Get a Stronger Body, Sharper Mind, and Stress-Proof Life with Aaron Alexander

Welcome to True Grit and Grace, a podcast designed to empower you to claim your resilience and thrive through life's challenges. I am Amberly Lago, a mindset coach, fitness expert, and bestselling author. Each week, I'll dive deep with the world's brightest thought leaders and elite performers to share tangible tools and practical advice to inspire you to keep your eyes on the prize and forge ahead. So get ready to conquer your fears, heal any trauma, lead with your heart, and elevate your life with grit and grace. Hey, and thank you for being here. How are you doing? We're in the middle of this crazy coronavirus pandemic, and I have to say, it was such a breath of fresh air to get to sit with my next guest. I think you're going to find it very informative as well as entertaining, because I certainly was entertained. I interview Aaron Alexander. He was in the middle of sunbathing, but took time to share his pearls of wisdom with us. And so we talk about everything from toilet paper to sunbathing to shifting your perspective, finding peace, and finding your purpose. And we also talk about his amazing book, which is a bestseller, the Align Method. He has an aligned podcast, and when he's not busy doing his podcast or writing or speaking because he's a busy, busy guy, you can find him on the beach, Muscle Beach. You can find him in Santa Monica doing crazy acrobatic tricks that I actually want to try with him. He is a pioneering manual therapist and movement Coach with over 16 years of professional experience whose clients range from a list Hollywood celebrities to professional athletes and everyone in between. So hang on and get ready to be entertained and informed by this beautiful soul, Erin Alexander. Hello and welcome back to the show. I have Erin Alexander here. How are you?

I'm doing so well. I'm actually nude sunbathing right now. During this conversation. I didn't tell.

Okay, I can't see that. I can see, like a light over your head.

See a light. You see a light.

I see a light. I see a light.

Yeah, we didn't mention before, but yeah, I am actually in the buff. Sun in my cheeks right now. I'm very grateful for this moment.

Thanks for sharing that. Well, you know what you make the most out of every moment? You really live the lifestyle of what you talk about in your book and in what you do. You make every moment, even recording a podcast, something to do for your body and to feel better. And I think we could all use some tips on just how to feel better and do better. I Want to get into a little bit about who you are and how you got to live this lifestyle. And I have to say I love your book. In fact, I actually cried. I got a little teary eyed in parts of your books because it really hit home some of the things that you said. But your childhood was a little rough at some times. Can you tell me what you went through that kind of inspired you to be who you are today?

Hmm. Well, I am tentative to overly attached to any one particular like story of what led to what but what you're referring to. That was kind of an interesting time in my human experience here was my dad got deeply engaged with crack cocaine and he was like at the absolute end of his life and about as dark as a person could go without just like leaving this world. And he ended up going to prison and this whole thing. And that happened around when I was like 17 or so. And then that was, you know, he was getting involved in that stuff. Before that he was like actually a pretty cool dad and now he's actually doing quite well. He's like getting married and he's in love and all this stuff. Yeah, it's really, really exciting. But that was a really interesting time to get to witness the impact that that had on my body and also emotions. I kind of went through a timeframe of like, you could call it like anhedonia, you know, where I just felt like numb to the world, which was, you know, at the time of. It's just kind of like, okay, this is the way that I feel. And now in retrospect, it actually makes a lot of sense that I would begin to numb. And it's kind of like antibiotics, you know, they don't have a way of knowing what they're killing. They kind of just kill it all off. With your emotions or with my emotions in that place. It's like, okay, I want to repress this specific sensation, but then in doing that it pulls the whole system down into just global repression.

It does, yeah.

Which. So that was very interesting. And then that kind of transferred over into me packing a lot of biological support in the form of like bodybuilding and putting as much muscle in my body as humanly possible in as short a time as possible. And that led to a bunch of imbalances. And then it's been like this probably at least professionally, 16 year journey of kind of putting the pieces back together. But I would say looking at it from more of like an introspective, more like meaningful approach, it's been more like the last like 13 years or so of starting to really think about how do I put these pieces back together and more seek balance as opposed to just seeking cushioning in the form of superficial shows of physical prowess, essentially.

Yeah. And I love that you share that it has taken years to put the pieces together and figure out how to make everything a little more balanced. And because sometimes, you know, people think like with me, it took me years after my motorcycle accident where I wasn't out on social media posting stuff, I was like in my little cave repairing and emotionally, you know, in every aspect physically. And it took a long time of really healing before I could be out there in the world trying to teach what I learned through the process. And so I like that you share that. It took years. This has been years in a process.

It didn't take years, nothing completed. Like I'm still, as anyone is still completely in process, you know, and so that's like I would say my puzzle's not put together.

Yeah, I don't think mine is ever. I think that the key to life is to keep learning and growing. And you know, I love learning and growing. That's one of the reasons I really loved reading your book too, because I love so many things about what you say about moving the way you want to feel. So there's a lot of days, most days I wake up and you should have seen me this morning. So I went on like a seven mile hike yesterday and I woke up, I swear I was walking like a 90 year old cowboy that had been ridden hard and put up wet. I'm like, okay, I got to walk. Like I want to feel like I was thinking of your book. Okay, I gotta walk and move like I want it. So I was like, okay, even though it really hurts to take every step, stand up tall, pull my shoulders back and just move. And what are some of the ways that you can do like a process of walking or moving like you want to feel? What do you do? Like if you wake up, are you ever in pain?

I've gone through times with more of that. Presently I'm actually in a pretty good way. But the big thing is looking at your lifestyle as just this whole aggregation of opportunities, you know, and so let me take this thing down. Actually, I have a wind chime in the background. Is that wind chime bothering you?

I kind of like it.

Oh, you like it?

Yeah.

Okay, should we take a. I wish listeners could take a vote right now. Are people pro wind chime at any time? You let me know if you want me to Take that wind chime down. I can make that happen.

It's kind of relaxing.

