Unleashing Creativity and Wellness: A Deep-Dive with Dancer Elia Mrak

In this episode of Permission to Play, I have an in-depth conversation with dancer, movement expert, and somatic educator Elia Mrak. We explore the intersections of dance, trauma recovery, nervous system care, and the essential role of play in healing and creativity. We delve into Elia’s personal journey from a potential path in mathematical economics to embracing dance as a life mission, emphasizing the importance of movement in accessing joy, healing, and intrinsic freedom. We also discuss the transformative power of being present in the moment, the revolutionary act of allowing oneself to play, and the essential balance between personal care and collective wellness. Elia also shares information about his online program and upcoming workshops, highlighting the blend of Qigong, self-care, dance, and mobility work he offers.

I find Elia to be a truly unique and fascinating human, bursting with wisdom, insight, and kindness all wrapped up in a whole lot of permission to play.

If you haven’t had a chance yet to check out the video version of the podcast, it’s now up on YouTube. There’s some very cool footage of Elia dancing in the video version. The links to that, plus all the places to find Elia, as well as Irene Lyon’s work are below.

Elia Links:
Website: https://www.eliamrak.com/
IG: https://www.instagram.com/eliamrak/
FB: https://www.facebook.com/elia.mrak
YT: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeCeqYRMJRgm1RZnoJdz5rA

The Improvised Life Podcast:
YT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWJZq75IT0w

Irene Lyon Links:
Website: https://irenelyon.com/
YT: https://www.youtube.com/@IreneLyon/featured
IG: https://www.instagram.com/irenelyon/
FB: https://www.facebook.com/lyonirene 

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Transcript

[00:00:0] Intro

Kathy: This is Permission to Play, a podcast for creatives who sometimes wonder, where the F did my mojo go? My moxie? My marbles? Why am I so stuck, lost, depressed? God, how do I break free? Well, I have something I live by: think less, play more. This podcast is your permission to play. Together, we'll explore all things helpful for the care and feeding of the creative soul.

Welcome. I'm your host, Chatty Kathy. 
[Show Theme Music]

Hey guys, welcome back to the podcast. I'm so glad you chosen to hang out with me today. I've got something, or should I say someone so special to share with you. My guest today is the delightful, incomparable, and "Mrakulous" Elia Mrak.

 Kathy: Elia came into my orbit last fall after a very scary adrenal burnout and nearly incapacitating nervous system shutdown. This was following, among other nervous system assaults, a traumatizing car accident, wherein a drunk driver tried to put our car into the glove box of the car in front of us, and so on down a line of multiple cars.

Anyway, lots of cascading soft tissue injuries, PTSD symptoms, months of physical therapy and massage sessions later, the trauma symptoms persisted. So I took a deep dive into a program created by nervous system expert, Irene Lyon. The Smart Body Smart Mind program, also known as SBSM, unlocked a whole world of trauma work that's been an absolute game changer for me.

Elia is a guest teacher in the SBSM program, among many other places, focusing on gentle, trauma informed Qigong and Tai Chi movement practices that I continue to find extremely restorative and transformational. He's a dancer in the ancient sense of dance as healing, dance as ritual, dance as storytelling, dance as music, and dance as community.

But he's always been a dancer. Before he was formally trained, before he could even walk. 

His mission, vision, and inspiration is to prove that everyone can dance. Everyone deserves joy and everyone can heal. He uses the power of the performing and healing arts to support people and strengthen communities worldwide.

His current practice fuses Contemporary Dance, House Dance, Breaking, Qigong, and Somatics. He's performed, taught, and directed throughout Europe, Central and South America, and the United States since 2008. Elia has a long CV full of training, community building projects, and awards.

More importantly, he has a deep, authentic, and passionate desire to share his experience and gifts to help people discover their own intrinsic freedom, wellbeing, joy, and ability to heal. I find Elia to be a truly unique and fascinating human, bursting with wisdom, insight, and kindness, all wrapped up in a whole lot of permission to play.

 The links to all the places to find Elia, as well as Irene Lyon's work are in the show notes.

Kathy: And now let's jump into this relaxed, playful, and informative conversation. We had a lot of fun.

[00:04:53] Interview Start

Kathy: Thank you so much for agreeing to hang out with me.

Elia: You're welcome.

Kathy: I feel like I know you because I've been taking your class and, which must be a weird thing when people say, I feel like I know you and you've never even talked to them.

Elia: I think that there's a, when we intersect paths, there's something underneath that, that is supporting that intersection. And so for some reason, we're at the same time space juncture. And I trust in that. I trust it has random and coincidence and chaos inside of it, but there's also some intention and intuition there.

And I love that. So it's we might not know each other on some quotidian 2024 identification style yet. But on some other level, I do think that we have a trust in that's a new thing for me. It's a fun thing. 

Kathy: So I wasn't aware of your work until I became aware of Irene Lyon's work and, and so I've I found your work to be a delightful, compliment to everything that I'm learning about my nervous system. And because your background is in dance, which I also have a background in, I have a background in theater with dance influence. I wouldn't say that I'm a, oh, I'm going to use all kinds of terminology that you get to refute.

Elia: Mhm.

Kathy: I wouldn't call myself a dancer, but I've had, I've trained and stuff like that. So I'm very, I very much love the medium of dance and movement and I'm very movement oriented.

Elia: Mhm. 

Kathy: Um, so that piece of Irene's training, it was just so genius for you guys to bring that piece in because it was a whole other resource that has been a very big piece for me. Thank you for that.

Elia: You're welcome for that.

Kathy: And, um, and then just hearing you speak with Irene a couple of times. Just your philosophies around dance and movement and the intersection of that with the nervous system and with health and with spirituality. I find very intriguing. But also, your frequent use of the word play and playfulness. I felt was such a great fit for this podcast, Permission to Play because, this has been the mandate on my life for the past few years as I've been on the path of healing, healing journey of my mind, my psyche and my nervous system. Play has been a theme that keeps coming back again and again.

And so that's why I started the podcast. So I could talk to people who have that same mission who seem to be thriving in that. So, what have you come to teach me today, Elia?

Elia: Wow. I am so many things lighting up for me. I don't know if some people are going to see the visual of this and people are going to hear the audio of this. I'm smiling and nodding a lot, as you were talking.

[00:07:51] Elia's journey into his movement work + connecting it with Irene Lyon's work

Elia: Let me rewind all the way back. Cause you mentioned how you found out about me, through the work with Irene.

To how we met, how Irene and I met. Because I think it's a very beautiful and illustrative story and encapsulates a lot. And stories are fun. As someone once said, the stories always need to start at the beginning. So, I was teaching, I was working at a, it was a gym, but it was like a small boutique movement gym called Zoom Fitness.

It's called Zoom, The Art of Fitness, actually. And it was started by a man named Peter Shmock, who's still a good friend and a mentor of mine. Was a student as well, which is the coolest thing on my resume. He was a two-time Olympian, in the 72 and 76 Olympics for the University of Oregon. He's in the University of Oregon Track and Field Hall of Fame.

So he's a big deal. He's a big deal in the sports world, in the athletic world. And his coach was Bill Bowerman, who invented the Nike shoe. 

