Episode 76: Following Your Inner Compass: Give Yourself The Space You Need To Follow Your Path With Kristi Vitali
It’s difficult to shift ingrained belief systems to a new place. But it’s necessary if you are to discover your unique inner compass to follow your path. In this episode, Amy Vetter is joined by Kristi Vitali, founder of Be Well Austin Center & Yoga House and the developer of Connective Wisdom, to share the impact her parents had on her belief systems. As you walk through life, there are two paths you can choose: repeat the path your parents walked or follow your own. What will you choose? Join in the conversation to learn what created the courage Kristi needed to choose the latter and set her own path.
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Following Your Inner Compass: Give Yourself The Space You Need To Follow Your Path With Kristi Vitali
Welcome to this episode where I interview Kristi Vitali, whose desire is to facilitate the process of healing via self-discovery and self-awareness so that you can discover and relieve self-limiting behaviors and beliefs and unconscious holding patterns in the body that cause pain and create suffering that holds you back from your best self. Through her integration of the John F. Barnes Myofascial Release Approach, Integrated Life Coaching, Self-Care & Mindfulness based practices, she embarks on this journey with you.
She is a Myofascial Release specialist and a Physical Therapy practitioner of many years, as well as a yoga instructor and certified Life Coach. She is the Founder and Co-Creative Director of Be Well Austin Center & Yoga House. During my interview with Kristi Vitali, we discussed the impact that her parents had on her belief systems and what created the courage she needed to set her own path. Learn how the fabric of our families that extend beyond our parents can repeat.
I am hopeful that with some of these wellness practitioners that I have brought on over the past few months are helpful in your journey of finding what works for you as far as wellness, breaking your belief systems so that you can find those moments of stillness that you need in your day to create less stress and better energy so that you’re better for those people around you. Now for my interview with Kristi.
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I'm here with Kristi Vitali. Kristi, do you want to start off and give us a little background on yourself?
I would love to. Thank you for having me. It's great to be here and a gift to be here. I have been a myofascial release specialist and physical therapist for many years. I've been doing this work. My heart-and-soul work has led me to my work with individuals who have an elevated sense of purpose and a deep commitment to themselves in their life and their healing journey. My work as a physical therapist also dovetails with my work as a personal development coach and a women's health coach. Also, it intertwines with some of the yoga training. Like you, Amy, we combined all of these worlds and mindfulness-based practices. This is the work that I do and calling it connective wisdom.
Especially in the times we've been through in 2020 and everybody's personal lives of things that happen anyways, I felt like this conversation was important to learn about your wisdom for everybody. Let's talk a little bit about your story. Where did you grow up? Maybe tell me a little bit about your family and what they did.
I grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where I was born. Amy, you asked me how to say my name and I said, “Vitali, that's Italian.” I was like, “Vitali. It’s what people call me, Vitali.” I'm honored to have my name. From my birth, this name, Vitali, and the vitality. I carry that name. I carry it lightly. I weave it into what it is that I do and what we're doing here and in these times. My dad was the first generation here and his parents came over from Italy. His father and his mother came over and they met in America when they were in their twenties. My mother's family came from Germany and France. Those are my roots.
How did they end up in Tulsa, Oklahoma?
I know much more about the Italian side of the family. I'll share a little bit about that. They came over through the Port of New Orleans. I know the conversation that you had with Emily and what came up after that. Our ancestors and even one generation back went through a lot of hardship to get here. A lot of them got sick on the boat and died and had malaria once they came to New Orleans. They traveled up the river. They ended first in St. Louis. They were in St. Louis for a while and there are a lot of Italians in St. Louis. My family ended up in a tiny little town off of Route 66 called Fanning, Missouri. The other nearest small town is Cuba, Missouri. The other nearest town is Rolla, Missouri, which there's a university there. My dad did go to that university eventually.
How old was he when he came over?
