This episode is a chat with my bestie Amber Karnes, a yoga teacher, rukus maker and body empowerment experience maker. We talk about how to safely create engaging exposure experiences to help our brains and bodies update our understanding of what's possible in our today bodies. She's one of my treasured inner circle humans and I hope that you are as inspired by her as I am. She's someone makes imaginations into reality both for her students and for other business owners who are stepping into their own visibility. Have a listen and notice what feels like the empowered embodiment invitation for you!
This episode is a chat with my bestie Amber Karnes, a yoga teacher, rukus maker and body empowerment experience maker. We talk about how to safely create engaging exposure experiences to help our brains and bodies update our understanding of what's possible in our today bodies.
She's one of my treasured inner circle humans and I hope that you are as inspired by her as I am. She's someone makes imaginations into reality both for her students and for other business owners who are stepping into their own visibility. Have a listen and notice what feels like the empowered embodiment invitation for you!
Amber Karnes is a multi-disciplinary artist and educator who’s obsessed with building community. She hosts adventure retreats where daring women can explore body acceptance through art, yoga, nature, and travel. She also coaches solo business owners how to do marketing without social media. Amber is the creator of Body Positive Yoga and the host of amberhouse, a yoga club for the rest of us. Her newest projects include a surfing retreat for complete beginners and an online community for folks who want to quit social media. Find her at amberkarnes.com.
Website link -https://amberkarnes.com
Instagram link - https://instagram.com/amberkarnesofficial
TCCEP59
[00:00:00] Speaker: Welcome to the Curiosity Cure podcast. I'm your host, Deb Malkin, master certified life coach, body worker hypnotist, trained in pain reprocessing by the pain psychology center, queer elder. Fat human on planet Earth. Here to help you evoke the power of simple neuroplasticity techniques rooted in shame free curiosity, so you can feel more, better, more of the time in the body you have today, and build the rich full life that you want to live.
[00:00:39] A quick disclaimer, this podcast is not a replacement for medical care. I am here to provide insights and techniques that can compliment your healthcare journey. But always consult with your healthcare provider for personalized advice.
[00:00:56] Deb: To all of my feelers and healers on the Curiosity Cure podcast, I'm so excited for this conversation.
[00:01:05] I am the with the Amber Karnes.
[00:01:07] Amber: Oh, you're funny. You're funny because that's what I usually call Deb is the Deb Malkin, and she's always like, I'm gonna punch you in the face.
[00:01:16] Deb: So now I get to just do that too now.
[00:01:18] Amber: Yeah. Now we'll beat each other, it's great
[00:01:20] Deb: on my podcast. Yeah. And we tease each other because, we are ride or die besties.
[00:01:26] And that's all right. So I am excited. Amber, I'm gonna ask you to introduce yourself. But at first I will say that Amber Karnes to me is a person who well, one, you're just an extraordinary friend. And two, there's something that you do in the world that I love and I love to participate in. And that's been the way that our friendship has, has grown and developed.
[00:01:56] But like you create these ephemeral, embodied experiences in a way that has helped me feel at home in my body, not always at peace, which is interesting. Those things are different, but like alive. Mm, mm-hmm. And vital and connected with, a younger me, like that playful wild child person in me, in a way that also is safe.
[00:02:28] 'cause I'm, you know, 50. Five, almost 56 years old. Not a child, not as resilient necessarily as I used to be. But those are things that you make happen in the world. I also just experience you as somebody who is a creator. And that is inspiring to me. I love that about you. I love that then I get to show up and be like, what are we doing?
[00:02:52] Amber: Yeah.
[00:02:52] Deb: Things happen and get to do them with other really awesome people. So that's my, like, that's, Hey, thanks. Sorry. But so for the people, for the few people who may not know who you are why don't you introduce yourself.
[00:03:08] Amber: I would love to. So, hey everyone, my name's Amber Karnes. My pronouns are she and her. I live right now in middle of nowhere, North Carolina, where I've been staying with my family, with my parents for about the past year. And I'm about to make a move to Las Vegas, which is something that I've just announced to, I guess the wider world, a few friends knew. I'm 43 years old. And the work that I do in the world is about helping people to come home to their bodies and to learn to live life a little more out loud, a little more into themselves. And I do that a couple of ways.
[00:03:46] So one is through the retreats that you're hinting at. So I host yoga and adventure retreats for women who wanna make peace with their bodies. And those look a lot of different ways, but we do super fun stuff in whatever location we're in, which usually involves jumping off things into water and interacting with nature.
[00:04:06] And we have dance parties and we incorporate creativity in play. I love doing those things in community. Actually it was you, Deb, that helped me realize that creating these ephemeral events where people can come together, have this really intense and amazing experience together, and then poof, it's gone.
[00:04:25] We build it and then it's gone, is like a way that I do my life and do the world and I, I really love learning and community and being in community with others. So my current work looks like those retreats, as well as, I teach yoga, so I have an online yoga club. I mentor yoga teachers and I used to lead a lot of teacher trainings and continuing education things in yoga before my life sort of took a big pivot, but I may be getting back into some of that. And I also work with a lot of yoga teachers, but also with other solo business owners and small business owners around marketing.
[00:05:02] So my career before I was a yoga teacher was in marketing and graphic design. I love working with people who hate marketing and teaching them how to do marketing in a way that actually feels authentic and real and more like relationship or friendship than trying to talk people into selling something.
[00:05:21] And I'm especially interested in marketing without social media. I've been off of social media platforms since last summer. I still have accounts, but like the apps aren't on my phone anymore and I don't use it as a strategy to run my business. And so it's been a little scary, but also fun and creative to get back to some of the things that I love about marketing and how it feels like relationships and just education rather than something that I have to like, figure out what I'm gonna feed the algorithm that day. It's been fun to connect with people around that too. So I do a lot of things, a little bit of everything, but community and connection is definitely woven throughout my work. And curiosity I think is something that drives me and drives the experiments and the risks that I like to take in my work and my life.
[00:06:06] So, yeah, I'm sure we'll get into some of that, but maybe that's enough for now.
[00:06:11] Deb: Awesome. Thank you.
[00:06:13] Amber: Yeah.
[00:06:14] Deb: What I love about your work is there's a reinvention process. There's the full gamut of the human experience. Which is building something and then like losing something and Yeah.
[00:06:26] The process of grief and pivoting and then reconnecting with the pieces that make you feel excited about sharing. I feel really privileged to get to be on the inside of some of this. So, maybe this conversation will feel a little bit like you're just listening to people who are having their own private conversation.
[00:06:45] Yeah. Right. Just bear with us. What Amber and I often talk about is wanting to connect with this feeling of aliveness because there's so much intensity and negative things that are happening in the world. And as we both do work that looks through the lens of body image, and sizeism and weight stigma and fat liberation, we're like, those can be unsolvable problems.
[00:07:16] Mm-hmm. But I think the work that we both do and with the people who are in front of us, who are very much alive, no matter what their body looks like, no matter what their body feels like.
[00:07:30] Amber: Yeah.
[00:07:30] Deb: We do it in different ways. I think the first thing I wanna ask you is, you've just come through running three retreats this year.
[00:07:40] Yes. And there were maybe like your return to retreats. I did a lot of retreats with you before the pandemic and they were so enjoyable. I got to do massage at some of them that were in California, back when we thought these things weren't gonna change. Right. Yeah. And then all of a sudden, no, they changed
[00:08:00] Amber: everything changed.
[00:08:01] Deb: Hey, hey, you don't live in California anymore. You don't do massage anymore. Hey, you don't do retreats anymore, right? Yeah. Life got lifey. Yeah. Then this year you've had this return to doing in-person events. Yeah. Can you describe the events that you created and kind of why you created them?
[00:08:19] Like what, what was your intention behind them and then after that? Well, I have a, a few questions.
