Shaking Off Stress, Tension & Anxiety With Trauma Release

This week on Dear Lovely Universe is a really awesome interview with our Ericka Thomas from the Work IN podcast! In this episode, we discuss shaking off stress, tension, and anxiety with trauma release and yoga. Ericka Thomas is a certified trauma release exercise provider, 200 RYT with an emphasis on trauma-informed yoga, Health coach, and nutrition specialist.

Transcript

This week on the Dear Lovely Universe podcast is a really incredible interview with Erica Thomas from the Work In podcast.

In this episode,

We discuss shaking off stress,

Tension,

And anxiety with trauma release and yoga.

Erica Thomas is a certified trauma release exercise provider 200 RYT with an emphasis in trauma-informed yoga.

She is a health coach and also a nutrition specialist.

She is the owner and founder of Elemental Kinetics,

An online studio that fuses trauma release exercise,

Functional fitness,

And the principles of yoga to literally shake off the effects of stress for long-lasting resilience.

Erica offers courses,

Private sessions,

And corporate programming and is the host of the Work In podcast to bring new perspectives on wellness and find natural ways to move out of stress,

Tension,

And anxiety.

Erica has 23 plus years of experience in the fitness industry from independent contractor to entrepreneur and can speak to the shifting,

Changing landscape from real world to the virtual world,

Scaling from hobby to career and surviving and thriving beyond the burnout of perfectionism.

Stress injury is a growing epidemic that goes far beyond the trauma of war.

She deeply believes in the healing power of the human nervous system and that we as providers have a responsibility to educate our clients and include nervous system care within fitness and wellness practices.

I really enjoyed this conversation with Erica.

You can tell that she is so wise and knowledgeable.

I really hope that you find value in what we're about to say and let's get right to it.

Hi,

Erica.

Thank you so much for being here with me today.

Hello,

Kailyn.

I am so pleased to join you.

I am very excited.

So today I really want to talk about shaking off stress,

Tension,

And anxiety with trauma release and yoga.

And I really love what you do.

So I am so excited to see how this conversation goes.

So my first question is,

I saw one of your mission statements is to guide warriors like you off the battlefield of trauma for lasting resilience to all sources of stress,

Tension,

And anxiety.

Tell me more about what that means.

Yeah.

So originally when I moved out of corporate fitness,

I was looking for a way to serve the military population and everyone else who is suffering with stress and trauma.

And that came from my family background.

I'm actually,

I was raised in a military family,

Three brothers,

All of them served in the army.

My husband and I were in the army.

My son serves currently in the air force.

And so I am very aware of the trauma issues that come up for the military community.

In the course of my yoga teacher trainings,

The workshops that I was being,

That I had the opportunity to participate in,

There was a definite shift towards more trauma informed types of classes specifically for military.

But what I found in my own life,

My own experience,

My own experience with other clients,

Both one-on-one and in group settings,

Is that trauma and stress injury is something that is not limited to the military.

And because of that,

We,

Well,

Because of that,

I wanted to try to bring a more accessible way for people to move out of that tension that stays stuck in the body.

So what really happens when we get exposed to any kind of stress or trauma or negative or positive activation is that the body asks us to do something about it,

Right?

That's the stress response.

It wants us to take some kind of action to survive,

Because that's really at a very basic primitive level,

All that's going on with your primitive brain.

It's constantly scanning the horizon,

Looking for threats,

Making sure that whatever you're doing right now doesn't look anything like what happened in the past that maybe caused you hurt,

Okay?

So if there's something that happens right now that mimics something in your past,

The brain,

Because all it's trying to do is create meaning for you and keep you alive,

May see that current event as just like what happened before and trigger all the same physiological responses in the body.

Fight or flight,

Freeze,

Withdrawal,

Sometimes simple things,

Just something as simple as just worry can be triggered,

Even though maybe you know that this is nothing to worry about,

Right?

