Embodiment Coaching, massage, body work, Herbalism, burnout - Page Thirty-Eight - Lauren's Story

This week's Guest is Lauren Piro!
Join us as Lauren talks to us about business burnout, Embodiment Coaching and making the decision to shift in her career.

You can find Lauren's episode here: 
Watch: https://youtu.be/f1cZSOM1oTc
Listen: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1959737/12338753
https://www.pagesofastory.com

You can follow Lauren here:
https://www.laurenpirowellness.com 
Instagram: @laurenpirowellness
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Hosted by Candy Dinsmore-Bekaan
Theme music by Matthew DeMeritt

Pages Of A Story episodes feature individuals' perspectives and opinions and should not be taken as advice on how to live your lives. Please enjoy and be safe.

If you are struggling please reach out to a healthcare professional or the suicide prevention hotline:
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 800-273-8255
Canada Suicide Prevention Service: 833-456-4566

Transcript

 Candy: So, I am here with Lauren. How are you doing today?

Lauren:  I'm doing well. Thank you, Candy. Thanks for having me. 

Candy: Thanks for being here. So, you are, as well as many other things, but you are an Embodiment Coach. What is that? 

Lauren: I use coaching as a path to help people get into their bodies. So many of us, self included, a lot of the time we get stuck in our heads. That's just the way society has sort of made us. Technology. We're always, like, up here, and what I found through my work is that getting into our bodies is where healing really gets to take place. So, I really support people through the process of releasing this energy from their head and really getting into their bodies, really feeling what happens and I've really found that it's been so supportive for people in terms of not just healing, like, emotional pains, discomfort, but also a lot of the physical stuff that shows up is related to our emotions and when we can connect those - my dog is saying hi right now - when we can con, make that connection and see how they work together, that's when some of those things can really fade away. So, it's been pretty amazing work to see. 

Candy: So, is this, like a, a body treatment or is this a whole collective of things together for a client? 

Lauren: Yeah. So, it can be done within the context of, like, a massage or body work or, or even yoga. Any type of, like, body, body work there, Reiki, any of those things and also it can be separate just coaching in and of itself. And so I can, you know, walk people through the process by having a discussion and a dialogue and through meditation and getting into their body that way. It's, I mean, I'm, I find that it's, it's incredibly effective. I was surprised at first, several years back when I first started to see that massage didn't even ne, necessarily need to happen for people to feel like, like, like they walk away feeling like they've had a massage without my ever putting hands on them, which is pretty incredible. 

Candy: So, is this a very customized approach with each client? 

Lauren: Yeah, absolutely. It's really about forming a dialogue with their body and you know, I start to ask them questions as they get into their body, and then we start to communicate with, like, what's happening in different, different areas of their body. And so whatever, whatever is showing up there is where we start to work and where we move the process. 

Candy: What brought you to the work as an Embodiment Coach? 

Lauren: That's a great question. So, it really evolved out of my work as a clinical Massage Therapist. My practice was in Washington, D.C. where there's a lot of very intellectual people and intellect is highly valued and I noticed that more often than not, people were really kind of stuck in their heads.

Always looking for more ways to add more value to the work for my clients and so, you know, bringing in the physical pieces and then also looking for other ways to bring in more holistic work in terms of Reiki and energy work and embodiment work and even, which I think we'll talk about a little bit later, some of my work with herbal medicine as well, so I can really be more well-rounded as a clinician. 

Candy: You mentioned that you're an herbalist and you just recently closed your product line 

that you had.

Lauren: I did, yeah. Around 2018 or so. One of the pieces that was going on for me personally, in addition to, like, adding more value for my clients, I was seeing people in my living room, um, of my one bedroom apartment for almost, well, for a decade by the end. You know, through that process of ha, having my home be for everyone else, I never felt like I had a respite for myself.

And so really was in a place of, of burnout and I started introducing the product line as a way to support my clients, but also reduce the need to do as many massages in a week and it was great for a really long time. It was growing, it was going amazing. And then about like six months or so into Covid, there was, there was a significant shift that happened and, and it kind of slowed down quite a bit and I changed some things, trying to find an experiment with ways to make things work.

And you know, through my work as a coach, really started working more deeply with my values. And I started to see that the product line really wasn’t in alignment with my values anymore, or maybe I had never really checked it against my values. It, it was like something that I was really passionate about and really inspired by, but never really kind of took a look at that.

And when I did, what I realized was that one of my core values is creativity. What I saw was that when I held it up to that value of creativity, what I realized was that while I loved working with the products and I loved creating things, what I didn't like was having to formulate the same thing every time so that people would get the same product every time.

That started to take the fun out of it for me. For me, the whole enjoyment of making the products is really about, like, the creative inspiration that happens and like, oh yeah, intellectually, I know that this can help with this and that can help with that. But it's, like, that synergistic process of like, how do things together and what's this gonna be like and, and sort of like the magic and the unknown in it.

