Conversation 2: Yin-Yoga Teacher Michelle

Well,

Hello,

Michelle.

Hello,

Silas.

How are you doing today?

I'm great and I'm thrilled that you're here.

Well,

Thank you.

What do you do,

Michelle?

I change people's lives.

I show them that there is a way,

That there's a path to where they want to be and who they want to be and how they want to be.

And I bring inspiration.

Change people's lives.

That's a pretty bold statement out the gate.

Yep.

Why,

I don't know,

Why the chutzpah behind it,

I guess?

I have seen my clients,

Even just in a few weeks,

Make massive,

Drastic life changes and they couldn't be happier.

And all they needed was a little encouragement from somebody outside,

A little bit of shining some light on possible paths,

And a lot of tools and techniques that I have learned over the last 10 years that I can offer them in a nice little package.

That takes about six weeks to give them the tools.

And if they put them into practice and they have a little bit of courage and a vision and some inspiration,

They can be everything they want to be.

That's awesome.

Before we get much further,

What do you call yourself?

Like,

What is the title that you bestow upon yourself?

I am,

I think of myself kind of as a motivational speaker,

Only I'm not speaking to large groups.

Okay.

I,

I,

Gosh,

I haven't thought of that yet.

I call myself a coach.

It's a weird word sometimes.

Yeah,

Yeah.

It's,

You get a little bit of that,

Like,

Who am I to be coaching people?

But then I also have been through abuse,

Been through emptiness,

Been through teenagers with massive problems,

Which make it hard for parents.

I have been through death with a loved one.

I've been through all kinds of changes.

I've climbed and scratched and clawed my way from the bottom to what I consider the top.

Yeah.

I couldn't be living a better life if I tried.

Um,

Yeah.

Do you think that opportunity is available to everyone if they try?

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think there's always a way,

And I know it's going to be harder for some people.

And I was that person with three kids living in poverty,

Fleeing from abusive relationships.

It takes wanting to turn your life around.

It takes knowing you can have a better life.

It takes a lot of work,

But if you have a path and a vision and a dream and you stick to it,

I think anybody can do it.

Do you think that,

Uh,

The convincing yourself of the reality of change,

That it's possible that you can do it,

Whether it's on your own or with the support of others,

That that is one of the harder steps?

First,

I always say take support of others.

Mm-hmm.

And if that's friends,

Mentors,

Neighbors,

Anybody who has been through what you've been through and come out of it,

Listen to them.

Listen to them,

Ask for their advice.

I think that everybody could use a coach.

Not everybody can afford a coach.

So take it where you can get it.

Everybody has,

Everybody has somebody they know.

And reality,

I don't want to sound crazy,

But reality is what you make it.

Mm-hmm.

How you feel about yourself and how you feel about your situation.

It's kind of like the glass is half full or the glass is half empty.

If you have a glass,

You should be grateful that you have a glass.

And every time your glass gets filled a little bit more,

Find a little more gratitude.

Um,

I just kept filling my glass.

I just kept being grateful for every little thing and every little thing.

And every little one around me,

I saw the life I wanted and I went after it.

And I always dreamed I could do it.

I always believed in myself,

Even,

Even in the rough times,

I knew it was going to be better.

I held on to hope.

And yes,

Having like my husband,

Having a partner who supports you,

Who you're their whole world is pretty great.

Um,

I would have probably gotten to this point somewhere along my path because I did believe in myself.

That took a long time,

But I learned to believe in myself and believe in my dreams and go after them.

Yeah.

So where did you start?

Where did you begin in this,

In this process,

I guess.

So back to the teenagers,

I have teenage girls and we were going through some bullying and issues in junior high with my youngest.

And somebody said,

Put her in yoga.

So we went to a yoga class and she hated it.

I loved it.

Uh,

But after the class,

It was a meditation and I hadn't,

My dad kind of taught me to meditate when I was a kid and I hadn't done it in years and years and years and years.

I had the most amazing experience and I could literally hear in my head,

You've got this.

And whether it was me telling myself,

I've got the,

The daughter thing or my life in general,

Um,

I hadn't really cleaned up the messes that I made.

I kept sweeping them under a rug and you know,

Every time we kick that rug,

Some crap was off the bottom of it.

And it really started me on a journey to just throw away the damn rug and stop putting stuff under it and deal with it.

Deal with the past trauma,

Deal with the current situations with the,

With the kids and family and really look at what I wanted in life.

At that point we had a business.

I had a business,

My husband and I have a business.

And,

Um,

We were very busy,

Very,

Very,

Very busy.

I never took the time for myself.

And when I found that first meditation,

I never looked back.

It was,

It changed me to my core.

It was something I knew I wanted to do every day.

It felt so good.

It was so nice to quiet my mind,

Always running,

Always running,

Always schedules and trying to be perfect and trying to do everything.

