Today I am talking about being a badass! I wanted to share my acronym for what badass means to me, based off of a speech I created for International Women’s Day. It all starts with belief, and once you understand the power you have within your belief, your potential is unlimited.
Badass Acronym:
A neutral pelvis is so important for our movement patterns and for our energy level, and that’s why today’s episode is all about creating and maintaining a neutral pelvis.
What does “pelvis” mean? Where is the pelvis?
In Latin, pelvis translates to “acetabulum” meaning, basin.
The pelvis is where your lower limbs come up and meet at the hip joint. The illium, the pubic bone, the sacrum, and the tailbone all meet to create the pelvis. The tailbone actually serves as an attachment point for the lower muscular system.
What is a neutral pelvis?
The pelvis provides the foundation for the spine. When thinking about energy exchange and how we hold onto energy within the body, a neutral pelvis is fundamental for that. If you go against a wall and find your sacrum, pushing that against the wall will help you see where your pelvis aligns. If you find that it’s difficult, this probably means the front of your hip is tight and you have an anterior tilt.
Why is it important?
A neutral pelvis is important in supporting the spine, this way no excessive strain is placed on your spinal cord. It is also important for proper joint movement, and fundamental for taking big, deep breaths.
Neutral Acronym:
Today is all about motivation! Are you motivated to learn about motivation?
The key for motivation, as I have learned over the years, is different for everyone. We all have these desires to become more motivated, whether it’s to get healthier, write a book, or start a new practice.
Motivation is defined as:
What makes us feel unmotivated?
When we feel unmotivated, we often feel stuck. I think they have to do with basic Newton’s Law — things at rest want to stay at rest. Before the days of handheld electronics, this would happen when sitting down to watch TV, where now we can lose two hours by scrolling on our phones.
Change of seasons can also affect our level of motivation, for better or for worse. When it’s cold outside, we tend to have a desire to stay indoors. Changing locations, schedules, and jobs can also really affect us as well.
What are the ways to start getting motivated?
Motivation is a muscle! It has to be worked.
How do we get there?
People ask me all the time how do I stay motivated in my movement practice when I’m feeling lethargic, so I’m going to base my example off of movement, but this can be applied to anything.
To set yourself up for success, you have to develop a routine.
You really need to keep in mind why you are setting the goals that you have, because if they are not your goals, you won’t feel as connected to creating the routine necessary to achieve them.
Where will I find the time?
This is why creating a routine/schedule is so important, because you can see where you have time and what kind of time you have for these goals. If you don’t have an hour, see where you can find just ten minutes.
“It does not matter how slowly you go, as long as you do not stop.” – Confucius
Today I am joined by my dear friend, Eunice Wong, who is also a yoga teacher at my studio. Eunice is just brilliant, and today we discuss her path into veganism and yoga, among other great topics.
Eunice is also the author of What The Health, a book that deep dives into what we eat in our modern day lifestyle, and a compliment to the documentary. She is also known for her acting, was trained at Juilliard, and has appeared in various films and on multiple stages. I personally can’t wait for you to hear this great conversation that Eunice and I have. She truly is an incredible woman!
How did Eunice discover yoga and how has it impacted her?
“I had been interested in movement for a very long time.”
Eunice had a difficult time getting out of her own head, but once she discovered that movement was her way of doing so, she couldn’t stop. Ashtanga was the first class that Eunice took, and is what she continued to do for almost 15 years prior to being introduced to any other style. Eunice believes that yoga has allowed her to remember different life experiences that she may have forgotten, or that her body has since stored away. On top of that, she appreciates that a yoga practice has helped remind her of the importance of the breath.
How did yoga help you deepen your connection to your inner self?
Nonviolence is the number one foundational bedrock of a true yoga practice, and Eunice learned this through taking teacher training with me. Eunice says, “You invited us to look deeper,” in food, society, what we put in to our lives. Eunice believes that this depth of a basic yogic principle truly changed the way she looked at all things, but mainly her love of all things environmental. Once this opened up in her inner self, Eunice hit the ground running with writing books and doing research on all that intrigued her, from agriculture to global warming.
What do you say to people who bring up “humanely raised” animals?
There’s no regulation on the labels like “free range” or “all natural” and Eunice can’t stress the importance of this enough. She says, “The labels are there to make consumers feel better about buying that product.” Eunice goes on to describe that “grass fed” meat is actually worse for the environment than you know. She shares a book she read, Never Let Me Go, that she believes is a fabulous analogy to raising animals today. There are so many marketing projects supported by the government to push the sales of animal consumption, creating this symbiotic relationship, which in turn protects the companies and industries.
What does true health look like to you?
“I think true health is being your most vibrant and your strongest self without any obstructions or limitations.”
Resources:
In this episode, I discuss how we can all become more adaptable in our body, in our minds, and in our spirits so that we can move through life with more freedom.
So what is adaptability and why is it so important?
Adaptability is defined as…
What a great concept to incorporate into our lives!
Really, adaptability is fundamental for our own personal growth – in our yoga practice, our movement practice, as human beings, and as members of society – because it allows us to change, morph, and evolve as the things we can’t control change around us.
And because there is so much going on in the world and things seem to change faster with every passing day, adaptability is more necessary now than ever before.
Neural Wiring
When we start doing something new, we need to repeat it to make the wiring in our brain stronger.
If you haven’t climbed on the monkey bars since you were a kid, or ever in your life, then your body and brain aren’t adapted to do that. The wiring in your brain isn’t very strong, and we have to think about this in relation to movement.
But in addition to repeating movement, we also need to challenge ourselves to grow. Otherwise, we may stop being adaptable and become rigid.