Well, so the wind chime is an interesting example of how you can start to incorporate subtle variables in your life that they add up and actually begin to have really massive impact. So having like soothing sounds in your environment, just because we're talking about wind chime, you know, or having a water burbler or throwing a pond in your backyard or whatever it may be, that will cause your nervous system to start to down regulate into more of a rest digestive healing type state. If your nervous system is all spooled up, wound up tight, then your muscles, your neuromuscular system will end up getting all spooled up and wound up tight as well. And now all of a sudden, I have this tight neck and tight throat and tight jaw and tight back and all these different parts. And it's like, well, have you observed just. This is just one environment, your soundscape, you know, what's your home sound like? Are you maybe surrounded by traffic and horns and all that stuff, you know? And then from there you could say, okay, what?

And right when you got a little higher when you said that, by the way.

Yeah, right, exactly. If it gets windier, we'll have to take these things down, but we'll keep it going till then, you know. So that would be one variable that one could isolate. Okay, what does the soundscape of my world look like? And how does that affect my autonomic nervous system? You know? So another perspective that one could look at would be as far as, like, mobility throughout the day is what is the shape of my house? What is the shape of my office? What is the shape of my travel situation? And so during those time frames, your body is always in a place of building and construction. You know, you continually have. The scaffolding is continually breaking, bracing up around your body. And you have these builder cells called fibroblasts. And then you have the breaker down cells called fibroclasts and osteoblasts. And osteoclasts. And these cells are continually constructing your human experience, constructing your postural patterns. And so throughout the day, if you put yourself in positions, just sitting in chairs a lot and kind of having that forward head posture thing, having the rolled forward shoulders and contract hands and the carpal tunnels and all that stuff, and that's the shift shape of your world. You have really no choice other than to succumb to that shape. So in cellular biology, there's a guy called Bruce Lipton that's really Fascinating. He wrote a book called Biology of Belief, and I think I got this from there. Essentially, if you have a cell in a petri dish, you don't look. And you want to change the cell. You don't look at what's happening in the cell itself. You look at what's happening in the environment and how the environment actually directly kind of controls the actions of that cell. So you are this cell inside of your environment, being your home, being your relationships, being your business, being your country, your culture, all of that. It goes, forms your thoughts, forms your perspectives, forms the way that you produce your hormones. It forms your whole thing, you know, and so one approach, there's also inside out approach, you know, that you could say, okay, well, I can control my inside and kind of affect the outside. I think that's true, too. But I think you just. You hit it from both ends, so. And I'll wrap this up soon. Look at your home environment, you know, look at the petri dish surrounding the cell and say, okay, cool. When I walk into my house, I have, you know, a couch, and then I have a table in front of that that I put whatever books and the remote control and a trophy or something, you know, and then I have the dinner table, and then I have chairs around that. And then I don't really have much space for anything else in here. I have all these tables and couches and chairs. And then I got the TV screen on the wall and, okay, what can I do in this home? Well, I can pretty much sit in that same position that I've been in since I was put in a stroller, then a child seat, and then kindergarten on into adult life. It's like, okay, you bend your hips at this angle, bend your knees at that angle, kind of hunch forward a little bit, and start staring into the screen. So for us to elect that to be the shape of our home and that to be the shape of our office, especially we have. The choice is, in my illusion, completely, like, insane. You know, like, when you come home, it's like, that's an opportunity for you to starfish out and for you to be cool. I have spaciousness in the living room, and I have maybe floor cushions. I have maybe, like, a comfy rug that's, like, inviting. It makes you want to take your hips and your ankles and your knees and your spine and your lymphatic fluid and everything through that full range of motion and get all the way down to the ground and all the way back up, you know, now, while I'm down there. It's like, oh, my partner's making dinner. You know, I'm down here on the ground. It's like, let's eat on the ground. That'd be crazy. That'd be wild. You're like, now all of a sudden we're eating on the ground and we're like touching each other's knees as we're doing this. We're kind of leaning up against each other. And now I'm in this position. And then afterwards, like, we decide to play on the ground, you know, now we're like rolling on the ground. You're like, we're massaging our bodies. We're having this human contact. So many variables just get stacked up in that. Just because you change the shape of what's inside of that petri dish.

Yeah. And you know, like our living room, we have furniture that's low to the ground and I have rollers, all kind, like three different rollers in the living room. So we're rolling. Last night I was rolling my lats, rolling my back, you know, rolling my glutes, whatever I could just to be on the ground and then right outside. Of course, now, because all the gyms or clothes, we have a gym which is not equipment, it's a rope and kettlebell and mat, like, stuff like that that we can do in the garage. But it does. And so much of your environment really has an impact on you and the community and the people that you surround yourself with. That's why I'm always like, get rid of the doggy downers in your life and stick with the puffy uppers.

And they are just the way that the, you know, having some chimes in your world or having some water in your world, the way that those sounds, they tune your nervous system. And you can think of it just like any baby. You know, babies are really good with this. They're very honest. No. So if a voice comes into the room that the baby no likey, they, ah, like, nervous system can't handle it, bro. Like, you gotta talk to me like Goo Goo Gaga, like have, like, that's how I'll respond, you know. And so adults are the same way. You know, there's the Albert Morabian's, a UCLA professor that I referenced in the book. And he came up with a thing called the 55387 principle that you probably remember. And that 55% of our communication comes from body language. And then 38 is tonality. And then 7% is the words that we're speaking that's if there's incongruence between my tone, the way that my body moves, and what I actually say to you with 93% efficiency, you will trust the tone and the way that I speak to you as opposed to the actual words that I'm saying. So when you are hanging out with your friends, your friend group, your community, your tribe, pay attention to what's the tone of this room? You know, what's the body language of this room? Because you don't have much of a choice. Maybe you do have a choice, actually. But unless you're really paying attention, your body will naturally be attuning and matching the shapes and the sounds of your environment, of the people around you, so you can be happy.

Kids start to talk like their parents do and the same tone that their parents do.

Yeah.

