The VH Podcast, Episode 24: Yoga For Healing

{UPDATE FROM JESSICA, June 2023 – Over the last couple of years, my stance on yoga has changed and I no longer practice it or recommend it on my site or to my clients. You can read about my decision to stop practicing yoga here. Best wishes on your personal healing journey. <3}

If you’ve followed my site for any length of time, you may know that yoga is one of my favorite exercises. It’s gentle and supportive, builds strength, reduces stress, and does not tax the adrenals. As I work through my own adrenal fatigue, I find that I am unable to do the heavy strength training and cardio that I used to do. Now walking, yoga, and some gentle body weight movement is what my body can handle.

Today, we are so excited to be joined by our friend Tera Bucasas, the creator of an amazing online program called Yoga For Healing. This program is by far one of the best out there for those who are suffering from chronic illness, fatigue, stress, and more. It’s gentle and allows your body to move mindfully without overburdening the adrenals and sensory systems.

We are thrilled to be discussing all things yoga and healing journeys with Tera, and I know that her story of healing is going to resonate with so many of you! Let’s dive in!

Missed previous episodes? You can find them all here.

Links From This Week’s Episode:

• Yoga For Healing Online Course
• Jessica’s Review of the Yoga for Healing Course
• Jessica’s Health Journey
• Tera Bucasas’ Website, Real Fit Yoga
• Why I Love Yoga: Is Yoga for Me?
• Why I Love Yoga: The Health Benefits of Yoga
• Benefits of Yoga: What the Research Says About its Use for Common Health Problems
• Yoga for Hormonal Health

Listen to The Vibrant Health Podcast :: Episode 24

Read The Vibrant Health Podcast Transcript :: Episode 24

Jessica:  Hi everyone. Welcome to episode number 24 of the Vibrant Health Podcast. I am Jessica from DeliciousObsessions.com and JessicaEspinoza.com, and I’m here with my co-host, Lydia of DivineHealthFromTheInsideOut.com. And we are also joined by a special guest today.

So Lydia, do you want to hop in and say hi and introduce our guest?

Lydia:  Sure. Hi everyone. Thank you so much for tuning in today. We’re happy to welcome Tera Bucasas to the show today to talk about a topic that Jessica and I both love: yoga and healing. Both of us use yoga in our own healing journeys and love what it has done for our bodies and our mind and I often recommend it to clients.

Tera is the founder of the RealFitYoga.com website and creator of the amazing yoga program, Yoga For Healing. And we can’t wait to have you hear her journey with yoga and healing because we know it’s going to resonate with you and many of you on your own journeys as well.

So let’s dive in. Welcome Tera. Thank you so much. Please tell us a little bit about yourself.

Tera:  Hello. Thanks for having me. So do I dive right into my story?

Lydia:  Sure!

Jessica:  Sure. We were talking before we started recording and I think what you have to say, your own experiences are going to resonate so much with our readers because you have gone through what a lot of us are struggling with right now. So yeah, just dive in and tell us all about you.

Tera:  Yeah. Honestly, it’s always so nice to hear that other people are going through it because I know for me it felt like I was the only person for a while there, that I was crazy. Yes, it’s always great to hear other people are dealing with similar things. It feels like there’s hope.

So my journey started a few years ago actually. It was only 2013 when I really decided to change my life because I was a bartender. So I was living that life and eating lots of pizza. And I ended up finding NTA, Nutritional Therapy Association, which Lydia, you went through that too, right?

Lydia:  Yes, that’s correct.

Tera:  And so it was a time for a life change. There’s nothing wrong with being a bartender, but I’m not going to be 50 and doing this. I know there’s something else out there for me and my own health issues digestively.

So I got interested in food and how food affects our health and well-being like so many of us. And I happened upon NTA, and so I signed up on a whim. So if this doesn’t end up being my passion, that’s okay, but I will have learned something.

And I dove into it head first and I got so healthy, honestly, at the first part of it. I got into making all my own food and I became “Paleo” to heal my digestive system and my blood sugar system. And at the same time, I went through my yoga teacher training and I was training for a bikini bodybuilding competition. So my life was just health. That was it. That’s what I focused on.

If you looked at me from the outside, it definitely looked like the perfect well-rounded health routine. And so it came as a really big surprise when only a few months after graduating in 2013 and right after competing, after finishing my yoga teacher’s training, all of a sudden, my health completely took a turn.

It felt like overnight; I barely had the energy to get out of bed. I became very, very depressed and apathetic about my life, about all the things that I felt passionate about, whether that’s cooking and health or fitness. My muscles, even though I was strong because I had been working out really heavily for awhile, I had nothing left in me. There was no energy.  

