What you’ll get out of tuning in:

• How do the Body Thrive habits help us to thrive?
• How to find more time in your day.
• How working in a group helps growth.

Links Mentioned in Episode:

• Body Thrive Book
• YHC Have a conversation
• Davina Clauer’s website
• Davina’s Facebook
• Watch the Masterclass NOW

Show Highlights:

• 1:20 – Davina talks to us a bit about her Yoga Health coaching background, how she found Cate and Yogahealer, and where it has led her.
• 6:00 – The addiction to saying ‘I don’t have enough time.’ In reality, with the BT habits we are opening up so much time and space for ourselves and we have the capacity to handle more.
• 12:00- The importance of group dynamics and how accountability helps our exponential growth in life. We don’t have to do it alone!

Favorite Quotes:

• “Your day now flows around the habits instead of being another thing that you have to find time for.” -Davina Clauer
• “The most successful people start before they’re ready.” – Davina Clauer
• “Sometimes we compare ourselves to people who are in chapter 20, or they are in a different book, and we forget that they were on chapter 1 at one point.” -Davina Clauer

Guest Bio:

Davina Clauer is the proud mother of two amazing girls and is really into practicing & teaching Vinyasa Yoga. Her specialized practices are focused on supporting mothers, babies and children through significant moments of life. The techniques used in prenatal and children’s yoga can provide countless benefits for the overall well-being for the entire family. Davina took her first yoga class with her then 6-month-old in 2013 and her life changed forever. This led her to start teaching yoga in 2015 after completing my RYT-200 certification. Towards the end of 2015 Davina’s life was shattered when she suffered a devastating loss of a pregnancy at 11 weeks. She was searching for anything to feel better and decided to turn back to her yoga practice. She was pulled toward the ancient wisdom of Ayurveda to heal herself emotionally and address the physiological cause of her miscarriage. She found Yogahealer and entered into her first Body Thrive during this time, which then lead her on to Yogahealers’ Yoga Health Coaching Course, that she is currently enrolled in.

Davina is now happy to report that after some major changes in lifestyle, she conceived and carried a healthy baby girl who graced us with her presence in Feb. 2017. Since giving birth Davina has been bound and determined to continue down her wellness path and decided that she wants to help others on theirs; she hopes to help people design the healthy life that they deserve to live! Conect with Clauer on her Website and Facebook.

With my daughter, in a state of fatigue never before experienced by my husband and I, we went with the Ferber method (otherwise known as “Cry-It-Out”). And you know what? It worked like a charm! After two nights of crying, that little baby girl figured out how to fall asleep on her own, and slept 13 hours, and has done ever since.

Now my son is a different story. We tried to follow the same path as we had with our girl. He was having none of it. He’d cry for… for.. forever. He’d cry until he fell asleep, and then wake 2 hours later to cry some more. This method just plain didn’t work for him. And it left me feeling devastated.

Let’s talk about why we ‘sleep train’ our kids. Did I want to do it because they were always tired, or cranky, or seeming like they weren’t well rested? No. But my lord that’s exactly how I would’ve described myself in those days!

Halfway through my son’s first year I was a complete train wreck. I walked around with this look on my face – resting bitch face doesn’t even describe it. It was like resting sad and hateful face. From the moment I woke up, I felt painfully overwhelmed. I spent the days waiting for night, and the nights…. just wishing to speed up time and get past this chapter of our lives. The baby took all my energy, and I had zero left for my daughter or my husband, let alone myself.

This lack of self care manifested into anxiety, constant negative thoughts, lack of control. It felt like I was on the edge of a mental breakdown.

The world – my world – revolved around me and my issues. I was so unhappy that it was impossible for my family to be happy. My mental state left me short of patience for my sweet daughter. Expectation after expectation was put upon her to act beyond her years, to help mommy. Fatigue and overwhelm fostered feelings of resentment toward my husband. We fought constantly. Every night was a struggle, which brought him to speak the very clear and very simple statement “I’m tired of hearing you say I’m tired.” And I was tired of it too.

I was in such a lonely place. So out of control, yet, as a mom, needing to be in control of everything.

