Award-winning author of "The Yoga of Parenting," Sarah Ezrin shares how yoga philosophy provides a framework for navigating parenthood's chaos with grace and self-compassion.
The yoga practice she once knew - with its hours on the mat and meditation cushion - has transformed into what she calls "yoga snacks": micro-moments of mindfulness chosen throughout her day. These might look like lighting a favorite candle amid dinner preparation madness, taking five deep breaths during an argument between her sons, or remaining calm enough to give herself the Heimlich maneuver while the kids continue playing, oblivious to her distress.
Today we explore how our perceptions of yoga shift throughout life stages - from the achievement-oriented physical practice many begin with to the deeper, more integrated approach that emerges through parenthood.
Sarah's vulnerability about her postpartum anxiety and the surprising ways yoga showed up during that challenging time offers a refreshing counterpoint to the curated perfectionism often seen in wellness spaces. The permission she grants - to adapt, to struggle, to let go of rigid expectations - comes from hard-won wisdom.
"The most advanced practice I've ever done is trying to co-parent with another adult and raise children together," Sarah reflects, highlighting how relationships amplify our growth edges.
Beyond individual practices and communication challenges, we discuss the systemic changes needed to truly support families: paid leave, affordable childcare, and community-centered approaches to raising children. Sarah envisions a return to village-style support systems where resources are shared and parents aren't left struggling in isolation.
For those feeling overwhelmed by conflicting parenting advice and impossible standards, Sarah offers this centering truth: "You are the best parent for your child." Trust your intuition, offer yourself grace, and remember that the yoga is found not in perfection, but in returning again and again to presence.
Learn more about her work at https://sarahezrinyoga.com/
Introducing Sarah Ezrin
How Yoga Shows Up in Parenting Today
From Physical Yoga to Life Practice
The Birth of "The Yoga of Parenting"
Co-parenting as Advanced Yoga
Reimagining Support Systems for Parents
Closing Thoughts and Gratitude
Full Transcript
Welcome back to the how we Can Heal podcast. Today, our guest is Sarah Ezrin. Sarah Ezrin is an award-winning author, highly sought-after yoga educator and maternal mental health advocate. Based here in the San Francisco Bay Area, sarah writes extensively on the subjects of yoga, parenting and mental health, often interweaving these themes. She's a regular contributor for Yoga Journal Magazine, motherly Yoga International, healthline, scary Mommy, mindbodygreen and LA Yoga Magazine. She's been featured in the Wall Street Journal, forbes, la Weekly and on the NBC News. Her recent book, the Yoga of Parenting, which we'll talk about today, was released in 2023. Sarah and I connected through our mutual involvement with YogaWorks as teachers and trainers, and I've loved seeing her work evolve to apply to parenthood. I'm thrilled to have her here today, so please join me in welcoming Sarah to the show.Lisa Danylchuk: 1:16
If you love this podcast, I bet you would love the Yoga for Trauma online training program. This eight-week certification is for anyone who wants to learn how yoga philosophy and practice can help respond to the impact trauma has on our bodies and brains. When you join the program, you'll learn the theory and best practices for incorporating somatic skills into your healing work. Students often come into the program knowing that yoga can be helpful for stress management but unsure about how to apply the practice to specific aspects of trauma recovery. This program breaks it all down and leaves you feeling clear about your choices as you support folks navigating post-traumatic stress, whether you're managing a program, working one-on-one with clients or leading therapeutic groups. Of course, the experience is good for you too. With eight modules and eight yoga classes, you'll get a taste of how it feels to practice yoga in a resource-building, trauma-responsive manner
Head on over to howwecanhealcom/Y4T to apply to join the program today. Mention the podcast in your application for a special bonus. One more time, nice and slow. The website is howwecanheal.com/Y4T. Our next cohort kicks off June 9th. If you're feeling called to join us, I would love to welcome you and support you through the program.
Sarah Ezrin: 2:56
Thank you, Lisa. I love we were just talking about how close we live, but how far away we are.Lisa Danylchuk: 3:00
We're like, oh, I could drive to your house, we could be there, but it hasn't happened. I feel like I don't even know if we've actually met in person I don't think we ever have, but you're in the Yoga Works family, yeah. So, like your name is familiar, I saw you wrote a book. It was like right around the time I was becoming a parent. I was like, oh, I get that, that yoga is parenting, so I'm so excited to have you here because it gave me the reason, the excuse, the drive to finish your book. I was like, yes, and I got so much out of it, so I want to highly recommend that little friend over your shoulder.Lisa Danylchuk: 3:30
Those of you watching on video the yoga parenting. We're going to talk about all that stuff today and really I'm open to whatever's coming up and is interesting to you in the moment too, cause, kind of like in a yoga practice or in therapy, it's like what's most alive is what's most interesting, right? So my first question for you is how is yoga showing up in your life today, with your family?Sarah Ezrin: 3:54
I love that question. I just want to say thank you. Yes, I also. We knew each other through yoga works. I don't think we ever met in person, but that was one family that connected us. But I've also found that motherhood is this like thread, so it doesn't matter where people live, it doesn't matter what age they are. Right, like I connect with people that are now grandparents, even though my kids are five and three, so it is, we are now forever connected and, yes, sisterhood of mothers.Sarah Ezrin: 4:20
My husband is traveling, he's been traveling quite a bit, and I have two very energetic boys, which I always laugh about because I remember reading people's bios and it would say mom to two highly energetic boys and I'm like, isn't that redundant? Like obviously they're very high energy, but my guys are very high energy and maybe that's not unique, but when we are solo and everything tends to come up right, I find that I have to use every single nervous system nurturing tool that I've ever owned in my life and nothing really sticks. Like that's the thing you know, and I mentioned this in the book, and that was even before I had to. My youngest was quite young when I wrote the book. I was pregnant when I first got the idea for the book and then he was like brand new.Sarah Ezrin: 5:02
But now I'm like, oh, wow, okay, so this is like you're just coming back and then you let yourself kind of go again, and then you're coming back and then you're letting yourself go again. It's not like you do your practice in the morning and then you are serene all day long. So that is what my life has been the last couple of days. So yesterday what I did is they were just jumping off of the walls, and of course, it's usually the witching hour because they've been at school all day, they've been holding it in all day. So they come home and they're like hitting each other with baseball bats and like ripping things up. For some reason. My three-year-old the second you turn around, he's like got something around his neck or he's like holding a sharp weapon.Lisa Danylchuk: 5:41
And you're like ahimsa, ahimsa, where he's like holding a sharp weapon.Sarah Ezrin: 5:43
And you're like ahimsa, ahimsa, how did you even get that? Like I don't understand this kid is. I mean, it's amazing, it's very enterprising and it'll work out well. So yesterday, as they were all over the place and it was at the end of the day and I was already tired it was going on three days alone I was like you know what I'm gonna do? I'm candle and that, like just pausing to do that while I was cooking the dinner and through the madness of it all, it was this moment of pleasure and like no, did I sit and do Tritaka and like do candle gazing meditation? Like I used to, absolutely not. But it was this moment of like hearing the click of a lighter, first picking the scent that I wanted, and I didn't just do the one that was closest to me. I was like I love this candle. I find, with parents especially, we hold off our pleasure especially with women and moms.Sarah Ezrin: 6:33