And I found stillness and silence and I hadn't had that before.

I hadn't enjoyed it for sure.

If it was quiet,

I had the radio on,

I had the TV on in the background.

And for the first time,

And I was in my early 40,

Like very early forties.

Um,

And I think I had actually just started menopause when it happened.

Um,

And I was a mess and it changed everything.

Would you say that you,

Cause I've heard you mentioned gratitude and I've heard you kind of talk around this idea of radical acceptance of like what's in front of you and what's around you.

Do you think that those two things really can go hand in hand with anybody is,

Is to be grateful for what you have and to,

You know,

In a healthy way,

Kind of have a radical acceptance of what's around you or what's in front of you.

I believe that.

I believe it's harder in some situations.

We have a lot of homelessness right now,

Houselessness.

Um,

There's a lot of people out of work right now.

There's a lot of people trying to feed their children,

Especially around the holidays.

I think it's a little bit harder.

Um,

I believe if you can find the little things in life that make you happy,

Hold onto those.

They don't have to be a house or a car or,

You know,

I want this great job.

If you have little things in your life,

Start there,

Start there and work your way up.

And the more,

I'm a law of attraction person that I believe in manifestation,

But I believe that it's your brain.

You're training your brain to look for the things that are actually in front of you that maybe you didn't notice before.

Right.

So if you can start training your brain to look for the little things every day and say out loud,

I'm grateful.

This is in my life.

Sure.

There's some stuff in your life you're not grateful for,

But what do you want to focus on?

Right.

So it's,

Uh,

It's an extensive coverage,

But it's not exhaustive way to think.

And,

You know,

Safety and security is obviously an issue.

If you,

If you don't feel safe,

If you're being abused,

I know how hard it is to,

To find the little things to be grateful for,

But they're there,

They're there every day.

And it can just be a flower.

I,

When I left my ex-husband and at that point I had two littles and no car and it was the winter and I had to stay with a friend and had to walk every day with two little kids in the fall and the leaves were falling and my life was a mess and all these leaves were falling.

And it just kind of reminded me that everything that's not working for you has to kind of fall away before new growth can come.

And it really got me looking at the leaves and how beautiful they were.

And it was the first time in my life I noticed how beautiful the red and yellow on these leaves were,

You know,

It was always,

Oh yeah,

They're cool.

They're falling.

They're pretty.

I had never picked up a leaf and just stared at it and just thought this is the most beautiful thing until I connected it with letting go.

The leaves are like,

Get letting go.

And then I looked at the leaves a little deeper and I was like,

I found beauty in a walk in the freezing cold with two small children walking to a bus so that I can go to the welfare office and I can find beauty in that.

So I think if you look,

Anybody can find beauty,

But I also don't want,

It's hard when you're in a,

When you're in a situation where you don't feel like there's any way out.

I get it's really difficult to find beauty in things.

And for that,

I would say find beauty in your mind.

Like you can always go other places.

Other places,

If you have a few minutes of quiet,

Just find something beautiful to think about.

So if someone wants to start,

I don't know,

Take a self-examination,

Right?

Examining themselves,

Examining their situation,

Or if they're in a perfectly normal situation,

Perfect,

Comfortable situation in themselves,

But they still want to have this self-reflection process begin,

In your view,

Where would be a good place to start?

I would say,

Start with your beliefs.

What are they and why are they your beliefs?

Did they come from your parents?

Why are they your parents' beliefs?

Or it's because it's something your grandparents believed and your parents believed and you believed.

If it's something that you are just looking to change a habit,

I would say,

Let's look at changing more like a personality trait and changing a habit.

Or if you set a goal,

I would say,

Let's look at what that looks like.

Not just like,

I want to lose some weight.

Okay,

Well,

What is a healthier lifestyle?

Some people have a lot of past that they got to deal with.

And I believe strongly that you can deal with that past while you are looking at a bright future.

I think those two go hand in hand.

I don't think you have to go through therapy and fix yourself,

You know,

The quote unquote fix yourself before you can actually have dreams,

Have passions,

Go after them.

I think they work really well together.

And a lot of my clients actually have a therapist or some sort of other like a health coach or something because I say eat the cookie.

Life's too short.

I'm not the kind of coach.

I'm a wellness coach.

I'm a motivational coach.

I'm an inspirational coach.

But I'm not going to say don't eat the cookie.

Maybe don't eat the whole bag and then realize,

Oh my God,

I just ate a bag of cookies.

Enjoy the cookie.

Eat the cookie mindfully.

Savor the cookie.

Be grateful that you have a cookie,

That you can savor the cookie,

That you have this moment in time that's just yours.

But enjoy it.

So a funny little quip.

I have,

I had a friend that used to tell me that Pringles hurt his stomach,

Right?

