Introduction (00:00.00)
You are listening to From Pain To Possibility with Susi Hately. You’ll hear Susi’s best ideas on how to reduce or even eradicate your pain, and learn how to listen to your body when it whispers so you don’t have to hear it scream. And now here’s your host, Susi Hately.
Susi (00:23.19)
Susi: Welcome and welcome back. I am really glad that you’re here because we are continuing on with interviewing trainees and grads, and I have Angie here today, Angie Hadden Duke. And what makes this interview, I think… What I think is gonna make it really great is Angie is already a C-IYT accredited yoga therapist, and we are talking about why on earth she signed up for another program. And I say that jokingly, laughing, but truly more of a joke because it’s, it’s great. And I want you to hear from Angie about how she got here, what she’s gaining from it. And Angie, I actually wanna start way back, ’cause I remember a couple stories about having your mind blown when you first started some of the online courses. And, and what it’s done for you so far. And those of you who are already IYTs, if you are C-IYTs rather, or if you are a health professional already and you’re, you’re looking at the way that I approach helping people I get out of pain, this might be just a very interesting conversation. So Angie, welcome. I am so excited to have this conversation.
Angie: Yeah. Hi, Susie. Thank you so much for having me. I’m excited to be here as well and share, uh, my story and why I am training with you now. And I do have to laugh when, at your intro because I was like, “Am I gonna take another training?” There was really a lot of back and forth in my head of whether or not to take the training, and I have no regrets. I am so happy that I signed up for it for many, many reasons. Um, but yeah, another training. And it’s giving me an overall picture, a really good integration of what I’ve learned in the other trainings and also what I’m learning from you. And when I first started with you, what I really loved was how you broke the parts down. So you broke down how do we move our body, what are we seeing, what are we noticing, and that really hit home for me ’cause our training wasn’t necessarily how do we break down the parts into smaller parts into the movable parts. It was like how do we, um, help somebody in a yoga pose, like doing something in a yoga pose. We might adjust where our arms land or how far our legs are apart from one another, but it wasn’t actually breaking down the parts of our body, so the relationship between the shoulder and the ribs or the hips and the, uh, the pelvis and the leg. It was much more about still working as a whole unit-
Susi: Mm
Angie: -instead of breaking down the parts. And what really, when I was introduced to you through actually one of my trainers in the other yoga therapy program through Power of the Pits, I started then following you, and I signed up for your newsletters, and I got your newsletters, and I kept seeing the same messaging around breaking- it down, slowing it down, noticing what are you, what are you noticing? What are you seeing? And that was just from a participant, not actually, like, watching someone else move, but just how is this experience in my body? And it really, like, wowed me. I was like, “Oh, this is very cool,” right? I can feel the difference in my body. I can see now how my shoulder is moving, what the relationship is between my shoulder and my ribcage, right? Or my sho- my ribcage and my hips. And, and through the languaging, your very specific languaging was also very key and is very consistent.
Susi: So let’s kinda, let’s actually start there, because y- I’m, I’m so glad that you picked up on all that, and I mean, it’s, that, that is what I consistently, consistently say, which is in my experience, if I wanna help someone to reduce and then eliminate physical pain, the awareness piece is what’s fundamental. And so we can tell someone… I, I remember this really clearly one time teaching at a yoga conference, and the person, one of the people in the class, she, um, she said, “I’m here because I wanna fix my downward dog, and everyone tells me how crooked I am in dow- my downward dog, and I can’t feel it.” And when I looked at her doing her downward dog, I’m like, “How can you not feel that?” Like, it was like she was super crooked, but she just had no proprioceptive sense of it. And so people would say to her, “Do this, do that, do this, do that, do this, do that,” and she’s like, “I don’t…” And she couldn’t do it, and she wasn’t doing it because she had no awareness of the crookedness that was so apparent to the people watching. And then as we went through the smaller component parts of downward dog, she started to get these insights about her movement, and then we went back to downward dog and it was like, boom. She’s like, “I feel so crooked. Ah, this is now what I need to do,” right? So I think, I think maybe that’s what you’re speaking to is, is this distinction of what are the fundamental building blocks of any movement that we do, and then how are we moving in those particular blocks? And one of the things I remember when I first met you online, and it was in one of our courses where there was some back and forth and there was some ch- like, the chat was running and you were there live online, is your sharing about your own movement A weightlifter and you having pain for a long time. So can you give a little bit of perspective? ‘Cause this is something I’m noticing with other trainees and grads I’ve been interviewing is what started off a lot of their process towards training with me is the experience they had with their own bodies, and their own bodies getting better, and then saying, “Okay, I get this somatically. I wanna integrate it with my students.” So say a little bit more about that pa- the, the pain that you had and, um, the experience weightlifting, the experience perhaps in yoga. I, I only remember hearing it a bit more about weightlifting, and then what’s changed?
Angie: Yeah. The awareness part and the breaking down the component parts of a movement was fundamental for me, because that’s where I could see the change happening. So I go to the gym every morning. I do t- practice yoga, but it was mainly I was using it at, at the gym. Like, that’s where I went every morning. And I was starting to notice, like, the h- the, the words capacity and load, which is what you also, um, speak about, I was applying that to the gym, and I was like, “How am I moving?” So how is my shoulder moving in this joint in relationship to how much load I have on, so how much weight I’m lifting, and how … Is, is there anything else moving that shouldn’t be m- moving, right? So I started to really play with the concept of capacity and load and how I’m moving to reduce pain, primarily through this awareness, what’s working, what’s not working, and how is that impacting my body.
Susi: Can you give an example of a common exercise that most listeners would understand, and how that … Like, when you’re saying a body part relative to a body part, like maybe bicep curls. Is bicep curls one of the ones you’re working with? Or hamstring curl or something of that sort, so they can, they can, they can hear more of the like, what part relative to what part, and what was compensating and what you changed.
Angie: Okay. So what was happening, so the left, my left side of my body was pretty much turned off. Like, it, it … That’s what I called it. I described it as it’s turned off. My right shoulder was kind of rolled in and tilted forward, so I was kind of rotated towards the left. When I was laying on my back and I was lifting in constructive rest pose or with my knees bent, when I went to lift my left leg, my right shoulder would come up.
Susi: Ah.
Angie: So I used my shoulder as either a stabilizer, I don’t even know. It was just like I know that that was up in order for me to lift my left leg. So when I started to play with, “Oh, how do I actually move my left leg?” Without using my shoulder. That’s where I really started to play with this connection between the, the different body parts, and it’s actually taken me some time to be able to move my leg without moving my shoulder because there was a lot of unwinding I needed to do, um, to get to that, to that, that, um, to let the shoulder relax and be able to lift the leg.
Susi: And as a result, in the process of doing that, did your pain go down?
