Pamela Crane is a master’s level yoga therapist from the only school that offers this degree in the country, the Maryland University of Integrative Health. She’s truly a renaissance woman working in dance, television news, the stage and screen, and a public school teacher.
Suffering from fibromyalgia, she found yoga to help her regulate her well-being. She uses these tools for her clients and herself and she loves seeing people gain confidence, strength, and vitality within all aspects of using yoga.
Watch her interview here:
Listen to her interview here:
Alice: Hi, everyone. I’m Alice, the Social Media Manager for Jubilance, and today I’m talking with Pamela Crane. Pamela is a master’s level yoga therapist from the only school that offers this degree in the country, the Maryland University of Integrative Health. She’s truly a renaissance woman working in dance, television news, the stage and screen, and a public school teacher.
Suffering from fibromyalgia, she found yoga to help her regulate her well-being. She uses these tools for her clients and herself and she loves seeing people gain confidence, strength, and vitality within all aspects of using yoga. So welcome, Pamela, thank you for joining us.
Pamela Crane: Thank you so much for having me.
Alice: Yeah. Thanks for being on today.
Pamela: Yeah, I’m excited.
Alice: Yeah. So we kind of start off with some like fun questions. So, chocolate or cheese?
Pamela: Hmm? Chocolate. I do love cheese as well, but I would know, chocolate is my addiction for sure. Also, about a year and a half ago, I cut out dairy from my diet, dairy and gluten, due to the inflammation and pain, and it made a big difference. So, I can unequivocally say chocolate. Dark chocolate.
Alice: You mean, cut off dairy and gluten forever?
Pamela: Yeah, I did. It was actually a pretty big game-changer. I manage my fibromyalgia really, really well with yoga, yoga therapy and all the tools that I have, and really, I will say yoga saved my life in that respect. But I was still having some nagging pains and aches and as I got older acquired some other conditions, a little arthritis kind of stuff. So, managing my pain was a little more difficult, and then after two doctors said– because I resisted, but after the second Doctor said, “You got to cut out gluten and dairy.” And I tried it, I said, “I don’t know, I’ll see.” After about a week and a half to two weeks I really noticed a big difference, and so I just never looked back.
Alice: Wow.
Pamela: Yeah.
Alice: I’m actually gluten-free. My sisters have celiac, but I just do it and I feel so much better just cutting out gluten, you know what I mean?
Pamela: Well, and I used to kind of be a little judge-y when people would be like, “I don’t know, I went gluten-free.” And I would be like, “Unless you’re celiac, do you really need to be gluten-free?” But there is more and more research that is showing that connection with inflammation. So after so many doctors and after doing some research, I sort of had to eat my words on that and just jump on that bandwagon, but I’m not looking back, it’s really been a game-changer in my life. I can tell if I go out to eat and I order something that I think is gluten-free, but maybe they made a sauce with something, I can tell the difference. Yeah, within a day or so, kind of, like feeling the ache and so. Yeah, it’s a game-changer for sure.
Alice: Wow. Yeah, I can tell within 30 minutes, I’ll start itching. But if my sister and I have something that we’re unsure of, I’ll eat it first because I just, like, itch and then I’ll be like, “Okay, you can eat that.”
Pamela: So, you’re the barometer for it.
Alice: Yeah, something like that, but—
Pamela: Yeah.
Alice: Yeah. Okay, TV or movie?
Pamela: Oh, TV.
Alice: Oh, cool.
Pamela: Yeah, it’s funny because I’ve done more movies. Well, I haven’t really done any TV work, but I have done some movies. So, you would think I would pick movies because it’s nice, I still actually get a check from one that I was in.
Alice: Please, you have to tell us about that.
Pamela: Yeah. So, I was hired to be in the film Castaway and I was a day player, I had three days. I was hired as a reporter, got to ask Tom Hanks a question as he came back in the FedEx hangar at the end of the movie. Well, I don’t want to– people spoiler alert. But yeah, so I asked him a question and he answered, he came down through all these reporters. So, we shot for two and a half-days, almost three days, just in that one hangar. But it got cut out. So, if you know where to look you can see me in the movie but you really have to know where and when to look for that. But, I still get checks so I’m not complaining.
Alice: That’s awesome.
Pamela: Yeah. But no, my husband and I enjoy watching TV, and we mostly watch on replay. We don’t have appointment TV so much, but we’ll kind of binge stuff.
Alice: Good, what are you watching now?