As I sat in my son’s room that night, not making eye contact with him, just rocking and wishing he’d go back to sleep, and guiltily harboring the blame I put upon him for turning my family upside down, it finally dawned on me. The problem wasn’t them. It was me. I needed to get myself under control. I needed to find a way to get my energy back, no matter what my son was doing. There had to be a better way, because otherwise I was headed down a very dark path.

That was 9 months ago, but it feels like a lifetime. When I took control of my situation, and focused on changing some of my habits, it didn’t matter how often my son woke in the night. I figured out how to care for myself, how to fall asleep easier, and sleep deeper, I stopped struggling to fall back to sleep after each night waking. So here I’m going to share with you four keys changes I made to my sleep habits, that wielded immediate results.

Here’s a hint** it has nothing to do with your baby…

1 – Rest, Don’t Digest

The teachings of Ayurveda explain that our bodies function best when we are in tune with circadian rhythms, or ‘natural cycles of the day’. Part of that natural rhythm is to sleep when the moon is up, be awake when the sun is up, and eat our biggest meal when the sun is highest in the sky. Our digestive fires burn their hottest when the sun is burning it’s brightest, and as the sun sets, our digestive system slows, to give energy to other system functions in the body. Late meals and late nights disturb this cycle and compromise the body’s ability to detox and restore efficiently.

Of course, this is no big deal when it happens on occasion. But when it happens for years, the liver can become congested and the body can build toxicity levels in the fat cells in the brain and throughout the body, leaving us with a groggy, hungover feeling in the morning.

So here’s the tip:

Close your kitchen after dinner. Aim to be finished your meal at least three to four hours before you go to bed. The ideal time to eat is 5:00 – 5:30. See how close to that you can get. Going to bed when the bulk of your digestion has occurred gives your body an opportunity to restore efficiently, and you’ll wake feeling more vibrant and refreshed.

2 – Turn Off The Tech

This is probably no surprise for any of you, that this would be on my list. On the news, in the paper, on your facebook feed – we hear about the effects of screen time at bedtime a ton. And it needs to be said again, especially for moms who hang out in front of a screen during their ‘me time’.

I recently conducted a survey for new moms; Of the 165 women that responded, over 90% said they watch TV or browse social media to “relax” before bed. But here’s the issue with digital devices before dreamtime:

Screens Suppress Melatonin. The blue light emitted by screens on cell phones, computers, tablets, and televisions restrict production of melatonin, the hormone that controls your sleep/wake cycle or circadian rhythm. Reducing melatonin makes it harder to fall and to stay asleep.

Screens Keep Your Brain Alert. It may seem relaxing to unwind or zone out to your favorite movie or show before bed, but it’s keeping your mind engaged, and tricking your brain into thinking that it needs to stay awake. And if you’re reading emails that require a response, seeing something that evokes negative emotion on Facebook or in the news, or just pushing through to the end of this episode because what’s happening is so epic, those experiences can make it hard to relax and settle into sleep. Your mind needs time to unwind.

Poor quality sleep has been linked to obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.

Suppression of melatonin is a proven cause of an increased risk of cancer.

Basically, turn that sh*t off like your life depends on it.

So here’s tip 2:

Turn off your screens at least an hour before bedtime. If you still want an opportunity to zone out from your thoughts, reach for a book instead. Then at least you’re not staring at the blue screen of death. And if you’re having trouble parting ways with your tech, Do like I did and accidentally toss your tablet in the bathtub (That happened. And I was seriously devastated, and then had the best sleep ever. And then never bought a new tablet and never will).

3 – Listen to Your Body

Coming back to Ayurvedic teachings, between 6 and 10pm our energy hormones, adrenaline and cortisol levels, are coming down. If you’re anything like me (which I’m guessing most of you are), you feel a wave of fatigue sweep over you somewhere between 8:30 and 9:30, and sometimes earlier than that.

I used to feel completely wiped at 8pm sometimes. The kids had gone to bed by then, and I’d be just finishing up the evening tasks of tidying or lunch prep.

My brain would say “Oh my gosh I’m exhausted. Can’t wait to lie down and watch my show.” And my body was like “Umm hold up baby mama, did you not get the memo? I’M EXHAUSTED!”