So I lost my identity. I know I didn’t but that’s what it felt like at the time; and I had lost my body and how I related to myself. I mean it was probably in a month and to me, that was really fast.

So I had to learn a completely new way to relate to myself and also to a bigger scope of healing because like I said, I was doing all the “right things.” I was eating the right food. And by that, I just mean healthy whole foods and what I thought was right. And I was practicing yoga, but the thing is I was trying to do power yoga and teaching yoga school, which is yoga with weights.

On top of that, I was doing a lot of additional weight training and exercising and bike-riding. I did love it. It was fun. But obviously, my body had something else to say. It was communicating because our bodies tell us stuff. And if we don’t listen, they just tell us a little bit louder and a little bit louder until we deal with it.

So yeah, I was at this turn where all of a sudden, my healthy lifestyle wasn’t making me healthy anymore, which seems counterintuitive and really confusing to some of us in this world, in this realm. So even though yoga is healthy for instance, Power Vinyasa Yoga wasn’t accessible to me. Teaching yoga school seemed like taking every ounce of my energy, all the chaturangas.

I cannot do it anymore. My joints started to hurt and on top of that, I had a hormonal crazy crash. All of my sex hormones pretty much belched. My thyroid had pretty much stopped working, hypothyroid. All of a sudden, I had an adrenal fatigue crash. So it seems like I went from the highest of the highest to the lowest of the lowest for a really quick amount of time.

Now, of course if I were to look back, I’d see signs. My hindsight is 20/20. And in the moment, I didn’t see it at all. So now, I’m in a place where all of the forms of exercise that I was used to that made me feel good no longer made me feel good and were no longer healthy for me or accessible. I’m a yoga teacher and I definitely felt a lot of shame and embarrassment around that. I was like, “How can I teach this? I can’t even do this right now.”

And so there was a bit of time where I stopped doing everything. I gave myself a break because I didn’t really have a choice. I stopped exercising and I gave myself rest and I didn’t practice yoga as much.

And then finally I realized that doing nothing is not the answer either. I need to do something that is going to look different and that’s okay. And wrapping my head around that that’s okay was so difficult because when we see all over the internet and social media what fitness is and what you’re supposed to do to be fit and healthy, it’s always something that’s pretty intensive like HIT or Power Vinyasa or CrossFit.

And when you can’t do those things, it feels a little less fun to do something that’s gentle or you’re like, “What’s the point? Why am I doing this thing?” And I’ve never thought I would be someone that got into gentle yoga. Not to say it was bad. It’s just that I was really into power. That was my thing. I wanted to do crazy postures like hand stands all day.

Lydia:  Wow!

Tera:  So I had to start exploring and so I did. I just said, “I’m going to go into this with the beginner’s mind and start exploring new types of yoga, not just Power Vinyasa and not just yoga schools, but what else is out there.”

So I started going to these restorative classes, yin-based classes, just gentle yoga nidra. I’m just going to different teachers and different studios and different types of classes and seeing how those felt. And honestly, it was so hard because it was a mental head game. It was mostly me beating myself up about the fact that I couldn’t do the same amount of things that I was used to be able to do.

“Why can’t I? I’m eating all the right foods and I’m taking all these supplements.” But that mindset does not help our healing. And that is one thing that I definitely learned or inside I gained through gentle yoga.

Gentle yoga not only helps my nervous system and helps me to learn how to relax and just be present, but to really face the things that were going on in my head and my belief system and shift those. I know you guys talk about mindset. When we’re in that mindset of negativity, we’re not healing and we’re probably going to keep ourselves in that place.

And so it was those very slow gentle practices where I had time to rest and really just confront what was going on, that true feelings of – I don’t know. The root started to come up, not just eating healthy and letting my body heal. There’s like the emotional and spiritual healing that even happen first.

Yeah, I started developing a new relationship with yoga and how I teach it and how I practice, and then also with myself, which is still an ongoing thing because in our world, we’re constantly being inundated with other people’s ideas on what is good and what is healthy. So it is a struggle.

Yoga helps me, oh my gosh, to really confront those to see that there are so many different ways to move our bodies that are helpful in so many ways, so many different kinds of bodies. And nothing is a “one size fits all” approach and nothing is the one perfect idea of health and wellness.

I actually am friends with Mickey Trescott at AutoimmunePaleo.com and she has instructed me when I first got my yoga teacher training certification that I should do a yoga for healing program, like a healing-type yoga, gentle yoga program. And I was not in a place to do it at that point. That didn’t resonate with me because I was in that power place.