[00:08:26] Amber: Yeah, absolutely. So like you said before the pandemic, before 2020, I ran two to four retreats a year. And was generally like a full-time traveling yoga teacher. My thing is body positive yoga and I used to do a lot of work with the accessible yoga organization and running teacher trainings and creating teacher trainings and all this different stuff.
[00:08:48] And then, like you said, life got lifey, the pandemic happened and that changed the American yoga industry forever. And also a lot of life happened to me. I went through a divorce after a 20 year relationship. I had a primary business partnership fall apart and take my main income source with it.
[00:09:04] I dealt with a lot of massive change all at the same time. And took a sabbatical from teaching for a few years and took off a few years from running in-person events because I literally couldn't figure out how to handle COVID and mitigate that with the sometimes high risk population that comes to my events.
[00:09:25] You know, they're more at risk for lots of different things, including bad treatment and healthcare and everything else. And so it was something that I really wrestled with for a while. Like you said, this year I made a return to retreats and the catalyst for that actually was last April. April, 2024, I took a trip to Sayulita in Mexico. It's on the west coast, near Puerto Verta. And I have a friend who's lived there for seven years. We've been friends for like 20 years. She's like one of my people. And I went to visit her. It was the first trip that I had really taken, like major trips since COVID happened. That trip really changed something in me.
[00:10:02] I was really struggling with depression. I felt really weird and alienated from the yoga industry, quote unquote. I wasn't sure what my life was gonna look like since my divorce and all the plans that I thought was gonna go all the way into the future didn't happen. When I went down there, it was really refreshing to live someone else's life for a week.
[00:10:21] And my friend Chel, who I went to visit, she's into surfing, so I tried surfing for the first time at age 42. And let me tell you, it was one of the most challenging and difficult physical pursuits I've ever tried. And one of the most fun to try and fail at. Like I've done other, I don't know, I'm a little bit of a daredevil or adrenaline junkie or whatever.
[00:10:44] And so like I've tried other stuff. Was one point that I wanted to learn how to go to skate parks, but with roller skates instead of a skateboard. And let me tell you, that is not fun to learn. Like, you fall, you hit the concrete, you know, we're getting older.
[00:10:57] We don't bounce off the concrete like we used to. We're not on our parents' health insurance. I'm telling you. That was like not a fun learning curve. Surfing is just as hard I feel like, but also fun 'cause you just literally fall in the water and get back out. So if you like being in the ocean, it's kind of low stakes.
[00:11:13] As long as you're at a beach that's like appropriate for your skill level. And from the very first time I tried surfing, I was like, wow, I'm gonna be terrible at this and I wanna go as much as possible. And so I surfed like every day that I was there that week, I would kind of like live Chel's, life when I went on this trip.
[00:11:29] And I would get up, early in the morning and go surfing and then, I would come back and I would, make some food and I would walk and I would go to yoga class. And it was such a refreshing break from where I was and I felt so stuck. And when I was out there in the water, sitting on the surfboard and waiting for waves and doing all the parts of surfing that are not standing up on a surfboard, which is like most of it, I was thinking about y'all.
[00:11:56] Like when I say y'all, I mean the people that come to my retreats and the people that, I love having in my orbit. All the curious folks in larger bodies that like to try dangerous things safely. I think that's like my niche, you know? And so. I was out there and I was just like in my head thinking like, this is how I would break it down and this is how I would make it lower stakes.
[00:12:17] And this is how I would invite people to be part of this thing that most of us, most women, especially most women in larger bodies like have never tried because we don't have representation showing us that fat people surf. I grew up in a surfing town. I grew up in Virginia Beach, Virginia. And even though it was literally right there and I had lots of friends who surfed, I could tell that it wasn't for me.
[00:12:40] I never seen a bigger body on a surfboard. I never seen any media, any photos or videos of that. When I went into the surf shops, nothing came in my size, you know, not even a t-shirt, much less a wetsuit. And so all these types of messages that we get in lots of different areas that like these physical activities are not for us.
[00:12:58] When actually my body is perfectly capable of doing all the aspects of surfing and there's boards that fit my body and body larger than mine. It was just I never had somebody to show me the way like Chel did. And I never had the courage when I was younger to do that and to sort of be a spectacle.
[00:13:17] And so when I did that in Mexico and had that successful experience with learning to surf and at least trying it, you know, I don't want you guys to picture me like standing up and hanging tin every time. Like, this is not what happens. This is mostly falling off and trying again and falling.
[00:13:33] Oh, I got a knee up. Oh, I stood up for half a second. You know, but trying, it was so fun and it like really became this thing that I was like, okay, this is a fun type of play. This is exactly like the thing that I wanna help people do. So the retreat came to me on that trip and I came off of that week of trying surfing and being in the water and imagining bringing a community of people there to try that thing and to do the, the thing that I used to do at the retreats, back when I was running those before the pandemic, which is we all get together and we take some risks together, and you have a whole cheerleading squad of people who are there to do the same thing as you.
[00:14:12] And I was like, I know this has to happen. And so I came home and I made massive changes to my life. I decided on that trip that I needed to leave Baltimore, which is where I had been living for the past six or seven years. And mixed some things up. I needed to get my heart and my mind in a better place.
[00:14:30] And so I came home, I moved in with my parents. I like left Baltimore and went to North Carolina, moved in with my family to be able to save some money and get my finances back right. And actually be able to pivot my work because I had stopped doing everything during COVID and I was on the sabbatical and it's not like I wasn't working, I was freelancing here or there.
[00:14:51] But I didn't know what my thing was gonna be. This other thing had fallen apart. I felt really weird and alienated from the yoga land and I needed to come back, to my work in, on my own terms. And for a while I thought that meant I wouldn't be teaching yoga. But I was like, you know what? I'm doing this retreat at this beautiful hotel that literally has two yoga studios in the hotel.
[00:15:13] I obviously have to make yoga part of this. So yeah, I came home, I moved to North Carolina. I changed a bunch of stuff. I changed a ton of habits. I started, taking really excellent care of myself and my health and going to the gym regularly and I quit smoking weed and I did all these different things that really helped me to focus on my work.
[00:15:34] And I feel really privileged that my parents like, gave me a place to land where I didn't have to pay rent or groceries for a year. Like how great is that to be able to catch my breath. And really dream and imagine these new things that I wanted to do. And so I booked a surfing retreat, in Sayulita, and it sold out in two days.
[00:15:54] I was so shocked. So I booked another one, literally the week after that. And those were the first two retreats that came back to the work that I love the most in the world. I've been throwing events since I was a teenager. From everything from punk rock shows to craft shows to a billion workshops and skill shares and conferences and retreats are absolutely my favorite type of event to have. It's such an honor to be able to make this container. Where, yeah, we do get to go on vacation together in a beautiful place and try fun things, but it's more than that. It's like we're bringing people together with a very specific purpose and mindset and desire, which is to live more fully in our bodies and to accept the bodies that we're in and all the bodies that we're gonna be in down the road.
[00:16:41] And that is a challenge because it means basically accepting the nature of change itself, right? And so, like yoga's about that and embodiment is about that. And learning to live in these bodies and show up for the bodies that we have is about that. These two events that I did, and also just the enthusiasm that my community showed me when I had kind of like fell off the world for a few years. With that, you know, don't call it a comeback comeback, it was amazing to me and I was so encouraged and excited. And then when I got to Mexico and produced these two surfing retreats, it was like I really got to feel the growth that I've had over the past few years, both just as an individual and being able to feel more confidence to step into my leadership and fix things and solve things and make things better for people.
[00:17:28] And also my growth as a yoga teacher. I was nervous going into those events 'cause I was rusty. I haven't been teaching all the time when I used to teach, hours and hours every week. It was so wonderful to have myself reflected by the students that showed up and for them to say the differences they noticed in me and for me to really feel, reinvigorated and excited about teaching practice again and that type of thing.
