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Leslie welcome to the show Welcome to True Hope cast good morning I hope you're doing well how are you what's

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going on oh awesome thank you for having me I'm great it's a beautiful day out um you know um and I get to do all my

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work from home so life is pretty good magic I'm glad to hear that that's awesome well why don't you just

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introduce yourself to us and to myself like who are you and what is it that you do hi everyone I'm Leslie Logan I am a

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certified Pilates instructor um habits mindset and breath work coach um and I do that all from home now I've

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started teaching in 20 2008 and um honestly never thought I'd be

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apologize instructor really didn't know what it was until my first class and honestly and I really made fun of it too

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before I went I was like this is an infomercial workout it's not going to do all the things it says but I fell in love with it it was the most amazing

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thing I'd ever done it changed my outlook on the day and I know if you work out you're like yeah most workouts

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do that but like it really like I have like a pep in my step I was like I had so much zest for the day and

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um having been somebody who was like I'm always a pretty optimistic person but to like have like this energy and drive the

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whole day from a workout I was like this is amazing I have to do it all the time and then fast forward somebody suggested

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I become a teacher and I just really didn't know that that was something I could do

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um I didn't I never saw people like just switch careers uh growing up so I didn't realize that I could do that but I

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needed some extra money and I kind of wanted to pay for my new habit of going to class every day so I became a teacher

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and I got so busy teaching even during the recession that was happening I could have quit my real

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job and just teach full time and then that took me around the world teaching people how to teach Pilates taking

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people on Retreats and just being able to see the effects of what Pilates does on people's lives is incredible it's

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fulfilling I really love it cool so what what is Pilates I've absolutely heard of the word I've never

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been into a pilates class I don't know why I think when I first got into um yoga it was very much on the west

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coast of Canada so it was kind of just like all yoga and everyone's into yoga and everyone carried their yoga mats with them everywhere but pilates not not

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so much but I'm sure there are lots of Pilates places over there but I just I don't know why but it just it never came

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across my radar so tell us what it is like does how does it differ from yoga

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yeah so all great questions and you know um because police was brought to the US

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in the 20s like 1920s it's um it's not it's it it doesn't surprise when people

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have not seen a lot of it or they haven't had it come across their path because there haven't been teachers doing it for hundreds of years like yoga

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right so it's just it's just been a little bit more contained um but in the 80s it definitely got more

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spread out and then after uh there was a lawsuit so it allowed people to actually all be polite instructors in 2001 then

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it really started to take off because people could actually use the name without getting in trouble so it's a little history on polies of what is

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Pilates it is a strength-based workout that is designed to balance your balances and you can do it on the mat

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similar to yoga classes on the map that you need a thicker mat for sure um I can't say I don't see a lot of

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people walking around with one because it's a little bit more bulky uh to have a Pilates mat under your arm but it

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there's the mat work which is all body weight so that's similar to yoga and I can dive in deeper into the differences in a moment and then there's equipment

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and that's where the access gets a little bit trickier because you have to have someone who's trained in all of the

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pieces of equipment there's a lot of them takes a longer training and they're not always accessible but it is the

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coolest workout that really does meet you where you are and take you like and it gets more challenging the more you do

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it so even though you're doing some of the same exercises from day one to ten years later you find more muscles that

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you can use to support you in that exercise everything gets a little more possible doesn't get easier but gets more

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possible and it's it's something that is designed to benefit everything you're already doing so it's not where it's

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like once you do pillage you don't do anything else no it actually is works really great in conjunction with running

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and weightlifting and and if you're doing yoga or swimming anything like that it's really going to help balance

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all those things out and help you do those better without you having to like do more of that to get better at it so

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it's pretty cool it's a nice little secret weapon it differs from yoga in a lot of ways first

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um yoga is mostly strictly on a mat there are some classes that have slings or straps but mostly it's not all on a

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mat and then also even though if you look at how yoga is supposed to be done

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yoga can be a strength based workout most people do it for the stretch um and and um and the classes are really

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a lot longer there's a lot of emphasis on breath whereas Pilates yes there's an emphasis on breath Joe supplies wanted

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everyone to learn how to breathe for sure but every exercise has its own breath pattern as long as you're

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breathing that's really important keep going we're not going to get really strict on that and and

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it is um it is very much a strength base it's focusing strength on a strength part

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first and connecting to your center before you go out so while there's some similarities they're both meditations

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um your Pilates practice is a little shorter and has equipment access as well

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cool do you find in your experience people either do do Pilates or do yoga

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or do meditation they kind of stick to one thing or do you have people that come in that are using you know doing

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different different um types of these you know I suppose

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like self strength self recognition you know it's like I I find

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yoga all about like taking the hour or the 30 minutes or whatever to just like dive deep into myself and really feel my

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body is I'm not a huge fan of the classes because everyone in that room is very different in regards to where they are with their

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body like even like day to day so I kind of like to like feel out where my body's at and really focus on those areas

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rather than like just like going through that whole routine but do you find people like either go to Pilates or they

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go to yoga or they try like something else or do like people like to mix it up you know I I know a lot of people who

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once I get into Pilates that's all they do and that's especially if you have the access to equipment and you're mixing it up

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um that's great you know um because it's it's got it has so many different options for you

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um however most people I work with um they come to Pilates because they love something else and they don't want

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to get injured so when you are too flexible you are like so hyper mobile

