The Secret Language of Your Body with Lauren Roxburgh
The Secret Language of Your Body with Lauren Roxburgh
Lauren Roxburgh, “The Body Whisperer”, joins Connie Maday on the Spark to Empower Podcast in a conversation focused on the secret language of your body. Learn about the importance of our fascia and tap into the whispers of your body to connect with your intuition. Allow Lauren to guide you to into improved health and overall well-being.
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Lauren Roxburgh - “The Body Whisperer” is a world renowned Board Certified Structural Integration Bodywork Practitioner, Pilates Pro, Best selling Author, and Fascia Mind-Body Expert. Lauren is the co-founder of the Aligned Life Studio - a virtual platform that offers a new paradigm in health and fitness - with a unique focus on fascia wellness - designed to help people align and strengthen their bodies, shed physical and emotional weight while enhancing resilience and confidence.
About the Guest
Lauren Roxburgh
Aligned Life Studio
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Links:
Free 7 Day Course https://alignedlifestudio.com/7-day-body-upgrade
Connie Maday (00:12):
Welcome to the Spark to Empower Podcast. Today I'm joined by a very special guest. I'm so honored to share with you someone who was not only pivotal on my own healing journey, but who has greatly impacted individuals all around the globe. Lauren Roxburgh, The Body Whisperer, is a world renowned body certified Structural Integration bodywork practitioner, a Pilates pro, bestselling author and fascia mind-body expert. Lauren is the co-founder of the Aligned Life Studio, a virtual platform that offers a new paradigm in health and fitness with a unique focus on fascia wellness, designed to help people align and strengthen their bodies, shed physical and emotional weight while enhancing resilience and confidence.
(00:55):
I originally learned of Lauren as she was scheduled to present at a retreat I was slated to attend, led by the Firestone Sisters, but COVID happened and we all shifted. Instead of traveling to reflect and recharge, the transformation began in my living room where I participated in the Aligned Life Studio, tapping into Lauren's wisdom. As an elementary school educator, I had recently experienced several traumatic events in a short period of time and I felt energetically depleted and in need of a full body nervous system reset. Movement became medicine and slowing down was the beginning to an inward journey of deep healing and re-imagining, recreating my life and how I wanted to show up for myself, my family and the world.
(01:42):
Lo talks about the importance of listening to our body whispers, listening to our body so that we can fully tap into who we are. My passion as an educator has always been to help our youth feel confident and comfortable in their own skin and with who they are, recognizing their potential and empowering their creativity. So thinking about how we can become the best version of ourselves really starts with tuning into our body. Today I'm so excited to share her magic with you all and let her tell you why this is all so incredibly important. Enjoy.
(02:25):
All right. Welcome, Lauren. I'm so excited to have you heard today. Oh my goodness, what an honor. You have been such an important part of my own healing journey and you've touched my life and I know you've touched so many other lives out there all over the globe. So thank you for being here. And today we are going to talk about what it means to listen to our bodies and why it is so important to do so. Really the secret language of our body. Welcome.
Lauren Roxburgh (02:53):
Yes. Thank you, Connie. I'm so happy to be here and grateful. And I'm so happy you're doing this too, this is an important mission for you as well, stepping into your power.
Connie Maday (03:02):
Thank you, Lauren. Thank you. Well, you have quite a story from All American athlete to Structural Integration practitioner, The Body Whisperer. So you've taken your expertise in physiology and nutrition and really combined and developed a comprehensive understanding of fascia. So will you tell us a little bit about your journey? How did you come to really focusing on this type of intuitive healing?
Lauren Roxburgh (03:29):
Yes, it is really a wild one actually because it happened when I was quite young. When I was 16, my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. I've shared this story a lot. But it really put me on a path because I started driving her, I'd just got my driver's license and I started driving her to Stanford University to get her treatment. And I would ask the doctors, "So where does cancer come from?" And actually quite humbly, they would say, "Well, it's environmental and it's genetic and there's a whole other piece of the pie that we don't quite understand." So that really put me on a journey and I wanted to know where it came from and I wanted to know that other piece of the pie.
(04:05):
So it put me on a journey and I did study nutrition first because of course, you think, "Well, of course what you're consuming is going to affect you on that level." And then it put me on the journey of learning about nutrition and biology and I wanted to study a lot of different holistic healing arts. And then I continued to play sports and really was very athletic. So I got into the whole physical part, the mind-body part. And then I found myself pushing too hard with that. And so I realized that that pushing was not giving me the results that I wanted and I didn't feel like I was in the body that I wanted to be in. And I was disconnected to the feelings and to the sensations and I felt myself being in fight or flight.
