Podcast Episode #43
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[00:00:00] Welcome to the Extraordinary Life Podcast from the creator of the Extraordinary Life Tribe, Crystal Obregon, the self-development podcast propelling you forward toward your goals. Using science backed high performance habits. Reach the next level in your physical and mental health. See new heights in your relationships. Gain clarity on your purpose and live your extraordinary life.
[00:00:23] Welcome your host writer, speaker and coach Crystal Obregon.
[00:00:30] Crystal: Hi there. This is Crystal from Crystal Obregon Coaching with Episode Number 43 of the Extraordinary Life Podcast. In today's podcast, I'm talking with Laurie Broderick-Burr. I'm not completely sure how long I've known Laurie.
[00:00:48] Definitely since I started doing yoga in 2003, but I've always felt like our paths had crossed somewhere before that. Since then I've taken classes [00:01:00] from Lori and since the pandemic rolled happened, I then following her twists and turns via Instagram for the most part. Laurie shares a common love of the outdoors and backpacking, and I've enjoyed watching her journey since her daughter is now fully launched.
[00:01:21] I'm a little bit behind that. I wouldn't mind following in her footsteps. So let's get started. Laurie, tell my listeners a little bit about yourself.
[00:01:33] Laurie: Hi Crystal. Thanks for allowing me to be on your podcast and part of your community. I'm almost 60. I have had a long career as a movement teacher for over 35 years.
[00:01:47] I have a Bachelor's of Art in Dance and a Master's of Science in Kineseology
[00:01:52] with emphasis in geriatric exercise science, which is really a terrible way to say how we're getting old and continuing to move and maybe [00:02:00] not. And how many might, should, and shouldn't need to move. And then also in orthopedic rehabilitation, I just finished that master's some years ago in my fifties, I have a daughter who's 27 and I've been married for a really long time.
[00:02:17] I was 24, so almost 30, the 36 years, I guess, this June or thirty-five years. To the same person I've lived with since I came to college in 1980, I went home for two summers and then I came back to Santa Cruz and have lived here ever since. Currently, also have now a second home in bend Oregon, where we hope to spend some of our time.
[00:02:40] That's where our child is. Our child, heart, young woman, adult. I'm an avid mover, not just yoga. I feel in some ways that. My students sometimes call me the roga instructor because I'm a little rogue and always have been. In fact, I've had some issues with feeling [00:03:00] like I fit in with the yoga community sometimes because I've questioned a lot about why we do things, how we should do things, whether things should be taught the way they're being taught.
[00:03:10] That that's one reason I went to graduate school was to look at the empirical science around movement and how it applied to. There's a lot more. I could say I'm an avid lover of dogs. I back back for miles and miles and miles every summer done the John Muir trail a couple times participated in triathletes, um, big gardener.
[00:03:31] Crystal: So you are a yoga teacher. Do you feel like that's your primary thing?
[00:03:37] Laurie: Well, why would actually say I'm more of a yoga and movement teacher? Definitely. What I teach is in the lexicon of yoga Asana of making the shapes of your, I have really tweaked it with my own experience and empirical science evidence-based science on how we might approach it a little differently.
[00:03:58] A lot of things [00:04:00] where we move in and out of poses. So we mobilize joints rather than just quote unquote big air quotes, stretching joints.
[00:04:08] Crystal: Right.
[00:04:09] Laurie: So yeah, the people who come to me want to explore how their body moves and how their body's aging might. My typical group is over 60 teaching for a long time. So I've had the honor of being with people now for 25 plus years as their teacher really they're my teacher.
[00:04:29] So, yeah, I guess you could call me a yoga instructor. I just won the best yoga instructor in the Good Times again. So I guess that's, that's why I'm more of a movement expert in terms of,
[00:04:43] in terms of that.
[00:04:45] Crystal: I've had issues with my knees and I'm really picky about who I'll go to, because I know that I need to take care of myself. And if I'm feeling pressured into doing something that [00:05:00] just doesn't feel right.
[00:05:01] Laurie: Right. Well, and for me, luckily, really early on in my experience with you about I found Judith Lasiter. She was really from the tradition, but she really pulled herself back from being called an Iyengar teacher. Even though she was certified senior call herself an Iyengar instructor, she went to physical therapy school to be a better yoga instructor.
[00:05:20] And she really was a person who, long before I understood that I wanted to do this, but I was very drawn to the fact that she explored things. You know, when we went into Trikonasana, we might've gone into it completely differently than sort of a big air quotes, classical way of coming into Trikonasana.
[00:05:38] And she's the first person that really talked about the pelvis moving as a bony ring. So that in yoga, we're always told to lift that back pelvis up away from the front leg in Trikonasana and in reality, biomechanically, the whole pelvis turns down for that. Like, so she was mind blowing to me. Because it seemed like she was breaking the rules and she was doing it [00:06:00] respectfully.
[00:06:00] And with science behind her, she really is one of my strongest mentors and gave me the permission. She never gave it to me verbally, but she gave me permission to really find out how and why I wanted to teach. And interestingly enough, a teacher, we shared Kofi Busia. He said the same thing to me many years ago, but he said it in his Kofi way, you know, he said, Laurie, "Do what you love."
