Episode 149 transcript: Wisdom from the Mat: Healing Through Tradition and Trust with Nathalie Croix

Back to the episode…

[00:00:00] Nathalie: The work for me is to not be into what it has to be or what it looks like, but can I be in the present moment with the inquiry of am I present enough to listen to my body? What does my body need? So it doesn't necessarily need to be a crazy physical practice every day. And I think part of the thing is also to not feel guilty, but really to allow, to be, okay, santosha contentment, this feels good. And maybe today is just a few hip openers and a long shavasana. The fact that we're still moving. Everybody's aging. So, aging gracefully is a really beautiful thing.

[00:00:40] Aneta: Hi, this is Aneta, and I want to personally invite you to something truly transformative. This September 6th through the 13th, I'm hosting a retreat in Marrakesh, Morocco, for soul-aligned men and women who are ready to pause on the noise of everyday life and say yes to themselves. Whether you're coming solo with a partner or a friend, this is your invitation to step away from routine and into a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Every day we are going to start with yoga, meditation. Breathwork, and from there, we explore the rich beauty of Morocco. Its colors, its culture, the stillness. We'll have time to reflect, to reconnect, to share stories, and to nourish every part of who you are, mind, body, and spirit. This isn't just a trip, it is a journey of remembrance. A call to return home to yourself, to rediscover. What matters and to leave feeling renewed from the inside out. There are only two rooms left, and if you feel the nudge, trust it. Learn more using the link below, and you can apply or just schedule a quick call with me if you want some more details. I would love to have you on this trip with me.

[00:01:55] We often hear people wishing us a long, happy, and healthy life, but what if the length isn't what matters most? What if instead, it's the breath depth and purpose of each day that matters most? Welcome to the Live the Width of Your Life podcast. My name is Aneta Ardelian Kuzma, and join me weekly as I interview guests who have made changes in their own lives to live more fully with intention, gratitude, and joy. Be prepared to be inspired by their stories of how they shifted their mindset, took courageous action, and designed the life that they always wanted to live.

[00:02:30] Welcome back to Live the Width of Your Life podcast. My guest this week is Nathalie Croix, and she's a full-time yoga teacher, and she has spent her life dedicated to healing arts, alternative medicine, and meditation. She has an Ashtanga degree from the Ashtanga Yoga Research Institute. She is an author, blogger.

[00:02:50] Smart Flow certified, a yoga teacher training. She has 500 hours. She's a human design coach, a five-sense collective sound healer, Reiki Energy Master, and the founder of the Shanti Yoga Training School. She is also the host of Life on Earth. Podcast. She loves nature, animal rights, and supporting her students through their journey of life and all things yoga.

[00:03:14] Loved talking to Nathalie about her training, about her trips to India, and her study at the Ashtanga Yoga Research Institute. She just has such a fascinating background and is certified and has so much experience in so many healing modalities. I loved talking to her and learning so much more about how she works with her students, her clients. I think you'll enjoy the conversation. Take a listen.

[00:03:40] Nathalie, welcome to the Live the Width of Your Life podcast. I'm so happy to have you with me.

[00:03:45] Nathalie: Thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here, Aneta, it's so cool to meet you.

[00:03:50] Aneta: So nice to meet you too. And we have George, our editor, to thank for this. He has just introduced me to the most amazing woman. And I love that he works with so many people in the spiritual space.

[00:04:03] Nathalie: George is our common factor book editor, and you said he did a journal for you, too. He also edited a journal as well for me, as a book, and yeah, he's an amazing person to work with, and I'm grateful for this connection too, from

[00:04:18] Aneta: him.

[00:04:18] Me too. And I'm always so curious. I'm like, I wonder how all of us found our way to George, which is just interesting because I found him on Upwork. How about you?

[00:04:27] Nathalie: Yeah, there too. I will say I had worked with another one before, and I also really searched. Yeah, I feel very blessed because I wasn't really happy with a lot of different book editors that I had worked with before. And with him, it just flows.

[00:04:42] Aneta: It flows so well. And one of the things that you and I also have in common is that we are very multi-passionate. And so whenever people ask me, What do you do? I always tell them I do a lot of different things just cause I love it. And it's how I built my business, but you two are multi-passionate.