I love Pringles.

But I looked at him and I went,

Yeah,

But do you eat the whole tube?

And he's like,

Well,

And it's like,

Yeah,

Maybe don't eat the whole tube in one sitting.

And it's like,

Well,

If you're in the mood to eat the whole tube,

Feel free to do so.

But think about it a little,

You know.

Pringles are my road trip food.

I will not go on a road trip or a flight.

And I love to travel.

We have the motor home now.

So there's never not a can of Pringles if we leave on the road,

Even if we're camping,

Even if whenever I'm going to be two hours or more on the road,

There's a can of Pringles with me.

So what specifically in the world of meditation,

Yoga,

Wellness,

Whatever you want to call it,

Did you get pulled towards or did you get curious about or like you can give it a name,

You can give it a sect,

You can give it a type,

Whatever it is.

You know,

I,

I listen to you a lot.

You are,

You are just a godsend for me to have you in my life.

I'm so blessed.

I'm a big dork.

Yeah,

Well,

We can be dorks together,

But I don't subscribe.

Like,

I don't pick a different one that I like.

I know what I like.

I like the yoga,

Nidra's.

I love body scan type things just to see how my body's doing that day and notice the changes every day.

And what I do with my clients is for the first six weeks,

We try several different styles because when they come to me,

They say,

I can't meditate.

I use calm for five minutes.

I do this.

I do that.

So we find a style that they love.

We find a position that they're comfortable in because people have back problems and I want them to sit correctly or be in a kind of a reclined position or lying down.

And by the time they leave here,

They know exactly what kind of meditation they're going to go on YouTube or they're going to go on the call map or whatever app they use and move forward.

And so for me,

I don't have a favorite really,

Or,

Or anything.

I just,

I just love the peacefulness.

I just,

It was so life changing.

And then I found breath work,

Which takes meditation to a whole nother level.

So that's my current passion.

You know,

And I,

I really respect that in you as a teacher and a person with these clients and these people that you get to interact with because so often in the meditation space and in the yoga space and wellness space,

A lot of the questions that I get are like,

You know,

It all seems so overwhelming.

It,

Cause there's just so much of it.

And there,

There can be so many different languages that are involved in so many different,

Like,

I have no idea what this word means or what this practice actually is kind of thing.

And so I feel like your introduction of multiple styles of practices are very helpful for people.

And also with that openness of like,

We can come back to these other practices if you find them helpful in the future.

And that you don't have to just do one thing.

Do you think that people,

Cause it's something I found,

But do you think that people can get stuck in like,

Because for me,

I was a wall stare.

I remember that for five years.

I remember you being a wall stare when I was meditating with you in the,

Yeah,

At the park.

We,

You,

You said,

Stare at the wall.

I thought,

Okay,

And it can be very helpful to stare at the wall.

You know,

In,

In my Zen friends,

My Zen monk friends,

We always make the joke that walls are a wall.

We always make the joke that walls are really cool.

Those were cool walls.

They had that wood paneling.

There you go.

But it can,

If I had just stayed that right.

If I had continued to do that concentration style practice,

I never would have evolved in any other realm.

I would have just gotten much better at staring at a wall,

Which well helpful,

You know.

And you know,

That,

That's something I,

I definitely respect.

Have you noticed an evolution of your practice in that way?

I have,

Uh,

What I've noticed is being a coach and we spend the first part of our session.

So a session looks like this.

It's,

It's about a half hour of personal development,

Unless they need more that day or less that day.

Then we do about 15 minutes of breath work.

Maybe we do some yin yoga there a little further on,

And then I'll start 10 minute meditations with them.

Like their first week is a 10 minute meditation.

We'll kind of slowly move up to maybe a half hour,

But I watch my clients because while they're sitting there,

I can see their body language.

I can see if they're twitching.

I can see if maybe they've got some energy so I can tailor the meditation to say,

Okay,

Well,

They're very anxious today.

Let's,

They're moving a lot.

Let's do Mala beads.

Let's,

You know,

However,

Or if I noticed that they're a little bit depressed that day,

I can do a beautiful meditation that will just,

When they leave here,

They're just smiling ear to ear so I can adjust on the fly with my clients.

And so it's really evolved because before it was like,

Nope,

We're going to do this meditation.

Now we're going to do this meditation.

And now I can kind of feel their energy.

I can see their body language and we can adjust for the day so that when they leave here,

They leave here feeling good.

Not,

Well,

Gosh,

I tried to meditate and,

You know,

I had all this stuff going on in my brain and I feel like I didn't do it right.

I want them to leave here feeling very good about themselves.

Have you ever had anyone tell you that it was a hard thing to do?

Yes.

My husband.

Yeah.

He cannot visualize.

He cannot picture a tree in his head and it's a real thing and we looked it up.

