In celebration of my 100th episode, join me for Part 2 in this six-part book series where I share insights from “The Well-Lived Life” by centenarian Gladys T. McGarey, M.D.
Thank you for joining me last week for Part One of my Six-Part Book Chat series. In this episode, we dive into Part 2 of the book where Gladys writes about “the trickle” and three hindrances to confront in order to realign with life. I share how emotional pain is related to forgiveness and shame and the ways it can hold us hostage from our fullest range of life force energy. I end the episode with Gladys' movement practice for letting go and turning our attention back to love.
During my marriage crisis, I aligned with the energy of my family to see the trickle moving through the flow of life and our commitment to our children. When we’re in pain, we tend to stop moving, but in reality, movement is the solution to keep our energy system flowing.
I share Gladys’ specific practice with hand gestures to deal with blockages and alleviate emotional pain. In order to navigate the pain and find the trickle, we must move something in our life.
For a true release in support of your life force, I share Gladys’ process for letting go and letting energy flow. I recently used this process to work out my feelings about the U.S. medical system. I stretched, I danced, I pounded, I jumped — and I felt amazing. Listen in to learn more about the wisdom and insight Gladys has to share with us. Let movement guide and revitalize your life force energy. Is there something in your life that’s asking to be moved? I would love to hear from you.
If you are enjoying these conversations, help me hit 100 reviews in celebration of my 100th episode! (And a big thank you to K.DeBoom for the review!) Please subscribe and spread the love by leaving a review and sharing it with your friends. Thank you.
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Dana Frost 00:07
Welcome to Vitally You, a podcast created to introduce you to the tools that will be your roadmap for feeling younger while growing older. I'm your host Dana Frost, a wellness expert, life coach and energy medicine practitioner. Here's what you can expect conversations about vitality from the inside out with guest experts in the field of health, culture and spirituality and solo episodes along the way from me where I do deep dives into the topics of aging, heart intelligence, energy, medicine, and your innate capacity to heal. If you want to feel younger, while growing older, this is the place for you.
Dana Frost 00:48
Hi, everybody. I'm Dana Frost, your host of the Vitally You podcast. And I am coming to you this week for episode two of my six part series celebrating my 100th episode. Today we are talking about the book The Well-Lived Life written by centenarian Gladys McGarey. Now before we start, I want to take a moment I've never done this before but I want to share a new beauty product that I've been using that I am loving so much and I want you to know this isn't an affiliate recommendation.
Dana Frost 01:23
To be honest, I am a clean beauty sloth I just love trying out different clean beauty products. I'm not loyal to one brand. And I found one that I am crazy about. So it is a beauty counter product called Mighty plump serum eat a water cream. I was shocked by how supple and dewy my skin looked immediately after my first application. So if you like me, menopausal have struggled with loss of moisture, try beauty counters, mighty plump Sarah Mead water cream. Now I've been using Beautycounter products for a couple of years. On a daily basis, I use their vitamin C serum, I use their deodorant, and I will tell you, probably eight years ago, I left the pharmacy over the counter deodorants for a healthy deodorant and I've used lots of different ones. And I've found some good ones. I think nativa was the first one that really worked.
Dana Frost 02:19
And then after a while it didn't work. So I moved on to little seed. And but I have to say for Well, as soon as beauty counters deodorant came out, I have been using it and I love it. So if you're also looking for a clean deodorant, one thing you need to know is that your skin is considered your largest organ and it absorbs everything you put into it. And so having clean beauty products, makeup, and deodorant, you know skincare routine, having clean products is really important because anything that's toxic, and those products that you put on your skin will go into your bloodstream. And another thing to note about that is the US has the least stringent regulations in terms of what companies are allowed to put into beauty products. So even if you just go with a European brand, you're already getting a cleaner product. Okay, so the other thing that I use with Beautycounter is their charcoal facial mask i when using this, I feel like I've given myself a facial.
