Menopause And Yoga: Intelligent Body Movement

Introduction and Guest Welcome 0:00

Hi, everyone. It's your host Dr. Sharon Stills. Welcome back to Mastering the Menopause Transition 2.0. Save your hair, your mind, your figure, save it all, get great. And we're going to have a wonderful conversation today with my guest about what you need to know about moving and eating and being and mindset. And just look at her and you just like the living that I was telling her before we came on that I have backdrop envy and it's like this is Spencer Days so my guest is Stacy McCarthy and some of you may know her as yoga nama Stacy on social media,which is just to me the most amazing name.

So if you don't know now, I'm a stay is a term you may have heard it often at the end of a yoga class. And really what it means is, is the light in me, the the essence of me acknowledges and honors the light in you and that we are truly all one and we all have different gifts and different paths and different journeys. And so, you know, we just say Namastay, to all of you, I'm so glad you're all here today and that you're taking the time to learn and to find out what you can do, to really step into your sacred second act with a bang and like the rock star you are.

And so, Stacy, welcome. I am just so thrilled that you're here and you're going to share with the audience today. Oh, thank you. I'm so thrilled to be here. And, you know, of course, I love this topic because I'm on the other end of it so I can speak with some some experience being on the other side of that. Exactly. And like, look, look at her. She looks pretty, pretty going well to me. So there is no no. I mean, you do so many things. You're involved in integrative health and wellness and exercise psychology.

And I saw you are in the freestyle Frisbie Hall of Fame. I was like, That's cool. Never met a Frisbee champion before. So you're just so active and into movement. And so like, how did that all come about? How did you get on this journey yourself? You know, I think from an early age I understood that movement is medicine, but not all movement. When I went to ironically, when I went to college, I was a swimmer. I grew up as a water baby, swimming and sailing and surfing and all that fun stuff in Florida.

And I ended up going to school in Colorado to go to college. And one day I was actually in a completely different major is a forestry major. I just loved nature. I didn't really know what that meant. But one day we came out of the locker room, myself and the other gals with in our swim cap on and our goggles and our Speedo swimsuits, and we come out ready to jump in the pool and the coach says the pool pumps broke. We're going to do aerobics. Now, I'm probably a little older than most people here.

I'm on the other side of things. This was in the early 1980's.

Stacy's Movement Journey and Yoga Origins 3:08

I had no idea what the word aerobics was or what we were about to do, but she pulled out a janky old boombox. I remember those, put a cassette tape in, started blasting this music, and next thing I know, she's like, knees up, you know, a hamstring curl. And we're like, all mimicking her. I'm literally like a fish out of water. I have no idea what's going on. Then she started getting fancy like grapevine and adding this. But I have. I have no idea what's going on. Literally barefoot, you know, cap still on and at the end of it, I loved it.

I absolutely loved it. I immediately changed my major when I graduated, moved to California, and that kind of got me started in the early days of fitness. So I went on to run a major chain of health clubs and hiring and training, a lot of fitness people. But in the very late eighties, early nineties, I met a yoga teacher that really changed my life. And still, this was fairly early in in kind of the growth of yoga. And I was living in the Mecca of yoga in an area called Encinitas, California. And the student teacher just really changed my life.

All of a sudden, I found movement very different from what I had been doing. I was really pounding my body pretty hard and fitness like I'd wake up stiff, sore and tired all the time. I was working out so hard and I wasn't feeling good. I had a lot of aches and pains and then when I found yoga, I started moving intelligently. I began to move in a way where I was using everything, but I wasn't overusing anything. And so I just that was my thing. I practiced with the teacher in India in and I just studied and I learned more and more and eventually, you know, kinesiology professor of health and nutrition.

And I just, I, I specialized in yoga studies, bringing that into colleges and then bringing that into health clubs. And I just found it to be integrating all the things that really make up the whole person, not just the musculature, skeletal system, but the energy body, the mindfulness of the mind, the tapping into your deeper intuitive wisdom and and it just it changed everything for me. So that was really my journey. And I've been very passionate about helping women regardless of where they start.

