Heidi Lichte I am not your guru: Listening to your inner healer
Yogi Heidi Lichte invites us to find our inner guru, open our hearts, and breathe. In a time where yoga, quite frankly, is everywhere, Heidi and I peel away the marketing, the clothes, and the image/ego heavy instagram ready poses, and get real on the mat of what yoga really is about, is for, and can be for anyone, anywhere, of any age.
Referenced in the Show
Heidi’s Bio
Heidi Lichte CYI, E-RYT 500, YACEP
Heidi's mission is to encourage a new way of thinking, moving and inhabiting our bodies by pursuing an evolution in yoga, meditation and mindful movement. She believes there is a great need to shift our culture's approach to ourselves, the earth and each other. Her aim is to provide an opportunity for each of us to explore why we do what we do, how we go about it and to what end. She intertwines the mindful, physical practice with breath, philosophy and meditation techniques.
Heidi's perspective continues to grow and shift through studying functional movement, somatic yoga, research on fascia and natural alignment theory.
She also has an advanced certification in the Amrit method of Yoga Nidra, a sleep-based, guided meditation practice. With 22 years of full-time teaching experience, she provides options to support all levels of ability, as well as recovery from injury or surgery. Since the pandemic, Heidi has been teaching livestream, online classes with recordings available.
Full Transcript
Sarah Marshall, ND: Welcome to Heal. On today’s episode yogi Heidi Lichte invites us to find our inner guru, open our hearts, and breathe. In a time where yoga, quite frankly, is everywhere, Heidi and I peel away the marketing, the clothes, and the image- and ego-heavy instagram ready poses, and get real on the mat of what yoga really is about, is for, and can be for anyone, anywhere, of any age. I’m your host, Dr. Sarah Marshall.
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Sarah Marshall, ND: Heidi. Welcome to Heal. Thank you so freaking much for doing this. I'm super excited to have this conversation with you.
Heidi Lichte: Thank you, Sarah. I'm so glad to be here with you. So thanks for having me on.
Sarah Marshall, ND: So you're our first yoga instructor.
Heidi Lichte: Oh my God.
Sarah Marshall, ND: I’m excited about that.
Heidi Lichte: Hopefully not the last
Sarah Marshall, ND: we'll probably, I mean, with, if this goes anything like the conversation we had on the phone, our pre-qual, we're going to need multiple episodes to talk to you anyways. So it’s perfect.
Heidi Lichte: Well, I'm excited to share at least my perspective on it and how my journeys evolve through it. So I'm happy to be here.
Sarah Marshall, ND: Great, great. You know, and so what this podcast is all about. What Heals premise is, is a giant inquiry into how do we actually heal? There's so much, I'm going to say it my way, propaganda rhetoric, and really good information out there.
But it's like, we're inundated with it now and yoga's become quite popular. It's very accessible for most people in regular cities. Now with the pandemic, I think there's a whole nother wave of online yoga classes. Lots of people sort of thought, Oh, I'll never do that. It won't be good for me, or I don't think I'll enjoy it.
And they've really surprised themselves enjoying it, getting a lot out of it. And people have been developing home practices. So there's like this a monumental amount, but then I also know. And I'm gonna just come from my own experience, like my first yoga class, I was four years old, which is very unusual.
I grew up in this hippie Montessori school and we didn't go play soccer and softball. We did yoga. So I have this experience, but then I noticed even still with, with having been involved in different yoga communities for a long time. I get hooked by, well, I honestly, like, I don't feel skinny enough to go to a yoga class.
I don't know if I want to go up against all the yogis in there that are going to look better, be better, you know? So like I know there's a lot and we've also been busting that up, but one of the things I'm really excited to talk to you about is, is that you've really, one you've made a career out of being a yoga instructor and this being really your life's work, which is not to, you know, you teach their own their path, but many people do it on the side or they teach a few classes a week and it's like, you've really studied a lot and gone into in-depth and you also work with people you know, Essentially of all ages ultimately, but you've worked with a lot more people in there, I'm going to say this, you can correct me, forties, fifties, sixties, and beyond like,
Heidi Lichte: yes, probably probably fifties to eighties is my sweet spot.
Sarah Marshall, ND: Yeah. And so that's like, you know, my dad just started yoga a couple of years ago and he's 76 and, and kinda surprised himself at the difference it made at that point. And I also think that's another misconception is like, Well, at this point in the game, yoga ship has sailed for me, you know? So there's just a lot we can talk about.
Heidi Lichte: Yes. So a couple things, the online conversation, I was one of those people who didn't want to take an online class, certainly never wanted to teach an online class.
And so it's really thrown me into this world, you know? It'll be the 15th will be the last in-person class. March 15th will be the last in-person class that I taught. And while I miss that terribly, I have to say, you know, working very quickly to adapt and realizing because it is my career and you know, also my income and everything else highly motivated to get that, going to try to improve the experience.
So, it actually had some quality to it and, and just figuring out, you know, at first I used to describe it as teaching from a fishbowl. It's like, you know, I felt for like the comedians in the world during this time, like, there's zero feedback, right. You're not getting any interaction. And so I was like, so that's when I decided I need a separate screen so at least I can have the Brady bunch view of my students that helped enormously. So anyway, adapting and I've come to love parts of it that I never thought I would. I get to chat with my people before and after. And lots of email communication and sometimes phone conversations and having some students I hadn't seen for over a decade join me again because they've moved out of state. So, so there's all of that. And then the accessibility piece has, I think always been a passion for me. I came from a, a sports background where I, you know, did the pain for gain and you know, sort of just push, push, push. And that I figured, you know, I, I guess I'd never thought my body would break, but I would somehow get stronger and then better at it.
