Love Your Body, It’s with You Your Whole Life with Lara Heimann

Speaker 1: singing.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: This is Write Your Own Story, three Keys to Rise and Thrive in Life and Business. I'm your host, Rebecca Fleetwood Hession. Two of my very favorite things are to hear someone's story and how their life and career has unfolded, especially one that's been led by love and curiosity. And my other favorite thing is when you realize how interconnected all of our lives really are. And both of those things happened on today's episode with Lara Heimann. Lara is the founder of the LYT Method, which is yoga, but not in the traditional sense. She's a trained physical therapist and has lots of background in mind, body connection and the neuroscience behind it all. And her life has evolved into this beautiful brand that she has today and she just has an amazing story. So here we go. Lara, one of my favorite things to learn about people is how did you decide, I looked on your LinkedIn that you studied biological anthropology and anatomy. That is a very specific type of degree to choose at what I would assume to be a traditionally young age, which seems really connected to the work that you're doing now with yoga. How did you decide that's what you wanted to study?

Lara Heimann: It's interesting. I think just where I am now, and you might have a little bit of this as well, but everything was directed by some internal compass that I don't think I was even aware of. So when I was going, I went to Duke University and I went as pre- med. I wanted to be a neurosurgeon. My dad was an orthopedic surgeon, so I always had this appreciation for medicine, for wellness. I always appreciated the body. And I had even written my college essay to get into college about the mind body connection, even though I'd never taken a yoga class, even though this was 1988.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: I was going to say this was 1988.

Lara Heimann: 1988. And that's what I wrote about because what I backtracking a little bit, I'm a triplet. I have two brothers who are identical and then me, and then I have an older brother. So I grew up in this pack of movers and also inquisitive, intelligent beings. So we kind of had this family that was both very active but also very academic. That to me is the fertilizer for everything. People can always acquire it later, but when you have it early, that was just a blessing. I was just lucky because I had all the seeds of this kind of inquiring, curious mind and appreciation for the body. And so one of my triplet brothers and I ran cross country my senior year. I just ran because the coach said, " You look to be a good runner." And then I ran in college, but I had run with my brothers, so I knew, I kept up with them, I knew how to run. And after cross country season, my brother said, " Hey, there's a marathon in three weeks, you want to do it?" And so we had never run more than eight or nine miles and we signed up for this marathon and we ran it. And-

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: As you do at that age.

Lara Heimann: Right, exactly. And so I don't recommend that for anybody, but I was 18. But that's what inspired the story, my college essay is because when I got to mile 22, what breaks down first is your mind, your thoughts, your perceptions. You go into some kind of like, I can't do this. This is too hard, this sucks, blah, blah, blah. And then I realized my body is going to continue going, but my mind is going to stop first. So I just reframed everything. I was like, I can do this. And that took me through and I talked about that in my essay. So I always had that as a background. I lasted about a week for pre- med in college because it was just, I was like, I called my parents. I'm like, " These are people that are not going to have much fun and I really want a good balance." So my mom said, " This is what college is about, get a liberal arts education." So I went the other direction. So my first year and a half, I took English philosophy, I did a lot of that, but I always had been interested in the body. And then around through my sophomore year, I was dating a med student and he's like, " You would be such a great physical therapist." I never even thought about that. And I was like, " Oh, okay. Well I always wanted to go with healthcare and this is a much better lifestyle.£ And so I knew I had to do something to prepare for that. So biological anthropology and anatomy is actually a very well established major at Duke. It has a primate center, it has one of, at that time, two major primates centers. So we're all primates, these nonhuman primates. So they had all these brilliant teachers from all around the world, people that had studied with gorillas, people that had studied fossils. And it just was, I was like, " Let me take a class in this." And I was just hooked because it really brought together so many things, humanity, anatomy, evolution, how we've adapted, how we've changed, how our body is established to move the way it is because of evolution. And so unbeknownst to me, that was a wonderful platform from which I've just continued to grow and expand, realizing we can evolve even though we might not change morphologically meaning in the body in a certain way like we did in the past. But that evolution is always possible. And I think you can just, that translates into your emotional body, your physical body, your spiritual body, your intellectual body. We all, that's what's so amazing and fascinating is that we can grow and change. And then I went on, when I became a physical therapist, I did get my neuro in there. I just didn't become a neurosurgeon. I became specialized in neurodevelopmental training, which is really about understanding the brain being plastic and not rigid, meaning that it can continually change. And then applying that to people who had had some kind of brain trauma and needed to rewire connections for movement, for breathing, for sensation, for speech. And so it really was a nice thread line that understanding, isn't it amazing that what kind of environment and ecosystem we put ourselves in will either challenge us to grow or will make us stagnant?