And he was teammates with Prefontaine. I'm just name dropping to make it sound even more important. And he was roommates with then, Bruce Jenner, at the Olympics.

So it's a big deal. He's a visionary. He's an incredible athlete, incredible person. And in the eighties, he shifted out of competitive athletics into teaching fitness, teaching human movement, coaching. And in the eighties and nineties, he was doing stuff on plyo balls. He was doing stuff with one leg and a dowel and like pushing on people's midsection, working on their equilibrium, working on their sensory motor integration.

So these, this is this was weird stuff. Yeah, exactly. Now it's we take it for granted. And a lot of trainers, that's where they start from. But even when I met him back in 2009, it was still, he was still, it was still on the forefront of what fitness was, what movement was. So he started this gym.

I got to know him. I started working at the gym. And it was a beautiful incubation space for me. Where I got to just play with a bunch of different ideas I had around how to mix. I also come from a sports background, a theater background, a dance background. And I got to play with what it is to like research and develop pedagogy around human movement through rhythm.

Using things that aren't standard issue like count the biceps, do the leg press machine. Things that involve also relational stuff. How do you relate to other people inside a movement? The play that you mentioned, which we'll come back to. So short story, I was working at the gym. I started teaching a class for Pete and three of his friends called breakdancing for non-breakdancers.

And that was part of my mission too, is like how to make, how to build a bridge to people in this fitness world that don't think of themselves as dancers. That's like the last thing they want to think of themselves as. Even though I do believe in my heart of hearts that tomorrow, everyone in the world would say, if I could go to bed and wake up the next day, a better dancer, I would sign up for that.

I feel like a free, like same with singing. It's like, oh no, tomorrow I want to be a worse singer. It's of course not. I want to be a better singer. That sounds great. Tomorrow I want to know another language. Yes, of course. So I think dance is this like secret thing that we all want to do better, including myself, but there's a lot of barriers.

There's a lot of cultural stuff. We can get into that later too. So I was offering a class that made that more accessible. So offering this olive branch of here's a class around dance, that's for people that don't think they dance. And let's start out with movements, and then let's take movement and then work on listening to music.

And we put those together, it's a version of dance. It's just movement with music. Staying in the safety of steps and some vocabulary and it's fun. It's like James Brown is fun music, funk music is good stuff. It's fun to get your heart rate up and get a sweat on. So I was teaching this class to these older gentlemen.

Irene came through Seattle. I didn't know who…

Kathy: Wait, wait. Define older.

Elia: So early in, I want people to keep listening. Um, well he was in his, he was in his sixties already. So we were going up and down on the ground. We were spinning around, so I would say that's... 

Kathy: That's a challenge.

Elia: I did not say old. Yeah. Older. Older.

Kathy: Thank you.

Elia: It's a challenge. Yes. Uh, wise people class. One of the people in the class was friends with a Feldenkrais teacher in the area who had studied Feldenkrais, which is a, those of you who don't know, it's a somatic practice started by Moshe Feldenkrais and it's worldwide and it works a lot on the nervous system.

It works a lot on repatterning the nervous system through simple but profound and integrated movements with the body. So he had studied with this teacher that was also Irene's teacher. 

So he knew Irene, invited Irene to this class. He asked me, Hey, I have this friend coming through town from Vancouver, I think she'd be interested in taking the class. Would that be fine with you? It was a class, it was like a semi private four person class. And I said, yeah, of course, let's add some female energy to those four guys. 

And she showed up, and she's totally game. And she, she seamlessly dropped into the experience and we had an awesome time and just talked a little bit afterwards and she was on her way to, I think, to Breitenbush, which is a hot springs in Oregon at the time. But—at the time—I think it's still at the time. And we stayed in touch and then I think it might've been later that year, we said, we have some similar ideas, come from slightly different backgrounds. She came from a fitness and kinesiology background and then later got into SE and Feldenkrais. But, like had a really strong rigor in the science of fitness. And we both wanted to branch out and do something beyond that. So we started talking and then made the workshop together. I don't know if it was originally called Up and Down, but eventually it became named Up and Down.

 But anyway, we started working together. That was 13 years ago. And the way we met was very intuitive, as you and I started chit chatting before. There was something also about the permission to ask, can I come? Permission on my side to welcome someone in. The permission to let loose and release and have some fun with people you don't know.

So there's an element of sociability. So there's permission and play inside of how we met, and I think we shared that ethos of teaching and learning and always valuing both equally. That in teaching, you're a student and as a student, you're a part of the teaching energy of that space. And it's blossomed from there. We've done a lot of other collaborations and projects, but that's the origin. And it makes me happy to think about that. I can still picture the day and the spot in the room. So...

Kathy: Oh, that's beautiful. Yeah. I've heard her say. I think in introducing you at times that, "Elia is the only person that I would workshop with." Or work with in 

Elia: Mm 

Kathy: that capacity. And that's a beautiful compliment. 

Elia: I am honored by that. 

Kathy: Yeah, it's a beautiful testament to the intersection of your giftings, your backgrounds, and the chemistry that you guys have developed. That's, it's a special thing. I've had that happen with partners in projects and it's a precious thing.

Elia: It is. I teach a lot. I've taught a lot, in a lot of different contexts and places with different people. And there's something that I value when I teach with someone and Irene in this example is... I don't seek just a partnership. To me, two people is not about the partnership, but it's the amplification of each other.

Can that energy be something more, not just can they be symbiotic? Not just do peanut butter and jelly pair together, but does the peanut butter actually bring something more out of the jelly than the jelly is alone?

Kathy: Yeah.

Elia: That to me is like a really true spiraling of energy together.

Kathy: Alchemy. Yeah.

Elia: And the modeling of what it is to be in relationship while teaching.

That to me is really powerful. It's not just what we say, what we propose or invite people to do in the space, but really modeling what it is to be in relationship. Sometimes we have gentle, simple conflict. And how do we work through that and model that? How do we negotiate in real time with each other in the space so people are witnessing that. They're bearing witness to a relationship.

And so that to me is more than just the information you receive, or the syllabus, or...

Kathy: It's culture building. 

Elia: Exactly. It's a culture building and a safety building of, hey, we're not just going to talk about relationship building and safe social engagement, ventral vagal experience. We're going to actually do it ourselves and model that and be imperfect in it and be brave enough to let people watch that. 

So that's something that I really value inside of that relationship. And also other collaborations that I have. I love teaching with other people, for that reason.

Kathy: Yeah. Yeah. That's really beautiful. I think when you approach it with that spirit, then you're going to naturally attract and bring into your orbit, those that you will create something with. 

Elia: Mm hmm. 

Kathy: Instead of forcing something or seeking after something.

[00:16:50] On the Improvised Life - Elia's life philosophy, unconventional career path, and podcast

 It makes me think of the, the name of your podcast, The Improvised Life.

Elia: Yeah. Thanks for plugging that. We're working on some episodes right now. 

Kathy: Super excited about that.

Elia: Yeah. I won't talk too much about this, but just as another outgrowth of the work that I love to do. And it's one reason why I said yes to this opportunity is, I love to, I'm just deeply passionate. I love what I feel called to do. The gifts that I feel that I've been given and I've invested in, and believed in, and trusted in. And life has brought me to this place of this work that I do.

