Rachel Brathen, TO LOVE AND LET GO
[0:08]Hi, I'm Zibi Owens, and you're listening to the web-e-nominated podcast,
[0:12]Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. This episode has been sponsored by Lauren Gabriellesson,
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[0:49]I am just so excited to be interviewing Rachel Brayden today. She's the founder and CEO of
[0:54]Yoga Girl, and the author of the New York Times best-selling book, also called Yoga Girl.
[0:59]She's an international yoga teacher, the founder of 108.com, which is an online platform for yoga,
[1:04]meditation, and healing. And the co-founder of Island Yoga Studios in Aruba. She established
[1:09]Sergeant Pepper's Foundation, the Animal Rescue Foundation, and Yoga Girl Foundation,
[1:14]benefiting women and children in need. She hosts the From the Heart podcast with over 10 million
[1:19]downloads. Her latest memoir is To Love and Let Go, a memoir of love, loss, and gratitude,
[1:25]which I loved. Swedish native, she currently lives in Aruba with her husband Dennis,
[1:30]and their daughter, Leah Luna. I got to interview her live at the Simon & Schuster offices,
[1:35]and did an Instagram live, and here's our recording. So welcome, Rachel. Thank you so much for
[1:39]being on mom's. Don't have time to read books. This is such a treat for me. Thank you.
[1:43]Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here. Oh my gosh.
[1:46]So can you tell listeners what To Love and Let Go is about, and also what inspired you to write it?
[1:51]To Love and Let Go essentially is about a year in my life where I had the most amazing things
[1:57]happen, and the most terrible things happen at the same time. So my best friend passed away
[2:01]really tragically in a car accident, and she was supposed to be the rights made in my wedding.
[2:06]Three months after that, I got married to my husband, which was a highlight of course.
[2:11]And then my grandmother passed away, then we lost our dog, and then my mom tried to commit suicide,
[2:15]and this all happened in the scope of one single year. So I was a really big journey for me,
[2:21]and already then I knew I wanted to write these stories down because I had so many intricate
[2:27]moments of, I don't know, things that felt like divine intervention, like little miracles that
[2:32]happened in those really dark times, and I wanted to write about it, but it's taken me five years
[2:36]to actually complete the book. So five years is really not bad when you think about how much
[2:41]went on in just one year. When you look at people a lifetime to get this kind of stuff down.
[2:46]Yeah, you're right. When you look at it like that, but I know you were finishing yoga girl also.
[2:51]Yeah, I thought that at the same time, so yes, maybe it's not so strange that it took me a little
[2:56]while. I just think, you know, you can't give yourself some time. Yeah, you're right.
[3:00]And yoga girl became a best-selling book as well, and that was more, that was less life story
[3:06]telling me about the differences between the books. Yeah, I mean, yoga girl is very a poppy
[3:11]colorful book. So I can tell my story. There's definitely some depth in there, but there's also
[3:16]yoga sequences and recipes, a little bit more like how to to give people kind of like a doorway
[3:21]into the practice of yoga. So it was a lighter book to write. It didn't take me very long to
[3:26]write. And I knew the story I wanted to tell. And then when I was finishing the American version
[3:30]of that book, all of these things happened, I kind of led to the second book. So in a way,
[3:35]touring to love and let go now, it's this completion of a cycle somehow.
[3:40]I love what you said on Instagram about going back to Austin and where you were the first time
[3:43]you were there. Now you're back and people keep showing me, you know, we were going to the
[3:48]same bookstores or the same kind of events we had four years ago. And people keep showing me
[3:52]photos of the photo. We took then with the first book and then they were in the same place
[3:56]in the second books. It's it's nice to meet everyone. Well, I have to say your book,
[4:00]like came into my life. I feel like through divine intervention, like exactly when I needed it,
[4:05]I had lost my best friend at 9-11 when we were 25 years old. And I feel like this time of year
[4:10]brings all of that back for me. And so getting your book right then, I was like in it, but I was
[4:16]with you and all of your loss. And I was like, I got this book for a reason, which I'm so sorry
[4:21]for your loss. Okay. But hearing all of the stuff you went through, not to compare losses because
[4:25]you know, everybody's experience is obviously so different. But just you gave me exactly what
[4:30]I needed when I need it. And I know you've been there for so many other people in that same way.
[4:33]So just a quick thank you. And then I'll dive into all the things I want to ask.
