um, one thing that your students, I guess. One thing that I love about your classes, and that's kind of like why I wanted you on the podcast, was, you know, every class is not just it's not just about the fitness, it's about the things that you say in the class, right? You always have these motivational kind of things that and just really eye-opening um stances, I guess, that you that you say that it feels like a spiritual experience. Like when I'm in the class, it really feels like, and I'm not just like, you know, pumping you up or like kissing your ass, you know?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:16

I love that too.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:18

But um, no, but I I'm saying like what fills you up is giving to other people, like that, I guess that semble that little semblance of truth that people can live in and not live in this conformity or, you know, um, that space. Yeah. Yeah. When I thought you were gonna say that what fills me up is giving to other people. And I was gonna respond in a certain way there. And then you finished it with this truth or not me. And yeah, the complete sentence, yes, is true. And I think that, you know, there are, I'm sure, people who are wired in such a way that they just love to give.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:52

You know, they have a benevolent way about them. Yeah. And uh over the years, that is something that's bothered me a little bit about myself, that that's not my natural way. You know, if anything, I have like more of a self-absorption, not a selfishness, but yeah, like when I'm thinking about my day, I'm not like, whose birthday is it? And like, did I check in on, you know, her dad? I knew he likes, I'll literally put reminders in my full because I'm not gonna think of it by myself. Um, and I think it's a beautiful quality. And it kind of bothered me that I did it, that it doesn't come naturally to me. But for myself, and maybe for other people who are wired this way, I think that giving can also come from your fullest self-expression, from from really leaning into the thing that's important to you. And then naturally, you'll want to give that to other people. So, yeah, you know, you might not naturally be the person who brings like a self-care package to someone, but there can be a giving and a benevolence that looks very different, that is v extreme, extremely meaningful in a in a very, did I say it looks very different? Extremely meaningful in a way that's very unique. Yeah, and important. And most people don't have that to give. Most people are not living in their fullest self-expression. They're just not. Right, right. I mean, what what I the the ending of what I was gonna say after I expressed what's important to me is that if something's not important to someone, then like, okay, if if what makes them feel good going to sleep at like I don't know what other people's internal worlds are like. Right. So if someone is fully content living a life that if I was living it, I'd feel like I'm drowning, then gives them to hey, right, you know, go for it. Yeah. Um, I don't know, I don't know how much time we have or what you wanted to touch on. The only um section that I have left, which we kind of touched touch on, is the mental health as mental agility. Yeah. Do you want to talk about that? Yeah, sure. I mean, I'll use that as a segue now for people who are maybe living in like a shell is too strong of a word, but a limited, limited self-connection, limited self-expression. So I have a friend who experienced a trauma decades ago already. And just now in her life, she's working through it both internally and externally, like addressing it with other people. And a big shift for her is that she moved out of repression, like emotional repression. I mean, I think most people have like little bits of repression, but some people are like more heavily repressed, and it kind of one thing I love, or one of the lines I love when talking about repression is emotional shutdown is not surgical. So when people are free afraid of a negative emotion, let's say, what happens when they try to repress, you know, their uh anger or jealousy or whatever, not surgical, meaning you can't just do it for the negative emotions. Invariably it impacts your positive emotions too. So you tamp down on your anger, but you also tamp down on your joy. You also tamp down on your gratitude. It kind of desaturates everything. Yeah. So this friend, she was like, she was telling me as she was going through this process and feeling more things and grief and sadness and and everything, that everything is so vivid now. And she used to go through her days and nothing really ruffled her. Everything just kind of like rolled off her back, and she was like, Oh, you just like really insulted me. Never. And now she's like, fuck. But like, that was rude. And like, even interpersonally, it's caused a little bit more friction with friends. But and I said to her, I was like, Do you do you wish you could go back? Yeah. And she said no. And I don't know that everybody would have the same answer, just you know, talking that talk talking about, you know, the people who are, let's say, living disconnected from themselves. Maybe that feels better to them. Well, ignorance is bliss, right? Ignorance is all some bliss. Some people think that. Yeah. Well, don't, you know. Right. But at least in this case study, she feels that it's worth it to live a more vi emotionally vibrant life and in and in a truer life. Yeah. She's, you know, she's not essentially lying to herself that things don't bother her or that things don't upset her. I think that just from being more in alignment with yourself, even though there's like more turbulence, there's also more peace. And I think that kind of goes to like what you're saying, the mental the mental health, the mental agility. Literally, I that was the first time I'd ever given it that specific language. So I hope I agree with myself in like or so. But I think mental health, similar to when people talk about neurological nervous system regulation. Nervous system. Yeah. I think that, you know, the latter category, for example, people have conflated regulation with being even keel all the time. And similarly with mental health, I don't know that it's it's not as much of a buzzword right now, but I do think that there might be this sort of implicit assumption that mental health means you're kind of even keel. You know, you don't depart too much from your baseline. I think both of them are really about capacity, you know, mental health or nervous system regulation. It's