Joanie Chamberland with Rise Up BJJ and Whitney Avrit with Earthen Movements Yoga

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Woodstock, Georgia. This is fearless formula with Sharon Cline.

Sharon Cline: Welcome to Fearless Formula on Business RadioX, where we talk about the ups and downs of the business world and offer words of wisdom for business success. And I’m your host. Sharon Cline and I have two guests in the studio today, which I love. I usually have one, and it’s so fun because these are like really special people to me. First one, Whitney Avritt. She owns Earthen Movements Yoga and Wellness, which is movement at your own pace in your own space. It’s not like an actual studio, but you can log in and see all of the different kinds of yoga practices that you have out there and videos. And then I also have the owner, founder of Rise Up Brazilian Jiu jitsu., Joanie Chamberland. Thank you for coming into the studio.

Whitney Avrit: Thanks for having us.

Joanie Chamberland: Thank you. I’m excited.

Sharon Cline: Good. I’m excited too, because you both have a obviously very movement based practices that you have, but they intertwine in a really interesting way. They overlap with their themes, I would say.

Whitney Avrit: I would say I agree, I definitely agree because you got to you got to tap into something internal in order to, you know, execute both of those things, I think. Right.

Sharon Cline: And it’s and it’s not exactly like super hard cardio working out. It’s a different kind of way to look at using your body. Right. Okay. That’s the way I take it. That’s the way I’m looking at it.

Joanie Chamberland: Well, there is a lot of cardio and jiu jitsu. However, there is a lot of use for yoga and jiu jitsu as well, right?

Sharon Cline: When I think of cardio, I think of like, treadmill. Oh, yeah.

Whitney Avrit: No. Elliptical.

Sharon Cline: Elliptical, yes. Elliptical. That’s exactly the right way that I was thinking of it. Running the misery was done, done, done. We think the same. Exactly. And so what I think is fascinating is that each each has a level of strength that the average person probably would be surprised it requires. Let’s start with you, Whitney, and then we’ll talk a little bit about, um, kind of the things that you’ve learned along your journey. Um, you are originally a ballet dancer?

Whitney Avrit: Yes.

Sharon Cline: And how did that lend into your your yoga practice now?

Whitney Avrit: Um, yeah. So I started out as a dancer. Ballet, modern jazz, all that. Right? Um, I danced professionally, um, in my 20s and and did did all the things. I didn’t send a dance company. Um, unfortunately, they don’t exist anymore. But it was a brookson company. Um, they were a Graham based modern dance company. Um, and I honestly, like, kind of hated yoga when in my, in my early days, I feel like I didn’t understand it. I had a lot of fire on the inside, and slowing down that much was just like a no at the time. But I had somebody invite me to a Bikram yoga class and And it was kind of a game changer because I felt like with dance, especially with with choreography, right. You do the same motions on the same side over and over again in order to execute that, you know, with precision on stage. Right? So yoga created a lot of balance in, within my physical body. And so then I was able to say, oh, you know, maybe this maybe this is a thing, you know. And then at the same yoga kind of leads you to tap into yourself and connect with with who you really are on the inside regardless, you know. And I think that that was kind of a void in my life anyway. Um, and so it fixing and balancing out and creating even stretch in my body, even strength in my body, you know, finally, I was kind of able to tap into, you know, those, those inner fires and things like that on the inside that that I kind of desperately, I desperately needed, you know, to be able to just, um, you know, move forward and go forward. Um, just as a human, you know. And so, yes, like the dancer side of me kind of let me touch my toes sooner and all those proverbial things, you know? But at the same time, it helped create a balance within my body, physical body first. And then it started really honing in on the deeper parts of self and creating balance there.

Sharon Cline: When you talk about the different kinds of yoga, you had said, is it Bikram yoga?

Whitney Avrit: Um, I did I did start out in my just personal practice doing Bikram yoga. Yeah. Bikram.

Sharon Cline: Yeah. I’ve never heard of that name. Yeah.

Whitney Avrit: It’s a it’s a hot, hot yoga. They they heat it to 140 degrees. It’s 40% humidity. There’s 26 postures that you do. Sometimes they’ll add like a couple more. It’s always the same class every time you go in. And it’s sequenced in such a way that opens your body up, um, to not only, like strengthen, stretch, but it targets different, like smaller organs in order to detox your body and and, like, clean you out. Like, it’s a really cool and creative practice. Wow. But then I liked I liked the dancey flowiness of vinyasa, you know, where I could kind of, um, just kind of essentially dance, you know, from kind of one pose to the next. But it was still, um, rigorous. And there was still like such a technique to it because I got to nerd out a little bit, too.

Sharon Cline: I like that you’re talking about how you had these emotions that you hadn’t really tapped into, like from growing up. So going into these poses and sort of forcing your body to, to move in the way that you want it to, allows your brain to connect to your body in a different way. Right?

Whitney Avrit: Absolutely, absolutely. So, um, you know, we all kind of understand the proverbial mind body spirit thing, right? And so our I feel as if our minds and our spirit really don’t talk a lot, you know what I’m saying? And so yoga allowed me to quiet my mind. The mental chatter, the to do list, the responsibility list, the I need to’s, the I’ve got to’s, the I feel this way about that. And I don’t feel this way about this. It quieted all of that. So much so that really my my inner self and my my physical body. Because, you know, there’s that book, like the body keeps the score right. So, so our energetic physical self hangs on to some of this stuff that you go through or isn’t resolved essentially, you know, and so it kind of my yoga practice really allowed my spirit to help me to kind of guide some of the the unresolved energies, I’ll call it. Right. Um, in my body and allows that stuff to release itself. We, you know, just like our organs need to be detoxed, right? Just like, you know, our skin detox by sweating. Um, you know, I feel like the physical practice of, you know, your, your yoga asana or postures allows your energetic being the part of you that’s energy, right? The part of you that’s a battery, it allows for some of that to be released, the parts that you don’t need, but you get to keep the good stuff.

Sharon Cline: Were you surprised at that connection that you made in your body when you started to do it? Because I think people the reason I ask is because I think people consider it to be sort of like this Zen thing, you know, like they’re just going to kind of go within and almost like a meditative. And there is, I’m sure, an element of that. But the purging of past trauma is not what I think normally people associate with with yoga.

Whitney Avrit: Absolutely. No. I think that’s an awesome question and something to bring up. So was I surprised? No, because it felt so natural to do it. Like I feel. I feel like whatever I am on the inside, like, needed that. You know, almost like like a sugar craving. It’s not like you don’t know you need chocolate. You know what I mean? So. So for me, it was like, I like my body knew it needed something. And dance was a beautiful outlet for a long time, you know, because I could jump and spin and twirl and get fiery and get, you know, moody if I needed to, or whatever, you know, but, um, but but it allowed it allowed for that.

Sharon Cline: Gotcha.

Whitney Avrit: You know, and it gave me the space to do it in a very different way where I wasn’t, um, creating imbalance. I was creating balance.

Sharon Cline: Giovanni, I know we’ve talked a little bit before on the show. You’re here, I think it was last year, um, which was really fun because I think I hadn’t really known very much about Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in the way that you are. You have it as your practice. And here we are talking about that mind body connection and finding the soul part of yourself. Do you find that that’s happened for you as well in BJJ?

