How to prioritize movement with LYT Yoga’s Lara Heimann

[Tiffany Sauder]

I'm a small-town kid born with a big-city spirit. I choose to play a lot of awesome roles in life mom, wife, entrepreneur, CEO, board member, investor, and mentor. 17 years ago, I founded a marketing consultancy, and ever since, my husband, Jr. And I have been building our careers and our family on the exact same timeline. Yep, that means four kids, three businesses, and two careers, all building toward one life we love. When I discovered that I could purposely embrace all of these and in my life, it unlocked my world, and I want that for you, too. I'm Tiffany Sauder. And this is Scared Confidence. So in this episode, I talked to Lara Heimann. She is the creator and kind of like the head teacher for LYT Yoga. And it's a form of yoga that she's created where it really intersects yoga, like traditional yoga as we know it, and her background as a physical therapist and just overall body movement, alignment, and what she knows about the human body from studying more academically, like, how our bodies move. And I was really fascinated. This is kind of coming into view for me as I'm going on a journey of kind of doing two things, putting back together my postpartum body, which I'm two years postpartum, which feels like forever, but I've learned it does take my body about two years for my ribcage to come together, like, all of that stuff. So I've been focusing a lot on resistance training, but also thinking about my aging body and how do I be intentional about flexibility and alignment and just not accepting pain and hurting and tightness to be a part of what my body feels like as I get older. But this is really why I invited Lara Heimann onto the podcast. On her website, she says, I am a fearless and unstoppable leader in yoga, and fear is an attraction word for me at this point in time. So I wanted to understand kind of how fear has played a role in her journey to here. And she's been on every major news and media outlet, so I know that Lara Heimann Heimann knows what she's talking about. I'm mindful of who I sort of trust with my body because I know it's also easy to be hurt. And I'm excited for you guys to listen in on what Lara Heimann has learned over 20 years of teaching. It's a really, really cool conversation. I learned a lot. So let's take a listen. Lara Heimann. Welcome to Scared Confident. This is very fun to have you on. Thanks for joining me today.

[Lara Heimann]

Thank you so much, Tiffany. I'm so happy to be on here.

[Tiffany Sauder]

Yeah. So maybe just kind of origin story for my listeners. How did you get to this spot? We made the fun connection beforehand that you're in Princeton, New Jersey, actually, where my husband went to school. And so how did life get you to this spot?

[Lara Heimann]

So I grew up in North Carolina and then I went to undergrad and graduate school at Duke, not too far from where I lived. So when I graduated from grad school, I was very determined to leave North Carolina because I felt like that would be important for my own growth and to just to experience a different area of the country. I did not choose New Jersey. That wasn't like what I pinpointed. I was actually dating a law student who was graduating as well. We've been dating about a year and a half, and he got a job clerking for a federal judge up here in Trenton, which is about 15 minutes from Princeton. And he asked me to move up here with him. And so I had aspirations of going to California or Colorado, very outdoorsy. New Jersey I did not know much about, but as everyone thinks about New Jersey, it's like turnpike and not very pretty. So he said, Just come up there with me. And I came up on a beautiful May spring day. It was gorgeous. And interviewed for several jobs and found a wonderful inpatient hospital. And, yeah, I moved up here. And I've actually been here now 27 years. So, you know, it brought me here, but then it also brought me closer to my now husband. And my boyfriend at the time and I are still very, very good friends. We just went up to his house like about a month ago. So I moved up here. And it was the first time I actually lived somewhere where I knew no one, where I was as an adult, as a person who has an adult with a job. It was like a lot of new things. And so I just dove into running clubs and meeting people. And that's actually how I found out about yoga, is they offered yoga at one of these running clubs. So this is like 27 years ago. Yoga is still like I was thinking, like, you just sit around and meditate. And that was what yoga was. And then I experienced it in a different light and it really lit something up in me. It made me feel like I did when I used to dance in high school and kind of how the freedom and the stress release and the connection of body that I felt like with running. And so I wanted to start teaching it because I had already been teaching fitness classes when I was in college. I became a fitness instructor. I taught high-impact aerobics, taught funk aerobics, and dance. And then I taught spinning and steps.

