Lisa Marie Rankin:

Today, I had the pleasure of speaking with Karen Fabians. She is the founder of Barebones Yoga and the host of the long running podcast, conversations for yoga teachers. Her mission is to empower and educate teachers so they can feel confident and make an impact in their communities teaching yoga. Today, we talk about how women can rewrite limiting beliefs that keep them stuck with the status quo and also how they can face their fears so they can step into the next best version of themselves. Now make no mistake, this conversation isn't just for yoga teachers. If you're looking to start a business, begin a relationship, maybe end a relationship, or show up differently in your life, this episode is filled with practical wisdom. Let's dive in. Hello, Karen.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

Thank you so much for joining me today on The Goddess School podcast.

Karen Fabian:

Hello. I'm really psyched to be here. This is, like, my dream to go on your show and other people's shows and talk and actually have a good conversation that I hope inspires your listeners. So thank you so much for having me on.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

You are very welcome, and I am sure it will. Karen, it's funny. I I have I knew of you well before I ever actually met you because I used to take yoga at at Baptiste. And I'm sure I've even taken your classes, but it wasn't until fairly recently, like, more on my entrepreneurial journey, which we've had an opportunity to connect. But I would love before we even dive in to today's episode, should I just share a little bit about your background?

Karen Fabian:

Sure. So I've been teaching yoga since 2002, so over 20 years. And when you mentioned Baptiste Yoga, that was one of the first studios that I taught at, and I worked for a while for Baron Baptiste, an international yoga teacher who traveled the world. And I traveled with him with a bunch of us that taught in his studios here in Boston as well as helped him at boot camps and teacher trainings around around the world. And, prior to that, I had a long history working in the corporate world. While it was focused on health care, it was definitely not teaching yoga. It was definitely working in different business settings, and I actually started out as a social worker. So I worked in hospitals and different rehab settings.

Karen Fabian:

So I did have a real penchant for movement and helping people with their health from a movement point of view. So when I took my first yoga class in 1999, it was no surprise that I connected very deeply with it. And I pretty quickly knew that was what I wanted to do for a living. And while it took a little bit of time, teacher trainings, and extracting myself from my business career to teach full time, that's what I did. And I've been working for myself ever since. And similar to you, am on that entrepreneurial path where I work for myself. I don't have a studio by choice. I always wanted the freedom to be able to work independently and not have kind of the fixed brick and mortar of a studio.

Karen Fabian:

Not that there's anything wrong with that. That just wasn't my vibe. And so what I do is because my focus has been on movement and that was really my attraction to yoga, I dove deep into anatomy and did a lot of learning, both within the yoga world, but also my academic world, also the personal training world, and emerged with a way to present it to teachers that makes it really easy for them to learn. Knowing that, it tends to get a bad rap. Like, it's really hard to learn anatomy, but I know I need to know it. So because I have a very process oriented mind, that's one of my superpowers, I was able to take this complex subject and discern what are the key things that teachers need to know and how could I make it a step by step blueprint so that it's easy for them to learn. And that became the cornerstone of my own signature program that I teach to teachers all over the world. And through that, they learn anatomy and how to apply it to queuing and sequencing, and along the way, how to find their confidence.

Karen Fabian:

And that has always been the big draw for teachers when they connect with me, that desire to feel more confident.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

Yeah. Oh, thank you. And it's interesting. I feel like I've put myself in a lot of new situation throughout my life. I was also in the corporate world and then went into an entrepreneurial journey, and I was also a certified corporate world and then went into an entrepreneurial journey, and I was also a certified yoga teacher and taught yoga. And, interestingly, I feel like starting to teach yoga was almost one of the scariest things that I've done. And I'm pretty comfortable getting up in front of people and talking, but there was something about leading a class that I remember I would be sweating profusely, and I felt like my voice wasn't projecting as well. So one of the reasons that I wanted to invite you on today is in my community, I often have a lot of women who are stepping into a new chap chapter of their life, whether their children are going off to college or maybe they've just retired.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

They might getting a divorce, and they have a lot of ideas, but they don't necessarily have the confidence or there's the fear, especially for women who are starting to create their own business. And as I've been contemplating this, you really came to mind because because I know you work with this with so many women who want to be yoga teachers, but then there's this fear. Like, I'm gonna get up in front of people and lead a class. Mhmm. I would love to hear a little bit of, like, how do you guide women to create confidence and to overcome fear so they can step into the next best version of themselves? Mhmm.

