Spring Re-Release: Yoga and Our Path to Peak Pose

This week, we're going back to our very first conversation with Hero Nicole as part of this month's 'Finding Peace in Your Present' theme. She shares the fundamentals of yoga and how this ancient modality changed her life.

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Yoga is a practice that helps harmonize the mind, body, and spirit through a combination of physical postures, breath control, and meditation. The physical aspect of yoga enhances flexibility, strength, and balance, while its mental practices promote mindfulness, stress reduction, and emotional well-being. 

In this episode, we talk about how yoga can be incredibly transformative, not just for your body but also your mind and spirit, with Hero Nicole Kim. Nicole is a yoga instructor dedicated to the art of holistic healing, with her own journey centering around the fusion of yoga, time massage, and sound healing.

What You Will Learn

• [05:43] What yoga is and how it’s practiced 
• [08:02] The difference between hot yoga and the other types of yoga 
• [13:18] Nicole’s client's pivotal and emotional outpouring moments 
• [16:44] How yoga supports people to reconnect with themselves  
• [20:08] Nicole’s signature way of grounding a room before starting a class 
• [23:09] Savasana and why it’s so important in each class 
• [28:28] What attracted Nicole to yoga, and how she started 
• [32:17] What it takes to be a certified yoga instructor
• [37:43] How to tap into the practice of finding your center in everyday life
• [41:55] The common fear around yoga and why give it a try

Let’s Connect!

Nicole Kim

Website

Chandler Stroud

Website | LinkedIn | Instagram

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Mixing and editing provided by Next Day Podcast.

Transcript

Hey guys, it's Chandler and welcome to The Healing Heroes. I 

Promise you (music)

I'm Chandler Stroud, an executive wife and busy mom of two who after years of living with anxiety health struggles and an unshakeable feeling like I should be happier, made a profound discovery that changed everything. Join me on a journey where unexpected paths lead to healing and more happiness. On this show, we will explore unconventional ways to unlock more joy in your own life. Own with the help of my very own healers and trusted advisors, the healing heroes. 

Hey everyone. To kick us off today, I want to tell a story that really sets the stage for today's conversation. It was a normal Sunday morning about a year and a half ago, except I was leaving the comfort of my house before 9:00 AM which was early for a Sunday. My heart was beating fast, my stomach was in knots, and even my palms were a bit sweaty. I was making a triumphant return to a hot yoga studio after a two plus year hiatus thanks to Covid. To be clear, my yoga abilities were and still are to this day, fairly basic guys. They do not include arm balances, headstands or crazy twisted positions in some positions. I still struggle to touch the ground, so this is not a situation where I'm some undercover yoga ninja. Moonlighting. As a beginner, I promise you, no, I was extremely nervous walking into the studio that morning, but as I put my things away and walked into the yoga room and the warm air enveloped me, standing at the front of the room was Nicole. 

She smiled with her eyes and welcomed me in asking my name and introducing herself before I quickly added that. It was my first time in a long time to be gentle with me, and she reassured me and went to the front of the room to get class started. 60 minutes later, I was exhausted, dripping with salty sweat from attempting a myriad of pushups I couldn't do without my legs flopping to the ground. And yet, and yet something in me had shifted in those 60 minutes that I couldn't explain at the time. There is a meteoric shift within us when we are brave enough to not just sit, but actually push through discomfort, pain, and fear long enough to let it move through us. I could have gotten up at any point and left that room, but I consciously decided to stay and be out yoga by everyone around me. 

And the more I went back and faced my discomfort in that place, the more I started unknowingly putting this newfound strength into practice in my life outside the yoga studio. So today I am thrilled to have Nicole with us, who amongst other focus areas, teaches yoga. At my local studio, Nicole is dedicated to the art of holistic healing with her own journey, centering around the fusion of yoga, time, massage, and the transformative power of energy and sound healing with a profound passion for facilitating wellness, she weaves together these ancient practices to create a harmonious tapestry of healing experiences through the mindful integration of yoga postures, the therapeutic touch of time massage, and the resonant frequencies of energy and sound. She aspires to guide individuals to self-discovery and holistic wellbeing while creating a space where both the body and spirit find restoration and balance. I have been taking Nicole's classes for well over a year, and today I'm so excited for you guys to learn more about how yoga can be so incredibly transformative, not just for your body, but also your mind and spirit and how Nicole weaves in a few very distinct and unique touches that really enhance the experience more so than other classes I've experienced in the past. 