[00:06:27] And so, you know, looking at bodies, looking at the way, bodies all move differently and trying to work from that. Turns me on pretty much beyond anything else watching bodies move. It is, I am such a nerd.
[00:06:44] Crystal: I love it
[00:06:45] Laurie: It was interesting because my husband's a civil engineer and my daughter's a civil structural engineer.
[00:06:50] And so they look at the world through sort of finite physics. You know, how buildings hold up, how traffic moves through traffic lights. [00:07:00] And I am really, I would say I'm an engineer of the human body. So we, we share some common. Ways we look at the world. They're just not as interested in looking at bodies and I'm not as interested in looking at bridges.
[00:07:12] Crystal: Right.
[00:07:15] My husband and I have always felt like my son would go into an engineering direction. Like he's good at math and this and that. And then lately he's very into cycling and he's really into the psychology part. He can geek out with me on some of the coaching and personal development stuff. At this moment in time, he's not very mechanical with bikes, in my husband's opinion,
[00:07:41] You're always thinking about, okay, what's my kid going to do after high school or what are they going to study? And so can kinesiology is something that he might be interested in along with sports psychology,
[00:07:56] Laurie: There's a lot of great programs. And I think that the mind body [00:08:00] connect that you and I share as yoga practitioners, That MINDBODY connect is not just a yogic thing.
[00:08:08] It's, you know, you probably find it on your bike. I find it when I'm swimming, when I'm lifting weights, when I'm back packing, when I'm walking, anytime I'm moving my body, there's a mind body connect. That study is pretty amazing. Whether it's from a philosophical standpoint or a more biomechanical standpoint.
[00:08:28] I just don't think that there's a separation, you know, yoga isn't in, in my opinion, maybe big. Why yoga? Like with a whole philosophy part of it and little "y" yoga, the Asana practice. I don't think for me at least is separated from any other physical thing I do. In terms of that mind, body connect, maybe it's a little slower.
[00:08:49] And so it gives me more time to contemplate or pause. That's a pretty amazing connect that mind, body connect so good for him and good for you guys for supporting him. And I mean, [00:09:00] my kid, when knew she wanted to be an engineer since she was 12. So I had to get through calculus, which was not easy for her.
[00:09:06] She wasn't one of those kids in college, who she got accepted into the civil program at Gonzaga university up in Spokane, but she was going to school with all these kids who were good at. I don't really want to be engineers. It was just, they were good in math. And so some person along the way said, Hey, you should be an engineer.
[00:09:25] Crystal: Yeah. Which is backwards. I know I considered engineering for, I don't know, half a minute. I never even explored it because it's like, no, that's too hard.
[00:09:36] Laurie: It seems really hard to me. She'll be mad at me for saying this out in public, but she's studying for the professional engineer test right now. The licensing test, a couple of things happened for her.
[00:09:47] One was she, she lives out of state. Out of state, has a different, you have to, you have to work under a licensed civil engineer for our structural engineer for a period of time in California. It's only a couple of years, but in Oregon and Washington, it's more than that. And [00:10:00] then when she was all signed up and ready to go, the pandemic hit.
[00:10:03] And at that point, the professional engineer was given in an in-person large group setting where you went there were proctors. And so they canceled it for a long time over a year, I think we canceled it and now they've put it online. Like they've done, you know, the LSAT and other things. And so she can go to a testing facility and take it.
[00:10:25] Yeah. She's having to go back and all those things in college that she's not applying to her current day job, she has to now study again and be tested on it. It looks awful.
[00:10:37] Crystal: That sounds awful to me too,
[00:10:43] Laurie: right? Can I just run a marathon instead? Thank you.
[00:10:44] Crystal: Exactly. You mentioned the pandemic. Of course, everybody, especially in California stopped doing everything. How did your business shift and how have you navigated the whole thing as a yoga teacher? [00:11:00]
[00:11:00] Laurie: Actually, there are so many silver linings to this, a shift for me, I was in a situation where I wasn't super happy.
[00:11:09] I had stopped teaching at Cabrillo college. So I had stopped that, which was great. That was a great transition. I was ready for that. After 25 years. Thought I was going to have a full-time position at UCSC that fell through after I had quit my job at Cabrillo. So it was this, and this was pre-pandemic. Lot of fear, like, oh my God, now I don't have my teaching jobs anymore at the college level, what am I going to do?
[00:11:33] And Mikayla was done with school at that point. So we were done paying for college. My husband said, let's, don't go back. Let's see if we can make this work. And so I found myself in that period of a couple of years before the pandemic really wondering, do I want to be an independent contractor, continuing to rent space, which was very, you know, even though where I was renting was fairly reasonable, it was a big cost.
[00:11:55] every month. Is this really where I want to work, how I want to work? Do I want to start working [00:12:00] more individually? Do I want to get my own little office somewhere where I have small classes and I can work with people one-on-one and then, you know, the, the rug just gets pulled out from underneath you. And so for that, we were in, in bend Oregon, actually, when shelter in place came into effect and we drove home and all of a sudden I learned about this thing called zoom.
[00:12:21] And, um, you know, my friends like Amey Matthews, like she has this incredible internet situation right. In her own little yoga place. So not that the transition wasn't hard for her. You know, we all had to pivot really rapidly, but I live a little bit outside of town in a canyon where our internet upload speed was like three G.
