Permission to Heal

Permission to Heal Episode #64 - A Conversation with Phoebe Leona about Healing Through Movement

March 23, 2022 Marci Brockmann Season 2 Episode 64
Permission to Heal
Permission to Heal Episode #64 - A Conversation with Phoebe Leona about Healing Through Movement
Show Notes Transcript

Phoebe Leona Miller - Emotional Recovery and Embodiment

Storyteller. Author. Dancer. Mover. Teacher. Mentor. Public Speaker

Phoebe's mission is to empower people through movement & storytelling to fully embody their bodies, stories, and lives to co-create a world that is radiant from the inside out.  Phoebe is a dancer, yoga teacher, and transformational guide who helps men & women feel more embodied through somatic movement and expanded awareness practices to become more empowered in who they are, who they are becoming, and have a greater sense of belonging. 

She has been a teacher and guide for most of her life, but it was after a year of extreme loss in 2013 when she found herself in the vast open space in between her old life and a new life, that she dove deeply into her practices and began her company, nOMad to help others through their own transitions and spaces in between. 

 Throughout that time, Phoebe also developed her own movement/somatic practice, Mvt109™ for students to fully embrace the freedom of moving in their bodies, transform old and held patterns, and reclaim the vibrations & stories they want to bring to life.

Connect with Phoebe
Her website The nOMad Collective, Instagram, nOMad on YouTube, Phoebe Leona on YouTube, Facebook
Her NEW book - Dear Radiant One: An Emotional Recovery Story and Transformational Guide to Embody the Dance of Life   Buy on Amazon.
Her first book - Caged No More
Her TEDx Talk

Connect with Marci

Permission to Heal Bookshop - Buy books from the episodes & support independent bookstores.

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PTH 64 Phoebe Leona Miller Episode 
 

I've always used the vocabulary of yoga. Even though I'm teaching poses, I've always taught it from this place of what you're doing on the mat is what you do in your life. So it is a practice, not just for these things that we call yoga poses, but really for what you want. Who you are in life. 

Hello everyone. And welcome to permission to heal. I am Marci Brockman, and I am thrilled. That you are here today. Today, I am talking to Phoebe Leona Miller. She is a dancer, a yoga teacher, and a transformational guide. She helps us feel more empowered and more embodied through somatic movement and expanded awareness practices moving our bodies to give us a greater sense of who we are becoming and a greater sense of belonging to ourselves and in our communities. She has an amazing TEDx talk that is linked in the show notes where she combines. Dance and storytelling. It's, it's really mesmerizing to watch. 

She has authored a chapter and a multi authored book called Caged No More. And she has her own book coming out in the spring inches, a few short weeks. We just had a really lovely conversation about all of this dancing, moving. Embodiment healing ourselves, listening to the myriad of ways our bodies are talking to us all the time. 

And I hope you are inspired to get up and dance.

pTH 64 Phoebe Leona Miller Episode 
 

[00:00:00] Good morning, Phoebe. How are you today?  

[00:00:03] I'm doing fabulous here today. Thank you, Marci.  

[00:00:06] Excellent. Excellent. I'm so excited that you're here. I, I watched your Ted talk with all the dancing and the movement and I I've never seen a Ted talk like that and I was definitely have to talk to this woman that's it was very cool. 

[00:00:21] Very cool. So, so tell us about yourself. You know, who you are, what you do and what your, what brings your life meaning.  

[00:00:31] Yeah, well, I'll start at the TEDx because that, that shares a lot of who I am. I, I have always been a dancer. And so what you were speaking of in my TEDx, I do dance, but I do tell, share my story. 

[00:00:46] And when I. I felt when I was invited to, to present the TEDx and my friend who nominated me, knew my story and said, you have to, you have to share it in this platform. And I was really nervous. And I thought, even though I'm a teacher and I'm in front of people speaking all the time, There's there's the content that I'm teaching versus who I am. 

[00:01:10] Right. And really being vulnerable and sharing my story. So that is what came to be was basically I know how to dance. So I'm going to first share the story through dance, and then I will, you know, step into my voice. So. Just in the, in a nutshell, I am a dancer. I am a teacher. I've been a yoga teacher for over 15 years, but previous to that, it was also teaching dance while I was performing professionally. 

[00:01:39] Those are kind of the titles that I am in terms of. My career. I've also run my own business for over seven years. I am a daughter, a granddaughter, a dear friend. I was married, so I was a wife. But I've been basically single for the last nine years. And the story that I share in the TEDx has a lot to do with who I am right now. 

[00:02:04] This journey of my relationship with my father. And when he passed away nine years ago the journey of healing that it, it really, it was the trajectory to, you know, what I needed to do to get here. He passed away in January of 2013. And then I went through a divorce very suddenly, just two months later to a man that I had been with for 15 years. 

[00:02:30] And so those two like the crumbling of these two relationships really did kind of spin me into this whole inner healing journey. And so I am healing and I'm also a healer through. So  

[00:02:44] that's very quick. We have a, a bit in common with that. You know, my mother died in October of 2013 and it was her death. That was really the catalyst for me as well for a whole lot of healing and personal change and personal growth. And really let me see how much the toxic relationship that ours had become. Was enveloping my entire life. And when I was free of that, and I knew she was free of that the whole evolution or revolution of everything happened. And yeah, it's, it's pretty intense when a parent dies like that.  

[00:03:30] Yeah, and I listened a little bit to your podcast and I, you spoke about how your mom was bipolar and also self medicated. And my father too, he was bipolar. He self medicated. He was also a Vietnam vet. So he had done two tours of Vietnam and had severe PTSD, which we didn't have that term in the eighties. You know, he just went to the VA. They said, oh, you have a shell shock. Here's a drug to take, you know while he was also self medicating with his own special cocktail and not by and not diagnosed as bipolar. So there, it was a very traumatic childhood that I went through. And I feel that it's probably similar to what you went through. 