Pamela: There’s one show that is my guilty pleasure that I’ve watched from the beginning, and it was appointment TV for a long time for me. But a lot of times we watch it on replay and that’s Survivor.
Alice: What a great show.
Pamela: I love it. It’s such–
Alice: Extremely good.
Pamela: It is such a study in human nature and mental manipulation. It’s so interesting to me how the producers manipulate these people who are on the show, and I would love to be on that show. I mean, every time I always go and I look at the application, then I chicken out. I don’t do like– But if I had, if someone could say, “What would you do tomorrow if you could just do it?” I would probably say, “I would go on Survivor.” And I would fail miserably. I would be the worst one because I would be cold and whining and there’s snakes and spiders. But I think I’ve seen people on there who said the same thing and they did well, and I think really resilience comes into play and you adapt to whatever it is you’re forced to adapt to. So, I think it would be fun, it’ll be amazing.
Alice: That’s awesome.
Pamela: But it would be awful at the same time.
Alice: With the spiders.
Pamela: Yes.
Alice: Yeah. So, can you talk about where you’re living now and what made you move to San Diego?
Pamela: Yeah, I’m in San Diego and I’m not mad about it one bit. My husband is– his job brought us out here. We moved here about three months ago and I am in love, I never want to leave. So yeah, I kind of joke that I don’t know where he’s going next, but I’m staying here. That’s just a joke. No, it’s amazing. I love it here. I can walk to yoga on really any corner. I was telling my friends, “I think Yoga is like Starbucks here. There’s one everywhere. Any direction I’ll walk, I’m gonna run into a yoga studio.”
Alice: So, where did you move from?
Pamela: We were in Virginia.
Alice: Oh, cool. Wow.
Pamela: Yeah, near DC. So, I worked in DC a lot and I taught at some of the big places there, the Department of Health and Human Services, at some of the Senate buildings and the USPS Headquarters, and worked with clients there.
Alice: Wow, that’s something.
Pamela: Yeah.
Alice: Can you talk more about that, like the step-by-step process of how you got to where you are today? How did you get into yoga therapy?
Pamela: Sure. Well, yeah. So, I had been teaching yoga and I had been using yoga therapy actually, for longer than I’ve been a yoga teacher. I’ve been using yoga tools with my dance students. I taught high school dance for 17 years. So, I would use these tools to help my dancers, either to help them if they were struggling with repetitive use injuries or just injuries or weaknesses. I would notice that one side of their body would be weaker than the other and I would give them some things to help them. Or if they were struggling with stage fright and performance anxiety, I could give them some tools to kind of help regulate their nervous system.
And when they’re all crazy and wild, like for instance, on a day like today, the day after Halloween and it’s just a nightmare. Sometimes, I would just have them lie down and we do a body scan. So it got to be, kind of, a funny thing. Sometimes my students will come in and go, “Miss Pam, can we lie down?” That meant they wanted that relaxation because they always ended up feeling better and more focused. And then sometimes I would have teachers say, “What did you do in dance today? So and so was paying attention really well.”
So, I would use those tools before I actually became a registered yoga teacher, so it’s kind of muddy. How if you go from when I was a registered yoga teacher, or how long I’ve been teaching yoga and in ways. So, I was doing that and then I got my yoga teacher registration in 2013. And then when we moved to Virginia, I was looking for yoga therapy training and I found this university. It’s the only university in the country that offers the Master of Science in Yoga Therapy. So what that meant for me is that I got a Master of Science in Yoga Therapy and I got CIAYT. So that’s Certified International Association of Yoga Therapists, it’s a mouthful.
So, anyone right now can say they’re doing yoga therapy because it’s kind of the wild, wild west. There are not laws or regulations. So, CIAYT is a self-governing body, so you choose to join. So, I joined CIAYT in 2013, even though I wasn’t a certified yoga therapist. I didn’t really start calling myself a yoga therapist until about a year into my program, that certifying Master of Science program. But there are a lot of big differences in yoga therapy and yoga as people know it in our country, so we can talk about that too if you want to.
Yeah, so I got a Master of Science degree and I just– the program was amazing, it was life-changing. I thought yoga saved my life before and then I went through this program and it was just, “Whoo.” I’m getting a little teary. It was really, really life-changing just because I learned different ways to apply the tools of yoga. I think that’s where the big difference between a yoga teacher, which is great, and a yoga therapist are is how we apply those tools. We spent a lot of time learning pathology, physiology, kinesiology, biomechanics, anatomy, in addition to all of the tenants of yoga.
