September 25, 2025 • 56 mins
In this second episode of our Self Care September: Exploration of Stillness series, I’m joined by Amalia Maria Lee, founder of The Root Method, movement and breath therapist, and holistic healthcare practitioner.
With over two decades of experience in yoga, Pilates, nervous system regulation, and pelvic healing modalities, Amalia helps women reconnect with their bodies, reclaim sovereignty, and find sustainable well-being.
Together we explore:
🌿 The role of the root chakra and pelvic floor in women’s health and burnout recovery
🌿 How societal conditioning and hormonal shifts impact nervous system balance
🌿 Why body literacy is key to healing burnout, incontinence, and pelvic pain 🌿 Practical ways to integrate breathwork, mindful movement, and incremental self-tending into daily life
Amalia shares how The Root Method empowers women to orient to the body as an oracle, a trusted guide to help identify root causes, release stress, and restore authentic agency.
👉 Take the Spicy Pepper Burnout Screening (free) and discover your burnout level—from Poblano Level 1 (a little heat) to Ghost Pepper Level 5 (you’re so hot, you’re not). You’ll unlock the Assessment Pack just for your burnout type so you can identify your exact roots to burnout. Take the quiz here →
https://energize.whittingtonwellbeing.com/products/courses/view/1155744
Connect with Amalia Maria Lee: https://www.amaliamarialee.com/
#BurnoutRecovery #SelfCareSeptember #PelvicHealth #StillnessPractice #TraumaInformedCare #WomensWellBeing
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
This September we're focusing onstillness and if you're ready to
take that journey deeper, I'd love for you to grab a copy of
my brand new book, Living Unmasked, An Autistic Woman's
Guide to get into your comfort zone.
You'll get both the e-book and audiobook together for just 999.
(00:21):
It's filled with gentle practices and insights to help
you step into a burnout free, joy filled life.
If you'd like to save $5, grab your special code when you
register for self-care September.
You can find it at Whittington wellbeing.com.
Amalia, I am so excited to have you here.
(00:41):
Welcome to the show. The conversation that you and I
are going to share is one that Ithink needs to happen every day
all over the world. And I think every woman needs to
know this, to hear this. And I'm so thankful to for our
mutual friend Lori and so grateful for her as she
introduced us. And I immediately went, Oh my
(01:04):
gosh, Amalia, we have to have a conversation and share what
you've just told me with the Beyond Chronic Burnell audience
because this is huge when we talk about the root method that
you've developed and teach as a path to safety and sovereignty.
Talk to me about sovereignty andour body literacy and, and and
(01:27):
why the root and safety? Tell me, tell me all the
goodness. OK, of course I will.
I would never hold back. Well, thank you, Carol.
I appreciate it. Carol, Jean.
Carol Jean. And OK, so the root, the root
chakra is where you wanted to start, right?
Like what the importance of thatis the root chakra is our
(01:50):
foundational chakra. You know, energetically we
visualize it at the base of our spine and it is the chakra that
is sensitive to our nervous system.
I like to call it the safety system and our so, our sense of
physical safety and also like abundance and pleasure.
(02:13):
Also our connection to our body,like our ability to have
proprioception, interoception, just our sensory cortex being
well conditioned and able to toggle back and forth between a
high stimulation environment anda low stimulation environment
and be able to turn down the senses when needed and turn up
the senses when needed. And this is all skills and
(02:37):
abilities that relate back to the root chakra.
When we start to falter in theseways, energetically, the root
chakra is it is compromised. And when we think of this from a
spiritual or energetic place, the root chakra is at the
bottom. It is the foundation.
And I have found in my, you know, time not only as a
(03:00):
teacher, but also as a, a learner and a seeker and a
student, that there's a lot of focus on all of these other
things. We want to build our connection
to the spiritual world and our intuition and our voice and our
willpower and, and our heart space.
And, and honestly, none of them can really have like a long
(03:20):
lasting, none of those spaces inour body or mind or personal
development can really hold on to any long lasting development
without a solid functioning route.
And when we think of this from an anatomical place, the root is
our pelvic floor. It is the bottom of our spine.
Our pelvic floor is from tailbone to pubic bone and sits
(03:43):
bone to sits bone. So it's literally exactly our
anatomical root. And it also is just like the
energetic root, incredibly responsive to the nervous
system, a safety system. And so understanding ourselves
on these layers from the anatomical to the energetic and
understanding that physically also the pelvic floor is sort of
(04:06):
this catch all for our patterns,our tissue patterns, our breath
patterns, our thought patterns and how the brain breath tissue
relationship connect is incredibly connected to our root
chakra and also our pelvic floor, which are essentially one
in the same. And it's not like a coincidence,
(04:30):
you know, the the pelvic floor is like one of those things that
we are just becoming more aware of, I think in its integration
with our total health. I think for a long time it just
wasn't touched. And then it was touched as sort
of like a specialty niche. And I was through, you know,
(04:50):
I've been in the industry long enough to be like ride all of
these waves and impressions of the importance of this
relatively small structure in our body.
But the fact is, is that it is at the bottom of our pelvis and
the bottom of our breathing structure.
And therefore every posture, every breath, every movement
pattern bio mechanically, I mean, we're all connected.
(05:11):
So you could say this to an extent about any part of the
body, but the pelvic floor is really high on that list of just
being impacted by our total vitality, our total mental and
physical health. What are some of the the signs
that women come to you with whenthey're saying I something's not
(05:35):
right? Amalia, this is what's going on
with me. So what are some of the big
things that people are usually struggling with or having a
challenge with? OK.
So thank you for asking that question because pelvic floor
issues are sometimes hard to identify #1 because they're not.
People aren't comfortable talking about it.
(05:56):
And also sometimes they don't show up exactly like you don't
have the pelvic floor pain. So pudendal nerve pain,
vaginismus, vulvodynia, these are all pains and tightnesses of
the actual vagina and pelvic floor and then prolapse.
(06:17):
So that's like when the organs start to feel heavy in the body
and start to lose their proper place.
So that sometimes shows up as like feeling a heaviness in in
the pelvic region. Or I've had women say it feels
like I have like a tampon in, but I don't kind of thing.
So just sign of sort of an an obstruction or something does
(06:38):
not quite right. I just did another training over
the last weekend, a hypopressivetraining, which is so cool.
And I would love to share that more about that with you another
day. But I learned a statistic that,
you know, it's varying dependingon the groups, but just how many
women suffer from incontinence, stress incontinence, You know,
(07:02):
like we just think it's normal. Like if you're aging or if you
are a weight lifter or if you are a mother, then you are going
to. And you have, you know, if you
sneeze when you jump or pee or feel urgency from those actions,
that that's just part of being awoman.
And it is, it's not, it is common, but it's not normal in
(07:27):
the sense that we are meant to just accept it as part of our
natural body process. I'm really for accepting our
natural body processes. I'm not one that wants to push
against the aging process and befearful of it.
But also, I think that we have aconcept of aging that is just
not true, You know, that really our concept of aging is just
(07:51):
the, the years and years of the load that we carry
biomechanically and, and chemically, you know, from
stress and from, you know, poor habits that obviously then
create the outcome that we perceive as inevitable from
aging or motherhood or whatever.But it's it's not and and it can
(08:14):
diastasis the spreading a part of the the muscles and the
rectus abdominis. These are all things that most
mainstream medicine will tell you need you need to fix
surgically or is not fixable. And I have seen hundreds and
I've worked with women. So like all the women I know
(08:34):
that have healed women and that's, you know, helped women
heal themselves in that situation, plus all the women I
have helped heal themselves in that situation.
It's thousands upon thousands. I'll tell you, it's absolutely
not true that surgery and, and alot of the time surgery can be a
hindrance because it's not addressing the reason why it
happened. So then the breath pattern, the
(08:56):
postural pattern, the neurological disconnection that
is causing the dysfunction, the prolapse or the incontinence is
still not being addressed. And the surgery can actually
cause more issues. Coupled with the fact that the
root cause, which is, you know, a reason why I created the root
method is to be looking at root causes and looking at these
(09:17):
aspects of, of the root chakra and how they, how they relate to
our total physical and mental Wellness.
But yeah, I mean, in the end, wecan't Band-Aid it.
You know, it, it's, it's definitely changeable.
We can have faith that we can change it.
And also it's not, it's not a quick fist fix where we can hand
our power to someone else and let them do it for us.
(09:39):
It it almost never works. Darn.
No. No it doesn't.
No, and as much as we would wantlike a quick fix to our
discomfort and our suffering, sometimes it's when we invest in
going to the root causational foundation of why all of these
things are are symptomatic in our bodies and in our minds.
(10:04):
And it's so interesting as you're, as you talk about
breath, you know, one of the things that in my research has
been mentioned so often, and I have this conversation on the
regular in, in our autistic and ADHD groups.
And it's, we hold our breath so often and don't even realize it.
And I find that women report this more often to me than men.
(10:24):
And it's like, oh, I, I caught myself and all of a sudden I'll
just go, you know, 'cause I've been holding my breath, trying
to concentrate. And, you know, as I was, as I
was thinking about my own journey, you know, especially
around incontinence, I thought that I didn't have enough muscle
tone in my pelvic region after having children.
(10:44):
So of course, you know, I'm doing all the kegels and all the
things. And come to find out about two
years ago, I was actually hypertensive.
I have, so like I was so tight. It was the reason that I was
having incontinence issues. And when we talk about, you
know, there's so much, you know,you and I talked about this in
the green room, there's so much gatekeeping around our own
bodies, our own health and Wellness as women.
(11:08):
And you know, one of the things in this perimenopause journey
that I've had is all of the research and the conversations
I've been having. And it's we have estrogen
receptors in our shoulder. And that's why we tend when our
estrogen levels are dropping during perimenopause and beyond
that we get diagnosed with frozen shoulder or we have this
hip pain that just won't go away.
(11:28):
And it gets worse during certaintimes in the month, you know,
and that's particularly when your, your estrogen levels and
progesterone levels are dropping.
And it's Oh my goodness, you know, it.
It's not, it's not that I've pulled something.
It's not that I'm over exerting myself.