Joanie Chamberland: I don’t know if I would say just in jiu jitsu, because I did pick up doing yoga with Whitney. Um, so it definitely does require like looking at your own mind and what’s going through it, because it’s really hard to get good at jiu jitsu if you don’t quiet your mind and also make your mind positive, you know, because we all have that negative chatter in our brain. And if you have negative chatter while you’re trying to do jiu jitsu or trying to compete, you’re never going to win. Because it isn’t this thing where like two people are going against each other and one person’s moving forward and the other person’s moving forward on this, you know, straight path. Whenever you start talking negative in your own head and they move forward, you actually do move backwards. You don’t just stop. And so it’s very much like you have to make sure that you know what’s going on in your mind and that you feel comfortable with the movements that you’re doing. Which is why, you know, we do drill the same things over and over again to where it becomes muscle memory.

Joanie Chamberland: But if you have muscle memory and your mind is too busy focusing on something else, your muscles still don’t act the way you want them to. But then, like I said, I started adding yoga with Whitney, which, you know, did also help me a lot just because you think about like what she was saying with balance and balancing your body. Right, and being even on both sides makes a huge difference, because everybody’s going to have a set of things to do on one side and a set of things they do on the other side, and to be able to realize like, oh, I need to center here, I need to center here, I need to center here. So I wouldn’t say it with just Jiu-Jitsu, but that is kind of why I added the yoga into it. And when you listen to Whitney, she’s talking about her dance got better when she added yoga. And so it is one of those things that when you add, does add to every other aspect of your life.

Sharon Cline: I bet people are surprised to know that you can marry Jiu-Jitsu and and yoga together because they on the surface seem very different. Vastly different.

Joanie Chamberland: Well, there’s a decent amount of jiu jitsu schools that do have yoga, but I think the thing that people don’t think about is because they do yoga for flexibility, that’s like the number one thing they want to have. Because in jiu jitsu, that’s like one of the things you can fix is your flexibility and getting stronger. But it’s like most of the people in jiu jitsu are men, so they’re already working out and getting stronger. And then for them, it’s adding the flexibility aspect of it, which as most women who train jiu jitsu, usually decently flexible, have probably done some yoga in the past or something or or not. I did gymnastics growing up, but it’s the it’s the evenness that is the greatest thing the balance, the posture and the evenness. So what I got out of yoga was so much more than flexibility. It was the principles, is what I would say of yoga being added to the jiu jitsu principles. So it’s actually a far greater thing than most people think about when they think about jiu jitsu. Like there’s yoga for jiu jitsu online.

Sharon Cline: I didn’t even know that for some reason that never got put together in my head.

Joanie Chamberland: But just because you’re not in that field, right? So you wouldn’t really particularly see it. But the the yoga for jiu jitsu is very much just stretching, because the people that do jiu jitsu are pretty bad about stretching. So it’s like.

Whitney Avrit: Well, in their body. In fact, I’m in for a second. But like your body is, is um, is contracted like fetal position a lot in jiu jitsu. And you’ve got to really harness this like fetal position and like reaching around and things like that. So everything is really, like closed and concave in jiu jitsu, you know. And so I think it’s a really, really important for your humanness to be able to, to open that back up, you know.

Joanie Chamberland: Well, and the benefits of posture in jiu jitsu are huge. So like she’s saying, everybody’s got these rounded forward shoulders hunched back. A lot of it’s because they’re trying to protect their neck, so don’t get choked. We call it blue belt syndrome and walk around with their shoulders up in their ears.

Whitney Avrit: It’s so funny.

Joanie Chamberland: I know. Yeah. And then Whitney is like.

Sharon Cline: No, guys.

Joanie Chamberland: Whitney is like, uh. Your shoulders are not earrings.

Whitney Avrit: I didn’t I did not make that up. I got it from one of my teachers.

Sharon Cline: Oh, yeah.

Joanie Chamberland: But those are the things. It’s just like, oh, you’re you’re in there and you’re like, oh, I just need to relax those shoulders down. That helps. And and honestly, a lot of the things you do in jiu jitsu are counterintuitive. Like all this, like rounding in and being in these positions really aren’t ideal. The ideal thing is to have the good posture and your shoulders in the right place, and your body in alignment, and that’s what you learn with yoga. So obviously you get some stretching in. Great. But it’s everything else about it that really helps you.

Sharon Cline: Whitney, who is your ideal client for your business?

Whitney Avrit: Ideal client? Um, someone like Giuliani. Honestly. Like somebody that’s hungry. Somebody that wants it. Somebody that, Um, is is open to, you know, laying on the ground and spreading their legs apart. You know what I mean? Someone who’s who’s, you know. Yes. Open to it. Willing to laugh, you know, but really yoga. I think yoga is for everybody. You know, I feel like even even for my own self, um, my resistance to yoga in the beginning was actually an inkling that I needed it. Right? Like, kids don’t want to eat their vegetables, right? They don’t want to eat the rest of their chicken. I don’t want chicken. I want ice cream. You know what I mean? Like, but you need protein. You need your vegetables, right? So I feel like that a lot of the times when we resist something, you know, it’s likely because we need it. I mean, it’s it’s like that, uh, that machine at the gym that you don’t want to use. That’s the one you need, you know?

Sharon Cline: And what’s neat about your practice is that you don’t have to like me. I wouldn’t have to go someplace and get into these poses in front of lots of other people, right? I can just do this from the comfort of my home.

Whitney Avrit: Exactly. I feel like there’s a lot of people who will never, ever, ever put on yoga pants in front of anybody, anyone ever, you know? Or they feel like I can’t step into a yoga studio like I don’t have, you know, I don’t know, I don’t know enough to to walk into a, into a yoga studio and take a class, you know. And so my super beginner level, I call it level one, um, is, you know, you could kind of equate it to being a super noob is what my husband says he wants a super noob. Um, but you know, those people who, who don’t know the flow of a yoga class who cannot touch their toes like I’ve like I figure out a way around that. Like I want you to know, like when I was developing this, I put on giant pants on and I put like, like cushions in my pants. And I was like, okay, how do I move? You know, how do I move like this? How do I move if I’m a little bigger? How do I how how do I feel a stretch if I’m not going to be able to touch my toes? And how do I How do I translate that to to other people, you know, and to like I feel like yoga props, like yoga blocks and stuff like that.

Whitney Avrit: A lot of people think that if they need a prop or they need a block or whatever, that it means that they can’t, or they’re somehow less than like, it’s like, I feel like it’s very triggering. Like, if we need help, that means we’re not enough. Like, I want you to know, like we need to drop that. As a society. We are communal beings. We’re not islands. Right. And so I think that’s kind of what blocks kind of helped teach me continually, even like sometimes, yeah, I do have to ask for help. I can’t reach the floor here, you know, and I’m super bendy and there and I every time I walk into a yoga class, I grab two blocks. I don’t I don’t care what class it is like, I might need it like, my body today is not what it was yesterday, you know? Um, and so, so. Yeah. So level level one is for the person who’s not going to go take a yoga class or doesn’t have time or let’s say, you know, they’re a mom or a dad and they’ve got like, kid duties and and dinner and this, that and the other. And like, they finally get everybody to bed and it’s like, okay, now I have a little bit of time for me and I don’t want to doomscroll.

Sharon Cline: And it’s nice because there’s, there’s no judgment there or not because, because I’ve taken yoga and there are times that I loved it. But then sometimes I do the thing where I’m like, wow, this woman in front of me is doing this amazing job and doesn’t wobble at all. Or, you know, is is able to do the the extra step that sometimes the instructors will say, you know, if you’re not challenged enough, do this other thing with it, and I’ll be like, oh my God, right. Anyway, right. No judgment. And when you’re home by yourself and watching you correct.