(04:50):
And so then I continued to learn and I spent my whole twenties studying all different types of modalities and energy medicine and Pilates and all kinds of different things. And then in my late twenties, I discovered Structural Integration. And that happened... Actually, it was crazy. So my mom actually got better after the first time she was diagnosed and so a year later she was actually cancer-free. And then years went by and we thought she was fine and then she got rediagnosed. And it was at the same time that I was in school to study Structural Integration.
(05:22):
And I was going through a really toxic divorce and she was sick at the same time and I was finishing the schooling. So it was quite a traumatic time in my life. And so finding the work of fascia and Structural Integration, which is essentially like people have heard of Rolfing, it's a type of body work, and that literally saved my life. So it really helped me have the breakdown to breakthrough or to come back home to realizing who I am and my authenticity and my own personal power. So I like to say that we do have the ability to turn pain into power.
Connie Maday (05:58):
Absolutely.
Lauren Roxburgh (05:59):
Yeah.
Connie Maday (06:00):
We just have to listen.
Lauren Roxburgh (06:01):
Yeah. Exactly.
Connie Maday (06:04):
We have to listen.
Lauren Roxburgh (06:04):
That's right.
Connie Maday (06:04):
You talk about listening to the whispers in our body, listening to the whispers, listening to the messages that we receive and being able to tune in and how fascia plays such an important role in that.
Lauren Roxburgh (06:16):
Oh, absolutely. So I always like to explain what fascia is for people.
Connie Maday (06:21):
Yes, please.
Lauren Roxburgh (06:22):
I've been living in this fascia world for so many years and now you have as well and so we tend to forget that so many people still don't know what it is or how easy it is to access. So essentially, I like to explain it as a body-wide connective tissue network that's wrapping through your entire body. So I used to explain it like the scaffolding of the body or the body's glue. You can picture it right below your skin, but above your muscles, like a Saran wrapping.
(06:51):
So it wraps around the whole body, like a full body wetsuit, but also wraps around each individual muscle. And now we know that it weaves through not just your muscles, but all the way through your organs, your joints, it's everywhere in your body. Essentially now the new science is revealing that its touching every cell of your body and it's also connecting and communicating with every single system of your body. So I won't name all 12 systems, but the ones that we really care about are the nervous system because that's the big boss to the body and it tells every other system what's going on and what it needs to deal with. And then the endocrine system. So hormones. The lymphatic system, which we talk a lot about. And it's such an important for our immune system. So it's essentially such an incredible system of the body and the new research is showing us that not only is it holding us up, this scaffolding that's weaving through us, this body-wide spider web, but now we know that it's actually communicating.
(07:56):
So it's actually a communication network, sending and receiving information. Electricity, water, nutrients, light, sound, frequency and vibration. And so what I love to always explain to people is when you start working with your fascia, you can really think about the Nikola Tesla quote, which is that "If you want to know the secrets of the universe, you need to start thinking in terms of energy, frequency and vibration." And so what you realize is that, oh my gosh, you start working with your fascial system, you actually can elevate your vibration. And that's not woo woo at all, it's actually you are shifting your frequency. And now there's cameras where you can take pictures of people before they work with their fascia and after and they are literally more vibrant, more radiant, they have more electromagnetic energy and they shift their quantum field, their biofield, you could call it the aura.
Connie Maday (08:50):
It's incredible.
Lauren Roxburgh (08:51):
Right?
Connie Maday (08:52):
I've actually done a little experiment with that on my face, a before and after where you-
Lauren Roxburgh (08:58):
There you go.
Connie Maday (08:59):
And it's remarkable.
Lauren Roxburgh (09:00):
Right?
Connie Maday (09:00):
It really is.
Lauren Roxburgh (09:02):
Yes. It's the fountain of youth, if you ask me. The fascia is the fountain of youth.
Connie Maday (09:07):
I think so. And we talk about the signals that we get in our body and even just the prickling of your skin. Can you give us some examples of what are some of those intuitive signals that we're hearing? What does that feel like, look like for you?
Lauren Roxburgh (09:29):
Okay. I love that you're asking this question because this is where the new science is going and I guess it's merging the science with the spirituality piece or the soul piece. So what's happening in our fascia is because it has over 250 million sensory receptors, that's more receptors than our eyes and our skin, what science is now calling it is the sixth sense. And you could also consider it its own organ as well, just like skin is an organ. But we all know coming to our senses. So our sight, sound, taste and touch. Basically skin is to touch, fascia is to feeling. So we're considering now fascia the sixth sense of feeling. So you have the five senses that are all more outward facing, which is what we would consider in science, they call it exteroception.
(10:25):
So that includes proprioception, your body's relationship to gravity, and you lose that as you age. And that's something we do a lot of in the Aligned Life Studio and all of my programs and flows. But essentially so that outward exteroception, five senses is something that's important to bring you into the present moment, to connect you. But the inward sense is called interoception. So the science term of feeling is interoception. And that information and communication that's happening is happening through your fascia. So the fascia is the communication network that's sending and receiving that information.
