Margo Rose is a personal trainer specializing in functional fitness Podcast a host & author
She has also written a book called
Body Aware Grieving; A Fitness Trainer’s Guide To Caring For Your Health During Sad Times.
and hosts Body Aware Living podcast
Body Aware Living is a new blend of two systems – healing and self-care which encompasses
Body Aware Grieving
Functional Fitness
Caring For the Caregivers
Https://www.BodyAwareLiving.com
{{3-ways-we-help}}
Transcript
Hi and welcome to the You World Order Showcase podcast. Today we have with us Margo Rose, who's from body aware living. She is a personal trainer specializing in functional fitness, a podcast host, and an author. She's written a book called Body Aware Grieving, a fitness trainer's guide to caring for your health during sad times.
And she's the host.
A body Aware living podcast body Aware Living is a blend of two systems, healing and self-care, which encompasses body aware, grieving, functional fitness and caring for caregivers. Welcome to the show, Margo. It's really our pleasure to have you here with us.
Thank you so much, Jill. I've been watching the amazing interviews you do and I'm I'm really honored to be connecting with.
You today, that's terrific.
And my fellow sister in overalls I just had.
To put that.
Yeah, today I didn't. Rare Day rare days that I'm not doing overalls, but I love. I love being able to discover what makes you feel like your favorite self and just going with that. And yeah, usually I'm, I know we've seen each other in overalls a lot and we've been like, it's a sisterhood, you know.
Yeah, totally. Totally a sisterhood overalls.
It's. It's mine. It's a whole vibe overall is is its own thing. You've got everything you need in all your pockets. It's just like, boom, ready. It's like.
It's a sort of exciting feeling. Is that kind of what you like about overalls?
It totally is. I don't have to carry a purse anymore. I keep all my stuff in my phone and it fits in my pocket and my keys fit in the other pocket and I'm ready to go and it's had great health impact on me and that my shoulders don't hurt anymore. I used to have shoulder and neck problems from carrying a purse for all those years.
Right.
Yeah, it was just like.
Yeah.
And it's not stitching around my.
Waist, which I hate.
Yeah. No, I I doubled that. It changes how you live and move in the world. So I anyhow fun, fun, fun to discover those little tiny things that improve our quality of life that much.
Just totally all about body aware living, being aware of your body. So tell us your story, Margo.
Exactly. Yeah, yeah.
My story, well, I I started doing fitness training and group fitness instruction like 25 years ago. A really long time ago and when I was teaching a group fitness I was always like the most intrigued by the people at the.
Back of the.
Room.
Who we're having a little bit of a struggle keeping up and I thought, I don't want to play to the front of the room and help them get even better. They'll find that somewhere else. I really want to help the people who are dealing with an injury, a setback, maybe a a.
A body.
Uh.
How do you say this? A body self-image issue? You know someone who might not be proud or comfortable in their body. So I ended up working with the people who needed really nice specialties whether they were dealing with the injuries, some some body stuff and then it it it ended up being dealing with Super super super.
Seniors, I've ended up spending the past many of the past 25 years working with people in their 60s, seventies, 80s, nineties and over 100 years old.
And I sort of reverse engineer that back to a client of any age and say, OK, if we want to be this at 100, how do we take great care of ourselves and what changes might we need to make gently now so that we can be like having the best quality of life for the longest period of time. So that's.
A little bit of.
The journey from the fitness perspective.
That is very cool. And so how did you get into the whole blending the grieving and caregiver aspects into it?
Well, you know, you really discover that it becomes harder and harder to function when you have very strong emotions, times of big challenges. So what I discovered in my personal life and I can mention a little bit of that, but also in my clients lives is that when they had caregiving breakups.
Semantically, when they had super.
Big, sad, scary events in their lives. On top of all the responsibilities that they were always juggling, that's when the biggest accidents and injuries and setbacks could occur and and stress related setbacks. Stress related setbacks can be something like you know you're not functioning at your best because you've had.
