Making Meditation Accessible: Serving Hesitant Practitioners and Underserved Communities w/ Addie deHilster
Addie deHilster is a trained Mindfulness Meditation teacher and Mindful Movement specialist. She draws from her long-term experience practicing Buddhist Insight Meditation, as well as Yoga, Qigong, and Somatic movement modalities. Addie owned and operated a community yoga studio in Los Angeles for over 5 years, and she has taught accessible movement practices for students with challenges such as chronic pain, arthritis, cancer, and insomnia. In this episode, Addie shares her story of closing her studio during the pandemic and how it led her to focus on teaching meditation and movement online. We also dive into effective ways to teach meditation to those struggling with stillness and explore Addie’s vision of serving underserved communities through mindfulness.
Key takeaways:
Understand the emotional toll and growth opportunities of moving a yoga business online.
Learn the key strategies for teaching meditation to people who find stillness challenging.
Discover how creating a niche around underserved communities can set your mindfulness practice apart.
Explore the importance of facilitating dialogue in meditation classes to help participants articulate their experiences.
Find out about Addie’s upcoming mindful movement teacher training program starting October 19.
GIFT FOR YOU
If you’re a meditation teacher or coach who wants to create unique meditations people listen to over and over again, enroll in my free course Meditation Script Mastery
Music Credit: Nova by River Roots - https://www.youtube.com/riverroots
Podcast Transcript
Lou: Cord hello there, friends. Welcome to another podcast interview style on the art and business of Meditation podcast. I'm your host, Lou Redmond, and today we have Addie de Hilster, who is a trained mindfulness meditation teacher and mindful movement specialist. She draws from her long term experience practicing buddhist insight meditation as well as yoga, qigong, and somatic movement modalities. Addy owned and operated a community yoga studio in Los Angeles for over five years, and she has taught accessible movement practices for students with challenges such as chronic pain, arthritis, cancer, and insomnia. These days, she is most interested in decompartmentalizing movement and meditation practices and finding creative ways to make mindfulness more accessible to those who may struggle with traditional sitting practices. Addie is the host of the Move to Meditate podcast, and she leads an online mindful movement teacher training. Addie, welcome to the show.
Addie: Thanks, Lou. I am excited to be here with you. And yeah, looking forward to chatting today.
Lou: So you are doing some really needed work in the world, like bringing mindfulness and meditation to people that maybe wouldn't be the first to jump in or may have some hesitancies. And I'm just curious. This podcast is about helping meditation teachers and coaches, but at the core, underlying that is helping people really do work that fulfills them and serves a purpose. And so I'd be curious just to start, what is most rewarding or fulfilling about the work that you do?
Addie: Oh, what a great question. You know, I always. I've done other things for work, you know, as most of us have in my past. And one thing I always reflect on is when we get to teach meditation or movement and spend some time with people in those spaces, almost always at the end of an hour with us, they leave feeling better. And I can't say that about all the other jobs I've had that we all left the meeting feeling better or, you know, left work at the end of the day feeling better. So that's a simple thing, but maybe not such a simple thing. And it just feels like such a gift to offer something that, you know, we come together, we do a little practice, and we leave feeling just a little bit more grounded or more whole or more connected or just better in some way, less aches and pains, whatever it might be. So, yeah, I I think that's what comes to mind.
Lou: First, did you always feel that in your teaching journey, or was there a stage of fear imposter syndrome? Doubt. I know some people can relate to teaching a class, yoga or meditation, and maybe you're a little nervous and there's the experience of, oh, my gosh, did they like it? All those kind of narratives that maybe if you're not as confident or not as season or just have different ways of being in the world, that might show up. So just curious if you, earlier on in your teaching, did you ever face that, or was it just like, hey, I'm just really grateful to be able to share this. And it was, you know, you didn't go through that stage?
Addie: Well, it's definitely a both. And and I've had that come up at different stages where I was learning a new skill or, like, leveling up in some way or incorporating something different. But I'll say, like, a lot goes on inside our heads when we're teaching, and it's really easy to project our fears and doubts onto our students. And they might be, you know, sitting out there doing their practice or on their yoga mat looking really serious and maybe looking like, I don't like this, you know, but they're not smiling, they're not engaging or whatever, and we're thinking, oh, my gosh, this isn't working. They're not liking it, you know? But then it's really just that they're in their zone and they're concentrating and they're really listening and they're really engaging. And you'll be surprised sometimes that after class, that very person whose face you were so concerned about comes up to you and says, oh, my gosh, I was so into it. That was such a good practice for me. And so you have to really learn not to project your own doubts and fears onto other people and just kind of have a little faith that if they're there, they want to be there and they'll get what they need from it. I mean, that said, like, I'm thinking back to some of the very first yoga classes I ever taught. When I first got my certification, I started a small class in a local park with just some people I worked with. And my husband, I made him come and, you know, just, like, to practice teaching. And they really liked it. I thought we were going to do it one time, and they were like, let's do this again next week. And so that was really encouraging, you know, kind of off the bat. But quickly, that class started to draw in people who had more needs. Like, one of them had a hip replacement, one of them had Ms. And I was like, oh, my gosh, am I in over my head? And that's why I quickly started to realize I needed to learn more therapeutic skills in my movement. Teaching. And so there's always this sort of, like, learning and catching up and kind of being in the midst of it and getting good feedback, but realizing you need to keep growing. Yeah. So I think that's just always there. It's. Whether we call it imposter syndrome or just realizing that we're still growing as we go. Yeah. I think it's something that's inevitable that we'll deal with if we're guiding leading classes or teaching in some way.