So with that, welcome Nicole. I'm so excited you're here today. 

Thank you so much. I love that story. 

I love that story too because it's the beginning of not only my own practice, but most importantly a beautiful friendship. I'm so happy to have gotten to know you so much better week after week, and then through our work together talking about having this conversation. I feel so fortunate. So thank you for being so warm and welcoming, not just that first day, but beyond. It really made a difference in encouraging me to show up again and again and again. Wow, 

I love that. And I feel the same return from you. The beautiful thing about teaching is that we're all sort of mirrors of each other and you have inspired me and your growth in your practice. So it's been wonderful to see. 

Thanks, Nicole. I really appreciate that. Well, let's dive in. 

Okay, 

So I know you practice yoga, Thai massage and sound healing, and we'll get to all of that in future episodes. So tune in guys, it's going to be really great. So first off, can you just explain what yoga is to someone who's never done it before? 

Yeah, so yoga is the yoke and the union of mindfulness, body and breath. And so you're practicing meditation, you're practicing yoga, you're moving in asana, which is moving the body. You're practicing yoga. And I teach predominantly a vinyasa flow, and that can be offered hot or non hott. And what vinyasa is, is linking the mind, the breath and body through movement. It's a sequence of poses designed around a peak pose. So you're building towards something. So you're strengthening, you're increasing your flexibility to ultimately work towards a pose or to actually achieve a pose. And my style specifically is more of a dance because that's just my sort of take on it. But not every vinyasa instructor is that way, but it all is the union of breath, mindfulness and movement through poses. 

Thank you for breaking that down for us. And I personally am a huge fan of Vinyasa because I love the diversity in the poses and the movement, and I've taken both a Vinyasa, non Hott class with you and also a Vinyasa hot, and both are different, but very rewarding experiences. To build on that, what is the difference of hot yoga to the other types you just described? 

So hot yoga can be a variety of practices. You can practice Tonga in a hot room. You can practice Bikram in a hot room, Baptist that can go on and on. And Vinyasa obviously is offered there. It could be yin. So you want to look into when you're taking a class, what style of class you're going to be entering into. And there was one time when I took a class that was labeled hot yoga, and I made the assumption that it would be hot vinyasa. And I walked in and I had this wild experience where the instructor was yelling at me the entire time, and I am a seasoned yogi. I'd been practicing for over 15 years at that point, and I had never had an instructor yell at me, and I just didn't even know what to do where it was just funny by the end of the class. And when I saw her at the end, I said, what was that? And she said, it's Bikram. And then that was the first in the last Bikram class that I took. But people love it. It's just not my personal favorite. So be sure to look at the description of the class before going and not just make an assumption that it's hot yoga, that it would be what you're typically used to. 

Thank you for sharing and good advice for everybody. And I too have taken classes where I'm being barked at and it's just not the same. It's not the same. 

And everyone has a different flavor and some people choose a different style and we connected for a reason. Yes, 

Maybe Hey guys, you might be the kind of person that's into bootcamp. Yoga, fully support that too. 

Absolutely. 

Everyone's different. 

But that's actually a good point in general is it really depends on the instructor. And so if you have a bad experience, you don't want to put yoga in a category. If it's not for me and I don't like it, get out there, keep trying and explore because one instructor to the next could be an entirely different experience. 

I totally agree. And actually reminds me of what we were talking about before we jumped on here. I couldn't make your class yesterday, so I took a different instructor this morning nearby and I loved it. I thought she was wonderful. And I have a role that I will always try every instructor once. 

Oh, I love that. That's a great attitude and a great thing to do. You just don't know. You don't know. Tell me, and maybe you'll find someone that really works for you in that moment and you wouldn't have found that person had you not tried. 