A quick difference is in America, a lot of people think Yoga is a fitness program or an exercise program where they go to a yoga class at a gym or a yoga studio, and it’s predominantly breath work and postures. There’s nothing wrong with that, a gym class for $5 drop-in class is what saved my life. So I will not ever say, “Don’t go to a yoga class.” Because it was my gateway, and it’s what got me in. But with yoga therapy, the training is considerably more intense. So, we have a thousand hours of training, whereas most yoga teachers maybe it’s 200 or 500. They don’t have that kind of targeted training towards the pathology and physiology of disease, and the application of all of the tools, so using all of the different limbs of yoga. Yeah, so that’s kind of one big difference.
The other big difference between yoga therapy and yoga as we know it because really, yoga therapy is what yoga used to be or should be, right?
Alice: Yeah.
Pamela: But the other– the main difference in yoga therapy as a profession, is that we do an intake and assessment. If we’re doing an individual session with you, we’ll do an intake assessment. Like when you go to the doctor’s office, you fill out the paperwork. We’ll sit down and talk about what’s going on with you physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, what your goals are, what you want to get out of it, and then we design a plan using all of those tools, the meditation, the visualization, the self-study, the Yamas and Niyamas, and the truthfulness, and kind of really digging down and unpeeling the layers of meaning and purpose.
Alice: Wow.
Pamela: That’s why it’s so valuable for especially people who are suffering from a disease. We’re not curing your disease. I’m not a doctor, I will not diagnose you and we’re not curing you. We’re helping you ease your suffering. We’re giving you tools so that you can feel better or make peace with how or whatever you’re suffering from is affecting you, and change kind of the mindset around how you experienced the pain.
There’s a lot of pain research right now that is showing how we think about our pain affects how we feel it. And that tissue damage doesn’t necessarily correlate with the sensations of pain. So someone can have tissue damage, pathological disease, and not feel so much pain. Someone can have no damage and have sensations of pain. So, when we can use these tools of yoga to sort of trick the brain or change the neural pathways, then we can effectively feel better. I mean, there’s functional MRI studies, there are functional MRI studies that show people’s brain-changing with meditation. They can literally show it through MRI. So, it’s huge.
Alice: I didn’t know that. That’s huge.
Pamela: Yeah, it’s huge and it’s there. I could geek out on it all day long. But that’s the good news, is that we don’t have to take a pill that’s going to cause other side effects or problems. We don’t have to always engage in those types of interventions. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t listen to your doctors, but it’s also to say that you can ask for these other interventions to adjunct what you have going on.
I always, in my struggle, in my journey with persistent pain, I would always tell the doctor, “I want to know why I’m hurting so that I can make a decision. Because if it’s something that taking a pain pill is your recommendation, then I’ll use my yoga and I’ll deal with my pain. If it’s something that this medication is gonna stop the progression of it, or this intervention will fix it, then yes.” So, you have to find the balance of conventional and complementary medicine. I think that’s a really great thing about yoga therapy for us. I always tell people that we’re adjunct to all of your health care providers, we’re part of your team. We’re not trying to replace anyone, and we won’t fix you.
Alice: That’s a great way to think about it as an addition too.
Pamela: Right. But for some people, they just want to be fixed. They just, “Give me the pill, give me the quick thing.” With yoga and this whole self-introspection, and dealing in and peeling those layers and finding out really how we find our meaning and purpose and how we react to what’s going on in our bodies, it’s work. So, you find a lot of people say, “Oh, I want something natural.” But then they maybe aren’t really ready. They’re in this stage of contemplation where they’re not quite ready to do that work. It’s hard, in a way, for me when I see someone that I know I can help, but maybe they’re not ready to make that step and take those steps that will help them find relief and ease that suffering. So, yeah, it’s–
Alice: Can we talk a little bit about who goes to your practice, the clients that you have? So you said it’s people who are suffering from disease, or who else should be doing yoga therapy?
Pamela: Well, everybody.
Alice: Great.
Pamela: Everyone.
Alice: Right, it sounds great.
Pamela: Yes. So, we can help people with a wide range of conditions. I tend to work with people who have persistent pain and fibromyalgia. I do some online group sessions, I do a series. So, I’ll do group sessions and what that looks like is you fill out the paperwork, and so I see kind of what everybody’s going through. And then I tailor this group setting or this group series to address those commonalities because most people with fibromyalgia have some common issues. Not everyone suffers the same way. Not everyone with Parkinson’s has the same incarnation of that disease.
Alice: Definitely, that would be a mess.
