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Today, we explore yoga as a path to unify the body, mind, and spirit.

I sat down with Susan Latremoille, a yoga teacher with over 30 years of experience and certifications from Kripalu Centre and Purna Yoga Centre. Susan emphasizes making yoga accessible for all, helping students slow down, connect with their bodies, and find inner peace. 

In this conversation, we discussed the transformative power of shavasana in yoga, choosing the right yoga practice, and balancing active and restorative styles. We also touch on the personal connection to spirit and how creativity flows from universal energy. We also explored how to shift from the busyness of the mind to a more holistic, fulfilling way of living.

Topics We Explore:

• Yoga as a practice to unify the body, mind, and spirit
• The transformative power of shavasana (corpse pose) and its lesson that by doing nothing
• How to Choose and Understand Different Yoga Practices
  • Example: Bikram vs. Hatha
  • Example: Active vs. Restorative 
• Our Connection to Spirit and where the Flow of Creativity comes from
• How to Achieve Holistic Living

Connect with Susan Latemoille: https://www.successdna.ca/

Learn More about The Viking Academy: https://www.vikingacademy.com/scouting-party

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Episode Transcript:

 

Erik Solbakken: Hi, everyone. Welcome to the Viking Academy Podcast. I'm your host, Erik Solbakken, and today we have Susan Latremoille on the show. She and I talk through yoga. She is a certified yoga instructor, and we're talking back in the '70s is when she first started this. But the wonderful thing that we find in this exploration is, and I didn't realize this, is that yoga is probably more of the ethos of the Viking Academy more than I ever thought.

Erik Solbakken: It's the combination of the mind, the body, and the spirit into yourself, into who you are, and we talk about the physiological changes, the spiritual changes, the mental changes that happen. We also talk about what yoga styles are out there and which ones you should start with first, which ones you shouldn't, and I had a lot of other aha moments in there. We talk about the vagus nerve. We talk about meditation.

Erik Solbakken: We talk about all things mind, body, and spirit on this episode. So I hope you enjoy it as much as I did recording it, as I have now got a whole new appreciation for yoga. I basically have to get off my butt and start exploring that aspect of my life, so I'm gonna go start doing yoga myself. So there you go. Let's get started with the interview. Let's go explore Hi, Susan.

Susan Latremoille: How are you? Great, Eric. Thrilled to be here with you today.

Erik Solbakken: I am, very appreciative of you being part of the inaugural group of podcast, guests that I've had on the Viking Academy. I think yours is actually going to be... Well, no, yours will be the second in the body realm, but that's the thing that I'm really excited about getting into the conversation with you, is how we're going to, we're gonna touch on all three. I think we're gonna touch on all three, the mind, the body, and the spirit.

Erik Solbakken: And, for our listeners, could you just give them a little background on who you are and what you're doing specifically in the area of yoga and teaching yoga?

Susan Latremoille: Mm-hmm. Good. Be happy to. So my first experience with yoga was way back in the '70s when I went to a high school gym one evening and did my first yoga class. And as you know, at the end of most yoga classes, you end with, Shavasana, which is a translation in Sanskrit for dead corpse or dead man's pose or corpse pose. And it's really the time when you lie still on your back on the mat, and the purpose of it is to integrate everything, all the movements that you've done, the breath, the body work, and so on.

Susan Latremoille: Anyway, I had that amazing experience of going into a very deep relaxation, and so that was my first introduction to yoga. And I thought, "Wow, I want more than-- of this." So then fast-forward, over the years when I started working on Bay Street in the financial industry, the gym that I belonged to had lunchtime yoga classes. And, actually, they were in a squash court, so it wasn't really the ideal setting, but I used to go every week, at least once a week, for these lunchtime yoga classes.

Susan Latremoille: And I found that it really set me up for a great afternoon. It was very restorative. It was an, it was a complement to all the other physical work training that I was doing. And my teacher at the time, inspired me then to go on and take more, different types of yoga training at the Kripalu Yoga Center in Lenox, Massachusetts. So over the years, I would go and do weekend workshops or, you know, different courses there, and then that led me to do my yoga teacher training at the Kripalu Center.

Susan Latremoille: And at the time, I wasn't really sure that I was going to teach, but it really, set me up to be able to offer classes. And so that's really how I got started in my yoga journey.

