EPISODE 7: Liz
INTRO CREDITS 0:05
EPISODE INTRO 0:56
Hello beauties. How's it going? This is your old pal Dominique here and I'm so glad you've joined us today. Today I'm delivering on what I promised you months ago. A series designed to make you feel better about yourself. assuage your insecurities vindicate you in every way. It's called drumroll please. Dan. Dan, can you add a drumroll? Cool, thanks. Validate me harder daddy. The inspiration of this series naturally came from a text message with my best girl slash wife Cheyenne, in which we were doing our daily dance of one party sharing something that triggered an insecurity or something we weren't 100% confident about and the other party offering unconditional no questions asked validation. It could be a picture of yourself in a bikini or email you wanted to send to someone or something you posted on Tik Tok or just a general concept and the other friend is like yes, I love it slay you're a goddess absolutely immaculate vibes. How are you so hot and smart I'm so blessed by your presence on this earth. Then self awareness comes into play and you realize that you are literally begging for some validation so in the unhinged way that we speak and text each other this came out as validate me harder Daddy I'm sorry to any of my blood relatives or friends parents who may be listening to this right now. So I shared this concept title and all with one of my dear dear friends and absolute — I say this without exaggeration — absolute freakin genius. Dr. Liz Letchford, PhD, ATC lots of letters after her name that denote she's smart as hell and spent like 78 years in school becoming even smarter. Liz at one point was my personal trainer and involuntary therapist when I lived in San Francisco. And after emotionally dumping on her while she was like "I think we should focus on these deadlifts," we actually became super tight friends, and I am truly just honored to count myself on that roster. Liz got her doctorate in kinesiology, specifically focusing on ACL injury prevention and female athletes. And I still need to get her dissertation hardbound into a coffee table book. How cute would that be? She's a master athletic trainer, and has pioneered a concept called Bio psycho social spiritual health as it pertains to movement. That was a lot to take in. But we'll get into it in this Convo. Don't fret. Today, she's your daddy. And she's going to validate you and how you feel in your workouts particularly if you hate a certain kind of workout, a certain type of exercise, or if part of your fitness routine just isn't working for you. And then we're going to help you figure out how to course correct so basically, we're going to feel really justified better about ourselves and then feel super sexy and fine when we find what does work for us Exercise and Movement wise. Sound good? Let's get into it.
AD 3:38
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INTERVIEW 4:52
Liz you made it you're here welcome to This is fine. How are you fine today what's going on in your life?
Liz Letchford 4:58
You know how I'm, I'm more than fine actually, I'm feeling pretty ecstatic. Yeah, this is, this is more than fine Dominique. I'm, I'm so honored to be here. And I'm so excited to see what we get into.
Dominique Astorino 5:14
I'm so excited. And seriously, thank you for volunteering as tribute for the first official, validate me harder daddy episode. Like, I'm just grateful. I'm honored that you have brought your beautiful presence for this validation session. Thank you for volunteering.
Liz Letchford 5:30
Oh, my gosh, you put daddy in anything. And I'm like.
Dominique Astorino 5:35
So today, you're the daddy and the daddy. So like, the premise of this, like we've discussed, but for our listeners is we're talking about lived experiences. And this is something that I feel like we've talked about a lot over the past, like, several years, how long have we been friends? Like, six years? Wow, is it been? Oh, also? Whoa. So it's been a while so much growth. But one of our topics, I feel like we talked about this for even an article recently, maybe about like lived experiences and not feeling alone and like sharing in that like, it's a ridiculous title, but a serious concept. validate me harder. Yeah. What are your thoughts on this? Like lived experiences and validation?
Liz Letchford 6:18
Wow. I mean, it's such a broad topic. Like, it's literally the human experience. Yeah.
Dominique Astorino 6:26
When people are like, what's your podcast about? I'm like, I don't know, like life.
Liz Letchford 6:31
No, but I think one thing that I have gone through myself and, and been up against when I'm even just talking with my friends every day is we go through these struggles, we go through these challenges, we go through these transformations and, and social media has done a good job of having us feel like it's not okay to have this normal human experience that we can only show the shiny. And yes, I have to also admit that social media is getting more transparent, it is becoming easier to be able to share your emotions and your experience there. But it doesn't tell the whole story. And so as I'm I have a beautiful community of friends, you included, that we can share, full spectrum, full spectrum, everything, the hard the up the down the Great, the ecstatic, the celebrations, the grief, all of it. And I feel very held in that. But that wasn't always the case. And I would feel guilty coming to someone being like, Hey, I, I really need support in this struggle that I'm going through. And I just felt like I maybe had failed. I felt like maybe I you know, like I was a burden. And and that's great. That's a shadow that I was able to work through. So kind of what I wanted to chat with anyone listening in with you is can we give ourselves permission to full spectrum feel? Yeah, yes.