My grandfather was thirteen and my grandmother was eight. After they met and got married, they opened a general store in Fanning, Missouri. My family are immigrant entrepreneurs. They opened the general store, which also was the post office and the butcher shop. When you were asking this question, I’m like, “It warms my heart.” They were the heart of the community. They provided that. My grandmother's brother opened a tavern next door.
I was visiting my mom. It was her 89th birthday. She's like, “I want you to have this.” My father passed in October of 2020. She's been going through a lot of things from his life. She came across this notebook that my cousin had made. It’s the history of the whole family. She gave it to me with all the pictures. She was showing me that behind the store and the tavern were the houses. Their home was attached to the store. She's like, “We lived in that store.”
When my dad went away to the Korean conflict, my mom who was eight months pregnant, lived there with my grandmother and my grandfather. You can imagine the stories are wild being there with the whole family. All the Italians were there. The tavern was next door. They built houses behind the tavern in the general store where the family lived. Everything was centered around this place and centered around food, drink and nourishment, which is super sweet. My two older sisters were both born there in Cuba, Missouri. My dad is a twin. He and his brother were born in the back of the store to a mother who was 45 years old. At that time, it was unheard of. It's like nothing now at 45.
They were also the hospital.
That makes the rest of us like we have all the birthing centers and all these wonderful things. Look at what they're willing to do. Look at the discomfort. It's a beautiful story of how life centered around that store and the tavern. The tavern is still there and the store got rebuilt. They tore it down and someone rebuilt it. They came here and planted their grapes, made wine and grape jelly, and made their own cheese. They did everything. It’s like a little Italy.
Your father was born there and then where did he go from there?
He was born there and went to high school. He met my mom in high school at Cuba High. They were an item all through high school and then they got married. They got pregnant with my sister.
Was she pregnant in high school?
No. I don't think so. They got married after high school. Soon after they got married, my mom was eight months pregnant. He got drafted. They were young, 21, 22. My dad got drafted and he went away to Korea for sixteen months.
He didn't ever see his daughter.
He came back and she could talk enough to say, “That's my mama.” It’s beautiful to see how my mother was embraced by his family. Her mother and her father died when she was young. They embraced her. That has also been her family since she was in high school. My dad went away to Korea and came back. He had my little sister to contend with. Soon after he came back, he then went to Rolla School of Mines and became an electrical engineer. He was the first in his family to go to college. He changed the mold and he was also the first one to leave there. He went from there. After he finished college, he got job offers all over. There was a great need for engineers at that time. My mom was telling me this. He had job offers in California, on the East Coast and even in New Orleans. He got a job offer in Tulsa. That's how it happened.
Vitali has got Oklahoma.
People are like, “Where are you going?” This was in 1969. The story goes that when my sisters arrived here, my oldest sister, Nancy, was upset. They were eating at this little restaurant and she was upset and she started crying. My mom said, “What's going on?” She said, “Where are the teepees? Where are the horses and the cowboys?” It's like a poem. I don't understand. They thought that there was going to be cowboys here, teepees and hitching up to the post. That was the story. I had people ask me that when I was little, “We have houses.”
Follow Your Path: There are the beliefs that we say we have, and then there are the beliefs that are unconscious deep inside.
Was that from a TV show or something?
It must have been, I’m sure.
Isn’t it interesting that people will view things in a certain way based on visuals they've seen?
It's a beautiful thing. My dad carried on his courage to do something a little bit different and to step out to get his education and do something different than the generations before him. He was an innovator in that way. It was important to him to support his family. The time he went back to school, he had two little girls.
I would also think this is a big shift for the family, too because you were all living around this general store, having a village, rather than you guys being on your own. Has your mom ever reflected upon how hard that change was? If she didn't have her family and his family was her support system, I wonder if that changed her at all during that transition.