(11:02):
So we know that fascia is speaking to you through your sensations, through your sensations of hunger, of gut instincts. So it's connected to your intuition of any of the things that you're feeling, thirst, but also the feelings of what you're feeling about a situation. And the emotional part of the feelings of our sensations comes from our perception of how we have experienced a situation and how we continue to maybe be living from a place of trauma or joy. So we can keep experiencing the same patterns over and over again based on our perception. So feeling is the secret to getting into the subconscious. So some people would even consider fascia the subconscious mind. Have you ever heard the term where they say, "The subconscious mind lives in the body."
Connie Maday (12:02):
Yes.
Lauren Roxburgh (12:02):
So we have the mind and the body, the conscious mind and then the subconscious is in the body. Well, now people are believing that that actually resides in the fascia. So the fascia, this is a funny term we've been saying, is think about life. When we go through life and everything's perfect and no bad vibes. Oh, it's all love and light. You're just constantly bypassing and you're actually sweeping all your shit under the fascia carpet. So we have these fascia carpets. So these fascia carpets, just like we exfoliate our skin, need to be scrubbed from the inside out, just like we brush our teeth. It's a daily hygiene. So the new research, I should say, the emerging research is that our emotions also are living in our tissues. So trauma can get stuck in our tissues. And when we hold onto that trauma, it can actually lower our frequency because emotions have an electromagnetic frequency, which is a very powerful thing to think about.
Connie Maday (13:03):
I love that.
Lauren Roxburgh (13:04):
And there's so much power in that. Gabor Maté's work, which I'm a big fan of, the way he explains it is just so simple that, "Trauma is not what happened to you, trauma is how your body dealt with what happened to you." So to me, when you really think about that, if you let that sink in, you realize there's power in that. I have the ability, we have the ability, everyone that's listening has the ability to choose how you respond.
(13:33):
Do you react and clutch and bear down and just take up no space and let all of that energy just penetrate into your subconscious? Or do you take a deep breath? Do you ground into your feet? Do you just look at this as a challenge that you can get through? Or do you turn away and run away? Do you fight, flight or freeze? Or do you take a moment and realize, this is happening, it's going to happen to all of us. Whatever it is, stress, trauma. It;'s like realizing that you have the power to emote this energy, and emotions are energy in motion, so we can emote this energy out through these beautiful, simple practices of somatic and kinesthetic connection.
Connie Maday (14:13):
Gosh, that's so important.
Lauren Roxburgh (14:15):
Yeah.
Connie Maday (14:16):
So important. There's so much wisdom there. I mean, we are constantly getting messages.
Lauren Roxburgh (14:22):
Constantly.
Connie Maday (14:23):
Constantly getting messages.
Lauren Roxburgh (14:24):
Yes. And even, for instance, your situation or anyone that is dealing with an ailment, an issue, a disease, cancer, these are all your body's way of speaking to you. And they are. And we don't want to numb that pain. This is a big message of mine too, is that we want to realize that pain is a portal to transformation, it does not have to make us feel like a victim. And I know that's hard for some people to really accept because sometimes people want to just live in their pain and that's okay too. But there is a lot more, I think my message is that we have the ability to alchemize a lot more inside of us to literally take whatever that issue or that disease or that experience or that challenge or that trauma or that stress, that is an opportunity of growth and evolution for our humanity as well.
Connie Maday (15:21):
Yes. And I would love to add that we all have our responsibility to be able to step into this.
Lauren Roxburgh (15:29):
Yes. I like that word even, responsibility is basically the ability to respond.
Connie Maday (15:35):
Yes.
Lauren Roxburgh (15:36):
How beautiful.
Connie Maday (15:36):
We have an ability to respond. It is up to us to recognize these patterns and decide that we want to change the patterns.
Lauren Roxburgh (15:45):
Exactly.
Connie Maday (15:46):
And tune in. And I think that's the part where so often we're in this autopilot mode, we're going, we're going, we're going, we're going. There are whispers coming that we're not listening to.
Lauren Roxburgh (15:57):
Yes.
Connie Maday (15:59):
Eventually we're going to get to a place where, "Okay, it's time to listen now."
Lauren Roxburgh (16:04):
Yeah. The knocks and then they turn into the whispers, turn into the screams or the knocks are turning into someone kicking the door down, right?
Connie Maday (16:12):
Right.