Lou: You're so right. The person that we think is having the worst time. I've gotten that before, where they're like, that was an amazing class, and what, like, get out of here. And you're, as you're speaking to our projections that we put on, like, my, there's an idea that sparked in my head of almost like some form of self therapy coaching to, like, you know, take all of those projections and put them somewhere and work with them because they are us. Right. We're just all of our insecurities and what a beautiful reflection back to maybe some of some stuff that we need to work on. So different sort of therapy. But, you know, the. Yo, the yoga therapist. Um, yeah. Tell me more about, you mentioned beginning to teach classes. I mean, was this always like, you know, you always had an inkling for yoga, meditation, some form of, like, you know, spirituality in some ways? Or was it, you know, something like a shift that happened in your life to even get you to that place of doing the first yoga training?
Addie: Oh, yeah. Well, I practiced yoga for several years before it occurred to me that you could take a training. And when I took a training, I didn't really think, oh, I'm just going to go become a yoga teacher or a mindfulness teacher, that this would be my career. That kind of occurred to me a little bit later, you know, so I. But I early on, like, in life, definitely had spiritual inclinations and existential questions and curiosities about things, and I'm on a very different path than the one I was raised in. I grew up in Alabama and was raised southern Baptist in the, like, eighties and nineties. Right? So that's a really different world than the one I inhabit now with different. A whole different belief structure. So I could not have imagined back then that I would be where I am now. But I can still remember times when I was like a little kid and I would go into the sanctuary of the church, which was like this old building. It was like 100 years old in this small town, and I liked it the best when no one else was in there and it was silent, but there was this space, and you could almost just feel this resonance of, like, 100 years of people singing hymns and praying prayers and being together in that space. And that's what I think I tuned into. And I didn't have that same kind of emotional connection to the actual, like, services and teachings and stuff, necessarily, that all sort of, like, fell away after I got into college and started to see a little more of, like, the world and there's other cultures and there's other philosophies and there's other ideas. So there was a bit of a journey there, but there was still that ability to sense this something spiritual underneath it all. And eventually, the way I found that I can relate to that best now is more through my meditation practice and through my movement practice. Yeah. So that's sort of the through line. You know, yoga started out for me in college because someone recommended it, because I was stressed, I was a little stressful, and just grumpy and anxious all the time. And someone literally said, dude, you need to try yoga. So I did, I listened. I did. And, yeah, so it just kind of. It took over from there. It became really important to me pretty quickly.
Lou: Yeah, I wish I grew up Catholic, Roman Catholic, and don't have any. I'm still very interested in the tradition I come from and using the connecting to the christian mysticism, and I love when I'm in Europe and. Or the US. There's beautiful cathedrals in the US, of course, but in Europe to. I remember being in Madrid and had a day in Madrid. My wife went to maybe ten cathedrals during that day and was just meditating for a few ten minutes or something in each one. And there's just something that transfixes you in that kind of energy. It's like a different energy you step into. I wish there was more, maybe silent space if you were to go to a service like that. So how beautiful that there's a part of you that could sense that maybe sacredness or just other kind of energy within the quiet, which obviously meditation helps us to access.
Addie: Yeah.
Lou: So did you have anything else to say in that?
Addie: No, I don't think so. But I liked your word sacred. That's kind of what I was getting at. Yeah. And I imagine you really can feel that in some of those super old cathedrals and sacred places in Europe that would be such an amazing place to spend some time.
Lou: And so as you started doing yoga therapy, were you just bringing that into the classes that you were teaching? How do you go? Or was there, now you're bringing on one on one clients. Are you working on a job at the time? Always curious to see what happens from, oh, I have this job, I'm just teaching yoga on the side. I have a class at night to, okay, now this is my job full time. And I then going into owning a brick and mortar yoga suit, which is a whole nother game, I'm sure.
Addie: Oh, yeah, yeah. I started out, I was in the nonprofit world in college. I was a music major and did flute performance, and then found my way into grant writing for arts nonprofits. And so I was doing that in LA and was working kind of in the administration and fundraising area. And that came to be quite stressful. I was kind of like, at the point in my career, I was starting to get promoted a little bit right about when 2008, that whole economic crash hit. So that was a really hard time to be getting more responsibility for fundraising. So I had started, I started that first yoga teacher training with a little bit of thought in my mind of like, okay, if I just get laid off from my nonprofit work, at least I'll have something I can do on the side. So I kind of thought of it that way at first. And so I kept working in the nonprofit world and doing that for several years while was developing some skills, teaching yoga and having my first classes and getting some experience under my belt, taking more trainings. And then I took a job that I thought was going to be a great balance to allow me to pursue yoga, but also, you know, have that steady paycheck. And I was working for an organization that just, it kind of quickly became clear after I took the job that it was just not really what I had been sold and that we weren't clicking. And so I only lasted there six months, and I ended up, that kind of pushed me to take the leap to, like, really get serious about making teaching my career. So I did, and that was, that was a journey. But I ended up, I was pretty lucky. A friend of mine from yoga teacher training was starting a studio nearby, and she was looking for teachers and kind of like a lead teacher and a manager and someone who could help. So I did work with her quite a bit in developing that studio, which was very much revolving around therapeutic styles of yoga. So we would teach group classes that had a more therapeutic orientation to them and really reached out to more people in the community who wouldn't do great at like, a mainstream yoga class or more of a fitness yoga class. So that was our niche. And eventually and we also taught private lessons, too, since you asked about that. Eventually she decided to move away and sold the studio to me. So I took over, along with some partners. At first I had partners, but we took over, and that's how I ended up having a yoga studio. I don't think I would have had the idea or resources on my own to actually go found a yoga studio myself, but I ended up running one for quite a while. So it's interesting how things happen.