What helps us be more adaptable?
First, open-mindedness.
Now, this isn’t easy by any means, especially when it comes to the starkly divided political environment in the United States. It can be difficult to be tolerant and open-minded towards views when they don’t match their own, but that practice of tolerance will actually help everyone, in the long run, become more adaptable.
Second, positivity. You can decide your outlook, to a certain degree. I know that thinking positively isn’t going to fix everything, and I’m not suggesting that positive thinking will overcome chemical imbalances or trauma, but too many of us get caught up in our own negative thoughts.
Even going back to the mid-20th century and Norman Vincent Peale’s The Power of Positive Thinking, it has been studied and demonstrated that a positive attitude can lead to positive events in your life.
Third, resilience, or your ability to bounce back. When you’re stuck in a rigid mindset, things just happen to you and they often stop you in your tracks – but when you are resilient, you can stumble and still move forward.
Here are my favorite strategies for cultivating adaptability:
To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit: lytyoga.com/blog/category/podcasts/
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Today I want to share why I love handstands – and how a handstand can change your life!
People think of handstands as being this super advanced pose, which it is, but it’s so much more and I’ve seen firsthand how it’s transformed people’s’ lives. Beyond the physical movement of getting your weight onto your hands, it moves energy in the body and potential in your spirit and your belief in yourself.
If you’ve never even kinda done a handstand in your life, don’t worry – I was right there with you! I thought I’d never do a handstand in my life, and by the time I was 36, I still hadn’t. But then I started working with neurologically impaired patients.
I saw how they were able to remap their brains to do incredible things no one expected them to be able to do, so I thought, why can’t I remap my brain too?
So if you want to see some of these incredible benefits – stronger core, stronger arms, better alignment, enhanced awareness, and spiritual and emotional work – I suggest being patient and starting small. Learning how to handstand can be a wonderful antidote to our Western mentality of quick fixes or instant gratification.
You can start with something as simple as getting on all fours, putting your weight on your hands, and lifting your knees. Once you start building up your confidence and seeing you CAN do this, you can move on from there.
To learn more about starting your handstand practice (and therapy!), check out the article I wrote for mindbodygreen article called “How Anyone Can Learn To Do a Handstand.”
To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit: lytyoga.com/blog/category/podcasts/
Connect with LYT Yoga and Lara Heimann:
Instagram Lara Heimann – https://www.instagram.com/lara.heimann/
Facebook Lara Heimann – https://www.facebook.com/lara.f.heimann
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Have you heard of Text Neck?
It’s a 21st century ailment that’s spreading globally and rapidly, and it’s something that I’m asked about daily!
I also see Text Neck daily and, honestly, it makes my heart hurt.
If you’re not familiar, Text Neck is a condition in which your posture is stuck in the position that you assume when you’re looking down at a cell phone, tablet, or other wireless device.
This happens to people when – you guessed it – they look down at a device too frequently or for too long.
I’ve been working in physical therapy for decades, and we didn’t have these kinds of devices when I started. People would have neck pain, of course, but not nearly as many people – and not nearly as many young people, in particular.
This is a real issue when you’re younger because your body will try to adapt, leading to early onset arthritis and connective tissue dysfunction. Your connective tissue will literally get and feel thicker, and if you feel this happening then you need to start changing your habits now before it’s irreversible.
So how can we treat and/or prevent Text Neck?
To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit: lytyoga.com/blog/category/podcasts/
Connect with LYT Yoga and Lara Heimann:
Instagram Lara Heimann – https://www.instagram.com/lara.heimann/
Facebook Lara Heimann – https://www.facebook.com/lara.f.heimann
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Today I am joined by my dear friend and business partner, Kristen Fletcher, the COO of Movement by Lara!
We talk about all of the things that inspired my journey into movement and she asks me questions about venturing into yoga, becoming an entrepreneur, discovering my mission, and how to find what fuels you.
How did Lara get into yoga?
I took my first yoga class (at a running club of all things) back in 1995. My teacher was a practitioner of ashtanga yoga, which she was calling power yoga. It reminded me of how I felt as a dancer combined with moving through spaces as a runner, and I was immediately hooked!
However, when I went home, I couldn’t find anyone offering yoga near me. So I started reading books, buying VHS tapes, and developing a practice of my own. And over time, it’s only grown on me!
Eventually I wanted to show this amazing practice to other people so I started teaching.
When did Lara start combining physical therapy with yoga?
I was learning advanced physical therapy techniques and developing my yoga practice simultaneously, but at first they were pretty much in two different boxes.
But as I started to introduce basic yoga poses to my PT clients and seeing how those two worlds fit together, my mission started to take form. I want people to join me in peel back all of the external BS that we place upon our existence so that we can answer some simple but often overlooked questions: How do we want to impact the world around us? How can we be better in our daily lives? How can we feel better? How can we serve others?
I always like to say, “If you want to get out of your own way, be of service!”
What tips does Lara have for someone who wants to invite more discipline into their lives?
Discipline is a muscle – you have to practice it to strengthen it!
And part of that practice has to be movement. If you want anything to change in your life, you have to move! It’s non-negotiable.
However, you don’t have to force yourself to do something that feels like a chore. If you despise walking but love biking, ride a bike. Make movement joyful!
If that feels overwhelming, just know you don’t have to go from 0 to 60 in one day. Break it up and smart small.
To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit: lytyoga.com/blog/category/podcasts/
Connect with LYT Yoga and Lara Heimann:
Instagram Lara Heimann – https://www.instagram.com/lara.heimann/
Facebook Lara Heimann – https://www.facebook.com/lara.f.heimann
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