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bodies which love to go to yoga because they can do all of the moves really beautifully unfortunately it's not about

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having a beautiful practice it's actually about the person doing the practice but um but it's that you actually are more

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susceptible to be injured because you don't have strength to support that flexibility vice versa people who like

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only weight train they are and I love my weight training I lift heavy weights I'm

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big on it um I do a CrossFit light style workout but if you are only focusing on train

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strength training you are going to get injured right so you have to have a balance of flexibility and strength all

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in your body especially if you're listening you're a woman I'm talking to you like you really the more the

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stronger you are going into menopause I promise you life is easier for you so so um but uh but so I personally really try

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to keep people diversifying their movements um but having a consistent policy

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practice especially with the mat allows you to do three to four times a week of Pilates maybe even five or six times a

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week applies because you can do a 15-minute Pilates mat workout before you lift or after you lift or before you run

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and so it can be this nice little cross training that can get you ready warmed up for what you're doing or cooled down

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from what you were just doing that's cool I I think that um it's so

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interesting how people get drawn towards different types of activity usually

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um it's down to like like I what was your experience when you first started Pilates with a friend kind

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of drought like dragged you into it like yeah that's usually kind of how it goes and it's usually like it's within us

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within our friend's circles eventually somebody like you know pulls you in but it's super funny because like

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that person who it brings you in it was the same for me with yoga somebody was talking about yoga all the time all the

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time all the time and how wonderful it made them feel and for some reason I like didn't do it for a couple of months

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before I finally kind of kind of gave in to you know to this like process of being continually asked and then I went

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and I felt amazing I think it's that what we resist is there to assist but like we don't we don't always like

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change and we also have some sort of thing in our head from whatever we heard or saw from somebody else and like I'd

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seen Pilates on an infomercial and I just always grew up thinking that infomercials were here to steal your money like no every

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for like three payments of 9.99 shipping and handling like you know what I mean like so I just had this like connotation

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that it was on the infomercial Channel then it couldn't work and for you probably maybe you heard something about

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yoga that like it was like we just kind of resist change and oftentimes like

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what we're resisting is really the thing that's gonna is there to help us and like for you your yoga practice helps

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you like really spend time with yourself because you're different day to day and that is so true like our bodies are

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literally different every single day based on like if you slept too little if you slept too much if you slept on the wrong side maybe you um had a stressful

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day the day before and you didn't even realize how 10 like you were waiting for a decision or waiting for an email and so you're super super tense well now the

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next day of course you're tight of course like something's gonna go wrong and so why I love whether people have a

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yoga practice or I um of course I Hope they've applies practice because it's really going to make your yoga practice stronger

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you get to spend time with your body in that moment in that day and you can only think about what your body is doing in

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that moment so Pilates used to be called contrology right that's the art of control the study of control and

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we can control so little in our lives like pretty much nothing but when you are doing your police practice you

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actually can focus on how you control your body in that moment and then you get to be really like an observer of it

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wow I couldn't do that yesterday or oh I'm super judging myself right now like

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how we are on our mat how we do one thing is how we do everything and so when I teach people Pilates when I'm

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really a big proponent I was like how are you talking to yourself right now I just asked you to do this thing did you just get mad at yourself or just go I

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can't do that that's how you're approaching every obstacle in your day that's how you talk to yourself so what

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if we like practice a different thing right now in this moment in our body and how if we practice it there then

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it's going to be easier for our brain to go oh we have another option we can do right here you know and so that's my big

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thing about when people are doing Fitness modalities where they actually have to think about what they're doing

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they have to focus on how their body is and they have to pay attention to what it's saying to them that is going to help them be more attentive to what

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their body is saying to them all day long and our bodies are telling us things all day long and most of us are just so disconnected we're not listening

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yeah the idea to take that practice and take take that strength and take that Consciousness into throughout your day

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without question there's you know something that a lot of those types of activities really helps you know you

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don't just want that to be an experience for 30 minutes or an hour and it's kind of done now I think that you're supposed

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to learn and definitely connect your mind and body better because you know most

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people kind of have this like you know disconnect between their mind and their body and meditation yoga Pilates all

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without question you know whilst using your breath and being being becoming very very engaged in where your thoughts

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are at and what your body's doing and we're actually kind of like checking in with our physical body and like noticing

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tightness or pain or tenderness and like you know checking in with that I find that it's really really important way to

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become conscious off the mat and out of the studio and how how do people like

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know if like Pilates is like right for them like what type of questions could they be asking themselves yeah well um

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if you have a body then you can do Pilates so there's that that's a good thing now if it's right for you or not I

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think mostly you've defined the teacher that's going to be the right person for you so and that goes for anything right

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like if you took a yoga class and you didn't really love the teacher you hopefully wouldn't go oh well yoga

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didn't work for me hopefully you'd go find so like therapy right like not every therapist is the right person for

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the right like you have to find the right people for you so first um truly like

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I would figure out like what do you have access to First is there any even a studio where you live or are you someone

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who likes to work at home or are you someone like Simon likes to do his yoga by himself right like

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um figure out who you are do you need the energy of being in a space of a group of people or are you wanting to be

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by yourself and then that way you can decide um if there's a studio do they have private sessions that you could take or

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find an online platform like mine where you can do it when you want to at home and be supported then you want to

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actually give yourself permission to be a student so if you are someone who's super super

