Get Out of Your Head and Into Your Body with Camille Smith

If you are running in overdrive, need to calm the mental noise and/or get centered in the driver seat of your life or business - this episode is for you.

Your body has wisdom that can tell you exactly when you need to get quiet, take a beat, make a change, go forward and more… Our body and heart are talking to us all the time - the question is are we listening?

My friend Camille Smith joins us again today.  She is the owner and founder of Restoration Yoga: yoga that helps foster emotional and physical healing. Her passion is helping women overcome anxiety, stress and depression through the healing power of yoga and meditation.

Camille is a fellow hyper-achiever who discovered yoga to be a vehicle that helps to bring back all the parts of her that get swept away in busyness- and bring her back to feeling centered and calm.

Get ready to explore...

• How to get out of the hamster wheel in your mind to tap new innovative, fresh ideas and energy
• The power of simple morning ritual to set your day up for success
• Building a loving relationship with your body to benefit all areas of your life.

Take note of how you feel in this moment and how you feel after the podcast. I always feel calmer and more centered after a conversation with Camille.  I believe you will too.

Enjoy!

Learn more about Camille:

Check out her other episodes: 
How to Slow Down Episode
Calm Your Anxiety

Free Gifts for Differently Listeners

Website:  https://www.restoration-yoga.com/

Free 5-minute Relaxing Body Scan Audio

Check out her classes on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbaOw6ss98hyiDGo3jXTEQA

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/camille.smith.357/

Learn More:  https:/www.carlareeves.com/

Connect on LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/reevescarla/
Connect on Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/carlasreevesaz/

Explore Coaching with Carla:  https://bookme.name/carlareeves/lite/explore-coaching

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:04

Hi, camille, welcome back to Differently Thank you.

Speaker 2: 0:08

I'm so excited about this. I love chatting with you and happy to be here today.

Speaker 1: 0:30

This week. There's something in the air with my coaching calls where people are just so in their head on overdrive, myself included. We have company coming the next number of weeks and I felt myself yesterday just get into this overdrive. Thankfully I can recognize it now, but it wasn't always that way. I've lived in my head for most of my life and didn't know how to live in my body, and so I'm so excited you're here to share your wisdom, because I know that's that's where, like you love to talk about this and I I does that come from a need in your own life to practice that too that come from a need in your own life to practice that too, oh heck, yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:12

You know I think I might have mentioned this before, but the reason I got into meditation and yoga was not because I was some like Zen yogi, it's because I was the opposite, just desperate for some kind of relief from this busy brain and just my energizer bunny, you know, mo. And so I was drawn to it because I was looking for it, and it's been good.

Speaker 1: 1:36

Yeah, so today I feel like the conversation that we've talked about in so many words is like how, how can our bodies help us and support us in really building and living the businesses and the lives that we want to be living? Does that sound?

Speaker 2: 1:56

aligned. That does. Yeah, and the first thing that popped into my head when you said that is self-care, which sounds maybe like a buzzword right now, but really, once you understand the importance of getting out of your head and a lot of the things we do as self-care do involve the body learning how to play, learning dancing, doing yoga, doing everything that we do is being in the body, being in the body, and it helps us when we do those things to get out of the busy mind. And maybe it's because we sit so much. You and I do, and probably a lot of people do.

Speaker 2: 2:35

It's funny, I was explaining this to my son. You know how important it is to move the body. I was complaining my back hurts today because we were driving somewhere and I explaining it's because I've been sitting too much and he has a job where he moves around and stands and walks but I don't. So I was like, yeah, I got to go outside and I need to walk in the grass and I need to just be in the kitchen and clean and just do things where I'm moving my body so I can get more balanced. And he was so surprised by that and he was like, well, sitting down is good. My son has special needs, so he's like sitting down is good. I'm like yeah, but not too much of it. So we need to move, we need to. Sorry, I went off on a tangent there, but just came to me.

Speaker 1: 3:19

No, but it's so true. And you've made me realize, like for months before I moved, that I was having this pain, like right below my butt, at the top of my leg, like a real pain, and I knew I was sitting too much. And now, since we've moved, I'm blending in more walks throughout the day and it's gone, like I hadn't really realized that it's gone until this moment. But it's gone. So you're right, there's so much we can do to heal our own bodies if we just listen. So I have a question.