A problem at work and you you don't have enough tools to deal.
With how to do a transition and then you like go straight to home for example and you start being inappropriate or not as kind as you wish with the people at home. Well now you just took a work problem and you turned it into a home problem and that's what I would call stress related.
Setbacks.
Things can really the things can really escalate when people aren't.
When people are dealing with too many things at once to deal with all of them well enough, and that's why when they can come back to like, OK and as little as one minute, I know how to.
Focus again on my body and how I'm doing and how to make transitions between these important phases of my day so that I can get through even the biggest challenging times.
Safely for one, not. We can't start getting better until we stop getting worse is you know, so how to not how to make sure you're well enough to drive. And with concentration when you're driving things like that. So it's just a little bit of it's it's just sort of evolved by long term Wellness coming more easily when we don't have setbacks.
That are as big during the challenging times of life, if that makes sense.
Makes total sense and I have a an example that I'll share with you where I can see what you're doing really does work and and it's my father. My father's 88 and he's.
He has health challenges, but he's always cooked his own food and he's.
He's a really amaze.
You could just just putting that out there, but he he still lives on his own and he lives in a community and he lives in his own house and he's always he does Tai Chi every day and he's he's pretty active. But he injured his foot.
And.
And he's been falling down a couple of times.
But he he recognizes because he's always been a kind of a systems guy that he needs to address these things and he needs to be hyper vigilant, at least for a while while he overcomes the injury to his, he snapped a tendon in his ankle, so his foot drops.
Hmm.
And you can he's. I've seen other people that have had other problems where tendons don't connect anymore, but other muscles take over for that and that you you become you strengthen the other muscles so that it's not such a safety hazard for you, but being aware.
And and knowing that you know you have to address this thing helps.
Make it a safer process for healing.
Yes, absolutely. Well, you sound like an incredibly sweet daughter. The way you talk about your father is very touching and.
I love him.
Yeah, you know.
We want the best for them and and he sounds like he's willing to realize, OK, I need to make challenges, especially things like falls. They're just, they're hard to ignore. Some of these little things that start getting glitchy.
And go well, nobody saw it or falls, and setbacks like that, they do draw attention. So you know, that's why caring for the caregiver is important because you're.
Being this incredibly supportive daughter and having this whole new To Do List of how to help take care of your father as he changes while you're running your own life and business and whatnot. So that's part of why the caring for the caregiver part comes in. Regarding your dad, can I show you one super fast thing that you could share with him?
Around safety and movement safety, especially for someone with a dropped foot.
Who's had a fall?
I would love it.
Would you? OK, so I'm going to move back a little bit. Tell me if this is gonna work still and if the audio is still alright. This is something I call 3 steps to success and it's a small reduction. It sounds like your father is is mentally pretty functional. We're not dealing with like, memory loss, dementia, Alzheimer's.
Ohh yeah, yeah yeah, he's.
Thank God for that, because then the caregiving gets even harder when the person.
And.
Is dealing with dementia and stuff like that. So so three steps to success is a matter, especially when you're having lower body issues and neuropathy and neuropathy or.
Drop foot.
You want to as you're sitting. You want to just start by just warming up a little bit. You could do it with me if you want. You sort of just warm up, make sure your feet, your ankles. I'm not showing my ankles, but I'm warming up my ankles. I'm warming up my feet. I'm lifting my heels. You can sort of yawn.
And the longer you've been sitting, the longer you've been sitting, the more you want to make sure.
That just feels good.
Has my foot falling asleep? Is my knee glitchy? You can sort of slowly lengthen one leg slowly lengthen one leg and and sort of see how much movement do I have in that foot. And so that's step number one is is warming up your whole body before you stand up.
Step #2 is you stand up holding on to something still. So in this case, for example, the back of my legs is still touching the chair I.
Was on. If I had a wall or if I needed a cane or a Walker, something like that, I would grab that right now and and and stand up with stability on something. If it was the bed of sofa something you're still connected to something that helps you stand all the way up to nice and tall. Your full height. Ask yourself, am I dizzy or am I ready to walk?