Karen Fabian:

Yeah. So I can speak about it quickly in terms of the yoga teacher, and then we can broad brush it more into women in general, or really people in general. For yoga teachers, what you describe is a very common experience. And I've spent a lot of time studying this from almost a sociological psychological perspective because I have this experience of working with so many teachers that have similar feelings as you just described. So especially in 2022 and 2023, I had a good number of teachers enroll in my program, and I was able to step back and see this common thread of that experience of walking in the room and feeling really nervous. And I just kept asking myself, what is it about teaching yoga that is triggering for people in a very common way where they feel nervous, they question if they're good enough, they question if they're expert enough. They don't like people watching them, so they tend to practice with their students because they can hide on their mat. And what I learned through lots of 1 on 1 work with these teachers in my program is that because yoga has a very long historical path, not only just the history of yoga, but the philosophy of yoga, that adds a certain level of, I need to be qualified to teach this, versus and this is not a put down.

Karen Fabian:

It's just different from being a personal trainer or a Zumba teacher or a Pilates teacher or a group exercise teacher where there isn't that fundamental foundation upon which what you're teaching was founded. And because yoga has been around for 1000 of years, it has this history. And so that is one aspect that I found was triggering for teachers. This feeling like I don't really understand, and I'm not qualified to understand all of what yoga is. So who do I think I am walking in the room and teaching it? And then, additionally, what I found was that and this can be also experienced if you're giving a presentation in whatever scenario. That feeling of everybody's watching me. And as soon as everybody's watching me, depending on my confidence level, my expertise with the subject matter, I might go right up in my head rather than staying focused on them and what I'm there to share. That is also a very common experience.

Karen Fabian:

What you described, the sweating, the feeling self conscious, that across the board was what teachers experienced. What I do with yoga teachers, and this applies to your broader question of, let's say, a woman who's going into a different phase of her life where now she wants to be seen more, where she wants to do something really for her, where she finally has time to be the kind of person maybe she's put on hold for her husband, for her children, and there's that barrier there. What I found in the conversations I've had and all these conversations I've had have been with women is that there is a belief under the surface that has yet to be revealed, that in that belief is the true barrier blocking the woman, the person, from being who they wanna be. And it even goes a little deeper because the belief is oftentimes times backed with stories and experiences that the person has had that shore up that belief and make it more fixed in their mind. And it pretty much always has to do with something at the identity level, so who I am as a person. And that is often until those beliefs come to the surface and we shine the light on them and we start to have conversations around, well, where did that belief come from? It's very difficult for the person to successfully move forward into that next phase of their life and really enjoy it and really be showing themselves authentically. Because in that authentic showing is the shift of the identity from the belief laden identity, which isn't really who they are and who they want to be. And the free, almost like a 4 year old, the free person that's in there just dying to come out.

Karen Fabian:

So I can give you an example if

Lisa Marie Rankin:

Yeah. Sure. If you wanna give me example. This is this is gold. Thank you, Karen. Yeah.

Karen Fabian:

Yeah. Because I feel like it it's a little esoteric, but I can give you an example, of course, in the context of working with yoga teachers. So I was working with this one yoga teacher who was very, very hard on herself and would drive home from teaching her classes and have this narrative in her head. Oh, you screwed up again. Oh, they didn't like it. Oh, you didn't do a good job. And this is a grown woman who's raised a family. I mean, these are not young people who don't have life experience.

Karen Fabian:

Not bashing anyone, just describing this avatar, this kind of person. Someone who you would look at and you would see them as a community leader. You would see them as a mother, as a wife, and yet the berating that she would do of herself was pretty severe. And so I was working with her just on kind of the surface level of, well, how are you approaching your classes? Come to find out, she was really struggling with remembering her sequence. So a lot of her nerves were tied to the fact that she'd go into class, and she'd have to practice with them. She'd have to bring notes, and she still would feel like her mind was going blank. When I went backwards in the process of what she was doing as a teacher, come to find out every single class, she was changing her sequence. And so for me, it was clear to see that that was the problem.