And so any opportunity to share it, to engage with it, in different forms. So this digital revolution and since the pandemic is okay, I like talking about this stuff. I like moving about this stuff. I like performing about this stuff. I like teaching about this stuff. So the podcast is another version of that, that I'm leaning into, so 

Kathy: Another expression.

Elia: Yeah, exactly.

Kathy: Always a room for a little more. Um, I've read a little bit about how you encountered dance. You took a conventional path to education and then started down a conventional path to a career in, was it in business or?

Elia: In mathematical economics.

Kathy: economics. 

Elia: Yes. Which if anyone was wondering what that is, I'm not fully sure. It is some intersection of the mathematics behind economic theory. So why are interest rates so high? Why is your mortgage so expensive? That that's the study of that. Why are exchange rates so weird and volatile?

Kathy: Yeah. It's unfortunate. Not so much about the math anymore as it is about the systems that we enable, but, we won't go there. And interesting that you gravitated toward math, which makes so much sense to me in watching the way that you approach movement and the body and the mechanics of, movement which is not mechanical in any way.

The way I see you approach it is so fluid and so adaptable. And and so it's interesting to me that even within all of that fluidity, all of that unpredictability, there's probably some math in there. You know what I mean?

Elia: Yeah. I try to let go of more every day. 

No, that's a really interesting observation. There is a part of me, deep part of me, that loves and trusts in structure. And in equations and in how things add up or don't add up or equal each other or don't. Or the logic, the rationale. That's from my family. That's from my culture around me. That's from a lot of conditioning. And it's been my work to embrace both those sides of me, I should say. As a way to, to celebrate all parts of me. And integrate them, not disassociate or separate them from me. Because it's been a road to make that movement more fluid. To make that integration more complete from the tips of my fingers to the tips of my toes. Because there was a time when I got back into dance that I felt very stuck in some ways. I felt very like paint by number kind of dance.

It was like I was doing these things because I already trained also in sports. You do this drill, you do this drill, you do this drill. And the way I approach it now is what structure can I use? Can I keep? How can I teach with enough constraints and structure that keep it safe and keep it accessible, without ever losing the part that is magic? That is unknown, that's the in between, that dance. My mom always said dance is the transitions, it's between the things. And, I think math and science at its highest level is also about that. Has faith and theology inside of it. But in terms of how I dance now and how I teach it, is what's the form that supports the formlessness? And what's the formlessness that makes space for the form? And that those things always have a balance to them. Cause I need both. I don't want to speak for other people, but I like both. For example, maybe I'll teach you a specific exercise or a specific step. And then let's take that and let's deconstruct it or let's let it grow into how can that step, how can you really try it on or swallow it and let it digest into your being and then what comes out? The vestiges of that step are there, but it's now imbued with your full fullness of you.

And that style to me is how you take some step and make it yours. Or how you take an exercise and turn it into expression. You take the prose and turn it into poetry. So it's funny you say the math thing. Cause sometimes I don't think about it like that. I have to remember yeah, I studied that and I studied these very fixed things that have yes or no answers and provable things and this binary nature. And dance for me when I came back to it when I was 19 was a rebuke of that.

It was a little fight energy against that. It was, rebalancing of my system. I'd locked my, got my keys at the studio and, Sophomore year of college, I'd locked myself in the studio at 11 p. m. after I finished in the econometrics lab. Which if you're wondering what that is, it's a, scintillating place of running regression models. If you're wondering what that is, you can Google it. 

Kathy: Yeah, please. 

Elia: Basically, basically understanding how to model behavior and numbers into something that makes sense. But it was so much left brain of so much, concept. It was so much... to use a Qigong term, like, upper Dantean energy. And I needed to bring that down.

I needed to lower that into my belly, into my intuition, into my feet. And so dance at that time was my way of reconnecting with the earth, with the feet, with my gut brain, with my heart, with my love of music and movement. And, I think the last 5 or 10 years have been rebalancing that, you know, the pendulum swings back and forth.

Yeah, I'll share this last story and then we can go on. But I think it's funny. You mentioned, I had gone down this road. When I finished college, I applied for a lot of jobs in the economic consulting, litigation consulting. Again, if you're interested in that, you can Google it. If you're not, I agree with you.

 And I remember I got a call one day after all these like rounds of interviews. And I'd simultaneously applied for a postgraduate fellowship to study contemporary dance in Southern Eastern Europe and the ex-Soviet countries and in the Balkan countries. Partly because my Croatian heritage, brought a lot of curiosity in me.

Elia: I wanted to go see where my ancestors were from. And I wanted to know what dance was like in other cultures. This sort of higher institutional concert dance, performative dance in theaters. And what people were saying in other places that had different cultural experiences. So I applied for this fellowship.

Simultaneously, I was applying for these jobs. And I got a call from a man at an office in Santa Monica, LA and was sitting on my dorm room couch and called me and said, with a lot of energy says, "Wow, congratulations." And I was like, took me a moment. I was like, what? He's like, "Well, I just want to be the first to extend you an offer to come join us next year as an associate."

And, I sat there, I took a beat... And I felt nothing. Like I was indifferent; I didn't feel anything. I was like, that's a weird feeling. I worked for the last four and a half years to, to this pinnacle moment of a big salary, more money than I've ever seen. Have an apartment in LA and do these things.

And I sat there and I was just, and he's like, "So what do you think?" Just sat there, I was like, 

Kathy: Crickets? 

Elia: Crickets, total crickets. And then I said, wow, like I'm really honored. I'm really grateful. Yeah, I just need some time to sit with it. Can I give you a call back? And he was confused and he said, okay.

So I sat with it for a couple hours and I called him back and I said, I can't take this job. And he's like, what? No one turns down this job. And I said that, I'm not trying to make history. I'm like, not, I'm not being honest to you. I'm not being honest to me. It's just not in my heart.

And I think it had not been in for a long time. But it was my ability to connect my tongue to my heart and articulate that. And he said, like, why, what are you going to do? And I was like, Oh God, I gotta, Gotta I Gotta tell truth. I was like, I'm gonna... then I pause... It's like... Dance.

Kathy: It's a movie moment. 

Elia: And there's just like, more crickets.

And he's like, Well... you can hear him processing. He's like, well, this is LA, you can dance in the night. You can dance on the weekend. Like, there's studios. I said, yeah, I appreciate that. That's kind of you. But I think I need to pursue it more as like a, as a life. And he's pause. And he said again, yeah, but there's lots of opportunities, this is LA. You can dance on your free time and your off time. And I said, I really appreciate it. And I appreciate that you want me to be part of your team. But I need to take a different road in my life. And I give him credit, he said, okay. I understand. Good luck. I hung up the phone. I remember being like, like that was a true sliding doors moment.

Kathy: Yeah. How did that feel, like, in your body? Do you remember at the time? That was a big crossroads.

Elia: It was a big crossroads. And I hadn't known if I was getting this scholarship. I'd applied, but it was very low probability of getting it. 

And I remember feeling very clear. That this is what I needed to do. I didn't know why. Even what I was saying, I didn't know what that looked like. I didn't know what, like, I was 23. But it was something from deep, that needed to do this. And I think it was about just being able to be on the edge of the unknown and stay there. And embody and inhabit that place.

