How To Navigate Midlife With Grace And Strength With Desi Bartlett

In this enlightening conversation, Desi Bartlett shares her journey from a Chicago upbringing to becoming a wellness advocate in Hawaii. She emphasizes the importance of the body-mind connection, particularly for women over 40, and discusses her innovative Body Mind Workout. Desi highlights the significance of yoga and meditation in navigating midlife transitions, managing stress, and fostering empowerment through knowledge and community. She also addresses the need for self-care, setting boundaries, and the power of positive self-talk in achieving overall wellness.

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction and Journey to Wellness

02:48 Understanding the Body Mind Workout

05:59 The Importance of Yoga and Meditation for Women Over 40

08:57 Navigating Midlife Transitions

11:53 Breathwork and Self-Care Practices

14:55 Empowerment Through Knowledge and Community

17:57 Setting Boundaries and Self-Care

20:54 The Role of Positive Self-Talk

23:53 Conclusion and Inspirational Messages

Desi Bartlett MS, CPT E-RYT, is passionate about sharing the joy of movement. With over 25 years of experience in health and wellness, she holds a bachelor’s degree in kinesiology, a master’s degree in corporate fitness, and is currently pursuing a doctoral degree in exercise science. Originally from Chicago, Desi is also a proud mother of two and an internationally published author.

Desi is currently launching an innovative subscription platform, Desibodymind.com, offering a holistic approach to health and wellness through meditation, yoga, and fitness. At the heart of her philosophy is the belief in the interconnectedness of mind and body.

As a women’s health expert with advanced certifications in yoga, personal training, prenatal and postnatal fitness, and group fitness, Desi has garnered a roster of private clients that includes household names like Ashley Tisdale, Emma Roberts, Kate Hudson, and many more. Her expertise has been showcased on major networks such as ABC, NBC, FOX, Univision, Hallmark, and Lifetime.

Desi's influence extends beyond her client base through multiple online classes including DailyOM, Beachbody, and iFit. She is also the author of Your Strong, Sexy Pregnancy: a Yoga and Fitness Guide, a comprehensive guide  and co-author of Total Body Beautiful: Secrets to Looking and Feeling Your Best After Age 35.

For more information, log on to Desibodymind.com

Transcript

Elizabeth (00:00)
Welcome, Desi. It is such a pleasure to have you here. Thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to be here with me.

Desi Bartlett MS CPT E-RYT (00:08)
Thank you, Elizabeth and aloha from Hawaii. It's a beautiful day in Hawaii today. The sun is shining. I actually saw a rainbow on the way over here. So I think that that bodes well for our conversation.

Elizabeth (00:21)
Yes, it does. Amazing. I love watching or looking at rainbows. They're just obviously they're not often. So when you get them, it's such a sight to see. So amazing. Well, we'll start right there, right? You say that you're in Hawaii now, but I know that you're a Chicago girl as I am. And so I just want to understand your story a little bit about your journey and how you got to where you are today.

Desi Bartlett MS CPT E-RYT (00:48)
Yeah, so I grew up in downtown Chicago and I was raised by a single mom. She was a disciple of a gentleman named Goswami Kriyananda at the Temple of Korea Yoga in Chicago. So I grew up with yoga and mantra and pranayama and like all the things that people kind of are just discovering now. I had gifted to me from the time I was six years old. After...

After my childhood, I moved to Arizona. I went to ASU. I went on to get my bachelor's in kinesiology, my master's in corporate fitness from UIC. I went back to Chicago. And I'm really open about my age. So at the age of 53, I'm now getting my PhD in kinesiology. And I just feel so passionate about women's health. And so I'm constantly going back for more education.

Whether I'm a student or a professor, I teach at USC as a guest professor. I just love education in general. And however I can help empower women with the information that we need to go through life's transitions, whether it's pregnancy, new motherhood, perimenopause, menopause and beyond, I'm here for it.

Elizabeth (01:59)
Amazing. Yes. And we could never be too young, too old to learn. Right. And, and by the way, 53, you look amazing. So you look amazing. You could not even tell that. Right. Exactly. Exactly. People are like, what is your secret? Well,

Desi Bartlett MS CPT E-RYT (02:10)
thank you. Thank you. Yoga.