[Tiffany Sauder]

Social movements, like part of you as a person.

[Lara Heimann]

I've said before I wrote my college essay about the mind body, before I really understood I hadn't ever read anything about mind body because I knew intuitively how clear and calm and connected and capable I felt with regular movement, whether it was dance or running or playing sports with my three brothers or in the fitness world I just loved movement. I felt it was like this expression of spirit. And I feel it really has since the very early days of civilization, we have expressed ourselves with music and with movement. And that has brought community and has brought joy. And it's like a true release and expression of the spirit. So, yeah, movement was never something that was a second thought. It was always in my cellular DNA, I believe, and I've been lucky that way. And I often say I'm about to be 53, and I'll say when people are like, I can't move like you. And I say, I've just not had as much time where I wasn't as balanced because I just had more consistency. And you can get that at any time. So that's something I preach a lot, is it's never too late to move better and to feel better.

[Tiffany Sauder]

So let's dig into those. I think there's some interesting topics here. Lara Heimann, let's start with consistency, because you have you said this has been a priority through many different stages in your life. You moved to New Jersey as a single person. Then you are married. I know you have two kids now, you're entrepreneur. So I think those who aren't consistent can tend to look for external reasons why they're not. So talk about how you have sort of clung so tightly to that.

[Lara Heimann]

So I'll first say this, I think, when I wrote in college, it still holds true today. And I wrote it because I had a period of being injured in high school. And I remember I had severely sprained my ankle and I was in a boot and not able to dance or move. And I just remember feeling so low. And it was the very first time in my life I did not feel balanced. I felt the kind of darkness that is part of the human condition. And I thought, I'm going to just hop on this bike, this stationary bike, and move, because I just felt this need. I don't have anxiousness, I would be more prone to feeling like sit on the couchness, but I knew that if I got myself pedaling and got my blood flowing, I intuitively knew I'd feel better, and I did. And so that has been encoded to me. Movement is less about the body. Of course, I'm very invested in keeping my body healthy and able to do everything I want. But it was really for me, I think it's always because it made me my best version. And if that wasn't a priority, I would not show up. I wouldn't show up well, as a mom, as a partner, as a friend, as a worker, I just know myself really well. And I think a lot of people I doubt there's many people who aren't more balanced, a better version of themselves, when they have this consistent practice of movement. And so I just knew, I feel joyful, I feel light, I feel like, that positive mindset, that absolute abundance mindset when I am taking good care of myself. And movement is an essential ingredient of that to me. Over the years, I've adapted to knowing, like, it doesn't have to be an hour and a half yoga class. It doesn't have to be a ten mile run. It can be little doses of movement that keep you balanced, that keep you energized, that keep you patient. We need patience for every aspect of our lives, as mothers, as partners, as entrepreneurs. There's just so much patience that's required of us. And when our patience is short, we aren't our best selves. And that's just a bad feeling. It's not good for anybody, worse for ourselves, like when we are just not our best versions. And the last thing we need to do is burden ourselves with not feeling worthy or not feeling good. So I guess in short, it's just that it was just in my DNA. I knew so early on, mind and body are not separate. If I keep my body healthy, I'm keeping my mind and my spirit healthy.

[Tiffany Sauder]

