#63 Cathy Woods: The Practical Applications of Yoga

Intro: 0:02

Welcome to Creative spirits unleashed, where we talk about the dilemmas of balancing work and life. And now, here's your host, Lynn Carnes.

Lynn: 0:20

Welcome to the creative spirits unleashed Podcast. I'm Lynn Carnes, your host. My guest this week is Cathy woods, of Cathy Woods yoga. Have you ever thought of the practical applications of yoga? I have to say I probably hadn't as much as I have now after our conversation. The truth is this conversation was a masterclass in life. Midship Yes, we talked about yoga, we talked about how she teaches yoga, we talked about some of the principles that matter to Kathy and yoga,but what we really talked about was life and some of the deeper life principles that can help all of us have a better time here on Earth. So who is Cathy woods? Well, here's how she describes herself in her bio.She's a pioneer in equestrian wellness, who combines mindfulness, yoga and horsemanship to improve and enrich horsemanship, from ground to saddle through the use of yogic principles. through a variety of enrichment programs,Kathy shares how to become a more skilled human being thus better for our equine partners,teaching participants to deepen their relationship and connection with themselves,their horses, and the world around them. There is so much more to Cathy than just meets the eye and I'm looking forward to you hearing this conversation with Cathy woods of Cathy Woods yoga. At the words, welcome to the podcast. Hi, Lynn. Thank

Cathy: 1:54

you, and thank you for having me.

Lynn: 1:58

I am excited about this conversation, because you and I got to be together in June, at your trail ride retreat at Tryon Equestrian Center. And yeah, it was a it was like a yoga trail riders retreat, and one of the most fun days and memorable days I've had in a long time. So, so glad, yeah, I was fine. One of the things you talked about in that program, were the linkages between the principles of horsemanship and the principles of yoga. And I'm in the business of helping leaders become better leaders. And I think about principles a lot. Yeah. What was interesting is I looked at your principles, and I realized, you know, the principles of yoga,the principles of horsemanship,the principles of leadership,there are so many parallels to how those work, how have you developed your sensibilities around finding the principles because as I play with principles, I'll say I want 10foot principles of something or12 principles. And next thing I know, I got 50 yang principles.How do you find sort of the core principles to work from?

Cathy: 3:25

Interesting, good question, and I'm gonna circle back a little bit because you talked about the yoga principles, and the horsemanship principles, and they parallel each other. And if you really dissect them, they're really life Minh ship principles,right. So Yoker principles are life principles. horsemanship principles are life principles.So I guess that's one thing that helps me kind of defined the principles is they crossed boundaries, you know, usually,one you can really look at it and dissect it and see how that same principle can apply to yoga to horsemanship to life men ship to work to, you know, whatever you do if you're a hiker, for example, being present present moment awareness, you can apply that to hiking, you can apply that to yoga, you can apply that to horsemanship, you can apply that to our conversation here this morning, you can apply that to a business meeting. So I find when I am kind of focusing on and pulling together the principles, I tend to gravitate toward principles that cross boundaries, if that makes sense that they don't just apply to that one thing. They're they're more broad principles because I love the saying I believe it's a Buddhist saying, how you do anything is how you do everything, right. And so again,just just to give the audience who may not be familiar with these principles, a little reference point Yeah, some something we might do on the map because my background Is yoga 33years of yoga teaching. And one of the things we do on the yoga mat is we use the breathing, we use the breathing to help calm our nervous systems to focus our mind to help harness us into the present. So that same principle,again, could be applied to our time riding horses, we're riding horses, we're getting distracted, we're getting nervous, we can use the breath,we have a business presentation to do and we're getting up in front of a group and we notice our nerves are a little bit frazzled, we can use the breath to notch our energy down to two,again, increase focus. So that's kind of what I mean, when I say crossing boundaries. It's a principle that can really apply to anything and everything.

Lynn: 5:47

The breath is such a big deal. And even though I have spent many years learning to focus on the breath, I still marvel at how it's like, I feel like I don't focus on it enough.Right, right. And we forget to

Cathy: 6:02

sometimes and yeah, we say we breathe all day long. But we don't always pay attention to the breath. And that's why I'm a big advocate of deliberate practices. And even if someone's not a yoga practitioner, or a horse person, I'm having that deliberate breathwork practice that you practice when the waters are calm. So taking five minutes, 10 minutes in your morning to just solely focus on breath work, or to take little breath, breathing breaks throughout your day. And then when things do become a little more hectic and stressed, and we need to draw on the breath, it becomes more second nature, we start doing that naturally as a kind of a muscle memory of oh,this is how I relax, oh, this is how I get present. This is how I focus. So yeah, I guess to answer your question, you know about the principles. They just sort of segue over into everything else. And you know, I have a whole list of those principles that if we were to go through right now, I think most people could see how they could apply to, to so many different areas.

Lynn: 7:06

I could not agree more. In fact, I don't even know where to go now. Because there's so many places I want to go. That saying that you said how you do anything is how you do everything. I actually built an entire leadership program around that called founder flow. And we did in that program, we did things like whitewater rafting.And we didn't, we didn't choose this particular group that I'm thinking of right now, I didn't choose horseback riding, but I did several things, where it's like, let's show you yourself in a business meeting, or in family relationships or whatever, in another place like whitewater rafting, or shooting shotguns,things like that. And it's amazing how people start to see themselves and go, Oh, my tendency to quit, it shows up in all of those domains. Exactly,

Cathy: 8:03

exactly. So true. And I always say that because again,I'm coming from this yogic background, I always say like,the yoga mat is a great place to come to know yourself better,because you're watching stuff you're watching. How do I think how do I process if you're on a yoga mat, for example, and you're saying, Wow, that person over there looks better than me,or I'm not fit enough, I'm not strong enough, you're probably doing that same self talk somewhere else in your life. And again, that's why I love hearing. Because as other passion is, is, you know,working with and being around animals, and same thing, that person will probably be on a trail ride, comparing themselves to that person over there's riding better that person has better balance. So when we really start, you know, looking at ourselves, honestly, and, and how we operate, how we act, how we think how we react, and what some of our conditioning is,because a lot of it, you know,it's it becomes, I think, a belief system, like, oh, I believe that about myself that I'm, I'm, you know, critical or I'm judgmental, or I, you know,whatever. I think those become belief systems sometimes, and sometimes they're more just conditioning. And I do believe that we can unlearn certain behaviors. It's harder than learning, that's for sure. But I think we can start to recognize those patterns like oh, okay,there's that voice of comparison again, or judgment again, and then, you know, come back to the breath and kind of just put the brakes on a little bit and, and really, you know, pay attention to who we are and where we're,we're acting and reacting from,is it a place of spirit and peace and clarity or is it a place of fear and ego? And I think that's important to recognize where some of that stuff comes from not only that we are having that those things come up, but kind of where is that coming from? What's the deeper layer there?

Lynn: 10:00

that when we did, I got to be in your session in June, when we did the yoga trail ride thing. And the first one of the first things you said was catch yourself if you're comparing yourself to others. And it's such an unconscious thing, but I was, for me when you said that it kind of freed me to just not think about it. But I realized I have had a tendency to do that since I was a very small child.Or think about what the neighbors were thinking about how I rode my bicycle down the street, or, you know how I thrift football when we were playing, you know, in the street with a football or whatever it might be. My brother used to,used to, like, listen to him out there, and he would do the play by he played football and do the play by play with his voice. And he's going out for a pass or whatever. And I thought, you know, I've done that in my head my whole life. Right? And you know, what's interesting is, at first, when I first started understanding this idea of conditioning, I think I thought it was something I did to myself, I didn't realize how much it was actually sort of put on me. That's a good point. I

Cathy: 11:07

think a lot of times,we're products of our environment. Yeah. Yeah. And we learn those behaviors. And then I think sometimes we learn them as kind of defense mechanisms to and to kind of armor and guard ourselves a little bit as well.No question.

Lynn: 11:21

It's all armor and guarding. If you think about it,and when I change my perspective of it, then it changes my ability to do something about it. Because then I don't think oh, this is the way it is. It's like this is the way I was taught. And I've learned when I was taught something that didn't work to change it.

