The Polyvagal Theory in Practice with Christine Morgenstern-Shin

Hello, friends, and welcome to Perfect Practice. Today I have somebody who has many, many unique talents and somebody who has made such a positive impact in our community at Perfect Practice, and that is Christine Morgenstern. Christine is a multifaceted expert, so she helps people from a functional perspective with diet and nutrition. She helps people as a yoga teacher and instructor, and she also helps people as a resilience coach. And so she's going to be talking to us today about her journey and setting up her practice and, you know, becoming passionate about polyvagal theory and how she's helping more people learn about it and operating in her zone of genius. So, Christine, thanks for joining me today. I appreciate you taking time out of your schedule.

No, thank you, Sachin. I've been listening to your podcast for a long time and it's an honor to be here with you.

Awesome. What a cool full circle moment, right?

Yeah, exactly.

I actually had that happen earlier on Tuesday. Just a couple of days ago, I had an interview with Dr. David Bennett and Buddy Ticinski. And I don't know if you knew this or not, of course you know them from our mentorship group, but they are actually colleagues of mine. So we were in the same chiropractic class when we graduated.

Oh, nice.

Yeah. So interviewing both of them was like a full circle moment for me. It was kind of cool to do that. And here we are with a full circle moment. I love when that happens.

Yeah. Yeah.

So, Christine, why don't we. Why don't we dive right in? I know we've got lots of. I've got lots of questions for you and I know you have a lot to unpack today. So why don't we start with your journey? How, what keeps you so driven to continue learning and continue kind of acquiring new skills to add to your tool belt and you know, where does that passion come from? And maybe you can start with letting us know about where it started, where your were your personal interest in being a practitioner and a coach and somebody who helps people started.

No, absolutely. I'd be happy to. It actually started way back when. I've always been an advocate of fitness and loved fitness and health and wellness since little child and went to college for exercise physiology. And my story actually began pretty young without me knowing it. You always look back and learn a lot. But I want to preface, I came from a very loving home. My parents did the best they could. Like of course, all our parents do. Right. And the reason why I'm mentioning this is because unfortunately, for roughly 20 plus odd years I lived with life threatening depression and anxiety and ADD as well. And it was almost like I was living two lives. And I really felt I had a healthy and happy young adulthood and childhood. But looking back, I learned that my story is one of disconnection to being now really fully connected. And just picture someone with endless energy. Go, go, go getter. You know, I had a really fun job in the career in the fitness industry, travel perks, all that fun stuff. And the reason why I'm mentioning it is this was my identity. My identity was physical fitness, career achievement, things of this nature. When I got sick, it was really frustrating and actually shameful to have this inability to heal myself. This is where my story began. It started with the mental health challenges, but eventually my perfect fun world started fraying at the seams. From the standpoint of, without belaboring it, it developed to 16 some odd symptoms so the audience can understand. I mean, just really bizarre things like having the brain fog, not being able seeing a word, something simple like sleep, but not being able to say it. Sleeping like a baby to not sleeping, I believe it or not, was blind in one eye for a half a day. I mean just really odd things. I'd take the highlight, take a sip of water and fully be distended like eight months pregnant. And being in the fitness industry, this was not something I was used to in terms of the physical body changing. The worst came when I had head to toe nerve pain. And I went from being a crossfitter to being. I get stuck in a chair, tears going down the face. I feel like I have a high tolerance of pain, but just not knowing where to go, who to turn to, what to do. That led me to. I saw seven or eight different allopathic doctors and specialists. The end result was I had ibs. And then to go see a psychologist, which I was already seeing, I want to include. I took 20 plus years of pharmaceuticals for depression, anxiety, ADHD, sometimes sleep and then birth control. And I want to stop there because as you know, as a practitioner, gosh, what that did to my gut, right? And everything and everything else in my body. So I did eventually find some hope in this challenge and this despair. And I want to tell you, I hid this, I hid what was going on. I was very shameful, working really hard and high achieving. It was something the opposite of what I thought I was. To fast forward, I found the world of functional medicine, went back to school for functional nutrition, and about the same time I found the world of yoga meditation, not just yoga, the asana Movement, but the whole world in terms of mindfulness, visualization, so on and so forth. And then this eventually led me to yoga therapy, which is a whole other studies. And this is where I partially started discovering the polyvagal theory and its impact, started changing my life in terms of started to seeing some type of hope through this process because at the time I felt unheard, I felt unseen. I just really felt alone in my health journey. I do want to note all the while I never stopped working, which is ludicrous to say at this point, but to know now that I needed time to heal. But yeah. So my story to get to the highlight and the inspiring part is I did connect with a functional md, a biological dentist, then an infectious disease expert. And long story short, if you think about it, I had a long time for these chronic illnesses to build up in my body. And as you know, just like autoimmunity, you get one, you don't treat it, you might get two, three, four, right. For me, it manifested in Sears chronic inflammatory response syndrome due to chronic mold. Then eventually I was diagnosed with late stage Lyme, a couple of Lyme co infections and then sibo. Those conditions are very layered by themselves. Having that combination of them just layered on top of each other. I didn't know what I was in for. It was obviously I had to navigate a lot through the debris. But what I found primarily through eastern traditions and through functional medicine, I found a way out and I found a way to heal. And this is why I'm so passionate, I'm very passionate about our mental health epidemic. This is what has brought me to moving my practice from working with healthy people and more fitness to working with people with chronic health conditions and mental health, gut brain, of course, and then really assisting with their behavioral change piece. Because that's a key. I believe in all this, you know.