And then all of a sudden, it clicked just this year, earlier this year. I see how that’s helpful and you see how I can be of service to create something that way, to help others start to slow their minds down, slow their bodies down and heal through breath and movement and heal emotionally and spiritually.

So out came Yoga For Healing and now, I’m actually currently on my journey. I just started to try to integrate a little more movement, a little more intensity movement. But even that now, it is a new thing, trying to learn your body and knowing when it’s enough and not to push too hard again and not to go back to the place that I started from.

And so yeah, it’s a continuum for me. It’s not over yet, but that’s what got me to where I am right now.

Lydia:  Amazing. Amazing.

Jessica:  It is. Yeah, your story – I mean so many people are going through similar things and there’s so much guilt associated with when you’re used to living a certain lifestyle and being able to do a certain amount of activity every day, whatever that looks like for you. And then all of a sudden, your body just does not want to function anymore and you can’t do that.

That’s something that I really struggled with. And even now, sometimes I’m like, “Oh well, is walking really enough? Is yoga really enough? I wanted to still swing my kettlebells. Come on.”

But I know that if we – we have a full set of kettlebells downstairs. I know if I do that, I know I’m going to be out for the count for two days probably. I’ll just be completely fatigued. I know that I just can’t do it, but there is that level.

We’re so ingrained in the society to feel like we have to lift weights and we have to run marathons and we have to do all this stuff in order to be healthy and be fit. And making that shift into understanding and allowing things, like walking and the yoga and just really gentle exercise to fill that void, that is okay and that is still very healthy. It’s not like you’re not going to heal over from a heart attack because you’re not out there running a marathon or something. It’s a huge mind shift.

Tera:  Yeah. It’s so hard to wrap your head around this. Everyone is telling us otherwise. I remember the same thing, what you’re talking about. I was trying to be okay with thinking walking and some yoga is enough. How can that be enough to keep you healthy?

Jessica:  Right.

Tera:  But it’s really what you have to do sometimes. That’s what your body is crying out for, right?

Lydia:  Yeah. I really love your story. And you’re speaking my language. Thank you. It’s not just me telling everybody this. So I had a similar story, but not quite. And I have my own version of a crash.

So there are all kinds of people out there. And if you really don’t understand how stress depletes the body and what is stress, stress is any demand on the body, it’s interesting because I tie that in with your whole story, my whole story. We were basically robbing our mineral reserves doing this intensity without knowing and that’s so prevalent.

So it’s just so cool to hear your story, not that you crash, but I don’t want to hear that to ever happen. But what I hope people can take from it is that let’s not get to that point.

Tera:  Yes, right.

Jessica:  Yes.

Lydia:  And that’s my goal. I’m “preaching” this message of health namely through the HTMA and minerals, but more than that. But then, there’s this pervasive mindset out there that we can’t get away from. So it’s cool.

I love that what you’re talking about starts with that, our pervasive society mindset of you got to do more of bigger, faster, stronger things. No offense to CrossFit, but it is pretty trendy and it promotes that “Go, go, go” and “Push, push, push” kind of thing.

It’s interesting to me because I did the CrossFit briefly and I said, “Man, it almost seems like people should be screened before they take this on because it’s so intense. And you’ve got someone who’s already got health conditions. Pushing them harder is not really such a great idea.” So you have that side of it and then you have the people who are already burned out.

So it’s cool. What you’re doing really serves both people.

Tera:  Yeah.

Lydia:  Or both types of people.

Tera:  Yeah. I mean preventatively, it is finding balance. I feel like in CrossFit, at least before with me in exercising, I wanted to do it every day. I was like, “I’m not going to do CrossFit only three times a week. I’m doing it every day.” That mentality is what makes us burn out or crash or hurt ourselves.

I think CrossFit can be really healthy if people can learn to tune in and not feel like they have to do it every day. Maybe they do it once a week and they do other exercise that’s gentler depending on what their level is at. It’s all about balance. We all know that, the part that strikes the balance.

Lydia:  Yeah, totally.

Tera:  But yeah, I think that I agree with you completely.

Lydia:  Yeah. And the balance can be hard to do within that setting because it’s hard to pair it down when everyone else is ramping up.

Tera:  Yeah. I mean it’s rewarded in some ways depending on how many days you go. There’s always rewards whether it’s people making comments or recognition for going more or doing more. There are not always rewards for listening to your body and taking a day of rest, but there should be.

Lydia:  Right. It’s so true. So you talked about where you’re at now and how you’re going really slow. Jessica brought it up a little bit in how it’s really hard for some people to go slow.

We had a podcast awhile back about exercise for adrenal fatigue. So it’s so cool that we can do this now and help people really understand what it really takes to heal the adrenals. So it sounds like you have experienced at least in terms of what does that look like. Can you explain what that might look like for someone who has an adrenal fatigue with movement in mind?