Kathy: Is that something you were used to doing?

Elia: I don't think it's something I had been actively practicing. But I think it's something inside of me that I value and will spend my lifetime unearthing again and again is how to live at that place. That's part of the improvised life. How can we stay at that place? Can we really stand on the edge of the unknown?

And when anxieties come up, work with them, reduce them, reduce ambiguity if things are disclear. Can I check in with my feet and my gut brain? Can I ask for help when I need to? If I need to put on a song and stay on the edge. Does that help? Like all these ways of not jumping out of that place, jumping out into the future. Or into the past.

Which, neither of those exist. And dance is my way of doing that. Dance is my way of being, uh, of practicing wisdom and truth. Dance is my medium to do that. It happens to be physical and I love that. It happens to involve movement and music and touch and these things that I love and crave. These life pleasures.

And I just want to say pleasures, like also my way of, feeling those emotions in my tissues. The anger, the sadness, the jealousy, the grief, the anxiety, the worry. Being in them. And not thinking about them. Not having an idea of an emotion, but really feeling it. So dance is my way of doing all those things.

And I think at that age at 23, I didn't know that, I couldn't articulate that to you, if you had asked me that then. But I think that's even cooler. That something was crystallized and gathered enough energy and intention and direction and courage to be like, I'm going this way. I don't know what this way is.

So my teacher said the other day, it's very beautiful. It's like, a vision is not a direction. It's just a vision. And so you have a vision, how you get there, you have no idea. So don't plan the path. That's not what it's about. When I start to dance, when I really improvise, I don't know where it's going to go.

I have a vision of finding space, being free. Whatever that means. And I think my 23-year-old self needed that. It was a survival thing. I wasn't going to survive doing what I was doing. I was deeply unhappy. I 

Kathy: It's beautiful that you recognize that so young. There are many young people who don't.

Elia: Yeah, yeah, 

Kathy: You know. And then they're 45 going, what have I, what, you know,

Elia: Mm hmm, mm hmm.

Kathy: Living death, you know.

Elia: I don't romanticize it. I run into people like, oh, that's so beautiful, you get to do this. And I say, yeah, it is beautiful. And it's also tragic, and full of pain, and sorrow, and loneliness, and insecurity, and, and all these other things. Because there's nothing to hide behind. When you dance, when you touch, when you expose yourself, you're really vulnerable.

And your vulnerability is going to show all of your patterns and all of your conditioning. And to be able to let people witness that and let people in and see those things. It's not romantic. It's not ideal. You said movie, is definitely not a movie. Well, different kind of movie.

Um, but I really value it anyway. And it's my survival. It's the way I want to be in the world. It's the way I want people to see me. So this, the dirty gritty part that I would say is the other side of the math and the econ.

[00:30:23] Why living on the edge can be a good place to be 

Kathy: It sounds like that edge that you allow yourself to be on a lot of the time has proven somehow to you that it's a safe place to be. Which for some of us, it doesn't feel that way at all.

Elia: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. 

Kathy: The edge is really super-duper scary.

Elia: Yeah. I think it's where the edge is. I think the edge lies in concentric circles, like the rings of a tree. And maybe some people, the edge is closer to the trunk, like the center. Sometimes the edge is closer to the bark. 

Like for example, yesterday, I'll give an example. I was at a dance session. A beautiful session on Monday nights that I go to. And I was feeling weird, it was a weird day. I was disconnected from my body, my back had been hurting earlier, I'd been in a car for three hours. And I was just like blech, that was the feeling. It was like, I don't feel in my best. I don't feel deeply connected with my body. I don't feel even really Inspired. I don't feel safe in a sense, to be the person I want to be. Which is when I have to check myself and go, just be the person you are. Just come as you are and be that person. And allowing my breath to come in and out. And then I, I just touched my own body. It's okay, I'm here. This is what I'm showing up with. Look out and be like, okay, I'm not, there's not a threat here right now.

These are people I know; these are the people that are in their own way feeling some version of this. Maybe they're having an awesome day, maybe a horrible day, probably somewhere in between. So coming back to that, is it safe enough? I don't think we ever find full safety. Maybe if we have a perfect nap or something. But I think it's tolerating that, that in-between place. Is there enough on board to learn?

Is there enough safety to be curious? Is there enough safety to, to drop your weight into your hips and feel a song? Is there enough safety to, to be hugged or to hug. Those are different for different people at different times. It's different for me at different times.

And so when I teach, my goal is how can I build enough safety. And it's different attunement to each person. How can there be enough that person can feel the capacity to be who they are right now? Whatever that is. And maybe who they are right now needs to pause and sit in a corner.

And that's beautiful because that gives permission, coming back to your word, for everyone else to do the same. For everyone else to do what they need to do. And I think that safety is also amplified. So it's space when someone feels that, someone else also feels that. We're empathetic beings and if someone doesn't feel safe, then there's less safety.

So it's a systems thing. There's enough safety in this whole system to do this stuff. Um, and being open and honest about it. I think it's okay. So I'm like, you know, I don't feel safe to do that right now. It's like, awesome. Let's work from there. Articulating it, being brave to, and courageous to speak the truth in the moment. There's a lot of the work that I do now, I wouldn't have articulated like that before. 

[00:33:24] Systems-Centered approach + trauma as resource

Elia: But in, in the realm of the nervous system lens and approach, and also the systems approach that is the last few years have been a big impact in my work is understanding that whatever one person's feeling, we're all, it's an expression of the system. So if you are feeling some anxiety, that's an expression of what the system is holding.

So how can we get it out of your chair? How can we put it in the space so we can work with it? Anxiety is just energy. It's not bad energy. It's not energy to discard. It's energy to compost and fertilize. And from the Qigong tradition that I practice and teach a lot is: all trauma is a resource. All trauma is a resource. And if you don't use the resource, you're wasting it. So how do we unearth it? Because if it stays buried and stays stuck, it's going to show up in symptomatic ways. Subconsciously often. Especially if it's pre verbal, we don't have a story behind it. But the second that we can have enough safety, enough capacity to let that trauma speak, to mine it as a resource, then we can work with it.

Now we can touch on that anxiety or that fear. And if the system is safe enough, it's like, can we take it out of your chair? It's like, Kathy, you don't have to hold that. It's not your sole responsibility. That anxiety is shared. That joy is shared too. It goes both ways. You don't get to hold the joy just for you, you know?

Um, and then once we can work with it, now it's a resource. It's an energy. And energy is energy is energy is energy. It's like, I feel sad. That's energy to dance. I feel happy. That's energy. I feel tired. That's energy to relax. It's an awareness of that. 

Kathy: I find it so interesting that as humans we have this capacity and actually very ancient knowledge about these systems that we've lost touch with in modern society, especially Western society, to the point that we don't even know how to feel our own bodies.