So I want to ask one more question about this and then move into kind of when you decided. I think I actually want to do this for a living. This yoga thing. Because I definitely resonate when you say. Look. We are just better people when we're in a place where movement is part of our lives. Where there's consistency and discipline. But I'm not naturally consistent for reasons I wish I could fix. I don't know why I've just not built that way. I'm not a natural athlete. You don't see me move and think, wow, that's beautiful. You think, she's having fun? Nice, active person, not an athletic one. And I have been in places, like after I've had babies where I have just felt like physically broken. And movement does not bring me joy in those seasons. It's incredibly difficult. My body is not responding in the way that I want it to, whether it's having a baby or an injury or just letting your weight get out of hand. And I'm sure you've worked with people, though you maybe haven't lived it, where there are seasons where the movement does not bring you joy, it brings you a lot of frustration, kind of anger that your body is not doing what you want it to. There's certainly some shame and embarrassment that comes with that, at least for me. Like, oh my word, this is so frustrating and I'm so mad. And when I'm on the couch watching TV, I can ignore it. And when I'm in the gym comparing myself to others, I have to confront it. You know what I mean? It's sort of this like, stupid intersection that I have found myself at. For me, it always comes after I have babies. So how do you coach that mindset? Or what have you seen either in your own habits and behavior or in clients that you've worked with where that joy connection is maybe not there yet. I get back there and I'm like, oh, when I wake up early and I take around with my friends like I am just fueled for the day and I know what it feels like, I can get back to it. But there's abysses for me for that season is just not true for me.

[Lara Heimann]

Well, I think it speaks to what life is. It cycles. And so movement, we have to think of movement in a very broad term. It is as simple as are you getting up and not being stagnant and that doesn't mean going for a run. That could be a ten minute walk, that could be I'm going to do some stretches on the floor because my neck is bothering me, you know, as opposed to ignoring it. So I think movement is necessary for our life. We have to move. Every system of our body depends on our movement. So movement does not have to be this curated class or run or something. And setting it up like that, in fact, to your point, could be really detrimental because it's like if you aren't enjoying it, there's a failure component and it's just like what can you do in some way that is moving you towards the dial of being a better version of yourself? Especially on the days when you feel disconnected, especially when you're feeling postpartum and you're exhausted and the last thing you are thinking about is like wanting to roll out the yoga mat or put on your sneakers. Maybe then it's taking ten minutes and just connecting to yourself. In our late yoga we do this reset and I'll tell people that's all you have to do, ten or 15 minutes. Most people then want to do more because it's like entry and a reestablishment of getting your bones in alignment, getting your muscles activated. But you know, the other thing is when you talk about anger, like I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing because emotion is energy in motion. So when energy is stagnant and we hold it, it's going to come out in various ways. So actually the movement is an invitation for maybe some of those Harvard feelings that you didn't even realize were identified as anger are coming out and they're and I don't look at that as like a bad thing, I'm just like serve it, you know, it's just maybe there's something you need to release. Maybe you've been really hard on yourself and you're putting yourself in a position to actually feel like how hard you've been and you're pointing it to the fact that you're working out or whatever you're doing and you're not feeling good in it. But it's actually probably deeper than that. So I think movement is an invitation to explore how you're feeling, how you could feel better, how maybe you haven't felt that great and you're not there yet. But it's not like stuck on you. You can move through it. Some people really like, I think for you, you're probably somebody who is very task oriented and to do movement while you have other things on your todo list. So for you, you're going to have to think like, what is really I know my nervous system well, and I'm not going to be able to be really enjoying this movement part of my day unless I get these other things done. So I think we have to know ourselves well, how do we negotiate? How do we fit it in and prioritize it? If you're prioritizing it over spending an extra ten minutes with your kids, that's okay, because you are going to be better for your kids when you are better for yourself. If it's like you can't get your mind in it because you've got five things to do for work, then maybe allow yourself to do those things and then say, I'm going to put a pin on this and I'm going to take some time for myself because this will always be here. And that's what we know in business. There will always be more things to do.

[Tiffany Sauder]

So when I think about yoga, I've done, let's say like yoga intermittently. I know the basic poses, but it's still very intellectual for me. When I'm taking a yoga class, I'm like, okay, warrior one. Okay, my toe this like, downward dock in this flow state connection between just feeling movement and having this like, to me, what you describe is like this just consciousness of your body. I've never experienced that.