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hard on yourself polize is really going to be where you find yourself because we said we tend to draw a lot of a high and

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overachiever perfectionist people on recovery so um so that's good sign but

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um noticing like trying to find the the right modality the right teacher and then the right version applies for you

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there's a couple different variations just like in yoga there's Yin Yoga there's Ashtanga there's all that stuff right Pilates I'm a classical teacher

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and what that means is on the mat we start with 100 women with push-ups um so if you know Ashtanga there's an

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order for that Pilates Matt has the exact same thing and what I love about it is you don't have to ever exercise

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because not every exercise is right for you today that's the important part yet is a really good word to use um instead

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everything is compounding so you do the exercises you can do you replace the ones you can't do with the ones you can

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do and they all start to add up and over time you get to see oh wow look I couldn't do it yesterday I could do it

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today so you get to really compare yourself to yourself but um if you have access to a studio and you like to go in

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person then that's going to be what you want to look into and then you want to try out different people you really also want to make sure like they've been

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trained well I will ask them how long was your training you're looking for someone who's been trained um usually

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450 to 950 hours um and their first training is a good sign and then you want to find the

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person who understands your body so if you are a super tight person you might not want the dancer teacher

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they might you know I'm not I'm not knocking them oh my gosh they're going to listen to this and be like let's say I could teach those people every teacher

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has opportunity to teach different people but again finding the person that resonates with you I wasn't a dancer so even though it's a hypermobile body as

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an athlete so I taught a lot of athletes when I first started teaching a lot of football players a lot of basketball players and I was working on balancing

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their imbalances so really trying to find someone who resonates with you is gonna be the best thing and then give

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yourself permission to be in practice so this is really going to be a struggle for those who like really want it to be

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perfect right away your first 10 sessions of Pilates you're gonna be like what is this weirdness I don't

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understand you might love it but also like not get it but then your body starts to understand where you move from

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which is not your elbows your wrists your feet your knees it's from your Center and your Center is all the muscles around your hips around your

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waist around your shoulder girdle that's all the muscles that support your your skeleton right your spine and um and

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then the arms and the legs are there to see if they can keep if they can challenge that connection and so that

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takes about the next 20 sessions but what's really cool is if you're doing Pilates two to three times a week in a

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month you're gonna be like oh my God I get it I understand it and now I have a foundation I can work from so be patient

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with yourself is going to be um the challenge for most people but it's also really beautiful to see people

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um go from like this is really weird to ooh this is like feels really good is there a like a um like a core discipline

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factor with Pilates I know I think some really great benefits of let's say some

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martial arts there is this like core ideal around the around the practice

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around the culture um of the say karate for instance or Kung Fu there's this really cool

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discipline factor that kind of comes hand in hand with the with the practice itself does does Pilates have have that

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type of ideal yeah you mean like um in in like the core strength or just

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like that like like there's values that go well along with being in the Pilates practice Yeah I suppose it's more like a

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core value thing yeah yeah so um if you

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look I mean just like any workout out there even this has happened to yoga there's gonna be some very commercialized versions of it that are

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like designed to get you that Pilates body and they're gonna lengthen and strengthen like they lengthen your muscles and we cannot make your bones

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longer I'm just gonna be really honest like so a lot of that stuff is just like really good marketing but the core

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values of Pilates are just this like it is a practice and that is it's not like that is like

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really real you go to practice so just like you go to do your yoga you know

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that when you do your yoga you've done how many chaturangas and how many downward dogs and every single time you're trying to find more in that

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downward dog than you found last time that's the same thing that goes on in Pilates every time you do an exercise

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you're actually just trying to find more out of it so maybe in the beginning you used a lot of like your upper arms

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instead of like your whole body so the core so and then the other thing is that you move from the center out

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so we're always trying to connect to the center first and then we move out from that and then the other thing that's

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really important that a lot you'll see people really having to practice is that you just keep the breath flowing

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so we're not like inhaling here and exhaling here and then inhaling over here like the breath just flows because

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when you leave your Pilates practice you are actually walking down the street and you don't go inhale right leg exhale

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left leg you just are breathing right so those those core principles you'll see like people will tout like these six

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principles of Pilates that was not written by dose of Pilates um and that's just um Precision flow

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control there's a few other ones um I clearly don't memorize anymore because they're not what Joseph Plies

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wanted he wanted everybody to learn how to move he wanted you to move and when he brought his work into the U.S he was

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looking at all these people and they were just deconditioned bodies from working in factories from sitting at desks I mean he believed we all sat too

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much and can you imagine in the 20s they sat too much now look at all of us everything is done today but at any rate

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like his whole thing was he just really wanted people to move and to really use their whole body even when you're in the

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shower he has this whole method of how you should shower um which I know can sound really weird

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you're like oh my God unless you're in a teacher I'm not going to teach you how to shower that is not something I do but he really wanted people to like bend

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down wash your ankles instead of like having the scrub brush on a stick I don't have to lean over you know and

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it's just about keeping us young and strong longer so I think like when you get into Plies there's so much to

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understand and really truly like the more you can just be in your body and like at like

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ask yourself where am I feeling this right now how how is this feeling better than yesterday and what is so cool about

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that is a lot of us don't spend enough time asking ourselves how we feel right now a lot of us do not spend a lot of

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time like like checking in with our bodies and so then when people are