[00:17:51] And really being able to come back to my work that this work that I created and that I've built on year over year, but like on my own terms, new and separate from this sort of like yoga industry that I had felt a little alienated from, and that's changed so much. And it was really incredible to be able to have that experience.
[00:18:12] And it made me so excited to continue doing retreats. And so I immediately booked another retreat for the other coast of Mexico, which is the one that you just went to. Did a little bit of a different theme with that one, which was around exploring body image through art and through bold connections with nature and through yoga.
[00:18:33] And so we swam in cenotes and we went to this magical waterpark and swam with manatees and we made art together, which was incredible. I've been making art since I was a kid and I went to art school and I've worked as a professional artist. Never brought that into my retreats. I feel like this year and with my new work, one thing I'm really excited about is, showing up more fully as my whole self.
[00:19:01] I feel like in the past, my work showed up as like, there's yoga amber over here and these people know her, and then there's bike amber over here and only those people know her. And Art Amber and punk rock Amber. I had all these different communities that I was part of, but it wasn't really something that showed up in all the layers of what I'm doing.
[00:19:19] And now I feel like I'm bringing my full self and all the experiences that have led me to the place that I'm at and all the many different jobs that I've had and many different events that I've created. And now it feels like it's really coming together in this beautiful way that feels true and feels real and feels, like something I'm very excited about and excited about sharing with people. I've just noticed in these last few retreats, the times when I am just myself. Like, I don't know if you've been around me, my loud, annoying, silly, scout leader type self. Like people love it and people accept me and they're excited to do the things that I wanna do.
[00:19:57] And I feel so excited to be able to create these experiences where folks can come together and have adventures and have that opportunity to be reflected by one another. I was talking about having that opportunity, when I'm teaching to be reflected back by my students.
[00:20:14] But we do that for one another at these retreats. That's one of the reasons I think community is kind of magical. It's like we all hold up this mirror that somehow we can't access unless we're around other people that see us in a different way than we see ourselves. And I think that's one of the really cool things that happens at those events.
[00:20:33] So
[00:20:35] Deb: Yes, that is all true. I was there.
[00:20:39] Amber: I know Deb is definitely MVP on Team Amber, I have to say. And probably you win the superlative for most retreats attended. So Deb knows Deb's been there.
[00:20:50] Deb: Something I can win. That would be amazing. I love it. Although I didn't go to the surfing retreats.
[00:20:56] I mean, some of it was, I was overbooked. Yeah. On other travel, uh, my first world problems. But also I think I was, I was nervous. I was scared. Yeah. I was like kind of more scared than excited, although mm-hmm. Hearing about it now I can start to imagine
[00:21:14] Amber: Yeah.
[00:21:15] Deb: What it would be like to go.
[00:21:16] Mm-hmm. And that for me is sometimes the missing piece. Which is when we don't see ourselves reflected and we don't know it as possible for ourselves and in our own bodies. It makes sense to have that kind of internal No,
[00:21:31] Amber: that's right.
[00:21:32] Deb: Right. And then it needs, you were talking about scaffolding, for your own life, but the scaffolding that is required to help people step into that yes. Or that maybe, or that, let's see how it goes or trying, takes a lot of work. And I see you do that work behind the scenes and I'm wondering if you can talk about what that looks like on your retreat. What were some things that you took away from these experiences? I know that you had changed things up, between the first surfing retreat.
[00:22:07] That's right. And then the one that you did the following week, you and I had a conversation about how fear shows up in the body. Yeah. So I don't know, like how you help people feel safe?
[00:22:18] Amber: Yeah. Or,
[00:22:19] Deb: or safer and curious readiness maybe is the mm-hmm.
[00:22:25] Right word. Mm-hmm.
[00:22:25] Amber: Mm-hmm.
[00:22:26] Deb: Then also what do you have to be doing behind the scenes to help make that happen? Because I know that the people that you hire, you have to teach them everything.
[00:22:36] Amber: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So, when I think about, well, I just wanna go back to one thing you said, which was like.
[00:22:42] You know that you were a little more scared than excited when you think about the surfing retreat, but now, hearing me talk through it like a little, you know, possibility shows up. And I think it's also true when we were talking about not seeing ourselves reflected in places like surfing culture.
[00:22:56] One thing I'm super excited about as I relaunched the surfing retreat for 2026, which is happening soon, is sharing all the media that I got from these two events. I hired a professional photographer to film and to take pictures of the surf lessons. And one of the things that I think is gonna help people get from scared and not sure to excited and curious is actually seeing fat bodies on surfboards and seeing all these videos of people having fun and how chill the water is and how nobody's looking terrified or getting hurt or whatever.
[00:23:30] And all of those things, start to build as safety in the body. And that's something that I think happens live on the retreats is as we see other people try stuff and maybe step out in a way that we admire but we don't think is possible for ourselves, something in our nervous system actually, there's resonance, there's recognition, there's a realization of oh, well if she could do it, maybe I could do it too. I had this happen years and years ago when I first discovered Fatshionista on Live Journal, which was my introduction into the world of body acceptance. Actually before that I literally didn't know there was people in the world who were fat and okay with their bodies.
[00:24:11] I only knew other fat people that dieted or that were constantly trying to change their bodies. And when I saw these women modeling, like modeling, not in the fashion sense, but like literally modeling the idea that you could wear something cool. Look super cool and different and stand out in a way that like, you know, I had always tried to tone it down 'cause I didn't want people looking at my disgusting fat body or whatever the beliefs were that I had.
[00:24:37] But now I'm looking at these girls who look hot and cool and they dress like goths and weirdos and punks and I'm just like, oh, I want that for myself. You can have that resonance that happens. And I think that's what happens on the retreats. A lot of events that I've thrown in my life, I just basically create the experience that I wanna have that doesn't exist yet.
[00:24:56] And usually people are game to get on board with that too. It turns out a lot of people have similar desires or they're just curious to try the things that I am into. And so I share things that I've done myself. And so with the surfing retreat, you know, I went, I had the experience that maybe was not the best experience, a first time surf lesson could be for sure. I was just tossed in a class with three other, you know, 14 year olds who stood up the first time they went on the board, in their little thong bathing suit and their flat stomach, you know, and I'm 43, like trying to deal with a body that doesn't know what it's doing here and everything else.
[00:25:34] But I survived and I was fine and it was exciting and I had fun, even though it was scary to step into that and say, I'm gonna show up even though I'm older and I am pale and fat and I don't fit this image of a surfer that we've seen, or whatever. When I did that experience, I was like, okay, what are some ways that I can invite people into this experience and make it more accessible? Lower the barriers that make it scary to do. And that's kind of how I think about the activities that I offer at my retreat. Whether it's jumping off a rock into a river or an ocean or a cenote, or it's something like surfing. Or it's something like a challenging hike.
[00:26:15] I try to model that in my own body and I've been in bigger and smaller versions of this body, but I'm not in some traditional athletic body. And so I think as a plus-sized woman, when other plus-sized women see me try a thing, it opens up that possibility, right?
[00:26:32] It does that mirror neuron resonance thing that our nervous systems do when we sense a possibility in someone else before we can really believe it for ourselves. And I feel like that's like an important step and that's one of the biggest tools that I think, we have as, as fat folks, or as disabled folks or any, anybody with a marginalized identity, that has a certain lived experience that we see somebody like us doing the thing that we wanna do. It makes it easier for us to believe it and imagine it.
[00:27:01] And so during that first surfing retreat, I had a few things that I learned because I'm a new surfer too, you know, like I did host surfing retreats, but I hired instructors and then I'm learning and I'm watching and I'm like, okay, yep, we need some different type of boards.
[00:27:17] The photo shoot was another example of for me it didn't feel like a big deal because I've been in a million photo shoots, like with my career. But then I'm seeing people on the beach, having a little bit of struggle and being like, you know, everybody's got all this stuff behind them, right?