Angie: Yes. So in the process of lifting my left leg, it wasn’t, wasn’t necessarily that I had pain in that spot. I just didn’t know how to lift my left leg without using my shoulder. But what was fascinating is the pain that I felt in my body was actually what I describe as underneath my right scapula. There was like a knot underneath my right scapula. And that was the pain, and the pain was also in my, um, sort of in my jaw right around where the, the neck and the jaw… sorry, the ear and the jaw meet. That was where my pain was. And in the process of understanding how I was moving, both of those pain points disappeared because I was using my body in a different way.
Susi: So here is what I really wanna flag for people. We s- our culture around movement and fitness and such, there’s still an echo of where the pain is, is the problem So if you’ve got this pain by where the jaw and the ear and the neck meet, and then you’ve got this knot underneath your scapula, there is an automatic go-to of that’s the problem, and I just need to release up by the place by the jaw, ear, and neck, or I need to get in underneath that scapula and get that knot worked out. And where there’s still work that needs to be done is recognizing that those experiences that are happening in those parts of the body are in response to what else is happening in the body. And that’s the part where people can get frustrated, but also it’s the place where people can get a lot of clarity.
Angie: Mm.
Susi: And so what you discovered wasn’t necessarily a pain thing, your shoulder lifts when your leg lifts. It was an efficiency of movement. It was a coordinated pattern. And so she, her intention of moving was to move the leg, and yet what was happening is sure, the leg was moving, but so was the shoulder, but the intention wasn’t for the shoulder to move. So she had a neuromuscular pattern happening that when she thought about moving her leg in that way, the shoulder moved. That’s not what’s meant to happen. And there was no pain associated with that, so p- many people think, “Well, it’s not really a big deal. So what, so my shoulder moves with my should- my, with my leg.” But yet what Angie kind of got gobsmacked about was as she settled out parts of the body that weren’t meant for the intention of the movement, then all sorts of other responses changed, and that’s the power here. And it’s a big reason why I think that pain or other symptoms, call it tightness, strain, tension, ache, whatever, why they remain persistent i- on, on a physical plane because we keep compensating. And so when we can reduce comp- it’s not that, it’s not that if you compensate you have pain. Don’t misinterpret that, please. It’s when people who have persistency of symptoms now start to retrain their patterns and compensate less, I always see, and that’s a h- big word, always, but it’s true. It’s I always see people’s symptoms going down. Yeah? And that’s what Angie explained really, really nicely. So after that, where was sort of your next step? Like, you had that realization, then, then what? Where, where did you go next?
Angie: In terms of my physical body? Where did I go next? I was exploring around the body. So I really paid attention to what I was feeling, what I was experiencing, and then I would ask my questions. What happens if I Add a little bit more weight to something like, um, so for example, when I was doing a chest press and my right shoulder was still elevated off the floor, I would use weight into like two pounds or three pounds just to see where is that movement through the shoulder. So I just play and explore and sort of see where am I going with what is actually happening within my shoulder girdle, what was moving, what wasn’t moving. So I’d use the weight to help me figure that out, and then I would go back to some of the trainings that we would have, and we would do pull, pull the thread, I think is what it’s called, right? We’d open up, similar sort of action to a, a fly type of movement, a chest fly. So I’d go back and I would use sort of the weight for information to see how am I still moving within that range, and then I would go back to my, my left leg, see if I can actually lift my left leg up without having my shoulder lift. And then sometimes I would play with working in different planes as well, so I would work with rotation. I guess that’s probably it, really work with the rotation and then playing through the shoulder girdle.
Susi: How long did you have pain for?
Angie: At least 15 years.
Susi: And now your level of pain?
Angie: None.
Susi: So let’s just pause for a moment. I want you to get that. Like, if you’re someone who’s had pain for a long time and you might even be saying it’s normal, here’s something that’s possible, right? Right? And how long would you have said that it kind of took you from the start of this exploration to getting to zero?
Angie: I think it was a couple years ago that I started to take your courses, but it was very hit-and-miss because I was in my other training, so I was really involved with that. So I’d kind of come back when I had more capacity. So I’d come back and I’d do little bits, but it wasn’t consistent, so I’d take a little bit here and I would do like a movement of something and then… And I would still apply it at the gym. It wasn’t really until I graduated in December and then I really started to dive into your programs. I started to watch the recordings and then I would see your emails come through . And I saw, I think it was the intensive before the training, I’m not exactly sure what that program’s called, but with that s- I think it’s a six-day or seven-day intensive where, um, I was like, “I’m gonna just take this to learn a little bit more,” right? It’s, it’s safe, I’ll just kind of ease into it, right? ‘Cause another training, right? I’ve just finished my program. And it was from that time in April-
Susi: To today
Angie: -where I have made the most gains, and that’s five months.
Susi: Hmm.
Angie: Where with consistency of doing the movements that you share and having a lot more n- information about the patterning and the knowledge and where to go and how to work in the planes, that just shifted things for me a little bit deeper, and then I applied it even more specifically at the gym with more intention and more awareness and more understanding. So that, that week of the intensive really shifted-
Susi: Mm-hmm
Angie: … me in a different way of thinking. So it was like, before it was like, I, I’m not sure how many… Let’s just say, let’s just say maybe eight months or something, I was kind of doing it on my own, pulling stuff out, and then in April, coming to see you with that intensive really shifted everything. And then being in the certification program had shifted it even more. And it was as of Tuesday, just this past week, was when I really got out of pain.
Susi: Hmm.
Angie: And it was using the spinal strap that we are working on, and it was using that that was the, the, the last bit, which was that knot in the back of my shoulder dissipated.
Susi: Ha.
Angie: And that was an amazing moment where I was on the spinal strap- I would, did the, uh, the pull the thread. So I was playing with that, and I was like, wow, this is really interesting, ’cause I could feel the knot along the edge of the, the strip. And then I got off the strip, and I just laid on the ground for a bit just letting everything settle. And then I was… felt like I went into a seated wide leg forward fold. I just wanted to come forward. So I felt… I went forward, and I felt a shooting pain from that spot, that knot, to my heart. And I was like, okay, I’m gonna pull back on this. And I pulled back, I did some really gentle breathing, like so I was just almost in a seated position, not even folding, and just was breathing into that spot. And it just softened, that area just softened, and then I went a little bit further and it softened and softened. It was gone. Totally gone. And the other part that happened the next day at the gym, my left hamstring was able to fully… well, able to engage so much more than it had been previously that I wasn’t actually aware of. I was like, oh, this is engaging so differently than where I was just the day before. So and that was my… That was the day. And also now lifting my left leg up is a, with a lot more ease.
Susi: And that opposite shoulder is fine?
Angie: And the opposite shoulder’s fine. Yep, I can keep it… There is no connection there. I can lift my left leg without lifting the opposite shoulder, although that happened, um, a few months ago, but there was still that knot that was in the, um, in my shoulder blade.
Susi: And the point by your ear, jaw, and neck is gone?
Angie: Oh, totally gone. I can’t even remember when that left, actually. That left a while ago.