Speaker 1: 3:55

Yeah, go ahead, why I feel like most of my life I lived totally disconnected from my body and like not really aware of, like just sinking into my body and being in my body and letting my body communicate to me. Why does that happen? Why? Why do we get so disconnected from our bodies?

Speaker 2: 4:15

I think different reasons, but with the background that I have in the trauma work that I do, a lot of times when things don't go right, in the trauma work that I do, a lot of times when things don't go right, especially when you're younger, you know your experiences, inform your like, your filter and how you see things. And you know maybe you were praised a lot because you were really smart or you just learned to use that part of your body, your brain, which is part of your body more, and or maybe you had an experience where you were hurt or you're injured or someone you know even abuse, somebody hurt you and then you kind of shut down that part of your body because it doesn't feel good. So you don't want to feel it, so you just like I mean there's definitely times where you're just like I don't want to feel that. That's what you'll, even in your mind you'll be thinking I don't want to feel that. So I'm going to just escape and just be up here.

Speaker 1: 5:06

Yeah, wow, it makes so much sense. I feel like a lot of the people that I work with to just they're just overthinkers, constantly in their head, strategizing, planning, moving ahead, achieving right, and none of it involves sort of sinking deeper into the body.

Speaker 2: 5:26

Well, yeah, and that's the whole being quiet part too. Once you also learn how to quiet down and slow down and give yourself the space and I feel like that's what you do when you move your body. Especially for me, when I move my body and I'm not being super, you know up in my head trying to problem solve and go down the list that's when the inspiration comes. So you know, for people that are high achievers like you and I and just trying to do a lot, it's really tempting to spend a lot of time up there because you're like, well, of course, this is where I'm going to problem solve. When the truth is, when you pull your energy back away from there and you start to move and just create that space, that quiet space, that's when you get what you really need. It's so ironic, but it works every time.

Speaker 1: 6:15

It works every time. So what else are we missing by staying in this headspace and sort of neglecting what our body is telling us?

Speaker 2: 6:28

Well, I think your body has wisdom and it talks to you. You know Candice wrote this book called the Body is a Subconscious Mind, which is kind of a crazy thought. Is that really true? But the more I've thought about that and just studied it, the more I realized, yeah, when you allow yourself to listen to the cues that your body is giving you, then you realize there's a lot of wisdom there.

Speaker 2: 6:55

You know, like if you have the urge to, someone asks you or invites you to do something and you have a sensation in your body of like a pit in your stomach or just like a sinking feeling, I feel like that's something we need to listen to. From my experience, when I listen to that and I say no, thank you or whatever, I feel better. But then there's been many times where I have ignored that sensation in my body and and I've done it anyway just because I wanted to people please. You know I wanted to not make waves and do it. Things didn't turn out well.

Speaker 2: 7:30

So many times it's like what am I going to learn? That my body has wisdom and it's telling me like when I tune in and I especially with decisions too you're making a decision about something important and you close your eyes and take a few breaths and you see, where do I feel this in my body? Do I have a sensation of like excitement, like a little spark, like okay, I'm going to follow that, or if it's a feeling of shrinking or just like the pit? Everybody has a different sensation and you know, I've been living in this body for 58 years and I feel like I know it pretty well. But then there's times where I'm like, yeah, I'm still not really all the way there, but there's so much wisdom that we're missing out on, if we don't tune in, things that can inform our businesses and our families and our relationships. So it's a feeling of comfort to know that the information need is there.

Speaker 1: 8:23

Yeah, that's so true. It made me think of a coaching call where a client was describing something and literally like her whole being like deflated when she said a certain thing. Right, those moments are so important, though, because that's literally like we talked about that. That moment, right then, is where she has the power to make a huge shift in her life. If she could just do something slightly different in that moment instead of just shrinking.