[00:12:41] It was like three or four. It was easy. And so I tried, I tried right here in this room I'm in to teach and it did not work. I mean, it, my students bless their heart. They were coming, there were tons of people coming, right. Because it was like a, something to hold on. But if I would drop out, I would have [00:13:00] to go reset the internet.
[00:13:01] And so I began to have to go to a friend's house and I would mask up and I would go in to her back bedroom. And then I would unmask and that room would get closed off afterwards, bless her heart. And I taught from that room. So I would go all the way over to the far west side and teach. And it was great. I felt like I was, I had a clarity.
[00:13:24] I, I was learning things, you know, now I have all these lights, I have all these, all this equipment. I had to learn technology that changed. I needed to change that. I ended up teaching at a couple other people's houses. You know, this is like pre-vaccine.. So we were all afraid to kill each other. Right. And then Luma yoga.
[00:13:46] So Valerie Moselle and Luma yoga, they had a set up, they just took me in and allowed me to teach in their set up and there, we just sort of traded, I, I made videos and I offered classes. Her [00:14:00] students could come to my class. That worked until they fell out of business. Right. And I mean, they close their business.
[00:14:06] Then I got an office downtown. That's really what happened. I finally had to just get myself an office and get there. But the other thing that really happened for me in the business was I began to really realize what it is I wanted to do, how much I wanted to do during this time. My husband retired. All of a sudden the reality of, oh, we can go somewhere and I could teach zoom.
[00:14:27] I mean, I just taught the last three months while I wasn't in Santa Cruz via zoom the whole time. As long as I have internet, I can travel with lights and my computer and the whole thing. So it was great. I could stay in touch with my students. I could stay working even while we were gone. And then the one-on-one thing really took off for me.
[00:14:45] So I have a lot of private clients that I work with and I go to their house. And we typically work. We typically work outside, right? Because we were, again, we were afraid of getting each other sick. We've had to shift and change with that. You know, the [00:15:00] Delta came along and all of a sudden we needed to mask up again or needed to be outside and Omicron came, you know?
[00:15:05] So in some ways it's been such a trip and so stressful, and I'm very worried about like now, what now do I have to go to in-person again? Do I have to go to this old model? And I keep reminding myself. No, you don't have to go to that old model. You can do some in-person things like I'm going to teach on the west side one class a week on Thursday mornings, and then here at my house, I have a huge 60 foot deck in front of my house.
[00:15:33] And I'm going to have small semi-private groups here coming to, coming to this deck where we can be outside. And, you know, we just had to get creative, didn't we? And then say that I didn't, that I haven't freaked out and stressed out. And that level of stress, you know, and pivot, pivot, pivot all the time, but amazing silver linings.
[00:15:54] And I'll tell ya, I'm one of those students. Cause I, I studied with Christina Sell. Who's now [00:16:00] in Washington and I take her class once a week. To be an online student is great. I don't have to drive any. I just click on my computer. There she is. We do the thing and I have a lot of students who never want to leave their house again to go to yoga.
[00:16:14] They're like so happy that I show up and myself much like my colleagues who've had to tend to switch in and out like this. I've gotten really good at it. Crystal. I just want to, I wanted to bring this up. I was talking to my husband about this on our hike this morning, prior to the pandemic, there was a lot going on about hands-on contact.
[00:16:35] Teachers to students and whether really happened and how students, even if you were in my class. And I said, Crystal, is it okay if I touch you? I would like to adjust you here. I'm going to touch your shoulders. Is that okay? You might say yes, even if you felt like you didn't want to say yes because other people were there and you would feel peer pressure.
[00:16:55] And so there's this element that we were sort of trans. If some of us were [00:17:00] transitioning to prior to the pandemic where we weren't doing a lot of physical adjustment, obviously there's been a lot of abuse through the years and aggressive adjustment and telling people that they need to do this and this, and actually moving their bodies into that shape.
[00:17:15] I you know I've done it. And so I think that it's really given a lot of us an opportunity to learn how to teach without touching that was a pretty long answer, Crystal.
[00:17:27] Crystal: That's great. I know there's so much that I also appreciate about not having to go anywhere and I've gotten good at standing poses on carpeting
[00:17:39] Laurie: and that changes your balance. Doesn't it?
[00:17:41] Crystal: Yeah. I do miss having that social part because I'm an introvert. And I'm good with the social before class and after class. And then I'm good. That's enough social interaction for me. I do appreciate what you're saying about [00:18:00] the hands-on adjustment. Sometimes my internet has gone out and so I've been on my phone and then not had my camera on.
[00:18:07] And there's been a little freedom in that as well of actually not being watched.
[00:18:14] Laurie: Yeah. It's pretty easy. You know, you can bring your coffee to class.
[00:18:21] The pets have been the best pandemic thing. This couple that lives up in Felton. They have these two cats. Their one cat, she depends on it doesn't matter which of their moms they're on, but they'll go into something like prasarita padottanasana for those of you listening to the podcast, that's a wide standing forward bend. Your legs are wide apart and you bend forward and down to the floor, you know?
[00:18:42] And so they've got this sacrum, this back of their pelvis, right? And the cat jumps up there and just rests during the whole posture. And I mean, those kind of, those kinds of interactions and seeing people with their pets has been really entertaining and heartwarming through this last two years. [00:19:00] Now I can see, I'll continue to teach zoom.