And that started feeling like it was missing. And I started having to formulate the same thing all of the time. And then there's another piece about freedom being another one of my core values and that I felt like, I really struggled to figure out how to talk about the products and how they help people because of the limits from the FDA around what a manufacturer can share. Totally understand why they're there. They're there to protect consumers, and that's really important. And also it felt like it was really limiting to me. The FDA really limits the things that a manufacturer can share about the products themselves, about the ingredients in the products. You're not even allowed to share links to research. 

At the time that I closed the practice, I actually thought that I was gonna be shifting more into teaching about herbs and that product line would give me more freedom to, to be talking about what the herbs actually do. I spent a lot of time last year in 2022, really doing a lot of work, releasing. There was a lot going on. I had just moved from D.C. really figuring out, okay, like what is working, what's not working, what needs to be released here? And really like, because I have so many passions and so many interests, it can get overwhelming in my head sometimes. And so I had to start, like, releasing things so that I could see, like, what is really what lights me up right now.

What I found was that it was really about using this release, I started to realize my process of not getting back into the burnout phase that I had been in with massage. When covid hit, I just flailed, right? I flailed, I closed my massage practice. I didn't know what the heck I was doing for the longest time, I was like, oh, I'm about to graduate this herb school, and I'm about to, you know, finish my coach training program, my first one. And I just kind of, like, went all in on both things at the same time because like I, it was just a stress response really. 

And so I had to take 2022 to really kind of move things out of the way and, like, get clarity around, like, where actually do I want to move forward now? Releasing the product line was part of that. That helped me really gain the clarity around which track am I actually moving in and stop being so overwhelmed and find clarity, which really has been so supportive of my, like I, I took three months off last year to just - because I saw the burnout starting to happen again, and I needed to take a step back and just come back to myself and figure out, okay, with all of this change that has happened, like where am I actually heading? So, that was a big part of what had to happen in order for me to get to where I'm at now. 

Candy: Which I mean makes sense. Like, the treatments alone working on clients is, it can be challenging and it can, it can take a lot of your energy and, and your time and you know, you add in all these other elements that came into it.

Lauren: It can. I mean, I still love that work though. Massage work has, like, it's been my heart for so long and, like, there's part of me that misses it. You know, I'm, I, I miss my clients so much, but I was never really able to find a, like a schedule that really felt like it worked for me. Interestingly enough, like it's, it's going on three years now since I've given a professional massage, which is so weird to think about ‘cause I was, I was practicing for I think fifteen years when Covid hit.

I tried to give my mom a massage, oh, maybe six or eight months or so ago. She was having some physical pain. Physical therapy was kind of making it worse, and so I thought that if I could help release some of the things that were getting flared up because of the exercises that we could kind of help move her, her, her progress along with physical therapy. I did thirty minutes of massage, like not even that much work, and I was in pain for like three weeks, which was just a reminder of like, oh yeah. I had forgotten, like my body had forgotten that it was in pain all the time when I was doing massage until I had that experience and I was like, oh yeah, okay.

There's still, like, there's something calling within me now that I've been away for a little while. Like, I don't think I'd ever go back to, like, physical massage the way that I used to do it, but there's something wanting to bubble up in, like, in terms of supporting people with some sort of body work of some sort and I don't know what that is yet and I'm just gonna, like, let it sort of bubble up over here and see what it wants to become

Candy: No, I definitely resonate with that. I was a practitioner for twenty years and doing reflexology and, and reiki and massage. And it does, it stays with you. Like, I haven't been doing it for six years, but I miss my clients. I miss doing the treatments, but it's hard on the 

body. 

Lauren: It is. But I think that's one of the things that is, like, unique perhaps about being a Massage Therapist is, like, it becomes such a part of your identity. And I think that's one of the pieces that actually led to burnout for me was that, like, I had become so enmeshed with my business and with that being who I was, that, like, really having to separate that out was a big part of the healing process for me. I have a theory that it's because doing such hands on work that way and touching bodies all the time that, that it changes our nervous system to be in contact with other people's nervous systems all the time. And there's something about that I think that sort of makes it really easy to become enmeshed, I think. 

Candy: So, what other services do you provide your clients? 

Lauren: So, right now I'm offering private coaching programs where I work one-on-one with folks and it's really customized support around their specific needs. So, really working with heart-centered entrepreneurs to recalibrate their relationship with their business, to support them in recovering from burnout, reigniting their creative spark, and pushing back against capitalism, patriarchy, toxic positivity. There's so much of that in the coaching field that it, it feels really important to me to, to really make sure that we're not going down that route. To really be trauma informed and really support folks on a deep level.

Candy: So, what is toxic positivity? 

Lauren: Yeah, it's like avoiding negative feelings or, or -

Candy: Right!