I really have a body that they love without excessive exercise and without dieting, but really through embodying a lifestyle change that makes you really love who you are. Mm hmm. I love that. And I love what you said. Move intelligently, because I like that. That's such a tagline. Because that's so true. Like, we we all want to move. And I have learned along my journey because I'm also on the other side of menopause myself, and I've learned that, you know, what I need now is very different than what I needed in the past and sets.

And I, you know, I had to I had to have you here to speak to the audience here at this summit, because to me, yoga is medicine. And I love that you said it's not just about the musculoskeletal system. So what would you say to those listening who have a yoga practice or want to get started? Like what do you recommend and what does yoga mean to you? Yeah. So well, yoga means so much to me. Yoga. Yoga for me is really the deepest and most profound connection to my inner self. It is what has really awoken me from the inside out.

It's helped me tap into my own inner body wisdom so that I start to understand exactly how to move my body that's appropriate for me. And so and with that, you know, it really connects you. When we say Namastay, this is really that that oneness that we are all connected and that oneness starts from within. So I teach a very heart centered style of yoga. That doesn't mean that you're not working, because as you know, my teacher, my teacher was from India. He spoke very little English. And I began practicing with him when he was in his early sixties practice with him up until his nineties.

He was still teaching and he used to is he didn't speak much English, but he would say these like gems of wisdom. And one time he used to always have this kind of like tag line where he would say, Do your practice, all is coming. What does that mean? Do your yoga practice, all this coming and and one day he said, do your practice properly and all this coming. And that's that intelligent movement that we can do yoga. But if we're not doing it intelligently, then it may not be working. So doing your practice properly is very important and he also said another and so do your practice.

All is coming. What he was saying is that this is a lifelong journey, that if you want greater health and happiness, you have to. This is not a quick fix. This is not something you do for a little while. Then you quit and you come back and forth and back and forth that this is like brushing your teeth, that you get to the point where it's like brushing your teeth every day. If you don't move your spine every day, if you're not connecting to yourself every day, then it's like you're like your teeth are getting, you know, gummy and gross and you're like, Oh, I need to brush my teeth.

We want to feel like that as we move our body. So he would he would never make promises. And this is what I loved about him. He never made promises that yoga was going to, you know, cure your illness or you fix your knee or fix your hip or make any claims. He never did that. But what he did say and this really struck a chord with me,

What Yoga Means and Practicing Properly 9:13

is that if you do your yoga practice for a lifetime, you will have more health and happiness than if you don't do yoga. That's simple. If you want more health and happiness in your life, practice yoga for a lifetime, to live a lifetime and so that's really stuck with me. No great claims, but what we all realize is if we do this on a regular basis, those those benefits come, which is a happier person. You're healthier, you're connected more, you're starts to reduce the cravings that we have. You're starting to have more balance in your mind through the body.

So, yeah, that's, you know, kind of a long answer to what yoga is for me and also the type of yoga that I teach. I really want people to connect to a deeper part of their inner self while they're moving the body, while they're moving the breath, while their mind is wandering, coming back again and again without any judgment, you know, back to your breath as you move through this discomfort in the body. And I totally agree. I have a not such a profound saying, but a philosophy in my life where it's kind of like if I'm if something's going on or I'm upset about something or I've had an interaction with someone, I'm like, you know what?

I'm going to go go to yoga and then kind of decide how I want to handle this. And we have a furry friend. This is my dog, Yogi, everyone. He is usually very fluffy like this, but he got out that very matted and they had to they had to shave him down. So he's got a buzzcut. Now. I'll tell you my story about Yogi. So Yogi, when he was little, I taught him in the language of yoga, which is Sanskrit, like different yoga poses. So I would say out of mucus whatnots and a downward dog, he took his downward dog and.

Okay, excuse me. My time. My husband just put my cat in here to my blind cat. So this is my blind cat. Oh. You know, it's funny, when I'm in my yoga space or my yoga room, all the animals love to come in here. They love the energy in here. It's very calming. And. And that doesn't surprise me, right? Kids, they know how to pick up on energy. So for the different kinds, because there's hot yoga and there's power yoga and there's Vinyasa yoga and there's Hatha yoga and there's there's so many what like what's a little, like, quick, you know, journey.