All kinds of things,

Thoughts and emotions can be triggered in the moment,

Right?

And in our modern world,

We are socialized out of all of the primitive actions that our body would want to do to help keep us alive.

We are not allowed to fight back physically anymore,

Right?

It's not socially acceptable to punch your boss in the nose.

It's not socially acceptable to get up and run out of the room if the board is becoming contentious,

Right?

If you're moving into a conflict for another person,

It doesn't look good,

Right,

To run away.

So we stuff all of those feelings,

Those requests from the body to do something.

We stuff them down into the body.

They are held in our tissues,

In the muscle,

In the fascia especially,

Sometimes in our organs,

In our joints,

All of that tension,

It's stored in the body.

And for many people,

They are looking for a way to kind of let go of that.

And one of the ways that is really popular is to go exercise,

Right?

We try to go exercise for stress relief.

That's one of the main things that people want to do is to show up in a class.

Maybe it's a high intensity class,

Maybe it's a kickboxing class,

Maybe it's a bootcamp or something like that,

Something with super high intensity so that they can kind of beat it out of their body,

Right?

Because we're sensing this request for action and it feels good in the moment to do that kind of movement,

To do that kind of exercise,

Except that we're not releasing any of that tension.

We are exhausting the body,

Not necessarily calming the nervous system.

And what trauma release exercise does,

Especially paired with the philosophies behind yoga and yoga postures and flows as well,

When you compare those two,

It allows the body to experience movement in a safe way that isn't adding extra tension and stress on the joints and the muscles and the fascia.

And it allows us to practice this titrated stop and rest as well as getting into this really primitive shaking tremor response.

The same kind of shaking tremor response that you see in the wild.

If you've ever seen a video of a predator chasing prey.

So the cheetah that is running after the gazelle,

And if it misses that gazelle and you watch what that gazelle does after it gets away from that threat,

It shakes.

It shakes itself off and then it goes back to being its beautiful gazelle self.

It is not traumatized by that cheetah.

It doesn't go back to all of the other gazelles and get therapy.

It just physically shakes off that response.

Now,

Obviously,

Gazelles do not have this higher level brain.

It doesn't have this conscious mind that tries to create meaning out of that event like we do.

And so that's where things can kind of get tangled up.

When we connect and identify with the story that happened to us,

And somehow that story holds more meaning than what the body really requires us to do to let go of it.

So that's really it in a nutshell.

That's what we're trying to do is to give people a way out of that tension that doesn't require this retelling of a story so that the body itself can let go of that tension.

If the body doesn't read any more tension in it,

If we're not reading any more threat when there isn't any,

Then there's no reason to go back and relive the things that have happened to us in the past.

Wow.

Thank you so much.

That makes a lot of sense.

Once you frame it like that,

It makes so much sense why we can still work out,

But not necessarily be releasing trauma.

Right.

There is a difference between physical exhaustion and a calm nervous system.

And I think sometimes when we get hung up on that,

I know I was there,

Right?

I thought,

I'm teaching,

I was right in that whole group fitness,

Personal training world.

And I thought because I was still stressed out after a day of teaching like that,

That I needed to do more.

And actually my body was asking for less.

It was asking for true rest from that tension.

And I did not have any way to give that to myself at the time.

This was years ago,

But I want to give that to other people,

What I did not have back then.

And I think it doesn't matter what your background is,

Whether you are a soldier or a housewife or a corporate athlete or a weekend warrior,

Or just somebody who does zero exercise at all,

You don't have to have a fitness background at all to be able to tap into your own,

Your body's innate wisdom to be able to let go of that tension.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

It just reminds me that it's possible for everyone.

Yes.

Yes.

That is true.

That is true because you are born knowing this.

Well,

Not knowing it with your conscious mind,

But your body knows how to do all of this.

We are then as we grow,

We are taught,

Right?

We get taught by the people around us with how to behave,

How to function in society.

And sometimes those are conscious lessons that we learn.

