Hillary Kallenberger ~ Embracing Authenticity and Wholeness in Yoga Practice

Hillary Kallenberger, a movement specialist and yoga teacher in Sarasota, Florida, began her journey with a passion for dance that led her from ballet to contemporary styles and eventually to New York City. Chronic pain from dancing drew her to yoga, where she now integrates her expertise in movement with a graduate degree in human relations and experience as a licensed counselor. Hillary runs a private practice combining yoga, Thai bodywork, and therapeutic counseling.

Visit Hillary here: https://www.currentmanifestationssrq.com/
On IG Here: https://www.instagram.com/hotyogamama75/

Key Takeaways:

• Transition from Dance to Yoga: Hillary's initial journey started with ballet, leading her into yoga as a means to manage and alleviate chronic body pain.
• Holistic Approach to Healing: Combining years of experience in movement and counseling, Hillary offers a unique blend of yoga, Thai bodywork, and therapeutic practices.
• Empowerment through Vulnerability: The episode underscores the power in acknowledging personal challenges and being open about healing journeys, fostering a relatable and inspiring dialogue on self-compassion and authenticity.

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Chapters

• 0:03 A Movement Specialist's Journey from Oklahoma to Florida
• 1:23 From Dance to Yoga and Therapy
• 5:14 Transitioning From Counseling to Yoga for Personal Fulfillment
• 9:26 Healing Through Yoga and Overcoming Performance Pressure
• 12:56 The Transformative Power of Yoga and Thai Bodywork
• 19:04 The Joy and Freedom of Being Self-Employed
• 21:07 Integrating Diverse Therapeutic Models for Personalized Client Care
• 27:46 Hillary's Journey to Accepting a Hip Replacement Surgery
• 32:53 Challenging the Stigma of Pain in Yoga Professionals
• 39:16 Overcoming Trauma and Perfectionism in Dance and Life
• 42:10 The Journey of Overcoming Hyper-Independence and Seeking Help
• 44:46 Embracing Physical Challenges as Opportunities for Growth and Healing
• 52:33 Balancing Holistic and Traditional Medicine for Personal Well-Being

Transcript

0:33

Welcome to Native Yoga Toddcast, so happy you are here. My goal with this channel is to bring inspirational speakers to the mic in the field of yoga, massage, body work and beyond. Follow us at @nativeyoga and check us out at nativeyogacenter.com. All right, let's begin. Welcome to Native Yoga Toddcast. My name is Todd McLaughlin, and today my very special guest is Hillary Kallenberger. Follow and go see Hillary on our website www.currentmanifestationssrq.com and she has a cool Instagram handle. Go follow her and check her out at @hot yogamama75 and thank you so much, Hillary, because I really needed to hear everything you had to say today. I appreciate your honesty. I appreciate you sharing what's going on for you right now in life, I really feel like this is important conversation to have, and I hope you, listener, are really enjoying the show. If it's your first time listening, welcome if you're a return listener, thank you so much for supporting me. I'd love doing this, and it really is a passion project, and I hope you're enjoying it too. Remember to send us a message. Let us know what you think we appreciate feedback, and let's go ahead and start. I'm very happy to have this chance to interview and meet and speak with Hillary Kallenberger, actually, Hillary, I have already had the pleasure of meeting you. You were visiting here in Juno Beach, and you came in for Thai massage. So I'm and you're so fascinating and interesting. I'm just really honored that you are open to joining me here on the podcast today. Thank you so much. Thank you. I'm excited to be here. It was such a blessing to meet you the way we did. I know thank you. And you know, can you tell me where you're located. So I'm in Sarasota, Florida. Nice. And I know we just were talking a little bit before, and we were both, I don't want to say complaining, but it's a little it's January, and it's cooler by Florida standards. It's like, what? Like, it was like 45 degrees this morning, it was like 40 something. I told my daughter I was cold. She's back in Oklahoma. She's like, it's 11 degrees here. I was like, okay, sorry, yeah, I don't want to hear about it, mom. And with that being said, are you originally from Oklahoma? Yes, Oklahoma City is my place of origin, so that's where my family is nice. And can you tell me a little bit about your background? I know you're a movement specialist. What was your first love and or passion for, either movement and or sport? So I was a dancer from the day that I could probably be a dancer. So from a very young age, started out in the ballet world and kind of transitioned as I got older and had some changes in my body into more contemporary dance. And then I did that all through college, moved to New York City dance there until, until I didn't. So that was kind of always I was involved in some track and, you know, some, some minor sports, but, but dance was definitely my passion 100% so it wasn't, yeah, I hear you. Well, Edgar, you are a yoga teacher as well. Correct? Yes, yeah. So I immediately, kind of made the transition from dancing. I had maybe like a little year in there where I wasn't really sure what to do with my body. And then that's when I found my yoga practice and became a teacher almost as quickly as I became a student. So nice. What? What is your earliest memory of hearing about yoga? Um, you know, I had been to kind of a yoga class here and there, but I wasn't really that interested at that age, and I was suffering with some lower back pain. My body was pretty damaged. After lots of dancing, I had a lot of pain in my back and my joints and and a good friend of mine said, hey, you need to come to my friend's yoga class with me. I think you'll really love it. I think it'll help your back. And so I was like, All right, I'll try it. And it was like an immediately, an immediate love affair. And it was just such a one of those. Moments where you just know that you are exactly where you're supposed to be in that moment, and there's just really, you know nothing to think about. You just sort of keep moving forward and following those nudges. So yeah, that's cool. Was that in New York City, where you took your first class, or I was actually in Oklahoma, in Oklahoma, gotcha, what type of class, if you had to pinpoint it into the realm of, like it was a hatha yoga or Vinyasa or Kundalini. Was there a specific style that you land? I'm pretty sure it was in a stronger class, all right, if I remember correctly, like an official my initial, yeah, my initial intro to yoga was, was pretty traditional, Ashtanga, very cool. And that, that was in Oklahoma City. It was in Oklahoma City, not, not a very like a, not a very popular style there at the time. I mean, there's a small focus group that's really dedicated and loyal, but, but, yeah, I just happened to