Yeah. You know, you've done such amazing job at reestablishing a new identity that I would have never guessed that you faced those challenges. So thank you for sharing. I know it's never easy to recount and revisit some painful parts of her life. And I also know that, you know, you probably had to, you know, you may have missed out on. I always say the best is yet to come. So not the best years of your life, but, you know, important years of your life. You may have missed out on important events or opportunities or, you know, all the things that life has to offer. So thank you for sharing. And you know, one question I have for you. As my clinician, brain starts Whirling up is what came first. Do you think it was the lime? Do you think it was the mold? It was. Was it the sibo like? And did this affect anyone else around you and your family? Because I know mold sometimes can be individual, like some people. Everyone, you know, suffers from the consequences of mold exposure, but not everyone has, you know, early outward symptoms. So did anyone else in your family have mysterious symptoms like this?

Well, no. And I appreciate the question because at the time I was single, I was living in a loft. And the key is it was an old elementary school and they had converted them into lofts. Tried to leave as much aesthetics as possible. And I think. And this is where we found the root cause. I was there for 11 years and I had no idea at the time. And also, I didn't have that functional lens yet in my repertoire, so I wasn't looking for all the things we look for now. I was at the time transitioning and was engaged. And once I got married, my husband lived there for about three or four months. And we have completely different makeups. And so thankful for him, but he wasn't affected. He definitely could see what was happening, obviously, to me in this situation. And then, of course, once we moved, I had moved from that location, not knowing it was affecting me. Obviously the symptoms arose, but I wasn't aware at that, you know, at that time. And so, no, thankfully, you know, it didn't. It didn't affect anyone else that I was with.

So. All right, so you find a functional medicine practitioner. How did you end up finding a functional medicine practitioner? What was like, were you referred to them? Did you find them online? Did you attend a webinar? I'm just curious, as a, as a coach, how did you find them? Sure.

Picture me. I love fitness and I couldn't move. Ok. And so I started researching just a little, and I researched every different aspect of. Well, if these seven doctors didn't give me the answers, what do I do now? And I stumbled, just really, just World Wide Web, just Googling and things of that nature of something called functional medicine. Obviously researched it and then took a class on functional nutrition. That's how it started. I said, oh, I'm going to take this digestive class and figure out how I can fix my tummy so I can get back out there in the workout world. That obviously opened all the doors. And then truly not being able to move. I love it and feel like it's my first love now, but that's what brought me to yoga class because I really couldn't move and sometimes child's pose was it. So those two worlds slowly started opening up. And when the doors start opening, I had so many clothes. Then the world of yoga therapy opened up and understanding more of started going to acupuncture. I will say I probably went to every. I don't like to call it alternative because for me now, I think, and for you, I'm sure it's. It's regular medicine, but alternative medicine, modalities. I went through the spectrum in order to heal, whether it was acupuncture or any different types of Eastern traditions, things that we take for granted. Now, I have to say, back in 2015, I was able to chitrate. It took about a year. I was able to titrate off of all my pharmaceuticals. Was. And I do want to disclaimer. I'm not advocating anyone to do that, of course, this is just part of my story. But I wanted to feel what it would feel like just to be in my body without having this depression medicine and this anxiety medicine. And I was open to going back if I needed to, but I was in a space at this point that I could titrate off very slowly. And I have to say I haven't since 2015, never gone back. And it's just to me, that's just a gift like. And that's a test testament too, to how our bodies can, if you go about it the right way, right. How it, how it can heal itself.