Elizabeth (02:19)
I'll tell ya. So yeah, we could never be too old to learn and amazing for you is that you are, you have this purpose, right, to speak and teach women of, know, this is, it's okay to not only feel what you're feeling, but let's, how can we move through these times, these difficult, or not even maybe difficult, it's just, you know, a little bit maybe stressful and challenging and it's not,

just, okay, this is what it is. There's ways that you can move through these, like you said, transitions in a healthy manner. So love that more teachers, more people that is that are helping women over 40, or just in general women to empower ourselves is just amazing. So thank you.

Desi Bartlett MS CPT E-RYT (03:11)
Yeah, my poster.

Elizabeth (03:13)
Yeah, so you have this thing called body mind workout. Very, very intriguing because I, you know, I do talk a lot about the mind. I do talk a lot about the body and we are a system, right? But I want to understand from you and because you have more knowledge in the, you know, the exercise, the structural part at, I want to understand what is body mind workout.

Desi Bartlett MS CPT E-RYT (03:42)
So when I was growing up, I remember my mother's guru talking about the body mind complex and how it's important to take care of ourselves as a whole being, right? And then when I got into exercise science, we talk about all the different components of exercise science. So muscular strength, muscular endurance, cardiovascular endurance, flexibility and nutrition. Now, by the time I even hit like number four or number five, most people have just kind of glazed over, right? So I'm like, okay, how can I put all of these things together? How can I bring

flexibility and strength and all the things together, but also in a way that's going to actually land and stick with people. And for me, that's really all about intention. And so what we do is we begin every workout with a clear intention, and I just have folks choose one word. And so that one word becomes the mantra for the day. So for example, you go in and you see a list of words. How do I want to feel today? Do I want to feel centered? Do I want to feel clear? Do I want to feel strong?

And then we go in, we have a very brief meditation and intention setting.

Breathe into that, warm up with yoga and move on to fitness. Each workout is only 20 minutes long. I understand that people have crazy lives right now, we all do. And so how do we get it all in? This is how. I take all of the guest workout of it for you. Join me four days a week, five days a week, as many days a week as you can, because we're not taking the muscles to a point of so much fatigue that you can't do it again the next day.

We can absolutely do it again the next day. And that's really what our bodies and our minds are designed for. It's designed for movement. And when we have like a really, really heavy feeling, whether it's stress or tension or fear or anger, if you move, if you move just even a little bit, know, your arms, your legs, go for a walk, get out in nature, we move the emotion as well. And so over the years of working with people, I've just really, really found that

If I begin with a clear intention and breathe together, then the movement takes on a much different meaning and it becomes a moving meditation instead of like, hey girl, let's get off those last five pounds.

Elizabeth (05:59)
Amazing. Yeah, it's just like every time that I take a yoga class or do yoga, my favorite part is the meditation in that. Is the putting, like you said, a mantra or even just an intention setting for the day. It is because we can correlate

our mind and our bodies and our bodies in our mind, if that makes sense. Like you said, know, movement, movement creates the the mind and what we think and then vice versa, what we think creates the movement. And it's the fluidity, right? It's the fluidity of here and then out here and then out. And then the opposite, right? Yeah, either way.

Desi Bartlett MS CPT E-RYT (06:33)
Yes.

Absolutely, yes, you can go in either way. And I tell people that all the

time. We can go in directly through meditation and mantra and start with the mind, or I can just get you moving and then we can like kind of settle into that. So either way totally works, but we're whole beings. And I feel like in today's fitness landscape, we're still talking about like your booty and it's cute. Yeah, you know, like do your thing. It's all good. We all want to look cute. I get it. But

Elizabeth (06:59)
Yep.

Desi Bartlett MS CPT E-RYT (07:25)
What if you could not only look cute, but feel amazing on the inside? And so that's where I come from.

Elizabeth (07:31)
Yeah, no, amazing. Yeah, that's 100%. At the end of the day, at the end of our life, that is what matters. Like you said, we are a whole being. So how can we implement or incorporate not just one area? Why not work on all of it? Why not work on all of it and at the end of the session be like, my gosh.

I want to do this more, not like, my gosh, I have to do this more. So it is, yeah, definitely understand the benefits and the amazing results that you can get from that.

Desi Bartlett MS CPT E-RYT (08:02)
Yes.