fall into that. So that was a really nice introduction, because I like the structure and I like the alignment, and it was just a really nice, solid foundation. I feel like, did you go back to that same person or practice, or was that a one time class? And then you had to look elsewhere? The studio had kind of a variety of options. There was a stronger there was some heated vinyasa style, there was some more restorative. So I kind of played around with a few different I definitely liked the vinyasa. I liked the Ashtanga. I liked the I think having the dance background, I liked the the sequencing was always fascinating to me. It felt very comfortable in my body to you know, have kind of a sequence that you followed, so to speak. Yeah, good point. And you also have a background as a therapist in relation to psychology therapy, correct? Yeah. So when I left, I was at NYU to School of the Arts for dance, and when I left there, I moved back to Oklahoma City to kind of sort things out, and, you know, just kind of enrolled in some classes. And what's funny is I actually got sort of an accidental French degree along the way. So my Bachelor's is actually in modern languages, with an emphasis in French. And during that time, I had a calling that I knew I wanted to be in a helping profession, and I wanted to help others based on some of the personal things that I had been through. And so that's when I went on to pursue my graduate degree in human relations on a licensed counselor track. And so that was my first, you know, kind of formal occupation was as a licensed professional counselor there in the area. And I worked in areas from drug and alcohol abuse to eating disorders to guidance counseling, and moved through three different states working in that field before I kind of transitioned into, you know, teaching yoga more full time, and then kind of what I'm doing now, wonderful. How many years would you guess at that you've been working as a counselor? Let's see 92,000 I think it was, think it was 2000 when I got my initial graduate degree. I think that's right. And then I think I became licensed about two years after that, because there's a lot of post graduate work they have to do, and supervision and things like that. So I probably worked in the traditional field of counseling or mental health for about five years, three to five years. But I, you know, I really enjoyed what I was doing, but I also became somewhat frustrated with the system. I felt like I was doing a lot more paperwork than I was actually working one on one in the way that I wanted to work with clients, which is a lot of why I kind of moved away from that field in addition to the birth of my daughter, which was initially why I left, because I wanted to stay home with her somewhat have a career that was a little more flexible and not understood what part is frustrating, just the amount of actual paperwork that you have to fill out per client. So if you know it's similar to some of the the struggles that we come into when we look at, you know, traditional Western medicine sometimes, and that a lot of times, instead of putting the need of the patient or the client first, it's, you know, what kind of insurance do they have? How are you going to pay for it? You know, you have to fill out so many treatment plans to get approved to get the insurance. And, you know, I would spend two hours with a client and spend six hours doing the paperwork so that I could have more sessions with the client. So some of that felt a little frustrating. And then over the years, with my yoga practice and my own personal growth and transformation, I've also kind of just learned how, you know, we can having a knowledge of what's going on and having an understanding on a thinking level, is really great to be able to, you know, look at our past and understand our patterns and see what we're doing, but until we truly embody it from a body perspective, I feel like we tend to get stuck. Mm. And that's, that was my personal experience, and I started to see that with others as well, like we know what to do, and we know what happened. So to speak, let's say we're processing a traumatic event, and we've gone through it, we've talked about it, we've but have we really moved that energy through us so that we can release it and really, you know, move on to find the joy of life that we're here to have, you know, so that was part of it too, is I felt like it was restrictive in that way. Yeah, interesting. I hear you. I can only I can imagine. I that makes me also think of when I talk to folks I know that are chiropractors, and they tell me about how much time it takes to build insurance that they have to hire a full time person just to navigate that challenge outside of even just thinking about treating people. So I can imagine that's really challenging. Are you working outside of the realm, currently, of insurance and all that, and able to work professionally just through, I guess, what's the right term for saying cash, cash, self pay, yeah, practice or whatever. Yeah, yeah. So I, you know, when I kind of moved away from the traditional counseling, I kind of jumped right into, like I said, I found yoga, and then it was like, Oh my gosh, this is what I want to do. And I had some other work along the way, but, I really knew that was my passion, because it was such an interesting transition as a dancer to move into a space that felt so familiar, but also so new and refreshing. It felt so familiar to walk into a studio and to find my spot in the room and to move my body and to follow instructions and all of these things, but it was such a different experience, from a place of performance and moving my body for external approval, validation and critique, versus moving in a way where I had to really learn to do it for myself, and that was just such a new and intriguing for me experience, to have to be able to kind of take that external part off and really go inside. And that's when I kind of started my my path to personal growth and healing some of my, my things that I had going on in my life. That's so cool to hear. Do you feel like when you got initial when you became interested in dance, that initially it had this expression of freedom and joy that slowly morphed into performance competitiveness and, you know, striving to reach the top sort of thing. Or was yoga a complete fresh way of approaching movement practice for you. No, I mean, and I still have such a passion for the for my dance life, or that part of my life, and I'm actually just now kind of starting to dabble my feet back into it, because I feel like I've sort of healed that relationship to where I can come back to it with new eyes. But yeah, I mean, starting out, it was, it was fun, it was joyous. It was, it was great to perform. We were just having a great time. What happened is when I started to transition into those more challenging years of, you know, pre adolescence and puberty, and you