Normally I'd be like, oh, I'll just light this, like you know, cheapy tea light and save that one. But like no, I went and got the candle I really loved. I lit that, I took the time to hear the click of the lighter, to watch as it's, the wick took charge, if you will, and just that moment, the big breath of the scent of the candle. That was my yoga practice that day. Yes, and that's what it looks like these days. I did meditate this morning, but I think my that moment moment or you know another self-care moment is like choosing my own song in the car, pausing when you get them in the car and doing a long walk around the car and like just breathing in nature. So it's these little moments that I leave throughout the day, as opposed to one thing that I do in the morning for two hours every single day. It's tiny moments.Lisa Danylchuk: 7:24
I totally get that and support it and I think you know I've written a lot about yoga for trauma recovery and people are always like what's the sequence? I'm like it's not really, like yeah, like read the whole book and then we'll talk.Lisa Danylchuk: 7:35
Cause then you'll get more of a sense of where I'm coming from here, and a lot of it is those moments where it's a different choice, and that practice might come from making a choice in half moon, ardha Chandrasana, putting your hand here or there, choosing where you put your gaze or noticing how you talk to yourself when you step out of it. The yoga asana practice is a practice for life, and you talked about this middle stage of life where you're taking care of so many people, where you're a householder and all those things we learn. All the candle gazing you did before you lit that one candle is infused in that moment, right. So it is a practice and it's great when we can get on our mat, we can close our eyes for 20 minutes or we can go on a long meditation retreat. It's wonderful to have that in our bones and in our history when we step into parenting, because I do feel like other things become more important at that stage, right? Is it more important that you go away for a week and meditate, or is it more important that you see your kids first play, or something? It's like, oh okay, well, that for me is an easy choice, so I love that you're talking about this in the moment.Lisa Danylchuk: 8:42
It might be a second and pleasure too, because oftentimes we end up in these worlds we're talking about parenting, which is stressful, or talking about mental health or trauma recovery. It's like we were thinking about oh, I have to regulate my nervous system or I have to reduce my stress, and even those goals don't sound super fun. They have great outcomes and they're worth investing in, but that's not it. Super fun they have great outcomes and they're worth investing in, but that's not it. So I love that you're sharing this moment of pleasure where you're like okay, maybe I'm just projecting here.Lisa Danylchuk: 9:11
Total shit show right, total shit show in the house and you're just like, okay, well, this is our time together and this is my day and this is my moment right now, how can I actually feed myself something as I'm preparing to feed myself and my family? How can I connect with pleasure and make the choice that's really soulful or nourishing?Sarah Ezrin: 9:32
Yeah, and all of those choices are constantly changing. You work in the trauma world. You're a therapist. Sometimes I don't need more calm. Sometimes that's the last thing I need.Sarah Ezrin: 9:43
If I was in a freeze state and stuck and unable to do something, maybe lighting a lavender candle and getting on the floor wouldn't be a great idea. I'd never get back up again. Sometimes I do need to do the jumping jacks, sometimes I do need to put on the 2000s hip hop and club music and get myself moving, and then other times, because I just tend towards highly anxious and in an upregulated state, then I can put the brakes on in that way. So yesterday I found myself being really upregulated and angry and snappy, so that's why I went to the candle. But knowing where you are on the spectrum of your nervous system is essential and, like I think I take for granted I'm just going to be honest as I've been doing this nervous system work and in the motherhood space I take for granted how our years of practice in the yoga world really was laying the foundation for all of this. From a business side, just like a little behind the scenes, as I'm trying to build my business, I'm like, oh, I talk about the nervous system and I talk about these things, but like it's the yoga that allowed me to do any of these things, I was recently on a panel for Yoga Gives Back.Sarah Ezrin: 10:49
You know that organization. We supported a lot at Yoga Works and it was with a lot of moms, that practice and how different our practices are now. That was the takeaway. It was like, oh right, you know. Yes, okay, we're doing nervous system regulation or you're calling it energy management, or some people are working in the pleasure space, the Western mind. You say yoga, you think exercise, like we're not doing things where you're on your mat in your best Lululemon outfit. But all these things are different forms of yoga and it was our practices, our physical practices, that was the gateway to get us through that. So I love what you said about like taking the variations in a pose, being open to that, starting to listen to your body when maybe you were a pusher before, maybe pushing yourself, when you were a little trepidatious before, like all of that was being learned and the foundation was being laid in the physical asana room. That's at least for us that was my gateway.Sarah Ezrin: 11:44
I know people. Some people have come in through philosophy and the other way, but now applying that to motherhood is just really, it's really cool and I take it for granted. So I appreciate you bringing that up and it was like a nice reminder on that panel the other day too. Like, oh right, like this is why I did warrior two for 20 breath.Lisa Danylchuk: 12:00
Right, yeah, I'm like having all of these, almost like positive intrusions memories of Montana studio, main street. You were in Santa Monica for a while. Yeah, yeah, like all of that. I'm so bummed that those spaces aren't existing in the same way that they were then, but I can go back there in my mind so easily and as soon as you start talking about all those poses and all that breath, I'm like man. There were entire weekends where I just spent them in the studio.Lisa Danylchuk: 12:25
You know, whether taking a teacher training or you're assisting a teacher training or you're teaching a teacher training, there's so many hours of not just physical asana practice but also reflection on, like, what does this mean? And that's what I love. And I know sometimes people think of yoga as exercise or as calming, and a hundred percent on what you said Like it's not just calming, it's a dynamic nervous system. We could talk about that for an entire hour. But it's also so much more and there's so much opportunity for depth in yoga. So when you start going, sign up for that advanced thing, or I want to sign up for that teacher training, it's just this opportunity to dig and get to know yourself and get to know your patterns. There's a driving test, but there's no parenting test, there's no basic, even 20 questions you have to answer. So that in my mind especially as someone who works with people who reflect on their childhoods and how they impacted them if every parent were in therapy and had even just this nervous system language, even if they were just like you know trauma, responsive coaching or physiological training Like, oh okay, my nervous system does this, it does that, this is how I respond to threat, this is how I know I'm getting stressed, this is where it shows up in my body, this is what I can do to release it.Lisa Danylchuk: 13:42
So much of it is even just the awareness, right, and you talk about this too in the yoga of parenting, where it's like, oh, I'm sitting here with my child and I just got caught scrolling on my phone, like something pulled me.Lisa Danylchuk: 13:54
I picked up my phone to text my mom and next thing, you know I'm gone right and then coming back and that's just like meditation practices, yoga practices, coming back, finding your drishti oh, my eyes went all over the place finding your gazing point again, right, so so much foundation in there, but we don't have to keep doing the same thing as parents, right? And I think that what you just mentioned can be a hook where, even if we don't become parents, our practice changes and then we're like but I was supposed to, but I used to get up and do this many hours or this many shapes and it doesn't look like that, so I'm not doing yoga anymore. I mean, I think you and I are on the same page of like yes, you are, but sometimes people feel that way and then it just adds to this like feeling of missing out or guilt or shame, instead of the empowering recognition of like no, you're doing yoga all day, every day, yeah, yeah, yeah, and that was like a big teaching point within the book.Sarah Ezrin: 14:52