But I think that when you grow up in an environment where you've had trauma, experienced trauma, and you have to really be aware of body language and tone for your own safety, I think that you grow up with a more awareness to other people's body language. You know, it's kind of like being cop. You know, my husband's a cop, and we can walk into a room and he's already, like, screaming, scoped out the whole room, and he can be like, that guy's dirty. Nope, that guy's got a gun. Like, he scopes out the whole room. Or he will tell me something about. He was like, I call him my BS detector because he will always check people out. I'm like, how do you know? He's like, it's what kept me alive. I know, but I think we do. We are affected by people's tone. And I had a discussion with my daughter, and at school, she started getting sent to the principal's office, and I was like, what is going on? And she was hanging around with some kids that were doing all kinds of things, getting in trouble, and she was in tears, and she goes, but, mama, I didn't do it. And I said, but you were hanging around the kids that did it, so you're guilty by association. And before long, you will be doing that. So I think it's really important to look at who we're surrounding ourselves with, and if, you know, are they sparking joy in us or are they, like, reinforcing bad behaviors or making it seem like our bad behaviors are okay.

Yeah. Then you also have to be cognizant of just being aware that your filter may be set to see the whole world as being a threat. That's ptsd. Where you see, someone closes a computer on top of my cold plunge right now. Someone closes the lid on the cold plunger. Oh, my God. You perceive that as something like 20x more than what it is. So I think it's a very valuable thing as well to just continually being questioned of yourself, you know, and, okay, cool. I have this sense, I have this experience, you know, Trust your gut for sure, and continually come back and see, like, okay, is this some old patterning that's actually not serving me in this situation? Is everything actually quite fine? And now I'm creating a situation where there never really was a situation, but now there is, because I've created a situation.

Yeah.

You know, so I think there is value in one, just checking yourself, and two, also actually practicing seeing the light and the positivity in situations. Because in every moment, like, there's two sides of the coin, you know, and like this interesting moment that we're going through in the world with the whole, you know, pandemic stuff, you know, it's like, okay, what are the positives that can come out of these moments? You know? And I think if you are practiced to see the world as opportunities, then that's just the way that you perceive it. No matter what, you can't change the thing. The thing is the thing. This is it. You know, you can go from the inside and augment your perspective, which gets into like, Viktor Frankl and logotherapy. And he's heard. Man search for meeting. Are you familiar with this one? Man search for Meeting?

No, no, I'm not. But I'm all about shifting your perspective on things.

Yeah.

So man search for that a lot,

but I don't know, check it out, you'll love it.

What is it again?

It's called Man's Search for Meaning. Victor Frankl, he was a survivor.

Oh, from the Holocaust.

Holocaust, yeah, exactly. So he was a psychologist, I think would be the term for him. And his approach he referred to as logotherapy. And so a lot of the stuff of, like, knowing your why you can survive anyhow. That's all Viktor Frankl stuff. So come to that place of like, what is your why? You know, coming from that place, it's like, yeah, you can kind of get through most anything if you stay in that lane and you actually have that question at hand, you know. And so his big thing, though, is he would call himself more. He said, I'm more of an optometrist than a psychologist. So all I'm doing is just adjusting the way that people see now. So when you walk into a room, there is the environment itself, like we were referring to before. But then there's the other side of the rope, which is how do you paint the environment from the inside out? You know, so I'm not 100% one way or the other. I think it's just two sides of the coin in most situations. So the way that the petri dish, the environment of the cell affects the cell, I think there is that. That's huge. But I think that the cell does have some degree of control of what they create in the environment based off of the lens that they perceive it through. And so I think that's so true.

I mean, when I was in the hospital and I woke up from a coma and they said, well, we gotta amputate your leg. It's like a war wound. You only have a 1% chance of saving it. That 1% chance was my glimmer of hope. And so I chose to focus on the 1% chance as, okay, well, there's a 1% chance I'm going to do everything I can for the next months to get through surgery after surgery to save my leg. And they saved it. But if I would have focused on the 99% chance of not being able to save it, then I would have lost hope. I would have had a negative mindset. Who knows if I would have saved my leg. I think so much of it is how we perceive it and just our mindset.

Yeah. And then maybe if you did lose the leg, maybe that would lead to all sorts of amazing things. We'd be having this conversation and you'd be so eternally grateful for the fact that the leg went away. Cause that led to this and that and the other. You know, it's like that story. I'm not going to tell the whole story because I'll just mess it up anyway. But the story of the farmer with their son and the son falls off a horse and then do you know this story? Falls off the horse and the neighbor comes over is like, oh my God, what terrible luck that your son fell off the horse. I'm totally messing this up. It's just the gist of the story. Terrible luck. Your son fell off of the horse and they' well, we'll see, you know. And then all of a sudden a war breaks out and there's the draft and like, oh, well, because your son broke his leg, he can't be drafted. And then the neighbor comes over, is like, oh my God, like, what great luck that your son fell off of the horse. And then. And then father says, oh, well, we'll see, we'll see, we'll see. And it just kind of goes on in that for a while. You get the point. It's like, no matter what the situation is, in the end, it's like, we'll see, we'll see, we'll see.

Yes, I love that. We'll see, we'll see, we'll see. Because you know what? I don't think I would be probably sitting here having a conversation with you sunbathing right now. I'm sure now I'm inspired. Like, I'm kind of chilling.

Get your cheeks out, girl.

I'm gonna get outside.

You gotta get them out. Open up the solar panels. It's time. The world's ready.

If not now, when? So you know what?

That's what I'm saying.

Gotta go for it. But you know what? I heard that it really hit home when you said, if they would have amputated my leg, well, that would have been the easier solution. And I probably would have gone with my life just the way it was. I probably would have continued training just the way it was. I would have never written a book. I wouldn't be where I am right now. And I think a lot of times when we go through hard times, we don't understand why. But if we get caught up and why me? Why is this happening? Instead of, okay, what's next? What can I do? How can I thrive?

The only thing you have control over, you know, like, this is like, in 2020, everyone's, like, super hyped up. This is my year, you know, like, all of a sudden. Well, we didn't predict that the global economy would essentially shut down for, you know, it's like, okay, cool. So, like, I'm in control. I got this, man. Like, well, now, you know, a high percentage of businesses inevitably will have to. At least won't be able to pay rent, whatever that looks like. I don't know, you know, and that was just a week before. It's like, oh, man, we're hyping, man. We got. It's like the only thing you have control over in this lifetime is the glasses that you perceive the world through. And I think it's wise to put really invest energy into those lenses because in the end, we're all going to leave this body at some point. And it's like, what was your experience while you passed through? What was the impact that you had on other people while you're here? What was the impact you had on yourself? How much time did you spend imprisoned inside of your thoughts? And then you get to the point where you are exiting this point of concentration that you know, you call you, or I call me or whatever, you know, and you're like, oh my God. You find the release in that moment and you're like, oh my God, I've been in prison for the last 50 years and now I'm having this glimmer of letting go.