Whitney Avrit: 100%, you know, because because I mean, just just like you said, like it’s so easy to look at someone else and feel like you’re not enough.

Joanie Chamberland: Well, I’ll add in that Whitney does teach yoga at my jiu jitsu school, um, like at least once a month. And actually, she’ll be there this weekend.

Sharon Cline: Oh, wow. What time will she be there this Saturday? 9 a.m.? Nine. Oh, dang. 9 a.m. on a Saturday at Rise Up Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Yep.

Joanie Chamberland: 9 to 1030. But if you’re worried about looking silly while you’re doing it, well, the greatest part is that my gym. Since there’s a jiu jitsu mat, it’s already really hard to balance for everyone. So. So everybody is wobbling. It’s extra.

Sharon Cline: Difficult. Yeah.

Joanie Chamberland: I mean, it’s not you’re just, you know, a lot of people are worried about being wobbly and not looking like this perfect flowing thing. Yeah. And well, it’s very difficult there for everyone. Like, I’m, I have great balance, but on the mat it’s just difficult. So you’re going to see people falling over all the time and it’s okay. And that’s the thing too is being in there. I never feel judged. Like nobody in there is ever judging us. I mean, we have some people that are older, that are not flexible, that are coming in. Um, you got people like me that do. Whitney starts at a very basic level, and then she’s like, and if you think you can, you can add this, and if you think you can, you can add this. And if you think you can’t, you know, and and to talk about the blocks, I use the blocks because my arms are way too long for my body so I can touch my toes without leaning forward. And so I can use the blocks to put past my legs to actually get a stretch. And so it’s like you always have to remember that. Like it’s the same thing for Jiu-Jitsu. Your body is where your body is and that’s it.

Joanie Chamberland: So I tell people all the time when you’re training and you’re trying to train to be, oh, when I lose 100 pounds, I’ll be able to do this stuff. Well guess what? You haven’t lost 100 pounds and you cannot do this stuff. So how about you do the stuff you can do with this 100 pounds, and then when you lose it, we’ll work on the stuff you can do, or vice versa. If you’re trying to gain 100 pounds and you don’t have that, like this person here talking to you right now, I can’t put all my weight on you because I ain’t got no weight to put on you. But I’ve been trying to gain weight for I don’t know how long, so I just use the techniques I can use with this body. Right? Same thing. My arms are never going to get shorter, so I do what I can with the length of arms that I have. So I tell people all the time, like, you have to work with where you’re at because you can always get more flexible or less flexible. You can always gain weight, lose weight. Right? There are certain things you can never change. My arms are always going to be this long.

Joanie Chamberland: Unless I got really, really big, they’d still be just as long. They would just look shorter, you know? So there are certain things that we just can’t do anything about. And that’s the whole point of taking these classes going like, oh, we all have something, right? We all have something that we can get better at or that we can fix, or somebody else is better at than us. I mean, my hips are pretty flexible. My shoulders are not. I mean, it’s it’s wild how much my shoulders are not flexible. So everybody has the place that they’re at and it doesn’t matter where other people are. And that’s the beauty of doing yoga with Whitney. And I’ve done some stuff online too, and I’ve taken a yoga class here or there, but my yoga classes with me, which is why I have her come to my studio, is that it’s fun, it’s judgment free. She’s working with you. She’s, you know, coming around and making sure that, you know, if your body can’t do this or can’t do that, she is helping you with it. If you can do more, she’s helping you with that. So it’s it’s a wonderful experience to just whole body pay attention to it.

Sharon Cline: Giovanni. Who’s your ideal client?

Joanie Chamberland: Somebody who actually wants to train and learn. I it’s not a place that my gym. I mean, we do, like, laugh and like, kid around, but I want somebody there who is enjoying it and is there because they want to learn more about jiu jitsu, but also just being a better human being and being the better version of themselves that they can be. Because we do have, um, the number one thing on our wall says choose love and, um, and everything there is, you know, you are choosing that love for yourself, for others, for your body. So growth not perfection, right? That’s what we’re looking for is the other one that’s going up. And so I want somebody who’s excited to be there, who wants to learn, wants to train, wants to help other people get better because we do partner, you know, newcomers with somebody who’s been training for a while so that they don’t get injured in most places, like you’ve been training for a while. You don’t want to go with the newbie, but I’m like, if you don’t go with the newbie and get them good, you’re not going to have more training partners, you’re going to quit, they’re going to leave, and then you got nothing. You know, if you break your toys, you don’t have any more toys. So for me, it’s just people that are excited that want to be there. They want to learn jiu jitsu. They want to cut up with people. They want a good environment to grow as a human being and help others grow.

Whitney Avrit: We have a saying in dance that kind of piggybacks off of what you’re talking about. It’s, um, hard work beats talent when talent won’t work hard.

Joanie Chamberland: Yep, that’s a great one.

Sharon Cline: You both are talking about how important it is to be present. And so where do you find themes that were not present in your lives? The reason I ask that is because I future think all the time, okay, after this I got to go here. But here when I’m really, really present because I can’t fake listen or come up with questions on the fly, I’ve got to really be listening. There’s no list that I just like, so it slows the world down a little bit for me. And then I leave here feeling different than when I came in. And that’s how I feel when I’m on a motorcycle as well, because I have to be very present. You’re using all of your limbs. You are. For me, I’m always defensive riding, you know. Do they see me? Do they not see me? Where am I going to go if they don’t see me kind of thing? And I mean, there’s a lot of fun too, but I’m very present. And that’s one of the joys I have about riding is, is that I can’t do anything else. I have to really just be. And so are you. Have you found that there are lots of themes in your lives where you see that when you’re doing your practices, you are very present, and you are different in those moments than when you’re not right?

Whitney Avrit: No. I love that you kind of went into an explanation, and I think it’s super badass that you ride motorcycles. Like, I just want to I just want to iterate that again. Like, you’re so cool.

Sharon Cline: Oh, my God, I am just kidding. No, I keep telling my kids that you’re so cool. Thank you for saying that.

Whitney Avrit: Like I’m kind of jealous.

Joanie Chamberland: Person is the one that doesn’t like motorcycles.

Sharon Cline: No, thanks. We all have our strengths, right? We all have our interests. I don’t do Jiu-Jitsu. You’ve invited me to self-defense classes, and I’m like, mm. I might be busy this weekend. I might be riding a motorcycle. Right? Exactly. So I appreciate you being, like, inviting me. So, yeah, there are things we all like, but thank you for saying that. It’s very sweet. I think you all are badass as well, in different ways, you know.

Whitney Avrit: Right, right. Um, so to to answer your question, I think what allows me to be so present is because I think I’m an overthinker, I worry and and it’s like I was talking to my husband just the other day about, uh, scheduling something like in in August, like, it’s February, you guys. And he’s just like, he’s just like, Whitney, where are your feet? Like, we don’t need to worry about that right now, you know? And so I think I think it comes from this, this okay, I have to fix the future and I have to make sure that I blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever it is. Right? Just just worrying about things and so being present really allows me to escape the worry, escape that part of my mind, that mechanism that likes to take over, you know, it allows me a moment or two or an hour or whatever it is to exercise presence and mindfulness. What do you think?

Sharon Cline: What do you think, Giovanni?

Joanie Chamberland: So I think part of the question you asked is how we know we’re not in the present.

Sharon Cline: Sure. I come up with questions and sometimes really convoluted way just to let you know. I know what I’m trying to say, but it takes me a minute to get the whole meaning. So thanks for your patience.