Sometimes they're subconscious lessons that we learn,

But we're learning them from people who have also been taught from generations before their parents and their parents' parents.

And that carries with it this kind of transgenerational stress,

Tension,

And trauma,

Right?

We are learning from,

We are imperfect people who are learning from imperfect people.

Yeah.

Exactly.

Yeah.

That's a really good point.

And so it's really important to figure out solutions on our own and sometimes paper on path.

Right.

And there are so many things.

There's so many things that are helpful for people.

It's not just about one thing.

This is just the one thing that I'm using,

But there's other things that work for people too.

Emotional freedom technique,

That tapping,

Somatic experiencing,

Just yoga by itself,

Pilates,

Any kind of mindfulness.

Actually,

That is the real key at the center of all of these opportunities to help people release stress.

The center,

The key to each and every one of them is this ability to become more aware of what's happening in your own body.

Definitely.

Yeah.

And it takes some time to learn that,

Right?

I mean,

We're not really born understanding what we sense in our own body or even being very comfortable sensing those things.

It can be pretty uncomfortable.

And actually I've had many,

Many,

Many clients and other fellow instructors who flat out said,

I can't do yoga.

I don't like it because I can't be still.

I can't be still.

I can't be by myself in my own head.

Right?

And it's difficult because we all have that little monkey mind thing happening,

Right?

The little chattering thoughts that just race through our head and not all of them are nice.

Most of them are not nice,

Not nice thoughts.

And I know you are,

You Kaylin are really focused on helping people move towards self-love,

Right?

And a lot of that is how you talk to yourself in your head.

And so many people don't even notice how they're talking to themselves in their head.

They don't slow down enough to even hear it.

It's just this record that skips over and over in their head about who they are and how they are and their worth and all of these things.

Yeah,

Their core beliefs and patterns at play.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Core beliefs and patterns.

And those patterns can be really,

Really deeply ingrained in the brain and so deeply ingrained that you can't even separate them out.

It's like this,

It's like when you've got a bunch of necklaces that get tangled and it's just a big blob of chain and they're just tied and there's just nothing that will bring them out except for patience,

Slow patience to tease out each link to set them free again.

So I definitely want to just touch on that and mention it's totally possible.

Like you said,

Patience.

It's totally possible though.

I mean,

We're both living examples of that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that's something that I think people would benefit from looking for in whatever,

I would say whatever modality that they choose for themselves,

For healing for themselves to look for those that allow for that patience,

That allow for practicing,

Replacing this pattern,

Replacing it with something new.

So in the nervous system,

When we work with trauma release and through other physical forms of stress relief,

We're working bottom up.

It's a bottom up process instead of top down where we're talking through all of our issues.

Top down is talking through.

Bottom up is anything that we can do through the body.

So the way we move the body can communicate to the primitive brain,

A sense of safety.

What we're really trying to do when we practice that kind of thing is to replace some of those current patterns of reactivity with something new,

Something that's less reactive.

And some of the part of the beauty of trauma release exercise is that you're practicing this stop and rest and noticing the effort that you're putting in to the movement,

To the tremor itself and keeping that effort very,

Very low.

And so for many people,

It's difficult at first to understand how hard they're working at anything really.

We are very driven people.

It's just drive,

Drive,

Suck it up,

Suck it up and drive on.

So if you've been raised that way,

Or if you've been raised with this idea of no pain,

No gain,

It's really,

Really hard to pull back from that and try easy instead of trying hard in any kind of physical exercise.

And in trauma release,

That's what we're trying to do.

We're trying to keep the effort level to a five or less.

And when we feel the physical effort or mental or emotional effort start to approach that five,

That is our message to stop and rest.

It retrains our nervous system reactivity by letting ourself approach that effort and then stopping the tremor and resting and then coming back in,

You are showing that primitive brain a different way to respond to stress of all kind,

To effort of all kinds,

Not just when you're lying on the mat,

Not just when you are standing in a yoga pose or something like that,

But off the mat,

You know,

In traffic,

In line at the grocery store,

In conversation with a spouse.

