Episode 138: Show Me The Way | Morgan Balavage

In this episode, Morgan Balavage is my guest. Join us as we discuss: Morgan’s story of how chronic pain led to her spiritual awakening, Meditation tips, The power of asking for help, Gratitude, Yoga, Emotions, Why routine matters, Start with Body, then mind, and then the spirit, her upcoming self-care series in October (30 Days of Self-Care) and more!

*There is some swearing in this eipsode.

Transcript

So,

That's where I have found that the routine has to start with the body,

Right?

Whether that's taking just like a scan of your body and seeing how it feels and allowing it to kind of process how it feels,

Whether that's going for a run in the morning or a bike ride or going to a yoga class or a workout class or even just getting up and like doing a dance,

An early morning dance party,

That's a great way to start your day.

Just something to like get down in your body so you're not like living in that ego mind where all the anxieties live.

Hey there,

I'm Steph and I want to welcome you to the Beautifully Changed Podcast.

This is where we explore how ordinary people do big things.

Welcome to your tipping point.

Hey you guys,

It's Steph,

Pareha Maas,

Your host of the Beautifully Changed Podcast and I am so happy you are here with me today.

We are on episode 138,

Show Me The Way.

I am so excited to have you here and to have Morgan here and if this is your first time to my podcast,

Welcome and if you've been here before,

Welcome back.

I'm happy to have you and I would love it if you could do me a super huge favor and leave a review sharing your feedback.

What are you loving?

What do you want more of?

And all of that good stuff.

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Today I have Morgan Balavage as my guest.

She is a yoga teacher,

A wellness coach,

An intuitive healer,

Trained in a variety of healing modalities including Thai massage,

Yoga,

Guided meditation,

And chakra alignment.

So she is definitely someone that I'm excited to hear from and learn from and just soak in some of her wisdom and her experience and see what else I can do to just tap into my journey and make my journey a little bit more enhanced.

So I hope you also really love listening to Morgan and her story of how she became a yoga and wellness coach and I love the name of her website which is Splendid Yoga and she works primarily in the realm of lifestyle transitions,

Addiction and codependency support,

And chronic pain management.

So I love what she's doing and that she's helping people heal themselves.

It's really phenomenal.

So I hope you enjoy our conversation.

Morgan,

Thank you so much for being here with me today on the Beautifully Changed podcast to share some of your story and tips and just all that you're about.

You are a yoga teacher,

A wellness coach,

And an intuitive healer and you've been doing this for over a decade.

So welcome to the show.

Thank you so much for having me.

Now before we dive into your story,

First I noticed on your Instagram that you make kombucha at home.

I do.

I've been doing it for many years.

That is so awesome.

I've been wanting to try to do that myself at home but I haven't had the guts to but I was watching your story on the little highlight section and I was like,

Oh,

You make it seem so easy and doable.

Maybe I will try it.

You should totally try it.

If you can make tea,

It's literally just boiling water and sugar.

That's it.

Then you dump it in a jar and then you just wait.

So yeah,

If you can boil water,

You can totally make kombucha.

You just have to get a starter but yeah,

You can totally make one yourself if you get one of the ones that you have to have an ID for,

That you have to be over 21 that are properly fermented.

If you get one of those and just let it sit in your fridge for a while,

It gets this film on top and that becomes your SCOBY or your mother,

Your symbiotic culture of bacterial and yeast,

Something like that.

Then yeah,

Basically what kombucha is,

Is SCOBY poop.

So this bacteria takes the sugar,

It eats it and it turns it into this probiotic that is good for a lot of our bellies,

Not everyone but a lot of ours.

Yeah,

And I like to flavor it.

You know,

Most of the time I just drink it plain though.

It's pretty simple.

You should definitely give it a try.

I love that.

I've never heard it broken down so simply before.

Like if you can make tea,

You can make kombucha.

I love it.

I'm going to use it.

Totally.

I'm going to do it.

Okay.

So what is something that you've learned recently that inspires you?

Oh my goodness.

What a wonderful question.

This world,

This life is constantly humbling me but what's been really inspiring to me,

Just my work with my clients to see when they really commit to themselves,

The huge changes that can happen for them.

Like it never ceases to amaze me and even though I know it's coming,

It always surprises me and it always fuels my own dreams,

My own passions,

My own work on myself to see the changes in my clients.

So yeah,

Just everyone I work with is such an inspiration.

Oh,

I love that.

That was really beautiful.

Thanks for sharing that perspective.

And now I kind of want to take a moment and dive into your story because I know you have a story of chronic pain and it led you to a spiritual awakening and I'm curious if you would share that with us.

Yeah,

Absolutely.

So even as a kid,

I had just chronic pain that kind of just moved from body parts to body parts.

So as a kid,

It manifested as migraines when I was growing up that it turns out was related to some trauma I experienced as a very young child that my brain couldn't process at the time when it was growing.

So I just had these mysterious migraines every day for several years until eventually they went away and then I would go through phases of just kind of dramatically injuring myself where I would have a long healing period.

One time I broke my foot and it's usually about six weeks for some reason.

It took me six months to heal from that one.

I just wouldn't slow down and stop.

I kept working through it.

I was a bartender at the time,

So I was on my feet the whole shift.

You know,

We don't live in a culture where we really appreciate when someone gets genuinely sick when you work in the service industry,

There's no one to cover the shift or else you just don't make the money.

So I had to keep working through it.

So I was kind of just finding myself like a cat chasing its tail,

Just trying to find the money to take the space to heal and not being able to do that because I wasn't taking the space to heal.

So it was the cycle that happened a few times in my life where I would hurt myself,

Experience extreme pain for several months,

And then eventually the body would heal enough that I could get back to my life and then it would just happen again.

Sometimes once a year,

Sometimes in rapid succession.

So it all kind of came to a culmination where I finally had this like,

All right,

I get it.

I get what's happening.

I understand why this pattern is happening.

This was a few years ago when I just had like back to back to back one of those,

I'm calling it a Ganesha year when Ganesha,

The Hindu God will come in and just clear everything out of the way,

The elephant God,

So that to make room,

To make space for all the growth that needs to happen.