But even I forget, even I am like I haven't done, I haven't meditated today, and it's like, really, you were taking five deep breaths as the brothers were fighting in the back seat. You were stepping outside and just savoring nature for a few moments. Those are those moments of connection that is the yoga practice. So it is the reminder that it is in those everyday things. Of course, there's also so many layers to diet culture and, you know, having your body bounce back after baby and the type of yoga that we were exposed to in those early days was a very strong form of exercise. I came from the Ashtanga system. We weren't necessarily doing it to lose weight, but there was a body focus in there, whether it was trying to get poses or what you weren't eating or down to like not drinking water. Within the practice, there was a very specific body focus. So people come into it through the gateway of the body and that's a beautiful thing, but at a certain point we start to detach from the body being the thing. That said, we still need to move our bodies every day and that still needs to be a part of it. So it's really redefining what these things are.Sarah Ezrin: 16:04
I often say I don't really do asana anymore. I mean full honesty, like I will do like downward dog at the end of the high intensity interval training class, like that's when I do it, or I'll stretch as I'm like sitting on the floor with you. I don't really do asana, but I meditate every single day and I do my breath work every single day and I do some kind of connected pleasure practice, including my coffee. I count that every single day and to me I feel like my practice is much more connected and much more advanced than any of those crazy shapes I used to be able to make with my body, even though I was showing up six times a week for two hours a day and doing the thing. This, to me, is the advanced practice.Sarah Ezrin: 16:45
Yes, I used to say that in my twenties that I believed it. I started teaching when I was like 25 and I'm 43 now I obviously I meant it, I knew it. That wiser part of me knew it. But I still think I was very attached to the physical and not to say I'm not still attached to the physical, because there's just pressure being a woman and a middle-aged woman in this country and in this world. But that's not the gateway for me anymore. Now it's connection. What am I doing for connection? Maybe it's listening to music or dancing, or watching them breathe or listening to them chew. That's what I actually love. Listening to my kids chew, it's like the cutest thing not my husband, but my children. Then I'm like close your mouth, you know. But yeah, like what's the gateway?Sarah Ezrin: 17:27
And yeah, but then also honoring like, okay, but I also still need to move my body today. They just don't have to be. That's not the only way.Lisa Danylchuk: 17:35
Yeah, and it can be so interesting to return, Like for me when I was writing my last book, it was like I'm going to hit class in the morning and then I drive to work and then I go to a bar class and then I sit all day and write.Lisa Danylchuk: 17:46
I was like I got to move first, otherwise I will go nuts. So doing that felt like yoga, even though it wasn't asana. But then I came back to an asana practice after that and I was like, ooh, this feels different because I've been doing other things and I've not been doing these things. And so even just that evolution of the relationship to the physical because you're talking about this like really intense focus on it, and sometimes, interestingly, even attachment, even though we talk about attachment in yoga philosophy right, like this has to look a certain way or it has to. You know, I have to get to this level or even if it's not right for my body. So I feel like there've been more conversations in yoga around that.Lisa Danylchuk: 18:23
When we both started I think it's around the same time I got there in 98, in 2003. So it's like you're in it and then you can kind of fall into that. Oh well, especially with something like Ashtanga, level one, level two, right, like which sequence are you doing? Which thing have you achieved? And even though we talk about not focusing on it, it still ends up coming back around and so shifting that focus from asana to life and viewing, living and connection and parenting and presence, which I'd love to talk about more as an advanced practice right, like really living that. All of that foundation was for this and even if you're not a parent, it's for your life right, it's for managing life. You mentioned saying something and believing it when you're young.Lisa Danylchuk: 19:11
And then you're like oh, later on like this though oh, yeah, yeah, okay, Now I'm really going to apply that, and that's actually a lot harder than I thought it was when I said it.Sarah Ezrin: 19:20
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's amazing the wisdom that I had in those days and maybe I was teaching for the person that I wanted to become like in the same way that you parent for the parent that you wish that you had. I think I was teaching for the students that I was in those days, even though simultaneously I was still deep in my eating disorder and super over overachieving and using that as a coping mechanism for my anxiety. You know it's like I was doing those things. But then I'd come into the room and I would put the music on and I would have these beautiful bodies in front of me and I would start to lead them from this really compassionate way and I would be like horrified if someone wasn't listening to their body. I would like get mad at them. Literally. I was like no, take the variation, like you need to take the variation, but then meanwhile I'm at home in severe pain and I'm still shoving my leg behind my head. So I do think, like you know, the shoemakers children have no shoes.Sarah Ezrin: 20:16
That saying, I started as the teacher that I needed to be, but then I actually ended up growing into that and I actually ended up growing into that and I love. In those early days I would always have to be in the front row and I would have to do every single thing that was offered. It was always like had to do the most advanced version. And these days I don't really even go to classes. If I do, I'm in the back, I don't, I think when I get called on to demo cause you know, annie's up here now and Annie Carpenter is my teacher I'm like, oh God, like where I used to be, like hello, you know now.Sarah Ezrin: 20:44
I'm like embarrassed, like go to the bathroom and it's just yeah, it's just so fascinating, and yet I'm so much kinder to myself but the kindness and I'm doing a lot more strength training these days because I'm perimenopausal and I'm 43 and it's just what feels good in my body. But even today I had opportunities to like lift the heaviest and I didn't. I just was like okay, and I listened to my body and I'm being so kind to myself. It was like I grew into that. So now I'm embodying the teacher that I always like she's on my shoulder somewhere, that wise teacher, that wise woman and the kindness that you talk about.Lisa Danylchuk: 21:22
right, that could be an entire yoga practice, right? We like go to the beginning and we look at ahimsa and we just practice that and ahimsa. For those of you who, aren't in the yoga world non-harming, non-violence or peacefulness.Lisa Danylchuk: 21:38
If you're just practicing that throughout your day, like I'm going to be kind to myself, okay, this is the right amount of challenge for me. Today I know a friend who would joke that if she could do her whole morning practice it would take all day. It's like, yeah, it probably would, but what's actually the most helpful and kind and that practice of peacefulness. There was a period where I just felt like maybe it was a algorithm or maybe it was just what was popular with influencers. Everyone just like morning routine, morning routine, morning routine like everything. I saw my morning routine. I've had a whole bunch of different ones throughout my life and what feels the best right now is to like wake up a little groggy and shuffle into the kitchen and make coffee.Lisa Danylchuk: 22:19
Like it feels like the most beautiful thing gift, and to not have a list of anything that I need to do before I do everything else right. It's kind of a full circle moment, right, because we could start there and then be like, oh, I'm really feeling motivated, I want to start meditating and I want to start doing green juice or healthy shots or whatever in the morning, and then you're like back around, let me just keep it simple, and that can be really powerful too.Sarah Ezrin: 22:46
Yeah, and also something that came out when TikTok was being threatened to be taken away was that all of these influencers came out and said, oh, I don't actually do any of those things.Sarah Ezrin: 22:56