Cathy: 11:40

Exactly. And that kind of goes to the point I was saying about unlearning that sometimes we think these things are, you know, are who we are. And we get so attached to those belief systems. But if we remove yet another step further, we look at those as they are just belief systems. And we can unlearn a lot of that stuff, through consciousness through mindfulness and through being honest and vulnerable.

Lynn: 12:03

Well, there's the trick,because it is uncomfortable. to unlearn something, there's, you know, if we think about anything that we've learned that's worth learning, there is this phase where you don't know how to do it. And I find that there's a physical discomfort, like when I was learning to water ski, or even when I'm still I obviously know how to water ski now, but when I want to go to another level, it's uncomfortable. My daughter, and I've just started playing a lot of pickleball. And I played tennis, but I hadn't played pickleball before and pickleball rackets much shorter than a tennis racket, which means I'm often going where as I lift the ball, going course the rest of my racket.Yeah, so yeah, so it's like that feeling, you know, if we're not willing to have that uncomfortable feeling?How the heck are we supposed to learn?

Cathy: 12:54

Right, right.And, and again, going circling back to yoga, because that's kind of where my base is. We learn to be with discomfort, and I think in our society, and part of our conditioning is we run from discomfort because there's always some other comfort or distraction, whether it's let me go, you know, go shopping, or let me go have another glass of wine or whatever the distraction ends up being or let me just turn on the TV and zone out. As soon as we feel that discomfort,I think we are conditioned to flee from that. And like in yoga, for example, you might be in a challenging yoga pose. And I'm not an advocate by any means of teaching, you know, super athletic or challenging yoga.When I say discomfort, it's a mild discomfort, never, never anything painful. But we put ourselves in those challenging postures sometimes on the mat.And we can watch the mind stuff.And the mind is like, Oh, I hate this yoga pose. This hurts how long? We're going to make us stay there, all that self talk.And then when that happens, in my mind, I usually say okay, I thank you mind for your opinion.But I'm going to come back to the breath. And I believe I can stay in this posture for another two or three breaths. And it's a practice of staying a little bit with some discomfort. Again, we all have to discern, we certainly don't want to put ourselves in abusive or uncomfortable life situations.So we have to discern what discomfort is, is acceptable to kind of stay with and ride out.And I find often when you do stay with it and ride it out, it loses some power. It kind of has some space then to shift and change a little bit and even soften. So again, a metaphor or parallel is yoga sometimes puts us in uncomfortable yoga positions. Life sometimes puts us in uncomfortable life postures, and we can't really avoid that sometimes we just are and what do we do with that discomfort? Do we flee? Do we go into major distraction? Or do we kind of taste it and say okay,this is what discomfort feels like and the no Knowing that nothing is permanent, this discomfort is only going to last for so long.

Lynn: 15:05

Well, you know, I feel like our survival mode. So the message at discomfort,especially if we've allowed ourselves to be conditioned that way, is you're going to die. And it's amazing because if you give yourself just a two or three breaths, your body can go, Oh,I'm not dead. Right? It's kind

Cathy: 15:21

of that fight or flight?Yeah,

Lynn: 15:23

yes. Well, that's what I've learned. I started doing the ice baths. And I had been doing the cold showers for quite a long time. But I did my first serious ice bath. I thought I'd done an ice bath. But I was at the podcast Summit, which I'm gonna You and I are both going to be at work Schiller's podcast summit again in November, yes,exciting, I quickly signed up to be one of the 12 people that got to do an ice bath with Robin Schiller, on the Saturday night at that event last year. And so you know, there was a choice of a 55 degree ice bath or a 45degree ice bath. And they said,if you haven't ever done it before, you know, do the do the55, if you have do the 45. And I was like, Well, I've never, you know, done a 45. I've done 55All the time, because we ski in that water, like, I'll be in there, sometimes with a wet suit, you know, but I've done that, or just drawing a bath,you know, that didn't have hot,hot water. So when we got in the45 degree bath, do you think 10degrees is no big deal, but it is a big deal. And Robin gave us a breath to do. And she said,here's the thing, if you will just stay with your breath. You can do this. But if you let that breath, let if you let the breath get the better of you. In other words, if you if your breath starts running you,instead of you running your breath, you won't be able to stay in. And it took about 30seconds. But what was interesting, and to a person, we all experienced this, you could see it on our faces. At 30seconds, everybody's survival mode stood down, and then our brain actually started heating our body up. Wow, interesting.That's fine. And you can feel the shift that says, Oh, I'm gonna actually now work for you instead of against you. And it's the most empowering thing.Because thermogenesis starts happening. I could literally feel the heat the core of my body, turning on the furnace.And Hannah Pasqualina proscuitto, who's been on this podcast, and actually is going to be at the podcast summit as well. This was the night I actually met her. And this is why I knew I needed to get to know her because she she was so concerned at the beginning and at two minutes, which is when Robin says, Okay, now it's two minutes, you can get out whenever you're ready. She said I could be in here all night now. Wow. Wow. Yeah. I think

Cathy: 17:56

those healthy challenges are really important. And again,I think so often, we shy away from them because they are uncomfortable, whether it's physically uncomfortable or mentally uncomfortable. So I think, you know, to push ourselves sometimes, or to have a coach like Robin, or somebody there with you to help you through these healthy challenges. But I think they're,they're so important that we set those things up in our lives,otherwise, we can become complacent and not really realize our full potential. And then there's also like, hearing your talk, it sounded like there was a point of surrender that you just surrendered to. Okay,this is what I'm doing right now. It's not going to be forever, it's gonna be for two minutes, I'm gonna breathe. I've got people here with me to support me and, and surrendering is something else that we're not always comfortable doing. I think a lot of times that that scares us, but like, you start looking at, you know, the big picture of life. I don't want to get too philosophical here. But it's all about surrendering,right? It's like everything is,is about surrendering. And in our final moments of life,that's like the ultimate surrender. And I think these little practices we can do in our lives, to recognize impermanence, to put ourselves in healthy challenges and to experience surrender. I think that's just a really important life practice that sort of sets us up for you know, our life and what's to come after life.Again, hate to hate to go into morbid direction, but isn't that the ultimate surrender? Right?So if you can, yes or no letting go and that's that's a practice.That's a challenge. You know,even for myself, who who does focus on that?

Lynn: 19:38

Yeah. Well, the thing about this idea of talking about death is I think it's actually really useful to remember we're all going to die. Because unless we can do that we're not going to really live. All we're going to do is play defense by saying I'm going to avoid dying as opposed to really living.

Cathy: 19:58

Yeah, yeah. A friend of mine who I bet you would really enjoy meeting, his name is George Philo's. And he's kind of a well known attorney and has been in the field of right to die. And he actually leads meditation for lawyers workshops, and, and has done many talks internationally about death and dying. And one thing I always remember him saying in one of his talks is, we are a debt adverse society, we don't want to look about look at it,we don't want to talk about it,we don't want to think about it,we want to stay in distraction,let me go buy another thing, or let me move or let me do something, you know, just to keep me in constant distraction of a reality, and some other traditions, Buddhist tradition,for one or some aspects of it,they actually meditate on that on the impermanence of things,you know, the pen I'm writing with is going to die, my pencil gonna pass away my house at one day will be no more. So just,you know, calling to mind the impermanence of everything more regularly. And you know, again,some of those practices even contemplate, you know, like,what death looks like, what decay of the body looks like,and, wow, in our culture, we're like, not ready to go anywhere near that stuff, you know, we're doing good to say, hey, my pen is going to die in a few months.But yeah, I think we are a diverse society. And, you know,and then also circling back kind of on a different note to to what you were talking about with the ice bath, surrendering, but also surrendering to that inner wisdom of the body.I think that that kind of ties in with with surrender to, you know, if we were to get sick or injured, whatever the body knows how to heal itself. And I think the body also and the Spirit knows how to prepare ourselves for what's to come in life, we just kind of get in the way and block that sometimes.

Lynn: 21:49

I there's so much wisdom in what you just said, Because I I'm gonna go really deep or maybe not so deep. I don't know.But you know, if you think about the conditioning that's been put on us, and frankly, this death adversity that we have, which we're selling death adversity,here, there's a pill for that.We're selling comfort here,don't feel bad, take a pill, buy this thing. Do what you know, we will sell you a better feeling.Because we put the the our happiness and our comfort in the hands of others, as opposed to finding it within ourselves.Yeah, and isn't that convenient for them?

