So today we have Em Maidment is a
Beautiful soul in this world. She is more bending than I've ever seen anyone before
She's just an incredible person
And can you tell us a little bit about your journey how you got to where you are and just a little bit about you
darling, umm
So my name's Em. I I guess I wear many hats. I'm a PR marketing consultant. That's kind of my professional background
Also a yoga teacher, which is where the bendiness
And I've been practicing yoga for about ten years now
So I started when I was in my teens, which I'm pretty grateful for. It was an option at school to do either
some kind of sport or yoga and I was like I
Know many moons ago before right. I was just lazy and didn't want to do PE
I'm so impressed schools even have that option. Yeah
well, they do a lot more now like my um
I was fine with the Christmas and my nieces is three and she's doing a kindergarten
crazy
Yeah. So someone with a three and a half year old, this warms my heart.
So, yeah, so I started practicing yoga at a young age
I guess kind of my my journey mapped along that kind of goes very very type A and competitive at school very
striving. Very kind of quick to be anxious and just you know ready to take over the world and
at 18 I lead a group of Newcastle. And at 18 I decided to move to Melbourne to study the public relations.
I've been you know doing internships already throughout high schools like ah, this is it. I'm gonna I basically just you know,
like one of the girls from Sex in the City
Gonna move to Melbourne live this metropolitan. Oh, yes, you know it's coming from this small town and just out of Newcastle
So I moved to Melbourne to study and went down that very much
Partying kind of lifestyle the very, you know, the traditional approach to universe as we called
Hardy very hard at a young age
Sort of as I was progressing through my degree
it was the last and my last year to go and I went on overseas trip to Thailand and was like
I'm gonna be honest. I was partying like a rock star. I was drinking all the buckets doing all the things
It was a very fun, you know really cool, right?
So
During that time I got sick and I kind of just thought you know, it's the usual Thailand stomach bug gastro or whatever
Didn't think of it, thought of it like a bad kind of hangover, but just had this feeling that something wasn't right
so yeah, kind of I always have this awareness that there was this kind of
Inner voice being like this is this is connected to the Thailand trip, you know, you should go down a more natural path
but you get a bit fearful when that when you're really really sick and you read
And you read too much as this and this that and so on one hand
I was like maybe I should go gluten-free and I was kind of it was around the time of that the boom of the health
Bloggy kind of world and I was like reading these blogs and being like that
Should I do this but then still kind of?
Partying but then getting to the point where I was just so sick that I was sitting at home on a Saturday night by myself
just throwing up in a bucket in my room and that was my norm and
it got psychologically to the point where it was so normal to me to be so sick and I went to all these specialists and
gastrologists and different things and
Over I went to one gastrologist and it was just before Christmas and I was just crying in her office
She's like I look like I've got a stomach ulcer other than the stomach ulcer from all the vomiting
There's nothing I can't find anything wrong with you. So at least you'll look like Miley Cyrus by Christmas
I was like, she said that she said that
To a yeah
I was 21 on my own just gonna say that to a 21 year old so that
Psychologically, I started going "is this all in my head". Am I creating this like what's going on?
And so anyway, but I still had that very striving kind of attitude
so I remember coming going to uni, and my uni friends were like and
You like you look like death! Yeah. What are you doing here? Like no. I'm conditioning my degree. And so I went a little bit insane
And it was sort of those last six months of my degree when it you know
The end of uni gets quite hectic
And I just became so used to not being able to eat anything and keep any food down that I went into total
Survival mode and the only thing that kept me sane was I was going to yoga every morning. I started practicing
The Gertrude Street yoga meditation center. I'm living in Fitzroy and I was and that's it's it's one of my favourite studios
It's very grounding in traditional lineages of yoga. There's lots of meditations. It's not like a fast flowing
Vinyasa environment. It's a very kind of is a little bit more like spirituality in depth to their teachings
And so anyway left uni started working in house and kind of always was just wanted a job where I could travel
I've been obsessed with traveling forever
I've been travelling solos himself about 16, doing different trips and things. So it's been it was it be part of of me and
So I've got this job working in house with a tech company
the kind of the startup scene and got to travel to Singapore and do launches and to America and San Francisco and I
Worked there for almost two years and the first time I loved it
I had this kind of you know, that's still very type-a gonna climb the ladder and take over the world and
Kind of as that went along. I just it was it was like this this case of ignoring what you know,
so I knew much I've known my truth I think for forever and I've gone through this process of just
Masking it masking masking it so I'm in this job, which is by all accounts made dream job
And I have all the freedom to do all these things
And it's great and I am starting to notice more and more and more that I'm wanting to less go to the networking
cocktail party drinks
and I'm like actually just want to go to a yoga class and
I'm the weirdo at the office with the scoby and the kombucha and you know the green smoothies at lunchtime
Everyone's like right everyone's like oh my god Em. Meanwhile, everyone is at pub lunch.