Yeah. For a lot of confusion. Yeah. How to, how to load. Still all that info for us especially is going through menopause. Well exactly. So, so many styles of yoga out there. And the word hot. The yoga hot. That means sun, moon hot. The sun moon is just kind of a big umbrella. So it's an umbrella on yoga with movement. So there's a lot of types of yoga. So this is one where we're doing the movement are things the yoga poses underneath that umbrella. There's of course different styles. I would say during menopause, the hot yoga can be a little too fiery, a little, you know, it's just too much fire, too much heat.

I wouldn't recommend necessarily that style of yoga, especially why you're going. I mean, can you imagine if you're having a hot flash and you're in your room of a hundred something degrees? You might you might be real angry by the time you leave and you want to leave yoga feeling really, really good. So I teach this to all of you where you're creating the heat from the inside out. It's natural. So through our breath, through our movement, we're a step by step, increasing the inner fire within us.

And we have control through our breath and through our movement, so that you're truly not using external things for your practice, but you're learning how to tap into your own inner body wisdom. And that's that. That to me is something you can take with you everywhere, everywhere you go to learn how to tap in. And so, you know, the breath work is very important, learning how to breathe properly in the practice, learning how to really align the bones and stabilize the muscles before you start to work with your flexibility in the practice.

So some some people think that yoga is about touching your toes and they think it's all about flexibility. I mean, ultimately yoga is about touching your soul, but on the way to touching your toes and you also want to build strength in the body. So we want a practice that understands the proper alignment of your bones, how to stabilize your muscles. So when you're stable and strong and balanced, now you can create space in the body. And this is where the flexibility come in, comes in. So the style of yoga that I teach is I call it an alignment based breath to movement practice that meets you where you're at.

So a lot of step by step foundation. And as you improve, as you get stronger, as you get more flexible, as you get more balanced and stable, you start to increase your intensity at your own rate. So this way, you know, different levels can work together and have inspiration and there'll be days where you're injured, your energy slow, and you can still do your practice. It doesn't mean you quit and you don't do it for that day. Like right now. I have online classes this morning in my class I had one woman just coming in from her second week of breast surgery, second round from breast cancer.

She came on. I had a woman in her eighties. She's been practicing with me for decades who's also a yoga teacher herself. I had women in their forties disease all different stages, one with a knee injury just and everyone could work together. So the woman who couldn't raise her arms because she just had breast surgery and she's cut across the abdomen, crossed the rib cage. She breathed, she stood, and with every cue of my breath, she's working with me. She can bring her arms this high. That's how high she'll bring them.

She'll work like that for a while as she's healing. But she sent me the most beautiful email afterwards and she said, you know, just thank you. Just the fact that I was there breathing and moving and doing what I can, I felt so good. And that's what I want for people. I want people to just feel extraordinary when they're done and that they feel this connection. So it you can teach a lot of levels if it's done step by step, first, align your bones, get stable and now wherever your flexibility. Yes, well, then that's where it is.

I love that so much. I think, you know, and that's like when you're at this stage of life, you know, I think when you're younger and if you're going to a class in person or looking at other people in the Zoom room, sometimes you're so focused on like, Oh, she can touch your toes or she can do a backbend and I can't or wow, her booty looks really cute in that mine does in or whatever. You know, her boobs are nice or whatever. You know, we're so out there and when, when you get to this point, it's like this invitation to come home and to sit with your self and to be accepting in yoga is such a beautiful way to kind of I know, you know, I'm not a yoga teacher, but I when I go to yoga class, it's like the teachers always saying, you know, this is your mat, your practice.

Like, you know, you just be there and you show up. And like you said, you know, some days I show up and I'm like a rock star. And other days, you know, depending upon what's happening, I'm not as much of a rock star, but I showed up. And it's an example of just how we show up for ourselves. That's right. That you just don't quit. That's the only thing that I ask of my students is just don't quit, show up. I and you know, I try to also be that role model for them. I have been through my share of injuries and all all kinds of things.

