Episode 5: Beth Shaw, Founder of YogaFit - Listen to Your Body

0:07 Hello everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Role Models. Today, I have the great pleasure of welcoming special, guest bath sha, that is a creative Visionary, and a leader in the health and wellness industry. She's an educator, she's a best-selling, author of four books, a philanthropist, and animal Advocate, and The founder of yoga fit which is the world's largest yoga School through her work, that has influenced transformation and empowered thousands of teachers students and yoga Enthusiast around the world. Welcome back. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so happy that you're here now. I was so excited to hear about your story because you were really a front-runner.

0:54 You revolutionized, the fitness industry by bringing yoga into the mainstream over. Years ago. Can you tell us how you got into yoga and what inspired you to launch yoga fit? Well, I actually started doing guided meditation and imagery. When I was six years old, I suffer from horrible, migraine headaches. And I grew up in a family, where, where they were not too concerned with what was going on with me. Let's just say that. So I taught myself, I consider it spiritual intervention, to be honest with you, I taught myself how to do guided meditation. At age six and I really cured myself of the migraine headaches. I was doing yoga as a child, although I didn't really know what it was at the time. I've been working out in health clubs since age 15 and really developed a love of Fitness at an early age. And then in college, I was in a very bad car accident and I got introduced to some chiropractors who were former basketball players, and they turn me on to food combining. So I started studying nutrition.

1:58 Everything just kind of came together for me to take this path in life. Amazing amazing. To a lot of people yoga has become much Trends are now than when it was 20 something years ago. So, how did you first learn about it? And, of course, the meditation and that practice may have led you into it but at what point did you say, wow, this is a great modality and it's something that I want to be very serious in. I really got into formal yoga when I moved to Los Angeles from New York City after college. My first teacher was 93 years old. She used to sit on a desk and instruct and she had a great story. Her name was Renee Taylor and she had developed cancer in the late 1960s, went to rishikesh India, where yoga fit my school actually takes people every year now on pilgrimages and trips and she went to rishikesh, she started studying yoga meditation, ayurveda, cure herself, Cancer came back to the US and started writing books and teachings. As she was my first teacher, I got lucky in that respect. And there were not a lot of teacher training. And remember, this is way back in the 90s. There were not a lot of teacher trainings, you had to usually go in residence for upwards of a month. I went to take one, but I wasn't really left with tools. That would help me teach in the health club environment. So the name yoga that came to me one day in a bike ride. I made sure.

3:26 I trademarked it early. And I came up with a style that really seemed to work for people who are going into the gym who wanted a workout who didn't want to lay around on the cold floor listening to the weights, clanking, outside the room and yoga. If it was born, I started to do cable TV show at the time and one of my students was an investment guy, he liked the brand, he liked the logo and he helped me raise money. We incorporated in 1997 and we've been doing yoga teacher. Training's ever since we've also expanded a lot, since then we do a lot of corporate Wellness, programs Retreats consumer education, and we've got over 125 different educational programs at yoga fit.

4:12 We're known as the gold standard for yoga in the industry. That is absolutely amazing. Now, in terms of having yoga fit, be part of Jim's. Is this a particular thing that any gym like that anybody would go to Could necessarily see or ask about or are there, is it mostly that there are teachers there that had been trained through yoga fit? Can you tell us a little bit about the organization combination? It depends on where you live in the world. If you go into a Good Life Fitness in Canada, you'll probably take a yoga fit, sweat class, or yoga fit core. And we do a lot of trainings in Jim's, but chances are because we have trained at yoga fit over 250,000 people worldwide since our Inception.

4:58 Chances are your instructor may be trained by yoga fit. What would you consider the differences in the way that you train or the way that you have developed your program versus others? Well I can't speak to others but I can speak to our program. We have 65 master trainers, who are experts all in their different field of study. We have doctors on our team. We have psychologists, we have exercise science people, ayurvedic specialist people from the military. So we've got it. Very talented team of master trainers. All of our trainings are dumb live. We don't like pre-record stuff, put it up and sell it like that. Our trainings are done virtually live or in person lie pre-pandemic we were running 15 conferences a year across North America and about 1,000 weekend trainings worldwide.