So, yeah, it's. It's amazing how capable we are when we provide the right environment and we identify some of the root cause mechanisms that are, you know, taking our body out of homeostasis and balance. So tell, tell me a little bit more about polyvagal theory. So first of all, let's start with kind of defining it. What exactly is polyvagal theory?

Sure. Polyvagal theory is an updated map of your autonomic nervous system. A lot of times as practitioners, we speak about the sympathetic state and the parasympathetic state. Fight or flight, rest and digest. Those are states in the autonomic nervous system. But Dr. Stephen Porges, he's the doctor that discovered this theory, it goes well beyond that. What excites me as the practitioner is this theory. He discovered that there's a predictable hierarchy of how our responses occur in our autonomic nervous system. This is extremely valuable because if somebody has trauma, if somebody has mental health challenges, I think we all can use this theory. But it now allows us to reframe and reset and shift our nervous System. Just like we've learned to do that from a neuroplasticity standpoint, from our brain standpoint, it is quite powerful. To break it down even more for people that have never heard of it, I essentially use it to teach my clients to be active operators of their nervous system. They will learn if they're in a response that doesn't serve them for whatever circumstance they're in. They have the tools and techniques and empowerment to be able to shift from that state, maybe to a different state. It's because it's a hierarchy. You can't jump the rungs of the ladder per se. And to get them into a safer and more connected space, whether it's within their body, whether they're unsafe in their environment, or maybe even a conversation with two people, if they're not feeling safe, it's very valuable. The main takeaway, and this is hard for my high performers because they're so limbic system, executive functioning, thinking individuals. But our thoughts and our beliefs, a lot of people think begin in the head. The way our clients act and the way they describe and decide what the world is, what's going on in their world every day. This actually starts in our autonomic nervous system. To me, this was a huge aha when I first discovered this. Essentially what occurs is there's a state that we have a response from our autonomic nervous system that occurs. Then those messages go up from the autonomic nervous system up to the brain. Then the brain essentially creates a story to make sense of what just happened in the body. I do a lot of bottom up approaches, meaning we speak as, you know, 80%, 80, 20. Some practitioners say 90, 10. But the body speaks up to the brain a lot more than vice versa. This is really important when either a. If you had layered health conditions like me, and when I first started taking the protocols from my doctors, they weren't working. Unfortunately. My body, my gut, my mind, my terrain wasn't in a place. If I'm preparing for that super bowl of taking those protocols, my body was nowhere near trained to do that. The polyvagal theory is one modality that's used to help me be able to create that safety within my body. So I'm then able to go through and do a layered protocol, for example. Does that make sense?

Yeah, I guess. Would you say it's more like looking at the autonomic nervous system instead of a light switch as a dimmer?

Absolutely. Yes, as a dimmer. And I feel like this approach to healing is just as fundamental as, say, balancing our blood sugar, having restorative sleep, or making sure our gut inner workings are working well, because, of course, it's all connected. I feel like the individuals that really want to perfect that behavioral change, that sustainable behavioral change. I think you might find this thread interesting. In order to change your story, whatever the beliefs are, what have you, that are in your brain, you first need to be able to change your state. And when I work with people on behavioral change, before we can get to that mindset shift, we have to have a behavioral shift. Before we have the behavioral shift, we have to have a state shift. And that all starts in the autonomic nervous system. So it's. It's really interesting. Once they understand the mechanisms from a physiological standpoint of how it works, everybody works so much. There's so much more cohesiveness with our brain and our body and our heart that things begin to flow, things begin to switch. Does that make sense?