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: I love these stories because there's this expectation out there that you're just supposed to know magically ...

Lara Heimann: My daughter is Sophomore in college now, so I have this conversation with her all the time. She's like, " I need to double major, so I have something that is going to prepare me for"... And I'm like, " No, I'm going to tell you what my mom told me. College is for you to grow your brain, your curiosity to find out more about yourself, not in the sense of declaring a major that you're just going to follow this path for career." Because if I had known at that age where I am, I would never have predicted that I'd be in this being an entrepreneur, developing a brand, never. That would not have been in my trajectory...

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Well, and that's what I was thinking as you were telling your story, is to have parents that gave you the freedom to explore and that you're passing that on your daughter. Same with both my kids who are 21 and 25. I just keep telling them, there's so much more to unfold. Let it happen. And just like you said, be curious. I think that's a beautiful gift that you're passing on to your daughter. Because to me that's the fun part of life is not believing that I'm supposed to have it all figured out, but to be even at 56, continuing to be curious and letting it unfold is so much more fun.

Lara Heimann: So much more. And then I think getting to know yourself, uninfluenced by what perceptions or any kind of preconceived notions that you might have or you might have had placed on you. I think that's the key really, is to feel, really feel like, is this in alignment? Is this what I want to be doing? Is this bringing me joy? Am I, when up when I start thinking about this versus doing it because it's the right thing or the thing that's going to bring me financial prosperity or whatever our reasons are, at the end of the day, I think we have to ask ourselves, " Does it light us up and it make us better humans?"

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And is it going to be financially viable piece is what messed up so many of, I say us, it wasn't as much a my issue, but I have so many clients that when they were trying to choose a career, someone said, " Well, I know that thing you're interested in is interesting, but go find something that you can" make a living."" Which to me is so interesting and counterintuitive because to me, making a living would be doing something that I'm interested in. But what they were really saying is, " Can you really pay for your life with that?" And now we have so many options. Like you said, you may didn't even know that being an entrepreneur and building a brand was a thing in 1988. And so I just think it's fascinating the old patterns that still exist too often that don't allow our youth today to explore and find that thing, like you said, that really lights us up. And you said it very well when you described your story, is you had a sense of being internally guided. We're all being internally guided. It's just, are we in tune to listen to our own voice? And now you've really made that a part of the work that you do.

Lara Heimann: And I have recognized that everybody comes into this kind of adulthood at different stages. Again, I always acknowledge the blessings I had of being raised in a very fruitful, just energizing and intellectual environment that also didn't put any labels on me. That isn't always the case. So I could have the confidence to follow that path, and that can take more time for people who haven't had that experience. But I just want to do my best to show people that this is an option. And yes, you do obviously have to be able to afford a place to live and food on the table, but that is not the reason to do some job. That can't be the only reason. You need to really feel like what... Because you want to be an active participant in life. And I feel like when you're doing something just to make ends meet or make money, it's harder to feel that. That's where you get really burnt out.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: A hundred percent. I had a client not too long ago who called me and said, " Okay, I've been offered this role. It's X amount more dollars a year. I think I should consider it. Can we talk about it?" I said, " Absolutely." So the first thing that I go to is I do an inventory of all my clients' unique gifts, talents, and abilities. And I said, " Okay, describe the role for me because I'm looking at how well does it match up with your unique gifts and talents?" And she described the role and it was taking her further away from her unique gifts and talents, not using them in a more valuable, relevant way. And I said, " Help me understand how this is going to align better with who you really are." And she caused for a minute and she said, " I don't think it is." And I said, " So if you really break down the amount more you're getting per year", it was when you break it down per week even, it was not all that compelling. And I said, " Babe, you get paid twice a month. You go to work every single day. Let's not lose sight of what it feels like to wake up in the morning and think, " Ooh, I can't wait to go do that thing today." Versus, " Oh, it's good pay. Well..." That's, ah, it's so different.