And then you start walking.
Then you start walking. It's the the last of the third step is walking safely. You know, walk like a king. Walk, walk like a queen. You walk with a nice, elegant calmness, that sort of has all the like good posture.
Food Group sort of built in. You know, Daddy, let's walk like a king. You know, it's like, oh, you know, you don't suck this in. Move that back. All the like individual things that go into good posture can feel overwhelming. But if somebody just sort of walks regal and relax like a king, that can really help minimize falls a lot.
Does that makes sense that that could be helpful.
Ohh yeah. Oh yeah and.
He does some of those things, but.
He was a commander in the Navy, so just remind him of the posture of the.
Commander. Yeah.
Yes, you can even. What was his? I mean, not to make this all about this stuff is fun for me. Like to make any little improvement. Like if there's even a chance that part of this helps you him have a better experience and.
If.
You can reduce even one fall and in the meanwhile you feel like, hey, I can do this to stay safer. It's like in the face of.
Declining.
Feeling like you have less control over more and more things in your life. The feeling like wow, I can do this for myself can build.
Optimism and it can build a sense of empowerment. So I hope that something little that you can share your dad, you know, just the #3. Remember the number three things before you're walking. And what was his? And if you even if you have a nickname for him, commander or whatever, what was his?
What was his rank in the military?
He was a commander.
Commander. All right, Commander, I see you reminding him. You know, commander, blah, blah, blah, you know, whatever his your, you know, boom and and get him feeling like that. It'll help with posture and and hopefully mood and also people as they're older can feel like they've lost track of who they used to be.
These other phases of their life that they might have felt more excited about, and they don't feel seen as that still.
So you see if any of that I don't want to take us on a whole caregiving challenge tangent, but see if any of that is useful in your relationship with him.
Yeah, I appreciate that. And it it actually is, it's very helpful not just for me, but other people are out there. They're dealing with older parents and and kids, you know, with the sandwich generation because people are living longer and you know, the quality of life isn't always that great for people on the other end.
They live longer, but it's not as.
Not as great of a life quality, so anything you can you can share that can help people feel more empowered. And that's the stages of their lives. I think it's, it's wonderful. And you know, I totally expect my dad to live to be close to 100 if if not over 100. He's just as like.
That's just who he is.
Mm-hmm.
So and.
You you do help people and how do you help them? I mean it, is it like a group coaching? Is it one-on-one? Is it in live in person? Is it on the Internet? How do how does all that look?
It's it's turning into something that's a combination of all those things. It's it's something I'm calling.
At at this point I'm calling this concierge coaching.
Where I want to have a a maximum number of 10 clients, but I want to have all the flexibility to be available to them.
In a very customized way, so it can be functional fitness.
Body. We're grieving. Where we we actually learn well, how do we reduce, how do we get what is skill for grieving? How do we get through a loss?
In a way that helps us feel more, more empowered and more at peace and and then the caring for the caregiver part. So it's it's any of those things that a person needs in the ratio that they need it you know that ratio might change suddenly one thing becomes a bigger challenge. We put more attention into that.
And then I in 2020, when everything went online, I started being able to do everything through zoom and video chat, phone calls, voice messages. All those things can be really powerful. So we can also mix and match all of those tools.
Levels depending on what suits somebody the best, and then I'm now what I call a multi home nomad. I live part of the time in California. Part of the time in New Mexico and I love Rd. trips. I love going to places and I can also customize visits based on where that person is, what they need.
We could also make a personalized retreat and we could meet at a retreat center somewhere and say, OK, let's take three days, five days, seven days and really dig deep and, you know, people go on these healing tours.
But I'd like to help people make the exact thing they need. I could even go to someone's guest house or and be available on their own property when people make.
When people make changes to their life and they're off on a vacation somewhere, it sometimes doesn't translate to their own home. But when we can make changes in their own home, new rituals, new exercise routines in their own home, it can tend to last a lot longer.