Erik Solbakken: Okay, so you like start off the hopper explaining yoga. Well, as you know, when you finish yoga, you lie there dead. I'm sorry. Like, I'm... For myself, like, I've only I've done yoga, I did hot, one hot yoga session. Killed me. I was sweating profusely out of every crevice of my body that I didn't know I had, and I just basically never went back. And so just let's go back to that concept of the dead corpse pose.

Erik Solbakken: Like, right at the end, you actually lie, you lie flat and dead. Can you explain, like, that a little bit more? Because to me, I would think that after doing kind of a physical exercise, you would be, like, energized and feeling alive. But yet in yoga, you're, it's like a paradox. You're actually doing this pose of a dead corpse. Mm-hmm. Can you explain that one a little better?

Susan Latremoille: Well, there are many different types of yoga, and I'm not sure all of them do Shavasana at the end, although most of the styles of yoga that I'm familiar with, you do Shavasana. And the whole point, this dead man's pose or corpse pose, is that it's a time for your body to integrate all the physical movements that you've done. And since the meaning of yoga, the Sanskrit, translation of the word yoga means union or yoke, yoga, yoke, union of body, mind, and spirit.

Susan Latremoille: It's, the Shavasana is the time where you get to integrate all of those things by doing nothing And people find that after they've done, you know, a yoga practice of really of any length, an hour or half an hour, whatever, that time is, they say, it's the most important aspect of your yoga practice, and it's the one that people tend to skip because they think, "Eh, what's that gonna do?

Susan Latremoille: I've done all my physical stuff, now it's time to get on with my day." But really, I've found in my own experience in working with students as well, that it really is a very important time to just kind of settle in, let the breath become light and free, and let the mind go into almost a meditative state while the body relaxes and rests.

Erik Solbakken: You know, there is very, interesting thought I had there about yoga because there's this... I think there's a disconnect between what most of us think of yoga. Oh, look, they're you're going off in your yoga pants and your yoga mat, and there they're going to do their yoga thing. But you highlighted on the fact that the yoga actually means union. It's to bring union to the mind, the body, and the spirit to connect all of them together.

Erik Solbakken: And the interesting part of this Shavasana, if I'm saying that correctly, Shavasana. Mm-hmm. I wrote it down phonetically, 'cause as you and I know, I can mess up words pretty bad. As I had you on the previous podcast, I was completely crapping your first, your last name, and I still apologize for that ahead of like, ahead of this one, this podcast. I apologized. I said, "I'm gonna make a, make sure that I don't do that." But the, at the end of doing the Shavasana, it's doing nothing and leaving, and nothing is left undone.

Erik Solbakken: There's that, there's that spirit- spiritual concept of doing nothing and nothing is left undone, so at the end of the yoga, you're doing nothing, but yet everything is becoming one. It's becoming a union of the mind, the body, and the spirit. That is really beautiful. I love that. Mm-hmm.

Susan Latremoille: Yeah. You know, it's wonderful, and oftentimes in my classes, I will read something that kind of helps the students to settle into that state. It's just maybe a nugget of thought or a small poem, and, you know, they might reflect on that, or they might just go deep into that deeper relaxation. And I've had both experiences where my mind is focusing on what I just heard, but it oftentimes, I just simply relax.

Susan Latremoille: And that's a challenge for a lot of people who are that Type A, get up and go, let's... You know, yoga's active, running hot, whatever. But really for those people, that Savasana time is very valuable. So I can't recommend the Savasana highly enough, even though people tend to blow it off because they think, "Eh, the yoga class is over. I'm leaving."

Erik Solbakken: But that is the, that is the critical linchpin of the whole purpose of yoga is to create that union, and for that union of mind, body, and spirit to actually occur, you need to be quiet. That's right. You need to be quiet and stop doing so that it can be done. So it can, you can integrate your mind, your body, and spirit integrates itself without your... You've done the work ahead of time during the yoga.

Erik Solbakken: You've done your part, and now the Savasana does its part of bringing it all together- Yeah And integrating it.

Susan Latremoille: Yeah. And for a lot of people, that concept of spirit is a tough one because they think, oh, spiritual. Then they some people might think, extrapolate from that, religion, whatever. So if for people that aren't familiar with it, I describe spirit as breath. So union of body, mind, and breath. And so that's a more approachable way for some people that don't get spirit.