[00:04:59] You do a lot of things. So, tell us just a little bit more about what you do, and then some of your background, and how you found your way into the space.

[00:05:07] Nathalie: So I think that primarily I would say 85 percent of what I've done for the past 25 years, so a pretty long time, is yoga. So I found yoga at a very early age, like 10 years old, 11, and then got very passionate about that. Went to college for Kinesiology and Journalism, but then, as I was in college, I was already really going very deep into my yoga training trips to India, and I was teaching at my college, and then that kind of took over.

[00:05:42] And late forties now. So I've been teaching yoga ever since. And now I primarily do for the past, I would say 10 years is teaching yoga teacher trainings. Besides that, I had a yoga studio for 10 years. I also managed and taught at a big yoga studio in Los Angeles for eight years called Yoga Works.

[00:06:02] And as I'm talking about our multi-passion projects, I love writing. I love podcasts. I think that connects with my journalism background, so it allows me a venue to do that and write blogs and all the writings I love, and interviewing people, and I can't wait to have you on Life on Earth podcast, by the way.

[00:06:19] And then I got into Reiki energy healing through being in the health and wellness industry through yoga. So it's really not that disconnected from what I'm trying to say, and so it just meshed, and that was maybe like a little over five years ago, and I felt like I was already doing that anyway, like the energy healing through yoga.

[00:06:39] And then just through the teacher trainings and all that, coaching and mentoring my students, all that's like just health and wellness. So even though I have all these different channels of expression, I do feel like they mesh together, you know what I mean? And we are very blessed because we were talking a little bit before we started, I think we're very blessed. And tell me what you think about having these different modalities to be able to express a different

[00:07:03] Aneta: I love it because clients sometimes come to me for one thing. They might come to me for coaching, and then I introduce them to meditation or I introduce them to breathwork, and they are better, as a result, and people come in through different ways, and then you're able to share, and I'm such a learner. So, for me, I am constantly learning, getting new certifications because I love it. And then I love to apply it. I'm also from a human design perspective. I'm a manifesting generator.

[00:07:32] Nathalie: Me too.

[00:07:33] Aneta: I was going to ask you because I'm like, we cannot help ourselves. Like we always have 10 things going on, but we have so much energy. There's so much energy. And when you're creating, I just feel like this force channeling through me.

[00:07:46] Nathalie: Yes. A hundred percent. I can relate to everything you're saying. And I think what's so awesome is not to have this sort of put us in a box that we have for people like you and me, not having this sort of nine to five, very defined job is a blessing because then we can allow to go create our schedule and one day work on one thing, the other day on another thing. And that's amazing.

[00:08:11] Aneta: And because inspiration and creativity strike differently. And sometimes I'm like I'm inspired to go do this and to finish it, or to start something new. And I think before I studied human design, I didn't understand. And I felt like people would say you just need to pick one thing.

[00:08:27] And that just seemed like a prison, like putting me in a cage. And so now I feel completely seen and liberated because I'm like, Oh no, I'm, when I'm thriving, like this feels so good to me when I'm able to do different things.

[00:08:41] Nathalie: Yeah. I've had the same thing. People say that. And it's, as a manifesting generator like you, that's how we function. It's not a bad thing. This is a great thing. And then hopefully we meet other people like generators that can keep the ball rolling and have different qualities that can add to the picture of creating a good team, and that's wonderful for everybody to follow their purpose and how they need to function on planet earth. That's a good thing.

[00:09:08] Aneta: It's so interesting because I had my husband and my two daughters take and get their design. And my husband's a generator, my oldest is a projector, and my youngest is a reflector. And so it's four of the five. And that's interesting, explains a lot. And I think it's been really helpful for us in our conversations with one another. For me, I understand that not everyone's going to be able to do all the things I want. I know that for my husband, is generator gives him 1 thing: let him do it, don't take him off track. Don't give him too many things, and then I know my oldest is a projector that needs to nap and needs to recharge. And so it's really helpful.

[00:09:44] Nathalie: Yeah, and the reflectors are such a small percentage of the population at 1%. So she's very sensitive and needs to take her time and figure things out, and give her the space. That's beautiful. I don't think I've ever met a family that had all of that in one.