So that's part of this concierge kind of way of doing things that I'm experimenting with is how to really follow what a person needs as they need it and where they need it and how they find it easiest to communicate.
UM.
So hopefully some of that makes sense. It's a little bit like because I'm not stuck how I serve somebody isn't stuck and and I'd like to experiment a lot with.
That so?
Let's look at who would be like your ideal client in in terms of what? What might they be experiencing or they would say, hey, I got to get a hold of Margo and.
And get hooked up with her.
Well, yeah, like one of my clients, that's been a really a lot of my clients are long term, they don't have to be, but a lot of the clients turn in to be really long term clients and one client first contacted me because her a mother-in-law who she was extremely close with and her sister passed away very at a a very similar time frame.
To each other. So she was going through a lot of grief when we got together with the body aware, grieving coaching first, which is, you know, avoiding those accidents and injuries or reducing the chances of those accidents and injuries. That question what is skillful grieving and how do I personalize.
How do I understand this loss? I'm going through and which things feel most healing to me how to experiment with that and help guide somebody as they learn. You know, what's going to feel right to them. The other part of body we're grieving is that next phase of wisdom, renewal, and celebration. How do you know when you're coming out of like the hardest phase? And now you're like, wow?
Things are different. And how do you maximize the wisdom?
And the gratitude and the like sort of postponed joy that you want in this next phase of your life. So she she hired me to do all those things with her. And then we also started doing fitness training on top of that. And that combination has been really going well for a bunch of years. So someone who has.
A lot of life changes potentially with a lot of responsibilities and they just want that extra support. That's not only in one category.
Usually we have a lot of practitioners, but they're very separate. We're gonna go to a physical therapist for this. We're gonna go to the gym for that. A therapist for this? You know, we're not having one person know enough about everything that's happening in all those categories. So that when something happens quickly.
The advice is accurate because one person knows enough about everything.
And that's going on and is in touch with or even communication with all the different practitioners that a person might be needing and having in their life. Like it's like an umbrella that makes sure that they're always covered in, in, can I mention just one thing that happened really suddenly with her that.
Sort of got me thinking. I was on the right track so.
So, as happens in life, you get these really big shocks that can come up sometimes and some losses. And and her recent loss was pretty traumatic. It was a a week or so ago where she actually was helping discover that one of her best friends had passed away.
So not only had this long term friend passed away, she was instrumental in the discovery that that had happened.
So just a a trauma level, you know, high, very high and we'd.
We'd already had our.
Our appointment scheduled that day. She was already in the best place we could have been like. OK, here's a fresh trauma, but I know who this person is. She's already mentioned, and I knew she was important. I knew what kind of losses.
What kind of healing had already worked for her in these previous losses? So like that day that that happened, we were already right there with the self-care for that mom.
And and then there's concierge kind of mobility part I'm currently right at the time this happened, this this month, this past weeks I was in, I'm in New Mexico. She's back in California. And I was like, hey, do you want me to come to California to be at this memorial with you?
Do you want me? Because she's both in charge of running the memorial as a close friend and she's like, a primary griever and she's like.
Yeah, I would.
So I'm like. All right, let's go to California. I want to walk through this with you. I want to be with you during this. Before, during and after I can be at that event and make that event safe and effective and healing for you.
And.
So it's kind of a long.
Story, but that's an example of how one person got some benefit because.
The the knowledge was already in place. The intimacy between us was already pretty well developed after a couple of years that.
Hopefully this new trauma doesn't feel as scary and won't take as long to heal from. If that seems like it could be possible with that story, you know.
It does. It reminds me of talk about my dad again, and my dad has a a doctor like that. He's a concierge Dr. and he is. My dad pays him a retain.
There so that he is always available, but the doctor knows everything about my dad's health and when something catastrophic happens that doctor is like, you need to go see this specialist, this specialist and that specialist. And we're going to get you all taken care of and. And it's smooth. It's not like my dad's, like trying to figure out who he needs to.