So I never felt like that quite really fit in in that environment. I was always like another crazy one
and so I've gotten back from a trip from San Francisco, and it was at that time that I
Came back home, and I was my partner at the time and they just said us. I'm not happy
this is not what I want like I'm coming home from work and
In one hand, that's my dream job, and it's amazing and I'm excelling in the other hand. I'm an anxious wreck
I'm having anxiety attacks
I'm stressed out and the time I couldn't figure out what my skin wasn't getting better
And I had really bad acne and I'm like, it's just I just I'm out. So I
Put in my resignation
order one what I actually first I bought a one-way ticket to Paris cuz I've always just wanted to go to Paris and
That was it backtracked. So then had about six months of okay.
Em: Oh, yeah
No backup. Yeah, no backup plan was just like you know what?
I'm gonna make this work and
So the other kind of health journey that was going on at that time was finding out that my skin
was it clearing up and figuring out that was because I had polycystic ovaries and
continue going down that kind of, you know, taking herbs and all these kinds of things and it was working to an extent, but my
naturopath said to me I think you might be stressed and this is before I quit my job and I was like
I'm not stressed. I do yoga
And she's like, Jacintha: I do yoga and meditation and I have crystals. Em: I meditate twice a day.
Im a real hippie, im not stressed.
She's like, okay, so she just softly floated it and then I really realized that actually I need a job
That is making me very stressed and it's creating a lifestyle for myself that I actually don't want to live. And so
once I put the one-way ticket and then
booked in to do my teacher training used up all my I think if to go and do my yoga teacher training and
That was a big
huge transformational shift and really feeling like oh this is
This is where I wanna be. These are the people they want to be around
This is what I want to be doing with my days and I came back and started teaching in the office
and yeah, and then the time came when I put him a resignation and
got on the plane to Europe and
Did the whole you know, six months of travel and what not and then again ended up living in Berlin
And it was another case of worrying what I already knew to be my truth
which was that I was super passionate about health and wellness and yoga and
When oh, okay. Probably should get a job
Ended up working in another tech startup because that was I was good at and
I just remember coming home from the office and it's freezing in Berlin, it's winter. So it's minus 20 degrees
It's dark at two o'clock, you know
so not seeing sunlight. I remember coming home and
My boyfriend at the time would meet me at home and I would just bawl my eyes out
I am miserable. I now im on the other side of the world and I was miserable. What am I doing.
This is crazy. And so I remember just hating this job
It was it was a joke how much I just was so miserable
and I sat in a cafe with a friend of mine and she a new friend and she just said well if you could do
Anything like professionally, what would you really want to do?
I said well, I'd love to teach yoga and I'd love to be a consultant
like I feel like I can really help people and I'm passionate and
PR and marketing is the way in which I think it's a natural kind of skill that I have and I want to
help people and I want to be a writer and I want to do all these things but
Don't really I don't know how she's like
Just do it
Right and so that whole time
During the kind of parasite thing. I started a blog
With the girlfriend of mine all sharing recipes cuz we've gone gluten-free
And had to relearn how to eat and that kind of journey. I'm back to this blog
so I was kind of it was sort of as that like I said of that world was starting to boom and I'll sort of
aware of the fact that like I knew I could write and you I could do kind of website back-end things and I
Met a guy who run around a cafe at the time in Melbourne in a juice cafe
and he had asked me to write some blog posts and I was like sure I mean
I just thought I'm gonna follow up with him
so I followed up with him and he put the blog post on his website and it was like
these tiny little image and the text was all over the place and I was like, oh no. Oh no.
Dude if you're gonna have a blog like at least put some effort in and he just had no idea and so I
Just had this feeling and I went with it
I just wrote him an email and said hey
like I know stuff about
Marketing and PR and these kinds of things and I think I could help you and that's kind of how the freelancing journey started. Jacintha: Wow
And so then I spent a year of traveling around Europe working on my laptop and doing the whole thing.
And I didn't even have a website it just all kind of happened
It wasn't actually, it had only been a year.
