Like, yes, you're tired, yes, you're recovering. You might still be experiencing pain, but all of these things are true. They're all happening, but holding and tensing and clenching and staying in that sort of elevated state of fight or flight or freeze isn't helpful. Hello
and welcome back to uplift for her, this is a podcast for women and all about women and women's health. I am your host, Dr Mallorie Cracroft, and we have a very wonderful guest today that I'm super excited about. This is Alicia Poldino. Alicia is the founder of Utah prenatal yoga and also the Trinatal yoga school that is training yoga instructors to be experts in prenatal and postpartum yoga instruction. The Utah prenatal yoga studio was founded with a vision that expecting parents all over Utah would have access to great prenatal yoga classes. And then along the way, they realized that postnatal yoga was extremely important, so they now have this growing family with momstrong, your program for postpartum yoga. So this is wonderful. Thank you so much for being here today.
Thank you for having me here.
We're going to be talking about yoga, but also all the other good things around childbirth preparation and postpartum recovery and how we bring in that mindfulness and the body movement to really support that. Will you just tell us a little bit about your journey to get to where you are and what has been your goal with trying to support women through their pregnancy and postpartum? Sure, yeah, my experience into motherhood, Parenthood was, you know, it was rough. It was a rough and tumble experience into it, and I was practicing yoga, and it was such a helpful aspect of the preparation and recovery, yeah, and in that process, I realized there, there really wasn't a lot of support specific to pregnancy and postpartum in the yoga space, and great teachers and lots of well meaning advice that maybe wasn't accurate were even really helpful in some ways. And I was just really surprised that there weren't more options. There weren't prenatal yoga classes, there weren't a lot of people who had specific training in pregnancy and postpartum movement. So it, you know, just said, Well, I'll do it. Then, you know, I'll do it. Yeah, I love that. Tell us a little bit about what that need is for having that specific prenatal training when offering yoga. Because I think a lot of people just say like, well, it's yoga. You're just moving your body, so you should be fine to keep doing it during pregnancy.
Sure, sure. And we hear that a lot like, well, as long as you were doing before, you're probably fine to keep doing it right. Which can get tricky, yeah, pretty quickly. And certainly, those are some of the things I heard during my journey, and even still, some of the misconceptions about it like it's just a yoga class where you modify a few things, right? And there's so much more to it than that. There's the obvious, like anatomical, physiological changes taking place, but so much more emotionally and spiritually, psychologically taking place where having some really clear understanding, education, training about what's happening during the birth year, yeah, to be able to support people, for sure, yeah, for sure.
I love that. I think that's so wonderful. Tell us a little bit about just briefly, because I know this could be a whole hour in and of itself, but tell us briefly about what the history is of yoga, and kind of what is the fuller version of yoga. Because I think a lot of us are like, Oh, I'm gonna go do a little exercise. I think I'll go do a yoga class, you know, tell us about that, that historical um element, and what yoga is really intended to be and built to be. Oh, I'm glad you asked that. I think that's so important. We do have, I think, in the West, especially in the US, this idea that it's about fitness, yeah, and along with that can there's some problematic components to really pigeonholing that into just a fitness type of program when you know there's so much more to yoga and the history of yoga, like you said, we spend hours on that, right? But there are many different traditions, many different philosophies and styles out there, but essentially what we see most often here in the West is a Hatha style and patanjalis eight limbs. So there are eight components to yoga practice, and only one of them is physical movement, the asana, the poses. And there are seven more really beautiful, deep, rich components to practicing. And I think it's important. To bring that in for the overall experience, for people to really be experiencing what yoga was intended to be, and also to honor that practice, which we really have sort of appropriated here in the west, to do our best to honor what the original intention was. Tell us
more about what that original intention was. What are some of those other elements that come in, other than the movement?
Sure, so yamas and niyamas, personal ethical, moral precepts for how we might interact with ourselves, how we interact with the world around us. Breathing Techniques is another one, you know, being aware of the breath and life force, meditation, concentration, ultimately, Samadhi. This, you know, connection, a feeling of oneness. And again, many different approaches to how those are taught and how we might arrive at that space. But I think it's important to know that there's so much more to it than just doing a warrior pose and a down dog and and there's a lot more behind
it, yeah, for sure, and this is what I want to dig into today. And so if people are listening and they say, like, I'm not that into yoga, I stay around because we are going to dig into so much more than that. I think yoga is a vehicle, and we really want to focus on what are the elements that that vehicle brings into our lives as we're preparing for childbirth and postpartum, but really focusing on just what it means to move in a way that's connected and to feel our bodies and to use the breath, one of the big elements that comes up for me as a as an OB when I was delivering babies more and then now, working with women from a functional medicine approach, it is never just about one thing. It's never just about what the body's doing. At this point, right in functional medicine, we're looking at the food and the sleep and the movement and the stress and all of these components. And I think when we're approaching pregnancy and childbirth preparation, we will be best served if we think of that from that more holistic realm of, how are we supporting not just our body like this isn't just about kegels. This isn't just about some squats. This is about how we support our body from a mindful perspective, from a spiritual perspective from a thoughtful perspective. And I think that yoga is one example of how we can really learn how to do that to best prepare for childbirth. So I want to dive into this a little bit more so you have had a history as a doula and also then teaching prenatal yoga and then postpartum yoga. What is your? How do you feel like your approach to helping women prepare for birth differs from maybe some of the other approaches out there? And we talked beforehand about this kind of this spectrum. You know, there's the conventional medical approach that is quite scientific and quite based on just the numbers and the risks and the percentages and the steps of labor, right? And then there's sort of the holistic end of the spectrum that is basically, I think, can create the idea that, like, if you just relax enough, if you're in tune enough, then everything will go perfectly, because your body will do what it was meant to do. And then there's everything in between. So tell us about your perspective and how you approach women as they're preparing for childbirth?