Karen Fabian:

But I knew that there was a belief that was driving her behavior. Otherwise, why would somebody keep doing this? If we're looking at a behavior and we're thinking that is just not making sense to me, it's belief driven, and we have to get to the belief. So I asked her, hey. It would seem that it would be worth experimenting with teaching the same sequence over and over again so that you get to the point where you can remember it. And she said, oh, I I can't do that. And I said, can you share more? And she said, well, I know that people won't like it. I know that they will get bored. I I think they need variety.

Karen Fabian:

And I was told in teacher training I need to change it. And in fact, when I go take people's classes, it seems like every time I take so and so's class, she has a new sequence. So here's the shoring up of the belief. Right now we know what the belief is, and now we know why the belief is so strong. And this points to this idea. There's a psychologist out of I don't think she's out of Stanford, but her name is Carol Dweck, and she wrote a book on growth mindset. And she presents this framework, you have a fixed mindset or you have a growth mindset. And this is a perfect example of someone who has a fixed mindset.

Karen Fabian:

They have a very fixed idea of what a yoga teacher needs to do to be successful, and it's shored up by all of these stories. Well, the teacher training told me in the face of their own experience, which is not satisfying for them. And this is how strong these beliefs can be. So what I offered her was just an experiment. Would you be willing, just for the next four classes, she taught every Thursday, to just stick to the same sequence and just see what happened. And I could hear the questioning in her voice. She was really nervous, and she basically said, okay. I'll try.

Karen Fabian:

But it was this sort of resigned statement, like, alright. But she was sort of at the end of a rope. Matter of fact, when she enrolled in my program, she said to me, this is my last ditch effort. I've been through 2 teacher trainings. I'm not enjoying it, and this is really my last ditch effort before I just quit. And so she experimented with the same sequence for 4 weeks. And along the way, we were keeping in touch. We did another coaching call, and it was just what you would expect because it's very logical.

Karen Fabian:

But what happened was not only the expected, which is she knew it better and better every time she walked in. What was unexpected for her is she could loosen her attachment to all the stories and to the central belief, which is they needed her to show up with this new snazzy sequence every single time. Otherwise, they'd be bored. And what she kept saying to me was, I can't believe no one is saying anything. Like, I'm driving home and I'm, like, flabbergasted that no one came up to me after class and said, oh my god. I can't believe you're teaching the same thing. They're not saying anything. And she was basically starting to loosen her attachment to that belief.

Karen Fabian:

The other thing that was driving her though to the end of her rope was that she had been raised by a father who only accepted straight a's. And her and her sisters were raised in an environment where perfect was a, less than a was not perfect. So that became part of her belief system, who she was, the kind of person she was, the way she looked at the world, that there was right and nothing else, or you you did it right or you did it wrong, a very binary. And teaching yoga is the furthest thing away from that as possible because you're walking in room with people you don't know. Right? And you don't know there really is no right way. There's the way you wanna do it that sets you up for success. And so in this process, she also was able to start to see that the way she was raised, that perfect was the only way, was not actually the only way she could operate in the world. She could actually look at things as less of a right wrong, perfect or bad, and she could look at things as more nuanced and more dynamic and more from the perspective of, well, if I feel really good with how I'm doing, that's the primary thing that matters.

Karen Fabian:

And all of what we're talking about here leads to the, central concept of my entire program, but just this whole conversation we're having, which is this magic of momentum. And when you start on this path and loosening your attachments and experimenting with different things, you start to feel that momentum in the forward direction where you're not really it's not that you're questioning your beliefs. You're just starting to replace them with more positive experiences and more positive self talk, and the snowball just starts to run downhill, and then you're off to the races. Right? And so this is when you talk about the scenarios with the women that you work with and people in your community and probably listeners. This is exactly what we're talking about. So it could be a woman who I had a woman in my program who her husband always called her a wallflower. So she went into teacher training despite this identity that I'm a wallflower without realizing that she she was gonna need to stand up in front of people and teach yoga. And all of a sudden, she was faced with this relationship dynamic she had with her husband where he would say to her when they would go to parties or, oh, you're such a wallflower.

Karen Fabian:

Why aren't you speaking up more? Why aren't you like, when I was sitting with so and so having a conversation, why were you just, like, cowering back and you weren't contributing? You're such a wallflower. So it was interesting. This is an example of the soul is actually sometimes drawing us to do the things that are the scariest in an effort to pull us out of our shell, which was exactly what she did when she signed up for teacher training. It was that part of her that was basically saying, I'm not a wallflower. This other person does not define me. And goddamn it. I'm gonna go to teacher train she didn't know that at the time. But in retrospect, once we started working together, she realized it was really the part of her that didn't really agree that she was a wallflower.