Definitely. She's talked about that. It’s interesting. When I was home, we found letters that were from my grandmother. My mom's name is Mary. My parents are Mary and Joseph. We have a baby Jesus in the family. My grandmother, my dad's mother, her name is also Mary. I found letters that were from my grandmother, Mary, to my mom and dad after they had moved. She would write about the simplest things, like, “I saw Aunt Carrie.” She talked about the trees, the weather, and who else she had talked to. She talked about what was happening at the moment. I was moved by that and that availability. Letter writing is a thing of the past. We don't write letters. I feel like when I sit down to write a letter, it needs to be some kind of novel or something that might be telling a story of some kind. She was writing about the moment.
It’s the stream of consciousness.
It’s precious. It made me cry to read the words, “We went to church. We drove back and we stopped at the farm stand.” She was probably missing them.
I'm sure your mom felt isolated.
My mom is like, “We can do this.” My mom got a little bit of fire in her. She’s in charge now and she's still a little spicy. That’s how she saw it. She may have been some of the encouragement behind it, like, “Let's do this.” I'm grateful that they made the move they made. It’s a wonderful home base for all of my siblings. We've all moved away and two of my siblings are back there with their kids. It's a wonderful home base to go back to.
First off, how often did you see your grandparents after that?
I was born after they moved to Tulsa. My grandfather passed before I was born. The only living grandparent I had was my grandmother. She had my father when she was 45. She was 94. When she died, I was only six. I don’t know her well. I met her when as a six-year-old. We would go back probably 2 or 3 times a year and the whole big family would be there. I have lots of cousins. That time was sweet. Missouri wasn't a home for me, but it was a place to visit and get to feel that connection of the huge family. This was a huge network of family in the community that was there. I can only imagine how hard that must have been for my parents to leave, but they didn’t talk about that a lot.
I was going to ask you, from your dad’s or your mom's perspective, how it changed them to leave the family. That's networked in. You're isolated in a town like that very much in the fabric of a family. To not only go to college but take on a whole new lifestyle you've never been used to before is almost like emigrating again.
To me, sometimes it’s overwhelming. I don't know if you think about what they went through to get here. I know you said your family is from Russia. Was there something horrible happening where they were? What was it that was propelling them?
My family was Jewish. They were trying to get to freedom. They were in St. Paul, Minnesota trying to support one another to get out of the situation there. My grandfather became a CPA in the beginning, but it was looked at, like, “This is what's going to get you out of the situation you're in.” He went and helped all of his siblings to get to college. There was one story where he saved up to get his sister a fur coat because he thought she'd find a better husband when she went to college. It’s stuff like that.
With the risks they took and even the first person to go to college, there weren’t scholarships. There weren’t grants. You still had to get accepted. For being Jewish, it was hard to get accepted into a college. It's interesting how do you evolve and how do people still get along. It's like, “Which way is better?” They had this family that was tied together, but then he has to be isolated to change his life. How does that affect the fabric?
When we talk about beliefs, too, there are the beliefs that we say we have and then there are the beliefs that are unconscious deep inside and then knowing what unconscious belief system they had to get them to this new place. Your family is from Russia. My family is from Italy. It was horrible. Mussolini, they ran out of food on the farm. The farm wasn't big enough to feed the family. They risked their life, got on a boat, which they didn't know where they were going.
You’re ending up somewhere. It’s not like you have somewhere to go. There's not a hotel.
They were in this malaria-ridden area when they got to America. They had to fight, but there was something in them that propelled them. I can only think that you and I have that in us. My dad had that, maybe even unknowingly. He was risk-averse. He wanted to stay safe most of the time for him to do that. The bottom line was where they were and for the field that he had chosen, there was no opportunity for an electrical engineer in Fanning, Missouri. He had the family to support. There was a part of him willing to go and I know there was a part of him that was clinging to his mom. His dad already passed by then. Recognizing those parts, what is it that drove them and got them here and our families from across the ocean? There's something operating and driving within them that was part of a belief system that was helpful for them to survive.
How do you think that belief system helped you? Was it something you had to overcome as you grew up?