I mean, one time

Yoga Styles, Breath, and Menopause-Friendly Practice 17:28

I had a knee thing where you know, I ended up getting knee surgery, but I woke up, I was supposed to be leading a retreat that day. My knee just locked up, could not torn meniscus, could not walk. And to borrow my 90 year old mother's walker come up on stage at the retreat I still taught on the walker. Didn't matter, you know. So, you know, I did what I could. I did what I you know, I gave everyone cues, but I could only do so much. And, you know, in the practice of yoga, you're modern day yoga in a lot of places now have the mirrors in the room and, you know, you got to see yourself.

But the reality is, is what those mirrors do is it puts you into comparison, judgment, competitiveness. You're watching yourself trying to get it just right rather than tuning in, you know. So for me, it's like, turn down the music, turn up your breath, get rid of the mirrors and connect to, you know, listen to your body. And when we start to do this now, we're really connecting to our inner self or connecting into our inner body wisdom. But if we're always looking outside for all the answers, it will.

You'll never be good enough. You'll never you will. And that's that's a sure formula for quitting, because it's all in comparison. And you'll never, ever you're going to age. Things are going to change. You know, I tell my students often, it's like, look, the things I could do when I began my practice in my thirties don't look the same as what I can do now. But there's other things that I do so much better. I'm so much more focused. I am I'm so I have so much more equanimity of my mind where I'm not like, hi. Hi.

Hi. Over here. Low, low, low. I'm very balanced in my energy state and this is all through the practice. And so that's that should be what we are hoping to get from our yoga practice. And if along the way you finally nail your headstand or whatever it is, will That's great too. But, you know, give yourself a pat on the back. But at the same time, if you lose it, you know, still give yourself a pat on the back for warming up. And, you know, I always say that sometimes, like sometimes and you probably had this as well.

People people say, oh, you're the greatest yoga teacher. I've ever had. And I'll say Thank you. And somebody else may say, She's the worst yoga teacher I've ever had. And I'll say thank you because it doesn't matter right? It really does. And it's finding this balance that we're never above anyone and we're also never beneath anyone. And that's what the practice is here to teach us, that we are one, that we're all working on our own journey. Right? And our journeys can look a little different and we can have different struggles.

And no one no one's got it made right. We are we're all human. We're all having the human condition experience. And so best to just focus, focus within and do what you can to help yourself. And let your yoga practice be that safe space for you, that sacred container for you to be able to let go. And each day that you practice and the more in tune you are, you start to notice things. You start to notice what's going on with your body. Oh, gosh, I eat a lot of processed food and too much sugar and alcohol last night.

I feel really crappy today and that's downward dog or you know, I got an argument, I had something going on, you know, stressed or whatever. I feel really crappy. And then, oh, I really well, I'm rested. I got a great night's sleep. Oh, I feel better. You start tapping into that and, and it is so empowering to know you have control over what's happening in this body temple. Exact I so confession time I'm a hot yoga junkie with all the fire I have and all the pitta I still I like. When I was in India doing Crunch Karma, the doctor was yelling at me.

But, you know, we all have our vices and but I not that I was a huge drinker, but I stopped drinking. You just reminded me when you're talking about that, like I stopped drinking pretty much at all, because if I would go out, say, on a Saturday night and maybe have a cocktail or something, and then I would go to yoga the next day, I would feel like death. And it and it taught me like this is not worth it. I want to feel good on the mat. And so having this drink or not getting sleep or whatever it is that we do to not take care of, as you say, our body temple, it just became not worth it.

And so it's a really good way to give you that feedback and to really become accountable to yourself, to your practice. That's right. It is you being accountable to yourself and and when you start to cultivate this discipline and devotion to the practice, like I said, like brushing your teeth where it just feels strange if you don't move your spine every day. I'm not saying you need to do like a full blown hot yoga and get all sweaty and everything. But you should be moving every day in a way that is keeping your spine young.