It's not that I have arthritis. It's simply the root is a drop
(11:50):
in estrogen levels. And so then I have gluteal
tendonitis or tendinopathy, you know, all of these things.
And I as you were talking about how it all ties together and how
everything is all connected. And when we can go back to the
root, what an amazing place thatis, because that brings in that
(12:11):
sovereignty, that brings in thatpersonal power that we so often
as women have given away or leaked out, not even realizing
it. Sure, I, I thank you for
bringing that up because the onething that I forgot to mention
that was on my, in my mental list before I rabbit holed is
(12:32):
that most people with regular hip SI, low back piriformis pain
have pelvic floor issues that are internal hip rotators are
actually directly connected to our pelvic floor that, you know,
so a lot of the time, if it's not a pelvic pain, usually still
(12:54):
we're talking about, you know, pelvic floor is also just fully
integrated with our deep core system.
So, you know, it's understandingthat whole system, the pressure
system of our, our breathing mechanism and our deep core
support. And the way, you know, we, we
have been disempowered because we have taught that health is an
(13:16):
external practice on our end. Like what we can control is our
calories and our our calorie in calories in and out.
You know, like we need to be exercising to, to this end,
which is, you know, different than exercising to learn and
improve our bio mechanics, to continue to Orient and know our
(13:37):
bodies better. It's a very different approach
when you exercise that way. And it doesn't mean that it's
always slow, but like slowness has to be a part of it because
we have to Orient to like what is happening in my body?
What's the mechanics of this movement?
And then, you know, and then intensity is welcome sometimes.
And as far as you know, the hormonal piece it is, you know,
(14:02):
I've, I've seen so much hype around like the, the people over
here bang in their pots and pansaround.
You have to cycle sink, cycle. Sinking is like the key to life.
And then over here it's like, well, it doesn't actually, you
know, have any impact on your ability to build muscle or burn
fat or whatever. And it's all just like a trend.
(14:23):
And, and I, I feel like we're missing the point, which is
that, you know, the point is embodiment, not like the outcome
of it. The point is that we are in tune
with our bodies well enough to say not that, oh, this course
taught me to eat this during this phase and this during that
phase and do this kind of exercise.
Thank you for saying this. This is like the most important
(14:46):
part of this conversation and it's so important and it gets
left out. You are not wrong in that.
And it's, it's not that we're doing the things because that's
usually we're looking for. What do I need to do?
Tell me how to do it and give methe checklist and I'm going to
check it off. And that doesn't serve us.
It's how are we being in alignment?
How are we embodying what it is that we are processing and what
(15:10):
it is that we are experiencing? Oh my gosh, yes.
Yeah, like we, you know, these the courses that will guide you
in what to do during your cycle,that can give you a framework
for maybe what you are looking to notice and match up your
experience to this external framework.
Because we were never handed this wisdom in our rites of
(15:34):
passage the way we were meant to.
Your rites of passage were not just meant to be celebrations
and time where you like, buy things or you know, whatever it
is. Nowadays we we've kind of
abandoned that idea in our culture for the most part.
But if we do think of it, it's like a birthday party or a
wedding and it's a little bit, it's lacking this true rite of
(15:56):
passage energy. And that's when wisdom is passed
and a threshold is crossed and your elders are sharing with you
what they know so that you can now have a framework to do self
exploration. And that is, you know, I think
we really have to take the external information and be able
(16:18):
to match it up to what we are feeling.
Otherwise it's not very helpful to say, well, I should be doing
this at this time in my cycle, so I should have this kind of
energy, this kind of food and this kind of exercise.
But what is your body telling you?
What are you noticing about those signals?
Because you in noticing that there is dissonance, you, you're
also gathering a tremendous amount of important information.
(16:40):
If you realize you're not feeling that surge of energy and
extrovertedness and sexiness andyour estrogen rise, then do you
need to support estrogen? And maybe you don't always need
to rely on, you know, diagnostics and quantification.
Maybe we can just trust our own feelings and our body guidance
sometimes. Yeah.
(17:01):
So I I'm not exactly sure how welanded there, but I could tell
that it meant a lot to both of us.
So I wanted to be that. Thank you.
Because that that truly is when we're, I mean, it is I think the
core of the conversation that you and I are having today,
Amalia. And that is how are we allowing
space and stepping into our personal power to listen to our
(17:27):
intuition, to listen to our bodies, to listen to our higher
selves and to really honor it, not just go, oh, yeah, I hear
you, but I'm not listening to you.
I'm not doing anything about it.Right.
That's Step 2. I think Step 1 is like how to
even know? Like what is the body speaking?
I'm not sure. I haven't slowed down enough or
when I do slow down, I don't know what this bottom up
(17:50):
information is. And that's where the intellect
and the the literacy piece comesin because, you know, first we
can't even get the bottom up information.
We're so numbed out, we're so busy, we're so ignoring.
Then we learned that we need to do that and we get this bottom
up information and it's overwhelming and disconcerting.
And because we don't know what to do with that, because we
(18:12):
don't have the literacy piece, we need to know what these
sensations should be guiding us towards as far as an
exploration, you know, and that is where we are meant to share
wisdom and not gatekeep and learn from one another.
And you know, then you have thispiece where you can actually,
it's actionable. The sensations that you're
feeling will guide you to an action and service to those
(18:33):
feelings. And that is if you operate.
You know, I don't believe that we should be comfortable all the
time or feel really good all thetime.
And some of the best things for us make us really uncomfortable.
But you will know what kind of discomfort you're bumping up
against if you have a regular practice of being with your body
at a baseline. And so we have, we have to get
(18:54):
to know what she feels like at abaseline with no external
disruptions and expectations andpracticing pulling all of that
energy back in. Then when we're pulled away from
it, we have a much more like practiced awareness of what is
this? Is this a discomfort that is a
yes or a no? Is this, you know, like, even
(19:17):
just as simple as like I have a headache and I have a list of
stuff to do? Like, am I going to choose to
abandon myself because I am morecommitted to the list than I am
to my body? So I got to take the ibuprofen
or four and then keep trucking through.
Or am I going to listen? Am I going to stop the stimulus
and hydrate and rest for a moment and do some self massage
(19:41):
to see if I can move the needle on this signal from my body?
And that's like a little thing. But it's those little things
that resource us so that we haveroom for pleasure and we have
room for our dreams. And we have, you know, it's like
room for health. It's vitality.
It's in those little tiny pieces.
Oh, if I only had one of those buttons, I could do that.
(20:04):
Just the whole crowd cheers and goes wild.
I would use it. We can do our poetry slam snaps.
I'm going to do my my ASL celebration.
So Amalia, take us to the creation of the root method.
What? What experience or what happened
(20:25):
in your life that brought you tocreate the roof?
Method well, I, this is a long story that I'm going to make
short because it's really a culmination of, you know, over 2
decades of, of working with women and myself and my own
personal experiences. But I am I've been a Pilates and
(20:46):
a master Pilates trainer for over 20 years.
I've worked a lot with women preand postpartum and, and pelvic
floor has always been a really big interest, especially because
there was a lot of misinformation early in my
career about it. And then my own personal
experience of having a baby and having an emergency C-section.
And this was, you know, like a planned home birth and I had no
(21:08):
desire for medical intervention.And it was, you know, four days
long and super traumatic. And that's another podcast for
another day. And so the birth and like that
was A reckoning for me. The pregnancy was very troubled.
Birth was very troubled. Baby was always fine, but like I
wasn't. This started me on a path of
(21:32):
getting to know my womb in a different way and a less
clinical and intellectual way. Like I knew when I bled, I knew
when I ovulated, I knew how to avoid pregnancy.
I knew how to achieve pregnancy.I got pregnant on the first try
and I thought I was winning. Like I knew my body, but I
didn't really know my body because I was really missing the
self love and reverence piece. I was really missing that piece
(21:56):
that I was like, there's magic in here that I really have to
connect with. And especially my womanhood that
was so like over there on the side.
Like I had real reverence for the pelvic floor and the whole
bio mechanics of the body. And I was already a breathwork
instructor and you know, a holistic healthcare
practitioner, all the things. And it just didn't really ground
(22:19):
down and to like I really realized how much fear and
programming and all of that was in my tissue.
Like for instance, my baby, likemy cervix just wouldn't open
after almost four days. And this just led me on.
I believe it was very much for me and it led me on a personal
(22:39):
journey of really wanting to connect with myself in this way.
And then I think the sort of culmination was that my sister
had a very aggressive form of cancer and died very quickly in
medical care that I thought was like just mind blow.
(23:00):
I just couldn't believe it that they were doing what they were
doing and I couldn't. I didn't have a lot of power in
it. And she was so afraid that she
just was doing what they were telling her to do.
And she died of chemo, not cancer, You know, she died of
chemo and radiation and the, youknow, the cancer didn't even
have a chance. And it really, you know, that
(23:21):
loss and that fear, the fear based decision making and the
disempowerment in that, coupled with all of these years of, you
know, body exploration and self exploration, that's really when
it gelled for me. And this method really had a
(23:44):
name and a true like foundation.And this is really how I have
been teaching for 20 years. But then all of a sudden I was
like, ah, I get it. You know, like now I really have
a point on it. And that is that, you know, our,
our connection to our body and to safety and to pleasure and to
being resourced and to being able to breathe into our whole
(24:07):
cavity and to, to the earth, like all our barriers between US
and nature and how that disruptsour vitality.
Our again, our energetically, chemically, you know,
hormonally, biomechanically, allof these screens and shoes and
(24:27):
waist trainers and compression pants and, you know, just all
the things, even toilets, you know, all of these things are
disrupting our natural intelligent design.
Like we are designed intelligently.
And then we had the hubris of thinking we could improve upon
it, and we've continued to mess it up and.
(24:47):
We somehow think we know better than what's already been
designed. Yeah, it's like there whether
however you want to call God, you know, there is a creative
force that has that has imbued our entire existence from the
cosmos to the microbiome of our gut and the dirt and everything
in between with an order that our minds cannot fathom of.
(25:08):
And if we don't really get on board with that miracle and
think that we can somehow hack and bioengineer our bodies into
an improved form of what we were, how we were designed to
be, we always get whomped. We always have another thing
coming. And so, like, whomped.
Is a good word for that We do. We get whomped.