[00:19:02] Even if I go back to a more in-person service situation, I don't know that I'll go to hybrid. I don't know that I want to do both things at once. I'm not, I, I could do it. I'm a professional. I could figure it out. I think that the hybrid situation, somebody loses out. I'm not sure who it is, whether it's the people online or the people.
[00:19:21] Cause, I don't just do the class. I am watching my students and giving them commentary and asking them to explore something or try something else and suggesting things. And so it's really, it would be difficult to be in a classroom with people and trying to watch a screen and feeling like everybody was getting what they wanted.
[00:19:42] And I know you can have more people and maybe make more money that way, but I'm not sure sure it's the avenue I need to go down. More will be revealed.
[00:19:52] Crystal: I did a little live today that was talking about whatever you're doing. You have to take the step and then you'll [00:20:00] know if it was a mistake or not, or if it's the right direction, it's all, it's all information and mistakes are really good information,
[00:20:08] Laurie: Mistakes. And I just want to clarify that sometimes because I'm very hard on myself and I know you and some of your listeners can relate to this. The really being hard on myself or the imposter syndrome or that idea that I have to, well, perfectionism, that's huge on my therapy list. This idea that it's maybe not a mistake, that when we try something and it doesn't work out, it just means that that didn't work out and we either need to tweak it or change it.
[00:20:34] For instance, I have a teachable school. So teachable is a platform where I can upload videos and classes. When I first offered that this fall, it went gangbusters. You know, I had a lot of people buying my stuff, a lot of my students, but it's not going to be for everybody. Cause it's, I'm not live, it's videos of me doing things.
[00:20:55] And so that really works for some people, but not for others. So that has really [00:21:00] changed and drained down to of not very many people are buying those things anymore. And so is that a mistake? No, it's not a mistake. It just means that from my population or who I'm marketing to, they're not so interested in that.
[00:21:15] And so the next step is I'm going to actually make an online membership library, see how that goes. And for me, that was a huge, huge jumping off into the unknown. A it's more technical skills. How to be yourself on video, how to make the video, how to upload the video, how to get it all. Teachable's an easy platform for that, how to market it and then how to tweak it.
[00:21:38] You know? So for me, it's really important to move away from the idea that I'm doing something wrong or making a mistake, versus I'm just exploring this option. And if it doesn't work, it's not the end of the world. I didn't hit it right. Or I didn't not right. I didn't hit it in a way that was correctly on target.
[00:21:56] And I just have more information to work with.
[00:21:58] Crystal: It could be the [00:22:00] marketing piece too, because there are a whole lot of people over 60 and probably not all of them saw your stuff.
[00:22:07] Laurie: Well, yes. And then when we get to my age group and older, we've got the fact that they didn't grow up with the internet. This is a technical thing.
[00:22:15] They've got to sign in and have a password. If I had the money I've made like the same amount for a lot of years at the end of the year, when I do taxes, I'm like, oh my God, I worked really hard for this amount of money. I'm not complaining. It's okay. I can have a team that I paid that did my marketing, that, you know, posted my Instagram reels that helped me at this phase in my life.
[00:22:37] I'm not sure that's going to happen, but marketing, you know, like to the Instagram group I'm not sure how many of my students actually are on Instagram. So I do twice a week newsletter on Sunday. Usually a regular newsletter goes out. I have 700 people on my email list. And then on Wednesdays I offer a free balance class called Wednesday Wobbles.
[00:22:59] So [00:23:00] that's always there on that newsletter with more information, but, you know, that's, that's a little small marketing bundle and so I'm not sure how to do the next thing, how to market. It's interesting.
[00:23:11] Crystal: What personality trait or characteristic do you hope that you've passed onto her (daughter)?
[00:23:17] I was () just thinking recently about how hard I am on myself about parenting and really we were good parents.
[00:23:24] We changed some things about nurture from our growing up. We did a lot of therapy before we had a child, cause we weren't really sure that that's what we wanted. And while we have a child, because we really wanted to do things differently from some of the things that we were raised with. It's an interesting question to ask me, Crystal, because I've been thinking about who she is and how different she is from me at the same time.
[00:23:52] Laurie: She has some combination of both my husband and her, uh, in, in her, both my husband and myself in her. I think I'm [00:24:00] at a place now where I don't know whether I can answer that question because she's such her own person. And she does think so differently than the way I do things that she's been a great teacher for me in, in letting go of expectations, letting go.
[00:24:20] Not that she hasn't fulfilled my expectations. She's, you know, she's right on track. She's launched. She's been launched for years, takes care of her own finances. She's married. She has a house, the whole thing. But I think if there were anything that I would wish for her. It's simply that she finds a place of peace or acceptance about who she is or she moves forward through her life.
[00:24:49] So I don't know if I really quantified that answer for you. It's not necessarily even that I want her to be happy. I mean, I think most parents would say, well, kids to be [00:25:00] happy and fulfilled. I want her to. And it's been a struggle for me all my life. So I'm not sure that I, I think I demonstrated that you just keep working towards it, that there are things that you do.