Yeah, it does. It kind of reminds me of when I go to Tony Robbins events, right? The first thing he talks about is priming, right? Like, even for our day, like priming ourselves for our day, Priming ourselves even for the event, right? Like, Tony's always late for his event, so there's usually like an hour or two of dancing that takes place before the event, and even breathing techniques that he teaches us. And I think that's all about before we get into the intellectual state or our intellectual capacity to shift, we've got to get ourselves in the right state, and then we're more likely to create the behavior change, right? Because our body's primed for that. So, yeah, that I can see now why, based on what you're explaining to me, why something like that can be so effective for people versus going right into the intellectual part of remapping us.

And that's why in one of my programs, everybody wants to talk about why they can't have avocado or why they might choose not to have avocado for a certain amount of time. But we start with the state. Let's learn about the state. Let's see. So we're preparing the mind. So then when we start doing these other behavioral shifts that they're really focused on, it's an easier transition.

So what are some examples of that? What are some examples of ways to induce a state?

So in terms of. With the polyvagal theory, for lack of a visual, if you look at a ladder and just say there's the top, middle, and bottom part of the ladder, the top part of your State is in the parasympathetic, and it's called ventral vagal regulation. What that is just simply for our audience here. This is a system of safety and connection. This is one of the states, the middle state is sympathetic, which most of us have heard of the fight or flight. This is a system of mobilization. Then at the bottom, we do move back into parasympathetic. It's called dorsal vagal response. This is a system of immobilization. I wanted to explain that first. So you see these three states, if we want to shift, to answer your question, from state to state, it does go in order. We know that there's the actual hierarchy. I'll use a light example of if we're in the office, we're stuck having a problem. We're really trying to figure out the problem, and we've just shut down. We cannot figure it out. At least we're saying that to ourselves. You're in dorsal vagal, urine dorsal vagal. We want to move up to the top part of the ladder where all that creativity is available. We can't skip a rung. What I would suggest, say for that client, leave the office. And this might sound logical, but this is how our autonomic nervous system works. Leave the office, move in some shape or form. It could be crying, it could be punching a pillow, jumping jacks. Whatever it may be. Maybe someone's depressed and they're in dorsal vagal. And the thought of getting off the couch is hard. Will visualize you walking to the mailbox or walking around the block. But that's moving up into sympathetic. So that's one way we can shift. After that, we want to get to where that creativity situation and opportunity is, which is ventral vagal. So this is where we would do all the things you teach your patients and teach us the singing, the chanting, working that vagus nerve, having tea, petting your pet to bring you into that safety connection state. Once someone understands how to move, that's the first step is understanding the awareness. Like, what does it feel to be in whatever state they're in? I'll teach them that first, and then we move from there. Does that make sense?

Yeah, super helpful. Actually, an example I can give you from today. It just shows the innate intelligence of our body. So I'm writing an email and. And I was getting suffering from writer's block. I don't know if you've ever experienced that before, but just trying to articulate an idea and I just couldn't. I couldn't get it out of Me, I knew what I wanted to say, but I couldn't articulate it in a way that came across the way I wanted to say it on paper. And my natural tendency was like, I feel like I need to go for a bike ride or something. And then, yeah, I actually walked outside and then somehow I talked myself out of it.

Okay.

But you know, my body was kind of telling me, hey, you need to shift your state, get into that, you know, in that middle rung and then you'll unlock that creativity. But you know, my brain got in the way and said, well, I don't have time for this or you know, I'm not even realizing how this process works. I wasn't working it. And that 10 minute bike ride probably would have unlocked, let's say, an hour's worth of creativity for me and would have been a, you know, a very beneficial use of my time. So that to me is like a living example for myself.

Absolutely.

Just feeling called to do something and then using my executive brain to talk me out of it instead of listening to my body was asking me to.