Tera:  Like what a new type of movement routine looks like?

Lydia:  Just that and a whole picture. I mean I’m constantly trying to encourage people to slow down and be okay with doing less.

Tera:  Yes.

Lydia:  And what you are doing with your program is for healing. You told us your story about how you are helping others and what that looks like for them in terms of their health.

Tera:  Yeah. For one, having permission to slow down is a big part of it. I think oftentimes we won’t give ourselves permission to have someone say, “It’s okay. You can modify. You can take a break. Or today, you don’t have to do anything. You can just lie here and focus on your breath.” Having someone giving you permission to do that I think is a big part of being able to slow down.

Like we’re talking about, exercising is telling us oftentimes to do the opposite. It’s hard to decide on our own, “I’m just going to do something totally different and give myself rest.”

So as an instructor in the videos and other ways, definitely I’m always the type of person or instructor that wants to give people permission to slow down and encourage it, give space for it. And what does that look like? You’re demonstrating it and giving them something else to focus on.

So slowing down is really difficult when we’re always in go mode and so our brain is always going, always going. And that’s where an amazing part of yoga comes in, which is the breath work. And that gives our mind something else to focus on and then it allows it to slow down as well.

And on top of that, our breath helps to control our nervous system. So that’s sympathetic versus parasympathetic state, which I think you guys have talked about on your podcast, I do recall.

So parasympathetic is that rest and relaxed state where you can digest and start to detoxify and start to heal and your immune system is on and things are working. So that’s where you’re going to acclimate in yoga for healing or in other gentle practices, like walking for instance, as opposed to the sympathetic, which is what’s often activated in exercises that are really heavily cardiovascular intensive and causing you to breathe quickly or when you are in a state of stress.

So permission and slowing your mind down to focus in on your breath in order to activate a more rested nervous system and to facilitate immune system and healing. Those are all huge parts of getting through the adrenal fatigue and healing with gentle movements.

Slowing down from adrenal fatigue – if you crash at one point, obviously you almost don’t even have a choice like Jessica was saying. You can’t get out of it. You can’t do anything else. So once you hit that place, giving yourself permission and time to rest and knowing that that’s okay. That is what your body needs. It’s exactly what your body needs.

I really understand that taking it slow is really hard. And it really shows like you’re not doing anything because how is walking enough? How is gently stretching, how is focusing on our breath really going to help us? But it is 100% what you need and it is where your body will be able to rebuild itself.

Yeah. I guess that’s where I think that healing really takes place, in that rested state, that parasympathetic state. And yoga is an amazing way to facilitate that and guide you into that place even if you haven’t been there in awhile.

Lydia:  Totally. Absolutely.

Jessica:  I completely agree. So tell us a little bit about your course. So we know the inspiration for it. We know your background. So let’s talk a little bit more in depth about your course and what it offers for people.

I have done the course and I think Lydia has as well. And I personally love it and I refer it to tons of people. I think that it really hits a niche that wasn’t being filled elsewhere. And it’s things that I’ve known for a long time of the benefits of gentle yoga for healing and helping to slow down and focusing on your breath work and the mind-body connection.

Most people are not in tune with their bodies and knowing how to listen to the signs. So this is stuff that I’ve known for a really long time.

But let’s talk a little bit about the importance of listening to your bodies and how yoga can help get you to that point where you’re actually listening to the signals because so many of us just plough through our days and we can totally ignore. Like you’re saying, you’ll get little signals and you’ll get little gentle nudges. And they get worse and worse and worse until you get to a point where your body is like, “Hey, you need to pay attention to me right now.”

Tera:  Yeah.

Jessica:  So we don’t want to get to that point.

Tera:  Definitely.

Jessica:  Yeah. Let’s talk a little bit about that.

Tera:  Yeah. I would say a majority of people I know, including myself, we cut off healing in some way in order to get through. “I’m not going to listen to my body because I got stuff to do, basically.”

That makes sense, but yoga is a way to build that inter-receptive awareness, that awareness of what’s happening in our bodies. And how it does that is it is an embodiment practice. It is a practice.

I mean I just want everyone to know that if you do one yoga class and you don’t feel embodied and you don’t feel in tune with your body, that’s okay because it’s going to take more than one practice. Know that it’s a slow progressive thing. Yoga is not an overnight cure to anything. It will facilitate healing and help you become embodied, but it is something that happens over time.

So a big part of yoga, like I was saying, is that focus on your breath. What that means is taking it slower, inhales and exhales and actually being on a present mind and not feeling them come into your body, and then leave your body, and connecting movement to that.