[00:04:12] Let's see. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It changes. It is. Causes the child of that kind of a parent to. Really sort of squeeze themselves into other boxes to try to mitigate the parents' pain or volatility or unpredictability or whatever. So I'm sure you grew up with a whole host of the people pleasing, not trusting your insides and outsides stuff that I did as well. 

[00:04:44] Yeah. I have a book that's coming out this spring that is basically unfolding that whole. Part of my life and how it was, if it manifested into the marriage that I chose to be in and, and, and then got deconstruction, like I said, after my father died and I went through the divorce, but yes, to answer your question. Yes. I definitely felt that, you know, I. I was a very intuitive child. I was very in touch with you know, what he was going through, even though we didn't have the words, I always say it always felt his emotions. And, and when they changed, right, when they change on a dime whether it was something from, you know, being bipolar or really just the flashbacks. 

[00:05:27] So he went into flashbacks and I went into the flashback with him. And that really challenged my own intuition because there was a period of time as a child where I really thought that I was creating this because I sensed it. We didn't have words for it. We didn't have somebody, you know, basically coming and saying to you, oh, this is what's happening right now. 

[00:05:50] And so when I was feeling his anger, his rage, and then all of a sudden I saw it happen. I felt like there was a responsibility. That I had that it was my rage. It was my anger. And somehow I was manifesting this scenario where he was abusing, you know, my mom or his girlfriend. And so it would  

[00:06:11] that do to you, what were you thinking inside where you filled with guilt, where you filled with, with an overinflated or inappropriate sense of responsibility and how did that manifest. 

[00:06:22] Yes, the whole of it. I felt, yeah. I ha first of all, I had that responsibility to, to stay with him. You know, my parents divorced when I was seven or eight and I lived with my father. So he was my primary caretaker until. 15. And I, and there were so many times, especially when he was in that down phase where I was his only family and he was crying on my lap and I was caretaking him. 

[00:06:52] So when I, oh  

[00:06:53] my God. And I, and I just truly felt. I can't leave him. Right. I can't leave him. I'm his only family. And so when it just got really bad that I needed to make that choice for myself to step away. And I went and lived with my grandmother for a period of time. Then I moved in with my mom. I did, I felt there was a lot of shame and guilt around that, but then. 

[00:07:19] To go back to the flashbacks in the, in the inexplicable emotions that I had been, you know, thought I was feeling, but they were really his I had a lot of shame and guilt around that too, because I thought it was crazy. You know, I thought, oh my gosh, I'm creating this. So there were many, many different layers of shame and guilt and, and confusion and, and all of that experience being with him. 

[00:07:46] Did you, did you try therapy? How did you unpack that as you grew up did was your mother and your grandmother helpful?  

[00:07:54] Yeah. I, I, my, my parents separated, I did go to a therapist and then when I stepped away from, you know, living with my father, I went to therapy again, maybe once or twice. I, I think I had two different therapists. 

[00:08:08] So I was in and out of therapy throughout my childhood, but I was also very intelligent in that. I knew, I couldn't say certain things. Like I knew what I could say that was safe, though. It's going to help and, you know, let me progress as in a, an adult into like adulthood or, you know, puberty or whatever. 

[00:08:26] But I also knew there were certain things that it just wouldn't be safe to share these things. So I was very protective and I probably didn't grow to the extent that I could have at that time, because there just wasn't as. I didn't feel. Did  

[00:08:40] you feel like it was a betrayal of your father to tell the therapist certain. 

[00:08:45] Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And so you know, I went, I, and yeah, there were times where the school counselor calls, because there had been a report of abuse to me, and I said, no, you don't know that you misunderstood, but that person told you or whatever. So there was a lot of just kind of covering things up and, and being very protective of him. 

[00:09:08] So. It really wasn't until, you know, I, I, to fast forward to college, I, I went to college for dance and I repeated a pattern that they didn't really know. And actually I was listening to one of your previous guests, I think was Erica. And she was talking about this template, that of herself, of how, and then how she recreated it and, or kind of. 

[00:09:31] What the other direction and that she was changing her whole template of who she was. And that's what I was doing as well. You know, I married this man who in a lot of ways was different and I thought, oh, I'm going to be, you know, find stability. But really I created recreated the same pattern. He was ended up being bipolar and not as stable as I thought emotionally. 

[00:09:54] And so it really came to light, as I said, like through. My, the death of my father, but then the divorce was. That he basically said to me, I have to free you because I know how loyal you are and what you did. And he was starting to put the pieces together through our marriage because I didn't to share a lot with him about the relationship I had with my dad. 

[00:10:19] He just knew he wasn't in my life anymore. For a period of time. And you know, he basically said, I know who you are, you you're going to stay until like the death of us. I need to for you so that, you know, I can do anything and you can continue on and do. And he'll essentially, cause he saw that I was just continuing this pattern,  

[00:10:42] of, of being cause I, I got married to a man. 

[00:10:46] My first husband was like the male version of my mom. He's not bipolar, but had a lot of the same personality characteristics. So it w I was trying, I think in some way I was unconsciously trying to work on. My relationship with my mother through my husband and I divorced him quite a few years before my mother passed on.  

[00:11:10] But, but we really weren't close. We weren't talking. I was had. Really sort of ex-communicated heart from our lives because of how toxic and her addiction was just off the charts. And I couldn't let that near my children, but yeah, my ex-husband wouldn't have been the one to throw in the towel. He actually thanked me afterwards for seeing how unhappy we both were because he didn't know. Yeah. And, he said that I, thank you for divorcing me because I wouldn't have been able to do it. And you, you freed us both. So yeah.  