5:48 Wow. And again where everything we do is based on exercise science and really care at yoga fit to make sure that whether you're taking a training, just for your own Back pain or core hell or whatever route you choose with us. We're very diligent in giving good information and our teaching method is quite unique. That's really fascinating. I love your own personal story, as well as those that you've come into contact that, have inspired you to put forth, yoga fit and to help to spread this idea of Wellness. Because I think that a lot of people these days are concerned about the westernization of Wellness, the capitalism of Wellness, And it seems like you're really taking it to a place where it's about healing.

6:33 It's about an integrative approach to holistic well-being. Can you talk a little bit about your philosophy on well-being and how people can incorporate it into their lives from an individual perspective? Well, I like to look at health and wellness as a wheel and we all have different spokes on that wheel. Obviously, yoga is one of those spokes meditation. Another exercise, proper Jim supplementation, positive affirmations journaling, what we're consuming in terms of energetic intake, otherwise known as the news social media. I think that the wheel is different for everyone, but a lot of spokes have commonalities and that's the integrative approach much like in the origins of yoga, and ayurveda, and Vedic astrology, it was a three-part program, you know, you have to understand your ayurvedic body type because someone who is a con If a body type in ayurveda is never going to be a size 2 and that's okay.

7:32 They can be their best selves in my book yoga lean. It is based on the three doshas in three different ayurvedic, body types. And we really go into depth and how depending upon your body type. You can eat, you can exercise and you can live in a way that's going to create the most balanced and just make you feel good every day and that's really the goal. It's just, you know, obviously there are a lot of clinical measurements that people need to be aware. Of such as body mass index and what their fat to muscle ratio is, but we just want people to feel good, feel clean, feel clear, feel healthy, and feel empowered. And I think in the society and the world that we're living in, now it's incredibly disempowering and getting more so every day. So my platform, whether it's through my radio show, make America healthy or through yoga fit. Or if I go out and work with corporate Executives or teach to a corporation, Ian or presented a conference. It's just about how you can be the best version of yourself and feel good in the moment.

8:35 I love that. I think that is so powerful and to the point of your statement earlier about understanding your body type or your Dosha, I found that completely life-changing. When I found out that I was a combo kapha Pizza. You know I just was like oh my gosh this is exactly right. I feel not so great when I eat these kinds of foods or you know, drink these kinds of drinks and I feel so much better when I have Hardy. Our foods and substances that are comforting things like that. And it's interesting because I hear so many women mostly women but also men who feel that they're comparing themselves to other people. Oh, why can't I look like that? Why is that person on this diet?

9:16 And they're losing all this weight? And I'm on this diet and I'm not losing any weight and then they feel bad about themselves and they judge themselves and beating themselves up and that gets to be such a Negative cycle. I think that the aware Earnest. And the understanding to your point of saying, like, let's get you to the best version of you possible is so powerful and it's liberating one of my favorite philosophers krishnamurti said. Every time we compare, we are disappointed. So, you know, comparing ourselves to anyone else. Is it? It's not empowering and because we all have different body types, we all have different life experiences that created our body.

9:58 Hands. We all have different thought processes that may or may not be serving us to compare ourselves to others really as an exercise in futility. It takes a lot of energy that we don't need to be putting in that direction, you know, I'd like people to wake up every day and be like, how can I be my best self today? And then at night, when they go to sleep, you know, just take time to acknowledge the winds, maybe you meditated for 20 minutes, maybe you did some type of technology or an app that was like, A meditation, maybe you exercise, maybe you're using a wearable, so you can track your steps, you know. It's just a matter of us putting more deposits in the feel-good healthy Bank every day. Then we're doing withdrawals and I think most people on a deep intuitive level if they learn how to listen to their body. And again, that's what we really teach at yoga fit is listen to your body.

10:53 Your body will tell you what it needs, which is very different than what it wants. Because why? Are dictated by all the advertising. We're seeing on television for the worst processed foods we can ever put in our bodies from magazine articles that we might read or from external sources. And if people are really trained to learn how to listen to their bodies and move from that place, that's that's what I would like to be able to share with everyone is listen to your body because your body doesn't lie and listen to your body because sometimes It's just whispering, but if you don't listen to it, that Whispers going to turn into a scream and that's where a lot of people really fall off in their health is they're just not listening.