And so what I've done now,

Because I do run him through the meditations as well,

I print a picture of a Lotus or I print a picture of a,

If we're going to do like a forest meadow kind of guided meditation,

I have a picture of a forest meadow and I show it to him just so he can like have that image.

He's probably the hardest one I've had just because he cannot picture something.

So if you say picture a light emanating from your heart,

He just,

He has to like in his head,

He's trying to see a diagram of a body.

And so it's helped me realize that it doesn't come easy to people.

Yeah.

I'm a terrible visualizer.

I've never been able to visualize.

And I got the chance to practice with them with some Tibetan Buddhists and they're all about visualization.

I love visualization.

I can't do this at all.

Have you ever had anyone kind of,

Did they ever have a hard time with their body in that situation or were they having a dialogue with their own body at that time?

I have,

You know,

I mean,

I don't know what's going inside their head.

Most of them,

I can see the,

You know,

The Twitch.

I can kind of,

As I'm watching and reading it when there's quiet times,

I close my eyes and let them have their space.

But I have one that has a dog and I couldn't believe the energy difference.

She just couldn't get comfortable and she couldn't,

She was moving and you could just tell she wasn't there.

And her,

Her beautiful dog came over and laid next to her and she just melted into the ground and had her hand on her dog.

And so it's,

Yeah,

It's,

It's hard to know what's going on in their head,

But you can definitely watch the body language.

Um,

So,

And I think it's hard for everybody at first,

If they haven't had a meditation practice.

Um,

But once they find it,

They all love it.

Once they all find that,

That spot where you can finally be okay with your thoughts and you're not trying to fight them and you're not trying to analyze them and you just acknowledge them.

And there's a peace there.

And once they find that peace,

You can just see them relax.

Do you think it's a big hurdle to overcome in while doing those practices,

Analyzing yourself?

We do,

Um,

We do a Vipassana practice in the seven to 12 weeks part of it.

And I am amazed at,

They kind of share with me afterwards that yes,

They had something that just kept coming up and coming up and coming up and then they can go home and analyze why is this coming up for me?

And they come back and they say,

Gosh,

That was amazing.

That I didn't realize that this was such a big deal until I quieted my mind and looked at this thought instead of,

You know,

They always said,

Put it in a cloud,

Let it float away.

Well,

That's great in the beginning,

But when you're actually doing the shadow work and doing the hard work and you want to move forward and you want to have this bright future without those clouds,

You got to look at it.

Right.

You got to look at it and you got to say,

Why is this coming up?

What,

What is unfinished here?

Um,

And you don't have to have judgment about it,

But like a scientist,

I tell them you're when you're in here,

You're like a scientist,

Just a scientist of the inner self.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You're making observations,

You're doing things,

You're shifting things to try and change those.

And there's no textbook for you.

It's up to you to,

To figure it out.

Believe me,

There's 20 million textbooks out there that were written,

But it's not about you individually.

No,

No,

It's really not.

And they're great books.

I don't know,

My God,

My office is full of them.

But when it's you sitting on the ground with no one and no sound,

Just the thoughts in your head,

It's a whole different ball game.

How much is the body,

A teacher in the things that you do in that?

Like,

Yeah,

We're doing all of these mental things.

We're working in these meditations,

But how much do you think,

Or in your own practice,

Does the body tell you things?

I,

Once I found breathwork,

Um,

And the movement,

The somatic movement,

Um,

The way your body responds to breathwork,

The way your body responds to the movement.

And I call your,

I,

I don't know where I heard it.

Um,

But it's,

Somebody said the breath is the bridge between the body and the mind.

Absolutely.

I,

I 100% believe that.

So if you can have your body and your breath and your mind all working in balance,

That's,

That's harmony.

I mean,

It's like music and it's,

So as my progression of being a coach and finding wellness and stress reduction for people,

I came across yin yoga and I never was going to be a yoga teacher.

I am now a yin yoga instructor,

But we do breathwork,

Yin yoga,

And meditation in an hour and 15 minute session.

And it's a great way that I can give back to my community.

Um,

These are wonderful classes.

People are really getting something out of it,

But what they're learning is how their bodies,

They're learning their body.

A lot of people don't know that they can't do something until they do,

Or they don't know that they can do something until they do.

So when we get on the mat,

We leave off all the judgments,

We leave off any expectation and we go on with an attitude of,

I know my body,

But I'm going to try something new.

And when they start doing the breathwork and see how it calms their mind,

And then they get into a position and they're there for five minutes with their breath,

With their thoughts,

With their body.

It's beautiful.

It's a beautiful thing.

And I've never expected,

I love yoga.

I love yoga.

I love yoga in my house.

Um,

But yin yoga brings a whole new level to rest,

To being still,

To being at peace,

To finding that calmness and recharging your battery.