I know some of it's not conscious. I’m thinking about it and I'm like, “What was I doing?” I love playing sports. I played basketball, softball, track and being active. As a little girl, I was quiet, shy, more reserved. I was good at being the quiet, good girl. I don't want to say even overcome because that part of me is still there and I appreciate her now more. There was that part that probably was driving me to like, “Go do these things anyway.” You might be feeling shy or afraid to talk to somebody, but do it anyway. There's that piece. Those two pieces are balanced. I see that in my dad, taking that direction and trusting that. There's an element of that trust.
In the unconscious self, there are the beliefs, too, that don't serve us. There’s the unconscious belief that can serve as well. Something told me and I trusted it enough to do things anyway. I got involved in Girl Scouts and I was always involved in school. Where I may have been a little bit shy or socially unsure, I still enjoyed those things anyway and I found a way to connect with people. That was nourishing. That probably came through with that thing that’s like, “We know you're afraid but go anyway. Trust what you're feeling.”
Was there any time that proved that to you? You would go back to him and be like, “I pushed myself past my comfort zone.” That's why you started going, “Yes, I'm quiet and shy, but I'll push past it.” Was there a moment that you think changed that or was it something your parents said?
Follow Your Path: Our inner compass allows us to have the roadmap to healing and feeling more whole. Oftentimes, we don’t allow ourselves to listen because we’re in a rush to get to the finish line.
There's a couple of things when you asked me about my parents. My dad was a gentle, quiet soul. He’s a sweet man. I think of him as this gentle love that I feel. My mom was a little different. She’s a little firecracker. He's the gentle soul and he would say things to me. He never would be like, “You need to do this. You need to do that.” I remember him saying to me, “Do what you love.” I was in college, trying to pick a major. I’m like, “I don't know what I want to do. I know I don't want to sit at a desk.” He’s like, “Do something you love.” I'm like, “Dad, I don't know what I love.” When you're in college, you haven't had the experience of working different jobs or working with different people in that way. As you said, you’ve been in a little bit of a bubble with your friends. He would say that to me and there's something about that stuck with me. That propelled me to choose what I chose as my career.
What was your major?
My major was psychology and biology. I did that to prepare for physical therapy. Physical therapy was what I was going for. I knew what I didn't want. I knew I didn't want to sit at a desk. He said, “Do what you love.” I'm like, “I'm not going to do something where I sit at a desk.” I remember my mom specifically, she had been to physical therapy. She said to me one day, “Why don't you come with me to physical therapy? You might like it. It involves the body and exercise.” I was always athletic. She's like, “Why don't come with me to see what it's like?” I went and I’m like, “This is interesting.”
There was that piece of that quieter, reserved, shy one that's inside, who's also unsure or doubts herself in a decision. I can feel that from a young age, wanting to do the right thing and not wanting to hurt any feelings or to be the good girl, “I'm not supposed to do that. I better be good.” There's that piece, which maybe was not the best thing long term. Also, I found a way to move through that and to work with that. He was into this in Girl Scouts. He was the dad that would go on campouts that taught us to use a compass. Have you ever used a compass?
I'm not good at directions.
You think, “A compass is here to help you find your way.” It's complex.
It’s complicated.
He would be five phases and this and that. I'll be like, “I don't understand.” I’d get frustrated and he chuckled. He wasn't like, “You have to figure this out.” He would keep on doing his thing and be like, “Let's try again. Let's do this.” He loved it. He was the compass guy. After he passed, I opened his bedside drawer next to his bed and it blew me away because it was a memory of him I was having. I had the gift of being by his side for the month as he was dying. I see that as a beautiful gift to be with him. There’s so much love there.
He had lost his voice and he couldn't speak. We had to be close in. I shared with him a memory of him being the compass guy on the campout. I was like, “I remember you. You were the one who put up the tent for us.” He was the one that held this gentle container for us in the Girl Scout troop when we were camping. I said, “I remember that compass.” I'm not kidding you, I after he died, I opened the drawer to his bedside table and in the drawer was that freaking compass. It had a Girl Scout emblem on it. He kept it on his bedside table. There was something meaningful for him, too, in that. I still have it. It's by my bedside now. That was his way, to give the compass instead of, “Do that.”