Dana Frost 03:22
So, again, this isn't an affiliate link, I'm not getting anything from this, you do purchase beauty counter products directly from beauty counter reps, I will include my rep Her name is Abigail star, she lives in Colorado, any new beauty counter customer, if you use the code clean for all 20 You get 20% off your first order. I'll put all that in the show notes, in case you want to try a few new clean beauty products. Okay. Now, I also want to thank lightwaves x 39 and exporting nine stem cell activation patches, because they are the sponsor of this show. x 39 and x 49 patches are for you. If you want to support yourself feeling younger, while growing older, you can improve stamina, strength and recovery. This includes things like improved strength, improved cognition, decreased pain, improved range of motion, improved skin remodeling. You can learn more about that if you follow the link in the show notes. So everybody, it's time to get in to today's episode.
Dana Frost 04:27
And I am so excited about this. So I'll review last week's episode we talked about the importance of turning toward life, regardless of the circumstances because life is imperfect. And we will hit road bumps along the way. Some of those road bumps will feel like minor speed bumps. Some will feel like we've been taken out. Gladys shares the secret to finding the motivation when times are tough, and it's through a connection to your desire or what she calls your joy. Use, we ended last week's episode with her process for assisting you to reconnect with your juice in your juices connecting to your desire your motivation. So this week we're in part two, and we're talking about how every living thing is in motion. And we need to find the flow and move with it. So life is moving, even when it appears to have come to a halt. When we are in the flow and moving with life, we don't need reminders, because well, we feel our life force and it's in sync with the energy around us. When we are in flow with the energy around us, we can actually be wordless. Think about it.
Dana Frost 05:46
When you are doing something and you lose track of time. You don't even need words, because life is literally speaking through you. When we're in the flow, we are seeing life in living color, our emotional state is coherent, down to something as specific as the hormones that are pulsing in our bloodstream, that actually fuel health and immunity. We easily move let's say move means movement, we easily move through daily activities, there's just flow. That is that happens. We're in that flow of life. So what happens when we confront a dam in the flow of life? What happens when it feels as though life our life force has been stopped? And what happens when we face a detour? And we are confused by the way we should go? Which Way You know, when we stopped? Which way do we turn? We might feel as though we're stopped. What happens when we face a health crisis or a trauma, and the life we knew is no longer sustainable?
Dana Frost 06:56
What about when we face a physical or emotional limitation? We face the end of a relationship? Or a loss that feels insurmountable? How do we move with life when we feel locked in pain? So a well-lived life requires us to find the resolve and resilience to bounce back when we feel stalled. Because in reality, we are all going to hit those roadblocks. But what we need to really understand is that all of life is moving through us. Until the moment we are no longer on this earth plane. So what does that mean? If you just think about when a baby enters the world, if we look at their heart rate variability, its heart rate variability is the greatest for a baby, it's got the greatest length. And as we if we're ill, or a variability diminishes. As we grow older, the heart rate variability diminishes. I see the heart rate variability, it's one reflection that we can measure of our life force.
Dana Frost 08:00
You know, when we die, that heart rate variability it flatlines. So we can see the lifeforce through our heartbeat and our heart rate variability. And what Gladys talks about is that when we when we've been taken out, and we feel a dam in the road, we need to find what Gladys calls the trickle, we need to find the trickle when we feel stuck. We don't need a waterfall to move us, that would be really overwhelming. We simply need to find a tiny trickle of flow of energy and move into the stream. All of life is a flow of energy. If we look at traditional Chinese medicines, philosophy, they reference this flow of energy in terms of the meridians or lines of energy that flow through our organs and contribute to our vital life force. If the line of energy is low or blocked, maybe overactive or our organs. Well, let's say that our organs will be impacted.
Dana Frost 09:05
We might have an overactive bladder, we might have a sluggish digestive system, we might have a, an under overactive thyroid, we might have heart The heart rate that slows or is stalled. So I think about my own experience of burning the electrical conduction of my heart out. This truly was a direct correlation that I was moving too fast. For my own heart to keep pace, it simply sizzle out, and I had to find a new trickle to find a new way to be. It was evident to me in the days, weeks and months after my pacemaker was implanted that my body was inviting me to a new level of intimacy. I had been so disconnected to how I was asking my body to overwork and to serve my inefficiencies and my inability or unwillingness to say no, because of my own fear of rejection, I thought I needed to be the yes person for acceptance, the energy in my life slowed down, to show me to slow down and get into the flow of my heart energy.