[00:10:01] Aneta: Isn't it so interesting? And I always knew, like my reflective daughter, was different. She just came out extremely curious and just observant of everyone. And so she just always had this really interesting wisdom about her, like an old soul, a thing.

[00:10:17] Like she was always like, Observing, and you can put her in any room and she'll make anyone feel good. I was like, okay, that's the reflector. Interesting quality. Yeah. But you also do human design.

[00:10:28] Nathalie: So I forgot to mention that. Yes. So about three years ago, I started studying with Erin Claire Jones, who's like a very well known in the human design world. And I was in her first sort of teachers’ training program. And then I did her second one too. And then now I do a mentorship program with her just to have that accountability every month.

[00:10:50] And it's been amazing just from seeing how it was that first year that it was so overwhelming to get so much information, and even in yoga, I feel like I'm still learning so much. There's always so much more to learn, but it's been a great thing.

[00:11:04] Let's just dive into the human design. The reason I wanted it is because I work with so many students through yoga teacher training, where I start mentoring in the 200-hour, and then the 300-hour is a mentorship program in my school, which is called Shanti Yoga Training School.

[00:11:21] So I thought, how cool would it be if I had this other aspect of them, their human design. And then maybe even from the beginning of the training, I could help because I'm with them between six months to a year. So that's a long time. And then I can say, look, this is your natural stuff.

[00:11:41] And then we look at other things, their centers, which are open centers defined, which are correlated to the chakras and yoga. So it's very meshing too. And to give them that right from the beginning as they're discovering their journey through yoga. Yoga is body, mind, spirit, like you said, meditation, breath, but then have this other thing that can give them such a tool. I thought that it goes so well together, and it does.

[00:12:06] Aneta: It does. Knowledge is so powerful. And when you're able to help people understand just a little bit more about themselves, it's just so impactful because I always feel seen and heard, I'm like, this makes so much sense. The more that I learned, I also found yoga at a very young age, like in my twenties. Yeah, I was living in New York City. And I just felt like the energy was so intense, and I needed to do something that was much more I don't know, soothing for me, allowing me to get grounded. Because I felt very unground in the city. And how has your practice changed over the years

[00:12:41] Nathalie: Yeah, a lot. Yeah, I'm looking at you. I'm curious about you, too, but yeah, so much. In my twenties, it was interesting because when I first come across yoga as a teen. It was actually through an aunt, and then I ended up getting acquainted with the Hare Krishnas. So they're very back to yoga for people who know.

[00:13:02] And it was more about meditation scriptures. And I was dancing. That's how I ended up in Kinesiology. So I had this physical practice that was very intense dance, like ballet and modern dance. And then in college, when I was in my 1920s, I started doing Ashtanga Yoga. That was my first sort of.

[00:13:19] physical practice, and it was very good for me because it was very matching with the level of dance that I had, because I was already dancing like semi professional. Then I went on to dance professionally for a few years. People who know and are listening, ashtanga yoga is very intense.

[00:13:35] Six days a week, practice for an hour to two hours to three hours. And so that was my life for about 10 years. So the physical practice was very intense. And then it started changing. Then it became more of a vinyasa flow, like a hatha yoga style, bland, a lot of ayangar mixed with the Ashtanga.

[00:13:54] Nowadays, I love restorative. I love Ying. I also just move more of what my body's feeling like that day, and not so much have to be so dogmatic or rigid about having to have a certain power yoga class or whatever it is, even though I come from that background.

[00:14:13] So I think that it has mellowed out a lot more, and days that I don't want to do a heavy physical practice. I'm totally fine doing like a yoga nidra practice, or just sitting and meditating, and drinking mindful tea practice. And I do feel that's my yoga. So the yoga has changed so much from just thinking I have to put myself through this and being that kind of tapas and discipline, to now just being so much more of what does it feel like for me today?

[00:14:43] What is going to serve me today when I step on my yoga mat and the work for me is to not be into what it has to be or what it looked like, but can I be in the present moment with the inquiry of am I present enough to listen to my body? What does my body need?

[00:15:02] So it doesn't necessarily need to be a crazy physical practice every day from or even three times a week. It's just, it changes, and I think part of the thing is also to not feel, which I think is hard because of attachment to not feel guilty. If you're not like, I'm not doing, my physical practice is not a full one-hour vinyasa flow, whatever it is.