And so actually the website I've been doing freelance work for four years now
Jacintha: WOW and did you put it out there to the Universe? Did you do any vision boards or manifesting?
yeah, I did quite a bit of meditation on it and just kind of really
at that stage
my meditation practice was really just to quiet down and just listen
I've always felt like I've had that like that strong sense of intuition
But I've ignored it and so it was this process of going okay
How does this actually make me feel, and what do I think I should do in this moment?
And what do I actually really want to do?
so it was always coming back and connecting to the heart space and trying to make decisions from that and it just started working
So we decided to move back from Berlin
And came back to Melbourne and it just flowed from there
I started working with different health companies here doing all sorts of things PR marketing. I started teaching yoga
I moved back to Fitzroy at the time and
It's just kind of it kind of sort of started to I was just really busy with different
Clients and things and kind of thought I wonder what the next
iteration of this is and I had always kind of thought I wonder if there's a way that I can combine the yoga and the
Marketing stuff because the people I worked with are very niche and a lot of them,
all of them, they're doing their product or their brand or whatever it is that they're working on
Because it's their passion and they feel like it's their passion that their purpose and in yoga. We talk about it as being Dharma
and so I started I wanted to run these kinds of workshops and I was so
Caught up for probably almost a year. I'm trying to name it and
started getting in that over thinking, over analysing
Jacintha: and that everything needed to be perfect.
Im going to have to pay designer and make a logo put all these barriers in place and
The startup world really taught me about this minimal Viable Product approach
I've just like put something out there test it if it works then invest in it and so I was like
I'm just gonna start doing it
So I started running these workshops and I couldn't think of a name and I'm like, oh that's like mindful marketing
I guess that's kind of how I would describe it
And so I just threw that term out there in an email to someone they're like sure I'm in and so that's how did working
Workshops and then just very organically someone told their friend and then they told their friend in the next minute
I'm doing more privates and then people were like, can you do them in a group?
and so then I actually sat down and thought maybe I'll build a booklet and make it an actual course and then
Just kind of did that and then that's a thing and it's just like I can't but we should get a website
Jacintha: And thats all because of your truth, You didn't know what you're doing now, you have no idea what you know, you didnt have a rule book.
You didn't have someone telling you, literally just trusted yourself and where you wanted to go.
and that's really been my whole journey and that's what yoga is really really taught me
It's just like trust and listen to yourself
And it's on a more esoteric level
It's this kind of understanding of like, you know, you are the universe you are the creator you are everything that you need
but we get so caught up in the mind and
and you know society expectations and you know I
I still have members of my family saying so when you're gonna get a real job because people dont get it. They're like
So how do you make money and like what are you doing?
they'll say an article like written about me that I write for Body and Soul or something and they just like
Oh, you're journalists and I'm like, yeah, I guess you could say that
Jacintha: Yes because I find think, everyone needs a label
Yeah
Jacintha: And I don't personally like labels everyone needs to be labeled as something Em: which box do you fit into?
Exactly because that makes me feel safe.
Jacintha: Yeah, we were talking about the other day Em is yoga for me
I find it really challenging like I would go to a boxing class go for a run and go for a walk. Whatever
No problems, but yoga I find challenging
mmm, and I'm not good at it and
There's no such thing as not being good idea of yoga Em: you cant be bad at yoga.
Jacintha: Yes, but that's the perception I have and I know there's a lot of other people do have. Yes
You know, I'm not bendy. I'm a giraffe and
Em: You're blessed with beautiful long limbs
That is a common, I teach a lot of beginner classes and that's always think people like to see you know
I'm not very flexible. Well, that's great. We've come to the right place
We can definitely work on that
But the actual path of yoga is is so much more than just getting on the mat and doing some some physical
postures
and so that you can't be bad at that because there's lots of different things within that that you might understand better than how to
better than, how to touch your toes. So it's sort of exposing yourself to the whole practice in a way
But the thing that I think most people find challenging is that it's something you have to do with yourself
So, yeah, you can be in a room with you know
30 other people and there's music and it's and it's a fun way to move your body
But there's ultimately still even if it's the moment of shavasana, you know laying down in the end or the meditation
portion you've got to be with yourself and
One of my one of my teachers always says, you know
If you turn your yoga into a competition you're competing against yourself and then yourself is gonna lose
And it's that thing because I think so much especially in this kind of Instagram world where we're seeing all these people doing crazy
handstands and back bends and I
Jaicntha; I want that and I think I wanna do that. Em: I say to people that like so many of those peep that I know they're extremists
ex gymnasts or they're a dancer or or like for me I've been practicing and training this for over ten years
And so it's just become like a something that I've worked on all my flexibility has been gained
Through that practice and dedication and showing up every day
Dedicated to something and to me it's showing up every day being dedicated to yourself. And that kind of it's a self-care practice
It's all the things and there's so many moments where I get onto my mat and I'm like, oh gosh
All the emotions are coming out, you know, and it's for me that's that sacred space and time to to be with yourself
And so if you say you're not good at your girl, it's got to come and try it, because
Jacintha: and make a commitment to it. Not just try it once, actually do it every week
Give it a try from a consistency point of view. It's meant to be a practice. It's the practice of yoga
And and yoga as a word and itself mean means a union or yogi so it has actually nothing to do with the movement
it's like I said, it's a whole system, but that
Exceed you don't say well, how can you be bad at unification?