Susi: Ha. So cool. So, so, so cool. Okay, so that’s really fascinating. And gr- I mean, it’s so fun to hear these stories. I just, I love it. So then let’s bridge now into making the des- decision to come into certification and do another training.
Angie: Yeah, why not? Yeah, I think for me it was the real Like, I think you used the word gobsmacking. Like, I was just-
Susi: Mm-hmm
Angie: … like so gobsmacked of how I could get out of this pain. Like, I’d seen massage, chiro, physio for this neck pain, ’cause that was sort of what was nagging me 15, 20 years ago, and no one could help me. Like, and I was like, “Okay, I guess I’m gonna just have to figure out how to live with this.” And then, and then my body just got progressively, I’m gonna say worse, because I was feeling like I was compensating. I’d have to lift my, my left shoulder up to do a bicep curl so that the pain wouldn’t be there. You know? So I had so many compensations. Yeah, and then when we s- I started to slowly feel that there was a difference, you know, just doing those, the courses online, and then when I got into the, a program or that first week, it was like, “I have got to train.” And I think you’d even mentioned that I was like, “I don’t think you were intending to sign up, Angie, for the program.” And I was like, I wasn’t, but I had so much res- so many results from that week that I needed to sign up because I’m like, “This is going to be the changing moment for me, for my physical body.” And then the other part of it why I signed up is not only just to dive deeper into your thinking about, um, how do people see, how do we move our body, how do we help people get the experience that I have had, that it is possible to get out of pain, and how can I do that? And so that was that, that one part, ’cause I was in so in awe of the way that you’re training. And the other part was the business. The business side is, like, I’d left the yoga therapy school and I had no idea How to run a business, how to start a business, and I really liked that you were, you’re the integration of the business component into the certification. So I guess the two reasons why I, I was drawn to you is, one, to help people get out of physical pain, and then with your, your tools, and then also the business side of it. So those were the two main reasons why I, I came into certification with you. So…
Susi: And, and what we’re actually doing is we’re, we’re… She’s in the certification program, but we’re… W- what I actually did is I created-
Angie: Mm-hmm
Susi: … um, an e- sort of an evolved program specifically for people like Angie, and we actually have three people inside of this cohort who are already CIYTs. So to be, like, so that’s a, that’s significant, right? And we have more people emailing us asking a very similar question, which is one reason I wanted to bring Angie onto this podcast, is if you’re someone who is a health professional or a CIYT and then this next step is really important, is you don’t need to get a certificate. And then there’s… We- I’ve crafted a program where you learn all the technical stuff that everyone else is learning, um, and the focus is just a little bit different because you don’t need all that extra stuff to be certified. You already have great skill. Like, Angie already has great skill. The other two CIYTs already have great skill. And so it’s ep- it’s about mentorship, deep mentorship to help elevate them. So it’s a different angle. Um, and um, and it’s working really, really well, right? Because there’s, there’s things that you can offer into the conversation that from y- your pr- previous training and, and so the, the, the community is… it’s actually a really, really, really rich community.
Angie: Oh, yeah. The community is amazing. I th- this is an… I, I love the community element. I love that we’ve all come from different, um, backgrounds. Some of us have, um, additional training for the yoga therapy, and I love that we can integrate what we’ve already learned into what you’re teaching us, right? So it’s really… I think the bonus that I’m getting from being in the certification program is this deep review, a really deep review of what I’ve learned and how to integrate it In many different ways. Like through the Ayurvedic lens, um, there’s that deeper view, and then also the yoga lens, the yamas and niyamas.
Susi: And what’s new for you is the way to see movement.
Angie: And what’s… Y- exactly, yes. The way to see movement and how people are moving and their movement patterns is new for me, yes, and the seeing part.
Susi: Now something that you and I have had a few conversations about inside of this program is, um, and it- and it’s This is a, a, a theme, a common theme when people are training with me, um, at this level, is the mistake that I think many teachers and yoga therapists make is when they see something or a client expresses the, the sensation experience they’re having, they very quickly make it mean something. And one of the One of s- one of the big messages that I have is we don’t actually know what it means. And sometimes what I’ll reference is in the 30 years that I’ve been doing this, the, the theory of core stability, for example, or even, um, tension along the, the dural tissue or the nerve tissue, the theories have changed over time. Even our thought about pain. Like when I started, pain was something to be managed. That was the theory of the day. Pain was something to be managed. It doesn’t go away, just get yourself stronger and get back to work. And, and I even had health professionals emailing me saying, “You should not tell people that they can get out of pain ’cause pain needs to be managed.” And my response, I didn’t take it personally, because my response was, “Then what’s happening in my room?” Like-
Angie: Mm
Susi: … my students are getting out of pain, so I, I can absolutely say that. And so I’m not really sure why you’re saying you can’t. But my point is, is that what’s being s- like what the s- what science knows about these things has altered in, in a tremendous way over 30 years. A lot of the movements I still do are the same. And, and I knew, like one of the benefits of being a yoga therapist, yoga teacher, having a Bachelor of Science in Kinesiology and not being a medical professional, is that I, I don’t diagnose. I have not been trained to diagnose. I don’t have assessment tools like muscle testing or And I don’t have, and I don’t have tools like acupuncture needles or a scalpel or, mm, adjustment things like chiros and physios have, or a TENS machine or … I don’t have any of that stuff. So really, and I don’t say this in a mean way d- about myself, I, I, all I got are my eyes-
Angie: My love for my clients and my heart, and my love for yoga, and my understanding of mechanics.
Susi: And so I bring all that together and, and ultimately all I c- all I can report on are, is what I’m seeing. But what I’m seeing, just because someone is compensating, I, I don’t know why, right? And so, and a great example modern day of this is a really common diagnosis is someone’s glutes aren’t firing. So then the assumption is, well, it’s the glutes. Well, if that was really the case, then all the exercises people are doing for the glutes should be working. But they’re not, or they wouldn’t be coming into my space or your space or-
Angie: Mm-hmm
Susi: … so it’s like what we discover is that there’s other things, and for some people it’s up in the, up in the shoulder girdle. For some people it’s the opposite hip. For some people it’s, excuse me, it’s their feet. Sometimes it’s the connection between the hip and the feet, and get those things sorted out. I don’t know what it’s gonna be, and that’s the, that’s the thing people d- never believe me about. They’re like, “Y- yeah, you absolutely know.” I’m like, “The only reason wh- what I… The only thing I know is what I am seeing in their movement to be sh- to be certain,” right? That’s what a- what’s objective. I can see it. You can see it. They can see it. And then it’s that process I walk them through that helps them become aware, and then we tr- retrain that process, right? It’s not corrective exercise per se, but it’s this retraining process, right? So, so it’s, that’s the piece like I think that’s probably been one of the biggest things for you is, is, and like many people in the program, it’s oh wow, like you’re not putting meaning to any of this. Like you’re just, you’re seeing stuff and you’re acting on what you’re seeing. I’m like, bingo. Yeah? So what’s different? Like what’s, how, like how has that shifted the way that you are with people or the way that you see all the tools that you have in your disposal?