Lauren: A lot of times it's, like, being in spaces that are, like, supposedly healing spaces, but then there's no room to actually have all of your feelings. And if you're not allowed to have all of your feelings, how the fuck can you possibly heal? ‘Scuse me.

Candy: Absolutely. No, I -

Lauren: Yeah!

Candy: A hundred percent agree with that. I, I, I'm a big fan of feeling your feelings. 

Lauren: And there's another new offering that I'm about to bring forward that I'm super, super excited about. It's about really working with the energy body of your business, and so it's a chakra activation of your business's energetics, and so you can start to build a more embodied relationship with your business. Give it a voice to have a relationship, and have a dialogue with you so that you can start to see more clearly. A, you know, work is speaking about this enmeshment piece, like which energies are yours, which belong to your business, and how can you start to work with them in a way that is more supportive of both you and your business, and so that you both have a voice in the relationship and, and in, in terms of, like, what's meant to come forward next and, and is this aligned with our values and all of these pieces. So, I'm super excited to start doing that next month. 

Candy: So, what is, what does that look like? A client comes to you and then what? 

Lauren: Yeah, it's a great question. So, it'll be a virtual offering. So, if you've ever had, like, distance reiki might be one way to describe it. So, like, we'll meet one-on-one, like on a call like we are on right now, and have a little bit of a dialogue first, and then we'll do a little meditation together. We'll work through your own chakras so that you're clear about what's happening with your own chakras, and then we'll invite your business energy forward and then we'll start to do - Okay, what's happening here where, like what chakras, maybe you're feeling a little bit depleted that need to be activated. What's maybe overactive and we can kind of calm down a little bit and even where are some places where your chakras and your business chakras are in alignment and where are some other spaces where they're not necessarily aligned and, and we can start to work on bringing those more to align together. 

I'm also getting ready to host a, a mini winter retreat next week virtually, which I'm super excited about. That's gonna be really bringing together entrepreneurs to help them take a really deep dive into, into stress and burnout. And what has the impact of those things been on their life, on their business? What does that actually start to look like? Where or what is your current relationship with rest? Where are some places where you might be ready to start making some shifts? In terms of your, your boundaries around rest, or where are the places where you could be taking more risks?

Starting to identify some tools to support the healing process from burnout, and then again, back to this relationship with your business piece around really separating that out and starting to build a relationship with your business. Obviously it's a one-time thing, so it's not gonna be an ongoing relationship with your business, but just starting to see, like, what is actually happening there? Gain some more clarity around the impacts on your life, on your business, and where things are at so that you can start to make some changes. 

Candy: So, what does the future hold for your business? 

Lauren: I'm sort of just coming out of this sort of incubation wintering phase, and so I'm not looking too far into the future just yet. I'm sure that will evolve, especially over this year as things are starting to gain a lot more forward momentum. But what I do know at this point is that I'll be hosting some sort of retreat around the solstices and the equinoxes. 

So, for the spring equinox will be a meditation around business energetics. Again, really, just creating more opportunity for people to build that relationship. And then, um, this is really, like, really early phase, so I don't, I don't know totally what this is gonna become, but I'm thinking of some sort of play shop for the summer solstice where we get to come together and be creative and have some fun and you know, it'll be something around our businesses. I don't know totally yet. It's just an idea for now. So, we'll kind of just sort of see what wants to come forward. 

And toward the end of the year, I'm probably gonna start working on putting together a group program around burnout support for folks. And then otherwise, really just, like, continuing to look for opportunities for collaboration and community support with other business owners ‘cause we can be so isolated in our own, like, little worlds growing and building and evolving our businesses. That it feels so important to have a community of support, whether that's, you know, me being in community with others and other people facilitating, or my facilitating spaces for others. All of those things feel really important, so I'll be looking for more opportunities for those.

Candy: That's amazing ‘cause burnout is a real thing that people really do need help with, 

so. 

Lauren: Yeah, absolutely.

Candy: So, what books are you currently reading?

Lauren: I'm currently doing the Artist's Way book again, it's a, I don't know if you've heard of it, it's a book by Julia Cameron. It's a three month program where you do a lot of writing and it's about inspiring your inner artist and kind of rediscovering your spark and I first did it over 20 years ago and it's actually what led me to massage to begin with. So, I've really been wanting to revisit it again for a while as I've kind of come out of this phase of, like, really shutting things down, releasing a lot of things. It felt like it would be a really supportive way to kind of reinspire my own creativity, make sure that, like, I'm not going back down the path of burnout again. And also just having a deeper connection to myself and, like, get more inspiration around like what is bubbling up within me that wants to come forward again. And so I created a little container with my, for myself, with a couple of friends, and we're doing the process together, which has been super, super supportive and it's really great.

Candy: I really appreciate you coming here today and talking about your offerings and like I said, burnout is a real thing and people, um, could really benefit from the services that you're going to provide. 

Lauren: Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me, Candy.