So for someone who may not know exactly what yin yoga is,

As opposed to yoga,

What are the differences?

So yin yoga is compressing and so you're not stretching so much like you are going to have some stretch,

But mostly you're compressing your joints and fascia,

Your ligaments,

You're putting positive pressure on them.

When you come out of the move,

You come out of it really slowly so that your body can come back to its,

You know,

It's what it needs to be at.

But you're holding each pose,

Beginners,

One to three minutes.

I keep most of my clients about three to five minutes unless it's something like a toe squat where if you don't do 12 squats often and you're in a toe squat for two minutes,

It's a lot.

Right.

It's very peaceful.

It's you,

You get to know your body.

Yeah.

I mean,

Like nothing else in yoga,

It's great.

You have the position and you want to be in that position and then you're moving to the next position and you're trying to get into that position and it's wonderful and I love yoga.

In yin yoga,

There is no correct position.

Everybody's different.

It is up to the person doing the yoga to find that edge and I love,

I love finding the middle where there's not too much and there's not too little.

So in yin yoga,

I always tell them go to find the five in a one to ten and go to a six.

Put that pressure,

A little bit of uncomfortableness and let gravity do the work and it's going to pull you down.

We prop you.

We have all kinds of props so that you're comfortable.

I did a class yesterday morning,

The sun was shining in and everybody felt like little cats laying in the sun.

They were so relaxed.

But you're actually making your fascia and your joints and your ligaments stronger and more flexible.

It's wonderful for people with mobility issues,

People as they're aging.

It's a great way to stay limber.

Yeah.

And you know,

That's something I've noticed a lot because specifically,

So I like to go to hot yoga classes.

I love hot yoga.

I really love hot yoga classes and I'll say that hot yoga is probably one of the most uncomfortable things that I do simply because I'm not good at it.

You know,

And it's weird,

Your mindset before you do something and once you do something.

So I was really,

Really strong at the time,

I was the strongest I'd ever been.

And I walk into this hot yoga class and I'm like,

Oh,

This is going to be a breeze.

I got this.

And so I go to the back of the class and then there are these women that are 30,

40,

50 years older than me.

You know,

They're doing headstands and they're.

.

.

Or this is their second hot yoga class of the day.

Yeah,

Exactly.

And I am back there shaking and struggling.

And sweating like crazy.

And sweating like crazy and going,

All right,

Silas,

Have a little bit of humbleness here.

Yeah,

Yeah,

No,

I love hot yoga.

I love being hot.

Yeah.

I really,

Which is weird considering I'm the start to the ice bath,

But I love being hot.

I love vacations that are really hot.

I love to go to Mexico.

But hot yoga,

If you could,

If you could not watch the other people,

Because the people who really love hot yoga,

They're so good at it and they go all the time.

And then here comes me.

Right,

Or me.

I do it like three times a year because I'm so excited I'm going to do it.

And I just don't get in my head about it.

Right.

You know.

And,

You know,

That's what I had to start doing was just like focusing on,

You know,

How I'm doing in the situation instead of comparing myself.

And how your body moves.

Because,

And,

You know,

I learned through hot yoga that I had a knee problem.

It's like,

Well,

Why is my left leg a lot weaker than my right leg?

What's going on here?

And in a lot of different situations like that,

I find that we can enter into a practice or we can enter into a curiosity even and find ourselves way out of our depth when we thought we weren't going to be.

But I find that teachers like you,

Michelle,

Can really help as kind of like buoys in that that water of craziness or act as like a lighthouse to being like,

Oh,

No,

There is a way to do this.

And here's a helpful way.

And here's a helpful way.

And there's always a way.

And it sometimes takes somebody outside of you or outside of your family or outside of your circle to show you that way.

Because when you talk to your friends and family and they have that,

They hear your situation,

They give you the same advice over and over and over.

And you may say it to a stranger and that stranger may have 10 different ways that you've never heard of.

And you say,

You know what,

Let's try this way.

And I say,

Great,

This is what that way is going to look like.

And if you start that way,

But you curve,

I'm right there with you.

Right.

Wherever you are in your journey,

I'm right there with you.

You know,

And I was teaching someone once and it just reminded me of this memory.

And we were talking about the Tibetan concept of like the after death experience.

There's a particular word that they call it that I can't remember right now.

But he looked at me and went,

We are in that experience right now.

He goes,

Every moment of change is one that gives the opportunity of rebirth into something new and the death of something old.

We also do breathwork for that.

Yeah.

Rebirth in breathwork.

Yeah.

So someone is interested in wellness,

Someone's interested in yoga,

Things like that.

What would you point them to?

YouTube.

YouTube?

YouTube.

Oh my God.

I couldn't love YouTube more.

And I pay the subscription because I don't want to be in the middle of a meditation that I might be listening to like a yoga nidra.

