Episode 126 of Changing the Face of Yoga: Working in the Medical System   with Lisa Holland.

Major Points:                     1) A lot of therapy is treating them, doing things passively to them or setting things up. A lot of coaching is holding up a mirror. And asking them to see the truth in the matter and then creating a safe environment for them to do that to self-reflect and to get their own answers.

                                                2) What is helpful for me in terms of a business standpoint is now I have more to share at different places to move them through an experience, the whole picture experience.

                                                This is Changing the Face of Yoga. And this is episode 126 and my guest today is Lisa Holland. This is part of the theme of support for Yoga Teachers and Yoga therapists. Lisa is very experienced having worked within the medical field as a physical therapist and she has some ideas about working in that field. It's just how you position yourself in this area. So welcome. Lisa. I'm really excited about this particular interview because I think it's quite unique. Could you just give us a short bio that will introduce you to the listener?

                                                Sure. Thank you Stephanie so much for having this theme. I think it's important that we start thinking about wanting to have a sustainable business. If you want to help people, you got to make sure you stay in business. I'm a doctor of physical therapy. I've been practicing physical therapy. I don't do as much clinically now because I really moved into some mentorship and some of these business conversations for my peers that are in medicine and Rehab Medicine and also for Yoga physios. Yogis that are kind of the bridge builders. I tend to work with people who kind of walk both lines, walk that fine line with one foot on each side because that's where I came from.

                                                I've been a physio Yogi. I really had my first class really dipping my feet into it about 2000-2001. And then I created my company Belly Guru LLC in 2005. And I did that as a model. It was one of the first medpreneur type of health entrepreneur, boutiquy, clinical/ wellness center, well positioned, direct to market. I did not take any insurances. I did not step into that. I was leaving that for very important reasons. Number one, they weren't accepting of yoga back then. That was 2005. And I really had seen that as a very helpful therapeutic modality and it aligned with what I had done in orthopedics and sports medicine prior to my move to women's health, which was, in that realm, you were really working on mind body things. You knew that they needed to keep their head in the game and you saw the detriments of that in their physio, no matter how physically able they were put together, fixed up, patched up, if their head was out of the game, if they were feeling injured mentally, you saw that performance.

                                                 And then I went over into main stream, rehabilitation medicine and that was like, oh, forget about it. It was every body part for themselves and every person's discipline for themselves. And it did not overlap. So my main migration of over into yoga as my main modality for restoration started out physical in as much as I think every physical therapist that you know goes into that much more than let's say the psychologists that go into that, they go a lot more mind approach.

                                                But my approach was always very holistic, was always mind and body and it really gave me a vehicle. And so I evolved into that. I naturally became a mentor for other people doing that. They were asking me questions, so I decided, hey, if they're going to ask me some questions and I'm not going to be seeing people and I'm talking on all these Facebook pages and giving advice, I need to start getting supported for that. Because I actually really liked it and I knew a lot of stuff and I could save them years. I mean, pretty much right now I've a five day accelerator that took me 16 years to learn. You could do it in five days.

                                                 So I'm trying my best to broaden the physical therapist minds. But they have a lot of legalities and things and then there's a lot of fear in that mentality. I think the yoga teachers and yoga therapists could really learn from their mistakes. And one of the big things I see right now in having been one of these bridge builders in the international association of Yoga therapists trying to bring a conversation for that line of health providers that don't necessarily want to hang up their clinical to become, a yoga therapist or a full time yoga therapist or a yoga teacher. They actually want to combine it.

                                                But what I saw is that we're kind of walking down the line here in yoga therapy, number one, calling ourselves yoga therapists when we can actually can really fit into the market, positioning ourselves in a little different way. And so I've been out there having that conversation. I am actually even more than a health coach as what I was trying to bring in when I went into health coaching, I really saw that was actually still a very clinical conversation and more of what I do is what I was taught in Yoga. Very traditional Raja, Hatha - the holy science of yoga is I help people change their lives.

                                                I'm a life coach. I do that in various ways, it leans towards more rehabilitation versus personal development depending on the person. But when you're dealing with chronic pain and you're dealing with women's health, which are two areas where I tend to work in nowadays or since I moved into women's health in general, those two conversations, long-term, hormonal imbalance, stress induced things. That realm that yoga is in right now to be a very big help in their community is actually needing to make sure they have behavioral change and not just doing these modalities. It actually is about behavioral change.

                                                So I'm having that conversation and I assume that's what, some of the conversation we had from in the last podcast that you so nicely had me on. so that's really where I'm at. My mind-body brand academy is helping people such as yourself and anyone else to literally have a personal brand that they can transport as they evolve into their professional way they want to evolve. And then like I said, I'm actually starting to certify people in these abilities to read other people with some psycho-social assessments. We all start talking about the bio-psycho-social and how yoga is so great on the bio-psycho-social. But you cannot come into mainstream and start talking chakras. You're not going to be able to talk to a physician. You can't go into health care and yoga therapy wants to so much be in healthcare, they have some schools that are putting them in white coats and in hospitals.

                                                But the problem is that you can't go into that. Our psychosocial and yoga-Ayurvedic method and whatnot is such that it is something that they don't have in the Western model. They don't necessarily have that conversation. So we need to enter in their conversation. And that's behavioral change and that's life coaching and health coaching to some extent, well being and all of that conversation. But it's not necessarily we're all, health coaching right now is about learning. You have to become a ninja about the gut microbiome. We're not going to have a bunch of, Yogis doing that. You can.

                                                But I think really what's natural within the practice itself is that aspect of on helping people see themselves of today as they truly are. Not focus so much like therapy does in the past and focusing on the problem and how you got hurt and what's going to change from yesterday and going back to that trauma over and over and over to work it out. We need to focus on the today and let them see the person of tomorrow. Because a lot of times we know when they come to the mat they don't see that yet. It's too big of a gap. And that bridge building right there honestly is a lot more that I do of life coaching. Then just health and wellness. So a lot of yoga off the mat and I think we can position ourselves there.

                                                Let's just talk real basics. You've kind of evolved since the last time we talked, because you were talking about health coaching, but now you kind of evolved into more life coaching. So what would you say are the major differences between being in a clinical position, whether it's physiotherapy or it's yoga therapy or whatever therapeutic versus a life coach?

                                                Okay. Well I think probably what you heard is I feel I am a health coach. I just feel like they're not really two different things. It's just my definition of health and wellbeing involves your life and you really can't split it up just like you can't split up the mind and the body. You are only going to get a piece.

                                                And you can't get behavioral change unless you change what's going on with someone's perception of themselves in their life. Because you can't get them eating organic and Vegan, if at home that's going to be a really big problem no matter how much they believe you. So the real differences I see between health and life coaching is again the clinical concentration while health coaching will bring in behavioral change. You are through the process be