For some reason we feel this need to ‘treat ourselves’ to these things that don’t serve us once the kids have gone to bed. We push down the tired feelings to get in a little more “me time”. We ignore the fatigue until we hit that 9:30 or 10pm second wind, that makes it even harder to fall asleep.

So here’s tip 3:

Pay attention to your body’s signals, and going to bed when your body wants to!

4 – No Talking Dirty!

And by that I mean no slinging mud ladies. The evening hours, from 6-10pm, are a sacred time – Kapha time. This time is best used for cohesiveness, for connection. A time for relaxed conversation, love and laughter. This is NOT the optimal time of day for bringing up your thoughts on your husband’s tendency to leave his wet towel on the bed, or for sitting down to strategize your financial future together.

Having potentially tense conversations at this time of day is likely to lead to an argument or debate, which could leave you feeling wired and tired and unable to calm yourself for a solid night’s sleep.

So here’s tip 4:

Save the budget planning and other more serious conversations for the weekend or daytime. Use the evenings for mini dates with your husband, creative play with the kids, relaxing laughter with a friend. Things that fill us up, without boiling us over.

Somehow ‘TIRED’ becomes a bad word, especially when you’re using it all day like I was. Now, feeling tired is one of my favorite things!

When I start to experience waves of fatigue in the evening, I know that bedtime is coming – and I lean right into it. I now have a bedtime routine that sets the stage for deep, restorative sleep. And it feels sooooo good. Delicious is no longer a word reserved for food. Tiredness is super delicious.

How are you finding rest amongst the chaos of motherhood? Leave your comments below!

And, to find some tips on creating a bedtime routine that works for you, follow me on facebook.

The nagging voice in our head urges us to make another list, to schedule another play date or dinner, to get the laundry done before we head out for the long weekend camping trip. The voice inside our head leads us through a barrage of tasks, stripping us of the joys of spontaneity, yet enticingly defining us as “master multi-taskers”.

We grin and bear it. We post another instagram pic of ourselves in the shirt that says “Goal Digger” or “But first, coffee” or “Run Now, Wine Later” or “BeastMode”, like we have to be balls to the wall 110 percent of the time. Then later we’ll get wasted to forget this hellish day. It’s exhausting just watching this chaos. And we seem completely unaware of how to slow down.

Of course, anyone who is into health & wellness at any level has heard of this one thing that can really help to calm the crazy. This powerful practice, with the immense ability to help us quiet those voices in our heads, and let go of all the things.

Say it with me now – MEDITATION. Yes, yes, that’s the one.

Now you might read this and think a lot of things. You might have a lot of justifications why meditation isn’t your jam. So I’m here to unpack some of your stories for you.

Top 3 Meditation Excuses

1. “Oh ya, nope. Tried it. Didn’t work. Not for me.” – I used this line. Before discovering that – AMAZINGLY – just because you tried something once and didn’t succeed, doesn’t mean you can’t or shouldn’t try, try again! So the day/time/position/method/setting you tested out meditation in didn’t provide the results you were seeking… Lucky for you, there are many many methods of getting out of your head and into your breath (keep reading for a few options).
2. “I’m too busy to meditate” – You know who is huge into meditating? Tony Robbins. Ever heard of him? Massively successful motivational speaker who’s written 4 best selling books, and generally kicks ass every 12-14 hour day spent motivating the masses? Ya that guy finds time to meditate. Know who else meditates every day? Oprah. You know that lady must have a pretty full plate. Knowing that people like them find the time kinda made me feel silly about using this line. We’re not too busy, we just don’t make it a priority (also, I discovered that the “I’m too busy for xyz” line almost always translates to “I’m not making that a priority”).
3. “I can’t stop thinking” – This is a full on message that meditation is what your body sorely needs! Overthinking is merely a habit, just like all the others things we do in a day. But it is 100% possible to retrain your brain to not only settle into silence, but to LOVE it.

There is a zen proverb that says:

“You should sit in meditation for twenty minutes every day – unless you’re too busy; then you should sit for an hour.”