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telling you to use your gut instinct well they don't ever listen to their gut they're not listening to their body how what how can they decide what the

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difference in their gut in their mind and like somebody else so really truly like when you are doing applies practice

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you're really focusing on like where am I moving from what is possible oh like where how do I do this and like how do I

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incorporate all these things so that when you go and do life you just do it better you are able to reach up to the top shelf from more of a

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strength place instead of like just like shoulder in your ear and like how do people injure themselves usually doing

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something around the house and so the goal is like when you do this practice you can actually do the life that you're

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doing without injury and also getting to know yourself more yeah functional movement you know it's so interesting

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because I think that so many so many injuries that you know that come up for a lot of people be that like lower back

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or shoulders or neck it's usually like doing you know having poor movements

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like 100 times a day right these like little micro movies that we don't really we're not really conscious about you

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know it's not really deliberate movement when you I mean when you're talking about like having you know like a conscious shower routine that makes a

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heck of a lot of sense right because you know somebody you know drops the shampoo bottle and they just like quickly just

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like bend over with no thought of like what muscles they're using and you get to a certain age where that you know

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you're not taking that into consideration you are you know you could potentially do yourself some significant damage and if you've got those weak

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muscles and you know weak ligaments around that area that you're you know that you're not really consciously using

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yeah you can do some do some big damage there so it makes a heck of a lot of sense that whether you are reaching to

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the top shelf in the kitchen or you know picking up something off the floor you should really be thinking about like how

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are you going to move your body in the best possible way to that you're not going to do yourself any damage or leave yourself in a vulnerable state so yeah I

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love the ideal around around that that functional movement I think a lot of

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people who get like stuck and bound let's just say like gym and weight workouts

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it's like how functional is you know lifting 50 pounds dumbbells and just you

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know just ripping that ripping the ripping the guns now how functional is that in like a in like your real life

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right I mean I think um when I when I look at people who who wait left and

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that's all they do I really do look to see how balanced they are and Arnold Schwarzenegger in one of those

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documentaries about him and his bodybuilding somebody said like oh are you gonna do are you gonna work on

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getting your arms bigger and he said if I want to get my arms bigger I have to get everything else bigger otherwise

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it's out of balance and I couldn't like I was like that is so Pilates um but the truth is like a lot of people

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go and they do their arms or they do their legs and if you look at them their shoulders are rounded forward because that's how they spend their life and

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then they do a lot of stuff that they can see because that's how we work out we're like What can I see yeah and we um and

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we also avoid doing exercises that are hard like people are not doing exercises they're not good at that's because they

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don't you don't like it because they're not good at it so you don't want to do it so you do the things that you're good at and you're getting stronger at and

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where polite can come in is it can really help balance those imbalances so that when you are weight lifting when

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you are working out you are a lot more conscious of like oh just because I'm lifting my arms doesn't mean my core

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isn't working doesn't mean I'm not standing in all of my leg muscles not just my joints and doesn't mean I can't

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have my shoulders on my back and connect to my back and so it really is important for

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especially for people who are doing heavy lifting to have functional movement training and when I see people

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who are squatting I look at their knees and you can tell that there's imbalances in their hips Well Pilates has a

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everything is from the center so we have to start from the with those hip muscles engaged first so it's really important

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for that but if you all look at your like a kid in your life and look at how they squat down and pick something up

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they squat the way we're all supposed to squat we're all born picking things up

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correctly no one is born with an imperfect picking up practice what

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happens is as adults we start to see or as we grow up we see other adults just like lean over and picking something up

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lean over grabbing the groceries turn to the side and just like leaning over and grabbing things like this they're not

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thinking about where they're moving things from and so then of course they totally pull a muscle they totally hurt

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themselves they tear something and that is because they're not in practice of how to work with their entire body in a

24:10

functional way in a conscious way and you know so we have to retrain that and we have to make a prioritization of like

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how do I this is the body I have and as long as like I you want to get as old as

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possible with all your own Parts like you really do you know and so you have to start on a younger age and if you're

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feeling a little older and you're like oh now it's too late it's it today is

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better than tomorrow so it's not too late and you can really you can really do some reverse course on some of the

24:41

weaknesses you have and make them stronger yeah that just makes me think of like you know obviously our

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biological body is ancient and we have a you know we have our the evolution of our culture which is

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you know kind of so vast and Beyond the biology hasn't been able to catch up yet and I would just imagine that the fact

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well just when you're talking about squatting there and my three-year-old just like spends half of his day squats in squats

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and we would traditionally spend so much more time in that position down on the floor that's where we did everything

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that's where we would play that's where we would talk that's how we would eat that's how we would cook but now we're kind of like upright and we're

25:16

stretching for this we're stretching for that we're putting our bodies in positions it's probably not supposed to be in the special I mean how like

25:22

worldly vulnerable you putting your body in a position when you're like stretching up for something and you're

25:28

not like moving and turning and being deliberate or even getting a chair out like we're just putting our bodies in in

25:33

very unnatural positions and you add in the fact that we're most people are quite deficient in a lot of nutrients

25:39

and a lot of people um sit way too much and they don't have that strength there anyway so it just makes a heck of a lot of sense that we

25:45

do have a significant amount of people carrying like big injuries and it makes

25:51

so much sense to take it back to um what we were doing when we were kids you know I've got a one-year-old and a