Dominique Astorino 7:58
I love that. Full Spectrum. Yeah, yeah, it's so true. Because the more that we do open up to each other when we find those safe spaces, like a safe space. But you know, when we find those comfortable, safe places, with people like those emotional places, where we can open up little by little, I feel like the more we do, the more we realize, Oh, they're going through it too. For some reason, I think in our culture, we like, have to pretend that everything's okay. And like you were saying, with social media, like it's becoming more transparent, which is cool. And I don't expect people on social media to share every vulnerability they've experienced. And you know, the full spectrum there. I feel like we have a right to privacy in some ways. We don't need to publish everything. But yes, I think finding those spaces where we can, even if it's like an out of office email, or I don't know, yeah, like a social media post or something little by little, we realized like, Oh, we're not the only people who feel like our head's on fire.
Liz Letchford 8:55
No, and I think a part of that, like my expertise in my whole world is movement and injury prevention, and I guide people through workouts and, and one on one through movement practice. And what I've discovered is we all have this idea that our movement practice needs to look a certain way or follow a certain routine. And what we do is we abandon our own needs, and we abandon our own body in favor of the collective opinion about how we should be how we should look how we should move, how we eat, how we should, how much we should lift how many I can't tell you how every day I'm trying to field questions from people I teach live classes and I also create programs for people to use a synchronously anyways, so they have access to me via social media. So I'm fielding questions every day about, Hey, should I do this two times a week or three times a week? Right and, and what I'm, what I'm loving about where the fitness industry is going is it's now Shifting slowly. But surely like an onion, like peeling the layers of an onion, it's shifting from prescriptive science, this is the way 10, you know, 10 minutes of this exactly and check your heart rate and, you know, measure all the things to what does your body want. And let me teach you how to listen to your body so that you can do the thing that is best for your body in this moment right now, which may be different than yesterday, it may be different than a year ago, it's definitely gonna be different than your friend's body, it's definitely going to be different than your coach's body. And so that's one thing that I really want to validate when it comes to this experience of, hey, I want to move my body I want to feel good in my body, I have some fitness goals, or I have some health goals. And I have so much information coming at me about what I should be doing the expectation I want to Yeah, I want to validate anybody who's feeling overwhelmed by their own fitness routine say yeah, Lee Yes, I get it. And let me offer you some solace, some refuge from that overwhelm.
Dominique Astorino 11:10
Right. Like if you feel like you're going to, you know, create this program, or this routine that makes you feel like you're on trend, like all the New York girls are doing Aqua cycle right now. Or if you want Oh, right. Yeah. Auckland cycle like SoulCycle in a pool.
Liz Letchford 11:25
Yeah, actually, that sounds very fun.
Dominique Astorino 11:28
It looks really fun. I have FOMO but I'm like what I even like it if it was here, you know, same kind of thing. Like, you know, everyone on Tik Tok with the that girl aesthetic? Are you making your routine to match an expectation you think you should be reaching, if that makes sense? Like, I, I think what we want to talk today about why someone might feel if they're in that, in that mode of I have to do this exact thing to be cool or to be fit or to be a certain body type, whatever. Like, if they're feeling like this workout is actually bullshit. They hate yoga or Barry's Bootcamp makes them want to barf. Or they don't get why everyone's obsessed with peloton because you got one. And now it's just a $3,000 metal sculpture in your apartment or you're not into the Aqua cycle thing. Like, I feel like it doesn't necessarily just pertain to those like trendy expensive workouts, but any form of movement might not feel right. I feel like we need to talk about that. Like some people, a lot of people are trying to do something that doesn't feel right to them.