[4:37]I love the timing of things. I think that's always how books work. Yeah, you know, we get like
[4:41]the most opposed to receiving them. It's so nice. Okay. So a couple of things I want to talk about
[4:47]in the book. So you included a lot of scenes from different meditation retreats and yoga
[4:52]conferences and retreats where you have all these huge releases of emotion. I mean, they're really
[4:57]overpowering than the way you describe them as beautiful. And like you're like right there with
[5:01]you. One time you said every word that came out of my mouth came both as news to me. I didn't know
[5:06]that I had been feeling that way. And as something I knew is absolute truth. You even commented on
[5:10]how crazy it is that usually we keep all of that anger inside. And he said letting it out isn't
[5:15]what it's crazy, holding it in. So I just wanted to hear more about that release. And also like,
[5:20]do you have to go to a meditation retreat? Like how does the average person get that anger or those
[5:26]feelings out without having to, you know, take it. I lost. I think this is, I think it's strange
[5:35]that this is such an overlooked part of of our lives honestly. We are never really taught any
[5:42]sensible way to release any kind of emotion, even for a lot of people releasing, you know,
[5:47]intense joy or gratitude. People tell us we're too much. You know, we don't want to be too
[5:51]happy. And we're also not taught how to actually process emotions like fear or anger or sadness.
[5:57]We're supposed to just keep it together all the time. And even I can see it now as a, as a parent,
[6:02]how hard it is to raise a child because I want to raise her in a way where she can feel her
[6:07]emotions and express how she feels and not put the lid on because it's, you know, uncomfortable for me
[6:11]or in a social situation. It's really hard. So I think we turn into these adults that, you know,
[6:17]we have these kind of smiles plastered on our face all day long and people ask how you do and
[6:21]fine. We're fine. We're fine. And even when we're not fine, we say we're fine. And the only way
[6:26]really to heal through really intense, you know, moments of grief or despair or challenge is to
[6:32]feel the feelings that are there. And we're not taught how to do that. So we kind of escape,
[6:37]we self medicate, we go around them, we pretend they're not there. And of course,
[6:41]with time we get depressed, we find ourselves in a huge life crises, you know, whatever is under
[6:46]the surface is going to bubble over eventually or we get physically ill or it's going to manifest
[6:50]somehow. So for me, I've had a lot of those big moments of whether it's been, you know, at a retreat
[6:57]or in ceremony or in a way where it's kind of orchestrated, where you feel safe and then it's easier
[7:04]to release those kinds of emotions. But I try to have the practice of every day feeling my feeling
[7:10]somehow. So and this is what I try to teach people through the work that I do and that's what
[7:15]we do in my retreats and things like that too. But when I'm feeling sad, what's my immediate
[7:20]gut reaction to that? How do I, you know, for me, sadness usually shows up as anger. I get annoyed,
[7:25]don't talk to me. Everybody's doing everything wrong. I blame. And then I have to get to a place where
[7:30]I can actually, okay, well, what's, you know, I'm actually hurt by something. That's why I'm acting
[7:35]in this way. And what I need is a really good cry. So I need to cry every day. What's just a big
[7:41]really stage of at least for me to have. And that whenever I get to that place where I feel
[7:46]overwhelmed by emotion, that what I need is not to soldier on or push through, but some space alone
[7:51]or someone to talk to or someone to vent with or a physical moment of releasing that emotion,
[7:58]whatever it is, which can be like a five minute crazy dance party in my living room or beating
[8:03]the hell out of a pillow in my bed. Or like I go to the ocean, I live in a secluded place. I
[8:07]can do this. I go to the ocean and yell sometimes some sort of physical release of that energy
[8:12]because we need it. We really need it in New York where we are now. I think it's so evident how many
[8:18]people need that kind of, yeah, release, but we don't really have the space to do it. So I think
[8:24]it's really something life changing. But it's just, you know, not really accepted in our society
[8:30]to have a meltdown at the grocery store when we're an adult. So yes, we should have wanted to.
[8:36]Right. And we don't. Right. And then that energy has to go somewhere. So where does it go?
[8:42]Yeah. No, we're good. Yeah. Right. Well, it's good to keep in mind that it's okay to let that out
[8:46]regularly and in fact, it's imperative to do so. Yes. So finding our own ways to hear that enough.
[8:52]Right. That's good to be. Good to be the voice of that. And this sort of dev tales of what you
[8:57]said in the book, you said, and this is during this horrendous, how do you even pronounce this?