Lou: I love how there's this thread with, I know what you're doing now, where it's almost like you're finding you're bringing this to maybe underserved people, communities that wouldn't again go to the power vinyasa class on the corner, or what we might think of as maybe a westernized yoga, but really bridging that. And I'm just wondering because I think it might also, maybe it's similar to how you're doing now, but even in your brick and mortar days, like how, how are you inviting people and how are you marketing the studio? Because I'm assuming it. It would be different than let's, you know, let's be the top yoga studio in the city. People search yoga studio, they want to go to one, they drop in. Like, I'm assuming there's probably a different lens. That's such a niche type of yoga that you'd be engaging with in that way.
Addie: Yeah, it is niche, but it's also not because I think there's a lot more people out there who have joint pain or they're a little older, they have arthritis, or they are worried about balance or insomnia, or there's just a lot of everyday things that a lot of people could use some help with. And they haven't been served by that more mainstream style of yoga. And in that mainstream style of yoga, there's a lot of competition, right? That's what more people are doing. So there's opportunity, right, to look at that broader field of people who might not have seen themselves in the more mainstream environment. So, yeah, we were very intentional about the language, the way we described the practices on our website, for example, or any images, any photography that we used. We were really conscious of not putting pictures of people doing really cool, advanced looking arm balances or handstands and stuff like that, you know, the aspirational looking stuff, but just people doing normal looking, attainable looking stretches, you know, a wider variety of ages represented, body types represented. So we were just really trying to break out of that sort of stereotypical image of yoga, looking like something that thin, young, fit people could do. Just trying to open up that lens a little bit.
Lou: Yeah. I hope there's something to at least glean, I think, with anyone's marketing is if you can, maybe you don't know who it's for, but when you start with. For your case, you knew who it was for, but for anyone listening, it's like you, you maybe know who it's not for. Like, you have an idea of actually, who is this not for? Not to say that they couldn't do it, or you're. You're, um, you don't like these people. Or anyway, like, we're just, you know, we're just kind of dialing in, like, hey, this is. I'm here to serve, and this is kind of where I'm looking. This is the type of people that I know I can best serve and to market in some ways and to. For the other people to not to see themselves as nothing that, like, there's almost a way to speak to. I know some people I've seen, hey, this is not for, or, hey, are you tired of only, you know, seeing yoga studios and people doing handstands and da da da da. It's like you're speaking to that person and for sure, I mean, there's probably such a huge. I mean, there's so many millions of people that struggle with these things, but maybe haven't seen yoga as a path to work with it in a way that feels aligned or I true for them. So tell me how you navigate. So how did you bring it online during. During pandemic?
Addie: Oh, my gosh. Well, yeah, so I had already started to video classes and create, like, a very small class library back in, like, 2018, and I didn't even have a good microphone. So those videos are like, if I look back at them now, I'm like, they're terrible. Okay. The teachings find the quality is bad of.
Lou: You gotta make bad videos to make good videos, right? And, you know, insert whatever your thing is. Like, start making bad ones, they'll turn to good. You'll figure it out.
Addie: Yeah, exactly. And for 2018, they were okay. But I think we, we upped our game a lot when we had to during the pandemic, and everybody, like, got microphones and got lights and stuff like that. So at least was like, I knew what Zoom was, and I had a little bit of experience making videos and such, so that didn't scare me. Like, I was like, okay, we'll do that. When we had to go into lockdown and we couldn't use the studio, you know, other to film in. But what was difficult was, like, I was still running the studio and still paying rent on the studio and still know, trying to maintain the clientele of the studio and starting to bring it all online at the same time. So it definitely wasn't that pandemic experience of learning to bake bread and, like, all, well, I did have a garden, but it wasn't that relaxing. Like, some people look back, I think, on that time, like, oh, you know, it was so, you know, almost a nostalgia. It was a scramble for me because it was like running two businesses at once and dealing with, like, what's going to happen next? And when. What will we be under lockdown? Will people come back if we're not? Like, how will we sanitize the space and all of that stuff? So we did keep going for a while online through the summer of 2020, and our teachers who were comfortable teaching online did that. We held classes on Zoom and kept a semblance of the class schedule that we had had before, but people teaching from their home instead of in the studio space because of, you know, for germ reasons, as we all remember. But,
Addie: you know, ultimately, I made the decision to close the studio before the end of 2020 because our lease was going to be ending in December of 2020, and it just did not make any sense to renew a five year commercial lease at that time. Like, that was before we really didn't know what was going to happen, what it was going to look like or when we were going to be coming out of it. So I decided. I made that decision, and it was really tough. It was a really sad thing to have to do. It was also a relief after months of agonizing about it. And so that's when I really started to. To focus on my own work as an online business.