Lauren Roxburgh (16:13):
So your body, it's so incredibly wise. And I like to explain what I teach as body intelligence, essentially. We talk about emotional intelligence and all these different types of intelligences and I like to call it BI. And in the world that we're living in where AI is starting to take over and people are getting chips put in their head and chips everywhere and you're like, "Well, do you want to give away your consciousness to AI or do you want to develop your BI?" Because I believe that we also have incredible things that are going to be awoken inside of our bodies, specifically through our DNA, and we're going to have these evolutionary upgrades if we're the ones that stick to it and tune in and go deeper into this kind of knowing. Because really, like we were saying, the intuition lives in the fascia. And also if you're familiar with the work of osteo, if you've ever been to osteopath.
(17:10):
So Dr. Andrew Still is the founder of osteopathy and that was in the late 1800s. And he coined the term that, "The soul of a man's being resides in the fascia." So let that sink in a little bit too. Because I'll take that a little further from my work and my background, which is working with body work, touching people, and also giving people tools to basically create their own feelings of body work through the work that I teach. And what I noticed is that when people would bring awareness to an area of their body, we'd apply the pressure and then the actual energy, so the electromagnetic energy and the soul of a person would start living in that area again.
Connie Maday (17:57):
Wow.
Lauren Roxburgh (17:57):
Because a lot of these areas that we have pain or we're hunched over or we're compressed or we have tension or thickness or density, the soul along with the lymph and the white blood cells and the circulation and the qi is no longer able to flow through there. So when you start to work with your fascia, you start to embody your soul. So you're able to actually feel into your soul more and get deeper into those connections. And it honestly gives you a body upgrade. A mind, body, spirit upgrade.
Connie Maday (18:33):
Oh, yeah. Absolutely.
Lauren Roxburgh (18:34):
Right?
Connie Maday (18:34):
Absolutely. And you're stepping into yourself in a whole new way.
Lauren Roxburgh (18:37):
Yes. And the other way, really quick, I'll just mention one more thing because this is a good way for people to visualize the fascia. So now we know it's this scaffolding holding us up, this glue, but also think of it like your body's Wi-Fi. So it's the Wi-Fi and then it's basically sending and receiving the information and the Wi-Fi is sending all the information to your brain, which is your computer. So then the computer is the processing center. So everything is not happening in the brain, so much more is happening in the actual body than we realize. And the new science is starting to show us that more through these sensory receptors and different new cameras that they have.
Connie Maday (19:19):
That is incredible. Just fascinating.
Lauren Roxburgh (19:22):
It is fascinating. I know.
Connie Maday (19:24):
Oh my goodness. Well, I think coming from an educator background, I'm a mom, I've got three kids, I'm always thinking about all of these incredible findings, discoveries. It's a whole new level of consciousness that I have. What can I pass on? How can I pass on these important lessons to my kids, to my students?
Lauren Roxburgh (19:46):
Absolutely.
Connie Maday (19:48):
And I would love to hear your thoughts on that. What can I do? What can we do to help support our youth tap into this knowing? Which, I mean, we could talk about it as our inner compass or our intuition or the body whisper. How can we help? What can we do?
Lauren Roxburgh (20:06):
Well, the number one thing I always do with my kids, who are the similar ages as your kids, is I am like, "Listen to your body. Your body knows, your body is your one true home, you can trust your body." Because a lot of times what happens if we go through things in life, stressful things, trauma, we disassociate and so we actually literally don't live in our body. So then we are more numb. So calling yourself back into your body daily, it's a daily practice. I do it with my children at night as they're going to sleep, we do sound healing and then I do a beautiful meditation.
(20:43):
Because actually right when you wake up in the morning, you probably already know this, and right as you're falling asleep, your fascia, your subconscious programming is available because you're out of your monkey mind or conscious mind, overthinking mind. And you're starting to drop in, your brainwaves are changing. So you actually can program people when they're going to sleep. So doing these beautiful meditations and mentioning these things like, "Remember to trust your body. Listen to your body. Know your power. Remember how strong you are. Remember how powerful you are." Whatever it is. I mean, I have really great meditations which I'm happy to share with you.
Connie Maday (21:23):
Yes, you do. You have some really beautiful ones. There's a sound healing that I love that you have in your Aligned Live Studio. It's amazing.
Lauren Roxburgh (21:30):
Yes.
Connie Maday (21:31):
In the morning too, I mean, some people talk about setting intentions or having their daily mantras or their positive affirmations. There's one that you shared a while back, I think it was during COVID, "Every little cell in my body is well."
Lauren Roxburgh (21:44):
Yes, there you go.
Connie Maday (21:45):
And I loved that-
Lauren Roxburgh (21:46):
Such a good one.
Connie Maday (21:47):
... because that was around the time where we all needed that little reminder. I'd love to hear, what are some other go-to mantras that you share with your kids or you have for yourself? What are your favorites?