[9:01]ayahuasca. It's ayahuasca. It horrendous ayahuasca experience, which literally I could like feel
[9:06]the fictitious spiders crawling at my skin the way you read it. You said, what we resists
[9:11]persists, whether it's pain, anxiety, fear loss, whatever emotions you feel, don't fight it,
[9:16]experience it, feel it all, lean into it, surrender to it, breathe into it fully. Open your arms wide
[9:22]and welcome it all. Let go. It will lead you to the light. So I just loved that passage. Tell me
[9:28]about that experience and how you got to that moment because then you carry that through the rest of
[9:33]the book where whenever you go up against all these tough situations, you're like, no, no, I'm going
[9:38]into the pain, like I'm releasing and then I can deal with it. Yeah. It wasn't until now that I'm
[9:43]doing some press for the book that I realized that this ayahuasca chapter was a big deal because a
[9:47]a lot of people are picking up on it. I hope I'm not selling it as something that's, you know,
[9:52]easy to do or easily accessible. Now I feel like a failure that I've picked something to comment.
[9:56]No, no, no, no. I think that's something. I think, no, I think that's something in the
[10:00]Yoga community is kind of common, not common,
[10:02]but in my community, a lot of people have done it,
[10:05]I don't know what it is, but in the rest of the world,
[10:07]it's like, what is this insane, hallucinogenic?
[10:10]So it's totally crazy and totally insane.
[10:13]So it's not something that I recommend people seek out
[10:15]or especially not in the,
[10:17]if it's not a trusted environment.
[10:18]I do not think your book was an advertisement for us anyway.
[10:22]In fact, it was like a brunette for the hills,
[10:25]if this thing is even near you type of situation.
[10:28]So do not worry.
[10:29]Yeah.
[10:30]But it really was one of those things where,
[10:33]and I don't do drugs.
[10:34]I mean, I'm, any mind altering substance,
[10:36]I've always been super terrified of my whole life.
[10:38]So everyone else who was at this ceremony with me
[10:41]had done a lot of, you know,
[10:42]had experiences with Salasaben or LSD, mushrooms,
[10:45]those kinds of things.
[10:46]And I didn't.
[10:47]So I think it was a little, I think not naive,
[10:50]but I didn't really know the extent of what I was getting into.
[10:53]But I ended up having this life lesson
[10:55]that changed my life.
[10:56]I still experienced the effects of that lesson.
[10:59]And it was so palpable because I got to have this,
[11:01]I mean, complete experience of all my worst nightmares,
[11:04]like an acid trip gone wrong essentially.
[11:06]All my worst nightmares happening at the same time
[11:10]with this realization that I am about to die.
[11:12]And it wasn't this thought or a fear that maybe I'm gonna die.
[11:15]It was this 100% truth that I am on the verge of death.
[11:19]There's no escaping it.
[11:20]I'm going to die.
[11:21]I'm not gonna make it.
[11:22]And somehow of that, it was too much.
[11:25]That energy was too, too much for my mind to cope with, I guess.
[11:29]So I just, I had this very physical experience of letting go.
[11:33]Okay, why fight it?
[11:34]I'm gonna die anyway.
[11:35]I'm not gonna make it.
[11:36]Why fight, I might as well, like,
[11:39]it was very physical, like I can feel that,
[11:41]I can tap into that feeling still.
[11:43]And the moment I did, everything changed.
[11:46]I really was like this huge shift from darkness
[11:49]to absolute light.
[11:51]Just this god-like, this experience that I'd read about
[11:53]and all the sacred texts and that you hear about
[11:56]in yoga class or meditation or spiritual books
[11:58]was this oneness somehow.
[12:01]And it's something that I've tried to,
[12:03]I remind myself of that all the time
[12:04]where I get reminded of that all the time
[12:06]when I'm in a place, a number of cysting or
[12:08]when things are really hard, that, okay,
[12:10]I can't push my way through all of these things.
[12:13]You know, they're here for reasons.
[12:14]So the easier way to process this is to allow.
[12:19]It doesn't even have to stay in a shitty situation
[12:21]but to accept where I am and then take action from there.
[12:24]I feel like I should just follow you around
[12:26]because you keep having this divine light, like, shine on you
[12:30]and light up the water where you are and like,
[12:34]I feel like you're like an angel with this like,
[12:36]hey, I feel like if I could just like,
[12:38]scooch, you know, behind you,
[12:40]I would be getting these rays of like,
[12:42]just an inundated or something.
[12:43]Yeah, I don't know.
[12:45]This I feel like it should have been a subtitle
[12:47]of this book, something like, the light and me, anyway.
[12:51]So to go on like another emotional track here,
[12:55]losing your friend Andrea,
[12:56]and I'm sorry to bring this up so callously
[12:58]in the midst of a 30 minute interview,
[13:00]but the first chapter of this book
[13:03]might be the best first chapter I've ever read.