So it was bigger, better, best, you know, growing up in the eighties was really the crux of my schooling years in high school. And I was feeling a lot of pain by the time I was late teens, early twenties. I had dislocated a shoulder five times. I mean, I was kind of, I was a bit of a mess. Yeah. And I tend to be hyper mobile.
So I had, you know, some joint issues, SI joint issues and, and just, I thought pain honestly, was kind of a normal part of life. So it, it hadn't occurred to me that it's not normal to wake up even as a young one with some pain. So when I entered into yoga, I realized that, wow, this really clicks in with me.
And I had amazing teachers. I was trained through desert song, healing arts center, and Mary Beth Marcus, and just amazing teachers that, they didn't necessarily want to box me in to one way of thinking, which I have to say as I became a trainer of teachers eventually super important, like to me, that felt like, okay, I'm not I'm I'm in this to get.
The deep understanding of some of the philosophical roots, you know, they were alignment based. So that interested me and, and then to be able to branch out beyond that and, and learn from myself and that was encouraged. So that was wonderful. And the accessibility piece because I was sort of a natural Gumby, there's a twofold answer to this on my perspective of, I wanted everyone at every level to be able to experience yoga. And it was, it was crazy to me to think that that wasn't the norm. Secondly, because I had a body and certain poses that easily went there, I started to realize pretty rapidly that just because you can do it doesn't mean you should do it.
Sarah Marshall, ND: I don't have the hypermobility without the strength. And so like, I mean, right now there've been other times where it's different, but like, I just do have a lot of natural flexibility so I can get myself there, but it's not like, can I hold it? Can I, you know, I've noticed there's an imbalance in my own practice in that.
Heidi Lichte: Yes. And, and we will tend to lean toward what is already easy for us in our bodies. I mean, and that's true for our psychology as well, right. Exactly. So it's just a a micro experience of what you're doing in life. And so when I taught intro to yoga for years, I would talk to people about this. I was like, so just know that your personality is going to come to your yoga and whatever you're already doing you're going to probably exaggerate that on the mat.
Sarah Marshall, ND: So are you doing anything is how you do everything. Yeah.
Heidi Lichte: Yeah. So I'm gonna encourage you. If you tend to be more lethargic or less wanting to experience the feeling of strength in your body, that you do it wisely, not from a pain for gain perspective, but that you explore that.
And if you tend to be busy, busy mind, and type A, and go, go, go and you're already doing exercise and practices in your life that beat up your body. Then I invite you to really let this be a place to restore you and sort of reclaim the body's need for healing for slowing down for actually being able to be with your mind, even though it's the, the, the monkey jumping around in there.
So, yeah, so I, I always thought of it as a balance to who you are, and then eventually it went from just recognizing that just because we can doesn't mean we should. To really exploring just the safety in general of what our, our idea of advancing yoga poses do to us and for us, and maybe some of the promises that were given in the original texts of, and I'm talking just in the last a hundred years, texts, not the ancient, ancient texts aren't necessarily especially for Western bodies, aren't providing what they're promising.
So that the long-term range is it took about 20 years for a lot of people to be doing yoga in the West for us to have any even anecdotal gathering information of like, Uh-Oh, you know, hips are getting hyper mobilized here. We're having some issues with SI, joint, you know, ligament looseness, we are taking the body anatomically in ways that hadn't really been looked at from an orthopedic standpoint of like, Is the sacrum and the low back really meant to rotate.
Isn't meant to twist not so much, you know, and I think of some of the 90 degree angle twists I've done in my life, my knees all the way over and my chest and shoulders planted to the floor and then the adjustment of pushing the shoulder and the hip away from each other. And I just go, wow. So, so learning more about that, just kind of updating physiology, anatomy, and studying with some amazing teachers for SI, joint health I've the last couple of years studied most, you know, online with Donna Farhi and she has some amazing information on the SI joint and the anatomy of it and her passion of how to teach in a way that doesn't create a problem if you didn't have one in the first place and it doesn't exacerbate even for strong stable bodies that the joints really aren't built to move that way. So I became very interested in the functional movement of things.
Sarah Marshall, ND: That's awesome. And just to update, so SI is sacral iliac and that's the technical term for essentially one major component of the hip joint. You know, your sacrum literally meets what we think of as our hip bone, the big elephant ears that stick off on each side.
And, you know, and I, you know, I've had slipped disc issues down everywhere from S1-L5, which are the lower spinal level sacral one and lumbar five to up a little bit higher and, and there's been places where stretching has made a difference, but what I've seen more is it's a lack for me, has been a lack of strength in my abdominal area.
And then, you know, healthfully taking care of some of those really deep inner muscles in the hip. Like the psoas, and my anatomy is escaping me, you might know better, but there's a couple other, like, really important ones right in there that I've noticed that that's where some of the pathology came out, you know?
And we do have, I have as much as I'm a proponent of health, my actual job is to mostly sit at a desk all day long. So I've got to work at combating that as much as I can. And yeah, I've definitely can see that same thing where you can put me in all kinds of twists and my body will go, but it doesn't necessarily equal health.
Heidi Lichte: Exactly. And so longevity long-term outcome, it's like I realized that doing and sort of this there's this, also the selling point and whether it was unconsciously sold that way, but there was a sense that if you reached a certain pose even, or if you could sit and Lotus properly, that, that then it does create an energy lock so that somehow your meditation would be more enlightened, but there was this pairing of somehow becoming more enlightened more Zen, more connected to some of the yoga philosophies based on the advancement of a pose. And if we look at a lot of the beautiful poses, I mean, I, I pay a ticket to see some of the it's. It they're the same as ballerinas. They're the same as gymnast. They're these intense, beautiful, amazing things and if we look at those careers, they're not longevity based careers. So how can we separate that out and go, Oh, well, this intense yoga pose is going to create longevity. You'll be able to do this when you're 80 and probably a small percentage of people do. But for the most part, when I talk to people who are young and wanting to really push their bodies and their... and still sometimes I'll find that in boomers as well. But when I talked to people who are really in for it for like, I just want to tell them, and I train teachers in this, just know the how you're doing it, the why you're doing it, so get clear on why and the outcome, the probable outcomes of it.
