
Today’s guest is someone I never would have met if it weren’t for Instagram. In fact, many of my guests I’ve connected to through this online community. I’m so grateful that we can use our ever-so-connectedness to facilitate real conversation and real connection with people I otherwise would have no idea were living by similar values and sharing familiar struggles.
I’m honored to have Stephanie Birch of @stephynow — yoga teacher, mama and seeker on the WELL / AWARE Show this week. I was initially drawn to Stephanie for her writing, all it takes is a quick scroll through her Instagram feed and you’ll see the depth, the rough and tumble, the good and the bad.

What might look like a pretty Instagram feed and well-practiced words is so much more than that. Stephanie used yoga to heal from serious depression, mostly post-partum, and shares with us how the practice, specifically connecting the movements to her breath, changed her life.

This episode is great for anyone going through it. Real stuff. Stephanie used yoga as a tool to get through serious post-partum depression, and much of her writing is inspired by the link of her practice and her life. It’s also ideal for anyone who wants tools to better understand your own tendencies. 
We discuss:

* using yoga (or any form of mindful movement) as a tool to heal depression
* how she garnered a follow on Instagram
* what it’s like to have children when you’re specifically planning not to
* overcoming fears of success by getting out of your own way
* how to move trauma through the physical body with activity, and by allowing ourselves to feel
* how Stephanie eats to support her very active yoga practice
* the creative process as release, and writing “urges”
* the role of vulnerability in creativity


SHOW NOTES:
@stephynow / stephynow.com / oneOeight.tv (for yoga videos)
@stvntiller, her significant other who posts his gorgeous woodwork
passage I read from in the podcast intro
uncovering old wounds, a passage referenced mid-show
Stephanie’s book obsessions:
Red, Hot and Holy
Conversations with God
Anything by Eckhart Tolle
all photos from Stephanie’s Instagram account

WELL / AWARE Show 012: Yoga as Healing with Stephanie Birch of stephynow Instagram

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Do you remember that peculiar but serendipitous feeling when someone’s in your orbit, and you end up meeting simply by virtue of unplanned but repeated, consistent encounters? In 2019 it seems to happen virtually, too, and that’s the story of how Erin Telford and I met.
She and sound therapist Sara Auster—one of Well Aware’s very first guests who notably has a book coming out in the fall—have been long-time buddies. Two of my dearest friends Alex and Meesh completed their trainings with Erin’s teacher David Elliott and have since become breathwork facilitators. She leads breathwork events at Sky Ting, my yoga home base, a few times each year. When I reached out to Erin, she shared that she was excited because Well Aware had been on her radar for quite some time, and because of our many mutual friends. I suppose it was only a matter of time before universal forces brought us together.
We recorded our first conversation back in February 2019 and it was easily one of my favorite interviews. I was very sick and symptomatic at the time, which is one way to guarantee vulnerability… and by nature of her work and personhood, Erin shares from the heart. Not one minute after our sweet, much-anticipated exchange, my hard drive ran out of space and our conversation was deleted! Zilch. Nowhere to be found. I cried, I was embarrassed, and wanted to throw my laptop out the window. Erin, being the angel she is, responded in kind to my glitch. “Two open hearts can make magic twice.” A month later we had this talk, which was even better than the first.  
I’ve experienced this type of breathwork a handful of times, and each one has been more profound than the last. Erin works with the breath and the body as corrective medicine for childhood trauma. The breath is through the mouth, a two part inhale culminating in a full exhale. The first inhale inflates the belly, the second inflates the chest, and the exhale is a release. Breathing like this for any length of time will activate chemical reactions in the body that are said to help us release stored trauma. Some people yell, some laugh, some cry, my experiences have included all of the above… if you do it in a group setting, I guarantee it’ll be a wild ride. 
For the first 25 minutes or so, we talk about breathwork basics, and then we get into Erin’s journey and experience with the work. 
This episode is for anyone: 

interested in breathwork as a practice and/or a career path
yearning for a career change but is feeling weighed down by debt and/or years spent learning something else
wanting to learn how to increase their self-confidence and self-respect
learning to observe their inner critic(s)
working on setting boundaries

We discuss: 

How Erin went from being an acupuncturist to a breathwork teacher, despite having $250,000 in student debt
Why she went all-in on breathwork, of all healing modalities
How breathwork allows healing through self-resourcing, versus other modalities that outsource healing
Active versus passive healing
Her teacher David Elliott and his breathwork method
What you can expect physically, emotionally, and mentally during one of her breathwork sessions
What happened during the exact moment on October 22, 2016, when Erin realized she was enough

WELL AWARE 43: Erin Telford on Breathwork, Boundaries, and Being Enough

Articulate, headstrong, deft, hard working, self-aware, sensitive, nurturing, and collectively-oriented are all words that describe Owyn Ruck, the founder of Succurro. Succurro is a space that helps individuals as well as the collective regenerate humanity and reclaim a right to their own health. It’s located in East Meredith, New York — upstate, but away from all of the recent Brooklyn-transplant activity, claiming a space of its own.