Lauren Roxburgh (21:57):
So one of the best ones that I think is really important, especially for the world that we live in right now is, "Peace begins with me." Bringing yourself into your physical body, you can use your hand and just do, peace begins with me. So you're using the senses to sense and feel your body and then you're saying those words to remember that if we want... That helps with people that have anxiety or a lot of stress. I have a number of them, I know I work with a lot of people in Hollywood, celebrities that are always looking to look their best and feel their best. And one of my favorite ones is, "I live in the body of my dreams."
(22:42):
So that's one too that's really good. I effortlessly live in the body of my dreams. So it can be anything you guys, whatever you want to program into your cellular vibration, into your physical being is possible or your energetic being as well. So I like the one we've been doing lately is, "I embody radiance." Because I think radiance to me is, especially for women over 40, you want to be beyond, you don't want to just think of yourself as beautiful or glowing. Radiance to me is a vibration, it's an energy, it's something that feels more expansive. And when you see someone that's radiant, you see them walk into the room and you see it, but you also feel it. You feel their energy, you feel their vibration, you feel their essence and you feel their confidence and this kindness as well. It's like a humble confidence. You know what I mean?
Connie Maday (23:39):
I think it's so powerful to have those mantras, those messages that we send ourselves. And it's neat, I've been doing this for several years now, but how to see the transformation of the ones that I am speaking to myself and how it has evolved.
Lauren Roxburgh (23:54):
Yeah. So it's good. Write them down and then look at them, go back in your journals and go, "Oh my gosh, that's actually happened. I am living that." Because they say that manifestation... It's funny, the whole manifestation world, it's not like, "Oh, I'm going to all of a sudden start manifesting." We're always manifesting and what we manifest is what we are.
Connie Maday (24:15):
Right.
Lauren Roxburgh (24:16):
So everything is energy. So we are attracting what we are.
Connie Maday (24:20):
Yes.
Lauren Roxburgh (24:21):
And we have to not just think it in our mind, we actually have to feel it in our body. So our conscious mind and our subconscious, our thoughts and our feelings, our fascia needs to believe it. Sometimes people even consider fascia the organ a perception because it's where we are perceiving and it's recording every experience that we ever have. From when we're in the womb till our last breath.
Connie Maday (24:45):
Yes. And everything in between.
Lauren Roxburgh (24:46):
Yeah.
Connie Maday (24:47):
And that fascia is really a way that we can tune in to making decisions too.
Lauren Roxburgh (24:52):
Totally.
Connie Maday (24:52):
So can you talk about what it actually feels like in your body, and it might be different for everyone, when we make a decision and you feel like it's aligned with your truth, your authenticity, your intuition, what does it feel like for you?
Lauren Roxburgh (25:08):
Yes. Well, really it's that gut instinct. It's that feeling that you get before it's gone to the processing center of your computer brain. It's that feeling that happens right away. It's within those first few seconds that you feel it. And that's where the perception comes in. And then of course, another way, we've talked about this before I'm sure, but just when you get the chills, that's the truth residing in your body. I mean, of course you get the chills when you're cold, but if you're sitting there and you're having a conversation and someone says something and you get the chills, that's the truth. It's your body saying, "Yes, that is right. That feels good." And you know when you walk into a room, do you feel yourself contracting? Does your pelvic floor lock? Does your jaw lock? Do you feel your heart closing? You'll feel that. And it's not that you need to judge the other person's energy, it's just your body's way of saying yes or no.
Connie Maday (26:04):
And being able to tune into what does my yes feel like and what does my no feel like.
Lauren Roxburgh (26:10):
You're right.
Connie Maday (26:11):
And it's going to be different for everyone.
Lauren Roxburgh (26:12):
It will.
Connie Maday (26:12):
With a lot of similarities probably though, with tuning the into different areas. I think where I carry my worry or my stress, I'm putting my hand on my gut right now because that's where it goes, right there.
Lauren Roxburgh (26:27):
And you're absolutely right. And that's what The Power Source book was about, is these five areas that I was feeling that people were holding that stress or that reactive energy. So it was pelvic floor, gut, diaphragm, lungs. That one is a really big one because you see people hunched over and they're hiding that part of their body. And a lot of people that are depressed are in that and then their lungs are totally compressed and so then you're not able to take that full breath. And then also, of course, the heart and shoulders, the weight of the world on your shoulders, a hardened heart. A lot of resentment builds up here, which is also why a lot of women get breast cancer because they're doers and they're always there and taking care of everyone but themselves, which is my mother's experience. And then head, neck and jaw, a lot of swallowed emotions. You'll notice when maybe you're in traffic or something and you feel your jaw starting to grind and tighten, that's actually your body's way of trying to deal with that stress. But when you have the awareness, you can soften that.