[Lara Heimann]

So. First of all. Yoga might not be for everybody. But what I have done is I've taken what I loved of yoga and saw that there were things that didn't carry over into daily life that I feel like if we want to max out on our efficiency. I want to be educating my body and my breath and my awareness. My ability to focus on the mat so that I do that in life. I just come and show up and do stuff and then I feel better. But then it's not translating to me, that's not as effective. And so that's where I really created LYT because I felt that yoga was a bit performative. Somebody tells you to do the poses, you do them, they might even tell you like, hey, just flow and don't worry about things. And to me, I'm like, people need guidance. Like, we're living in these bodies that we have not been fully introduced to and how to care for them, how to stabilize, where to mobilize. So it's not just like you're just going the path of least resistance, which is what many people do. And that actually when you pay attention, which I think that's the thread line of yoga, even in LYT yoga, that's what I've held onto, is that you're paying attention so that you can pay better attention to life. You're paying attention to the details of, like, okay, am I holding myself in a way like in plank? Am I just, like, struggling, pushing against the floor, rounding my back, and just staying here as long as the teacher is telling me to or within it? Am I connecting to myself and thinking, how can I best support myself with all these the gravitational force on my entire body? It's a really powerful pose, and it's a wonderful invitation to go inward and feel like, where do I have these leaks of energy and how can I fortify them a little bit? Maybe my knees being down is going to be really helpful right now, so I don't have to worry as much about the center of mass at the pelvis. So when I'm teaching, I want to tell you about what's going on in a way that's understandable that the body is not something, you know, the scapula. This is the most important area of our shoulder. So when people have shoulder issues, this is not the issue. It's the scapula and how it's mobile and how it's stable on the back ribcage. So I'm going to direct people how to do those things, how to stabilize their scapula more, how to move their scapula as their arm is moving overhead, as opposed to trying just to keep it stuck. And so I use it as an educational place in my teaching and in my own practice. So when I know a lot about the body, but I'm always, like, uncovering ways that challenge me, but also are enjoyable and creative. To me, this is like painting. I go there and I just start to explore. But I would try my yoga and see if you feel any different because I've heard that about like so back to your question. I started teaching more traditional vinyasa, and pretty early on, within a few years, I realized that it's a little repetitive. It has a lot of potential repetitive strain for your shoulders, for your lower back. How can I bring in my physical therapy tools? And by then, I had gone back and gotten my postgraduate certification in neurological rehab, which is really understanding the brain body connection and how we can change the way we move when we understand that it's all happening up here. So if we have gravity upon us, how can we better stabilize our sinner, which is everything but our lives? That's our core. Our core is not a six pack. It's not about how it looks. It's about how are you holding yourself in space, how are you holding yourself when you're picking up your baby or you're picking up your groceries. So I try and translate those elements that we do on the map and bring them into life.

[Tiffany Sauder]

I think there's something so powerful to that. After I had my fourth one at 40, I literally felt like Humpty Dumpty had fallen off the wall when I sat down. I just felt like an accordion that just, like, came together. You talk about the core, I just I don't know what happened. Like, I fell apart and I'm like, this is crazy. This can't be what aging feels like because I can't do this for 40 more years. And so I started lifting, which brought me more consciousness to what you're talking about, like how you're holding yourself, how you stabilize your core if you're doing a deadlift. Where it was not about my legs in a deadlift, it was about my entire body. And as I am thinking about, you know, we're moving into the fourth quarter and what my goals are for next year, I feel this, like, rich responsibility to stay healthy and young for a very long time because I have kids so young still at this age. And you talk about this just awareness, suppleness and not working around what's hurting. I feel myself doing that sometimes. Like, I got this stupid thing on my hip that hurts sometimes and I know how to move so that it doesn't. And that's so silly. And it's like you start to see these weird adaptations when you said that. I'm like that's. Exactly right. We're not really trained on how to manage our physical bodies and we are just given them like we are just given to us such an interesting parallel.