[00:15:26] But really to allow, to be, okay, santosha contentment, this feels good. And maybe today is just a few hip openers and a long shavasana. That's great. The fact that we're still moving. Everybody's aging. So, aging gracefully is a really beautiful thing.

[00:15:46] And understanding that your body is always changing. And I think one of the things that when we were talking on email, we're talking a little bit about kinesiology. That's why I feel like my kinesiology plays a role, because I'm interested in the joints and the synovial fluids, and just lubricating the joints and the bone density as we age.

[00:16:07] And I think that, one has to look at your practice when you're in your 40s and 50s and 60s and always be open and be present to see that this is really serving me as a tool for yoga as a healing art and not so much like a performance art, and just really allowing this practice of beautiful practice of yoga to serve us where we're at. And this way we're not going to be like getting injured by it because that can happen too when the ego gets in the way, and that's, I think, the main thing, but I won't say it's I got there. It's work every day. Of course, I have some days when I feel frustrated.

[00:16:48] I'm not doing three drop backs from standing like I used to when I was in my twenties, and I stretched a yoga, and then you have those moments, why is this not happening? My lower back is hurting, but then you realize, okay, wait, that's why Patanjali says the yogis need to practice an attachment, even with your postures, right?

[00:17:07] And how can we be loving to ourselves when these thoughts are coming? It's a process, but it's a really interesting thing. Again, to be curious and to stay in the present moment with all that comes. What do you think?

[00:17:22] Aneta: Yeah. No, my experience is very similar to yours. I think when I started, it was very much a physical practice, and Ashtanga, and also Power Baron Baptiste, power yoga. And I had a home practice. I had a daily practice, and I would also practice for an hour and a half because I was raising little kids in my twenties.

[00:17:41] And then over time, I just got more curious about the other limbs of yoga. And so, moving just away from the asanas, and started meditating. And then signed up for yoga teacher training. And I had one teacher who came from the Shivananda classic yoga practice lineage, and the other one from a Kundalini perspective.

[00:18:03] And they also had very different skills, complementary one loves studying yogic philosophy. And the other one loved to teach a lot about the body. So the anatomy, because she also did massage therapy. And so it was a really a very beautiful, comprehensive yoga teacher training that I got to go through. And that helped...

[00:18:25] Nathalie: In your twenties?

[00:18:26] Aneta: No, I did this in my forties. So I started practicing in my twenties. And then I went through yoga teacher training in my forties, just because I was more curious. And I was at a different stage, I think, mentally, of what I was interested in. And my kids were older. So I had time to focus on myself, and I already knew that I wanted to leave banking.

[00:18:46] And so this was like one of the first things that I did. The actions I started taking were to sign up for this. And it was such an amazing experience. Like you said, I think it was nine months long. I can't remember exactly. It was a little...

[00:18:57] Nathalie: Oh, nice.

[00:18:58] Aneta: And while I was still working full time and doing all these things, I remember just coming from there with this newfound appreciation for really going deeper into the history, the philosophy, the other limbs of yoga, and getting deep into a more personal practice. And then also discovering while I was going through that, discovering yin, restorative, and kundalini, and just like these new types of yoga that I've never done before.

[00:19:27] And practicing that non-attachment, like you said, not getting frustrated if I couldn't get into all the arm balances or if I couldn't do something, and learning to love and be kind to my body. My instructors had been teachers for so long and practitioners, and they'd had injuries.

[00:19:43] And they were really careful to make sure that we had good form and that we were practicing safely and not injuring ourselves because Ashtanga is hard with all the Chaturangas. I had shoulder injuries. I had SI joint issues. Like I've probably done things a little carelessly.

[00:20:00] And so it was beautiful to go through that and to slow down. And then when I started teaching, which I didn't know if I would teach or not, or if I just wanted to go deeper with my practice, but now teaching six days a week in the morning, I never thought that would happen. It's just a nice little, small yoga class before meditation. And I love bringing yoga to people who would not ever go into a yoga studio.

[00:20:25] Nathalie: Wow. Do you teach Online?