Do to the intuition. Yeah, so your body was innately telling you exactly what you needed to do. Right. And so no, that, that's, that's an excellent example. And there are also blended states. I don't know if you've heard of this or if you want me to explain, but there's combinations of states that we're actually in. For example, if you're in the top state, if you're in a state of safety and connection, in a state of mobilization, this is actually, we can label it play, think. If you're dancing, we're moving. But there's also social engagement. Then if we combine the top and the bottom rung, safety and connection and mobilization, these are activities I'm sure you do a lot like meditation or yoga nidra or cuddling. The parasympathetic isn't necessarily good and the sympathetic isn't necessarily bad. It's just our body, it's just how it functions. The most important one I think that for people to understand is if the middle rung and the bottom rung connects. So that's system of mobilization and immobilization. This is called fawning and it's a layer topic. But to give you a two liner, it's. A lot of people pleasers are in this state a lot. And sometimes people pleasers, to use a heavier example, it could be a someone that's a victim. And so what they're doing is they're, they're mirroring, you know, their captives ideas and wants and needs because they want to be accepted. Right. So, so, so because they're trying to not be harmed. Right. If you speak about just somebody who is a people pleaser. And I will admit I used to be when I was in those earlier days, right. And now I feel like everything's from a grounded, loving state. Right. In terms of how I help people now. But as a people pleaser it's. You're almost on autopilot and you're in a numbing situation and we're doing things. You know, autonomic nervous system is just going through the motions and once people understand that this is just their body trying to keep them safe, it's so much easier to move through it. Like whether it's whatever trauma or PTSD or anxiety or depression or, or maybe someone that has very high emotional intelligence but they get stage fright. Right. You know, in order to be able to shift. So it's, it's a beautiful, I think it's a really beautiful discovery.

It seems, seems very logical. So I love that. Thank you for sharing. And um, you know, there's, there's a, you know, interesting visual like the slider that comes up for me. Right. Like the, the dimmer switch. So I think if people can kind of think of it that way and, and that might help them understand it or at least the visual metaphor to help them understand it. I love how you also call the autonomic ladder. I think that that also makes a lot of sense as well.

No, absolutely.

So what's an example? Like do you have a, if you could maybe like a two to three minute case study on, you know, what challenge somebody was facing. You equipped them with a set of tools. Now with the polyvagal theory and what was the outcome for that person?

Sure, absolutely. I always like to use myself as an example. So I'm going to do work with a client instead for this one. So there was a woman that came to me, had disassociation and she actually didn't realize what her trauma was till later in life even though it happened to her as a child. This is where I layer the polyvagal theory in with the yoga therapy. To give you a one liner for yoga therapy. It's much different than yoga. Functional medicine. Yoga theory is very much aligned. It's looking at the whole person and working through eastern traditions using a lot of our senses, some ayurvedic work. The main modality is using the polyvagal theory. My point is I implemented Yoga therapy techniques with this woman. It's very slow, slow titrating. But we pulled in once she be once she was aware of what state she was in and how she was in it. We did several different exercises and pulling through yoga therapy. I'll incorporate all your senses. So depending on what she resonated with. Okay.

She.

She liked to journal, so she did a lot of journaling rather than say the dance or. And she likes to dance too. So we did both. But I will incorporate the principles of the polyvagal theory through different exercises and senses. She practiced this X amount of times a day. The main thing is if someone is a trauma survivor, their dominant states are fight or flight, dorsal vagal or that combination, that fawn. This is knowing that this was her dominant state states. We looked at her entire lifestyle and saw where can we plug in moments of time where you're in ventral vagal, where you're at the top of the ladder. Instead that safety and connection space. Over six months, layering in whether it's being with people that are safe, music, whatever it may be, I helped her acknowledge what it is and then slowly do titrations of shifting. The goal would be for this woman to have a better quality of life is to understand that the trauma isn't her. Then implementing these techniques, she was able to gently shift over to the desired state for whatever circumstance that is. This isn't a short process, but for someone who's lived with trauma of their life, this is like life changing. Same thing for people that are with depression. You feel like you're in a hole that you can't get out. This is giving people hope. She's still in the process of. You're always going to improve. Think about our neuroplasticity. We always want to improve and build new neuropathways, but she, she feels so much freer now and she loves to dance, she loves to write. So those are the things that we focused on. And that's just bringing her joy in addition to helping her realize that, hey, I, you know, I'm okay, I'm safe and I'm healed.