So within the span of three months,

My relationship ended.

I'd been in a relationship for seven years.

I was laid off from my job.

I'd been working there for seven years and then I hurt myself really badly.

I tore my ACL,

Which anyone who's had knee surgery is like wincing right now because it is a brutal surgery and a brutal recovery.

And in some ways I'm still recovering from it.

So after this happened,

I was skiing.

This is how I tore my ACL.

I was skiing in Squaw Valley with my dad and it was spring snow.

It was really sticky.

And I took a turn and my body went one way and my skis went the other way.

Gravity went completely the opposite way.

I wanted it to,

And I twisted my knee,

Did a couple of somersaults and landed at that classic ACL pop where I just knew that I was not getting myself off of that mountain.

So for the first time in my life,

After 30 years of skiing,

I had to be carted off the mountain by three very patient,

Very strong,

Very kind ski patrollers.

And I set my dad down to get them and I was sitting on this double black diamond mobile field with this beautiful view of Lake Tahoe in insane pain,

Just throbbing,

Can't catch your breath.

And I looked up at the sky,

It was so clear and beautiful,

So blue.

The air was so sharp.

And I said out loud,

As loud as I could,

I surrender.

I don't know what to do anymore.

This is it.

Like,

What do you need?

What do you need from me?

Show me the way.

I threw my hands up in the air and I said,

Show me the way.

And I thought,

Okay,

Now I just have to wait.

I just have to wait and see what happens.

So yeah,

What ended up happening was I had to get the surgery,

Of course.

That was a few months later.

I went through several months of PT and denial about how badly I'd hurt myself.

I was hoping I could heal myself.

It turns out torn tendons don't just fuse themselves back together in that way.

So I ended up having to get a couple of knee surgeries to get myself fixed.

And in that time,

At this point,

I had no job.

I had no relationship.

And I had just adopted a dog.

Wow.

I had no way to walk this dog.

So my first thought was,

Well,

I need to ask for help.

And that's kind of where the spiritual awakening began,

Was like,

I need to learn how to ask for help,

Because I realized that's what had been missing from my previous bouts dealing with pain,

Dealing with long-term injury,

Is I had tried to do it all myself,

And I had refused to ask for help.

So I asked my neighbors for help.

My neighbors were very sweet.

We all became very close friends.

My dogs became very close friends with their dogs.

They would come by at least once a day,

Sometimes multiple times a day,

Sometimes to see the dog,

Sometimes just to bring me a gift,

Just to cheer me up.

This was during the time of the surgery when I was basically convalescing for two months straight.

I could barely walk myself to the bathroom,

Let alone walk outside of my apartment.

I was basically like misery style in my apartment for two months straight.

But it ended up being this really incredibly beautiful time of my life,

Which was a choice that I made because in the past,

It had been so traumatic where not only was I hurt,

Scared,

Injured,

In pain,

But also I felt completely alone.

So because I was willing to humble myself and say,

I need help.

I can't do this one alone.

People just swarmed to help me.

It turns out we really like to help each other.

And this was such a great shift for me to realize not only is it so beautiful to be on the receiving end of this,

But the people who are coming to help me,

They're so happy to be able to help me and we're developing this beautiful friendship and relationship as a result.

So instead of trying to do everything by myself,

Trying to work all the jobs,

I said,

Yeah,

Show me the ways.

I knew the people who can help me and they all kind of came to me.

So this ultimately led me in a roundabout way to attending a master's program for traditional Chinese medicine.

Because during this time,

The one thing,

The one modality that really helped kind of everything was acupuncture was getting needled by my acupuncturist in addition to the herbs he was giving me to help me with the insane swelling.

So,

You know,

The surgeon did an incredible job.

He put things back together,

But you know,

After six months,

They're not a part of your life anymore.

And even then I only saw him like four times.

My general practitioner,

I only saw him twice.

He was just there for the referral,

But it was really the acupuncturist who was there with me several times a week,

Making sure that like,

Not just my knee was healing,

But making sure that the rest of my body,

My mind and my spirit were healing as well.

Because anytime you have surgery,

You hurt yourself that badly.

That's a trauma and the mind has to heal from that just as much as the body has to heal from the acute issue.

So as I started to heal from this trauma that had just happened,

All the other traumas from my past started to kind of rise up to the surface also to be healed.

You know,

All the decisions that we make from the past that we kind of regret the relationships we stay in too long.

All the things that have hurt us over the years that we kind of hold on to,

That I was holding on to,

Were all rising to the surface as I was forced just to sit.

You know,

This is like my decades in the cave was just sitting,

You know,

In my little condo in Southern California next to the beach,

Letting people be really nice to me.

What a beautiful,

What a beautiful phase it ended up being.

So because I was able to humble myself,

Because I was able to align myself on kind of a spiritually driven path,

A big part of Chinese medicine is really getting in touch with the spirit.

They use the term Shen to describe that in order to create that mind-body-spirit integration.

I decided to support myself by passing along what I had learned so far in my healing progress,

Which you know,

We're all at some point of our healing process,

Right?

Whatever we're healing from,

Whether it's an acute injury,

Whether it's our childhood,

Whether it's our karma or past lives,

We're all kind of in the process of trying to heal those things.

So I started working more one-on-one with private clients in a yoga capacity and a Thai massage capacity,

And it just blossoms into this beautiful business that I have now taken online and have been able to offer kind of to the world in general.

So yeah,

That's kind of the big nutshell,

The walnut shell of my story.

Yeah,

That is quite a story.

And so I'm guessing at this point in time in your journey,

Is there a part of you that's thankful for that injury?

Oh,

100%.

I mean,

This was a big part of what I learned is you have to be so grateful for everything that happens to you.

Even the stuff that feels so impossibly hard,

You have to look up and say,

Thank you so much.

This is happening.