Liz Letchford 12:28
Well, listen, it's because we've emerged in a society that says you're doing everything wrong. And it's all because of it. It's a marketing ploy to say let me create a problem so that I can sell you something to fix it. So the second thing, you can see that, you know, the second, you can see that you can acknowledge it, and now and now you have the power over that it doesn't have the power over you. So what I want to give permission to people to do is to start slowly, understanding how to listen to your own body, to your own intuition. We all, every single last one of us has access to the wisdom of our bodies, some of it is buried under layers of trauma, under layers of years and years of refusing to listen to our bodies, because there might not have been safety in that our own truth might not have been safe. And so we've developed this programming of looking outside of ourselves in order to search for truth. And for me, my modality is movement. And so we're going to talk about that. But this concept applies to literally everything, our spirituality, our nutrition, our daily routine, our habits, what we purchase, what we buy, what we do, what we work, what we wear, it applies to everything, but we're gonna I just want you to use this movement and fitness as a metaphor for anything else that you might notice this pattern emerging in your life.
Dominique Astorino 13:57
Yeah, and I know a lot of your research has been on women, the female body, you think that women are conditioned, perhaps culturally, to suppress their needs, ignore their needs tune out of their body in order to attend to the things around them, the people around them?
Liz Letchford 14:15
Unfortunately, yes, I think we, you know, I grew up in the 90s and 2000s. And it was it was good. It was a weird time. Yeah. Like Backstreet Boys are cool, but like, low rise jeans are not cool.
Dominique Astorino 14:34
Please, never again.
Liz Letchford 14:36
Please, no. Yeah, so there was this funny strat like body it's funny a body types can become trendy. trend of being as small as possible and I really think that that went with a cultural narrative of women. Women need to be small and feminine and like, I say feminine and the like. The true The nature of femininity is so vast and so full spectrum. Absolutely. And so I'm, I'm kind of taking the patriarchal definition of femininity of like, small and quiet and, but so yeah, dainty and palatable. And so we all, I mean, I want to include everyone in this, but I tried my hardest to ignore my own needs in order to become palatable. Yep, it was survival. And so what I'm discovering now is as I'm embracing my full spectrum femininity, that there's wild, there's anger, there's deep chaos, in addition to the beauty and the love and the healing and all of it, like it's so gorgeous, and it's so full spectrum. And if you really embrace your entire being all of the ups, the downs, the dark, the light, all of it, it's a lot. And, and, and right now we live in a society that's like it's not okay to be angry, it's not okay to be chaotic, we don't love the chaos. That's why we really rely on science and peer reviewed research because the wild unknown is so unfamiliar, and so tough to handle and not palatable for people who can't hold the feminine, wild.
Dominique Astorino 16:16
Damn, dude, that was more than I expected.
Liz Letchford 16:21
It's way more than burpees dominate. So much more than like, whether you want to do yoga or, or strength training, it's, it's, let's get to the root of why we have trouble listening to our bodies. And there's this greater theme that and part of my part of my passion, and it's why I did research on women's movement and women's injury risk, is there's an underlying theme that goes deeper than just cue angle and pelvis, knee alignment and pelvic floor strength. It's it's an underlying energetic theme that we can all work to overcome. But the first step we need to do is to be able to see it. And so that's why I'm so excited to Yep, I'm so excited to be here today to talk about hey, are you wondering why you know, your, your route to your current fitness routine doesn't feel good, or you have resentment towards it, it's probably not the routine, it's probably an underlying energetic structure,
Dominique Astorino 17:20
The patriarchy.
Liz Letchford 17:22
It's the patriarchy!!!
Dominique Astorino 17:24
Actually, it's funny that we're bringing this up, like, I mean, it's not funny, because I would expect it from the both of us to get like a little bit deeper. But I've been thinking a lot recently. And I feel like this will make 100% sense to you like reflecting on why I ignore my own needs in favor of my work, or answering a message or getting back to something, whatever it is, like outside of myself, versus like, eating on a regular schedule, I'm hungry all the time, but I'll forget to eat or I'll put off eating like neglecting a basic need in favor of doing something else. I'll wait to go to the bathroom until I literally am about to pee my pants, because I'm neglecting that fundamental need. And I feel like that's been conditioned for so long. So it makes sense to me that neglecting our needs are not even, like not even active neglect, right? We're just not thinking about our fundamental needs not tuning into that innate, intuitive need. Because we're so outwardly focused...