Elizabeth (08:14)
So speaking of benefits and results, let's talk about, or if you could talk about really, the importance of yoga, meditation. Now we're talking, you were talking more holistically in terms of with everybody, right? But I want to narrow it down to my audience, mostly my audience. And of course, I'm going to be in this, and we're both in this. Women over 40. So what is the importance of

why should we do yoga and meditation if as we were going you know like you said through the transition and You know anything that we're what's happening after we turn 40?

Desi Bartlett MS CPT E-RYT (08:57)
So the average age for menopause in the United States is 51. And perimenopause, which simply refers to the time around menopause, can last up to seven or eight years. So now we're what, 43, 44, and there things kind of start to change a little bit. And all of a sudden, you know, we cut those carbs and we did a little more cardio, but the body didn't respond and what's going on. So what I like to explain is that there's a cascade of symptoms that can come along with this perimenopausal transition.

And it can be anything from hot flashes to sleep disturbances to belly fat. And all of that can also affect how we feel, right? So if all of a sudden our pants don't fit and we're tired and we're sweaty, of course we're gonna be a little frustrated or a little bit short with people. It's normal, or pardon me, it's common. So what I like to do is really work with women and talk about like, where's your heart today? And what's the dream of your life?

And how can I be of service to you to help strengthen the vessel of your body and your mind so that you can step into the dream of your life? So let's say, for example, for you, Elizabeth, if your dream is to share your voice and to share health with women over 40 all over the world, how do we do that? I might invite you to close your eyes as we sit on the mat and to envision the throat chakra opening and just imagine your voice moving out like waves.

healing waves across the globe, you know, that kind of thing. And then we start to move your body, but we do it with a sense of purpose in a way that's going to support the vision of your life. So I know right now there's probably women out there who are listening and thinking, I don't know, like, what is the vision of my life? And I really feel like this is the time, we've got to figure it out, that midlife crisis that we hear about is often just us going, wait, what?

what did I want to do again? And really step into it. And if you'll allow me, like take my hand, I'll help you. I'll help you get there. So yoga specifically can of course help to reduce a lot of these symptoms. It can help with hot flashes, night sweats, belly fat, all the things, but it also helps with our emotional life and it helps to reduce anxiety and depression and stress. So that's why I love to use yoga as a technology.

to assist women through these impactful transitions. Because I understand not only from like the hippie portion of it and the esoteric teachings, which I love, but also again, I'm a student, you know, I'm getting my PhD right now. So all I do is read research all day long about the efficacy of yoga. So I can nerd out as much as you'd like, but I'm really here to tell you that it works.

Elizabeth (11:53)
And it does. I've seen research, I understand. I mean, it's a practice. How many years old? I mean, you could tell me how many, it's been practiced for so, so long, and it's not just Western, right? It's Eastern. There's so many different ways to do yoga. There's so many, and like you said, there's a lot of research out there, a lot of statistics, a lot of...

benefits of yoga and for personal you know not a lot of people or a lot of women over 40 or just women in general we are now carrying a lot of responsibility

in this time, right? So a lot of, we're in the sandwich years. We're raising the kids. The kids are either out of the home, we're caring for elderly parents, and then we have family, we have work. So we have so much going on to where...

Just like you said, when we think that we're doing the right thing in terms of, okay, I'm going to the gym, it's great. Yes, please continue. But if you can, also join a yoga class or do what you're doing, watch your videos, is because...

When we're stressing our bodies incessantly, stressing our minds, stressing our bodies, that's going to ask or be what the results that we really want. So at the end of the day, it is the slowing down.

Desi Bartlett MS CPT E-RYT (13:43)
Yes, very much so.

Elizabeth (13:43)
It is

the breathing. is again, moving within knowing your body and appreciating your body through this transition, right? It is like understanding our body is not going to look like when we were 20 years old. It's never going to look like that.

Desi Bartlett MS CPT E-RYT (13:52)
Absolutely.

Elizabeth (14:00)
So let's embrace it. Feel healthy, because that feeling will also turn into the what, you know, what we're goal wise, whatever it is. But it's that feeling is that slowing down so that cortisol does not spike. It will also help. And again, that body mind piece that you put together so lovely. It's just a recipe for success for us. So thank you again. Many thanks.

Desi Bartlett MS CPT E-RYT (14:18)
Yes.

Yeah, yeah.