Lou: So let's pivot.
Addie: To not pivot. I hate that word. Still. I'm traumatized from 2020. Everything was like, pivot. Pivot.
Lou: Oh, my gosh. That's like the entrepreneurial word. Oh, my gosh, that's.
Addie: No, we can. We can pivot, Lou, I'm just joking.
Lou: No, I want to come back because it's going to tie back in, but I do want to maybe highlight your expertise in inviting in. Well, I guess maybe it's a pivot and it's not a pivot because you go online. And when does meditation specifically, I guess, how does that come in? Because obviously that's probably a lot more transferable online as we all know through various apps and with just a voice, and we're sitting, we're not needing to move. Maybe you don't have adjustments. By the way, I got an adjustment from a yoga teacher last week, and it was like, oh, my gosh, I miss this so much. It's like, I feel like after pandemic, everyone doesn't touch anyone anymore for many reasons. But I forgot how great that is. Sorry. Side note, because I just remembered how, like, oh, my gosh, this is why you should go to a yoga class. It's like, this is so important anyway, can't do that online. And so you start to bring in meditation, I'm assuming. And I think where I want to go with this is really for those meditation teachers listening or wanting to make their classes more accessible, or maybe people that are facing are having people that aren't being able to meditate and whatnot. So that's kind of maybe where we're going with it.
Addie: I love that topic, for sure. Yeah. And so that was a kind of a parallel thing. Like, I was teaching meditation while I had the studio, and I had a, like a Tuesday evening mindfulness meditation saga that would come and meet there. And that was part of what I brought in once I took over the studio, is it wasn't just therapeutic yoga, but it was also, like, mindfulness practice as well. So that was a big thread and that was. Yeah, like you said, maybe a little bit more straightforward to bring online, or it sort of feels a little bit like less could be lost in translation as you bring it online. Doesn't have to be as visual. So, yeah, so there was that thread already present. And I think as I've started to bring my business online, like, one thing that's really different from running a studio in a location, when you are in a geographic, like a local location, you have to be a little bit general. I mean, we had our niche, but within that, you want to attract as many people locally who fit that niche as possible. When you take your business online, you have to niche down even more, get more and more specific in order to stand out, because the Internet is infinite. Right. So you have to get clearer and clearer about what you're offering. And so I think the distillation of that, for me, has evolved into accessible mindfulness movement, as mindfulness and, yeah, really approaching yoga and movement, because I also teach qigong and somatic movement through the lens of mindfulness, through the lens of meditation. So not just as a way of mastering physical postures or forms, but as a way of bringing forward the skills of meditation and the benefits of meditation and the ways that they might make those experiences more accessible for people who find stillness to be problematic or feel like they're too stressed to meditate, which could be the case, you know, for some of us, or we have a lot of anxiety or something is going on in life that, that makes it feel really challenging to just try to sit still and be with that if that's where we're starting from. Yeah.
Lou: And so makes sense how let's. Well, let's. Let's do a scenario. Someone has some sort of anxiety or neurodivergence and you are showing up to teach a class, like with the awareness of that how on a very practical level, like, it's helpful because we have teachers listening that do run classes and whatnot to, like, how do you start it? How do you engage it? How do you. I don't need to enroll, but not that you need to enroll. They're already there, but there's maybe some buy in that is hard to, to do. You speak about it. Do they just have to experience something that's different? Like, how do you set up, let's say, one of those classes or think about knowing that there's going to be people in the audience that maybe don't think they can meditate?
Addie: Yeah, I think it's nice to name it, to just sort of say it like, hey, if you feel like you might not be able to do this, you're probably not alone because it's not easy to do. It's not easy to learn meditation, necessarily. And there are times when it's extra difficult. Like, for example, I teach at the local hospital here, has a cancer healing center, and I teach a weekly class there. And we got to do some workshops in the spring on meditation. And we decided to call them kind of playfully meditation for people who think they can't sit still, which is a really long title, but people resonated with that.
Lou: It's very Dan Harris. Do you know Dan Harris? He has meditation for fidgety skeptics or something. I think it's great. It's a great title.