I mean, because a younger one of my teachers as well would say we are as young as our spine is flexible. And so keeping this in is also where the energy moves through. And so keeping that that spine very mobile and flexible and being accountable to you, taking care of yourself, that starts to reduce the craving. So I love that story that you shared because you're like, Hey, I noticed that when I was drinking the night before, what I felt like in my practice that you had the discipline to get up first of all and do the practice and then the aha.

Oh you know what, I don't want to feel like that anymore. No one's telling you it's from within. And then, you know, that's where the real power is, is that, you know, let the teacher be within you. Let the yoga practice, teach you from within. Yeah. It also made I mean, I was always really into hydration, but like, again, you don't want to not hydrate and show up in the hot yoga. So it really helped that way. So I have so many questions I want to ask you. Is there anything before we kind of move on to a different piece because you have some interesting things you wrote down that I want to ask you about, but is there anything just for the listeners, are there any like tips or tools about like how to breathe or how to sit or how to walk or how to stand that just little juicy nuggets that they could get from you right now?

Yeah. So I think, you know, there's there's a couple things with breathing. So like depending there's so many types of breaths out there and some breaths are designed to energize you. They're very fiery. Some breaths are designed to calm you down and decompress you. Some breaths are designed to balance your your sympathetic parasympathetic nervous system, very even teaching you a very even breath. None of this. And so in in for example, in the style of yoga I teach is I'm teaching a very even breath.

I want you because I'm again, I'm working with this balance of the mind and body so very even breath and getting you to connect to that type of breath. The breath is through the nose with the mouth closed again to keep it very balanced. So the breath work is very important. And in my opinion in a yoga practice. And so that's one thing. And then the other thing that I focus a lot on, most of, you know, my clientele are women, most of them over 40. And there's areas of the body as as we get older that slump and slouch a lot.

Right. And so the two areas that end up being basically the couple areas that are blind spots in the body for most people. And one is this graphic spine, which is the posture muscle area,

Showing Up Through Injury and Avoiding Comparison 25:18

you know, this slumping and slouching, like most people, if I talk to them about their cervical spine, their neck, they know what to do, their low back, the lumbar, they know what to do. But when I ask them to start working with the thoracic, they're like, Huh, what do I do? So a lot of the work I do is strengthening the posture muscles limit back learning how to connect to the inner thighs. Because the other thing that happens is the inner thighs also as we age, start to get in, they start to get tighter and tighter and when the inner thighs start to get tighter and tighter.

So for example, the inner thigh sorry my cats here too when the inner thighs get tighter, this is literally pulling us down. So the tighter this, kids are pulling us down. Now, it's also collapsing our chest and shoulders, pulling us down from the thoracic. So a lot of the work I teach is how to engage and learn, how to strengthen the posture muscles open the inner thighs, which is a gateway up into your lower belly. That area about three inches below the navel, which is for most people, especially women, a complete blindspot like they all know the rectus abdominals, you know, not in the ribs.

All of this, that lower belly, they're like, huh? And so bringing the awareness because again, these are energy channels, but it's also for better posture. So you're standing up taller, so you're not shrinking each. You're getting shorter and shorter, but you're standing up tall. And you know, when we're young, our bodies are just exploding with growth and vitality. Remember that phrase, the wonder years? We're like we're like a rocket ship that quickly soars and then somewhere in our toes, we reached the peak of vitality and growth.

And then gravity sets in and we begin this long, slow decline. And with that, there's certain changes and shifts that happen in our strength, flexibility, need, balance, stamina, mental clarity. And and so we start to, you know, bit by bit, have these changes. And then we hit our thirties and more changes hit us. Now we have even more changes where all of a sudden we don't sleep as deeply, we're more prone to certain diseases. We don't recover as quickly from our our illnesses and our injuries and our tissues don't lubricate as well.

Now, I know some of you out there can relate to this and we go from the wonder years to the I wonder what hit me years earlier, like what has happened now despite these changes, there are those women who decided to fight back. We've decided not to coast. And these are the women who, whether they're 35, 55, 75, are still performing at their peak now, now that peak's not the same that it was when they were in their twenties, obviously, but they're still living adventurous lives. They're still starting new careers.