[00:11:43] Yeah. Well, you know, there is somewhat of a happy, well, there's a happy ending right now where I am in my. But even in that time, there was there was a happy ending was that my father did disappear from my life for 18 years, but he came back in 2009 and he was sober and he was rehabilitated. Been arrested and thrown into jail and basically detox there. And then they sent him to a VA. And so he was on this road to recovery for about 11 years before he entered my life again. And he reached out to me. And so we had four years where we really got to build that relationship that, you know, I always knew cause I was daddy's girl as a child. 

[00:12:29] You know, I, we got to reconnect in a, in a better way. And so I think that's where, when my ex-husband was seeing that relationship rekindled and then seeing, oh, I am this person to a certain extent that she has repeated the pattern. And when I think my father passed away, he was realizing, oh, I can't be that person anymore for her. 

[00:12:54] You know, I have to free us both. And, and it was, it was heartbreaking at the time. Devastated, especially going through the grieving of my dad and then grieving of this 15 year relationship. But I'm so grateful and I was your ex-husband where I said, thank you, you know, at the end, like I'm grateful for that timing too. 

[00:13:14] Even though it was all at the same time, my family was furious. Wow. Yeah, my family was furious. Like how dare he do this at the lowest moment in your life, but I'm actually really grateful that it, it happened the way that it did, because I really could kind of see the mirrors of both of them and, and grieve for it at the same time and really make new conscious choices to step me forward. 

[00:13:39] So yeah, burning it to the ground and rebuilding. Yeah.  

[00:13:43] Yup. The Phoenix. 

[00:13:47] Phoenix. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. So, so this whole evolution and your yoga teaching and the dancing transformed you into who you are now, which that's a beautiful thing. And so now you empower people to use movement and the sharing of their stories to. Heal themselves. Is that what you do?  

[00:14:15] Yeah, essentially. 

[00:14:16] I mean, I've always used the vocabulary of yoga. Even though, you know, I'm teaching poses, I've always taught it from this place of, of what you're doing on the mat is what you do in your life. So it is a practice, not just for, you know, the, these things that we call yoga poses, but really for what you want. 

[00:14:34] Who you are in life. But the movement in terms of the movement practice that you're referring to, I found my way about four or five years ago in the midst of all of this, this healing that I was doing, I was finding, I was a bit burnout teaching yoga. I was teaching yoga teacher trainings back to back, and it was actually a bit tired of teaching in, in moving in that way. 

[00:15:00] It's a very masculine movement and I was finding myself all of a sudden lying on the floor. Just going deep within to my breath. I was moving very organically, more in a, in a feminine way, a more receptive way. And I thought this is really healing. This is a way that I used to do when I was dancing as a child or when I was in college. 

[00:15:22] And we would, you know, Just kind of roll around in the ground and emote different emotion. And I thought we need to do this right now, and we all need to do this. We all need to drop down and start to listen to what our body's telling us because our body is constantly talking to us. And you'll get does that to a certain extent to understand these messages, but there was something even deeper in this receptive state when you're lying on the floor and you're listening to your breath, you're dropping down into your parasympathetic nervous system, your rest and digest system. 

[00:15:57] And that, around that time, it's like when the whole me too movement was happening. And, and there was a lot of talk about trauma. And I mean, I think that that's just been. I mean, that's a term that really has come to light just in the past, like 10 years or so. And, and the relation  

[00:16:15] to everybody who's been healing or has been a healer they have this recognized and all these new modalities to help people heal, or it's just revolutionary. 

[00:16:26] I mean really, probably previous to 10 years ago when I would, we would talk about trauma. It was, oh, well, did that person go to war? Because that was the only way it was associated. Right. And so now it's like, oh, this is a common, common knowledge and call it a common term that we can use. Yeah. So. 

[00:16:45] About yeah. Five or six years ago or four years. I don't know about my time anymore, especially the pandemic. I don't know  

[00:16:53] why. Yeah. The sense of time passing is just totally skewed for all of us.  

[00:16:58] Yeah. So I was moving in this way. It was very healing for myself and always being so connected to my body, realizing that not everybody is and that not everybody feels that it's safe. 

[00:17:09] Yeah. To feel safe in their body. And the more research I was doing on this and the healers, I was talking to a, I went to a healer and basically said, is this something, you know, that I can share with the world? And she said, absolutely, you need to share this. So I codafide it a bit with, you know, with my own practice, but then also my research on somatic therapy. 

[00:17:31] And, and yoga, you know, philosophy in terms of the subtle bodies and going to bringing everything together and realizing we need this right now. We need to, first of all, feel safe again in our bodies. And then also be able to trust the messages that are coming through and then start to learn how to decode them. 

[00:17:49] And a lot of what I share in my book is the journey of my own experience of, of going through different emotions, but also how it manifested in my body through urinary tract infections, through fibroids through like a long, like I was having bronchitis for chronic bronchitis for a handful of months. 

[00:18:09] And so what the, my body was telling me in terms of the bronchitis was I was going through grief, but I didn't know that I was grieving it. I had this bronchitis multiple months before my dad died, but the body knew that there was something else happening here. The UTI is, were coming out because I wasn't expressing my anger at my partner. 

[00:18:33] And it was like literally pissed off at the world. I'm so sorry.  

[00:18:39] I love the metaphor.  

[00:18:41] That, that is so true. Our body's constantly talking to us and if it, if you're not listening to the little messages that it's sharing with you, it's going to come into. Bigger, you know, dis-ease in your body, right?  

[00:18:54] It's going to keep yelling louder and louder and louder until you finally can't ignore it. 