So if you haven't answered those questions, think about it. And then if you still want to do the beautiful ballerina, you know, aim of a gymnast pose, then just know that you want to engage as much intelligent support as possible as you go for it. And it's probably going to have an expiration date.
So just like do, if you want to do that because it's fun, it's exciting, you feel good doing it then, but just know that's the reason it's not going to build longevity for the labrum in your hip. It's not going to build longevity for the way the spine's meant to bend or even what you need and a regular life to be active and have a full life.
Sarah Marshall, ND: Well, this brings up a really awesome question that I don't know that I've ever thought about as somebody who and admittedly I am deficient will call in a daily discipline practice and, and even really a regular practice. Yoga is something that has been in my life as a background conversation that sometimes rises to the surface and then goes back and it's something I've always loved.
And I have a predilection towards Vinyasa. But I also love high energy, fast paced things in life. And so often I've had teachers say, you should spend some time with Hoffa and slow down and actually being with things. Yeah. And I'm like, Ugh, you know, but it's, it's perfect to bring that balance in for me too, you know, but why yoga?
Like, like, if not that, if we're not like, okay, what's my next Instagram post. I'm going to throw up there. What are some really potentially good reasons to come to yoga? Like what do you see where it really can make a difference for people?
Heidi Lichte: Absolutely. I also like to delve into the neurology of what's happening when we work with yoga, when we practice things that are just a naturally built in part of yoga, mindfulness presence the big keys to reducing overall anxiety, maybe first, just in your nervous system, just to try to, I talk about like, let's walk ourselves back from the cliff here, because it's going to take a little bit to even feel comfortable being still.
And that's okay. Like fidgeting’s okay. Having your mind start to race as soon as you start to be quiet with it. So it's, it's a, to me, it's a complete life skill building practice. And if you want to delve into the depths of the ancient philosophy, there's a lot there. I've studied quite a bit and the yamas and niyamas, so it's kind of the ethical precepts of how to engage with yourself and how to engage with the world.
But, but just to be clearly honest, I though I've studied with the teachers who are amazing and the Upanishads and some of the ancient texts that never really lit me up to like go kind of aim for sort of PhD level information on it. But what, what did light me up is, is recognizing that these principles were meant to be accessible to all.
So it wasn't necessarily, I mean, I guess historically you could find a caste system piece to it, but, and, and women weren't a part of it. So it was, it was, I mean, there was all that, so don't get me wrong. There's a big piece that it was, you know, elite in its own weird way, but as it's evolved and then expressed out especially I think in Europe and in the West is that this was a practice meant to connect you to an inner knowing to connect you to really knowing that you could find a place beyond circumstance that would feel safe and that would feel peaceful and that you weren't going to be certainly pulled by the whims of the world always. And, and I've definitely shifted my thought process from some of the texts on enlightenment. For me, I'm just a very practical where it really hits the ground.
How do we use this now? So, I don't know if any guru or any teachers ever found enlightenment. I'm always thinking if they have, if they've said they're enlightened, I doubt it. So it's one, it's one of those things, right? So, and, and I also sort of have this spiritual notion of like, Hey, we're here as humans.
This is the full spectrum of humanity. This is, you know, this isn't about perfection. And so, you know, the upside of why I think everyone could get something from yoga is learning to allow the breath, not even like retrain and force the breath. Cause boy, that's a cultural thing. Like I'm going to go in, I'm just going to bully the breath into this bigger diaphragmatic breath, but to learn really how to, for me, it's become how to partner with this physiology, with this vessel that I get this lifetime. And how can I start listening to it? Because boy it's wise is taking care of us with involuntary actions that are incredible. And then how can I start to, to move into that in a way that, that keeps me sound. I mean, this last year, if I hadn't had yoga, I, yeah, I don't know. I don't know where I'd be mentally, emotionally. So it's a great stress reducer just in the overview. There's tons of research on what it does to downregulate the stress, hormones and nervous system. It builds the brain.
I also teach yoga nidra and it lights up both sides of the hemispheres. I mean, that's incredible when radiologists look at this and they're like, wow, they're like, how are we mapping this on a functional MRI? What is happening in there? Cause they usually don't see that even with hypnosis, even with meditation.
So it's just, there's this wide breadth just for overall health. Being able to be present with what is being able to experience your full humanity from the emotion range of joy, all the way to the deepest grief and loss you can imagine. Yoga to me is the tool set at least one way of going about it that offers you that inner exploration to figure it out. So, what is your safe place inside?
Sarah Marshall, ND: Yeah, I love about what you're saying is like, I think I, it's a little hard for me to know, because I was raised in a community where I already had a kind of mental, emotional, spiritual relationship to yoga. But what I kind of perceive; I spent a bunch of time living in Scottsdale Arizona, which you're in Phoenix, you're down in Arizona.
And my experience was like a lot of what I saw about yoga was fitness. It was like just another way to work out a different way to work out a way to balance, you know, certain workouts with more flexibility, you know, and, and that is a part of it. But what I really love about what you're saying is. It's an access point to a connection between mind, body, spirit, like emotions.