Maybe you can say it's for a reason,

You can say it's for a lesson,

But no matter what,

It's happening,

And I can choose to be pissed off about it and angry about it and resent it for the rest of my life,

Or I can choose to be so grateful that this happened and really look for the light,

Look for the people who are helping me,

Like Mr.

Rogers said,

Look for the helpers,

And really focus my energy on that love rather than on how hard it is.

Yes.

And it sounds like you were surrounded by the helpers and by love as soon as you were able to open yourself up to ask for help.

It was really remarkable.

It was definitely like I said it to one neighbor,

I don't know how I'm going to take care of Spike,

My little chihuahua,

And she said,

Oh,

I'll send so and so down and so and so down,

And every day I would have a visitor.

So yeah,

It just took asking once to get a lot of help.

And once I realized,

Like,

Not only is this so easy to ask for help,

Not only am I receiving it,

Because that's a lot of the fear based stuff there is right,

I'm going to ask for help and someone's going to say no.

Is that it's just such a gift for people to be able to give.

And so by not asking,

I'm kind of withholding them from receiving that gift themselves,

That gift of selflessness,

That gift of being able to help someone.

Yeah,

So that shift in perspective as a result of this injury,

That's definitely something to be grateful for.

I love that,

Morgan.

And you mentioned that it's also a gift for other people,

Because we can feel so bad and like guilty and like we're burdening people.

But really think about how good it feels when you give and when you can help someone like when we won't receive that we are withholding that gift from other people.

And they want to fill it too.

I love that you mentioned that.

Absolutely.

That's been a big part of my message that I realized as I've been going through this process is working with my clients who are afraid to ask for help because they're afraid to be a burden.

And it's like,

No,

The bigger burden is not letting someone do this for you.

Right?

Like if you're friends with someone who is like the yes,

The yes person,

The person who just simply cannot say no.

And like there's some boundary work to be done there,

Right?

If you're draining yourself to give and you don't want to ask someone because you know they're going to drain,

You're going to drain them,

And then they don't know how to set a boundary,

Then there's something to be said for that.

Maybe ask someone that you trust will set a boundary.

But for the most part,

The things that we're asking for are pretty simple and pretty easy for someone else to give.

You know,

Could you drop by for 20 minutes and take my dog for a walk?

Yeah,

Absolutely.

I'd love to hang out with your dog.

You know,

It's a huge,

It's a huge help for me,

But it's also,

Yeah,

It's a really beautiful gift for them as well.

It's fun for my dog too.

He's sitting on my lap right now staring at me.

He knows I'm talking about him.

And also they probably get the added bonus of just getting that walk in themselves that they weren't even expecting and the time with the dog and just all goodness is just like a whole bunch of goodness coming at you from just asking one person for help.

I love that.

Oh,

That's the ideal situation,

Right?

When you come across hardship,

When you come across an opportunity to compromise or negotiate,

Like look for the win-win-win.

Look for the thing that's going to give everyone like the best thing.

Yes,

I love it.

And Morgan,

What came first,

Yoga or meditation?

Oh,

Man.

You know,

It's interesting that you asked that question.

This is the chicken or egg,

Isn't it?

So I would say I had my first true meditation experience before I had my first yoga experience.

But the more I learn about yoga,

The phrase that I got in my first teacher training was there is nothing yoga isn't.

So to answer your question accurately,

I would have to say yoga came first because yoga is meditation.

So if I was meditating,

I was practicing yoga.

Specific form of meditation that I experienced was a seated meditation.

I was just sitting in a room with a friend,

A soul sister of mine,

We're really young,

I don't know,

Maybe 13 or 14.

And I don't even know if we were trying to meditate,

But we ended up sitting in like a lotus position with,

You know,

With our thumbs touching our index fingers,

The mudra.

And I just immediately went into the stone and my friend had to like shake me out of it.

And it was such a,

It was such a clear place.

It was such a nothingness.

It was such an ether.

It was such bliss that I was really upset with my friend for removing me from it.

Oh,

Yeah,

It was really fascinating to,

Okay,

I say I was really upset.

I wasn't coming out of that place.

I didn't take it out on her,

But I was like,

Oh,

How do I get back there?

And it would take many,

Many years before I could figure out how to get back to that place.

It was like just a little bit of a taste of what was to come of kind of the bliss of that nothingness of the deep meditation.

And then yeah,

But about a decade of making terrible decisions and then I would get back around to it.

So I tried my first yoga class a few years later when I was 16.

And let me tell you,

It was it was not a great experience.

It was 10 years between my first and my second yoga class.

But certainly there were some yoga practices in there,

Just not the traditional asana practice that you find on the mat in the world.

Oh,

That is very interesting that you were able to before you probably even truly knew what meditation was and all of that,

That you were able to just go there and just like welcome it and just go and then I totally get what you mean when your friend was like,

Hey,

You know,

Because your friend is probably scared,

Like what's going on?

And you're like,

I'm in bliss.

That disappointment to be taken away from it before you were ready.

So I totally get what you're saying with that.

But it is interesting that your very first yoga experience on the mat at 16 you were like,

What?

No,

Thank you.

And now it's like your life and you believe in it and you see that yoga is everywhere on the mat off the mat.

So what do you think was kind of that turning point for you when this like deep love and appreciation and excitedness to have this be a part of your life came into play?

Yeah.

So this was,

Yeah,

I,

After I had broken my foot,

I then basically sedentary for six months as sedentary as I could be as a service industry worker.

And I needed to get back in shape.

So I started going to bootcamp classes,

But I kept hurting myself.

And then my friend said,

Well,

Why don't you try B gram?

And I said,

Leo,

I don't know about yoga.

I tried yoga once.

You know,

I didn't like,

It's not for me.

It's not for me.

And she said,

Look,

Just go to B gram and look at all the bodies in the room.

And if you want to look like those bodies and keep going to B gram and I will be honest with you at 24,

25 year old me was like,

All right,

That's a valid reason to go to yoga.

And I did,

She took me,

We went to,

We went to a B gram class together.

It was of course,

You know,

The Dante's eighth level of hell just so hot,

So sweaty.