Yeah, I think you hit on two kinds of points on the spectrum, kind of opposite sides of that, where we exist so much more in between that and that. For me, personally, in my classes, I'm very cautious about the spiritual bypassing and toxic positivity kind of over promising, and I'll leave it, and people will come in when in with these ideas like, well, I'm doing yoga because they want to have a natural birth, or because it'll make the birth easier, or because, if I get flexible, birth will be eating. Kind of these ideas about, you know, promises that you know might have been made or might be assumed. And I, for me, would prefer to take it from the approach of we don't know. We don't know what's going to happen. We don't have things we can do to prepare. There are small elements of control and being empowered and getting educated, birth, education, things like that, staying fit. Ultimately, we don't really know how things are going to go. Don't have a ton of control over it, and I think if we can prepare mentally and emotionally for that reality, that our life experience is full and rich, and there's going to be great stuff and there's going to be hard stuff, and that it's not a good or bad or yes or no or black and white kind of a situation. But how can we exist a little bit more in the middle, release some of the expectations, surrender to the experience we're. Robbing that it's okay. If you're afraid, you know it's it's okay. If being pregnant is bringing up some stuff from your life experiences, to really give permission or encourage, I should say we don't need to give permission, but encourage people to embrace their experience, whatever it is, have some self compassion for the full experience, and not seek to control and kind of have these goals or expectations that we're told,
yeah, we should have absolutely, I think, as an OB, I've seen many, many, many birth plans, and I know that all of them were made with really wonderful intentions and really wonderful focus on what you want the outcome to be. But I do think sometimes it sets women up for complicated experiences, because if it doesn't go according to their birth plan, I think a lot of them are only left with either they failed somehow, like they didn't do it well enough, or their body didn't do it well enough that their body betrayed them, or that the medical system betrayed them, and that leaves you in kind of a crappy situation, like you've just gone through this childbirth experience, and it didn't go how your birth plan said it would go, and all you're left with our negative outcomes. Instead of saying, like, huh, that didn't go how I was expecting that, that that was interesting. You know, that's not what I had planned for. But man, this is, this is my experience. You and I had spoken a little bit earlier about kind of embracing the richness of life. Will you go into that a little bit more about, you know, embracing every eventuality, every possibility, when you're preparing for birth, yeah, and
that that is certainly a component of the yoga philosophy to bring in, is that, you know, this experience that we're having here is everything, yeah. It's everything, it's yeah, it's all the beautiful, amazing, joyful parts. It's the heartbreaking, tragic, unexpected parts. It's everything. And we we can kind of get caught up in trying to control, control things so that we're just having the good, the good parts and having things go the way that we want them to. And isn't that
interesting? Because, like, why do we think that that was ever the intention of anything, for for everything to be happy? Like, why do we think that that's really the outcome for life, for it to be non stop peace and non stop happiness? Like, I don't, I think if we step back from that, we all kind of recognize, like, well, there's going to be hard times of life, and there's going to be things that don't go to plan. And how are we, sort of, how are we prepared to embrace that? How are we prepared to accept that? Yeah,
I think a lot of that comes from social structures our culture, yeah, and certainly in yoga and wellness spaces like I mentioned before, there can be a tendency toward, sort of, you know that toxic positivity, where, if you you can think yourself into good things happening, you know, you just have to have a positive attitude. And it really bypasses the reality of sometimes crappy stuff just happens. Yeah, you know, yeah, it does. Sometimes it just happens. And I think if we can embrace that, recognize that more. That doesn't mean we have to accept it or love it or enjoy it, but maybe it's not so tragic. Maybe it's not so heartbreaking or disruptive, when we can really accept that like, Hey, we're going to get we're going to get everything. Yeah, we're going to get all parts of the experience. Yeah,
I love it. I used to give this advice to my patients, is, it's planning for your birth is a little bit like planning for your wedding. You put in all of the work and all the money, and you pay the best cake decorator, and you pay the best photographer, you have everything ready, and then on the day of, something's probably not going to go to plan. You know, maybe it rains, maybe your cake tips over. Maybe, you know, the flowers wilt, or something like, something's not gonna go to plan, but at the end of the day, you're still gonna look back, it's always gonna be one of the best days of your life, right? Maybe not always, but hopefully, hopefully looking back, it's going to be one of those best days of your life. And I hope that's what we can give women as they're going through their childbirth experience, is, prepare. Prepare, prepare, right? Get your mindset. Ready. Get I mean, by all means, aim for it to be lovely and and natural. And I am all for that. And I will help women, and you will help women to do everything they can, to allow the body, and I say that intentionally, to allow the body to do its thing, and for us to stay out of the way, and we can prepare to say, and if not, it's going to be amazing, and it's going to be beautiful, and you're going to end up with this, this beautiful baby. Now that doesn't mean that you're going to have all beautiful emotions, that it's going to be like you said, all rainbows and butterflies, like. It doesn't mean it's going to be simple, but there can be a beauty to to whatever it turns out as