Lara Heimann: It is very different. It really is. And I do think today's climate has so many more possibilities for people to do something that is a little outside the norm that I remember. And you'll remember because we're in the same age group, just people working for themselves. That was like, " What? What do you mean working for yourself? How does that even happen?" And now like-

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: "Well, you have a pension." I remember people talked about pensions.

Lara Heimann: Yes, exactly. Well, what do you do for healthcare? It seemed like an intrepid wanderer would do that. And I think now at least, so even though I was raised with a lot of this, I still was raised in the environment at the time in the world that there was working for yourself was just super unique. Super outside, you know, were definitely on the periphery.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: "Some kind of a hippie or something.", as some of my family would've said. So you have taken this internal guidance, you even the internal guidance to be interested in neuroscience or want to be to a doctor, that was still internally guided and you went down this route of understanding more about yourself in college. But how did things continue to evolve? Because you went from the physical therapy degree getting some of the neuroscience, and now you've evolved that into this brand with lit yoga that is integrating all of those things in this beautiful way. Give us a little more of how that story continued to unpack.

Lara Heimann: Well, I think that, I don't want to say it's like I just fell and kept rolling. But there was some of the, again, I don't think I didn't have a plan. What I often tell people is I didn't realize I was doing at the time, but the one thing that was really working for me is I saw a gap. And the gap was this, that people who do not go through medical school or physical therapy school in general don't know about the body. We don't learn it in primary school. We don't learn it unless you go out of your way to take an anatomy class. And even then, I've had people who did that and they're like, " And it just went right over my head because it wasn't applied." So we're walking around in this body that is the irrefutable fact is our entire lives we have our body. Many other things come and go, but this is always with us. And it was always fascinating to me that so few people knew about it. I don't think I consciously was registering that, but it would be just physical therapy I just loved because I loved the idea of helping people. I loved movement. I'd always been teaching movement. I've became a fitness instructor when I was 18. And oh, I just, I'd been so passionate about how it can change the way you feel in every way, in every way just by understanding how to move your body. And then the second layer of that is that there's a lot of people moving their bodies, but they're not necessarily moving their bodies optimally. So I have worked with professional athletes to very involved stroke patients and across the board, most of them don't know that much about their body. Even the athletes are just doing their thing, but they haven't been taught necessarily about the biomechanics of the body, the energetic systems and all that. So I think I always had that in the back of my mind just when I was talking to anybody, " Oh, you're pt, I have this happening." And I was like, " Do they know that that's your shoulders actually, I'd say, look at your scapula. What's your scapula?" Just little things, which is fascinating. So I then was teaching yoga because I loved yoga. I kind of stumbled upon it after graduate school and I was teaching it this kind of power type yoga. And when I started really examining it, I was like, " There's some things that are missing here. It's not a really kind of comprehensive way of moving on the mat. It's basically taking our habitual patterns that we experience in daily life and bringing them onto the mat and maybe reinforcing them." And so by doing all these different type of techniques with my stroke patients, I started thinking if I applied that logic to people who are able- bodied and we know the brain is plastic, what would that be like? It's this whole idea of constantly trying to rewire for optimization, which is not perfection. It's not like you ever get there. It's just knowing that life is going to bring us out of balance to some degree. And so what can we do in our body that is going to bring us more into balance? Because when we do that in our body, it affects every system. So I go into corporate places and I'll say, " I want you to reframe your idea of movement." Movement is life. It is life things with a brain move. We have a brain for movement, a huge part of our gray matter in our brain, 80% of it is responsible for movement that also is responsible for memory and processing. And if we can rewire that and reconfigure it and improve it through movement alone. So I think I was just diving really into the brain body connection while I was also seeing how sparsely education was a part of in movement practices. Now I was specifically in yoga, but I would have yoga teachers come to me and say, " I'm teaching. I know how to cue the poses. I know how to cue transitions, but I don't know anything about the body." When somebody comes and says" My lower back hurts.", they're just out of ammunition, they have nothing. And I thought, that's a really disempowering position to be in. You're teaching people a movement system that inherently requires the body and you don't really know anything about it. So that's when I felt compelled to make a teach your training because I was like-