They they have powerful bodies. They have a soaring spirit. These are the women who have adopted what I like to call Mastering the Big Three. And that's really a lot of what I teach. So so what are the Big Three? How you move, which for me, it's intelligent movement through this practice of yoga, how you eat, learning how to eat foods and eating in a way that decreases inflammation in the body. And then thirdly, how you sink and how you sink, by the way, is the most important of all of it, because you can you can move perfectly.

You could have the best diet in the world for you. But if your thoughts are toxic and you're filled with negative bias, none of that matters because all of that is going to be inside you. So those are the three areas that I really work with with women on to have more balance and feel really great. And, you know, being able to continue to sort know no matter how old you are. I mean, I honestly feel I'll be 62 this year and I honestly feel like my best. I honestly, honestly do. And so maybe my, you know, things have shifted a little bit more.

Maybe, you know, when you put on your pants, like all of a sudden, like the booties not getting filled as much and the waist is a little tighter, you know, things maybe have shifted post menopause, you know, because we, you know, muscle mass is shrink bone does that density has declined. Things have shifted. Right. However, there's things you can do to counteract a lot of that. So a lot of the work I do now also is increasing, you know, working with the muscles and and lengthening my spine and building up more my gluteal area.

And, you know, deeper twist working with my waist to again counteract some of those things I was feeling post menopause and throughout menopause. It's like what is happening, you know, that that menopause belly is this this is, I think, happening here. Well, like so much wisdom in there, I just want to comment on it. So just going back to like the spine, I think that's such an important piece because our spine, you know, all the ways our spine can move and rotate and all the nerves that come out of our mind and innovate, all our life sustaining organs.

And we don't think about the spine like it's not something you go to the doctor and they check your spine. They check your blood pressure. And, you know, obviously in a traditional not in a practice like mine.

Daily Movement, Hydration, and Body Awareness 31:28

And so, like, I hope you walk away. There's a lot of things. I hope you walk away from this conversation. But one is definitely like this Oh, my spine needs TLC and yoga and a yoga practice. Could be a beautiful way to get it. And then I would also I also love like The Wonder Years because I was going to ask you because you had written down like the What Hit Me years. I'm like, what does that and I also love what you mentioned before about like you, you know, and it kind of also goes into what you just said about mindset.

And it's really interesting because I am a huge believer in the body mind complex and I do a lot of work with my patients with physical things, bioidentical hormones and supplements and diets and so on and so forth. But it's always to me about the emotions and the mind. And so far, like everyone I've interviewed for this summit, no matter what their topic is, it's always getting in there that it's about the mindset. So it's like, yes, this is mastering your menopause transition, saving your hair, your body, your mind and your figure.

But I also feel like it should be called like the mindset of menopause, the mindset being, the mindset of yoga, the mindset of life, and because everyone keeps bringing it up. So I hope that you all listening really take that and digest it because I'm on such a mission to change, because in our society we've really created this belief that like medicine comes in the pill bottle and that to get well, we pop a bottle and then you come over to the side where I am, and then you want to pop a vitamin bottle.

But it's so yoga to me. I mean, it's why I wanted you here. It's medicine. It's not just like a workout. It is medicine for the body, mind and soul. And so I. I love, love, love everything you are saying. And there's another term you had written down just on your form that you send to me saying Energy billionaire. Yeah, do what is an energy billionaire? That sounds like something everyone would want to be. So yeah. So that's something I speak on that a lot. So anything in life that has any real value is going to require a certain level of energy.

But most people run out of that energetic gas as they're climbing the mountain of success. And this is men or women, you know, women especially, you know, you're you're climbing the corporate ladder or where you're raising family or whatever you're doing. A lot of times you've run out of that energetic gas by the time you're in your late thirties, your forties and onward. So much of the work that I do also in the body and the eating and the thinking is helping to create more energy in your body.

So if you think about so if I if I back to back a little bit to talking about the spine, so if you think the universe is vast, you should look inside your own body, look like the spine. So the spine has 26 vertebra, 104 joints, 120 muscles and thousands I'm talking thousands of energy channels running throughout your body in the primary energy channel that is moving your life force. Energy is right through the center of your spine. And so it's running up from the very, very, very rooted core of your your spine all the way up to the brain and its energy.