[13:05]It was so dramatic and you didn't know what was coming
[13:09]and your sickness at the same time
[13:10]and not knowing what was happening with you
[13:12]and the fact that it ended up,
[13:13]I mean, it was like, I couldn't believe it.
[13:17]I like stopped reading it until my husband.
[13:18]I was like, oh my God, this first chapter,
[13:20]it's like, see you at two days,
[13:21]I'm reading the rest of this book right now.
[13:23]And of course, I'm so sorry for your loss,
[13:25]but you wrote about these emotions
[13:27]in such a raw, open way, as if you were going through them now.
[13:32]And I was just wondering now that some time has passed,
[13:35]how you reflect back on like that initial period
[13:37]of loss and grief.
[13:38]And if you've managed to find,
[13:40]and obviously a lot of good has come in that
[13:44]you've made a lot of spiritual progress
[13:46]and you've helped so many other people.
[13:47]But what would you think, or maybe some,
[13:50]any positives that might have come out
[13:52]of such a horrendous situation?
[13:53]I mean, it's such a hard question to answer.
[13:56]I am a big fan of the term or the cliche,
[14:00]to trust that life takes you where you're supposed to be.
[14:03]And I share that a lot.
[14:04]I wrote that in my first book a lot.
[14:05]And then when I was moving through all of this intense grief
[14:08]and loss, that was just the most insulting thing
[14:10]anyone could ever say.
[14:12]Like everything happens for a reason.
[14:13]So there's no, it's a really insulting thing
[14:15]to say to someone who just lost someone.
[14:18]So I don't believe that death has to be purposeful.
[14:22]Like, oh, it's all for a reason.
[14:23]It took me somewhere.
[14:24]I believe more in the sense of finding
[14:27]some sort of purpose in loss.
[14:29]So would I take all of it back?
[14:32]I mean, any good things that have come from this,
[14:34]if I could have five more minutes with my best friend,
[14:36]like absolutely and wouldn't even think about it.
[14:40]But I think the growth that happens
[14:43]from moving through those kinds of struggles,
[14:45]that shapes you in a way that I can sense in my bones,
[14:48]that was supposed to happen.
[14:50]That growth I was supposed to learn these things.
[14:52]I was supposed to have my heart crack open in these ways.
[14:55]I was supposed to know how to touch this level of grief
[14:58]and sorrow so that I can speak on it and touch other people
[15:01]in that same way where I'm moving through similar things.
[15:03]That was supposed to happen.
[15:05]That it have to happen by her dying in that way.
[15:08]Hopefully not.
[15:09]I like to believe that we're meant to go through some sort
[15:12]of struggle and then we get what we get.
[15:14]We got to just do what we can with that.
[15:17]But it's a hard concept because I really
[15:20]believe in this spiritual truth of where we are.
[15:23]So it's a hard part of grief wanting
[15:26]to go back to something that isn't there anymore
[15:28]or wishing for something to be different or that shouldn't
[15:31]have happened.
[15:31]She shouldn't have died.
[15:32]I still think that that's true.
[15:33]She shouldn't have died.
[15:34]But here we are.
[15:36]So it's this concept I still struggle with a lot.
[15:40]I also thought it was so powerful of the part
[15:42]when you were in the retreat after your dog had passed away
[15:45]and you were just over come by remorse
[15:49]and wishing you could have done something to help.
[15:51]And I can't remember her name Shah.
[15:53]Anyway, I can't remember who was working with you on it.
[15:55]But she said something like, would you
[15:56]have done everything you could to save your dog?
[15:59]Yeah, true, but true, but you couldn't.
[16:02]You couldn't have saved him.
[16:03]It's like you would have, but you did.
[16:05]You did everything you could.
[16:06]I know it's just another way of looking at it.
[16:07]I didn't say that much, but you know what I'm saying.
[16:10]And I remember because of course,
[16:11]I knew that.
[16:12]Like, if I could have saved him, would I have saved him?
[16:15]Of course.
[16:16]But it was sometimes we have to hear things
[16:18]in this moment where we're actually
[16:20]open to receiving it, which is why I think when we move through
[16:23]loss, we can have 100 people tell us all the nice things
[16:26]and we can read all the nice books.
[16:28]And then we're just not ready to actually listen.
[16:31]So for some of us, that's a lifetime of not being able to maybe
[16:35]feel safe enough to open up into a place where we can actually
[16:39]use the pain in a way.
[16:42]Because I know people, my mom is a great example of that.
[16:44]She lost her fiance when she was 25.