Yeah. And, like you mentioned, engage in both. Yeah, engage in both. Allow yourself to be in that middle space. Yeah. Plan and have have ideas. Make your needs known. Make your wants known. You know, be empowered, be educated and be willing to surrender. Yeah,
I love that, which is a great segue into, I wanted you to dig deeper into how we move our bodies in a way, and how we practice this really, from using yoga or any other mindful connection to our body, how do we how does that translate? How do we use that mindful movement to teach us these lessons? How do they translate into, then, our thought patterns and our approach to life? Just a little question, just
a little bit I think you know as people, you know people will come into the prenatal classes for some of those reasons we touched on already. You know, my doctor suggested a class, or I need to move, or what I was doing before is starting to get hard, and then what I hear so often from people is I needed this opportunity to slow down and really cultivate an awareness, even have the awareness of what I was experiencing. We're so everything is Go, go, go and fast and planning for a baby. There's a lot that comes with that, logistically, and we don't always prioritize sitting with the experience acknowledging, hey, I'm really excited about this, or I am, I am terrified about this, or, you know, I'm really concerned about these components, or I'm I'm overwhelmed with joy, and I haven't allowed myself to feel that today, because I've just been in the weeds of life. Yeah, and so having time built in that opportunity where you do get to check in, yeah, you get to check in and see what's going on and allow yourself to experience it like in fully, in your own way, without the noise of everything else that comes with it.
I think that's so important. I call it brain space, you know. I think that we, right now in our culture, have so little brain space. We all have a, you know, podcast or music in our ear, if we're actively, you know, if there's no noise, then we turn noise on, yeah, or we're turning on the news, or we're turning on social media, or we're talking to a friend, which is wonderful. It's all wonderful. But at what point do we have the time to check in with our own thoughts and to say, How are you feeling about this pregnancy thing? How are you feeling about the birth and like you said, not to try to say, like, I should be happy about it, like I should feel great about it, but just to honestly ask ourselves, like, how are you feeling? And then to not be afraid of those emotions that come up. I think this is so massive in pregnancy, especially because pregnancy is sort of pitched to us as an all joyful thing, right? Like this is a beautiful thing. You're having a baby. And don't get me wrong, I am all about babies, and I'm all about pregnancy, and I am its biggest fan. But at the same time, that doesn't mean it's not complicated, and it doesn't mean that you might not have complex emotions, like maybe I didn't really want this, or maybe I don't know what I'm doing, or maybe I'm not going to be good at this mom thing, or maybe I'm miserable, or maybe, you know, this wasn't in my plan, or maybe this wasn't my plan, and I tried for years to get pregnant, and now I'm pregnant, and I don't like it. You know, those are complicated emotions, and I think we're expected just to be like, well, you should be so happy. This is so wonderful. So when do we get the opportunity to just listen to those emotions, and how do we give them time to take up the space that they need. And I think that that man Yoga is a great time to do that where there is so little noise and your breathing is slow, and you're you're just pausing in those poses to be in tune with yourself.
And that that physical component, too, sometimes we don't slow down enough through the day to even recognize our habits. Yeah, how are we breathing? Yes. Are you holding tension throughout the in your jaw and your shoulders, in your belly, in your pelvic floor? Yeah, and we were just moving. We're on the go. We don't notice that. So, you know, well, that's another thing I will hear so often from people, is I didn't realize how much I was sucking in all the time, yeah, constantly sucking in. Or how, how often I'm clenching my jaw? Yeah? So opportunity to bring both, both of those components, you know, how is your body, yeah,
how are your emotions? How are you feeling, showing
up in your body.
How are your habits? Strategies in your body impacting your emotions? Yeah,
I think there's so many parallel ideas too when it comes to mindful movement, I'll say, but yoga in particular is, you know, I love yoga. I'm not a Yoga expert at all, but I enjoy yoga. And I hear the phrase often from instructors, right, the wobble. Embrace the wobble. Right? Like, if you're doing a pose and you're wobbling, it's not about like, Well, you shouldn't be wobbling. You should, you know, you should have it there. Will you help us understand kind of how that example, or others that you can think of of the way that our bodies are moving, relates so well to how we should be approaching life.
I love that. And that, again, goes back to some of the, I think maybe more problematic approaches in these spaces where, you know, we do kind of have like control over our thoughts and positivity, but also over the way a pose is supposed to look and we'll hear phrases like the, you know, the highest expression, or the fullest expression of the pose. And that feeds right back into like this sort of structure of how we're supposed to be doing things, what is best and and really, the intention of the practice is to find what is best in your body, and that can change day to day, throughout a lifetime, throughout, especially throughout the female lifetime, the cycle, the changes you go through. You know how I practiced in my 20s is so much different than what it looked like during pregnancy, in the early birth years, and moving into perimenopause and menopause, it's changing again, and hopefully we can start to rather than trying to fit into a box or an ideal of what a pose or a movement is supposed to look like. What does it look like for me?