Erik Solbakken: Yeah, and that, I'm you and I have talked about this before, like there's a difference between being religious and connecting to one's spirit. And spirit really to be inspired is to be in spirit. So in other words, creative thoughts, like I play in a heavy metal band and I played music for all my life pretty well. I can't remember when I wasn't playing something. I was either banging sticks against the wall of my mom's house, which drove her crazy, which is why she bought me a drum set so I could stop hitting things on the walls, or a piano.

Erik Solbakken: But when I was creating it comes from, it doesn't come from my conscious mind. It's like it drops into the conscious mind. It's something that just appears from another realm that I'm not consciously aware of, and that's that spirit, that spirit that's out there. There's a, there's a underlying energy or a force, like Star Wars. I love my Star Wars. There's an energy that's flowing throughout the universe that is, that's animating us and that gives us inspirational ideas, gives that spirit.

Erik Solbakken: And so, you know, for the Viking Academy, the big thing for me is like, and I keep telling people this, it's like I'm gonna talk a lot about the Vikings and their connections to Odin and Thor and Freya, and what I've found has worked for me. But it's inside each one of us to find out what's that, what's your connection to your spirit? Like, it's Exactly... Personal. It's personal, and it's sacred.

Erik Solbakken: And I totally empathize and understand what you mean by that in terms of if we say spirit to some people, that blocks them off. But I've really noticed a big shift. Like, this talking about spirituality has become mainstream as opposed to, like, in the '70s when you were going to the... That would've been, "Oh, look, you're doing that hippie stuff," right?

Susan Latremoille: Yeah. That would- And that was exactly how people thought of it was hippie stuff. And, it's amazing how it's become mainstream. But, you know, when you go back to the history of yoga, and obviously it was, started in India about 5,000 years ago, it was never meant or designed as a group activity. And when I was visiting India and did a yoga class with a master there, he said, "In India, we don't do it in groups.

Susan Latremoille: It's something that you do in the privacy of your home, and it's usually passed down from kind of father to son." Also, in Indian, in the past, this was a very male activity. And it's kind of ironic because today it's, you know, go to yoga class, it's predominantly women. But yoga was, the physical yoga was considered more of a male area, and women did more meditation, you know, seated meditation and that sort of thing.

Susan Latremoille: But it's amazing how we've westernized the whole thing and made it, much more of a female activity today than a male activity, although I think enlightened men do yoga for sure. And men really need the physical aspect of it 'cause a lot of men do physical sports where they, you know, their muscles get tight, they get strong, they get tight, and then that's when injury happens. So yoga's a perfect, complement really to the tightening effect of strong and, you know, fast muscles.

Susan Latremoille: And it's the athletes that I know that added in yoga to their regime, benefit tremendously from it. Lower injuries, more speed, more flexibility, and so on. So it's not just a woo activity or something that you know, you might or might not do. To me, it's a necessary part of that overall health, approach.

Erik Solbakken: Yeah, you don't you don't have to go buy a pair of Lulu's stretchies to, or be in the woo space, as we call No... To go do the yoga. It was interesting, like when I mentioned I did Bikram's hot yoga. Mm-hmm. And I did it once, and the reason why I did it is back when I had my accounting practice, so I was a chartered accountant for... I still am, actually. I have...

Erik Solbakken: This is 35 years I'm coming up. No, 36. It'll be 36 years I have been in the accounting profession, in that world anyways. I had a client that had Bikram Hot Yoga, and it was the first one introduced in Victoria. Like, there was no other one, so I was like, "Oh, I'll..." You know, as a new client, I'm like, "Yeah, I'm gonna go support you and I'm gonna go do this." And I went to do it, and I was like, oh my God, it was so hard.

Erik Solbakken: It was so brutal, and it was sweating and all the rest of it, and I just... I was like, I was probably still also in that mindset, which was, "Ah, yeah, well, this is for other people, not for me. It's not a, you know, it's not an Eric thing. It's the woo or the girl space or whatever." It was in my head at the time.

Erik Solbakken: But you said something at the in the beginning of this, podcast that has made me have the attraction rather than promotion feeling of yoga, which is the union of the body, mind, and spirit, and for me, that is the essence, that's the ethos of the Biking Academy, right? And for me to go, "I need to start doing yoga." My energy healer, Denise Grams, and I had her as one of the first, she was one of the first podcast guests that I had.

Erik Solbakken: And we get down and she does energy healing at the quantum molecular... Like, down to the quantum level of your cells. And she's told me multiple times that I should do yoga, that I, my body's saying it wants yoga. Like, my body wants it at the at the quantum level, it's saying, "Eric, you need to go do yoga." So when you offered up those classes, I was like, "I gotta get, I gotta get on this." Yeah.