Addie: Yeah. So it was just sort of getting at the idea of like, okay, these are people who have a cancer diagnosis or maybe in the process of that, or maybe they're survivors, but they still have some trauma from that. And what is it like for them to be told, okay, sit still, be with your feelings, be with whatever comes up. Just breathe with it, you know, that hits different, you know, when we have a little more going on inside. So I bring movement into those practices and do a little bit more to help people prepare their nervous systems for sitting still. We do simple things like standing up and shaking out, doing a little bit of stretching, getting the breath, moving. Simple, simple things that help people to connect with feeling their body, and not just feeling the flutters of anxiety in their body, but feeling the parts of their body that feel stable and strong and neutral and fine, right. So those kinds of things are, you know, using movement as kind of the warm up for stillness. But we also will experiment with practices where we can use movement as the meditation, like walking meditation. Very classic example, right. That is moving mindfulness. Right? Learning to practice the same way we would or similar. Similar principles, the way we would practice sitting on the cushion, but in motion. So doing that or doing something like that in a simple qigong form. Right. Feeling your arm moving through space, feeling your breath, and rather than treating it as a way to perfect that arm movement, just feeling the sensations, just connecting to the present moment, really listening to the body in very much the way we would in meditation, in that kind of non judgmental, curious observing, way, less goal oriented. So that's some of it. And then also within a meditation that's more relatively stationary, let's say sitting meditation, we can sometimes incorporate small amounts of movement that might help us stay more engaged. This can help with anxiety, but this can also help people with ADHD who need a little more sensory input, where maybe you use mola beads and you feel the sensation of the beads moving through your fingers, or maybe you have your hand on your lap and you're simply opening the hand as you breathe in and letting the hand close as you breathe out. You know, just letting the hand mirror the movement of the breath. So that's a really unobtrusive and simple movement that you can incorporate into a more or less still meditation, but just give a little bit more for the mind to engage with, bringing the body a little bit more into it in a very simple way. But that could just be that little difference between, you know, feeling like, I can do this and I can't do this, if that makes sense. So that's. That was probably a long answer, but those are a few of the things, a few of the strategies I would bring in.
Lou: It's amazing. It's so simple and so brilliant, just even. I mean, maybe you don't have enough mola beads for everyone, or maybe you're in a setting that's more secular, and I'd be like, oh, I can give it to you. Mola beads. But just. Even just the hand movement of the breath, it's really brilliant and so simple and in plain sight. So. Yeah, that's amazing.
Addie: Yeah. You do have to think about the context you're in. Like, maybe mala beads wouldn't be the thing, but a stone, right? You could hold. Everyone could have a stone that they have in their hand that they could feel the texture of it and the heaviness and the weight of it. Like, you can be creative, or you could work with this. You know, in many ways, I've seen people using, like, silly putty that they could, like, stretch and then compress, you know, or squish or just something tactile. Who knows? Right? I think part of it is just being open to what might work and allowing ourselves to experiment a little while keeping the essence of the tradition. But, you know, just being a little bit creative with it, too, in order to bring it to more people.
Lou: You're reminding me, and I actually thought about doing this to adults recently, but I used to teach a lot of mindfulness in schools and to kids of ages, k through or preschool through high school. And so for little or more preschool to earlier age, like, you really need to. You can't tell them to just close their eyes, and we're going to hang out here for 30 minutes. But I don't know if you've seen, you know, one of the greatest tools just as far as to breath and to have people, like, breathing into their bellies. I don't know if there's, like, those toys that expand.
Addie: The spear thing.
Lou: Yeah, the spears. Yeah, those are. Those are great for kids. And I was doing something that I had to go for a company. I was actually doing kind of a wellness workshop a couple weeks ago, and I. And I almost thought about bringing it. I was like, you know what? Like, this is to. This is good for anyone. Like, it's helpful to just have that visual. And maybe for some people, wherever I. They feel uncomfortable closing their eyes. Hey, just watch. Let's just kind of feel this as if it's your belly moving in and out. So I think bringing in, you know, if you, I think have. I'm grateful that I have a lot of skills and practices teaching kids, because you learn how to make it accessible and invite, like, moments where maybe they're kind of accessing more, maybe traditional what you think of meditation, but there's many ways to have to weave that in a different way. I'd be curious, because I'm imagining you might have who knows? I'm not going to generalize this population as to being more shy or introverted, but for those that maybe they have a class with people that aren't more introverted or. I know a big question that I gotten from people is how to create a. How to have more inquiry after, let's say, a meditation, or how to have people engaging or sharing or. Yeah, I'm just wondering if you. What you do in your classes, if you open the floor for discussion, and how you prompt or engage people that maybe they might feel there might be some reservation to share. I don't know if that makes sense or.
Addie: Yeah, I love that question because I think with teaching meditation, having that dialogue is really important. Like, when I'm teaching movement, I can see what people are doing more, right. I can kind of tell if they understood my instructions, if, you know, if their shoulder did this or that, I get more visual feedback. But when you teach meditation, people are just sitting still and quietly. You have no idea what's going on inside. It's a lot harder to tell as the teacher. So I think we have to ask them and let them reflect back what their experience was so that we can help them fine tune it or answer questions. So that's a. I think it's really important, and it's true. Some people are a little more reticent to speak or the experience they just had was so intangible, they don't know how to verbalize it yet. So a good prompt goes a long way. And I know, like, I had to work on that because when I first started teaching and leading meditations, maybe we would pause and I would just kind of throw out, okay, how was that for everyone? And people would be like, fine. It was good. And I was like, oh, I want more. That's not what I'm looking for. As far as my answer, I wasn't like, how did I do? I'm looking for, you know, how. What. What happened for you, or what was really alive about that for you, or what did you struggle with during that meditation? What are you curious about after that meditation? You know, something like that can elicit a little bit of a better response. And then I think something that really can help the introverted ones among us is a little time to reflect. So maybe if people have their notebook or a little journal, you pop that question to them and say, I'm going to give you three minutes to just write a little bit about your experience or draw a picture of your experience and reflect on it yourself. And then if you choose. You can share some part of that with others. So I think just giving people a minute and not putting them right on the spot. Coming out of a meditation and going from this quiet place to suddenly being on the spot and having to talk to everyone in the room, I think that can really help to just have a little moment of journaling or reflecting quietly to oneself first.