Pamela: Right, everything. People who have endometriosis don’t always have the same expression of that disease. Some people suffer more, some people suffer less, and people want a little bit more active, a more active practice feels better for them. Some people– you know, this one girl with endometriosis told me she’s like, “Just put me in child’s pose and give me a hug.” You know? And that’s the beauty of yoga therapy is that you can tailor to the client’s needs. I mean, we say we’re client-centered, and we really are because it’s not even what that client wanted yesterday. It’s where are they in this moment? What do they want right now? What’s going to help them feel better now? And then how can they take that and move forward with it into their daily life.
Alice: Wow.
Pamela: Yeah. So when we are looking at and I’ve started to want to move my practice into more working with dancers and athletes and people like that who have repetitive use injuries and performance anxiety but I keep getting pulled back, so I’m about to start working with crime victims who suffer from trauma. So, it’s funny when you think you want to do one thing, but then other things keep pulling me back.
So, who knows? I just moved here a few months ago so opportunities are floating around in that way and I work with people online because I move around a lot. I want to have my own online practice still going. So I kept that as something that I do but I would say generally I tend to work with people who have persistent pain, people call it chronic pain. I like to call it persistent. Persistence kind of the new let’s not make– chronic sounds so final like you can’t do anything about it. Persistence sounds like, “It’s just nagging me. I can push it.”
Alice: It makes sense.
Pamela: Yeah. I mean for me, I had a time in my life where getting out of bed was really more than I could do and I suffered so much and I had so many awful days and every now and then I would have a good day and then when I would have a good day I would do too much because I needed to do things and then I would suffer from it. And so, for me, to have the life I have now is it’s huge.
Alice: That’s amazing.
Pamela: Yeah and I owe it to yoga. I mean also some psychotherapy that helped me manage this, “I’m living in pain all the time. I don’t even know if I want to do that anymore.” So, I won’t say it was all yoga but yoga was the thing that helped me manage my anxiety the best and move out of that because I feel like for me the fibromyalgia was anxiety-based. There’s always being in that sympathetic nervous system state that fight-or-flight. If you can imagine if you’re always like this, that wears out your muscles. And your bodily function– got Cortisol running all through your body like– it’s not a marathon or something and then, of course, your body’s gonna wear out all of your functions are gonna wear out when you’re in that state constantly.
So, for me, the yoga really helped me. I mean it was crucial in getting control of that anxiety. So, then I started to notice, “Oh I’m having more good days, more good days.” And then one day I woke up and it was like, “Wow, I’m having more good days than bad days. Is it yoga? It’s yoga. Hey guys, I think it’s the yoga.” And a lot of people think you’re crazy or your woo-woo but now there’s so much scientific evidence showing the benefits and there’s more and more every day, and I wrote a couple of studies that I will implement using yoga therapy for dancers and I actually presented these studies in Maryland at the university where I went to school and one at the Network Yoga Conference in Amsterdam and I got a lot of interest and I got a lot of great feedback on that. So, my next step is to actually conduct those research studies so that I can be part of that conversation where we’re showing how this works.
Alice: Yes and then for women who are just starting yoga or starting to practice, do you have ideas or suggestions?
Pamela: Yes.
Alice: Yes, tell us. Definitely me, I’m trying.
Pamela: Yeah, so here’s the thing. Yoga isn’t one thing. So, when a doctor tells a heart patient to go to yoga which is beautiful, I love that doctors are telling people to go to yoga, but that heart patient walks into a hot power class where it’s 97 degrees that’s not the best situation for them. So, my first advice is to do a little research, find out or send me a message and I can tell you, I can help you. Find out what kind of yoga class is being offered and for most people, I would say, you would want to start with maybe a restorative class or something gentle. The biggest thing isn’t what kind of class you go to though; it’s how you go in that class.
When you go to a yoga class, remember it’s your body. That teacher does not know you, that teacher does not know your body. So, if you go to move into a posture and it doesn’t feel right for you then the first thing I would say is: ask yourself, is this sensation or is this pain. Know the difference, is this sensation? Is this something I haven’t felt before or does this hurt and then don’t do it if it hurts. A good yoga teacher won’t push you to do something that hurts. A good yoga teacher will understand that you’re listening to your body. The other thing is- I would caution people to stay away from hands-on adjustment.