Erik Solbakken: Right? So I... But I, you know, in full disclosure for everyone listening and watching, I haven't done it yet. So you know, I'm, I really, I'm, I've got a renewed interest of wanting to exploring this part because, again, I want to integrate those three areas in myself, and the fact that yoga is the union of it seems to be the linchpin of the whole thing.

Susan Latremoille: Mm-hmm. And there's so many different types of yoga. I mean, you had experience with Bikram, and I would say the style of yoga that I teach is more Hatha yoga. But then there's Ashtanga yoga, restorative yoga, Yin yoga, Vinyasa yoga. There's, it's morphed into many branches from the same tree, and each one has a different kind of, focus and a different benefit. And so it really is a matter of where you fit.

Susan Latremoille: I mean, I went to a hot yoga class, and, it just wasn't for me. It was, I didn't enjoy the extreme heat and the sweatiness of the room, and it was always about pushing to your edge. And I know a lot of people that have been injured in hot yoga because when your body gets heated up, the muscles are stretchier, and then you have a tendency to push further, and then that's when those micro tears come in.

Susan Latremoille: They happen in the muscles and the ligaments and so on. So you know, it's not... That style is a certain hot yoga's a certain style. But a more approachable style from my perspective, which everybody can do, is Hatha yoga, which is much more... It's, it can be vigorous, and it can be difficult, but it's a more gentle, approachable style that I would say is more suitable for the masses. And then once people have explored Hatha yoga, then, you know, if you want a more active, flowing yoga, there's Vinyasa.

Susan Latremoille: I also got trained as a restorative teacher because we just don't do enough restorative activity or non-activity in our life. And so by, using restorative yoga, it's a great way to calm the nervous system down. And we're all running, you know, pretty much on nervous energy, a lot of us, a lot of the time. And so we need that time when the vagus nerve, which is the, that sort of central nerve, can switch from, sympathetic activity to parasympathetic.

Susan Latremoille: And so restorative yoga puts us in a more parasympathetic state. And we need that in our lifestyle today.

Erik Solbakken: Thank you for that because you, I was writing down feverishly as I'm, listening to you and then, and one of the questions I was gonna have, especially for the listeners out there, is how does one approach yoga for the first time? And I think you answered that, is in your opinion, the best yoga to start with for the beginner is, would be Hatha yoga. And then from there you can start exploring the further areas.

Erik Solbakken: And so maybe did I jump into the deep end of the pool-... And just go, "I'm gonna do Bikram hot yoga, and I'm gonna go sweat and push myself to the max, and rah," you know, which is typical Eric fashion, right? Like, I have two speeds, go and stop. If I do something, it's gonna be absolutely huge, or it'll, you know, be, I won't do it at all. So maybe that's, for me, I had gone and kinda pushed the limits too much, but for the beginner, Hatha yoga is, from your perspective, the best gateway to start introducing- Exactly...

Erik Solbakken: One to yoga.

Susan Latremoille: Yes, exactly. And, you know, there's lots of YouTube yoga out there today. And I even use it myself because I like to explore different teachers and learn from them and see different sequences and that sort of thing. And a lot of the teachers that teach on, online will stratify their classes by beginner, intermediate, advanced, and also by length of class. So a good place to start would be a beginner Hatha yoga, maybe 15, 20 minutes.

Susan Latremoille: And so much has to do with how you, whether you resonate with the teacher or not. I mean, I've done classes with teachers, and their voice drives me nuts, or their expressions drive me crazy, or, you know, I feel what they're doing maybe isn't, it's too woo-woo yoga. It's not the real, what I call real yoga. So it's all about finding where you resonate with the teacher, with the style, with the you know, the class and so on.

Susan Latremoille: And I think during the pandemic, we all got much more used to, doing online, and I teach both. I teach live in the summer at my cottage, and I teach online in the rest of the year. And, I mean, there's nothing that replaces us being in community with others and being, you know, ideally in the out of doors, but, you know, failing that, online is a great way to get your yoga in without having to travel anywhere, and you can kind of pick your time of day, to do it.