Liz Letchford 18:23
Well, we're just deaf to it. It's not it's not anything wrong. It's it's, we understand why you know, there's a lot going on underneath the surface that might not actually fit into your nine to five job it might not actually fit into your daily life. And so that's why we see more and more people taking mental health leave, more and more people quitting their nine to five in search of their own passion or without even having a backup job just just being like, you know, what I actually, this is enough is enough. And I've, you know, we've started to we see stress related diseases and disorders that coincide with this high stress life that we're all being a victim to, until we decide make the conscious decision of like, wow, my body is screaming loud enough that I was deaf to this before. And now I actually can't ignore it. I have to do something
Dominique Astorino 19:14
Right. I can't function you I mean, you watched me go through that years ago where I literally had to take a mental and physical health leave and quit my job without a backup plan and start over because my body screamed at me. For anyone listening lives literally came to the hospital when I was by myself just felt like a little girl checking in and they asked for my information and everything at the ER and I just started crying and Lou's dropped everything and came to see me and brought me to her house and gave me soup and was just the best. But she witnessed this happen not just with me, I'm sure but with other people where if you ignore your body and your needs and you're submitting to the world around you for long enough, it really can break you.
Liz Letchford 19:56
It certainly can and I've seen it happen over and over again. And I'm acutely aware of it, because it's my profession to coach people to their most optimal health. And so I get to see what's in the way of their most optimal health. And so you start to see these patterns emerge. And it's really boils down to, am I listening to my body? Am I able to first? Am I able to listen to my body? What's in the way of me being able to do that? And then am I doing something? am I responding Am I being kind to my body, you can make the conscious decision, like some days, I'm like, I'm tired, and my body wants to sleep, but I have to do this thing. But I'm not, I'm not ignorant to it, I'm like, I'm gonna make sure that I make up for this tonight. And I'm gonna get, you know, nine hours of sleep, instead of the six that I got today. So. So it's really about recognizing and using, using the stiffness in your joints, using the pain in your low back using the tension in your jaw as a signpost, that something needs to change. And for me, what I like to guide people through using movement as a tool as a modality is go deeper into that start to listen to your jaw, right? Your two jaw is tense and she has a fan, your jaw becomes tense my mind does, maybe you're stuck. I've got a mouth guard. Yeah, my job becomes really tense. She's locked totally when there's a high stress environment. And there's a lot of energetics around that around like what are you afraid to say? Interesting. Yeah. And it could be related to your shoulders, it could be related to your chest, it could be related to your back, everything's connected. Yeah, we see that with the fascial lines and the fascial, the fascial trains and the connections there. And so you can just start by if anyone's like, cool is how do I listen to my body? Start by just recognizing, placing your attention on any places in your body where you feel tension. And something sometimes I will guide my clients, I will guide my, you know, friends in what message does this have for me? What's living here? What does this tension need, and I guarantee you, something will pop up in your thoughts. It'll be like, Oh, it needs rest. Oh, it needs hydration. Oh, it needs to break up with that guy. Oh, it needs to, you know, I'll have to quit my job. And so then you get to start to, to cultivate your own internal listenings through the modality of paying attention to your body.
Dominique Astorino 22:27
I love this, like taking an inventory of all these check engine lights. I like want to get a journal out and do a body scan, like every day for a month now.
Liz Letchford 22:36
I think that'd be a great idea. And I start every morning with pretty much a body scan, I check in where am I holding tension? What message does it have for me and then I do something about it. It can be moving, it can be breathing, it can be meditation, it can be energy work, it can be whatever my body needs in that moment. And it's crazy. It's it's different. Every single day, we have different inputs every single day, we have different outputs every single day. And so to have to feel like we need to stick to this routine, because it's discipline and I need motivation. And like, if you don't stick to this routine You've failed is so bizarre to me now that I'm more in tune with how bodies actually work how how seasons actually work. Our body has rhythms just like the Earth, we have winter, spring, summer and fall. And if we're expecting the leaves to fall in the spring, we are, we're that's never going to happen. And so we're trying to do that with our bodies as well. Sometimes we're in a body season of winter, and we just need to hibernate and rest and take things really slow and build up our energy so that when summer comes, we're feeling more enlivened or feeling vibrant. We're feeling by tenfold, we Yeah, totally, we expect our bodies to be in a perpetual state of spring or summer. And that's just not the truth. And so if you start to think of it like we are in nature, I mean, the the rhythms of nature are exactly aligned with our own internal rhythms. And so if you start to see it from that perspective, and stop trying to put a scientific parentheses around everything and being like, well, the studies say I'm like, Listen, I'm a scientist, I got my PhD in kinesiology, literally human movement. Let me tell you what we know and what we don't know. It's too rigid. It's too and science is magic. And magic is science. Science is just trying to observe nature. That's all science is trying to do is trying to quantify, understand and observe nature, it is not instead of nature,
Dominique Astorino 24:29
Right. It's working together. It's analyzing the patterns. It's deducing what we can get. It's beautiful, little tear in my eye. But yeah, I love this idea that you're bringing up about following these rhythms like these natural cycles, right? Like I'm thinking like lunar cycles and tides and all these kinds of things within nature, which kind of circles back to the concept of adapting your fitness your movement to whatever season that you're In mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually. So if someone is listening, and they're taking inventory and they're like, Okay, I hate this one workout, whatever it is like, or my routine is not working for me, how do we figure out that it's not just that it was about class? Or we didn't connect with a particular trainer or the playlist? Or were in the wrong hormonal phase? Or we shouldn't have eaten yogurt before? Class? I don't know. How do we know it's not like that x variable that isn't clicking? And it's like, this movement doesn't align with me right now. Like, is there a way to discern all of those?