[00:25:13] You can go to therapy, you can join 12 step groups. You can join, find things you love to do. Like being outside. You can join women's groups, you can get personal coaching, all the things that we need to do to. And that from coming from a place of quite, you know, middle-class white entitlement. Also, I just want to say that I had exposure to, and that those are all tools for her to use.
[00:25:39] And I've watched her use the tools. We had a horrendous family tragedy when she was in high school, horrendous violent crime. I watched her be able to use the counseling at her high school. To help support her and her needs through that. [00:26:00] And I think that maybe we modeled some of that for her growing up, that we modeled that you don't have to just rely on yourself.
[00:26:08] You can ask for help. I think the school she went to, she went to a little private school, really helped with that modeling as well. I guess that the thing I most want for her to know is that it's constantly changing. We're constantly, you know, it's, it's a river, it's moving, but it has banks and there's constantly a way to navigate that river.
[00:26:30] I think she has that. I mean, I watch her. I think she has it. She does it differently than me. I think that we've modeled that and I see that in her and I hope it brings her happiness and peace.
[00:26:42] Crystal: So going to yourself, if you could go back and give that 1820, that, that young adult self one piece of advice, what would it be?
[00:26:56] Laurie: One piece of advice. Well, you hear how wordy I am. Do you think I could just say one [00:27:00] sentence without getting a whole lot of way. What was happening for me in that time. I mean, that's, that's one thing is my daughter and I are like eons away from each other in terms of the way we navigated 18 to 24. I was pretty messed up.
[00:27:16] I had a lot going on and I needed a lot of help at that age and I got it. And so I think what I would go back and say to that young self, especially the 22 year old, who made a decision and changed her life because of. Not metaphorically, but really realistically, as I would say, good for you. Good for you for taking the steps you needed to take to stop this train of craziness that had been running through the generations of my family, into my own life.
[00:27:48] And then the thing I would say now as an older woman to that younger person is. I wish you could just believe in yourself, [00:28:00] just believe that you are worthwhile. Just believe that everything you do is not wrong. Just believe that the world is not out to get you. That was more than one sentence on girl.
[00:28:13] She made a good choice. She made a really good choice to change her life at 22. And then, you know, I just wish that she could have been easier on her. I'm sure many of us feel that way.
[00:28:29] Crystal: Looking back at your life so far, who is one or two of the most influential people in your life?
[00:28:37] Laurie: Well, definitely. I already talked about Judith Lasater.
[00:28:39] So in terms of my career and my pathway into teaching and into further education, Definitely definitely Judith Lasater. There are some early people in my twenties when I made some life decisions to change my life. And I did some work around how to change that there was a [00:29:00] woman named Michelle who gave me direction and loved me when I couldn't love myself.
[00:29:05] That is definitely one of the people who gave me this is around 12 step stuff. So I want to stay fairly anonymous, but who really gave me direction and, uh, gave of herself selflessly. Uh, she was of service, interestingly enough, that some of the most influential that were the people who influenced me the most are the ones that had the biggest trouble with.
[00:29:30] Yeah. I had some real trouble with students at Cabrillo college. I don't think anybody who teaches at Cabrillo college probably gets away. Maybe a couple souls get away with not having a student be upset with you or, you know, talk to a superior or any of those things. So some of those students were my most influential teachers because I had to look at my part and I had to look at whether I was, you know, whether I had a part in what they were having trouble with.[00:30:00]
[00:30:00] I would say that my husband is one of my most influential people because he came with some of the same background. I came into our relationship and we really grew together. And I think we both came in with a love of outdoor, but we really have found an explored that continue to explore that outdoor. Oh my gosh.
[00:30:20] There's so many people. There's a professor I had in my master's degree. Just such a great influence that about a year ago, I actually sent her an email and I said, you know, I just want you to know that you like rocked my world in terms of orthopedic rehabilitation and how to look at people. You know how those people are so important.
[00:30:42] I'm cupping my hands together. Like, there's this group of friends, these people who've been in my life for so long, you know? I almost swore Crystal, if the, you know, they would be there in a second for me. So, and I'll tell you this little story. So [00:31:00] I have a lot of conflicted emotions about buying a second home. It's a lot of shame.
[00:31:05] Like what are you spending your money on this? For that came up. That was interesting. Grief is it's a home close to our daughter, which means it's a home that we might move to because we get old. There was excitement. Jim and I are very fine. Fiscally responsible. We do not have new cars. I did not remodel this house ever because it would cost a lot.
[00:31:26] You know, we've always been really fiscally responsible. So to buy the second house is like mind blowing. And when we found out that our offer had been accepted, I called my parents who are both alive and I cried like a baby.
[00:31:44] Right there. You know, they were just right there, they listened and they give their input. And so as much strife as we have growing up in the families we grow up in, which I think is pretty cool as much ups and downs and [00:32:00] resentment. And to know that my parents always have my back. And that they're still here.
[00:32:06] Many of our parents are not, but mine are, they're still here and they still have my back and they still want the best for me has been a pretty, pretty strong influence, pretty fabulous gift and something that I think I might've taken for granted for many, many years.
[00:32:24] Crystal: I liked what you said about that that they want what's best for you. Part of our narrative. My daughter and I's narrative is that this is the first time I'm the parent of a daughter that's away at college. So I will say, oh, you're right. I reacted a little bit strongly about that. Let's start over. Go ahead. I'm listening. She said, wow, I'm starting to.