[00:27:32] Like their mom saying, don't let anybody take a picture of you in a bathing suit. And like the men that made fun of them and the teenage boys million years ago at high school and all of that stuff, right? And all the messages that we just get about our bodies from the world and oh yeah, these folks are struggling.
[00:27:48] Okay, well I'm gonna put some scaffolding in place around that next time. And so thank you to the people that came to my first surfing retreat. You guys were the pioneers. We had an amazing time. Nothing went wrong. But also the second group, they got to have a more smoother experience because we did things before the photo shoot we had a session where we talked about like how you wanna feel during that photo shoot and why we're doing it. And the photographer that shot us for the second retreat talked about how he never had representation of scuba diving, growing up as a black kid watching Jacque Cousteau. And now he's honored to be here, creating representation that doesn't exist, you know?
[00:28:24] So we had a different experience around that photo shoot. Oh. And we practiced posing with the surfboard. It's big and awkward and if you never touch one, you don't know how to carry it or hold it. So we did all of that before we even came on the beach. We had a session in the yoga studio with a surfboard where folks got to see it, learn the parts, lay on it, practice standing up on it, all of that stuff before we're ever on the beach, before we're in a bathing suit, before we have people around looking at us.
[00:28:51] And so I try to think about things like that. What is a way to get a little taste of the thing that we're gonna do, whether that's through watching someone else do it, whether that's through demonstrating and talking through something and then inviting people in with some guidance, or whether that's removing barriers, like what I'm just talking about of having some familiarity with what we're doing before we get there and it's 50,000 things at once because surfing is like that, you know? Maybe that answers your question. I think you had a second part of the question, but I already forgot what it was, so
[00:29:22] Deb: That's okay. I also forgot what it was. Okay. Which is how these podcasts go. The thing that I feel and know, which is why I come back to your retreats, not just because you're my friend and I wanna support them, but because I know that I will be cared for.
[00:29:41] Amber: Yeah.
[00:29:42] Deb: I know that there are things that are happening behind the scenes and in the planning Yeah. That are about anticipating needs that, people in larger bodies may have that. That's right. And of course, it's like there's no perfectionism required, but oftentimes that's the work I have to do on my own.
[00:30:02] Yeah. And bring that to an environment. And what I really love about participating is that you are working from the beginning Yeah. To try to mitigate some of those barriers and also just make it be so much easier to just show up. Yes. Right. Like sometimes the envy is like, some people just get to pack and go on a trip.
[00:30:26] They don't have to do all of this planning and knowledge resourcing. Yeah. And figuring out like, can I fit in this place? What do I need? Is there gonna be a life vest that's my size? Right. Right. So I appreciate and acknowledge all of this work that you are doing that's kind of baked into this experience.
[00:30:49] Yeah. But it's not like an inconvenience. It's part of the experience of being in community Yeah. Building a community experience. So I appreciate that and oh, I want people to learn it. So people are interested in doing that.
[00:31:04] You should learn from Amber.
[00:31:06] Amber: Yeah, for sure. I mean, you know,
[00:31:08] Deb: teach you an audit or something,
[00:31:10] Amber: but like, yeah, I'm not perfect, but I'm really responsive. And over the years I've learned a lot, I have lived experience of being in a bigger body, but I don't have lived experience of being in a disabled body or a super fat body or other marginalized identities that, the world is not built with us in mind.
[00:31:26] And oftentimes we take that on and make it mean things. We get in the plane and the seatbelt doesn't fit, and we take that to mean our body is wrong. And actually it's just a arbitrary length. And they cut those belts all the time. And sometimes I've had 20 extra inches and sometimes there's like, there, there's no seatbelt here, you know?
[00:31:47] I feel like I just went off on another tangent, so let me, like, bring it back. But, you know, over the years, like when I've communicated certain things to different venues or the one time that I did a retreat with a travel company, and I give them everyone size ahead of time to bring the life vest and they still don't bring them.
[00:32:04] And so a lot of my work over the years with these events has been figuring out like you said, anticipate the things that people are gonna need or the trouble that's gonna come up for folks in larger bodies, especially in these kind of international travel situations. And learn how to really be creative and do problem solving on the fly when it doesn't work out.
[00:32:26] And even the venue that we had in Mexico this past time, everyone had a great time and no one was left behind or made to feel like they were too much. But a lot of that was stuff that I had to fix in the moment, even though the retreat center had promised me certain things. And it's not always perfect.
[00:32:44] We didn't get to do some of the activities that I wanted because a certain excursion couldn't accommodate us. And I really designed my experiences based on the people that need the most support. I never want people to have an experience at my retreat where they feel too slow, too old, too fat, too disabled, too left behind, whatever.
[00:33:02] So that means I lead from the back of the pack and we go at the pace of the person that needs the most support, and some places can support that and some can't. And so part of what I've started to get better at each time is figuring out, like when I do this research for the different venues or excursions or tours or whatever we're doing. Knowing how to ask the right questions and now demand photographic proof of all the things that have to be thought of ahead of time. Like you mentioned life jackets or massage tables or toilets and seats with arms and all of the things that, like you said, when you show up in a place and you had to plan and research all that stuff yourself.
[00:33:45] I think one of the nice things about coming to one of my events is you don't have to plan that stuff. You can just know that I'm not gonna pick a venue that has a bunch of seating that doesn't work for anyone. I'm not gonna pick a place, to do an excursion that I haven't tried myself and made sure that there's gonna be a way for everybody to meaningfully participate.
[00:34:03] That's something that. Costs me, quote unquote extra time and prep and energy and eliminates a lot of places from being able to go. But also is super important to me because this is my community and this is the experience that I wanna create and have really rich, beautiful trips that people feel, well, I just, maybe I'll just say it this way.
[00:34:26] I feel like the wellness industry, which I guess retreats are kind of under that, yoga is under that, a lot of like fitness experiences are under that, really just don't even think about us a lot of times. There's this stupid story and culture that like fat people aren't interested in physical or athletic pursuits. I find that's actually really not true. It's kind of a chicken and egg situation, right? Are fat people not interested in surfing because they can't surf? Are fat people not interested in surfing? Because literally every picture, video, wetsuit, surf instructor, surfboard, width and volume tells them that that sport is not for them.
[00:35:04] And I find that that's usually the case is like we weren't thought of, we weren't prepared for. And so we show up and we have a terrible experience like when we get on that plane and the seatbelt doesn't fit, we assume that means something about the size of our body and what it should be. And when we get somewhere and they don't have a wetsuit in our size or we get somewhere and there's no life jacket that fits.
[00:35:24] It's not like we couldn't do that activity. We're here, we're ready to do the thing. It's that the way was not made for us. I feel like that's one of the things that's special about the events I create is like. I wanna lower those barriers and make a way for people to participate in these really, uh, I mean, people say all the time, like a life changing experience that maybe they wouldn't have considered before because their body wasn't considered.
[00:35:48] I feel like for people that lead retreats or lead these intensive experiences, or even people that teach physical disciplines like yoga or martial arts, like whatever it is, you know, that's kind of our opportunity. I don't wanna say it's everybody's job to take care of every body, but I think it's an opportunity and it's a really overlooked opportunity to include people in these experiences that want to go, that have the money to go, that have the ability to go. But the way is just not made for them. And I don't like gatekeeping, I like making keys, and so this is one of my ways that I like to do that.
[00:36:24] Deb: I'm curious to know, what have people shared with you about their experiences doing something adventurous with their body on one of your retreats?
[00:36:38] Amber: You know, the thing that I hear a lot is that it changes the way that they see themselves and conceive of themselves. One invitation that I make usually during the opening of any of my retreats is that, this container that we're creating, this world, we're building this alternate world together for a week, right?