Right.

And then there's an ad.

Right.

It's it just,

It doesn't work.

Right.

So I pay the 9.

99 or whatever it is a month.

And you can go down any rabbit hole you want.

And when you go down one,

There's a little branch and you're like,

Oh,

That's really cool.

And then you found this whole new thing that you never heard of that you're totally interested in.

I believe I found breathwork on YouTube and I had tried it and I thought,

Well,

This is kind of cool.

And,

You know,

Because our phones then say,

This is all that we're going to put in your newsfeed.

Yeah.

So then I did a through like a three day,

It was like two hours a day on a weekend,

Like a Friday,

Saturday,

Sunday,

Kind of a breathwork retreat on the computer just because it was all over my phone now.

And it was right up there with meditation,

Meditation and breathwork go hand in hand for me.

And the fact that we can change our nervous system so fast just by using our breath one way or the other blows my mind.

So then I got into all the neuroscience and neuroplasticity and it went to epigenetics.

It just went down this amazing YouTube rabbit hole.

You know,

That's,

That's,

I find it really interesting because I think you're one of the few people that has described meditation in that way or mindfulness in that way or breathwork in that way,

Because a lot of these,

You know,

Very scholarly,

Very ancient texts on meditation that you can read.

Many of them,

I think,

Are trying to get at the point of that meditation is a conscious rewiring of the neurology.

It is.

You're building new pathways.

Right.

Away from suffering,

Away from clinging onto these things that it's not that you're doing it.

It's just that your brain has trained itself to go right to that thing.

And something that I found is that meditation kind of becomes a dialogue between you and your mind.

And your body.

And your body.

Absolutely.

After a certain point where,

For example,

So I was on this meditation retreat and we're on like hour 14 of just sitting there,

Right?

And my butt hurts so much.

My butt and my hips and my lower back hurt so much.

And I just decided to have the conscious thought or conversation with my mind where I went,

You realize you don't have to hurt.

You don't have to,

In this moment,

Be bothered by that pain that's in your butt.

It can just be an experience that's there.

Just like breathing,

Just like the coolness of the room,

Just like the feeling of your clothes against your body.

It can just be a part of this sensation.

And in that instance,

I look,

It's not bothering me anymore.

Look at that.

It's wild.

And you know what?

You can also say,

I have gratitude that my body hurts because I was able to come to this thing that really interests me.

And now I'm sitting here in what used to be a dream.

And now I'm really here.

And yeah,

My body hurts,

But it's because I'm doing what I set out to do.

For me,

Success is when I say,

I'm going to do something and I do it,

Or I'm on the path to doing it.

And that's where you find your gratitude.

Right.

You say it.

I'm grateful I have a body that walked through these doors that,

You know,

That I sat down here in this place that I dreamed of coming to,

And I'm doing this thing that I love doing.

Yeah,

It hurts.

That's okay.

It's only gonna hurt for a little while.

Do you think there's fear around that sometimes?

Like,

I won't be good enough.

I shouldn't be here kind of thing.

Oh,

That,

That imposter syndrome.

Yeah,

That imposter syndrome.

Yeah.

You know,

I had that a little bit in the very beginning.

Again,

I was like,

Who the hell am I to teach people?

I don't live a life when my life was a mess.

But for 10 years,

I don't,

I don't like the word fix.

I,

For 10 years,

I went on a journey and I'm a totally different person.

And I love,

I appreciate the person I used to be.

I love her.

She did the best she could with what she had.

But the person I am now,

It thrills me.

I'm so happy with myself and with life and with whatever the future holds.

Whatever the future brings.

You know,

I have all these dreams and goals.

And if those aren't the,

You know,

That changes in a year,

That's okay.

But for me,

Success is I keep moving forward.

I keep moving forward.

No matter what,

I keep moving forward.

Is it about being comfortable with the change just in general?

Yeah,

I'm,

You know,

I'm the first person that when change happens,

That I kind of have to step back and do my breath work and say,

It's okay.

It's okay.

It's not what I had planned,

But it's okay.

Right.

And you have to be flexible.

You have to,

You have to,

It's a yoga,

They say you have to bend so you don't break.

Right.

And you,

Again,

Not everything's happy and joyful.

And,

But you can say,

What can I learn from this change?

What,

How can I best use this change to put my life in the direction I want to go?

Right.

And how much is it,

You know,

And you mentioned this earlier and I wanted to say,

But I find that before you can become something,

You kind of have to pretend to be it for a while.

Yeah.

Fake it till you make it.

There you go.

How much should we follow that in terms of resistance?

Right.

Like I want to be healthier.

I want to get into meditation.

I want to get into yoga.

But oftentimes I find that people,

They find it really hard,

Even if it's five minutes,

Right.