25:56

three-year-old right so I've very recently very recently seen the development of how a child goes from not

26:03

being able to move really at all like being a potato for four or five months and then like rolling over and then

26:10

crawling and then you know getting up and very slowly like figuring that balance out they're learning in their

26:17

mind and they're learning in their body it's unbelievably wonderful to watch and then they you know start walking and

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then they're squatting and they're running around and you know and if you wanted to as an adult really get back to like the core like

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fundamentals you should spend and spend 30 minutes of your day crawling around on the floor and squatting and doing all

26:37

those like child things because you know a child isn't just like learning how to

26:42

walk they are creating the foundation of their incredible body to be able to

26:49

carry them around the planet for 90 years you know and like we as you say like we forget how to do that with the

26:56

introduction of offices and sitting down at school for eight hours and like you know not using

27:02

our body as we were supposed to and then we have generations of individuals who are just like cut off from their mind

27:08

and their body and yeah it just makes so much sense you would go back to that like fundamental get on the ground stop crawling again and literally start

27:15

learning how to you know carry this incredible thing around the day yeah

27:20

well I mean my yoga teacher says the two worst inventions were chairs and shoes like our feet are shoved in shoes all

27:27

day long and then we wonder why our back hurts well your shoes tell you how to walk you don't the shoes literally tell

27:34

your foot how to roll through the ground right and then chairs like we're we're not designed to sit in chairs like the

27:40

spine was not designed to be sat on like that just isn't and so um and to do it all day long for hours

27:48

and hours and people go home and they sit and watch TV it's like of course you don't feel good and of course any amount

27:54

of movement like you're like Leslie I'm too exhausted I don't have enough time to move I promise you that's because you

28:00

don't move like we need like whether or not you do Pilates after this I don't that's fine

28:06

like I hope you do but like I really just think even if you go for a walk around the block like walking

28:11

intentional not not fast walking just taking a walk around the block gets the

28:16

blood from your calves which is your second heart back up to your brain back up to your body right and it lowers

28:24

stress levels it's proven in fact like it's just a nice walk actually lowers those cortisol levels if you even just

28:29

start with that and you do that every day just around your block then you'll actually get faster you'll crave it more

28:35

you'll find more time for it and then you'll be able to do other movement modalities because your body is going to

28:41

want it's going to tell you I need more and and I think people think I don't have time to do that but when you work

28:49

yourself out intentionally with a workout practice that actually makes you feel good and all the things that you're

28:55

already doing you end up with more time because you have more energy to do all the tasks that you're doing a tired body

29:01

takes longer to do everything yeah I mean if you just think about like

29:06

the time you would say from potential injuries and physio appointments and you know you coupled that time with money as

29:12

well it's an it's an investment right that you you're putting into yourself and into your into your health and well-being

29:18

I think a court a cool thing we've spoken about today is like self-care and whether you do choose to

29:26

take 30 minutes to just go for a walk by yourself or to try Pilates or to do yoga

29:32

or meditation whatever whatever it is that like one thing that you do that for

29:37

a lot of busy people can be that like 130 minutes that one hour where you're actually like sat with yourself Focus re

29:44

you know rebuilding and re-energizing yourself and bringing that energy back towards you rather than it focusing on you know families Partners work

29:52

The Madness of the world whatever that might be right um so that self-care piece is so so

29:58

important so what you know why do you think people should put a conscious effort in in self-care

30:05

and like you know within that self-care piece it's like you're taking yourself away from all the other important

30:10

responsibilities in your life so is that like is that a selfish thing to to want to go and do that because for a lot of

30:17

people who have been carers you know who've been mothers for a long periods of time it's very difficult for them to

30:23

you know when their kids move out of the house to to start putting their energy back on themselves like it's not a normal thing for those individuals to do

30:30

so they really struggle with that transition of being a carer for 20 years and then okay like now I've got all this

30:37

like time on my hands and I'm so used to just giving giving giving my my time and

30:42

my energy away how do you start bringing that back and yeah like how how vital is that self-care piece and that Discovery

30:49

I think I I think that I think it's really sad that we think

30:55

that we don't get to care for ourselves until after we're done caring for others I actually for every parent out there

31:01

listening your your actions are caught not taught and if you're telling your kids it can be anything in the world

31:07

they want to be but all they see is their parents like sacrificing themselves to care for them

31:13

then they don't actually think that they can be both a parent and what they want to be in life they're going to think they have to make a choice

31:19

and I don't think you'd ever want your kids to think that they couldn't be what they wanted and also like have a family

31:25

right there's there is ways of there's help there's there's communities there's other things that are out there but

31:31

and I think that truly if a parent is actually taking care of

31:37

themselves and that should not be called Selfish it just should be like the priority right you put your air mask on

31:42

first you're not any good to your kid if you're not here on this planet but if you are not taking care of yourself how

31:48

do you show up you show up stressed out you should have exhausted you show up like half paying attention to them because you're like oh my God I'm so

31:54

tired they need this they have this question I just need to take a shower I need all these things if you actually

31:59

took care of yourself first then you could be way more present with your children with the people in your lives

32:05

if you don't have children then you absolutely have to be more selfish that you can take care of the people who do

32:11

have children around you but for my carers like it shouldn't be that you have obviously

32:17

when you have an infant this is a different story infants babies that actually like need you there's a

32:23

different there's a different season for you but there has to be as they start to get older a priority even if it's 10