I love how in yoga there are these parallels to life, and like you're saying, you know, letting go of these misperceptions, maybe or or perfection, images of what life is supposed to look like. And if we can practice that in our movement, you really do start to learn so much self compassion for yourself, if, if you're doing it right, I think there's the opportunity there to do it as you go through a pose, and maybe you are wobbling, and you say, oh gosh, I'm I shouldn't be wobbling. Like, I should be. I should have this down, you know? And instead, to pause and look at yourself and say, like, Hey, you're here, you're showing up, and you're doing it while you're wobbling. That's amazing. Like, well done. That's your body giving you cues of adjusting and growing stronger, and that's wonderful. And I think as we go through pregnancy in particular, but also as we just go through life, if we can take some of those lessons with us to say, like, Do you know what? I'm showing up wobbly and I'm I'm getting stronger, and I'm at the beginning, I'd like to be at the end. I'd like to be the expert, and I'd like to do everything seamlessly. And that's just not how life works. I think also, when you're holding a pose and you start to feel some burning, or some some strain, and you say, just, just show it love, right? Just send that spot some love, and you start to feel this, this connection of love with your body to say, like, Hey, good job. I see you. I see you getting some burn there. I see that maybe that's not comfortable. We're just going to breathe into it. We're just going to embrace it. And man, the parallel to that of preparing for childbirth, especially, but life in general, to say, like, that's a little uncomfortable, and I'm going to breathe here. I'm not going anywhere. I'm going to be right here with you. I'm going to show you love, I'm going to show you compassion. And I think if we can do that as we're preparing for birth, you know, to be that's exactly in my mind, how we should be showing up and preparing for birth, is to say, like this is going to be a little scary. This is maybe uncomfortable, but it's not something we have to run from. We can just settle in and embrace it and and have that loving experience with it. Hey, there listeners, just a quick break to tell you about something that could make a big difference in your life or the life of a woman you care about. Here at uplift for her, we specialize in integrative women's health, offering comprehensive support for every stage of life, whether you're navigating menopause and need expert HRT advice looking to shed those stubborn pounds or seeking for help with your mental well being, we've got you covered. We combine the best of traditional and functional medicine with personalized health coaching and dietitian support. Here at our salt lake city based clinic, we ensure that your unique needs are met with the care and expertise you deserve. At uplift for her, we're here to help you feel your best inside and out. Ready to take the next step in your health journey. Visit us at uplift for her.com, or give us a call today. We have services available for those of you living in the state of Utah, and some services available for those of you outside of Utah. Now let's get back to the episode.
What we're doing in the practice, what we're doing on the mat is meant to be taken off the mat. Yes, it's easy to tap in or pay attention to your breath, or have more awareness around your thinking patterns when you're in sort of the structured class and the environment is right? The real challenge is, can you take that out into the world with you. How do you How does that show up in the world? But what do you say to yourself? Yeah, on the mat. How are you speaking to yourself? One thing that I think happens often in in prenatal classes is sort of this frustration of, I used to be able to do that. I used to be able to hold this or I used to be able to go, like deeper into this pose or sort of these expectations or frustrations that it doesn't look the way it used to. And guess what? Neither does life, yeah, right. And yeah, you bring a baby in, it doesn't look the way it used to. Your your schedule is different, your energy levels are different, your priorities are different. Things are changing, yeah. So being able to practice that and embrace that in in the yoga space and acknowledge how you're processing that, how you're relating that, how you're speaking to yourself, about how things are changing, or how they're different, what your expectations are, yeah, and being able to again, embrace, embrace the reality of what's happening and see how that shows up off the mat as well. We do have to slow down. We do have to change some things to prepare for that big transition. And that's a great way to kind of get your head in the game with the changes that are coming. And you know, hopefully take that with you outside of class. Yeah,
I love that. I love that you bring up the point of observing, you know, observing your own thoughts and observing your own body and and then taking that observation with you. I think sometimes we think that we're supposed to observe and then do something about it, right? So if we say, like, Well, I haven't been able to, I can't do that as deeply as I used to that, then we should do something about that thought, right? Well, you should, that's fine. Like, don't worry about it. You're not, you're not going to be whatever. Like, sometimes it's okay just to say, I can't do that as well as I used to. Interesting and let it be. Just give it space to live in your consciousness. Instead of having all of these thoughts and these feelings that are just kind of brewing and stewing around in our subconscious, we actually give them space and acknowledgement and and can literally say in our mind, as these thoughts are coming up, like, Oh, I'm so bummed I can't do this as well as I used to, and then to just say back like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I hear you. I hear you. Yeah, yep. And how powerful that is. I want to kind of take that and talk a little bit more about the nervous system, because I think this relates, you know, we're talking about how you make space for these thoughts and beliefs to just come to the surface through movement, and it's it's my belief and perspective that as we're actually moving our bodies, whatever the science is, whatever the chemistry is, our thoughts open up patterns that they don't when we're not moving our bodies. I think exerting our bodies or getting our heart rate up or stretching or holding a pose like it allows our thoughts to go to different places. I think