[Lara Heimann]

So crazy. It is like I always say, the one irrefutable fact in life, there's many mysteries and unknowns, but the one is that we have a body and we are told so little about it, you might have sex ed. And even that is like this tittery little la ha, you know? And it's not like it's giving you any real value. Why aren't we teaching kids about the skeleton and about the muscles and about the lymphatic system? The lymphatic system, it is the key to our immunity. It is a one way valve. If we don't movement, moves our lymph system, which brings around toxins and helps clear them through the nodes. And then we get rid of them through the liver and the other exciratory organs. But just things like that, like simple things. But how about how do you move in your hip versus your pelvis? Your pelvis is a huge stabilizer. It has some movement. We want it to have some movement. But what most people end up doing to your point is they move in the pelvis as a compensation for decreased hip mobility. And that burdens your spine. Because when you move the pelvis, just know you're moving your spine. And the spine, in essence, is meant to beats, we call it in PT stiff spine. Like it is meant to transmit energy. So if you're pushing out or you're rounding, all of those bones that create your spinal column are not in the best alignment. They don't have the most amount of surface area between them. So that energy exchange is diminished when you have diminished energy. I call that a leak. Well, that has to be taken up somewhere else, and it's taken up in your lower back. It's taken up in your hip. It's taken up in your neck. So when people have these very, very typical injuries, it's almost always biomechanics have been compensated for. They have not been optimized. And the good news is that's a pretty I don't say easy fix, but it's a fix that you can do. You don't have to go to the doctor and get a shot or surgery. My dad was an orthopedic surgeon. So listen, there's a place for that. But we turn to these when we feel pain, as opposed to thinking that pain is telling me something. And what it's telling me is I need to figure out where I'm losing that energy and how I can better hold on to it. So for the most part, it's really understanding how to hold on to your core, stabilize your pelvis and your spine, and move in your hips. Like, that's the one thing I teach to every single person I meet, private teacher training, etc. Because it translates in so many ways.

[Tiffany Sauder]

Okay, so let's take a quick jump into I want to talk about, like, professional Lara Heimann Heimann, right? You just somewhat decided I'm going to take this knowledge from just myself and my girlfriends and my family and actually launch off into this entrepreneurial effort of working to build a brand and a business and an online platform. So let's talk a little bit about that.

[Lara Heimann]

I always say I was a reluctant entrepreneur. Unlike you, I did not grow up. I grew up in a kind of medical, very wellness health field, and I was going on this very linear path, grad school, post grad school and all that. And then I was teaching yoga in kind of this separate lane, just as a fun thing. But what I started to when I had my daughter, I just took off from both of those worlds and some of my yoga clients, and I really always credit them, and this is what I would say for anybody who is an entrepreneur, is you need to look for the gap. So these people contacted me and said, oh, I want to do yoga with you. Can we do private with you since you're not teaching anymore? And I thought, okay, sure. I happen to have a studio garage. We quickly converted it, and I started having private small groups come. So I had a baby, and I could just work it around the schedule. I was probably, you know, teaching a total of 10 hours a week from the time she was about three months old on, and then kept growing that. Then I had my son, and then it was all word of mouth so people would hear about it. And it was only so many classes, so many people I could teach. Well, we then moved into the house right now. And I built a studio that could hold ten, and I started having small classes of ten and got up to 18 a week when both my kids were in, like, you know, elementary, middle school. 18 classes of ten people in classes a week? Yeah. It's a great business model because it was like making banks. But I so this goes back to it's not all about the money. Like, if I continue that, that's like, no overhead, no worries, I could cancel. I had people on wait list. But what I saw was there is a need. People are clamoring to get in here because I'm educating them, and that's missing in a lot of yoga classes. And the way I was teaching was very different at the time. Yoga was very purist. There was no incorporating functional movement of any kind. And so it was a little bit weird. Some people would call it not yoga. And to me, it's like, if you're a better person, it's yoga.

[Tiffany Sauder]

It's your yoga. Yeah.