32:29

minutes a day that you are giving to you first only that is your 10 minutes and teaching the people around you like this

32:36

10 minutes is my 10 minutes and I I will be with you after this is over like when

32:41

this Bell goes off and yeah it's going to be frustrating and yeah little kids aren't going to understand it but they will understand when they're older and

32:47

what they won't say when they're growing up is like oh gosh you know I um I wish my parents hadn't taken so

32:55

much time for themselves um to be so that they could just be with me no they'll say like I had a great time with the my parents when we were

33:03

here and here because they were so present with me like my parents did not in the beginning of my childhood did not

33:08

take care of themselves first and so all I remember is I'm yelling stressed out exhausted every time I wanted to do

33:14

something it was a no because they didn't have energy they did not have it and so I don't like like that's so

33:20

that's unfortunate so I really just think like if you are caring for people in your life if there's people who rely

33:25

on you showing up and being there for them then you absolutely 100 owe it to them to be your full self when you show

33:32

up for them the only way to do that is to take care of yourself first whether the supplies practice an intentional walk practice a meditation practice

33:38

sleeping you know those things matter you are no good to anybody exhausted burnt out and

33:45

tired why do you think we have this big struggle though to to even think about

33:51

giving ourselves self-care love attention conscious work you know why is

33:57

it built into us has it been you know or is it or has it been built into us I

34:03

think they hand it to you as soon as you're as soon as you think you're pregnant as soon as you're a mom like

34:08

it's definitely here's your guilt trip handed to you um I also think that like

34:15

I think that a lot of things in our life need a rebranding I think the word selfish needs a different word there

34:21

needs to be a version of selfish that is a positive versus like you know a negative and I

34:27

also think um we in society prioritize being we like highlight and praise

34:34

people who are busy and who can do it all oh my God they do it all they do it all like that look

34:41

what they can do like it's all this has stuff about like being the like person who can do it all on your own do

34:47

it perfectly and and you know all the stuff and the reality is is like no one

34:52

is out there going oh wow like have you seen her she sleeps eight hours she gets

34:58

a lot of sleep no one's like out there going hey hey hey way to take care of yourself they're all like oh must be

35:04

nice that you can do that that's what people say to people so like we have the media who's ingrained on us that we have

35:10

to be really really busy to be important and self-care is selfish like is being selfish and like actually you should

35:16

only reward yourself with time at the spot and it should not be like something that's just part of your routine and

35:21

then with other people who do this this self-care shaming where they're like oh it must be nice that you can go for a

35:27

walk every day and it's like like we have to just we have to actually there needs to be a

35:33

Rebrand and all of this and everybody needs to like take the person in their life who's like must be nice and say you know what it is nice and I would love to

35:40

know why you don't think you can do that for yourself and we have to have some confrontational conversations but one

35:46

thing that I do as applies instructor because I have clients who like oh I can't come in my kid has this my kid has this whatever and I literally say you

35:53

actually don't just hire me to show up and teach when you're here you hired me to hold you accountable to the things

35:58

you said you wanted for yourself and so I know your kid has that but you need to figure out a way maybe there's

36:06

another kid in class whose mom can take your kid to school on those two days and then you can take her kid and your kid to school on these two days so you can

36:12

show up for yourself today like we have to stop thinking that we have to be a martyr in our lives for the people around us and start seeing how can I get

36:20

this parent over here to help me on these two days and I'll help them on these two days and believe it or not like we used to do that we prefer like

36:27

there used to be tribes and like the women and the people took care of the people in the tribe as a community and

36:34

now we're like nope you're on your own good luck yeah it's pretty Savage in regards to How Far We've Come Away from

36:42

from that those original aspects and you know I've I've done a couple of interviews with

36:47

with individuals who talk a lot about how you know we're not supposed to you know not have the support from like

36:54

our our mothers or our the grandparents of our kids you know like we're supposed to kind of like have that that's kind of

37:00

like built into it built originally built into the the community the tribal system you don't really have that so

37:07

much and yeah like I I find it interesting when you're talking about the the idea of looking at these

37:13

individuals who do seem to have all this time or do seem to have all these things

37:18

that we don't have and you know Envy is an absolute killer of joy and

37:24

um yeah it's not it's and that again it's just like looking out it's looking external it's looking out from us it's not looking back within and thinking

37:30

about like what I could do what I could change what am I actually capable of you

37:36

know how can I you know adapt to these things to be a bit more selfish and get that 30 minutes even if it's just like

37:42

30 minutes a week of just like being on your own like how can you actually do that and it takes a lot of self-assessment and then when you bring

37:48

in a practice like Pilates or yoga or meditation you start to go inward you

37:54

start to relate literally bring that energy back towards you and you can start having maybe some different

37:59

thoughts feelings and behaviors and actually you actually have the time to assess those things and what's going on

38:04

and you know have some sort of Enlightenment you know like we get that like run as high and you have all those

38:09

ideas flowing you know it's certainly uh it's certainly a real phenomena and it's you know it's something that we should

38:15

be very actively attempting to do on a consistent basis well a couple things to

38:20

that so first of all whenever you're envious of somebody that's because you want something about that there's

38:25

something about what they're doing that you want and that is your body's way of saying you want it that so it can

38:32

actually be a nice highlighter of what you are wanting and a lot of times when you ask you what do they want they're