[00:18:59] Exactly. So getting down into the body and understanding the patterns it's holding, how it's manifesting into something that feels uneasy, how can you release it? How can you use it to create something new for yourself? And so that's really what I do in this movement practice. And there's the element of storytelling that we're just starting to add the layer in with my new program. 

[00:19:23] Where it's basically people are understanding deep unpacking their emotions, but then also going through this writing journey of writing their own story. Yeah. Feeling more empowered in how they want to see not only their past, but their future.  

[00:19:40] That's cool. Yeah, you can't step forward until you've sort of reconciled, at least in my experience until you've sort of reconciled and made peace with the past in, so you're not bringing all of that forward and you can move forward without the same toxic templates that you had before the same habits, the same emotion. Baggage for lack of a better term. So, so you, so I hear this, this word. somatics being used quite a bit, and I think I'm misinterpreting it. How would you define somatics?  

[00:20:18] So just, we can think of it simply of the body. So somatic. Listening to your body. So we have this word, somatic therapy. And so we have talk therapy, right? So we sit and we talk with a therapist and we tell them what's going on in our lives. And then the therapist mirrors back. You know what you're saying, or asking you questions. It's essentially what, you're the same thing, but it's about the body. So when I sit and I talk to somebody, I can listen to how their, their relationship to their body. 

[00:20:47] Right. We can first look at it on that level of, you know, feeling shameful about our body and, you know, not feeling like we can share our body with other people or whatever, but we really looking at how we, first of all, experience at the sensations that are in the body, we can look at that, but then we can also look at the language that we're choosing. 

[00:21:07] Speak about that. So instead of saying, my knee is painful, I might sit with you and say, okay, well, can you tell me a little bit more about what this pain is you're experiencing? Because pain is a very general statement, right? But then you're to say that it's a sharp, you know, daggering pain. And it lasts when it happens when I do this. 

[00:21:26] Right. And you start to talk about those scenarios and then we might start to unpack a bit more. Of that scenario, that, where it creates pain. There's some other story that's happening there, right? Like every so there's, there's a lot more going on in our body that we done. Realize. And so when we can start to lean in and listen to the body, that's what the somatic is, is just of the body. 

[00:21:51] And we can look at all these different layers, right. How we're experiencing it, but then also how are, what is our relationship to it when we speak of it with others or with ourselves really?  

[00:22:03] It's very beautiful. Affirm a newly converted firm believer in the mind body connection. I've had quite a few guests on the podcast talking about in different ways, talking about that same thing. 

[00:22:18] And for most of my life, I've sort of felt like my body was just like transportation for my brain, you know? Yeah. So like, I really want. In my body, I've never been athletic. I do know that for the small windows of time where I was trying to develop a physical fitness or a workout regimen or trying to create the habit of, of movement that I know my body felt better. That I had more energy. I was more clear. I wasn't getting sick as much. I, you know, I didn't have injuries. I felt stronger physically, which meant that I was stronger mentally, but I've always had trouble maintaining the consistency of that. And so I would just habitually revert back to the body as a car for your brain. And it sounds crazy when I say it out loud, but in my head make sense. 

[00:23:22] So many people, so many people think like that, and yeah, you're not crazy. I mean, you are in a sense because we, we aren't that we're so much more, but that is what you're speaking to. Is the norm. Most people do they think that it's just their transportation for their head, right? Their mind.  

[00:23:41] Yeah. And I've had like chronic back back injuries. I have most people when they get to a certain age, I guess, you know, things wear and tear. So I've have like a herniated L four into L five. And until I learned how to fix that on my own. I, I kept having these repeated back injuries, you know, and I'd try massage and I would try acupuncture, which always worked to help alleviate the intensity of the acute pain, but it kept happening until I figured out that what I have to do is, is strengthen the muscles in my torso and in my back and my, my core. 

[00:24:22] To stabilize the spine that has trouble stabilizing itself, basically. So, so some yoga and mostly Pilates has revolutionized completely changed the way my back injury presents. But as I was listening to you talk, I was thinking about, you know, you were saying you had like recurring bronchitis. At least three times a year, have an upper respiratory infection that I've always sort of blamed on my asthma and the fact that I'm a teacher and a public school teacher when it might as well just be teaching in the middle of a Petri dish, you know? 

[00:24:58] I don't know the answer cause I'm first asking the question right now, but I wonder if there is some sort of psychological, emotional connection to the recurring recurring upper respiratory infections. I don't know. I  

[00:25:14] definitely, yeah. Well, there's a book that I absolutely love. 

[00:25:18] Actually. I have it right here. I'll show it to you. This is the little kind of what would you call it? Like the little, I would say from. Like a better term Bible where it has the resource of everything, but the actual book is called Heal Your Life, but it's by Louise hay and this one's Heal Your Body. 

[00:25:34] This is just basically the, the diagnosis of everything, but it shows you the metaphysical connection to body, you know what what's happening in your body? What's the what's else. What else is happening in the other layers? So you know, I would definitely. Say you could look at something like that. 

[00:25:54] There are other resources out there too, but really what I have found is that you are your best teacher. So to look at what, when is it happening? Is it happening multiple times a day? I mean, multiple times a year. Like, is it the same time of year? So for me, I was having a hip injury when I was dancing. I had this horrible, torn labrum which is inside of your hip. 

[00:26:20] To a point where when, before it was 30, I could barely stand up and it would look like that. Like evolution of ban, you know, like starting from the eight all hunched over. And it would take me like five steps until I looked like a regular human being. And I was performing at the time, but somehow, you know, I would go from that place to performing and it would happen every October that it would re like it was. resurge like it would just happen again out of nowhere. Well, I did a little bit of my own, my own inquiry, and it was a high, that was a traumatic period in my life. Like October was always a hard time in my life. A couple of things happened in my childhood and what I was realizing was really hard for me to step forward in the choices that I would them. 