I didn't understand anything that was happening.

My body felt like I had never moved it in my life.

But I looked at all the bodies in the room and you know,

There were all shapes and sizes.

Some people were really tiny and strong.

Some people were really big and strong.

But one thing I noticed about every single body in that room is everyone was so happy.

They did yoga at the end of that class.

Everybody felt better.

Every single body was just a little bit closer to that state of bliss that I had experienced so many years before.

And I was hooked.

So I took a bunch of classes.

I took less than 10 classes.

I know that because I had bought a 10 pack and I couldn't finish it because I ended up hurting myself again.

Yeah.

So in,

In the hot,

The half moon version in the B gram practice where you're kind of making a banana shape,

Leaning off to the side while you're standing up,

They say,

Push,

Push,

Go,

Go.

And so I did,

And then I pushed past the limits and I tore my oblique.

So yeah,

So I decided maybe the B gram ESOS isn't quite for me where it's like,

Don't listen to your body,

But there's definitely something about this practice and I want to find out more about it.

So I found a local studio right around the corner from my house and I started going,

I went one day and I kind of had that same experience of like,

I have no idea what I'm doing with my body.

Like having these so different from the B from experience is so regimented.

Always the same thing,

Always a certain heat to kind of more of the really traditional hot the version of yoga where it's a little bit more Vinyasa,

More flow,

More of a dance.

Once I realized yoga could be advanced,

Oh man,

I was all over it.

I was all about it.

I felt madly in love.

I went every single day to this little studio in Santa Barbara for a year and then they did their first teacher training and the day before it started,

I was crying to my mom about how I was doing nothing with my life and she said,

Morgan,

It seems that you're doing a lot of yoga.

Why don't you,

Why don't you do some more of that?

I said,

Well,

I guess the teacher training starting tomorrow,

I guess I could sign up and she was like,

Yeah,

Do it.

So I did it and it was six months that yeah,

Completely rocked my world,

Changed my relationship to my body,

To myself,

To my friends and really set me on this path of being a seeker spiritually,

But also of just wanting to be of service,

Wanting to help people.

I love that.

That's a fantastic story and I love that your mom recognized that and mentioned it and you were like willing to accept it.

That is really neat.

Yeah.

It was – it's one of the greatest gifts she's ever given me and she's given me many.

She's a wonderful mother.

Aww.

I love that.

Okay.

So yoga has been obviously a huge part of your life and then – but I am separating the two between the meditation and the yoga just for the listeners for just the talking about it.

Yeah.

So I know meditation has meant a ton to you and as you even described earlier,

That very first taste you had of it,

Of what's to come,

That's very intriguing to me.

So can we spend a moment and talk about meditation and what it means to you and how it's helped change your life?

Totally.

Yeah.

So my meditation practice has evolved and continues to evolve,

Right?

It's always a change,

But I aim for 20 minutes every single day of a seated,

Silent practice where I let my thoughts rise up.

I let them float off into the ether.

I let my emotions rise up and I watch them with a playful curiosity and then I'm just breathing through it.

There have been times in my life where it's taken the shape of somatic experiencing where I'm going through some exercises to help release the emotions surrounding trauma in my body and that becomes a meditation of just watching my body physically release that emotion.

It's very visceral.

So someone recommended to me at a very young age that I go to a meditation workshop.

I still have not taken them up on that advice.

I think it's a wonderful idea and I do recommend it to many people,

But for me,

I have found that I learn meditation best through my own personal studies.

So I've done a lot of reading about a lot of the different methods of meditation that are out there and then I kind of formulated them for my own purposes.

So an example of that would be like the Lojong meditation,

Which Pema Shodran,

The Buddhist scholar and nun has talked a lot about in many of her books,

Which is when you're going through a difficult emotion that you don't know quite how to handle,

You breathe in all of that emotion that you're experiencing,

But also all of the emotion that every other human who's ever experienced that emotion has felt.

Just knowing that this is a very human experience,

Whatever it is,

The disappointment,

The fear,

The betrayal,

The anxiety,

Just breathing all that in and then sending out the antidote,

Whatever that may be,

The love,

The peace,

The security,

The security and clarity that we all seek.

So breathing in the anxiety,

Breathing out the security,

That's kind of the reverse of what we want to do.

We think we want to bring in the positive and push out the negative,

Bring in the good shit,

Let go of the bullshit.

Yeah,

That's what you said.

Yeah,

And it's like,

Whoa,

It's the opposite.

And when I realized it was the opposite,

I was like,

More people have to know about this because it's really an embracing those difficult moments that we are able to let them go.

When we're able to look at them and have a friendly relationship to them,

We're able to be like,

All right,

You can stay if you want to.

And that's when the emotion sends its way,

It takes its way out the door.

So when we try to ignore it,

When we resist it,

When we just try to like let it go without really examining what the message is,

That's where the suffering comes in,

Right?

The suffering is always in the resistance.

So my meditation practice at this point,

That's what I use it for,

Is to really look at those emotions that I'm having a hard time kind of processing.

They're just kind of burbling inside me and I'm not really getting the message.

And so I let the message rise up,

I let my body experience the physical feeling of the emotion.

And then I just watch it,

I just kind of let it be,

I let it tell its story,

I let it do its dance.

And I look at it with kind of the patience that I would give a child that I really liked,

Not all children,

But a really sweet,

Playful,

Funny child that I can watch for 20 minutes,

You know,

Some kids get a minute,

Some kids you can hang out with for a lifetime.

But I try to get to a place of being able to like sit with it for at least 20 minutes.

And normally it's like 90 seconds.

If we're really experiencing an emotion,

Whatever it is,

However powerful it feels,

If we're really experiencing it,

Don't move through your body in less than two minutes,

In a minute and a half.

The problem is we've been told we shouldn't experience emotion,

We've been told it's too hard or the only emotion that we should embrace is happiness or joy.

So switching that perspective to experiences like fear,

Like anxiety,

Like depression,

Like having those be just as valid as the stuff that feels good as being in love as being happy as being joyful and letting them both exist on the same plane of relevance and letting them both be a message to hear,

To experience and then to release has made it so much easier for me to experience all the crazy stuff that happens to us in this world.