[16:47]She spent 15 years not thinking about it, not talking about it,
[16:51]not processing it.
[16:52]It was this chapter we tore out of our lives.
[16:55]And then her healing process started.
[16:57]And then it wasn't like it happened yesterday.
[16:59]That time doesn't matter at all.
[17:01]So it's, I think, timing and feeling safe and having the
[17:04]resources and the support to actually hold our hands as we
[17:08]move through these things because we can't do it alone.
[17:10]And I have to say, I started getting a little worried about
[17:12]you because you were having such intense panic attacks in
[17:14]this book and you were having times you thought you were
[17:17]going to die and trying to cause somebody like I can't
[17:19]breathe.
[17:20]And I could just feel you like trying to gasp for air with
[17:22]these horrific panic attacks.
[17:24]And I just wanted to make sure that you get it, you got
[17:26]some sort of treatment for that or like, you're seeing
[17:29]somebody to talk about it or you have some medication or
[17:32]something.
[17:32]I'm worried like you're going to walk down the street and
[17:34]have another panic attack.
[17:36]I never felt that way in my life.
[17:38]Actually, it was just then, it was just then I never, I'm
[17:42]really grateful I had the experience because in my trainings
[17:45]and retreats and groups that I that I do, I see so many
[17:48]people who suffer from anxiety and anxiety attacks and
[17:51]panic attacks.
[17:52]And it's kind of like, you know, teaching yoga, any physical
[17:55]ailments you've had are the greatest resource you have because
[17:58]it's not until you've had intense back pain that you
[18:00]actually know how to teach someone who's moving to intense
[18:02]back pain and similarly with all with guiding someone
[18:06]through something emotional like that.
[18:07]So I would have people come to class and I suffer from
[18:09]panic attacks and I would go, oh, but I didn't understand
[18:12]what that meant until I had one and it was this, oh my
[18:16]God, I'm about to die.
[18:17]It's like death is imminent now.
[18:19]And then realizing that that didn't originate from this
[18:21]physical place inside of me.
[18:23]It wasn't just my throat closing up, you know, it's
[18:26]this grief being overwhelmed by too much emotion.
[18:29]So it's not something that I that was reoccurring, it
[18:33]was just during this time in my life where I can see now
[18:35]where I didn't have an outlet to talk about it.
[18:37]I wasn't sharing.
[18:38]I wasn't speaking.
[18:40]I wasn't seeing a therapist.
[18:41]I was kind of like everything's great now.
[18:43]I've moved on which I hadn't.
[18:45]So I think the best way through for anyone who suffers is
[18:49]to make sure that we have that outlet to speak about it,
[18:52]that we don't keep these things to ourselves because the
[18:54]everything that we keep in the dark, it just grows and then
[18:57]it becomes this unbearable thing until we shine the light
[19:00]on it and it's like, oh, you know, I'm not alone in this.
[19:03]I can manage it, but we have to speak about it all the time.
[19:07]So another thing I found really interesting in your book is
[19:09]that you have all these followers.
[19:11]You have like 2 million Instagram followers.
[19:13]And everywhere you go people are like reaching out and
[19:15]hugging you and you talk about the mixed feelings you had,
[19:19]especially at the beginning of basically fame, right?
[19:22]That everywhere especially in certain communities where
[19:24]you went you were like, you know, people just like wanted to
[19:27]touch you, like you're like a secret, you know, like the
[19:30]Dolly llamas that's been walking along the line.
[19:32]Seriously, but you know, the way you describe it even on
[19:35]Instagram when you showed the line of people like wrapped
[19:37]around just waiting and saying how you hugged 500 people.
[19:40]I mean, that has to take a lot out of you as a person.
[19:43]So how do you take care of yourself?
[19:45]I know you have all these meditation and yoga and all
[19:48]these healthy things you do.
[19:49]But like, what do you do at the end of a long day when you're
[19:52]like exhausted by some event, like the other day you're
[19:56]reading or like how do you get through the day today?
[19:59]Someone just asked.
[20:00]Ask me that in a book event of the first
[20:02]I should know.
[20:03]It was the last Q&R issue.
[20:05]I guess that was, you know, hundreds of people there
[20:07]and then, oh, and you're going to hug all of us.
[20:09]And then at the end of this day, like, what's the secret?
[20:12]And I felt like she's waiting for me to give her this
[20:14]Sanskrit mantra that I do or the specific meditation
[20:17]and it's just, I drink a lot of wine.
[20:19]No.
[20:20]I don't know.
[20:21]I want to know the brand of chocolate that you eat.