[00:20:27] Aneta: Yeah. Online through Zoom. Yeah. I started during COVID. It was like one of those things where you just started teaching yoga and meditation. And so people get to do it online on Zoom before they go to work. And I love it. People just, sometimes it's just 15 minutes, other days, it's 30 minutes long or 45, but it's just a little bit of something to get your day started with intention from the heart, really focusing on being kind to our bodies and connecting our breath. And yeah, so it's changed. I feel like there's wisdom that comes with getting older.

[00:21:02] Nathalie: I do too. And what's interesting is that I did have a really strong meditation practice and scriptures practice because that's what I got into when I was a teenager, going to the ashrams and stuff. So that in a way was already there, but it was more the physical practice that was very intense for me.

[00:21:25] But thinking and even just talking to you, and I've thought about this, I also thank you. I'm grateful that I had that intensity when I was like 19, 20, 22, whatever it was, because I needed that, and I was coming from a background of dancing, sometimes rehearsing five, six, seven hours a day.

[00:21:44] I went to school with a scholarship in dance college. I need it. So when I found the Vinyasa and that kind of strong practice, like a stanga, it was great because then I thought, okay. This is now the complete package. Now I can do the physical, and I can have all this other mindfulness. Stuff that I love doing because I had them separated. I dance for my physical health.

[00:22:11] And then I have this yoga that I love, which is the Bhakti yoga. But then the marriage of them having found the physical. So in a way, it served me for those first 10 years. And I'm grateful that I had that. I'm just saying this because I think it's also really great that people, everybody, like yoga, will meet you where you're at.

[00:22:30] So right now we have people in their twenties or their teens, and they're practicing hot yoga is intense or whatever it is that they're called to. And to just trust that, too, and it's always changing. And maybe in that moment, whatever the practice is, even if it's just restorative, not just, that's an amazing practice, by the way.

[00:22:50] Then trust that also this is what you need in that moment, and without the judgment, and just again, like you said, and I think we both said the same thing, just be present for the evolution and be present for whatever it is that needs to change. I wouldn't go back and have it any other way. I feel like it was good that I did it that way.

[00:23:12] Aneta: Yeah, I don't see myself doing Ashtanga an hour and a half, six days a week anymore. That was intense, and there's beauty in that, too. It's like consistent poses.

[00:23:24] Nathalie: And discipline and especially when someone is still developing and they're in their younger years. I think at least I can speak for myself. For me, it was great because it kept me away from a lot of things that I could have gone like maybe addictions or unhealthy stuff, or going out all the time, or whatever it was, it would be that I didn't because I had to be on my yoga mat the next morning. So that sort of informed my entire life; that practice was so important for me. So I couldn't drink. And of course I did it, a few times that I couldn't practice, but it's very revealing, the mat is like such a mirror. So you end up just not having to eat healthy or this, you just do it, because you have to get her if you want to get on your yoga. So that's the discipline, the tapas that I think sometimes can be so helpful in someone's life, especially if you're going through a time that maybe you need that.

[00:24:20] Aneta: It's so true. It is such a mirror. And it's so comforting to me, just think of you, just never know what you’re going to find when you get onto that mat. And sometimes, so often I've been in postures and I was like, start crying, and you're like, wait, what is happening here? But it's been such a gift to me in my life. But tell me a little bit more about why you started your podcast, Life On Earth.

[00:24:44] Nathalie: Life on Earth's life on the podcast is called Life on Earth podcast. And we started it in 2017. At that point, I had a yoga studio for about four and a half years, we already had teacher trainings, and we would sometimes have these amazing guest teachers come to give a talk in the yoga teacher trainings.

[00:25:09] This is at the Loco Studio. So the students who were there would get the talk, and they would be excited and then I think someone at the studio said, or I said, I can't remember, we should record this for other people that are not present or maybe it was like students who were not present asking you recorded.

[00:25:29] So I got like a recording machine and I was just recording them to give it to the other students, these talks with different guest teachers. We always had Guest teachers come for presentations, maybe a couple of times a month. And it was that, that then developed into, wait a minute, now there's this thing called a podcast.

[00:25:47] Why don't we just put these talks up and then that way, not just our little community here can listen to it, because these are such great talks. And we were interviewing at that time Ayurveda masters and all these different things, a meditation. And we can just put it on the podcast, and it was just like that.