Karen Fabian:

But she had just sort of accepted this persona because of the dynamic between her and her husband.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

Oh, I love that. What a great example. And I love how you just said her soul was calling her to do it. Because in my community, we work a lot with the teachings of Carl Jung, and he had this concept of telos where there's this innate psychic drive that we have to individuate, to step into the next best version of ourselves. So I think whenever we have an idea, like, oh, I wanna be a yoga teacher, or I wanna start a business, or I wanna start a relationship, end a relationship, like, we need to take these seriously because they're almost a gift from the divine that's, like, guiding us to that next step.

Karen Fabian:

Yes. Absolutely. And I feel like you know, I just turned 60. I feel like as women get older, especially I don't have a family. Like, I don't have children. My boyfriend and I have been together for a long time, but I know from a lot of actually, almost every single woman in my program has a family. And they're also pretty much in the 40 to 55, 60 age range. So for some of them, they are looking to yoga teaching as sort of a next step for them.

Karen Fabian:

Maybe they're gonna be retiring, or maybe they're sort of at the tail end of their corporate career, and they want to do something that they feel is meaningful. And they've attached that idea to yoga or connected with being a yoga teacher as a way to do that. I feel like that soul draw, that soul pull is there. And at the same time, similar to this example I just shared with this one woman that was considering herself a wallflower, this is where oftentimes there's a whole life history of beliefs that have been built up that the person might think, oh, I really want to now do this. And at the same time, they've developed this identity that is blocking them from taking a step forward.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

Yeah. It's so, it's very interesting, like, the way that you talk about the beliefs and the identity because my community also does a lot with shadow work. Right? So it's like and that's really what we're doing here when we're trying to say, what beliefs do I have that are preventing me from moving forward? And even in your example, there was the belief, one, that everyone wants a new routine, a new sequence every single time I show up. And there's the belief that if it's not perfect, then it's a flop. Like, as if there is a perfect yoga class, an objectively perfect class. But I see that as well too with the women that I coach and teach that there is this set mindset of how something needs to be and maybe where they're falling short. So there's that opportunity. 1, first, you have to identify the belief, which is easier said than done because they're baked in us when we're pretty young.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

But then also rewire it because you also said something else, like, these beliefs aren't without foundation. They're not just things that we pull out of the air. We've continued to prove them to ourselves over and over again in our lives, and that's why they stick. So now we have to start to question them, and we'd start to need to provide other evidence that they're more malleable, that they don't actually need to exist, and they're not the empowering ones.

Karen Fabian:

Yeah. For sure. And I know that you've heard the saying, something like you can't think your own way out of a problem, that sort of thing. This applies here, especially in terms of beliefs because we just will go in a circle if we try to fix this or change this ourselves. This sort of work to uncover beliefs that we have that are blocking us from living the life we want, I really have found is only the kind of excavating that can be done when you work with someone else, because your mind and your mindset and your way of looking at the world is what got you where you are. And it's also what's holding you back from where you wanna be if you're not moving in the direction of where you wanna be. And we're, of course, talking about people who want to be someplace else in their life doing something different. And for some reason they're stuck.

Karen Fabian:

In my experience, it's not usually a skills issue. Skills can be taught. It's usually a mindset block. And it's very difficult to think your way out of that mindset block on your own, especially because of exactly what you said. Everything that the person has experienced, they see through the lens of their belief. So it just hardens it. This is that fixed mindset. It just hardens it, and it just becomes more evidence to prove their way of thinking.

Karen Fabian:

Like, I'll give you a perfect example. Ben hates dealing with anything regarding customer service. If the TV remote doesn't work, if the controller, if the I don't know. Something with the credit card statement, if we check into a hotel and there's a any problem that involves conversation with the customer service type issue, he hates. And usually those kinds of conversations and calling 800 numbers and stuff doesn't really work smoothly. It just doesn't, especially now in the land of AI and all that. So every time he makes an attempt to fix a problem himself, the world operates in the way one would expect. So it just keeps hardening his belief that I if I have a problem, it will never be resolved if I take the steps to go through customer service.