Angie: I think the biggest shift for me when learning this was I became a lot more relaxed.
Susi: Mm.
Angie: I think that was my biggest shift in a, in this awareness in myself and how I felt like I needed to be presented to my clients. That I needed to know the answer. I needed to know what was working, what wasn’t working, and the why. That’s really where my thinking was before coming in to the program, to your program. And now with- This idea that we don’t, we don’t really know. Like, we just don’t know, right? Everybody’s unique. We all come into the space with something, um, different, and as you had said, it could be, you know, someone’s shoulder that is hurting, but where is the actual root cause? It’s from somewhere el- It’s, it has potential to be anywhere else in the body, right?
Susi: Mm-hmm.
Angie: So I love the, that we don’t have one set rule about it. It’s like, where’s this person at? How are they showing up? What are they sharing? What are we seeing? And where do we go? Like, it’s this dialogue, this interaction between myself and the client, yourself and the client, right? It’s really about the relationship between the two people and what are they actually saying to one another, and what are we hearing? What are we, how are we exploring it? And then where do we go from there? And for me, that was really freeing because I could pull from all of the tools that I have based on what I’m seeing, what I’ve And then, so the tools that I’ve learned, and then based on what I’m seeing and what that person is saying to me. And it freed up, it actually really, in my heart, it freed me up. It just freed up all parts of me to be like, “Oh, wow, I can just be present with this person-” I can be fully present with this person and have a dialogue between, with, with them about what are they experiencing, and then we can go and play and explore through the tools that I know, and then see where that leads us. And it actually feels so good to be able to have this experience as a practitioner to, or as a yoga therapist, to be free from having a set, I call them rules, but or like protocols, right? It’s like, it’s like, ’cause they don’t always work. So being able to be free of that and just looking at that person in, in front of you and working with them is so freeing. And that was from learning how to see. Like, that was from your, your like all we have is our eyes. Yeah. Right?
Susi: Yeah. And, and we have to remember, like unless you’re a trained physio-
Angie: Mm-hmm
Susi: … unless you’re a trained osteopath, a trained physician, a trained, you know, fill in the blank, and we- that’s just, we’re just not that.
Angie: Right.
Susi: And so why pretend to be-
Angie: Right
Susi: … when we’re not, right? Like, let’s be who we are, and we can be like, v- clearly we can be really effective with our tool set. And, and in many ways I c- I kinda wish more health professionals did more yoga therapy and, and were able to come more into presence, and not leap to what the problem is, right? Just take a moment, take a breath, and just go, “Okay, hold on a second here. What’s actually, what’s actually happening?” You know? Bring both sides, left and right brain together. And then the, the great thing that I find happens too is when we’re present to what’s actually going on with somebody, then we’re modeling what presence is like to be like in the client side, right? Because for a client to get better, they have to grow their awareness. They have to be present, and they, they ultimately need to move. If there is a pl- and they’re, they’re… If they’re in a place of fear, ultimately part of the journey is the c- that transmutation of that particular state, right? It’s not forcing them out of fear. Gosh, no. But there’s a, there’s a process that they have, they, that they do need to move through.
Angie: Mm-hmm.
Susi: And, and we’re helping them by our presence with them. It’s the medicine of presence, right?
Angie: Yeah. They do it for themselves. And the, and the other thing I just sort of interject, I wanted to say we, we just did a, a, a talk on asteya So non-stealing, right? And that what you were just talking about is, like, if we’re coming in to solve their problem, we’re actually stealing them from the journey of their self-awareness and understanding-
Susi: Mm
Angie: … of who they are. You know, similar to what you’re just saying is we’re robbing of them of, like, the self-discovery along the journey, ’cause it’s not just getting out of pain. The stuff that I’ve learned from all… From where I started to where I am now, I have learned so much about myself in that process That I wouldn’t … I don’t think I’d want it another way because I didn’t learn all this, this stuff in between on that journey to get to the out of pain. Mm. Right? And so I kind of-
Susi: Mm
Angie: … you know, it’s really about how can we support people to, to be able to be in their space without us stealing them the … or, or robbing them from that opportunity of, of this growth, this personal growth for them.
Susi: Ah, so good. If people wanna get in touch with you, where can they find you? Like, and, and who are you primarily working with right now?
Angie: So I have a website under my name, so it’s angiehoudinduke.com. And I am working with a variety of people. So I work with people who have anxiety. That tends to be my … the biggest group of people that I’ve worked with. People sometimes come to me for one reason, and then they realize that they’re full… like, there’s a lot of anxiety and overwhelm, so we kinda shift the goal to, how do we calm the nervous system? How do we work with whatever the anxiety is? And then, um, I’ve worked with, um, couple athletes as well, which is really fun, and I’m running a workshop with, um, for curlers in how to… I think the posture is, or the movement’s called delivery, so it’s basically when they’re in that lunge position and they’re going to throw the rock. So we’re gonna work on how to, um, move better through the shoulders and hips to help with them with that delivery. So I’m working with a variety of people right now.
Susi: If people are in your neck of the woods, so you’re over North Vancouver-
Angie: Mm
Susi: … if you’re, they’re in your neck of the woods and they’re a curler, or they work with curlers, and they, they’re interested in the curling workshop, when is that actually happening? Do you have a date for that?
Angie: I don’t have
Host/Intro Voice: You’re listening to From Pain to Possibility with Susi Hately. You will hear Susi’s best ideas on how to reduce or even eradicate your pain, and learn how to listen to your body when it whispers, so you don’t have to hear it scream. And now, here’s your host, Susi Hately.
Susi: Welcome and welcome back. I am really glad that you’re here because we are continuing on with interviewing trainees and grads, and I have Angie here today, Angie Hadden Duke. And what makes this interview, I think… What I think is gonna make it really great is Angie is already a C-IYT accredited yoga therapist. And we are talking about why on earth she signed up for another program. And I say that jokingly, laughing, but truly more of a joke because it’s, it’s great. And I want you to hear from Angie about how she got here, what she’s gaining from it. And Angie, I actually wanna start way back, ’cause I remember a couple stories about having your mind blown when you first started some of the online courses. And, and what it’s done for you so far. And those of you who are already IYTs, if you are C-IYTs rather, or if you are a health professional already and you’re, you’re looking at the way that I approach helping people I get out of pain, this might be just a very interesting conversation. So Angie, welcome. I am so excited to have this conversation.