(27:33):
And then by working with your whole fascial system like we do in the Aligned Life Studio with my rolling tools, the stretching, the morning fascia flows, what you're doing is you're clearing the debris and you're helping the tissues become flowing and juicy and hydrated. And so those messages are a lot louder. So it's funny, when you fall off the wagon and you're not doing your fascia work, your body will speak to you. But it'll speak to you in more gentle ways, it'll be like, "Oh, I need you to move that there." Or whatever. But the one thing I would say also for people is right when you wake up in the morning, my non-negotiable is get outside in that natural light because that helps regulate your circadian rhythms, stimulates melatonin, helps you sleep better that night.
(28:17):
And for five minutes right when you wake up, stretch and open up, I call it the fascia five. So there's five different areas of the body that you want to open up. So it's the front pathway, the back pathway, the sides, and then the medial line, which is the center pathway and then you've got the spiral pathway, which is transverse. So it's like a seatbelt that goes from your right shoulder to your left hip and then down to your right foot again. And so you start to unwind. And that's really more of the feminine, more of the Kundalini energy, the spiral energy. And so when you can access all of those pathways, you're also... We now know that the meridians are in the fascia as well. So when you're doing the fascia flows, you're actually also supporting your meridians and your organ health. So it's pretty cool.
Connie Maday (29:03):
It's so cool.
Lauren Roxburgh (29:03):
Yeah. And it's simple and it doesn't cost anything. It's available to anyone.
Connie Maday (29:07):
So getting outside in the morning, first thing, moving your body.
Lauren Roxburgh (29:11):
If you can, on the Earth.
Connie Maday (29:12):
On the Earth.
Lauren Roxburgh (29:13):
Picking up the electromagnetic energy from the Earth and then the light energy from the sun. Some people call it sun food. And a lot of people in the body work world, we consider bodies as liquid light. Because we actually do have infrared light inside of us, so when we go out in the sun, it recharges the body battery.
Connie Maday (29:31):
Absolutely.
Lauren Roxburgh (29:32):
And the movement does this as well.
Connie Maday (29:36):
Recharge from that sun, that's what I was doing before and now I see the sun is coming.
Lauren Roxburgh (29:39):
I know. Yeah.
Connie Maday (29:43):
Well, amazing. Any other tips throughout the day that? So you've talked about the morning routine, any other tips that we can incorporate in the day to release the stress and the anxiety that comes at us and is so ever present? Especially with things going on in the world, it's very easy to pick up on some of these things, just all it takes is turning on the news for a moment.
Lauren Roxburgh (30:05):
Okay. So this is a great question and it's a really easy way to weave in what I call movement snacks throughout your day. And you don't need to spend all this time going and doing an hour of a workout. There was research in The Washington Post recently that said that you could actually do these movement snacks throughout the day and it was more effective than spending an hour working out before you sit all day.
Connie Maday (30:29):
That's incredible.
Lauren Roxburgh (30:30):
So not sitting all day is good, getting up every hour. And then one of my favorite things to discharge the accumulated stress is to do the deep sigh. And that's been scientifically proven by Stanford University, so it's basically... Do you want to do it?
Connie Maday (30:45):
Yes.
Lauren Roxburgh (30:46):
Okay. So you go double inhale. And when you make that sound-
Connie Maday (30:54):
Oh, it's so relaxing.
Lauren Roxburgh (30:55):
Right?
Connie Maday (30:55):
Oh, I feel better.
Lauren Roxburgh (30:56):
... it sends a message to your nervous system to go into rest, digest and heal. And it also has a vibrational sound, so it helps vibrate swallowed emotions or any energy that might be stuck in your throat or even in your jaw as well. So even just doing that, weaving that in before you get on a call or before you go pick up your kids, do three of those and it's literally like an internal exfoliation. And it's discharging not only CO2, toxic air, it's helping to expand your lungs more efficiently to take up and live in your entire lung cavities.
(31:33):
And then it also helps release actual energy as well, blocked energy. So the deep sigh and then getting up throughout your day, doing some shoulder rolls, some neck rolls. I always love to weave in standing up and doing 10 jumps, 10 bounces through the day. I like to do that as well after I've had a meal, I'll do 10 to 20 bounces. Not right after, but after a few minutes of eating, you can come up and do, we call it our family bounce. We do 10 or 20 bounces and that's really good for digestion and getting things moving in your gut and improving elimination too. And the lymph.
Connie Maday (32:11):
Amazing. I mean, I'm just thinking, so my educator mind is going right now to the classroom and what I would do to start the day and after recess. Because all of this is also getting us back into our focused state of being.
Lauren Roxburgh (32:25):
Absolute.
Connie Maday (32:25):
Releasing the stresses and the anxieties and all of the things is actually allowing us to tune in, which will be more effective learning. So I'm thinking, okay, the-
Lauren Roxburgh (32:36):
Focus, connection. You're taking away that thickness and density that's maybe making people uncomfortable to be able to sit still. That's the thing we talk about with our kids all the time, "Get the wiggles out." Right?