It’s not the end result. It’s more like you find your path to get there.
At the time, it may have been a little frustrating. Now, I'm glad that I had to do that. His gift and his teaching if it were, it wasn't until he was gone that I realized the potency of it in that way. The compass is something that I feel in working with people and doing this connected wisdom and work. It's finding your compass and not someone else's idea of what is right for you. My mom was a little more directive, but she also knew I was shy. She would say, “Why don't you go talk to so and so?” She would give me a little nudge. She encouraged me and recognize what she saw in me.
You had the encouragement and the gentle support. You weren't going to fall if you made some adjustments along the way.
There was the other part of me that wasn't shy and that talked a lot.
You became an entrepreneur as well. How did all that come to be?
Physical therapy offered something that was a stable career. When I applied for PT school, it was competitive. People were like, “You better have a Plan B.” There are 30 positions here and 1,000 people applied. I did have a Plan B and that was to be an occupational therapist. Physical therapy helped give me a container to work with something I was interested in, the body. Since I was a young age, I had a strong desire to help people.
My mom had a dear friend, she was my godmother, Dorothy. She became ill and she was in her late 40s. She is a Type 1 diabetic. She went blind. Her kidneys failed. She and I would take her to dialysis and help her. She had been her dear friend. They played tennis together. I remember there was a moment there where I committed that I want to help people. She was an inspiration to me. That's what physical therapy offered. It was a conduit for finding something that wasn't behind a desk that I enjoyed. I could move my body and I could help people. That's where it started.
Soon after that, I had back pain all through PT school. I’m a runner and I ran off a curb one day. It’s like a lightning bolt went through my leg and my spine. From that day, I had pain for five years and nothing helped. I had sacrum low back pain. I had all kinds of physical therapy treatment. I love physical therapy, but whatever was happening, it wasn't helping me. I thought, “There's something wrong with me.” It wasn't until after PT school, I went to my first myofascial release class. About five days later, after the class, I was like, “My sacrum hasn't hurt in about five days.” I got curious about it. I was like, “What is this?” We learned to release some of the connective tissue. I kept going back to classes.
That led me into the myofascial world, which is my specialty. It was my gateway drug, as I call it, to the healing potential of the body and the infinite wisdom that's contained within the body that's not physical. The entrepreneur piece came through the PT and the myofascial work. I worked in someone else's clinic. I had my little healing crisis. I hit the ceiling where I was working and it would come in the form of my neck hurting this time. My hands and legs would go numb. It was a crisis in my life. I had to stop working. It was upsetting. I was terrified. That led me to a lot of deep work around sharing my voice, my truth and asking for what I want or what I need. That was difficult.
I had to ask for help. I couldn't do things. It was horrible. It was terrifying for me to ask someone to lift a box. That was my crisis and I had to move my way through that at that moment. I had to leave my job. I left my starter marriage, which was a lovely thing but all of these things happen at once. I started my practice when I could barely move my body, but I had to do it. I needed to make money. I remember my schedule would fill and I'd be like, “I don't think I can do this. Why are these people calling me? Don't they know?” I would go work and there was something grounding about it.
In myofascial work, we're connecting to the body and hands-on. We're also connecting to the energy of the person. We have to become present, first, in our self. That's required. That's what healed me, doing the work. I did receive work but my neck had a disk that was unstable. I couldn't even get treated in that way. Showing up for my clients, my patients, I had to show up for myself first, be grounded and centered to put my hands on them with whatever was going on there. That was how my practice started. I worked out of my house.
That's applicable to many professions when you're dealing with customers or clients. I had an interaction through email with somebody and you're like, “Whatever that person is dealing with within their day, they didn't take a moment to be present before they sent that email.” We often forget that we’re there to serve others no matter what our job is because we get wrapped up in all the other things that we've got in our day or demands we have. It turns into excuses. One of the things that I've heard over and over again for stress or behavior that maybe you don't see yourself as doing that before is like, “It's COVID.” Sometimes when that's the challenge in our life, going through the hardest stuff is to be uncomfortable and still show up in the way we want to show up.