When you inhale for instance, you’ll move your arms up. Having that connection of breath to movement starts to connect your mind’s awareness to what your body is doing. And just repetitively doing this and quieting your mind, all of a sudden you’ll make space to hear what your body is telling you.

Whereas, when we’re going, “Go, go, go, go, go,” we haven’t created any space to hear our body. We’re ignoring it completely. But when you’re on your mat and someone is guiding you through or you’re doing your own yoga practice with slow unlimited time to help you slow down, eventually you’ll start to hear it.

It will start to come up and you’ll be like, “There’s a pain on my shoulder. I’ve never noticed that before.” But you’ve never noticed because we don’t allow our brains to connect to our body in that way. We don’t allow time and space to feel that. We’re too busy.

And so yeah, yoga is this place of discovery of your body. And once again, it is a process and I think that that’s the part where people get discouraged very easily. They tried yoga once and they’re like, “That didn’t work for me.”

And I understand that we want it to be instant because instant gratification is our world. But that’s not how it is. And I believe true healing is something that is a process and it’s slow and it’s layer by layer.

And yoga is just – we can even just call it movement with intention. If someone doesn’t relate to the word yoga, it’s intentional movement. That’s what it is. And it’s giving space for slowing your brain down and your body down.

And in yoga for healing, we also go through emotional aspects of healing because what I discovered and what I’ve heard from other people is that healing isn’t all about just, for instance, healing our adrenals or getting our hormones to balance or healing our digestion. There’s a bigger element to that, but it has to do with our self worth and it has to do with asking for help and our confidence and our strength and what we believe about ourselves. Healing can be a really emotional endeavor and journey. Like I said before, it just feels lonely.

So in yoga for healing, not only do we go through obviously trying to find presence in our body slowing our breaths, but also our feelings. Feelings can get stuck in our body too. And what emotions have been coming up through our healing? Do we feel inadequate? Why is that?

And then feeling fit with some suffering, that’s not necessarily true. Just because we’re not lifting 56 lb weights – that’s not even a thing, a 56 lb weight, but not lifting weights doesn’t mean we’re not strong.

Look at what you’re doing in your life. Look at the strength you have right now. And being able to have gratitude for the strength even if it’s less than it was before.

So it’s an emotional and physical practice definitely.

Lydia:  I love that.

Jessica:  I just want to give you a hug right now.

Tera:  I would love that.

Jessica:  I’m falling in love with you because you were just so eloquent. It was just beautiful how you described all of that, stuff that I’ve been feeling, that I’ve been saying. You summed it up so well. I seriously want to give you a hug. So virtual hug for you.

Lydia:  Yeah.

Tera:  Yes. Hugs, I love them.

Lydia:  I love that too and I’m sitting here writing myself some little notes. I love that you call it intentional movement because we are so overhyped about fitness.

And I’m just wanting to tell most of the people. Listen, do you have to be an athlete right now? I don’t understand this need to be athletic. You’re human. You have a busy life. You’re a mom or whatever. You must be realistic.

Not to say that it’s wrong to want to be athletic. I’m not saying that at all, but it just seems so overplayed in our culture. So intentional movement is so beautiful to just – yeah, let’s move our bodies. Let’s stay active. I just really love that simple summation because in light of what we’re faced with, it can feel so emotional and there’s all this guilt and all this stuff going on. That was great.

Tera:  Yeah, so many people – I’m sorry to interrupt.

Lydia:  No, no. Go.

Tera:  Just anyone, we are obsessed with fitness and all these things. But oftentimes, once again those movements that we’re doing whether they’re making our muscles strong or not, often they are very intentional or throwing our bodies around. And so that’s what we’ve often viewed as injuries.

But if we can use yoga, even if it’s gentle yoga as a foundation for fitness, if that’s what your endeavor is or if that’s what you want to do, this intentional movement process, this slowing down is going to build you a really strong foundation to build on so that not only are you going to build strength or a certain physique or whatever the fitness thing is, you’re also going to build a healthy and functional way to move your body and to prevent any injury in the future.

When you do a squat, you’re not just doing a squat. You’re putting your body intentionally into that position whether it’s weighted or unweighted. Yeah, it’s a foundation.

Lydia:  I love it. Yeah. That’s so good because my son did wrestling and football, both. And he was so messed up from it and he had to do physical therapy. He was telling me all the training they do and what the coaches do. And I was getting really pissed off. These coaches are assuming your body is this freaking…

Jessica:  Machine.

Lydia:  I couldn’t believe the workout these kids are doing. Why couldn’t they do a couple of hard workouts, maybe not as long as they do them and add in some yoga for god’s sakes because these kids are getting so tight that they’re getting injured?