38:38

like I don't know well check and see what's what your last time dull is about you want some there's something about

38:43

that that you want and it's okay to want something right it's not okay to be jealous all the time of them it's okay

38:48

to acknowledge like oh I want that and the other thing is like we have to stop thinking that it's All

38:54

or Nothing five minutes of movement a day is something and it actually does compound

38:59

and it is way better than you doing only 30 minutes on one day a week like if you can give me five minutes and if you are

39:05

in some sort of relationship where there are two adults and somehow taking care of a kid then it's not you cannot assume

39:13

the other person knows what you need there has to be a conversation of like hey every day it is so important that I

39:19

have this and so what do you need every day so that you can show up on this world okay

39:25

how do we set timers and make those things happen even if they're in seven minute increments right and then as and

39:32

then you get to every quarter you can evaluate that like okay we have more time do I have less time do I need this

39:37

actually I want to add this in and we have to stop assuming or waiting until we have more time there are studies that

39:44

show that everyone who's waiting to have more time will never have more time the only reason you get more time is if you actually sit down take a look in an

39:50

inventory of what's going on and really start to like Implement boundaries and that is so hard but it's it's incredibly

39:57

incredibly hard I'm not going to say it's not that it's easy I don't have kids and it's not easy I had to like I have like oh I have a

40:04

light in my office that says and when it is on you're not allowed to talk to me right like I had to put those things in

40:10

and so I think um it is about that inward situation so if you are doing

40:16

Pilates you're going to get that in where your brain and body are going to start to talk to each other and tell you things that you needed to know about

40:21

yourself and then the next step is like how do you include the people around you in the process and it's not selfish when

40:27

you go this is what I need to show up and be the most best version of me what do you need

40:34

to do that then it's like a y'all you're on a team and now you're like working together towards a goal and then when

40:41

the kids are older because you've been doing this your whole parenting life this whole caring time you already know

40:47

what you want for this extra time because you've been you've been slowly incrementally along the way giving

40:54

yourself more and more of what you want yeah going through that transition from like having no kids to one or two or

41:00

whatever there's such a big like life changing such a big adjustment for a lot of people and

41:06

um a lot of people never kind of snap out of that and they're able to actually take those time for themselves and they end up serving for so long and then it's

41:12

like yeah like what do you do when you come out or even when your kids get to like six seven eight when they're

41:18

significantly more independent than they were a few years back like what do you do with that time yeah it's it's interesting I'm glad that there are a

41:24

lot of things out there for people to do and I feel like it's a culture where we're making those things a bit more

41:30

accessible and we're discussing things like mental health when it comes to like what you can do to

41:36

to support yourself and you know anxious and depressive times so yeah I think

41:41

we're definitely going the right direction well what have you have you got some examples or how have you seen

41:46

like the actual practice of Pilates support people's like mental health yeah

41:51

oh my gosh aside from my own like when I'm most when I felt really anxious I like literally lay on the

41:59

ground and do my math practice because I can I can do even just a few reps of each move and like it really does calm

42:06

the nervous system so personally like I really find that it's a great way even if you only have five minutes to to snap

42:11

out of whatever you're feeling but what I've seen in other people um specifically because of how I how I

42:19

teach and how um I have people in my in my my community teach others is really

42:25

focus on what was possible so at every move and everything it's like okay like

42:31

what are you able to do right now and then because I've seen them do that because they practice that I have had

42:37

many people that I work with quit jobs that were abusive to their time or to them as a person like mentally abusive

42:44

or and um find better jobs like literally during the pandemic when everything was

42:51

like really hard and people were even more of a strain on their mental health like really encouraging like look if you

42:57

can do this exercise and you couldn't do it before like what does that say about you you can do hard things you can break

43:04

things down you can build yourself up you can actually you show up you've made it here today you show up that's data

43:11

that you show up for yourself this is like evidence that you care about you and in doing that I have just seen so

43:18

many people be much more kind to themselves and a lot of mental health is just the stuff we're saying in our head

43:24

all day long on a nice little Loop of like how the things we didn't get done that day but when you are having this

43:30

Pilates practice and you are showing up for you it is evidence of how much you do for you and that is going to be

43:35

things that you'll have strength and energy to do for others so it's pretty cool I've seen people quit jobs I've seen people

43:41

leave abusive relationships I've seen people just stand taller because here's the other thing that's so cool right we

43:47

haven't even got Pilates actually does really do amazing things for your posture I have been five nine since I

43:53

was 12 years old so worst posture in the world because I was like oh my God I'm so tall I'm taller than all the girls you know like just didn't have the

44:00

strength to support that but Pilates like literally helped with my posture right here's the thing about posture

44:05

they have proven studies that if you stand in the power stance which is like the Wonder Woman's dance if you stand that stand for five minutes you um you

44:12

feel more confident everything that you do well if you don't have the muscular strength to stand like that for five minutes which is a long time to scan of

44:19

those muscles then you can't have that but if you have really good posture you literally walk around in life exuding

44:25

confidence people treat you differently because you look like you're more confident even if you're not and

44:31

though here's the thing going back to like who we used to be in society the more forward your head is getting off of

44:38

your spine the more anxious you are the more you see Life as a threat this is like proven every time people's head

44:44

goes more forward of their shoulders they're actually becoming more anxious they're going more into that lizard-like