[00:32:48] Recognize that you're just people too that also make mistakes.
[00:32:52] Laurie: Yeah, boy, what a big transition that is, isn't it to have your child move away from home. They still need you financially. They still need you [00:33:00] emotionally. And yet that push and pull when we went to McKayla's that first parent weekend thing that you can go to.
[00:33:07] I don't know now because of the pandemic, I don't know whether they still have those, but you know, we went like there are a couple of their six weeks in or something and the parents all come to the university and. It was so painful because you had to take this little airplane from Spokane. I don't like to fly from Spokane to either Seattle or Portland.
[00:33:25] And then you got on a bigger airplane and came back down to San Jose, but we're on that little airplane and I'm not a big crier. I don't lose my stuff very easily. And I. The sitting by the window and I, my face was turned to the window and I was just sobbing. I don't think Jim even knew I was sobbing.
[00:33:43] I was just sobbing. It had been such a hard weekend for me on so many levels. And we got to the Portland airport and I said, I need to go to bathroom. And I went into the bathroom. I was really busy. I got into a stall and I called my friend, Lori. Daughter is a little older than mine, [00:34:00] right? And I'm like, oh my God.
[00:34:02] And I'm sitting in this toilet stall. I'm sure everybody to hear me in there. And I'm just losing it. Then I came out of the bathroom and I said to Jim, I'm having such a hard time. And he said, oh, I didn't. We found this little empty part of the airport and we just sat.
[00:34:19] I kind of gathered myself, but that's so many levels of emotion that push and pull of I still need you. I don't really need you. I still need you. I don't really need you and God and having the house empty. What a transition.
[00:34:34] Crystal: It's definitely made it different for the one we still have at home. Okay. We'll try not to give you all of our attention now. We don't want to smother you.
[00:34:46] When we talked about doing this interview or texted about doing this interview, what's a question that you thought I would ask, or you wish that I would've asked that I didn't.
[00:34:57] Laurie: Oh, we were going to talk about my painting. You [00:35:00] said you might ask me about my painting. So I actually would be a really great thing to talk about. So you had one of my very favorite painters on, in the whole world, and that was Tina sometime ago.
[00:35:14] Mind blowing artist of the world. You know, I'm surrounded by some amazing artists in this town. Tina's one of the ones I have her work in my house. I was able to, to buy it a long time ago when I could actually afford it. She's such a, oh my God. Her arts inspires me so much. And then our friend, you know, Amey Matthews, our friend Amey Matthews, who actually has a degree from Stanford in art.
[00:35:40] She's, she's a real artist like trained artists, you know? And anyway, I had been interested in doing something artistic, but I can't draw. Like, I, I mean, I'm sure I could be taught, but I don't sit down and just draw something. It doesn't come naturally to me. It's something I knew I was going to have to work for, [00:36:00] for me, painting has been a really great thing, but it's also been an incredibly emotional training because I took an afternoon workshop.
[00:36:09] This was just right before the pandemic in November with a local artist here, Cindy, and she does this intuitive painting and there were four of us. We were each given a canvas. She gave us directions and we just started making marks on the paper. And then she showed us her process of how she then looks at what's happening on the canvas, on the paper.
[00:36:31] And she starts to see things. What does she see? And you know what I learned later, because I've been doing this process now for a couple of years, is that what you see as sort of what you're in love with or what inspires you. And then for me, like what's easy to create the. So for me, I always find mountains.
[00:36:52] I find dogs. There's a lot of circles in my work. I'm on flowers, things like that, but I [00:37:00] left that four hours, just so inspired to continue with this intuitive process. And for me, it was, I actually wrote a blog post about it's on my blog, on my website. It dropped this layer of perfectionism. For me more quickly than I think thousands of dollars in therapy could have done.
[00:37:21] It's all about creating and covering up, creating and covering up creating and covering up. So what Amy does, which is great, like she she'll think I am going to paint this thing and then she could do that. I make all these marks. It's super meditative making marks with colors. I don't know anything about color.
[00:37:42] And, um, the process has been incredible for me because I wasn't good at it to begin with. Like, I was good at moving my body before I came to yoga. I was a trained dancer moving into the yoga vocabulary wasn't so hard for me. Not that things weren't. I already had movement [00:38:00] background. But art, I didn't have art backgrounds, so I kind of came into it and it just as allowed me to drop this veil of perfectionism and that's something I really struggled with is perfectionism.
[00:38:11] It's been really, really a great process. And actually some people have bought things it's kind of amazing. And I know I'm like, I'm going to go to a week long, intuitive painting workshop in Portland, in June with this, uh, really incredible artists named Jesse . I may be the only one wearing masks. That's okay.
[00:38:29] I'm sort of okay. With being the one way masker, it's all about the process of intuitive painting, putting marks on the page, putting color on the page, seeing what you see. And I just can't wait to be immersed from 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM every single day and do nothing paint. Um, so yeah, the painting has been a really incredible journey for me.
[00:38:48] It goes everywhere with us now because we have this travel van that when Jim retired. An old Dodge Ram cargo van. And he has totally fitted it out for our camping and [00:39:00] our road trips. And so like when we go on a road trip, there's always a big thing of paints and brushes and other mixed media stuff. And then you can hear in my voice.