If it ends up being blocked, if your spine is blocked, it's your lower back, your shoulders, your you know, whatever's going on here, your energy's basically blocked there. So then your your brain basically doesn't have as much clarity and vitality. And we start getting that brain fog and all of this type of stuff. So keeping your spine in those energy channels open is so, so important. And so when we talk about thinking and you're talking about mindset, so your thoughts are your thoughts are the vocabulary of your brain.

Your emotions are the vocabulary of your body. So we have to work with both. So the practice of yoga is working with your thoughts, your emotions, and it's coming. You're embodying it through both.

The Big Three: Movement, Food, and Mindset 35:48

You know what's going on up here in your brain, but also in your body. And that's why so many times I mean, think about it. If you think about in your own lives, if you're suffering from low back pain, notice if your low back pain becomes particularly heightened when you're under great deals of stress, emotional stress, notice if maybe your neck and shoulders and your neck and everything's all really cranked up if you're under a lot of stress and your thoughts, you know, so your body, you know, your body tells the truth.

Your body is not going to lie to you, but you have to have the aware ness. You have to have the inner awareness to know what's going on here. And that's what the practice of yoga, when it's taught properly. And as I started this whole conversation, do your practice properly, as my teacher said, and all is coming when we practice properly and when we're working step by step. Yoga is vast and deep and it's thousands of years old and has stood the test of time. And it's a beautiful step by step blueprint.

And to really connect to your inner self and the inner body wisdom, when you practice it properly, you start to know what's going on, you start to know when things are off and you start to notice, Aha, I'm under too much emotional stress. I'm going to take action now in whether or how I'm moving, how eating, what are my thoughts? You start, you learn how to stand guard of your mind. And that's what that's what that that's what I teach a lot in my classes is learn to stand guard of your mind. Notice right away.

Notice how quickly you fell into that negative bias. Notice how quickly you ended up worrying you didn't and tense and judging and embarrassed and disappointment and complaining and blaming and angry and fearful and this is all bringing it to the surface. Notice that you're feeling that and also give yourself a break. Learn how to release it and come back to who you really are. So all of those negative, biased thoughts and emotions that, you know, that are redundant, they're recycled, then they're unnecessary thoughts and emotions.

Can you give your brain a rest and get out of your head which judges and holds back and comes back and come back to your heart, which your heart operates in the present moment. And so when we come back to our heart, it's it's really coming back home to who you really are at the end, the deepest and most profound part of your inner self. This is coming back home to your trueself, your essential self, your soul self. Which who are you at that state? It's a state of being not doing, but a state of being of abundant joy and unconditional love.

That's who we all are at our deepest level. All that other stuff, all that crazy up here. That's all your story. So we're all energy billionaires. All energy billions. But we forget. We let all of those stories accumulate over and over. So, you know, research has shown we have around 430 emotions a day we have between anywhere from 50-60,000 thoughts a day. And the challenges those mostly they're the same thoughts and emotions that we had yesterday, the day before or 5 minutes ago, constantly going through.

So we've got to. So part of what I teach through movement is how to upgrade your story. So you upgrade your life so that you understand that that's a story you've created and it's not who you are. It's not who you are at your deepest level. And how do we come back home to who we really are? And when we do that, then, as my teacher said, Do yoga for a lifetime and you'll have more health and happiness because you're remembering who you are. That's why I love yoga so much. I mean, it's now it's it all goes back to mindfulness and meditation.

And this is and this is such a powerful time, I think, when you were talking before and it's like, you know, the wonder years that what hit me years and so much of it goes to what you're saying, like the mindset. What like are we going to focus on? Oh, I you know, my hair is gray now or whatever, or are we going to focus on, wow, my self-esteem is like 150% better than what it was when I was 20. And so where are we going to put these thoughts and what are we going to what are we going to appreciate in life?