Cathy: 22:31

Exactly. And then from a business standpoint, I feel like in so many ways, it's a media driven society. And the media is telling us how our yoga should look like and what we should wear and how our faces should look at a certain age. And, you know, the media is, is really dictating how we think and who we are. And I think it's so important for people to draw a line between that and we're all sucked into media to some degree, whether it's these podcasts or social media or television. But I think as a balancing tool to kind of level the playing field, to spend some time away from that media and truly meditating and getting still and contemplating the big subjects that we want to run away from, and spending time in nature. And again, I think that's where that inner wisdom of the body the spirit, really can can shine and and show us that there's another way besides this media driven society that we are run,

Lynn: 23:31

you know, and my shorthand for that when I when I wrote dancing the tightrope, which is the story of me falling off a horse and then getting back on.And I did not intend to get back on. In fact, I didn't intend to write a book about it. I mean, I was planning to write a book, it just wasn't going to be this book, I just didn't realize it's gonna be such a life defining moment. But but in working in that process, what I came to realize is I can either reach for my rules, which is the rules that were imposed on me.Example, sit still in class for eight hours a day. That is not a natural way to learn. You cannot convince me that our education system is built in a natural way it's built for the industrialists to make us conform. So I can either reach for my rules, or I can reach for my tools, meaning my inborn mental tools, like Curiosity,like listening, like truly hearing like connection like observation, those kinds of tools, if I can cultivate what was inborn with me, instead of the rules that make me a good girl and believe me, I am a recovering Good girl. Then it gives it empowers me but it also in the work with the horses, it empowers our relationship because a horse can tell your energy is very different when it comes off of rules. Then this is the step this is what I'm supposed to be doing. I should this whatever, versus I am connecting with this horse. I'm going to let I'm going to hear him and give him what he needs.Exactly, exactly.

Cathy: 24:58

And you know to what you said I think we numb ourselves from the tools.

Lynn: 25:03

Oh, yes, we do. We

Cathy: 25:05

a lot of people are going through the world and don't even know that they have these innate tools within them of getting quiet of listening to inner voice to connecting with the breath. So I think we all of this media driven society has actually numbed and dumbed down our own ability to, to be able to rely on ourselves for sure.I've also got a laugh at something you said about school because I have been self employed my whole life, I've always marched to my own weird little drummer, and I've always had this entrepreneurial spirit.And I've said this in lectures,and maybe even in my yoga for writers book at references this but I disliked school, I felt literally from kindergarten, and I was four and a half when I went to kindergarten, that it was wrong. It was like putting a bird in a cage, like, Who are these people to tell me I have to sit here for eight hours. And I can only have off Saturday and Sunday. And, and this is what I have to learn when I really want to learn dance or, you know,animal care, or you know, things that really spoke to my spirit.So I knew that from a very young age that I was going to as soon as I could march to my own drummer and not do the the norms, and for me at that is has worked out perfectly. In fact,one of the next books I'd like to write is living a handcrafted life, because that's really what I have done. And and I'm so glad that I've done it. And could I have made more money, you know,having a real career. And could I have had other experiences?Sure, but I am 100% soul content with the path that I've chosen because everything I do on my path is meaningful to me,otherwise, I don't do it.

Lynn: 26:55

I love living a handcrafted life. I love that term. I you know, I had to go through a lot of stuff to come out of it. Because this was my idea of childhood was I want I said I'm a recovering Good girl.So we we were plopped in front of the TV a lot. Now what was interesting is in front of the TV, I would be doing floor exercises, which you would call yoga like trying to get into the lotus position, which I could do as a child trying to be able to,like stretch out and do all these different, like yoga poses. But by golly, we didn't use the word yoga in my house.Interesting, because yoga was some kind of religion that we didn't understand. Right, right.Right, right.

Cathy: 27:37

And you and I have kind of tapped on this at at the retreat that you attended in June. Same thing I also references in my book, people say, Oh, when did you get interested in yoga, I always say I'm a born yogi, because I was very young didn't even know it was called Yoga. So I didn't I wasn't at risk of using the word. I just knew there was some value to disciplining and I mean that in a good word of disciplining myself to stay still, I would think I mentioned this to you at the retreat, I would sit in full lotus pose,which would get very uncomfortable after a little while. And I would tie myself to watching the Flintstones for 30minutes. And no matter how much I wanted to move, and fidget I would just, I knew there was some value to the discipline of of staying with it. I would also do you know, other yoga postures that were kind of spontaneous and would kind of enter into these now what I know as contemplative states and certain meditative states. So I think some of us, I actually, I think all of us have those abilities to tap into the who of who we are. And again, they just get so squelched by society and conditioning, and you have to follow ABCD in life. But I think we all know who we are at a young age, and unfortunately,that's not really nurtured.We've become who others want us to become a lot of times, well, because

Lynn: 29:00

money has had to become such an important aspect that I think it gets put out of place.Like in our current society, we are like the hunter gatherers who, like he took a role and somebody took care of the, you know, shelter and somebody else took care of the food and somebody else took care of the protection. You know, we are outsourcing all of that through these little green bills in America anyway, of money, right.And that became the form of exchange. But when it became a way for us to become identified with ourselves or use it as some kind of measure of who we are,then that will take us away from who we are. Exactly. And

Cathy: 29:40

I think it's money and I think it's also ego too. I think, you know, so many people are worried about correctness.Well, if my child doesn't go to school, and I decided to homeschool or I decided to put my child in kind of a more progressive learning environment. What are other people going to think what's the family gonna think? What are the neighbors gonna think and I think so much and that that boils down to ego, you know,what are other people going to think if I'm not following these social norms?

Lynn: 30:07

Yep, that status game is actually quite pervasive for sure. And, you know, I find, I find that status game carries into all the domains that I work in whether I'm going into a barn because I don't own a horse. So I go to different places to ride. And it doesn't take long to kind of figure out in a given barn, what the status of that part is. But also the signing companies like sometimes status,does it come from just having the highest level of position in a company? You know, it doesn't matter where you are on the organization chart, but different people get status in different ways. Yeah. And that's what they're actually looking for. You know, some people I get identified as being the contrarian voice, for example.And they pay a price, but it gives them a certain form of status.

Cathy: 30:57

So that is so good. Yeah.Yeah. So

Lynn: 31:00

I find that you're starting to recognize the distinction between who I am and who I was told to be, is the work of our

Cathy: 31:12

life. Yeah,absolutely. Yeah. You know,listening to that inner voice doing what I call hard work, not hard work, but hard work. And I think, yeah, if we were just taught that, that it's okay to follow those interests, and nurture those interests, even if they don't make sense to somebody else. And most of my life choices, my bigger life choices didn't make sense to the vast majority, or to even my family and some of my close friends. And then they kind of sat back and watched how it played out. Oh, wow, Kathy really is living a good life,Kathy really is creating these experiences that are meaningful,Kathy really is attracting people to her that are like minded, and it's just, they see that it works. But I think a lot of people don't give themselves permission to do that. Because it's it's a little scary to, you know, to step outside the social norms, and also to take take risks, whether they're, you know, life change risks,financial risks, but I have never gone wrong following my true inner voice and my heart's desire.

Lynn: 32:20

That's a big one. I, I often am working with clients who are sort of trying to get back in touch with, like, what would make their heart sing? And so the question I have for you is, if you had to tell somebody how to find that, what would you what would you say to them to let them know how to find their heart sing?