Karen Fabian:

So what ends up happening is he just problems will arise, and he just won't deal with them. So I end up finding out about them, like the Poland Springs water we kept getting delivered. And I was like, we don't even need this anymore. But he refused to even spend any time calling the 800 number because in his head, customer service doesn't work. So you always get this evidence when you're in a certain mindset that just hardens because that's the lens through what you see the world. And if we take that example and make it an identity thing, if I think of myself as a wallflower, if I think of myself as bad with money, or if I think of myself as the kind of woman who can't be independent because I am very connected to my husband and he's taken care of everything for 20 years and now I have an opportunity to retire and do something that I really wanna do. But if I believe that I can, then I'm gonna keep seeing evidence that proves that. And until I talk to someone who doesn't have that perspective and who can sort of see through my twisted logic because that's really what it is.

Karen Fabian:

We sort of twist reality to continue to justify why we feel the way we feel. And that's oftentimes because the most common emotion underlying all of what we're talking about is fear. And there is something that one gets from continuing in a certain belief pattern. And just in the examples we talked about regarding yoga teachers, the fear is just what you described. It's the fear of showing yourself. And so behind all of the conversation and all of the beliefs and the different scenarios that I've uncovered in talking to people, yoga teachers, the common thread is always I'm afraid of something. I'm afraid of being seen. I'm afraid of nobody coming to my class.

Karen Fabian:

I'm afraid I will be successful. I'm afraid it could be a number of different things, but the common denominator is fear. And we can pretty much say for for the other scenarios, non yoga teaching, it's pretty much the same thing too. But we just wanna get to the root of, well, what's the worst that could happen, or what's really that fear?

Lisa Marie Rankin:

Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. One of the things I wanna see how this resonates with you that I often will talk about with the women in my community is whenever we're trying something new or whenever we're putting ourselves out there, it does feel a little awkward. It can feel awkward. Doesn't mean it's wrong or bad, but can we build the capacity to say that this feels kind of yucky right now, but I can still hold it. I can still be in it without having to run away. Mhmm.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

I don't know if you're familiar. I think it's called, like, the learning quadrant. So it's a quadrant and, like, the first quadrant is unconscious incompetence. When you go into something, you're like, this is going to be great. I'm gonna be the best yoga teacher in the world, or this is gonna go. Everything's gonna work out well. And then you realize it's not necessarily going to be that easy. And then you're in the next quadrant, which is what is it? It's, Just incompetence.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

Conscious incompetence. Now I actually know all the things that I need to know. Like, it's

Karen Fabian:

scary part.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

Yes. And this is the part that doesn't feel very good. And then you get into the next part where it's like conscious competence. Like, alright. I can do it. I have to think a lot about it. And then the final quadrant, which is unconscious competence, where it's like, this is just just I'm in the flow state. And that conscious incompetence is this, like, really, like, yucky part.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

And I think that's where a lot of people want to give up because they think, oh, I don't have any this doesn't come naturally to me. I'm not any good at it. But really the only way out is also through. It's it's a muscle that we need to build. Is that something or do you talk to your students or clients about that at all?

Karen Fabian:

Yeah. For sure. I use that learning paradigm a lot. I make the analogy of when you first were learning how to drive, you didn't know what you didn't know. But then as you started to work with your mom or dad and they were taking you around, you became very aware of what you didn't know. And now fast forward to the next two stages, you get in your car, you don't think about anything you're doing. And anybody listening outside of driving think of something that you do well that you had to learn. And we can look at it through the lens of neuroscience and neuroplasticity and building new neural pathways.

Karen Fabian:

And that is literally at the level of brain science, what's happening, and it can happen in anybody of any age. I agree with you, and this is the challenge. It's that sort of painful process in a way of going through the muck to be in that phase of uncovering what you don't know and the feelings that come along with it. Doctor Huberman talks about this. That literally is the learning, the painful process. And I talk about this with regard to learning anatomy. When teachers enroll on my program in about 2 weeks in, they're like, this is hard. Even though I've made it step by step and really put a really tight perimeter around what they're learning.