Speaker 2: 9:00

Absolutely. And as a coach, you know, when you're working with other people, that's something that you can notice. When you're paying attention other people, that's something that you can notice when you're paying attention and tuning into people and hearing them I know you're good at this. They'll say something and it's like you'll hear it. You'll see their countenance or even, if you're doing a call, you'll hear it in their voice. Oh, there's excitement, there's something behind those words they said For me. I'll write it down and then I'll repeat it to them and they might not realize they said it, but I heard that inflection, I heard that surge of energy when they said it, or what you just said, the deflation, and that's so valuable, so valuable.

Speaker 1: 9:39

It's like a whole nother navigational system that you know. A lot of times we're not really tapping into right yeah.

Speaker 2: 9:48

It's so powerful. It's an adventure when you start to attune yourself to listen. In that way you're doing, you're really helping the person you're working with because they're not aware. But you know, sometimes we need a third party observer. We need that too. We need other people to listen and reflect back what they heard when we spoke about. Whatever it is something that was painful or something that we're excited about, and they can hear it, you know.

Speaker 1: 10:15

So true, there's. There's a um. I'm not going to get this right, but I remember hearing something that, um, that the and this might've come from Michelle Jones that um, that the and this might've come from Michelle Jones that the the heart is actually communicating way more with the head than the head is to the heart. Is that?

Speaker 2: 10:35

is that true? Oh yeah, oh my gosh. I could talk for hours about the heart. Yeah, and that's one of the things that I teach when I teach yoga and even my um, my coaching clients is to drop from their head to their heart, because your heart is like this torsion field, which means you create from the heart. So the field of the heart goes way out and it's way more expansive as far as body parts if we're going to talk body parts than the brain is. And so when you make decisions or you problem solve more from this heart space, there's so much more available to you than you are when you're in your brain computer and we miss that sometimes or awe, it's like, okay, well, get serious, get your feet on the ground, we've got to do this problem, and it's like we're taught more to be in our brains and our minds than we are in our hearts. And when we can make that shift, there's so many possibilities available to us that we're not aware of until we're there.

Speaker 1: 11:48

It's so true. I, like a year or so ago, was really making some changes of like calming that productivity engine more and more inside of me, and I realized that I would like literally sit at my desk all day, like literally on the edge of my seat, like stomach clenched, shallow breathing, and I've changed the state in which I sit and like operate at my desk now so that I'm like working, but I'm in a much more relaxed posture, and that has made a huge, huge difference. So I'd love to hear from you, like what are some ways that we can begin to like use our bodies to help build our business and live the life that we want to? What are, like your favorite ways to teach people around that?

Speaker 2: 12:47

Well, because I teach yoga. Obviously yoga is going to be a big answer. Yes, but you know, learning how to, how to move. You know, and not just move, but learning how to tune in.

Speaker 2: 12:58

So when you're moving, whether you're on your mat and you're doing yoga poses, or whether you're out for a walk or hiking, whatever your movement that you like is, it's to feel the sensations in your body, like to notice, be mindful, like when you're eating something you know you're tasting the food, you're experiencing the flavor of it and the way it feels when you, you know, crunch on it, or you know you move your jaws or whatever. It's just all those little nuanced movements. If you like to go outside and move, I like to walk around in the grass sometimes and just feel the way that feels underneath my feet and just doing those little things they really help build a bridge between you and your body and help you make more of a connection, because where we feel joy is in our bodies, it's in the present moment. You know, it's not all up here in the brain, and so the more we make that connection through our movements, the more we feel alive.

Speaker 1: 14:00

Do you make it a practice to do certain things like within your everyday or your morning routine, or like do you have certain things that you're everyday or your morning routine? Or like do you have certain things that you're kind of really structured around?

Speaker 2: 14:11

Yeah, I do, you know, as far as like movement or like body wise.

Speaker 1: 14:15

Yeah, just taking care of your body in the way you just described.

Speaker 2: 14:19

I do, actually, before I even get out of bed. I lay in my bed as long as I'm, you know, not bothering my husband too much. I bend my knees, I pull my knees into my chest, which is a great way to relieve pressure in your lower back. Sometimes I'll stretch one leg at a time up towards the ceiling, just to kind of stretch the backs of my legs. I like to do twists in my bed, which is just to bring your knees to your chest and then take them to one side and then the other side.