You hit on something that I wrote down. Part of this is like, “Are we willing to get comfortable with being uncomfortable?”
Not blame the outside for it. If it's not COVID, it's something. You dealt with the death of your father. The death of your father would have happened COVID or not. I had a teacher training class soon after quarantine. Things were going wrong for the people in the class with deaths and other things going on in their families. They kept saying, “It's COVID.” I said, “It's interesting because these things would have happened anyway but we had to sit in it.” Normally, we'd be running around, traveling, be busy at work, or whatever it is. Because of this, we've had to sit in it and feel it and we can't escape it.
Follow Your Path: The Serenity Prayer says, “Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
I use the lotus flower a lot. It resonates with me. It's that mud that we grow something beautiful. When you stop for a moment and taking your story, you went through all that but look at this beautiful thing you've created for other people of how you’re healing them. It’s also a representation of honoring your parents and the guidance of the compass. There's not a right path. You followed your inner guidance but know through hard work and passion there's going to be a result that's good for you and the people around you. It's finding that pathway. People always want the answer. We get uncomfortable when we don't know the answer. There have been many times I haven't known the answer. What do I know? What can I control and focus on?
I have this thing on my bathroom wall, the Serenity Prayer. I see it all the time.
Do you want to read it for those that can't see it?
The Serenity Prayer says, “Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” That describes what you're saying. It's like the COVID thing. There are certain things we need to accept about life. This the bubble that we're in. We all bought the ticket to this ride. It's knowing the difference. There are things that we can change and move forward with anyway and having the courage to confront those things. Follow the little breadcrumbs or the little yeses that you get or watch for the noes. There are some of it that we can’t change. Work with what we can and then let the rest go. The prayer there, the ask is for the wisdom to know the difference. I see this COVID bubble. It used to be close to us for a while. It was like, “COVID, COVID” every minute.
It's still something people will blame.
It’s an edge. You can feel it and it's not directly in our face. It's out here and we have a little more spaciousness. When stuff happens, it hits against that wall. It still intensifies things. It's the container. We've gotten used to the container, then we forget and then something else happens. There's a lot of loss happening of all kinds, loss of jobs, loss of careers, loss of family members. Not just from COVID, but it does ricochet off of the bubble and it gets intense.
That wisdom is to trust your inner compass. Any of us know when we go against it and we feel it. That guidance your father is giving you goes along with the prayer is to have the courage to listen to it and to honor it. Most of the time, you'll fight it with your rational mind and be like, “No, that won't work. That's not safe. That's not the right path to go.” Something inside of you is viscerally saying, “You need to walk this path and it will come out in some way.”
I don't want to say it's easy for you and me to say it. I know you have had a practice for a long time. I said, “There is no retreat or meditation I could do or yoga practice that compares to the learning I had being next to my dad as he was dying.” He's like, “All of the practices you've been doing for all of the years is for this.” I know you've had practice. The students that are in your classes and the students in my classes and my clients who come to me for either coaching or myofascial work, they maybe didn't have a practice or maybe there was some crisis in their life or pain in their body that led them. You are sharing that when you work with people. You are even channeling that through your work that's not in the yoga realm. It's uniting the mind in the body. There's a gift in that.
I'm sure you've heard this even from people who practice yoga even a little bit or any mindfulness presence practice. Like, “What do people do who don't know that there's an internal resource?” I'm like, “Exactly.” I feel a burning desire to share that as much as possible that there is an internal resource because we can see what happens with people who don't know they have the tools. We all have them. You can see it out there, the craziness going on. I feel that is the result of not having a relationship with yourself.
That's the connected wisdom.
It's possible. It's available, but if you've never reached it and you're in a crisis, that's the hardest time. That's why we do all of our practices.