start dealing with a changing body that doesn't match what the mold for originally a traditional ballerina would be, I didn't, I didn't have that body, and so it became, for me a daily struggle, and this internal programming and messaging that I was creating that I wasn't good enough, and this extreme pressure to try to be something or to fit into a mold that really For me to fit into required a lot of toxic behavior and disordered habits and and things that took a toll on my my well being and my mental health and and that kind of, and it kind of spirals, you know, because you start programming yourself with those messages, and then they get stronger and and stronger. Yeah, well said, Have you struggled with maintaining that in your yoga practice? In relation to Yoga also can become very competitive. It can become very performant, performative, performative and or performance based if, if we have that as our root, and we come into yoga all of a sudden we're like, Yeah, well, I can show this person up. I can go deeper than they can. And have you struggled with that and or what has been your journey in relation to that balance? It's interesting because I do think that when I was first practicing, it was such a natural thing that I had that right. And the more I learned and understood what the practice was really about, I started to have that understanding of like, well, that's really not why I'm here. And so it's been a process. And I won't say that there are times when, you know, the not good enough voice will pop in. I'm like, Oh, I can't do this. Or, oh, you know this is going on. And I. Um, but it's also I've become so passionate as a teacher to kind of dismantle that idea. And really my goal as a teacher, for for my is for my students to experience their bodies just as they are, and to find the beauty and perfection of whatever's going on, regardless of you know of what that feels like. So part of it, the teaching of students, has felt me also teach myself those same lessons. But yeah, I mean, there's definitely times when those old voices pop up and yeah, and I have to kind of self check, yeah, good point. Well, Said, do you where do you teach now? Um, so I teach at two main Studios here in Sarasota. Get bent yoga studio is kind of my my main home. I actually office out of the back of the studio, so my private practice is there, and I teach the majority of the classes there, and then I teach and fill in a little bit at another studio, not not too far, called body heat yoga. So similar, but different. And both really great communities of students and teachers and lots of diversity, which is really great nice. If you had to summarize and or pinpoint what style of yoga you gravitate toward in relation to teaching, do you have a 410, and a specific method? I would say that I teach an alignment based and functional, heart centered practice. It kind of changes from day to day. I try to teach to who shows up. I kind of like to teach to the energy of the room. I don't really plan much anymore. I try to teach very intuitively, but I do like for people to understand their bodies, because that is one of my strengths, is having so much body knowledge about the kinesthetics and what's happening and what's going on that. I love to talk about that and teach that, but I also want people just to experience their bodies as well, to learn how to move so that they can continue to do the things they love as long as possible. Because I think that's really, you know, in the physical practice, kind of why we're showing up. Very cool. And I know that you practice Thai bodywork as well. What was your entry into getting interested in doing hands on, body work with people. So when I was a little earlier in my yoga teaching career, you know, when I would do adjustments? I really like doing adjustments because I have this visual. I can see, you know, where, where someone might not be hearing my cue, and if I can just give them a little tap or a nudge, how they can create that adjustment and have that aha moment. And I love being there with them when they have that we used to call my yo Mo, but when they'd be like, Oh, I understand, like, what we're doing here. A yo Mo, a yo Mo, like a FOMO or like a yo Mo, like a yoga moment, a yoga moment, there's like, yoga FOMO out there too. Like, like, Dude, you should, you should have been at the studio at six o'clock. You missed it. It's over. Yeah. Sorry, yeah. And so, and I got so much feedback that people are like, I love your adjustments. Or, you know, just a lot, like, people wanted more, and people come in for privates, and can you work with me? And can you show me? And it just kind of naturally led to, I have a teacher and a mentor back in Oklahoma City who's a dear friend of mine. And she, she's a Thai teacher practitioner for years and years, she's studied in Thailand and one of the best and she, she said, Why don't you, why don't you think about getting trained in Thai? And I was like, Okay, that sounds like a logical progression. So, so I did, and I loved it. And it just became like, really, like, when I'm when I'm practicing Thai, I feel like sometimes it's more for me than the client. I mean, it's, it feels like such a symbiotic relationship, like I get so much out of it. It's just the the the flow of it and the just, I don't, I can't even pinpoint the word, but it to me, it's a calming, very peaceful experience that I feel like I could do it all day. It's just like working with my hands. And I love that, yeah, nice. I'm sure you relate to that. On on some level I can that's making it's reminding me of when I had the light bulb moment of just these different connection pieces between just doing a yoga practice, having massage therapy, having someone assist me in a yoga pose, and then finding Thai massage and going, Wow. This just blends all of that together. And so it's cool hearing your trajectory of one step leading to the next. You're able to you have your own business doing what you love. Can you talk a little bit about how important that is for you? And also. So I for me when I heard somebody tell me how much they love their job, that really gave me the inspiration to also seek doing something that I really loved. And so I just would like to from an inspirational perspective for those listening, hear your thoughts on a Do you love your job and, and can you just tell a little bit about what it's like to be self employed? Yeah, absolutely. Like, I feel so blessed to have the job that I have. And I mean, every day I'm so thankful. I mean, I'm just like, What a gift to be able to, like, wake up and look at the day and go, oh, like, what do we get to do today? Do I get to work with and I never dread going into work. I mean, of course, there's days that we're a little tired, or maybe it would be nice to rest, but, but overall, I mean, I feel like the luckiest human alive sometimes. And I, you know, I'm a very I call my life sort of organized