Tell me a bit more about how you've seen clients benefit from yoga. 

I have a client who is turning 70 this year and she has been committed to her practice for a while now. And you would never know that she's 70 years old. I love everything about it, but when you hear people say, well, I'm old, I can't do that anymore. I don't have the flexibility I used to have or I don't have the strength. And with this practice, it gives you the opportunity to maintain the physical capability of doing things that you never imagined. And she's the perfect example. She's in inversions and in handstands and doing things that my teenage students can't even do. So there's no age limitation to it. It's not giving up on yourself, it's focusing in on what you want to achieve just like in life. So if it's important to you to get that pose, I believe that most people can achieve what they want to achieve within their practice. It's just what is that that's important to them. 

Yeah, it's incredible. I will tell you the feeling you get from achieving a pose that you never thought you would get to or would be able to do really is powerful. And it really is. And guys, I'm talking about just holding my body weight up with my elbows against my sides. This isn't fancy stuff, but being able to do that throughout class without my body touching the ground was like a huge win for me. It really was. It felt like, and some may see that as baby steps, but it's like, okay, I've done that onto the next, here we go. 

It's not about that pose, it's the journey in between and that's life. So it's your job, it's your family, it's everything. But it's that journey. And that's why I love Vinyasa so much because you break down every pose. So every cost is geared toward that peak pose, but not everyone in the room is going to achieve that peak pose, but they're working toward it unconsciously. Typically they don't know where they're headed, but after repetitive movement in a month, two months, maybe a year, maybe five years, all of a sudden they're able to achieve it. And it's not that just out of the blue it happened. They've been working towards it and they didn't even realize that the entire time. 

It's all about the effort you bring to the studio and to your practice. 

And we can take it in the opposite direction where you have the people who are moving so quickly and they have this strength and flexibility and have all these things, but they struggle with anxiety and they're unable to sit still, and they've found stillness within their body to be able to hold a pose and allow themselves to feel and be able to relax into it. And that can be much more challenging than moving quickly throughout a flow. It is taking the moment to pause and actually feeling. And those have been really transformational experiences. 

That is amazing because as you know on this show, we talk a lot about sitting with discomfort and pain and feeling what you need to feel so that you can achieve what's on the other side, those bright skies on the other side of the storm. Has there been a moment where you've seen a client have that realization or an emotional outpouring or some other really pivotal moment practicing with you? 

Yeah, absolutely. And it's interesting when it happens because it's unexpected. And so I think that we all at different times in our life disassociate from our body and our experience because we're moving so quickly and some have had traumas, some might just not want to feel discomfort and moving through life so very quickly and they're unaware of what's actually living within the body. And so you can process things intellectually. You can process things by going to therapy and talking and think that you've moved on and then all of a sudden you find yourself in a pigeon pose, which is a restorative pose and it's a hip opener. And within our hips we hold emotion. It's a sacral chakra and a root chakra all kind of combined it in one experience and all of a sudden they have tears in their eyes and they don't really know why that's happening. 

And so I've seen that, and I always explain it actually just in a group setting. I'll say, Hey, if you feel that discomfort right now and know if you're feeling that emotion that that's normal and that's the somatic experience and our body's holding onto this information and you're giving it the opportunity to let go and breathe into that space and just allow yourself to be there. So I can't say it's one student, it's students all the time that are having these experiences. And it's so powerful because oftentimes people don't discover the trauma within the body until they have an illness or an injury, and then all of a sudden there's a tension and awareness to that space when maybe it's too late and they could have checked in earlier. And now by taking a moment to pause and breathing into these poses, they're discovering things that they can work on and having a new sense of awareness. 

I love that and has certainly been my experience as well. For the record, pigeon pose is my number one favorite pose. It always feels so good. 