Connie Maday (32:48):
Yes.
Lauren Roxburgh (32:48):
Well, we humans need to get the wiggles out too. I mean, we can sit for extended periods of time, but what happens is our fascia will glue ourselves into those positions and actually mold us to sculpt us into those positions. So it's fine to sit like that if you need to throughout the day, but you just need to release it at the end of the day and also in the morning as well.
Connie Maday (33:08):
And talk about the shift that it has on our mood?
Lauren Roxburgh (33:11):
Yeah. Exactly.
Connie Maday (33:12):
Right? When we release it, we feel happier, our emotions are lighter-
Lauren Roxburgh (33:18):
More grounded, more open, more resilient, more flexible.
Connie Maday (33:23):
More flexible.
Lauren Roxburgh (33:23):
Right? Flexible in body, but also in mind.
Connie Maday (33:25):
Yes.
Lauren Roxburgh (33:26):
Yeah. And open in our heart and more compassionate. And that's another piece that you touched on, which is a lot of the work that we do in all of my programs is the vagus nerve work, which is so important to be tuning into. That vagus nerve is swimming in fascia, it's literally laying in the fascia and that's how the communication happens through that nerve, through the tissue, through the fascia. And so that's connecting from your head down through your throat, down through your heart, down through your lungs and down through your gut and even down to your pelvic floor. So stimulating the vagus nerve drops you into more of that calmer state and also activates your compassion. So it does make us more compassionate and more connected and more able to learn. When we can sit and be still and be present, we're going to really learn more because presence is how we actually can start to live this way and embody it and not just know it in our mind, but actually know it and feel it in our body and live it.
Connie Maday (34:26):
Yes.
Lauren Roxburgh (34:27):
That's really where I think education needs to go.
Connie Maday (34:30):
Absolutely. Being able to tune in.
Lauren Roxburgh (34:31):
Not just reciting things.
Connie Maday (34:33):
No. And being able to know what we're thinking, know what we're feeling, have the dialogue and the compassion and connection with others. That's a whole nother layer then.
Lauren Roxburgh (34:44):
Yes. And that's what AI won't have.
Connie Maday (34:46):
Right.
Lauren Roxburgh (34:47):
Because AI only can catch up to where we are humans now, so we need to continue to evolve our systems inside of us so that we can be ahead of that.
Connie Maday (34:57):
Absolutely.
Lauren Roxburgh (34:58):
Yeah. And I believe that we're going in a direction where people will become more telepathic and be able to have conversations without speaking. We'll be able to have conversations through our feeling because we're sharing energy right now, we're sharing a Wi-Fi connection between our hearts right now. Holding space. And we're sharing it with everyone listening because we're tuning in. It's like even though you can't see the Wi-Fi signal, we know it's working. Hopefully.
Connie Maday (35:25):
That's such a gift to be able to do that and to be able to connect on that level with another being.
Lauren Roxburgh (35:31):
Yes.
Connie Maday (35:31):
Oh my gosh, you've given us so much advice, so many incredible things. There is a lot in the Aligned Life Studio that I absolutely recommend tapping into. I have one more question for you and then you can share anything else that pops into your mind. We talked a little bit about tips and routines. What is something that we can do as parents to help connect with our kids in a more compassionate way? Do you have thoughts on that?
Lauren Roxburgh (36:03):
Oh my gosh, yes. I love that.
Connie Maday (36:05):
Because I believe it's about... And this brings through for educators as well with their students, but to really help build the connection with others in this way energetically. But how can we do that in our everyday life with people in our families, in our communities, in the greater world, who we can't see? What tips do you have to really be present in that way?
Lauren Roxburgh (36:31):
So there's a few things that come to mind and heart actually, which are the number one I would say is we're living in such a tough time with children because of technology and it's modeling ourselves for them. So I think that's really important. I like to talk about phones and iPads and everything like junk food. So we're not completely all organic all the time, you've got to have some flexibility, it's like the 80/20 rule. So same thing with technology. To me, it's fine in small doses and it's also just about modeling that in front of your children and also not having your phone with you when you're trying to talk to your kid or having your phone with you at dinner when you're trying to have a family dinner. Because I believe sitting down at least three or four times a week as a family to have dinner together, share a meal with no phones and no technology, put your phone on airplane mode, that's a powerful way to connect.
(37:30):
And it's not like you have to be with them all the time. I would say having the connection in the morning and the connection in the evening. If you can have those intimate moments with your children and be able to communicate and talk with them and hear what's really going on with you. And start that at an early process, what are you feeling? What's coming up for you? And then also, I mean, I'm a big advocate in teaching people that there's all these other different healing modalities. For instance, my daughter was having some anxiety, she was having trouble falling asleep. She's just turned 10 and we were having some issues. And so she actually had these really crazy stuffy noses all the time, like allergies.