11:38 You also talked so much about healing through trauma and I think this is part of it because people compare themselves, people feel that they are saddled with a background or things that have happened or occurred to them in the past, that they just can't get over and you've written a book recently called healing trauma with yoga and mind-body techniques. There it is, everybody. Take a look healing, trauma with yoga by Beth Shaw and I would love for you to tell everybody what are some of the key points of the book and what can they expect? Well, the key points of the book is that, you know, most people have encountered or experienced some type of trauma in their lives. And, you know, we've just, we're coming out of two years. That has been incredibly traumatic for everyone and I believe created a lot of different ptsds. So even if If you weren't trying, if you were one of the lucky ones, who didn't have childhood. Trauma didn't have an adult trauma. Chances are, you were traumatized in the past two years.

12:37 So I tell my story in the book about overcoming my childhood, trauma and 13. Other people share their trauma stories in the book and how they used yoga and other mind-body tools to help themselves heal and again, just feel better. And that's what it's really all about right now is how can I Feel better. And I don't mean like go have two martinis because that's a temporary fix, but how can you feel better naturally and organically and I give people the tools that they need to help them feel better, whether it's sound healing. We have a chapter on ayurveda in the book, a chapter on supplements food as mood, my favorite chapter is chapter 12 and it's called, living your best life. And in that chapter, I give just 22 quick tips. That people can employ every day to feel better. Now, I just came off of my headstand machine, with my red light, in my face, for 20 minutes, because that's something that I use because I have a mood disorder. I've suffered from depression my entire life and intensifies with PMS.

13:45 So whether it's standing on my head for 20 minutes a day or making sure that I do a meditation or not ingesting too much caffeine. There are things that people can do. And again I really want people to take their own. Physical and mental health into their own hands, I can't stress that enough. You have to take your own health into your hands because by the time you get to a doctor or a mental health professional, you may be much further down the road than you would actually like to be. That's such great advice and I can't wait to dive into that book. I know that there's probably so much value in it for for myself. And for anybody else that might be really going through a difficult time or just want to continually improve themselves.

14:28 Elves and their mood, and their happiness, Little Steps at a time. Now, you touched on nutrition. I know that nutrition has always been a very big part of your life. Can you tell us a little bit more aside from doshas and aside from eating organically, what are some of the key things that people can do from a nourishment standpoint each and every day that could help contribute to their better Wellness. Well, obviously eating as much fresh fruit and vegetables as possible, you know, high water content Looks go a long way because their body is 70% water. Also, I gave up gluten in 2012. After I took a glutton test and I tested highly gluten intolerant.

15:08 That's my game changer for me and the game changer for me has been more with cognitive function than anything else. So I would say avoiding gluten as an excellent strategy and just clean eating in America. In particular, we're just were overfed where overfed and were undernourished. So cutting portions. Down super important. Our body takes up 85% of its energy after we eat a meal, just to digest that meal. Also, we can't digest more than 25 grams of protein in any meal. So you watch someone eat, for example, an 8 ounce steak. It's like throwing half of that in the trash. So, in yoga, lean, we really get into how to shrink your stomach. We get into portion control, we get a little bit into intermittent fasting, really, with food, I think, for most people less, Is more.

15:59 Mmm, I would love to probe a little bit more on the idea of fasting. I've only done a couple of fasts in my life, and I think that I had this initial concern that it might throw my body into a state of whack. Like if I deplete it for a period of time, then it's almost like binge Purge. Is that a fallacy? You know, I think that most people can easily do a three day water fast. Three days typically seems to be the magic number. I think it's a great reset. So People can really get in touch with what is hunger versus what is just Mindless eating? Intermittent fasting is also, excellent. Especially people have 25 pounds or more to lose intermittent fasting.

16:41 Really, seems to work well for people, my body type, I'm pitch of atcha. So I was one of the ones during the pandemic where I wasn't able to work out in the gym for a good three months. I immediately lost like 8 pounds but probably mostly muscles. So Taking amino acids. If you're fasting, also works to keep protein going to your muscles without breaking the fast. I've been eating a lot of a new product. I found called Energy B. Now it's spirulina and chlorella and it's a very high concentration of protein and vitamins and nutrients that doesn't break the keto diet. So I literally like, end my day with a pack of chlorella and start my day with a pack of Spirulina I just Did incorporating spirulina into my smoothies that I make in the morning time. So good, so good and turmeric 2.