So those things,

Those small moments of practice over time can start to replace a lot of learned patterning in the brain.

But again,

It does,

Like you said,

Patience,

Right?

That's so important.

Thank you so much for sharing all of that.

It's so,

So good.

I feel like this episode's fire.

I've never been called that before.

So I saw that you mentioned this on your website and I think it's a really important point to bring up that the body has infinite capability or no capacity for healing that goes beyond our physical understanding.

And if that,

And if we could get out of our own way,

Miracles can happen.

I love this because I'm always telling people your body knows what to do,

But tell me more about what this means to you.

So we are always looking for perfection,

Right?

So a quick fix and perfection.

This is,

I mean,

This is a big question,

Right?

This shows up for people in a lot of different ways.

Everybody you talk to,

It's the same kind of thing,

Right?

We all are sort of driven towards what we think is an ideal for ourself or for our body or for a family or whatever we're talking about,

Right?

When we're talking about the human body,

The only job it has is to keep you alive.

Like your nervous system is very,

Very simple.

At its simplest level,

It's just trying to keep you alive.

It's going to do that whatever way it can and not always in ways that we like,

Okay?

So it's going to adapt to whatever we ask it to do in whatever way it can.

This is an evolutionary thing.

It's a survival thing in this adaptation,

Right?

So if you want to think in a very benign example would be just fitness in general,

Right?

So the human body,

In order to get stronger,

Let's say you want to just be stronger,

You have to ask it to do more than it can already do,

Okay?

So if I want stronger biceps,

Let's say,

I have to pick up more weight than five pounds because I can already pick up five pounds,

Right?

I have to use something more than what I can already do in order for it to change to get stronger to do more,

Okay?

The body will do that.

It will give me that if I ask for that,

All right?

But underneath that,

The body is constantly trying to keep me alive.

And if I am constantly piling on different kinds of stressors,

Which could look like psychological stress.

When I say stress,

A lot of times people just think,

Okay,

Psychological stress,

Like we are very busy or we have a lot of responsibility or obligations and we're running from place to place to place to place.

A lot of people count on us.

Yes,

That is stress.

That is one type of stress.

It could also be physical stress from poor nutrition,

Right?

So I could be stressing my system by eating garbage food,

Fast food,

Candy all the time.

I could be stressing my system with a smoking habit or an alcohol habit or a drug habit.

I could be stressing my system with over exercise because we think exercise is healthy,

But it has to be dose related,

Right?

If we go too much,

Then we injure ourselves,

Right?

I could be stressing my system by not sleeping,

Not getting enough sleep or drinking too much caffeine so that I can't sleep well,

Right?

Every single one of those stressors by themselves don't cause dysfunction.

It is an accumulative effect that will cause physiological dysfunction in the body and that shows up last.

And we're not even talking about stressors,

Long-term stressors from unresolved traumas in your past because that still stays in the body.

The body remembers that if we have not released that energy.

So if you are at a point in your life where your body has started to scream at you,

And what I mean by that is dysfunction has shown up.

So it could be diabetes,

It could be metabolic syndrome,

Which is high blood pressure and high cholesterol and this cluster of illness,

Or it could be autoimmune dysfunction,

Right?

As simple as allergies,

As simple as acne breaking out.

These things are your body just whispering to you that something is not right,

That maybe it could use a break.

But here I am stressing my body with layers upon layers upon layers of work and I just make it harder for it.

I'm just making it harder for it.

I am in my own way.

And when you can start to look at this vessel that you live in,

Your body as something to be cared for,

Something to be cherished and start to behave in that way that you truly believe that,

That your body is something to be cherished,

It changes everything.

That attitude changes everything about your health and what actual wellness is in the body.