Susan Latremoille: I'm a big advocate of adding it into my morning routine because I feel that... And it's great to do before bed as well, but, you know, it's one of those things like meditation that unless you do it, get it into your routine in the morning, it can slip off the agenda and not get done, so. For me, the morning is the ideal time Right. There's one

Erik Solbakken: Other thing that you said in there, which is you were talking about the Vaga nerve? Vagus

Susan Latremoille: Nerve

Erik Solbakken: Vagus, Vaga. I thought I wrote down Vagas

Susan Latremoille: And I was V-A-G-U-S, like Las Vegas. V-A-G-U-S, vagus nerve

Erik Solbakken: Vagus. Could you explain the vagus nerve a little more to myself and to the listeners? 'Cause I'm curious on that, how it functions

Susan Latremoille: Yeah, so I'm not an anatomical expert by any mean, but I do know that the vagus nerve is the biggest and most central nerve in the body, and that there are kind of two states for our nervous system, the sympathetic and the parasympathetic. And normally we're in, when we're in the fight and flight mode, we've activated the sympathetic nervous system, but the restoration of our cells and the restoration of the body happens in the parasympathetic state.

Susan Latremoille: And so it, the vagus nerve, by doing more of a restorative style or a gentler style of yoga and breathing, I should say, breathing and meditation, those all help to move us into more of a parasympathetic state where our muscles, cells, minds, everything can restore.

Erik Solbakken: So okay, that's great. I really appreciate that because I was trying to get my head wrapped around the sympathetic versus parasympathetic. So sympathetic, you're fighting. You're sympathetic is you're having sympathy for something, or you wanna take care of it, so you're gonna fight it. But when you're parasympathetic, you're now restoring yourself. What is the difference between your regular hatha yoga that you do, like say the, and versus restorative? Or do you in, or do you insert restorative within the hatha, or is there, like is it like combinations and permutations, you can do anything you want?

Susan Latremoille: Yeah, I mean, I sometimes incorporate a restorative pose or sequence into my regular class. So typically a restorative yoga pose would be one with lots of props. So you're not actually holding your muscles like you would be, let's say, in a warrior pose. A restorative pose means putting your body into an extreme state of comfort, and typically we do that with blocks, we do it with yoga blocks, we do it with bolsters, we do it with blankets, we do it with pillows and cushions.

Susan Latremoille: So it, there's a bit of a setup involved in a lot of restorative poses, but it's just getting into such a comfortable state that you can really drop into that parasympathetic state. Whereas active yoga with hatha or move, you know, any kind of the active yogas, you know, you're requiring muscle, you're requiring engagement of the skeleton, of the spine, of the muscles and ligaments in the body. And so, at the end of, a Hatha class, it is nice to put in a, let's say, restorative pose like supported bridge pose, which I would describe as lying on your back with your knees bent, which would be just, you know, lying there.

Susan Latremoille: But then the bridge pose is where you actually press down with your feet to lift your hips up. And an active bridge would be, yes, you're using your leg muscles, your abdominal, your core muscles to hold your body up in that plane. But if you were to make it a bridge into a restorative pose, you'd put a block, a yoga brick, or something underneath your sacrum, and then relax the sacrum down into the block, and that would make it more of a restorative pose.

Erik Solbakken: Okay. This kind of moves me to the next question. How does one know When one needs the active yoga and when one needs restorative yoga. Like, for me, when I'm working out, I'm like, "I feel I'm hungry. I need to..." Or I get completely tired, it's like, "Okay, now I need rest." Because for growing muscles and going to the gym, it's actually rest and sleep is actually more important than the actual working out because you're like, you can push yourself to overexertion.

Erik Solbakken: Like, you can go too far one way versus the other. And my body gives me cues as I'm going out through the day. And this is, again, the kind of the ethos of the Viking Academy is figure out what works for you. Like, explore. This whole exploration is for each person to do individually, but also with the group. Mm-hmm. So we're doing it as a members- as a movement of Vikings saying, "Let's go, let's go explore." But you gotta find out what works for you.

Erik Solbakken: Like, not one food works for everybody, not one exercise works, and not one mental exercise works for everybody, not one spirituality works for everybody. But how can I know for me, for Eric, when do I need... How do... Or let's, turn this around, Susan. How do you know when you need restorative versus the active?

Susan Latremoille: So how do I know for me? Well, most days I like to do an active yoga practice because I feel that's where my muscles get stretched. I feel if there are any tight spots in my body. I know that I'm building strength in different muscle groups, and it's a chance to connect with the breathing. So typically, I like to do an active practice in the morning. And then at night, let's say you've had a very busy day and your mind, my mind's going a mile a minute, then a restorative practice in the evening before bed is a lovely wind down exercise and a lovely wind down.