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Feel like trying to sell cars and never haven driven.

Lara Heimann: I use that example all the time.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Do you really?

Lara Heimann: It's literally like being mechanic and" All I know is like, I can change oil. Anything else, sorry." So I just saw this massive gap there and I thought, you don't have to be a pt. I can teach people about the body. I know enough. I can distill it down and teach them how to look at posture, how to look at mechanics, where people tend to be a little weaker or snoozer because in modern day life, how we can help them with that and then how that helps your breathing and all these things. Because yoga, it kind of compartmentalizes some of those things. Okay you do this thing for your spiritual practice and then sit here for your breath and it's like it's all part of the same thing. Dare you to move your body and tell me you don't feel better. It happens. We have the endocrine system, the neurological system, physiological system, all of it is like woo, it feels lighter and brighter when we move our body. So then I just kind of followed that path. I saw people were hungry for it, and then I thought, well, I had a yoga studio people, it was a great lab. So I created this method, which was incorporating some of my PT background that you come onto the mat and instead of just doing movement, because we can execute movement, our bodies are smart, it just might not be optimal. So let's use the mat as an opportunity to actually rewire the way we move outside in life and bringing that awareness so it's not just performative, it's not just, oh, you do that and then see how deep you can go or whatever. It's actually like what is happening? Okay, you're going to put your scapula onto the ribs and rotate your spine and then reach that arm up. That's what we're going for. Very specific. So it's not just mimicry.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: So it's more intentional and you literally making that brain body connection.

Lara Heimann: Absolutely. And there's people who have had no background, and they're like, " Lara, I think of you when I'm going down to pick up my baby or when I'm going to lug groceries or my dog starts pulling me." It's education plain and simple. I think what I'm doing is educating about something that should not be this nebulous concept because it's us. It's who we are, it's ourselves, it's our matter. Again, anyone can learn this. I really believe that if it's taught in a very intentional way, which I think I've been able to do well, because I think when you teach anything, you have to understand it very well so that you can teach it very simply.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And that's the hardest part is to teach it simply with the context of how it's going to be used. And you, you've been able to do that from all facets of this. I think it's so fascinating as well that something that is so important to our day- to- day lives that we know so little about. So you talk about movement in the body. I think the same thing about business, because every single thing that we need to run our lives is somehow based on a moneymaking model. There's no shame in the fact that we need money to operate in our lives. And so why is it that we don't learn business in seventh or eighth grade so that we could make better decisions about what do we want to do every day and how are we going to be paid for that? So I often go on a rant about how our education system has completely left us in figuring out stuff that we didn't. I would love to just be known for blowing up the education system and redoing it in a very different way. And this is a perfect example, the brain body connection, the nervous system, all of these things are the foundation of our quality of life, not our paycheck.

Lara Heimann: Exactly, exactly. I think many credit card companies wouldn't want you teaching that because they rely

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: On these. I was going to say, I know why it doesn't happen.

Lara Heimann: You need people getting their credit card not realizing if you don't pay that off... That's why they're really selling to the college- aged kids who haven't learned that in high school unless their parents have taught them you.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Right? Yeah.