And one of the reasons I don't always love coming to the mat is because I notice when I drop into certain poses. And when I slow like I've, I don't know how many times I've cried on the mat. Like, I, I mean, I can't count, but it's like, and one of the things I've noticed as a naturopathic physician is that our, you know, our body keeps score.
Our body holds on to upsets, grudges, emotional issues. And sometimes things we think we're like, Oh, I'm over that. And our left knee is like well, I'm not over it. Your divorce is still down here. I actually had a remarkably intuitive massage therapist who was trained on a native American reservation and I didn't tell her anything about me she just had me on her calendar and I'm laying there on the table and she starts getting into my right knee, which I had had a ski accident, but the ski accident happened on what would have been my wedding anniversary on the first year after my divorce. And my ex-husband was a ski patroller. So like there was a whole bunch of things. Right. And she just looks at me and she goes, your husband's in your right knee. And I was like, yeah, I kind of figured that, you know, so like it's in there and, and I love that access pointed that you didn't just lead with like, Oh, this is a great way to increase your flexibility and dah, dah, dah, dah, dah.
It's like this world of being present, being able to be with is, and what is an and self-acceptance which is a huge part of what I work with my clients. Yes, we're going to reverse diabetes, we're going to deal with your blood sugar. Yes. We're going to lower your cholesterol. We're going to decrease inflammation in your body, but right at the top of my treatment plan and anybody that's listened to, many of my podcasts has heard this lots of times is that health exists in the body, the degree to which you're willing to love yourself. He exists in the body to the degree, to which you resist love or to say it bluntly that you hate yourself. And I noticed that's one of the places I struggle with yoga. Like I want to want it. But then I kind of know I'm going to have a mini version of confronting my demons when I go to the mat.
And some days I'm like, ah, which I'm sure there's work to do around that to like, let that be and not feel like, cause I also have a tendency to go into everything hard. All right, I'm doing yoga, I'm going to face the demons. Like I can already hear you being like Sarah you could just say relax, weird.
Heidi Lichte: Yeah, Let's just let, let's just let those demons come up a little bit at a time, perhaps. But, but I, I totally hear you on the experience of even emotions coming up. And I I've explained that to my students throughout my 22 years of teaching, that this is possible that this will happen to you some more than others.
And I said, and, and so, you know, I share with them you know, this is, you might call it cellular memory, you might call it, you know, just stuff that we've kind of stuffed and it's making its way out. So I always let them know, you know, when we were in classes together, you're in a safe space, you know, I just know that it's what's coming up is coming up to be released.
And you don't need to go reanalyze it. You don't need to reclaim it. You don't need to need to figure out always what it was about, but just to let it clear. And yes, this freaks some people out. And I do notice when I put people into maybe their first Shavasana, which is final relaxation, that people who have that moment of deep in themselves, where the chatter may fall away and they're left with sort of, that can be very confronting place of just with themselves and what that means. It may be, it touches that place of vulnerability where maybe they don't have a self-love relationship. Maybe they don't, you know, there's, there's a lot there to unpack and I always recommend, you know, counseling as well. Certainly. It's not the end all be all fix. But if people have the courage to be with that, I find it an amazing way and, and sometimes a quicker way, because I've done talk it out therapy and I've done cognitive behavior and I've done EMDR and I've done a lot of things. But especially as a maintenance or in conjunction with counseling it's I think it's amazing.
And some of my, one of my very good friends is now a therapist and she's a yoga teacher and she does EMDR. And so she does the combination of getting in your body and how, how we've, we've shown in research, how much easier or seemingly maybe more efficient that people move trauma out when you add in a physical component.
Sarah Marshall, ND: So it's really interesting. I, Oh my God, my brain, I want to say so many things. So one is, I've also seen that too, as like. Cause, you know, I have clients that come to me with physical illnesses and specific like biochemical imbalances, but almost always there's a conversation about rough divorces, difficulty through childhood, that stuff, you know, stuff's happened to all of us, all of us.
And in all of the, you know, in addition to my naturopathic practice, I worked as a transformational education coach. And in that world, I just came to realize, as hundreds of people came across my courses, it was like, everybody's got their stuff, you know, and for some people to, to do the work cognitively in their frontal cortex of full awake awareness was too much or more than they were ready for or not even helpful.
And that's where I actually say that dream time and our sleep and some physical movement can be our body's gift to us. To help us work through some difficult things where we don't even necessarily have to promise process it consciously, but we can still heal it. And, and the work that can be done just physiologically cellularly at that level.
And yoga is absolutely a huge tool for that. And the other one, I was going to say, In one of those courses, there was an exercise where we were with a partner that was somebody we didn't know. And we were supposed to just spend two minutes with some upset, something that takes us off and just like non stop “blah lalalala” everything's happening. And while we're sharing our upset with our partner, notice how we hold our body. What are we doing with our hands? What are we doing with our feet? What are we doing with our body? And this was the very beginning of me becoming aware that when I'm really angry, I crossed my arms and I, this isn't a body language thing. It was just something in my body and I tighten everything. For me personally, when I'm upset, I want to bear down and constrict. And so then in the next part of the exercise, they said they wanted us to recreate the same complaint. But just do something different with our body. Sit in a different position, change your arms. Heidi. I couldn't come up with the same level of upset. Like he was actually connected. My body needed to be doing something. I was like having a hard time being upset in a different position. And I've now become aware of this. That was like, I dunno, 12 years ago. And I noticed when, like I'm in a fight with my partner or I'm upset and I want to be stubborn and their legal will give me a hug.