Susan Latremoille: But I think it's different for everyone. I mean, I have-- I know people that just love yin yoga, which yin yoga's described at holding poses for long periods of time. So some people gravitate to yin, other people... And it's like we can all do all of the different styles, it's just knowing when. It's kind of like with, you talked about eating, knowing what your body needs for food. So there's certain days you think, "Ah, an apple, that's exactly what I need." And then other days, "Oh, I need a steak.

Susan Latremoille: I need some heavy-duty protein." Or, you know, or just you crave certain, like nuts, or you crave chocolate, or whatever. It's really your body telling you, "Okay, this is what you need to feed me right now." And it, with yoga, it's the same. After you've experienced some different styles and you get used to doing some yoga, then your body dictates. You know, it says, "You need to do some relaxation today," and, or you need to be really active and vigorous with it.

Susan Latremoille: So it's just through your own trial and error and your own experience then that you find what works

Erik Solbakken: Sorry, excuse me I love that because that is kind of is giving me a vision into trusting your being, trusting yourself, shall we say. The, I'm gonna put it the self in a capital S versus the small self, right? The small self is the, excuse me. Small self is the one that gets me into all the trouble, right? Mm-hmm. It gets me eating the bad foods, gets me doing the bad the bad, actions.

Erik Solbakken: It gets me doing connect- not connecting to my spirit. The big S, the myself self will tell me when I need to have that healthy food. It's my conscience almost. Like if we start talking about, like your... When we talk about having a conscience, it's listening to that, quote-unquote, voice inside-

Susan Latremoille: Yeah

Erik Solbakken: That is guiding you towards what is right for you.

Susan Latremoille: Mm-hmm.

Erik Solbakken: And one of the, just as a side note, one of my guiding posts on that one is, like, how do I know when my inner voice is telling me this is the right thing to do versus my ego telling me something? You know, that whole when is the right thing, the consciousness that's telling me, "This is right, Eric," and versus my ego going, "Oh, yeah, this is right. Go do this. This is great." Mm-hmm.

Erik Solbakken: The litmus test for me on that has always been, well, if I do this, it's gonna... Is it gonna be good for me and for others? As opposed to if I look at my ego side and I go, "This isn't gonna be good for me or my body or other people." Like, it's not just myself, it's others. It's gonna impact others. With the yoga, it sounds like you have to... First of all, you have to explore and test.

Erik Solbakken: You have to go test and try, and then eventually you will get intuitively connected with what your body needs. And for yourself, you said you needed the active in... You like doing the active in the morning, restorative in the evening, in the evening. Other people like these hold poses. Some other people might like the Bikram Yoga. Some people like that.

Erik Solbakken: But, you know, nothing will keep us in everlasting ignorance as contempt prior to investigation, and that kind of brings us back to the beginning conversation, which is so many people don't do yoga because they have a stigma attached around it, or they think it's too woo-woo, or it's for, just for girls, or whatever it is. It keeps us in ignorance instead of going and exploring and seeing what works for us.

Susan Latremoille: Exactly. Mm-hmm. And, you know, when you... If you add in some meditation with the yoga, then that's where a lot of that inner wisdom comes from. So, you know, again, it's sort of counterintuitive because you think, "Well, meditation, you're not doing anything. You know, your mind is empty." But it's often during, meditation that ideas get sparked or that you're setting your mind up to actually deal with something later on when you finish the meditation.

Erik Solbakken: So there-- how do you do that? Like, how-- what is an example of putting the meditation in with the yoga?

Susan Latremoille: So, I usually start in the morning with a meditation, and I find that a guided meditation helps me. Some people after, if they're very experienced, they can-- they just sit and the-they, slip right into that meditative state. Again, just like yoga, there are many different styles of meditation. There's, you know, mantra meditation, where you're repeating a phrase or a word over and over again. There's guided meditation. There's meditation to music. There's staring at candles, all sorts of thing.

Susan Latremoille: But I subscribe to a, you know, a service that provides guided meditation. So I usually just browse and see what's relevant to me that day. Do I need, a meditation for positivity? Do I need it to relax my mind? Do I need it for inspiration? Whatever. So I find a guided meditation that suits where I'm at that day, and then I do the meditation, and then I do the yoga practice. So I find that, actually in the Indian ancient definition of it, the body part of yoga was what prepared the person for meditation afterwards.