the ability to go to your edges and be okay with it and also come back from it, you know, not get stuck there. Not to say that you don't really get bent out of shape sometimes. That happens. But but but the stuckness, not being stuck. Stuck in rage, not being stuck in, you know, uh a physiology that can't calm down. And then on the flip side of that, allowing yourself to go to your edges and go to the range, or at least whatever you can tolerate at that point in time. I think that, you know, maybe the second thing is what's is a more common issue that people are so afraid of applying, experiencing that intensity, applying that stress. And this actually really dovetails with my whole fitness philosophy, like the big move towards lower intensity, lower impact types of formats, like the Pilates in particular, but anything in that genre, the sculpt, it's there's a big there, there's a very um pervasive narrative about cortisol, right? And what you're doing, it's too much and it's overloading your body, and your cortisol is too high. And that's why you're fat and ugly. You know, it's the lead of all your problems. It's why your relationships are suffering, like everything. And like there's a like most things, there's a grain of truth to it. You know, of course we're we know we're familiar with the idea of overtraining. And I think many people are, at least in a loose way, familiar, or it makes sense that there's such a thing as exercising too much and eating too little and not getting enough sleep and having too much stress. Like we talk about cortisol because I think I think people like talking about cortisol because first of all, they probably think it makes them sound smart. But also it pulls it out of the realm of things that we can actually look at and measure. It's we we can look at am I exercising too much? Am I eating too little? Am I sleeping too little? Am I too stressed in a more direct way than wondering, like, oh my God, is my cortisol too high? So, like, just like cortisol can fuck off for a second and like look at the actual measurables in your life, because these are the things that are going to determine whether or not your body is engaging in hardship in a way that breaks it down, which also goes back to the different types of hard ones that break you down or what everything is out. I mean, this less like looping at all. This is why I'm about fitness because it's all a metaphor for life. But um uh, but the types of stress that break you down, or if it's the right amount of stress that builds you up. And it's not just about the stress, it's about all of the surrounding factors that contribute to recovery or or fueling or lack thereof. So, so, so, so, so, so what I think what I think, um, what I think it would behoove a lot of women in particular, and I'd even go so far as to say a lot of women in our community in particular to seek out is actually a little more, I don't know if the word is intensity, a little bit more like receptivity to the intensity. A little bit pushing themselves, meaning not in fitness. No, sorry, I went back to mental health. Okay. Allowing for the ugliness. I think that and and and I say women and also women in our community because women right away are expected to like rainbows and butterflies, you know. I don't care how progressive we are, we're still supposed to be like happy all the fucking time. Um and then I think in our community, because there's so much moralizing about everything we do, which is fine and great, we need morals, right? We need to ethical society. I don't want you killing me and me oh, I'm whatever, robbing my dang. Fuck. But I think that because there's so much moralizing and so much emphasis on being good, that we've really narrowed our range of acceptable emotions. Yeah. It's like, oh no, I am jealous. Oh no, I just had thought about that person, you know. I must be an off a person. Yeah. Like, and like it gets to the point that I I think we don't even allow it. We don't even go there. And uh when we clamp down so much, first of all, we lose touch with ourselves, and also it leaks out sideways. It leaks out in passive aggressiveness or covert aggressiveness, it leaks out in relationships that don't have the same amount of depth, it leaks out in like unexplained kinds of outbursts or reactions to things that are just like not not appropriate for the situation, it's or even an illness, right? Right. Like when you when you when you stuff it all. So I I think that mental health, and I am not a mental health professional, in fact, I am mental straight up. But but I think, and again, I'm riffing from yesterday, it was just like stream of consciousness after you asked me that question. I think like one of the biggest gifts people in this category or space or anyone who wants to hear it can give themselves is is mental mental freedom, mental, mental emotional, mental latitude, mental agility, the ability to dip into the ugly and whatever, because it's only once you can like see it and connect with it that anything can start to shift. Wow. And with that, Yakira. That was amazing.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:00

Oh, I'm so good.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:01

And you're brilliant.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:02

Well, thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:04

Uh you just are. Um, I didn't even take any notes. Yeah. See that? We just like we just had a conversation. So um, do you want to tell our listeners like where they can find you? What studio? The best. I do want to tell them. Let me just get myself organized. Okay. So if you live in America, I'm talking to the camera now, right? Yeah. If you live in America, go to Cedarhurst, New York, fit, it's not fit studio, F-I-T. It's super iconic on 81 Columbia. You can find us on Instagram at the period fit period studios with an S at the end, but we might change it soon. So just stay moved. And if you live in Israel, you can find uh God, it is also gonna change. Right now it's uh happening at the Ya, but the name is gonna change. Oh my god, sneak peek to Koda C-O-D-A. I don't know what the handle is gonna be, but find us in Ranana, and you can find Oh, that's why you keep saying Coda on the thing. I'm like, I don't know what you're talking about. And you can find me on at Yakira at Phil, but just one A in the middle. There's an A. Find me. Thank you so much. And you can find me at talk to Tamara on Instagram. You can go to my website at Tamargasetner.com, and you can find me on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, wherever podcasts are found.