[20:23]That is what I'm looking for here.
[20:25]No, the secret that I've found that really works for me
[20:28]is when I'm on, I'm on.
[20:30]And I can rock that.
[20:31]I can go on and tour.
[20:32]I can be on all day, all night.
[20:34]Hug a thousand people and really be there
[20:36]and not have to fake it.
[20:38]But then when I'm off, I turn off.
[20:40]And that's when I struggle.
[20:41]So, for instance, on this tour, if we have an off day in between
[20:44]and then I meet someone kind of accidentally,
[20:47]they're not going to get the best version of me.
[20:49]Because then I'm in this private space.
[20:50]I don't really want to talk to anybody.
[20:52]I want to go take a yoga class and not have someone
[20:54]next to me, like, bring their phone out.
[20:56]Then I get pissy people.
[20:59]So I kind of have the contrast of knowing when to be on.
[21:02]And then when I'm on an island in the middle of nowhere,
[21:04]like there's three houses on our road.
[21:06]No people around.
[21:07]So I think that's how I rebalances.
[21:09]I get to be really off and not.
[21:11]It's like two totally different sides to my life.
[21:14]Yeah.
[21:15]And then why?
[21:16]Yeah.
[21:17]You did the yoga.
[21:18]You didn't drink the wine.
[21:19]You eat the chocolate.
[21:20]You meditate.
[21:21]You feel your feelings.
[21:22]I think all of it, whatever works.
[21:24]And you've felt this whole community around your desire to
[21:27]help people and have people help each other, right,
[21:30]lift each other up, admit to our feelings,
[21:32]heal together.
[21:33]I mean, it's really a beautiful thing that you're doing.
[21:35]And on your website, you say it's a new lifestyle,
[21:38]movement, and brand to heal and change the world,
[21:41]just to have minor little goals here.
[21:43]And that everyone can be a yoga girl.
[21:45]So maybe this is like an oxymoron.
[21:48]How can you be a yoga girl if you don't necessarily have
[21:51]time to do yoga classes?
[21:53]How can you tap into that if you don't have time to do the
[21:57]other stuff?
[21:58]I know I can't touch it.
[21:59]This is what I'm really focused on.
[22:01]Because a lot of people don't have time to take yoga or even
[22:04]meditate or whatever.
[22:05]But want to tap into the part of your community where we can
[22:08]help each other.
[22:09]And how can we do that?
[22:11]Yeah.
[22:12]And I think when we kind of expanded to that platform and it
[22:15]was a really conscious choice that I made of,
[22:17]I don't want to be at the center of all of this anymore.
[22:20]It's really important for me that this is about community
[22:22]that we're lifting each other up.
[22:24]And it's the yoga practice, the physical poses we practice
[22:27]on the mat.
[22:28]That's just a tool.
[22:29]I mean, it's a tool that's worked really well for me.
[22:31]It's working for a lot of people.
[22:32]But it doesn't have to be that every day we make our way to some
[22:35]fancy yoga studio.
[22:36]We pay $30 to go take a 90 minute yoga class.
[22:39]For many of us, it's the five minutes we'd spend breathing while
[22:43]we just dropped our kid off at school.
[22:45]Or right before we go to bed or it's making the active choice
[22:49]to sit in silence or journal or call up that friend that we're
[22:53]all in the path searching for that kind of self love.
[22:56]So that's for me at least the embodiment of being a
[22:59]yoga girl is that we're searching together.
[23:01]And the clue to all of this or the kind of the glue that
[23:04]holds everything together is we have to heal ourselves
[23:06]first before we can really ever help anybody else.
[23:09]But the moment we do, the moment we start filling our own cup,
[23:12]whether it's through community, through friendship,
[23:14]through yoga, through family, all the tools that we have
[23:16]and the beautiful things that we have.
[23:18]All of us that didn't realize that we have so much and then
[23:21]that can overflow.
[23:22]We can actually do something that's a service to the rest of the world.
[23:25]So it can't just be me and my yoga and my green juice and my health.
[23:30]And that's the end of it.
[23:31]It has to be a cam healing something that needs to be healed here so
[23:34]that I can look up and around and see that there's a whole sea of
[23:37]people that that needs me.
[23:39]We all have something you need to give to the world that we're
[23:42]never going to be actually able to give that to someone else
[23:45]if we're still working through the pain that we have inside.
[23:48]So that's what the yoga girl community is about.
[23:50]It's filling our cup and then helping the world in different ways.
[23:54]And just from a time management perspective,
[23:57]you do so much in your life.
[23:59]You're leaving yoga retreats and classes all over the world.