I don't want to give him a hug because I have to change my position and I won't be as upset anymore. And it drives me crazy, but that was the first time I really connected how much it is way more than a thought process. There's a structural process that goes along with it. And when we, in lots of ways, whether it's just take on physical activity, learn a new sport, learn martial arts, like any Tai Chi, yoga, there's so many different ways when we start to interact with our physical body in a new way, it can literally grant us access to new ways of being new ways of thinking. Letting go and also discovering new ways of emotional expression like this whole, and, and there's hardcore neuroscience behind all of this, of how that happens and why that happens. And we've discovered that like, yep, we really are all one big thing that's interconnected, you know, in every way.
Heidi Lichte: Hmm. Yes. Fascinating. I love that story about changing position. One of the sort of interest paths that I'm passionate about is the study of fascia and looking at the truly the interconnection, I think of it as the matrix in the body, you know, and I even think of it as like, Maybe that's the part that reaches out and feels what's going on around us. You know, it's like sort of tied into the woo of energy fields, you know, like, why does the hair stand up on the back of your neck when you know, you don't see someone, but you can feel it, you know?
So I, I think of this fascia as this really, you know, fascinating, still figuring out of course aspect of ourselves. And I've mixed that into yoga because you know, I've studied with Tom Myers a little bit with Robert Shlseep, and they're saying, you know, yoga's wonderful for all these reasons. And it misses remodelling fascia for all these reasons.
So you get a little bit of it with the Vinyasa that you love. You get a little bit of it with the kind of hopping and bouncing around, but adding it in for folks that are in, you know, not in a place to hop back and forth and maybe an Ashtanga class getting some bobbing around, getting some spiraling moves around because even our exercise programs, which I find fascinating, and I've done it all from aerobics to weightlifting, to, you know all kinds of things that they're very linear. A lot of them, very linear in their movement. And I have a teacher, Doug Keller that I've worked with for years in the therapeutic elements of yoga. And he says, you know, think about your day. You get up, you walk your linear walk. You know, you, you eat your food, you brush your teeth. Everything's just kind of on this path of straightforward. And then you walk to your bed any lie back down again. So it's like your entire day has been spent in this very, sort of two planes of action that you can experience. And he's like, and that's what the fascia stuff is all about. Variety, variety of variety. And now they're looking at the research of sort of what you're talking about of showing how every cell and how there's now a study of spatial medicine of functional biomechanical medicine, which is fascinating to me, they pulling cells out and they're putting them in a so one of the studies was pulling out milk duct cells and they put them a little Petri dish and they're just there on their own.
They give them their nourishment. They live, they're fine. But they do not perform their function. You add a little bit of Fosha in there and it's something that it grabs onto and it starts stretching itself out onto the bridge gaps of the fascia and it starts producing milk. So you think about the cells in your body. Okay. So we feed them the right things. We meditate, we get our stress levels so it's more used stress instead of negative stress. You know, it's kind of that positive stress cycle that we want. And then if we're not approaching movement from often, often variety, you know, get funky, get loose circle around. I, I've been adding Twyla Tharp's work into my classes, so we just bop around and dance around the choreographer. That's teaching people how to move well through their whole life. So just, you know, getting a little silly with it because part of exercise let's face, it is trying to look cool. Wow. You're doing it.
Sarah Marshall, ND: it very organized and orderly and yeah.
Heidi Lichte: And you see children, there's a certain age. They stop moving, like the little goofballs that they are. And it's such, it's such a sad thing to me. Yeah. So getting adults,
Sarah Marshall, ND: and if we get into even like, You know, cause I've been exposed to Chi Gong practices. And one of the most fundamental Chi Gong practices is what I think is called shaking the tree.
And you literally stand on your feet and you can either leave the balls of your feet down or not and you just bounce. At first, and I actually did a Chi Gong retreat for three days where I chanted and basically bounced. I don't think we did much else. And I mean, I was high by the end of that, like the crazy, amazing things were happening.
My intuition was going up my sensitivity to everyone. They would sing chants that I'd never heard, and it would just come through me. Like I'd been singing it for a thousand years and these, you know, and, and initially, and this was a group of us. We were all naturopathic students. So we're a little funky to begin with, but we're still with our, like our other classmates so that need to want to look good. So the first, like two hours that we were there, everyone's like trying to shake their whole bodies and do the movement while still looking good. And you just can't, you can't, you got to eventually, because eventually we got into like letting our jaw go, like letting our heads. But the biggest thing I noticed is I had to wear a sports bra cause my boobs started to hurt. Cause I was like, Oh my God. But actually there was a point cause I did it for so long that weekend. That like after six, seven hours of, of accumulation over the weekend, like I had these red patches coming to the surface as histamine was releasing and then resolved.
So it was like, my body was letting toxicity go through the process and that's an access point to fascia. And then also us naturopaths we got trained a lot in lymphatic movement, which is actually the same conversation. And in old-school naturopathic medicine, like a hundred, 150 years back. The discussions about lymphatic movement was a really big deal.
And we now know the lymph is where a lot of immune system hangs out. And it's where a lot of toxins can get clogged and stuck and that's all interconnected with also, the fascia is like the fascia is almost like all the fiber roles that allows the lymph to move around the body and we think that's a major source of our communication cell to cell all happens there. So my mentor, Dr. Tom, on his old treatment plans and I don't think he still has this on here was using a rebounder, which are those mini trampolines. And he would have everybody do 10 minutes a day on a rebounder of just bouncing. And I even remember as a kid, how much I love trampolines and I loved bouncing, there was some like, high, I got from it. And then you think about, I think about typical tribal practices. They almost always would have chanting, spinning, circular dance movements and lots of bouncing, lots of foot pounding and using your body as a drumming instrument. And like, I mean, you just, I have immediately come to mind some of the native American dances that I've seen, but you see it in Africa and you see it across all cultures and it used to be embedded and it was a part of our spiritual traditions, but yet we now have learned how much that was right in alignment with health, which was kind of always, the thing was our spiritual practices were what generated a liveliness and vitality and health. And it was all interconnected. And we have totally lost that. I'm sitting on a yoga ball right now. This is my office chair. So I kind of like immediately, nobody can see this cause we're not using the video, but I'm bouncing over here.