Lara Heimann: These are skills needed to not only live your life but improve it.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Yeah, 100%. 100%. Well, I want to touch on something what I was looking at your site and the ways that you describe what you do with the LYT Method and P. S. everyone, you have your own podcast as well where you talk about these concepts quickly tell us the name of your show is-

Lara Heimann: Redefining Yoga. And so, and yoga doesn't need to be changed, but there are parts of it that we need to expand. So it's an evolution again. When I started teaching in a different way over 10 years ago, people who wrote who had not been longtime practitioners were like, " This is amazing. Oh my gosh, I had never really liked yoga and I like this." But the longer term term people were very much like, " This isn't yoga." And they had put yoga in this little box. And then I had people who literally from the traditions of yoga, all the things that other people were saying, we weren't honoring telling me, the physical practice only started at the beginning of the 20th century and the early... It isn't 5, 000 years old. Parts of yoga are, but the really, the modern day yoga system is relatively young, and it was brought in by so many influences. So it's like we're asking what do we need today? Just like Yogis 5, 000 years ago said, what do we need today? We need to be off on our own a little bit because the hurry scurry of everyday life, even though it's nothing like it is today, pulls our interest and we need to go and really be still and be by ourselves to really find that.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: 100%. I call it reflection and connection. You can't have great connection without reflection.

Lara Heimann: Exactly. So it's like what do we need now? We need to rewire our nervous system. We need to rewire our movement patterns. We are sitting and not moving in a variety of ways, unlike 100 years ago, 500 years ago, even 100 years ago. So we have to say, we have to redefine it. It's a different time period. And some of those older practices don't work in the same way that they did then, but it's like a 2. 0 version. So anyway, that's my podcast. We talk about yoga, we talk about movement, we talk about inspiring. I have inspiring individuals on there. Just the practice of yoga to me is raising consciousness, so having people on there and listening to how they're doing that in their own way. And it doesn't have to be in the practice of yoga, it can be in the practice of business, but kind of raising the bar of consciousness and awakening and in alignment.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: This is what I love about having guests that I don't know we just met, is to see how aligned various parts of life and business really are. Because when you talk about the evolution of how you are looking at yoga differently and why this is important to humanity today, the same is true in business. So I use a very simple construct that business is human and the business needs to control, measure and optimize. That's what a good business needs to do. But humans, we are personal, emotional, and social and the needs are different. And when we align those, that's when we get a great culture, a great business, a great working environment, a place where people want to show up. And because business stayed in this industrial model for so long, it finally broke. In 2019 when the burnout diagnosis was put out by the World Health Organization that was basically humans as a species saying, " Peace out, I can't do this anymore." And it just so happened it was followed by 2020, which gave us a lot of forced reflection time in a traumatic experience. But the response coming out of that now mimics fight, flight or freeze the flight. People said, " Great resignation. I'm out." The quiet quitting was, " I need a paycheck, but I'm just going to freeze right here where I am." A lot of managers and leaders are fighting like crazy to get people back into the office. " I want it back the way it used to be." And so business has experienced this eruption and it needs to be built differently. None of this is going to work into the future. And you've done the same thing with your life and the evolution of the practice that you teach in the LYT Method of yoga, which is it. It's not that the old way was wrong. We just evolved to this place where movement is integral to our success in life and business. And we need to acknowledge we can't just sit kids for 12 years in a chair and then sit them in the office for another 50 and think that we're all going to be okay.

Lara Heimann: No, no, it's not good for your body and what's not good for your body is not good for your mental health. And I had mentioned this before, the pandemic, there was a group, and I don't know their names, but there was a guy out in California who decided to play around with this idea of having, I think it was five hours a day, so it was like five hours, 25 hour work week as opposed to 40 and giving the employees, they would work whatever, 8: 00 to 1: 00, and then they would have off and he said, " I'm going to do it for a summer and let's see.". Because they're in California, then they'd have their afternoons, they can go surfing, running outside, all this stuff. And of course what happens, their productivity practically doubled. It's just such an example of hours of grind do not translate into productivity, and that's because our brains are not going to be focused for that long. When I talk to people, I'm like, " You need to, if you have to set a timer, do it, but you need to get up every 30 or 40 minutes and you to need to move for at least 10 minutes." That's not that much. And you're going to come back refreshed and much clearer than just binding away. It's just yeah, we're not made for that. And it's not good for any part of our entire body or mind or spirit.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: 100%. I love the connectivity of this. Several points on your site that I just loved about not just the movement, but kindness and compassion and the courage to change, which you have lived out and illustrated in your own personal story discipline to grow. The one that caught my attention because it's so aligned with an event that I have coming up for International Women's Day is you say, " Taking a stand for what we believe in.", and my event is called Stand Tall in Your Story. When you say that on your site, what does that mean to you in your practice, in your business?