chaos. Like, I have a system that works for me in my head, that looking from the outside, people will be like, I mean, people tell me all the time, there you are, all over the place, and I am, but it makes sense to me, like, right? Like I and I have this organizational pattern where, like, well, on this day, this is kind of like my teaching day, and then on this day, I take Thai clients, and then on this day a little, do a little bit of both. And then I might take a day where it's kind of an up in the air day, and I decide, and I like that freedom. I don't think I've worked a few jobs in my life where it was set hours, and it just doesn't, it just doesn't vibe with me. It's I feel very stifled and stuck so having the ability to create my own schedule to work as much as I want to work, knowing that if I choose to work more, there's reward for that in a lot of different ways, and just having a little bit of that, I guess, control over the way it looks. I love that I have diversity in my job, and that every client I see I have a different relationship with. It's not a textbook. Come in. This is what we do. You know, everyone has their own experience and their own story and and what they're dealing with. And I have this kind of toolbox of all these different things that I can bring into the mix. And so every client relationship is a little bit different, and we connect differently, and the energy is different. And I kind of get, I choose. I'm like, Well, based on what's going on, these are the ways that I feel that we could work best together. So it's not just a one size fits all. And I like that diversity too, because I like being able to say, you know, I think Thai would be great for you, or maybe we should get into a private yoga practice, or maybe we should sit down and talk about nervous system regulation and what's really going on with you, and is there any anything that we need to work on releasing on an emotional level? And sometimes that incorporates movement, and sometimes it incorporates physical touch, and sometimes it's more, you know, cognitive behavioral talk therapy, because that's what the person needs the most. And then we kind of integrate that all together, and it's really beautiful. That's incredible. Yeah, you're being able to pull from all these different therapeutic models to suit what the client needs in the moment. That's pretty amazing. That's cool. That's cool. I mean, if you try to think back to I know you had, like, a professional dance career, and then you had to make a shift. Have you ever had a moment in your in the times that you've made shifts where you doubted yourself in your ability to pull off what you're doing? Um, I mean, yeah, being self employed is not for the faint of heart, you know? I mean, there's, there's moments where it's kind of like, oh my god, like nobody's calling right now, and so like the old voices come back, like, are you not doing enough? Are you not good enough? Are you? Do you need something that gives you validation? And it's funny, because there have been a few times in my life where I've kind of been like, well, maybe I need to do something different, or have this person on board with me to kind of validate that I'm good, because I always say the very the hardest part of my job is explaining to people what my job is, because it is so multifaceted. I mean, I can't just say, Oh, I'm a yoga instructor. I mean, I can because I am. And I can't just say I'm a Thai practitioner, or I work with the nervous system. Or, you know, I, because I really blend it all together. So, like, one of the hardest things in the job that I do now is being able to explain it to people in a concise way. That's not a two hour spiel about my whole history and how I got the way I am. It's really challenging. Sometimes that's funny, because that makes me think about, like, you get the. Business card, and you're just trying to condense it down to like, a few words, like, what, what do I title myself as? And it's a great question, you know, often to try to get really clear about what is my title. What do I actually do? Have you found a creative term that's two or three words long that actually sums it all up. Or is that almost impossible? At this point, it feels almost impossible. I mean, sometimes I'll throw around things like, you know, like on my Instagram, it's master of movement, yeah, because I, I feel like that integrates some of the more movement specialists. Because I really do work with movement as a foundation. But, you know, when I'm working with the nervous system and stuff, I'm also dealing with a lot of, you know, healing modalities in different ways. I mean, I have a history of working with trauma and addiction, and so that is what naturally, a lot of times, I attract clients that that have that going on because, you know, we often attract things that mirror our experience, or things that we know about, or I'll attract women about my age suffering from autoimmune stuff and and that's a whole different kind of mix that's not really necessary. We might integrate movement and touch, but that's a whole kind of different, different way to approach. So, no, I've never been able to come up. My business card is ridiculous, like, the front simple, and then the back is, like, there's so many things, listen, that you can barely read it. So that's so funny. I hear ya, can you? I'm curious. Do you have my first thought is, I'm not a licensed counselor, and I'm a yoga practitioner, teacher and body worker, massage therapist, and what is some what kind of guidance would you give me regarding my scope of practice, and I refer people, if someone comes in and they're needing counseling, I refer them to somebody who is a pro in that department. For those of us that are listening, that are yoga teachers and or practitioners, but and are encountering either clients or maybe even just our friends or family. What sort of advice can you give in relation to helping pave the way for someone to getting professional help? Well, I think you nailed it in, you know, referring out, having a handful of people that you trust, that maybe different people would be a different fit for and just and being able to refer. I think the sticky place that we get into is giving advice because we want to help. We're helping professionals in general, right? We're helping people heal in so many different ways and so many different levels. As a yoga instructor, and I think it can be challenging to not want to step in and go, Okay, you need to do this or acting in that counseling role. But I also think that there's a huge opportunity as a yoga instructor, based on, you know, the way most of us work, to hold space for people, and to be able to be that open space, whether you're, you know, working with them in a private or in a tie session, or just a student after class, and just be able to sit with them and maybe share your experience. A lot of times, I'll say, Well, you know, I