I think this will give people the gift of perception or the gift of perspective. I hope it does. You know, like, you'll say, we'll see,

we'll see, we'll see, we'll see, we'll see, we'll see. It's an interesting thing. There's another book called Paradise Made in Hell that's a really helpful book to people to check out right now actually. You know, and it's all about how different, really seemingly tragic quotation moments in history were for the people involved. Moments in their lives, they prize more than anything, you know, and they value those moments so much because it was the first time that we let go of, okay, this person has this much money or this person has this much Instagram followers, or they go mailing list or they go, whatever car, whatever it is, like, okay, none of that matters. We, like, we are in this boat together, the town is flooding, we need to get out. You're my brother, you're my sister. Let's work together to make this thing happen. And like, that's the time that people really turn on, you know, and like your deeper, kind of more, I don't know, animal self, spiritual self, higher self, I think can come online and be like, okay, all this ego structure stuff aside, you're my brother, you're my sister, let's go. The whole pandemic thing is kind of interesting because it has the potential of turning people again against each other or bringing them closer together or bringing closer together. It depends on how it goes. But like when you look at other people, I've had this interesting moment of, kind of fascinating moment the other like five days ago or something like that of like looking at people not as people, but as like carriers, you know. And so you see this John, 36 year old carpenter, you know, wife Sally, all that. You see John moving around the world, but then beyond that it's like, well, you could pull different layers back and see John as being this bacterial organism and he has an infection and it's all of a sudden he's a, he's a threat to society. And it's like oh, my God. Like, there's so many different ways to perceive humans. It's something that I would in my own self. And what I'm like, harping on my own podcast and social media and all that stuff is to really see people with great amounts of compassion and see, like, focus on the people lens, you know, like, really make sure you hang on tight to that people lens and love them more because of a situation like this as opposed to having greater fear.

I've been hiking too, and you see people on the trail sometimes, and they all walking far away from you. And it's really interesting to see some of the people, how they look at you. Like, some they have fear in their eye. Some they're looking at me like I have the virus and they're gonna catch it from me. And so I've just been smiling at everybody.

Gotcha.

Hi, how you doing? Because I feel like our. Just like this virus can spread. What can really spread is our compassion, our kindness, our empathy towards others. And I think that's contagious.

And so everything is contagious. Yeah, that's the whole thing is everything is contagious. You are continually attuning when you walk into a room. Not only are you inoculating each other to each other's bacterias and breathing everybody in and from, you know, endorphins and all the chemicals that are coming off of people, like, that's all going. You. Like we're becoming each other, each other by being in the room with each other. But you're also attuning to each other's facial gestures. Just like you're experiencing on the trail when you see somebody, you literally, like, you are being played by the way that they move and by the way the mannerisms that they have and the way their eyes are and their lips and they're like all those subtle little. There's a guy called Paul Ekman. I've had him on my podcast. He's like the top 10 most cited psychologist, specifically around body language. And so he studied various different cultures around the world. Particularly Papua New guinea was a place that he spent a lot of time. And he was studying the facial gestures of those people. And his hypothesis was that facial gestures are universal around the world. And so, like, if you're happy or you're scared or any of that, he came up with 10,000 distinct facial gestures for every person having a distinct meaning. So he has a whole book. He's got several books, actually, and Charles Darwin. His belief was that facial gestures were not universal. And Ekman's belief was that they were other people. You know, it was kind of two worlds with it. And so he went around and studied all this stuff and found there is that universal meaning of the shapes that we make our face. What's not consistent everywhere, the things that you do or learn, which make much sense is like gestures, obviously, hand signals and whatnot. Like, people in Papua New guinea aren't like, flashing like, crip signs or something like that. That's not a natural thing. Yeah, but the subtle facial gestures, that's a universal communication tool that goes much deeper than any language you've ever heard, you know, so that's something that is the global human language, which is the way that your body moves when you communicate. So when you're walking out in the world, you can tell somebody is the last thing I'll say. I apologize for being so quotatious.

No, no, I love it.

There's a fellow, Thich Nhat Hanh, who everybody's probably familiar with, and he's got a. Something I've heard from him is that when there was refugees getting on boats in Vietnam and everyone's stuffed on and they're panicking and freaking out, he said, all it takes is one person to remain calm, to be able to send that signal of calmness throughout the boat. So it's like, in interesting moments that are challenging, like a car accident or something like that. All it takes is one person to maintain those spectacles of. Okay, this is what it is. I am calm. I am compassionate.

I see opportunities right now, and I see it in my youngest daughter because my husband and I have been very calm and playful and we've been enjoying each other's company and like I said, working out together, eating together more, because I'm actually not traveling now. And so my youngest daughter, who's 11, We've been going out for hikes and adventure every day, getting outside. And it wasn't until I was talking to my oldest daughter, who is a last responder, and she's in Santa Cruz and she's in, like, the thick of dealing with people that have died from the virus and stuff like that. And I was on the phone with her, and I had her on speaker, and she was very panicky sounding and very saying, you have to go out and wear gloves. You have to wear gloves. Like, she's scared and she's seeing all this stuff, and she's like, stay in. Scrub the house down. It wasn't until I had her on speaker and I was talking to her after that my youngest daughter Was like, mama, I'm scared. And so I had to reassure her, baby, we're safe, we're okay. We're being careful about the situation. But it was interesting to see the calm to chaos very quickly started to happen. And it's what I'm seeing everywhere. Our friend just sent us a text message of him standing in line at Costco, and the line is down the street, people freaking out over toilet paper. And I've heard your.

I don't think that's gonna make things any better.

Yeah. And by the way, you guys listening? He has a podcast. It's incredible. I love it. I was listening to one of your episodes, and just the last part, you were giving tips about everything that's going on. In the last part about you talking about toilet paper, you were like, I haven't used toilet paper in years.