We don't even know we have a system or we might have some vague understanding of what that is. But we're not like we're, we don't coexist with it. It just, it either drives us around or we push it away and ignore it completely. And the idea that we've gotten so far from that, but that knowledge is still with us, that people like you and Irene and others are carrying that knowledge and translating it for us and putting it into contexts that we can actually touch it and access it and then take it in and embody it. It's just such a liberating thing to recognize that we are that. And that we can learn how to hear our own internal wisdom, understand how those systems function, and take responsibility for all of ourselves, all of our experience. You talked about working with energies and we're so used to suppressing them. Especially in modern Western culture. It's take a pill for that. And I know I should be careful there, but it is the reality of it. Go get some medicine for that instead of saying, is there some medicine right here. And sitting with uncomfortable things feels like you're going to die, especially if you're full of trauma, and stored survival stress. But just the knowledge that we actually individually can do that work and learn these things and implement them. And then just like biology works, one cell unites with another cell, which unites with and another and makes a kidney. Same thing with the collective; if we can one by one, learn about ourselves, then we can translate every bit of what you're talking about into every system that we put in place for people, for society, and for the functioning of human civilization. Seems like a 

Elia: Yeah. 

Kathy: huge daunting task, but...

Elia: And what comes up for me as you're talking about, like, I join you on the way that you talk about cell to cell, that a change on one level is a change on every level. Um, some of these sayings that I really like, I use a lot, which is: a little bit is a lot.

The reason a little bit is a lot is not because it's an absolute quantifiable amount. It's because any change on some level is a change on every level. And part of the theory and the work that I'm doing in systems comes from something called Systems-Centered Training, comes out of a psychotherapy and cognitive psychology and biological study about living human systems.

And that living human systems are fractal and replicated. So, my kidney is part of the living human system of my body, is part of the living human system of my family, of our conversation right now. And that those systems all have things in common. Like they all want to survive, and they all want to grow, and they all want to transform.

Which I like. That's what this theory posits. And so we can look at my own system, my own body. How do I take care of my kidney, my kidneys? How do I support their ability to drop, their ability to not secrete so much adrenaline, the adrenal glands sitting on top of them can also just hang out in the hammock and chill out.

What does that take in my system to do that? And the second I do that, the second that I take care of my kidneys and bring my activation down, build up my yin, build up my reserves, recharge my batteries.

Kathy: Love that, yin. 

Elia: Um, use a bunch of different metaphors for those different people listening from different perspectives.

When I do that and then I show up to Thanksgiving, that Thanksgiving system is different.

We spend a lot of time--I've spent a lot of time--I'm going to own this... I've spent a lot of time wishing other people would change. Wanting other people to change. Teaching sometimes from this perspective, if only they could take this awesome knowledge, or take this practice and do it every day.

It's like this desire of someone else's change. I realized, recently, it's futile. It's futile for two reasons. One, I have no control over it. And two, what will change the system is when I change and then I show up to the system. That already has changed because I'm in the system and now because I've changed the system by definition by axiom and math will change.

And so this, what you're talking about, this for me, this balance of individuality and collectivity is really important. 

[00:40:20] Peter Levine - Somatic Experiencing

Elia: Peter Levine, Somatic Experiencing, has a quote that I really like, which is, "You can't do it alone, and no one can do it for you." You can't do it alone, and no one can do it for you. And the same is true when I talk about freedom. I steal this from my Argentine friend. He said, there's no such thing as being free alone. It's like freedom is only possible around other people. And I think that's so true. It's like, it's not enough for me to just be like, oh, but when I'm alone, I dance free, but when I'm with others, I don't. Okay, that's great.

Let's work with that. Let's start from that place. How can we find that sensation? Not that you're going to dance the same. Of course, you're not going to dance the same. You have someone watching. It's going to be different. Thank God it's going to be different. Who wants it? Why do you want it to be the same?

I'm not going to copy paste. Let's have it be different and not different in a way that restricts you, that restricts your permission. To play and to express and to emote. But that collective, that system supports you, bears witness to you. Unearth something that you can't do alone. That you couldn't get out alone. And that's a big part of what touch is, what dance is to me in this moment. Individual work in a collective space. It's about you, but it's also not about you. It's about what you are bringing to that collective system. And what that system is giving back to you. 

[00:41:51] Why play is so important

Elia: And the last thing I'll say is, because I want to touch on the words that we mentioned. I think the words are really important. Play. It's like a lot of times the healing journey work, and the nervous system work, and trauma work, and all this stuff, it's so heavy. It's just too heavy. And when it's too heavy, it's overbearing. It's overwhelming. It's too much. And so I know, and I feel, and I believe that we can do really profound, painful work that can also have silliness in it. It can have laughter. It can have joy. Not that it can't. It needs it. If it doesn't have the other side, it's not complete.

And so the play, that word is really profound. Because I watch kids, it's really serious play. It's like, I was just hanging out with my friend's, two-and-a-half-year-old kid. And it's like, there's nothing more important than building a castle with those blocks. And you better be prepared to engage with those blocks.

Cause if you're not on the same wave length, and if the stakes aren't high enough? Go do something else, you know? I love that, it's like, yeah, we're gonna play, but this is important. And we're gonna laugh and cry and destroy it and build it back up.

But it's not ever just one thing. And in our adult body, I think sometimes this work can become too heavy. And when it's too heavy, it's too dense. And when it's too dense, there's no space. It's a black hole. For those Oppenheimer fans, we need light. We need to find the light on the other side of that. The light, the fire, the space, the play. The music, all that.

Kathy: Yeah. I, we have an eight-year-old granddaughter who lives, across the country from us and we've been doing Zoom calls with her since she was four.

Elia: Oh, nice.

Kathy: And we play almost every day for an hour. She calls us. And we play, full on pretend play. She gives us the backstory and the characters and, we spend a lot of 

Elia: The mise-en-scène. 

Kathy: time talking about it. Yeah. And then we finally get to it. But she expects full engagement from us. And we, I don't care how tired I am. It's I'm not going to miss that. Because, it is my own medicine too, like it's keeping me young, it's keeping me in touch with that part of me where there's no rules and there's no, there's no inhibition. There's just imagination. 

Elia: Hmm. 

Kathy: Nothing is off limits. You know?

Elia: Yeah. I love that. Yeah.

[00:44:12] Thinking outside conditioning, constraint, and taboo

Elia: There's something that you say that sparks for me, like the dissolution of these walls and taboos and constraints that we invent or that we take from our conditioning or family or ancestors or culture or something. And then we just take them as, this is how they are. And I think that, like that permission is do they have to be like that?

Like this idea of, no, I have to dance like this with these steps. Do I have to? This is how we do this. Well, do we have to? Like this questioning, this curiosity around permission to challenge, permission to do it different. It's like when we let go of those expectations and those identifications, those attachments to how things are done, A) we set the body free. I can move how I want to move right now. Who says I have to know your shoulders only circle like this and like this. Cause that's what we do in the fitness class. For those who're not watching, I'm circling my shoulders forward and backwards. It's like, well, says who?

No, your head has to move in a circle. And then the other way, five times. It's like, why, why, why, why?

Kathy: Because that's what Richard Simmons told me.