Joanie Chamberland: The same here. So I would say, you know, to answer that question of like when I know that I’m not in the present is boredom. If you’re bored, you’re not in the present because it doesn’t matter what you’re doing, you should be fully involved in what you’re doing. And so I think a lot of it, too, is that we all did the school thing that, you know, I don’t think is the way to go. I don’t think anybody is wired to do that. But we were for all these years forced to go to school. You’re learning all day, you’re being force fed information all day. And you’re, you know, just constantly getting new info. And then here we are as adults and it’s like we don’t go to school. A lot of people don’t do anything to further their learning. And but they look at their health like, this is important. And I tell people all the time, the thing about jiu jitsu that’s great is that it doesn’t feel like a workout while you’re doing it. Maybe in the very beginning if you’re very, very out of shape. But it’s not the same as like, you got to go in the gym and I got to find the exercise and you’re just doing the same thing over and over. I don’t understand how people can lift weights all the time, I just don’t. I mean, even when I used to lift weights, I have to do it with someone. And we’re having like, some kind of, like, big conversation while we’re doing it. Right.

Whitney Avrit: I turn my, like, weightlifting stuff into breathwork exercises 1,000,000%. Like I’m inhaling as I’m contracting. Just to to.

Sharon Cline: Distract your head from what you’re doing 100%.

Joanie Chamberland: Yeah. And just to. It’s too boring. Yeah. There’s just it’s mind numbing, right? I mean, oh, wait.

Speaker4: Heavy lift up.

Joanie Chamberland: Like my weights pushed.

Whitney Avrit: Back some listener mad right now.

Sharon Cline: It’s okay.

Joanie Chamberland: It’s it’s important. I mean, listen, I want to be strong, so I do it too. But I can’t just do that. Like. And I know a lot of people who lift weights. They got podcasts on. They got something you can’t I mean, it’s it gets monotonous. And kudos to the people who can do that monotony for so long. There’s only one thing I’ve done for more than a few years, and it’s jiu jitsu. Everything else has lost my interest. And so for me, it’s like when I know I’m bored, which means I’m not learning enough. And I think that’s something that we miss is we’re not learning. And so whenever you’re doing jiu jitsu or yoga, you’re either learning about jiu jitsu or yoga or yourself in those moments. So and you have camaraderie, the people that are there with you also going through something that you know they’re having to learn about themselves or others. So you’re constantly growing as a person. It’s not just, well, my muscles are getting bigger or and for those people that are being offended right now, please don’t be. There’s nothing wrong with weightlifting. For me, it’s not enough and I wish I could. Same thing with eating enough calories. I mean, I eat a lot and it’s like, man, so those people have to eat all day long nonstop. And so it’s that’s how I know I’m not present is if I’m bored. Right. And when I’m doing jiu jitsu, the trust me, there are times where I am bored because I have been training for so long. So people look at me, you want a role coach? I’m like, no.

Joanie Chamberland: And then I have to remind myself like, oh, it doesn’t matter who I’m going with, I can learn something or I can make fun of, like, I can have a fun time while I’m doing it, even though it’s not really challenging. And so, like, I have different people at the gym that have, um, physical disabilities, mental disabilities and or like if you’re going with a child, right? No, they can’t beat me. They don’t have technique to beat mine. But I can still make it fun, and I can still put myself in positions that I want to try to escape from or pay attention to what their movements are going to be. So just because you’re bored doesn’t mean that what you’re doing is the wrong thing. You just have to find a way to look at it. In a sense, that’s going to put your mind there. Because trust me, I could roll with somebody and be thinking about what I have to do tomorrow and whatever, and they wouldn’t even know it. I’d still be beating them and still be doing exactly what I should be doing. But I’m bored and I’m not there. So then I have to tell myself, like, oh wait, do something to make it fun. So people always look at me like you’re always smiling when you’re rolling. And it’s like, because I choose to have a good time with what I’m doing so that I can be here with what I’m doing. Does that make sense? 100%?

Whitney Avrit: Like in yoga, we have a concept called the beginner’s mind, right? No matter how long you’ve been doing something, you know, approaching something like a beginner, you know, with that that eager mentality. So I think I think that’s really cool that that you said that.

Sharon Cline: And, you know, it’s funny, we talk about how important our minds are to be engaged and to and to frame things in the right way to enjoy it and get the most out of it. What a fight I have on my hands with my mind. I mean, there are so many things I have to do, and I’m like, so one of the things that I think it’s ridiculous, okay, it’s a first world problem. And it’s, it’s it’s a game I play with myself. But like, emptying the dishwasher is like so boring to me, right? And I’m like, I want.

Whitney Avrit: Can AI do that for us?

Sharon Cline: And it’s something small and mundane. But I was thinking about it yesterday, um, because I did it last night and it was I was about to go to bed. I’m like, I don’t want to do it in the morning, I’m just going to do it. But I challenged myself to empty it as within a certain time period. So like that’s the way I get through it, right? Because otherwise I’m just so annoyed at the boringness of it. However, there are a million people who would love to have a dishwasher to empty, so I know that I’m doing like a I don’t know, I don’t I’m not framing it in terms of gratitude of that I get to. Instead, it’s a half two, which is my issue to work on.

Joanie Chamberland: Which is funny because I was going to be like, try not having one.

Sharon Cline: Yeah, I know exactly. Try not having a house or dishes or I mean, there are a million things and I do have moments where I am very grateful and, you know, very happy to do all of the things that life brings. But there are times where I have to play a game with myself in the same way, in order to get through it. There’s there’s a.

Joanie Chamberland: Ton of research on that anyways, though, and a lot of stuff I’ve learned in the business classes I’ve taken and whatnot is you have to figure out how to master the mundane. Right. How to not make it feel so mundane. Right. How do you get people to do things? Oh, competition. Competition with yourself. Competition with others. Making a team building thing. Like, it’s. It’s all about gamifying. Right. And and there are people that love all the boring things, like, you know, my mentor Joe loves Excel spreadsheets, but, you know, like, I make those because I’m good at doing it and I need them. But like, it pains me to do so, right? And so with certain things, you find other people to do it. Obviously with your dishwasher it’s a little different.

Sharon Cline: It’s ridiculous. It is ridiculous and I know it, but I do it, I do it, I go.

Joanie Chamberland: All right, I got it. So I had to take testosterone at some point. And then my face broke out and so I stopped taking it. But I’m still dealing with side effects from that. And so now I’ve got to wash my face and do all these different things in the morning and at night, something I never had to do in my entire life. And now I’m like a teenage teenage boy. So now I’ve got to wash my face. I’ve got to put this layer, I got to put a next layer. I got to put like four layers in the morning, four layers at night, and two of them are lotion. But whatever, it’s still this whole thing I have to do. So now it’s like, all right, you let the water heat up and then I wash my face, I dry it, I put the lotion on that has to dry. So then I go into the other room and I go, all right, I’ll put out all the utensils. And then as soon as the utensils are done, it’s like, okay, time to go in the other room. And I just like, go back and forth because, like, I understand how the value of like one thing at a time and like, finish one task, but I literally cannot. You have to let it dry. So I would have to just like, sit and look at myself in the mirror.

Sharon Cline: We don’t we don’t have time for that. Yeah, right.

Whitney Avrit: There’s a there’s a Zen Buddhist saying that I kind of that kind of reminds me of what we’re talking about. And it says before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. Like we’re not. We don’t get to escape our humanness. Even. Even if we don’t necessarily love a task.

Sharon Cline: There are times where I’m ungrounded and I’ve gone through something difficult that when I have my mundane tasks, I’m grateful for them because they ground me again.

