Rachel:

Hi Taylor, what's your current profession?

Taylor:

Hi, my name is Taylor Gonzalez. I'm the CEO, Founder and Creatrix of Body Alchemy Project. I consider myself a somatic alchemist. I do this through run coaching, weightlifting and yoga facilitation.

Rachel:

How did you first hear about TIWL? What was that introduction like for you?  

Taylor:

I've always loved learning and growing and integrating my learning into my own practice. And so I first learned about TIWL because I had just finished my foundational trauma informed yoga teaching certification and was kind of on this new journey, this new pathway, and I really wanted to further my own learning. When I found out that there was TIWL, I was like, holy smokes, this is another branch of my work. This is gonna be so potent, so magnanimous. So I started to look through and see what was the offering and the certificate and just everything that was involved and I was like, yes, yes, yes, sign me up. I remember sending like, hi, I'd like to take part in this month, the next opening, you know, and just really getting into it. 

Rachel:

So I understand you're a runner. How does weightlifting impact runners and running? 

Taylor:

I love that question. The question really is not ‘have I run enough to rest’ or ‘have I run enough to weight lift’ or ‘have I run enough to eat’, but rather it's the complete opposite. ‘Have I eaten enough and rested enough so I can run?’ ‘Have I weight lifted so I can run?’ So I really see weightlifting as part of the recipe of being a strong runner, mitigating injury, mitigating burnout. 

I also think of what it's like to be a woman in a running space, we're not told to lift heavy. We're not told to lift at all. But yet by the time we turn 30 and from there on we start losing bone density, muscle mass and all that. How do we continue our own running practices if we are not investing in ourselves as weightlifters? And so, I am borrowing this from Dr. Stacy Sims, “Women aren't small men and we need to be training in a way that is meeting our own physiology.” And part of that is weightlifting. 

I think that is one of the biggest hurdles I sometimes cross with some of my runners when they're like, what's a dumbbell or I don't want to weight lift. 

And I'm like, “babe, do you want to run for the rest of your life?”

And they say, “yeah”, so I'm like, “we got to pick up the dumbbell.”

TIWL did give me a lot of language and frameworks to be able to make weightlifting a little bit more accessible and digestible for my runners who sometimes might be a little bit nervous to integrate something else into their running practices.

Rachel:

That right there is a nice segue into my question. Somatic healing, embodiment, what does all of this mean in your own words?

Taylor:

Somatic healing and embodiment. Yes, it's become the new age jargon stuff that we are starting to bite into. However, so much just means “of the body” and healing is an evolution of ourselves. So when I tie them together, I really see this as a body led evolution and growth. And what I'd like to tell folks is I typically see the body as almost kintsugi art, right? Those gold threads that are weaved into the pottery and they become that much more beautiful. 

Healing experiences, what I like to name injury, illness, trauma, these experiences are those gold threads that bring everything together. 

And yes, talk therapy is also beautiful. These practices do have beautiful elements to them. However, that's just focusing on the head. When do we bring the rest of the body into this healing modality, into this evolution of ourselves?

I really see it as a way to come home deeper into ourselves.

Rachel:

In your certificate cohort, how was your personal experience with the subject matter?

Taylor:

So my experience in taking the TIWL training was really illuminating in so many different ways. There was a lot of content that I had really fallen into in an intuitive way that I've learned about whether it was in my background as a yoga teacher or in my continuing education with trauma-informed yoga.

What TIWL gave me was a specific language and research-backed modalities that really supported some of the things that I was teaching and leading and guiding out on. One of those things is dosing. It is so similar to my former profession as a classroom educator, thinking about differentiated scaffolding for my students. So the idea of dosing and bringing that in through a trauma-informed lens, learning that content, I was like, "duh," or even learning about the term ‘embodied metaphor’. That is something that I have done in my own body when I've been healing, whether it's been post-op or even just finding my own weightlifting routine. I was like, "Holy moly, there's actually a term for this and this is something that is a TI framework." 

Getting the specific framework so I could be a little bit more thoughtful, intentional around those two items specifically, make me a better embodied individual in my own practice, and therefore being able to guide, facilitate others in their own practices. 

Because it's not practice what you teach, it's teach what you practice. 

And I think that's sometimes where we get that algorithm messed up too.

Rachel:

I’d like to touch on your professional evolution. How has your professional practice evolved from before and after participating in a TIWL Training? 

Taylor:

Before going through TIWL, there's a lot of different pathways I would take, right? Depending on who I was speaking to, whether I was talking about masculine, feminine energy, or sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. 

For me, and the way I integrate both, they're very much one in the same. It just kind of depends on who I'm talking to, knowing which language is going to land. What I've realized though, through TIWL specifically, was literally giving me these specific frameworks and stepping stones to be able to merge and mesh those together. 

Rachel:

Let’s say you've got a runner coming to you, you've not gone through TIWL yet, you've not done TCTSY. You've not even begun. And this person is exhibiting worry. They don't look very comfortable. How would you approach this person as the “before-Taylor”? What is the difference between how you would approach them now? 

Taylor:

I think before TIWL I might've thought simply, “What's going on with this person?”

And after TIWL, that question has now shifted to, “What happened to them? What have they moved through?” And I begin implementing a lot of the frameworks, terminology or even methodology of TIWL being really inventory in my language, maybe noticing a different sensation in one place or somewhere else instead of being prescriptive. 

I am definitely more taking a step back, observing and facilitating versus direct instruction and direct teaching. I'm seeing myself being a space holder and a guide versus a director or a teacher, which yes, still a teacher to an extent. That's my master's, that's my background and everything. But I do think it takes out the I do, we do, you do and becomes we do, you do versus taking that “I” out of it.  