17:34 And we actually had the founder of that product on my show, make America healthy, along with a gentleman who lifecycle who does mushroom formulations, that's Global healing. I also take all of their products, but you know, I take like lion's mane for cognitive. I'm obsessed with cognitive function. I want my brain to work best as possible. So I've been taking a lot of mushroom formulations to And actually, I've been micro dosing with psilocybin because I stopped taking my antidepressants in January as my own silent protest against the pharmaceutical. Yes. Not So Silent because I ever Radio Show on Earth about that often. But, you know, I believe also that I like to call yoga the gateway drug because I believe it opens people up to trying other health modalities.

18:28 Whether it's plant medicine or anything else. And in my book, yoga lean, the third pillar of yoga lie in their seven steps to being yoga lean, but the third one is be willing to do whatever it takes to get the results. And I think that having an open mind goes a long way in that adopting that mindset, I think that some people may get a little impatient sometimes they're like oh I've been on this for a week or I've been on this for a few days and I'm not getting results. Is there a period of time that you think is a reasonable amount of time for people to allow something to metabolize and understand about whether this is working for them or not? Well, that's an interesting question because Yogi Bhajan said, it takes 40 days to create a habit. And I am right now, running a group called SOS sort of sober. It's an online for people who want to reduce their alcohol consumption and the first seven to ten days. Days are all about awareness, understanding your relationship to alcohol.

19:33 The second seven to ten days is getting into your action plan, and then, by the third part of the Month people are seeing results based upon behavioral changes and awareness. So I've run several online groups for yoga lean. We just had a woman who lost 70 pounds since January. What? So you know, What? We're talking about our lifestyle changes and that everyday contributes to long-term success. So, I'm a very impatient person. I'm triple type am from New York City. Thank God for yoga and meditation, at least a little bit of a buffer there for me.

20:15 But, you know, I'm still working on the extra pounds of stubborn belly fat, that I can't seem to shake and I think that practicing yoga is also very beneficial for anyone who's embarking on a new dietary change program. Because yoga gives you a lot of acceptance just to feel comfortable in the body that you are in, and that acceptance seems to go a long way in getting the body that you want. That's attainable and reasonable for again, your ayurvedic, Dosha, your lifestyle, and your choices. I started yoga several years ago when I was young I used to do a lot of dancing and I was actually a gymnast for years and I always wanted to figure out a way to keep fit but I couldn't necessarily Early, keep the dance as I was getting older, the gymnastics into my daily life.

21:02 And so, once I found yoga, I was like, this is such a great way for me to stay flexible and it wasn't only until maybe after a couple of years of doing that, I realized those deeper benefits, the meditative aspects and the idea of putting yourself into the fire, like, you know, moving this way and moving this way. And then simultaneously while you look like you're standing still, there is so much inner work being done of the push and the pull and maintaining your stability. Ability maintaining your balance breathing, all of that. Like that's where it started to become so much, more powerful than just mere exercise. As it were, yeah, inherent in the pastures and the commitment to the practice comes, the opportunity to get comfortable being uncomfortable.

21:48 And that's a skill that you can bring off your mat and into any area of your life. Where you develop more tenacity, more self-discipline. More reserved, we are raised in a society where it's instant gratification people don't like to be uncomfortable waiting for anything. If their phone blows up, they want it to work immediately. If they have to wait in a line, you press a button, Amazon, deliver something to your door the next day or maybe even the same day. So we almost have to retrain ourselves as humans, to learn patience to learn willpower, to learn discipline and just to learn to become Comfortable being uncomfortable. And the more we can force feed ourselves those situations in controlled environments, like the yoga room. The more apt we are to move through life, with more ease because we are not throwing our own mental roadblocks. In the way I would love to talk about you. The entrepreneur, the business person because I think that you are such an inspiration to so many by what you've built being a woman, having a lot of what you called child. Could issues and Trauma and health issues and being able to find a path.

23:03 Almost like, converting your pain into purpose and moving that forward in such a powerful way. Can you tell me about that journey of just being at the helm of businesses and growing? Some of the things that you might have learned along the way? Well, I'm definitely having a business for over 24 years now, I've really grown up with it. You know, I started yoga fit. I was in my 20s and I have always been entrepreneurial but learning to run a business and maintain and sustain. Again, I think yoga for giving me patience and endurance and just the tools to whether the many storms that anyone who has a business regardless of the size and I love being around business owners because I know what they go through, there's a lot of daily challenges, some years, or better than others.