[00:27:12] And so. Whenever that was coming up again. It always happened to be around October. There was the transition of, you know, summer into fall. There was just a lot of layers that I unpacked, but what I realized was that you can't even really put it into words, but I had. Realized that for myself, that I was having a hard time stepping, making choices to step forward in life. 

[00:27:34] And that the things that I knew that I needed to let go of, I needed to let them go. And as soon as I, I realized that it never came back. So I, and I never had surgery. I was supposed to have surgery, you know, many years ago. I'm 44. Now I walked by and I have absolutely no pain. But I had made these choices And I have not. 

[00:27:56] And I've, and of course I do pull, I was a Pilates teacher and a yoga teacher too. So I had all these resources to take care of my body, but I really truly believe it was the choices, the realization that I made in my body. And I made new choices in my life. To reflect that so back and forth. So, yeah.  

[00:28:15] Yeah. 
 

[00:28:15] So many people are afraid to make those kinds of choices. You know, they feel comfortable in the surroundings that they're in or they just don't don't have the, they don't think they have the bandwidth to move forward. What, what kind of advice do you have for people who are kind of just too afraid to move or don't realize how stuck they are? 

[00:28:37] Moving their body or move in their life for both  

[00:28:39] kind of both. I think it's, aren't we saying that they're inextricable that they're the same.  

[00:28:46] Yeah. I would just first start with the body. I would just first start make friends with your body, lay on the floor, roll around a little bit. Take a yoga class or do something that brings you joy. Salsa class or, or, you know, or if it is lifting weights or Zoomba class, something do something that brings you joy. And like what you said, you, you know, you kind of go into these regiments and then you realize, oh, this is really hard. And then you go backwards, but really do it with no expectation. And when we go into with no expectation, we start to see those. 

[00:29:20] Those unexplainable shifts, those magical shifts where, because we don't have the right age and right. Like I'm going to lose 20 pounds or I'm going to do this to get rid of, you know, whatever symptom I'm having. Like just go in it to explore yourself, to be curious. And what I find is when I, when I do this from a place of non expectation and when in my clients and my students as well, they feel more empowered in their life. Like. Oh, I could have, I did this with my body. Oh, I could make these little changes in my life. Right. And they don't have to be these big, huge waves. They can just be little steps. And these little steps in our life will make the big waves for, you know, our whole experience of our life.  

[00:30:07] Well, =that makes sense. 

[00:30:07] It makes so much sense. cause I remember in my, in my path, like in my twenties when I would, I, you know, I joined a gym and my goal was I was going to go every single day and I was going to, I didn't know then about like leg day or arm day or cardio day, like I had no idea. And so I would go in there and do full body every single time. And it's no wonder that I could only keep that up for, it was like six or eight months and I was in really great. But it was exhausting, you know, like I was asking too much of the whole thing and still not really connected. I can't say that that affected me at all emotionally or gave me any tools to navigate my life. 

[00:30:56] I just, I think it was, it was just too ferocious, you know? Yeah. This time around. I mean, there've been many iterations of this in between, but I mean, I used mat Pilates when I was getting divorced. And I sort of didn't know, I was just sort of trying to control something that I, in a world that I couldn't control anything and I was sort of aware of that, you know, everything was going haywire, but I could control what I eat and I could control exercise. 

[00:31:29] And so every single night I was doing that Pilates in the privacy of I had moved out of the master bedroom into the guest room. So I was doing it on the floor. It was cramped little space, but it really helped me ground, ground, myself. You know, balance myself in, in a very chaotic situation in my life. 

[00:31:48] But now I just decided that. I've always wanted to try reformer Pilates on a reformer. You know, I'd never done that before. And then there was a school, a pilot school, not so far from here who was introductory class for free. And I'm like, okay, I'm going to go. And I, like you said, no expectation. I didn't say I was going to go and lose weight. 

[00:32:09] I didn't say that I was going to go six times a week. I just said, let's go to this one class and see how we feel. And one, one hour free class, I was suddenly walking by. And I thought, well, that's the most basic thing on the planet. You know, I'm not walking like an 80 year old woman anymore, one class and I was walking more fluidly than I had in years. And so I used that as the impetus, let's continue this just to keep walking better. And it's been great now I'm going three times a week. I have it scheduled into my life when it's convenient for me. I just I'm in love with the whole. Totally follow.  

[00:32:50] I was smiling through that whole, like, but you were just speaking to because I don't know if you know this, but Joseph the creator of Pilates originally wanted to call it control ology. 

[00:33:04] Yes. And so it didn't stick obviously, but it was this idea. I mean, I was just seeing you in this chaotic time of your life and okay. I have this one thing I control and that's what I think a lot of people find in terms of to yoga or Pilates or something physical is I can do this with my body, right. 

[00:33:24] When they're going through such a chaotic time, it's like this one thing I can control. I can make this choice with my body, right. Weather, or maybe it's food. Right. And so you found that you intuitively found your way to, where can I have some sort of strength and empowerment and control over my life? So you intuitively found that and I love that you intuitively found quote, unquote control ology. 

[00:33:48] Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, to speak to what you were saying earlier, too, about the doing, and like you went full force with this huge expectation and doing it like full body workouts, that's really. The masculine way that we do everything in the, in the Western world. Right. We have to go, we it's like go a hundred hundred bigger, go home. 

[00:34:11] I go bigger, go home, do 150%, or it's not worth it. Like, but when we move from that do to be, and that's really where we are right with that. No expectation of just doing it from a place of pure enjoyment. I love that. I'm going to write that down. Feminine more receptive place. And I think that that's really where this, this huge paradigm shift that's happening right now is moving from that doing to being, and that's where we're going to find the healing and all of the trauma, right. 