[00:26:04] It was very organic. So the intention originally was just for our community to just, but now we're just going to put it on the podcast. It's up online. Anybody can access that. And from there, as podcasts are, it's just really beautiful, because then it started growing, and people now can access them all over the world.

[00:26:24] And here we are, however many years later, and it's like episode 120 something. Again, I can't even believe what happened. It's just that it was very natural and it just organically grew, and it's really cool. Personally, I love it because I've always loved interviewing people and asking people questions and getting their perspectives on different things in life. I love learning for myself and I love sharing the knowledge. So the podcast is great because then you can connect with these amazing, inspiring people and everybody can learn and put something really positive in the world.

[00:27:00] Which is a positive blueprint. I think these podcasts, which is great. We need more of that, for me as a journalism major too originally journalism, really how I was taught. And I had some great journalism teachers is that is very unbiased. You just tell a story or you interview and this is what's happening factual and whoever is reading or listening, they make their own choices and opinion.

[00:27:26] Nowadays, fast forward, the media is just really so biased. So much of it. And so seeing how things can be very tinted or manipulated or edited to sound a certain way. For me, it was really interesting, okay, to have these people who are independent and even like small podcasters when I say small, just because you're not like Fox or CNN, whatever, but, and you have, you are now interviewing people and just putting it as is into the world is journalism just to me is what really is about.

[00:28:03] And then just allowing the community or the listeners to figure out, if they like it, if they don't, if they connect with something. So because we have so much that is tainted out there in terms of media, television, and radio and all that, I think that it's a really great balance to have independent podcasters.

[00:28:24] Because this is a thing we can just record and put it up there. And I think we need that in the world, to balance things out right now, which is great. I get a lot of my really great information nowadays from really good podcasters.

[00:28:39] Aneta: Yeah. I know. I love listening to podcasts. What are some of your favorite shows that you like to listen to?

[00:28:44] Nathalie: I'm trying to think here if there's like something. I sometimes listen to ritual podcasts. I don't know if you're familiar with it. Okay. I listened. I love his wife who's one of my teachers. She has a beautiful, she only posts once in a while, but it's called Divine Through Light. And then now I think it's called the Life Of Me.

[00:29:03] Because she changed the name. Her name is Julie Piatt Srimati so she's one of my mentors. So I listened to all of her stuff. Once in a while, I listen to Joe Rogan, which is so random, but I really getting some of his guests. I like the raw perspective and how that can also be.

[00:29:21] And then on completely unrelated, I listen to a lot of true crime podcasts because I just love that genre, but that's more for my own entertainment.

[00:29:30] Yeah. Yeah. I love finding new podcasts all the time. And just listening to just various topics. It's so hard when some of them are so long they go early and I, love ritual. I also like listening to Dr. Andrew Huberman.

[00:29:45] I do too.

[00:29:46] Aneta: Yeah, they're like over two hours long. There's so many that I listen to and I mix it up just depending on what it is that I'm looking for. But yeah, what has been some of your biggest learnings about yourself or just about the world as you've been doing your podcast interviews?

[00:30:01] Nathalie: Just the interviewing some of these people that I love and being able to connect with them like that one on one. And learning what their life trajectory been and that everybody has ups and downs and we're all humans.

[00:30:15] We all have a lot in common actually. And we just try to figure this thing out. Some of us have figured some things more than others. And I think it's very inspiring to me to talk to some of these teachers and have them share their stories. And I think that I've learned so much from them. About everything, and it just gives me inspiration to keep moving forward to with what I'm doing, yeah. And you, what do you feel like when you interview your guests?

[00:30:41] Aneta: It's just a wonderful way to meet people that I wouldn't ordinarily meet, from all over the world, which is just such a gift. And I always learn something. I'm very curious. So I always learn something about what other people are doing, or they might share a resource or you just never know where these connections will go.

[00:31:00] And I do feel like when we are able to be so present, I think what I've learned is that when you're interviewing is just to be so present in the conversation and that spills over into just being more mindful in everyday life because I'm not taking notes. I actually don't read questions off a script.

[00:31:23] I do the research before, which helps me know who you are and have some idea of what I want to make sure we cover, but it's just so nice. It's like wonderful training for just how to be a human again and have a human connection. With a complete stranger through technology, you add all the, and then it's like, wow, that should be so much easier to do with my family, with my friends, with other people in real life too.