Dana Frost 10:23
This is when I started with Heart Math. And I learned how to connect to my nervous system, well how to connect my nervous system with my heart, and to be in alignment with how the energy of my heart, the energy of my soul wanted to flow. Because what is really apparent to me is that a health crisis is never just physical. There's always this deeper invitation from the body and the emotional experience to heal something that wants to be seen, felt and heard. And the beautiful thing is that your body mind soul system, it actually knows how to heal, and it wants homeostasis. And it's totally possible regardless of where you find yourself, it might look different than your original plans. And you might have long term consequences, like a pacemaker, or a change of life circumstances.
Dana Frost 11:20
But there's always a trickle, from which you can enter the flow and begin again, I want to quote Gladys here from the book, Life reaches for life. Always. That means when we feel the most stuck, whether physically, emotionally or situationally, or any other way we need only look for where things are still moving. When we put our focus and energy there a trickle were formed around our dam, and aligning with this trickle will help realign with life. So in my case, with my heart, I aligned myself in daily sessions with Heart Math, and literally aligning myself with my heartbeat and learning how to use breathing techniques to create coherent heart rate variability. I started moving forward, I started to unlock where I was stuck Emotionally, I started regaining my own sense of empowerment around my health and my life and my decisions.
Dana Frost 12:21
So something I think is really pertinent to mention is that during my marriage crisis, I found the trickle in our family and the commitment we had made to our children. I could see the trickle, I could see life moving and our relationships with our kids. And so guess where I put my focus, I moved with that as my motivation to keep going in the flow of life and to keep working on my marriage. This brings me back to part one and the juice, both my husband and I were aligned with the juice of our family. Our crisis created a dam and our relationship with the energy in our family was still very much alive. And we both had this resounding yes. To that energy and our y with our family. It made it it facilitated, it was scaffolding for us to work on our marriage.
Dana Frost 13:14
So when you feel like the life flow is stuck, find the trickle. And you might say, well, it's easier said than done. And I agree, I can say, I know I've been there. It's really hard. But I also know it's not impossible. I know that if you can turn your energy to where there's a trickle, you will have to exert your own effort. But when you get your focus on the trickle things began to ease up. So Gladys addresses what I consider to be three hindrances that you have to confront. They are moving through pain, forgiveness, and shame. Okay, so moving through pain and pain can be absolutely paralyzing. This is one reason why I love the life wave products, these patches because they actually decrease pain by the speed of light. They're just amazing, because what do they do their energy patches, they're finding a trickle in your energy system. So that movement, lifeforce can come through and diminish the pain unlock the dam, they're finding where the dams are, and they're unlocking that dam.
Dana Frost 14:32
When we're in paralyzing pain, we tend to stop moving, and in reality movement is the solution to pain. We move away from it and actually, we need to move forward towards it. You could reference my episode with an array where she talked about the fascia, such a powerful episode when we talk about pain, and how the fascia is integrated how the fascial holds that pain and we need to move the fascia to move through the pain. Okay, so Oh, let's look at emotional pain. emotional pain, I believe is really related to lack of forgiveness and shame. So I see forgiveness as a hallmark to feeling younger while going older. Think about older people, you know who are grumpy. They are stiff. They're grouchy. Those people are holding on to unforgiveness.
Dana Frost 15:23
The inability to forgive creates a stalled, lifeforce. It calcifies, the bones, yes, it calcifies the bones, it prohibits the joints from moving, it limits your range of motion. When I went through my marriage crisis, I knew that my life had taught me how to forgive. Because I was able to move into forgiveness so quickly, I didn't stall out. And what's shame, I feel like is one of the things that prohibits us towards forgiveness, because shame, it's an emotion that holds us hostage. And when we have shame for holding any amount of shame, we are unable to forgive others. You have to accept yourself as an imperfect human who has the capacity for self harm and harm of others. When you understand that this is your capacity, you are, you're like, teed up, to move into forgiveness, releasing my own shame is how I was able to enter this capacity for full forgiveness.