[00:34:44] Is that we don't have to, oh, I'm so guilty of this too. It's like, I want to heal. I'm going to heal really like 150%. I've never repeating this pattern ever again. And it was almost like things to do that I had to check off the list. Right. There's been this huge shift. I think really during the pandemic where, for me, it was, it was traveling a lot. 

[00:35:08] Like I needed to travel and see the world and, you know, kind of break out of these patterns that I was doing before. And when I couldn't run away with the traveling and I was just grounded and I've been very close with my grandmother. I've been living in a, I lived with her for the first five months of the pandemic and in one place. 

[00:35:26] Yeah. There was no where to go except really be with myself. And that's when the healing really started to happen. And it wasn't because I had this agenda anymore. Up until then I felt like. Yeah, I'm good. Let me check this off. Okay. I'm going to do this and now everything should be perfect. And now where's my perfect partner. 

[00:35:48] And it was, it was, yeah, it turned into this agenda. And so the past two years has really just been a surrender and to be, and to allow whatever the healing, whatever the medicine is, will continue to show up. And sometimes it feels really good. Sometimes it's not so great. Sometimes I do have control over it. 

[00:36:07] Like you like. Take this, you know, take this on the Pilates you're doing and my own, you know, my own studying. And so there's actually so much more joy in it. And I that's, the gift that I have found is that there's just so much more joy in who I am and loving myself and in a softer, gentler way, then like, I'm going to heal. I'm going to do this.  

[00:36:31] Well, because it isn't a one and done thing. It isn't something you can bulldoze your way through and have it actually work bulldozing your way through healing. Isn't going to get you anywhere. It's just going to make you crazy. It isn't, like you said, until you relinquish control until you let go of expectation until you just. Relax yourself to a point where you're gonna allow life to sort of unfold and show you the path. That's when I finally figured out how, or finally started to figure out who I was, when I, when I let go of trying to manhandle the situation to fill your metaphor there. And just sort of see what happens in, in all of the situations to just sort of let go and just be and meditate and exist. 

[00:37:27] And, you know, for me, it's all creative art and writing and, and so on, and allows me to, to, to sort of do that, to do, to do that transformation within myself. So, but then again, that's all head stuff. That's not body stuff. So I have to incorporate, I'm learning that I have to incorporate that in, or I'm not going to make the. 

[00:37:49] Yeah.  
 

[00:37:49] And you are through the Pilates. You know that that's your tabulary right now is that you get on the reform every day and you're learning something new and it might be like a technique and how you're engaging your core or moving your limbs, but you're going to consciously or unconsciously apply it into your life. 

[00:38:07] Like you said, you just stood up and you were walking. Like more gracefully and that's going to translate through your life. You're going to make more graceful choices rather than, you know, having to control it.  

[00:38:19] Yeah.  
 

[00:38:19] I just figured something else out. I discovered through Pilates how flexible I am naturally. And it's really just sort of connected that I'm also. Emotionally flexible. I'm intellectually flexible. I've been able to adjust and be flexible through my life and yeah, it mirrors itself. I hadn't really made that connection before. Okay.  

[00:38:48] Yeah. I often look at that. I mean, I don't necessarily go and I see my students and tell them, oh, I know your issues, but I can see that like a really tight, like person who comes in and is extremely tight. They're usually rigid with their thoughts. They're usually rigid with their daily routine. But yes, and I'm very flexible too. It's and that can be, that can be, you know, there's good and bad in both of them, you know, when we're so flexible, we don't have our center. So that's beautiful that you're finding your way to Pilates, where you're building your core strength. So you can, you can be firm, you can be flexible, but then you can be firm with the things that  

[00:39:27] are and learning to create personal boundaries and maintain them.  

[00:39:31] Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Cause when we're so loosey goosey, right. It's just where to go with the flow and people pleasing, like you said, you came from, with your relationship with your mom and it's like, no, I can have this healthy boundary, but I can also see your perspective and relate to it. 

[00:39:48] Here I am. Yeah. Yeah. That's the beautiful that's you're doing it. Girl. You're finding those connections with your body and your life, how they're reflecting each other.  

[00:40:00] Because I gave myself permission to do this. That's the whole theme of this podcast. So you have, you have your company called nOMad, which I love has the OM capitalized. And through this, you teach your somatic practice. We do that with an inflection, with a question. So tell us about nOMad.  

[00:40:29] So nOMad is my baby nOMad was born out of all of the experience that I shared earlier after my dad died and went through the divorce site. I knew I wanted to create something new for myself. And because I had been teaching, I was running a yoga program in New York. And. I basically said, I want to travel more and I want to continue teaching. So it first started out as organizing yoga retreats around the world, which we still do, even in the pandemic. We had our first one back in Mexico a couple months ago. 

[00:41:02] But it's really giving people new experiences to travel around the world. But within themselves and so, yes, we have yoga classes. We have yoga teacher trainings, but I also have my movement 1 0 9 practice that we've been talking about of liberal 1 0 9 somatic practice. But I also had a podcast. I've put it on hold for a little bit of time because I've been writing my book for the past year. 

[00:41:25] And so my book will turn into something else as well. So there'll be a book as well as a program where people can come in and use the practices that I teach in the book. To explore themselves. Not only just through movement, through writing, through other practices, expanded awareness practices. So I love to create that's really what I am and the, and the gist of it is I'm a creator. 

[00:41:46] I love to create through dance, through teaching, through travel, and I. Put a lot of different experiences there for people to dive in and explore themselves. So we, the newest experience we have is our membership program, where we have live online classes with myself and a number of other guides and in the yoga teachers and movement facilitators as well as more Shamanic Healers and BodyTalk facilitator and other healing modalities. 