[00:31:49] Nathalie: Yeah. And then how great it is that you're bringing that to your listeners too, that you bring, different people with different set of qualities. It's a great sharing.

[00:31:58] Aneta: Yeah. It's a gift. It's beautiful. It's a lot of work, but it's so rewarding as well. So I want to talk about your yoga teacher training because, one, it is a lot of hard work putting those trainings together all the time and it's a big time commitment. Do you feel like you differentiate yourself from other yoga teacher trainings or what are some of the elements that you always make sure are included in your program that maybe aren't included in some other people's programs?

[00:32:24] Nathalie: I think it is because I have such a unique background. When I was in like 19-20 that was one of my first trips to India and I stayed three months and then I went three more times for three months each time and studying with the Tommy Joyce and being in that Indian culture for almost 10 years.

[00:32:43] It really shaped my understanding of yoga at a very deep level. For me yoga really starts with my own personal practice, my teachings is simply a sharing of my practice. So if i'm not practicing I should really have no business teaching and whatever I'm teaching is something that I am familiar with.

[00:33:02] So I don't believe the background I come from. I should say we don't teach what we're not practicing kind of thing. And it doesn't mean that you have to be perfect or you got gold stars for it. It just means you're in the process of it. And we're all humans. We fall off the horse, we get back on the horse.

[00:33:19] So that's just part of the whole picture. But my side and on my personal practice, Has always been something that's very sacred to me. And so I create space in my day and I guess I'm very fortunate to but also I should say, I should give myself the credit and say that I've also designed my life so that I could do that.

[00:33:39] And I think there's something to that too, but whatever the morning, the sadhana is whether it's tea ceremony or meditation or yoga asana and meditation or journaling. I'm always, or learning, reading the scriptures or whatever it is, there's always something that I am consistently doing.

[00:33:59] And so my training really has that kind of feel. And I think it's very clear to the participants from the beginning that this really comes from a place of deep self practice. And so everyone in the training is very much inspired to cultivate their own practice, whatever they look like, that looks like to them.

[00:34:20] And I'm happy to be a guide of support to just allow them to assist them. I don't even like the word help, but assist them in finding out what is it that they want in this moment and what are the tools that they can have. So I try to be present with me because knowing that everyone is different.

[00:34:35] So I don't have a dogmatic thing like this is it black and white. I love that. I want them to design what that feels like for them and then really motivate them to practice. Pattabhi Jois had a quote that says practice and all is coming or 99 percent practice, 1 percent theory.

[00:34:52] Those are two quotes that I really love. And I think that they have been, ingrained in me. So to answer your question, other than that, it's very classical yoga because it comes from a place again, that I really learned most of my stuff. Just, the lineage of Krishnamurti of India coming, where the birth of yoga, where yoga really came from.

[00:35:15] And I am open to evolution. I do have this other side of me of kinesiology and wanting to know how things are always changing and evolving. And I do keep myself updated on all that. My students know I'm very passionate about yoga sequencing and anatomy and all of that, but I also have this other side that really wants to keep the tradition.

[00:35:34] I feel like one of my missions is to keep the tradition of yoga alive the birth of yoga, where it comes from the rituals and ceremonies. And, I love. All of the Iyengar lineage. I love the Ashtanga lineage. So the training is half Iyengar-ish, Ashtanga ish.

[00:35:49] It's a Krishnamurti, a training students learn very deeply. The sutras, Patanjali sutras, the eight limbs of yoga. History of yoga and then, asana and having asana as a practice for them, again, whatever that looks like. And then we also look at other forms of practice, just yoga, Nidra.

[00:36:08] We go deep into that and which is like frequency, energy, vibration. So we look at that and then meditation. It's very oriented towards meditation. And really just this big self inquiry. What I've had a lot of students say is that the training really transformed entirely their lives and not only their lives, but their families, like their husbands or wives or kids that it was like, wow.

[00:36:34] And it's not attributed to me. And that's the point that I'm trying to make too. Yes, I'm a conduit. I'm sure I'm there. And the only way I can do that is by being present to my own practice, right? If I'm present to my own practice, I can be open to receive and be a conduit for that information to transmit to them.