And then because that mindset has to happen first,

It's really,

Unless you have this big reason,

Unless you really believe that this body that you're in matters,

Then it's really,

Really tough to move towards healthier things,

Right?

And because you don't have a why,

You don't have,

I mean,

Why should you quit smoking if you enjoy it so much?

Why should you?

I mean,

I have a lot of family members who are smokers and they are perfectly happy doing that because the consequences have been so far removed from the first cigarette.

They're fine with it.

Their body isn't fine and they're making it very difficult to survive on this planet.

So I'm all for personal choice,

But I'm also for taking responsibility for your choices.

And we don't have to suffer.

We were not put on this planet to suffer in the body that we have.

And so that's what that is about.

If we can lift some of the pressure off of not just our physical body,

But the nervous system itself,

We lift that pressure off and allow the body to recover.

Because that's basically what we do when we take care of our nervous system,

We give it that time to rest and repair.

It will heal.

It will take time,

But it will heal.

It absolutely will.

So yeah,

That's what that statement means to me.

That's so awesome.

Oh my gosh.

I really love how you have layers to your answers and it's so in depth.

That's so true.

We put so many layers of stress on ourselves and it builds up.

It builds up.

First it comes as whispers,

Right?

Right.

Yeah,

Whispers.

And then it can be as sudden or seeming as sudden as a car crash or something like that.

Yes,

Absolutely.

Until your body forces you to stop.

Exactly.

And we don't like it.

We don't like it when it forces us to stop.

And then we're like,

We think there's something wrong there that we're broken,

Right?

When the body forces you to stop,

We think we're broken.

And it's not necessarily that.

It's just that we've been stuck somewhere for too long.

Oh,

Exactly.

Exactly.

Whenever I have an experience where I get sick or something happens like that,

I try to evaluate my life.

What have I been doing to get me to this point and make changes accordingly?

Yeah.

And that's so important,

Especially now,

Right,

Kaylin?

Because we are hopefully coming out of this pandemic,

But immune system function is top of mind for a lot of people.

And there are so many of us that have been living in a state of being that has suppressed our immune system for years.

And it's no wonder that we're so susceptible to things,

Right?

It's actually where you see,

And you can kind of see that across the population too,

Right?

And it's not that we want to assign judgment to that good,

Bad,

Or right or wrong,

But we definitely should be moving towards a place where we are conscious of what it is that we're doing for ourself instead of to ourself.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That is a really good point.

And it comes back to treating ourselves with love and respect and caring about ourselves and nurturing our bodies.

It's a huge shift in our mindset and perspective.

Yeah.

And for,

I don't know how many of your listeners are,

For anybody out there who's a parent or for moms specifically,

I know it's difficult sometimes for women,

We are often raised to be caretakers,

But ourself,

We ourself end up being the last on the list if we even make the list.

And as far as a priority to take care of,

Right?

And so it can be really hard to see self-care or to even pause in your day to do something specifically for yourself to kind of lift that pressure off if that's the space that you're in.

We can put a lot on our shoulders that doesn't necessarily have to be there.

And so,

Yeah,

I mean,

It doesn't have to be something big.

It doesn't have to be like,

Well,

I'm going to go once a month to the spa.

We don't have to do that for self-care.

We can do tiny little moments in our day,

A little moment of five minutes of breathing,

Or a moment of prayer or devotion,

Anything that allows us to come back in to that mindful state where we can just check in with the body and just see where we're at.

Just like you were talking about,

If you're feeling like,

Hey,

Something physical is starting to happen,

Maybe we need to think about what's happening up in our head a little bit and how that contributed,

If at all.

Yeah.

Definitely.

Absolutely.

One of the things that I actually recommend to people is to have a list of things that make you feel better.

And then when you aren't feeling so great,

Review your list and choose something from there.

Like personally,

I know taking a shower and washing my hair makes me feel better.

So when I start to feel overwhelmed or stressed out,

That's one of the first go-tos for me.

And calling a friend and walking my dog,

Those are all things I love to do.