Liz Letchford 25:35
Oh, my gosh, there are so many factors there and it might leave. Yeah, it might be the playlist. That's okay. It might be the instructor. That's okay. If there's a particular movement, here's some signposts in the actual physiology of the body. Say, you know, I used to do before I really understood this intuitively, I used to go to yoga class three times a week, and after yoga, every time after yoga, my back would hurt. And I'd be like, damn, I really am trying to, I'm trying to do something gentle for my body. And why is my back hurting? Turns out, couple years later, I recognized that I had a really interesting medical trauma as a baby, I had a spinal tap, they thought I had meningitis. And so my body was perpetually stuck in this freeze response associated with the position that a baby's in when they're in a spinal tap is the doctor will hold their feet and they'll put them into deep knee and hip flexion. It looks like you're curled into a little ball, and then they tap your spine. Okay, so I was in this perpetual freeze response. And and so many people have have traumas like this, and it can. And it's pre verbal, so I have no memory of it. But the somatic the somatic memory lived in my body. It wasn't until I did a somatic release through internal family systems trained practitioner that I even knew this happened. And then I called after, after I had this released, I felt like I wanted to kick someone off of me. And I was like, Whoa, I have no memory of this. The brain is interesting. And what it what it remembers and what it doesn't, I was like, Do you start to imagine, like, what has happened like that? I don't remember. And so I called my mom. And I was like, hey, like, weird question. But did I have any trauma as a baby? And she's like, Yeah, let me call you. So she told me then after, so I had no memory. And it wasn't until after I had inquired to my mom, that I learned I had this medical trauma. So rewind back to that yoga class, I'm put forcing my body into a position that when I was eight months old, I was the was the exact position, my body didn't feel safe. And so over and over, I'm trying to do forward flexion, forward flexion for how many forward folds are you doing in class and my back was stiff, and I had gone to acupuncture every week being like, I can't get flexion and my back, my hips are locked, my knees are locked, my ankles are locked. I can't figure out what's going on. And so as I'm forcing these positions in my body in yoga, my body's responding mind saying, Please stop. We're not ready. We don't feel safe here.
Dominique Astorino 28:03
reactivating trauma.
Liz Letchford 28:05
I mean, it was like trying to, it was trying to force a release in a place that didn't feel safe. So we see that was stretching, we see that with yoga. That's why I always recommend whenever somebody is stretching their body to also pair it with strength. So instead of sinking down into like a warrior one where you feel your hips stretch out, like really press the ground away, teach your body that it's strong, and it's safe. The safety is what you really want to keep as your Lighthouse does my body feel safe here? So that's, that's my experience with the yoga like, Hey, I'm trying to get into Ford flexion my body doesn't like it. Therefore, my back starts hurting. It's a It's my little like, red flag, my, my check engine light of like, hey, and I, how could I possibly know I didn't know until I four, five years later, where I? Luckily, I was privileged enough to have access to a therapist who could lead me through this experience.
Dominique Astorino 29:00
Wow. How did you find that?