Dana Frost 16:29
And I know I, I know on many solo episodes, where I've talked about emotions I've talked about, I've talked about this in my own life. In those episodes, I do not hide the fact that I faced a very rage full Dana as an adoptive mother. And I carried a lot of shame about this. But when I began to forgive myself, and I could see my own frailties, and my own feelings of abandonment, and how that created the condition for my own rage, I was able to forgive myself, and realize that we are all frail, and we have the capacity for love and hate. It resides in both of us. And what we want to do is turn our attention, our focus to love. Love is where energy flows, the Healed person that is able to admit this. They are able to accept who they really are and enter a life of forgiveness and rejection of shame. So Gladys shared and really interesting story from her own history that her mom had modeled a specific practice that included hand gestures.
Dana Frost 17:37
So if you think about hand gestures, the body needs to be an MO movement. So it wasn't just the words that she spoke. But she actually when she spoke this phrase, she used hand gestures. The phrase is, and I don't know if I'm pronouncing it right, but it's kuj par way not nae. kuj parwanoo A, and it's hoodoo. Stani for it doesn't matter. Or in other words, let it go. I have a friend who says l go let it go. So I asked you, what are you holding on to? I just want to pause here. What are you holding on to I want to give you a moment to reflect kuj Parwan May, it doesn't matter. I can promise you, what you're holding on to is not worth losing your life force over?
Dana Frost 18:32
Can you make a list of your regrets? And list out what you learn from those regrets? And how have you grown because of your mistakes, I would not be a quarter of who I am today. Without my regrets, I wouldn't have been able to move into forgiveness in my marriage without being confronted with my own frailties. I wouldn't be able to see humanity with the compassionate eyes, I feel like I would be a much more stiff person I can just feel if I didn't have the capacity for forgiveness, I can feel just saying that makes me feel a lot of tension in my body. So how have you grown because of your mistakes, there are times when we have to remove the blockages.
Dana Frost 19:23
So in order, you know to move into the trickle and move into the life flow. We are confronted when things get stuck in our tissues. I had a stuck shoulder because of my pacemaker implant and I guarded and protected the side of the pacemaker my left side and so I got my shoulder in a place where it had very limited range of motion. I was in a lot of pain and I had to deal with that blockage. It came from this emotional need to self protect. But it went beyond that to being a physical block. So sometimes we need to remove blockages and There are these long term consequences, I now have a pacemaker. And I will always need this pacemaker. Those are just consequences. Sometimes we have a blockage because we're in a relationship that we need to end or we're in a job that we need to move on from or we actually need to move locations we need to change the city, whether we're living in or the home that we're living in, finding the trickle means we move something in our life, we have to move something in our life.
Dana Frost 20:26
And is there something in your life that's asking to be moved? Is there something in your life that's asking to be moved, because what you focus on is going to expand focus on the trickle if you focus on the pain, if you focus on what stuck, if you focus on the downregulating emotions that you have, because of your life circumstances, you're not going to be you'll be blinded from the trickle, you have to turn to where life is flowing. And that might even just mean finding something in your something in your life that's moving. Like I said, I found the relationship with my kids was moving, it might be going out in nature and watching the flow, the life force of the natural waters or the wind, filling the wind against your body, something that's simple, when you're really stuck, can make a big difference. So I want to end by sharing glasses process for letting go.
Dana Frost 21:24
Okay, because so many times that's what prohibits us from moving into the flow of life. So let me grab her book. This is at the end of part two. So we're doing part two this week. Next, if you bought the book, let me know. Next week, we'll move into part three. So from Gladys, the practice of letting go number one, this exercise will work best if you get up and move put on some upbeat music and start walking around your house or your neighborhood. Let your body move loosely and freely as you walk, you may even let yourself dance a little. So I want to stop here and tell you that in 2021 I started a morning practice of free flow movement. And it can look like dancing. It can look like beating a drum. It looks like a lot of different things when I get on my mat but I move my body, I make sure I move my spine, I move my head I just move into this free flow.