[00:39:09] One of my paintings just fell over. Hear in my voice, that's what the noise was in the background, the joy it brings, and it's just really different than anything else. It's a meditative process too, you know, it's a contemplated process. So it was really great to come to that. It's one of those things that I think I'll probably do for the rest of my life.
[00:39:31] Well, that's really great.
[00:39:33] Crystal: My daughter and son are both artists and my daughter she's in art school. They all have to do the same foundation courses. Last night, she's having a moment. And one of the things was, she says, I feel a little bit discouraged because several of my teachers, what they're saying is that basically there's no new art that we're just taking what people have done before.[00:40:00]
[00:40:00] Putting it together to make it ours. And I just told her, I said, that's a thought, but you don't have to make it yours. You can still make things that are for you. She had a year in high school where she was having a lot of migraines. Sometimes they just didn't end. She made some beautiful art during that period of time,
[00:40:22] Laurie: You know, we're always reinventing the wheel.
[00:40:24] All of us, you as now a podcast person, you know, it's not like you're the only one doing this, right. I think people are doing podcasts, but nobody's doing your podcast, mine teaching the classical postures, but I'm doing them in the way that I do them or that I'm inspired by somebody on Instagram. Who does them, you know, the paintings that I do.
[00:40:46] I often will go through Pinterest and just kind of look at other people's paintings and I get inspired and I think, oh, but what if I copy that? And then even if I tried to copy it, it wouldn't be the same because it wasn't mine originally. [00:41:00] Isn't that sort of the foundation of almost everything in our life, it's just like, nothing is necessarily new.
[00:41:06] We may add to it and we bring our own special, our own special sauce, hopefully. How hard though, to be discouraged upon your path in this first year of college. Other thing I want to just say is I really want to address the bending your aging curve idea. Crystal, I'm a little bit older than you are. I don't actually, I don't know how old you are, but I think I'm older than you.
[00:41:30] I'm on the younger side of my students. I have forties and fifties as well, but mostly 65 to 85 is who I'm working with. What an honor that is, and I just want your listeners and our people. I want our people and everyone to understand that we don't have to do everything, but we need to do something in terms of our physical health and that we really need to, I mean, everybody's going to [00:42:00] do something different, but that moving our bodies
[00:42:03] is one of the most important things we can do for the spending your aging curve idea that I so committed to bringing across to my people and anybody who's willing to listen. This idea that you got to move through and keep moving your body and your body is not betraying you by getting old. Certainly you've worn it for a long time.
[00:42:26] When you're 60, 70, 80, 90 years old, you've worn your body for a long time at that point. And so, so different parts of our bodies are going to feel different things. You know, some of our cartilage might be worn down a little bit, but not, we don't do ourselves a service by limiting our behavior physically, because we're getting older.
[00:42:45] And this idea that somehow age is betraying us because we have some aches and pains or we have bunions, that would be me, or, you know, we have like skin that all of a sudden, you know, I hit my, the back of my right hand, against the counter. And I'm [00:43:00] like, what? Like, there's this big blood on my hand, you know, or that, you know, I have to have basal cells removed from my face because my face has been
[00:43:08] subjected to way too much outdoor stuff as a very, very light-skinned woman, but that's not a betrayal. The body is doing everything it possibly can for us to keep us moving forward. And the more movement we can, we can put into our lives and more varied movement, do novel things. Do. You think you shouldn't do when you're 60 or 70, like play on a playground with your grandkids or go on a hike or walk backwards when you're walking with other people, like all the novel things that we need to do to create that neuroplasticity between our brain, our nervous system than our bodies, because our bodies don't move unless our mind tells them.
[00:43:51] So there's that total connect. So I always just really want to put a plug in for continuing to move and trying to not limit [00:44:00] ourselves. And I admit to getting into this place too, sometimes limiting myself by saying, oh, you know, I'm probably too old to do this, or, oh, that might hurt if I do that. Or I used to do this, but I can't do it anymore.
[00:44:14] And maybe you used to do something that you can't really do anymore, but maybe you can do something that looks kind of like it or work back up to it. I hope that was a little inspirational. I'm so into the fact that, you know, movement is medicine and, and it's medicine on so many levels. I mean, we can talk about sleep.
[00:44:33] We can talk about eating. We could talk about meditation because all the other stuff that's really as helpful, but we were meant to move human beings walked up to 20 miles per day. Before we had cars and transportation. And when we were out there searching for food and you're meant to move your own aging curve, move your body.
[00:44:52] Crystal: It's so important. I feel like it's the number one thing you can do psychologically. And during the [00:45:00] pandemic I live right next to Pogonip. It just felt crowded actually to walk and hike. And I got back into really riding my mountain bike during that time. So I was one of them. But it's a little bit sad to me that that has tapered off.
[00:45:16] Laurie: Right. Or the families that were out together. Right. Like I thought that that first six months to nine months, cause I lived close to de Laveaga so I spent a lot of time, uh, running and with my dog walking. Although, not so much with my dog, what is up with the off-leash dog people? Okay. That's all I'm going to say about that, but you know, this, I would see families like whole families like grandparents, parents, and kids out moving together and what a beautiful thing that was.