Yeah. Joyful movement is a, is a concept we talk about a lot and it's great to see it in practice like this. So, Christine, I'd love to kind of stay in the same vein but shift gears a little bit and kind of love to get your perspective on, you know, how you've taken, you know, your passion as a functional, you know, practitioner, how you've taken your passion as a yoga therapist and as somebody who helps people with their mindset and resilience. How are you turning. How have you turned that into a business? Because that's a unique set of skills. And I can't imagine there's too many people that have this unique set of skills that you have. So how have you turned that into a practice? And I'd love to learn a little bit more about that story and journey that you've been on to try to get this powerful message out to the world.

No, absolutely. And there was a lot of frustration, but that's with anything. Sometimes that's worth it, right? A lot of it. A lot of people don't know what a functional nutritionist is. They do not know what a yoga therapist is. Talking about. Scarcity, mindset to abundance. Mindset sometimes takes people for a loop. The point is, I had a lot of education to be able to get across this was a little frustrating. As a sole entrepreneur, I have to say, moving into our mentorship over the past year has just. Just turned everything on its head in a positive way. From the standpoint of the first thing I'd like to talk about is as a practitioner, my personal mental roadblocks that I had. I knew I had a powerful story, I knew I had a unique modality, but it was challenging to be succinct in how I presented it because we only have so many seconds when people are learning and researching things. And then also a lot of those limiting beliefs. Admittedly, we're all human, right? So I had some in my business of I want to be the behind the scenes person, have the client be the forefront. But I learned that I need to do both. Right. I'm not on can. Oh, I can't be on camera. I'm not a speaker. I'm not a writer. Well, the mentorship crushed those ideas. You know, I feel like I'm constantly learning and will be refining and improving. But this brought me to a whole nother level because I was able to increase my confidence, of course. And then the mentorship gave me the incremental push to, like, do the next step. What is the next step? You know? And so that is first and foremost in my mind, you know? And I know another thing that was really powerful is you taught us, ask who not what or ask who not how. I just kept banging my head in dorsal vagal, right? Then realized, we don't need to do that anymore.

And quick shout out to Dan Sullivan and Ben Hardy for really putting that concept out there. I think a lot of people get stuck there and we Feel like we have to solve all of our problems. Our job is to solve patients problems and to hire the right people to help us solve our challenges. So I didn't want to interrupt, but I just wanted to kind of acknowledge some people who've introduced this idea to me and allowed me to bring it to all of you.

No, absolutely. And that's another aspect of the mentorship that I love, is that you truly do least in my lens, provide excellence. Like you learn from the best, and you bring it back, and you just effortlessly share it with us. And that's, how would I say, is priceless from the standpoint of us not having to go to all these other resources. So the mentorship has been really powerful for me on that standpoint. Then also with the frameworks and the tech solutions, from a practical standpoint, I had the vision and the dream of rolling out hybrid programs or group programs, and just that wall, that block of the wall. Well, if I'm not a writer, how can I write? You'll be happy to hear that everything just flowed out of me the minute I saw the confines of your. Your framework and just started it. You brought me to a place where I don't think I would have been still spinning my wheels. So thank you for that.

Oh, thank you. I know. I'm so grateful that you took action. And that's the thing. I know, if I may say so, when you were joining the mentorship, I could tell that you were frustrated because you were so passionate about what you were doing, and you wanted to know, is this going to help me help more people? And I'm so grateful. Like, looking back, you know, I guess over a year now, looking back, you've. You've come. Not that you've come a long way because you already had this inside of you, but your ability to get your message out to the world has come a long way. And I think we would both agree that you're just really getting started, right? There's so many millions of people that we need to help collectively, together, and we're never going to run out of people, unfortunately. And I know you and I are both doing our best to reach as many people as we can, so I'd love to know. So once that creativity started flowing out of you, of course the next step is not just building a program, but putting it out there in the world. So what have you done to get your message in front of as many people as possible using webinars or using social media? You know, are you building an email list in person? Networking. What's been the thing that's really worked well for you?