Speaker 2: 14:50

So all of those first morning movements you know, stretching like when you this is most people innately when they wake up, they want to just stretch their body, and so that's something you could do is just follow the lead that you're like. You're feeling like I need to stretch. Okay, what else do I need to do? Let me listen to my body and see what movements those are. Child's pose, which is like a kneeling pose in my bed. I love that pose. So a lot of these things I do before I even get up. In fact, I'm just going to mention this right now for your listeners. I have a on my YouTube channel. I have a 10 minute morning moves thing. That is just that. It's just little moves you can do in your bed. So I feel so strongly about it and it really helps me get off on the right foot.

Speaker 1: 15:34

I love that. I don't do it in my bed but I do like after my prayer and reading. I will do like this five minute workout which is really just a lot of stretching and kind of planks to down dog. You know that kind of stuff and just five minutes of moving my body totally changes my day.

Speaker 2: 15:58

Oh yeah, because you're connecting Amazing. I agree, you're connecting to your body and I don't know if you're going to mention this, but it just keeps coming to my mind. To you know, if we have a beef with our body, if we don't like things about our body, which most people have, that we can't build a strong relationship with anybody or anything if we are directing hate at it. So if you're not happy with your body, if you're angry with your body for different reasons, it's hard to develop that relationship. Just like when you have a friend or a family member and you're telling them all the things that you don't like about them. If you're criticizing them, how do you think they're going to feel towards you?

Speaker 1: 16:41

They're not going to love that so much.

Speaker 2: 16:42

That does not help the relationship grow strong. So we can't develop a relationship with our own body and that body trust by hating our body. We'll never get there by doing it that way.

Speaker 1: 16:54

So if somebody's listening that feels that way, like how do you begin to shift that relationship?

Speaker 2: 17:01

Well, I would say, do your healing work. You know, start to follow the lead of what you feel like you need to do, because usually there's a reason, there's a point in your life where something happened and caused you to have these feelings. And I've worked with clients who struggle with their weight and in their body. They've never been happy with their body their whole life and you can pin it back to a time where somebody told them something. Sometimes there was a criticism, or the way they were raised was that your body had to look a certain way, and so you have to kind of be willing to go and find the root of the problem, to sort of dismantle that and find a new connection.

Speaker 2: 17:44

But I would say, even then, you know, while you're going through that process, just moving your body and thanking your body Like I say that a lot in my yoga classes I'll say you know, send yourself some love right now. Look at your feet, tell your toes how much you love them. Tell your feet thank you for standing up for me. Thank your legs for moving you forward. Like, literally, your body is how you're navigating your whole life. Without your body, how are you going to do all the things you want to do. You can't, so you've got to do the things you need to, the steps you need to to create that feeling of appreciation and gratitude for the way your body moves for you and heals for you when it's injured.

Speaker 1: 18:27

That is so powerful, camille. I mean, just what you're doing in the classroom and supporting people is such a like. I just got like what a big deal that is.

Speaker 2: 18:52

You know this is kind of a funny little story, but I used to have a not good relationship with my hair. That sounds funny, but I did not like my hair. I hated my hair. It was always flat, it was always stringy. All my friends had bouncy curls and waves in their hair and I was always angry. And I always joked with my husband and said if you want me to have a good day, if you want to say something really nice to me, compliment my hair.

Speaker 2: 19:17

And years later one of my daughters said to me mom, do you know how often you complain about your hair? And maybe it was at the point where I was ready to hear it with open ears. But I heard that and I was like you're right, I complain about it all the time. I'm never nice to my hair. And so I changed after that and I started appreciating my hair. This sounds like a silly, stupid thing, but it made a big difference and I would say you can do that with any part of your body that you have some kind of antagonistic feeling towards. See if you can turn it towards gratitude for that part of your body and just see what a difference it makes. You will see.

Speaker 1: 19:52

Wow, I absolutely believe that. I mean, in a way, I've done that with my relationship with time, like I used to just always be complaining about time and dissing it and mad at it and frustrated, and I just removed a lot of language that I was using and started to shift it and thinking about it as if it's a relationship, because why would time want to support me if I'm just complaining about it all the time and ungrateful for it? Yes, and it's made a huge difference. So I think this is so great. So I think I think you have a tool around this whole idea of you know, a relationship with your body.