Susan Latremoille: But in my case, I start with, a meditation and then move from meditation into yoga. And in some yoga classes, you actually have an integration of the two. There will be part of the class that will be meditation, and then there will be a part that's actually yoga practice. But again, it's what suits the individual and what you find works for you.

Erik Solbakken: And then that leads us into another area of exploration for our fellow Vikings out there, is to find a meditation that works for us. What's the app that you use?

Susan Latremoille: I use Insight Timer.

Erik Solbakken: Insight Timer.

Susan Latremoille: Insight Timer, which is a subscription app. And, also there's another app called Down Dog, which is a yoga app, but it has meditation to it as well. And I'm also a Peloton subscriber, which I mainly use for my Peloton bike. But they're, they also offer yoga and meditation on Peloton. I just don't use them for that.

Erik Solbakken: You know, the irony is not lost on me here for where we have moved as an entire race of humans. 1970... I was born 1970, just to give you an idea. So I remember the '70s as a kid, and again, it would've been the woo space of yoga and meditation. You would never... And even growing up, no one talked about yoga and meditation. Whoever did yoga, they were like the hippies, right?

Erik Solbakken: And meditation, well, that was for the woo crowd. And but in the last, I wanna say in the last 10-ish years, it that's been my experience, it's all of a sudden become more mainstream. We're more talking about it. Every- even the high-level corporate executives, like the world that you and I work in, like say, call our day job work in, work in, now it's mindfulness and meditation and yoga is now being talked about more often.

Erik Solbakken: It's this holistic how do we take care of the entire person instead of just, you know, one aspect. And I think that's where we've probably moving from, is this unidimensional viewpoint of what success- a successful life is to a integrated, multidimensional viewpoint of the human and their surroundings, like our environment.

Susan Latremoille: Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So I think that, you know, you mentioned the word holistic, which maybe is hackneyed a little bit, overdone, but it really is, in my view, the essence of living the rich life, which is my whole philosophy in the book, the basis of the books that I've written. And so we need to be much more holistic in this day and age. And, you know, professionally, I was a financial advisor, and I always wanted to take a more holistic approach to being a financial advisor than just worrying about the numbers.

Susan Latremoille: I wanted it, my work to be about care for my client in totality, in, you know, success for them in their lives, not just financial success. And in a way, I feel that's, you know, where yoga comes in is to be part of that holistic approach to life.

Erik Solbakken: And you and I resonated right away when we first met each other, again, at Strategic Coach, when... Which seems to be the wellspring of all wonderful connections, and we were talking about our respective businesses, and yours is Next Chapter Lifestyles Advisors, and my Accountant Success Formula. Those two, you're for financial advisors, I'm in the accounting space, but our approach was start being holistic with your approach to this. And this is the same thing as that I see, I see yoga being that beautiful, holistic connection for the mind, the body, and the spirit.

Erik Solbakken: And I am definitely motivated now to go.

Susan Latremoille: Great.

Erik Solbakken: To do and to... I wanna start exploring more yoga, and I'm proba- I'm probably gonna go back and try Bikram again, 'cause that's Yeah... I know that's who I am, and I'm probably gonna need to go try that. But I'm very curious to go see all the different kinds. Now, can you just list off the different kinds that you can remember off the top of your head just for now, just so we have...

Erik Solbakken: The listeners can kinda understand where to maybe start? Again, you said they should start in Hatha, right?

Susan Latremoille: And Well, that's my opinion.

Erik Solbakken: Yeah.

Susan Latremoille: And it also depends on how old you are, what stage of life you're at, how good physical condition you're in, what you're looking for the yoga to do for you. So it's very personal what, how you decide. But for me, I would say that Hatha is very approachable for anyone, and a good place to start the exploration. From there's Ashtanga yoga, which is much more active and physical.

Susan Latremoille: There's Iyengar yoga, which, was more or less the approach that I studied when I did my advanced teacher training, and that was started by BKS Iyengar in India, who was actually the teacher of the teach- of my teacher when he grew up in India. And that's about, that's very much about alignment and precision in the body, so it's much more scientific, in a sense. Then there's Yin yoga, which has become popular, and that's holding poses for long periods of time.

Susan Latremoille: Vinyasa yoga, which is a flowing style of yoga where you flow from one pose into another. It's active, but it's flowy. And then there's restorative yoga, which we've talked about, which Quite inactive. I don't think you burn a ton of calories in restorative yoga, the opposite, let's say, to hot yoga. But, it has its benefit as well, for the body, for the mind, for the spirit, for the breath. Some forms of yoga do incorporate breathwork into them.