Sure. I'm proud to say at first I was embarrassed, but now I'm not anymore. That when I entered the mentorship, I, for better lack of word, I didn't really have an email list. Okay. So I started from scratch. And so that's why I think it's such a powerful story that I want to share, is that I'm building my email list. I've done challenges, I've done lives. I now do social media. I do reels, I do master classes. I haven't done any of this prior to starting the mentorship, and it's really gave me a platform to speak my truth. And the podcast, I really enjoy being on and connecting with other practitioners. And now it's like you let this wild person out. And I'm. I'm so happy that I can. You know, I'm at the point where I want to play big, and your program has created the foundation for me to get there, you know, so I'm just. Just thrilled.

Well, I love hearing that, and I love knowing that, you know, you're surrounded by amazing people. You're not only receiving from the community, but you're contributing in a positive way to the community, and you're paying it forward in so many ways. Who's your ideal client? So I know you talked about executives, and you talked about type A people kind of like me and you, I guess. People who want the most out of their life. Right. Want the most out of their body, their minds, their relationships. But sometimes that comes at a price. Right? And maybe they. It's Ed Hallowell talks about this. He's like, some of us have Ferrari engines and bicycle brakes.

Okay?

So we're just like, go, go, go. We have these super powerful mind, but we don't know how to steer it and how to get it to slow down sometimes. So not to get too far off on a tangent, but who is your ideal client? So somebody's listening to this, because I could imagine that this could be helpful for entrepreneurs. It's going to be probably helpful for practitioners. Like, I'd love for you to talk about this in our mentorship community on a Thursday. I think this would be really great for them to hear as well. And, you know, you've got a great way of explaining it so people can really see it. But who would be. Who would be your ideal client if somebody's listening to this?

Sure. Anyone that's a high performer, recovering perfectionist, heavy thinker, overdoer and if you just feel like you're a go getter of your world, you don't necessarily have to be an executive. A lot of times people are a lot of interesting. I have a combination of practitioners, creatives and entrepreneurs and then, you know, super moms, you know that. So it's, it's more of. It doesn't necessarily have to be career focused, if that makes sense. But if you're that go, go, go person and it's a little challenging to ask for help. One of the most interesting the feedback that I've received are people are saying, I didn't realize I had to slow down so I could go faster. And then they always add in a grounded way. They're understanding it, they're leaving, being closer to their authentic self. So I work with people that essentially want to release what no longer serves them. Whether it's mental, emotional, energetic or physical weight. It could be any of those realms. I do specialize in mental health, but it goes the gut brain, the gut hot brain, everything's connected. I'm always working with people with hormone challenges or gut challenges as well.

Awesome. Are you working with people in a one on one capacity? Is it a group? How are your programs set up?

They're set up with a combination of. I have a group foundational program and then also a concierge one on one program. And the group program is actually technically a hybrid because I like to have that touch, the touch points because I think it's really important from the bio individuality standpoint. And then I have yoga therapy one on ones as well for the people that want to dive into that more. What I love is every single time they come in for one thing, the client comes in for one thing. Of course I focus on that and give them that. But then they leave with so much more. And a lot of it is that mental emotional resilience, connecting with their true self, things of that nature that will go a long way when you're looking at an enhanced longevity.

Before we wrap up, I do want you to unpack. And I actually realized that I made a mistake when I introduced you because I called you a yoga instructor and teacher. However, yoga therapist is something that's unique. So I'd love for you to share what the difference is just for like the, the latest person I'll just call. Think of myself. What's the difference between coming to see you as a yoga therapist and going to a yoga class, which is probably the most popular conception of yoga for people? Sure.