And I don't know if you know anything about the tears, but I find this fascinating. So if you find that you have a tear in the inner eye that's grief, and if you have a tear coming out from the exterior, that's just a processing and release, 

What my mind is officially blown right 

Now. So when you're in a restorative pose such as pigeon or any of those types of poses and you have that expression, think about, okay, where is my tear coming from? Oh wow, it's coming from the inner eye, okay, grief. Now what do I feel like I'm holding in this space and what does that look like? What color is it? What does it feel like? What sensation, what emotion is attached to it? And then all of a sudden you've discovered that this is something from a trauma when you were 10 years old that you didn't even realize was there. But it's just taking that moment to explore it and not being afraid of that. 

Wow, that's so powerful. I really, I'm still learning so much from you every day in that respect in terms of staying with whatever you're feeling and exploring that emotion that comes up. Are there other ways that you think yoga, vinyasa, hot yoga support people to reconnect with themselves through their practice? 

I think that a lot of people come into the practice for a workout and then they find all of these other elements. And so people will say to me, I don't want to meditate. I'm not a good meditator. I can't meditate. And no one's a good meditator. It takes practice. So when you come into Vinyasa class, if you notice there's a grounding and in the beginning, and so that's like a little baby meditation that's sort of bringing you into yourself. It's like, I'm here now, I'm going to start to connect with my breath. So both of those things, they would've been resistant to do just naturally. So all of a sudden I'm connecting with my breath and I'm feeling my body, I'm in a baby meditation and I did it. And then they start to move, okay, well, I'm getting into some little flexibility into my body and then I'm doing the power flow and now I'm so tired and B, that I'm ready for suboxone, and now we're in our meditation. 

So it's a combination of all these things that maybe an individual would be resistant to doing one element of, and they're looping it all in. And so this is supporting them in their journey of healing, whether it's, I need to move my body and move energy and release whatever it is I'm carrying it, or I need to slow down and listen to my body and breathe and rest and restore. And so you're getting elements of all of that in every single practice. So regardless of how you arrive, you're going to walk away feeling better in whatever respect you need in that moment. 

I really like that too because I feel like so often many of us say, I am not good at meditating or I can't sit and just focus on my breathing. But I do feel like yoga is a way of supporting that journey and really forcing it in a way that is accepting to the individual 

And accessible. And no one walks into meditation being an expert meditator. And even if you have a strong practice, there are days that it's almost impossible and movement is more appropriate. And so it's non attachment, and I say this all the time, it's non attachment to the practice. It's non attachment to the emotion or the experience because every day is so different the way I feel right now, it's very different than the way that I felt yesterday and it probably will be different from the way I feel tomorrow. And okay, what do I need right now and what do I need to focus on? And that's the most important thing. So it's, I'm not a great meditator, no, I'm working towards becoming a better meditator. I don't have a strong practice. Well, I'm going to work on that strengthening and flexibility to have a stronger practice. 

Yesterday maybe I did an incredible job at achieving that pose and tomorrow I might not be able to do it, but I'm not going to attach to that. I'm going to just accept where I am in that moment. And that's challenging in life, but that's what we need to do is to be in the moment and just experience, okay, what is it that I need? And in this moment right now, I need to ground more and tomorrow maybe I need to move my body a little bit faster to release energy and stress intention, and that's perfectly fine what I'll need in that moment. 

You just mentioned grounding yourself at the beginning of class, and I know you have a very unique signature way that you ground the room before you start a class. Can you tell everyone a little bit more about that? 

Yeah. So I do sound healing and I always incorporate sound healing into all of my classes. And the way that I do that is I bring a bowl and in our opening, which is a grounding meditation, I will set an intention for everyone and I'll play my bowl, and then at the end of every class, I will play the bowl in Shavasana. And the reason why I do this, and in the analogy that I give always for sound healing is if you can imagine a lake during a thunderstorm and the rippling effect in the water from the thunder is essentially what happens to our bodies with sound. We're made up of over 60% water. And so the energy, the water within the body just starts to move and shift. And so when people come into the room and you don't know what they're walking in with, what kind of stress is going on in their life, their mind is moving. 

And so you're sitting down and even though their eyes are closed, they still could be somewhere else. They could be thinking about their kids or their husband or their job, whatever it may be. And there's something about the sound, which is that frequency. Once you start to play it, it's like, wait a minute, I'm in my body and I'm feeling this shift and it grounds everyone always. And so I start that way and then I end that way and people leave feeling different emotions and feeling better in their body always, and they're confused. How did that even happen? And it's because of the shift. 