Whitney Avrit: That’s beautiful.

Sharon Cline: You can.

Whitney Avrit: Get there like.

Sharon Cline: Oh yeah, no, I need it.

Whitney Avrit: There’s a part of me that’s like.

Sharon Cline: I gotta know. There are times when I get to take a shower. No, there’s something about, um. I like routine and familiarity. And so, like, sometimes when I’m on vacation or something. Um, I, I’m ungrounded because I’m not in my normal space and I’m in a new experience. I’ll go into a grocery store because that’s a very normal place. Or, um, I’ll find something that’s very familiar so that I get grounded back in my myself.

Whitney Avrit: It’s like 100% self-care right there.

Sharon Cline: Yeah, it’s funny, because I was visiting my mom and they’re like, in the Midwest. And I went to target and I was like, oh, okay, I know who I am. Again, just for a little bit. I felt a little like, I’m not in my normal routine. I’m not making my own food. I’m not working. It just I get ungrounded very easily. But so to find something that I know very well, um, helps me. And it’s the same with an emotional thing that I’m going through. If I’m going through a tough time sometimes just laundry and taking care of what I know that I can control and take care of is meditative to me and grounds me again. So there are times where it’s great and I love it and can’t wait. And then there are times where I’m just trying to figure out how to appreciate where I am, and I like that. We talk about how important it is for that appreciation to be associated with what your body is doing and going through, because the strength that you have to have to perform the different tasks that you’re asking is something that you can look at from like third party and see yourself being strong. You know, I am able to do this as opposed to the have to the I appreciate what my body can do. I am strong. I can defend myself, I can fight, I can stretch, I can ground into myself.

Whitney Avrit: You’re doing yoga and you don’t even know it.

Sharon Cline: Oh, funny. Just as long as I’m not in a happy baby pose. Right? It’s so funny. No, but thank you. Well, I mean, maybe mentally. Yeah. Physically? Exactly. Well, that’s. My whole life is right here in my head. So that’s what I deal with all the time. Playing games with myself. All the time to get through.

Joanie Chamberland: But the thing is, it’s it’s about like the more research I’ve done and it doesn’t matter. The book. What? Religion. Not religion, science, math, yoga it doesn’t matter. Everything that I’ve read and talked to about people with is it’s all in your perspective, right? Like, you could choose to see ten good things, or you could choose to pick the 12 good bad things. Right? You could choose to see. And a lot of times people fault me for not choosing to see the bad things. I’m like, there’s a reason I do that because there’s no point. Those bad things happen that they are. Let me choose to see the good things and move on with my life. And so it’s all a perspective, because even when I was telling you guys, like, if you’re having bad thoughts or, you know, the negative self-talk, everybody understands that. But, I mean, I’ve competed before and I simply thought, I’m hungry. And then we just kept going and all of a sudden I’m like, oh my gosh, I’m in the middle of a fight. Like, right. And just a thought like that. Like it’s not a negative thought. Like she landed on my stomach and I felt it growl and like.

Joanie Chamberland: And I literally thought, I’m hungry. Right. And when I think that not only did I pause, I moved backwards as she’s moving forward. And it’s just like, oh my gosh. So it doesn’t necessarily have to be negative, but that is. Literally, you’re no longer in the moment right now future thinking. Right? I’m thinking about oh. The food I’m going to have after I leave here. If you guys know anything about me, I love food. And I’m constantly eating. So, you know, it’s it’s preparing first and then choosing to see the. Things and changing that perspective and that and it you know, I used to go oh it’s more. It’s it’s easier said than done, you know. But like I don’t choose to believe that anymore. So. I’d say, you know, it’s, it’s harder said or it’s easier said than to do, but it’s really not. It just is a matter of choosing it, choosing to look at it in that side of things, choosing to look at it from the positive side. Choosing to choose love, right? Everything is a choice. And that’s a big problem we have in society. Is people think they don’t have a choice.

Sharon Cline: Reaction as opposed to yeah, taking a moment and really thinking about what they want as a result. Yeah. And our mind isn’t there.

Joanie Chamberland: Yeah. And our mind isn’t there to make us comfortable. It’s there to keep us alive. And so it’s one of the things, you know, when we do yoga with Whitney is she’s talking about, you know, in this pose, you might have some uncomfortable feelings. Dah dah dah. Do not push them away. Let it go. Like, go through it. Let it go. It’s okay. And that’s something that we constantly do, is our brain is like, no, no, no, this is uncomfortable. Stop. Don’t think about this. And it shifts our perspective. And what is just like, no, the perspective is there. Let it happen. Continue.

Whitney Avrit: It’s okay to be present with that feeling, whatever it is. Because a lot of those postures, you know, they contract you or especially hip openers, um, because we hold a lot of stuff, um, energetic stuff. Right? Unresolved stuff in our hips. And so you start getting into deeper hip stretches. Excuse me? You start getting into deeper hip stretches and sometimes an uncomfortable memory. Boom. It’s right there. It’s in your face. Or I’m. And like, this, um, kind of a rite of passage in yoga is to cry when you’re doing your middle splits, you know, every everybody listening right now who has been in middle splits and cried in a yoga class like I my heart goes out to you because it comes out, you know, and sometimes, sometimes you don’t know why you want to cry. Sometimes the memory isn’t necessarily there, but the emotions do pop up and they creep up and they come out and like, we have to feel it. You have to give it a space. Because if you do not give it a space to be, it’s going to go right back where it was.

Sharon Cline: I had taken. I had taken a Krav Maga class, and I took four of them with Atlanta Krav Maga, and they were great. So two out of the four classes, I lost it and had to go in the back room and just cry and cry and cry, and it was horribly embarrassing. But they were very kind to me. And they said, this happens all the time.

Whitney Avrit: That’s why I don’t do Jiu-Jitsu, because I’m scared of what’s going to come out right.

Sharon Cline: So I didn’t expect any of that. But I grew up with a very traumatic I had a very traumatic childhood and so physically and emotionally. So what I didn’t realize is that it’s just under the surface. Um, because I’m, I’m standing in front of a man who’s about to put his hands around my neck so that I can learn how to get out of it, and we’re all just kind of chilling there for a second until they tell us to really do it. I’m gone. Right. I’m not.

Whitney Avrit: There. You’re somewhere else now.

Sharon Cline: Yeah, yeah. And I can’t handle it or process it. And I only have had that happen very few times, but 50% of the time in Krav Maga, right. And so it’s a shock to me that I’m able to access. It’s still shocking to me that I’m able to access a trauma like that so easily when I know that it’s not really this. This man doesn’t know me. He’s not going to try to hurt me. We’re in a class. He’s going to stop, right? But that doesn’t matter because my body believes that I’m under attack.

Whitney Avrit: And so. Right.

Sharon Cline: I could have gone back and processed through more because clearly there’s there’s an issue, but it was almost just too much for me at the time. I just couldn’t take it. I mean, I it would be hours of, of a mess until I can just like process, like I’m driving home and just like, oh my God. Right.

Whitney Avrit: And you’ve got, you’ve got to listen to all the songs. Oh, right.

Joanie Chamberland: Whitney has this online yoga subscription that you could do, and you could do it at home and.

Sharon Cline: Release that at home and not be traumatized in front of other people. That’s awesome.