Like, and it's made a difference last four years, I roll my hips around. I move around on it more in between course... courses, in between clients. But it's not enough. I'm sure I can do more, you know, but there's some things I've worked on.
Heidi Lichte: Well, that's awesome. You're touching on all the things that I'm adding over the years that I am fascinated by I'm finding good results with, and that's one of the thing that's, that's kind of made sure I wasn't boxed in.
I never dropped into one form of yoga. And I really started looking at, you know, some results-based things. So that kind of the little scientist in me wants to see, like, what are the real outcomes here? And if something isn't working, even if I adore the pose, like I have to be willing to have that revelation.
And if I can't really modify it in a way that's helpful, then there are poses I have to say I've taken off my, my repertoire of what I do and what I, what I teach, but getting into Chi Gong love it, love it, love it; I shake people out all the time. We shake when we're upside down. One of my great teachers, Eric Shiftman would have us shake an arm, shake a leg, shake an arm.
That was our warmup before we started moving through this sort of intuitive flow. And and then the cheekbone practices, even lung points and, you know, I'm doing a lot of that stuff for, especially the lungs and COVID and all that. So adding that in the idea of, of primal movement, I've studied natural alignment through the go claim method, and Kathleen Porter's work and they look at, and they go and have studied and these cultures that are more the Hunter gatherers. Even like, there's the anthropologists studying, like what are they doing? So, yeah, they still sit 10, 10 hours a day, approximately, but they're say they're around the fire the end of the day. They're getting up every 10 to 15 minutes to tend the fire or go to the child or do whatever.
So he said this one guy, a Lieberman, I think it was, came out with his new book “Exercised” I think it's called. And he's looking at anthropology with the overview of exercise, how we were never really built to do it, but why it's important. And so he says, you know, sitting is the new smoking. It's kind of gotten a bad rap.
He says, however, it's really about intermittent sitting that we need to look at that, that if we can do things and I have, I have a short little video I've made for desk at your desk, yoga I'll send to you. So it gives you some funky things to do, even if you can't get up from your seat. And then Cleveland clinic, I listened to a thing that talked about research that was being done. If every five, if every hour you can get up for five minutes and walk. There's some major health outcomes from that. So even just that little bit, so I think integrating movement and funky things and getting more spirally and bouncy, like your chair are ways that we can combat this, this unfortunate, but reality of desk life.
Sarah Marshall, ND: Yeah. And it might, I mean, I'm already thinking like if you don't have your own office, you might have to go to the restroom and like, do your movements behind closed doors, you know, but, and it's tricky. It's like, you know, we have I was just reading an article about how it was, I think, I think it's in the Atlantic monthly about how we've decided that emotional intelligence is like one of the premier skillsets for people in work life and how it, it produces increased outcomes, it at work, but they actually did some studies.
And they did a big meta analysis and they decided it actually depends on your job. There's some jobs where high emotional intelligence, like sales, being a lawyer, being a doctor, you know where you're, where you're mostly working with people's emotional realm, financial advising. Where a lot of emotional intelligence makes a big difference, but in other fields engineering and technical things, and production is you may get caught up in the emotions of something and not just be an action. Right. And why I'm bringing this up is like, we, we have this thing of like, We say it's a skill set that we want to have be more emotionally expressed at work and it'll make you better. But yet, if you are emotionally expressed at work, you may actually have your colleagues not trust you as much. So there's this like double-edged sword between something that's good for us or could be good for the workplace and good for your job and your productivity.
But the actual expression of it socially has a big risk of vulnerability. And I can see the same thing around movement, which is like, we, we still stoically hold on to this. If you can just sit down and plow through 12 hours of work and be heavy and workaholic or what, there's a badge of honor that comes with that.
Like, I still have people tell me, like, I only need four to six hours of sleep and I'm fine. And it's sort of like, they've earned something and I'm like the studies show you're at a way higher risk for cancer and a lot of other detrimental diseases. Cause your body's not able to heal enough if you don't get enough.
Sleep, you know, and, and there's like the other side that we don't always honor, so I can see the same thing happening in a workplace where you're like, Have to create something about getting up and moving around every hour, instead of somebody thinking you're constantly taking breaks, you know, and should be working more steadily.
And that takes some work environments are way better about it. And they understand, and that's actually built into their programs and others, not so much. So it's, it can be a challenging point for people.
Heidi Lichte: I agree. I've taught in corporate sites, my whole career and it's and had, you know, that's an interesting thing in itself. If you have an exercise space or a conference room and you have people have different levels and supervisors with, you know, it gets very interesting as well. It also can create, and you have to be really aware of that as the teacher creating a respectful place. Where it's kind of like what happens in yoga stays in yoga, in a, you know, so people feel safe, they feel protected.
They're not going to be talked about like, Oh, you should've seen her down dog or whatever, you know? Yeah. So, but. But absolutely. I love the idea of, of corporations and businesses incorporating it into the norm. It's like there should be these areas, even just in the halls to do this little head press I teach that gets your head reoriented from forward head position.
You know, there should be these little pauses, and I know that can also become hyper productive. Like, Oh, you have to, you know, take your break or you're going to get, you know, points against you or whatever. I think everything and I've been this as a human for sure is a far swinging pendulum and this idea of either or black and white and, and the sort of, I've heard it through the Sufi teachings of this and that there's always this combination of, and the Buddhist way, the moderate or middle way, you know, what's the middle way in this and, and how do we express emotion and how do we allow for voice and workplaces where there hasn't been with, you know, in the pendulum's going to swing, it's going to be pretty hardcore on one side, but is there a way that I'm interested also in systems of how can we create systems that, that automatically integrate a middle way to them so that we're not just these humans swinging from the far ends of the branches, you know, because that just seems like what we do in general.