And I just really recommend people to have a list that,

Or at least know what it is that makes them feel better.

Yeah.

And it's interesting,

Isn't it?

Those things are just normal,

Regular things.

They're nothing special.

It's not like you have to take yourself out of your day to go walk your dog,

Hopefully.

But it still makes you feel good.

It's something that you can put intention behind.

And for a lot of people,

We lack intention about the things that we do.

We lack intention and attention.

We've got all kinds of distractions,

Ways that will take us out of our head.

The phone,

TV,

Social media,

All of these things.

They take you out of your head.

But if you can do whatever it is that you do,

As long as you're doing it intentionally for yourself,

It will work.

It will work.

I really like that.

And emphasize intention.

That's the really important thing.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

So I really want to talk about and touch on before the end of this episode,

With the time that we have left,

Your story.

And if you could share that with listeners and what you've been through and how you got to where you are now.

Okay.

Okay.

So this is a long story because I'm old,

Kaylin.

So please keep that in mind.

I will try to keep it short and sweet,

But for me,

I will say,

Okay,

So I work in this trauma informed space now,

But there was a point where I thought that the only people that experienced trauma were soldiers and victims of sexual assault.

And since I did not experience either one of those things,

I felt like I was immune to the effects of trauma.

However,

There is big T trauma and there is little T trauma.

And when my family got out of the military,

My husband and I came back from Germany,

My children were very young.

And that is the point where I started to experience some random anxiety and panic attacks and my heart would start to palpitate and I couldn't catch my breath.

And these things just started happening out of the blue.

And at the time I was not involved in any kind of fitness.

I wasn't in the fitness industry yet.

So I just ignored them.

I didn't know what to do with them and they didn't happen ever in a doctor's office.

So I couldn't say,

I'm having a heart attack right now.

I mean,

It didn't quite feel that bad,

But it was very disconcerting.

Like when your heart races for no reason,

When you're just standing in the grocery store and I couldn't understand what was going on.

When I began my fitness career,

It was through martial arts and I loved martial arts.

I loved the power in it.

I loved hitting that bag and kicking that bag and sparring with other people.

But it was just like we talked about earlier.

There was exhaustion without calm and actually a movement like that can kind of ramp up your what we call activation or arousal of your nervous system.

And that's what it was doing.

And I had no idea what this was doing to me,

But it wasn't going away.

The tension was just coming up higher and higher and higher.

When you ignore responses and reactions in your body,

They don't just go away.

They just go,

They go somewhere.

They go somewhere in your body.

And so over the years,

Cause I moved into kickboxing and other types of exercise,

I basically turned everything that I love to do for myself into a career in the fitness industry.

And I could not say no to a new class.

And I know before we started recording,

We were talking a little bit about boundaries.

I had zero boundaries.

I had no way to say no.

I said yes to every class.

And I was teaching at a level,

It was like 24 hours a week of group fitness classes where I was actively leading those classes.

So that's like doing three or four marathons a week.

And then like I mentioned earlier,

I thought I needed something to do for myself because I taught for other people,

But I needed something for myself.

So I picked running,

Right?

Running 30 miles,

40 miles a week on top of that schedule.

And my body physically was shutting down my digestive system.

And it got to the point I had this,

I had just excruciating gut pain that had built so slowly.

It built up so slowly.

I did not even realize it was an issue until I got to the point where I thought I have to quit my job.

I had moved into corporate fitness so I got to teach like four hours straight during the day.

And I thought I was gonna have to quit because I couldn't be there in that much pain.

And I would go to the doctor.

I went to the GI,

I wanted to see two different GI doctors and all they can do,

All they could do is prescribe medication.

And the medication had so many terrible side effects and it didn't alleviate any pain.

I was desperate.

I was literally desperate.

So I was still having panic and anxiety attacks.

I was in really bad pain and I was slipping into kind of a depressive state.

I won't say depression because it wasn't diagnosed as that,

But this depressive state.