don't know, but this is, this was my experience with that, and sometimes that's enough glimmer for someone to seek something else or or to be able to just say, you know, I hear that you're struggling with this, and I think it's valid and important, and I want to hold space for you, but I think this is a person that you would really work well with, you know, that could help you further. And I think just kind of not saying this is out of my scope, but just finding a creative, safe space to hold for others, where you can give them what they need, but also refer out when it's you know, something that needs to be maybe more clinical in nature. Good answer. Do do you experience either pain or discomfort in your body? Yeah, well, that's a fun question that you're asking me today. So actually, I saw you because I came in with a lot of hip pain, and I've been having this, I've been dealing with this sort of, I'll call it, hip issue, for probably 25 years. And about 25 years ago, I remember an orthopedic said, you know, you you're probably looking at some new knees and new hips by the time you're 30. Just kind of be aware of that, because of what you've done to your body as a dancer and all this damage. I was like, well, that's not going to happen to me. So I became a yoga instructor, and I got super fit, and I did all the right things and built all the right muscles, and up until this point, you know. Them. I have all I have all my original parts. But I've been having an issue with my hip for the last probably four years, on and off, and then the last six to 12 months, pretty consistently, to where I'm having to tend to it on a very regular basis, once, twice a week, getting body work, which is how I sought you out in the first place, because I was over in West Palm Beach, and I was like, nobody's touched me in like two weeks, and I'm dying in my hip, and that's how I found you. But anyway, so that being said, I started to experience it's been progressively worse, even since we originally met, and I found out last Friday that I'm actually going to be having a hip replacement. I hear you, Wow, big news, right? And so I'm actually waiting today for them to call and schedule me for surgery. So there's a lot that comes up with that, yeah, for me as a teacher, as a wellness practitioner, and as someone who I consider part of my job to help people avoid having surgery? Yes, if they can. Oh, this is such a good, good topic. I know. I know you know. Well, first of all the fact that you had a consultation and so quickly have decided yes, I'm going to have hip replacement after, like, you said, hey, look, I heard this one that I was in my 20s. I said, by the time you're 30, you're getting new parts. You said, no way you've been able to extend that for I'm just, I don't, you don't have to tell me how old you are. But like, until now and then however many years, like, you've held off with this intention of, like, no, not me. Nope, not me. So now for you to all of a sudden go, Okay, I am getting a hip replacement. Obviously, whatever they found, it is so obvious that that's what you want to do. Can you talk a little bit more about that and how that transpired in your in your like, sort of like moment of going, Yeah, I'm doing this. Yeah. So, you know, to us a ballet dancer, we tend to be hypermobile. We tend to have a lot of external rotation. And back in those days, I think it's better now, but in those times, we weren't really taught about how to strengthen our joints or protect ourselves. So So I did it. So there's all that wear and tear, and then I became a marathon runner, so there was a lot of that wear and tear. And then in yoga, there can be a lot of hypermobility too, if we're not understanding how to engage and strengthen, which is why I'm so passionate about alignment and strength based yoga and and why we're doing what we're doing. So that's helped me skirt the issue. And then I think over time, you know, having a daughter who I held on one hip standing a certain way, which now I can look back and go, okay, it just started to slowly deteriorate the joint, and I knew that it was clicky and pinching and some things like that. But basically what happens is the progression has gotten so much and I had that mindset of, no, not me. No, not me, up until probably about a month ago, when I started to just have an intuitive nudge that like I'm losing my range of motion. I'm unable to practice in the way that I like to practice. I'm unable to move in the way that I enjoy moving. And it's starting to affect my quality of life. When I finally went in and kind of self surrender to having an MRI, because I wanted to see what was going on in there. And this is also a testament to just sort of my healing. This is also a big message for me as well, because I've always kind of been in this sort of toxic masculine like, I can do it. I don't need help. I'll power through it, push through pain, because that's what I was taught to do. And that's something that I've been really working with over the past, you know, 10 years, especially so when I went in for the MRI, it turns out that not only is the joint completely deteriorated, with a complete loss of cartilage, a ripped up labrum, I have a fractured femur head and bone spurs filling the joint so and I've been like, trying to jog. Oh, man, I know you were telling me that you were still running when I saw you, and I thought, oh, that's gotta be so painful. So now, like, so it's kind of this like moment where I was like, holy, no wonder I know. Isn't that such an enlightening moment when you see the MRI, because I have a similar, different, but similar situation where back pain, back pain, MRI, and, you know, going Well, no wonder. And looking back on the past and realizing, well, yeah, of course it's gonna look like this if I look back and take account of all the things I've done to my body ever since I was a teenager, or even be before that. So I think, yeah, you know, well, congratulations, because I can hear in your voice that you feel good about it. It seems to me like you know what you need to do. And there's just no question. There's just really no question. Interesting moment and such an emotional kind of few days, you know, of getting this information and making this decision and just having this knowing, and part of it was this relief of, I have an explanation for the pain now, yeah, and I have a solution that's very clear, to get me out of the pain. And that felt like a weight off my shoulders, because I've tried everything, and it felt like a battle, you know? And it's like I could just surrender to the battle, yeah. And then on top of it, it was this deep awareness, like you said about coming to terms with what I've done to my body and that I haven't created a safe space always, house to live in, so to speak, and this awareness of just the brutality that I treated myself with for so many years of do Better push through pain, and that's