Yes,

I love that you said that.

You know,

It was so interesting.

I was just taking a CEU training for my hypnosis practice and the instructor,

His name is Matthew and he was talking about how anxiety is the fear of feeling emotions.

And I was like,

That just like,

I was like,

Oh,

That's so good because it is,

There's so much truth to that.

It's the fear of feeling the sadness,

The anger,

The hurt,

The disappointments.

Right?

And sometimes when we get so used to suppressing all of those emotions and we won't face it,

We also then can't recognize the happiness and the joy and the other things that feel good too,

Because we're won't allow ourselves to just feel.

And I was like,

Oh man,

But his sentence of anxiety is the fear of emotions.

I was like,

Oh,

Good.

So I love that you mentioned that Morgan,

That it's so important to give all the emotions some space and some attention because if they're there,

They're there for a reason.

Absolutely.

I mean,

That gives me chills.

That is a perfect definition for what anxiety is.

And we all have it,

Right?

I think we can all safely say that we have experienced anxiety if we aren't currently experiencing it.

So yeah,

To really look at it is like the anxiety isn't the problem,

Right?

The anxiety is the umbrella term for the emotions that we're not wanting to look at.

Anger is kind of the same way.

Anger is an umbrella emotion for a lot of,

Or an umbrella term rather,

For a lot of different emotions for when our boundaries have been stepped on.

So yeah,

Yeah,

That's brilliant.

What a great definition.

Anxiety is the fear of yeah,

Feeling our emotions.

You got to feel them,

They're messages just like pain.

You touch the stove,

It hurts.

You don't touch the stove anymore.

You date the wrong man,

It hurts.

You make a different decision going forward.

But if you don't recognize that's why it's hurting because you won't give yourself a chance to go there.

You know,

I just love that.

Okay,

So you said you do this every day,

This meditation practice.

I do this every day and the reason I do it every day is because,

My friend,

I go fucking crazy.

I apologize if you have to bleep that,

But it's true.

I go absolutely crazy if I don't take that space to sit with my emotions.

If I don't take 20 minutes every day to say,

Hey body,

What are we holding on to?

What are we feeling?

What's going on?

Then those emotions control my day.

Then every decision I make is in response to whatever emotion is right on the surface.

So you know,

That can work for a while if things are going well with the emotions that are like,

Yeah,

I'm really happy and really in love and feeling really confident,

Positive self-esteem.

Then it's like,

Yeah,

I can coast on that for a while.

I don't have to look at those things too closely because they feel pretty comfortable.

But when things get uncomfortable and then they stay uncomfortable because I'm not dealing with them,

That's when it turns into things like anxiety,

Things like depression,

When you can't feel anything at all,

Things like anger and resentment,

Which yeah,

It's a lot harder to get rid of resentment than it is to get rid of,

You know,

Disappointment,

Which is usually what leads to resentment.

So good.

I love that.

Thank you for saying that.

Now,

I want to touch a little bit about then the importance and the science behind like routines because we hear a lot of talk about morning routines and evening routines and just routines.

And oftentimes,

We hear that routines are so good for kids,

But we forget that they're good for adults too.

And so can you share a little bit of the science behind routines?

Yeah,

Absolutely.

So neurologically,

We've learned a little bit more about how the brain works.

Because it associates location with activity.

So this was kind of researched in the realm of sleep,

Where the reason that you shouldn't have your phone in bed,

You shouldn't read in bed,

You shouldn't do anything but sleep in bed.

Because if you do something in bed that's not sleep,

Your brain is going to think,

Oh,

It's time to turn into this mode,

It's time to do this thing,

It's time to read,

It's time to study,

It's time to be with my partner,

It's time to watch TV.

And then when that doing that activity leads you to sleep,

You're training the brain to say or to do the action of,

Okay,

First we're going to do this and then we're going to fall asleep.

So then it's impossible to fall asleep without doing that other thing first or you just don't sleep at all.

Oh,

That's such a good point.

Sorry,

That was so good.

I had to apologize.

Okay.

Yeah,

No,

We'll let it settle in.

Yeah.

So the way that relates around to the routine is if you wake up in anxiety,

If you wake up just like dreading the day that you're about to have or terrified of what happened the day before or still upset about anything,

Then your brain is immediately going to go there the next morning as well.

If you wake up the next day and you're like already late,

You're already rushed and your brain is going to go right to that anxiety point.

But if you have a routine,

If you can wake up and know,

Okay,

First I do this,

Then I do this,

Then I do this,

Then I do this,

Then your brain is going to know that.

Your brain is going to wake up and it's not going to have time to think,

Okay,

Let's think about all those thoughts that have been bugging us that we haven't processed.

It's just going to think it's time to brush our teeth.

It's time to go to the bathroom.

It's time to sit and meditate.

That's my order.

It's time to take the dog for a walk.

It's time to eat some healthy food.

It's time to do the yoga.

It's time to express gratitude.

It's time to be compassionate.

You can train the brain to do all those things without you even having to think about it after a certain point.

They say it takes like seven to 11 days to make that habit.

That's what's happening is those neural connections are being made in your brain of at this time after this happens,

When the body is in this place,

In this position,

Then we're going to do this.

The body is always preparing for that next thing.

It's so intelligent.

It's also,

For better or for worse,

Can lead to pain.

If we wake up and we experience that anxiety and we don't make the space to deal with it,

Then the body is going to be like,

Okay,

We'll just set that up to the side so you can go have your day,

But then you get the 3 a.

M.

Thoughts that sneak in that are like,

But what about this?

Before you end up in a conversation with someone that turns into a fight because you never had that conversation about that thing that you were upset about that one time.

The brain is going to bring it up in a way that is not going to serve you if you don't make the space for the routine to serve yourself.

That's such a good point.

I love that.

If you're having anxiety or just like a tough start to your day,

Just adding in a routine can shift that for you.