Angie: Yeah. Hi, Susie. Thank you so much for having me. I’m excited to be here as well and share, uh, my story and why I am training with you now. And I do have to laugh when, at your intro because I was like, “Am I gonna take another training?” There was really a lot of back and forth in my head of whether or not to take the training, and I have no regrets. I am so happy that I signed up for it for many, many reasons. Um, but yeah, another training. And it’s giving me an overall picture, a really good integration of what I’ve learned in the other trainings and also what I’m learning from you. And when I first started with you, what I really loved was how you broke the parts down. So you broke down how do we move our body, what are we seeing, what are we noticing, and that really hit home for me ’cause our training wasn’t necessarily how do we break down the parts into smaller parts into the movable parts. It was like how do we, um, help somebody in a yoga pose, like doing something in a yoga pose. We might adjust where our arms land or how far our legs are apart from one another, but it wasn’t actually breaking down the parts of our body, so the relationship between the shoulder and the ribs or the hips and the, uh, the pelvis and the leg. It was much more about still working as a whole unit-
Susi: Mm
Angie: -instead of breaking down the parts. And what really, when I was introduced to you through actually one of my trainers in the other yoga therapy program through Power of the Pits, I started then following you, and I signed up for your newsletters, and I got your newsletters, and I kept seeing the same messaging around breaking- it down, slowing it down, noticing what are you, what are you noticing? What are you seeing? And that was just from a participant, not actually, like, watching someone else move, but just how is this experience in my body? And it really, like, wowed me. I was like, “Oh, this is very cool,” right? I can feel the difference in my body. I can see now how my shoulder is moving, what the relationship is between my shoulder and my ribcage, right? Or my sho- my ribcage and my hips. And, and through the languaging, your very specific languaging was also very key and is very consistent.
Susi: So let’s kind of, let’s actually start there, because y- I’m, I’m so glad that you picked up on all that, and I mean, it’s, that, that is what I consistently, consistently say, which is in my experience, if I wanna help someone to reduce and then eliminate physical pain, the awareness piece is what’s fundamental. And so we can tell someone… I, I remember this really clearly one time teaching at a yoga conference, and the person, one of the people in the class, she, um, she said, “I’m here because I wanna fix my downward dog, and everyone tells me how crooked I am in dow- my downward dog, and I can’t feel it.” And when I looked at her doing her downward dog, I’m like, “How can you not feel that?” Like, it was like she was super crooked, but she just had no proprioceptive sense of it. And so people would say to her, “Do this, do that, do this, do that, do this, do that,” and she’s like, “I don’t…” And she couldn’t do it, and she wasn’t doing it because she had no awareness of the crookedness that was so apparent to the people watching. And then as we went through the smaller component parts of downward dog, she started to get these insights about her movement, and then we went back to downward dog and it was like, boom. She’s like, “I feel so crooked. Ah, this is now what I need to do,” right? So I think, I think maybe that’s what you’re speaking to is, is this distinction of what are the fundamental building blocks of any movement that we do, and then how are we moving in those particular blocks? And one of the things I remember when I first met you online, and it was in one of our courses where there was some back and forth and there was some ch- like, the chat was running and you were there live online, is your sharing about your own movement A weightlifter and you having pain for a long time. So can you give a little bit of perspective? ‘Cause this is something I’m noticing with other trainees and grads I’ve been interviewing is what started off a lot of their process towards training with me is the experience they had with their own bodies, and their own bodies getting better, and then saying, “Okay, I get this somatically. I wanna integrate it with my students.” So say a little bit more about that pa- the, the pain that you had and, um, the experience weightlifting, the experience perhaps in yoga. I, I only remember hearing it a bit more about weightlifting, and then what’s changed?
Angie: Yeah. The awareness part and the breaking down the component parts of a movement was fundamental for me, because that’s where I could see the change happening. So I go to the gym every morning. I do t- practice yoga, but it was mainly I was using it at, at the gym. Like, that’s where I went every morning. And I was starting to notice, like, the h- the, the words capacity and load, which is what you also, um, speak about, I was applying that to the gym, and I was like, “How am I moving?” So how is my shoulder moving in this joint in relationship to how much load I have on, so how much weight I’m lifting, and how … Is, is there anything else moving that shouldn’t be m- moving, right? So I started to really play with the concept of capacity and load and how I’m moving to reduce pain, primarily through this awareness, what’s working, what’s not working, and how is that impacting my body.
Susi: Can you give an example of a common exercise that most listeners would understand, and how that … Like, when you’re saying a body part relative to a body part, like maybe bicep curls. Is bicep curls one of the ones you’re working with? Or hamstring curl or something of that sort, so they can, they can, they can hear more of the like, what part relative to what part, and what was compensating and what you changed.
Angie: Okay. So what was happening, so the left, my left side of my body was pretty much turned off. Like, it, it … That’s what I called it. I described it as it’s turned off. My right shoulder was kind of rolled in and tilted forward, so I was kind of rotated towards the left. When I was laying on my back and I was lifting in constructive rest pose or with my knees bent, when I went to lift my left leg, my right shoulder would come up.
Susi: Ah.
Angie: So I used my shoulder as either a stabilizer, I don’t even know. It was just like I know that that was up in order for me to lift my left leg. So when I started to play with, “Oh, how do I actually move my left leg?” Without using my shoulder. That’s where I really started to play with this connection between the, the different body parts, and it’s actually taken me some time to be able to move my leg without moving my shoulder because there was a lot of unwinding I needed to do, um, to get to that, to that, that, um, to let the shoulder relax and be able to lift the leg.
Susi: And as a result, in the process of doing that, did your pain go down?
Angie: Yes. So in the process of lifting my left leg, it wasn’t, wasn’t necessarily that I had pain in that spot. I just didn’t know how to lift my left leg without using my shoulder. But what was fascinating is the pain that I felt in my body was actually what I describe as underneath my right scapula. There was like a knot underneath my right scapula. And that was the pain, and the pain was also in my, um, sort of in my jaw right around where the, the neck and the jaw… sorry, the ear and the jaw meet. That was where my pain was. And in the process of understanding how I was moving, both of those pain points disappeared because I was using my body in a different way.
Susi: So here is what I really wanna flag for people. We s- our culture around movement and fitness and such, there’s still an echo of where the pain is, is the problem So if you’ve got this pain by where the jaw and the ear and the neck meet, and then you’ve got this knot underneath your scapula, there is an automatic go-to of that’s the problem, and I just need to release up by the place by the jaw, ear, and neck, or I need to get in underneath that scapula and get that knot worked out. And where there’s still work that needs to be done is recognizing that those experiences that are happening in those parts of the body are in response to what else is happening in the body. And that’s the part where people can get frustrated, but also it’s the place where people can get a lot of clarity.
Angie: Mm.