44:50

brain the more you have your head on top of your spine the better your posture is the more you actually taking a look

44:56

around the world from a much different place and so even just getting the posture going despite all the movement

45:03

meditation despite all the times that Pilates helps you like go inward on yourself just the posture alone is going

45:09

to help you see the world in a very different place so there's that beautiful thank you for that

45:16

tell us about your podcast it's called be it do you see it is that right yeah it's called be it until you see it um

45:22

thank you I um I wanted a podcast that I didn't want it to only be about

45:28

Pilates I mean I'll talk about Plies on there but Plies is something you've just like do you like listen to about all the time

45:36

um uh and so I but I wanted a place where people could get inspired by other people's stories

45:44

of doing things scared because I think a lot of us wait till we're ready oh when I have this then I will do X and the

45:51

reality is as in my entire life of like trying to figure out like how do I how

45:57

do I get to the next place how do I get the next step it wasn't in waiting for that step to arrive it was the actions

46:03

that I took and then I started like look at the actions I was taking and the actions I took were not like

46:08

guesses or they're kind of were guesses I guess to say but they weren't just like I wasn't exactly like the most

46:14

confident in those I was like I think this is the thing to do and so I started to realize that every time I had some

46:19

sort of success anytime I felt like there was a like a leap that I went from one place to another I was acting as if

46:25

I was already the person that I wanted to become and so when I like my first pilates

46:31

class that I taught I subbed for a friend last minute my mentor actually and there's 30 people I never taught 30

46:37

people I taught five people once but I never taught 30 people and then I was like okay well if I taught 30 people like how would I

46:44

act right now would I do and then I was like okay it's showtime and I acted as if I was someone who taught 30 people

46:50

all the time like and so that's kind of what it is so be it until you see it's interviewing people who are talking

46:56

about how they um got to where they are um the steps they took or it's doctors

47:01

and professionals that are talking about why it can be an issue for us to show up as that whether it's a hormone imbalance

47:09

or sleep deprecation or just anything like that to have medical doctors that come on too as well and um then because

47:17

it's not about just being inspired because that doesn't work for me I think like I loved how I built this but like I

47:22

wanted to know well how did you go from crying on the floor Miss owner of bumble to actually getting investors in your business like what was if we're missing

47:29

a step here and I'm like with you I've definitely cried on the floor in my business but not like I don't know how to get to the next step so I I wanted um

47:37

there to be action steps that people could take um if they were inspired by the guest and so every single guest interview has

47:43

action steps at the end for people to take to be until they see it and it's really freaking fun I love it it's such

47:50

a we have where we dropped 126 episodes to date and like you know no stopping

47:57

that's great wonderful yeah I mean it's just taking up taking a podcast on and keeping the consistency up and flowing

48:04

with the audience and you know sticking to your kind of core values and you know keeping things like relevant of what's

48:09

going on it's a it's a difficult thing to do but as you say when you've got like that passion and that Rapture and

48:16

behind it then it just kind of feeds itself and it's you know it is a lot of fun to do to have conversations with

48:22

people from all around the world and you know we're all talking about like you know holistic health and Functional Health but there's so many different

48:29

angles to it because we're all so different and unique we have our own stories we have our own traumas we have our own triumphs and it's just a

48:36

wonderful way to be able to converse these and and ultimately just share stories and inspire people because at the end of the day sharing stories is

48:42

kind of one of the most ancient forms of communication that we have and we were able to like do these do that on this

48:48

type of a platform it's yeah it's just it's such a wonderful thing that we can do and share with people so I will make

48:55

sure so how can people get connected to do that podcast and to you yeah so you can listen to be until you see it for

49:01

free anywhere you listen to podcasts you can also watch it on YouTube um and to me I am on I I mean I'm on all

49:07

the things um but I primarily like I check all my DMs on Instagram leslie.logan

49:13

um but yes you'll find me on Instagram and Tick Tock in all the places I'm just um not so good at all the things so I so

49:20

there's people who check my messages on those ones and I'm on Instagram all right so if we need you Leslie we're gonna go

49:27

to Instagram right yeah yeah you can watch all the things we have everywhere but um if you want to talk directly to

49:32

me if you want to let me know if the questions about Pilates whatever like you can reach me there um and I hope you do so like please if

49:38

like if you I hope you try Pilates if you haven't done it before and if you've done it before and you don't like it give another try try a different teacher

49:45

I'm gonna do it within the next three weeks I'm gonna go and do a pilates class that's my promise to you Leslie and I will let you know how it goes oh

49:52

please do yes let me know and if you need if you need a recommendations for teachers near you I got a few in the BC

49:58

area for sure perfect thank you very much well thanks for coming on the show and enlightening us all about Pilates

50:06

self-care and all the things associated with that I think we cover quite a lot of topics and the whole idea of

50:12

functional movement is so powerful because everyone's got most people have got a body most people use it and most

50:19

people are not using it in a very conscious deliberate way and what we want to do is we want to get more people moving and we want less people to be in

50:26

pain ultimately yeah yes I love that I'm here for that thanks for having me of course well thank you very much well

50:32

thanks for listening everybody I'll make sure that um you can get connected with Leslie in the show notes you can go

50:38

there Instagram is the best place to contact her and um yeah that is it for

50:43

this episode of True Hope cast thank you so much for watching this the official podcast of true hope Canada we'll see

50:49

you next week foreign [Music]