Elia: Exactly, because that's exactly. Because that's what I learned one time and then someone else learned it. And that's just how it is. So there's something very radical and revolutionary about questioning that stuff. Not questioning it just for stubbornness or dogma, but what feels right for me right now? I don't know. I don't want to shimmy my shoulders like this. That feels good. How do I search out something that, that I find pleasure in or I find purpose in. And dance can be a very actually limiting toxic world where things get passed down because it has to be like this. So part of my work inside the dance realm, or taking that word and uncoupling that word from perfectionism, from good or bad, from right or wrong, from left and right, you know, all these ways. And then dance gets pigeonholed, this thing that is done a certain way in a certain style. And it's like, or not. Really, or not. Um, if it's like you said, your granddaughter, what was the word? You said, there's no, nothing is off limits. It's wow. What if we dance like that? What if you're having a bad day that you put on a song you like and you go, you know what, I'm just going to move without putting limits on this.

I don't know what's going to happen. Um, I have a lot of passion, a lot of fire around that. Because I think the same thing that is deeply limiting is also deeply liberating. Those are the same coin, different sides. And one way in which I think we are very restricted and kept in our place and domesticated, is in our body. And in our mind, but our mind is in our body last time I checked.

 And so the second that we move, we give ourselves permission to move in a way that we have to deal with gravity, we have to deal with our own bodies and limitations, but free inside of that. It is a very empowering thing. It's a very, it's a very, yeah, I'll use the word again, it's very to me, political, revolutionary, radical.

Kathy: Yeah.

Elia: That's exciting, isn't it? 

Kathy: Maybe, maybe, maybe that's why we've, yeah, it is. I'm just, I'm sweating. I'm sweating because this is so amazing. I'm thinking about how we stick kids at desks in classrooms and I just don't, some of the systems we have in place boggle my mind. I don't understand. And I'm hoping that I can come around to a more peaceful place or at least to see it in a way that's not so pissed off. 

Elia: Let's go pissed off energy, that's good, we could rock with that. 

Kathy: Yeah. It's just I see systems that we have in place and we keep saying yes to, as culture and we all know they don't work, but we just keep saying yes to them. So I just, I don't. I don't, I can't, those things don't compute for me. I don't even know where I was going with that, but uh... uh, you know, you look at kids, and you look at humans and what makes them thrive. And it's we've put every system in place that's the opposite of that.

 Kathy: And I keep thinking, like when you talk about revolution, I think, God, what would it take? What would it take for humans to... And what would it look like,

If we were really like in that space of exploration and being uncomfortable with the uncomfortable and the lightness, flipping over into the side of, oh, what would it look like if we were more joyful? If we were more free, if we were more able to fully express as humans? I just wonder what the world would look like and why don't we want that?

Why aren't we demanding that? And maybe we are on a certain level of evolution, it's just inevitable. I don't know, it's not coming fast enough for me.

Elia: Mm hmm. Yeah. And the anger and the frustration I see as a surge. And in the Northern Hemisphere, it's the springtime, the energy's surging up, and that's righteous. That's important. That's like, I want to feel that anger. I want to feel that frustration. I want to feel that impatience. And I don't want it to stick in my head or as an idea. Um, uh, a holier than thou, sort of utopias. No, I want to feel it and I use it to enact change.

And that thing starts with me. That starts with me. Every time that I want to dance on the street, I should just do that. That is a radical thing to do. If I want to teach something, I should just do that. If I want to go to someone's class and vote with my feet and support that, just do that. Like those ways, those little ways that make up our life. That are ways that I, again, come back to that, when I change, the system changes. And so, that's like my daily check. Like my, my, my daily, my daily reminder and slice of humility is also like, okay, then you do it. Stopping in the middle of the day and lying on the ground for 20 minutes, is like a very radical thing to do. It's like, I'm not gonna, I'm not going to just engage in this infinite gears of production and growth and infinite capital accumulation. No, I'm just going to do nothing right now.

And in my classes, when we lie down together, it's radical to do nothing together. Super radical. And it also makes me think, you know, like the, the element of lightness and fun is like Emma Goldman, the Feminist and suffragette proponent said, If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution.

And I was like, hell yes. Every protest has songs. You know, because it gathers people. It gathers us. The drum is a gathering force, the fire is a gathering force. The table with food, the picnic is a gathering force. And more and more I see my work around that. Using dance, using touch, using expression as a force to gather people around a common good.

And then the common good is never me or someone else or the teacher in the middle. It's the work is in the middle or the purpose or the intention.

[00:51:02] On alchemizing anger + Elia & Irene's Up & Down Workshop

Kathy: Yeah. I like the idea too of using the work to alchemize that activation. Because I feel like all that angry energy that I feel, sure, it can be fuel, but at some point I feel like it becomes toxicity instead of like healthy fuel. So being able to work with that, like you say, work with that energy and turn it into a beautiful expression or a um, creative expression instead of a destructive expression. Is something that I want to have mastery of in myself. You know, and I'm so excited to start to see some little itty-bitty steps just through the nervous system work and through your work. which by the way, I haven't gotten to do one of your live Up & Downs, but I did a recorded one.

Elia: Oh, nice, yeah.

Kathy: Oh, it was so... I can see how doing that long form over a weekend would be an incredible experience. To do it in the presence of others.

Elia: The coolest thing that happens, it happens at every one, so I'm going to jinx this next one, is that at the end of sometimes it's been three days, sometimes it's been four days, but at the end, on the last day, we do a lot of stuff. We play a lot of games, we do a lot of individual explorations, we do group explorations. We do talking, we do moving, we do music, no music, there's a lot, there's a whole layered experience.

But at the end, we're sitting in a circle, just closing, people sharing, if they want, if they don't, whatever. And then there's like,

That. It's the silence. It's this time when nothing happens. And it's amazing to be in a space with 20, 30, 40 people, and nothing needs to be said. No one needs to go anywhere. And it's not this sort of awkward silence that you feel anxious and want to cut it. It's just we're just hanging out together, just as beings.

Yeah. Yeah. We're just hanging out, we've said some stuff, we've moved some stuff, there's people we like, maybe like less, doesn't matter, we can be in the same room. 

Kathy: Nothing more is needed.

Elia: Nothing more is needed, it's like this incredible, beautiful, ventral vagal balance of, ahhh...

Kathy: So gorgeous.

Elia: Because we're not also in shavasana, you know, we're not resting, we're not sleeping, we're just, sitting next to each other, like parallel, silent play.

And, it's just so rare is the thing. It's like how often in our life do we just sit in silence with strangers and not have it be super awkward or comfortable or horrible? Or forced, it's like, we're gonna take a moment of silence, which has its own value, but it's like a dictated thing. As opposed to it happens organically; we don't suggest it. 

Kathy: Yeah. 

Elia: And then people don't rush up to leave because why would you want to leave that energy?

Why would you want to leave that? There's something nice about it though. It's a, not an affirmation, but it's a result and an echo of the work that everyone comes to do and it's just, makes me happy to sit in that place. 

Kathy: It's the full definition of ease.

[00:54:12] On ease, dis-ease, and balance

Elia: Yeah, I like that. That's, yeah, that's a nice word. Thank you. Ease, exactly. 

Kathy: In all of my searching for relief from depression and anxiety, I've done every modality there is and, just about, and I did do some plant medicine work. And at one point I had this feeling of I kept saying I, in my journal, I have it recorded, I kept saying over and over, I didn't know I could be this at ease. I didn't know it was possible to feel this much ease in my body. And now, post that, I can, through the work I've been doing with the nervous system work, and also I've done meditation for years, but it has a whole new dimension now that I'm including my body in it.