And anyone who's been under chronic pain for any length of time,

That's very,

Very common.

It is completely related to how that vagus nerve reads what's happening in your body and then how it communicates that to your brain.

And finally,

Finally,

My husband found this random article about a food cleanse and I'm like,

I don't even know what that is.

Why should I cleanse?

I never wanted to do a food cleanse.

I never wanted to cleanse at all because I thought I am like this guru in the fitness industry,

Kaylin.

I should have,

I can eat whatever I want,

Right?

If you burn 2000 calories a day,

You should be able to eat whatever you want.

That was the thought in my head,

The incorrect thought in my head.

Well,

I was desperate to try anything.

And so we did this food cleanse.

It was out of a book called Clean,

Which was written by Alejandro Younger.

And the last name is spelled J-U-N-G-R.

And it was a type of a cleanse that rested your gut.

And that's what I needed.

I needed rest.

I needed rest from whatever was going on with me.

And it took nine months after doing that cleanse.

I'm not gonna lie.

It was hard.

It was a 40 day thing.

And nine months later,

I woke up one day and I was,

It felt like I was forgetting something.

And I couldn't,

It was like,

I don't know,

I made it to lunch time.

And I was like,

What is,

I feel like I'm forgetting something.

And then I realized that I had no more pain.

That I didn't feel any pain.

That was something that was like with me all the time.

Now was it perfect?

Did it stay completely perfect?

No,

I had to make other changes through nutrition.

And I made some big shifts in how I was teaching my classes.

And the types of classes I was teaching,

I cut way back on the high intensity.

And about that time is when I started to move into more trauma informed yoga.

And to bring in that trauma release exercise with the tremor to allow my nervous system to kind of rest and heal at the same time.

Because everything is connected.

It is never,

Ever,

Ever about only one thing.

You can't just pop a pill and have it fix everything.

Because everything you intake into your body affects everything else.

And food is a major way that we communicate with our body.

So if we aren't eating kindly,

Then the body takes it as an assault.

And that's where I was.

And I will say that I am in a really good place right now.

A lot of things resolved when my nutritional balance resolved.

And I still experiment with different types and varieties of food to just kind of keep myself curious about what might work even better.

So I think for,

If there's a lesson in there for people,

It's that never give up on yourself.

There's something out there in the universe will provide you with a solution.

It might not be the first solution that you're handed.

But we don't want to give up ever on ourself,

On our body,

Or our mind,

Or our spirit.

Because there's something here that there's something that you have to give to the world.

And we would all be better off with it.

Thank you so much,

Erica.

That was such an amazing story.

I'm so happy that you found your solution and have come to this amazing place.

It seems like usually some of the things that people are having the biggest challenges with in their lives,

That challenge that they overcome and then helping other people overcome that challenge is sometimes one of the greatest gifts.

Yeah.

Yes.

And it's interesting because I think for me,

Sometimes it's difficult for me to remember that what I have experienced may not seem like all that big of a deal,

But somebody out there might need to hear it.

Somebody out there might.

And that goes for each and every one of us.

But we don't have to hide the path that got us where we are.

And even if you're not through whatever it is,

Everybody is still going through something,

Right?

I mean,

We'd like to think that we can set some kind of wellness goal for ourself,

Whether that's mental health or physical health or something,

And then we can actually achieve it and then we don't have to work on it anymore.

Wouldn't that be great if we didn't have to work on it anymore?

But it doesn't work that way,

Right?

Because we are always growing and learning and having new experiences with new people.

And I feel so grateful to be here with you today,

Kaylin,

Because I feel like you have such a great story to tell as well.

And I'm just so grateful for the opportunity to share my story with your listeners as well.

Well,

I really appreciate you coming on and sharing your value.

I really do.

And you,

This has been an incredible time.

Do you have any final messages that you would like to share?