I talk about it with my teachers and trainers. It's like insurance. You can't get insurance when you need it. Like what you’re talking about with your father, this is one of those things where it clicked in without intention because you've been practicing it. You knew how to be present for him and not make it about you. It’s hard to try to do all that in a crisis. I went through hard things. I was like, “I clicked into breathing and I didn't even mean to.” It’s like, “I’m doing this,” and then reacting in a way you don't want to react. We could go on forever. I'd like to end with some rapid-fire questions. Pick a category, family and friends, money, spiritual or health?
I'm going to go spiritual, but it covers everything.
Things or actions I don't have that I want?
It might sound like focus or discipline. I could use more.
You talked about that in your younger phases of making a decision.
Discipling is remembering what you want. I could use more of that.
Taking out the noise. Things or actions I do have that I want?
It’s the connective wisdom piece. The willingness to go deep inside and get uncomfortable when something's going on. I feel things stirring up in me. I'm going to Sedona. I'm going to lead a retreat. In general, anytime going to Sedona, your stuff gets stirred up.
You’ve been there.
It's this healing place. It's a wonderful place. It’s a repository to take your stuff and leave it, but it stirs up before you go. I am grateful for what I have and the awareness of that wisdom going deep.
Things or actions I don't have that I don't want spiritually or health?
I don't have the desire to watch the news.
Follow Your Path: We're all here in our bodies, so why don't we see the body's communication as information for us?
I keep getting made fun of it. I canceled cable. I have no idea what's going on. Someone would be like, “Did you know that happened?” I’m like, “Nope.”
If I need to know, I'm going to find out.
Someone will tell me.
No one is going to tell me. I’ll hear it. My sister will text me. I'm okay with that.
Things or actions that I do have that I don't want?
It's like what you and I are doing. I don't even want to say that I want it, but I could have no concept of time. It's wonderful but sometimes, in the world of an entrepreneur and having appointments and sessions, it's helpful.
You got to have an end.
It’s more like that container.
Is there anything that we didn't cover or anything you want to leave the readers with?
We said so much that was in my heart and we built on that. Probably that piece of us recognizing that we do have this internal and infinite wisdom that is based on the body. When we have a pain in our body or if it's even something that's recurrent or headaches or back pain or pelvic pain, whatever it is, belly aches, digestive issues, that's our body speaking to us. When we take the time and answer that call of the body, saying hello to something that's going on in your body or putting your hand where your body's hurting is you being in the present moment. That's an expansive thing. That's a piece that is meaningful. We all have a body. We're all here in our bodies, so why don't we see the body's communication as information for us?
If you go to my website, KristiVitali.com, I do have a lot of information. I have my blog posts that talk a lot about that, the emotional component, the whole big picture of authentic and complete healing in our wholeness. Parts of us get split up in a crisis, but we learn to include all of the parts of us. I write a lot about that. I'm going to have connected wisdom circles. I'm going to have some more of these. I have some coaching programs. We do have what we call RORR, Release On the Red Rocks retreat, that I'm having twice a year. We do have one spot left. Amy, if you want to come out to Sedona.
That's too hard to resist. I was with you in September. It was amazing.
We’ll be there in September again. It's wonderful to be in nature and to be on the Red Rocks. There's something special there. Most of our retreat is all outdoors. People get one-on-one treatments and sessions if they want that. It's the whole yummy package and being able to leave your daily life for a little bit and the patterns of daily life to get away. Know that it exists.
Thank you for sharing your wisdom and stories with all of us. I appreciate you being here.
I appreciate being here. Thank you for having me on, Amy.
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For my Mindful Moments, during my interview with Kristi, which actually could have gone on probably for even longer, but I enjoyed learning about her grandparents and how the effect of that community, village that her grandparents created through their immigration in the United States and becoming entrepreneurs early on and how they built up not only their businesses but where they lived all around each other. Center their lives around their community impacted her parents that eventually impacted herself as she was moving on into adulthood. In this conversation, much of it was centered around her father, who had the courage to breakaway from a small town and took a risk to change the trajectory of her family of going to college. The hard work that she not only saw from her family in their small town, but also through her father of building a career and what that took.