Um, recognizing that we're wired for that. We were wired for the activation too, but that level of what you just described happened in the circle,

Elia: Mm hmm.

Kathy: That we're wired for that. We're wired to have that experience. And it's completely and totally possible.

Elia: Yes.

Kathy: For me, is such a hopeful thing.

I just think, God, if, I'm not going to go to what if, but it's just a beautiful, hopeful thing to me that we actually have that capability. And that it's right here. It's right, right here within us. Just takes some intention and some structure, which helps. 

Elia: Yeah. I was just sitting with the word ease. And dis ease on the other side of that. What is out of ease? What is off ease? What's is the, another word I would use for ease is balance? And in the practice of Qi Gong, which is the ancient Chinese healing art, Qi means energy and Gong means work.

It's always a search for balance. It's always a search for ease. And that is so powerful because it's so easy that pathologize everything about our own situation, our own story, other people, the world, whatever. It's full of diagnostic, pathological, interpretation. And it's like, what if we stop pathologizing and just notice where there's ease and dis ease?

Where there's balance or out of balance? If you're really full, stop eating. And if you're really hungry, eat something. If you're really hot, take off a shirt. And if you're cold, put on a blanket. These are simple, but they're profound things because they're regulating, in another way to say it, this word that is now popular and used a lot.

It's great. I think sometimes it gets lost and people say it, but what are you really saying? To me, the regulation is a rebalancing. So when there's an activation, can we come back? When there's passivity or shutdown, can we come up? In the wintertime, we build a fire. In the summertime, we cool off in a lake.

 If I'm around too many people, I take my space. If I need to be around people, I go find people. These are all ways for me of finding ease. And when there's dis ease, not judging it. If it's something that's not easeful, the second we pathologize it to me, is we identify to it. We identify it, we identify to it, and then all of a sudden it's not us.

It's not being integrated. But the second I go, wow, my kidney's a little sore, like I haven't been sleeping well. Okay, can I touch it? Can I drink some warm water? Do I need to lie down? Do I need like a gentle walk? How can I restore balance to that part of my body, which is, by the way, my whole body, which is also part of the collective body.

And then all of a sudden it's like you're doing work for the whole universe. Just by searching for that balance. 

[00:57:45] Why following your impulse is so powerful

Kathy: That's where the whole idea of following impulse comes from, right? Like, that impulse that's coming from your kidney, that's telling you, it's actually telling you if you just take that moment to ask, What is it you need? Oh, that, it'll come to you that fast.

Elia: Yes, exactly. Exactly. And I think the really hard thing is I notice a lot, I notice in myself, I notice in other people, so I know I'm not alone, um, is it's the, it's the moment to pause so that I can hear the impulse, to recognize the impulse, but then can I act on it? I think a lot of times we miss that last part.

Oh, I slowed down. Oh, that hurts. Yeah, but... I need to do this. Or, yeah, but I don't have the time to stop pee Yeah, but, 

Kathy: I'll pee, but right after I do these five other things. 

Elia: Exactly. I could take a five-minute nap, or I could have, you know, an espresso. Oh, I'll have the espresso. It's they might get to the same place, but one of them is gonna create, its own loop.

So, I think the ability, and the support, the conviction, to act on what you feel from that impulse. It's hard. I think it takes practice. It takes support. A lot of my work is around helping people do that. Whether it's an online program or in person or touch work. 

[00:58:57] Elia's classes and offerings - REALLY good stuff

Kathy: Yeah, let's talk about that. What you've got going. 

Elia: Um, this Spring I launched the first time that I've run a full online program.

I've been doing stuff online for the last four years. It actually started just before the pandemic in September of 2019. I was like, you know what, I want to try this, offering some of these things online. I have different students around the world. This is a cool way to stay in touch and the technology is good enough that I can play with this.

Started using this thing no one had ever heard of. Irene actually told me about it. It was called Zoom. And I was like, man, moments like that, I'm like, wow, I should have invested in that. That was smart. 

Kathy: How does the math work out on that?

Elia: I know, right? Yeah, exactly. That was the problem. And I was actually, I was really pleasantly surprised that it could be adapted in a different context.

It's take the 3D, put it into 2D, but it gives people agency in their own home or in their own office or wherever, watch it on the recording, turn off the video, lie down. It's like these things that you invite to do in person, but in person has its own social pressure and expectations. And so I think for some people and for me, I took a lot of courses and classes online.

It offered another way to, to experience the work. It offered another way to, to be very intimate in a way, in the way you needed to learn or wanted to experience the situation. I started doing more and more. And then I started working with a musician, my friend Vasilis. And offering sound and music online as a sound bath experience, as a move, as music to a company movement.

Those things are really important to me, they go together. And then finding different versions of that: workshops, longer form, short form, working one on one with people online. And then I eventually sat down, I didn't actually sit down, but I stood up and filmed, basically my whole library that I had a library of knowledge that I had accumulated up to the point.

And this was in 2022. 2021-2022. And I wanted to make each video accessible and digestible. So I gave myself a constraint of 20 minutes. I had heard the founder of TED talk once said he, some of the TED talk short things are like 20 minutes, 18 minutes. Cause it's the amount of time that you can do one good chunk of work or talk about one thing with some depth. But it's also, you can fit it into your day.

If you really want to, you can find 20 minutes on most days. So that was the constraint I gave myself. And then the other constraint was I gave myself one take. So every video I was going to do one take. So if I stumble over some words, it's okay. That's part of it. I wouldn't stop the workshop and make everyone leave and come back.

Kathy: We're starting over. 

Elia: Exactly. We're starting over. It's like, no that's, that's part of it. Which I think something the digital world unfortunately encourages a lot of perfectionism. Like everything has to look, sound perfect because it's digitized. Like does it? Does it? So that was the two constraints I gave myself. And I framed my work into four different categories.

One was Qigong, one was self-care, which is a lot about self-touch, massage, acupressure points, meditation. One was dance for non-dancers, and for dancers. And the other one was mobility. So ways of approaching flexibility, stretching, circling, just mobilization of our organism. How do we gather and send energy? So those are my four categories. And I filmed the videos. And then, and did them all again because they weren't good enough. 

Kathy: Weren't perfect enough. 

Elia: They weren't perfect enough. They were actually indeed so not perfect enough that they needed to be redone. I learned a lot about sound and video. Had four different musicians from different parts of the world that I knew from before the pandemic, create original music.

So the soundtracks to all the videos are beautiful. They're awesome. There's cello, there's house music, there's a DJ, there's a pianist, there's a drummer, there's a synthesizer and a sampler of nature. So this is a really beautiful soundscape. I wanted to offer something to people that they could do on their own time.

So the point of the whole program of the 10 weeks is to do the videos on your time. And you keep the videos forever. So it's an opportunity for people to have an experience and then continue having an experience that they can fold into their life. I wanted to maintain the live element. So once a week, there's a live class. Cause I really enjoy that. 

With live music. And it's a way to integrate and meet people and check in. There's a Q&A every week.