Susi: And so what you discovered wasn’t necessarily a pain thing, your shoulder lifts when your leg lifts. It was an efficiency of movement. It was a coordinated pattern. And so she, her intention of moving was to move the leg, and yet what was happening is sure, the leg was moving, but so was the shoulder, but the intention wasn’t for the shoulder to move. So she had a neuromuscular pattern happening that when she thought about moving her leg in that way, the shoulder moved. That’s not what’s meant to happen. And there was no pain associated with that, so p- many people think, “Well, it’s not really a big deal. So what, so my shoulder moves with my should- my, with my leg.” But yet what Angie kind of got gobsmacked about was as she settled out parts of the body that weren’t meant for the intention of the movement, then all sorts of other responses changed, and that’s the power here. And it’s a big reason why I think that pain or other symptoms, call it tightness, strain, tension, ache, whatever, why they remain persistent i- on, on a physical plane because we keep compensating. And so when we can reduce comp- it’s not that, it’s not that if you compensate you have pain. Don’t misinterpret that, please. It’s when people who have persistency of symptoms now start to retrain their patterns and compensate less, I always see, and that’s a h- big word, always, but it’s true. It’s I always see people’s symptoms going down. Yeah? And that’s what Angie explained really, really nicely. So after that, where was sort of your next step? Like, you had that realization, then, then what? Where, where did you go next?
Angie: In terms of my physical body? Where did I go next? I was exploring around the body. So I really paid attention to what I was feeling, what I was experiencing, and then I would ask my questions. What happens if I Add a little bit more weight to something like, um, so for example, when I was doing a chest press and my right shoulder was still elevated off the floor, I would use weight into like two pounds or three pounds just to see where is that movement through the shoulder. So I just play and explore and sort of see where am I going with what is actually happening within my shoulder girdle, what was moving, what wasn’t moving. So I’d use the weight to help me figure that out, and then I would go back to some of the trainings that we would have, and we would do pull, pull the thread, I think is what it’s called, right? We’d open up, similar sort of action to a, a fly type of movement, a chest fly. So I’d go back and I would use sort of the weight for information to see how am I still moving within that range, and then I would go back to my, my left leg, see if I can actually lift my left leg up without having my shoulder lift. And then sometimes I would play with working in different planes as well, so I would work with rotation. I guess that’s probably it, really work with the rotation and then playing through the shoulder girdle.
Susi: How long did you have pain for?
Angie: At least 15 years.
Susi: And now your level of pain?
Angie: None.
Susi: So let’s just pause for a moment. I want you to get that. Like, if you’re someone who’s had pain for a long time and you might even be saying it’s normal, here’s something that’s possible, right? Right? And how long would you have said that it kind of took you from the start of this exploration to getting to zero?
Angie: I think it was a couple years ago that I started to take your courses, but it was very hit-and-miss because I was in my other training, so I was really involved with that. So I’d kind of come back when I had more capacity. So I’d come back and I’d do little bits, but it wasn’t consistent, so I’d take a little bit here and I would do like a movement of something and then… And I would still apply it at the gym. It wasn’t really until I graduated in December and then I really started to dive into your programs. I started to watch the recordings and then I would see your emails come through. And I saw, I think it was the intensive before the training, I’m not exactly sure what that program’s called, but with that s- I think it’s a six-day or seven-day intensive where, um, I was like, “I’m gonna just take this to learn a little bit more,” right? It’s, it’s safe, I’ll just kind of ease into it, right? ‘Cause another training, right? I’ve just finished my program. And it was from that time in April-
Susi: To today
Angie: -where I have made the most gains, and that’s five months.
Susi: Hmm.
Angie: Where with consistency of doing the movements that you share and having a lot more n- information about the patterning and the knowledge and where to go and how to work in the planes, that just shifted things for me a little bit deeper, and then I applied it even more specifically at the gym with more intention and more awareness and more understanding. So that, that week of the intensive really shifted-
Susi: Mm-hmm
Angie: -me in a different way of thinking. So it was like, before it was like, I, I’m not sure how many… Let’s just say, let’s just say maybe eight months or something, I was kind of doing it on my own, pulling stuff out, and then in April, coming to see you with that intensive really shifted everything. And then being in the certification program had shifted it even more. And it was as of Tuesday, just this past week, was when I really got out of pain.
Susi: Hmm.
Angie: And it was using the spinal strap that we are working on, and it was using that that was the, the, the last bit, which was that knot in the back of my shoulder dissipated.
Susi: Ha.
Angie: And that was an amazing moment where I was on the spinal strap- I would, did the, uh, the pull the thread. So I was playing with that, and I was like, wow, this is really interesting, ’cause I could feel the knot along the edge of the, the strip. And then I got off the strip, and I just laid on the ground for a bit just letting everything settle. And then I was… felt like I went into a seated wide leg forward fold. I just wanted to come forward. So I felt… I went forward, and I felt a shooting pain from that spot, that knot, to my heart. And I was like, okay, I’m gonna pull back on this. And I pulled back, I did some really gentle breathing, like so I was just almost in a seated position, not even folding, and just was breathing into that spot. And it just softened, that area just softened, and then I went a little bit further and it softened and softened. It was gone. Totally gone. And the other part that happened the next day at the gym, my left hamstring was able to fully… well, able to engage so much more than it had been previously that I wasn’t actually aware of. I was like, oh, this is engaging so differently than where I was just the day before. So and that was my… That was the day. And also now lifting my left leg up is a, with a lot more ease.
Susi: And that opposite shoulder is fine?
Angie: And the opposite shoulder’s fine. Yep, I can keep it… There is no connection there. I can lift my left leg without lifting the opposite shoulder, although that happened, um, a few months ago, but there was still that knot that was in the, um, in my shoulder blade.
Susi: And the point by your ear, jaw, and neck is gone?
Angie: Oh, totally gone. I can’t even remember when that left, actually. That left a while ago.
Susi: Ha. So cool. So, so, so cool. Okay, so that’s really fascinating. And gr- I mean, it’s so fun to hear these stories. I just, I love it. So then let’s bridge now into making the des- decision to come into certification and do another training.