Cathy: 32:44

Yeah, good.Good question. I would say it starts with getting quiet. And because of we're in the noise all the time, and we're in the distraction and we're in the busy and we're in the doing all the time. We don't even know what our heart's desires are. So I think before you can achieve those hearts desires, you have to see what they are and and explore what they are. And, and I think all of us even from young children have innate interests, whether that interest is for me it was while I was always had some interest in animals and connecting with animals, I always had some interest in dance. I always had some interest in yoga. I knew I didn't have interest in the structure of school or corporate America. So for me, I have a strong personality and those inner callings overrode the society. Society suggestions. So I would say you know, what are your interests, write them down your they don't first get quiet,meditate on them, contemplate them, write them down, even if they're weird interests. I like you know, drawing. I like coloring. I like going for walks, you know, anything that really, really speaks to you?And then look for creative workarounds. Like how can I do more of that in my life, okay, I like drawing. Maybe I go take an art class and kind of see where that leads, or, you know, gee, I really love being out in nature and hiking, and maybe you end up finding a hiking group or you become a hike leader or you lead hiking retreats. I mean, there's no telling because there's just so many opportunities out there.And there's this field, I think of pure potentiality. And when we know those hearts desires,and we start dipping a toe in the water, of what those things are and kind of moving in that direction, not even necessarily trying to know the outcome. Like I have this interest Gee, is it going to become a career path?Am I going to earn money from it? Am I going to, you know, be recognized for it, put all that stuff aside and just do it simply because it speaks to you.It doesn't have to make any sense. And then just be open to you know, nurture that interest,I guess is what I would say. So get quiet, get clear. What are your gin Do an interest?And what steps can I take direction of that interest,maybe again, maybe it's taking a class, maybe it's researching it online, and then just kind of give it space to allow it to take on a life of its own and make time for that, you know, to say, Okay, I still have this career kids to take care of animals to take care of. But let me schedule some time to nurture this interest. And realistic amounts of time, I think are important too. You know, maybe I could nurture this interest of yoga, or this interest of art,or music one day a week, maybe that's realistic for me, or maybe I can do something scored by interest for 10 or 15minutes, three times a week. So I think those are just some realistic approaches. And, and I'm just a real practical person. For me, I like to have sort of steps and kind of a formula to sort of move toward toward things, but yet have that but not attachment to that. I think that's an important thing,too, is take those steps, those proactive steps to whatever your interests are, but let go of the attachment of what they're going to look like or how they're going to shake out,

Lynn: 36:07

or if they do. Well,though, that's brilliant. And there's a couple of things. I'm really glad you said, one. You something to the effect of you don't have to make a living at it. I had a client who loved to play the guitar, and was deeply missing. Having that in his life, he had gotten deeply in his corporate life. And I suggested that he should pick it back up. And he says, Do you know what that means? And I said, Well, it means that you'll be playing the guitar. And he goes, Yeah, but then I'll be on,you know, do you know what the life of a guitar player looks like? And then he described the life of a band on tour. And I said, Who said you have to go on tour?

Cathy: 36:55

Just pick up the guitar?Yeah, I

Lynn: 36:57

said, I said, you know,and what was interesting is from there, he had the next his next next objection is something to the effect of the last thing you said, which is I don't have time, and I said, is it that you don't have time? Or you don't feel like you have the right to give yourself that kind of time?Are you not allowed to fuel your own soul? Right. And you're,

Cathy: 37:20

you're so good at that of like, encouraging people to schedule play, like scheduled play. Some play time. I love that. And me too, I think, you know, it's such an important component, we do that naturally,as children we play, the animals have play time. And then as adults, it's like, no, we don't have time for play. No,

Lynn: 37:38

yeah, because that's not serious. And it doesn't make money. And, you know, the the other side of that it comes down to this game of recovery, which I believe, especially in the business world, but I would say in a lot of worlds, we have taken recovery off the table.And we do not understand that all of the growth is actually happening in the downtime in the rest, that the that the steps are being built. Like if you go to the gym, your muscles are not being built while you're tearing the muscle down your muscles being built while it's resting between the sets. Absolutely.And

Cathy: 38:17

I'll bring it back to yoga again. At the end of class,we do deep relaxation, we show Boston so Boston or whatever school of yoga you've come from,you might have a different term,but basically, it's a form of deep relaxation. And that is a time to let all the goodness of what you've just done in the class. And ever every cell to every muscle, every organ. So there is that residual effects.So right it's in that downtime,that the the healing and the work and occurs. And also it's in that downtime, that the inner voice can speak to us we're quiet enough to actually hear it. I think that's important.And also I think those downtimes Lynne and I think you'd agree with me here, they're, they're an opportunity to celebrate,right? They're an opportunity to we did yoga, our bodies were healthy, and we moved and we were physical, and now we're just going to relax and just celebrate that, or, you know, we make it do an accomplishment in our lives. And it's like in a business achievement. Okay, I've done this now what's next?Rather than let me stop and just celebrate what I just did. And I think we're, I think we're also a society of what's next, what's next, what's next. And that's also a form of conditioning of,of not stopping and saying, what did we just do? What do we just accomplished? I'm so proud of myself or I, you know, happy that I did that we don't even recognize those feelings, I think because we're jumping on to what's next and not having enough downtime.

Lynn: 39:45

What what do you suppose keeps us from being willing to honor our accomplishments along the way? Because what you're describing is not celebrating the big stuff, but it's celebrating the moment It's moment by moment, sort of like a punctuation mark, like, what makes us live our life like a run on sentence? Oh, my gosh,that's that's a good question,you might

Cathy: 40:09

be better suited to answer that than I, again, I think I would go back to conditioning. And, you know,we're conditioned to do to achieve to accomplish to multitask. I mean, that's what our society does, you have an eight hour work day, and your boss is expecting you to get all this done in that eight hour day. A quote from my guru that I absolutely love is multitasking practice is practicing conflict,multitasking is practicing conflict. And I think that's part of it, I think we're so conditioned to multitask, we're always in that state of conflict. And that negates us from I think stopping and celebrating because I think it's, it's conditioning of just we have to keep going, we have to keep moving. It's almost like a fear, fear driven response.And I think to kind of circling back to really coming to know ourselves better whether we do that through yoga, whether we do that through horses, or any other modality of seeing how we think and process and operate, I think is, is really important.And then and to know we're not that that's just the mind stuff,we don't have to buy into that we can thank the mind for our opinion and, and come back to these practices. It was kind of like the story. You just talked about the guy with the guitar,he could probably look at that and say, Wow, I'm probably like that in every area of my life.Like, okay, how is this guitar playing going to make me a living and oh, my gosh, I'm going to be so busy with that.And instead of, and somebody like that is probably doing that with everything in their lives,rather than just dialing it back a little saying, okay, I can do a little bit of this. And then I do a little bit of this. And let me stop and celebrate that because it felt really good.Yeah.

Lynn: 41:59

Well, and you just you all you just hit the big word, it felt really good. Yeah. When I started teaching the self awareness program, one of the first things we said to people is we are going to use the F word in this program. And these were very corporate people who you would never say in a meeting, I feel that we should do this, they got very good at saying I think we should do this. If they said, I believe we should do this there crossing a little bit of a line there. But you know, so I said, we're going to use the F word. And of course, people would look around and think they thought they knew which F word I was saying. And I said, No, we're going to use the word feelings. Because for you to have self awareness, you have to know how you feel. And it starts in your body. It totally

Cathy: 42:46

does. That is so great.And again, one of the other many reasons I like yoga because the body becomes in this entry point to Oh, what am I feeling what's coming up physically? What's coming up mentally, mentally,how is my breathing changing? So right learning tools, like you're teaching, to get people into that, that feeling mode,and then there's also honoring the feelings, you know, it's like, okay, I feel like, like,I'll apply this to horsemanship,I do a program called energy matters. And I'm feeling really tired today or I'm feeling really scattered today. It's not the best day for me to go trailer, my horse off through our mountain roads here in the Smokies and go do a three hour ride in the back country with friends. Conditioning would tell me I have to do that because I've already made the commitment to friends. I don't want to let them down. But if I honored my feelings that day, I might call those friends and say, hey, you know what? I'm just feeling nervous today. I'm just feeling scattered today. I'm feeling unfocused. Today. I need to honor those feelings. So I think it's okay to, you know, to, for us to honor our feelings and our energy and not just always feel like, okay, there's that feeling. Yeah, I recognize it and recognizing it is one thing,but then am I going to power through that feeling? And that's not always in our best interest either.