Elizabeth (14:30)
for

you putting this together and being a light and learning more, right? Again, what you're going to learn with your PhD is going to be even more exponential in this. I appreciate that. In that, let's say somebody's new to the...

Well, just keep it on the yoga world, right? Yoga and meditation, right? What is one piece of advice or suggestion that you will you can give if there's more that's great, but that you can give to somebody who's just starting out?

Desi Bartlett MS CPT E-RYT (15:11)
So you were just beautifully describing the parasympathetic nervous system response and how there's this cascade of chemicals that can occur and just kind of allow our bodies and our minds to chill out instead of always being in that fight or flight, kind of like, let's go, let's go, let's go. And so how do we get there? How do we get to the chill out? And what I find is that women, especially Gen X, we breathe wrong.

And I don't like to use that word wrong, but mechanically it's backwards. And so what I'd like to do is simply invite you to put your hands on your abdomen and inhale and feel the belly expand like a balloon and fill up with air and light and prana. And then when you exhale, release that air slowly and feel the abdominal wall drawing in and slightly up towards the spine.

And let's do that one more time. So as you inhale, now fill your belly, fill your chest, and just imagine again, more oxygen, more light, more energy coming into your body-mind complex. And then as you exhale and release that air, release it slowly, mindfully, and draw the abdominal wall in. And so that's where I begin. And what I find is, again, women,

over 40 often suck in when they inhale. It's like they've been taught to shrink. Let's shrink. How small can you get? How tiny can you make your waist? And I'm like, no, no. But how vital can you get? How full of breath and energy and prana and chi and expansiveness can you get so that again, you can share the dream of your life? I don't want to shrink you. Like if you need to lose a couple pounds, cool, we'll work on that. I got you. But I'm not here to shrink women.

If anything, I'm here to help them expand.

Elizabeth (17:10)
Wow, yeah, as I was doing that with you, I felt it. I felt the expansion, the wholeness, right? Like again, that breathing, as you said, we don't, we don't breathe well. We breathe either shallow because of the fight or flight, you, again, great description. And it's the...

getting back into that parasympathetic, into that, you know, that deep belly, not up here, not in the chest as I'm, for those who are listening, not in the chest, but it's in the belly. And when you focus in as you were so eloquently putting it,

Focusing in on everything. There are five senses. don't know. Do you use the five senses when you when you do the breathing as well? Okay.

Desi Bartlett MS CPT E-RYT (18:05)
I do all the time. And

for people who work with me individually in person, I'm looking around right now because I've got it. I'll bring in like essential oils and have a little bit near their nose so they've got the aromatherapy as well. But I love to go in through the five senses and, you know, put your feet on the earth and feel grounded and feel stable. And then if I actually get to work with folks in person, which is more so if I'm in a retreat situation.

and I'll put my hands on their shoulders and say, like, let's take the weight of the world off your shoulders. So simple cues like that can just kind of remind us like, yeah, I don't have to hold the world up. It'll still keep turning.

Elizabeth (18:48)
Yes, we need more of that. I'm going to shift it over to you now. What and you might have, you know, kind of implicated or mentioned this as you were talking, but if I could pull it out of you a little bit more, what is the most rewarding aspect of what you do? Like what gets you up and out of your bed in the morning and what do you love that you're doing?

Desi Bartlett MS CPT E-RYT (19:17)
seeing women step into their power, whether it's as a mom or as a woman moving into middle age, or even now, I've started to work a little bit with teenagers as well. I find that we are not given a clear education about how our bodies work, and especially in terms of the endocrine system and hormonal release. So when I'm speaking with a teenager, I might explain just estrogen progesterone, sex hormones, and this is what they do, and this is how they affect your body.

same during pregnancy and what's going on with progesterone and why am I constipated and all the things. And then as we move into perimenopause, talking also about being an advocate for yourself and going to the doctor and getting a hormonal panel so you can see what the heck is going on. Your sex drive dropped, okay, is your testosterone tanking? There are a lot of things that we can do. So when you feel like maybe

I've heard a lot of women say they feel alone or they feel like they're going crazy. That's when I'm like, okay, we need community. We need to lift each other up. And that's what gets me up in the morning. Like let's all join hands and like naturopaths and yoga teachers and personal trainers and everybody, cause we all have different tools that can serve.