I don't do the wellness suggestions and that was like the joking trend, but they were all coming up. There was a woman who'd built an entire business around ice. I still don't really understand the details of that and she's like I don't even use the stuff, so take those things with a grain of salt. And similarly, like I had a morning like that too. Because of the time change, I'm normally up. I do get up quite early because I need that alone time. I'm up at like three, like you know, eyes wide open, so I'll lay in bed until four or five and then I get up and I have some time before my kids get up. But with the time change I got up minutes before them and my meditation was making my tea. This morning.Sarah Ezrin: 23:35
It was hearing the boiling of the water. It was watching the water as it poured in. It was not having any sound around me. I didn't even want to put a meditation into my ears. So it changes day to day and I think we're setting ourselves up. We've commoditized wellness and self-care because it is a billion dollar business or I think it's trillions now or something. Obviously don't quote me, chat, dbt it or Google it. It's making a lot of money.Sarah Ezrin: 24:03
So people are turning it into these to-do lists, as opposed to what self-care truly is, which is really listening. It is a hymns. Self-care is listening to your body. It's setting boundaries. It's knowing when you can and cannot, or knowing what Lisa Walford used to always say just because you can doesn't mean you should right. That's the self-care of it.Sarah Ezrin: 24:23
And yes, so maybe that self-care includes having a 10-minute sit, maybe it includes having a 20-minute sit. Maybe it includes saying fuck it, I'm not supposed to start, oh no, it's all good, forget it, okay, good, we're in good company, saying forget it and just doing the tea and just doing the coffee. So yeah, I think it really is the redefining and giving ourselves a break and understanding that what we see, this curated version of wellness is most likely inauthentic or inaccurate, or it's just ever changing. I mean, especially as women, if you're still getting your cycle right Like it was a miracle that I got out of bed a half an hour early, as I'm on my cycle this week, like that's a miracle. So I'm going to like I'll take that, you know, and just be fluid with it.Lisa Danylchuk: 25:11
Take it and celebrate it, and I hear so much yoga philosophy and what you're saying in terms of, like stira and sukha right, which is the steadiness and the ease, the structure and the flexibility, and those are things in mental health too, like the chaos and the rigidity, like these far ends of the spectrum, tend to not work so well for us.Lisa Danylchuk: 25:23
But finding the middle ground is harder, because you have to go a little this way and go oh, that's too much. Go a little that way. Okay, it's not that it's ever one fixed point in the middle. It's this dance and we really want just something steady or something that's like completely open, like oh, I don't have to think about it, or I only think about it in, on and off and right and wrong and this and that, and it's just so much more life is in the middle and so much more access to that peacefulness can be in the middle.Lisa Danylchuk: 25:50
But I think we naturally are like, oh, I just want the answer to be the same all the time, and it's not. But again, all those years of practicing, or all those moments of investing in yourself and reflecting, come out in these little moments of decision making. So I'm curious for you when did you first realize that parenting was a yoga practice? How did this yoga of parenting idea start to stir in you?Sarah Ezrin: 26:17
That's such a great question. I'm like, oh my God I don't think anyone's asked me that Since the book came out, which was like two years. Like when was that moment? I can tell you when I thought about the book, but the connecting that yoga was parenting. When I was about to leave for maternity leave, there was a woman that was taking my classes and she runs parenting groups in the city in San Francisco. Her name is Abby. She was literally crying on my last day and she's like I'm so excited for you to step into this new phase. Like you have no idea, and your yoga practice has been preparing you and I was so disconnected First of all, just a quick history.Sarah Ezrin: 26:55
Like I didn't necessarily even want to settle down and have a family. Like I was happy traveling the world and I did feel connected to my son as he grew inside of me and it was this moment of connection that I had never had before. But it still wasn't real. You know, I was still trying to control and curate and design the birth that I was going to have and told everybody I'd see them in four weeks, kind of thing. I did assume I'd be back in at least a month or two, if not less, and so I'm like she's like crying and like the seed was planted.Sarah Ezrin: 27:25
And then, of course, I had a birth that was completely unpredictable. That literally tore me open from stem to stern. Plus, my son was in the NICU for a couple of days. I got blasted through that portal and then I was like what is this? We were like my head was spinning. I could not get my feet underneath me. The practice that I used to use to ground, which was very intense asana, was the last thing that I should have been doing, and that felt good. My mat no longer felt safe. I wasn't even really thinking about yoga as a practice in those moments. I couldn't sit to meditate, I could barely. My anxiety was through the roof. Later, around when my son was eight or nine months, I got diagnosed as postpartum anxiety, having postpartum anxiety and postpartum depression. So then I was able to get on the right medication and be brought back down to earth again, but I think it was in the attempting in those days, that nine months of just like complete ungrounding.Sarah Ezrin: 28:24
Like I did not have my feet on the floor to try to make the yoga work. And I realized like I had been. I was doing the same thing I always told people not to do, which is attaching to the physical. I was attaching to the physical and that was not the yoga. And I was like, am I really not doing yoga because I'm not sitting for an hour in silence or I'm not rolling out my mat and doing an hour and a half of movement practice? And once I was on the right medication and I had the right team and I was starting to get my feet back on the floor and feel my bearings again. I was teaching online and just starting to get grounded. That is when I realized, sarah, give yourself more credit, think of all those moments that were in between.Sarah Ezrin: 29:08
And yes, I was very lost and no my feet were not on the ground for most of it, but there were moments where maybe I was breastfeeding or we were out for a walk, or I was singing to him, or it was just like the gazing. There's a beautiful picture of me and my oldest when he was like four months old, and he's just looking up at me, smiling, and I'm looking down.Sarah Ezrin: 29:28
we're lying in the bed like those were the yoga moments and that aha to me. That was like around when I had felt the creativity bubbling up inside of me and it was Mel, our mutual friend Mel, mama Mel, who was like I think you should write a book. And I'm like, really, and then it was just one of those fingers and I was like like that's the book. That's the book. Yes, because all the parenting books I'd read up until then were prescriptive. They made me feel worse. They were talking about all the things I needed to do. It wasn't pointing out the things that I was already doing and that's what I wanted to create.Sarah Ezrin: 30:04
I wanted, a to bring the yoga practice into the parenting, and B also to give people permission. That was my big bull behind the book Permission, permission, permission, figure it out. Everything's a spectrum. I don't have the answers for you, but let's pay attention to the things you already are doing. Let's experiment together. I'll be here to create the space and I was was like, oh my goodness, this is how I would teach my classes. I wanted to always hold the space for people to have their own experience and if I could help parents in that way and now I'm focused a little more on moms. But if I can help people in that way, to me that's the greatest gift I can give. I'm not there telling people what to do, I am just holding the space for them to kind of bounce around, and sometimes they have to leave the container and come back into it. But it was that experience that led me to be like oh my goodness, let's put this down on paper.Lisa Danylchuk: 31:01
And it is such an important angle to hold space for parents, to redirect people to their own inner knowing, which is very yoga. Right, it's very yoga. Not that it always happens in yoga dynamics, but to have people have the opportunity to reflect too on something, find what's right for them. And I know in your book you reference some parenting experts and I don't know can anyone ever be an expert in parenting? Some parenting experts? And I don't know, can anyone ever be an expert in parenting? I mean because it's so unique and because every kid is so unique. But you do such a great job directing people back, inviting people back to their bodies. And then I love the 10 tips for busy parents. At the end Fun fact I listened to your book on 1.5 speed and I was like am I just going to talk? This whole interview? Super fast.Sarah Ezrin: 31:51