then they go in other in other ways. I'm a big believer in that, but when we do that, it's actually sending messages to our body. So I want to talk a little bit about the nervous system. I practice functional medicine for women, and there is not a day that goes by that doesn't that I'm not talking about the nervous system. So let me give a brief overview of that, and then I want to bring it back to how does this type of movement and this this in tuneness with our bodies support the nervous system. So when we're talking about the nervous system, we're talking about the brain's deepest programming to keep ourselves safe. So its main job is to go out there and find the things that may put us at risk. Saber tooth tigers, right? It's going out there and finding these risks, finding these dangers, and then it switches every cell in the body to be primed to stay alive. Now this works great if you actually do have a saber tooth tiger chasing you. This is exactly what you want. But if you don't literally have a threat to your existence, then you don't necessarily want every cell in your body to be turning that direction. So this can result when our bodies do kind of turn to fight or flight, to survival and stay there, then it can cause all sorts of havoc in the body, because the body starts to hypertrophy. It starts to focus too much on these fight or flight mechanisms, and other systems start to fall into neglect, like reproduction and immune system and sleep and, you know, hormones. And so we really want to be able to bring that body back out of fight or flight into a place of safety. And I think that. One of the ways we can do that is through certain types of movement, and through, especially yoga and other restorative movement. Will you tell us your perspective about how you see that coming into play with people, with women as they're doing yoga, how you find that to support that, that feeling of safety, sure,
coming from that explanation you just shared, we are carrying habitual patterns in our bodies. And you know, a lot of us do default to the fight or flight. Some of us will do the fawn, some of us will do the freeze. So everybody's sort of coming in with these lifelong patterns, and they live in our bodies, yeah. So the movement can have a different impact depending on the situation. You know, I mentioned before, holding patterns, tense, tense jaw, shoulders, you know, holding protective, tensing, holding patterns that can be so common and detrimental, just for overall health, but going into birth particularly. So there's an opportunity there to recognize absolutely patterns and maybe maybe retrain re pattern. And you know, that's an option if people are open to it. And some of the other responses too, we might see a freeze type of response showing up in class, where sometimes the movement and awareness like a reminding people of their autonomy and their power and they're in that they have so much more inside of them to access in this process than they realize, and and that can start to change a little bit about how their nervous system is functioning to remember. And I don't have to just freeze and allow it to happen. I can co create. I can participate in this.
Gosh, I love that so much. And it's bringing to mind this concept of, you know, especially looking at preparing for childbirth, that it really is this seemingly contradictory juxtaposition of power and vulnerability, right? Power, exerting active power and then releasing and letting go. And if that's not a metaphor for life, I don't know what is, but we'll keep it to pregnancy right now is when we're thinking about pregnancy in general, but especially childbirth. To say like this is going to take a lot of exertion of energy and a lot of will and a lot of power, but if you are only focused on exerting power and control, and I am going to, you know, use that power to create the outcome that I want, it does the opposite effect, the exact opposite. It can delay labor. It can, you know, really get in the way of labor progression. When you're like, I am gonna have this baby, and I'm gonna do it my way, it literally can, can prevent that surrender that's trying to take place. And so even though it takes power, it also takes surrender, and it takes this embracing of vulnerability to say, I don't know what's going to happen. These contractions might hurt, or I don't know if this is going to go okay. I don't know if I'm capable of doing this, and I don't know if the baby is going to descend how they're supposed to, or if they're going to come down in the right position. I don't know if they're going to be breathing like they're supposed to. I don't know if I'm going to be a good mom, right? Like childbirth in general brings up so many of these fears that I think if we're only using power, then we're totally missing the opportunity to surrender and to say, welcome to Life and welcome to motherhood like you're never going to know. You're never going to know how it's going to turn out, and you're never going to know what that next contraction is going to be like. But as we can surrender and say, I trust myself, I have intense love for this body that is doing this miraculous thing, that's really where it starts to do its miraculous thing. And that parallel is there we get to practice that when we're doing mindful movement, when we're doing yoga, to say, you know, to move through cobra pose, takes strength, right, to hold these poses, they take power. They take a certain amount of power that has to be exerted to hold that pose. And you may be shaking, right? You may be saying, like, I don't know if I can keep holding this pose, and in those moments, to just turn inwards and practice that relationship between our brain and our body, to say, like, I don't know if I can keep holding this pose, but I'm gonna try. You know, I'm gonna I'm gonna be here, and if I tip over, then that's okay too. We get to practice that over and over and over. And if we're doing this type of movement on a daily basis, there's no chance it doesn't translate into childbirth or life to say, like I'm shaking or I need. Power, but also I just got to let it go. I just got to settle
it even say I'm not going to keep doing this, right, yeah, or I'm going to tap out, yeah, yeah. And it's interesting, you use some of the language that you did there, because one of the Yoga Sutras is stirrum, sukham, asanam, which means to be strong and soft. We must be strong and we must be soft. Yeah? And they go together. We don't need to pick one or the other. So, you know, maybe, like you mentioned, holding a pose and and they're shaking in its effort. Is it too much effort?