Liz Letchford 29:03
It was really beautiful. I shot this woman named Serafina. She showed up at my house. She was a friend of my housemate who's a Chinese medicine doctor. And Serafina shows up and I'm like, I just feel this connection to her. I'm like, I looked at her and in my brain, I go your family. And I was like, I don't know. And I heard I heard the work that she does. She works with trauma she works with she came she was a nurse practitioner. So just like me, she was in the western world Western medical system. realize it's not working. We're not actually treating the foundation, right? Kind of what I'm talking about here, we're treating the symptoms, we're not treating the root. So she went on her own journey to discover what's the real cause of disease in the human body. And I had never before met anybody who viewed healing as a practitioner the way that I did and it's so it resonated so well was like, I feel like you're supposed to mentor me. I don't know. Where should we start? was like, let's try and do a couple of sessions together. So she's the one who held such impeccable space for me to go through this, this reintegration of the parts of myself that felt too afraid to go into these different movements to an end. So it was just so beautiful and having gone through that it awakened some really profound things in me. And now I have this embodied experience of the importance of holding on to the parts of ourselves and, and respecting the parts of ourselves that might not feel safe in particular movements or postures or positions or going fast or going slow and working to just recognize them, love them, and either holding safe space for ourselves or finding a practitioner who might be able to hold safe space for us to start to reincorporate reintegrate heal those parts of ourselves that were previously afraid.
Dominique Astorino 30:59
Damn. I'm like thinking about like, taking inventory of my own experiences. I'm like, did I have a back pain and yoga moment? I feel like, knee pain is a big thing. For me. It's something I will explore. So if someone listening is thinking, Okay, I have been doing X workout and I have x result, right? Like, I have knee pain, I have back pain. What would your suggestion be in terms of exploring that? Like would it be to go find somatic therapy?
Liz Letchford 31:27
Yeah, and I'm a huge advocate for a collaborative healing experience. So you have just as much responsibility in your healing as the healer, the who's holding space for you as a practitioner who's holding space for you. So for me, it's a journey. It's a journey with many layers and many chapters. So it's not like he take this pill, you're healed, right? It's, it's this perfect constant unfolding and recognition of the parts of you that are coming up to be felt to be loved to be healed and to be integrated. So say you have knee pain. For example, direct because of this position because of this experience with me with my with that spinal tap as a baby. I couldn't get into a squat. And which is embarrassing, because I'm a fitness instructor on camera every day. Listen, everyone, my squat looks terrible. Sorry. Oops. After I after I, after I cleared this, I can now pop down into a but to ground squat.
Dominique Astorino 32:33
Dang, I haven't seen that yet. I remember we did like a class or something once when we were both in San Francisco. And you're talking about how like some people can't get into squats? I don't know if I've seen the bunch of ground squat.
Liz Letchford 32:47
Oh, yeah. I it was just hilarious because I built this narrative and this identity around like, Oh, I've got long femurs and
Dominique Astorino 32:53
Yeah! I remember this.
Liz Letchford 32:54
Yep! And I just can't do it. And now I can because my body finally my fascia has come as unwound my body finally feels safe to be in the squat position. So it's just the perfect. It's just, it's just like, beautiful. It's a beautiful story. It's a beautiful embodied experience for me, to help hold people through the same thing. So say you have knee pain, right? That's where you start, you say, okay, and there's some research that you can do. For example, I know that the knees are can be driven by the ankles, the feet, they can also be driven and affected by the hips, and the hips can be affected by the spine, which can be affected by the shoulders and the breath. So an understanding okay, my knees are painful. Let me look above the joint and below the joy. When I'm getting a massage, when I'm doing self massage, are there places that stick out to me of like, oh, I retreat away from them, or they feel like they're always tight. So you just start asking questions being in the humble inquiry of what is true and present in my body right now notice, if your knees hurt, more or less after certain movements after certain experiences after certain body states, emotional states of foods, environments, every time I would go back to my the University where I got my PhD, my jaw would lock up and I'd be like, Kay, yeah, belie--, like, what beliefs What fears are living in this story and this narrative that I've built around this environment, this experience, where am I withdrawing? Where am I holding back from? It's fully expressing? Right? And so you can just start to notice patterns. It's really being a true scientist is just staying curious, noticing the patterns trying to stay out of a diagnosis because then you've built a narrative right? For me, I was like, I can't squat, right? Imagine if now I can. So I build this narrative and this I identity around the diagnosis. So I would just offer try not to build an identity around a diagnosis. I understand I want to validate the fact that it feels good to have a have a reason why something hurts. So I just want to acknowledge and validate. Yeah, sometimes diagnoses feel great because it's like, Oh, I'm not it's I'm not it's not in my head.
Dominique Astorino 35:19
I'm not crazy
Liz Letchford 35:20
Yeah, I, I, there's nothing wrong with being crazy, I just want to put that out there.
Dominique Astorino 35:24
Okay thank you! Validating.