[00:36:54] But really, it's not me, I'm simply passing the ball, passing the torch. This is something that has been around for thousands of years, and I have learned from teachers, and my teachers have learned from their teachers, and we come from a lineage that tries to keep things with a lot of integrity, and we believe in yoga, this art form, where it comes from, and so it's just me transmitting something that has been around for a really long time.

[00:37:21] And we have a lineage of teachers that one has passed the ball into the next one through generations. And that's a really beautiful thing. So that's what the training really has this first hands down of information. I think that we're getting not that far away from, the Krishnamurti lineage.

[00:37:40] And that's really special because as yoga is evolving, and again that may be great for some people because we need everything out there, but there's a lot of watered down stuff, too So this training is not that it's very much like the birth of where it comes from and then people can get that information and they can do, they can do whatever they want with it.

[00:38:04] That can translate to them. I don't force anything on people either. I'm always about what does this mean to you? I always ask them the question and that's another thing that I think it's really powerful because as a teacher to allow your student to evolve the way that they are ready for and that they're receiving the information how they're going to interpret it into their life.

[00:38:29] That's really all I want. I'm not telling them, like, how to think, what to do, what to not do. I'm just here supporting them in this journey of soul transformation, self realization, and it is up to each and every one of them, and us, myself included, to do it in our own way, our own unique way.

[00:38:51] Aneta: Sure. Great. Thank you. So if folks want to work with you, what is the best way that they can find you?

[00:38:57] Nathalie: You can reach out to me on my Instagram is at Nathalie Croix, N A T H A L I E C R O I X. You can always DM me. My website is nathaliecriox.com. I have some of my personal stuff there and the yoga school website is shantiyogatrainingschool.com and we have trainings consistently in various places in the country and we also have online, all virtual trainings as well with live online, like live stream.

[00:39:26] So the school is consistently having trainings. And that was one of the reasons why I closed my yoga studio right before the pandemic is because I really transitioned into wanting to focus on my yoga teacher training school, and I think that's one of the things that differentiate us too. This is really for the last since 2019.

[00:39:48] This is mainly what I do, six times a week we you know, I have other teachers that I work with and we are yoga teacher trainers. This is the main part of the business. We do it all the time. We do all year long. It's non stop.

[00:40:02] Aneta: Okay. Wonderful.

[00:40:03] Nathalie: Yeah, it's cool.

[00:40:04] Aneta: Yeah. We'll definitely have those links in. And then I ask everyone a final question, which is what does it mean to you to live the width of your life?

[00:40:13] Nathalie: For me, what that means is really everything that's going on in my life. So meeting my animals, spending time with my animals is a priority to me. I think that also what that means is being passionate about having hobbies. I highly recommend. Whether it's cooking something, getting better at it.

[00:40:31] Like I've been really into sourdough bread cooking for the past year. I have so many different passions. I'm boating, horses. I horseback ride. I own two horses. For me is really the bigger picture. I'm also like a foodie. So I love reading books about culinary and cooking and going to restaurants and finding out places that are really exciting to visit for food.

[00:40:52] So just whatever that is to each human is going to be different. But don't forget that, there's always something more to find joy and to learn. And when we're little kids, we get to go to swim lessons, dance lessons, art lessons. And then what happens when we get to our 20s and after school? We sort of like, no, now we just take our children to that.

[00:41:14] What about you? Like you can take a pottery class. You can go, it's never too late to learn anything. In fact, keep that child and that quality of childlike mind your entire life. You're going to make new friends if you go to an art class, you're going to learn a new community.

[00:41:30] So for me, I have this aspect of my life that I love. That's the yoga and my trainings and my students. And my students know that I have all these other things going on too, that are completely unrelated to yoga and that I love them just as much. That's the width for me of life is embracing it all and making it all its own thing and beautiful and a big part of the big picture.

[00:41:55] Aneta: Great. Thank you, Nathalie. Thank you so much. I really enjoyed our conversation and just continued success to you.

[00:42:03] Nathalie: Thank you so much.

[00:42:04] Aneta: Thank you for listening to today's episode. If today's conversation inspired you to dream again, break out of your comfort zones or reflect on what it means to you to live more fully, then please follow this podcast because every week you'll hear more stories from people just like you who took imperfect action towards their goals, created more joy and are living the life that they always dreamt of living.

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