She talked about how she started off as shy and quiet when she was young and how she learned from the courage that she watched her father and the support that she got from her mother as well that she called more fire that inspired her to do what she loved. Have the courage to break free from any pre-conceived motion of what she thinks she should be versus what resonates with it. One thing that I think was important is sometimes we define ourselves by a role or a career or a title. When she was looking for what she wanted to do with her career, one thing she did know was that she did not want to sit at a desk. Sometimes those are the things we have to figure out before we’re deciding would a career fit with us or not. She also had this background of being very athletic, physical and understanding how she could mold that into a career.
One of the things that resonated with her was her relationship with her father and in Girl Scouts of him having this compass. This compass strong through her entire story all the way to his passing of maybe never knowing the answer, but giving space to the journey of where you need to go. I think for many of us we’re always trying to jump to the finish line or the answer or the result rather than following that inner compass and enjoying the journey as we learn, grow and noticing along the way those success points. Even when we go through hard times whether that’s in our career, family life, personally, whatever that has be, is how do we sit with the uncomfortable. Make sure that we are not jumping ahead of it and not learning from the uncomfortable moments. It’s in those uncomfortable moments that we learn and grow the most.
Also understand where we’re putting our energy, are we shifting too much to think that we cannot control? What are the things we can control? When we’re going through hard times, how do we assess that and observe that for ourselves? The only times we can do that is when we get still. We allow ourselves to observe and as thoughts come up for us, we can ask the question, can we control it or can we not control it? If we cannot control it, how do we release that? How do we allow that to be released from our body? Whatever that might through physical activity, meditation, if we’re going to get a massage, go for a walk. Whatever we need to do to release the things that we cannot control so that our brain is not targeting those things and actually sitting in the things that we can and making a true list of that.
We talked about the infinite wisdom that we have in our bodies when we choose to listen, observe. That inner compass that allows us to have the roadmap to healing and feeling more whole and what is the path to get there. Oftentimes, we don’t allow ourselves to listen because we’re in a rush to get to the finish line or to feel better or whatever that is. Sometimes that listening process exposes the most important things that we need to know in order to get to the other side and feel whole again. I want thank you for reading this interview. Hopefully, you are able to take as many great nuggets away as I was. If you think that it would help someone, please share, subscribe to this show and share some of the stories that you’ve read as well. Thank you for your support of this show and reading these episodes, hopefully that you’re finding that they’re helping you in your daily life as well.
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About Kristi Vitali
Your Wholeness Is Vital. ..now more than ever!
Why wholeness? It is my belief that everything is connected - that we cannot separate the physical (i.e. pain) from the mental, emotional, or spiritual aspects of our being. I believe that the body is a holistic self-correcting system and contains all of the information needed to heal itself. I believe that the root of physical pain might not only be physical itself but has origins in our belief systems and values held deep within and that accessing these systems together is
the key to vibrant health!
It is my innermost desire to facilitate the process of healing via self-discovery and self-awareness with you, so that you can discover and release self-limiting behaviors & beliefs, and unconscious holding patterns in the body that cause pain and create suffering, holding you back from being your best feeling self. Through my integration of the John F. Barnes Myofascial Release Approach, Integrated Life Coaching, Self Care & Mindfulness-based practices, we embark on this inner journey together. As Victor Frankl says, "If you don't go within, you simply go without."
I am a Myofascial Release specialist and Physical Therapy practitioner of over 23 years, as well as a yoga instructor, and certified Life Coach. I am the Founder and Co-Creative Director of Be Well Austin Center & Yoga House in Austin, Texas. I began my training in 1997 with John F. Barnes, PT, and have taught nationally, presenting the John F. Barnes Myofascial Release Approach to physicians and therapists around the country.
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