[24:02]You run the yoga studios in Aruba.
[24:05]You have this yoga girl community.
[24:07]You have two non-profits, one for animals,
[24:09]Sergeant Pepper's Foundation, one for women, children.
[24:13]And children, you host from the hard podcast, which was so good.
[24:17]And you have a toddler who I like fell in love with from the pictures.
[24:21]Oh my gosh, she's like, oh my gosh.
[24:23]When do you do everything?
[24:25]I mean, you don't have to go into the nitty gritty,
[24:27]but just how do you, I mean, that's such a cliche question.
[24:31]How do you balance it all?
[24:32]But from a time management perspective,
[24:34]what are your tricks?
[24:35]Like how do you fit it into a day?
[24:37]I think it's similar to that, the idea that I have of all in an
[24:40]an off.
[24:41]So I'm a very efficient person.
[24:43]I really, under pressure and short amount of time,
[24:46]I can get a lot of things done.
[24:47]And I'd rather have a really intense five-hour work day
[24:51]so that I can be really off and spend time with my daughter at the
[24:54]end of that, then flander around and do a little bit here and a little bit there
[24:58]and then all of a sudden I'm working all day long.
[25:00]And it just feels like it's this never ending.
[25:02]Especially if you work with social media or it's easy to take your work.
[25:05]There's a blurry line between work and personal.
[25:08]Don't really have a clear line there.
[25:10]But the key to everything is having really good people around you.
[25:14]So I have an amazing team.
[25:16]I delegate a shit ton.
[25:18]That is kind of my goal every day is everything that I can delegate.
[25:21]I delegate.
[25:22]And then there are things that know what I would be able to do.
[25:24]No one can teach my classes.
[25:25]No one can record my podcast.
[25:26]No one can record my books.
[25:27]Take my photos.
[25:28]Film the things, whatever it is.
[25:30]So I try to have it, you know, that's what I really focus on in a day.
[25:34]I used to think that I should do everything.
[25:36]And I should have my fingers and everything.
[25:38]And kind of control everything.
[25:39]And make sure everything is up to what I want.
[25:41]But then realizing that there's other people who do, you know,
[25:45]those things way better than I ever could.
[25:47]So a little bit of letting go.
[25:49]I think helps.
[25:50]It's so long.
[25:51]I'm on theme with you.
[25:52]I'm on theme very on theme.
[25:54]Your next little, you could do like a little time management pamphlet.
[25:57]Right.
[25:58]I'll just let you expand your, you know, give me a little credit
[26:01]and then acknowledge you can do that for next.
[26:03]Now actually speaking of next.
[26:05]So are you doing another book?
[26:07]What I mean, I know you're in the throes of this one.
[26:09]But and this was such a powerful emotional book
[26:11]and you couldn't possibly replicate something like this.
[26:13]But what are your plans for coming up?
[26:17]I mean, for future books, I have this dream now just from meeting
[26:20]people who've finished the book and who've seen people
[26:23]how they reacted and responded to the book.
[26:25]I would love to do sort of a, like a handbook for people
[26:28]who are moving through the shittiest time of their life.
[26:31]Just to kind of in a more digestible way,
[26:33]almost like a little how to not that it's going to, you know,
[26:36]save anybody's life in that sense, but to have something
[26:39]when it comes to the actual actionable things that I did
[26:41]to take me through.
[26:43]So the exercises to, you know, feel your feelings,
[26:46]how to move the body, taking care of ourselves in that sense.
[26:50]But that's just a little seed planted in my brain right now.
[26:53]But we have an online platform here at Girl.com
[26:56]where I have a lot of new live videos
[26:58]and so yoga and meditation classes also to help people move
[27:02]through challenging times.
[27:04]So I'm focusing on that.
[27:06]And then eventually I'm going to take a vacation.
[27:08]I think that's also Bex.
[27:11]Do you have any advice to aspiring authors?
[27:14]Oh, I love that.
[27:15]I think we spend a lot of time focused on all the things
[27:19]that might not work out.
[27:21]At least that's what I see a lot, all that,
[27:23]that little critical voice in the back of our heads
[27:25]that tells us like, no one's going to like this book
[27:27]or no one's going to pick this book up.
[27:28]You'll never get it published.
[27:29]And sometimes that voice keeps us from even trying.
[27:33]So I think as soon as we start writing,
[27:35]we make the decision,
[27:36]okay, I'm going to go for this.
[27:37]It sets this universal law in place
[27:40]where we start to have energy drawn
[27:43]toward the thing we're creating.