We get, we get real excited and we go all out on one end and then boy is there hell to pay when we swing all the way back the other way. So we go from like enlightenment to the dark ages and, and this is a theme I think for health, I've gone crazy with You know, I went through Lyme disease, you know, still have whatever's left of that with even dietary stuff and, and listening to, you know, extreme, clean, whatever that is and the world of the best you can do.
And even that became detrimental to my health. So, so yes, so it's, it's, I think it's a fascinating idea that the systems we have in place overall need a redo. They need to have a balance brought back into them. They need to have permission for us to be what we are, which are these, these beautiful expressions of animals. We are an animal body that, that needs to move that needs to express. But also having respect, respectful sort of, you know, not so much strong boundaries, but ways of holding that. So we can start processing things together and not go Willy nilly off the edge. You know, I find that in health, I find that in movement, I find that and try to integrate into workplaces.
Trying to communicate even with like more construction boot kind of guys, you know, like how do I get them interested in movement, especially when it's called yoga, you know, it's not, not so much their thing. So, so I'm all about like, okay, so do you want to sleep better? Do you, do you want to, do you want to learn to move your body in a way where once you retire, you can actually go have a life.
So many guys, I see that that come out of years and years of the labor force. They're they're kind of broken, you know, their bodies, their retirement, so fun if they're able to retire. Yeah. So I'm, I'm trying to speak the language I taught teens for 10 years. Like always trying to like what's the in here for, for you to be interested in anything I have to say and recognize that more and more of my teaching the last decade has become about helping people with their own self agency. It's like, I don't want to be your guru. I don't want to be your go-to answer on things. I have a lot of ideas, a lot of research, and I like to offer those as guidance. And then I want you to try it on for size.
And, and, and then start. And if you're not even sure, I don't know if I like it or not, you know, just get down to the basics. Did this hurt or did it feel good? And can you actually give your body permission to feel good? Do you have any issues about that? You know, like we put actually. Yeah.
Sarah Marshall, ND: So the last thing I want to touch on here is, is there is this pretty big world now of yoga. And like, if someone goes and Googles yoga studio in their town, I mean, there are a lot of places that are power yoga and hot yoga and things that they have each have their own place in their own uses and that can be, my experience is kind of an extreme end of things is so where do we start? Like if somebody is interested in taking the next step, what are some of your recommendations? How do they, can people go about it?
Heidi Lichte: Yes. So there are, there is a, I would say a new wave of teachers out there that are talking about Gentles the new advanced, you know, that being in, you know, pain is not weakness, leaving your body. It's a message and pay attention and perhaps stop doing that. So, so there, there is this, I think it may still be an undercurrent. I'm hoping it becomes a bigger wave that comes in and that it can be integrated into hot yoga. It can be integrated into power yoga and they are the, I do just from my own experience hear from teachers in Ashtanga and power communities that are trying to integrate smarter movement, at least for the joints and things. So I would say, look for gentle. Especially if you're starting and, and know that if you're, if you're connecting to a power studio or an Ashtanga type studio, that's going to be a tough one for a body that's, hasn't moved for a while.
Even in the beginning sense. So, you know, like you were talking about the Hatha. The, the more gentle the sort of, you might find therapeutic yoga teachers who actually can call it that it's a very specific thing. If you are actually a, an internet you're, you're a recognized therapeutic teacher.
I've studied a ton of therapeutics, but I do not have that under my belt to actually say I teach yoga therapeutics and my mom was a counselor. So I'm a little bit weird about that anyway, I don't know if I want to call it therapy, so to speak, but I respect what they're doing. So it's and you interview the studio a little bit, like call and see.
Try a free class here and there. You know, basically my online classes, I teach seven a week and and I am really taking mostly some of it's through desert song, but my classes yoga with Heidi, I've been doing it through referral so that people who connect with me. I want to connect with them. I want to have a conversation. I want to always be in contact. Like, how did that feel for you? Do you need variations? If you want to recording, I'm going to tell you what to watch out for, because you've told me about what's going on in your spine or your knees or whatever. So it's, it's partnering, I think, and it's not easy, like, cause there's so much of it is just the blanketed fitness model still.
So I would say just even in a fitness model type Hatha studio, Go for gentle. Let them know your health considerations once we're back in person, if you're places already back in person I would be conscious of adjustments. So maybe telling people, especially if you're coming in with health considerations or creaky body that you prefer not to be adjusted cause a lot of stuff goes down with that and, and that, you know, you're not there to create a cookie cutter ideal of what the teacher on the mat is doing. So I just, I try to give all my students that permission, like I don't care where you go, who you study with, but you know, take some of these notes with you that you should never be guided to do something that, you know, within you is not good for you.
If it is, I would change teachers. And that, you know, having a teacher that gives you options, a teacher that gives you modifications, or at least says, Hey, if this isn't working for you, I want you to, you know, I talk about spectrum of movement. You can almost make anything more gentle by just, don't go so big with the movement, you know?
So there's, I try to teach the basis of how do you moderate, even you know, kind of a stronger class. So look for slow, look for hatha, look for you know, classes. They're going to take you through maybe an intro and, and then make sure that you go in recognizing I may know nothing about yoga, but I'm here to actually create a listening relationship with my body. So I'm not going to hand that over to someone else.