Angie: Yeah, why not? Yeah, I think for me it was the real Like, I think you used the word gobsmacking. Like, I was just-
Susi: Mm-hmm
Angie: -like so gobsmacked of how I could get out of this pain. Like, I’d seen massage, chiro, physio for this neck pain, ’cause that was sort of what was nagging me 15, 20 years ago, and no one could help me. Like, and I was like, “Okay, I guess I’m gonna just have to figure out how to live with this.” And then, and then my body just got progressively, I’m gonna say worse, because I was feeling like I was compensating. I’d have to lift my, my left shoulder up to do a bicep curl so that the pain wouldn’t be there. You know? So I had so many compensations. Yeah, and then when we s- I started to slowly feel that there was a difference, you know, just doing those, the courses online, and then when I got into the, a program or that first week, it was like, “I have got to train.” And I think you’d even mentioned that I was like, “I don’t think you were intending to sign up, Angie, for the program.” And I was like, I wasn’t, but I had so much res- so many results from that week that I needed to sign up because I’m like, “This is going to be the changing moment for me, for my physical body.” And then the other part of it why I signed up is not only just to dive deeper into your thinking about, um, how do people see, how do we move our body, how do we help people get the experience that I have had, that it is possible to get out of pain, and how can I do that? And so that was that, that one part, ’cause I was in so in awe of the way that you’re training. And the other part was the business. The business side is, like, I’d left the yoga therapy school and I had no idea How to run a business, how to start a business, and I really liked that you were, you’re the integration of the business component into the certification. So I guess the two reasons why I, I was drawn to you is, one, to help people get out of physical pain, and then with your, your tools, and then also the business side of it. So those were the two main reasons why I, I came into certification with you. So…
Susi: And, and what we’re actually doing is we’re, we’re… She’s in the certification program, but we’re… W- what I actually did is I created-
Angie: Mm-hmm
Susi: -um, an e- sort of an evolved program specifically for people like Angie, and we actually have three people inside of this cohort who are already CIYTs. So to be, like, so that’s a, that’s significant, right? And we have more people emailing us asking a very similar question, which is one reason I wanted to bring Angie onto this podcast, is if you’re someone who is a health professional or a CIYT and then this next step is really important, is you don’t need to get a certificate. And then there’s… We- I’ve crafted a program where you learn all the technical stuff that everyone else is learning, um, and the focus is just a little bit different because you don’t need all that extra stuff to be certified. You already have great skill. Like, Angie already has great skill. The other two CIYTs already have great skill. And so it’s ep- it’s about mentorship, deep mentorship to help elevate them. So it’s a different angle. Um, and um, and it’s working really, really well, right? Because there’s, there’s things that you can offer into the conversation that from y- your pr- previous training and, and so the, the, the community is… it’s actually a really, really, really rich community.
Angie: Oh, yeah. The community is amazing. I th- this is an… I, I love the community element. I love that we’ve all come from different, um, backgrounds. Some of us have, um, additional training for the yoga therapy, and I love that we can integrate what we’ve already learned into what you’re teaching us, right? So it’s really… I think the bonus that I’m getting from being in the certification program is this deep review, a really deep review of what I’ve learned and how to integrate it In many different ways. Like through the Ayurvedic lens, um, there’s that deeper view, and then also the yoga lens, the yamas and niyamas.
Susi: And what’s new for you is the way to see movement.
Angie: And what’s… Y- exactly, yes. The way to see movement and how people are moving and their movement patterns is new for me, yes, and the seeing part.
Susi: Now something that you and I have had a few conversations about inside of this program is, um, and it- and it’s This is a, a, a theme, a common theme when people are training with me, um, at this level, is the mistake that I think many teachers and yoga therapists make is when they see something or a client expresses the, the sensation experience they’re having, they very quickly make it mean something. And one of the One of s- one of the big messages that I have is we don’t actually know what it means. And sometimes what I’ll reference is in the 30 years that I’ve been doing this, the, the theory of core stability, for example, or even, um, tension along the, the dural tissue or the nerve tissue, the theories have changed over time. Even our thought about pain. Like when I started, pain was something to be managed. That was the theory of the day. Pain was something to be managed. It doesn’t go away, just get yourself stronger and get back to work. And, and I even had health professionals emailing me saying, “You should not tell people that they can get out of pain ’cause pain needs to be managed.” And my response, I didn’t take it personally, because my response was, “Then what’s happening in my room?” Like-
Angie: Mm
Susi: -my students are getting out of pain, so I, I can absolutely say that. And so I’m not really sure why you’re saying you can’t. But my point is, is that what’s being s- like what the s- what science knows about these things has altered in, in a tremendous way over 30 years. A lot of the movements I still do are the same. And, and I knew, like one of the benefits of being a yoga therapist, yoga teacher, having a Bachelor of Science in Kinesiology and not being a medical professional, is that I, I don’t diagnose. I have not been trained to diagnose. I don’t have assessment tools like muscle testing or And I don’t have, and I don’t have tools like acupuncture needles or a scalpel or, mm, adjustment things like chiros and physios have, or a TENS machine or … I don’t have any of that stuff. So really, and I don’t say this in a mean way d- about myself, I, I, all I got are my eyes-
Angie: My love for my clients and my heart, and my love for yoga, and my understanding of mechanics.
Susi: And so I bring all that together and, and ultimately all I c- all I can report on are, is what I’m seeing. But what I’m seeing, just because someone is compensating, I, I don’t know why, right? And so, and a great example modern day of this is a really common diagnosis is someone’s glutes aren’t firing. So then the assumption is, well, it’s the glutes. Well, if that was really the case, then all the exercises people are doing for the glutes should be working. But they’re not, or they wouldn’t be coming into my space or your space or-
Angie: Mm-hmm
Susi: -so it’s like what we discover is that there’s other things, and for some people it’s up in the, up in the shoulder girdle. For some people it’s the opposite hip. For some people it’s, excuse me, it’s their feet. Sometimes it’s the connection between the hip and the feet, and get those things sorted out. I don’t know what it’s gonna be, and that’s the, that’s the thing people d- never believe me about. They’re like, “Y- yeah, you absolutely know.” I’m like, “The only reason wh- what I… The only thing I know is what I am seeing in their movement to be sh- to be certain,” right? That’s what a- what’s objective. I can see it. You can see it. They can see it. And then it’s that process I walk them through that helps them become aware, and then we tr- retrain that process, right? It’s not corrective exercise per se, but it’s this retraining process, right? So, so it’s, that’s the piece like I think that’s probably been one of the biggest things for you is, is, and like many people in the program, it’s oh wow, like you’re not putting meaning to any of this. Like you’re just, you’re seeing stuff and you’re acting on what you’re seeing. I’m like, bingo. Yeah? So what’s different? Like what’s, how, like how has that shifted the way that you are with people or the way that you see all the tools that you have in your disposal?
Angie: I think the biggest shift for me when learning this was I became a lot more relaxed.
Susi: Mm.
Angie: I think that was my biggest shift in a, in this awareness in myself and how I felt like I needed to be presented to my clients. That I needed to know the answer. I needed to know what was working, what wasn’t working, and the why. That’s really where my thinking was before coming in to the program, to your program. And now with- This idea that we don’t, we don’t really know. Like, we just don’t know, right? Everybody’s unique. We all come into the space with something, um, different, and as you had said, it could be, you know, someone’s shoulder that is hurting, but where is the actual root cause? It’s from somewhere el- It’s, it has potential to be anywhere else in the body, right?
Susi: Mm-hmm.