[00:45:45] And I don't, it's not that I don't see it as much people are getting together and they're going to restaurants and they're having birthday parties and they're doing their they're acting like life is normal. Again. In that normalcy. I think that idea of, you know, the safe place [00:46:00] that we can be together outside is outside.
[00:46:02] So let's go walking together, and let's go hiking together. Yeah. I thought that was a pretty beautiful thing to see. All the families are really happy to see parents because parents were working at home. So to see parents and kids outside together, that was great.
[00:46:17] Crystal: My daughter and my husband a few times, she got him up at four in the morning or something like that to go surfing in the Moonlight because it wasn't crowded then there were other people out there. Hard to believe. It was a special time.
[00:46:32] Laurie: That's great. That's really great.
[00:46:35] Crystal: I will share all of your social media and website and all of your information in the show notes. I'm really excited for people to check your Bending the Aging Curve videos. I've really enjoyed watching those.
[00:46:50] Laurie: There are a lot of people like me now. I thought I was really alone, but there are a lot of people and social media has a social media is such a mixed bag. Isn't [00:47:00] it? Like? It's such a, it's such a beautiful mess.
[00:47:06] I actually love Instagram because I was telling one of my friends, this who's totally not into social media. She's an intellect. And she's like, I hate it. I hate it. I'm like, ah, listen, I furnished my, almost my whole entire house in Bend because of Facebook marketplace. So I hate Facebook, but Facebook marketplace is great.
[00:47:25] And in terms of Instagram, like I get so much information from other people who are doing things like I'm doing or doing things a little differently, learning a lot about pelvic floor from these pelvic floor specialists that are posting all this stuff. I mean, just it's really great. And we remember we were talking about the mistakes.
[00:47:44] Often we'll put things off for a really long time. Cause I'm afraid I won't do it right. Or I won't do it perfectly. And those reels, I was so afraid of those damn Instagram reels. Yeah. It was like a $15 app that I bought online. [00:48:00] It's easy, but I got a lot of support from people I have never met on Instagram in person.
[00:48:06] I've only met them on Instagram, like other yoga instructors, other movement instructors. And that's what I was talking about. There are other people out there doing things like I'm doing, which is kind of. Not just teaching a classical yoga class. When you come to my yoga class, you're going to work on your feet.
[00:48:24] You're going to work on your balance. You're going to work on feet like feet specific exercises you're going to work on. It's not just a classical yoga class of here's Trikonasana. Here's a way to do bridge pose here, a way to do that. But here are some inventive ways. Here's the difference between stretching and mobilizing.
[00:48:42] Here's the difference between strengthening and moving isotonic, which means moving your joints in and out of flection, basically. And I, I just, social media has opened up the door for even more acceptance. My personal acceptance [00:49:00] of what I'm doing is worthwhile. Obviously it's worthwhile. I see it working in my students and there was a place for it.
[00:49:07] And I don't have to think of myself as some kind of wrong yoga instructor. Cause I'm not saying you have to do Trikonasana, you have to do it this way. Don't ever bend your knee. Don't ever put your hand in front of your foot. Don't ever not look up. I mean, all of those things in movement as an exploration, let's explore it.
[00:49:27] And I think for the aging population, the idea of moving in and out of things is even more important because that's dynamic balance and that's where people fall over. They don't fall over because they're standing on one leg and tree pose, which is great. One leg in tree pose is great, but they fall over because their footsteps got too far apart from one another and they fell over laterally.
[00:49:47] So working on that, all those transitions so important. So I'm glad you've gotten something out of the Bending the Aging Curve reels. And trying to sort of break down some myths [00:50:00] around the way we move and the rights and wrongs the shoulds. There's a right way to move. And you're not necessarily going to hurt yourself by doing something wrong.
[00:50:14] I don't really know what wrong is anymore. I went to graduate school thinking I'm going to get the answers, right. I'm going to graduate school, I'm going to have this master's of science I worked my rear end off to get, and I'm going to know what's right and what's wrong. And I think what I really learned is not, there are so many variables and there are so many ways that we all move our bodies and that we all have fear about moving our bodies.
[00:50:42] And now we're all willing or not willing to move our bodies. All of that has to be taken into account. There is not a right way to do trikonasana. Let your listeners know I would work to see them in class, on zoom or in person, or if anybody wants to work privately, or just even ask me a question, they can [00:51:00] send me an email.
[00:51:01] I'm very open to engaging with people. It was great being on. I really appreciate the opportunity and I love what you're doing. I'm grateful. Thank you.
[00:51:13] Crystal: Thank you Laurie, for taking the time to share your story with me and my listeners, I will have all of your social media and website links in the show notes, and I would highly recommend that you
[00:51:29] check out Laurie's Instagram and her videos and her teachable website. Have a great rest of your day. And I will see you in here next week. Bye for now.
[00:51:43] Thank you for listening to the Extraordinary Life Podcast with writer and coach, Crystal Obregon. We'd love to connect with you outside of the podcast, too.
[00:51:51] To find more helpful insights, show notes and more about crystal. Go to crystal gone.com. O B R E G O N, where you will also [00:52:00] find info for the Design Your Decade workshop. This workshop will help you to stop drifting and start creating. Until next time, be extraordinary.