Toilet paper is a silly thing. It doesn't make any sense. We can discuss why that is if you want.

Well, we've talked about a whole new lens on toilet paper. Like, a whole new way I look at it.

Yeah, it's the lenses. Yeah, exactly. In this situation comes opportunities. If you don't have toilet paper. I mean, I don't need to break down. Like, I have a friend called Mimi Agarwal who has a company called Tushy. I just had her on my podcast, actually. But she gets into a lot of the specifics of what happens from or what can happen from using toilet paper. One, I'm not going to. This will be less than 40 seconds. One. The fact that we are chopping trees down and shipping them across the country and then driving them to grocery stores, and then you're driving to get those. Like, all of that energy is like, an immense amount of energy that's going into doing something that really has no logical sense to it, like, at all. Like, if you were to the analogy that I use in the podcast, which might be silly, but if you were like, rub some poo on your arm, you would never in a million years just take some time, reach out for a piece of paper, and like, okay, let's get. You just would never, ever do that. But because it's behind you, you know, and it's like, just culturally accepted, you're like, yep, that's what you do. You just rub that in. You would always. 100% of the time, you would go to the faucet and you would just do a little rinse and move on with your life. So that's. This podcast shouldn't be about why toilet paper is very Silly. But the fact that culture is freaking out about that, to me, just is, like, it just adds to kind of the ridiculousness of life in general. Yes.

Yeah, I'm gonna read this because there was actually something I read yesterday that says, this is from man Talking an interview with God. What surprises you most about humankind. And then God says that they get bored with childhood, they rush to grow up, and then they long to be children again. That they lose their health to make money and lose their money to restore their health. That by thinking anxiously about the future, they forget the present, such that they live neither in the present nor the future. They live as if they will never die and die though they never had lived.

And I'm like, damn, where's that from? Because you said that. That's amazing.

Is that it was perfect.

It sums up everything.

Yeah.

It's like, you don't need to buy the Align Method. Just read that essentially. You got it. It's unbelievable. That's the book. Where is that from?

I found it. Somebody had written it on Instagram. Drew Canola.

Oh, Drew Canole. He's my buddy. He was in San Diego.

Oh, yeah, I just found him.

Shout out to Drew. Yeah, I don't think he wrote that. Did he write that?

I don't know if he wrote it.

It was on his inside, but I don't know about that. I don't know that site that sounds

like him on Instagram. I love how sometimes people that live in the same kind of lifestyle you live just somehow kind of come into your life. I think it was my friend Erica Lippy who told me about you. Do you know Erica?

I've done her podcast. Known her, like, super well. But, yeah, I mean, I definitely appreciate her in the world. I think she's super sweet.

Yeah, she is a sweetheart. She is a total sweetheart. And I wanted to ask you more about your Align Method so people can figure. Well, I think they might have just buy your book or you have a

program they pair together. So, yeah, I appreciate you bringing up. So the Align Method book, that's, like, absolutely, hands down, the proudest thing that I've ever been associated with birthing into the world. I mean, it was me and, like, a whole team of people that I wouldn't be able to take credit. Plus all of the researchers and all, like, the books and the Internet, like, there's so much that goes into creating stuff like that. We did fast. We did it in less than a year. So, like, the writing of the book, and then I had a co writer Help as well, called Phil White. And he is amazing. He's worked with, like, Laird Hamilton, XPT guys. He's worked with Pavel Satsulin, who people might not know who that is, Kelly Starr, all sorts of people that are, like, they're pioneers in all of this stuff. He's been doing it for 20 years. So it was amazing to get to team up and have someone that we could really have accountability for each other. And really, like, just having that, it just comes back again to how powerful community is. And in the process of creating something meaningful in the world. Like, a book is a fascinating experiment to just see how important community really is in that situation. I think if you're doing anything of really great value in the world, for the most part, it's going to be a community effort. And so the sooner that you can get on that community train and support each other and really show up and say, what can I do for you right now? I think the sooner that we can really be in a good place. And so that book was just a testament to how important that community is. I guess I could describe kind of sort of what the book is. Essentially what the book teaches people is how to make it so that your whole entire day, no matter where you are, whether you're in your office, car travel, just with yourself in a blank room, becomes this whole potential of opportunities for how to make your body move better, for how to make yourself feel better. And that's what it's about, is taking the principles that we learned from, like, being in a gym or being a breathwork class or a yoga class or any of those places. How do we make that be who we are as opposed to a thing that we do? And then the online program just goes deeper into that from, like, a video perspective. So they really just pair together.

Yeah. And you guys, I'm telling you, if you go to his Instagram, I love watching all your moves, like, some crazy stuff, whether you're doing it with a tire or you're doing, like, handstands into some fancy moves, lifting weights, throwing kettlebells around. I'm like, I want to do that. I want to go play.

Yeah, that's it.

I wanted to see you today is because I was like, I want to go, like, throwing a tire around or swing a kettlebell.

I mean, that's what I care deepest about is inspiring people to start thinking more creatively with the way that you live, the way that you breathe, the way that you use your eyes, the way that you work out in quotations, all of Those are opportunities for you to explore yourself, explore your community, explore this human experience. It doesn't need to be just some dogmatic locked into my do my sets and my reps. That's great. I think that's fantastic. And that's an approach that's really valuable depending upon where you want to end up. But I would challenge people to really look at your right now, this moment, as you're listening to this. What's the state of your body? How can you treat this moment as a physical, mental, emotional opportunity? And so one of the ways that you could do that would be adjusting your breath. Maybe right now you can take a long exhalation. It could even be an audible exhalation. You can breathe in. As you're doing that exhalation, it literally starts to down regulate and calm your autonomic nervous system. Puts you into more of a. Sends a signal to your body, like, oh, it's time to heal. Okay, great, cool. We're going to heal now. As opposed to putting yourself into a place of maybe breathing up into your shoulders and your neck and maybe mouth breathing, or maybe focusing your vision up close onto a screen or some walls close into your house, that vision, when that closes up and becomes more myopic, it focuses your nervous system and says, okay, we need to get stuff done. You need to go at executive function, make this thing happen. Boost the cortisol. Like, let's go. When you use your eyes to relax and look out and take in the panoramic view for a moment, that sends a signal through the rest of your nervous system. I love that you're doing it now. That, okay, it's time to calm down. And that's the magic of all this stuff. Humans are freaking brilliant. Humans are so beautiful and so amazing for many reasons. And one of those reasons is all we need to do is like, what do I do to make a difference? It's like, have the conversation, you know, and be the thing, you know, like, literally, you doing what you just did and having that moment of, oh, just. I'm going to relax my eyes for a second. I'm going to look out. Maybe there's a window behind you that I can't see. No, but I'm going to look out the window for a moment. All of a sudden, that sends a reminder to me to do the same. And then we're a bunch of dominoes. Like, we are one. You see it now more than ever. Like, we are truly one hive. So the same way that a virus in quotations can get spread across the globe, that shit can happen with a smile. And it does happen. And so it's like. I mean, the analogy is unbelievable that you get to see how fast take that virus and literally make that be, like, a compassionate moment or, you know, helping somebody out in need or just gesturing in a loving way to somebody else and then seeing how fast that can ripple around the globe. That is unbelievable.