Lynn: 44:09

Well, let's let's just talk for a second about what it is to do backcountry trail riding. Yeah. Because when I had my accident, I was on a trail ride. And what I learned pretty quickly was not that I said something that is fairly common.And this is I'm going to call this more of a public perception of horsemanship, which is it's just trail riding. As opposed to you laugh. See, that's the knowing left that we're getting to you. You go to art you know you and I got to see each other Tron Equestrian Center. I'm 20minutes away. You go watch the dressage the show jumping the cross country. You see these amazing things I love raining.That's my thing. You watch what a riding horse can do. You go to Rodeo you see what a good rope big horse can do. You know, you watch the different horses that are living in a discipline that is like a professional athlete,right? Yeah. Oh man, you go okay. It's just trail riding.Yeah, yeah. Describe what trail riding means when you say and again, lots of people have been on vacations. Yeah go to Glacier National Park or over here in LeClair where we have a trail ride where it is. I'm going to say relatively safe, but not100%. Safe. That's the waivers.Yeah, what is what is how could we describe backcountry trail riding? For the uninitiated to understand Wow, how long

Cathy: 45:41

do we have? Because this is I love this subject. I love this subject. Good because this is gonna have a lot of juicy stuff in it. Oh, good, good. So the first thing to that is I was a presenter, an equine affair. I don't know if 5678 years ago in Massachusetts and Clinton Anderson was there and I had a conversation with him whether you're a Clinton fan or not,neither here nor there. The advice was good. And he said,You know what type of writing you do. And I said, Oh, I'm just a trail writer. And he said,Don't ever say you're just a trail rider. He said those horses and those riders are the warriors. They are going out there into the complete unknown.And that really got me reframing that phrase of just a trail rider. So another book I'd like to write I need to find more publishers is the trail my teacher because that backcountry trail riding has been my teacher but as you can learn as you're learning for me Lin how I do anything is how I do everything.The yoga mats my teacher horsemanship is my teacher.Business is my teacher. But when I say backcountry trail riding I'm just to give you a little background I live literally in the heart of the Smoky Mountains there are trails abound, and most people go trail riding and this is not to knock it because this is what some people's comfortability is or just what they have available to them.They go to the stable and they do the our trail ride and they kind of look at that as backcountry trail riding. To me backcountry trail riding was trailing off my own horses, who are warriors, and certainly were in their younger years.trailering off windy mountain rows, you know, getting to some Trailhead 99% of the time trailer and by myself meeting other friends, usually women friends at these trail heads in the middle of nowhere. And we never did less than a three hour ride. And many times we would do multi day rides, we would do pack trips. Heck, we've done bachelorette parties as packed trips. So just, you know, really in the back country, cell phones do not work. We never really were good about having like a satellite phone or anything.Knock on wood. Most times it turned out really well because we had good riders, mindful riders were riders good horses,there were certainly unfavorable situations that came up from time to time because you can't spend that many hours in the back country and something not happen once in a while. But I would do this probably two,three times a week. I don't do it anymore. I don't have the same desire to do that level of backcountry, my horses are now old, and so are my friends.We've all we're all some of them have kind of aged out. But being on the trail in the backcountry,every moment was an opportunity to be 100% Present. Because if you were not, you could get hurt, you could get killed, you could get somebody else hurt,you could fall off a cliff, you could step on a rattlesnake. So and so it was like it's just another metaphor for life and other parallel that it's changing every minute and to stay present to it and adapt to it. And things are situational,like the best laid plans could go out the window when when the bear runs across in front of your horse and you have to you know, react to that you can't plan that. So to me the trail,it was just a way to another way to be in the present moment and other way to look at how we operate and how we react to things and how we think and also it's just a great opportunity to partner with your horse. There's no better feeling in my opinion,than to have your own horse that you are partnering with and you are getting through these frail obstacles and challenges. It just feels so good. And it's such an accomplishment and, and fun and exciting. And then sidebar. There's the camaraderie of the other people, you know,cowboy friend of mine, who people will say what's the best writing advice and I this might even be the best life advice right? And that what comes to mind is this cowboy friend of mine who passed away last year sadly, he said it matters who you ride with And I was like,wow, he's like a riding snob.What do you mean? It matters who you ride with? And then I started riding with more and more people. And I thought it does matter. And again, metaphor for life, it matters who you're riding in life with, do you have people that have got your back?Do you have people that are supportive? Do you have people that are taking care of each other and so that group camaraderie on the rides of, you know, being there for each other and being able to share and to be a nature and to, you know, to be vulnerable? In a lot of ways by just putting yourself in that situation, there was just,there's just for me so much growth and and you know, what speaks to one person is terrifying for another what I'm describing, somebody else might say, Oh, my gosh, I just want to stay in the arena. That sounds like a nightmare. You know,rattlesnakes and ledges and bear. So you know, we all have,again, our innate interests. But my interest is animals, spending time in nature and connecting with people and using all these things as as life lessons to just enrich our life friendship.

Lynn: 51:04

I've experienced that being out on the trail Since I fell off the horse and actually really understanding what I was in for is that it is the greatest teacher of all. One of the big lessons and this was in the arena, because I spent a lot of time just learning horsemanship all over again. I didn't realize Yeah, what I didn't know. But it occurred to me one day, as I was fearful,very fearful when I first went back on the adrenaline shots that I was getting were so strong, that it's a wonder the horse, any horse would allow me on their back. Yeah, but it but it didn't dawned on me, I looked over at my instructor and I said, you know, this horse is never going to conclude that I'm afraid of him. All he knows how to conclude is there's something to be afraid of. And he doesn't,he doesn't think he needs to take care of me. And that was the big insight because he's a prey animal, and I'm on his back. So I don't get to have the right sitting up there to go,this horse should take care of me, I have to recognize that we're in a partnership, and he's giving over his four legs, and his back domain. But I can't expect him to like some horses are that good that they will take care of a human. But it's just unbalanced thinking, Oh,God,

Cathy: 52:29

this brings me to another subject. That's important. I teach how to apply yoga, not just yoga postures, but yoga principles to our horsemanship,from ground to saddle, things like energy awareness, raising awareness, mindfulness, all of that. And the topic can get so misconstrued into this, what I call an airy fairy approach. And it's not it's a really practical approach. And I think some of the airy fairy approach might be self talk like that, like, Oh,my horse loves me so much, and we're such a partnership, but we have such connection that he's not going to buck me off, or he's going to take care of me.And, and right. I mean, when you build a bond with your horse, I do feel like there have been many situations, my horse has taken care of me, but I'm also not so Lulu and woowoo and airy fairy about that, that I, I do that I'm not recognizing the reality of what can happen. So the type of writing that I have done, you do need to have some skill I don't I don't waver for myself. I don't recommend everybody just go jump on a horse and you know, go out three days in the backcountry on some skill learning,

Lynn: 53:37

oh, if you haven't gone to that, don't do that. Because you know, just the idea of trailering horses, people see it done all the time. This is not a small thing. You're asking a claustrophobic animal to get into a claustrophobic situation,and fully surrendered to you to drive them somewhere. It takes their mental tools, building their mental tools to learn how to do that. And then to have them get off that trailer and in mental shape to then go face the unknown on the trail.

Cathy: 54:08

Right, right. And just from a training perspective to you know, horses, I believe I'm not I'm not a professional trainer. But I believe and I've heard trainers talk about this,you can help your horse to become more brave by Absolutely,incrementally doing these things and desensitizing things and why horses would literally hop in anybody's trailer. And we'd get off at different places they never knew where we were getting off the trail or we might be riding 20 minutes or or two hours. And luckily they're not in linear time. So they weren't measuring that but they would get off and they'd kind of look around like Oh, where are we now? Oh yeah, some other horses here recognize that other horse or, or Wow, we're going to place it I don't know anybody and you know, and they became such warriors that I just felt so confident with them but this took years to have of building to feel confident to bring them into any city. situation and not every writer does that or needs to do that. And not every horse is ready to do that. And I think that's where that skilled learning and practicality is so important to to, to, you know,challenge ourselves a little bit, but not in into dangerous sindoor uncomfortable situations that