I think we've covered so much today,

And I think it can feel really overwhelming to people when you are in the moment of overwhelm from stress,

From physical tension,

From chronic pain,

Whatever it is,

It can feel so,

So overwhelming.

Like where do you start?

Where can I go?

But no matter what,

Everyone,

All of us starts only right where we are.

That's the only place we can start is where we are.

And so we should really kind of let go of this idea that we have to be some sort of perfect person in order to begin whatever it is that is our best life.

Your best life starts right now.

Amen.

I love that.

So good.

Where can people find you?

We can get together on elementalkinetics.

Com.

In fact,

If you wanted to try one of my grace and grit fusion classes with yoga and trauma release,

There is an opportunity to try a free class at elementalkinetics.

Com.

If you want to chat a little bit,

If you think maybe trauma release might be for you,

But you're not sure on the website,

Elementalkinetics.

Com forward slash inquiry is where you will find a link to my scheduler.

I'd love to chat.

We can do a free little 30 minute consultation and get to know each other,

Or we can connect on social media at Instagram.

It's elemental kinetics and on Facebook it's at elementalkinetics move well.

Amazing.

Thank you so much for sharing.

You know,

I actually signed up for your yoga class,

So I'm excited for that.

Yes.

Thank you so much,

Erica.

I really appreciate you coming on.

Thank you,

Kaylin.

Thank you so much for tuning into this episode today.

I hope you learned something new and are able to use the information discussed to bring about positive changes in your life.

If that is what you desire,

You may find and connect with Erica at elementalkinetics.

Com slash inquiry,

Elementalkinetics.

Com slash free resources,

Or elementalkinetics.

Com slash services.

If you enjoy this episode,

Please share it with someone who might also appreciate this content.

It is the only way that this podcast grows as I do not buy ads or promotions.

Plus,

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It would make sense to support their mission.

So if you receive value from Dear Love the Universe,

I kindly request that you please share it with your friends and family.

Join my incredible community on Instagram at Dear Love the Universe and if you're on Apple podcasts,

I would really appreciate a review and a rating.

Next week's Friday episode is an interview with Darcy Luoma.

Darcy Luoma is a master certified coach,

Dynamic facilitator and inspiring motivational speaker.

She has worked as a director for the US Senator,

Deputy transition director for the governor and on the national advance team for two US presidential campaigns.

As the owner and CEO of Darcy Luoma coaching and consulting LLC.

She's worked in 48 industries with 210 organizations and more than 500 individual clients to create high performing people and teams.

The media has named Darcy the region's favorite executive and life coach four times.

Darcy balances her thriving business with raising her two energetic teenage daughters,

Adventure,

Travel and competing in triathlons.

I've got to say I really liked Darcy and I really had a lot of fun with that interview.

It was impactful to say the least.

I would like to kindly remind you that you can also support this podcast by purchasing merchandise at my website,

Kalenboo.

Com slash merchandise.

I have jewelry,

Hoodies,

Cups,

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Bags,

And they're all really cute and I designed them all myself.

I'm sure that there would be something there that you would really like.

If you're interested in learning more about how I can help you as a coach,

You're more than welcome to send me a message.

Please do not hesitate to reach out.

I love what I do.

I honestly live to create these positive changes,

Transformations in people's lives.

So if you're serious about making a change in your life and you really are at the point where you want to move forward and just maybe need that little bit of extra guidance and a perspective that you don't see yet,

But you know that you have the potential or maybe you don't even see the potential yet,

But you just want something more for yourself.

I want to help you.

Send me a message.

Call me.

You can find my contact at kalenboo.

Com slash contact,

Or you can apply for coaching at my about page.

I love you.

Thank you so much for tuning in again and supporting the show.

I want to acknowledge one last time how truly incredible my community is.

I genuinely love you so much.

Thank you for everything.

Have a wonderful rest of your day and I'll talk to you soon.

Reviews

Thank you for sharing! You have a beautiful spirit and this episode was filled with wisdom 🙏💖