(25:30):
You know, and it's. Like the Whomping Willow, Harry
Potter always thinking about biggiant tree.
We do. We just get beat with this,
Yeah. We just keep doing it and we get
back up and we can get, you know, knocking ourselves.
Bless our hearts. We can't get.
Back up. Do we do anything?
Again. I, I have a huge respect for
the, the, the human spirit in that way.
(25:51):
And I do see like great hope in that.
And I think that we are wamping ourselves because we have been
handed this model. You know, if we think about kind
of abuse, how it works is that somebody abuses you and then you
kind of take it on yourself in away.
You, you carry those beliefs about yourself.
(26:13):
And that is kind of the relationship we have with the
mainstream culture. It, it was sort of abusive to us
in the beginning when we were developing our neural
connections. And then we started imposing
that same sort of abusive mindset onto ourselves and, and,
and we have to, you know, stop. You know, we connect with that
as though it's part of our belonging and our worth.
(26:35):
And it, it takes a long time to untangle from that sense of
safety. Like if, if we do this, we'll be
safe. If we achieve, we'll be safe.
If we abandoned ourselves, we'llbe safe because we'll be a part
of the rest. And, you know, there is such a,
a, a deprogramming that's involved.
And this is, I believe, really done effectively through body
(26:58):
literacy, because how can we feel our internal guidance
system if we are incredibly numb?
How do we know what the right decision is when we have stopped
letting other people make our decisions?
And that is like a very crazy liminal space to be in.
Like I think you are all all like slave driving us and I
don't believe this mainstream story anymore.
(27:21):
But then like, what do I actually care about?
How do what do I actually like? What is what is purposeful and
meaningful meaningful to me outside of that paradigm there,
you know, like how do you find that?
And that is through body literacy, that is through being
able to pick up on the subtle cues of your body, how the
posture changes, how the heart rate and hormones shift, how the
(27:43):
breath changes in the facial expression.
And there is biomarkers to all of our thoughts, all of our
beliefs. And if we understand that that
posture is actually reinforcing that thought, then as we start
to become more attuned to our postures and breaths, we can
also become more attuned to the what programs we're running and
(28:04):
what we want to replace it with.And then, yeah, then that starts
to bloom within this like guidance of that kind of
guidance from the womb or the gut, that more somatic level of
cognition and decision making. Oh my gosh, yes.
I mean, the unpacking of this and just recognizing that when
(28:30):
we step into this place and thisis one of the most beautiful and
scary places, it feels like there's no solid footing.
When we begin this journey, it feels like there's nothing under
our feet because I don't know who I am, I don't know what I
like. But it's through this journey
and this connecting with our physical body and this this body
(28:53):
literacy that really begins to help us take those steps, those
uncomfortable steps, but in a way that it is through our own
design and intention. So Amal, you talked to us about
the integration of the root intoour hormonal and pelvic health
and that HPA access, OK. Well, I brought this up because
(29:21):
our womanhood, which we've touched on and our unique kind
of setup, is particularly responsive to our safety system.
And that is we are biologically made to be different than men.
And there's a synergy in that that makes biological sense.
So if we think of the polarity of men and women, women are
meant to be more sensitive. We are meant to be closer to the
(29:46):
earth. We're meant to pick up on the
subtle cues. So our receptors are a little
bit more open. We're the dreamers.
We're embodying souls, actually souls, right?
So this is how we create babies,but we're also embodying ideas
creation, right? So we are the macro kind of
energy in the family where we'reconnected to that greater sense,
(30:08):
However, that leaves us more vulnerable.
I know I'm like way over here, but I'll come back soon.
It leaves us, it leaves us more vulnerable, right?
And our our male counterparts are more tolerant of
environmental factors. They're more tolerant of, you
know, adrenal stress and all of these things, right?
(30:28):
So their their system is different than ours.
And most medical studies are notdone with that taken with that
in mind. So when we look at the efficacy
of something of cold plunging offasting of this or that, we are
often not looking at a pool thatrepresents us.
So that, you know, we have to betaking that into consideration
(30:51):
when we're making decisions. And so when we talk about our
pelvic floor and our hormonal health, we are looking at the
bottom of the chain of two very important functions in our body.
So the pelvic floor is at the bottom of the chain of breath.
And if we, for instance, this isjust one of many ideas, but
(31:12):
let's say we believe that we aremore worthy or safer if we have
a flat stomach. So we hold our abdominals in or
we change our posture in a way that makes us look smaller in
the center. And this is kinking our breath
and limiting the, you know, the signals and the dynamic movement
of everything below that muscle tension.
So our digestion suffers and ourpelvic floor suffers.
(31:35):
So that's one idea of how the brain affects the tissue and the
posture and then affects the pelvic floor, right?
So when we are running these stress patterns or these
beliefs, these unworthiness programs, then we are affecting
our pelvic floor in a very biomechanical way.
And the HPA access is the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal
(31:57):
axis. And this is basically the
conversation in your body that'ssaying, OK, what are the
environmental factors? How resourced am I?
Where am I? Adrenals and what can we,
because our, our hormones are made in our adipose tissue, in
our adrenal glands, primarily our sex hormones.
So like we're, you know, we haveto resource these things first
because they keep us safe. So if we're always resourcing
(32:19):
our cortisol and, and our sympathetic nervous system
function, then we have less to give to the hormone bucket
because it's less important, right?
It's, and it also is our body saying, hey, we don't want to
procreate right now. It's not a safe environment.
So it's not a good idea to get pregnant.
And whether or not you want to get pregnant, you want a
(32:40):
hormonal environment that would welcome pregnancy because that
is vitality. And that's really the, the
confluence of these two things, the pelvic floor and the HPA
access are both basically illustrating that they are
indications of vitality. You know, we, we're not going to
(33:00):
have good pelvic floor function and we are not going to have
good hormonal function if we arenot tending to the whole.
And when we are feeling, you know, compromised in those
areas, it is a, it's not something that we can zero in on
and say I'm going to fix my hormones or I'm going to fix my
(33:20):
pelvic floor and box. Check the self-care.
I'm not sure if we were on or off air when we were talking
about this, but this is about embodiment, right?
This is about being able to feelwhat is needed to be able to
slow down and tend to the globalneeds of the body in order for
these systems to be working optimally.
(33:41):
And, and of course also the hormonal health is affecting the
pelvic floor health because of the, the tissues of the pelvic
floor are tremendously affected by proper hormone level.
So it's all connected and it's basically asking us to as women
to really reorient to what we think about our bodies, how
important our well-being is. And that's why I think so many
(34:03):
of us have symptoms in this area, because it's a, it's like
a collective time of consciousness upgrade and
revolution. Yes, I mean, there's just,
there's so much that I've got like whiz popping in my brain
that I that I am agreeing with so wholeheartedly and so many
things that are also just connecting even deeper for me on
(34:27):
my end. You know, I think one of the
things that that is so importantaround what we're talking about,
not just, you know, the sovereignty and the embodiment
of ourselves in our feminine energy and then our femaleness.
(34:48):
It's the slowing down. It's this allowing space when we
have been in this fight or flight and we have been in
survival mode as specifically aswomen and have been in burnout
for so long. So the cascade of the system
wide impact of that long term chronic stress and burnout has
(35:13):
really wreaked havoc on our physical body and in our mind.
And we have gotten into the habit, this habituated state of
constantly being on, always being.
What do I check the box? How do I make sure everyone
around me is OK so that I can beOK?
Make sure everything is done, everything is taken care of.
Because then maybe I've earned enough that I can give myself
(35:37):
maybe 5 minutes just to sit. And I think one of the things
that you do that is so beautifulis to create a space and invite
people in to begin to experiencethe stillness.
And how do we begin to do that? Well, I think that what you said
(36:02):
is very resonant. I think that that's such a
relatable state of mind because somehow in abandoning ourselves,
we have been taught that that isour greatest worth and our
greatest service. And the first thing that I like
to to remind women that I work with is that your body is an
(36:22):
Oracle. It's not malfunctioning.
It's not a car that has a brokenpart that you need to replace or
fix. It is guiding you.
It is showing you exactly what you need to be looking at.
And so you can trust it. You don't have to be an
adversary with it when it's telling you like that you need
to rest. It's not betraying you when you
need more energy to do more things.
(36:43):
But then we get to the space where we need we OK, we know we
value rest, but we're so uncomfortable there.
And you know, most people reallydon't like rest unless they're
ping ponging, ponging between hyper and hypo nervous system
states. And it's not real rest, right?
A lot of people rest with wine and pizza and Netflix because
(37:05):
they need to go into some sort of hole to recoup from the
prolonged sympathetic state. And So what I like to do is
encourage this very incremental self tending system, which is
anything non goal oriented without tech, without, you know,
(37:29):
without like anyone else really.I'm a guided meditation on on
airplane mode or some music or whatever.
But basically, get on the floor with your massage balls and your
foam roller or your guided meditation, or go on a walk with
no tech and no shoes. And the root method has a lot of
(37:53):
actual self exploration frameworks.
So what to do? Because we need sometimes a
framework to start with. And then I always tell people
like, once you start doing this,you're not going to need it
anymore, right? Or you're going to love it so
much. It will, you know, you won't
need me in your ear because it'sin your body.
But a lot of the time when I suggest this time with self this
(38:15):
tending, there is a reaction of like, it's boring.
I don't have time for it or it'sscary.
I've heard that more than I I ever thought I would, that it's
like, oh, that sounds scary, especially because I also asked
women to confront their bodies, like look at your body and touch
your body. And that's just like woo, like
(38:38):
so far away. So we have to do it in
increments for some people. But basically, you know, I have
an offering weekly where women, we, we, you know, we do movement
and breath and we do it in a waythat really teaches you about
your own body and gives you a reason and a biomechanical and
(38:59):
energetic reason for a movement and how to calibrate it to your
needs. And, you know, honoring the
different, you know, places you might be in your, you know, in
your life or in your cycle, and then, you know, Ioffer courses
and stuff and one-on-one work, all of those things, especially,
you know, around body letter St.pelvic health.
(39:23):
But this is really like you don't need me.
You know, I'm here and and we all need somebody sometimes.