Liz Letchford 35:27
Yeah. Listen, I'll validate you as hard as you want.
Dominique Astorino 35:31
Yes daddy! So sorry, to anyone listening.
Liz Letchford 35:40
So..... it's so good. They're right here. They're right here with us.
Dominique Astorino 35:48
I hope you're with us still.
Liz Letchford 35:51
Yeah. So just just staying in that true curiosity of okay, here's a diagnosis. What's a diagnosis, it's just some people who noticed some patterns around some particular symptoms and gave it a name, right. But before there were diagnoses before there were ICD nine codes. There were people with symptoms, there are people with emotion. So for me, the way that I view the world is I look at I see patterns and everything, I noticed connections between things. It's just the way my soul works. And so I offer you permission to do the same. Try taking a bird's eye view, noticing the patterns, you know, in your, in your food in your behavior that correlate to the intensity of the symptoms that you're feeling. Okay.
Dominique Astorino 36:41
I love that.
Liz Letchford 36:42
And it's unique to you like, yeah, they're unique to you. Yeah, sure. There are patterns like IT band friction syndrome is a thing and it shows up in people. But it can show up in you because your shirt, you're wearing the wrong shoes, it can show up and you because your IT band is tight, it can show up, because you've got scoliosis, it can show up because you've got pelvic floor weakness, there is a symptom. And then there's the root cause and the root cause is always way deeper than just I've got tight calves,
Dominique Astorino 37:10
right. Okay. And I love that this led you to not.... going back to what you were saying about your back pain. You didn't abandon Yoga, you didn't run away from something, you got to the root, you dug deeper and you did it in a way that integrated Western and spirituality.
Liz Letchford 37:25
Well, here's the thing is, I wanted to abandon yoga so bad. And I did. And so another thing I want to validate for people is yeah, it's frustrating. It's really frustrating. I would cry, I would cry in class or cry after class, I would be like, Why am I so broken, I'm sitting here as a fitness instructor on camera, feeling like so less than because I don't have this perfect, fluid, Strong Body. Instead, I am suffering in my own body in my own movement practice and failing to find a movement practice that actually feels at home, in my body. And so as soon as I just allowed, allowed, and understood the fact that, hey, my suffering is coming from not listening to my body, that's where then I can have my Lighthouse of of, okay, I need to refine my intuition. And that intuition can be refined by being validated by external studies, and fine tuning my ability to listen to my body and to it's really just being curious. It's truly just being in the listening. Instead of like, Listen louder than you speak. Listen louder than you think. Listen to the signs we've, we, we've become deaf, become become deaf to so much truth. Because we're trying to cram so much into our systems, and we're trying to, to compensate for a lifetime of ignoring our bodies, our physical bodies, our community bodies, our Earth body, all of it the you know, the bodies of water that are not becoming polluted. We are ignoring it all we are deaf to the red flags to the engine lights being on in our Earth, and in our body. And it's no coincidence that we're starting to see higher and higher instances of disease.
Dominique Astorino 39:24
Yeah, it's like we can't take it anymore. Almost.
Liz Letchford 39:26
Oh, for sure. And so I just want to know, yeah, I want to give permission but as to as to reach a breaking point, right? That's what happened to me. I was like, I'm done. And that's when that's when I was able to heal it. So it's okay to be frustrated. It's okay to be angry at your body. Just feel that and, and let it hurt so that you can let it go. There's a there's, we can recognize the anger know where it comes from and start to love that start to love the parts of you that are in pain, start to love the parts of you that don't Want to do the squats? Love those parts of you and there you will find the answers.
Dominique Astorino 40:05
I love what you just said, it's okay to be angry at your body, maybe not forever. But there's this idea that bypasses that pain that so many of us feel at different points in our life, that we are either just satisfied or frustrated or just straight up angry on our body, whether we're sick, or we're not as strong as we want to be or not the physical shape that we want to be, we feel that pain, the anger, and we're constantly told, and it's coming from a good place, but we're told like love your body, love your body, love your body. And then when that's like incongruent from your actual experience that can even be more painful. I love what you said that it's okay to feel that way. And then you can move into loving the experience that you're going through, you can work toward that by not bypassing that anger and that painful experience.