I already talk at 1.5 speed. When I have to like review stuff, any of the content, cause I I try to get through, I do that. That's a great hack, by the way, for anybody that's busy, especially if the person talks slow. I do 1.5 and I can consume so much, but I already talk about me. So whenever I try to watch back things that I need to, I'm like, oh my gosh, there I really got to slow it down, take a breath.Lisa Danylchuk: 32:14
I was like am I going to be like who is this person? I'm talking to us. That was just not happening. It's not happening.Lisa Danylchuk: 32:19
But, but I listened through to it and I mean it's. It's great for learning to preview and review. But also just like, hey, I recognize you're busy and I get that while you were listening to this audio book or reading this book if you're reading it somebody might've been chewing on your nipples or you might've been driving and trying to get water from the little cubby into your kid's hand in the backseat, like just acknowledging the reality that you've lived and that you know can be parenting, which is stuff's all over the place, it's chaotic and it's not within our control. But still, coming back to that and there were so many different words from different leaders in the field of parenting but like that authoritative, that like, okay, I am crafted and I am a leader in this family and I can make choices, like there's a sense of dynamic nervous system regulation in that. But there's also a sense of connecting to yourself, connecting to the truth that you are in a position of power as a parent and you do have choices and that it's really easy to want to just find one book and one method to follow and if you find something that's super helpful and it's working, great for you and everybody's smiling and laughing phenomenal.Lisa Danylchuk: 33:25
But I think a lot of times people do read books and try to enforce it into their family, try to fit it into a place that it doesn't really fit, and then parents often end up feeling and people in general in this dynamic end up feeling like, oh, there's something wrong with me.Lisa Danylchuk: 33:40
Instead of having that space and coming back to, oh, I can actually take care of myself, I can actually choose pleasure. And I love, too, the yoga postures that you invite throughout and the sequence at the end. I just thought that was really beautiful. So it's interesting to hear that it's like the seed was planted when you're leaving on maternity leave and there's all this expectation of what's to come. And then you see, okay, even these first nine months, which are so unpredictable and so much is going on like, okay, I can use these tools. And then shout out to Mel, shout out to Mel Salvatore, august, always there, the wise whisper on your shoulder, just exploring that opportunity for you with the book. And I'm so glad that it's in physical form, because I know like books can be their own baby, just to bring to life, yeah.Sarah Ezrin: 34:24
And I didn't think about it until we were just talking about the timeline of it, but I feel like I had to be birthed into motherhood. Yes, I was pregnant with my child and, yes, I was growing the baby and obviously I made a lot of changes and everything shifted, I mean on a cellular level. It shifted from the first pregnancy, which we lost and then you know, from there on, but I think it was almost like its own rebirthing for me to then step through the threshold of motherhood. It was like a nine to 10 month process, another nine to 10 months after that for writing the book. It is absolutely the book, baby.Sarah Ezrin: 35:00
I just will never forget being in a mommy group. We were all online at that point Cause that's the other thing my son was born December 2019. We had just had him and then the shutdowns happened. We were so far away from our families and completely isolated, and so we were online with one of my mom groups and one of the girls had just read a book and she was just beating herself up for not following the exact script when her son was you know, I mean, they might not have even been a year at this point and she's like cause, you're going to have to go to therapy, like genuinely beating herself up over it, and the pressure that we put on ourselves. And, by the way, I see it in the yoga rooms too, when you're being told you must do a pose in this way, and this is the quote unquote, classical shape, and this is how it is.Sarah Ezrin: 35:45
I think when you're younger, we do think in that more black and white way, and you have to learn to like, start to color outside of the lines, but now, like being in that fluidity, like we talked about yoga. You need to be flexible for yoga, which you don't, by the way. People always say that they need to, but no, that's the whole point. But this is the flexibility we're talking about. It's the flexibility to be like okay, I messed that up and apologize and do the repair and then try a different task the next time, and I mean especially if you have multiple children like one book will not be the answer. And just again it comes back like compassion. Compassion I mean that's one of the subtitles of the book is like being kind to ourselves. Right, that's the flexibility. That's where I think it matters way more than any like behind the head or grabbing ankles or any of that stuff.Lisa Danylchuk: 36:32
Yeah, you're like putting your leg behind your head and your kid's like I don't care.Sarah Ezrin: 36:37
Like I don't care about that at all. I was choking the other day. Okay, I was like leaning over a chair trying to give myself a Heimlich remover and my son is like. And then on Wildcraft, martin Martin, he's like telling me a story. He had no awareness and I'm like dying, I'm punching myself in the stomach and then and I'm like shaking and sweating, and then you know they don't care, they're totally oblivious, hey mom are you listening? Exactly, exactly.Lisa Danylchuk: 37:08
Oh, I feel like that just highlights so many moments of parenting where your needs are so backseat to people around you, and rightfully so, developmentally speaking, for them, but at the same time it's like, hey, what about me? So if we're not having some awareness of our own needs? Like, thankfully you recognize that you were choking and you knew that you could use the chair, you were your own best caretaker in that moment and you're fine.Sarah Ezrin: 37:31
Like I'm fine, I'm here. I mean, you know, I don't know, maybe this is, maybe this is like the good place. I don't know.Lisa Danylchuk: 37:38
So what common feedback are you getting about your book and imagine it might be a little bit different for people who are really steeped in yoga versus people who are more looking from just the parenting side and leaning towards the yoga side. What are some themes that are showing up in terms of how people are responding?Sarah Ezrin: 37:55
Yeah, that's another great question. I love your very good questions, lisa. Yeah, I mean, it's been out for a while now, right? So I've talked to a lot of different people and there was the blurbers. So those are the people like our mutual friend Mel or Jibana Heyman, who's a phenomenal teacher and created Accessible Yoga Foundation blurbers, and you know her from the like trauma informed work. I mean, she is a master. So hearing their feedback was like, oh my gosh, right, like that. That was amazing. Their thing was all about the permission to.Sarah Ezrin: 38:26
I did end up interviewing a lot of the people that did the blurbs for the book for, like, I had a very, very brief, limited series podcast just to like support the book coming out. It was cool that everybody was talking about their own humanness and the making of mistakes and, like, again, it's the space for permission, self-compassion that was coming up in so many different ways. So, like it doesn't matter if you have adult children that are. I interviewed one woman who was a longtime student of mine, who now has 40 year olds you know who are. They're like my age, her children are my age and she was saying, like even now she still has to practice that self-compassion and that kindness and that forgiveness. I think that's really the key and I have a very as much as I have a wise woman on one shoulder, I have a very harsh critic on another shoulder and like a real task master, and I think that's why I was drawn to certain styles of yoga or the certain types of teachers that I was.Sarah Ezrin: 39:26