Where do you need to soften? Yeah.
Were you working too hard? Yeah,
you know, is it?
Is it an adjustment to the breath pattern? Are you working in your shoulders and your jaw when you don't need to be when it's supposed for your legs? So you know that that opportunity to see like both, both things are important, we don't have to choose. Yeah, they get to compliment each other.
I love that. I love that. And I was just thinking, you know, assuming you sleep for eight hours a night, you're awake for 16 hours a day. Maybe you're awake for 17 hours, 18 hours a day, but if you can spend, gosh, even 10 minutes of that, just in some little practice, even if it's just a morning flow, but if you're doing that an hour a day for a few times a week. That's not insignificant. You know, that's a really great time to practice this relationship and and showing ourselves that self compassion and showing ourselves that love in the discomfort, in the wobble, in the shake, in the, you know, going deeper into the pose, or building those those muscles, and then allowing, allowing the body to do what it's going to do, and to be curious about that and say, interesting body. I wonder what you're going to feel today. Interesting. You feel tight today. You feel off today. Interesting, you know, instead of constantly trying to judge it and having a mapped out plan that is like, okay, so this week we're going to do a, and then next week we're going to add to that doopy, and next week you're going to do, like, it doesn't have to be a continuous progression. It's going to be kind of a roller coaster of, like, good days and bad days. And I just think we can learn so much about that, of taking it into, certainly childbirth and motherhood, but also just life in general, life in general. Yeah, yeah. Another thing that I want to one of the things that I bring up to patients, and I want to hear your thoughts, your thoughts about this, is even the poses are so supportive to the nervous system. So if you think about the nervous system being fight or flight and running from saber tooth tigers, right when we're running from saber tooth tigers, there's a few things that our bodies will do out of our control. It will automatically switch into that. You don't have to think about it. You don't have to do anything, it will just automatically switch into these things. And a couple of those things are shallow, tight, rapid breathing. So that's that serves a purpose. If you're running from a tiger, right? You want to breathe up into your lungs, and you're not breathing down into your diaphragm or into your back, back body, or into your, you know, core. You're just keeping it high and shallow, so you get the most rapid uptake of oxygen possible. Another thing that happens when we're in fight or flight is we protect our vital organs, right? We instinctively hunch so we squeeze our armpits together. We squeeze our arms like fetal position. We close our groin, you know, maybe you cross your legs, maybe you hunch down at the core, and you basically want to go into fetal position. You want to ball up when you're stressed. So even if you're standing, if you're in a stressful situation, we'll cross our arms real tightly, almost giving ourselves a hug. Our shoulders will hunch forward, our chin will come down, right? And when we think about yoga, that's not what we do, right? So explain how some of the movements and postures kind of go to the opposite of that, that that I think can really retrain that nervous system to say, hey, there's no tiger here. Because why would I be holding this this pose, or the doing this breath work? If there was a tiger here, I wouldn't. Therefore, I must be safe. And the body starts to down regulate its its nervous system. So what are some ways that yoga can help the body actually understand that I must be in a place of safety right now?
Well, you mentioned the big one, which is how we're breathing, yeah, and I think that's such an important component, and certainly my approach to breathing and breath work in prenatal classes is different than it might be in a typical yoga class. You
can't lower that diaphragm much, yes, but
we can recognize sort of those less than ideal strategies or holding patterns. And you know, there are certain movements we do specifically to get into an uncomfortable position. There, I will ask people to do things that I know are uncomfortable. Um, one of those things is a Korea type of practice where you'll it will become physically and mentally uncomfortable pretty quickly. And we can explore how, what do we do in those moments? What is the go to strategy? What are your coping skills? What's your what's your favorite thing that you do that's going to show up on the birthday? Also, some of them might work. Some might be effective. Some people close their eyes, and that's helpful. For other people, it's not that's not helpful, clenching again, clenching Jaws, holding shoulders, holding tension in fingers, in the low belly, tension in the pelvic floor. So you know, finding ourselves in challenging physical or even mentally challenging positions or movements, and taking an opportunity to say, like, what do I do in this moment? Is it effective? Is this going to help me on the birthday? Is this something I can start to re pattern or, you know, have have some more awareness? Can I ask my support people to watch for these things and remind me, you know you're doing this and it's going to make you tired, and it's not helping. So certainly we can. We can explore being uncomfortable in a safe environment exactly, see and see how we handle that. Yeah, what we're doing in those situations.