[00:42:14] So we have experiences there that are happening all month long in live and zoom from people around the world. And we just come together in community and share our experiences with each other. And , yeah. No Matt, in a nutshell right now, but it's always evolving. Nomad comes to me and says, let's do this project. 

[00:42:34] And I sometimes say, no, that's too much or okay, let's try it. You know, if we have the resources, let's try it.  

[00:42:41] So you also have a course when I was looking at the website called the Radiant Storyteller. That sounds interesting. What is that about?  

[00:42:49] The Radiant Storyteller. So as I said, my book will be published by grace point publishing this spring. We'll be out in, in April and when I was with them and  

[00:43:00] come back and talk about. Definitely definitely.  

[00:43:04] But when I was telling them what I wanted to do with this book, and I really wanted to use these practices for people to tell their own story, she said, well, why don't we have a PO oppress underneath race point for you to bring in storytellers to write their own story, to have their book published. 

[00:43:21] So radio storyteller. It's a program where I walked people through their emotional recovery story so that they can process it because what I was finding when I was going through writing my story was I was reliving the trauma.  

[00:43:36] Right.  

[00:43:37] And it was, and yeah, you write, you wrote your own book to. You were experiencing your trauma all over again. 

[00:43:43] Right. And it, and you're almost retraumatizing yourself. If you don't have the resources to take care of yourself or a good therapist that you, you know, speak with. So I, I decided that I can use the resources that I used in my book. Other people, just their own story to get them to a place that they feel okay, it's time to write it right. 

[00:44:06] Or maybe even work through the writing process in using radiant storyteller. So it's a seven month program. We already launched it, but we'll do another group later on this year for people who are ready to step into their storytelling. And this could be writing their book and getting published with the nOMad press. 

[00:44:25] It could also just be Stepping into a TEDx or Ted talk or whatever, whatever avenue that they want to tell their story doesn't have to be with us. But if they're just interested in unpacking their story and knowing that it needs to be told in some way or in some platform, we'll, I'll also mentor them because I've had experience in, in lots of different platforms. 

[00:44:45] So I will also mentor them through that piece as well as the emotional piece.  

[00:44:50] That's very cool. I've been toying with the idea of. Of doing a TEDx talk myself, but I can't sort of narrow down what exactly what I want to say. Like I keep it, it's still a morphous. The universe hasn't told me what it is going to be yet. So I'm still waiting, trying to manifest that.  

[00:45:12] You'll find it and trust it, and that opportunity will land on your lap as soon as you decide. Right?  

[00:45:18] Exactly. I'm still trying to figure out what's going on. I just applied to graduate school again, cause I decided this epiphany December 1st, I woke up and I said, I think my next job, I'm going to be a therapy. 

[00:45:34] Okay.  
 

[00:45:34] I rolled over and I just woke up in the morning and I, my husband looked at me and I said, this is what I want to do. And I figured if he was going to be like, what are you freaking crazy? You're going to be 54 in may. And you're going to go back to school again for a third. Master's are you insane? 

[00:45:52] But instead he was like, I can see you doing. I think you should. And, and every person I told had the same response, well, this is really what you're doing already, you know, you might as well, you know, so yeah. I'm waiting to hear, I applied to a bunch of schools and we'll see, I don't know how I'm going to fit it all in, but I will it's somehow or another, that's creating another, like act three after teaching is over. I have a few more years teaching and then I'll step into something else.  

[00:46:23] Beautiful. I love it. I'm excited for you too. That's very cool.  

[00:46:28] So let's end the podcast with the seven quick questions. Okay. So what six words would you use to describe your.  

[00:46:41] Ooh, what, six words to dynamic creative. I am a dancer. I don't know if I can say I am a dancer, but so those are my three so far. I am hopeful. I am trusting and I'm loving. So those are the ones that amen. I'm sure there are many others, but yes, those are the ones that came through.  

[00:47:08] Excellent. What is your favorite way to spend the day?  

[00:47:11] My favorite way to spend the day. Um, do we have a like scenario in terms of time of year? 

[00:47:18] No, it doesn't matter.  

[00:47:20] Well, right now it's winter time and I there's snow outside. So my favorite way to spend these days is bundled up with tea as a good book. But if it were stuck time, I'd be out there hiking or, you know, doing something outside. Or we're also being with my family and stuff. Yeah,  

[00:47:41] that's great. Well, I think one of my most favorite things is to lay in bed all cozy with a book and read. And even if I only got to do it for 15 minutes it would just, that's my happy place. 12 months a year. It doesn't matter. Like it's like a vacation to me to be in my little cozy spot to have a book. Some, most of the time it's like on my Kindle app on my phone. So I don't have to worry about turning pages and stuff. And I could just be totally calm. I love that, but if I could do that and then. Have somebody else prepare a beautiful meal for me and clean it up. So I don't have to do any of the labor, but be able to share that meal with friends, with family, with my, you know, and, and be in community with people. I love, you know, that. Absolutely.  

[00:48:30] Yes. If we're, if we're putting a perfect scenario. Yes, definitely is people would be cooking for me. I would never have to worry about food because that's one thing that I lack is sometimes I just. I feel like I get so involved in what I'm doing, whether it is reading or working or, or creating something new. And then I realize, oh, I haven't eaten like in seven hours or whatever. So I would love for somebody to be involved in cooking for me. And also I have to add in dance breaks, dance breaks through, in any part of that, that scenario they have  

[00:49:04] somehow, I don't know how I got it on my iPhone, on my apple watch. Part of the eye health thing. I don't know, but every once in a while, my, my apple watch will say, okay, it's time to stand up now. And I'm like, okay. Yes, I have to move. I haven't moved. I've been painting or I've been writing or whatever. I've just been sedentary for too long. And so my watch will remind me. 