Well, I definitely experienced that and I felt like it was a major contributing factor in the first experience and subsequent experiences I've had with you where I walk away feeling like I am a completely different person from when I walked in. Yes, it's the sweating and the movement and the opening of my body, but there is something about those bowls that you play at the start and end of class that is just so peaceful, soothing, and hard to describe. It's sort of like a jolt, but in this gentlest way possible, 

It's that jolt that took you out of the looping mind. It's that little break from those thoughts and you're able to just feel, and that's hard for so many people. Most people I think. 

But I also feel like that's another benefit of hot yoga. It breaks that cycle of the mind because you're so focused on the heat and the poses and keeping up and your body's moving and you're so in your body breathing and moving that you can't think about anything else. 

Exactly. Right. So it's moving meditation 

Really quickly. Nicole, earlier you mentioned Shavasana. Can you quickly explain what Shavasana is and why it's so important to each class? 

Shavasana is the most important pose of an entire vinyasa flow and its corpse pose, which is where you lay down and you don't move your body. And the breath that we use throughout Vinyasa is called uja breath. So it's a breath inhaling through the nose and an almost oceanic sound on the exhale through the nose, and you step away from that in Shavasana, you just return back to that natural breath and however it flows for you and you allow yourself to arrive in stillness and just be for a moment and some shit. Awesomeness could be 30 seconds or it could be five minutes, but it's so important to just take that moment to come back and center and ground that. I would never take a class without doing Shavasana ever. It's so important and it just doesn't feel complete unless I were to actually do that. And so when people leave before Shavasana, because there are people who have resistance to it, 

And maybe I believe that, 

Yeah, and that's not what's important for them in that moment, they think, but maybe I would challenge them to say, what is it that you're avoiding or you don't want to feel? And that goes back to holding those deeper poses and being in stillness and sitting in that discomfort because sitting in stillness can be very uncomfortable for many people, and maybe they're not just ready for it in that moment, and eventually they'll find that extra time one week, and that will be their groundbreaking opportunity, but you have to meet people where they are and they'll arrive in it in their own time. 

Beautifully said. I think another reason busy moms or busy women might struggle with Shavasana or just sitting around is because I do feel like with so much going on, we feel guilty just resting our minds and bodies even for a few minutes during the day. And the beauty of a yoga studio in Shavasana is it gives you license to take that time for yourself to just peacefully be with your mind, with your body, with your spirit without interruption. Everyone around you is doing the exact same thing and you just release any feeling of obligation. You should be doing something else for someone else, right? It's hard to get that. I think in our day-to-day, absolutely. It sounds so silly, but if you're unsure about yoga, go to a class and just lay in corpse pose for the entire class. I mean, if that's what you need to do, right? Yeah. It's sort of give yourself the license to just try being with yourself for a little bit in an unhurried way. 

And I'm not sure if people, those individuals who have resistance to Shavasana because of time realize how important that is, because that's probably the most important thing that they can give themselves is that time. And I'm a huge supporter of meditation and mindfulness meditation in particular because if you feel yourself depleting, for me it's 4:00 PM that's my little crash in the day, and you can charge through and you'll oftentimes find that you're not being very productive. You can sort of run in circles, you're so tired, you're like, oh my God, when's it going to be bedtime and I have X, Y, and Z to do, and then I can't think clearly. If you were to take that opportunity right then, when you feel that like, and sit and do a mindfulness meditation and just ground close your eyes, come back to your breath five minutes, all of a sudden you have this new perspective, all of a sudden you have clarity and you're able to do things so much more efficiently. 