Yeah, totally. I love that. And I think there are a couple other examples that come to mind. You know the idea of the contrast that sometimes we do of you do hold the discomfort, and then you release, right? And then you hold it again, and then you release. And just training the body to say, like, this isn't permanent, like you're not holding this discomfort forever, then you're moving into release. I also really love the breath work that you mentioned, but also the nature of some of the poses that are the opposite of that fetal position, right? I think of cactus arms or any, any pose where you put your arms up above your head. You would never do that if you're being chased by a tiger, right? So I think it sends very powerful messages to the body of like, I'm okay, I'm gonna get through this. I can do this. And this is one of the examples that I give my patients, even just to do during the day, to help heal the nervous system, is to just hold the arms above the head and to do a tiny baby back bend, you know, just to to open that the vital organs, to expose the vital organs, and say, I trust enough that there's no saber tooth tigers here, that I can do this movement. It's very powerful to the cells, like it actually speaks to the cells and to the programming to say, like, oh, maybe I can switch out of this fight or flight, and to to, I think, going into childbirth, to be able to remember these things of in between contractions, or in between those hard times, even during pregnancy, to in between. Take a moment and say, I'm embracing this like I am safe, I'm I'm here, I'm okay, and I'm going to open myself up, anything that raises the arms and the the chest, anything that opens the legs so that they're not crisscrossed, you know, all all tightened in it's really powerful programming to the body to say, like it's going to be okay. We can calm down those signals in the fight or flight realm or the fawn realm and start moving. Start, start recovering. Start for
recovery for the postnatal period is important, and that, that's something we talk about a lot in those postnatal fourth trimester classes, is that your body is in a response, in a stress response, even, even the no chance,
yeah, quick, yeah, beautiful birth,
yeah, your body is still like, what? Yeah,
happen, yeah, even just from hormonal shifts and fluid shifts and blood loss,
being, being, you know, just the chaos of the event and the and then the newness of being up at night and the reality of having a human to take care of. And our bodies are self protecting, yeah, of course, yeah, right. And that's beautiful that they do that we don't want to stay there, yeah, we don't need to stay there. So starting to kind of ease the body back into a place of recognizing safety, like, yes, you're tired, yes, you're recovering, you might still be experiencing pain. All of these things are true. They're all happening, but holding and tensing and clenching and staying in that sort of elevated state of fight or flight or freeze isn't helpful. I love
that. And this is, this is where we're coming to the end. And I wanted to end on this idea of fourth trimester. I think some people aren't familiar with that term, but we think about one, first, second, third trimesters during pregnancy. And now we've kind of called that the fourth trimester. Is that that six to 12 week recovery after pregnancy. So for fourth trimester, I love that you bring that up, because I think there's also our bodies are in fight or flight because of the event, and sometimes because of what preceded the event. You know, the pregnancy maybe was difficult and scary. You know, there's so much fear with pregnancy because you feel so responsible for this tiny human. But oftentimes there's so much fear. Before that, the idea of not getting pregnant or trying to get pregnant, or marital difficulties, or, you know, there's just oftentimes this stack up of fight or flight, and then you go through this body experience, and the body is in the self protection mode, but it also turns on Mama Bear mode with intensity for a lot of people. And that can can show up in the body as, you know, I'm gonna huddle, I'm gonna keep the baby close to my chest, I'm gonna hunch my shoulders, I'm gonna curve my back. I'm gonna create a safe space for this baby inside. You know, I'm gonna for anyone who's not watching this video. I don't know if they can tell what I'm talking about, but just rounding, you know, becoming a human shield for our baby. Will you talk about just some gentle first of all, just recognizing that in the postpartum transition, day one, you know, day one, yeah.
And I love you, CD one. When I initially started offering post natal postpartum classes, I noticed a pattern where people were coming, you know, 678, weeks, they've been sort of like cleared for exercise. That's a whole other, that's a whole other podcast, right? Yeah, and it was they hadn't. They hadn't taken care of themselves. It was they didn't know. They didn't have the resources. We have all this support, we have classes, we have we're seeing the doctors, we're doing all these things during pregnancy, and then they give you this little man, look, you have your baby, yeah? Which I know a COD has updated you know those guidelines in the last few years to see your provider earlier than that, which is great, but leaving people alone with a brand new baby and no no support or structure or guidance around just the daily movement. How are you breathing?
What are your bathroom habits look
like? How do you get out of bed? How are you standing up? How are you picking up your baby? What are you doing with that car seat? All of these things that are taking place in the early weeks which really set a person up for success or failure when they feel like they're supposed to sort of jump back into, you know, their typical routine or or the the exercise or movement that they want to be doing, and it's lonely and it's isolating. And so I switched in and started calling it fourth trimester to hopefully get some more clarity around. Like, no we, we want you to come back and be with us immediately, immediately, even if, even if you just sit there and feed your baby the whole time, you know, it's not an exercise class. It's not a fitness it's not a yoga typical yoga class, we're going to talk about like, Are you breathing? Are you letting yourself breathe? Yeah, you know, are you? Are you aware of your pelvic floor function right now, is the way you're moving throughout your day supporting a good recovery, or is it creating, you know, sort of a backside in how that recovery will look? And it's, I think for me, that's probably like, I'm almost more passionate about that than the prenatal space, because we just don't have enough support for people. We don't have our close communities, our close family knit, you know, our tribe, so to speak, the way that we used to. And it can be so isolating, so lonely.