[00:36:57] We're usually like kind of sequestered away somewhere. We're all staying together in the same house or hotel. We're all there with a similar intent, no matter where we are with our body acceptance journey, to accept our bodies more and to try new things and to show up in that way. And I hear from a lot of people that when they show up, even if they don't even do all of the activities that I have planned, just the fact of being in community with other people who share lived experience with them, who get it, who I don't have to explain, like the whole what happens when you show up and there's no life jacket for you.
[00:37:36] You know, like these people have all had an experience like that. And just to be around other women and other people who are showing up in a different way, like that itself is a profound experience. Right? And I encourage people at the beginning of my retreats, feel free to show up in a way that maybe is sort of like an aspiration that you have for yourself that you don't quite believe yet.
[00:37:59] Right. And that might mean wearing a two piece bathing suit on the beach for the first time. That might mean speaking up a little more, when you're usually more reserved or shy, that might mean sharing something about yourself. Like I, on this last retreat, it was incredible to me. This was like the art themed retreat.
[00:38:17] How many people shared with me their artwork and their astonishing artists that I've never seen it on their social media. It's not something they monetize or that they talk about. But even just like those types of things, how you can show up a little bit different. And for some people that means if they're the go-getters and they're the overachievers, maybe they're taking naps, maybe they're gonna take a little break, right?
[00:38:38] And so I invite people to step into a different embodied experience because, it's not just you out there in the real world, or in your normal environment where you have your friends and your family and they have sort of this one image of you, right? Like everybody has this image of you in their head.
[00:38:56] Uh, Deb's this kind of person, these are the types of things she's into, this is how she acts. But then you come to this new place where most of the people are gonna be strangers. And even if you know me a little bit, we might have a parasocial relationship. You might know more about me than I know about you, but we share these lived experiences.
[00:39:13] We know what it's like to be in a body that society says is not good or worthy or capable, even though we have a different experience of this body sometimes. And there's a lot of permission at my retreats to try things, to fail at them, but to fail in a way that's safe, to have fun and laugh.
[00:39:33] And you have a actual group of cheerleaders. Honestly, it ends up being like that, that when we're doing something daring, like, I'm thinking back to when we're all jumping off this cliff into the cenote in Mexico. And if you don't know what a cenote is, it's basically this freshwater, beautiful spring fed swimming hole.
[00:39:51] It's crystal clear and the cliff jump was kind of high. Like, I'm not gonna lie, you know, you had a minute to think about what you've done after you jump off this cliff. But literally like when we first got there and people just one after the other were jumping into the water and everyone else was cheering so loud for them.
[00:40:07] And there was a few people that got up there and were like, my body says no and walks away. And they got cheered for just as loud as the people that made the decision to jump. And that to me is what's magical about these retreats. We are all there with this common understanding that we want to be more fully in our bodies.
[00:40:25] We want to live out loud, we want to try things that scare us and build up, like you said, that tolerance or that recognition, that resonance, that our body is a safe and powerful place to be and it's valuable and it can show up for us and do these things and we can walk away with with a whole group of people cheering for us.
[00:40:43] And that I think is a really powerful form of muscle memory. Maybe I'll use as a term for that. We can actually teach our nervous systems that we have more capacity than we think and we can do it in a way that's not forcing or discipline or like, suck it up, boss up and work harder, but actually is joyful and fun and silly and funny.
[00:41:06] And we can watch other people mess up and see that it's okay and that nobody's judging them. And that's what's beautiful about those experiences. I really get to see people rewrite stories that they carry about themselves and about their bodies in real time. And do that with the help of other people who have lived through similar experiences.
[00:41:25] I get goosebumps just talking about it for real because it is unique and I think it's something that, you know, like another crappy story that society tells us is that like fat people aren't really experts on anything. 'cause if our body's like this, how could we possibly know anything at all?
[00:41:41] And we get to teach each other that we are safe and powerful and like that is a gift that I feel like only people have lived in a certain marginalized experience can give to one another. We teach each other how to be hot and authentic and happy and healthy in a way that society like has no imagination for.
[00:42:00] And I see that happen in those moments. That's less about learning something or academic knowledge or like discipline to get your body to do something and more about joy and friendship and silliness and play and creativity and adventure, which is just such a, uh, it just feels so good. And so like easy compared to a lot of the ways that our orientation towards our bodies and towards ourselves can be because of the messages that society gives us that we need to shrink and be less.
[00:42:33] And patriarchy does that too. Don't be so loud, don't be so slutty. Don't be so extra. And actually I want you to be extra. I want you to flex that muscle as much as you can when you're in my presence, in the presence of this cheerleading squad. Because you are learning, your body is learning very quickly in a way that your head can never do.
[00:42:55] And we can stand in front of a mirror saying our affirmations, that we love our body a million times and our little bullshit detector is still gonna go off and be like, yeah, right. You can think, oh, I wish I could go surfing, but if your dangerous signals are going off and saying like, Nope, nope, nope, nope.
[00:43:11] That is not a possibility for you. But suddenly when you show up and you see other people enjoying their bodies and showing up and being strong and powerful and loud, and all the things that we told not to do, and you admire them for that, it's like kind of like breaks something in your brain and allows you to open your view a little wider and be like, well, there's actually a lot of possibilities of how I can be as a woman, as a person in this body, as someone who's aging, as someone with a disability, as someone with persistent pain, whatever the thing is that you deal with that you feel like holds you back.
[00:43:45] I think sometimes when you're in those type of community learning experiences and especially an embodied learning experience like that. Those things just kind of dissipate especially when they're shame-based. Like we get together and we turn on flashlights and like the little shame cockroaches scatter because we really get to show each other like how this looks in real time.
[00:44:06] And that is really unique and different way of learning than maybe we're used to.
[00:44:11] Deb: There's so many elements that are resonant in terms of the work that I do in terms of pain reprocessing, like outcome independence, leaning into positive sensations, right?
[00:44:25] Rewriting those narratives and beliefs and creating exposure experiences and working through shame. There is something that's so powerful in this group, there's room for all the feelings to be there, you know, at different times you led us through different activities and exercises and people were able to be with their own feelings that arose, and share them with others.
[00:44:50] And so it was very real, it was not aspirational, like we're just gonna be living in this future space where we're just like fat and happy all the time and we're able to do all these things. Right? Like there was just all of this lovely care. Yeah. To be able to hold us through the experience of taking risks.
[00:45:10] And risks, meaning, anything from what you're wearing, to how we're walking, the water park through jumping off the cliff and the cenote or, or not, right? Yeah. Yep. So the exposure piece of it, is filled with a lot of gentleness and care, not just by you, but also by the other participants.
[00:45:35] There's just a lot of wisdom Yeah. In the space of the people who are participating and a lot of care and a lot of love. It was just great. Yeah. And sometimes group dynamics can be hard and I, yeah. Last year it was a, it was such a love fest.
[00:45:53] People were amazing. One thing that I realized going through my own experience was, I had a moment where I was noticing that I was feeling kind of like, apart from people, like I knew you and I knew Andrea and I knew Alexandra. But then I was like, I don't know about these other people.
[00:46:08] I don't know about these new people. Like Hmm. And I could feel this sense of, not distrust, but my own protection.
[00:46:19] Amber: Yeah.
[00:46:19] Deb: And I was like, oh, but this is a safe place to drop that a little bit lower. And what would it look like to go sit over with these new people and have a conversation and get to know them.
[00:46:33] Oh, right. That's part of it too. That's part of creating safety in my nervous system. Yeah. Like the ability to notice, a sense of threat or danger, right? Mm-hmm. It actually wasn't coming from those people. It was coming from my own past history. It was coming from my own, like, oh no, are people gonna like me?
[00:46:53] Are they gonna accept me? Am I gonna be a part of the group? Right. And then choosing to step into, taking that risk and being in that exposure experience and knowing, oh, this is a safe place, right? We're all here. Yes. We're all nervous doing new things and meeting new people.
[00:47:15] And some people came alone. I'm always just amazed. Yeah. People who never met anybody and they just show up for this trip. And I'm just like, yeah, that is just totally badass and that is amazing. The caretaking and the exposure is what creates both in pain reprocessing.