And then community is an incredibly important part of our
healing and of making all of this make sense.
We have to re cultivate that belonging when we start
orienting inward and guiding ourselves from within, then
(39:44):
where's that new group of resonant people of, of guides
and sisters, right? That's super important.
I also have a free women's circle that I do monthly for
that reason. And and we just have a speaker
speak their downloads and their,you know, wisdom to the group
and then we share around that subject.
(40:05):
And my point is really. All you really have to do is
carve out time and even if you have to put it in your iPhone
calendar as a reoccurring appointment with self.
We have to cultivate a relationship with ourselves just
like we would anybody we love. Like we cannot advocate for
ourselves if we don't know ourselves.
(40:27):
We can't be known by anybody if we don't know ourselves.
And when I think about like me as a mother, like how do I build
relationship with my child? I spend time with him, I get to
know him. I know this details, you know, I
know every inch of my partner's body and my child's body.
And, and, and it's amazing to methat women wouldn't want to know
(40:50):
their own body on that intimate level.
But we've been taught to be so afraid.
So that first layer is just believing in yourself, believing
in your power and removing shameand fear and starting to build
relationship with your, with your senses, with your
sensuality and your and your body.
Oh man, that just the smile thatis on my face.
(41:15):
You know right now, if you are joining us, if you have been
listening to this conversation and it is really speaking to you
right now, you can give yourselfpermission to do this.
Give yourself permission to begin your relationship with
yourself and to prioritize that relationship as you build it.
(41:40):
So Malia, I know that you have some really beautiful breath
work instructions and practices to help us get started.
Would you mind sharing one of those with us?
Sure. Yes, I would love to.
So what I'm going to share with you guys today is we're going to
blend 2 breath practices like move 1 from 1 seamlessly to the
(42:04):
next. We'll go a little bit faster
than we usually would, but theseare also free resources that I
would be happy to link for anyone who wants a kind of a
slower dive into it. So we begin with intelligent
design breath and that is very simple.
This is just breathing the way we were designed to breathe
without any additional like imperative, like we're not
(42:25):
trying to be fast or slow or big, but just feel how we're
designed. And I am guiding you through the
anatomical visualization so thatwe can start to feel these
structures and how they work together.
Because a lot of people don't know how they are designed to
breathe. And so then when they maybe
receive some misinformation, they can embody it quickly.
(42:46):
Like I was told earlier in my career that you're supposed to
hold your abdominals in because it's good for your posture.
And the abdominals are reflexive.
They don't need you to decide tohold them in.
They, if they're functioning properly, they turn on to the
degree that they need to when they're called upon.
Therefore, you don't have to hold tension in your abdominals
(43:07):
for your posture, just like no other animal has to do that,
right? But if we don't really know how
we're designed and how we're made, we are more subject to
misinformation, right? So we start with just feeling
what it feels like to breathe into an unobstructed vessel,
have some basic visualizations of what's happening.
(43:30):
And then we will add a pelvic floor activation.
And just so that I don't have tolike dive into the intellectual
part during it, I will just offer this now that the the
pelvic floor activation is designed to really bring your
attention to the relaxation and the spaciousness of the pelvic
floor as much as it is the lift and activation.
(43:53):
And we're going to do a little prep here.
I would like everyone to do a Kegel right now.
Do a Kegel, feel it in your body, feel the space around your
vagina and feel the space in thelower abdomen.
OK. And then I want you to relax.
Now notice you can still breatheeven while you're doing a Kegel.
OK, So we might forget that we can hold some integrity in those
(44:14):
muscles and also breathe. So please do so.
Now, most people experience a kegel, something like this.
This is a vaginal opening. This is the kegel.
It's sort of a clamping or a shutting down in a tightening.
And instead what I want us to try to do is more of this like a
lift, like you're just grabbing a little cotton ball or a little
(44:36):
rosebud and you're drawing it upto the center of your body.
So now I want you to try to activate in that way you feel
the all the tissue around your vulva softening and then as you
exhale, it's just wrapping up a little bit and lifting to the
center of your body like you're trying to bring it up into the
womb space. I want you to hold that for a
(44:58):
moment while still breathing andnotice any difference you're
cultivating between this and that vaginal clamping that most
women do in a Kegel and just feel the lower abdominals and
how there's a Co activation there and maybe a little bit
more of a functional 1, less rigid and then you can relax.
So I am going to continue to visually guide, but I want to
(45:21):
make that distinction that the, the pelvic floor activation is
not a not a fist, not a clamp, not a tightening.
And it's like a, a sparkle, a turn on.
You are allowed to be turned on in this breath.
OK, permission granted. Please get turned on.
OK, starting with intelligent design breath.
We're just going to think about our structure, our Dome stacking
(45:44):
the top of our head, our respiratory diaphragm and rib
cage, our pelvis and pelvic floor.
So these are all aligned. We tend to move out of this
alignment. So if you need a wall or, you
know, just find that space whereit feels easy to breathe into
all sides of the body and there's not a lot of tension.
(46:05):
And we're just going to notice the air moving in through the
nose and into the back of the throat.
Just notice the coolness and thequality of the air so that you
start tuning into your senses and your subtleties, letting
your mind's eye watch the air move.
So eyes closed and watch the pathway of air in through the
nose into the back of the throat, into the lungs and the
(46:29):
lungs expand 360 and as they do,the rib cage also expands 360.
So if you are a person that tends to breathe up into the
shoulders and chest, see if you can feel the breath press into
the space between the shoulder blades.
(46:53):
See if you can feel the lateral movement of your rib cage.
You can even place your hands right on your ribs and feel them
broaden and then feel them come close to the center line as you
exhale. And so some of this may not be
(47:14):
available, but we are picturing it so that we can guide our
tissue and our structure to moreoptimal functional breathing.
So now place your hand on your diaphragm.
It's that space where the ribs split our solar plexus.
And while you breathe, just notice what's happening under
your hand. And I'm now asking you to make
(47:40):
space in the back of your throatas you inhale, noticing that as
you open up the back of the throat, that Dome creates more
space for the Dome of the diaphragm to also move more
dynamically. So constricting the throat is
going to constrict the diaphragm, opening the throat.
(48:03):
Tongue on the roof of the mouth,so mouth is closed but the back
of the throat is open. And then you can place your
hands down on your waist or lower back, anywhere in the
trunk of the body. And just notice that the inhale
also expands here because we areone pressure system.
So the ribs expand, but also thetissue of the back and the belly
(48:27):
and even the pelvis expand. And then bringing the awareness
to the pelvic bones, you can place your hand on the pelvic
bones and inhale. They broaden a bit and then
(48:49):
either with your mind's eye or your hands, you can pay
attention or touch your sits bones or your pelvic floor, the
space between your sits bones, tailbone and pubic bone.
And notice that on the inhale there is a broadening of that
space and the pelvic floor is mirroring the diaphragm.
(49:10):
So it draws down to on the exhale, it relaxes up the body.
So now we can picture that the inhale is broadening us from rib
cage and spine and pelvis. And then the exhale, as the ribs
glide in, the domes lift and there's a growing, the spine
(49:34):
lengthens a bit on the inhale webrought in.
On the exhale, the domes rise, the pelvic floor and diaphragm
and the top of our head lifts just a little bit because we
grow taller just a little bit. So that's the intelligent design
(49:54):
breathing that is not adding an engagement, but just feeling the
movement of the air and in the body.
And now we'll bring all of our attention down to the pelvic
floor. And you can put your hand on
your pelvic floor. You can lie on your back or be
in hands and knees or child's pose, anything that will help
you bring attention to that space between them.
(50:14):
Tailbone, pubic bone and sits bones.
And you're just feeling that inhale like a blooming rose.
So I want you to really feel theopening of that space and the
appropriate pressure and then exhale.
I want you to imagine wrapping up that tissue a bit and lifting
(50:37):
it up to the center of your body.
So it's like you brought that rosebud up to the dark earth
space of the womb and then inhale.
It moves down through the vaginal canal and opens and
blooms and then exhale. There's a wrap, a hug, and a
lift, and you can pause in that exhale just for a moment and
(51:00):
feel that kind of sparkly turn on.
It's not tight or rigid or bearing down.
It's a delicious sparkly feeling.
And then inhale, feel the bloom and open.
And this is just as valuable andimportant as the activation.
So really try to feel into that space.
Exhale, wrapping that rose back into its bud and lifting up up,
(51:24):
up to the center of your body. Inhale one more bloom and
exhale, lift and just pause in that lift for a moment.
Let it feel good. And then just return to your
(51:47):
easy breath and return to the space when you feel ready.
I felt so much more expansion and softness in that pulling up.
(52:12):
It was just this very, it was like liquid movement.
It was this sort of sparkling gold and it was this really
warm, like more melted chocolate, you know, like this
really delicious, gentle movement that I have not
experienced in that way. I thank you so much for that.
(52:38):
You're so welcome yes, that kindof gliding warm honey thing that
you're talking about that's alsoin service to the nature of our
healthy tissue. That's how our healthy tissue
works. It slides and glides and is
super hydrated and like smooshy feeling right.
So that's that quality that you're sensing in the breath is
(53:00):
really helping to nourish the tissue to, to be that way.
Oh, that is so huge. And this someone with a
connective tissue disorder that is something that my body has
not had space and permission andand my mind hasn't allowed my
(53:21):
body to experience that. And to have that experience
today in this degree has just been so elegant.
For lack of any other word, thatwas just elegant.
I think that's just you tuning into the intelligent design of
your body. You know, that's, that's the
beauty of it is that we are so elegantly, gracefully designed.
(53:45):
You know it. We have been taught to believe
that our body requires so much override and aggression in order
to for it to be right, that all of our body guidance is like
leading us to ruin and and that we're inherently lazy beings
that, you know, it's, it's a very different paradigm.
(54:07):
So when we start to tune into this like elegance and
intelligence and the kind of miracle that is each cell and
it's each directive and start toreally believe and feel that,
then all of these little issues that we feel are like whack A
mole start to resolve and all feel connected.
And so you can always be in service to all of these things
(54:30):
just in one practice, just in one, you know, nourishing,
vitality oriented way of living.Oh, thank you so much for the
gift of your knowledge today, your zone of genius, your heart,
and for this practice that you've shared with us.