They find it really hard to sit down,

But once they're set down,

They're there.

Do you think in some ways when it comes to wellness practices,

We kind of need to like follow that resistance a little bit?

So I just read Atomic Habits.

Okay.

Great book.

Can't remember the author's name.

And they said,

You know what,

If you have a hard time going to the gym,

Just put your shoes on one day and then the next day,

Put your shoes on and actually go to the gym.

Don't go in,

Just go to the gym.

And then on the next day,

Put your shoes on,

Go to the gym and go in for five minutes.

And I think if you can,

If you're finding resistance and it's something that you really want,

You need to set yourself up for success.

You need to have the tools ready,

Have the space right.

If you want to meditate,

Have a,

I tell all my clients this on day one,

Have a spot that you designate as your spot.

This is where you meditate,

Pick a morning or a night,

See what works best for you.

Try a little bit of everything.

Start with three days a week,

You know,

10 minutes,

Three days a week,

But always be going 1% better.

Always the next time go 1% more,

Go 1% more.

Something that I did in the beginning,

Which is kind of silly,

But it helped me down the path.

I did things to remove my sense of choice in the matter.

Sure.

Get rid of the bad food.

If you don't,

If you want to live healthier,

Take the crap out of the house.

Well,

Or,

Or when it came to like,

I,

You know,

I'd get home from work and the house would be a wreck,

Right.

But I really want to meditate too.

And so I found that if I sat there with those two choices,

I wouldn't do either one of them.

Right.

I would just kind of be frozen in that choice and something simple that I found.

And it really,

I don't want to say it upset me how well it worked,

But I would just flip a coin.

Perfect.

Flip a coin because I have.

That's genius.

I've removed myself from the situation of choice,

And then it's going to take me 20 minutes to put the house together.

And then I can get to my meditation.

Because that thinking about it is procrastinating.

Exactly.

And I'm a big believer of if you're going to wait for the perfect time to do something,

You may never do it.

Just jump in,

Just take that leap and do it.

So if it's cleaning the house,

Just get the house,

But yeah,

Pick one.

So someone has a,

Let's say a daily practice,

Right,

Where it's 15 minutes,

But they aren't getting anything out of it.

Go longer.

Go longer.

Because I,

I found with myself 15 minutes,

You're just,

You're just the five minute call map is great to reset your parasympathetic nervous system.

You're breathing slowly,

You're relaxing.

If you want to really meditate and you want to really get the benefit out of meditating,

I would say 15 minutes is really where you start meditating,

Where you're actually able to relax and do it.

We're able to let stuff go and you're not thinking about your schedule and you say,

Okay,

Well,

I'm here.

I'm going to be here for this amount of time.

So this is me right now.

And gosh,

If you're not getting something and you're right around 15 minutes,

I would say go longer.

I would say go half hour.

I know it sounds hard for some people.

The more you do it,

Half hour flies by.

Half hour flies by.

I do an hour a day,

Typically at night.

I meditate before clients in the morning for a little bit,

But I typically do about an hour every night of meditating because I get the most benefit in that 20 to 40 minute section of it.

Do you think that people need to have a lot of previous knowledge on the subject before they come to wellness or meditation?

No,

Nothing.

Yeah,

My clients that I've seen the biggest changes in never heard of breathwork.

Never heard.

I mean,

They tried to call them out and I can't meditate.

That's what I hear.

I can't meditate.

And now they're doing their breathwork.

They're doing meditation.

They're doing their gratitude practices.

They have their mindful mornings.

We do a mindful morning.

That's why I'm here.

I learned this stuff.

I learned everything I could learn in 10 years.

And I took the stuff that worked the best for me,

The tools and techniques that work the best for me.

And I put it in a little package that I then hold your hand and walk you through it until you find what works for you.

And then we create a practice out of that.

And I like to bring the magical and the practical together because I think if you're not having fun,

You're not going to keep doing it.

Yeah.

And if you don't believe in the woo woo,

Well,

There's a practical application that works with the woo woo.

So like manifesting.

So I bring a little bit of everything to them.

And,

You know,

One of my favorite,

One of my favorite things,

Abraham Hicks just went on a Alaska cruise for my anniversary present with 14 hours of workshop with Abraham Hicks.

Is she everybody's cup of tea?

No,

Not at all.

But her message is beautiful.

Right.

Her morning rampage.

I have my clients listen to it and they listen to it every day.

I mean,

In the car every day,

They're listening to it.

So who would you say,

Speaking of Abraham Hicks,

Who would you say are some of your influences in this space?

So Abraham,

Greg Briden,

Alan Watts,

Joe Dispenza.

Everybody calls him fringe,

But my God,

That man can help you make new neural pathways like that.

Right.

I love Deepak.

I love Eckhart.

I love I love what Oprah's done bringing a lot of people together.