But parenting is like that's the last thing I need, especially if I want to show up in the same way that I'm showing up as the teacher that I needed and the practitioner that I then became. I'm trying to show up as the parent that my kids need, but also the parent that I need, and I don't need the taskmaster in those moments. I need somebody that's going to be really gentle and really kind. That's what I wanted to create in the book and I'm luckily that's coming through. But like also what we failed to mention is half of the book are interviews right, like it's not my words or wisdom, it's all coming from these amazing parents that I got to talk to and most of whom are either longtime practitioners or well-known teachers or just psychologists or experts in their field. Hearing it from them and everyone that was the through line, everyone's like only you know your kid. Everyone that was the through line Everyone's. Like only you know your kid.Lisa Danylchuk: 40:23
You are the best parent for your child and give yourself a break. Yeah, give yourself so much grace. Yeah, because that too is modeling right, which is one of the most powerful ways to learn is by soaking it in seeing other people do it. Our kids are so attuned I mean daughter's in the phase right now where she just repeats everything I say and it's so amazing. And then it's so like oh, I just said that, like okay, well, if I don't want you to repeat it, I'm just not going to repeat it again. But being able to model that humanness and being able to come back to that sense of grace just feels like just like a relief, like there's enough if your sleep is interrupted and you're going into new territory, even if you're a multiple time parent, right, new territory every time. So I think it's a good anchor point to come back to like a little bit of ease.Lisa Danylchuk: 41:16
I was thinking about Mel this morning, because she always says hold it lightly. And it makes me think of that. Oh, just hold it lightly. Is there anything? Now that the book's been out, you've promoted it, you've talked to people about it it has a life of its own. Is there anything that you're like? Oh, I would love to add this part to it. I mean, it's a physical thing and then it's out in the world and I know you're like bring it back add this thing.Sarah Ezrin: 41:43
Well, it's funny, yeah. So one of like the tagline of the book is the most advanced. The most advanced yoga I've ever done is raising my children. Well, I would take that back now and I would say that the most advanced yoga I've ever done is trying to co-parent with another adult and raise your children together and we're married.Sarah Ezrin: 42:03
I mean, we're in a partnership, but I just think like two adults coming from very different experiences whose traumas maybe highlight the other ones, and this one's coming from a very different type of parenting perspective. That is the most difficult thing. Everyone's like oh, maybe it's the yoga of marriage is your next book and, like my husband and I will, talk about it but like that needs to be mentioned.Sarah Ezrin: 42:25
The partnership part of it needs to be mentioned, even if it's just don't worry you, as the solo person can do the work and it will make a difference. The relationship piece is worth mentioning because it is really hard to show up as a conscious parent when you're living with somebody that may have a little bit more old school values or your traumas rubbing against each other, triggered by interactions between my husband and my children, and then I'm jumping in and I'm I'm inserting myself when they have, they're perfectly capable of everybody sorting out themselves. In my mind it feels like danger because I grew up in an alcoholic home and I get really scared and a voice gets raised. But the other day what I've been practicing is this like really taking a beat, and I thank God I wasn't in the house Cause if I was in the house I would have jumped in.Sarah Ezrin: 43:19
What I've been practicing is this like really taking a beat and I thank God I wasn't in the house, cause if I was in the house I would have jumped in. But I was like our laundry room was outside of the house and I heard the voices start to escalate and I had that impulse to jump in and I just took a breath and I focused on the laundry and they worked it out immediately and the mental freedom of not having to take on my child's emotions or my husband's emotions or having to take sides and inserting myself. There was something very beautiful about that. If I had to do it again, I would maybe include a chapter just mentioning what it is like to parent and partnership.Sarah Ezrin: 43:57
I didn't do a ton of partner yoga, you know, like growing up, but I imagine, or acro yoga even there is something about the yield and the strength and then holding themselves and who is leading in this moment and then, when you're both leading together, everybody who's grown up in the acro yoga and the partner yoga community you can tell me if it's comparable to explain. But yeah, there's something there that thank goodness for my yoga practice again, because it gives me pause and it really shows me it's. We talked about the boundary spectrum, right, like when can I soften so he can step up a little more? When can I step up a little more and he can soften? How do we find each other in the middle? It's a complex piece if that's your circumstance.Lisa Danylchuk: 44:42
I think I just had a moment really similar the other day where I was behind some door it might've been the laundry room and I heard my daughter start to protest, kind of like she wasn't quite crying yet but like getting escalated, and she was with her dad and he was watching her and I just felt this like pull to go in and like see her or figure out what was going on.Lisa Danylchuk: 45:04
And I just did exactly what you're describing like he's with her now. I don't need to get in the middle, I'm just gonna keep doing what I'm doing, I'm gonna take a breath and then it just resolved. Yeah, she's like, wow, that was magic, right. Yeah, enough to be so in it. Every moment when there's two people, lean on that, use that right. But then there are these moments where we're talking about oh, you're your best parent for your child and listen to yourself and trust your intuition. It's like if there's two people and you're in the same house or you're in separate houses, there's other complications to it. But how do you do that balance?Lisa Danylchuk: 45:42
and advance back and forth. When someone's culture or their triggers or their intuition are going this way, yours is going the other way. You know and like to even have the space to try to connect and work through that understand it, come to a shared understanding even if you don't agree, like that takes time and energy that a lot of times we don't feel like we have. So doing that little dance, that energetic dance, I'd love for an acro or someone who's done a lot of partner yoga to like chime in on this and write an article or a book is probably out there somewhere of how we can apply that. And that is an important piece, right? Because even if there's a parent who's passed or who's absent, there's still that's still a parent to the child, right? And how does that impact them?Sarah Ezrin: 46:26
Yeah, I mean you brought up one of the bigger pieces of it for me which has been the most challenging, which is that my intuition says one thing and his says another and when you're trying to compromise in those circumstances it's really challenging. And then you're like who's into? Is it my intuition or is it my anxiety? Is it his anxiety or is it his intuition? How do you know who's grounded? How do you know where to go?Sarah Ezrin: 46:52
As much as my yoga practice, my meditation practice, has been healing for me. My Al-Anon recovery work has been incredibly healing, which is the program for friends and families, alcoholics. A lot of that is you don't force solutions, right, like the difference of the willfulness when we will our way through life. If there isn't a clear answer, then maybe that's not the time to be pushing towards that, so trusting that. But if it's something that you have a strong conviction on, like we disagreed and when I should stop breastfeeding, I wanted to continue and like something like that, I'm like, no, that's you know, it's my body, I'm going to dig my heels into the ground and this is something that I am going to hang on to.Sarah Ezrin: 47:28
But then he was ready to introduce toilet teaching. Before I was ready. It felt like we were forcing something. But then there was a window and my son was like I'm ready and my husband was right. So there's many moments of that, and I think it's like sit back and let the environment unfold in front of you and just see if you can start to see the clues. Both of you may have differing ideas, but you'll start to see the signs from the universe, or signs from your children too. Right, this is what we're ready for in this moment.Lisa Danylchuk: 47:59
Yeah, and for some of us that's kind of bringing it in. We're talking about boundaries or focus, and for some of us that's really letting go. And I think there's definitely a theme, when you talk about this in terms of the transformation of your child as they grow too, of just letting go. Letting go of what you thought it was going to look like, letting go of your birth plan or whatever else that didn't go in the way you envisioned it.Lisa Danylchuk: 48:19