Now, I won’t accept a lot of justification in not having any kind of meditation practice, but oh my goodness I can certainly say with two kids under 5, a full time job, YHC Certification training, starting a business, and writing these beautiful blogs… I do not have 1 hour in which I can place priority on meditation.

Luckily for us there are many beautiful steps on the path to the perfect meditation practice, all of which provide ample benefits.

The Stepping Stones to Your Mindfulness Practice

1. Yoga Nidra Sleep Meditation – There are endless free recordings online to help decompress, quiet your mind, and breathe into all areas of your body, preparing you for restful sleep. This is a great place to start because it doesn’t take any time out of your day. When you’re ready for bed, just pop in your headphones and drift off to peaceville.
2. Guided Morning Meditation – Guided meditations are a beautiful stepping stone to a solid practice. Filled with kind words, generally including some positive affirmations; short guided meditations are great for starting the day right. By listening to the voice of someone else, you can effectively quiet that little voice inside you.
3. Meditating on a Topic – This could otherwise be referred to as brainstorming, but with enhanced intention. Come to your meditation space – this could be the end of your bed, your living room carpet, your backyard, basically anywhere you won’t be disturbed by people or technology – and bring your notebook. Choose your topic (eg; my next blog post, my kid’s birthday party). Sit down and breathe, allowing thoughts on the topic to flow freely. As good ideas come up, break to jot them down so you can expand on them later. As unrelated thoughts come up, just let them go. Just a heads up – you might get insane levels of creative in these sessions.
4. Moving With Mindfulness – Choose a task that you complete without much thought, such as brushing your teeth, doing dishes, folding laundry, eating, or to a certain extent, driving. Now just do that thing, and breathe. This one was mind blowing for me. It is wild how many random, useless, and mostly negative thoughts I had floating around in my head when I actually paid attention to them. Now I’m getting pretty good at moving with mindfulness, catching myself in the thought spiral, and letting it go with a smile.
5. Timed Meditation – starting with 1 minute even. Set your timer so you don’t have to worry about whether you need to get up and check your phone. Just commit to breathing for that one minute. Then go to two. Then 5, and so on.

AND THEN – try going it alone, no guidance, no movement, no timer. And if you’re ready, prepare to receive true bliss.

Do you have a secret to letting go and sitting in silence that wasn’t listed above? We’d love to hear about it. Share in the comments below.

Fall is the season when we really need good habits and routines to keep us grounded and not blown every which way. It’s the perfect time to be heading back into the routine of school and we need that routine to control our wild vata nature.

There is definitely a sharpness and crispness in the air in our house. It’s the second week back to school (we start school in Sept in Canada) and the stress level with my teen-aged girls is causing a lot of sharp words, and blustery emotions.

Getting back into the routine of school, finding that classes are harder this year and dealing with the stress of balancing friends, homework, and extracurricular activities is a lot of pressure. I remember back to their younger days when just the physical aspect of being in school for a full day and dealing with all the friend issues and pleasing a new teacher was exhausting too. It seems there is back to school stress at every age.

• How can you soothe your own back to school nerves so you can have the patience to help them?
• What simple practice will help soothe your kids too?

This is where my favourite habit really shines. In fact, if there is one habit that is most important in the fall it’s this one it truly is the best fall habit for moms and kids. And ironically I find it’s the one my clients have the most resistance to trying. I know it seems weird, trying to sell my teen-aged daughters on this one was hard too – they really thought I was that wacky mom, until they tried it. And now I have one that’s a convert and one that still thinks I’m wacko…

This simple daily practice, once you try it is sheer bliss. It’s pure indulgence and one you will quickly become addicted to. Ok – I’ll end the suspense – the habit is Oil Massage or Abhyanga in Sanskrit. At first it seems totally weird to rub cooking oil on our body, totally not how I was brought up using soap and the frothier the better.  But when you think about it the benefits it makes so much sense.

When we use soap we are stripping away our bodies natural layer of protection, drying out the skin and leaving ourselves vulnerable to infection and whatever else is blowing in the wind or being passed through a handshake. My old routine including soaping up in the shower and then plastering on as much lotion as I could to try and re-hydrate my skin and in my dry climate there was no lotion thick enough that would prevent dry, flaky skin. Plus the long-term effects of layering on para-bens and other substances not meant for our skin was  leading to a toxin build-up in my body.