Liz Letchford 40:56
Totally. And anger is a powerful anger is a powerful transmuter of, I mean, think of how many things we've accomplished as a society because of anger. You know, you see people picketing outside of like outside of the White House, right to make shades, anger fuels change, like the bridges that we burn, like our path. And so the thing about anger is if we start to shut all over ourselves, and we start to shame and be like, no, no body positivity, only, like love your body, yet, you're still feeling this anger, it starts to get buried in your tissues, and then you're wondering why your knees are painful. So, so the thing about anger and sadness is it can all be transmuted through turn on. And so feeling that anger, like really expressing the anger being like just angry, and then moving into moving into feeling how you can turn that anger into turn on whether you do like your own little strip tease in your room. Regena Thomashauer. Mama Gena actually has a really beautiful practice she coined called swamping, which is a beautiful practice to feel your anger, feel your rage, feel your sadness, feel the frustration, we have a lot of reasons to be angry and to be sad, you know, each of our own unique as well as our collective anger. And then if you just like screaming into a pillow, and that's it, you stopped your practice. You think about raw you would feel Yeah, my wife is if you scraped totally. And if you scream into a pillow, and then you start to roll your hips around and you start to feel the power of that igniting your own lifeforce energy. Now you've transmuted the anger into turn on which is your creative, lifeforce energy. Now you can do something about it. Now you can write that book Think of how many people have lost children to drunk driving who then write a book or start a fund or it's that anger that that when transmuted into creative lifeforce energy, which is the same as your turn on
Dominique Astorino 42:55
right, the sacral chakra that orange or energy like from that same area is the creative powerhouse, right?
Liz Letchford 43:02
Right. And so don't deny that part of yourself I get it can be edgy, it can feel unsafe. So in your own time, in your own season in the right season, it might not be a season season to explore your turn on. But I really highly recommend starting to get curious about that.
Dominique Astorino 43:24
Yeah, I love that. I want to circle back to, I guess, going through your tips that you've left us with in terms of, you know, assessing your current movement routine, validating all of it and moving forward in the healthiest spiritual way. body scans daily body's hands, if you can, checking in with your body, taking inventory of what season of life you're at, and noticing patterns, pain habits, getting curious, listening louder than you speak and think. Don't build an identity around a diagnosis. A diagnosis can be great in terms of feeling validated yet again, but it doesn't have to be your truth. Get to the root of how you're feeling or what's going on. Don't be afraid to be angry and turn that anger into something powerful that can generate something creative.
Liz Letchford 44:13
Oh, did I say oh, that's Yeah. That's great. Please take that advice.
Dominique Astorino 44:23
Yeah, like I'm hoping people are writing this down. I'm always like someone who has a journal, please, Liz. That was incredible. And we did all of that in such a short period of time short, you know, by our standards. If someone listening, I'm sure a lot of people wants to listen and hear more from you learn from your Mega minds, ginormous brain. Maybe train with you or take one of your classes. Where can they connect with you and get more or less time?
Liz Letchford 44:50
Yeah, please connect with me on social media. My handle is is Liz Latchford and you can find everything from that place. I welcome please for you, if you need a safe place to land if you need a soft place to land, send me a message. I would love to connect with you. I'd love to hear your story. I'd love to hear if this helped shift your own journey in any way. And if you have any questions, I can guide you to any resources that you need. This is something I'm so passionate about. And if I can help you in your journey, I just know that it will have a trickle effect down the line. So please don't be afraid to reach out to me. Please don't be afraid to share your story. I am wishing you so much love on your own journey. I know if this is pinging your heart if you're listening and this is pinging your heart, this is for you. I'm talking to you. So please don't hesitate to reach out. I'm happy to share resources and and wish you the best on your journey to self exploration. It's so juicy.
Dominique Astorino 45:49
Yes, Liz. Your energy is medicine. You're healing world. Thank you.
Liz Letchford 45:55
Thank you so much Dominique
OUTRO
Dominique Astorino 45:57
Alrighty then arrivaderci my little Twinkies, je vous aime beaucoup, and I hope you're having an absolutely fabulous Leo season. If you love today's episode and you'd like to hear more, please subscribe, download and or leave a five star review. If you didn't love today's episode. On behalf of The Joe Rogan Experience we're sorry you don't enjoy our podcast and we wish you the best Bye.
CREDITS
Thanks for tuning in to this episode of This is fine. I've been your host Dominique Michelle Astorino. We're based in San Diego recording in studio at DLI productions in Pacific Beach with Emmy award winning sound designer Dan De La Isla. This is a comedy and advice podcast but for legal reasons. This entire podcast is a joke and none of it is medical advice. To download a transcript or learn more visit this is fine podcast.com