[00:47:35] Mm-hmm. And what creates the corrective experiences. Right. Right. And I think having a corrective experience in a group of doing embodied experiences doesn't come around a lot.
[00:47:51] Amber: Yeah, that's right.
[00:47:53] But it can be super profound. I find that, like you said, it doesn't come around a lot like being in that group where you can see yourself reflected and also confront some real stuff that comes up.
[00:48:05] A lot of big feelings come up with these retreats and sometimes they're, you know, ecstasy and exhilaration and everything else, and sometimes there's fear and sometimes there's. Anger at, you know, all these stories we were told before. And sometimes, like you said, there's nervousness. I mean, it is really overstimulating to go be with a group of complete strangers in a different country eating food that you don't really have control over, sleeping in a bed that's not your own.
[00:48:31] You know, like there's all that going on in the background and now I'm asking you also to take risks in front of strangers and do all of these things. I'm always honored at how game people are like for that experience. And I think that's one of the reasons why it can be so transformative is it's like I have literally never been in a place like this with these type of people.
[00:48:53] Like everybody's doing this at the same time. And that I think teaches the body in such a profound way that we don't often get. And I've definitely had people talk to me about, going back home to like real life quote unquote, and. Encountering this reflection of what they feel is like an old version of themselves because so much happened so quickly at the retreat that changed the way that they saw themselves, that now it's a little easier to stand up for themselves in real life.
[00:49:24] 'cause like, how are you gonna talk to me like that? Like, I have this new layer of confidence, or to recognize that like a relationship or a job or a commitment that they've made is no longer fits with the way that they feel about themselves or that they want to be. It's almost like you get to come to these events and see yourself reflected in this way that, that you're not there yet. This future, maybe not better version of you is not the right word to say, but like a different version of you that you want to step into. And when you get to have that and you get to be in community, like a community that has a lot of intention and care and thought behind the way that it's created.
[00:50:05] And you don't have those things at home, that really is a stark contrast to go home and let that be a catalyst for change. In a similar way to when I went and stayed with Chel and tried surfing and actually got to see myself reflected in a different way than I was getting in Baltimore. I came home and was like, these things are no longer acceptable. These changes have to be made.
[00:50:27] And I think those embodied learning experiences can be such a powerful catalyst for us. And especially as folks in larger bodies or of any identity where we didn't get a lot of positive reflection of ourselves in media or in culture or in the fairytales we were told as kids or the Disney movies or any movie or magazine or anything that we've watched where fat folks are portrayed in a negative light or that they're lazy or unfunny or stupid or whatever, all the stupid stories that society tells about us. And then you get to actually have a completely opposite experience of that, where you're around all these like badass, daring, amazing, admirable fat people. That changes you, I think it changes you at a cellular level.
[00:51:10] You know, like I can't connect that to a study, but there's concepts in the work that you do. There's concepts in neuroscience and in pain science and all of these different disciplines that I think point to those type of experiences that we're creating at my retreats and that, lots of people have had, I mean like if anyone's seen that TV show Shrill, you get to watch her have that experience when she like goes to the fat pool party and it's like the experience I had showing up on Fatshionista Live Journal for the first time.
[00:51:38] Like what? This exists. Then you get to decide how to bring that into your life in small or big ways, like when you come home from that experience. It's so cool to get to see that happen.
[00:51:50] Deb: That was beautiful because I am a person that's both created those kinds of embodied experiences for other people, with my store and with other things that I've done. I know what it feels like to create that. I know what it feels like to watch people experience it for the first time.
[00:52:05] So I both get to enjoy it and also watch other people's enjoyment and that's just like extra, extra, extra pleasure sometimes. Yeah. There's always this point at the retreat in which I like, lean over to you and I'm like, look at what you did.
[00:52:17] Amber: I know you did. You're really good about that.
[00:52:20] Deb: The silent disco dance party with a full moon and all of us being hilarious. It was this beautiful transplant, exciting time where everybody's just like getting their moves on. Yeah. I know we didn't do it on this past retreat, but you do a thing called headstand party.
[00:52:41] Amber: Oh yeah.
[00:52:44] Deb: Because you've listened to me talk about pain neuroscience forever, embodiment, that kind of nervous system tending when we're doing exposure experiences.
[00:52:54] Yeah. I want to hear through that lens, what's a headstand party? Yeah. What happens when people, maybe for the first time go upside down.
[00:53:04] Amber: Go upside down. Okay. So first a what is, and then we'll talk about how I create them. So headstand party, is something I invented. I'm pretty sure no one else in the world does this at least in this way.
[00:53:17] As a yoga teacher, I find that, a lot of times people in fat bodies have not practiced with teachers who either have the lived experience of being fat or were taught anything at all about working with folks in larger bodies. Most yoga teacher trainees don't even cover it.
[00:53:32] If they do a sort of an afterthought, like I don't know, use a block. So I find that a lot of times fat yoga students, even if they've had a practice for many years, have never had the opportunity to do some of the things that people would consider more advanced parts of the practice, like a headstand or a handstand or some different poses like that.
[00:53:50] And a lot of times, the teachers that they're practicing with either don't have the skill or don't frankly have the imagination to understand how to assist people in different types of bodies to do the thing that they want to do. There's been a version of headstand for a long time. It's in the Iyengar tradition of yoga where you use two benches or two chairs. When you're doing a headstand traditionally, your head is on the floor, right? And you either have your hands or your forearms on the floor to support your body to be able to do it.
[00:54:24] But if you don't have, maybe the upper body strength to fully support yourself, if you've literally never been upside down and don't have the inner body awareness to figure out how to like, organize your body when you're upside down, there's a risk that you could injure your neck, that you could, hurt yourself doing this stuff.
[00:54:41] And so a lot of teachers don't even wanna go there with bigger students because, A, they don't trust themselves enough to be able to support you while you're doing that. And B, they don't actually know the capabilities of your body. So this version of headstand with the two benches is really great because you can do it and no pressure at all is on your head or your neck.
[00:55:02] So basically what happens is your trapezius muscle, this big meaty muscle, that's shaped like a stingray on your back. All the weight is going into your trapezius muscles balanced on these two chairs. So your head is hanging free. You can bring your whole body upside down and it's really a safe way to do it if you have the support to get there and a teacher that is experienced in teaching it that way.
[00:55:25] So, when I used to teach yoga workshops, even before I ran my first retreat, I would always, include headstands and inversions as one of the things that I would talk through and talk about how the practice changes when you're in a bigger body or when you're disabled or when you're older or whatever.
[00:55:41] And headstand is one of the poses that I would get questions about the most. So this became a thing that I started to do with students and I incorporated into every workshop. And eventually headstand party was born. Because inevitably what would happen is as soon as these people started going upside down and having this, like literally, their faces are always like, this surprise, this amazing experience of not feeling scared, but actually feeling invigorated and exhilarated and the feeling that you get when you do something dangerous, but you have a safe experience.
[00:56:13] And literally the crowd would erupt into cheers and applause without my prompting. This was born naturally just by the way this happened. So what Headstand party looks like is, first I demonstrate it in my own body. So I go up, I explain the setup of the props, I explain what's in place and why it's placed that way for safety.
[00:56:35] We always put the chairs against the wall. We always have the chairs on a mat. We always have another mat that your feet can land on, so nobody's sliding or slipping. I want folks to know this is a very safe setup. I show them in my own body what it looks like to actually kick up into a headstand and to be there and your butts on the wall.
[00:56:52] You have a lot of support. You don't have to balance or anything like that. Then I demonstrate it with someone because I'm gonna be there to assist you. And so I either have someone that I've worked with a little bit ahead of the activity or that I know can do this activity on their own. And I show them what the assist is like.
