What you’ll get out of tuning in:

• How Yoga Health Coaches become wellness leaders in their communities
• How recognizing and utilizing our natural talents makes us better leaders
• How mesh networking and collaborating are the new leadership models

Links Mentioned in Episode:

• How to Build a Tribe webinar
• Body Thrive Book
• YHC Have a conversation
• Rachel’s website
• Rachel’s Facebook page

Show Highlights:

• 2:30 – What is the difference between community building and community leading? Rachel has been building a yoga community for years, and she talks about how she made a mindset shift and got comfortable stepping into the role of leader.
• 5:00 – Rachel recently felt sparked to step into leadership and is now making an impact both locally and with her online national (soon to be global!) community.
• 8:00 – When we recognize our natural strengths, we lead others with more ease. Rachel talks about showing up as her authentic self and focusing on her strengths and desires, which, in turn, leads the right people to find her.
• 11:00 – For many of us, leadership starts at home. When we live in integrity, the first to notice are those closest to us. They often pick up the reins and take the lead, as Rachel’s husband Dan likes to do. He’s now an avid forager!
• 16:00 – What Yoga Health Coaches do has a ripple effect. We touch others in many ways. As people learn what we do, we become a face of holistic wellness in our communities and often end up helping people who aren’t even our clients.
• 19:30 – What does the next step of leadership look like? Collaboration and mesh networking. Rachel talks about how she works with other wellness leaders in her community.

Favorite Quotes:

• “I lead from my strengths, rather than having to cultivate new ones” ~Rachel Peters
• “A sometimes unintended consequence of becoming a Yoga Health Coach is that we are becoming community leaders.” ~Alex Biondo

Guest BIO:

Rachel’s – As a Certified Yoga Health Coach and the Founder of Embody Ease and the Easeful Living Community, Rachel leads women on a yearlong journey to dissolve perfectionism and embody daily habits that promote clarity, ease, and inner connection. She is a wife, mom, and lover of wild places and contributes to her local community as a yoga teacher and teacher trainer in Prescott, AZ she also serves as the leader of the Coaching Team at Yogahealer. Check her website and facebook page.

Prior to YHC, Jamie was a birth and post-partum doula, a mom, and had a part-time admin job. What she loved most about her work as a doula was taking women through a transformation. What she didn’t love about it was being constantly on call and staying awake for labors that could last 24 to 36 hours. With a family of her own, being a doula left her feeling ungrounded and unsettled.

Jamie started Body Thrive in January 2015 and continued on to Yoga Health Coaching. She saw YHC as way to continue leading people through transformation but with a lot more structure and rhythm while being more present to care for her family. She ran her first YHC pilot program in January 2016, and she’s been coaching ever since. Her program continues to build momentum and the transition to an annual pass has allowed her members to feel deeper transformation while not feeling pressure to  get it right the first time.

What you’ll get out of tuning in:

• How Yoga Health Coaches guide their tribe through transformation with a structure and rhythm
• How the annual pass and Kaizen create a sense of softness and ease among course members
• How Yoga Health Coaches stay more present in their life

Links Mentioned in Episode:

• Body Thrive Book
• YHC Have a conversation
• Jamie’s website
• Jamie’s FB page
• How to Build a Tribe webinar

Show Highlights:

• 1:30 – Prior to YHC, Jamie was a young birth and post-partum doula, a mom, and had a part-time admin job. What she loved most about her work as a doula was taking women through a transformation. What she didn’t love about it was being constantly on call and staying awake for labors that could last 24 to 36 hours. With a family of her own, being a doula left her feeling ungrounded and unsettled. Jamie started Body Thrive in January 2015 and continued on to Yoga Health Coaching. She saw YHC as way to continue leading people through transformation but with a lot more structure and rhythm while being able to be present and care for her family. She left her part-time admin job even though she was making good money because she knew it was not the best use of her gifts. As a doula, she stopped attending births and focused on post-partum work, which could be scheduled. She ran her first YHC pilot program in January 2016, and that’s what she’s been doing ever since. Her program continues to build momentum and the transition to an annual pass has contributed to that momentum. 
• 4:30 – The annual pass presents unprecedented potential for community. It allows for deeper transformation and alleviates pressure for her members. 
• 7:50 – Accountability partners create connection that can last for years. Jamie went through Body Thrive in 2015 with her current accountability partner, and they have spoken once a week for the last three years. She considers her one of her best friends, yet they did not meet in person until March of this year (2018). She feels that their partnership has “kept her in the game.” 
• 9:30 – There are so many structures and “lifelines” in YHC that help keep us on track: coaches, mentors, accountability partners, Facebook groups. These structures create a support system and a shared context with people we wouldn’t find in our day to day lives. The shared context allows for quick access to deep communication. 
• 12:15 – As a YHC Certification Coach, Jamie’s advice is to build relationships within the community (with mentors, coaches and other course members) so that you don’t feel like you need to figure everything out on your own or walk the path alone. Because of the screening and acculturation that course members undergo prior to enrollment, it’s hard to go wrong when you reach out to other course members. Each individual also brings specific expertise to the group dynamic. 
• 16:00 – As Yoga Health Coaches, we sometimes wonder about the efficacy of what we offer. Jamie shares a case in which one of her course members, whose main concerns were weight gain and bringing more fun into her life, was only having bowel movements every 4-5 days, which she thought was normal. Three weeks into the course, she started drinking warm water in the morning and started experiencing healthy, daily eliminations. The result was she felt lighter and her pants fit better. She felt that that alone was worth the cost of the course. 
• 22:00 – The coaching skill Jamie finds most effective is kaizen, and the combination of that with the annual pass creates a sense of ease with her course members. Kaizen helps build momentum toward making more aligned choices.

Favorite Quotes:

• “When we take ownership of the structure that gets people to the results, it changes things. We get more grounded.” — Cate Stillman 
• “This is the whole thing about subtle body exploration and subtle body anatomy: it’s somewhat exponential in nature. And the more we align to it, the more it opens and reveals levels of undulating bliss and interconnectivity and higher levels of consciousness and deeper insight . . . .” — Cate Stillman 
• “I think that’s what many people are going for – an opportunity to lean back and soften and see the little places where we can shift.” — Jamie Lynn Worster

Guest BIO:

Jamie Worster helps conscious people create radiant health.

Based on her knowledge of yoga and Ayurveda she offers classes that expand your overall wellness and joy.

Check her website and facebook page.

“I just can’t afford it.” “There’s no way I can afford it.” “The reality is, I don’t have the money.” Every time I hear one of of those phrases, I am saddened. I see a dream go down the drain needlessly. The problem is, we mistake beliefs for facts. “I can’t afford it,” is a limiting belief.

Our Limiting Beliefs

It’s common to let our outdated beliefs control us. The problem is we don’t know they’re outdated. We don’t even know they’re beliefs. We think they’re facts.

We think they’re facts because they are true. But, they are only true from our perspective.

It brings to mind the Henry Ford quote, “Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t, you’re right.”

What Henry Ford was saying is that our mindset determines our outcome. When our mindset is stuck in scarcity, we block out abundance and prosperity because we don’t believe we can have them.

Being Stuck in Scarcity

Those who are stuck in scarcity mentality, think it’s reality. They think it’s reality because they haven’t learned to think
differently.

• They haven’t learned how to have an abundance mindset.
• They haven’t learned to strategically solve their problems.
• They haven’t learned that there is always a choice.

I know this from personal experience. I’ve never told this story publicly before. Before I worked for Yogahealer, I had taken some
courses with Cate. I had taken LAC and done the Yogidetox a few times. I applied for YHC. I met with Cate. She thought that with all my sales experience, plus being a yoga teacher, that I’d make a great Yoga Health Coach. And when she told me the price, I said, “There’s no way I can afford that.”

I didn’t say it out loud. But I said it to myself and believed it fully. I mean, I was going through a divorce and could barely pay my mortgage, I was looking at the possibility of bankruptcy. There was No Way I Could Afford it. I believed it fully.

• I hadn’t learned how to have an abundance mindset.
• I hadn’t learned  to strategically solve my problems.
• I hadn’t learned that there is always a choice.

The Abundance Mindset

With an abundance mindset, we are able to look at lack of funds as a problem to be solved, rather than an unchangeable reality. When we see that a problem can be solved, we work towards a solution. We learn that what we spend our money on is always a choice.