Lynn: 55:18

we just can't navigate.And to recognize that sometimes the horse is going to encounter something that, like I was the horse that I had my accident on isn't a mocha and a few months ago, I've been I've gotten back on him riding all the time,we're on a 2100 acre preserve with 50 miles of trails. So there's a lot of room for the unknown. We came up to the edge of the property one day, and a good 100 yards away were some new cows. Well, growing up in Texas, I don't think any horse is going to mind cows because cows are things that horses move around. Well, he didn't think so. And no amount of bending, no amount of anything was going to get his mind settled, because as far as he was concerned, cows are worse than bears. So he was in such a state that if I had wanted to get off, I couldn't,wouldn't have been safe. So what we did was continue our ride but not pass the cows anymore. And I got to ride a horse and do yoga,breathing on his back for a good three miles back to home. But all the energy had to go up because it's like as much as he wanted to go, we were not going like to run with him on the trail, he's kind of hard to get going. Not this time, he would have been easy to get going to get a ride that I had, I had to have some pretty serious both mind and physical skills to ride a horse that is normally on the buckle as steady as he could be.And now is like wanting to run to the barn. And exactly and stay and stay on, you know. So Alright, sounds like

Cathy: 57:01

you met you navigated that and managed it really,really well. Right, not forcing your horse past or not bailing out? It sounds like you stayed with discomfort. You

Lynn: 57:10

just had to stay with it.Yeah, and

Cathy: 57:12

I commend you for discerning though, you know, we talked earlier in this conversation about healthy challenges. But that doesn't mean and I like to use the word discerning because that doesn't mean we put ourselves in unhealthy and unsafe challenges either. So it sounds like you discerned. Okay, this is a challenge, which How do I want to? How do I want to go with it?

Lynn: 57:31

How do I think of it as dancing that tightrope? Because there's me this, like, I want to help him become more courageous and braver around the cattle,but this is no time to do it,because he was so far over threshold. And in fact, yeah, we took pictures after we got back home because he, he looks like a totally different horse in that state of mind. And for the next24 hours, he was focused on those cows. Like in his first year, that fence line had nothing to do with a property line. In other words, in his mind, those cows had come into his territory. And it was his job to protect the herd from those cows. Yeah, yeah. So he was on beyond Yeah, far beyond anything that I could have done to help him on the trail. So it was like you said we had to discern, and I can imagine you've had 100 of those kinds of things happen out on the trail,where things will unexpected,you know, like you said, bear crossing the trail facing snakes, we've done all we've seen all of that deer crashing,and we had a deer run into the horse in the middle of the three person ride. And then I had to jump off my horse and catch her horse while she dusted yourself off. Because, you know, in the kerfuffle came off, you know,

Cathy: 58:43

well, that's where it matters. Who you ride with.Right? You were there to support somebody? Yeah, that's so important. Yeah. I mean, there's so many unexpected things. I've been in, you know, tall grass situations and literally had had like a turkey, come up underneath my head that happened. Whoa, okay. That's not interesting. Yeah. And, you know, there have been some unfavorable times where you have to help somebody or, you know,do maybe somebody go out and call an ambulance. I've had to do that, unfortunately, only only twice painfully. In all my many years of writing. But yeah,you're you just have to pull on your skills. And that's, again,where it's so important to practice when the waters are calm to say, Okay, now I'm in this kind of kerfuffle, what do I do with that? Do I freak out?Do I fail? Do I go head on into this danger or challenge? Or do I stop and take a beat? And do I take a breath and do I kind of honor myself and go okay, I'm,I'm feeling a little nervous.But I think going this route with like, your horse situation would be unfavorable, you know,to just being able to draw on some sensibility and I think I think those things are really practice when the waters are calm. And then when we are in those situations, it becomes more second nature. And I mean,I remember you know, Years and years ago, when I first started trail riding, I used to get, you know, scared if my horse jumps sideways, it would take me like minutes to recover from that.And now it's like, oh, that happened, you know? Yeah,literally, like one second, you don't even really think about it. But that comes from, you know, from practice and years and, and scale and confidence that we can build.

Lynn: 1:00:18

Well, you just Okay, so I want to touch on that. Because this is the thing that you use the word life midship earlier,everyone is facing, whether you're in business, in sports,on the back of a horse, is things happen that are unexpected. You walk into a meeting, and and you think it's going to be this way. And all of a sudden, you're finding out that what you thought was a huge success was a big screw up and you're in damage control, or you're when I was waterskiing before I started doing this work on what I think I was raising my mental tools. Every time I had a bubble, I would get that same feeling I got like when the horse was going down a hill or jumping side to side, just that big flood of adrenaline. And my muscles wouldn't work, right.Like I had to stop skiing. And you know, I the coach would be on the other end of the line.And when we'd stop and he go,Why'd you stop skiing is like,because I took such a big adrenaline hit that I can't trust my muscles to not over and under react now mostly overreact. Right? Because full of adrenaline, you know, then I'm going to get even more hurt.But as I've worked on raising my mental tools under pressure,because you're actually working on it, like in that moment, as well, not just when it's quiet.Right, right. That eventually,yes, I've had a horse be going one way. And next thing I know we are facing the other direction. And Right, right.It's like, oh, okay, well,let's, let's, let's go back the other way. No adrenaline, no big deal, we're just going to turn around. But that only happens because at the moment, it happened the first time I used it to raise my tools, rather than get off and put my tail between my legs and go home.

Cathy: 1:01:59

And isn't that life, you know, we're going in one direction, then all of a sudden we find ourselves in another direction. Yeah, it is just it's like for sure. And yeah, I think practicing and those, those healthy kind of incremental challenges, whether it's, you know, again, being in a challenging yoga posture, or putting yourself in slightly challenging situations where you have to sometimes learn how to manage that. And again, there's managing it and then there's like what I talked about earlier, just kind of honoring it sometimes like like you did,like, Hey, I'm just too overloaded with adrenaline right now. It's not safe for me to do this. Let me waste your time.Yeah, that's exactly, you know,discerning mindfulness coming to know ourselves better how we, we think how we process how we feel, how we operate, I think those are just all good life mentorship tools. And, you know,I think we're all in on the earth school. So we're all just learning and and I think it's just great, the work that you're doing to just support people in so many of these changemakers in the world that that we can look to for support as a coach, or for guidance. I think we're all just here to lift each other up.You know, I think anybody that claims they have all the answers and no at all. I think that's,that's, that's inaccurate, I think we all have different gifts that we bring to the table. And, and I also think that's what life is about, like,what are your gifts and, and sharing those gifts with the world? What good? Are they if you're just gonna hoard them,you know, at home or with your own little circle?

Lynn: 1:03:30

Yeah, well, so you've used the word learning quite a few times. And it's something that took me a while to recognize as an adult that I actually had permission to learn. Because I felt like when I got my degree,and this is just one of those hidden beliefs that I've had to uncover. My degree meant that I knew it as opposed to I was still learning. And my job instead of learning anymore, was to show people that I had learned it, so I had to prove it, if you will. How, when you are in a moment, how do you give yourself permission to learn or stay open? Or is it so natural to you? You don't even notice it? Tell me how that works for you.

Cathy: 1:04:07

Interesting, um,that's a good question.Something that a thought they came up for me a story when I wrote my book yoga for writers,I had written articles and things and, and I'll be honest,as you heard from me earlier, I did not like school, even from kindergarten. So I was not this academic scholar. And yet, I knew I loved creative writing. I loved putting words together.And I was like, I presented this idea to horse and rider books,which is became my publisher.And I'm like, I don't know if it's a good idea. But they published you know, the leading publishers and they've been doing this 30 years, what are they going to want with, you know, with somebody like me, and then when they said, Yes, I was like, okay, so I put myself out there. That was the first thing we're learning. I put myself out there because wow, now, because I put myself out there I'm opened to now learn How to write a book. So I think I think to answer your question that openness to again, those healthy challenges, like, I think I can do this, and was support, I know I could do this. And then I started, you know, writing and it came about organically. And then a friend came into my life that that is a developmental editor. And she helped me tremendous, tremendously and taught me so much just about writing and flow, and even basic, you know, grammar things that I had wrong. And so I think having the willingness, the openness to challenge ourselves,but then to have to have that support of other people. So to me, that was really, really paramount and learning, I knew I had the ability to learn, but to have have a coach or somebody there by your side along the way, is, is really helpful. So I don't know if that answered the question. But that's a story that came to mind to me when I thought, well, I couldn't do something at first, or how am I going to do this? And then just have that openness to, to learning and trying? And, you know, what was the worst case scenario? I didn't learn it and books get published, but that wasn't the outcome. Yeah,

Lynn: 1:06:09

exactly. Well, you know,you, it seems to me, like you had the good sense to get help.But you also saw saw it as a set of steps as opposed to, okay,the book proposal has been agreed to now I have to write a best seller. Because, you know,I had that same thinking, when I started with art, like I would start painting a watercolor. And I would have this belief that while every painting had to be a masterpiece, and I didn't allow for myself to just go through the steps of first, you know,what are you trying to get the paint to do on the paper? Or what kind of words am I trying to string together? Like if somebody says, I don't know how to write a book? Well, you probably do if you've if you've ever written a paragraph, you can write to, and then you can write a chapter and then you can write two chapters, right? You know how to write now, there are some ways to put those things together, you'll need some help break it down into its smallest pieces. And, you know, I once heard a horse trainer say,really all your horse can only move in so many ways. And they learned that very young, they move forward and back and, you know, so forth. And if you can begin to recognize that we're just putting those building blocks together.