I'm going to have a link to Amalia Marie lee.com down in the
(54:54):
show notes. Make sure you go look at all the
amazing offerings that Amalia has from her weekly class to her
courses and her one-on-one work.There's so much that she offers.
And this root method is truly just life giving.
It is truly where we step into our feminine personal power and
(55:16):
it is one of the restorative elements to an option maximum
steady state. Thank you so much for joining us
today. Be sure you tune in next week as
we go even deeper, how do we begin to flourish forward?
Take care, everybody. Thanks for being here.
It's been quite all right. Energy mastery, Let's turn the
(55:39):
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(56:02):
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This September we're focusing onstillness and if you're ready to
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my brand new book, Living Unmasked, An Autistic Woman's
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You'll get both the e-book and audiobook together for just 999.
(00:21):
It's filled with gentle practices and insights to help
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If you'd like to save $5, grab your special code when you
register for self-care September.
You can find it at Whittington wellbeing.com.
Amalia, I am so excited to have you here.
(00:41):
Welcome to the show. The conversation that you and I
are going to share is one that Ithink needs to happen every day
all over the world. And I think every woman needs to
know this, to hear this. And I'm so thankful to for our
mutual friend Lori and so grateful for her as she
introduced us. And I immediately went, Oh my
(01:04):
gosh, Amalia, we have to have a conversation and share what
you've just told me with the Beyond Chronic Burnell audience
because this is huge when we talk about the root method that
you've developed and teach as a path to safety and sovereignty.
Talk to me about sovereignty andour body literacy and, and and
(01:27):
why the root and safety? Tell me, tell me all the
goodness. OK, of course I will.
I would never hold back. Well, thank you, Carol.
I appreciate it. Carol, Jean.
Carol Jean. And OK, so the root, the root
chakra is where you wanted to start, right?
Like what the importance of thatis the root chakra is our
(01:50):
foundational chakra. You know, energetically we
visualize it at the base of our spine and it is the chakra that
is sensitive to our nervous system.
I like to call it the safety system and our so, our sense of
physical safety and also like abundance and pleasure.
(02:13):
Also our connection to our body,like our ability to have
proprioception, interoception, just our sensory cortex being
well conditioned and able to toggle back and forth between a
high stimulation environment anda low stimulation environment
and be able to turn down the senses when needed and turn up
the senses when needed. And this is all skills and
(02:37):
abilities that relate back to the root chakra.
When we start to falter in theseways, energetically, the root
chakra is it is compromised. And when we think of this from a
spiritual or energetic place, the root chakra is at the
bottom. It is the foundation.
And I have found in my, you know, time not only as a
(03:00):
teacher, but also as a, a learner and a seeker and a
student, that there's a lot of focus on all of these other
things. We want to build our connection
to the spiritual world and our intuition and our voice and our
willpower and, and our heart space.
And, and honestly, none of them can really have like a long
(03:20):
lasting, none of those spaces inour body or mind or personal
development can really hold on to any long lasting development
without a solid functioning route.
And when we think of this from an anatomical place, the root is
our pelvic floor. It is the bottom of our spine.
Our pelvic floor is from tailbone to pubic bone and sits
(03:43):
bone to sits bone. So it's literally exactly our
anatomical root. And it also is just like the
energetic root, incredibly responsive to the nervous
system, a safety system. And so understanding ourselves
on these layers from the anatomical to the energetic and
understanding that physically also the pelvic floor is sort of
(04:06):
this catch all for our patterns,our tissue patterns, our breath
patterns, our thought patterns and how the brain breath tissue
relationship connect is incredibly connected to our root
chakra and also our pelvic floor, which are essentially one
in the same. And it's not like a coincidence,
(04:30):
you know, the the pelvic floor is like one of those things that
we are just becoming more aware of, I think in its integration
with our total health. I think for a long time it just
wasn't touched. And then it was touched as sort
of like a specialty niche. And I was through, you know,
(04:50):
I've been in the industry long enough to be like ride all of
these waves and impressions of the importance of this
relatively small structure in our body.
But the fact is, is that it is at the bottom of our pelvis and
the bottom of our breathing structure.
And therefore every posture, every breath, every movement
pattern bio mechanically, I mean, we're all connected.
(05:11):
So you could say this to an extent about any part of the
body, but the pelvic floor is really high on that list of just
being impacted by our total vitality, our total mental and
physical health. What are some of the the signs
that women come to you with whenthey're saying I something's not
(05:35):
right? Amalia, this is what's going on
with me. So what are some of the big
things that people are usually struggling with or having a
challenge with? OK.
So thank you for asking that question because pelvic floor
issues are sometimes hard to identify #1 because they're not.
People aren't comfortable talking about it.
(05:56):
And also sometimes they don't show up exactly like you don't
have the pelvic floor pain. So pudendal nerve pain,
vaginismus, vulvodynia, these are all pains and tightnesses of
the actual vagina and pelvic floor and then prolapse.
(06:17):
So that's like when the organs start to feel heavy in the body
and start to lose their proper place.
So that sometimes shows up as like feeling a heaviness in in
the pelvic region. Or I've had women say it feels
like I have like a tampon in, but I don't kind of thing.
So just sign of sort of an an obstruction or something does
(06:38):
not quite right. I just did another training over
the last weekend, a hypopressivetraining, which is so cool.
And I would love to share that more about that with you another
day. But I learned a statistic that,
you know, it's varying dependingon the groups, but just how many
women suffer from incontinence, stress incontinence, You know,
(07:02):
like we just think it's normal. Like if you're aging or if you
are a weight lifter or if you are a mother, then you are going
to. And you have, you know, if you
sneeze when you jump or pee or feel urgency from those actions,
that that's just part of being awoman.
And it is, it's not, it is common, but it's not normal in
(07:27):
the sense that we are meant to just accept it as part of our
natural body process. I'm really for accepting our
natural body processes. I'm not one that wants to push
against the aging process and befearful of it.
But also, I think that we have aconcept of aging that is just
not true, You know, that really our concept of aging is just
(07:51):
the, the years and years of the load that we carry
biomechanically and, and chemically, you know, from
stress and from, you know, poor habits that obviously then
create the outcome that we perceive as inevitable from
aging or motherhood or whatever.But it's it's not and and it can
(08:14):
diastasis the spreading a part of the the muscles and the
rectus abdominis. These are all things that most
mainstream medicine will tell you need you need to fix
surgically or is not fixable. And I have seen hundreds and
I've worked with women. So like all the women I know
(08:34):
that have healed women and that's, you know, helped women
heal themselves in that situation, plus all the women I
have helped heal themselves in that situation.
It's thousands upon thousands. I'll tell you, it's absolutely
not true that surgery and, and alot of the time surgery can be a
hindrance because it's not addressing the reason why it
happened. So then the breath pattern, the
(08:56):
postural pattern, the neurological disconnection that
is causing the dysfunction, the prolapse or the incontinence is
still not being addressed. And the surgery can actually
cause more issues. Coupled with the fact that the
root cause, which is, you know, a reason why I created the root
method is to be looking at root causes and looking at these
(09:17):
aspects of, of the root chakra and how they, how they relate to
our total physical and mental Wellness.
But yeah, I mean, in the end, wecan't Band-Aid it.
You know, it, it's, it's definitely changeable.
We can have faith that we can change it.
And also it's not, it's not a quick fist fix where we can hand
our power to someone else and let them do it for us.
(09:39):
It it almost never works. Darn.
No. No it doesn't.
No, and as much as we would wantlike a quick fix to our
discomfort and our suffering, sometimes it's when we invest in
going to the root causational foundation of why all of these
things are are symptomatic in our bodies and in our minds.
(10:04):
And it's so interesting as you're, as you talk about
breath, you know, one of the things that in my research has
been mentioned so often, and I have this conversation on the
regular in, in our autistic and ADHD groups.
And it's, we hold our breath so often and don't even realize it.
And I find that women report this more often to me than men.
(10:24):
And it's like, oh, I, I caught myself and all of a sudden I'll
just go, you know, 'cause I've been holding my breath, trying
to concentrate. And, you know, as I was, as I
was thinking about my own journey, you know, especially
around incontinence, I thought that I didn't have enough muscle
tone in my pelvic region after having children.
(10:44):
So of course, you know, I'm doing all the kegels and all the
things. And come to find out about two
years ago, I was actually hypertensive.
I have, so like I was so tight. It was the reason that I was
having incontinence issues. And when we talk about, you
know, there's so much, you know,you and I talked about this in
the green room, there's so much gatekeeping around our own
bodies, our own health and Wellness as women.
(11:08):
And you know, one of the things in this perimenopause journey
that I've had is all of the research and the conversations
I've been having. And it's we have estrogen
receptors in our shoulder. And that's why we tend when our
estrogen levels are dropping during perimenopause and beyond
that we get diagnosed with frozen shoulder or we have this
hip pain that just won't go away.
(11:28):
And it gets worse during certaintimes in the month, you know,
and that's particularly when your, your estrogen levels and
progesterone levels are dropping.
And it's Oh my goodness, you know, it.
It's not, it's not that I've pulled something.
It's not that I'm over exerting myself.
It's not that I have arthritis. It's simply the root is a drop
(11:50):
in estrogen levels. And so then I have gluteal
tendonitis or tendinopathy, you know, all of these things.
And I as you were talking about how it all ties together and how
everything is all connected. And when we can go back to the
root, what an amazing place thatis, because that brings in that
(12:11):
sovereignty, that brings in thatpersonal power that we so often
as women have given away or leaked out, not even realizing
it. Sure, I, I thank you for
bringing that up because the onething that I forgot to mention
that was on my, in my mental list before I rabbit holed is
(12:32):
that most people with regular hip SI, low back piriformis pain
have pelvic floor issues that are internal hip rotators are
actually directly connected to our pelvic floor that, you know,
so a lot of the time, if it's not a pelvic pain, usually still
(12:54):
we're talking about, you know, pelvic floor is also just fully
integrated with our deep core system.
So, you know, it's understandingthat whole system, the pressure
system of our, our breathing mechanism and our deep core
support. And the way, you know, we, we
have been disempowered because we have taught that health is an
(13:16):
external practice on our end. Like what we can control is our
calories and our our calorie in calories in and out.