You know you learn through that practice and that's why it's called the practice of yoga, you practice community and practice
being with yourself
Understanding your breath, your mind, your thoughts and all the things they say when you can control the breath
You can control the mind and so it's this practice of becoming aware of waking up and for me
That's what it really was was it was cultivating that deep awareness of self and the power within that
And it's just I mean obviously not gonna get this from one yoga class
Well, it's 3 or 4 but it's that practice in that journey that Jacintha: so is it like a moving meditation?
Em: Yes, definitely at the end and there's a lot of mindfulness that's been
especially in modern yoga being kind of entwined in so if you think about mindfulness I
kind of like to translate it to just being mindful
So your mind is fully present in that moment and aware
Everything that's happening and going on and that complements yoga in that like I said before yoga there is an awareness practice
So you're using that as a vehicle to become aware? I would say to my own myself is just keep trusting yourself
listen to yourself and continue to go out to continue to listen and follow because
Not that I would take back any of the sickness and all these kinds of things but a lot of it could have been, not
avoided, but if I had listened a little bit more and stopped
Ignoring and acting out and reacting to things and rather than focusing on responding and listening
Jacintha: How do you explain the difference between your ego and your intuition?
Interesting. So for me
The intuition is something I guess on a more subtle body level as well as that kind of inner space or in a teacher
Whereas the ego is more in the mind
so the ego is very influenced by the intellect of
I was taught this and I watched this one TV and therefore I should do that and it's that kind of
ego and egotistical and all those kinds of words
Are very much in my opinion are very much in there in the mind and are very influenced by the intellect
Whereas the intuition is the heart. It's coming back to the heart space. It's the feeling it's the subtleties
It's that deep sense of knowing and your gut feeling and there's all this science being researched into the universe
second brain's losing your gut and it's you know when you get into those moments and straightaway, you're like oh this isn't good.
Yeah, but even though your ego might tell you and relating it into a yoga practice
It's like you might know that you're going too deep into an arson or a posture
But your ego is like if I just pushed my leg a little bit further forward
I would all this split and that's usually when like pop there goes your hamstring or something happens
And so it's this disconnect between the intellect and and what all that stuff that you think, you know
And you think that you've been taught and learned to that deep sense of knowing that deep sense of inner wisdom
That doesn't need to read in a magazine or watching on TV, it knows
Jacintha: Well, I just want to acknowledge you thank you. I find you so incredibly inspiring
I love you. I watch all your yoga videos
I read all of your stories and I just think you're incredible and what you're doing this world is incredible
So I want to acknowledge and say thank you so much. And can you just tell us three things that you're grateful for today?
Oh, well, I'm grateful that im getting on a plane to go to New York.
I live a pretty grateful for that. I'm actually feeling really grateful for the friends that I have in my life
I'm feeling very supported this week by the community around me and that whole idea of community over competition is really
really inspiring. Jacintha: its hard to find sometimes, isnt it?
Yeah, I feel really really held and I'm like I'm just so grateful for the people in my life
So yeah, I'm grateful that I get to go on a plane to New York
I'm grateful for my beautiful friends and I'm grateful for the beautiful food because I've been preparing
snacks for the plane and I was thinking about it today like
really lucky that I can take this beautiful organic food with me and to nourish my body and
To have access to that and all these guys think so
Jacintha: I think that something people don't realise is that you can bring your own food on a plane and you don't have to have to have plane food. Em: I am that person with like
Two kilos of snacks. I've got all the kale salads all the things and you feel so much better
Yeah, you're gonna land and feel like yeah
Okay. Well rested I haven't. Yeah, I'm just taking four killers of salt and sugar
Yeah, so I think I'm grateful as well for the knowledge of that because I've done a lot of flying learnt the hard way and
Go on actually if you just why do I feel so terrible? Jacintha: oh its the food
Maybe I will BYO and feel great Jacintha: Ok Em well thank you so much for today, that was so wonderful
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