Lou: And do you create 15 minutes? Ten minutes? Do you normally have that space built in two classes afterwards, after, like a practice?
Addie: Yeah, like a meditation class, for sure. In a movement class, if it's more like towards movement, we do that a little more towards, like, the beginning and end checking in, and it's shorter and maybe people will have a question. It's a little bit less formal, but in a meditation class, yeah, I definitely put in usually some sort of mix of, like, practice, discussion, practice, discussion, practice, discussion. A little bit of alternating like that, so that if there was a question that came up, we can try on something else in the next little mini practice we do.
Lou: Yeah, that's brilliant. That's typically how I would structure more of, let's say, corporate settings or things like that, where there's a flow of engagement into practice. Engagement to practice. If I was at a meditation studio, it'd probably just be like, hey, we're gonna, you know, talk little thing, meditate, pretty much be done. I don't do a lot of post in that way, or I haven't.
Addie: Well, and in like, a work setting, that's a place where people might not be as willing to share about their experience. Right. Because if you're in there with your colleagues and your boss and whoever, you know, it's. It could be a little vulnerable to speak more about your internal experience. So having some mechanism for reflection, like, that's more private could be. Could feel a little safer, I would say. Or, yeah, what do you do with that?
Lou: Yeah, I tend to do in corporate or even school, like, if I'm dealing with, like, teachers and administrators, what I've done is the think pair share, which is like a classic teacher thing of, okay, here's the question. Um, it might not always be, like, from the practice itself. Sometimes it is, but it's more of, hey, where is. What is stressing you out most in your week? All right, find one person. We're going to take two minutes, three minutes. Share with this one person. So it gives them a chance to share privately, so at least they get a chance to share. They turn back to everyone and I say, okay, you know, who would like to share their experience? And then if some, no one says anything, I get, I get the joke out of it of like, I just heard you all talking. You are all just talking, like right now. And so that tends, it always tends to work. So you kind of set up if no one says anything, there's like a built in laughter, which often eases things. But often some people will just jump in, start jumping in. And I think just having a chance to speak about it first is like, oh, now I can speak about it, rather than no one's spoken about it. I'm the first one to speak about it. So I find those type of like think pair share, as it said, to be really helpful.
Addie: Yeah, it kind of breaks the ice. And for those of us who are not so comfortable speaking to the whole room, maybe we can get a little more comfortable just speaking to one person first.
Lou: Yeah. So how it sounds like maybe you do do some corporate stuff or. I just love to hear for. My intention for this podcast is to help meditation teachers and coaches make a living doing what they love. I'd love to hear if you're willing to share, you can share percentages. If you're really an open book, you could share numbers like, how do you break it down percentage wise of, oh, I, I make, you know, 50% of my income through my online classes. I make 50% of my income through, that would not leave any room for a third. But, you know, 20% of my income through my, you know, one on one classes from people that take, you know, and then I have 20% from corporate. So do you have a breakdown? I know you have your training too. I'm sure that's, you know, train. The trainer model is always a really great way if you have the skill and expertise. So if you're willing to share, I'd love to hear just how you navigate. And also welcome to be like, yeah, I'm still trying to navigate it. That's, that's totally welcomed here.
Addie: Yeah, it is absolutely still very much a work in progress and I think that's only natural given the way things have been the last few years and for me personally, but also just the landscape keeps changing a ton. Right. So I'm still very much building the online part of my business and trying to find the right balance because I'm starting to feel like also I want to teach more locally. So I moved here to a new place and I've been here for a few years, but I haven't taught as much locally. I was really trying to focus on my online teachings, but now I'm kind of thinking like, okay, I do want to have a little bit more local teaching going on contract work because it helps to support and give me a little more of, like, a steady month to month income while I'm building other things. My mindful movement teacher training is my biggest program, and so that's been a big focus. And I used to lead yoga teacher trainings, and they were a big focus at my studio as well. But I've shifted more towards mindful movement just because I teach multiple modalities and because I wanted to center the mindfulness aspect and I wanted to create an offering that's for meditation teachers. And it was a lot of it was inspired by some of my friends who are meditation teachers, who would say, like, oh, I should take your yoga teacher training. I want to offer more movement in my classes, and I would think that'd be great, but I really want to teach you something a little more specific for your meditation context and a little bit different than what you might get in a yoga teacher training. So that's kind of where that whole thing came from, and it's been a really fun project and a really interesting niche to be developing. So that's a big chunk. I don't know, percentages exactly, but what chunk it comes out to kind of varies year to year. This is only the third year that I've offered it. And then I also teach some private students online, and I don't really have a space here at my home to do that, so I do that online. And that's a significant chunk. I have an online class library. That is a pretty good little chunk for me, where people can subscribe to that. Or I also have a free tier, which I use as kind of a way of just like, getting people into my orbit a little bit, kind of trying on the practices. It's kind of the marketing world.