You know, like we need to be exercising to, to this end,
which is, you know, different than exercising to learn and
improve our bio mechanics, to continue to Orient and know our
(13:37):
bodies better. It's a very different approach
when you exercise that way. And it doesn't mean that it's
always slow, but like slowness has to be a part of it because
we have to Orient to like what is happening in my body?
What's the mechanics of this movement?
And then, you know, and then intensity is welcome sometimes.
And as far as you know, the hormonal piece it is, you know,
(14:02):
I've, I've seen so much hype around like the, the people over
here bang in their pots and pansaround.
You have to cycle sink, cycle. Sinking is like the key to life.
And then over here it's like, well, it doesn't actually, you
know, have any impact on your ability to build muscle or burn
fat or whatever. And it's all just like a trend.
(14:23):
And, and I, I feel like we're missing the point, which is
that, you know, the point is embodiment, not like the outcome
of it. The point is that we are in tune
with our bodies well enough to say not that, oh, this course
taught me to eat this during this phase and this during that
phase and do this kind of exercise.
Thank you for saying this. This is like the most important
(14:46):
part of this conversation and it's so important and it gets
left out. You are not wrong in that.
And it's, it's not that we're doing the things because that's
usually we're looking for. What do I need to do?
Tell me how to do it and give methe checklist and I'm going to
check it off. And that doesn't serve us.
It's how are we being in alignment?
How are we embodying what it is that we are processing and what
(15:10):
it is that we are experiencing? Oh my gosh, yes.
Yeah, like we, you know, these the courses that will guide you
in what to do during your cycle,that can give you a framework
for maybe what you are looking to notice and match up your
experience to this external framework.
Because we were never handed this wisdom in our rites of
(15:34):
passage the way we were meant to.
Your rites of passage were not just meant to be celebrations
and time where you like, buy things or you know, whatever it
is. Nowadays we we've kind of
abandoned that idea in our culture for the most part.
But if we do think of it, it's like a birthday party or a
wedding and it's a little bit, it's lacking this true rite of
(15:56):
passage energy. And that's when wisdom is passed
and a threshold is crossed and your elders are sharing with you
what they know so that you can now have a framework to do self
exploration. And that is, you know, I think
we really have to take the external information and be able
(16:18):
to match it up to what we are feeling.
Otherwise it's not very helpful to say, well, I should be doing
this at this time in my cycle, so I should have this kind of
energy, this kind of food and this kind of exercise.
But what is your body telling you?
What are you noticing about those signals?
Because you in noticing that there is dissonance, you, you're
also gathering a tremendous amount of important information.
(16:40):
If you realize you're not feeling that surge of energy and
extrovertedness and sexiness andyour estrogen rise, then do you
need to support estrogen? And maybe you don't always need
to rely on, you know, diagnostics and quantification.
Maybe we can just trust our own feelings and our body guidance
sometimes. Yeah.
(17:01):
So I I'm not exactly sure how welanded there, but I could tell
that it meant a lot to both of us.
So I wanted to be that. Thank you.
Because that that truly is when we're, I mean, it is I think the
core of the conversation that you and I are having today,
Amalia. And that is how are we allowing
space and stepping into our personal power to listen to our
(17:27):
intuition, to listen to our bodies, to listen to our higher
selves and to really honor it, not just go, oh, yeah, I hear
you, but I'm not listening to you.
I'm not doing anything about it.Right.
That's Step 2. I think Step 1 is like how to
even know? Like what is the body speaking?
I'm not sure. I haven't slowed down enough or
when I do slow down, I don't know what this bottom up
(17:50):
information is. And that's where the intellect
and the the literacy piece comesin because, you know, first we
can't even get the bottom up information.
We're so numbed out, we're so busy, we're so ignoring.
Then we learned that we need to do that and we get this bottom
up information and it's overwhelming and disconcerting.
And because we don't know what to do with that, because we
(18:12):
don't have the literacy piece, we need to know what these
sensations should be guiding us towards as far as an
exploration, you know, and that is where we are meant to share
wisdom and not gatekeep and learn from one another.
And you know, then you have thispiece where you can actually,
it's actionable. The sensations that you're
feeling will guide you to an action and service to those
(18:33):
feelings. And that is if you operate.
You know, I don't believe that we should be comfortable all the
time or feel really good all thetime.
And some of the best things for us make us really uncomfortable.
But you will know what kind of discomfort you're bumping up
against if you have a regular practice of being with your body
at a baseline. And so we have, we have to get
(18:54):
to know what she feels like at abaseline with no external
disruptions and expectations andpracticing pulling all of that
energy back in. Then when we're pulled away from
it, we have a much more like practiced awareness of what is
this? Is this a discomfort that is a
yes or a no? Is this, you know, like, even
(19:17):
just as simple as like I have a headache and I have a list of
stuff to do? Like, am I going to choose to
abandon myself because I am morecommitted to the list than I am
to my body? So I got to take the ibuprofen
or four and then keep trucking through.
Or am I going to listen? Am I going to stop the stimulus
and hydrate and rest for a moment and do some self massage
(19:41):
to see if I can move the needle on this signal from my body?
And that's like a little thing. But it's those little things
that resource us so that we haveroom for pleasure and we have
room for our dreams. And we have, you know, it's like
room for health. It's vitality.
It's in those little tiny pieces.
Oh, if I only had one of those buttons, I could do that.
(20:04):
Just the whole crowd cheers and goes wild.
I would use it. We can do our poetry slam snaps.
I'm going to do my my ASL celebration.
So Amalia, take us to the creation of the root method.
What? What experience or what happened
(20:25):
in your life that brought you tocreate the roof?
Method well, I, this is a long story that I'm going to make
short because it's really a culmination of, you know, over 2
decades of, of working with women and myself and my own
personal experiences. But I am I've been a Pilates and
(20:46):
a master Pilates trainer for over 20 years.
I've worked a lot with women preand postpartum and, and pelvic
floor has always been a really big interest, especially because
there was a lot of misinformation early in my
career about it. And then my own personal
experience of having a baby and having an emergency C-section.
And this was, you know, like a planned home birth and I had no
(21:08):
desire for medical intervention.And it was, you know, four days
long and super traumatic. And that's another podcast for
another day. And so the birth and like that
was A reckoning for me. The pregnancy was very troubled.
Birth was very troubled. Baby was always fine, but like I
wasn't. This started me on a path of
(21:32):
getting to know my womb in a different way and a less
clinical and intellectual way. Like I knew when I bled, I knew
when I ovulated, I knew how to avoid pregnancy.
I knew how to achieve pregnancy.I got pregnant on the first try
and I thought I was winning. Like I knew my body, but I
didn't really know my body because I was really missing the
self love and reverence piece. I was really missing that piece
(21:56):
that I was like, there's magic in here that I really have to
connect with. And especially my womanhood that
was so like over there on the side.
Like I had real reverence for the pelvic floor and the whole
bio mechanics of the body. And I was already a breathwork
instructor and you know, a holistic healthcare
practitioner, all the things. And it just didn't really ground
(22:19):
down and to like I really realized how much fear and
programming and all of that was in my tissue.
Like for instance, my baby, likemy cervix just wouldn't open
after almost four days. And this just led me on.
I believe it was very much for me and it led me on a personal
(22:39):
journey of really wanting to connect with myself in this way.
And then I think the sort of culmination was that my sister
had a very aggressive form of cancer and died very quickly in
medical care that I thought was like just mind blow.
(23:00):
I just couldn't believe it that they were doing what they were
doing and I couldn't. I didn't have a lot of power in
it. And she was so afraid that she
just was doing what they were telling her to do.
And she died of chemo, not cancer, You know, she died of
chemo and radiation and the, youknow, the cancer didn't even
have a chance. And it really, you know, that
(23:21):
loss and that fear, the fear based decision making and the
disempowerment in that, coupled with all of these years of, you
know, body exploration and self exploration, that's really when
it gelled for me. And this method really had a
(23:44):
name and a true like foundation.And this is really how I have
been teaching for 20 years. But then all of a sudden I was
like, ah, I get it. You know, like now I really have
a point on it. And that is that, you know, our,
our connection to our body and to safety and to pleasure and to
being resourced and to being able to breathe into our whole
(24:07):
cavity and to, to the earth, like all our barriers between US
and nature and how that disruptsour vitality.
Our again, our energetically, chemically, you know,
hormonally, biomechanically, allof these screens and shoes and
(24:27):
waist trainers and compression pants and, you know, just all
the things, even toilets, you know, all of these things are
disrupting our natural intelligent design.
Like we are designed intelligently.
And then we had the hubris of thinking we could improve upon
it, and we've continued to mess it up and.
(24:47):
We somehow think we know better than what's already been
designed. Yeah, it's like there whether
however you want to call God, you know, there is a creative
force that has that has imbued our entire existence from the
cosmos to the microbiome of our gut and the dirt and everything
in between with an order that our minds cannot fathom of.
(25:08):
And if we don't really get on board with that miracle and
think that we can somehow hack and bioengineer our bodies into
an improved form of what we were, how we were designed to
be, we always get whomped. We always have another thing
coming. And so, like, whomped.
Is a good word for that We do. We get whomped.
(25:30):
You know, and it's. Like the Whomping Willow, Harry
Potter always thinking about biggiant tree.
We do. We just get beat with this,
Yeah. We just keep doing it and we get
back up and we can get, you know, knocking ourselves.
Bless our hearts. We can't get.
Back up. Do we do anything?
Again. I, I have a huge respect for
the, the, the human spirit in that way.
(25:51):
And I do see like great hope in that.
And I think that we are wamping ourselves because we have been
handed this model. You know, if we think about kind
of abuse, how it works is that somebody abuses you and then you
kind of take it on yourself in away.
You, you carry those beliefs about yourself.
(26:13):
And that is kind of the relationship we have with the
mainstream culture. It, it was sort of abusive to us
in the beginning when we were developing our neural
connections. And then we started imposing
that same sort of abusive mindset onto ourselves and, and,
and we have to, you know, stop. You know, we connect with that
as though it's part of our belonging and our worth.