[Lara Heimann]

Like I said, why is doing jumping jacks and is really kind to people is way more yoga than somebody who's spouting the Bhagavad gita. And it's just an asshole, right? It's like it's how you're living your life. It's just the context of yoga is your life, and the practice of it is in paying attention to how you move. So I just was like, I got to teach other teeth. I really started to feel sorry for other yoga teachers, because what I realized is yoga became very big, very fast, and there were a lot of trainings out there, and people would pay thousands of dollars to get trained and learn virtually nothing about the body. And to me, that's like becoming a mechanic, and no one ever lifts the lid. It's like, okay, if the car is running, fine, great. And you'll just tell it, go right, go left. Do this. But if something were to be squeaky or whatever, like, you're just not equipped. And I thought, that's so unfair. People aren't enjoying yoga because these yoga teachers are not teaching them. And so I decided to create a teacher training. And then I was like, well, then I needed a studio. So it kind of like snowballed. I just saw the need. It was so obvious, and I created it. And then the studio grew, and I moved into a bigger space. So I had it for nine years. I will tell you, as a business person, I knew nothing. I knew nothing. So what my recommendations are to anybody is I asked a lot of questions. I never felt dumb because I wasn't educated about this. So I am not going to pretend like I know I've got to learn how to balance a spreadsheet. I need to know how to have a budget. I need to know how to market. I had only had organic marketing for the first year and a half of my. Public studio. But I had people come to me and they said, I feel compelled to help you. Would you let me? And I was like, okay. Yeah. Because I don't know anything about this, so I ask a lot of questions. I was really clear on things I did not want to do that would suck my energy, that would take me ten times longer than someone else, and I would hire somebody for that. And then I was starting to teach outside of New Jersey. I was running international retreats. And I just started getting people saying, I want to do your teacher training, but I can't do it because I live in England and can't take three or four weeks off. So I created an online teacher training that launched January of 2020. And so that first one, we had 160 people sign up from all over the world. And then Covet hit March and it was just too bad because of what happened, but it was also really beneficial because it just brought more people on the line. I was already positioned. I already had a daily platform that LYT Daily had been around for a year and a half. So some of it is luck. I had everything in place again, answering to the responses I was getting, which was, I would love to take your class. Can you do something online? So I created the LYT Daily platform and then I created the online. And as I had more things and more just management, I needed to hire more people. So it started off with just four of us. Me, my videographer editor, my PR agent, and then kind of a COO overhead. And now we have twelve people and then we have the teachers. And so it just grew. And what I've always been really clear about is I'm the creative brain and I am committed and passionate about spreading this so that people feel better and really become empowered. Because you are empowered when you feel like you know what's going on. I just am not connected to my body after having a baby, how can I connect? I don't know. He told me, right, I have a whole postnail series. You should try. I tell people you should try if you had your baby four months ago, 14 years ago, or you've never had a baby, because most people need Pelvic organization, and one of the classes is called The Pelvic Puzzle. It's like, oh my gosh. Because when you have a baby, it's like you said, you're disjointed. It often occurs. And then I started the podcast. It would be a suggestion someone would make, and I'd say, sure, okay. So I think the things that I've done well is that I've known really clearly what I'm good at, really clearly what I'm not good at, or what I don't want to do and ask for help and just keep the pedal on all the time because it is relentless when you have your own business, it is relentless. Like, people think there's so many great things. I run my own schedule. I'm leaving tomorrow to see my mom for six days. We probably average six to seven weeks of vacation or some of its vacation, some of its work in exotic countries. But I couldn't do that if I was working for someone else. But, you know, there's a trade off, like constant. You're not like clock out, done, come home, blah, blah, blah. You know this. And so I think it is important to recognize entrepreneurship is amazing, but if it's not your thing, then it'll drain you.

[Tiffany Sauder]

Yeah, totally. So you're confident. We talk a lot about fear. Were there any seasons in there, Lara Heimann, where fear, you felt it get a hold of you or try to distract you, confuse you, tell you you couldn't do this? Was that part of your journey or not really.