Joanie Chamberland: Yeah. You know, and then you wouldn’t have to drive. But because it does help. And the thing too is like, this is the problem is that we, you know, everybody puts up this mask like they don’t have pains and they don’t have hurts. I’m claustrophobic. I’m claustrophobic. And I’m a second degree black belt in jiu jitsu. And I’ve done so much jiu jitsu now that I can stop people from making me feel that way for the most part. But when you’re tired and you’re not really there. And that’s the thing about being present, what you’re doing and and one of the reasons I do not train when I’m angry, like people are like, oh, I go there to release steam. No, I don’t, because I don’t want to hurt people. So I just don’t fight. I dead carcass when I’m mad, so I don’t train when I’m mad, I actually dead carcass.

Sharon Cline: I’ve never heard that phrase.

Joanie Chamberland: Yeah, I just don’t. I literally just like a cockroach, you know? Like I just don’t fight people, okay. And which makes them more mad, which, you know, kind of ironically feels good to me because I’m mad, you know? But it’s not how I want to ever be in my mind when I train jiu jitsu. So it’s something I’ve learned about myself that I just I don’t train when I’m that way. But like, if you’re really tired or you have a headache or maybe you’re out of breath from whatever, right? So you’re not thinking clearly, and then somebody lands on you. I mean, it’s been years now. I’ve been a black belt for six years. I think the last time I had like a claustrophobia where I cried. I was a brown belt, but, I mean, a really good friend of mine landed on mount right when I went to take a breath, he landed on my lungs so no air came in and immediately starts crying, you know? And it’s like, that’s embarrassing. I’m still black. I mean, I’m still a brown belt. Like, it’s still been training jiu jitsu for nine years. So there’s a lot of things that are, you know, and it’s not some kind of trauma.

Joanie Chamberland: Nothing happened to me to make me claustrophobic. I’ve just been claustrophobic in my life. Like maybe when I was super little and don’t know it, but nothing that I know of. So it’s one of those things, like you said, when you’re getting in these poses, sometimes you don’t know what that thing is. And sometimes there are things that, you know, it took me years to work through not being claustrophobic. And now what I’ve worked through is when I know that I’m in a certain space in my mind that I can’t be fully present with the sport or man, if our egos are there, like I cannot train with a significant other that’s better than me at jiu jitsu or like can beat me because they’re stronger, because I want to be able to give them enough. And if I can’t give them enough to get them pushed, then I feel less than. And so I already know, like, I can’t do this right like that. My ego can’t handle it because my ego thinks I’m a 225 pound man, like, like shredded. And I could just, like, push somebody off me, but I’m not. I’m 130 pound female.

Sharon Cline: But the fact that you are aware that you can’t is a big deal. You know, the fact that you already know that about yourself. I feel that self-awareness is is impressive, right?

Joanie Chamberland: But that’s the thing that’s hard to shake. That is my number one biggest ego thing. And it’s like, you know, the whole thing with jiu jitsu is like, leave your ego at the door, blah, blah, blah. I do a great job of that. But the one thing that I can’t is I think I am a 225 pound man. Like, I cannot help but think that I can just push somebody off. So when I go to move someone or I get manhandled, Nothing makes me more mad. And I have to go. Nothing’s changed. These guys are just as strong as they’ve always been. Just now you’re getting ready for a competition, you know? But that’s still a skill that took me many, many, many years. And I’m still not immune to it. Like when he said, you know, we’re human, we live in the human world. We’re going to continue to face these human things. And so it’s just how long it takes us to realize that that’s going to happen.

Sharon Cline: What you’re talking about is like, I’m imagining you on a mat and like, crying or something that.

Whitney Avrit: I can’t even.

Sharon Cline: Picture it. I know it’s very it’s counterintuitive for sure. Yeah. But but what I like is that you’re just kind of honoring the human side of of yourself. And I think the more I can normalize that for myself, then I don’t have as much judgment about I become somebody different. I it’s trauma, it’s unresolved trauma, I guess.

Whitney Avrit: Right. And I like that you that you touched on like it’s right there. And Giovanni like you know when you’re faced with something like it’s right there, you know. And like, you know, the yoga practice and the yoga mindset allows for space for that. You know, uh, similar to me, I have a lot of, like, neck trauma, um, from childhood and stuff. And so I got to a point where I could not take a hot yoga class. I love hot yoga. You know what I mean? Like, let’s sweat. Right? Um, but I got to a point where I couldn’t take hot yoga anymore because I couldn’t take the humidity. Because I couldn’t breathe, you know? And that’s. I had a teacher tell me one time that that’s yoga working. When you’re uncomfortable like that and you are pushed to deal with you, you know, and really deal with, with the innermost yucky stuff that really we don’t talk about and don’t go share, you know, like that’s that’s when yoga’s really doing its work. That’s when you’re breathing really comes into play. That’s when you really harnessing your inner self, really comes into play. Is those moments.

Sharon Cline: Again, it’s just the surface side of it. I’m going to go take a yoga class and have a great day, but there’s so much more that can be accessed in jiu jitsu the same way. Um, if you’re if your mindset is or if you’re framing it in a way that you can grow your spirit as well as as strengthen your body and your mind and, and the mental part of it.

Joanie Chamberland: Well, and one of the things you know, for you all to think about, I grew up with boys. I grew up with boys. And I actually I didn’t start my period until I was 16, so, like, I didn’t cry ever. I remember one of my brother’s best friends trying to make me cry, and my neighbor coming up and be like, are you trying to get her to cry? And he’s like, yeah. And he was like, good luck. That’s one tough beat, you know, like ain’t going to happen. And then at 16 bam going through all the female hormones and all that.

Sharon Cline: Right.

Joanie Chamberland: Poor thing.

Whitney Avrit: And and so if somebody’s crying at our house somebody was hurt.

Sharon Cline: Yeah I like.

Joanie Chamberland: Crying is like, was like the most embarrassing thing ever. Right. And I hated it so much. And so like, for y’all to be like, oh, I don’t see you crying. I probably crying more as a black belt on the mat than any other rank, because it’s just like, God said. I’m like, you know what? Like, this is where I’m at. There’s nothing wrong with it. Like, man, I got texture issues and this thing’s bothering me. I just need some time to, like, chill out and then we can continue, right?

Sharon Cline: You’re honoring your humanness, I love that.

Whitney Avrit: Do you feel like that’s part of, like, um, the the maturity process of of us too? Because. Because I find that, like, in my older age, I’m 41 that like, I, my physical body and like how my mind deals with that is just less tolerant because of the things.

Joanie Chamberland: We’ve stacked it on for so long. I mean, there’s a breaking point for everybody, right? So now I’m just like, instead of getting to a breaking point, let me just go ahead and let this out now. Right. And if somebody’s going to look at me, what are you going to do? You’re going to laugh like you don’t cry. You’re going to laugh like you don’t have child tantrums. You know? You know, we look at kids like, oh, I can’t believe they’re having a tantrum right now. It’s like adults do the same thing. They’re just much worse about it, actually. And then they try to act like they didn’t have one. At least kids don’t do that, you know? So I’m just.

Sharon Cline: Overt. They’re overtly upset as opposed to, wait, why did you say that passive aggressively to me or something?