Lara Heimann: I think it's everything we talk about. I don't think I have... No, I have. Well, it's funny that you said that because here's my-

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Oh my goodness gracious me.

Lara Heimann: I happen to be wearing it. I don't know if people are going to see the video, but-

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Yes, they will. It's a shirt that says Stand Tall.

Lara Heimann: Yes, so that's one of our mantras because standing tall, so there's so many layers to it. First of all, your posture appreciates when you're upright and in alignment because then that means everything's steadily in imbalance. So if I'm out of alignment, certain muscles are going to be overly lengthened, some are going to be shortened, compressed, and we feel that, and that doesn't just mean at that moment we feel it. We then go to move and the brain has already in areas that are shortened, they're kind of more apt to fire and the ones that are linked and are going to be a little bit snoozier. So it's not just the static posture, it's actually the, it's called the starting point. It's how you then move from that. So standing tall to me is really like we talk about this triple S, which is the skull, the scapula, and the sacrum, and those are the primary curves. When we come out of the womb where in a little child's post kind of position, and then we lift our head, eventually we get the secondary curve of this cervical spine, which is lordotic, and then we stand up on two feet and we get the other one to balance us out at the lumbar curve. But the primary curves are stable. They're the ones we're like, this is what brought us security. So if we can find the alignment of those, the triple S, then that aligns the spine, that aligns the organs, that aligns everything. Your breathing is better. And it's like a north- south compass. You know that this is your center and you're standing tall in alignment, and the triple S is for that. But I also say stand strong in your spirit because this is also been proven by science. But guess what? We didn't need to have it proven. We know it. When you shrink, when you compress, when you make yourself smaller, your spirit knows that. You become less confident, your cortisol goes up. That means your stress is higher. You make yourself smaller, so you're not doing any good for anyone around you because you're also not going to be your best self because you're going to change your ecosystem. You're going to change how confident you are. Well, confidence is not like, "Oh, I look it in this bikini." Confidence is I know myself, I know my values, I know what matters, and I'm going to be very clear on that. And that is not going to waiver. That's what standing tall is. It's really embodying this metaphysical strength because life is hard. It's also amazing, but it's hard and it's going to challenge our core. It's going to challenge our core values. It's going to challenge what we know to be true for ourselves. But man, if we can really be strong with that, anything is possible. It's like your body. You better love yourself because you are with yourself your entire life. And to have you that confidence and that tenderness towards yourself is the magic that really will allow you to do anything. Get up in front of tons of people and do a Ted Talk and then also say" No, because that isn't in alignment with me." And the courage is in being true to you. And that's what I always say. I won't regret anything if I don't forsake myself. And that sometimes means that I have to make choices that are tough, but it's like if I don't betray myself, all is ultimately going to be good.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: You're not going to be surprised by this because we've had too many like, oh my gosh, connections already. One of the women who is speaking at this event, I spend seven months with these women in an experience called Rise and Thrive, and they're rising and thriving, and then they come and they stand tall in their story for the event to celebrate their experience. And throughout the seven months, she said to me, " I have back issues because I realize now that I have literally been shrinking myself." And so she's been in chiropractic care and doing some things to try to remedy it now, but she was physically trying to make herself smaller as she was navigating some of these challenges in her life. And now for her to be aware of it again, mind body connection, and now she can intentionally start to make the changes that she needs to make that are going to impact all aspects of her life, her confidence, not just her physical body, but the confidence to be okay that she has the power to make these choices. And it's such a beautiful transformation when you see people have that, oh my gosh, it's all connected. And-

Lara Heimann: It is. It is. And what I love, especially because I love women supporting each other, is that when you see it in someone else, it's like a permission is given that you can also do it. Who knows why we need that permission. It's not like we actually need it, but it's just, it's contagious.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: That's why I created the event. People said, " What's the event for?" I said, " Because when you stand tall in your story, by nature you inspire someone else to do same."