It makes complete sense too.

It's not like something you can argue with.

You could try if you wanted to put your energy into that,

But it's just like,

Yeah,

Because then your body is literally preparing for the next thing.

I love that and it's such a simple way to understand it.

Yeah,

I try to break it down because the brain is really complicated,

But it's also – Our bodies are machines,

Right?

We can figure it out.

We can work with it.

The crucial thing I found in terms of creating that routine for yourself is it has to start with the body and then it goes to the mind and then it goes to the spirit.

You have to get in your body first.

That's where for me,

If I sit in my meditation,

I'm going to look,

I'm going to feel my body first.

I'm going to start with how my body is feeling and then I'm going to go into the deeper meditation from there.

For a lot of my life that has looked like the yoga practice,

I couldn't handle sitting first thing in the morning.

It was just too much.

I would have to go do my yoga and then I would be able to sit.

I would have moved my body enough that I was able to settle in and actually allow my mind to still.

It's actually,

Interestingly,

I think why the original yoga practice,

The asana practice as we know it today was invented was to help calm down these young Indian boys who were all riled up to get the energy out.

The man who invented the traditional yoga,

Ayyangar,

He was hanging out at a palace and watching – This was at the time in India when the British had ruled over them.

He was watching the British army do their routine in the morning which included things like burpees and jumping jacks and things of that nature.

He got the idea to incorporate these movements like burpees.

He can now call them sun salutations,

The three in Amishkars,

In order to just exhaust the bodies of these young boys so that he could get them to sit calm in meditation.

That's where I have found that the routine has to start with the body,

Whether that's taking just like a scan of your body and seeing how it feels and allowing it to kind of process how it feels,

Whether that's going for a run in the morning or a bike ride or going to a yoga class or a workout class or even just getting up and like doing a dance,

An early morning dance party.

That's a great way to start your day.

Just something to like get down in your body so you're not like living in that ego mind where all the anxieties live.

I love that.

I'm a huge fan of dance parties,

Like daily dance parties at my house for sure.

Thanks for sharing that piece of history.

I've never had heard that before and it makes so much sense and like with the sun salutations of coming from like burpees,

Like,

Oh my gosh,

That's so cool to know.

Thank you.

I mean,

I'm learning so much from you already and it's only been 40 minutes.

So this is great.

Lauren,

What would you say is your mission and what are you doing with all of this knowledge that you have?

What is your mission with all of this?

Right now my offerings,

Most of my work is done one-on-one or in public yoga classes.

I transitioned more into the one-on-one work after I came out of my surgery healing because I realized like the work that I really wanted to do,

I needed to connect with people over the long term to get people in their mind,

Body,

Spirit integration and alignment so that they can find their own path,

Right?

This is a beautiful part of my work is I was led to this work because of an injury in my body and now I get to help people who are injured heal so that they can then find their true path.

It's been really fascinating working with my clients over the years.

Almost every single one of them has either found a new job in a completely different industry,

Started their own business or gone back to school.

And they all came to me because like their back hurt.

So that's kind of where the bulk of my work is.

My problem was that I had a huge waiting list and I just didn't have time because I'm constantly bringing in new knowledge,

Right?

I'm in this master's program right now.

So there are only so many hours in a week that I can really dedicate to working one-on-one with clients.

So I realized I needed to come up with a program that I could give to people who I just didn't have time to work with one-on-one to get them at least started on this routine that really changed my life,

That has changed so many of my clients' lives.

And so that's kind of what I'm working on now,

Which I'm releasing next month.

If you release this this month,

It's September right now.

So it'll be starting in October,

Which is 30 days of self-care,

Which is just a few minutes a day.

If you have five minutes,

If you have 20 minutes,

If you have a full hour,

Then taking that time every day,

It's a little bit different.

Whether you do a five-minute meditation or a 20-minute online yoga class,

Or you have a full hour,

I have a whole series,

Over 90 different self-care activities that I'm going to be sending to you once a day for the next month of October.

Yeah,

So I'm kind of aware where my offering is right now is the one-on-one,

The private sessions.

I do public yoga classes here in Santa Barbara,

Just so much fun.

And then,

Yeah,

Through my website,

The 30 Days of Self-Care,

Encouraging people to really figure out what they need to live their best lives,

To be their best selves,

But most importantly,

To make their days feel easier.

And if you're starting your day from a place of fear and anxiety,

Man,

It is so hard to crawl yourself out of that.

But if you're starting it from a place of bliss,

How great,

You get to bring that into the world.

I love that.

Okay,

So Morgan,

Let me clarify.

So your course around self-care routine,

Is that only for the month of October?

So I'm releasing it four times a year,

And the first one is starting in October.

Yeah,

So it's going to be October 1st through the 31st.

And yeah,

If you don't sign up for this round,

You'll have to wait till next year.

Okay,

Okay,

Good to know.

And let's just jump ahead to this really quick.

How would somebody,

If they were interested,

How would they sign up for that or find it?

So you can go to my website,

Which is splendid.

Yoga,

Just like my Instagram name,

At splendid.

Yoga.

No.

Com,

Just the.

Yoga.

And yeah,

You'll get a newsletter pop-up,

Sign up for my newsletter,

And I'll send you some more information about it.

Awesome.

Okay,

Love that.

And so now,

I just want to ask you like a few questions that I ask pretty much everybody who comes on because I love hearing people's answers and what they come up with.

What is the limiting belief that you've worked through and how did you work through it?

That's such a wonderful question.

A really limiting belief that I struggled with for the vast majority of my life and in some ways I'm still working through is that I have to focus on my weaknesses in order to get stronger.

I thought that the key to becoming a more well-rounded person was to work on the things that weren't my strengths,

Which I think there is some value to that.

There's also some value to knowing when to bring in some outside help.

So once I switch it around to actually,

Why am I not playing to my strengths?

Why am I not doing the things that I really love to do?

And once I couldn't come up with a good reason why I wasn't doing those things and I started doing them,

Yeah,

Everything else just kind of fell into place.

It was great.