Susan Latremoille: Others pay no heed to breath at all. But I believe that if you equate, if you say that spirit and breath are kind of synonymous, then how can you ignore your breath? And the breath is our best friend. It's the only thing that defines life versus death, is the breath. So it's an, it's a fundamental element of living, is breath. And breath can be, you know, we all know that when you're stressed out and people say, "Take a deep breath," you know, that deepening of the breath, elongating the breath already starts to click into the parasympathetic nervous system.

Susan Latremoille: And then there's breath in yoga, there's breathwork for cooling the body, breathwork for heating the body, breathwork for cleansing the body, breathwork for balancing the body. So there's... Breath can do amazing things, and that's all part of yoga from my perspective.

Erik Solbakken: Yeah. The meditation guru, shall I say, that I'Followed and listened to. Or let's take Eckhart Tolle, like The Power of Now. Yes. And that he's really... I think Eckhart was also one of the pioneers of opening up spirituality to more mainstream. Absolutely. I remember getting his book when it first came out. It was very, easy to digest, 'cause it was the power of now, which, you know, once you realize and you start focusing on the present moment, everything, all your worries kinda disappear because you're no longer thinking about the past or worrying about the future, right?

Erik Solbakken: Mm-hmm. Worrying or regretting the past or worrying about the future, all of a sudden in the present moment. But in his core teaching, which his, which his wife or partner's, spouse teaches, is showing people how to start the meditation. It's always starting with the breath. Or Eckhart comes back, "Just pay attention to your breathing. Pay attention to the breath." It becomes the gateway, the key to opening up the door to becoming present, and-

Susan Latremoille: Exactly... That's the key And that being present is the hardest thing in the world for us to do. You would think, "Oh, just be present, it's so simple." But our minds are wired to think, and that's how our minds are designed, is to think. And probably historically in our DNA, they're to keep you out of trouble, to, you know, the tiger doesn't eat you. Or to find food, you have to, you know, be thinking and looking and so on.

Susan Latremoille: So as much as it sounds very simple, be in the present moment, it's actually very difficult for the mind to do that. So the meditation really is the, is the act of returning over and over again from the busyness of the mind. Because the mind, as you say, always wants to go past, but thinking of memories or planning for the future or getting emotionally involved in fear, anxiety, et cetera. So it takes a lot of training, I think, for us to really calm the mind in such a way that it becomes secondary to being truly present in the moment.

Erik Solbakken: Coming to that Shavasana, the dead corpse Yes... Do you find that when you're in that state at the end, that's when your mind settles and you become quietly- Yes... Quiet? Like, I would imagine- Yes... That is a very present moment.

Susan Latremoille: Yes. When

Erik Solbakken: Like a very grounding... Count to seven.

Susan Latremoille: Yep. Exactly.

Erik Solbakken: Like, I can physically feel that just talking about it. I Mm-hmm... This grounding, this quieting of the mind, this peace that's in there, just thinking about it.

Susan Latremoille: Mm-hmm.

Erik Solbakken: Then the Erik Viking takes off and goes, "Let's

Susan Latremoille: Ride. Let's

Erik Solbakken: Go find... Let's go find something," you know, blow up or break or make, you know. That's absolutely beautiful. I love this, Susan. This has been... As always, I expect to have a great conversation, but this one has taken me down some roads where my thinking has changed dramatically when it... Especially when it comes... Specifically when it comes to yoga, and that how important yoga is to bring that union of the mind, the body, and the spirit together.

Erik Solbakken: I am so grateful that you're one of my first podcast guests. This has been-

Susan Latremoille: Yeah...

Erik Solbakken: Awesome. I can't wait till this one airs. I'm gonna probably listen to this one multiple times myself afterwards as well, because I'm gonna... I find that for me it helps to listen to it over and over again. And for our listeners out there, don't just listen to a podcast once. I find that listening to a podcast twice really gets me that deep transformation and that knowing and understanding. So, Susan, thank you so much for being on the podcast.

Erik Solbakken: This has been awesome.

Susan Latremoille: Oh, great. My true pleasure, Erik.

Erik Solbakken: Thank you. Thanks for listening to The Viking Academy Podcast. Make sure to leave us your honest feedback by leaving a review on Apple or Spotify, and hit subscribe so you never miss an episode.