Elizabeth (20:36)
Amazing. Yeah, we were here. And I again, I tell my coaching members as well, our coaching clients that think of me as a health coach as another tool in your toolbox, right? You have your doctor, you have, you know,

If you need a therapist, you have a therapist, and then here we have a health coach. So we're all here helping you to get better. And just for you, it's same thing. It's like we're here to support your health and wellbeing. And the more, again, the more tools in your toolbox, the better off you're gonna be.

Desi Bartlett MS CPT E-RYT (21:11)
Amen.

And thank goodness for people like you because our doctors unfortunately don't have enough time. You know, they've got like what six minutes with us and they're in, they're out and they have their own quotas that they need to meet and nothing against doctors. But our system is just not set up for women to really be heard.

Elizabeth (21:36)
Yeah.

I could go on a soapbox with that and I won't. But it's 100 % correct. Our system is a little bit broken. Doctors are not 100 % to blame. But functional medicine, integrative, things that are, that's why I do this podcast as alternative. I'm a functional medicine certified health coach. So I believe in that we need more time, especially again, as we are going through this transition of this crazy,

craziness and then now is the time that is actually you, you know, a lot of people are educating on this, you know.

This time that every woman has gone through for centuries, but it's just been so tabooed. It's been so, you know, squashed and it's all in our head and you don't know what we're talking about, you know, all of that. Finally, we're waking up and a lot of women are understanding that's not how we need to be in our second half of our lives. And we have options. We have tools. We have people support.

and it's just a matter of how we get out there and how much we are, yeah, how much we're kind of locking arms and supporting and educating women in general. We have a whole other life ahead of us and it can be amazing. It's just how do we do it, right?

Desi Bartlett MS CPT E-RYT (23:06)
Yes,

absolutely. And when we talk about midlife, that's the middle. So if you're 45, let's say you've got another 45 years ahead of you. So yeah, take the time and find the resources. And so for me, I've got my platform, I've got the BodyMind workout, I've got retreats. So if you want to come work with me and my best friend who's a naturopath, we'll take you to Mexico for a few days and we have like a major reset. Would love for you to be there, Elizabeth.

Elizabeth (23:17)
Right?

Yeah.

Desi Bartlett MS CPT E-RYT (23:36)
And

then I've got books and videos and all the things, because to your point, like what gets me up in the morning, what lights me up, it's sharing. Please take this information, share it with everybody you know so that we can all feel good, because I truly believe we deserve to.

Elizabeth (23:53)
Yeah, and thank you for going into more detail because that was actually my next question was what, how do you put this, you know, content out? So you have books, is there one particular that you want to touch on anything? Yeah, whatever you have out there, is there one particular one that you wanted to kind of go into more detail?

Desi Bartlett MS CPT E-RYT (24:17)
So I think for today, my platform is really the one I'd like to go into. And so my website is desibodymind.com and the Body Mind Workout is on there. And for your listeners, if they use the code podcast, they get 10 % off, but it's already really economically priced. I want this to be available to everyone. Basically, what the subscription fee goes towards is like me just making more videos because I want to share it as much as possible. But again,

What I invite you to do is choose the word that you wanna move towards today. And sometimes it's as simple as like, well, how don't I wanna feel? Well, I don't wanna feel disempowered. Okay, so let me look at the list, strong. Okay, I wanna feel strong. And then we go into that strength body mind workout. But again, we're starting with your mind and we're just kind of setting the stage so that everything is receptive instead of just like, here's your biceps.

Elizabeth (25:16)
And it sounds like, correct me if I'm wrong, it's also the energy, right? You start when you do those things and you start with that mindset. And I love how you started off with, let's think about what we don't want to do, but then that's not what we want to really focus on. It's the opposite. So what we don't want to feel is again, like however you said it.

It's the opposite of that. And we want to focus in on how we want to feel or show up or whatever that word is. And yeah, it's just an amazing kind of understanding that we can just kind of focus in on that and work through that. And when we go through that, it's the energy. What you put out, you attract.

So that is what we kind of want to think of as well when we're doing your work and your videos and your, you know, read your books and things like that. Because we know that at the end of it, that energy is going to be more positive and we're going to get that positive feedback or that positive back. So.

Desi Bartlett MS CPT E-RYT (26:30)
Absolutely.

And I'll share a quick story that I think reflects that. So before I was pregnant, was the first time, I was always struggling with my abdomen. And in fitness and yoga, you've got these like, you have a lot of women who have little teeny tiny waists. And I was like, my body doesn't look like that. And I was constantly having this conversation with my abdomen, like, can you please have some definition, please?