There's a lot in the yoga world and when we talk about some spiritual circles, about like manifesting, it's like well, if you write the script and you rehearse it and you think of the emotion of it, then that's how it's going to go, and it's like that's a little narrow right, Like maybe there's some thing you can bring to it, some energy, some resources, some visioning, some opening to certain connections or supports. But this is something that we don't have ultimate control and that can feel really hard, especially when there's something as vulnerable as, like your child's well-being right at stake. So it can just bring up all the past trauma or ways that we respond to it that we're still maybe mildly aware of or not aware of yet. And that's coming into the equation and it's a lot to. It's a lot to unpack.Lisa Danylchuk: 49:06
A lot of layers, so back to grace, right Back to grace, and like any amount of yoga would say, self-study, reflection and, as we're connecting to each other and having different experiences, co-parents, having space for that is important too. Oh, we feel like we could talk forever, but I want to ask you a few more things before we go. So you've written this book and you've gotten feedback. I feel like a book often starts, too, with a curiosity, but also a passion for something right, like I know. For me, I felt energetically like, oh, I want to write a book. And then I wrote one and I was like, oh, I didn't get it, like it was okay, but like I still want to write another one. I wrote a different one. I was like, okay, that was good, but like I didn't get it. And I wrote my third book and it was like a birth, coming up and out of my face into the computer, Like we felt it energetically in that way.Lisa Danylchuk: 49:53
So I'm wondering if there's any core message, and I do encourage folks to listen on Audible or pick up a coffee and a copy. I think there's a lot of wisdom and support and nurturing in this book that you don't really find everywhere and I think we really need. But if you could distill, if you can magically download something into a listener's mind or a parent who's like help, help, Sarah, you wrote this whole book and I'm struggling. What would be the thing, the awareness or the emotion that you would want to share?Sarah Ezrin: 50:26
Yeah, I mean I think it's everything we've already been saying distilled down into you are the best parent for your child, and there are going to be experts and there's going to be guides, and there's going to be opinions, and sometimes that opinion is the person you share a bed with and you share DNA with the children with. But ultimately you have this place of innate knowing. It's just a matter of getting quiet enough to really hear it and pulling back enough to watch the child, to figure out, to let them tell you, because that's really where, where it's coming from. I mean, I think that's the deepest thing.Sarah Ezrin: 50:59
I love hearing that just from an author's perspective of your writing, because I know there's a book two inside of me and maybe a book three. I think that's really remarkable. It's like finding the idea is always hard. So you know, I have all these friends that like they weren't even done with their press tour for their first book and they're like, yeah, I've already started working on number two. I love the idea of it, like it downloads through you and creativity.Sarah Ezrin: 51:23
We have those moments and artists have felt it before and musicians can feel it. And we feel it when we're with our kids, but we can also feel it in those moments of decision-making and those moments of how we can best care for our children. It's just a matter of being connected to source in whatever way works for that person.Lisa Danylchuk: 51:43
So yeah, trust yourself and being open to that level of intuition or sometimes it feels like flow, sometimes it doesn't, but just allowing it to move through you. So last couple of questions to move through you. So last couple of questions. Someone came on the podcast, jennifer Gomez. I always shout her out with this term dreamstorming, where you go on brainstorming and you just live the vision. So if you were living the vision of resources for parents, pregnant people, mothers what would you want to see? How would the world look different? To support people, and I'm thinking pregnancy, first year, postpartum, but we could go all the way until your kids are 40, if you want.Sarah Ezrin: 52:26
The systems are broken and the systems need to change. I'm a huge supporter of chamber of mothers. I'm a part of their North Bay chapter. Here I know they have. I think you feel like you're closer to the South Bay one, but they need an East Bay one too. What they are? They are big proponents of paid family leave, affordable child care, maternal mental health overall and especially maternal mortality.Sarah Ezrin: 52:50
It's advocating for all of those things. It's like take care of the mother, you take care of the mother and you're taking care of the child, and that's the health of the entire system. Those things need to happen. We need longer maternity leave. We need paternity leave. We need to have maternity and paternity leave given in a culture where people are it's acceptable for them to take it, because, sure, a lot of these tech companies will have pretty impressive paternity leave, but then when a father steps up or someone who identifies as a father steps up to take it, then they're actually like, oh well, no, you can't really take it, like, yes, you have six weeks, but you can do one week and then you're back, kind of thing. So we need cultures that are also like accepting of that.Sarah Ezrin: 53:33
Paid family leave is a completely separate thing. So, yes, paid family leave for during the postpartum period, but what about all those sick days? Who does it inevitably fall upon if there's two parents? And if there's one parent, what's that person going to do? Because the workday doesn't stop because of the school calendar and that's like those are when you're there emergency situations, nevermind just the days that the schools have to close or the hours of the school. So I think modeling shorter work days, shorter work weeks, ways to have much more flexibility within the work system, so people are not just showing up as workers that are being drilled into the ground to make someone at the top more money, that we are seen as human beings with lives and following much more of like the models of what we see in Europe. With that, yes, where people can, can you know things are like these incredible schools in France, for example, that have full meals for the children and you know there's like rethinking things in those ways. So there is support. It becomes collective again. We're so individualistic in this part of the world and it's just getting worse right now and we forget that like we've only been industrialized for like however long right, I mean, it really has only been a blip on the map of our timeline. As human beings, we were in tribes, we were in nomadic cultures of helping each other, moving together in community. That's how things are going to change.Sarah Ezrin: 55:09
I also think that there needs to be more like brick and mortar locations where moms can and not just moms, I just I'm like focused in the mom world right now but where parents can drop their kids off. It's a daycare that is affordable, that is woven in there, whether it's a co-working space or some kind of movement. Like you know, it has to be like a one-stop shop. I remember reading about that in the second world war, that there used to be a place where you could drop off your dry cleaning and your laundry and your child, and it was all the same place and this was all a government funded entity. You know things like that. Those are the things that we need support. Sure, we can do yoga. We can weave in minutes of self care here and there, we can do these yoga snacks, as I like to call them. You can even get better about setting your boundaries, but if the foundation is broken from underneath us, we're still going to be falling into quicksand, no matter what.Lisa Danylchuk: 56:04
Yeah, and what I hear in that is a collective focus on families, because we live in a culture that's much more collectively focused on work and other things. Thank you so much. Is there anything that is coming next for you that you want to share? And there's books percolating, it sounds like.Sarah Ezrin: 56:21
Sure, yeah, yeah. One of the things I'm trying to do is make an online village, so I'm creating more online content for moms and I have different programs. I've got a three month group coaching program and it weaves in it's. It is yoga based, but it really is nervous system healing, energy management things. But it's you know, you know you and I like wink, wink, it's the yoga.Lisa Danylchuk: 56:41