Mm.

So I don't know what I'm saying exactly right now, other than I just think that people are great.

Well, no, I think that's it. And you know what? Look, it is so true that all of that positive vibes are contagious. And in fact, you know, I was a little bit nervous before we started the podcast. And, like, you come on the screen and you're, like, smiling and you're like, oh, yeah, by the way, yeah, I'm sunbathing, but let me go get a glass of water. I'm like, oh, I love this guy. I'm like, oh, I can relax. This is fun. You know, but had you got on and be like, yes, I'm ready, you

know, it would have been like, absolutely. I mean, that's a powerful thing to realize for conversations in general. You know, like, with the podcast, I'm still learning how to record a conversation, but I've done close to 300 now on mine over the last five years. And that's the thing that I've really taken away from it, is the sooner that you can be comfortable with somebody, the sooner you can start to have actually a meaningful, connected conversation, real conversation. So if I come into the room and I have all these fronts that I'm putting up, and then that forces you, unless you're bigger and smarter and more comfortable and more wise than I, and then you disassemble my fronts for me, you know, that's the way it goes. You know, but then if not, if we're kind of in a similar pool, then your fronts will go up, and then we match each other's fronts, and then we do this. Like, how many relationships are that? You know, that's like we're in this great relationship for a month or whatever, Then the front starts to drop. It's like, why don't we just drop it sooner, you know, and not waste our time with this rote, nonsensical words and actually get something that's heart centered.

Oh, my God, it's so true. Isn't it, though? Oh, my gosh. I remember, like, years ago before, and this is getting off of the subject, but years ago I went out with this guy and he was all about the front and the money and flashing it and fancy cars. And every day he would, like, come over in a fancy car. And I was so not impressed. And one day he came over and he was like, you don't really care about my cars, do you? And I said, no, I really like trucks. So the next day he came over into a truck with a truck. But it was like he was trying to flash all these things. And I'm like, stop with all the fronts. Like, that's not what I care about. Like, that's not what's so meaningful to me, you know? But it's funny. If we can just drop all the fronts and just connect human to human, that's where the magic is.

Yeah. So that's a nice challenge for people in a way. Like, everyone has the option to be somewhat of. It's kind of cheesy language, but like a revolutionary. You, like, start a revolution of any sort. And that can be by you just showing up in that way in line while you're getting coffee, or in the grocery store line, in this case, somewhere, walking down the street, or showing up in a relationship in any form. You will send that signal throughout the rest of culture and really have the possibility to create change. I think people, when they feel powerless, that's a very interesting kind of apathetic place to be at. But truly, everyone does have power. Just by you being a global citizen, by you walking out of your house, you are impacting the whole thing, you know, and so taking some responsibility for, you know, if you're going out in the world and you just got your resting bitch face on and you're just like, I'm just gonna keep to myself. And, you know, it's not about you. It's like, I get it, it's not about you, but you literally are exuding emotional pollution, you know, and so it's like, I would say, go back into your house, sort out your emotional hygiene, you know, and don't pollute when you go outside, please. And thank you.

Yes, I agree. I back that. I agree. But I think now more than ever, people are gonna have to really be aware of that because. Are you in Santa Monica? Yeah, yeah, I'm in Woodland Hills and the streets are empty. And so when you do go out and you see somebody, to me, I'm like, oh, hi. Even if it's across the street, oh,

yeah, I'm waving at everybody.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm like, yeah, I feel like I'm running for mayor. Right now.

Yeah. And.

Yeah, just not kissing babies.

I think you should be running for mayor, by the way.

Running for mayor.

I think you should.

I don't think that'll ever happen, but I appreciate that.

Well, something else that helps me a lot, and I see that you do this too, is a morning routine and a nightly routine. What is in your morning routine?

Well, I mean, so I have. Yeah. I've got a whole chapter in the book that I get into, like what the ideal one would be. The main thing to take away would be just get sun exposure as soon as you can. So when you get out of bed, if you wake up before the sun comes up, that's cool. Probably be a great time to meditate and journal and things of that nature. I typically wake up around when the light starts happening. So the first thing that I'll do is go out and take my shirt off and wear usually a pair of shorts or whatever, take sunglasses off and expose as much of my skin as I can to the sun. And then from there, drink some spring water. The reason that I'm doing the sun stuff is it's a helpful way. 1. It literally the way that we're tuning each other's nervous systems, that sun tunes your nervous system as well, tunes your neurochemistry, starts to allow your body to start to release the hormones that it needs to wake up, but also the hormones that it needs and the neurotransmitters that it means to feel good. So that process of that sun passing through your eyes sends this whole cascade of chemical events that heals your body at a cellular level, changes the shape of your eyes, changes the release of these, like I mentioned, like, kind of feel good in quotation neurotransmitters. So it's a great way to start the day. And then water and movement, you know, music, or sometimes I'll listen to some Alan Watts or rum dust or something like that that I, you know, excited, like philosophy type stuff. I'm pretty enamored by dead philosophers. I like a lot. Rest in peace, Ram Dass, you know, so that. And just take a walk. The big thing is you want sun exposure, you want movement and quality water. And you could throw some salt in the water as well to help with actually being able to assimilate that water. If you're drinking just like some distilled fluid. Don't even call it water, you know, it's all of the minerals that would actually help with the assimilation at a cellular level have been stripped out of it just because you're putting fluid into your face. All fluid is not created equal. So you could throw like a pinch of sea salt in there or just get yourself some spring water from some place. And then, you know, there's other stuff, but those are basics.