Because someone said to me, the other day, and I'm like stealing it. But it's like, you know what, 100 out of 100 people are going to die. And it's like, yeah, that's true. We, you know, we're all aging. You don't get to skip that. It's just how are you going to enjoy that aging process and how are you going to dance and embrace that journey? And it can be, you know, you're living proof. I like to think I'm living proof that it can be a beautiful journey and you can feel because I too, like I'm 55 and I feel healthier, more vibrant, more settled, happier.

All these things as each year goes on.

Energy Billionaire Mindset and Inner Wisdom 41:18

And because there's just this embracing of understanding what's really important in this precious journey of life so. That inner wisdom, you know, one of the things for anyone, anyone, you know, anyone who's watching this now and and maybe you're like right at the height of you, perimenopause, menopause, wherever you are on this journey where you know you're not sleeping, maybe you've got the hot flashes. Maybe you're just, like, angry for no reason or you're crying for no reason, or your emotions are on this roller coaster.

Whatever is happening, you know, maybe you can you can pause. Yoga has all these just I mean, unbelievable gems of wisdom accumulated over thousands of years. We have something in the language of yoga called Sanskrit, called scintillation. That means contentment. It's it's it's remembering to appreciate what you have and see the perfection of where you're at. Even even when maybe it's not where you want to be. So if you can, if you can pause and you can replace your expectation with it will shift what's happening up here.

But if you are so caught up in your expectation of I used to be able to do this and I did this, didn't or whatever is going on. I didn't have bad knees before. My joints didn't hurt. Whatever it is, you are all in expectation. And instead if you can just appreciate, you know what, I'm lucky enough to have my fingers, my toes, my arms, my legs. I'm lucky enough to maybe I didn't sleep my full night, but I'm lucky that I appreciate that I got some sleep and just start to shift your mindset. And this takes work because our minds are scattered all over again.

You know, the ultimate definition of yoga and I know we you know, most people, as I said, think it's about touching their toes because that's what, you know, every advertisment and media has driven into our head that it's, you know, doing whatever some contortionist,some ablelism that that someone can do. But yoga ultimately and from, you know, the ancient text, it says yoga ceases the fluctuations of the mind. So what does that mean? That the mind that's constantly going and that same pattern that I just talked about, your thoughts and emotions when we do the practice properly and effectively under the right guidance and you start getting it, it starts to cease all those crazy fluctuations of your mind and when your mind starts to become balance shifts, what happens with the body?

The body becomes. Well, there you have it, ladies. The the yoga of menopause. I mean, this is this is just like a nice, warm cup of soothing tea for the soul. So this is one, you know, if you're having a bad day, like just listen to this talk again, because there's so many juicy nuggets within it. So I thank you so much. And for those that want to know more about you or do your online classes, how what's the best? Is there a Web site follow you online on Instagram? Yeah, if. So, yoganamastacy is my website.

So the word yoga and then namastacy as we talked about nama and then Stacy no E just Stacy You know, when I started my website, which was like when websites first came out, here's how I got my name, my first began teaching. I used to have these really clever front rowers. And at the end of the class, when I'd bring my poems together and I say, namastay, they would go, namaStacy, isn't that clever? So I needed so I got like up to the, you know, everyone's doing websites and I'm like,well, I'll just call it yoganamastacy Since then, there's been a lotother people who've tapped into it.

But you'll see me, you'll recognize me because that's probably the easiest. And you can hit all my socials on that I would love for you. Yeah. To follow me on Instagram or Facebook, whatever your favorite is. But yeah. And I give lots of inspiration on, on the mastering the big three on that and also inspiration just of how good you can actually feel regardlessof where you're starting. I love it. I love it. So follow yoganamaStacy Coolest name ever and thank you for being here. I just. I got the warm, fuzzy heart, you know, just talking about yoga and all these things.

It just really brings you back to what's important. So thanks, everyone, for being here. This is a juicy, sweet one and really filled with a lot of truth. So take it in, take notes, you know, work on one thing. Go follow Stacy, move your body. Get in touch with your spine and stay tuned for another interview on Mastering The Menopause Transition. We'll see you soon. Bye.