Speaker 2: 20:42

Yes, so here's another thing you can do that I really love and has been so, so, very helpful to me, and that's to write. If you don't know where you stand with your body, or even if you do know, write a letter to your body just like you were talking about time being something you could have a relationship and talk, to write a letter to your body and just be truthful, just say everything that you need to say, and then you will learn a lot by once you read. You write it and then you read it you'll be like, oh wow, you know you might say that's really harsh, would I ever say that to somebody else? Or you might have, you know, loving feelings. So, whatever it is, write that letter. And then here's the fun part, the second part of the assignment I guess I'm giving you an assignment is to write a letter back from your body to you.

Speaker 2: 21:34

And the way you can do that there's a couple of ways, but the way that I do it is when I write the letter to my body, I sit at my, I do it on my, I type, I use it on my computer.

Speaker 2: 21:43

You can hand write it too, so I'll just kind of like close my eyes and just sort of type whatever's coming into my head when you write the return letter, like your body's speaking to you. Same thing, like pause after you finish the first letter, take a few breaths and then you know, start writing and just like listen to whatever thoughts are coming in your head and you can picture your body speaking back to you, like I close my eyes and I really try to just not edit myself, not censor myself, not even think what would my body say or what should it say. I just whatever comes into my head. My intention is that is my body speaking back to me and then I just type it all out. I don't stop to edit it, I don't correct spelling, I get it all out and then when I go back and I read it, wow, I just think this is such an important exercise to shine the light of awareness on what's really going on.

Speaker 1: 22:53

I'm such a believer in the power of writing and the power of really thinking about these different things, whether it's your body or time or money, that it is a relationship. You have a relationship with it and oftentimes, when you see a clue inside of this relationship with your body or time, it's often a clue for lots of other places in relationships too, which is so powerful.

Speaker 2: 23:12

Yeah, it's like you pull up if you think about a weed or something that's growing in the ground and you're kind of going about it trying to figure out, okay, what's at the root of this, you pull it up and then it comes up a little ways and then you realize that the root is really deep and then you got to pull a little bit more and a little bit more so you can get to the bottom of why you feel this way or why this behavior. And sometimes it takes digging and it takes work, but it is so worth it. It's worth it. Otherwise, you're just, like you know, circling the mountain around and around and you're never getting to the top because you're never addressing what's at the root of the problem.

Speaker 1: 23:56

Ah, that's like music to my ears, because I do. I think our world is like it's just pointing to these surface solutions, right these that just are a bandaid. They're not addressing the root, like you're talking about. And that's my belief in the work I do to Camille is that I want to help people address the foundation and the root of things so that they can make sustainable change, because when you're just popping band aids on and not really looking at the root, it's hard to sustain that positive change.

Speaker 2: 24:28

Well, yeah, and then you just, it's like you rubber band back to where you were. You can't, you won't stay, because that same thing that's at the root it keeps flaring up, it's flaring up and you're still like whack-a-mole. I don't want to see that. I don't want to see that.

Speaker 1: 24:44

So you got to be willing to do it, yeah, so if you're doing that in your life, that's a great indicator that you want to do something that's going to address the deeper, the deeper thing, and that might feel scary, but it's to me it's like, if it's, if it feels scary, that's because there's lots of treasure there, you know that's where you want to go right?

Speaker 2: 25:04

Yeah, that's where you want to go.

Speaker 1: 25:06

Yes, that's right, yes, that's right.

Speaker 2: 25:27

Let's leave listeners with something that they can do just today based on everything we've talked about. Maybe it is the letter, but maybe just a couple ideas, simple ideas that they could just start today to integrate what we're talking about. Absolutely Excuse me, absolutely. You know I always recommend just finding a place in your day for a little bit more stillness, a little bit more quiet, and you know that can I know this might not sound like it's directly related, but it is related Finding time to be still and start to make that connection with your body.

Speaker 2: 25:49

You can do it easily just by go outside, close your eyes, take a few deep breaths Every time you breathe and you focus on your breath. That's you connecting with your body, and the good thing about doing that deep breathing and paying attention to it is that helps you be mindful. It helps prevent you from going into the squirrel brain like the busy, busy, busy brain. It helps you stay present. So that is the first thing I would recommend is just to spend a little more time. A couple of minutes what five minutes a day? Do you have five minutes a day where you could just sit outside? If you can close your eyes and just notice your breath. That's the first thing to starting that connection.