Rachel:

That actually, brings me to a question that I didn't write down. At TIWL we get a lot of professionals from both the physical and the mental side of things. And what we’re finding is that both sides are worried about fulfilling both roles simultaneously. A lot of people are worried about not having all the right answers. Does this show up for you?

Taylor:

What I really come back to in those scenarios is my background, my experience as a classroom educator. I taught in a Title I school, the vast majority of my students were first generation and or immigrants to this country. Yes there's a lot going on at home, but what was I in charge of? What was actually within my locus of control? What was going on in the classroom?  Yes, I could bring snacks in. Yes, I could bring in sweaters, but ultimately, could I provide heat in their home? Could I make sure they had three square meals? The truth is I couldn't, but I could meet them where they were at and facilitate and hold space when they were in my care for them to learn, for them to grow. 

And of course, without going into the Maslow's hierarchy of making sure food, water, shelter, right? I know every child has their invisible backpack. And so in this space, I bring the same principles. Everyone has other shit that going on and that they’re dealing with at home. But when you're working with me in our run coach setting on our lifting session, what's actually is it that we're working on? And as we know, the body remembers. And so there might be experiences that get unlocked. 

Like, for instance, I am not a dietician.  I'm happy to resource and reference out to people that I trust, that I work within myself. Are there elements of that that might come into what we're working on? Sure. But I think maintaining my home boundaries so I can hold space for you is really important. And so I'm very clear on specifics that I will go down and I won't go down. And food is one of them. 

I have no shame in saying I don't know something. And if someone judges me for it, that's on them. I don't care.  

Rachel:

That was a really nice metaphor of how you've worked with children in a classroom setting. You don't have to be the entirety of their healing. But it's what can you do right now in your own locus of control. 

Let’s jump on to story time. I’d love to hear stories about noticing differences in somebody who has developed and grown in their own weight lifting or running practice.

Taylor:

So I can share two.

There's a fellow teacher at my yoga studio who is always so intrigued to learn more. She approached me a couple weeks ago and said, “I noticed that you do something a little bit different than other teachers.” She said, “You always frame how long they're going to be in each shape. You use the word shape and not pose. You use the word tools instead of props, and you invite them to notice different sensations, if they so feel it, and everything you give is a choice.” 

She said, “How can I emulate some of that? Where did you learn that?” I was like, ah, let me tell her a little bit about TIWL. And you know, she's on her own weight lifting journey. She's in her 50’s. She said, “I grew up in such a generation where you didn't do that, or you had to be really small or skinny. And now I just want to be strong.” And so I sent her in this direction. This was a big learning point for me and my own growth because of TIWL. I noticed the ripple or echo impact.

So now, I'm going to tell you about Eliza. [name changed]

Eliza is a survivor of early childhood trauma. She and I started working together a little over a year ago, and she had been a little hesitant to do any kind of physical movement outside of yoga. This is someone who a few years ago had been a cycle instructor, had been really into weightlifting. So I was taken by surprise. We started to work together a little bit more to excavate and discover what was really going on.  

Through our work together  we took incremental steps, and it was about consistency versus constancy, which I think is a huge difference that is really infused in TIWL. How do you build endurance and consistency, which is kind of the antithesis of how we work in our culture, which is mostly based on production and burnout, etc  How do we build endurance to mitigate all of that. That's something that we've really been working on. 

We've now been working specifically with weightlifting and cycling for close to a year now. We just had one of our sessions last Thursday, and I literally had goosebumps. She told me this was the first time that she had her period and it was nourishing. She was like, I didn't run from it. I created space to rest. 

And so for me, that's the algorithm switch of ‘have I trained enough to rest’, but rather ‘have I rested enough to train.’ And that's TIWL coming out in a, let's say in a nutshell, but as pure evidence of someone who had kind of poo-pooed it and has been slowly awakening to her own Shakti and her own authenticity of who she's meant to be and who she is on the inside.  

Rachel:

Thank you so much for sharing, I truly believe we’ll have some folks out there relating to your stories. 

What would you say to other people who are considering taking even just the Foundations course or who are considering some kind of continuing education in this TI pathway?

Taylor:

I know the word trauma can be scary, right? I think it either can give you an exhale and a relief, or can cause attention and a contraction in your body. Either way, I do think that is an invitation there, because that means that your body is responding to something there that is important for you to lean into and an edge to learn and grow a little bit more. We've all experienced trauma, we have all gone through experiences that have led imprints on our body, whether we work and infuse that as part of our identity in any way, shape or form. 

And so if you are considering investing in yourself in the TIWL space, whether it's for yourself or your own practice, you're going to evolve as a human, you're going to be able, in my opinion, you might be able to build stronger relationships, whether that's within this trajectory or not, just because we've all moved through something in varying degrees and experiences.  

Rachel:

So the final final question is, “What’s a hill that you’d die on?”

Taylor:

Okay. Men are circadian. Male bodies are circadian. They are a 24 hour hormone cycle. Women and AFAB individuals are anywhere from 22 to 56 days, even peri and postmenopausal. Each day is meant to and supposed to feel, look and sound different.

Everything that we have been taught when it comes to moving our bodies to production to living in a world, is based on a 24 hour rhythm. That's why we have Monday through Friday, traditional work hours of nine to five. That is all based on the male hormonal body. 

So the hill I'm going to die on, ladies, is everything that's been out there has been for men. Rest, take it easy, recover, but lift heavy and eat protein. Our body's so drastically need it. And if you're under 30, start lifting now. Your future self will love it. If you’re over 30, we really need to lift heavy. It supports our bodies. It supports our cycle. It supports us as we move through the phases in our life, perimenopausal, most postmenopausal, all of that. The more we move, the more we can support ourselves. That's the way I train. That's the way I live my life. So that's the hill I'm going to die on. Women are different and it's okay that we're different. And I like it. I love it.