No, that's. That's a great question. So going to a yoga class, which hopefully a lot of us have have experienced. There's of course all different types of yoga, but generically speaking we're mainly working on foundations and the asana which is the movement aspect of the class, while layering in breath and mindfulness. That would be a short definition of a yoga teacher. Then yoga therapy. It's almost more focused on the breath with a little movement on the side per se. So you're looking at the person as a whole. We work on five layers of the body, so mental intellect, breath, emotional, energetic and spirit. We're looking at focusing on the health and the well being of the person versus for example, if they have a disease, if they have cancer, how can we assist this person in having a fulfilling life with their values and beliefs is a big piece of it. Everything is connected to ancient Eastern traditions. There's a lot of Ayurvedic work in it. But then there is a big distinction between a yoga therapist and Ayurvedic practitioner. Very different, but there's a little overlap between the two. So to give you a very brief example how specific this is, if somebody has anxiety from feeling stuck versus anxiety from high energy, and this is just an easy example to tie it in, we would proceed with giving them completely different pranayama, breath ratios, visualizations, tying in their senses differently, movement patterns for those two different types of anxiety. That's how specific it is. It's really detailed work, very bio individualized. I think it ties in beautifully with the behavioral change work and the functional nutrition work. That's why I decided to layer it into my practice as a caveat to for the respect of all the yoga therapists out there. I'm in the middle of a thousand hour certification or getting my thousand hours. It is a lot of detailed work. Therapists can go on to work in hospitals, addiction centers. What's lovely is some of this can be covered by insurance. So I'm excited to be able to reach more people this way.

Yeah. Yoga is such a powerful science and it's amazing to see. It's almost like our body, like our breath and our movement and our thoughts. It's almost like we have either a cornucopia of spices that we can work with and we can create whatever flavor we want, or it's like a medicine cabinet that we have inside of us that we can access by using the right combination of these different modalities. So I love that. I love how you helped us, you know, kind of see the distinction between and it makes total sense. Right. Because if you give somebody who has a different causative factor for their anxiety the same medication or even the same supplement, it might not be the right thing. And I. You know, as. As many diagnoses as there are, I still feel like you can tweeze. You can tweeze a part of diagnosis. Right. There could be so many different forms of a particular label that we give someone. As a yoga therapist, you're really tuning into those subtleties and then creating a unique approach for that person. That's pretty cool.

Yeah, no, it's. It's absolutely fascinating. It really is. So I'm. I'm thankful I stumbled along it throughout my journey.

Yeah, you're gonna definitely have to do a practice pearl presentation on. On both of these topics, polyvagal theory and yoga therapy, because I know a lot of our. Our mentees would be interested in learning more about it.

Sure. No, absolutely.

Awesome. So, Christine, before we wrap, I'd love to give you an opportunity to share where people can learn more about you. We're definitely going to share your Facebook, Instagram, and website, but is there a particular place that you'd like people to go to if they're interested in working with you, learning more about what you have to offer?

Sure. Thank you for asking. The website, which I'm sure will be in the show notes, is RadiantHeart Health, and then my foundational program is radiantlifestylereset.com so those are two wonderful places they can learn more about.

Do you work with people in person, online, or. A little bit of both.

A little bit of both. Then I also provide adjunct care for other practitioners that might not. Their zona genius might not be the behavioral change piece or this yoga therapy or polyvagal piece. I love collaborating.

Okay. That's good for people to know because maybe they feel comfortable having somebody in a specific area of their care handling that element of it, but they need someone to look at it through this lens as well, because we are multifaceted. And to really get this diamond to shine, we've got to polish all the facets of it. So thank you for the work that you do. Thank you for sharing today. Thank you for being vulnerable and giving us some insights into why you do what you do and how you do it and exactly who it's for. Christine, it's been an absolute pleasure, and I wish you nothing but continued success and growth and impact on the world. Is there anything that you'd like to say before we wrap things up? Sure.

Thank you so much. For saying that. And I want to say two things. I know the mentorship is not the only show in town we should say, but I want to say what made you unique and what drew me in was your love for creating a lifestyle for your practitioners and then being able to. Every single thing you deliver, you can tell it's just rooted in love. And that just. Just brought me home. That's just really so. No, you're welcome. I just really. It's just connected. It's just really connected. And. And I'd also like to say the. The. The radiant heart. For me, this means authentic self. And. And through your program, I feel like I'm becoming even more of my authentic self. And being able to bring that out into the world and is just priceless. So thank you very much.

Thank you. I received that. And once again, here's to your continued growth, success, happiness, and wholeness. And let's keep working together to change as many lives as we can. Thank you.