Joanie Chamberland: Yeah, they’re just gonna do it. So it’s just I got to the point. I’m like, you know what? Like I can sit here and try to hold it in. And of course, there are certain times I’m not just gonna, like, flat out cry all the time, but like, with the right people or like, let me finish this round out and then let me go sit and just, like, take care of myself, you know, like going to the bathroom or my office or whatever. Because, like, the reality is, if I don’t do that, especially with such a close sport, if somebody hits you in the head or in the face, like it immediately makes you mad, right? I can love it’s an accident. I know it’s an accident, like. But just give me some space so that my human nature of getting mad and got hit in the face can, like, do its thing and go away so I can look and be like, I’m not mad at you. And I’ve gotten poked in the eye so hard by some, like, brand new person. He’s like, she’ll never roll with me again. I’m like, no, I just need a second. And then I come back and I’m completely fine and we’re having a good time. We’re laughing, my eye hurts, but whatever, because it’s a full contact sport, like it was an accident. But if I didn’t take that time, and I just kept trying to push through it because I’m tough and I’m a black belt, well, then I’m probably going to be mad, and then I’m gonna start rolling a certain way towards that person, and then they’re going to get. It’s just like even unconsciously.

Sharon Cline: Right?

Joanie Chamberland: Let me not do any of that. Let me just go over here and cry my eyes out. Don’t rub it, because that makes it worse. And then when it feels better, come back and continue rolling. And so that’s the thing. And that’s also from, you know, Whitney saying when we’re in these poses like it’s okay. Like don’t try to push that thought away. Just let it do its thing and go through it and it’s fine. And so it’s like I just use that same principle in jiu jitsu. Like okay, we all have moments. We all do. And if you say you don’t, you’re lying and why. And then you want everybody to understand you and hear you and feel you. Well, they can’t because you’re pretending like you’re this robot that doesn’t have any of these other things that they have, right?

Sharon Cline: The embracing of just the human side of us is so important, because I think shame rules the world.

Whitney Avrit: And I totally agree.

Sharon Cline: Yeah. And there are people that disagree. You disagree? What? Jiu jitsu rules the world. What rules?

Joanie Chamberland: I think love does. Oh, sorry.

Sharon Cline: Okay. Yes. Love is stronger than shame. I would say shame has a very big hand and a lot of the darker forces in the world, if not the biggest hand in the darker forces of the world. But what you both are talking about is embracing that part and kind of accepting and not worrying about it. And I wish that was more of a pervasive theme in the world.

Whitney Avrit: Right, right. I think it’s easier to because we all want to be heard. Right? You know. And so I think in our in our pulls and pushes to be heard and to be validated, that sometimes we end up shaming each other. Right? And then sometimes, you know, if some, you know, if you are around, you know, an abusive person, you know, then that abusive person has to shame you because they are riddled with it, right? They they bleed shame, you know, all over the people who who they are. You know, they say they’re trying to love, you know. And so I think it’s I really agree with you that it’s like one of the, one of the biggest, one of the biggest things, you know, that that kind of have this driving force, you know, and even even with your story with, with Krav Maga, you know, that I.

Sharon Cline: Was ashamed, you know, that I was I was embarrassed. Yeah.

Whitney Avrit: That that person who who, you know, harmed you, that brought out that that feeling in that moment, you know, and then and then you’re like in public and it’s like, oh my gosh, I didn’t want anybody to know this about me. You know, it’s just like it comes up. It creeps up.

Sharon Cline: What would you like to say to potential new clients? What’s something that you think they wouldn’t know that would be important for them to know?

Whitney Avrit: Just start. Just start. You don’t have to know all of the answers today. You know, you don’t have to have your backpack packed perfectly with all the things that you’re going to need. Like just just begin. Like it’s okay to begin and have zero skills. Ask me how I know.

Sharon Cline: I like to think I’m imagining someone maybe not wanting to feel, you know, process things. Um, maybe aren’t really wanting to go on that journey. They can still benefit from the physical side, right?

Whitney Avrit: Absolutely. And I like to and yes, we have the physical postures too, but especially like on my social media and stuff like that. Um, we dive into the different principles of yoga and really it’s just meant for food for thought, you know, if they want to contemplate it, great. You know, I usually have a theme every month, like the theme for February has been aparigraha, which is non excess. Um, and non excess means a lot of different things. Um, and especially like in our culture, you know, we have we typically have an excess of stuff, but we also have an excess of mental chatter. We have an excess of um, you know, pushing wants and wills. And we have an excess of thinking that everything has to be perfect all the time. And so, so like for me, like I try to whatever the theme is like, I try to live it for 30 days, you know? And so like for me it’s like, where’s there, where is there excess in my life? But it also allows me to see where there’s not enough of something, you know. And so that’s and I like to share, you know, some of those, you know, different epiphanies that, that I’m going through. And if that ends up, you know, lighting a light bulb in somebody that that allows for them to better themselves and for them to take the reins in their own life and to to make something better or to, you know, change something about themselves that they’ve been wanting to. Then I’m ready. Let’s do it.

Sharon Cline: What did you learn this month about excess?

Whitney Avrit: About excess? Um.

Sharon Cline: Is this too personal?

Whitney Avrit: No no no no no no, we’re gonna go full vulnerability.

Sharon Cline: Oh, gosh. Okay. I’m ready.

Whitney Avrit: Vulnerability. Um, so. So what I learned about myself, about excess is that I, um, I really depend on the others that I love and my environment for my personal safety and for my, um, uh, like to feel accepted, you know, and so, like, okay, like, if I don’t have them to do that, if I don’t put that excess on them, you know, how am I standing on my own two feet? And that’s really empowered me to say, you know what? I can I can love me different. I don’t need all the excess validation, you know, I can I can do this for me. And that’s that’s new for me.

Sharon Cline: And you wouldn’t have known if you hadn’t had that as your theme. Boom. Interesting. I love it too, because, like, you’re willing to, um, again, it’s that willingness to be vulnerable and be real with yourself and not have this shame of, oh, don’t look over here. You’re willing to look at it all and and willing to make an adjustment that feels more congruent with who you are, right?

Whitney Avrit: And who I want to be like. I want to like myself, you know.

Sharon Cline: Do you do the thing ever, either of you, where you look in the mirror and tell yourself that you love you, love you?

Whitney Avrit: There are times. There are times. Do you do.

Sharon Cline: That, Giovanni?

Joanie Chamberland: I’ve done the high fives in the mirror. Part of the high five habit thing to help other people. Um, but I just wouldn’t say that I don’t love myself. So that one, like the the negative self-talk for me was very difficult to pinpoint where I do it. Um, and so for me, it was the it took me a long time to realize where I talked to myself negatively, because it just wasn’t really my focus wasn’t on me in that sense.

Sharon Cline: Yet you were talking about how you have a positive mindset and you choose to have one. I’m the same. I have a positive mindset and I choose to because I know what it’s like to not and the world will be the same. It just depends on how I want to look at it. And I choose to see the good and and then I tend to see more good. But if I choose to see the bad, I tend to see more bad.

Joanie Chamberland: Well, and that’s the thing, you know what? And I wasn’t just trying to be a contrarian to you, saying, you know the thing about shame. Oh heck.

Sharon Cline: No. And this, this show can be that. We can. We can throw down if we don’t, if we don’t ever throw down here. But we can’t.

Joanie Chamberland: But so the you know, one of my big things that I’ve really been focusing on is that there’s, there’s two paths, right? There’s the path of fear. And the path of love and shame is part of the path of fear. And and the reality is, like both choices are scary and only one can lead to good. So, you know, when people ask me like, well, how can you choose that thing? What if you get rejected? Or what if? Well, I could just choose to reject myself, or I could choose to go ask and think that I’m worthy. And if this person says no, it doesn’t make me unworthy. It just didn’t work with that person and then move forward, right? Or I could go there and they say yes, and then there’s no rejection. But the only choice that leads me to good outcomes is love, right? So I used to think, oh, there’s not a lot of good people. And but I’ve chosen now to go. There is actually a lot of love, if that’s what you’re looking for. And so, you know, as much as shame, I think shame does rule a lot of people. I’m willing to just say that it’s still love. That’s the biggest influence of all right. Because there’s so much love out there. We’re just not getting to see it as much. And so, you know, that’s what I meant by I still think it’s love. And the difference is that love radiate is so such a high energy that it doesn’t try to pull you to it. Like it just is. We all know it’s the greatest feeling. Whereas shame has to do all these things to make you stay in such a low, in that low vibration, in that vibration. Nobody wants to be there, right?