So, when you go to a yoga class if they say, “Do you want to be touched, do you want to be adjusted.” Until you, kind of, feel like you have a relationship with that teacher and you feel confident, I would say no because like for me I have arthritis in my SI joint from many years of dancing and practicing yoga in a way that I thought alignment was the most important thing. And so if I’m in a Warrior 1 and I have my back heel up because that’s what feels better for my hip and someone comes and pushes my heel down or moves my hips they could really injure me at worst or just cause me to be in pain for a couple of days. So, I would encourage people to have agency, “When you go to a yoga class you’re the boss of your body and you know it best.”
Now, you don’t know yoga so, yes, some of the things that they say you’re gonna want to listen to and do what they’re asking you to do. But you want to really be shrewd about how something feels in your body. I think that’s the biggest question. How does this feel in my body? Right? And then I start with a gentle or restorative yoga so that you can get an idea of what you’re getting into and don’t be afraid to not go back. I mean, you can try different places until you find that teacher that resonates with you because it is a relationship and there’s a connection that happens or until you find that class that feels right. You feel good when you go in, you feel good when you leave. You don’t feel defeated.
The language is important when a teacher– if someone says always or never. Always is not always the best thing to say. Right? So, for some people having their knees facing straight forward in a chair pose is fine but for people whose bodies naturally turn out and their bones are made that way, putting their knee straight forward puts them in a place where biomechanically their body isn’t doing the right thing for them. So, find the most gentle restorative you can find for the first time and then listen to your body. Those are my two biggest things. That could go on and on.
Alice: Thank you very much. And then what’s your daily routine? Can I ask? What do you do daily and regularly to practice with your yoga and yoga therapy?
Pamela: Sure. So, for me, every day I practice gratitude, and I have my little sign here and I look at this every day coming in and out of my house. What I do is I light some incense because I like the way it smells, and I have different ones for different moods. I’ve citronella when I’m wanting an uplift; sandalwood when I’m feeling like I really need to be grounded. I like the incense and I say three things that I’m grateful for every day and sometimes it is something silly like I found these gluten-free seed cracker things at Trader Joe’s and one day that was one of my things that I was grateful for, because I like that crunchy thing, they don’t have a lot of sugar. And a lot of times it’s my house, a lot of times it’s my husband, or my daughter, or my dogs, or this blanket that I like.
It doesn’t have to be so serious. Life doesn’t have to be so serious and so one day my gratitude was for myself like, “I’m grateful for me.” And I just read a study, recently, that if you practice gratitude for 21 days it can change the makeup of your brain as far as depression goes. And I believe that because I’ve battled depression and anxiety for the majority of my life. And so, for me, I know that it works. And when I’m feeling a little pity party coming on or something like that I pop in a little extra. I say, “You know what? This traffic sucks but I’m grateful that I get to go to this place to do this thing.” And I had to practice that one a lot when I was in DC because–
Alice: The traffic is terrible.
Pamela: It was so awful. But, literally, one day I was sitting in this traffic and I just said, “I’m so grateful that I get to go to downtown DC, drive-by these monuments on my way to work. So, here I am. It is fine.”
And I was teaching a yoga class at the Academy of Integrative Health Medicine Conference recently in DC and so I was teaching three different mornings, and we were in there and we were just about to start the practice and of course the leaf blower guy came with his battery or his gas leaf blower right outside the windows and he was there pretty much the majority of the class. And in our meditation, I said we’re finding gratitude and I said we’re finding gratitude for this beautiful space that’s so well taken care of and well maintained, and afterward someone said, “Wow you really handled that so beautifully.” Because it’s changed from agitation to- “Yeah they’re taking care of this place” So, I can now let that go and tune back into my own self.
And so it does make a difference, and it seems easier said than done, and I will tell you when I was in the throes of depression and all of the awful space that I was in, when someone said, “Oh, just think positive.” That was the worst thing I could have possibly heard because they’re just like, “Oh, just be happy.” And it’s not that easy and when you’re in that space, finding a good therapist, finding a good yoga therapist, finding the people who can lift you up without that judgment is key. But, there is scientific evidence that shows that when you think that way when you focus on what’s good and going right, which is what a gratitude practice is, then it does actually change the chemical makeup of your brain.
Alice: Hold on, I’m doing that today.
Pamela: Do it. Actually, I’m thinking about doing an online gratitude challenge. I’ll let you know if I decide to do it. I was thinking I could do a 21-day gratitude challenge and see how that helps people because, I know for me, it’s huge. Now, as far as, other aspects of yoga, I do practice physical asanas and sometimes I posted a video on my Instagram, I think it was, where I have gotten up and I was in my sweatpants, my hair was dirty and no makeup and I just thought, “I’m gonna record this.” And so I recorded my practice. It was 10 minutes of basically me wobbling around on my mat, not really doing much but that’s yoga.