Late last year I took an astrology class with Owyn through Succurro, and it changed my life. It was October, and I was in the beginnings of my healing crisis without even fully understanding what was going on. She opened up my eyes to a new way of thinking about astrology. Instead of rooting it in personality traits, she looks at a natal chart and sees potential and a clear healing journey, taking energetic cues rather than literal ones.  
I’ve known about Succurro for a year or so, and I truly cannot remember how I came across it, but I’m glad I did. I was sucked into the mystery — the presentation on the website was so beautiful, their offerings were esoteric, and I wasn’t sure what to make of it. Which lead me to reach out to Owyn, and I’m so glad I did! In our conversation we discuss: 

What exactly Succurro is, who it serves, and why she created it
Owyn’s sensitive nature and how it manifests
How she navigated a relationship to Spirit in an atheist household growing up
Her best advice to someone looking at Succurro and wanting to create something similar 
How to listen to your body, and Owyn’s story of a life-long struggle with hers
Her inquiry technique for clarity
How she came around to calling herself an artist 
Whether she believes in ghosts (!)
The interplay of climate change and self-awareness


This episode will especially serve sensitive or highly sensitive people, anybody looking to open up their own healing center, and people interested in astrology and/or self-inquiry. Forward it to your friends, share widely, tag us on Instagram and let us know how this episode affected you. 
SHOW NOTES

* Saipua, where Owyn apprenticed (listen to Sarah, Saipua’s founder, Well Aware episode from 2015!)
* Marlee Grace (listen to her Well Aware episode, too)
* Textile Arts Center in New York City’s Brooklyn and West Village 
* The Astrology Podcast: Fate, Free Will, and Astrology 
* Mark Jones, Owyn’s astrology teacher 
* SourcePoint therapy, via Succurro and the SourcePoint official website





WELL AWARE 42: Succurro Founder Owyn Ruck on Being A Sensitive Person, Self-Inquiry, Astrology, and Integrity


“When you get these jobs that you so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else.” —Toni Morrison
To know Ryan is a privilege. He’s a good listener, a strategic thinker, is generous with his energy, and spends most of his spare time in service of others or dreaming of ways we can all be, at scale. His ability to do exquisite boots-on-the-ground work while holding a higher vision not only for himself, but for the collective, is as rare as it is impressive.

Ryan is a freelance designer, brand strategist, yoga teacher, reiki master, artist, creative director—a true multi-hyphenate, like many Well Aware guests—who has done work for Wanderlust, Daybreaker, adidas, The Numinous, Lululemon, and more. He’s also the founder of Aligned, a media company disrupting the way we think of well-being that’s focused on the collective.
Our conversation took place about year ago (if you want to know what happened between now and then, listen to The Big Update). It was fun to listen again and see how much had evolved and what still resonates. I met Ryan in the spring of 2018, right after he’d completed his first self-directed zine, Her Ferocities, which is perhaps the most beautiful and thoughtful zine I’ve had the pleasure of reading. He sent a cold email to my mindbodygreen address (yes, editors do read cold emails!) and after following the link to his work I knew we had to meet. It was a time when politics were grim, in the wake of #metoo, #timesup and #blacklivesmatter, that this beautiful booklet emerged.

In this episode, Ryan and I cover a lot of ground:

Privilege, empowerment, and responsibility in wellness and media
The capital W why behind self-care
Wellness outside of its own industry
What the future of media could look like
Representation in wellness and media
How he created a cohesive body of work, from seemingly disparate pieces
What it’s like to teach yoga in a jail
How he comes back to his personal practice after falling off the wagon
And of course, his personal approach to well-being

I hope you enjoy the episode! As always, let me know what you think. If you’re here reading the blog, leave a note in the comments, shoot me an email (I share my email address on each episode), leave a review on iTunes, or send me a DM on Insta. Find Ryan on Instagram at @ryan_lemere or through his personal website, ryanlemere.com
SHOW NOTES

ALIGNED
* Ryan’s instagram @ryan_lemere
* Aligned’s instagram @alignedmag
Third Eye Society cap
Her Ferocities zine
Ryan Lemere
Anti Social Social Club
Folk Rebellion – the dispatch – all about finding freedom IRL, living freely without the shackles of technology
Moment app 
Open Up Resources – a not for profit that provides teachers with free curricula ideas or entire curricula

WELL AWARE 41: Ryan Lemere on Social Responsibility and Privilege in Wellness


Photo credit: source unknown
Human design is a new(ish) way to learn about yourself. Like astrology, you need the date, place, and time of your birth to generate an accurate chart, which looks something like this:

The diagram above is apparently Beyonce’s human design chart :). You’re welcome. Believe it or not, everyone’s chart looks this crazy and confusing! Shapes, lines, numbers, colors, astrological conventions, and other terms (not pictured here) like “type” and “strategy” create a blueprint, another way for us to glean information about ourselves. After generating my chart, I was full-on stumped. I listened to a few human design podcasts and learned about the five main archetypes, but I couldn’t find a crash course in chart reading that didn’t exist behind a paywall.
I was also pretty skeptical. Human design purports to be a combination of the chakra system, astrology, the i-ching, Kabbalah, and hexagram that was channeled in 1987 by one man. While I’m still not quite sure how all of these work together, or even what “hexagram” is, I was curious enough to learn more. Enter: Erin Claire Jones. After my struggling with my health earlier this year and looking everywhere for answers, and learning to trust the voice within.

Photo credit: The Power Thread. Edit by Lindsay Mueller
Erin joined me for an episode that will equip you with some human design essentials that are difficult to find elsewhere. The first half of our conversation is human design 101. She reviews each of the five human design types in detail (generator, manifesting generator, projector, manifestor, and reflector), the strategy, the incarnation cross, the meaning of the shapes, colors, and pathways in between, and what happens when you don’t resonate with certain elements of your chart.
Then, we discuss how she came to human design, from her childhood and upbringing, to what she studied in college, to how she was introduced to it. She shares resources if you’re interested in learning about human design, whether you want a more formal training or you want to self-study. Erin has generously offered Well Aware listeners 10% off of a blueprint — a customized human design reading in PDF format, rather than a call or in person. Enter WELLAWARE when you checkout. The promo ends 8/21. Keep me posted on what you learn about yourselves!
Our main topics of discussion include:

* Human design 101: a pretty comprehensive crash course!
* How Erin came to human design
* The best resources if you want to learn more about human design
* What happens when you don’t resonate with your type or another element of your design
* What Erin does she feels stuck or blocked
* How understanding her human design changed her work and relationships
* The practices she does to “honor her design”
* How she upholds boundaries as a healer who works closely with others, often
* Human design, parenting, and its effects on the next generation

SHOW NOTES 
Jovian Archive
erinclairejones.com
Erin’s blueprint offering
Erin’s instagram: @erinclairejones
International School of Human Design
BG5 Business Institute

WELL AWARE 40: Human Design with Erin Claire Jones


Photo credit: Live the Process; edit by Lindsay Mueller
Erika Bloom is one of the most literate bodyworkers I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with. I trekked to her Upper East Side studio—which was kind of a big deal, because I don’t particularly enjoy venturing above 14th street—prior to our interview to see what the buzz was about. This was once upon a time in 2017.

Photo credit: Varley; edit by Lindsay Mueller 
I had my (completely unfounded) doubts. The best somatic experiences I’ve had have come from scrappy yoga teachers or humble bodyworkers, not celebrity teachers who look like supermodels themselves. Expecting a challenging session on some combination of the cadillac and the reformer, I was floored by Erika’s process and intuition. She read my body head to toe, front to back, and silently decided on a gentle plan of action. We did some small, targeted movements for which the breath was central, but our hour together was focused on bodywork and release. Bodywork! I thought I came for pilates and there she was, giving me one of the best myofascial releases I’ve ever had.
Since that session, we’ve enjoyed several meals and yoga classes together. Our discussions meander from super nerdy-healing topics like how ancestral trauma affects our health and romantic relationships to practical ones like how to really listen to the body, what it’s like to live with autoimmune issues, and more. This conversation is one of those fly-on-the-wall scenarios, an accurate representation of what an hour with Erika is like.

Photo credit: Live the Process; edit by Lindsay Mueller
Another reason I wanted her on the show? Erika Bloom’s 600-hour certification program is arguably the most comprehensive pilates training in the world. Aside from the traditional mat and apparatus techniques, Bloom has modernized the training by including material from modern sources she’s studied, experienced, and trusts: Alexander technique, Body-Mind Centering by Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, Zero Balancing by Fritz, the tenets of rolfing by Ida Rolf, and more. This makes our conversation—and any conversation with Bloom relating to the body, mind, and spirit—so rich.

Photo credit: A Wild Dove; edit by Lindsay Mueller
In our conversation, Erika and I discuss:

* her body reading technique and “building a library of possibilities”
* the new somatic material that’s interesting to her right now (hint: it has to do with fascia,which happens to be an obsession of mine too)
* why you don’t need to “feel the burn” to increase muscular strength
* her personal movement, meditation, and home organization practices
* how over-doing cardio can lead to health issues
* where she misunderstood self-love
* her preferred bodywork modalities like zero balancing by Fritz
* her best advice for new teachers, especially if you have anxiety

Thank you for listening and as always, let me know what you think.
Photo credit: Madison Birnbaum; edit by Lindsay Mueller

WELL / AWARE Show 012: Yoga as Healing with Stephanie Birch of stephynow Instagram

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