(38:10):
So we found a craniosacral therapist and she did a few sessions and it completely got it to release because it was an energy blockage. And it actually got rid of the allergies and it got rid of the anxiety. So you're like, "Okay, this is phenomenal." And so the younger bodies too are so good at healing, they're so quick to come back to healing. So it's powerful to be able to know that we do have these other ways, we don't always have to go to the doctor and take a pill because I also believe that if we give pills too much, it's just numbing and you're not getting to the root cause.
(38:42):
So getting to the root cause, taking the time to be present with your children, it doesn't have to be all day, but just spending that time and then being aware of technology. Because technology can take us out of the present moment and really takes away the heart-to-heart connection. So presence is huge. We can't be present all the time, I get it, but taking those bookends. It's like coffee and a tea in the afternoon or something, you know what I mean? We need those bookends to feel connected.
Connie Maday (39:10):
Absolutely. Amazing. Oh my gosh, so much fantastic advice. And I know I'm taking a lot of learning from you. Thank you. Anything else that you want to share with us? I know you have these amazing books.
Lauren Roxburgh (39:24):
Oh, yes. Thank you.
Connie Maday (39:25):
Fantastic. Taller, Slimmer, Younger and The Power Source and the Aligned Life Studio with so many incredible resources and a really fantastic community.
Lauren Roxburgh (39:35):
Yes, the community is incredible.
Connie Maday (39:38):
Yes.
Lauren Roxburgh (39:39):
So amazing.
Connie Maday (39:39):
Anything else you want to share with us or offerings?
Lauren Roxburgh (39:43):
Sure. Yeah, so what I've been working on, which is exciting, is I'm writing my curriculum for the certification.
Connie Maday (39:50):
Oh my gosh.
Lauren Roxburgh (39:51):
It's the Fascia Foundation Certification.
Connie Maday (39:54):
Oh my goodness, that's amazing.
Lauren Roxburgh (39:54):
So it's going to be the first one we do, it's going to be the intro and it'll be online. So it'll be accessible to anyone anywhere in the world. And that will be coming out early next year. So that's going to be amazing. Because what I really feel, as we were talking about our feelings, try to even incorporate that into the language, not what do I think? What do I feel? I feel that our community is ready to go deeper. So I'm not like, "Oh, I have to go out there and get millions of people." Because I want to just go deeper with people that will then share it with their communities and that will spread the word. And my mission is to become more universal and share this knowledge and wisdom with more people. And so I need more people to help me do that.
Connie Maday (40:37):
Yes.
Lauren Roxburgh (40:37):
So writing the curriculum is a powerful piece. So that'll be accredited with other modalities, whether it's Pilates Method Alliance, the Yoga International. There's lots of different ways that we can make sure people get continued education if they're already a practitioner or some people want to do it just for their own benefits.
Connie Maday (40:59):
Amazing.
Lauren Roxburgh (40:59):
Yeah.
Connie Maday (40:59):
Congratulations. That's really exciting.
Lauren Roxburgh (41:01):
Yeah, it's really good. It's going to be huge because we're working with the fascia, science world too, so we're bridging the two worlds together.
Connie Maday (41:08):
That'll be really interesting.
Lauren Roxburgh (41:09):
Yeah. A lot of credibility.
Connie Maday (41:11):
I'm excited to check that out. Amazing. Well, Lauren, thank you so much for being here today. I'm honored to have shared this time with you and so grateful for all of your offerings, they've truly changed my life and I'm so grateful.
Lauren Roxburgh (41:23):
And then also, if people want to just give it a try, there's no strings attached, they can just go to 7daybodyupgrade.com, which is the website and you can just basically put your email in and then you'll get the whole 7-day program. And there's no tools or anything. So it's really simple and you can just get to know the method and the message and get to know me. And it's just a great sampling.
Connie Maday (41:45):
I love it. Amazing. I'll make sure to link that in the show notes as well. So seven days, the Empowerment course, body upgrade.
Lauren Roxburgh (41:54):
Yes. Exactly.
Connie Maday (41:55):
Aligned Life Studio. Make sure to take a loo and I'll link all of the other important websites as well, so you can learn more about Lauren, you can learn more about the Aligned Life Studio, what an inspiration you are. Thank you so much, Lauren.
Lauren Roxburgh (42:10):
Thank you. I'm so grateful to be here. Thank you for having me.
Connie Maday (42:13):
Thank you. And listeners, thank you for learning with me. To find out more of what's happening with Spark to Empower, make sure to check out sparktoempower.com. We have some new merchandise and some programs live, you'll want to check it out. Remember, be kind, be bold, be you. Until next time, I'm Connie Maday. Make it a great day every day.