[00:57:11] Right? I'm gonna put my arm here, I'm gonna press here. We are gonna come up on your own steam. This is what you do with your body when you're here. These are the cues that I'm gonna say, if you want me to step away, I'm gonna ask and then I'll step away. And then the second part of headstand party is you should appoint a photographer to take your picture when you're upside down.
[00:57:29] Because the other thing that I encourage folks to do is A. I want them to see a picture or a video of themself doing this. Again, this is teaching the body by seeing yourself do something that you did not think was possible, you're reeducating, those pathways. And I encourage people to share it on their social media or with their friends or whatever. And I always get some skeptical looks when I talk about that. But like, people lose their minds when they post these pictures, they get so much encouragement and cheers and oh my gosh, I can't believe you could do that.
[00:58:05] I wanna try it now. So there's this ripple effect that's very exciting to me. When people do choose to share those experiences and those images, that representation, that fat bodies are powerful and capable of so much more than we think they are. So during headstand party, then one by one people come up after I talk them through it.
[00:58:23] I explain the rules, I explain exactly how everything's gonna work, and then it's up to people to volunteer. I'm like, who's first? There's always somebody that's ready to go. And so right from the minute they jump up and come up front, people are cheering, people are encouraging them. They've got a photographer right there. It's very engaged. The group is engaged. This is not something you're trying alone and you know you're gonna see people get up and try something for the first time. It's a safe place to do that. It's a safe place to experience being a beginner at something, being bad at something. 'cause I'm here to support you.
[00:58:56] No one who's tried this hasn't been able to do it. Every single body that I've ever tried this with many different shapes and sizes and configurations and amputees, a lot of people I've done this with, and everyone does it. It's a beautiful experience. People come up, I ask if they want me to step away. Some people don't. They want that support, and I stay right there with them. And some people are like, yeah, go. And then they get their picture, everybody's cheering. They call me back over. We come down safely, we celebrate. And then it's like the next person and the next person, the next person. I swear I feel like I drank 50 shots of espresso every time I do one of these, because it is so powerful, to see people have those embodied realizations over and over and over again.
[00:59:41] And I think that's part of it too, right? It's teaching our brain this wasn't a fluke, this isn't something that just happened just because Amber's here, you know, it was some magical experience in another country, everybody did it that wanted to try it and everybody got their chance and everybody was successful.
[00:59:57] And that teaches our nervous system something too, right? About safety and risk and possibility in all of those things. I love Headstand party. I think it's something that's really unique and it's one of those ways that we can create those experiences for people to have that positive embodied experience of the body they've got right now.
[01:00:17] Like the one that's not strong enough to do a headstand, like actually it is, and this is a place you can practice if your goal is to eventually do a headstand on the floor. Not that it has to be, but it could be. And there are ways in that don't include having the ab strength to pike your legs up or whatever ridiculous thing yoga studios have told people they need to do before they're allowed to do a headstand.
[01:00:41] And actually there are tools that we can use and that's why I'm such a big advocate of props in yoga. Props to me are not an afterthought. A lot of the ways that props are taught to be used, it's just like, okay, we're gonna come into this pose and these are all the things to do. And if you can't, then go get a prop.
[01:00:57] I don't teach that way. I incorporate props from the get go because everyone has different proportions, different limb length, different flexibility, different mobility, ability or limitations. And props are there to enhance our practice. I have long legs and short little T-Rex arms and I put blocks under my hands and downward facing dog because now my legs can find the work and my center of mass is right where it needs to be.
[01:01:21] And that's not any kind of fault of my body, or I shouldn't have to do this pose in a way that always is gonna limit me because my arms are a few inches shorter than my legs. I'm just gonna bring something in that makes it accessible to me. And I think that is a really beautiful thing about headstand party too, is that actually the prop is the thing that enables us to do it.
[01:01:42] You know? Rehabilitating the reputation of the role of props in yoga and the role of support is not a consolation prize or some lesser thing, but actually the thing that lets you access what you wanna be able to do and mic drop.
[01:01:59] Yeah. Maybe that's enough.
[01:02:00] Deb: That was it. I was like, woo. Mic drop. Yeah. Love it. It's so much fun. After that I bought a feet up trainer. Yeah. So that I can do my version of Headstand party. Yeah. Alone. But it's not as fun. Nobody's cheering for me.
[01:02:15] Amber: No one's cheering for you. I know.
[01:02:16] Deb: Really annoying. Yeah. I'm expecting people cheering for me now. I wanted to talk about one of the things that I enjoyed on this retreat was revisiting, doing yoga.
[01:02:27] And specifically doing yoga with you, which was when I was doing yoga with your body positive yoga videos back before the pandemic. That was something that I did between clients. It was a nice feeling that I was like doing yoga with a friend.
[01:02:45] Amber: Mm-hmm.
[01:02:46] Deb: And this was before you were my friend. You
[01:02:47] Amber: were actually friends. Yeah. Right.
[01:02:49] Deb: We were actually friends. You didn't know I was doing yoga with my friend Amber. So getting to do yoga with you live felt great. There was this sinking into this sense of possibility, this sense of safety, this sense of yes, my yoga looks different from my neighbor's yoga looks different from anybody else's yoga, and yet it is available for my body to do. Yeah. One, it was a beautiful setting and all the things that never hurts, but, I don't live looking out at the ocean. But the feeling that it created in my body, I was like, I want more of this. And that was such a delicious experience because it's not a common experience for me, to be like, oh, this is nourishing. This feels so good. What you want from yoga, right?
[01:03:45] That kind of calming that, settling that just enough exertion, right? That magical combination between effort and ease. I think because I do this work, I'm able to tend to my nervous system when I notice fear come up or stories come up, right? I invite them back into the practice and into the mat and into this moment. And I know that you have taught yoga for a really long time. What do you want people to experience in practicing yoga with you?
[01:04:18] Amber: Yeah. I think that there's a few things that are at the core of how I do yoga and offer yoga to people.
[01:04:28] Number one I think is this idea of agency, right? Having a little bit of control and choice over what's about to happen to you and your body and what you get to do with it. And so that shows up in a couple of ways. One is through a lot of permission, not that I'm, you know, the grantor of permission, but I am when it's my class, right?
[01:04:51] Yoga teachers, I feel like we have a really unique opportunity 'cause we're the culture makers of this practice. We get to make decisions about how we run our classes and the container that we create that tell you certain things about what this yoga thing is all about. And there's some disciplines within yoga and some teachers that are very rigid and very fatalist or something like that. Like you have to be able to do the pose in this certain exact way or you won't get into yoga heaven. And like, I'm kind of making a joke there, but there are really sayings and principles in certain traditions of yoga that's like, you have to be able to do the practice this way and then all this other stuff will happen.
[01:05:31] And my approach is more like, I wanna give you some tools to make some choices that will work better for your body. And so that's things like using props and teaching a little bit about the pose and what we're doing there, rather than just calling out cues that your body may or may not be able to do.
[01:05:50] It's about offering suggestions for ways that you can back off of some intensity or add a little more spice if that's what you need. And letting people make the choice about what's best for themselves. Offering opportunities to check in with the energy levels, what do you need right now?
[01:06:06] And I think that's a really important skill for us to develop in our lives, but also, especially when we're doing physical pursuits. And I feel like yoga is one of those things that, like you said, there's effort there, but it's safe to try experiments and take the agency to say yeah, I wanna try extroversion here.
[01:06:24] Or, oh my gosh, my energy today is really low because I've just dealt with all this really hard stuff in my life and I am gonna actually take that opportunity to rest or to take the less intense version or whatever. So we get to practice making those decisions for ourselves in real time. And that type of care that you're talking about where you can know your body and what it needs and that whole, like listen to your body thing, which is such like a cliche thing to say, but actually takes a lot of practice to be able to do that skillfully and get better and better at guessing, like what support we actually do need or how much we are capable of.