Yoga doesn’t have to be an hour class, three times a week, at a studio. Sometimes getting up and just moving your shoulders back and down and taking five deep breaths, sometimes that’s my practice. Sometimes I go and I take classes because I enjoy doing that. Sometimes I just do what I want at home, what my body is asking for because, again, I know my body better than someone else does. So, it varies. Sometimes my yoga is sitting with a glass of hot tea and just looking at the palm trees and just being and not really finding judgment or any real thoughts about anything except for, “I’m here.”
And so, for me, I’m not one of those people who gets up and does an hour and a half yoga practice every day. I do my gratitude every day. I do my breath work every day. So, I’ll do five deep breaths in bed before I even get up and that just sets the tone and helps me get in that parasympathetic state of being relaxed and then I don’t feel that stress of the day coming as I’m waking up. (If you’re feeling PMS stress, here’s a great article to better understand what’s going on).
So, that’s what my yoga practice looks like. I do physical practice but I do a lot of self-study which is Svadhyaya. It’s fun. So that is, I think, the biggest thing– over the past couple of years this Svadhyaya, the self-study, has been the most important thing for me and that’s what makes me tick, what do I find meaning and purpose in and it’s ongoing. I don’t know if I’ll ever be done with that. I don’t know if I’ll ever be done growing and learning and finding what my dharma is, but–
Alice: But I think that’s the human, right? Just continuing to learn and acquire knowledge and keep going.
Pamela: Right, I feel like it’s when we think we’ve arrived is when we should worry. That’s what you should worry if you think– it’s like the people on Survivor when they think they’re in power: hashtag blindside. Yeah, I think that’s life though, pretty much, when you get on your high horse and think, “Oh, I’ve got it all figured out.” Then life comes up and goes, “Tsk. No.” So, that’s where some of these tenets of yoga the Svadhyaya, the self-study, what’s important to me and what’s important to me now in my life isn’t the same as what it was ten years ago or 15 years ago or 20 years ago. So, we go through these stages and it’s important for us to grow with ourselves.
Alice: Yeah, definitely. So, I just have one more question for you. If a woman were to come up to you and ask for a piece of advice and you just had a minute to give her your best tip, about really anything, what would it be?
Pamela: Take a deep breathe and know that, “This is what it is now.” This is a mantra that I use all the time with clients and I use it for myself. This is what it is now. When I can take a big breath in, “This is what it is now,” and just let go, then it does two different things. If you’re in a bad state and things aren’t going well, it lets you know that this is temporary; this is what it is now. And if things are going great and your life is perfect, it helps you appreciate that this is what it is now. And so I think that’s what I would say is just breathe and realize that this is what it is now.
Alice: That’s awesome. I’m definitely going to take that away with me.
Pamela: Yeah, it’s my favorite mantra for especially really anyone but especially with someone who has anxiety and depression and or someone who’s really struggling with tons of things that keep hitting. It’s just really beneficial.
Alice: Thank you. Is there anything else you’d like to add before we end today?
Pamela: I don’t know. I think I would just add that I hope that everyone who’s listening can really take time to take care of themselves and I know that self-care is a really big buzzword right now and there’s a lot of privilege around that sometimes when someone says, “Oh, just take this time for self-care or go do this for self-care.” Well, not everyone has the money or the time. So, think of self-care in other terms as, yeah, those deep breaths, maybe I’m in that shower and I’m just taking that time to appreciate myself.
I think, yeah, self-care is a hard one but I would say take every opportunity you can to do everything in your power to take care of yourself because you can’t pour from an empty cup.
Alice: That’s awesome. Thank you so much, Pamela.
Pamela: Yeah, you’re better to those around you if you’re taking care of yourself even though it may feel like you’re taking time away from that.
Alice: So true. And for everyone listening, you can learn more about Pamela and what she’s up to on her website www.craneyogatherapy.com.
Pamela: Right. Yeah, and when you go there, to look a little different because I’ve adapted it for these dancers and athletes, but I still do work with people with all kinds of physical conditions and also on Instagram and Facebook @craneyogatherapy. Crane like the bird, C-R-A-N-E.
Alice: Perfect.
Pamela: I hope you’ll reach out if you have any questions. If there’s anything I said that you disagree with or you’d like to know more about, feel free to reach out to me and let me know.
Alice: Thank you so much for being on, Pamela.
Pamela: Thank you. I appreciate it so much.
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