Cathy: 1:07:18

Yeah, yeah, I agree. I think also to answer your question about learning is, is being willing to stay, take baby steps, you don't have to go from, you know, A to Z, there are baby steps along the way.It's all a process. And I think if we just all look at everything as an opportunity to,to learn and to grow, whether it's a conversation with somebody else, even whether it's a conflict with somebody, right,tend to use those as learning,learning opportunities to learn about ourselves, or how do we want to do something differently next time. But I think you know,kind of bottom line to all that is, is it's important, I think,to remember, we're all students,we're all of the earth school.And as long as we're here in this body, in this incarnation,we've got stuff to learn and to learn and to share and to support other people along their journey with whatever knowledge and skills that we have. And I think that's living in a more United Way of unity through community. And I think that's,that's a whole other subject we could go into. But, you know, of just again, lifting each other up feeling supported and helping each other along the way.

Lynn: 1:08:25

I like that unity through community. Yeah, you know, none of us do this alone.

Cathy: 1:08:31

That's right. That's right.And the word yoga actually means to yo or to unite. We're guiding our own body, mind and spirit.But we also become aware through that particular practice, that they'll the same lifeforce energy that's flowing through me is flowing through you is flowing through my horse out in the pasture is flowing through the trees and, you know, uniting us all in that, in that way.We're all related, you know, by by energy. And I think we spend so much time in separateness and compartmentalizing ourselves in such a division and humanity.Sadly, we've gotten away from Unity, Unity Consciousness, you know,

Lynn: 1:09:12

what we've gotten away from, from understanding that for sure, and, frankly, it took a while. As I say, over the years, as I've taught the self awareness program, if I started talking about energy, I'd get a lot of people looking at me,like, What are you talking about? Are you kind of getting weird woowoo on us and so forth.And it didn't take long for them. And even inside of the programs, where they started with that, for them to acknowledge it, I started to begin to recognize the purpose of it and why it matters. Yeah,how their self awareness could actually impact their own energy and how that energy was impacting those around them. And how if they were going to be a leader, and unable to impact the people around you or impacting them in a negative way, then that's getting in your own way.You know, they began to start seeing all the Connect activeness of it, but the exactly you can actually say energy and people actually will buy into it as Yes.

Cathy: 1:10:07

Yeah. And what I have found also, this is just my observation, it's almost become now an overused word that people are got comfortable with kind of like namaste or oh, there's, you know, a few mindfulness. It's like cert, you start hearing them so frequently that people sort of become numb to what is the meaning. And I'm just going to use this because it sounds like a cool catchphrase. So I think it went from, like you said, being this woowoo thing to now almost being overused and not really acknowledging what that means and why I love yoga,is it puts us in touch tangibly,with energy that's flowing through our body, you're holding a pose, you're feeling energy,you release the pose, you feel the release of energy. And again, why I love leading my my workshop called energy matters.And I apply it to horsemanship,but heck, energy matters, you know, in our, in our lives, and in all that we do and being in touch with energy. And, you know, something I teach in my workshops or talk about is, it's it did seem like an esoteric word for a lot of years. But we all it's not, it's a really practical thing. And we all have the ability to detect energy.And I use the example I think I shared this when you were at the retreat in June, have you ever walked into a space or room, and wow, it feels really good to be there, or you've walked into another space, and like, Oh,this is something just doesn't feel good. And here, I want to leave, or have you ever walked,you know, up to a person and,wow, it feels really good to be around that person. And then somebody else, you know, not so much. That's detecting energy. I mean, it's just like this.That's why I love horses,because they live in that world all the time of detecting each other's energy, the energy that you're bringing to your horsemanship, the energy and the environment. And they're kind of the masters of energy awareness.But we all have that ability.But again, a lot of times we discount that, or, Wow, I feel uncomfortable being here, I don't like this space, but I'm just gonna stay anyway, rather than, you know what, this just doesn't feel good, I have the ability to not be in this situation. So there's detecting the energy and then you know,honoring it, and we're directing our own energy accordingly. I mean, sometimes we can't get out of those, you're in a space you don't like but GE, that's where your meeting is today. And you have to be there. Let me use some of my tools to to manage my own energy and make the best of this situation.

Lynn: 1:12:34

That's it? Well, this is one of the things I love about your work is that it is so practical and tangible. And applicable, you know, you have a very good way of connecting the dots so that people can see how to make sense of what might at least at the beginning, feel like an esoteric concept. Right,

Cathy: 1:12:53

thank you. Thank you.

Lynn: 1:12:54

Yeah, your feet are very,very much on the ground around that. That's what I love about your work.

Cathy: 1:12:58

Thank you. And Yoga, you know, it is a sacred practice and a sacred tradition to me.But it is also a very practical approach. And I just feel like that's one of my gifts of taking something that might seem esoteric, and really bringing it into mainstream. And that's always been one of my passions from when I started teaching yoga was to make it really accessible to everyone and talk about, you know, having to, to bring yoga into a place in a practical way I live, you couldn't get much more rural Appalachia than where I live.And I moved here almost 30 years ago. And when I first started wanting to teach yoga, I started hearing horror stories about the last person that did this, they were praying for her in the churches, and she was actually a physician, and they didn't want to go to her anymore as a doctor because they thought she was like a witch doctor. And then I was like, I pulled back and I thought, you know, gee, maybe I better not teach yoga and rural Appalachia there, you know, I don't want to have my barn burned down or something crazy.And so I thought, I'll just call it stretcher size or something,something like that. And, and,you know, bring mindfulness to it. And a local woman born and raised here, said, Kathy, we are ready for yoga, please come teach it. And when I had to be so fragile about the language I used and the approach that I used, and that really was where I learned, while I have this gift to bring something that is really life changing and life enhancing to people that really are scared of it and skeptical of it and how do I do that in a practical way. So I had a very good practice here. That was also a teacher a another opportunity to learn, like how to take this esoteric concept and bring it into people's lives in a real way that they can see real benefits and, and it took a few years to do that, but it was doable. So I think you know,again, just another learning opportunity to learn more about myself and what I'm good at. And I think what I'm noticing here in our conversation is so many of these different things we talk about may seem like different subjects. But there's like this common thread to All

Lynn: 1:15:10

right, right. It is,that's the deeper principles under it. And, you know, I feel like I live not far from you.I'm in western North Carolina,I'm a little bit more. I mean,we have 1000 people in my town.So it's not quite as rural as where you are. But it's all 1000people, no red lights. But I have seen the same thing,especially if you talk about energy, or yoga or things like that. And I feel like it's a carryover from way back when Rene Descartes said, we're going to separate the mind and the body and say that the church,you can have the mind, I will take the body. And, you know,that became like this way of the church for so long. And I don't think there's any grounding in that whatsoever if you actually get behind the teachings of, you know, the schooling of it, if you will, but to the real spirituality of it. I think we are interesting, now interconnected. So I feel like that's just leftover from that.And when I can see it that way,that it gets me out of the judgment that I want to have,right,

Cathy: 1:16:12

I'm gonna I'm gonna pull in another quote here. The Buddha said that the all the source of human suffering is separateness and you know, I mean, you look at even you know,religion, how we've just separated ourselves into different sects and under the under the same religion, it's like, for example, Christianity.So you have your your Baptist and your Methodists and your your Catholics and what all that really does is separates you saying, Well, my method is going to bring you to enlightenment.Quicker than that one. And I see it in the horsemanship world,too, like my method of training is going to bring you you know,better than this one and, and it's just all separateness and I think people just have to listen to that inner voice do what they're drawn to, you know, stay true to original principles,whether they're spiritual principles or horsemanship principles, I think, I think those early principles are probably closest to the truth.And I think, you know, we've put a lot of spins on them in different categories.