Call and make an appointment. He's he's already plugged in because this, this one individual is like overseeing and managing. It's. It's another reason why I know he's gonna live so long because he's got he's got support and.
When you go through life, you will. There will always be little and big traumas that you go through and having somebody that's a concierge coach.
It makes perfectly good sense to me.
Well, that's, I'm.
I'm glad that your father has all that extra care with the.
This years medical doctor because that's that's how I got inspired by this one. Well, there's two things that are inspiring about this to me. So one is my brother is a has been a he left his medical practice with, you know some very, very esteemed hospitals where he was a partner and he's like that's just not enough. I can't.
I have too many pain. I have too many patients. I can't give good quality care to 1200 or 1500 patients. So he started his own concierge medical pack.
Just many years ago now where he said I'm gonna have a maximum of 300 patients, but I'm going to know everything about them. I could come to the hospitals, I can be there at the Minutes. Notice I can not just deliver bad news or challenging news about a health problem, but I can sit there with the family and work with them about how they're going to make it through that.
The community of as the little tribe of the primary person who's ill, so he's anyhow. That really inspired me. So I'm sort of modeling it exactly after that. The the feeling of that.
And and the. The other thing that was really inspiring to me. You know, when you mentioned the grieving I've had, you know, both my parents have passed away. I was in Hospice, you know, part of the Hospice experience with both of them. I've had two people I care about a lot, and my life died by suicide. My.
My my little sister died by suicide. Romantic partner I was with died of suicide and he died of suicide when my mom already had the cancer that was going to take her life eventually. And the week we were moving to go be caregivers for my mom. This boy, this person I was dating took their life, I mean.
It can be.
A lot. It can be really, really, really a lot. So that's the. So what I was picturing with those circumstances, especially with the Hospice.
With my mother and father, is that?
It was so hard when they were sick and getting worse and worse and worse. It was so stressful. But then, as soon as the Hospice care came in, it was this whole tribe of people who were.
Thing, have you ever experienced the Hospice care? The Hospice?
A lot of Hospice, yes. And in this room, as a matter of fact, my father-in-law passed in this room and he went, it went, he went quickly. But, you know, Hospice kicked in on Friday in terms of, you know, we're sending them home from the hospital.
And we had.
Like.
We've changed this from my office to a bedroom and they showed up when they said they were going to show up and all the people came and after he passed the people were there and and it was just the whole process went from being like Oh my God, what am I going to do now to? We got your back.
These are just one step at a time.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes, I mean that's exactly my experience. Both times when I was a primary caregiver and then the Hospice people showed up.
And they made everything so much better, and they were also taking care of everybody. They looked at the whole situation and said, what is the person who's sickening? But what do all the people who are potentially losing this person need? They just made everything better. And so my, my, my curiosity. And that's what I'm exploring in my own career now.
Is.
What if?
The people came earlier, we were so miserable by the time the Hospice got called and my mom had been sick for two years already, right. Yeah. So it's like, what if those people that were so helpful and they had so much experience with this, all these topics? What if they came earlier? And then what if they stayed later?
Because, like Hospice, often follows the patient.
This primary person who's then going to pass away and all. Sometimes, you know, there's aftercare, sometimes there's grief groups and stuff like that. But I thought, what if the people that Hospice mentality started earlier, so, you know, maybe families aren't getting along. You know, maybe one person's been the doing 90% of the caregiving and everybody else wants an opinion that's equal. And then the person's resentful.
There's there's complications that become highlighted when everybody's stressed at the same time.
Time. So what if somebody came earlier before it was quite as stressful and knew all the dynamics of who's who and what's each person's personality and what are they already doing to cooperate or what are the what are the stressors already and those are family relationships. A lot of the time. And then what if those same?
People and that's what I'm trying to do right now. I'm trying to come in earlier before things that are at a crescendo of suffering. Let's start. Let's make it easier here, right. Why wait till here?