Sarah Marshall, ND: And that I think is important as like keeping your own autonomy and recognizing that, ultimately that is one of the skillsets that gets developed is creating that relationship and discovering, you know, that's something I work on with my clients is like, if your body was a person in your family, what kind of relationship would you have with them? Do you even talk to them? Do you have any idea? Do you yell at them? Like what, what is that like? You know, and this is another aspect of that, of starting to get into communication with your body and recognizing ultimately it is between you and your body, how that goes and how that feels.
And I've had clients that have found like yin yoga is, are places to start. And also I've actually had quite a few clients if they're already in some sort of a medical community more and more hospitals are offering yoga like certain cardiac rehabilitation cancer rehabilitation, if that suits your, your world.
And what's great about that is it's often already a teacher who's interested in custom tailoring things into that group, whatever you're dealing with in sort of a rehabilitation standpoint. But you know, I just also recommend trying it out. Cause there's so much to be gained from the, you know, when I talk to people about their overall health and wellness, it's there certain areas it's easy for them to go to.
They're already like some people are like, I know it's my diet. I'm going to change my diet. I'm used to that. I'm used to food and like, okay, we can do more work there, but probably where we're going to end up getting the most traction are those areas you resist thinking and considering as part of it and that, that quadrant model of we have our physical body. We have our mind, we have our emotions, we have our spiritual selves, which quadrant are you very comfortable in? And which quadrant do you not spend so much time in? And the same thing can be like biochemical. Like it's some people they're all over herbs and vitamins and that stuff is, is natural for them.
And I've had people where they do a lot of work biochemically on themselves, and that makes a difference, but they're not, they hit a plateau or they're not getting the one it's like, we got to shift our approach, take a more physical approach and look at it from a different angle and it helps us get into those nooks and crannies and, and take things up to the next level.
Heidi Lichte: Wonderful. Yes, because if you're missing one of those, it's like trying to drive your car on three wheels, so yeah. And experiencing that and, and recognizing that really, I think that is the path is to gently encourage people to like, okay, if, and I talk about this a lot. Self-talk, self-compassion, if it feels weird to be kind to yourself or say something kind, we do the heart math Institute meditation.
We do. I try to bring in like, okay. Then just wish yourself. Well, Can, can you buy into that, like find a language that you can buy into so your, your ego and the inner spaces and saying like whatever, you know, like, or shut up, you know, whatever that negative is. And, you know, I explained to my students, you know, for years I had this awful voice in my head that would just cause I was, you know, perfectionist and boy, it's easy to screw up because that's life. And just would annihilate myself, you know? And I'm the one that hung on to the thing that I said that should have been fed better and I'd replay it in my head. And so I said, you know, I just got tired of it.
I think it was in my thirties. I just said, you know what? The one person I can count on waking up for the rest of my life is myself. So I'm going to really hone in on that relationship and make sure that it is a compassionate one, that I'm here to sort of psychologically partner with myself and physically partner with myself.
And, and when people deal with compassion, they get worried they're going to be complacent. So really teaching people that self-kindness has nothing to do with, with lack of integrity. It has nothing to do with recognizing, Oh, I have to do this hard thing. And I, if I was really nice to myself, then I wouldn't make myself do it.
No, that is just placating and that's, you know, that's, that's, we wouldn't do that with our friend. Right. So it's about, you know, I think the greatest accountability is having that kind, connected, compassionate, honest voice within you. That that is willing to say, yeah, you know, we screwed up. So let's, let's be with that a moment.
It's okay. You don't give yourself a little hug. Okay. And now what can we do to you know, remedy, apologize, whatever, you know, go and deal with the situation. So I, I that's part of that full spectrum thing. Is that it's really this inner work and get your four tires on the ground. Yeah. And if it's nutritional, you know, I'm sending them you know, to you and to functional medicine docs and all that to say, you know, check this out, they consider it.
Sarah Marshall, ND: Yeah. Great. Ah, Heidi, this is so awesome. Thank you so much for sharing your years of wisdom and knowledge and study. And you know, this is just such a great place for people to start. I know there's lots of ways we could have gone deeper into lots of, of, of more technical aspects of it. And we may do that at some point, but this was just a great place for bringing this conversation up and, and the importance of another way of approaching the physical, you know, I'm all about busting up that mythology of our greatest access to health is just, you know, diet and exercise, diet, and exercise. And we don't really define what that is. And we don't really talk about the nuances. And so this is just a great way to introduce something other than that for people. So thank you.
Heidi Lichte: I'm well, thank you. Yeah. And I just encouraged people where every out, like we were trying to say where to start in yoga, but just. Start moving start, you know, moving in ways that, you know roll your shoulders around and, and breathe more deeply and bounce a little and things.
Yeah. Wiggle become a little more of the wiggle move and, and then, you know, branch out. If you're, if you're I'm still online. So, if you're interested in connecting with me, that's possible. I'm and there's, there's just wonderful teachers out there, so yeah. Yeah. Find it.
Sarah Marshall, ND: All your information will be directly on the link in the show notes on our website and we'll have all that, so people can get access to you and, yeah. Thank you so much.
Sarah Marshall, ND: So we get to do it again.
Heidi Lichte: Thank you. All right. Thanks Sarah.
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Sarah Marshall, ND: Inspired by the success of Heal, we are now community of over 3,500 incredible listeners. We will be launching some courses and workshops in 2021. Be the first to know about them and other bonus tidbits of knowledge by joining our mailing list at SarahMarshallND.com.
Thank you to today's guest Heidi Lichte for elegance and rigor. For a full transcript and all the resources for today's show. Visit SarahMarshallND.com/podcast. Special thanks to our music composer, Roddy Nikpour and our editor, Kendra Vicken, and as always thank you for being here. We'll see you next time.