Lou: We're called a lead magnet. I know I don't love the word lead magnet, but it is. Yes, yes, yes, yes. It's an easy way to explain what we're talking about, but it's never the best word to just call people leads. But yes.
Addie: Yeah, it is. But it is kind of my lead magnet, for lack of a better term. But it's also, I think, a way for people to just get a taste and participate without really having any commitment to do anything more unless they choose to. Totally. Yeah. So I mentioned, okay, I have some group classes. I have my class library. I have my training, and I have sort of, like, outside contract teachings and. Yeah, that's kind of mainly what I've been doing. I have some classes I teach on insight timer and I'm working on developing some courses over there and trying to build up my following a bit more there. I'm working on writing a book about teaching mindful movement. So I, yes, I am taking a diversified approach. You can say, like, I have, you know, felt the pressure of like, over focusing on one project or source of income and then really sweating it about whether it was going to come through or not. So I think my approach is a little bit more like a combination of like the big projects and then like the smaller side things that can help support along the way and just kind of create like that baseline of income that hopefully I can grow on top of, if that makes sense.
Lou: It sort of, yes, I love it. And I'm sure many people listen, listening can resonate and I can for sure resonate in my own journey and how we, you know, pull things from different sources. I heard like, to really, to have a successful entrepreneur has three sources of solid income. And so if you can dial in what those three sources are, that can be really supportive because then when one's taking a little hit, you have the, like, you can lean on them. But that's not to say this is a topic I'm going to be, I'm constantly fascinated about because I feel, and I talk with other people that feel like they're just like multi passionate, where I don't want to be just focusing on one thing, but business coaches that I've had on this podcast will say, hey, let's focus on this one thing and really dial this in and then you can focus on the other things. So this is something I'm going to continually explore on this podcast and then I want to hear you talk about this mindful movement training. Like my entrepreneurial brain goes ding ding, ding. Feeling like that could really be really, really big if there's a way to dial that in and find the marketing, find the market fit of knowing really whose it's for. Because you're right, there's so many. I don't think meditation teachers need to take a full yoga teacher training because you're going to be learning so much stuff that is not necessarily as applicable. If you do want to teach yoga, I will say that it is an incredible way to learn how to manage a room, to navigate a room, to be like with, depending on your style, of course, because I taught more of the power vinyasa classes for a while and just learning how to be with those many moving bodies and, like, hold space. For me, it was actually really impactful in that way. It wasn't my dharma to teach an asana class, but for many people that just want to invite some movement as a teacher, I can see that training being really, really, really solid. So if that's you listening and you're like, well, go check out how do stuff.
Addie: Yeah, but thank you for that feedback, because it's interesting. Like, I do think that I do feel that potential. And then at other times, this is where maybe the imposter syndrome concept comes back in. But, like, it's easy to talk yourself out of it when you feel like no one else is doing this. Exactly. Does that mean no one wants this? Or did I think of something interesting? Or am I just crazy over here on an island by myself? Right. You know, it's so. It's easy to kind of doubt yourself when you feel like you're doing something a little bit different, you know, or. Or new or whatever the. The word might be for it. And it. So it has been, like, a little bit of an up and down. Like, the second year, it grew quite a bit, and then this year, it feels like it's going to be a little bit smaller of a group. And so I am still in that process of, like, learning how to get the word out and what the marketing is for it. And I think over time, hopefully that will become more consistent. But, you know, things like that ebb and flow as you're building them, right?
Lou: Totally. I mean, I totally see a potential. We can go two ways. When there's other people doing it, right, it proves the market. But when there's no one's doing it, that's maybe more like, wow, you are actually the one that's equipped to bring this into the world, and there's no doubt. I mean, you bring it online, I think the issue that maybe you're facing. Cause I can just sense you're working with different audiences, right? The people that maybe are going to your online classes that are coming in, that are, like, in your world, are most of them not the people that are gonna go do the mindful movement teacher training? That's kind of the issue. That's what I'm facing right now, too, at this point. Podcast. And with most of my work before this podcast on my mastermind, some of the coaching I do, where I'm now, like, a little bit more business, it's for people like me. When on insight timer, it's all, like, broad and uncon. It's wide open.
Addie: It's the general public.
Lou: Exactly.
Addie: Exactly. I feel like I've had this. I've always had this. Like, even with our studio, we had kind of the general public arm of what we were doing and then the, like, teacher arm of what we were doing. And I don't think there's anything necessarily wrong with that. But it is like two businesses kind of, because it's a different market.
Lou: Yeah, you're talking to two different people. So it's like, yeah. And so, I don't know. Maybe it's like, how do you grow the. Yeah, how do you grow the network of people that are. Would be interested in the mindful movement training? Because I think there are. And, you know, people love. People love trainings, and they love learning more. And, you know, to also. To also say to anyone not to say to not do Addie's training, but I'm also a big believer in, you know, we always feel like we need some other piece of paper to, like, give us permission to do things. And I know someone who runs a yoga. She runs, like, a yoga something for babies, like, or for moms for their babies, like, to. And she was like, yeah, I just give mom's permission to touch their babies. It's like, it doesn't in some ways, and obviously, she's doing more, but it's just, you know, I think this is not to say. This is to speak to both sides. Right? To speak to the. Yes. And like, yes, if this calls to you, I love doing trainings. I do continuum. And if you're like, well, I need that because I don't feel worthy or I feel like I need permission, then, yeah, there might be something. Something to. To check with that.