It's so interesting that I just was reading that quote earlier. That was from Drew. I found it through Drew, and he talks about the same thing. I literally just heard him talking about how he gets at least 15 minutes of sun in the morning and the water he drinks. And I'm like, okay, I'm not making sure my water is good quality water. So that's what I'm really hearing. And I need to get in the

sun more because sun's a big one. I mean, they're both big ones. It's the fundamental stuff that's the big stuff. You don't need to worry about the perfect exercise contraption or the perfect dietary macro micro interval. Brit. Whatever. Like the fundamentals that are consistent with everybody. And if you get that foundation sorted out from there, we can build and shift and change. But if the fundamentals, like, you're not getting sun, you're drinking water that's filled up with a bunch of chemicals that you don't need in your body in the first place. Simple thing like your sleep is off, which all that feeds back to itself. Sun will help with your sleep as well. Water and everything else, those are like the root foundations. And if those are off, everything else becomes much more challenging. But in the end, everything's inextricably tied, you know, So I think that you are. The way that you eat in large part has a lot to do with your own level of self worth, your belief system of who you are, you know, so if you're a person that believes that you're worth it, you know, and you're like, I need to show up and be the best version of myself. You'll probably buy the best version of food that you can afford. You know, if you're a person that's like, I'm more of like a dollar menu kind of guy, you know, I'm just like. That's just who I am. Like, perfect. Well, you will continue to be a dollar menu consumer, you know, and then from there, that will affect you at a cellular level. It'll affect you at a cog.

That makes sense to me. And I never thought of it that way because when I was young, I was married before, and it was a horrible, abusive relationship. I got out of that relationship. And when I started eventually dating again, when I would Go out. If he were paying or if I were paying, I would not order anything more than suit. Like I was not that person that would be like, oh, I'm gonna have the filet or I'm going to have the sea base. I'd be like, no, I'll just have a cup of soup. And then gradually, as I started to get more self worth and be more confident with who I am and learn who I really was, I'm like, no, I'm going to feed what is good for my body. I deserve more than the cup of soup, you know. So true. It's so true.

Yeah. And then both angles are, I think, valuable, you know, like there's. How's that Bible verse go? If you humble something along lines. I haven't written the book. Humble yourself when you go into somebody's home and you'll be exalted. Exalt yourself and you'll be humbled. So I think there is value in both ends and kind of leading from a very kind of humble place and allowing, allowing the room to raise you up, you know, so it's, I think with everything I essentially just very contradictory in almost everything that is said. I'm like, well, there's probably, I think with anything there's different angles to perceive and different. It depends on the situation, depends on the moment. You could say everybody needs this much sun, but it's like, well, that's not true. It depends on what's your ethnicity, what's the time of year, what's your location on the globe. There's a lot of different variables at play. So I think with most rules in general, it's like, okay, well what are the variables here? Because most things I think it's kind of like it depends.

Yes. I love talking to you because I swear I would love to just run something by you and your brain. You just go. And I can could see how you could look at all different ways that it could be or how it could play out. I love that.

I'm glad it doesn't sound antagonistic and annoying.

Not at all. Because I love thinking out of the box too and I love getting different perspectives on things. So yeah, I'm going to be calling you anytime. I have a question. What do you think about this? But I also want to meet you on the beach to do some fun.

Yeah, we do some accurate things. We can do some accurate things.

I'm a big girl though.

Oh, that's fine. What is your weight? I know you're never supposed to ask that. Do you tell People that.

No, I'm 131.

Oh, you're a little tiny person. It's fine.

I'm 5 11. I shrunk. I don't know if after my motorcycle accident if I shrunk an inch or I'm just getting older and shrinking, but I'm. I'm 5 10, 130.

Do you do your damnedest to grow inside of your body as you're communicating, as you're walking around, as you're breathing? Think of your body as like, this is some new age meta out there stuff. So I apologize in advance that this group makes people kind of turn off now. But an analogy I heard in Rolfing School like 10 years ago from a teacher that I thought this would sound like some wacky shit, but now I'm like, oh, I actually really like this analogy is thinking of your body as like a five pointed star and you're growing out through each of those points. So your head is a point and your arms are two points and then your feet are two points. So in any situation, this is a really nice kind of rule that you can live by.

See me just stand up straighter when you.

Yeah, exactly. Right. So this is an interesting kind of rule that you can live by when you are doing any kind of dance or fitness or conversation is how do I get longer through the five points of my star? How does my head reach up, my arms reach out and my legs reach down to the ground? If you do that, you apply that to most situations, it will end up keeping you on a path of growth, I would say from a physical slash, mental, emotional level, because they're all tied up.

Well, you've inspired me to also get a desk that I can have one to sit if I need it because it's hard to stand on my leg for long periods of time. But you've inspired me. I don't remember if it was on your Instagram or whatever. You had a desk that was upright so you could stand and I'm going to do that.

Oh, cool. Yeah, yeah. I recommend being on the floor more than anything. And then standing is fine too, but standing, you're still pulling a lot of blood up in your legs, you know, especially if you have like some type of issue, you know, scarring or any kind of like twists and torsions and things of that that may.

Well, that's a place I can lay. I'm going to start doing that and maybe foam rolling while I'm recording podcasts.

Yeah, that's pretty cool.

Then I'm going To do. I see the space where I'm going to build to do like a stand up one. So I'm going to.