(26:35):
And it, it takes a long time to untangle from that sense of
safety. Like if, if we do this, we'll be
safe. If we achieve, we'll be safe.
If we abandoned ourselves, we'llbe safe because we'll be a part
of the rest. And, you know, there is such a,
a, a deprogramming that's involved.
And this is, I believe, really done effectively through body
(26:58):
literacy, because how can we feel our internal guidance
system if we are incredibly numb?
How do we know what the right decision is when we have stopped
letting other people make our decisions?
And that is like a very crazy liminal space to be in.
Like I think you are all all like slave driving us and I
don't believe this mainstream story anymore.
(27:21):
But then like, what do I actually care about?
How do what do I actually like? What is what is purposeful and
meaningful meaningful to me outside of that paradigm there,
you know, like how do you find that?
And that is through body literacy, that is through being
able to pick up on the subtle cues of your body, how the
posture changes, how the heart rate and hormones shift, how the
(27:43):
breath changes in the facial expression.
And there is biomarkers to all of our thoughts, all of our
beliefs. And if we understand that that
posture is actually reinforcing that thought, then as we start
to become more attuned to our postures and breaths, we can
also become more attuned to the what programs we're running and
(28:04):
what we want to replace it with.And then, yeah, then that starts
to bloom within this like guidance of that kind of
guidance from the womb or the gut, that more somatic level of
cognition and decision making. Oh my gosh, yes.
I mean, the unpacking of this and just recognizing that when
(28:30):
we step into this place and thisis one of the most beautiful and
scary places, it feels like there's no solid footing.
When we begin this journey, it feels like there's nothing under
our feet because I don't know who I am, I don't know what I
like. But it's through this journey
and this connecting with our physical body and this this body
(28:53):
literacy that really begins to help us take those steps, those
uncomfortable steps, but in a way that it is through our own
design and intention. So Amal, you talked to us about
the integration of the root intoour hormonal and pelvic health
and that HPA access, OK. Well, I brought this up because
(29:21):
our womanhood, which we've touched on and our unique kind
of setup, is particularly responsive to our safety system.
And that is we are biologically made to be different than men.
And there's a synergy in that that makes biological sense.
So if we think of the polarity of men and women, women are
meant to be more sensitive. We are meant to be closer to the
(29:46):
earth. We're meant to pick up on the
subtle cues. So our receptors are a little
bit more open. We're the dreamers.
We're embodying souls, actually souls, right?
So this is how we create babies,but we're also embodying ideas
creation, right? So we are the macro kind of
energy in the family where we'reconnected to that greater sense,
(30:08):
However, that leaves us more vulnerable.
I know I'm like way over here, but I'll come back soon.
It leaves us, it leaves us more vulnerable, right?
And our our male counterparts are more tolerant of
environmental factors. They're more tolerant of, you
know, adrenal stress and all of these things, right?
(30:28):
So their their system is different than ours.
And most medical studies are notdone with that taken with that
in mind. So when we look at the efficacy
of something of cold plunging offasting of this or that, we are
often not looking at a pool thatrepresents us.
So that, you know, we have to betaking that into consideration
(30:51):
when we're making decisions. And so when we talk about our
pelvic floor and our hormonal health, we are looking at the
bottom of the chain of two very important functions in our body.
So the pelvic floor is at the bottom of the chain of breath.
And if we, for instance, this isjust one of many ideas, but
(31:12):
let's say we believe that we aremore worthy or safer if we have
a flat stomach. So we hold our abdominals in or
we change our posture in a way that makes us look smaller in
the center. And this is kinking our breath
and limiting the, you know, the signals and the dynamic movement
of everything below that muscle tension.
So our digestion suffers and ourpelvic floor suffers.
(31:35):
So that's one idea of how the brain affects the tissue and the
posture and then affects the pelvic floor, right?
So when we are running these stress patterns or these
beliefs, these unworthiness programs, then we are affecting
our pelvic floor in a very biomechanical way.
And the HPA access is the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal
(31:57):
axis. And this is basically the
conversation in your body that'ssaying, OK, what are the
environmental factors? How resourced am I?
Where am I? Adrenals and what can we,
because our, our hormones are made in our adipose tissue, in
our adrenal glands, primarily our sex hormones.
So like we're, you know, we haveto resource these things first
because they keep us safe. So if we're always resourcing
(32:19):
our cortisol and, and our sympathetic nervous system
function, then we have less to give to the hormone bucket
because it's less important, right?
It's, and it also is our body saying, hey, we don't want to
procreate right now. It's not a safe environment.
So it's not a good idea to get pregnant.
And whether or not you want to get pregnant, you want a
(32:40):
hormonal environment that would welcome pregnancy because that
is vitality. And that's really the, the
confluence of these two things, the pelvic floor and the HPA
access are both basically illustrating that they are
indications of vitality. You know, we, we're not going to
(33:00):
have good pelvic floor function and we are not going to have
good hormonal function if we arenot tending to the whole.
And when we are feeling, you know, compromised in those
areas, it is a, it's not something that we can zero in on
and say I'm going to fix my hormones or I'm going to fix my
(33:20):
pelvic floor and box. Check the self-care.
I'm not sure if we were on or off air when we were talking
about this, but this is about embodiment, right?
This is about being able to feelwhat is needed to be able to
slow down and tend to the globalneeds of the body in order for
these systems to be working optimally.
(33:41):
And, and of course also the hormonal health is affecting the
pelvic floor health because of the, the tissues of the pelvic
floor are tremendously affected by proper hormone level.
So it's all connected and it's basically asking us to as women
to really reorient to what we think about our bodies, how
important our well-being is. And that's why I think so many
(34:03):
of us have symptoms in this area, because it's a, it's like
a collective time of consciousness upgrade and
revolution. Yes, I mean, there's just,
there's so much that I've got like whiz popping in my brain
that I that I am agreeing with so wholeheartedly and so many
things that are also just connecting even deeper for me on
(34:27):
my end. You know, I think one of the
things that that is so importantaround what we're talking about,
not just, you know, the sovereignty and the embodiment
of ourselves in our feminine energy and then our femaleness.
(34:48):
It's the slowing down. It's this allowing space when we
have been in this fight or flight and we have been in
survival mode as specifically aswomen and have been in burnout
for so long. So the cascade of the system
wide impact of that long term chronic stress and burnout has
(35:13):
really wreaked havoc on our physical body and in our mind.
And we have gotten into the habit, this habituated state of
constantly being on, always being.
What do I check the box? How do I make sure everyone
around me is OK so that I can beOK?
Make sure everything is done, everything is taken care of.
Because then maybe I've earned enough that I can give myself
(35:37):
maybe 5 minutes just to sit. And I think one of the things
that you do that is so beautifulis to create a space and invite
people in to begin to experiencethe stillness.
And how do we begin to do that? Well, I think that what you said
(36:02):
is very resonant. I think that that's such a
relatable state of mind because somehow in abandoning ourselves,
we have been taught that that isour greatest worth and our
greatest service. And the first thing that I like
to to remind women that I work with is that your body is an
(36:22):
Oracle. It's not malfunctioning.
It's not a car that has a brokenpart that you need to replace or
fix. It is guiding you.
It is showing you exactly what you need to be looking at.
And so you can trust it. You don't have to be an
adversary with it when it's telling you like that you need
to rest. It's not betraying you when you
need more energy to do more things.
(36:43):
But then we get to the space where we need we OK, we know we
value rest, but we're so uncomfortable there.
And you know, most people reallydon't like rest unless they're
ping ponging, ponging between hyper and hypo nervous system
states. And it's not real rest, right?
A lot of people rest with wine and pizza and Netflix because
(37:05):
they need to go into some sort of hole to recoup from the
prolonged sympathetic state. And So what I like to do is
encourage this very incremental self tending system, which is
anything non goal oriented without tech, without, you know,
(37:29):
without like anyone else really.I'm a guided meditation on on
airplane mode or some music or whatever.
But basically, get on the floor with your massage balls and your
foam roller or your guided meditation, or go on a walk with
no tech and no shoes. And the root method has a lot of
(37:53):
actual self exploration frameworks.
So what to do? Because we need sometimes a
framework to start with. And then I always tell people
like, once you start doing this,you're not going to need it
anymore, right? Or you're going to love it so
much. It will, you know, you won't
need me in your ear because it'sin your body.
But a lot of the time when I suggest this time with self this
(38:15):
tending, there is a reaction of like, it's boring.
I don't have time for it or it'sscary.
I've heard that more than I I ever thought I would, that it's
like, oh, that sounds scary, especially because I also asked
women to confront their bodies, like look at your body and touch
your body. And that's just like woo, like
(38:38):
so far away. So we have to do it in
increments for some people. But basically, you know, I have
an offering weekly where women, we, we, you know, we do movement
and breath and we do it in a waythat really teaches you about
your own body and gives you a reason and a biomechanical and
(38:59):
energetic reason for a movement and how to calibrate it to your
needs. And, you know, honoring the
different, you know, places you might be in your, you know, in
your life or in your cycle, and then, you know, Ioffer courses
and stuff and one-on-one work, all of those things, especially,
you know, around body letter St.pelvic health.
(39:23):
But this is really like you don't need me.
You know, I'm here and and we all need somebody sometimes.
And then community is an incredibly important part of our
healing and of making all of this make sense.
We have to re cultivate that belonging when we start
orienting inward and guiding ourselves from within, then
(39:44):
where's that new group of resonant people of, of guides
and sisters, right? That's super important.
I also have a free women's circle that I do monthly for
that reason. And and we just have a speaker
speak their downloads and their,you know, wisdom to the group
and then we share around that subject.
(40:05):
And my point is really. All you really have to do is
carve out time and even if you have to put it in your iPhone
calendar as a reoccurring appointment with self.
We have to cultivate a relationship with ourselves just
like we would anybody we love. Like we cannot advocate for
ourselves if we don't know ourselves.
(40:27):
We can't be known by anybody if we don't know ourselves.
And when I think about like me as a mother, like how do I build
relationship with my child? I spend time with him, I get to
know him. I know this details, you know, I
know every inch of my partner's body and my child's body.
And, and, and it's amazing to methat women wouldn't want to know
(40:50):
their own body on that intimate level.