really not, that's not what I teach, that's not what I believe, but it's what I've I've done, and it was just this stark, like, in your face, like, here we are, like, here's the here's the consequence. So, you know, a lot of mixed emotions, and then the understand that I don't want to do that anymore. I don't have to carry around chronic pain. I don't have to push through anything. I'm allowed to honor my limitations. I'm allowed, as a yoga teacher, to say I'm human too. As someone who teaches people or helps people avoid surgery, to be able to say, well, sometimes it's necessary. Here we go like, you know, and just kind of demystify that kind of stigma that goes with being in our profession, that our body should be perfect and pliable and movable for the rest of our lives just because we're a yoga teacher. Oh, thank you, Hillary. Thank you so much for just being honest and just talking about it just so easily. I really appreciate it. It's so it's I remember, this is like, maybe 10 year how, however, many years ago, somebody said to me, wait, but you have pain, but you're a yoga teacher. And it almost like it hurt, because it was like, Oh, wow, I I must. There must be something wrong with me that I haven't been able to figure out how to be a yoga teacher and not have pain. And so there's like that. And then the other day, someone came out and they said, oh my. They were talking about a pain sensation in their body. And they said, Oh yeah, well, my, I know this one yoga teacher that they went and became a yoga teacher so that they that they wouldn't have pain anymore. And I kind of thought they were joking when they said it, because I was kind of like, it just doesn't work that way. It's just not that simple. But they were serious, and I went, Wow, look at how this myth kind of holds in our culture about either fear of acknowledgement that we can feel pain and that and that it's not I feel like there's like a myth and or around not acknowledging hurt and pain, yeah, like we need to power through it, or there's another way. Or we're not, we're not doing enough. That's for me. It's a message of like, well, you're just not doing enough, you're not working hard enough, you're not you're not doing the right things, you're not smart enough, you don't know enough, like, you know, all those kind of tapes replay, and then I had to just stop and go, Well, I've done everything that I've done everything with the knowledge I have that I can possibly do, and now is the time to receive help and relief. And you know, I have a dear friend of mine back in Oklahoma City, who went through something similar, I think, last year, had a hip replacement. And we've talked about this kind of this kind of inherent shame that comes with being a yoga instructor or fitness professional, even, of not being super strong, super perfect, and never experiencing injury or pain, and it just isn't that simple. And, you know, because we're all human, and we all have our stuff, and we have a whole life of history of what our bodies have done, sometimes we're born in ways that create pain, you know? I mean, there's just a lot, a lot going on with that. So it's important to me, I'm glad that we actually had this conversation, because this is something that also I feel very inspired to talk about, yeah, because I do think it's important to put that out there and to kind of take that stigma off of, off of what you know, we've obviously both experienced, what I've heard from everyone over the past week that I've told Aside from like my family, when I say, Well, yeah, I'm waiting to get scheduled for a hip replacement. It's seriously not you, you what? No way. Like, it's just this whole thing, which, like you said, it almost feels like, Well, why not me? Like I. Yeah, I know. Oh my god, it's so amazing. I hear you. I'm not happy to hear I mean, I am happy to hear everything you're saying. I'm actually happy to hear all this. Thank you so much. I think about it constantly. This is on my mind all the time, and then I'm really curious. Hillary, have you? Have you been able to piece together any insight into why have you been feeling that you have to just push through all your life? Has that come as the outcome of a traumatic event as a child, because the more I investigate my childhood, the more I have memory of of my own traumatic past. I can really piece together why I've treated myself the way I have for so long. And I'm just curious if any of that has come up for you yet, or at all. Yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean, you know, I had, I mean, I I've been programmed from so many directions to, I guess, not, not be good enough, and this perfectionistic part of me, because I like people to be happy and I like to please people that I developed that, you know, co dependent people pleasing attitude from the time I was a child from, from, you know, some of my upbringing, not all of it. I had a, I had a lovely childhood in many respects. But, um, you know, I had a very challenging relationship with my mother. Um, that kind of subtly always made me feel anyway, that that I wasn't enough with a lack of kind of emotional attachment and things that I needed, I didn't have comfort, I didn't have and I had a lot of that, like, you know, suck it up. Move on, pull your bootstraps off and get going. And then in, in the ballet and dance world, I mean, it's just mimicked. It's like, do it again. No, that wasn't do it do it again. Get back out here and do it again. I remember one time I was bleeding through my point shoes and I was in, I went into the bathroom. It was like crying because it was hurting so bad. And I remember the teacher came in, and she kind of just smirked at me, and she was like, you might not be cut out for this. And so there was this message of, like, it doesn't matter how bad it hurts, you better get out there and look pretty and put on a nice show for everyone. So this is, like the messaging that I internalized very young, that I carried into my life. And then, when I was in my early teens, I had three very traumatic experiences, kind of all at once, and a lot of it was just removing a sense, the sense of safety I had in my life, and anything that felt safe. And one was that I lost my grandmother, who was like my person. I was sexually assaulted and and then I because I was in the dance world and my body wasn't enough, I had a massive breast reduction so that I could continue to dance and be approved of. So yeah, that's kind of my trilogy of trauma, and I've just kind of carried that with me through my life. Yeah, I'm sorry to hear you went through all that, and I appreciate you being honest about it. Oh my gosh, yeah, whoa. Unprogrammed, you know, with a single mom for a long time, and so it was kind of like I just jumped into that toxic masculine of like, I can do it. I don't need anyone's help. Yeah, I don't want to be vulnerable. I want to be strong. I don't want to be hurt again, so I'm