Anyway, that’s a side rant of mine, but that ties into much of what you just said and that’s only one of the things that can show up. And especially in the kids today, I would love to see yoga in schools and in athletics. That would be amazing.

So that said, I have a couple of really practical things because I love that you talked about all the mental and emotional, even almost the spiritual side of it. But I know Jessica has done the course. I’ve done some of it myself and I’m working with a lot of clients who do have adrenal fatigue and they feel so bad as they can’t do much. And there are so many practical things about your course that make so much sense for these people.

I just wanted to say I’d love to hear – I don’t know. Jessica, do you feel this? Maybe we can hear you talk a little bit about your practicals within the course.

So for me and I know this can happen to a lot of people as you’re talking about this, my brain is going 8,000 miles an hour every day all day. My boyfriend makes fun of me. He’s like, “You’re like a computer with 8,000 tabs open at all times.”

And so by the end of the day, when I lay down in bed, it’s like, “Okay, brain. Shut up. Shut up. Just shut up.”

Tera:  Yes.

Lydia:  But when I’m doing this course, it does make my brain shut up because I’m listening and I’m like, “Okay, I’ve got to do this.” I’ll hear myself start to go off track. It’s so funny because as soon as I have, it’s really guiding the person back in.

Tera:  Yes.

Lydia:  And I’m like, “Oh, this is great.” And I noticed I’m not all over the place. It’s so wonderful. So for me, it’s nice to slow my brain down. And I think that’s so important because if we can’t take those moments, even just the movement part alone is great, but the part of just slowing down and shutting everything out and just focusing on ourselves is so great.

Tera:  I totally agree.

Lydia:  It really is.

Tera:  Yeah.

Lydia:  And you don’t think it’s so great because you’re like, “No, no, no, I’ve got so much to do.” But if you really allow yourself to stop, it’s like, “Oh my gosh, thank god I did this.”

Tera:  Yes.

Lydia:  So that’s really cool. And then I love how your course is online and you can do it and practice in your home, which is great because a lot of people who I work with have a really hard time, some of them can’t even get out of their house much because they’re so tired or whatever.

So that’s amazing. And most people can’t hire someone to come in and teach them. So that’s really great. You can do it whenever, not to sign up for a class at the gym and get there on time or whatever. So that’s really convenient. I love that. I had a lot of moms who need that.

And for me, I’m an introvert. You might not know this. You might not think, “Oh my gosh, really?”

Tera:  Yes.

Lydia:  But really what that means is I get most of my energy from my own time and I re-energize that way. So going to a class, I’m like, “Oh, I have to be around these people and everyone is all peppy and I just want to do my thing.”   So personally for me, that’s one thing I love.

Tera:  Oh, good.

Lydia:  Seriously. You were talking about this just a minute ago about how you’re guiding people. And it’s so true, you’re doing movements. So you’re getting this form of exercise. But you’re also getting this coaching session because someone is guiding you the whole time.

It’s really cool. It’s more than people realize. And I just wanted to point that out because you cover a lot in what you say through the sessions. So it’s really great on that front too, and I just want to point that out.

Tera:  Yeah, I was –

Jessica:  It sounds like you’re getting – oh, go ahead.

Tera:  No, you go ahead first.

Jessica:  It’s almost like you’re getting a little bit of therapy from Tera.

Lydia:  Exactly.

Jessica:  She’s telling you, “It’s okay to slow down. It’s okay to spend time doing this and it’s okay if your posture doesn’t look like what my posture looks like. That’s okay.”

I think that’s the problem. Sometimes I think that going to physical in person classes is beneficial for people because you have a teacher there that can really help you correct your alignment if it’s the right teacher.

My mom is a yoga instructor. She’s been instructing for over 15 years now. So really the only classes that I like to go to are hers. She’s really focused on alignment. That is one of the things that she’s just always, always focused on. So I’ve been in classes.

She’ll come around and she adjusts people and helps them really get into that proper alignment. I think that’s really important because I’ve been in classes where I’ve watched other people and I see right upfront that their alignment is really poor and the instructor just blazes through and doesn’t pay any attention to her students.

So it’s really nice that you get that one on one time and that you’re so genuine and warming in telling people, “You don’t have to look like I’m looking right now. It’s okay to just be where you’re at.” So it’s almost like you get some therapy in your yoga sessions too.

I love it. I think that you have a total gem here as far as course that can really, really help people heal their bodies and their minds.

Tera:  Yeah. Thank you so much. That part was so important to me. It’s not just about the physical. It felt like, from my own experience, it was either you had these power classes or you had these really gentle classes that felt like – I don’t know.