Well, and I think with pregnancy, it's gonna end. It's gonna it has an end date. You will not be pregnant forever, and the baby will come out of you. I've never sent a woman home from the hospital with a baby when she wasn't supposed to right, like, right? You know, with a baby inside of her, still, the baby will come out of you. Yeah. So we will get you through that process. And I'm all about doing it from the most holistic way possible. But there still is an end date. And I think postpartum, there's not really an end date. This is your new normal. I just want to add to what you said, because I think there are some times when women especially need to be mindful of this. I think baby in the NICU, or baby struggling a difficult breast feeder, or a colicky baby. I think big tears, lots of pain afterwards, all of those things are going to mechanically against your will, like you couldn't not do this if you tried. It's going to mechanically put your body into a state of fight or flight. And you mentioned fawn freeze. What that looks like in the body is stiffness. So it keeps the breath high. It keeps the joints tight, it keeps you you huddled and frozen, and even just starting to release the breath to feel your lungs expand and contract, even just swaying your hips, even just doing tiny baby pelvic tilts right, even just opening your legs apart as as far as you can, which is not if you've had stitches, then that might not be very far At first, and just feeling that gentle range of motion in your pelvis, it's more it's definitely helpful from blood flow and lymphatic drainage and physical all of that, it's super helpful. But I can't emphasize strongly enough how much it reprograms the body. The body is taking cues from the way that you move it. Yeah. And so if you are moving from a place of not stuckness, then the nervous system starts to say, Okay, maybe we'll get through this. Like, maybe I'm not gonna die right this moment at the hands of a tiger, right at the I guess tigers,
but I'm gonna get through this.
I can let go of tension. I can breathe deeply. I can get the blood flowing. I can be with other people who understand what I'm going through. I can acknowledge the lack of sleep is impacting my physical and mental health. You know, really, just like we talked about before, meeting yourself where you are having radical compassion for the experience and allowing it to unfold the way it does, with support, with love, with support, with the connection that you need, rather than just being kind of turned out there to figure it out on your own. Yep, exactly.
Well, I have loved talking about this. I just hope that people can feel this connection, pregnant or not pregnant. I think if you are pregnant or planning to become so, or if you're taking care of a pregnant woman, you know, if you're close to someone who's having a baby, I think these concepts are so powerful, this idea of being aware of your thoughts and stillness, being aware of where your body is at in space, and noticing how it feels, you know, noticing like, right now it feels like, you know, I'm sitting on a chair, and maybe I'm a little stiff in my hips. Maybe I'm my shoulders are hunched, starting to practice that awareness of just what our body is doing and where it's at in space, and then combining that with our thought patterns and how we're thinking towards our body and connecting to our body and connecting to our fight or flight and feelings of safety or unsafety there. There is massive power here. There is massive healing here. And so I'm, I'm really glad you're doing what you're doing, and being able to this is yoga in general, and other types of mindful movement, but man, to do it during pregnancy and then postpartum is something, something really special. So I'm glad, I'm really glad you're doing it. Thank
you. I'm glad I can do it, yeah, for sure.
Tell us a little bit about where people can find you. And also tell us about your prenatal yoga training program, the trinatal yoga school, because that your studio is here locally in Salt Lake, but the training program is virtual? Yes,
so tell us about both. So classes here in Salt Lake, you can find the class schedule on Utah prenatal yoga.com and there's always a virtual option. When the world changed in 2020 and virtual became more of a thing, we just kept that, and it's been, really, it's been a nice component. Obviously, having people in class and in person is wonderful, but there's always the option to join online for whatever, even if they're not local, yeah, yeah, yep. So we do have people who are not local join for those classes and people who are local, maybe you're running late from work, or you're not feeling well, you don't want to come expose the class, that type of thing. So there's always that option as well. Yeah, awesome. And then fourth trimester classes as well. Right now, those are mainly online. The schedule changes. They can kind of just keep track of that and see it's usually up to date. The teacher training that that's a passion of mine, I guess, because there are not enough teachers doing specifically for prenatal, prenatal and postnatal yoga. And it really is not just as simple as, you know, going to a regular class and having a, you know, a generalized teacher who can maybe help you adjust a few things. We really want to see teachers out there who are experts, who really specialize in this, who understand everything that's taking place in the birth year, not just physically, physiologically, but also emotionally and psychologically, and really understanding that this is much more than just a temporary like physical change, yeah, and a lot more to that. So those programs are, I do hold some in person for people who are local. Anybody who's not local can join. We have people going through the training from all over and what's that website
that's at trinatal yoga school.com,
great, Trina yoga school. And we'll put that in the show notes. Yeah.
So people are interested in that. You don't have to be a yoga teacher if you want to take the training, we have doulas or, Oh no, PTs, or mental health therapists, or, you know, anybody who's kind of working in that birth space, you know, they're welcome to come to that, even if they're not on a specific professional yoga teaching track.
Yeah? Awesome. Well, thank you so much for being here and having this wonderful conversation. I love it you. Yeah. Well, we will be back next week with another episode on uplift for her. Remember, you can watch us on YouTube. You can like subscribe. If this has been helpful for you, then please leave us a review that's really helpful to us so we can spread the word about women's health and wellness from a comprehensive and integrative perspective. We hope you and. Join, see you next time. Thanks for listening and come back next time for another episode, and remember this information is for education only and not intended to be medical advice. You.