23:53 Their ups there's Downs. You have to learn to trust your intuition. You will make a lot of Decisions that you'll look back on and I wish I had done things differently. So it's kind of like this living breathing laboratory in which one is always discovering better ways to do things. New markets, dealing with people dealing with the customer dealing with staff, having that responsibility, it's a lot and I think that people who have not had that Journey don't understand which is again, why I presented a lot of Nors conferences on health and wellness. I love being around business owners. I was talk to people when I go into a restaurant who own the place because small business, that's the backbone of America. If you really start to think about like, unless you're a frequent team, big chain restaurants, or hopefully not fast food restaurants, like that woman, that's behind the register running around behind the barn, directing traffic, that that's her business, that's her livelihood and It breaks my heart to see what's happened to small business in the past, two years in the US because a lot of them haven't made it. And the statistics are not in your favor regardless of what the external circumstances maybe. So it's been a, it's been the most amazing self growth Journey for me and then layer on if you will in the business of yoga and health and wellness.

25:21 So I have to be in Integrity with all of those things. Fortunately, I'm very passionate about. Everything regarding health and wellness. I'm always out there to conference learning something, new or researching something. But to me, it's been an incredible Legacy Journey that continues to this day and I'm just as passionate about it, if not more so than when I started. And I've also gained the blessing of maturity along the way, but it hasn't been easy. It's not easy. And I think that the fact that you've been able to sustain it and grow it over the past 25 years that I mean, That is a testament to your ability, to see a vision and continue weaving your path forward. Maybe ebbing and flowing along the way as any business does is anything that we're creating does. But I really commend you for stepping into something, following your heart and I think that that's a big thing too. Is following your bliss, following your passion and then that will help guide you mostly on the right path, mostly mostly on the right tab, you can get two words 80%, I think we're in, good shape.

26:28 Yeah, that's a great Point. That's a great point that I want to share a quote that you said, because I think it's really an amazing quote, and you said Business Without a higher purpose and profit is pointless, can you tell us why you feel that way? Well, first of all, a lot of financial people would laugh at that statement. I'm enrolled at an education program at Harvard in the business school. I feel a little strange when I'm there because social contribution is not really a currency that you hear a lot of in has school. We have a very in-depth community service program, where we require everyone who goes through their level one training, which is kind of introduction to yoga fit everyone, who goes to that training in order to get their first certificate has to do eight hours of community service work teaching to a group of people who normally would not have the opportunity to receive it.

27:19 So, as an entity yoga fit has been responsible for over three million hours of community service, work of people teaching people who normally wouldn't have Access to yoga studio or a gym disenfranchised populations. And, you know, if I could wave a magic wand over planet Earth, one of the things obviously, would be that everyone was practicing yoga and doing meditation. Another one would be that everyone would spay and neuter their animals and stop breeding, dogs cats. And then probably, another one would be that we would educate everyone especially women on every aspect of Health and Wellness from A very early age because I believe that's sorely missing in our educational system especially among certain populations.

28:06 And I believe that education is the key to everything because it gives people options. And really I say this in yoga, when I teach the one with the most options wins, when we teach at yoga fit, we can several different options for all of the poses to make people feel comfortable and let them experience the pose at their level. But really, when it comes Health and wellness. The more options you have, the more you're educated on what options there are the more act you are to make healthier choices and that is everything from reproductive Health, to physical health, to mental health, to spiritual health, to energetic health. And we're not educating people.

28:50 Therefore, they don't even know the options they have because you don't know what you don't know. That is so true. I myself a line. So So well with what you've just stated because I think that we have a obligation. You know being on planet Earth we have an obligation back to planet Earth to regenerate. But also to the people, from a stakeholder perspective to make sure that we're not just after their dollars, we respect them and we relate to them and that it is a cycle of community. So that as much as we are receiving, if it might be energy in terms of dollars or what have you that we are also giving with the other And so making sure that our companies can be built on people and planet and then, you know, tertiary early profits, of course, in order to be sustainable.