Whitney Avrit: It needs the mental chatter to remind itself that it’s still shamed. Yeah. And it’s still bad. Yeah.

Sharon Cline: But the surrender. There’s a surrender. When you’re talking about love, you want to be part of it. Um, as opposed to feeling like you don’t have choice. To me, if you’re not in touch with yourself, it’s very easy for shame to make you feel like you don’t have any other choice. But I love that idea of I can choose to move towards something that feels so much better, so much higher joy.

Joanie Chamberland: Yeah, exactly. Sustained sense of of happiness. Right? Like, lasting happiness would be joy. And so, you know, um, it’s this thing of just getting people to see that there is a choice, right? That’s that perspective. There’s a choice. You have a choice. Right. And and honestly, the the higher level you get at anything, whenever starting something new, you don’t want to start at the beginning, right. Like that’s it’s embarrassing. It’s awkward. It’s whatever it is. Right. And it’s been a long, long time since I’ve been a white belt in jiu jitsu. And people always ask me, well, how did you feel? How did it? And I’m like, I the one thing I still remember it being a white belt is there’s a big window in front of where we’re doing our warm ups and it’s it’s so awkward, like people are gonna look at it and be like, what the heck are they doing? And like, these are like fundamental movements to jiu jitsu, right? And I still, as a black belt, remember being like, people are going to look at us and judge us. And but like the biggest reality is like, I don’t care. And I never really have, thankfully. But it’s the same thing where Whitney was saying, just start like we’re all the same. We are all afraid of the exact same things. Rejection is the biggest one, right? Why don’t you? Why do you feel ashamed to go in there, will.

Joanie Chamberland: They won’t. They won’t want me because I’m not good. They’re going to laugh at me because I’m not. Yeah, because people are afraid of rejection. Because we are meant to be in community with each other. Right. And so, to quote the amazing Finn and Jake from Adventure Time, the first step to being a sort of good at something is to suck. So, you know, like, you’re gonna you’re gonna suck. It’s not, you know, and and the thing is, as as kids, we don’t care because we’re not so worried about what the world thinks about us, right? We’re just doing the things we need to do. So we suck all the time. We suck that walking, we suck that crawling. We suck that talking. We suck that all of those things that we can do so easily now, right? And so it’s so scary to suck at something like guess what? We we all suck when we first start. And if you’re naturally gifted at something, trust me, you’re going to end up sucking later on. Which feels even worse for those people, right? Right. Like, that’s why they get really beaten down. They quit. So that’s the the quote that Whitney said about the talent, right? Like the people that come in and are super talented and don’t work hard, once the people that weren’t talented, that work hard, catch up to them, they don’t go back below them.

Joanie Chamberland: And those people that were good in the beginning, they fall off because they can’t handle the pressure of like, oh my gosh, this person is better than me now. Yeah, because they’ve been working out, working hard the whole time. So trust me, you’d rather just suck at the beginning, suck at the beginning like everybody else, and move on. And if you do go in and you’re pretty good, keep it in your head that it’s not normal and good. Be thankful for it. But keep working hard because at some point there’s going to be something that happens. You’re gonna be like, this is way too hard. And it’s your mental toughness and your ability to see the the perspective in the right place to go. Oh, this is normal. Let me go through it. And that’s the biggest thing, is I think people are just like, nobody is like me. This isn’t normal and like it is normal. Actually, you’re like everybody else. Trust me, I know know my story is different. Sure, everyone’s story is different. Yes, but you are just like everyone else. We are literally all the same. So if you want to feel seen, heard and understood, like that’s the best way to feel seen. Heard, understood is to realize you’re normal. Just like everyone. You are human just like everybody else.

Whitney Avrit: So be.

Joanie Chamberland: Teachable. Yeah, yeah.

Sharon Cline: Yes, I like that. To be teachable, to be open to to know that you already aren’t going to know it 100%, but be willing to to learn right and not judge yourself because you need to. What would you want your Brazilian jiu jitsu potential clients to know about it?

Joanie Chamberland: It’s not what you think it is for real. Like everybody’s like, oh, I’m gonna have to fight. It’s gonna be macho, it’s gonna be this thing. And they’re all, like, worried and scared and it’s just like, nope. Especially if you come to my gym, I’m going to talk to you just like this, and I’m gonna explain you the same stuff right, and go, we’ve all been there and everybody here knows that, and they’re here to help you get through that part of it. So you can keep growing. Right. And you know it’s intimidating. You’re going to do this. It’s really not I mean, if you want to look at it as intimidating, as intimidating as trying to start talking in other language, none of us really want to do it because we feel awkward, because we’re not going to be good at it. And that’s that was the mindset I had with Spanish. I speak French and English, and I was like, I just don’t want to be like, bad at it. I’m like, what a dumb excuse. Like, what a dumb reason. So it’s the same thing. So if you think, oh, it’s so scary to go and do jiu jitsu because I’m going to physically have to do X, Y or Z, just think about how awkward it would be if you had to go give a speech in a language you don’t speak. It’s just it’s the exact same as uncomfortable. Yeah.

Sharon Cline: It’s just everyone can know what that feels like, too. It’s like a universal feeling.

Whitney Avrit: So when jiu jitsu, you don’t even have to wear yoga pants. You can wear these other cool pants. Yeah. That’s true.

Sharon Cline: Well, before we end, I would like to ask you both if there’s someone listening that wants to get more information about your businesses, where can they go?

Whitney Avrit: Um, Earth movements, dot com. Everything you need is on there. All the links to my social media and my Patreon is all on there.

Joanie Chamberland: And for me, it’s rise up bjj.com B as in boy JJ um, or you could text (678) 685-1737. And one of my lovely front desk workers will help you out.

Sharon Cline: Well, it’s been really fun to talk to you both. It’s a different kind of interview for me, not only having two people, but also two different industries that so are aligned in many ways. And you’ve given me a lot to think about regarding that mind body connection and processing. And maybe that’s maybe it’s time for me to really not be so ashamed about trauma that I didn’t really choose to have happen to me, but, you know, at least be able to process it through and know that I’m not the only one that’s ever experienced that I can do this at home as well and not have to go drive somewhere.

Joanie Chamberland: So what I’m hearing is you guys could actually meet the three of us this Saturday, the first at yoga at Rise Up Jiu-Jitsu. We’ll talk, we’ll talk.

Sharon Cline: We’ll we’ll.

Joanie Chamberland: 9 a.m..

Whitney Avrit: You do not have to wear yoga pants.

Sharon Cline: No, I just.

Joanie Chamberland: Wear sweat pants.

Sharon Cline: I want to thank you both for coming to the studio and being so kind to share how normal it is to feel all of the different feels we have, and not to be ashamed of them, and to use some of that as leverage to help yourself grow. I really appreciate that notion. And also thank you all for listening to Fearless Formula on Business RadioX. And again, this is Sharon Cline reminding you with knowledge and understanding we can all have our own fearless formula. Have a great day.