Speaker 2: 26:32

I do have a little audio that I share with people. It's called a body scan and it's just a guided sort of visualization where you're moving through the parts of your body where you're noticing the thoughts in your mind but you're not getting involved in them a lot of that kind of thing and it's I'm happy to share it with your listeners. But it also helps you to be present, to be present in your body, and that's a great way to start if you're not used to that.

Speaker 1: 27:02

That's a beautiful idea. I am in a world full of so many distractions I feel like you know it's kind of going against the current to do stuff like this. I had a client once say like Carla, you're more radical than you realize because you're telling people to get quiet and get still and not listen to what everyone else is doing or telling you to do. And I think it's really true and I'm so grateful for your voice to remind us to be still and get quiet and because it's like we hear being present. Right, it's like one of those things you just like self-care. You hear all the time it almost like starts to not mean anything, but it truly. There's so much wisdom, there's everything I find when I'm able to be present, I have everything I need.

Speaker 2: 27:53

Yes, I totally agree. And all the voices and the noise out there Talk about overwhelm. You know what I mean. There's this trend that I'm learning that you know. When, as a creator, as a coach, whatever you know we want to help people, we want to give them more. We want to give them more tools, more whatever, more value, make sure they're getting everything. But also overwhelm is a real thing. So you've probably been in a program or been taught by somebody where it's like they're just giving you a lot and you're just like I can't take it all in, it's too much. And that's where the silence, that's where the space comes in. Because during that quiet time, that's where the silence, that's where the space comes in. Because during that quiet time, that's where you're integrating what you've learned and figuring out how to use it. But if it's just like a fire hose pouring information on you, you can't make sense of it. And so I really feel like what you said that quiet space is revolutionary. When you learn to do it, then you're like I get it now.

Speaker 1: 28:52

Totally. And also I think what you're saying is like I went through a fire hose program for a year and it sent me in a tailspin for a while. It took me a while to unwind from that, but also in that quiet space and, like you're saying, dropping into your heart, you can then discern, like, what in this is for me, what in this is right, is mine to do, instead of just thinking everybody else has got the right answer. We all have a unique compass and the only we can see and you have, I have to get still to discern that.

Speaker 2: 29:26

Absolutely, and I don't care how good the presenter is, the coach is. If they don't recognize that's true for everybody, they're kind of missing the mark. You have to realize that for the people you're working with, they are going to take what they want and I always say take what you need from this message. Leave the rest, and that's what you're talking about. It's being discerning about the information you're ingesting and taking the nuggets that are going to inform your choices in the best way, and just letting the rest go. Maybe it's for somebody else, but not for you right now. That's okay.

Speaker 1: 30:01

I think that's a perfect place to kind of pause and end and just apply to this conversation, like what in this is for you, what can you take today, what makes sense? Don't do it because we're doing it or we've said it. Like, just listen to your heart and what is there for you. Okay, camille, tell us where we can find all your goodness.

Speaker 2: 30:23

Well, you can find me. I'm on social media. My website is restoration-yogacom and I do have a few programs on there. I'm getting ready to launch a new program called Connect to Heal, which merges trauma healing and yoga, which I'm super excited about. So you can find information about all that, including the, the, the little freebies, the, the audio, the body scan, and I also have a little yoga workbook that you can download for free to practice some poses. So I would say, go to my website and check that out, and I love to hear from people. So please reach out with your questions and, as you can tell from this conversation, we love to talk about this, right, carla and as you can tell from this conversation, we love to talk about this right, carla, totally, I'm so grateful to know you.

Speaker 1: 31:14

Thank you for all of this.

Speaker 2: 31:17

It's been so fun, always a pleasure.

Speaker 1: 31:20

Yeah, everybody. If you're inspired, go check out what Camille's doing. You're a gem and I will see you all next week. Everybody have an amazing day, thank you. Thank you, camille, for being here.

Speaker 2: 31:34

Thank you, bye, everybody.