Lynn: 1:17:11

Well, I love I think the work is finding our way back to ourselves. And you found a beautiful way to do that. So one of the things I like to always ask as we close a podcast is,you know, give you a chance to sort of speak to whoever might be listening with, it could be a request, it could be a piece of advice, it could be something for them to acknowledge, what would you kind of what would be a message that you would want?And we don't know who this audience is, you know, it's,yeah, it's business people, it's leaders, it's athletes, it's horse people. There's a lot of people in listening to this conversation, but what would be one message or a piece of advice or something you would want them to know? Well, rather than giving

Cathy: 1:17:56

words to that advice, I think I'd like to offer an experience, because I would say one of the most important things is taking time for stillness,taking time to go within, and taking time to connect with the who of who you are. And we think the who of who we are, is our name, our gender, our religion,our income bracket, our titles,and those are just self images.And the authentic self is beyond any of those self images that we can create for ourselves. So I'd like to just take people on a little two minute journey here to to connect with the who of who they are.

Lynn: 1:18:30

Is that okay? Let's do it.All right, sounds good. So

Cathy: 1:18:34

just gently straighten your spine. If you're driving,please don't do this.Disclaimer. Wait until you're out of the car. Exactly,exactly. Or maybe if you're on the back, don't you? Exactly.You can go park your car or maybe do this beside your horse.Exactly, exactly. So just come into a place of stillness where your spine can be gently straight. allow your eyes to close.Take a deep cleansing breath. As you exhale at the shoulders just dropped down away from the ears. And just take a moment to be fully present to where you are. how your body feels, the flow of the breath. without judging or changing, just simply be an observer of this moment in time. And then take a few slow deep belly breaths energizing and oxygenating your entire system helping to calm your nervous system.And giving the mind a focal point of breath just resting the mind on the breath for just a few moments.Now how liberating that feels to not have to be doing achieve ain't changing, fixing,accomplishing anything, but simply the act of just being.Give yourself permission at this time to come down from thinking and doing. And to just be in a space of simply being and breathing. Anytime your mind becomes distracted, bring it back to the breath. And as you come down from thinking and doing take a moment to drop into the who of who you are. Not your name,not your titles, your status,but the who of who you are, the essence, the energy, the spirit of the soul,whatever word you like to use,just tap into the who of who you are in silence for just another moment.And notice that essence cell,expand expanding from within beyond the limitations of body and mind.And I invite you to stay connected to that essence self to try to operate as best you can, from that essence,self. Throughout your day, and sharing that energy and essence self, with the world with all of who you come in contact with.And know that your cell, your essence, sell is the same and interconnected to everyone else's essence sell interconnecting us. And so it is on shanti,shanti, shanti. And Shanti means peace.Slowly open your eyes. Take a deep breath. And then just check in with yourself. And notice how you're doing how you're feeling after coming down from thinking and doing even just for a few moments and feel the palpable shifts that can happen from just being still in Word for a time.

Lynn: 1:22:29

Thank you. Thank you.Well, thanks for setting me up for the rest of the day. Love greatly. People are gonna really like that. And once again, I hope nobody did that while they were driving.

Cathy: 1:22:44

Exactly, exactly,exactly. But I want to thank Yeah, I just want to thank you for the work that you're doing in the world too. And I'm so glad that we met and I feel like instantly you were kindred spirits. So grateful for the connection and grateful for having you have me on here

Lynn: 1:23:01

today. Oh, that is that feeling is definitely likewise.The minute I met you. I was like oh yes.

Cathy: 1:23:08

She's one of my people.Yeah, one of the tribe. So happy

Lynn: 1:23:13

to have you here. I'm so looking forward to seeing you in August because I'm going to the next retreat at triad Equestrian Center. And are there any spots left in case somebody's listening to this? Yeah,

Cathy: 1:23:25

last I checked there were six spots left though Okay,windowed by now. And also you know, I'm doing this event at Tryon. But I also do other retreats around the country.Some of them are several day multi day retreat experiences at ranches resorts equestrian center. So I try to have something for everybody,everything from the one day to people who just enjoy being around horses to more equestrian centric programs for the equine enthusiast and everybody in between. So I love sharing, it's my passion to share horses and yoga and travel and anybody wants to join me on that journey. I'm sure Lynn will tell you how to get in touch with

Lynn: 1:24:05

well we're gonna do it right now. We're going to tell people that they tell tell people your website because I think it's very important to get in touch with you.

Cathy: 1:24:14

So it's Cathy Woods yoga,and that's Cathy with a C woods with an S Cathy woods. yoga.com is my website that is also Cathy Woods yoga is on Instagram, Facebook,and YouTube and on YouTube. I do have a lot of complimentary content on there. There's some guided free meditations and yoga classes and conversations. So it's a great tool. So Kathy Woods yoga is where to find me.My book is yoga for riders, and that's published through horse and rider books than that but if you do any video, yeah. So thank you and yeah, my website is my upcoming schedule and where people can find me and I'm approachable. I like to be really accessible. So it's somebody has a question or wants to email me or call me. I love that. So give us your email me direct. If you're not so sure is Kathy at Kathy woods. yoga.com.Perfect. And yeah,

Lynn: 1:25:12

we will be also together at the Warwick Schiller podcast Summit, which is coming up. What is the date? It's the first week of the first weekend in November.

Cathy: 1:25:21

Yeah, November 2, second through sixth in San Antonio.And I think that's getting close to sold out in person. But I think it's so important for people to know, live stream is a better way to attend. That's what I did last year. And I loved it, because you could do it kind of at your leisure. So don't feel like if you can't come in person that it's not worth doing live stream it is and you can get tickets from linear I affiliate codes.Exactly.

Lynn: 1:25:45

Yeah, either both of us will have, you can reach out to either one of us to get the direct link to get that live stream. And I'm always happy to have it afterwards. Because I was actually in person last year. It was an incredible experience. But then I needed to go back to hear some of the things people said because,yeah, it was a lot. And there's a lot of positive energy. And a lot of people, like you said in this podcast, who recognize that separateness is not useful. So it was a very unifying experience. Last year, right?

Cathy: 1:26:19

Yeah. And I believe it will be again, I'm gonna group and, and really, I think so much goes back to intentions. And that's Warwick and Robin's intention is to, you know,create this community, this tribe, this unity consciousness,lifting each other up supporting each other being equal, and that intention is palpable, and it spreads throughout the entire events. So I think it's gonna be life changing and phenomenal on so many levels. So I'm excited about it. Yeah,

Lynn: 1:26:47

yeah. It's no and it's a lot more than being about horses. It's a it's about the journey of life. It really is about the journey of life.Absolutely. Yeah.

Cathy: 1:26:55

Well, I look forward to seeing you there. And certainly sooner than that. I'll see you in August. So exactly, again,yeah, I'm

Lynn: 1:27:02

excited. Well, thank you,for everybody for listening. And if you enjoy this podcast,please be sure to share it with your friends. And if you'd like to leave me a voicemail, you just go to learn current stock comm there is a button on the right, you can leave me a voicemail right there. And, as Cathy does I answer all of these, so I'm looking forward to hearing you there and seeing you on the next podcast. Thank you for listening to the creative spirits unleashed podcast. I started this podcast because I was having these great conversations and I wanted to share them with others. I'm always learning in these conversations, and I wanted to share that kind of learning with you. Now what I need to hear from you is what you want more of and what you want less of. I really want these podcasts to be a value for the listeners. Also,if you happen to know someone who you think might love them,please share the podcast and of course, subscribe and rate it on the different apps that you're using, because that's how others will find it. Now, I hope you go and do something very fun today.