29:38 And to grow, you know, we can't really rely on the government or nonprofits to be the centers of good because we know that they just can't do it all themselves. And so it is up to businesses to step in and rewrite the economic model to really Place much more emphasis on purpose and Mission. Yeah, I mean again on Unfortunately, our society is just based on profit and we see that the toll, that that takes on so many different levels, starting with a supposed Healthcare System that really makes its money on having sick. Unhealthy people. There is not a lot of money to be made off of healthy people unless you own a gym, you know, or a healthy food company.

30:21 Our society is not set up for healthy people to win to encourage Health again health On any level physical, mental Sexual Health anything. We're just not set up to with if look let's face it. If the government really cared about People's Health they would be educating us but when the food companies and the pharmaceutical companies and the hospital systems are such huge profit centers. All you have to do is follow the money and you see that it's not following you down the road to hell and I felt. Similarly it's not just the health industry as you know, it's also with respect to the beauty industry that I had been part of a lot of Dollars were made on making people feel ugly or that it had flaws. They had physical flaws and that they needed to address by buying their products, which didn't necessarily address the flaws or the underlying feelings of well-being. And that's why you see people who do a lot of physical alterations or, you know, whatever, but that's not addressing the root.

31:21 And the root is that we don't make people feel good about themselves in our society and, you know, you were in a whole industry that That specialized in that. Yeah, yeah. So cheers to us who are the change makers who are really doing our part to lift, people up to let them know their glory to let them know how beautiful and Majestic that they are it. Regardless of what the media says, or what other brands may say, because this is really true, Wellness is letting everybody know that they are perfect, the way that they are. There's always this opportunity for our journey of improvement and getting to that place where you'd like to be. But if you Feel good, where you are. If you're satisfied in your happiness and in your place, but are eager for more, more development, more learning, more experiences, more understanding or knowledge, more wisdom than that's the best place to be.

32:11 I think it's the best place to be. And again, just doing something like having a Daily Yoga practice or going to the gym. Those are things that will make you feel good about you and just enable you to be your best self. Mmm. I want to talk about that beautiful picture that you have behind you. For those who are just listening there is this incredible piece of art behind Beth right now and it's an Indian painting, I believe. Can you tell us a little bit about what is pictured? There you have. It is an Indian gaiety. We've got the elephants there to represent protection and Goodwill.

32:52 We have four hands two of which are holding flowers. One Palm is receiving and Other hand is giving you see the coins, coming out of the giving hand and the, the left palm, which is the feminine side of our body is receiving and open. Yeah, I actually really love the Hindu religion and their philosophy is and vedanta and all of the deity's is we take people to India every year and it's very sacred and I believe against is ancient wisdom that we can all take a piece of and there's not just one. One God, but there are a bunch of different deity's that each represent different parts of our path, whether it's Lakshmi the goddess of prosperity or Ganesh, the deity of protection. There's there's something for everyone and something that you can invoke at any time.

33:47 Yes. Yes. The picture reminds me. It feels like abundance to me because there are these coins and there's the at the cycle of giving and receiving. I think it's just so beautiful. I hear, I think you've got a four legged friends with you. And you this is around the time he have Jackson, and that's okay, that's it. And he knows when I'm on the zoom, that's its remind game and he will get a bone and we can stop me. I've had him now in July, it's 10 years. I adopted him when he was 16 months old. I got him from Labradoodle rescue, they're on Facebook, it's called eye dog. We're together almost fit. A decade.

34:28 And after that decade, he's got me very well trained. I basically I should be wearing a shirt instead of be Grace, which is my new clothing line by the way. Oh okay. Yeah, I'll be in a state of grace. I should have a shirt that says Bentley's bitch. It's a win-win for everybody. I think that's an idea for a clothing line for sure. I've got a ziggy Smalls here and I think I'm probably Ziggy Smalls as bitch. My little he's my little chihuahua rescue but he's a little badass.

35:11 Excellent. Well that it has been so amazing to have you with us today on Role Models, everybody, I want you to learn as much as you can about Beth and what she's going on. You can find out more at Beth Shaw.com. You can also learn Yoga fit at yoga fit.com. She has lots of wisdom tune in to her radio show. Buy her clothes, my her books. Yeah, he's chewed into my radio show, make America healthy on voice America. If you miss the show live, you can also find it anywhere that podcast live. Perfect. That thank you so much for being our guest today, Namaste. Thank you, namaste.