Since I have switched – and I have to admit it took a long time for me to adopt this habit too. I too thought Cate was wacko to begin with putting oil on my skin seemed like a dirty, messy process. I had that vision of lathering up with baby oil in the 80’s to suntan. However, once I took the plunge and tried it – I was hooked. It takes no longer to spread oil on your body before the shower and wash it off in the shower as it does to lather up in the shower so that’s no excuse. And I no longer have dry skin even though I live in a cold, dry climate.

But that’s not all – the act of rubbing oil on your skin goes far deeper. And the intention you can rub in goes far deeper into your soul than just a few layers of skin. Oil in Sanskrit is Sneha – which also translates into love.

When you rub love onto your skin it becomes a deep, nourishing experience. Every morning when I do this simple act of rubbing my skin with oil infused with essential oils (we’ll get into that later) it becomes my time to look after me. I breathe deep, rub the oil into my legs, my knees and all up my body and while I am doing this I take a moment to check in with how do I feel physically, what’s sore, what’s needing some attention and what can I do that day or in this moment to soothe the soreness, the roughness and the aches?

Then when I get into the shower I get to massage my skin, myself, again. Another moment to just cherish me and who I am in my skin. And loving these moments I make sure to enjoy toweling off too – three massages every morning – how lovely is that? The benefits of oil massage (abhyanga) go way deeper than the skin.

Oil massage is attributed with;

• Improving skin elasticity and firms skin tone
• Minimizing the effects of aging
• Improving Sleep
• Strengthening the Immune System by improving lymphatic flow
• Releasing muscle tension and stiffness
• Toning muscle tissue
• Lubricating joints and increasing range of motion.
• Stimulating digestive organs and other internal organs
• Enhanced vision
• Soothing the nervous system
• Improving mental alertness

Besides helping as adults to connect better to our bodies this is also one of the habits that easily spills over into our family life. This is a way better habit to pass on through the generations instead of stripping our bodies natural defense system with a harsh soap.

Using an invigorating essential oil in the morning helps kids and teens to get up and moving. A calming blend helps them de-stress and let the day go. If they can link the benefit to a good night’s sleep – they will be more inclined to make this a daily habit or even just a treat on the days when they really need help to shut the day off.

Another way to peak their curiosity is to use oils that work to release muscle tension. They see the effects fast on their muscles and really get hooked on the practice. These muscle tension blends work on growth spurt pains too. This practice is great for both girls and boys. A friend of mine can get her teenage son to do abhyanga if he thinks it will help him sleep or improve his sports performance.

Favourite essential oils to add into our massage oil:  

There are many base oils that you can use to massage; sesame, grape seed, coconut, sweet almond, jojoba, sunflower… Basically any oil that you would eat is great to put on your skin. I try to use organic if I can and cold-pressed not heat treated give the most benefits. Check out these tip-sheets for more info on How to do Self-Massage and the Do’s and Don’ts of Self Massage.

Everyone needs a break at this time of year. We need something to soothe us through the rigors of a new routine and to keep us healthy as the season changes. If you have not already tried Oil Massage or made it part of your daily routine then make this a priority to keep you sane, your family well, and to enjoy the deeper connection to yourself and your kids however old they may be.

Love and Light,

Krista Strayer

You get the idea.

So this is my confession; I am a mom who hates to clean! There- I said it.

A month ago my kids made Popsicles out of juice by pouring it into plastic Popsicle makers you buy at Walmart. It was fun and it was messy. When we took one out to eat it, it broke and a little piece of bright purple ice fell to the faux wood linoleum.

I asked my eight year old Oliver to pick it up. Later that day I walked past the site of the Popsicle operation and noticed he had not picked it up. The broken piece was now a bright purple stain dried to the floor. I groaned.

I decided not to clean it up. I would ask him to do it. However, I soon forgot all about it. Days went by and every time I passed the stain, I noticed, but was usually alone in the house. I would make a mental note to ask Oliver to clean it up when he got back home from school, but I never did. Life gets busy. Finally I had enough of this and decided to get a cloth and clean it up, after all, who the hell leaves a juice stain on their floor for days (ok maybe it was weeks who knows?). It’s a simple task Grace. Just get it done.