Yeah.
And then I.
Wanna.
And then I wanna stay later after the persons passed away and be.
For long term, be part of that injury reduction, then part of the skillful grieving and then part of the wisdom and renewal. Like wow, you've got new options now.
You know, life is going to look and feel really different. How do you plan this life after a big change after a divorce after something?
That you might not have chosen, but now you've got new options, opportunities and new viewpoints and talents. So that's the exciting part, you know, so I just.
I'm I've designed what I do to be that.
That question what happens when someone knows a lot of the details earlier through these crescendo moments and then much longer afterwards? And there's a continuity of care. So anyhow, yeah, I'm that that Hospice thing where everything gets easier because people who are kind show up.
That's what I want.
I I know what they're doing and I just like I I loved your your whole idea that I just think it's.
I I can see the purpose I it's just like, yeah.
I appreciate that. That's that's just.
You're on to something.
Calling it this whole concierge thing is kind of new, but I've been doing this actually for a while.
One of my clients, uh, I was originally a fitness trainer for their parent who is already really ailing. And then I became a support to them is caring for the caregiver. But there's this honesty because it's like I already know the situation. I know the parent. I know the siblings. I know you know, you can say anything you want sometimes as a as a child.
You're like, oh, but I shouldn't say this or I shouldn't feel this or I shouldn't.
Want this or it's like?
The honesty to be like.
Say want need.
Anything that's real and true, you just because you're a daughter doesn't mean you can't say or feel this or that. I know your person. I know your situation. Say anything you want to me. I've already got an opinion and an affection for the people involved. I know you care about them. And yes, go say anything you want right now you don't. To keep you saying. Oh, well, I shouldn't say this or I care about them. So I.
Need to convince this third person I'm talking to that I care. I know all that now say what's real now. Say what you need. So that's an example where someone prepaid a retainer of hours and we were going through it pretty slow.
The hours are being used relatively slowly, but now that parent has joined Hospice, so now there's this big push and I already know the situation. So now they're like, they're saying, can I schedule? Can I schedule? Can I schedule, can I schedule? And I'm like, yes, yes, yes, yes. Yes, we can schedule how you want, when you want, where you want.
Phone, e-mail, voicemail in person? Yes. And so they go from using very few hours when they need something less to like the hours are prepaid and everything set up, and now we're using in that situation as well. We're using more hours because now there's more need.
So it's just an interesting way to set it up. It's really based on the actual life flow that people go through when they go through harder times and easier times. So I've just.
Based my coaching practice on what's.
Actually true for people.
You know? Yeah. My brain has gone like 1,000,000 miles a minute.
And.
We're done here. I I'll share some of what's going on in my head, but it's just like.
Genius is like.
I'm.
I'm curious now if you want to bring anything up, but I don't want to. I don't want to commandeer your.
Interview, but I'm I'm curious. Never you want to.
No, we'll we'll save it for afterwards. But.
Yeah, I I think what you're doing, you're, you're bang on. It's, it's.
It's a service whose time has come, and I really think you're on to something.
Thank you. It's it's just it's all based on what people really need and how their lives really work.
And sometimes people need more support during the really, really hard emergency times, like with both of these clients. Right now I'm like.
Right there. More more time and sometimes you need more support when the emergencies passed and now you can deal with some of the what just happened. Just what just happened, you know? And and sometimes things can be so stressful that you need to postpone.
UM.
You know you need to postpone certain ways of thinking. You need to postpone certain things you might do for yourself temporarily, but then when you have a little bit of less emergency, that might be the time that someone says Ohh I finally have time to deal with the emotions of what happened. I was so busy with the.
Getting through it of the emergency or the logistics or the bureaucracy or the fighting or whatever was happening, I was so busy with all that. Now I want to spend more time with my coach. Now I want to spend more time getting the care that I need.
Just the psychological I don't want to say I'm a therapist. I'm not. But the psychology of like what just happened? How did it change me?