Addie: As someone who's taken a whole lot of trainings, and as you can imagine, because I have that deep interest in yoga and movement and qigong and also meditation. And I've taken trainings in all of those different camps because those things are often taught separately. You know, I value trainings, but I have learned to become more intentional about which ones I choose to participate in because it becomes, well, I had one teacher. I love how she put this. She was like, if you just jump from training to training to training all the time and you don't give yourself time to, like, incorporate what you were learning, then you're gonna get spiritual indigestion. But that was a cute way of describing it, that sometimes, yeah, we can get kind of overfull.
Lou: Totally. Same thing goes with books, right. I'm always listening to a book or a podcast, you're like, you're always just, like, bringing things in, like, oh, just relaxed things settle, go quiet.
Addie: Just go try using some of this information. Practice it, share it, see what. How it comes through. Yeah, totally.
Lou: So go check out Addie's training. Addie, any, any, you know, talking to maybe people again, leading classes of some sort of wellness or working with clients, like any of either business advice or words of wisdom that you wish maybe you had earlier on in your journey doing this.
Addie: Yeah. I think adaptability is one of the themes that sort of run through what we've spoken about today, which is, like.
Lou: Pivoting, which is another word, I guess.
Addie: It'S the word I like better for pivoting, being adaptable and keeping your own practice going so that you have that to call upon when you're having to adapt. And, like, I can just think of so many times with the journey of having the studio or of when we had to pivot during the. During the pandemic, and you're still. You're going through that as a human being. You're going through those changes, but you're still holding space for other people because you've feel called to show up for people in that way. But that's not always easy, right, to, like, show up and hold space when you're personally going through something yourself. And so I think having your own practice and your own mentors and people that you can go to with those things is really important so that you can have the internal capacity and resources to really be of service to the people you want to share with and also to, you know, have good boundaries so they don't get all of the, you know, backwash of what's going on with you. Right? At the same time, you know, there's a difference, I think, between, like, showing our humanity and being relatable versus kind of like, letting that be dumped on our students when we're going through something. So I've had to work with that quite a bit with the sort of ups and downs of my business over the years.
Lou: That's such a great .2 points that you made of one. Yeah. Continue to deepen your own practices because that's going to inform everything. And when you're aligned, your nature unfolds and the things happen and magic happens. I fully believe that. I've seen it constantly, and we're professionals, and sometimes we have to understand what that means. In what context. Yeah. Share vulnerable stories, but as Brene Wood Brown would say, share it from the scar, not the wound. If you're still processing things through it, you know, maybe not share and, you know, sometimes you're not. Seth Godin talks about this all the time, and I don't love how he talks about, like, not being authentic. I think he just has a different wording for this. But he talks about, like, sometimes you're not gonna feel like teaching that class and you still need to find. Doesn't mean. Okay, well, I'm being authentic, and I'm not gonna do it. It's like, no, we have to be professionals and can we show up even when we don't feel.
Addie: Yeah.
Lou: Feel like it. Or we have another thing going on or something shows up in our life, find our center and do our best. Right. Whatever. You know, it doesn't mean we have to be perfect, but I think this is important to understand that this is a pro, that we are professionals, and treating it as such, I think, makes a. Makes a big difference. So.
Addie: Yeah. Well said.
Lou: Yeah. Addie, thanks so much for joining. What a fun conversation. Anything else that you want to speak to or point to your training, youre a. Your website? Just. Yeah, your podcast, of course. So, yeah, I'd love to.
Addie: Yeah. Lou is going to be a guest on my podcast we recorded a few weeks ago, so that, I think, is one of my next episodes to come out. So definitely keep an eye out for that. Yeah. It's called the moved to Meditate podcast, and it's on all of the various, you know, Apple Spotify, all the different apps and such. And thank you for the shout out about the mindful new teacher training that is starting in October. So I'm not sure when this is going to come out starting October 19, but even.
Lou: We'll get it out on. We'll get it out next week. Just take. Just. I want to get it out just to get it out for. Give people a chance and also, like, you know, to hear, you know. And you can see how Addie's got a much more robust system and backlog episodes and flying by the wing of my pants. It's like Monday. I need to record something for Tuesday, but no, I have a couple on the slot. But we'll get this out to give people some space.
Addie: Oh, I'm usually like that, too, but for some, somehow I got a little bit ahead this summer, which was awesome. But thank you for that and for your kind words encouraging me with that training. And, yeah, if. Even if people are listening to this later and it's something that piques your interest, just look for it on my website and you can always contact me with questions. Yeah. I so appreciate the chance to share here and to just talk a bit about the behind the scenes and. Yeah. And to connect with you. Thank you.
Lou: Super fun. All right, friends, we will see you on another episode soon. Take care of.