[27:44]And then all of a sudden, doors will open
[27:46]that we didn't see before we started.
[27:48]So I think it's the best, I think piece of advice
[27:51]I could ever give is to just do the thing.
[27:53]Just start, write the book, you know,
[27:55]do the project, start the business, whatever it is.
[27:58]But especially when it comes to writing,
[28:00]I think we have to write first and a lot of us feel like,
[28:02]oh, I have a book inside of me,
[28:03]but then we don't actually get to the point of, you know,
[28:05]putting the wheels in the motion of actually writing it.
[28:08]So having a good intention and then taking action
[28:11]and then doing that every day.
[28:12]Did you carve out time every day?
[28:14]Like, how did you do it?
[28:16]I mean, I know your husband Dennis gave you a notebook
[28:18]and you're sitting on a dock and it's just like,
[28:20]float out of you.
[28:21]But how did you incorporate that into?
[28:24]Yeah.
[28:25]I had the original deadline for this book was 2016.
[28:28]For the bad newsprint.
[28:29]Did you have that happen 2018?
[28:32]At some point.
[28:33]So I am not the kind of person who writes a little bit every day.
[28:37]I wish I was like that discipline.
[28:39]Like, I'm going to write 500 words every day and then eventually
[28:41]you have a book.
[28:42]I am more that I have a deadline.
[28:44]Everybody's going to kill me.
[28:45]What the hell?
[28:46]Got to write this book and then squeeze it out.
[28:48]But I also for this book I had because I had my notebooks
[28:51]and then I had things I'd shared on social media,
[28:53]and I had some other priorities.
[28:54]It was piecing all of that together and then, yeah,
[28:57]it was mostly hard because it was such emotional work.
[29:00]I mean, most every chapter I was just bawling my eyes
[29:03]out and had to pause and come back with a fresh mind.
[29:06]So that was part of why this took really long time.
[29:09]Oh, my gosh.
[29:10]If you could go back to the Envision Music Festival that you went to
[29:14]with Andrea before she passed away and that was your last week
[29:18]of like hardcore time together.
[29:20]Like you wrote about so amazingly well.
[29:23]Is there anything you would go back and tell yourself now
[29:25]having lived through all of this afterwards?
[29:29]I mean, I don't think we could have enjoyed that more.
[29:32]You know, I couldn't have improved that experience.
[29:35]If anything, I would try to change the course of time
[29:38]so how so that she wouldn't get in the car.
[29:40]I mean, 10 days later.
[29:42]But I don't think I could have.
[29:43]It was the best looking at it now.
[29:45]And I was even thinking, am I romanticizing it?
[29:48]Because it happened sometimes we look at the relationship
[29:51]or the last moment we had.
[29:52]It was so good, but I made it into something bigger than it was.
[29:55]But it wasn't.
[29:56]It was exactly that.
[29:57]I mean, it was amazing in this song.
[30:00]that you had and the good things keep coming, coming, coming.
[30:02]So I played it even again.
[30:04]I believe in it, yeah.
[30:05]I played that last night.
[30:06]And I was like, yes, so I was like typing it.
[30:08]Isn't he amazing?
[30:09]Oh, my gosh, and I'm like, sending my husband to that.
[30:11]Anyway, it was so good.
[30:12]So now I feel like you've given me a soundtrack.
[30:14]You've given me tools.
[30:15]I have my little yoga manual.
[30:17]And I can go off in this nicely packaged way.
[30:20]So thank you for everything you've given me.
[30:22]And for the amazing experience of just reading this book
[30:25]and getting to share your life so openly
[30:28]and all your emotions and all your posts
[30:30]and just letting the world in to help everybody else,
[30:33]it's really, thank you so much.
[30:34]It's really beautiful, thank you.
[30:35]Thank you.
[30:36]Thanks for reading it.
[30:37]And thanks for taking the time for this.
[30:38]It's having me.
[30:39]You're so lovely to talk to you, thank you.
[30:41]Thanks.
[30:42]Thanks again to my sponsor, Lauren Gabrielson,
[30:45]the Women's War brand that creates elevated essentials
[30:48]for the modern women's wardrobe, Lauren Gabrielson.com.
[30:52]Thanks for listening to Moms Don't Have Time To Read Books.
[30:54]You can follow me on Instagram at Moms Don't Have Time
[30:57]To Read Books.
[30:58]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Texturesound
[31:01]for the Sound Editing.
[31:02]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[31:04]for providing this fantastic intro and out trim music.
[31:07]Thanks for listening.
[31:07]You could always email me at zibbyadzibiowans.com.