Angie: So I love the, that we don’t have one set rule about it. It’s like, where’s this person at? How are they showing up? What are they sharing? What are we seeing? And where do we go? Like, it’s this dialogue, this interaction between myself and the client, yourself and the client, right? It’s really about the relationship between the two people and what are they actually saying to one another, and what are we hearing? What are we, how are we exploring it? And then where do we go from there? And for me, that was really freeing because I could pull from all of the tools that I have based on what I’m seeing, what I’ve And then, so the tools that I’ve learned, and then based on what I’m seeing and what that person is saying to me. And it freed up, it actually really, in my heart, it freed me up. It just freed up all parts of me to be like, “Oh, wow, I can just be present with this person-” I can be fully present with this person and have a dialogue between, with, with them about what are they experiencing, and then we can go and play and explore through the tools that I know, and then see where that leads us. And it actually feels so good to be able to have this experience as a practitioner to, or as a yoga therapist, to be free from having a set, I call them rules, but or like protocols, right? It’s like, it’s like, ’cause they don’t always work. So being able to be free of that and just looking at that person in, in front of you and working with them is so freeing. And that was from learning how to see. Like, that was from your, your like all we have is our eyes. Yeah. Right?
Susi: Yeah. And, and we have to remember, like unless you’re a trained physio-
Angie: Mm-hmm
Susi: -unless you’re a trained osteopath, a trained physician, a trained, you know, fill in the blank, and we- that’s just, we’re just not that.
Angie: Right.
Susi: And so why pretend to be-
Angie: Right
Susi: -when we’re not, right? Like, let’s be who we are, and we can be like, v- clearly we can be really effective with our tool set. And, and in many ways I c- I kinda wish more health professionals did more yoga therapy and, and were able to come more into presence, and not leap to what the problem is, right? Just take a moment, take a breath, and just go, “Okay, hold on a second here. What’s actually, what’s actually happening?” You know? Bring both sides, left and right brain together. And then the, the great thing that I find happens too is when we’re present to what’s actually going on with somebody, then we’re modeling what presence is like to be like in the client side, right? Because for a client to get better, they have to grow their awareness. They have to be present, and they, they ultimately need to move. If there is a pl- and they’re, they’re… If they’re in a place of fear, ultimately part of the journey is the c- that transmutation of that particular state, right? It’s not forcing them out of fear. Gosh, no. But there’s a, there’s a process that they have, they, that they do need to move through.
Angie: Mm-hmm.
Susi: And, and we’re helping them by our presence with them. It’s the medicine of presence, right?
Angie: Yeah. They do it for themselves. And the, and the other thing I just sort of interject, I wanted to say we, we just did a, a, a talk on asteya So non-stealing, right? And that what you were just talking about is, like, if we’re coming in to solve their problem, we’re actually stealing them from the journey of their self-awareness and understanding-
Susi: Mm
Angie: -of who they are. You know, similar to what you’re just saying is we’re robbing of them of, like, the self-discovery along the journey, ’cause it’s not just getting out of pain. The stuff that I’ve learned from all… From where I started to where I am now, I have learned so much about myself in that process That I wouldn’t … I don’t think I’d want it another way because I didn’t learn all this, this stuff in between on that journey to get to the out of pain. Mm. Right? And so I kind of-
Susi: Mm
Angie: … you know, it’s really about how can we support people to, to be able to be in their space without us stealing them the … or, or robbing them from that opportunity of, of this growth, this personal growth for them.
Susi: Ah, so good. If people wanna get in touch with you, where can they find you? Like, and, and who are you primarily working with right now?
Angie: So I have a website under my name, so it’s angiehoudinduke.com. And I am working with a variety of people. So I work with people who have anxiety. That tends to be my … the biggest group of people that I’ve worked with. People sometimes come to me for one reason, and then they realize that they’re full… like, there’s a lot of anxiety and overwhelm, so we kinda shift the goal to, how do we calm the nervous system? How do we work with whatever the anxiety is? And then, um, I’ve worked with, um, couple athletes as well, which is really fun, and I’m running a workshop with, um, for curlers in how to… I think the posture is, or the movement’s called delivery, so it’s basically when they’re in that lunge position and they’re going to throw the rock. So we’re gonna work on how to, um, move better through the shoulders and hips to help with them with that delivery. So I’m working with a variety of people right now.
Susi: If people are in your neck of the woods, so you’re over North Vancouver-
Angie: Mm
Susi: -if you’re, they’re in your neck of the woods and they’re a curler, or they work with curlers, and they, they’re interested in the curling workshop, when is that actually happening? Do you have a date for that?
Angie: I don’t have a date for it right now, but they certainly can get in touch with me, and I can, um, I can reach out. I can then connect with them once we have a date.
Susi: And if you’re someone who is listening and saying, “Ooh, you know what? There might be the … some relationship between my movement, the anxiety, or overwhelm,” not that one causes the other, but there might be a some correlating patterns there and you wanna dig into it, then do reach out to Angie. Most of the time people who reach out to me mostly have physical issues, but they’re overwhelmed and anxious about those issues, and, a- and not, and it not being solved But they’re coming primarily for movement stuff. Whereas that would be also great with Angie, and if you’re someone who has anxiety and overwhelm, and there might be some physical stuff, she would also be a great fit in that regard, too. So do reach out. She does work online. She also works in person, so I encourage you. Her, uh, URL… Can you say that again, Angie?
Angie: It’s- It’s, uh, Angie Howden Duke, so I could spell that. A-N-G-I-E H-O-W-D-E-N D-U-K-E .com.
Susi: And I’ll put that in the show notes as well. Um, and then just reach out to her. Uh, it’d be awesome for you to connect if, if you’re looking for another way in or out of that scenario. Angie, anything else you wanna share?
Angie: I would like to say thank you, and I’m super grateful that our paths have crossed. I really am. Um, I believe we were really meant to be together, and you’d mentioned when, on the call, you’re like, “I feel like I’m meant to help you with something else along this journey.” And I think this is the beauty of working with Susie, is she’s got a big heart. You have a big heart, and you really want people to succeed. Like, truly want to succeed, and we don’t even maybe know what we don’t know. Well, we don’t know what we don’t know, but other people can see it but might not know yet, but there is something there, and I do believe that I’m meant to be here for so much more than what I thought I was actually here for in your program And I’m super grateful for, for this opportunity to be part of your program. So thank you for accepting me as a, you know, already a graduate into the program, and adapting your program to help the three of us. But, you know, it really is … I am so happy that I have signed up and I’m part of this cohort, because it’s changing my life. Hm. That’s- And then it will ultimately help change other people’s lives, and I’m so grateful for this opportunity. So thank you.
Susi: You’re welcome. It’s, it’s … It truly is a pleasure for me. And with that, if, if what we have shared today resonates, and you’re interested in certification or even just the first step of certification, which is the therapeutic yoga intensive, then do check out the intensive information page over at functionalsynergy.com/intensive. And if you are interested in the entire program, maybe you are a C-I-Y-T grad and you wanna connect, or you’re someone who wants to become one, or you just want to get better at your skill of helping people, then send me an email. You can also check out the certification website at functionalsynergy.com/certification. Angie, thank you so much.
Angie: You’re welcome. Thank you, Susie.
Susi (Outro): If that was a conversation that really resonated with you, I would love to teach you inside of the therapeutic yoga intensive, and that’s happening this October, and you can learn more over at functionalsynergy.com/intensive. See you next time.