And so that little amount of time would've been so much longer because you're spinning in circles not being productive. So that's why it's so important. And so whenever I'm feeling down, I take that moment and I breathe. I could be in my car, I could, the beauty of mindfulness meditation is your eyes are open, so you could be sitting at the doctor's office and you're just sort of looking down and no one even knows that you're actually meditating in that moment instead of looking at your phone, or you could look at your phone and pretend to be looking at your phone, but you're actually meditating and not centering, grounding. You're coming back to your breath, you're acknowledging the thoughts that are coming in, but you're not attaching to them and you're just calming your vagus nerve, you're calming, your body neutralizing. So then all of a sudden you have this new found clarity and you feel more rested. And again, it only takes five minutes. 

That is a much healthier alternative to my 3:00 PM fix, which is typically reaching for a bag of chocolate. So I will be, maybe I'll start slow and practice my five minutes of mindfulness meditation while I enjoy my chocolate. I'm even holding one up here. Always have them guys, what was it about yoga that first intrigued you and how did you get started with 

It? The irony of this is that I was a soccer player growing up, and I've always been very athletic. I was a gymnast as a little kid and then a soccer player when I got older, and I couldn't touch my toes. 

No, 

Couldn't touch my toes. I was so inflexible, and it was kind of a joke between a college roommate and myself. She's like, how can you not do that? I'm like, I don't know. And she said, you need to come to a yoga class. And that was pretty much how I got started. When I hear people say, I can't practice yoga, I'm not flexible. That's why you practiced yoga. 

Guys. I wish I could show a video of how flexible Nicole is today. Some of the poses, incredible poses she's able to strike in these classes are just mind boggling. So to hear you couldn't touch your toes for the first half of your life is really shocking for me. 

So that's the thing. Whatever's important to you, I believe you can achieve it, and that's the beauty of it. There's no mastery. 

I would love to hear, Nicole, how has yoga and teaching yoga made a difference in your life? 

Oh my gosh. It's changed my life in every way. And when I graduated from college, my mom was pretty young. She was only 49, and she had Crohn's disease, which is an autoimmune disease that she had suffered from, and she's diagnosed in her early thirties. And so my whole childhood, I was around her not feeling well and ups and downs of battling this terrible disease, but overall, she was relatively healthy, and so she was hiking one day and the next day had a perforation in her stomach, and she ended up in the hospital and died soon after of sepsis. That was a really eyeopening thing for me of being aware of your body and really taking care of yourself. She was only 49, and so I had just graduated from college and started my career, and it shifted my perspective. And so I'm living in the city and I found myself getting sick. 

I had a lot of pain in my body and I had gastrointestinal stuff going on, and so they diagnosed me with fibromyalgia, and I was in pain management and seeing a chiropractor, and I saw a doctor who did this advanced tissue testing that showed that I carried the Crohn's gene, but I didn't have the disease, but I had potential of developing Crohn's disease. That was like the light bulb in my head of I have this opportunity right now to make a change in my life because I could go down the path that my mom went down or I can prevent that from happening. That was the choice that I made, and I didn't realize that it was yoga. I started to practice more, and I realized as I'm practicing, I don't need to see my chiropractor. I don't need to see this pain management doctor and get taking these medications. 

All I need is this practice to feel good in my body. And so I became more passionate about it, and then I left my career to dive into yoga as being my career. So that's the overarching story of how I arrived, but it's changed my life because I'm in my forties now and I don't have Crohn's disease and I don't have any autoimmune issues, and I don't want to say that I could or that I'm better or any of those things. It's just I've made a huge effort in doing what it is that is needed to keep me healthy, and I'll continue on that journey and it probably will change over the years. 

Thank you for sharing that personal story. I really appreciate it, and it's really inspiring and incredible what you've done in the wake of such a hard time in your life. What does it take to become certified to teach? 

In order to teach a class, you need a minimum of to be a 200 hour certified instructor. So you could find your local studio and do a 200 hour with them. You could travel to Thailand for a month and take a 200 hour certification there, or even online, which is now an incredible, and so for me, I chose a studio that I identified with that I enjoyed their practice and teaching and their philosophy, and also it was a place that I would want to work. And I think that that's really important. If you want to be a teacher, you want to find a training, you would want to probably do their specific training so that you're definitely be able to work and practice and teach within their facility. So that's what I did. And I started with the 200 hour, and then that moved into the 300 hour, and then I've continued on. So I'm 500 plus hours certified, and I will continue that journey for forever probably because there's so many trainings out there, there's so much information, and the more that you learn, the more you realize there's so much more to learn, or the more you learn and more you realize how much you don't know. And so 

How has yoga made a difference in your present day life? As you think about being a busy mom of two kids, I would love to hear how you pull from your experience both practicing and teaching yoga in your day-to-day. 