Oh,

I love that.

And that is a really good point because you do hear all the time like,

Okay,

Well,

What are your strengths?

What are your weaknesses?

Now,

Let's try to get your weaknesses to become up at the same level as your strengths.

And then that can feel really defeating and stuff.

And then you're not even focusing on what you're already good at and what you're nailing.

You know,

I love that.

Have you ever heard of people of science?

I haven't.

Tell me more.

Okay.

Well,

It's this girl,

This lady named Vanessa,

She always talks about how she's like a recovering awkward person.

But what she does is she studies human behavior and she talks about optimizing just like who you are.

So instead of trying to like change who you are,

Like those weaknesses or your partner's weaknesses,

Like find a way to optimize what works for you so that you don't have to spend your time in the day and the limited amount of energy you have on trying to change who you are or change who your partner is.

And I just think like kind of what you talked about,

You know,

Like focusing in on your strengths is a great way to optimize your life.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

I think that's such a good point.

Yeah.

Not just trying to change yourself,

But trying to change other people is a recipe for suffering.

So yeah,

Giving space for other people to have weaknesses and for yourself to have weaknesses,

For myself to have weaknesses,

That was definitely – that limited me in so many ways.

What a great question.

Oh,

Thank you.

No,

And thank you for your answer.

I think that's really insightful.

And I think it will help other people kind of just like with that,

Just looking at their own weaknesses and strengths differently and knowing that that doesn't have to be your story forever.

You can change that.

Totally.

Morgan,

What is something that you would consider underrated?

Veganism.

Yeah,

I think veganism is hugely underrated.

I became a vegan when I had my knee surgeries two years ago.

Someone recommended it to me as another way to help with the swelling.

And it has changed my life.

It changed my relationship to politics,

To my body,

To animals,

To all energy in the world.

And it's in the zeitgeist.

It's becoming not overrated,

Certainly,

But just more talked about,

More rated,

I guess,

Period.

But it's just so obviously the future out of necessity,

But also out of kindness.

And I think it's such a beautiful path for anyone who is interested about it.

I wrote a cookbook for those of you who may want to try a few delicious vegan recipes.

You can find it on Amazon.

It's called Seven Days of Vegan Deliciousness.

But yeah,

The vegan lifestyle,

I think,

Is definitely on the up and up in this world.

Yes,

I love that.

I actually practice the vegan lifestyle myself.

Beautiful.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Oh,

No,

For sure.

It's definitely – It does change your view in so many ways that I don't think you necessarily expect to,

And it's a cool process.

It is.

Yeah,

I thought it was going to be a diet,

And it's really turned into more of a lifestyle.

I don't proselytize.

It's not something that I go out to dinner if it's not a vegan restaurant.

I'm going to shame everyone.

It's a very personal choice.

But yeah,

For me,

It's just been so liberating and so much easier than before when I was using animal products.

Yeah,

I agree.

Everybody has their own journey,

Right?

So if we're practicing compassion in all areas of our life,

Then it's – I think it can be counterproductive if we're – even with people who are eating a different lifestyle than us.

If we're not having compassion in that space,

Then we're not inviting people to be more open-minded and to look into it for themselves.

On an energetic level,

When you're bringing animal products,

When you're eating meat,

You're eating their terror at that point.

So emotion is literal energy.

That's what you're bringing into your body.

That's what you're promoting in your body.

I'd rather promote light,

So I eat plants.

Yes.

Then what is something you wish everyone knew?

I wish everyone knew that it's just as hard for everyone else and we're all of us doing our best.

We are all of us doing our very best.

It's not that great sometimes,

But it's still our best and we have to have patience and compassion for that.

That's good.

I love that.

Okay.

So I know you were mentioning books a little bit ago,

But I'm wondering if you have because I'm just thinking of like the beginner person listening about meditation and yoga or just this lifestyle of all these different healing modalities that you're into and that you practice,

What's like a book you would suggest for a beginner and then someone who's like well into their journey?

Yeah.

So for meditation,

I love – the book I would recommend is by Pema Chodron.

It's called Start Where You Are and that's Pema,

P-E-M-A,

Chodron,

C-H-O-D-R-O-N.

And that's just a wonderful introduction.

It's Buddhist meditation.

It's the Lojong meditation.

It's very simply presented and it's the kind of thing where you read maybe two or three pages first thing in the morning and you don't need to read it all in one sitting.

You just kind of let it take its path through your life.

But that's the one that I give to all my clients and that's the one I would recommend.

If you wanted to go digital with it,

The app Headspace of course is incredible.

You get 10 free days I believe still and then you can sign up for a membership beyond that or Insight Timer,

Insight app is another great meditation app where they have thousands if not tens of thousands of guided meditations all linked,

So many different teachers.

I have a few up there.

But that's a great place to just like pick one at random,

Listen to a guided meditation for a few minutes and see if it helps,

See how you feel afterwards.

For yoga,

Yoga is a little tougher.

Yeah.

You have to go to a yoga class.

Go to a yoga class.

Go – I take an online yoga class.

Yeah.

I think just reading a book to do the Asana practice would make the most sense.

But just to read more about yoga,

Reading Iyengar's book Light on Yoga,

Yeah,

That would be the place to start.

Awesome.

And did you – just for meditation only,

Like one where you're already into your journey,

You're far into it,

Do you have one for meditation you'd recommend?

Yeah,

I do.

I'm going to go look up the author of this particular translation because I think it's a really brilliant translation.

This is called the Tao Te Ching and this translation is by Stephen Mitchell.

It doesn't necessarily give meditation advice,

Which you probably don't need if you're an advanced practitioner,

But it is a really,

I think,

Simplified,

Beautiful and true way to understand the energy of the world.

Ooh,

I love that.

Thank you for having several different recommendations because – oh,

And I'm on Insight Timer as well,

So I'm definitely going to find you on there and listen to what you have because it's great.

Also,

Just as a side note on Insight Timer,

If you just want to do a silent meditation but you want like a cool bell,

That's also – they offer that,

So it's really cool.