Lara Heimann: Exactly, exactly. And so we are helping ourselves, we're helping others as well. And I think that some people have a hard time figuring out what really matters to me? What do I believe in? Get in touch with your body. I promise that stuff will become clearer. We do a lot of stuff with core integration because it's not just abdominals, your core is your center. It's everything but your limbs and it supports your organs of life. It supports your upright posture, it supports you when there's load, physical mental load. It is key. And so it's also the place of your fire, of your ambition, of your will, of your vision. And some of those words can be historically scrutinized when we think about it for females, and it's like we're the hardest on female, female with ambition, with drive and all that. And it's like, what? We have it and we should be out there just spotlighting it for everybody else to see be so that it's never questioned again. I think it's our kids' generation that will not be happening as much, but there's leftover stuff for sure.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. But we're doing all we can to make those changes and give people the encouragement and the tools to do that well. I have absolutely loved this. I so appreciate your willingness to come on the show, and I encourage people to go and find your show. Redefining yoga, you talk about more than just yoga as well, but I think that this is the time in the world where we have been given this love of these types of things because it is of service and it's something that the world needs right now. So I honor that in you and appreciate it about you.

Lara Heimann: Well, thank you so much. It's been such a pleasure. I love talking about just our different paths and it's been wonderful to hear how you're helping other women as well. Yeah, so redefining yoga, again, if you're not into yoga, there's so much more that is under this umbrella, which is just raising awareness. I have a monthly motivation, for instance, this one's was called Spectrum of Emotions. So I really dive into the science of emotions and how when we don't feel the different ends of it, we're actually dimming the other end. So I've had grief, to feel grief to really go into it. It doesn't leave, but when you allow those deeper, harder feelings, it also allows the happiness, the joy. And so I really encourage people, and again, when you're in alignment, you can allow those feelings to unfold and to be felt without burying them or feeling like, okay, I can't handle it.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And I think it's worth saying that that's true for men as well as women.

Lara Heimann: Oh, yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Unfelt feelings stay in your body. They do. So they're going to show up in some way and you should feel them because you need to process them and move them. The way we move through emotion and unlodge it is we have to let it flow. We have to feel it. And there I give some examples of ways to do that through your body, because of the mind body connection and the neuroscience behind that.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: We could have done an entire series because that connects to the third key from my book Rhythm, which I talk about flow not force and what that means in business. That girl, we needed like six more hours.

Lara Heimann: I know. Where to?

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Yep. That's probably going to be a thing. So thank you again so much, and people can find you from the podcast and then your website is LYT Yoga, L- Y- T

Lara Heimann: L- Y- T. That stands for Lara's Yoga Technique, but it really is stands for being lit up because when we are in alignment and really following our hearts and having that courage, we feel lit up. So that's what I want for everybody is to feel lit up. So yeah, lytyoga. com. You can find me on Instagram, Lara. Heimann Or LytYogaMethod is on Instagram and there's just everything under there. We have teacher trainings, online classes, the podcast, et cetera.

Speaker 1: Singing.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Thanks for listening to this episode. I would love it if you would leave a rating and a review on Apple Podcast and then go to wethrive. live. First thing you'll see is a place to drop your email and join the movement. I'll send you tools that you can use to thrive in life and business.

Speaker 1: Singing

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Hey y'all. Fun fact. Did you like the music for the podcast? That is actually my son, Cameron Hession, and I would love it if you would go to Spotify and iTunes and follow him and download some of his other music. My personal favorite's TV Land.