For me, I don’t want this to sound rude or whatever, but it was always geared towards a generation that wasn’t mine and I felt like, “Why do I have to go to this class?” So I really wanted to create something that felt like accessible and inviting and warm for all groups of people, even if they’re used to going to power and having to step down and do something gentler. I know what that feels like and I get it and it’s okay.

And I think that’s what I wanted in some way. I needed someone to tell me that sometimes your body changes and sometimes your practice and your physical self change and that’s all right. Your body is doing its work right now and it is okay the way it is.

That part was just really important to me because I felt like yoga isn’t just about postures and that’s what we focus so much on in our world. I just wanted someone to be like, “It’s all right, Tera. This is just a part of your journey and it doesn’t mean you’re less of a person or less than healthy. Your health is not completely down the drain or something. You’re doing the right thing.”

I find that piece of community – I don’t know if it’s community or connection. That is just healing to me, having some connection to someone who’s deal with something similar. It’s so important.

Lydia:  Yeah. I wanted to say the other thing, and we touched on this in circles a bit about strength, fitness equaling strength, more outward strength. But this program and yoga, it really builds inner strength. And I feel that is so crucial and it’s not anything worth frowning upon because it’s almost easier to go out and get physically strong than it is to build this inner strength.

I love this because it’s something you almost stumble upon when you do this. It’s not like the thing people are going to do it for. Do you know what I mean? Who wants to change? It’s so hard. But somehow it’s not pushing you, but it guides you towards that. And it’s really powerful.

I just want to emphasize that whole piece of inner strength because we’re looking at the outside so much in our society and we’re not tackling this inner strength and beauty and spirit and all of this. I think that’s a big piece of our heart as we share with our readers. So I love that that’s part of your program.

That’s very practical too in the end results of it. Do you know what I mean?

Tera:  Yeah. I 100% agree obviously.

Jessica:  Yeah, I completely agree with what you said. And this was actually – I went off on a tangent because my brain sometimes doesn’t work so well. But before, when I was talking about having classes, the in-person classes, sometimes you’ll get into almost like a competition. You feel like you have to keep up with the people in the class and that you need to emulate what other people are doing.

So being able to do this alone in your home with you instructing, it removes that whether you mean to do it or not. It sometimes just happens when you’re in that personal class. So this removes that and allows you to focus on the healing aspects of it rather than getting caught up in “Oh, I need to look like the person next to me.”

Tera:  Yes. That’s so true.

Jessica:  That was the whole point of what I was saying earlier.

Tera:  Yeah, it allows you to try to be in your own body instead of comparing yourself to everyone around you. And it’s not easy to do when you’re in a class. Whether or not you mean to, you can get caught up in it really quickly.

Jessica:  Yes, absolutely.

Lydia:  It’s so true. And so with that side, as you’re teaching in your videos, I love how – I know most yoga instructors do this, some maybe more than others, but you are very – well, it’s called Yoga For Healing, so you’re very gentle, very calm. You’re very soothing and calm, but you show people how to do this like they’ve never done it before. Do you know what I mean?

Tera:  Yeah.

Lydia:  Or maybe they have an inability or something. Some people have health issues that are holding them back a little. And so I love that about your videos is you are very good about keeping almost anyone in mind.

Tera:  Yeah. I really glad you said that and it came off that way because it’s totally what I wanted. So it’s wonderful to have you reflect that to me.  I never anticipated this.

I really enjoy teaching to people who are beginners or they don’t feel like they can do yoga and making it accessible for every body because it is. And sometimes it feels that way, but yeah, it’s really important.

Jessica:  It’s pretty cool.

Tera:  Yeah.

Jessica:  Definitely. Awesome! If you had to give our listeners some main takeaways, whether it’d be for healing or just loving your body or yoga in general, what’s your closing thought for our talk today?

Tera:  My closing thought, I feel like there’s so much pressure.

Jessica:  There’s no pressure at all.

Tera:  It needs to be profound. Yeah. In fact, healing comes on many levels, oftentimes a lot deeper than we anticipate. So don’t be afraid to dig even deeper than for instance the physical.

And be gentle with yourself because it’s really hard to heal sometimes, especially when we choose to dive in deep. But you are enough. You are enough and you will get there. Just be patient. Love yourself. Put yourself first. Then don’t be afraid to reach out to people.

Jessica:  I think that’s excellent. That’s a good reminder for all of us because Lydia said many times that healing happens in layers. It’s like peeling an onion. You’ll have the one thing and then something else may arrive. So you really have to be patient with the entire process. Health is not a destination. It’s a journey.

Tera:  Yeah, that is a theme of healing. There’s always another layer. I’m sorry. I may keep going for a second.