And and how is my life different now? Just these the the sort of innocence of these questions that are perfectly natural.
And having a coach sitting in the wings helps.
Helps you recognize that there's going to be a time for this.
Down the road and so that you don't end up letting your body run, run the show. And I have an experience. When my mom passed, I was super busy. I went to Arizona, I dealt with all the stuff and I came home and I got pneumonia.
It it it it the process was a long process and then we all went down there and then then she was getting better and then she.
Then she wasn't. And so there was a lot of emotions all the way along. And had I had somebody who who was standing in the background saying, hey, I know this is, this is a lot going on and you're dealing with family stuff and family dynamics. But at the end you're going to reach a point where you're going to need somebody.
Who could just like let you decompress?
Or.
Pneumonia is is a lung thing and it it's totally your lungs are involved in grieving and I end up in the hospital. I mean, it was out for a month and 1/2 it was. It was a big deal and it was just because I didn't have anybody who could help me process what I was feeling.
Not all of it. And relationships are complicated.
No matter, no matter how they are, I mean you, you love somebody, you fight with them. They just like it's life. And and having somebody in the wings that you could just say.
You're not connected.
To this in any way, no matter what happens, it's it's going to be OK.
To express whatever you're feeling to me, that's.
Priceless.
Yeah. Thank you. I'm sorry, you know.
Yeah, to have the caregivers bodies, caregivers are often predeceased by the person that it's so stressful, and there's such a.
Tendency to postpone one's own Wellness care that at times the caregiver predeceases the person who was ailing indefinitely. There's these sort of breakdowns of health that can happen afterwards.
And.
You know, that's the sort of umbrella thing of like, I'm like, I'm like all jazz, not jazz. But I'm like, when you're saying that I'm like, OK, she's six weeks. She's in bed, she has pneumonia. I'm like, we can work out in bed. Like I've I've. I mean, we can. I wouldn't be in bed with you.
But we'd be you could by phone.
Let me be a little more specific.
But I've had clients as old as 103 who one of my clients, Mildred, was 103. She was. I worked out with her two days a week from when she was 97. So when she was 103, she was bedridden and blind.
And we would work out like that. So I'm like, OK, she's in bed, but six weeks is a really long time to get deconditioned. And it's a very it takes only a day or two to start getting, you know, uncomfortable when you're can't move around like that. So I would be doing, and I have done my, you know, as different clients.
And my shoulder froze up actually.
Yeah, use it or lose it. So yeah, I would. I've had workouts with, you know, my clients have all had COVID. And I mean, eventually everybody so far has had COVID. It's like none of that stops us. We just do different things in our workouts. If you if someone needs to be on the sofa or someone needs to be reclining in their bed, or someone needs to be sitting in a chair, I've had clients who are in a wheelchair for six years.
Worked out in a wheelchair, so it's.
Like.
Sitting, standing, lying down, walking, high energy, low energy. Then they feel better and we're ready to do harder stuff. Great. But I think part of what has I'd have to ask them and maybe I will. But I think part of what my.
Clients really appreciate is that they're not as scared.
During those setbacks.
Because they know we're always going to find something they can do safe.
Always.
Yeah.
And that's the concierge part too, and my client who had she? She didn't.
Have COVID for.
Like 4 years and it finally caught up with her. Right? So we would do the workouts in a chair and I would just be watching what was going on. And then 30 minutes in, I'm like, should we call it for today and maybe have the other half an hour tomorrow instead of a one hour session?
We, we.
We end when the person's tired and they're showing signs that that's enough for the day, and then we add in another workout the next day. That's the right length of time for them. So that's sort of that.
Customization of concierge stuff that I'm looking forward to.
Offering offering people.
Yeah.
I like that.
For a long time.
Yeah.
Instead of feeling like you're I paid for an hour, I need the whole hour. You can you can have like.
A clump of time and you can just.
Pick off the the amounts.
That you need when you need them.