I began to scrub. It would have been such an easy task if I had done it right away. I started to laugh to myself at the irony laid out in front of me. Bent down sweating in the heat of the summer, I was madly scrubbing this sticky mess of the floor. It didn’t come off easily and as I scrubbed the metaphor started to become clear- me vs the stain. As I scrubbed I noticed that to get the stain off the floor it required friction. Friction, which builds heat, like fire creates change.
Tapas is the Sanskrit word meaning “burning zeal for practice”.

Like many Sanskrit words, there are many meanings or translations. To me it means a repetitive discipline or focus with zest! Building heat and friction through repetition. If you think of heating something up – like an egg it changes the egg entirely. It’s still an egg, but it’s drastically different.

While scrubbing, I realized that in order to remove the stain and create friction, I had to repetitively slide the cloth and my hand back and forth over it. I noticed that I was annoyed, and grew bored and tired. A part of me wanted to just say, “screw it, good enough,” and get up, leaving some of the juice stain behind but I thought – nope, I need to remove this once and for all. Why did this insignificant moment of cleaning – something so small, cause so much contemplation for me?

I often think in metaphors, they help me at times to make sense of life. Today it was the stain. What is this stain revealing or showing me that has a bigger meaning or significance? Making changes in my life, to improve my health and well-being, requires a lot of focus and repetition. I rub the same stains over and over to create change and transformation. These stains are experiences and beliefs I have neglected to take care of and prevent my true self from shining.

I keep coming back to the same thing over and over again asking myself – have you not learned this yet? How many times do we need to revisit this? The truth is, that like the juice stain on the floor, how long it takes to remove a dry sticky, habit or pattern depends on how long it’s been there.

Fast forward to today, as I scrubbed the stove top in our trailer, it hit me again that this was a moment of learning. Standing there doing something I didn’t want to do, I reminded myself to pause and get curious. Was there anything here to be revealed?

I took a step back and became the observer of the situation and my own thoughts/judgments. First I tried a cloth and some water – nope nothing. I stopped for a moment and heard my thoughts “this isn’t going to come off, just give up” and then I looked around – there was a steel wool brush and some soap. So I poured the soap on it and got the brush wet and scrubbed. Would ya look at that, it started to come off. I smiled. I just need to look further, think a little harder and most of all stick to it. As I scrubbed it came off little by little and I felt like I was in a meditation, watching so closely to see if what I was doing was working.

It reminded me a lot of my journey with depression. I have suffered under the weight of my depression since I was 12 and it’s been a heavy burden to bear. I feel sometimes that I am not 33, but rather 103. The days can be so long when depression casts a dark shadow over our will or desire to live our lives, more on this another day…

However, in my search for relief I have felt at times that I have tried it all – to no avail. After finding Cate Stillman and Body Thrive I came to the realization and acceptance that not only do I have to repeat these practices and habits over and over again, but I have to get really clear on why I need them, before I could see real change. I had to notice when what I am doing isn’t working, I need to look around for new support and/or resources. What do others know that I do not? I need to take note of what is working, and what is not. Sometimes I have to throw away the cloth and grab the steel wool brush and scrub a little harder to create enough friction for change to happen.

The medical system never asked me what time I went to bed, or when I ate or what I ate. It never looked at my tongue or my eyes, or my skin. It just looked at the symptoms and tried to alleviate or even suppress them – kind of like pushing down a lump and it popping up somewhere else.

Today I fell in love with scrubbing the stove. The deep level of satisfaction I felt when the stain started to lift and brush away had me beaming inside. I did that. I dedicated my time and energy to cleaning away that which wasn’t serving. Both on the stove and in my life.

I am still scrubbing. It really never stops. I have learned to love to scrub both metaphorically and literally. When I stood at the stove today, I smiled to myself and thought about what this stain is showing me.

Where is there a stain that I have left on the floor in my life or with my health that it’s time to put some attention and elbow grease toward?

Do you have any stains in your life that need a little elbow grease?

Are you needing to change tools to remove this sticky stain from your life?