[00:49:30] It's silly that I need a reminder. I'm like, all right, I'm going to get up. And even if it's just walking around the house, at least I'm moving  

[00:49:38] Put on a song, do a little dance.  

[00:49:40] Yeah. Yeah, I should. Yeah, I should. Yeah. Okay. What is your favorite childhood memory?  

[00:49:47] Favorite childhood memory. Oh, my. I think, you know, I have so many, I'm so fortunate, even though we spoke about traumatic childhood, I have so many positive childhood memories. I think my whole family would agree with this. My favorite childhood memory is putting on dance shows for my family after dinner.  

[00:50:10] If that makes sense.  

[00:50:12] Yes. I was the center of attention. I was the only child. And so whenever I got attention, that was like, oh yeah. So that was like my allotted time to get attention. 

[00:50:25] Yeah, that's awesome. I remember. When I was young, when I was a little girl, I would like elementary school age. I would go down into the finished basement by myself. I would never do it in front of other people. And I'd put on whatever music. I was listening to, and I would dance around and in my head I was the prima ballerina or I was Martha Graham or whatever. And I know I was just klutzy ten-year-old from the outside probably looked nothing like it felt on the inside and who the hell cares, but,  

[00:51:01] Yeah, I probably was that clunky kid, even so, and I was just let's do it. Show everybody  

[00:51:11] my niece does that. She dances all the time. There is no sitting still. There is no standing still, if she's awake, she's dancing around. Yeah. Awesome. Okay. What's your favorite?  

[00:51:26] My favorite meal. I think this changes a lot, but currently fish tacos. 

[00:51:32] I love fish tacos,  

[00:51:34] like different types. We're not just like one specific fish taco. I like Getty kind of fish taco.  

[00:51:39] Yeah. Nice. Yeah. I love them. Uh, okay. Well, number five, what one piece of advice would you like to give your younger self?  

[00:51:48] One piece of advice I'd like to give my younger self is Relax. Just breathe. Have more fun. Don't take yourself seriously. Good one. Yeah, we all use that. Yeah.  

[00:52:04] What is one thing you would most like to change about? 

[00:52:10] There's so much right now. I think that just overall, what your podcast is doing is, is that is giving permission to heal. We all need to heal whatever it is. All of our, all of our various traumas it's time for us to heal  

[00:52:25] it is time. And then one that I just added for this season. What TV shows are you currently bingeing? 

[00:52:32] Oh, what TV show? Um, oh gosh. I just, well, I'm in the middle of binging with my grandmother. We're watching Firefly lane. But then I was just bingeing something else. This is oh, Ted lasso.  

[00:52:44] Oh my God. Yes. Hi, everybody is talking about Ted lasso. It is amazing.  

[00:52:53] Yeah. And you know, I didn't, I didn't get on the bandwagon until just recently, which I'm grateful for because then I could binge to  

[00:53:01] us too. Absolutely. I heard. Brene Brown on Unlocking Us was I was interviewing a variety of the actors and actresses from past and, and, and how she had been watching it with her family and so on. And I came home and I said to my husband, we're watching Ted lasso. And it's about the soccer coach. And he's like, you don't like soccer. I'm like, but it's not really about soccer, not about football. And so we put it on. And from the first episode we were hooked, I've never seen both. I mean both seasons, all the episodes, at least four times now, I just, it's so uplifting and so positive and multilayered and emotionally intelligent. And I, oh my God. It's like, it's like, I don't know. What does he say it's like falling out of the lucky tree and landing in a pile of money and gummy bears or something. I just.  

[00:53:59] Well, I'm laughing because that's why I chose to watch it too. Was the Brene Brown episode, um, when she was talking with the guests and or with the actors. But I will also, the reason why I love it so much is the accountability, how everybody holds themselves accountable. I think that we lack that right now in our world.  

[00:54:20] We do. Yeah. Yeah.  

[00:54:22] There's a lot of, you know, just pointing fingers. And so that's, if I could add one more thing for our world is the accountability piece, because that show demonstrates it so well of how to hold yourself accountable with such integrity. Yeah.  

[00:54:35] And even Rebecca and Keeley talk about that, you know, is there any accountability and that's why she breaks up with Jamie because he can't be accountable. 

[00:54:44] Yeah, exactly. Amazing. I love that show. 

[00:54:48] And then that scene where, where, oh my God, I just love it. Where, where Keely and Roy go on a double date with Rebecca and that guy she was seeing and Kelly's like, yeah, he's fine. He's nice. You know, it's okay. And Roy was just like, fuck, no, don't he doesn't, he's not good enough for you. You know, he doesn't light you up, you know, I forget exactly what he said, but I was just like, yes, that's exactly it. Every woman needs to hear that. Just watch that scene.  

[00:55:23] Well, and that scene, and then the scene after, when she is sitting and having coffee with this fine guy, that's quote unquote fine. And she has this revelation, right? She has this own revelation of loving herself. And I actually wrote down the whole quote because I was like, oh, we need to, we all need to hear this.  

[00:55:42] Absolutely amazing. So good. Everybody's talking about it's so, so great. And we have to wait until what September for another season, but all right.  

[00:55:57] All right.  

[00:55:57] We'll live. I'll live. That's good. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for being here, Phoebe. This was just so great. I'm really excited to share this episode with the permission to heal community and thank you so much for doing the work that you're doing and being the light and healing for so many people. 

[00:56:16] Thank you so much. It's such a pleasure to be with you, Marcy. And I just, yeah, I love that. You're giving people permission to heal. We need that right now. So thank you for doing your work in the world.  

[00:56:28] Thank you so much.