I found her very inspiring with the interviews that she did on her,

Not the show,

But she did the podcast.

You.

Well,

Thank you.

I love listening to your stuff.

Shocky going somewhere.

I have a book I'll show you.

It's a 1987 copy,

And it was the first book I was ever given about metaphysics and visualization and using your brain to change your body.

And I still have that copy.

I've lost almost everything in my life through the abuse,

Through having to run.

And when you have kids,

You take the kids things,

Whatever you can grab.

So I lost pretty much most of what I had as a child.

And I still have that book.

And I'll preface that with I'm 50 now.

Oh,

Wow.

Yeah.

Happy birthday.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

Yeah.

There's a book that I think I should bring you or tell you about so you can order.

It's a book called The Fourth of the Five.

And I think it's one of the greatest books on meditation ever written.

And it's 12 pages long.

Perfect.

It's Mahasi Sayadaw's Practical Insight Meditation.

Very good.

And it's hilarious because so he wrote that book,

And it's incredible.

In 12 pages,

He shows you what I almost think of as giving all the secrets away.

You know,

People called the secrets or like giving away the whole thing.

But just to make sure that he held his scholarly side up,

He showed you the secrets.

And just to make sure that he held his scholarly side up,

He wrote a book called The Manual of Imsight that is 2,

300 pages long.

I don't know.

These guys that seem to have nothing to say generally have a lot to say.

Well,

That's the thing.

Your average person's not going to go get a book on,

You know,

Buddhist meditation.

They're not going to do that and read it just because they want to try meditating.

Right.

So what I want to do is I want to bring them an approach to it that's so user-friendly,

Kind of like the,

You know,

Meditation for dummies kind of.

Mm-hmm.

The minute they find that,

Like when it happened for me,

You can tell when they come out of the meditation,

They're just like,

Oh,

My God,

That was amazing.

So it's just introducing somebody in the easiest way possible and what works for them.

And they don't know what works for them.

So they're not going to buy that book or they're not going to read,

You know,

They're not going to dig deep until they really love meditation.

And then when they love meditation,

Then they go read 2300 pages.

Yeah.

Well,

I don't know if I've even made it.

So what is love to you?

Oh,

Well,

First you have to love yourself.

Okay.

I don't care what comes after that.

You have to love yourself.

But it's joy in who you are,

Joy in who the person you're with is,

Joy in who your child is,

Joy in who your parent is.

It's finding the beauty in yourself or someone else,

But also accepting that there's not always just beauty.

It's finding comfort,

I guess,

In all things that somebody else is that you connect with.

So and I honestly believe that we all have an energy that we connect with each other.

And there's just people you love.

And I don't even actually know how to explain it other than you find comfort in all of what they do,

The good,

The bad.

No,

I'm not saying stay with somebody who's abusing you or,

You know,

Right.

And that's not love.

Right.

But when your vibration and your heart sync up with somebody else's,

You just know it.

And little things they do or,

You know,

That might irritate you don't really matter.

And the little things they do that are for you just mean the world to you.

It's really interesting.

Well,

Do you have any questions for me,

Michelle?

Oh,

When are you coming back?

It's so great to see you.

Soon,

Hopefully.

I am.

No,

I am thankful that you're here.

I'm thankful I'm able to do what I'm able to do.

I'm thankful that you're able to do what you're able to do.

I know that not everybody gets to say this is what I want to do and goes and does it.

A lot of people have to work really,

Really hard at it.

And some people don't have to work as hard,

But I love being here.

I love being in the spot of doing what brings me the most joy.

And I want everybody to feel that.

Yeah.

Do you have anything where someone's interested in your work?

They're interested in your workshops,

Things like that,

That they could go to?

I'm working on my website right now.

That's kind of my next goal and possibly finding a location for some yoga classes that I don't have to carry all my supplies for 14 people at a time.

After that,

I will be working on an online program,

Like kind of a go at your own pace program with the one-on-one coaching involved,

If they would like it.

Through Zoom.

I'm going to write a book.

There you go.

I have lots of plans.

Well,

That's good.

But right now,

It's mostly locals.

I'm not a,

I would happily do Zoom with somebody.

I don't feel like you get the full effect of the sound bath and the,

You know,

Just the incense and the sound bath and the whole,

The magical side of it.

Right.

Like the sensory side of it.

But as far as the personal development coaching,

I don't care if it's on the phone,

If it's Zoom,

Or if it's in person,

I'm going to inspire you.

There you go.

Well,

Michelle's links will be down in the description below for anyone who's interested in checking out her work or checking out her workshops or anything that's going on in Michelle's space as a motivational speaker,

A teacher.

Retreats.

I've got a retreat coming up in October.

In October of next year.

Thank you so much for letting me talk to you today,

Michelle.

Thank you for being here.

All right.