So it's just having change a lot. It's having variations. So you want to stand up desk. You also want to have a floor desk. I mean, I would let go honestly of the sitting on the chair desk just because you have so much of that in your life in general. So it's not sitting in a chair. There's nothing wrong with it. It's a perfectly fine position. It can be helpful in lots of ways as well, depending upon how you use it. It's just that we're so deeply saturated in that as a people, that's when it becomes problematic. And so because your whole life outside of the places you have control of kind of be in that mold of chair sitting, I would recommend in the places that you do have control of to balance that out with getting on the floor. You know, standing is fine, but it's really not it standing, you're still pulling up fluids in your lower body. And if you are standing on one leg, get like a rock or a stool or something like that that you can kind of be pressing up into raising one leg to take your lower back out of. E the name of the game is circulation. So if you're in positions that are circulating your human aquatic pond structure that you are, then you will have a healthy aquatic pond human organism. But if you are pulling up fluids, so that's the thing, it's like you just need to turn the pumps on. So sitting on the floor is helpful because it brings your legs closer to your heart and your vital organs. So now it's not so hard for you to be able to pump and circulate that blood when you are standing. Your legs are still standing is a strange position if you think like hunter, gatherer, ancestral, whatever. There's not a lot of reasons to go out into the woods and stand in place and just like look at a tree. Like you're not going to do that very often. What you would do is go out in the woods and sit on the ground though. Like you'll do that a lot, you know. And so that's what you see in cultures. Like what's the culture? The Hotza people? And I mean really just anybody. There's just been research with the Hotza people. I research them for a lot of things, gut, biome and whatnot. But I don't remember the name of the researcher that did this. But you can look at it up. They went out spent like a season with the hots of people and found that their movement, they move more than western culture. But it's not so much that they're just generally up like ambulating, walking, moving around more. Their rest practice is much more active. So the rest practice is exactly what I recommend in the align method book, slash align method. Everything is. You need your rest practice to be an opportunity as well. So when you're doing this like this, literally this whole entire time that we've been talking one, I'm like naked tanning my ass as we're doing this. You can't see that.

For all you know, I'm gonna say this is gonna be on YouTube, everyone. So if you wanna. I'm kidding.

That's right. It's fine. It doesn't matter. But for all you know, I'm wearing like corduroy. What? Like does it matter? You know? So I'm like, I'm gonna take my pants off and actually get like full sun, you know. But I'm also, my knees are up on a foam roller, so I've been kind of rolling out my shins and the teller tendons and I've gone in and out of these positions. So. So I intentionally stacked a bunch of variables into this little hour block so that when we get done with this, it's like, what did I do? Oh, well, I got sun and I did kind of like almost like a little like yoga class and I did like a self care myofascial release thing and. Oh yeah, right. I did that conversation as well. So I kind of like was at work while I did that. That until a person's life or a person's approach to life is kind of thinking in that way, I think we're just going to be missing a lot of money on the table that gets left behind as like if we start to think of be a little bit more scrutinizing of like, how can I make this situation better right now? You know, it's like, well, you know, I've got about a thousand opportunities that you could be taking advantage of right now. For the most part that we're not. That was kind of the whole intention of making the book.

Yeah, well, you have really impacted my life and just the way that I do things in the morning, like, you've changed the way I think about even sitting at my desk. Yeah, you really have. You've inspired me to try different things and working out. And I mean, I love your book. So you guys, I'll have all the information for his book in the show notes tell us the best way to reach you.

Well, everything is aligned podcast if you can remember. Ay gn like Aligned tires podcast, that's like Instagram and website and all that stuff. So if people do want to go deeper into this, I would highly recommend checking out the online program. Mainly because the first week is free. So you can get a lot of value out of just starting that and then do with it what you wish after that. But the first week's entirely free and on there we get into specifically morning routines, get into some fundamental self care stuff. There's a lot of really good stuff packed into that first week. So I recommend just grabbing that guy. And so that's@alignpodcast.com align method. But you'll find it on my Instagram and website and all that stuff.

And then the second week you give them the band, you have the alignment.

Yes. The second week, if you do continue with the program, which is pretty dang affordable, if I do so myself, I was blown away. Oh, good. I appreciate that. So you also get the aligned band, which is heavy duty resistance band and a door anchor and it comes with its own video guide and traveling case and the whole thing. So it's really just teaching people how they can make it so that their home environment, slash office, slash travel and all of that become opportunities and that we really perceive it that way. And so that's what I broke down in the program. And that's the kind of the point of having the align band as well. Not only is it a rad tool that's light and flexible and you can take it anywhere, but it's also just a beautiful reminder because you can hang it from your closet door and decompress your wrist or your shoulder or whatever while you're working. So that's kind of what we were thinking with it.

Yeah. Oh, well, it's awesome. And thank you so much for taking the time to be on the show and I just appreciate you. And as soon as we can get together, I want to go do some tricks.

Yeah. Come out to the beach. Santa Monica, Muscle Beach. I'm there almost every sunset, so.

Oh my God, I'm so gonna do that. I really look forward to it. But one more question and I promise. What is your definition of resilience?

Oh, resilience. Interesting. I don't think I've ever defined this word. I feel. I think this whole conversation has been about resilience. I think resilience is just acknowledging that you are a blip on the map. You're not as important as you think you are. And you absolutely are at the same time. And taking this life to be a celebration and taking this life to be an opportunity and taking this life to be a gift and approaching every situation with that practice, because at some point it will be absolutely a challenging practice. I think that would be my definition of resilience.

That's beautiful. I love that. Well, thank you so much. You are amazing.

Oh, good. You're great too.

Oh, thank you. And again, I'm loving the book.

I appreciate that. I really appreciate that.

And I hope to see you soon.

Yeah, absolutely. Come out. Sunset, Muscle Beach.

Okay, thanks.

See ya. Thanks so much.

Thank you so much for joining us this week on the True Grit and Grace podcast. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button. And it would be so awesome if you rated and maybe left a review. That would help too. And also I have some exciting news for you. If you are ready to learn a mindset that will get you through any challenge, ready to really transform any limiting beliefs, and finally find the wellness routines that work with your lifestyle and keep your body healthy and thriving, you're in the right place. You're hearing this for all the right reasons, because it's your chance, your chance to join. Right now it's a 12 week course. It's so much free fun because we're going to go live in a webinar with plenty of time for Q and A. It's called you'd Unstoppable Life Mastermind. And there's going to be a daily mantra and a like minded community to support you along your way to reach all those goals. So head over to amberly lago.com mastermind and sign up now.

Okay.

Have a great week and I hope to see you in the Mastermind. Mastermind.