Oh,

They do.

Yeah,

And then there's a social media component as well,

So you can like keep track of your friends and it'll like keep track of how many days you've meditated in a row,

Which is like really satisfying.

That is.

And what is the best advice you've ever received?

Don't take it personally.

Can you tell me more about that?

None of it.

None of it.

Don't take it personally.

If someone cuts you off in traffic,

Why would you get upset?

They didn't do that to you.

They're late.

They're late for work.

Don't take it personally.

Your boyfriend pisses you off,

Stands you up for a date,

That has nothing to do with you.

He didn't do that to you on purpose.

He did that because he had a different priority.

You can talk about that in a different conversation.

Don't take it personally.

Don't let your emotional reaction affect your relationships.

They're a message.

Don't let your emotions control how you react to other people.

And I say this very firmly because I'm saying this to myself,

Because this is something that I fail at over and over and over again.

I can see like my mom and my boyfriend nodding studiously right now.

Yep,

I haven't quite mastered that one.

But when I start from a place of like,

I'm upset about something,

And I'm going to look for blame,

And this person hurt me,

So I'm going to blame them and I'm going to take it out on them.

Like that doesn't help anyone.

But if I start from a place of my feelings are hurt,

And it really hurts,

So I know that there's a boundary I need to set here,

And I'm not quite sure what it is,

And I'm going to take some time to figure that out.

And then I'm going to tell that person what that boundary is or communicate what my experience was after I've already processed it,

Then there's actual growth,

Right?

Then that person gets to learn something about me,

I learn something about myself,

And I've given myself the space to like process that emotion so I don't just hold on to it and bring it into the next emotional scenario,

Right?

Because how often does it happen?

Where you wake up,

Maybe you haven't gotten enough sleep or whatever,

You get into your car,

You get cut off in traffic,

You go to get your coffee,

The person in front of you takes too long.

Then by the time you get to the barista,

You're impatient,

You're hurried,

You're maybe,

You know,

Not quite as kind,

You don't ask them how they're doing.

And then they take that energy with them to the next interaction of you being hurried and rushed and not in a great mood.

And it's like at some point,

It all has to stop,

Right?

And it stops when you stop taking other people's shit personally.

When you just let them have their experience,

Whatever their energy is,

And you say,

All right,

If this brings up an emotion in me,

I'm going to deal with that myself.

But for the most part,

I'm just going to let their life be their life.

And I'm going to stay in my bliss.

I'm going to do whatever work I have to do to stay in my bliss.

Oh,

So good,

Morgan.

I love that.

Oh,

That was good.

Okay,

Last question.

What does it mean to you to be teaching people how to heal themselves?

Yeah,

That's a good way to put that question because truly,

All healing is self-healing.

The work that I do,

I'm administering touch and body work and energy work,

But it's really their body and their spirit and their mind and that integration that's doing all of the work.

I'm really facilitating it.

So I guess that's what it means to me.

It means that I get to facilitate someone who is dedicated,

Who has made the commitment and has the energy to say,

I'm done suffering.

I'm going to find a better way,

Whether that's having a new relationship to their chronic pain.

I work with cancer patients and pain is going to be a part of their life no matter what.

So it's just developing that new relationship to it where we really see the healing versus someone who's grieving a lost widow or a lost widow,

Someone who's just been widowed,

Who that pain is going to be a part of their life.

They have to figure out how to process that grief and that's what I help them do.

So it's really liberating people from the emotions that they may have a hard time processing,

Teaching them how to do that so that they can continue to find and serve their purpose,

Which is always going to be rooted in compassion and service to others.

Hmm.

Beautifully said.

I actually do have one more question that was in your little fun facts that you shared with me.

Yeah.

So you said that you were in an elite all-girls boarding school and you were a Jeopardy question.

Can you share what the question was?

Okay.

I don't know if I can remember the exact question or what the answer was,

But what happened was – I'm laughing about this.

This was actually really terrible.

There were several murders on campus in the 70s.

One of them became famous because the headmistress murdered her husband on campus.

Yeah.

There was actually a story,

A movie that was released with Annette Bening.

But then I think the Jeopardy question was something like,

What school in Virginia is best known for their murdering headmistress or something like that.

Like there was a moment where it was really an indesight guy.

And the answer was the Madeira School.

That's where I went,

The Madeira School and was playing Virginia.

Yeah.

A lot of crazy stuff has happened there,

Man.

Boarding schools are crazy.

Oh,

My gosh.

I was not expecting that answer at all.

That's insane.

Woo.

Yeah.

That's quite the story there.

Now I'm really intrigued and I want to look up the school more and learn more about it.

That is fascinating.

You should.

Yeah.

I think it's one of the murders.

Yeah.

A lot of famous people have gone there.

It's a really fascinating place in which you'd write a book on that history.

Maybe I will.

Oh,

Maybe you will.

Maybe it's.

.

.

Yeah.

That's awesome.

Well,

Morgan,

Thank you so much for your time today.

I loved this conversation with you.

I just learned so much from you.

I just enjoyed your energy.

Just when you would like your laughter through your stories and talking and I don't know,

I just loved your energy and what you had to share with us today.

Thank you so much.

It was truly my pleasure.

I really appreciate your time.

Thank you for your questions.

Well,

You guys,

I hope that you enjoyed this episode,

That you learned something new.

Maybe there's a book you want to check out or maybe you want to follow Morgan and check out her 30 Days of Self-Care.

Thank you so much for spending this time with us.

I hope you have a phenomenal day and remember,

If you have a few extra minutes,

I would love you to go and leave me a review.

I'd really appreciate it and thank you so much in advance.

And I will talk to you next Tuesday.

Bye.

Thanks for listening to today's episode.

Remember,

You're welcome to download,

Share,

And subscribe.

As always,

You can connect with me through Instagram at BeautifullyChanged or through my blog at BeautifullyChanged.

Com.

I'm sending so much love and positivity your way.

Remember,

You are enough,

The world needs you,

And you make a positive difference.

Now go out there and create your best life.

Bye.