just going to do it myself. And I became very hyper, independent and perfectionistic, and at some point, you know, it's got to get and my my pain became, became more prominent than my sense of safety that I was trying to create, right? So I had to say, enough is enough. I need help. How are you answering the people that are shocked and surprised that yes, you Hillary needs to get some assistance. What is your Have you haven't really had, like, most of those people have been, you know, like, via, like, a quick email or text or something. So I haven't really had a lot of dialog. Honestly, most of the people that I've had dialog with in person are people that I have a lot of support and love from, who still might be shocked and surprised. But then once we kind of, you know, I mean, all I have to do is go, Well, you know, I mean, I've been kind of putting this off for about 2025, years, and then they go, oh. And then I had someone the other day who said, So, wait a minute, you've been running. You've just. Been powering through that with your runs. And I was like, Yep, and I'm acknowledging that, you know, I was clearly not connected to my own body. So this is also a beautiful lesson for just how, even when we know how to teach people to connect to their bodies, that we we sometimes just go into old programming and just connect and just like sometimes we need help with the hip. Sometimes we need help with reconnecting to ourselves. It's a never ending journey. That's yoga, right? Oh my gosh, yes, correct. It's a nevermind. We never, we never just get good at yoga like, never, like I have conquered my Do you think? Do you find a little humorous that, like if you and I were to now bring in, say, a 90 year old into the conversation, and they'd probably be listening to us going, well, aren't you guys funny? Because I've had three hip replacements, two back fusions, four shoulder surgeries and a and CAD rack surgery, you know? And here you guys are making a big deal about needing to have a hip replacement? Yeah, you're gonna need a hair. I mean, just about everybody who's been active is gonna have some type of wear and tear, don't do you think there's a little bit of that too, that we're, yeah, for sure? I mean, I think you know, we only know what we know where we're at. I will say that I'm definitely this has helped me just the lack of movement and mobility, not the surgery itself, but has really helped me also develop an appreciation, um, for some of my students whose bodies don't move as fluidly, yeah, and you know, because there's this part of when you're when you're comfortable in your yoga practice and you're around others who are Then everyone can kind of do all the shapes, so to speak. And then you get someone, you're like, Well, I don't understand why you can't bend forward and touch your toes. I know exactly why someone can't bend forward and touch my toes, because I cannot bend forward and touch my toes right now, yeah. Like, I literally am stuck. And I'm like, oh, and what an appreciation for my students who are dealing with mobility constraints, and what a gift to enhance my teaching, to be able to teach in a more compassionate way when I see that, and maybe offer some modifications that I wouldn't have thought of had I not experienced it myself. Oh yeah, amen to all that. I agree. Yeah, yeah. I feel because, I mean, there's just some stuff like, I mean, you can't do it. So I've been, I've been practicing every day, um, still, and I've gone in with a very modified practice and a lot of humility and just kind of having fun, creating my own sequence that is different, usually, from what's being taught, but it's it's modified. It's sort of getting to the same end result, but in a way that I can do it and not create pain when I do so. So I feel like, in so many ways, this is enhancing my life and my work and just my humanness, you know, to really be in this space and deal with it. I agree Hillary, and I can't help and you know, if this makes I don't think this will make you angry, but you know you can, if you think I'm crazy saying this, tell me how exciting to know that you know what you know in relation to all of your years of of physical ability, therapy and training, to now have the opportunity to have this surgery and then rehab. You know what I mean? Like, how cool is that you're gonna get to use all the stuff that you know and have learned and just like, really watch the rehab process and see how good you can be at it, or how I think that could be really fascinating and interesting. Like I saw someone did a, oh, I was talking to somebody who needs to have a, potentially have a spinal fusion surgery. So there's somebody on YouTube who said, Look, this is me before the spinal fusion surgery. They documented what it was like. Then they documented the whole process of them having the surgery, what it was like, recovering, what kind of stuff they could do, and did it over like, a year, or however, long span. And I just thought that's so cool to just like, be honest and open and just show people, and then someone else can actually look and go, Wow, this is what I might have ahead of me, and what a great teaching and learning opportunity. I think that everything that you have in your toolbox is going to just be so fascinating to watch, how how you navigate everything. Yeah, and you know that's really been part of my personal healing journey, is the commitment to being open and vulnerable about my experience and my story and speaking to people about what what has happened, because that keeps me honest, and this just feels like a deeper layer of that. First of all, how blessed Am I to know what i. And have these tools available to me where I or I know how to heal myself, and I can call in a practitioner and say, I know I'm going to need this, and I want to line you up for this. And these are the things that I want support with, and have this, like, kind of, you know, plan loosely going into it, of you know, of what that experience is going to be like, but to document it along the way and to show people and to talk about it, and to make it just seem more like, not a big deal, like, sometimes we gotta do stuff that isn't what we picked, but look how we can grow and look, I mean, I'm excited to be able to have my range of motion back. Like, there's a part of me that's like, oh my gosh, this is going to be amazing. I'll be able to do this again, you know, be out of pain, potential, have way more range of motion, because they do such a good job these days with hip replacements. Yeah, yeah, that's so exciting. I hear you. I'm so happy for you. That's really cool. Yeah, yeah, amazing. Do do you feel like you're Oh, sorry. I lost my train of thought. Let me come back to Oh, boy. I don't know where I was gonna go, right there, but yeah, but I am, I mean, I am excited in the sense, like, do I want someone to, like, you know, cut my leg open and, well, yeah, that's great. I mean, you