There are things that happen frequently, but I had a moment recently on a vacation that I was on where my yoga practice came in and really took me out of a very dangerous situation. And so in yoga, we have our dti, and what is our DTI is that non-moving focal point. And so you use that drishti in meditation. You use it throughout your Asana practice, which is your movement practice. And that drishti helps to find the stability in any practice. And so I'm on this vacation and I am with my boyfriend and his three kids and my two kids. And so there's five kids. There's a lot of us, and we are in Costa Rica and we're on a boat and we are going snorkeling, which sounds lovely and fantastic, but in reality ended up being terrible and it could have been really, really terrible. And all the kids started to get nauseous on the boat. 

And so we're all thinking, we just need to get them in the water to feel better. You arrive at where we would be snorkeling and a current had come in, so what would typically be calm waters had a wave. The guides pull out all of our snorkel gear and get everybody geared up. And my little one who's only eight, who's little, little, she's probably the size of a five-year-old. She gets in the water and she is used snorkel gear here and there, but she's never actually gone snorkeling. I thought she would be fine. She's a good swimmer. And so the guide said, we recommend using a noodle and not wearing a life vest because you can't see, and they actually didn't have life vests. I was distracted by all the kids being so nauseous that I trusted their judgment because this is a tour that they lead, that they would be fine. 

So I let the kids just go in and I get myself geared up, and then I go in and my little one was sort of panicking. She couldn't figure out how to use the snorkel and breathe properly. And so I swam over to her and then I felt the water and I looked down and it was like 30 feet deep. It was so deep. And then all of a sudden, the boat's not even near us, and the land is pretty far away, and our tour person is swimming towards the land, and it's just her and I and the other kids are swimming with nothing but a noodle, and she's panicking. I used to be a lifeguard. I've saved people. And so I knew what the situation was. I had zero ignorance. I knew exactly what the situation was, and I started to panic myself, and I knew that I needed to calm myself down. 

So I went over to sort of hold her up and I put my face in the water and I could breathe. And I found that JTI in that moment and found that stillness, and I needed that for 30 seconds to grind myself so that I could be calm to get her help. Wow. Without that practice, I could have panicked and who knows what could have happened. I found that focus, I found my breath, I calmed my central nervous system down, slowed down, and then by doing that, she was able to calm down. And even though she couldn't put her face in the water, but she saw that I was calm, it naturally calmed her down. And then I was able to flag the boat, bring it back, and get her on the boat. 

Oh, that's so scary. I do think you touched on something really important with the focal point, finding your center. Yes, absolutely. In those scary moments. But I think that practice of finding your center can be tapped into in so many other situations where you're overwhelmed, you're busy, whether overwhelmed with an emotion or just with the volume of things on your plate. Finding your center is so important because I do think our kids take cues from us. 

Absolutely. Our kids, just people in general. It's energy. We release energy that can shift. You walk into a room and you feel great, and all of a sudden you feel anxious and stressed and you look and there's a person in the room that is having an expression of that or waiting in line and someone comes behind you who's angry. All of a sudden you feel that. So when you feel that instead of engaging with that, you can find your own center. Now, this is not me. I'm going to breathe right now. I'm going to envision grounding my feet into the earth, maybe creating a protective barrier around me so that person can't impact me. And when you're calm, then all of a sudden they start to be more calm. So it's our kids, it's our coworkers, and I work with an executive, and he came to me for flexibility because he runs marathons. And what he's discovered is mindfulness now has been the most important thing, and he wants to focus on that because he's going to these board meetings and he's doing his mindfulness meditation before walking in, and then he's able to be clear and calm and his presentation of whatever it is that he needs to discuss in that moment. And it's made a huge impact in his life. 