Lately, I was thinking about what is health and I’ve been reading some articles and things. And I’m realizing that we all want to heal, obviously, so that we have energy to live our dreams and our life, but there’s no fountain of youth in some way. We’re never going to be perfect and that’s okay.

So instead of beating ourselves up for not being perfect or not healing immediately, just being at peace with the fact that healing is a journey and it’s a journey that will probably go throughout our lives but in different ways. You’re not always going to have adrenal fatigue, but once you heal from that, who knows, you might do something else. And being okay with the fact that our life is ebb and flow and perfection isn’t what we’re striving for because that’s not human and that’s okay.

Jessica:  Exactly. That is just what we’ve said so many times and that’s been something that I had just recently actually sink in. Lydia said the whole, “Health is not a destination, it’s a journey,” thing probably a thousand times, but just recently, that really, really sunk in for me because I still had in my head that I was going to get healthy; I was going to get to this place where I’m in my optimal health.

So this time, it sunk in finally that you know what? I may get through what I’m going through now or I may heal my body to a certain extent, but there’s always healing that’s going to take place for the rest of my life. So that was something that just sank in recently. Even though I’ve heard it for years, it really didn’t make sense until recently.

Tera:  Oh, I totally relate to you on that. It’s the same thing. I just hear these things over and over. And also everyone, keep in mind that sometimes you might hear things so many times before that it actually sinks in and that’s alright. You have to be ready for it. You have to be ready to accept it.

Lydia:  Right. It’s so great. I love this. I love this. So tell us where we can find you and a little bit about where your course is at and…

Jessica:  All the logistics?

Lydia:  Yeah.

Tera:  Yeah. Like you said at the beginning, I have a blog. It’s called RealFitYoga.com. Or it’s called Real Fit Yoga and you can find it at RealFitYoga.com. That’s where I talk a lot about my own experiences and share them in an effort to be rid of our shame and just be vulnerable and heal together.

And it’s not just the yoga. We talk a lot about other efforts of healing as well because as you can tell, I’m very holistic with my work.

You can find Yoga For Healing at YogaForHealing.com. So I think you ladies will probably have a link in your notes or something.

Jessica:  Yeah.

Lydia:  Yeah.

Tera:  So you can find it there. If you want to follow – this is something we talked about, but I travel quite a bit and I post pictures from my travels on Instagram. If you’re interested in travel and beautiful photos, that’s @TeraBucasas on Instagram.

So yeah, I hope to connect with some people out there, people who are healing to hear about their journey. I think sharing is part of healing.

Lydia:  Totally.

Jessica:  Absolutely.

Lydia:  Awesome.

Tera:  Yeah.

Jessica:  Awesome. Yeah, we’ll include links to everything that we talked about today if you’re over on our site or on YouTube reading the show notes. But yeah, definitely go check out Tera.

We’re going to go ahead and wrap up for the day, but as always, if you have any questions about anything, don’t hesitate to let us know. You can contact any of us and let us know what questions you have. If this information resonated with you and you know others that could benefit from it, we would love to have you share it.

We’d also really appreciate it if you could leave us a review on iTunes or Stitcher. So if you’re on our site or YouTube, we’ll have links down below where you can leave a review. But if you’re listening through iTunes or Stitcher, on one of the apps, you can leave a review straight on there as well. It only takes a minute or so and we really, really appreciate it.

And anytime you share and review, it helps us to reach more people with our message of health and wellness. So we truly appreciate that.

Please don’t forget to stop by and say hi to Tera on her site, RealFitYoga.com and I believe she has a newsletter as well. So you could connect with her there and keep up with all of her activities. She does do a lot of traveling and she posts some excellent content over on her site. So I really encourage you to check it out and read a lot of that stuff.

And then if you are looking for even more information on health and wellness, both Lydia and I have tons of information on our sites. You could find me at JessicaEspinoza.com, which is my main practice website and where I offer my 21-Day Sugar Detox coaching. And then I have DeliciousObsessions.com, which is my main real food and healthy living website. If you’re looking for recipes or just do-it-yourself tutorials and things like that, you can check me out there.

You can find Lydia over at DivineHealthFromTheInsideOut.com and Lydia offers nutritional therapy consultations and also hair tissue mineral analysis services for those that are ready to take their health to the next level and get a deeper look at what’s going on in their bodies.

And then lastly, if you have any suggestions for topics you’d like us to cover on future episodes, we would love to hear from you. We want to make this podcast as educational and helpful for you as possible. So email us or leave a comment down below, and we all look forward to serving you and inspiring you to help live the healthiest and happiest lives possible. So have a great day everyone. We’ll be back again next week.