I know I'm a wink wink again.Sarah Ezrin: 56:43
I feel like you're speaking the same language it is the yoga. But if I say yoga then everybody thinks it's just movements and then you get them in.Sarah Ezrin: 56:49
You're like getting them journaling. You're like these, but yeah, yeah, like that is the yoga. So just offering a lot more stuff online, because for where I am right now in my life, that is also more flexible for me. I feel like I can reach more moms in that way. I want to be able to help people, whether it's connecting other moms together or providing ways for affordable outsourcing, or providing ideas for more efficiency in the home or just encouragement to drop the ball, because I think that's a huge part of it too. That's what I'm trying to do now, so look out for those. My group coaching program is coming beginning of summer.Lisa Danylchuk: 57:24
And what's your? Is it sarahesrincom? Yeah?Sarah Ezrin: 57:27
sarahesrinyogacom and sarahesrinyoga on Instagram and that's where I'm probably the most active, although I'm getting better about YouTube and just like offering as much as many resources as I can. It's literally like I'm like drowning in my living room because somebody is doing something or has a weapon, or has turned a candy cane into a weapon A true story. You're like how is this the most benign thing? And you're stabbing each other with it and then like finding the grounding or maybe yelling at them and then being kind to myself and then repairing with them, and then I'm like, okay, I got to share this tip because this, this really works. That's, it is literally in the field.Lisa Danylchuk: 58:08
Reporting from the wild of my living room, the wild west of this candy cane forest. Yes, that's exactly where I am, Love it. I always love asking this question what brings you hope? We're talking about systems can set us up to feel like we're in quicksand. You might be breaking up a candy cane fight one day. You might be lighting a candle in the middle of cooking the other day. What orients you to like? Oh? I think maybe we can all do this.Sarah Ezrin: 58:37
Yeah, I think watching the support around in the parenting community and specifically moms supporting moms, because I grew up at a time I was the youngest of five kids, I had three brothers, I had my girlfriends, but it was still like the nineties where that boy of mine was like the hit song on the radio and I still, like always, gravitated towards the boys more.Sarah Ezrin: 59:01
I thought I was like a boy's girl and all of that stuff. When I became a mom I found, in communion with other women in circle, this incredible power and magic. That is like, oh my gosh, even just talking to you right now, I'm like let's like we'll hang up the phone and then we'll start emailing each other ideas Like let's change the world and I don't mean to just make it about just moms. I think it's like excited human beings that are in a similar lifetime, because I can see it with my husband and his friends too. But for me it's just this magic of being around other moms and all of us collectively being like something's got to change, what are we going to do? And the power of getting those women together and brainstorming together, like that's like talk about a rising tide lifts all ships, like we are. There is an elevation happening and everybody's down for the game right now and that's really exciting to be a part of.Lisa Danylchuk: 1:00:00
I love it. I love it so much. And yeah, I know I was thinking too. I was like, okay, I'm going to envision, I'm going to dream storm, like I'm going to meet you at Mel's house, at her home studio how about that? The Olmstead, one of these days? I don't know how long it's going to be, but one of these days maybe we could be in 3D together. And maybe one of these days because I think you and I both have like an online platform and the access we have through online is incredible, right, you can have people from all over the world joining and having conversations live.Lisa Danylchuk: 1:00:30
And then you talked about because I had the same thing when I was leaving the hospital after Isabella was born, and it's like visioning these buildings, like you could go to where there was all this support and care and nurturing, like, okay, that hospital's there, that's great, I'm glad it's there. I'm envisioning this place across the street. That's like a lower building and it's circular and there's like an acupuncturist and there's like big open playground in the middle and then there's classrooms or childcare activities and yoga and therapy and dry cleaning. Now, and it's so funny because what I'm envisioning is really a community right.Sarah Ezrin: 1:01:08
A community.Lisa Danylchuk: 1:01:09
It's like taking this big world that we've lived in and boiling it back down into a village where you can just walk across the street and drop off your laundry or I don't know, bring it to the river or whatever. We do Like we can actually just handle business in a manageable container and have support like actual people's support. So I hope those things come to life. I had all these ideas too. I mean, I'm literally like with a three day old in my arms, thinking like I should call this person and we should do that same energy.Sarah Ezrin: 1:01:39
It's a cracking open.Lisa Danylchuk: 1:01:41
Yeah that you're talking about, so that I thank you for sharing that. That brings me hope as well, and it makes me want to connect with more women in person, so I'm going to tag Mel and be like you need a women's day at your own stead. You need a mama's day you can have a father's day the other day, if you want.Sarah Ezrin: 1:01:56
That's just a different lane. It was a very hard decision for me to go from. I wanted to help parents all parents to helping just moms. But I don't mean to discount the dads. I think there's a space for that. I just personally from my own lived experience relating a little bit more to that. But absolutely I hope there's a dad listening or a non binary parent listening and something gets sparked inside of you and that's the intersection that you're gonna run with and you're gonna build the community that we're talking about, because we all need it. We all need it. Even non-parents need it too. We're in this phase of caretaking for our elderly parents. So if you are a caretaker of any kind, we all need that kind of support. So I really hope people will go into your community wherever you identify and create that that. We are the ones that can create that and we all have that power.Lisa Danylchuk: 1:02:46
Yes, I love it. Sarah Ezrin, thank you so much.Lisa Danylchuk: 1:02:49
Thanks for being here, thanks for all you do and thanks for you know. Just a shout out to like all the work you've done on yourself, cause that's what you get to share with other people, right? And I think sometimes we forget that when you're out there holding space as a yoga teacher or writing a book, there's a lot of backstory, there's a lot of hours on a yoga mat, there's probably a lot of therapy sessions, there's a lot of figuring out hard things and then feeling that, ooh, we can, we can share this healing. So thank you for that. Love that. Thank you, Thanks so much for listening.Lisa Danylchuk: 1:03:26
Now I'd love to hear from you how does your yoga or mindfulness practice show up in daily life. What micro moments of kindness, self-compassion or pleasure serve you and support you? Share your answers and what's been healing for you in the comments below on YouTube or find me on Instagram at HowWeCanHeal. Don't forget to go to HowWeCanHealcom to sign up for email updates. You'll also find additional trainings, tons of helpful resources and the full transcript of each show. If you love the show, please leave us a review on Apple, spotify, audible or wherever you get your podcasts. If you're watching on YouTube, be sure to like and subscribe, and keep sharing the shows you love the most with all your friends. Visit howwecanhealcom forward slash podcast to share your thoughts and ideas for the show. I love hearing from you.Lisa Danylchuk: 1:04:18
Before we wrap up for today, I want to be clear that this podcast isn't offering prescriptions. It's not advice, nor is it any kind of mental health treatment or diagnosis. Your decisions are in your hands and I encourage you to consult with any healthcare professionals you may need to support you through your unique path of healing. In addition, everyone's opinion here is their own. Guests share their thoughts, not that of the host or sponsors. I'd like to thank our guests today, everyone who helps support this podcast directly and indirectly. Alex, shout out to you for taking care of the babe and the fur babies while I record. Last but never least, I'd like to give a shout out to my big brother, matt, who passed away in 2002. He wrote this music and it makes my heart so happy to share it with you. Thank you.
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