And I love the stories of how you can pull this into your everyday, no matter what your everyday looks like. So I really appreciate you making that connection. 

Yes, COVID has provided an opportunity where these classes are accessible to anyone, anywhere. You can simply go online and watch it, a YouTube video. You can take a class online with an instructor, you can join a class. So there's so many options out there. My suggestion before taking a studio class, if this is something that you're interested in and you want to get into, it, would be to just understand the basic postures. And once you understand those basic postures, so it would be a foundational class, an intro to yoga class. Once you understand those postures, you can take any vinyasa class or you can walk into most classes and feel confident in your ability, and you might not be a master at it, but it's okay when the instructor will meet you where you are. I also recommend if this is something that's important to you, if you had the opportunity to take a private class to work on those basic postures, and in this way you have a better understanding, and when you explore the alignment in the proper alignment and you can avoid injury. And so it's a wise investment for yourself, for your body, and for your confidence. I 

Love those suggestions. You, I know do hands-on adjustment in your classes, and I have even felt like in poses I've been doing for years and years, sometimes you'll come around and just adjust a hip slightly, and I'm like, there it is. 

There it is. 

That's the right way to do this pose. Yeah. So I will say if you do have the resources to do something privately or with one or two friends in a smaller group where you can work on the alignment and really make sure you're nailing the basics of the pose, because again, I am a huge advocate. I use blocks. I don't touch the ground all the time. It's so much more important to be in the right position than to look like everyone else in the room. So I would be an advocate for that as well. Yeah, 

I had been practicing for 15 years and doing my chatter wrong, go wrong the entire time. And it wasn't until teacher training that it discovered, oh my goodness, I'm not doing this right. And you think you're doing things a certain way, but it's those extra eyes on you that makes that little modification. And when you're not in alignment, all of a sudden maybe your shoulder's hurting or your logo X hurting or you're having these little things, then it's just because it's a habit that you've created. So to have someone have those eyes on you and to be able to do those little micro adjustments makes a world of a difference. 

What do you think is a common fear or misnomer that people have about yoga or hot yoga, and what would you say to the listener who's thinking about giving it a try? 

The fear is I'm not flexible and that I can't do it. And that's what I hear all the time. It's, I'm going to walk into a room. I'm not going to understand what I'm going to doing. I'm going to look silly and I'm not flexible. And all of those things are the whole reason why you need to just start. So it's overcoming that fear of not being perfect at something the first try. It's a journey and honoring that journey and just having that commitment just like anything else in your life, that it's a progression and it's a process, and you will achieve what you want, but you have to put the work in. 

Yeah, no, I think that's a great way to think about it. And I will also add that I have now practiced yoga at a number of different studios in lots of different states across the US and every single one I've come across does have a foundational or gentle class to start. And so I would say don't put too much pressure on yourself to know poses or have things down pat. Walking in, there is an opportunity when you go into those classes to really work with the instructor and see other beginners who are just starting out and are at the same level you are. 

Honestly, it's inspirational to just walk into the room at any given time. You'll have students in the room that have been practicing for 20 years, and you'll have students that it's maybe their second class. So there's a variety of skill level and see as, wow, I could be doing that, and an inspirational moment versus, oh my gosh, I could never do that and have that resistance. It's an opportunity to enhance and to improve and grow 

And try to have fun guys and try 

To have fun. 

It's fun. You to be 

Serious. 

Yeah, it's fun. Exactly. Nicole, thank you so much for being here. I had so much fun chatting with you today. Oh my gosh. And I really appreciate everything you shared. 

No, thank you. Thank you for giving me this opportunity, and you've been an incredible student, and I'm just so happy to be here with you. 

Well, the feeling's mutual right back at you. Thank you for that. And to those tuning in, if you liked today's discussion, please share it with friends and don't forget to subscribe. You can also visit healing heroes podcast.com to get resources, meet the heroes, and share your ideas for future episodes. Thanks for listening everyone, and until next time, remember, be curious, be courageous, and be kind to yourself. You've got this.