I was so mean to myself and like running past the mirror if I had a bra top on and just being really, really frustrated and bloated and not happy with how I felt on the inside and my belly, deep in my belly. And then when I was pregnant the first time with my son, Cruz, I would just sing to my belly all day long and say, love you and I appreciate you. And it was all love. And what I found was after he was born,

I didn't have to train abs to all of a sudden have like a lean torso and visible striation in the muscles. It just happened. And I really truly believe that that's because I finally sent love and appreciation to this part of my body. And I said, thank you. Thank you for being a sanctuary for my beloved, my little baby. And it responded. I...

I just learned deep in my bones, you cannot shame yourself into change.

So let's flip the script a little bit.

Elizabeth (28:05)
Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. That's a lovely, amazing story. And it is. We as women have this shame of our bodies not being perfect. We're better at it. We're better, but we're not 100 % there. There's a lot of body dysmorphia going around our, you know, and it's just a matter of

we're not always gonna look like a certain way. And our bodies, can, what we can do is how we treat the inside. It starts inside out. And like you said, it's just, when you talk, it almost kind of reminds me, and I hope this correlation does not mean anything but what I mean it to be. When you talk to a plant,

Right? When you talk, and then again, this kind of also goes with humans, but when you talk to a plant or your friend, and because they're both living beings, right? When you talk to, let's just say a plant, I'm just gonna say this, and or you're just like, you're so disgusting. I can't believe you're just so ugly. I can't believe I have you here. What does it do? It dies.

And if you talk to it with like, my God, you're so like, you're amazing, I can't believe how green you are, you know, and then it grows. So what do you think is gonna, and the same thing when you talk to a friend.

Desi Bartlett MS CPT E-RYT (29:30)
Exactly.

Elizabeth (29:44)
depending on the relationship of the other like the relationship meaning like if you have like a hey, you know, you can let you can lose a you know, a couple pounds, but it's more or less you understand the personality. But in general, when you talk to somebody with with care, and so why aren't we doing that to ourselves? You know, that's it's our bodies are not here to you know,

do things that we don't want it to do, right? It's made simply for us to flourish, to thrive. And the only way it's gonna do that is if we treat it the way that it should be treated and have it grow with those positive or the positive talk, so to speak.

Desi Bartlett MS CPT E-RYT (30:38)
Absolutely. And so I'm also very careful around my kids. I've got boys, but I'm still careful. I don't want their self concept to be informed by me looking in the mirror saying I look fat in front of them. So I'm just really, really careful because I think it's really important for us to model what positive self talk looks like. And it might just be like, smile at yourself in the mirror and keep it going, you know, but just staying away from that.

Elizabeth (30:54)
Right.

Desi Bartlett MS CPT E-RYT (31:08)
constant criticism.

Elizabeth (31:10)
Yeah, you gotta start young. It starts with you, basically, definitely. Is there anything that I haven't asked that you would like to touch on today?

Desi Bartlett MS CPT E-RYT (31:22)
Yeah, so what I was thinking about this morning is the theme of boundaries and how, you know, it's come up quite a bit in the zeitgeist within the last couple of years, but I feel like we all go, uh-huh, yeah, uh-huh, yeah, I need to set boundaries, okay, whatever. But then I see women and they're still saying yes to every single thing and like killing themselves doing it. And I'm like, my gosh, girl. So what I'd like to do is simply invite you.

when you're choosing a mantra for the day. So for example, we can go back to strength. You know, don't wanna feel disempowered. I do wanna feel strong. Let's move towards strength. If someone is asking you for your time and you might have it, but you wanna use it for yourself, that's okay. And coming back to what does empowerment look like? What does strength look like for you today? Maybe it's the strength to say, no, not today, but tomorrow I can help you, you know?

So really just being available to yourself in such a way that you put yourself first sometimes. And we've got like this weird taboo around that, like it's selfish and it's bad. No, like if you don't put yourself first once in a while, no one else is going to either. And I think that our health reflects that. If I'm constantly putting myself second, third, fourth, whatever, then how's my body gonna react to that, you know?