[Lara Heimann]

I've been pretty naturally confident and I've also had the privilege to take risk. I have to acknowledge that not everybody does have that. I have a husband who was absolutely supportive the whole time. I think there's two main things I had fear about. One, which I hope that a lot of people can appreciate, and I hope this impacts them in some positive way, is aging. I'm almost 53, and I think in my forty s I started to wonder about my relevance. After a certain age, like, you know, people are going to probably turn to younger yoga teachers and, you know, people that look young, whatever. And I had that. I don't think it was really loud, but it was there for sure. And how I know it was there is I went to a training where there was another much younger teacher, and I just thought, okay, I'm going to be like, you know, the old person in the room. And what I found is people were drawn to me because of my knowledge and my experience. And I came home to my husband. I remember saying, you have no idea how, like, that was just what I needed. Because I think we have been told subliminally and you can't get away with it. We have a shelf life as a woman. Whereas a man, you get older, you get more sophisticated looking, you look at all this. But women, it's like all the market research shows that a woman who is trying to get back in the workforce as an older woman, it's much harder. So probably there was a fear of aging and fear of relevance. And now I see actually the age is my biggest asset because of my knowledge, because of my experience and being able to speak from that. And also, I think in your younger years, I think there's kind of like, this is the way, and as you get older, you realize there's different ways. I think we're just a little bit more hopefully open in that way. And then the other thing, I remember having a lot of trepidation about starting an online platform because I was kind of like, really? Are anybody going to really sign up for this? And this is going to be production, and this is like upfront money. And it was just because it's an unknown. You have a few people telling you, you've got to do this. This is really wanted, but there's no other data to support it. And so there is a little bit of a leap of faith, and I think you're going to counter that. In any entrepreneurship, at some point, you're not going to have data. You're just going to have your gut and your heart. And they had to align. They were not aligned. At first, I was like, I'm not sure I want to do this, but I had a younger, really very clear and persuasive marketing person who said, you were born to do this. And literally, when she said that, I was like, okay, that's probably all I needed is one person out, reserved, just saying, you were born to do this, do it. And those are the two kind of fear moments I remember that didn't stop me, but definitely kind of tested, and I think we are going to have that.

[Tiffany Sauder]

Those are really powerful. Lara Heimann one of the things that I want to talk about fear is say one antidote is to find someone who says what you're afraid of isn't real, because fear is trying to create a false narrative for us oftentimes. But what you chose to do was believe it was true. And when you're really underneath the weight of fear, fear sometimes just can't even get you to a place where you can believe. When that young woman spoke into your life and said, you were born for this, Lara Heimann, that you're like, I'm going to believe it's true.

[Lara Heimann]

I'm going to believe it.

[Tiffany Sauder]

I'm going to own it, and I'm going to step into it as if it's true, even though I don't know yet if it is. I'm going to allow myself to experience it, to see. And it's such, I think, a powerful tool when we're able to put ourselves in the presence of other people, when we're able to speak it out loud, to say, I feel this. Is it true? Or is it just my head that's trying to create confusion? So those are both really, really relevant. This age thing I've started to pay attention to, too. There is something about turning flipping 40, I think, where you're like, I'm the youngest person in the room ever, and it's funny, and I anchor on things like JLo did the Super Bowl in her 50s. It's like, those are things that say, like, no, we can. I'm not Jennifer Lopez. But this ability to stay relevant when you start to realize I'm so much more helpful now. I have so much more context for the thing that I've chosen a lifetime to learn, and how do I step into that? With a lot of confidence. So that what you're saying. Like, how do I exponentially help people? The first 1520 years really is about learning, and the next is about how do I export, how do I share, how do I teach, how do I transfer, how do I make impact? I really feel that starting at this stage in my life, too. And I hear that coming through in your story.

[Lara Heimann]

Yeah, I kind of liken it to, like, instagram how when I first got on it, I was like, what is this? It feels like it's really performative showy. And this is I'm not going to fit in here. And sure enough, what happened over the years is the curated beautiful stuff has become a lot less palatable. People, they want realness. And I think that's what we sometimes perceive to be true is not. And at the end of the day, I think people want wisdom. They want realness. And maybe something really beautiful will catch your eye, but it's like, what is going to hold you and what are you going to trust as a service, as a product? And I think for a lot of people, especially in this type of industry, it's less about, are you young and looking like a Victoria's Secret model? And that's the reason I want to look like her, or actually, I want to move in the way that she seems to move. That seems very joyful and free. So I think we have to trust that we have many tools that are not defined by some of these external factors that we have kind of maybe over glorified over the years.