One of the most valuable lessons that Yoga Health Coaches learn is to have an abundance mindset. We, in the admissions department, help people make that shift every day. We help prospective coaches learn the value of investing in themselves and to change their mindset. We brainstorm with them and help them come up with creative ideas for financing their future.

I’ve seen how it works. I’ve seen how changing our mindset changes our reality. Those who see lack of funds as a problem to be solved, see that it can be solved. That shifts their mindsets in other areas of their lives as well.

Viewing any bad situation as a problem to be solved, rather than an inevitable reality, gives us a feeling of control. When we feel more in control of our lives we are more likely to step into new ventures and take calculated risks. We are less likely to be paralyzed by fear of the unknown. After I help new Yoga Health Coaches solve their funding problems, I watch them become more willing and more likely to solve problems that come up for them. I see them help and empower others as well. It becomes a cycle of empowerment.

How often do adults tell kids, “You can do anything if you put your mind to it.”  It is still true?

Put your mind to being abundant, solving problems and knowing that you always have a choice.

That’s how you get what you want.

Fall is vata season

Fall’s characteristics are light, mobile, dry, crisp, cold, rough. We tend to reflect the qualities of the current season. Autumn’s qualities are not ones that sound grounded, are they? Think cool, breezy weather and leaves blowing in the wind.

Travel increases that ungrounded quality. Uprooting your entire life and moving across country increases it tenfold. That is exactly what I did this fall. In late September, after a relatively short planning period, I packed up a moving truck, my 13 year old daughter and our cat and drove from Colorado, where I had lived for 24 years, across the flatlands of Nebraska and Iowa, to Wisconsin.

Being a pitta-kapha type, I am by nature, fairly grounded. But 2016 seemed determined to unground me and send my vata through the roof. I lost my beloved Dad in May. My former husband (my daughter’s dad, and someone about whom I still care deeply) was diagnosed with leukemia in July. In the midst of all this, I decided to move. Why on earth would I decide to make a big change like that during an already stressful time?

After my Dad’s death, I felt a strong pull to be close to family. Really strong. Undeniably strong. It was almost a choiceless choice. I had to go. Crazy? Maybe. Am I ready to lose it completely? No. Surprised? Me too, sort of. I may not be at my rock-star, super-energized, fighting-weight peak, but I feel pretty good. I’d be lying if I said I’m not tired, that I’m not in need of some serious rejuvenation and grounding, but considering what a whirlwind the last few months have been, I’m pretty darn ok. I’m focused at my job, nourishing myself, parenting my kid and loving my new home.

Ease in the Midst of Chaos

To what do I attribute my sense of ease in the midst of chaos? Daily rhythms. Habits. Routine.

I had been a meditation dabbler for years, but this year I became a meditator. My morning meditation practice has become a haven for me, grounding me each day before the activity begins.

When deep in grief over the loss of my Dad, my breath-body practices kept me from curling up into a depressed ball and spending the day on the couch.

Focusing on a plant-based diet prompted me to start a vegetable garden. Can I just say that there is no more grounding activity anywhere, than gardening?

Now I’m going to share a little secret. The habits work, even when you don’t do them. Huh?

The Power of the Habits

Let me explain. I’m not talking about manifesting something just by thinking about it, a la “The Secret,” nor can I claim that I had any success in college when my roommate and I used to put on our workout clothes, then sit on the couch and watch Jane Fonda after we cracked a beer. One must put in the effort and actually do the Body Thrive habits daily, to feel their results. But once you’ve been doing them for a while, when life throws you a curveball (which it invariably does) and you slack off on some of your habits (which you invariably will), they keep working.
My habits, at times, took a backseat during the past few months. But they didn’t leave me. Though I continue to grieve my Dad, I am coping well. I stayed calm and helped to keep my daughter’s dad calm throughout multiple doctor appointments and hospital stays. And I didn’t snap at a single person throughout my entire move!

I’ve been through Body Thrive five times now, three as a participant and twice as a coach. My habits are not perfect, nor do I know anyone whose habits are perfect. That isn’t the goal. The process is the goal. I’ll keep coming back to them and they’ll keep supporting me. I’ll get thrown off by life and they’ll keep my grounded.

I think I’ll keep them.