So I just encourage anyone who's listening today, if you're a people pleaser, I'm a recovering people pleaser, I get it. If your go-to is always yes, maybe just pause for a second and maybe it's yes, but tomorrow. And that's okay. But please claim your energy and your time in a way that's going to keep you strong and healthy so you can help those people for decades instead of just this week.

Elizabeth (33:17)
Yes. Yes, yes, yes. Thank you. And you hit it on the head. Boundaries not only is out in the world in general, right, and then the self-care and we can go into, you know, all of that, but it also hit.

I don't want say home, you know, my coaching members. So I work for a client. So work, you know, corporate wellness. Boundaries also has to do with saying no to work sometimes. And I had one person who said that she needed to work on the work life balance because it was

It was basically har- not harming, but harming the relationship with her and her daughter.

And yeah, so that is one example of when we need to say no, but it is the people pleasing. It is, and I've seen it over and over again. It is the, I've done it myself. Like I right now, and you know, I've been doing this a lot lately. I set every notification off for throughout the day. Like.

I can't right now because it's not only a distraction, but it is a boundary for me to be always on my phone. But yes, we need to have that more often. And thank you for bringing that out because it is an issue that I think women, especially because we are people pleasers. want to be liked. We want to have everybody care for. We're caretakers.

So we want other people to feel amazing while we're kind of slowly being like, my gosh, I'm not taking care of myself, but I'm taking care of everybody else. So yes, yes, we need more nos in that.

Desi Bartlett MS CPT E-RYT (35:32)
And quite honestly, feel like, especially in the business world, people respect it if you say, I'm not available at those dates. You just keep it moving. Yeah, exactly.

Elizabeth (35:39)
Right. You just have to say it. You just have to say

it. But I think we're afraid of it. Either we're afraid of it or some people thrive on, you know, the accolades or the, you know, the, the achievement sometimes, you know, and that we don't see how it could be more detrimental to ourselves versus that, that you're not going to be there to achieve if you don't take care of yourself. So yeah, definitely.

Desi Bartlett MS CPT E-RYT (36:08)
Exactly, long-term vision.

Elizabeth (36:10)
Right, long term. So you mentioned your, well you already mentioned your website and your book, so is there anywhere else that people can find you?

Desi Bartlett MS CPT E-RYT (36:23)
Yeah, so I'm on Instagram daily at mothers into living fit. It's an older handle, but I still love it. It's cute. And I would love for folks to join me there as well. I'm on there with inspirational messages and Instagram lives and all kinds of different messaging to help lift you each day. And that's really my intention. It's like, okay, how...

How can I be of service? What does the message need to come through today as? Is it as a video? Is it as a voiceover? Is it just as a JPEG? I really intentionally cultivate an offering that I offer from my heart.

Elizabeth (37:03)
Awesome. Definitely check you out there. And you said the word inspiration, so I'm going to ask my final question. What is your favorite quote and or any words of inspiration that you can give to me and my audience?

Desi Bartlett MS CPT E-RYT (37:20)
So there's an amazing book called Women Who Run with Wolves. Did you ever read that? Like Clarissa Pincola SDs. She's a fellow Chicagoan and it's just a beautiful book. I think it was written in the 80s and it's all about female empowerment through story and folklore. But what I learned about her is that she begins each morning by closing your eyes and going within and saying the words or the prayer, Insenya me, Insenya me.

Elizabeth (37:30)
Okay.

Desi Bartlett MS CPT E-RYT (37:50)
And Senya is show. It's show me, show me, show me. So she's opening to the divine consciousness and saying, show me how I can be of service today. So that's what I do each morning now. And if that resonates with anyone out there, I'd love to share that with everyone because it's simply an invitation to open up and to be of service.

Elizabeth (38:12)
Yes, yes, I'll definitely put that in the show notes and I'll have to pick that up too.

Yes, how can we be of service? That's our purpose. That's our purpose in life. Amazing. Well, thank you so much, Jazzy, for being here. You've shown a light on how not only yoga and meditation, but just in general, how we as women could move in our lives with such grace and with such powerfulness.

in either any way that we can. And so I appreciate what you do and your work. And yeah, so thank you so much for taking the time today.

Desi Bartlett MS CPT E-RYT (38:55)
Thank you, Elizabeth, and thank you for sharing all that you do with women everywhere. It's so needed and so appreciated.

Elizabeth (39:03)
And to my audience, you are worth it. Take care. Bye bye.