[Tiffany Sauder]

Well, I appreciate your leadership in that. I've dabbled in yoga, and I really do feel like this is the next stretch of my own physical journey. Is understanding movement in my body better? Mine has always worked for me. I like to roll out of bed and do my day and then come sleep. And so I think I'm a classic example of I've just ran the car hard, but I've not totally known how it worked underneath. So since we're just so deep in this, if people are like, okay, I'm tired of back pain, I'm tired of dealing with what you're talking about, tell them how they go, find what you're doing and just, like, kind of a quick overview of how does it work? I want to fix these things in me. I believe you, Lara Heimann. You're right. Where do they go and how does it work?

[Lara Heimann]

We have an online platform. It's called LYT daily. LYT stands for Lara Heimann’s Yoga Technique. But it's really meant to summon through this acronym, this feeling of feeling more lit up. More lit up in your body, more lit up in your energy and your spirit. You go there, we have, like, very if you sign up, you will get emails. It's called our LYT launchpad. That will walk you through a beginner version, an intermediate version, an advanced version, but we have over 600 classes on there. Many physical therapists like myself are on there. Everyone that's on there has been trained by me. So even if you're not a PT, they almost seem like they're a PT. So, yeah, check that out on LYT Daily.

[Tiffany Sauder]

So it's LYT.

[Lara Heimann]

Yeah. LYT. Yes.

[Tiffany Sauder]

Awesome. I'm glad you said yes when that young woman said, you're really born for this. You're clearly the heart of a teacher, and I appreciate you sharing your knowledge with my audience.

[Lara Heimann]

Thank you so much, Tiffany. Well, I'm really grateful to be here, and I'm really all about celebrating women. I love men, too, but women, we need to celebrate each other because, like, we were so powerful when we're united.

[Tiffany Sauder]

Awesome. Thanks for coming on. One of the things that really stuck with me in my conversation with Lara Heimann is she was talking about physically how our bodies kind of subconsciously learn to move around pain, that we learn to slightly alter our gate. I've been having some pain in my hip, and I know how to get up and down from my chair so that it doesn't aggravate it. And it is so easy to just subconsciously make these micro adjustments and just work around the pain instead of working through it. And while she was talking about that in the physical aspect of our bodies, I also think it's true in life. To me, I was like, oh, my word. This is like a massive life lesson that we can choose to deal with what is a tiny little, like, beginning of pain and deal with it and make it go away and do some work to strengthen talk about the physical sense, the muscle, or in the relational sense, the relationship. But it is easier. Quote unquote. To just drive around it slightly because it's not that big of a deal until it gets a little bit bigger and it gets a little bit bigger and it gets a little bit bigger and it gets a little bigger. And suddenly it becomes this great big thing that it has to be a major initiative in your life getting healthy. Getting more flexible. Or in relationships. Ending up in counseling or having to do. Like. A bunch of work to repair it instead of dealing with that tiny twinge of pain at the very beginning. And I don't know that she meant it to be that profound, but to me, I was like, Holy crap, there's so much to learn from that. So I'm setting my consciousness to that right now in the physical sense of myself and also those little nudges, relationally, where you're just driving around a little bit instead of really dealing with what the thing is. Anyway, that was sort of the nugget for me. I was like, Holy cow, how do I take that into my life in a way that is really intentional and purposeful so that I can live as freely and presently as possible in my body, physically and in my relationships. Thank you for joining me on another episode of Scared Confident. Until next time, keep telling fear you will not decide what happens in my life. I will. If you want to get the inside scoop, sign up for my newsletter. We decided to make content for you instead of social media algorithms. The link is waiting for you in Show Notes. Or you can head over to tiffanysauderr.com. Thanks for listening in.

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