[01:06:56] And I feel like yoga is one of those lower stakes ways to start practicing that and to build the muscle of being able to offer ourselves the support we need or the challenge we need or whatever that is. So yeah agency and consent and permission and all of those things are wrapped up together in that.
[01:07:14] And the thing that was really powerful for me when I first came to yoga back in my twenties and this is when I was still dieting and trying to change my body. All my physical experiences had been punitive. I was working out to fix something. I was working out to make myself smaller.
[01:07:32] I was working out because I didn't fit the image of what I thought I was supposed to be. And the person who suggested I try yoga as like this coach at this gym I was working out at. And he was like, you should do yoga on your rest days. 'cause it doesn't count as exercise, but you'll burn calories.
[01:07:45] And I was like, oh, okay. So it was presented. I know it was like the stupidest explanation I literally ever heard, but I ultimately was grateful for it because I didn't go in there to this yoga studio expecting a workout. I didn't approach it like another thing that I was doing to change my body.
[01:08:03] Even though I was like, oh, still burn calories, like to me I heard it's something to do on your rest day. So, okay, this is rest. This is something different. When I came into this class and did what the person was saying, like I had never tried yoga. I didn't know what it was about. I didn't know anything about it.
[01:08:17] I just thought it was like a stretching class. But I left that class well, first of all, the mean girl voice in my head, shut up for 10 minutes when I got in the car. And I was like, I only noticed when it came back. It was like this, it just downregulated me and my nervous system in a way that I think I had never experienced before.
[01:08:37] I had never tried intentionally to relax my nervous system. I had never tried intentionally to practice shivashana to like lay still at the end of something physical that I had done. So I tried all these new things and it taught my body something that was possible that I did not have in the repertoire before.
[01:08:57] And so that's the desire that I have to share with my students that there's this other way to be. It is not about, some people think, okay, meditation, I have to get quiet and sit still in this position and I have to have no thoughts in my head.
[01:09:09] And it's not about that, but it is about teaching our nervous system that there are these other states that are available to us. There are safe places where it's okay to try what may be really risky feeling for some people of relaxing and releasing and letting a feeling of calmness come, when many of us are in this state of constantly doing and going and protecting.
[01:09:34] It's a protective thing, like the stuff you talk about. That our nervous system doesn't wanna let us relax because it thinks it's protecting us from whatever that threat is that will happen if we relax. And so many of us have gotten the message that like, fat people are lazy.
[01:09:48] So like, we don't wanna relax. 'cause then we're like fulfilling that story. You know? And this might not even be something that's happening in our conscious thoughts. This is just all down here. Right? It's all those stories we carry behind us that give meaning to things. I just wanna open up the possibility that Hey, your body can feel this way too. Your brain can feel this way too. There's ways that you can participate in these practices that aren't about, sitting in silent meditation for a week with your own thoughts, which makes some people wanna be like, ah, and run away, you know?
[01:10:19] But there's ways that we can make friends with your brain and make friends with your body and try some new things that show you in the same way that, people are jumping off the cliff before you, shows you that it's safe and it's possible and it's something you might wanna return to and continue to make that, something that's even more possible to slip into quicker, right?
[01:10:39] That state of feeling calm and relaxed and feeling good when you get to move your body in ways that it normally doesn't move and all the benefits that type of practice can provide. So maybe that's enough.
[01:10:53] Deb: I love it. So let's jump into how do people do yoga with you? And how people find out about your retreats and what's coming next in
[01:11:05] Amber: Absolutely. In
[01:11:06] Deb: the orbit of Amber House,
[01:11:09] Amber: in Amber Universe. Yeah. You can go to my website, Amberkarnes.com. I'm sure Deb's gonna link to all the things. I have a tab that says yoga, so you can practice yoga with me.
[01:11:18] I have a online yoga club called Amber House, we're gonna practice yoga together online. I'm having two live classes a month. One's a active class, one's a chill class, and then we'll have a community hangout once a month.
[01:11:30] You also get access to all my old stuff. So, pre pandemic Amber teaching, which is a hundred different recorded classes. So even if you can't come live, you can practice at any time with those. You also get recordings of all the live classes. So that's the way to practice with me right now.
[01:11:47] Soon I hope that I'll be having some in-person stuff, in Las Vegas, maybe a weekly class or something like that. Definitely some weekend workshops and some longer intensives. And you can practice yoga with me at my retreats. So if all this stuff we were talking about sounds up your alley or sounds intriguing or maybe even a little bit scary to you, just go to my website and check out the opportunities I have coming up.
[01:12:10] This year I'm taking a group of people to Costa Rica, which Deb is gonna be there too. So if you wanna hang out with both of us, this is the way. That's gonna be a retreat that's about art and nature and body image. And we're doing some amazing activities and we have this beautiful villa in the jungle.
[01:12:27] Deb: Yes, come to Costa Rica.
[01:12:29] Amber: And I'm returning to Sayulita next year in Mexico to repeat the surfing retreat. And I'm also doing an event called Fat Beach Week in Sayulita, which is gonna be a plus size only event. And we are gonna have amazing time, practicing yoga and enjoying Mexican culture and being at the beach together and having a beautiful and nourishing vacation.
[01:12:50] I do get a question sometimes of oh, is this only for plus size people? Like mostly the people in the pictures are bigger bodies.
[01:12:56] No, unless it's specifically specified. Like Fat Beach Week is actually the first event I've ever done where I'm saying it's only for plus size people, but most of my stuff is open to anyone that wants to join. But I center larger bodies in my work and that's what I like to say about these experiences that, I consider us first and usually any experience I create that's good and safe for fat folks is good and safe for everybody else too.
[01:13:23] So those are the ones that are on the books for next year. I've got some other ones in the works, like a Vegas vacation retreat later in the year and some other things like that. Go to my website and get on my email list. That's the best way to be the first to know about all the things.
[01:13:38] I hope I'll see you at a retreat or online. I know Deb has some fantastic folks in her orbit, so I'd love to connect with some of you for sure.
[01:13:48] It was great to do this. Thanks for asking me.
[01:13:51] Deb: Sorry that it sounded like it got cut off. Amber and I just started transitioning into chitchatting, and so when I was editing this, I was like, that's the end of that conversation. This was so much fun to review. Really brought my body back into that feeling of being there, being on retreat, jumping into the cenote.
[01:14:17] Amazingly that was a memory and an anchor that I used in some mind body work that I did around being anxious before my talk at the at and s conference, and I'm so excited to invite my colleague Amy to come on the podcast and for us to talk about presenting, that was pretty freaking spectacular.
[01:14:39] But it was really fun to bring in that memory of swimming in the cenote and cliff jumping as a positive memory. And so I wanna invite you as a practice to find a positive memory of a way that your body felt, that felt really good for you. Put yourself back there in the moment of whatever it was, that felt so good. The way that you want to feel more of.
[01:15:12] Make it bite size because, we can get lost in the story. 'cause maybe it is a moment that's within a larger moment, like maybe it's a great moment, but like it's in a relationship that you're not in anymore and your brain wants to go over there, wander off over there into the story.
[01:15:29] So see if you can just do a tiny capture of the most delicious moment of what it felt like in your body to have that feeling of pleasure, joy, expansion, something yummy. It's really fun to bring these experiences together. And then I'm so happy that I get to share this podcast with you, this interview with you.
[01:15:53] There are still spaces for people to join us in Costa Rica. So if you would like to come on a retreat, and maybe you've always wanted to go to Costa Rica, maybe you've always wanted to go on a yoga retreat, but we're kind of like, oh, yoga retreats are really not for me. I wanna encourage you to reach out to Amber and find out more information and see if this is something that feels like a empowering, embodiment experience that you wanna step into. I want you to think about in your life what ease and empowered embodied activity that you might want to get curious about and challenge yourself using these tools. Understanding that you can create this sense of safety for yourself. Giving you yourself permission to do it and to see what happens. All right. Thank you so much for listening.