But we've been taught to be so afraid.
So that first layer is just believing in yourself, believing
in your power and removing shameand fear and starting to build
relationship with your, with your senses, with your
sensuality and your and your body.
Oh man, that just the smile thatis on my face.
(41:15):
You know right now, if you are joining us, if you have been
listening to this conversation and it is really speaking to you
right now, you can give yourselfpermission to do this.
Give yourself permission to begin your relationship with
yourself and to prioritize that relationship as you build it.
(41:40):
So Malia, I know that you have some really beautiful breath
work instructions and practices to help us get started.
Would you mind sharing one of those with us?
Sure. Yes, I would love to.
So what I'm going to share with you guys today is we're going to
blend 2 breath practices like move 1 from 1 seamlessly to the
(42:04):
next. We'll go a little bit faster
than we usually would, but theseare also free resources that I
would be happy to link for anyone who wants a kind of a
slower dive into it. So we begin with intelligent
design breath and that is very simple.
This is just breathing the way we were designed to breathe
without any additional like imperative, like we're not
(42:25):
trying to be fast or slow or big, but just feel how we're
designed. And I am guiding you through the
anatomical visualization so thatwe can start to feel these
structures and how they work together.
Because a lot of people don't know how they are designed to
breathe. And so then when they maybe
receive some misinformation, they can embody it quickly.
(42:46):
Like I was told earlier in my career that you're supposed to
hold your abdominals in because it's good for your posture.
And the abdominals are reflexive.
They don't need you to decide tohold them in.
They, if they're functioning properly, they turn on to the
degree that they need to when they're called upon.
Therefore, you don't have to hold tension in your abdominals
(43:07):
for your posture, just like no other animal has to do that,
right? But if we don't really know how
we're designed and how we're made, we are more subject to
misinformation, right? So we start with just feeling
what it feels like to breathe into an unobstructed vessel,
have some basic visualizations of what's happening.
(43:30):
And then we will add a pelvic floor activation.
And just so that I don't have tolike dive into the intellectual
part during it, I will just offer this now that the the
pelvic floor activation is designed to really bring your
attention to the relaxation and the spaciousness of the pelvic
floor as much as it is the lift and activation.
(43:53):
And we're going to do a little prep here.
I would like everyone to do a Kegel right now.
Do a Kegel, feel it in your body, feel the space around your
vagina and feel the space in thelower abdomen.
OK. And then I want you to relax.
Now notice you can still breatheeven while you're doing a Kegel.
OK, So we might forget that we can hold some integrity in those
(44:14):
muscles and also breathe. So please do so.
Now, most people experience a kegel, something like this.
This is a vaginal opening. This is the kegel.
It's sort of a clamping or a shutting down in a tightening.
And instead what I want us to try to do is more of this like a
lift, like you're just grabbing a little cotton ball or a little
(44:36):
rosebud and you're drawing it upto the center of your body.
So now I want you to try to activate in that way you feel
the all the tissue around your vulva softening and then as you
exhale, it's just wrapping up a little bit and lifting to the
center of your body like you're trying to bring it up into the
womb space. I want you to hold that for a
(44:58):
moment while still breathing andnotice any difference you're
cultivating between this and that vaginal clamping that most
women do in a Kegel and just feel the lower abdominals and
how there's a Co activation there and maybe a little bit
more of a functional 1, less rigid and then you can relax.
So I am going to continue to visually guide, but I want to
(45:21):
make that distinction that the, the pelvic floor activation is
not a not a fist, not a clamp, not a tightening.
And it's like a, a sparkle, a turn on.
You are allowed to be turned on in this breath.
OK, permission granted. Please get turned on.
OK, starting with intelligent design breath.
We're just going to think about our structure, our Dome stacking
(45:44):
the top of our head, our respiratory diaphragm and rib
cage, our pelvis and pelvic floor.
So these are all aligned. We tend to move out of this
alignment. So if you need a wall or, you
know, just find that space whereit feels easy to breathe into
all sides of the body and there's not a lot of tension.
(46:05):
And we're just going to notice the air moving in through the
nose and into the back of the throat.
Just notice the coolness and thequality of the air so that you
start tuning into your senses and your subtleties, letting
your mind's eye watch the air move.
So eyes closed and watch the pathway of air in through the
nose into the back of the throat, into the lungs and the
(46:29):
lungs expand 360 and as they do,the rib cage also expands 360.
So if you are a person that tends to breathe up into the
shoulders and chest, see if you can feel the breath press into
the space between the shoulder blades.
(46:53):
See if you can feel the lateral movement of your rib cage.
You can even place your hands right on your ribs and feel them
broaden and then feel them come close to the center line as you
exhale. And so some of this may not be
(47:14):
available, but we are picturing it so that we can guide our
tissue and our structure to moreoptimal functional breathing.
So now place your hand on your diaphragm.
It's that space where the ribs split our solar plexus.
And while you breathe, just notice what's happening under
your hand. And I'm now asking you to make
(47:40):
space in the back of your throatas you inhale, noticing that as
you open up the back of the throat, that Dome creates more
space for the Dome of the diaphragm to also move more
dynamically. So constricting the throat is
going to constrict the diaphragm, opening the throat.
(48:03):
Tongue on the roof of the mouth,so mouth is closed but the back
of the throat is open. And then you can place your
hands down on your waist or lower back, anywhere in the
trunk of the body. And just notice that the inhale
also expands here because we areone pressure system.
So the ribs expand, but also thetissue of the back and the belly
(48:27):
and even the pelvis expand. And then bringing the awareness
to the pelvic bones, you can place your hand on the pelvic
bones and inhale. They broaden a bit and then
(48:49):
either with your mind's eye or your hands, you can pay
attention or touch your sits bones or your pelvic floor, the
space between your sits bones, tailbone and pubic bone.
And notice that on the inhale there is a broadening of that
space and the pelvic floor is mirroring the diaphragm.
(49:10):
So it draws down to on the exhale, it relaxes up the body.
So now we can picture that the inhale is broadening us from rib
cage and spine and pelvis. And then the exhale, as the ribs
glide in, the domes lift and there's a growing, the spine
(49:34):
lengthens a bit on the inhale webrought in.
On the exhale, the domes rise, the pelvic floor and diaphragm
and the top of our head lifts just a little bit because we
grow taller just a little bit. So that's the intelligent design
(49:54):
breathing that is not adding an engagement, but just feeling the
movement of the air and in the body.
And now we'll bring all of our attention down to the pelvic
floor. And you can put your hand on
your pelvic floor. You can lie on your back or be
in hands and knees or child's pose, anything that will help
you bring attention to that space between them.
(50:14):
Tailbone, pubic bone and sits bones.
And you're just feeling that inhale like a blooming rose.
So I want you to really feel theopening of that space and the
appropriate pressure and then exhale.
I want you to imagine wrapping up that tissue a bit and lifting
(50:37):
it up to the center of your body.
So it's like you brought that rosebud up to the dark earth
space of the womb and then inhale.
It moves down through the vaginal canal and opens and
blooms and then exhale. There's a wrap, a hug, and a
lift, and you can pause in that exhale just for a moment and
(51:00):
feel that kind of sparkly turn on.
It's not tight or rigid or bearing down.
It's a delicious sparkly feeling.
And then inhale, feel the bloom and open.
And this is just as valuable andimportant as the activation.
So really try to feel into that space.
Exhale, wrapping that rose back into its bud and lifting up up,
(51:24):
up to the center of your body. Inhale one more bloom and
exhale, lift and just pause in that lift for a moment.
Let it feel good. And then just return to your
(51:47):
easy breath and return to the space when you feel ready.
I felt so much more expansion and softness in that pulling up.
(52:12):
It was just this very, it was like liquid movement.
It was this sort of sparkling gold and it was this really
warm, like more melted chocolate, you know, like this
really delicious, gentle movement that I have not
experienced in that way. I thank you so much for that.
(52:38):
You're so welcome yes, that kindof gliding warm honey thing that
you're talking about that's alsoin service to the nature of our
healthy tissue. That's how our healthy tissue
works. It slides and glides and is
super hydrated and like smooshy feeling right.
So that's that quality that you're sensing in the breath is
(53:00):
really helping to nourish the tissue to, to be that way.
Oh, that is so huge. And this someone with a
connective tissue disorder that is something that my body has
not had space and permission andand my mind hasn't allowed my
(53:21):
body to experience that. And to have that experience
today in this degree has just been so elegant.
For lack of any other word, thatwas just elegant.
I think that's just you tuning into the intelligent design of
your body. You know, that's, that's the
beauty of it is that we are so elegantly, gracefully designed.
(53:45):
You know it. We have been taught to believe
that our body requires so much override and aggression in order
to for it to be right, that all of our body guidance is like
leading us to ruin and and that we're inherently lazy beings
that, you know, it's, it's a very different paradigm.
(54:07):
So when we start to tune into this like elegance and
intelligence and the kind of miracle that is each cell and
it's each directive and start toreally believe and feel that,
then all of these little issues that we feel are like whack A
mole start to resolve and all feel connected.
And so you can always be in service to all of these things
(54:30):
just in one practice, just in one, you know, nourishing,
vitality oriented way of living.Oh, thank you so much for the
gift of your knowledge today, your zone of genius, your heart,
and for this practice that you've shared with us.
I'm going to have a link to Amalia Marie lee.com down in the
(54:54):
show notes. Make sure you go look at all the
amazing offerings that Amalia has from her weekly class to her
courses and her one-on-one work.There's so much that she offers.
And this root method is truly just life giving.
It is truly where we step into our feminine personal power and
(55:16):
it is one of the restorative elements to an option maximum
steady state. Thank you so much for joining us
today. Be sure you tune in next week as
we go even deeper, how do we begin to flourish forward?
Take care, everybody. Thanks for being here.
It's been quite all right. Energy mastery, Let's turn the
(55:39):
tide. Top shelf guests dropping wisdom
bombs. Join us next week.
Where the energy's strong beyondcrime and out we're breaking
free podcast pumping full of energy tips and tricks to boost
your fight fast space and fun. You'll feel alive energy
(56:02):
mastery. Come along for the ride behind
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