It's exactly, yeah, just watching. It's all that's the whole body of wear, living body. We're grieving. It's just that persons experience of the moment is going to tell us what what we need next. What we need now, when to pull back, when to rest, when when to just.
Leave someone at at a nap. You know, like in the middle of a session. If they end up getting soothed into a nap, we're like, alright, I'll, we'll add something in tomorrow or the next day, but this appears to be a perfect time.
For a nap, because that's just.
You know.
Part part for a long time, I didn't want to have this like, Super Elite. It's it's a more elite thing. I need a flexible. I need a flexible schedule or I can't offer to change my locations or add somebody in the next day for half an hour. I I need a flexible schedule. That's why I only want to have a maximum of a small number of people.
And for a long time, I wasn't wanting to do that because I thought, well, this healing information and some of these tools.
Are so useful.
I want to share it with more people. I'm like I didn't have all this wisdom just to share with the few people who can afford this kind of more elite kind of care that I'm offering. And so that.
Finally felt really good because now I have tons of free information for anybody who wants. I have the body of Where Living Podcast I have the body aware living Facebook page, YouTube. I've got videos and advice and articles on my website so I've got.
Lots of I'm doing. I've done live events I.
In your book.
I was interviewed by AARP recently for their family. AARP has a uh, a family caregivers group on Facebook with 18,000 people in it. And I just was interviewed there for an hour about, like, what are these little one minute, one minute wonders. You know, these little fast things that can help people.
You know, take control of how they're feeling that moment. And so I've got a lot. I love having a lot of very, very free content for as many people as want need it because.
I didn't want to sort of hoard all my wisdom for just a few higher paying clients. I wanted to have that.
I want the goodness and the value available and so now I have that balance. I've got lots of and I will continue to put out lots and lots and lots of free content.
Just to share anything that's useful and anything that could help someones day.
And then this kind of like sort of fancy new experiment about a few clients where I can go into lots and lots of depth like you're talking about with your dad.
And his practitioners?
Yeah, I I love all all the things you got going on there.
It's just like.
So amazing. So how do people get in touch with you if they're interested in exploring the concierge service more or if they just want the free information?
Well, the the body aware living.com is the main website.
Right. And you know, Margo at bodyawareliving.com is an e-mail address and people who want to have, like, a just a private little 20 minute conversation on phone or zoom. They could write me an e-mail at Mark. There's also a contact, you know contact section on the body we're living.
Website. You know, contact Margo and they can just write me a few words about.
What their goals and challenges are, and I can get back, we can set up like a 20 to 30 minute just to a free way to connect and and see if I can be of help to them. What they need right now and and then for all the free content, there's tons of free content on the body we're living.
Website There's the book body aware, grieving, available at Amazon and through independent booksellersbookshop.org. There's links to that on the website and social, but the book itself is low cost, but I can certainly customize any of that, and that's a way to get a lot of the.
And then, like I said, there's the YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook that I'm always trying to share as much as I can with people.
That's.
And this being a guest on other people's websites and broadcasts podcasts.
I guess.
I guess.
Perfect. So what's the one thing that you hope the audience takes away from our conversation? I know we've gone like, there's so many places that.
The one thing I hope people get excited about is that that that their.
They're the boss of their own body. It can not feel like that a lot. It can feel like ohh, the medical community is telling me this or the magazines are telling me I'm supposed to.
Be like that.
Or once you really get that, that you.
This is your domain and no one's going to know it as well as you do.
And you can always, always, always do something that's going to help you feel better, more comfortable, more effective. Realizing that you can make a change in how you're feeling and how well you know how you're feeling. And that's a the our bodies are going to give us the most accurate information about what we want and need and who we are.
And and no one's going to know that better than ourselves. So that hopefully is an uplifting realization. And that's what I help people.
Get better and better at better and better at being themselves and using the information that they're getting effectively.
Yeah.
Awesome. Thank you so much for joining me.
You're very, very welcome, Jill. Take good care.