Dana Frost 22:25
And I will tell you, it sets me up for success for the day because I bring my body into my practice for getting myself ready for the day for grounding myself for centering myself. Okay, number two. As you move your body consider something that feels stuck in your life. They can be a friendship, a professional endeavor and identification, a way of thinking a resentment and so on. It could also be something physical, provided you don't substitute this exercise for medical treatment. But consider a persistent cough a patch of dry skin or chronic pain that you've not been able to resolve. Otherwise, allow the feeling of stagnation to come over you feel the stuckness in your body. Then imagine you could hold this stuck thing in your hand. You may even feel one fists becoming tight. Hold this tightness, squeeze your hand. Number four while still moving, hold your hand out in front of you a palm up with fingers together. Drop it down and back opening your fingers slightly.
Dana Frost 23:29
Let the weight of your arms bring your hand down let life itself move as you do so release the stuckness like flowers to the water really let it go. You can think or say words that are meaningful to you which Parwan a it doesn't matter or simply a phrase, any phrase that works for you. Once you let it go, take a moment to appreciate the flow of life moving through you. This is your life force, honor and cherish it it will be with you your whole life. That is simply beautiful, everybody, I hope that you will join in that process. I'll tell you another story. If you've been listening, you know that I was with my daughter when she was in labor and delivery a couple of weeks ago. And I don't resonate with the conventional model medical model. I know that it serves it is we need it for many different reasons. It works in many different circumstances. It definitely worked for the way my daughter wanted to give birth. She had a very positive birth experience but for me, and my frame and my my framework the way that I see health and healing being in the hospital environment for that day.
Dana Frost 24:44
I was exhausted afterwards and it had nothing to do with my daughter's labor and delivery experience. She actually had a really good experience. But for me the lighting what I noticed that most healthcare professionals they don't look healthy. I was in the waiting room at one point and a nurse came in and got a coke and whatever I know we're not supposed to judge people, but that is just really unhealthy. A healing environment for me has all the elements, visually, the lighting, the environment, the mood, the music, all of the elements play into what the mind body system needs for healing. And for me, that hospital setting that we have in the US just doesn't it that's not it. So I was really exhausted. And I woke up the next morning, actually, I'll tell you, I came home.
Dana Frost 25:35
I lay down on my bed. I was just going to lay down for a few minutes before I got ready for bed because my nighttime routine takes about 30 minutes, I fell asleep with my shoes on and I slept I woke up at 1230 and then I did my routine and went back to bed. But I woke up the next morning and I just felt you know, even in the midst of this joy of having this new baby girl in our family and just the utter, you know joy of that I needed to work out how I felt in that hospital environment. And I got on my mat and I didn't use any words but I was just I took myself to my mat and I'm like what do you need? Dana to release all with this your feeling about the medical system and I will tell you I wailed I wept. I did so many like squatting on the earth on my mat. Actually my bend yoga mat that's this you all know they are your Vedic yoga mat from bend yoga, I, I was I moved my fascia I stretched I danced, I pounded I jumped. I did all this and I felt amazing.
Dana Frost 26:44
Afterwards, I got up off my mat. It was over. I worked it out. So that's what movement can do for you. For your vital life force. I felt as you can see, I felt my vital life source diminish after being in the hospital setting for it for that day. Okay, so I want to thank you for joining me this week on the vital you podcast. And as you know, I am targeting 100 reviews in honor of this 100th episode and before I hit record on this episode, I saw that I had received one review so far. Why now I'm at 60. And I want to read this review and I would like to thank que de boon for this review.
Dana Frost 27:28
My favorite podcasts are on aging. Thank you so much Katie Boone. Dana is a marvelous interviewer who seems to always know what we are interested in hearing about the best ways to grow old gracefully her podcast always seem to cut through the clutter with onpoint information for women who are facing the challenges associated with aging and a positive informative way. Keep up the great work, Dana and thank you well, thank you, you know what I always say make my heart sing by leaving me a review and I when I saw this review, I just totally lit up and I was so excited. So thank you and please everybody.
Dana Frost 28:04
If you're enjoying my podcast, please consider leaving a review and help me reach 100 reviews in honor of my 100th episode. I will be back next week for part three and I will tell you let me just tell you part three is love is the most powerful medicine so I will see you next week to talk about the powerful medicine of love. Until next week. As always, I am streaming love from my heart to yours