Kathy: So it's offered at a particular time.

Elia: The program runs 10 weeks. It ran from March 3rd to May 11th. And I'm going to another one in the Fall. Going to run the same program again.

 I'm proud of it. I'm really proud of it. I'm proud of having a vision and not knowing how to get there, but arriving, three years later. And I'm just, I'm proud of finding yet another way to meet people where they're at. And this intersection of where my fullest self-expression meets my highest act of service. And that intersecting place is where I want to stay. Whether it's a performance or a workshop or a class or whatever. How can I honor what I want to share with the world and listen to what the world is asking for?

Meet what people are looking for. It also made me remember and realize that I love doing stuff in person. I love both. We can have both. Abundance mentality. You could have something online. And I love being in person with people. I love that rubbing shoulders and seeing each other and showing up for each other.

Kathy: You guys have an Up and Down coming here pretty soon.

Elia: We do, we have one next week, April 5th to 7th. We're talking about it, and I'm not breaking any news here, nothing's confirmed, but we had plans in 2019 for 2020 we were gonna be in Australia, we were gonna be in Europe. So we're thinking about how to revive, not revive. Just go and share the work there.

There's a lot of people in a lot of places that are interested in this work. In this particular flavor of the work. And I like people, I like traveling, 

I like offering things in different contexts. I think you change the place, you change the person. Especially now, I think live events and things in person are really powerful. I think with how much screen time we have and how much we have online, it's cool and it's beautiful, and, we need the balance. Come back to that. We need the in-person things too. It's not enough without it. 

Kathy: Agree. Yeah. I hope you'll do more in North America.

Elia: Yeah. I think our intension is to do that, so...

Kathy: Do you guys have a minimum, a number of people? To do a live thing?

Elia: Yeah, it's around, it depends on the space, that's really the determining factor. I think 18 was the smallest group we had in England last year. We had a almost around 50 and 45 in Stockholm. So it depends on the space. It's actually nice to have the range. It's nice to do small, intimate things, and it's nice to do bigger frame things. I think we're in 20 to 25 people in Vancouver. 

Kathy: Okay. I ask because I live in an incredible place that is, it's way up in the mountains of Northern California. And it's very much a destination place for nature. We have an incredible river that runs through here and 

Elia: Wow. 

Kathy: So I keep thinking, oooh, how could entice them to come do a workshop up here? There's a resort that I facilitated a writing retreat at here that friends of mine own. And it's right on the river and it's a magical place. 

Elia: I'm enticed already. You he had me at river. That sounds great. I love that part of the world. I have a bunch of friends in the Bay Area. My parents and sister at different points lived in the Bay Area.

I have a, I don't know if you're in the Bay Area, but I just mean in the Northern California universe.

Kathy: We're way up north. We're close to the Oregon border. 

Elia: Ah, okay.

Kathy: But yeah, we're way up there in the, up in the mountains.

Elia: Beautiful. Okay. 

Kathy: Yeah. It's gorgeous. I'm looking at snow covered peaks right now.

Elia: Yeah, I used to drive. Every time I drove down Southern California for school, I would pass, that'd be my favorite part of the drive. That's Southern Oregon, Northern California, Humboldt. It was really beautiful. 

Kathy: Yeah. 

Elia: Oh, wow. That's a cool memory.

Kathy: Yeah. Well, we shall see.

Elia: We shall see.

Kathy: I want to be mindful of your time. I could talk with you for hours, but maybe we wrap it up for this time.

Elia: Yeah. Yeah. Let's leave. Let's leave. Let's leave crumbs. Let's leave food

Kathy: Yeah. Yeah. 

Elia: For future meals. 

Kathy: So I will, I'll put, in the show notes and everywhere I can post things, I'll put links where people can find you.

Elia: Awesome.

Kathy: Elia Mrak. Miraculous.

Elia: That's right. 

Kathy: Miraculous. 

Elia: I stole it from my aunt, who's made films and documentary films, and that was the name of her production company. I was like, Oh, that's good. Yeah, Miraculous Productions.

Kathy: I love that.

Elia: I'm going to steal that sometimes. I won't register it so that, we don't have tax issues, but I like the name.

Kathy: It's really good. 

Elia: It's fun. It's fun to say. It's also like people don't know how to say my last name. So when you use that word, it's clear. 

Kathy: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's very helpful 

Elia: It's helpful. It's very functional. 

Kathy: Yeah, yeah, huh. 

So people can go check out your podcast, The Improvised Life. 

Elia: Yes. 

Kathy: You have it on YouTube. 

Elia: We have it on YouTube. We're going to have it on all the, all the platforms sometime soon. We're building it. It's a learning process of to do this. But this is also nice to be a guest and, uh, be on the other side and appreciate all the, all the beautiful...

Kathy: Oh, it's nice to have you as guest.

Elia: professionalism and flow. It's like okay, I'm going to take some ideas, some stuff you're doing, Kathy, so thank you for that.

Kathy: Yeah. Sure. My pleasure. I was going to suggest we move, but I think since we, we went so long, maybe another time. Maybe we could chat again. 

Elia: So yeah, let's do another episode of the, where there's a little movement. That would be really nice.

Kathy: I would love that. I'm starting now to bring my back catalog onto YouTube. At first, I did just audio because it was just too much for me to do everything. But now I'm editing for video and then. 

Elia: Gotcha.

Kathy: And then use the audio.

Elia: Okay. 

Kathy: Yeah, I could, we could go to some far-out places. Thank you so much. I feel like I learned so much just hanging out with you. 

Elia: Thank you for the, the space. I feel very, that's, it's, that's reflected on both sides. Just the freedom to, you know, I don't show up with an agenda. It's a co-creation. It's a dance. You know, think that conversation to me is a, it's a duet, it's a dance. So thank you for that, space and that trust. I love about what I love. So that's a privilege. 

Kathy: I like listening about what you love. It's beautiful work and I highly value it and, and thank you for the way it's impacted me. Honestly, my life is changing in a big way through your work and the work you do with Irene. And I told Irene that it's been the missing key, the missing puzzle piece for me it's been huge. And I know it's, the journey is just beginning. But just knowing that I'm, I've found like a real big piece of the map is… 

Elia: It's empowering. It's beautiful to hear. I can hear tone of the voice, of your voice. There's light, there's hope, there's space there. 

Kathy: Yeah. For sure. All right. So again, I hope. I'll reach out.

Elia: Yeah, that'd be lovely. Let's do this again.

Kathy: Thanks a lot. 

Elia: Thank you, Kathy. Thanks for everyone listening. Appreciate it. 

Kathy: Thanks to everybody. Talk soon, bye. 

Elia: Ciao. 

[01:10:40] Show Close

Elia: Thanks so much for joining us today.

 If you enjoyed this conversation, please come back for more. I've got some really interesting and inspiring guests on tap for upcoming episodes. I've got award-winning authors, actors, plant medicine people, nervous system experts, just a smorgasbord of goodness and curiosity. And also, if you could please help me grow my audience by sharing with your friends, and especially subscribing to, rating, and reviewing the show.

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Thank you so much my friends. It means so much that you chose to spend your time with me today. Be well, and remember to think less, play more. Grant yourself permission to play.