know, there's, and I also have to acknowledge there's a trauma in this that involves energetic clearing, you know, all kinds of different things that that is not going to be easy. There's going to be challenges. There's going to be days that are probably hard. A lot of old stuff is probably going to come up for me, yeah. But what a gift to be presented with, the opportunity to heal at a deeper level. And I feel, in some ways, this physical thing is is taking me to, you know, I told someone yesterday, I said, you know, like, when you sweep the floor and you think it's clean, but then you look down and there's, like, some stuff stuck in the corner, I feel like this is maybe the stuff in the corner that I'm like, Oh, what a gift to see it so that I can pull it out and even live life more fully and have more wisdom and and more peace. And, you know, there's just so much, so many gifts that come with our challenges. You know, I regained what I wanted to say Hillary. Great, great point. And I remember I had I suffered an accident where I took a handlebar to the eyeball and it cracked my orbital bone, and my eyeball sunk back. And so I just turned 40. I was thinking I was Superman, and I went from feeling 40 to 80. I couldn't drive at night. I looked weird. I had one of those baby doll eyes, like, not, I couldn't I saw two faces in the mirror when I was shaving. And I finally got the courage up to, like, I'm going in for this eye surgery where they had to, like, do an orbital repair. And I after, afterward, when I healed, which was a crazy, hard process, and it worked, and I and I had my I didn't, I don't have double vision anymore. I wanted to. I traveled to India before, and there's this, you know, you you get down and touch your teacher's feet as a sign of respect. I wanted to touch my doctor's feet. I was so thankful for how he had put all of his life study into learning how to help and was able to help me. And I just had such an incredible, profound appreciation for the medical community. Whereas I know it's hard right now because we're really, like divisive on a lot of things, and there's a lot of division between, should I go natural, or should I go Should I take a holistic approach, or should I go to the medical route? And personally, I'm so grateful for both, and I think both weave together so wonderfully. So I guess what I wanted to say is that we're lucky that we have access to this like there's a there's a chance we could be somewhere where we don't even have the opportunity to have somebody help us like this. So I mean, I guess I just feel like, I know, in our field, it's almost like people are wanting to be able to walk away from all of the science and technology and medical knowledge that we've gained of however many hundreds or 1000s of years and just say, like, I don't need that anymore. I'm so sick of all that I got to walk away from and I just don't think it's healthy to think like that, personally for me anymore. What do you think? I think there's a place for everything. And like, he's, like, you said it very beautifully, like, it weaves together nicely when, when you're making the right choices, right? I mean, there's a place for everything. I mean, it doesn't matter if you're looking at holistic or traditional medicine, there's going to be holes on both sides of that, right? And then there's also going to be strength and and there are times when, no, we don't need to rush in and take pharmaceuticals and have a surgery just because. But then there are also times. So that's extremely important for, you know, structural issues and things. And these are people who have trained, and they are also in the helping profession. And I will say this, my father's a physician, so I know this firsthand. Being in the medical profession right now is not an easy place to be. I mean, it's challenging for physicians right now. It's gotten, it's gotten, it's gotten hard. So, you know, I think we have to respect all of the tools available to us and and I have to say that I'm one of those that I would like. No, no, no, I don't. I don't want that. Yeah. And so this has also been an opportunity for me to kind of welcome that in and go, You know what this is? This is actually a blessing that I have this option. Amazing Hillary. That's so cool. Oh my gosh. Time went by so fast. I love it when that happens. Where I look at the clock, an hour went by, which is a good sign. Is there we touched upon, kind of where we aimed to go. What did I miss out on? What? What more, where, what else would you like to add to help us kind of put the final icing on the cake here, um, I would say just kind of summing up some of some of the things, all of the things, maybe that we talked about. Just, um, how important I think it is to embrace our authentic experience and in our humanness, right? I mean, we all have different things. We all have. We have stuff that we're carrying from the past. We all have challenges in the present. We have all these tools available to us. And I think coming back to this idea that we are, we are really all exactly where we need to be, in a sense, and that we are already full. There's nothing missing, there's nothing broken. I mean, maybe a femur bone, but there's nothing inherently like flawed in us. And I think that it's so easy as humans to drop into that I'm not good enough, because there's so much pressure, especially with social media and all these things, to be a certain way, to look, a certain way, to practice yoga, a certain way, to heal, a certain way, you know, all these different things and and really, I think if we can all come back to like our enoughness and find, you know, confidence in that, and compassion for ourselves. I think that's really such a huge key to, you know, really collective healing. It's like it starts with us doing it for ourselves. Excellent. Well said Hillary, I'm so grateful that I got to meet you in person first. I'm very grateful for your honesty, and I feel like this is the perfect for me, personally, perfect conversation for me right now, just to have another person to communicate with that I feel like I can relate to, and I just really am grateful for this. So I thank you so much. Thank you. This is a great conversation. Have fun. Thank you, Hillary, well, I can't wait for all the listeners to get a chance to hear you and meet you, and I hope that we'll have a chance to see each other again in person. And I also would love to invite you back after your opera, your procedure, and just hear how you're doing. And I think this can inspire us to kind of go down the route that we're talking about here, of like, let's be real and just do this, and they'd love to have that conversation. All right, awesome. Hillary, well, thank you so much, and I wish you the best. You too. Thank you. Thanks. Native yoga. Todd cast is produced by myself. The theme music is dreamed up by Bryce Allen. 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