Karen Fabian:

And I'll say that's good because that means you're building the discomfort you feel is literally new neural pathways being built in your brain. And for somebody who's over the age of 40, that's pretty cool because we've been conditioned to think neuroplasticity ends when we're a certain age, certainly as we get older and a lot of the conversation about Alzheimer's and dementia. As far as I'm concerned, any discomfort in migraine that's a sign that I'm building new neural pathways from a holistic health perspective is I'm all for it. Another thing that I talk about is for an example that I read in a book on neuro linguistic programming about this idea of shifting identities. The author was using an example with his clients where he would say someone is overweight, and they want to eat in a more healthy way along with other things they wanna do, exercise, x y z. And they're faced with certain dining out scenarios or food at the office or whatever that are that's triggering to them. Like, I'm gonna go back. I'm gonna revert back.

Karen Fabian:

This is so hard. Because now they're in that conscious incompetent phase where they have the desire. They know what they don't know about living in a more healthy way. They're trying to break this pattern. He wrote of when you're in that scenario, ask yourself, what would someone that I aspire to be like? What would they do in this scenario? When that situation, you're stepping into that version of you that has what you want or is who you want to be. And you're simply asking yourself, well, what would this person do if I could compress timelines and fast forward myself to the outcome I want, the kind of person I want to be, why don't I just ask myself what would that person do? Because I wouldn't have the vision and know the details of what that is. The whole reason I'm trying to go through this is because I have a passion or I have an interest in being a different kind of person. So let me just ask myself, what would that person do if they had a big buffet or if they had a bunch of donuts and stuff at the end? What would that person do? Maybe they would take half of a donut.

Karen Fabian:

Maybe they would pick the salad at the buffet station instead of the macaroni and cheese. So it's just a way I make the connection when I work with yoga teachers, and I give them these experiments. And I use the word experiment. I basically just keep giving them something to try. So it's not a commitment. It's not you have to do this, because that just puts all this pressure on it. It's just keeping it light. It's just saying, what if you just experimented with this in service to seeing if that belief holds up? And along the way of doing the experiments, what inevitably happens is the stories fall away like we talked about before, and they start to move through that discomfort that going through the process with repetition and time.

Karen Fabian:

And it doesn't necessarily take a long time. It's just having a process to do it rather than just winging it and having someone that's coaching you through this. Because left to your own devices, it's really easy to go back. I think about someone like myself, someone like yourself, we're steeped in this kind of stuff. If I'm in a situation where I wanna shift, I hire somebody to help me do it because I know in my own head, as much as I'm super aware of all of the topics around brain science and neuro linguistic programming and coaching and all of that, I can't think myself out of it if it's about me. I need somebody to objectively look at things. Matter of fact, I remember when I was at an entrepreneurial of that with a group program I was in for about a year and a half last year. And I remember I was having dinner with a bunch of women entrepreneurs, and we knew each other pretty well at that point.

Karen Fabian:

We had been on Zoom calls, like, 3 times a week, and this was a get together after about 6 months of being in this group program together. They sort of confronted me and they said, you have a hang up about money. And I was like, what are you talking about? And a bunch of them said, we really feel like your success is being blocked because of a hidden belief you have about money. I remember distinctly right at this Italian place. I wasn't defiant, but I was really caught off guard. I was like, I don't feel like you have a belief about money that's holding me back. I was talking to them at the time about I'd love more teachers to enroll in my program. They thought it backwards and said, you don't have enough people enrolling in your program because you have a hang up about money.

Karen Fabian:

There's a hidden belief there. We feel it. And long story short, I invested in some coaching. Of course, I was in a coaching program, but I also invested in hypnosis. I did some other things, astrology. I did some other things in the sort of holistic world, and I did uncover some things that I didn't know about, beliefs that I had about myself and my relationship with money and attachment to outcome. In that moment of them at that table with me, I didn't see it. I was in my head thinking, I have my Facebook ads running.

Karen Fabian:

I have my podcast. Like, I'm doing all the things in the strategy bucket, and I wasn't really looking at the belief side. So it works both ways.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

Yeah. Oh, I love that. That's very profound that you had your cohort point that out to you because we don't recognize, oh, I must have a belief, and that's why I keep dating the same type of people. Or I must have a belief, and that's why I never have enough money. And we don't think of it that way because we can't see our beliefs. We really do need someone. And, yeah, like you, I'm do invest in a lot of coaches and programs to help illuminate those people just like emanating the shadow.

Karen Fabian:

Yeah. Totally. I see it a lot too. I find it really interesting when I'm on TikTok in particular because there's so many young people on TikTok. And it's so interesting when you get more familiar with this belief system and just all of what we're talking about to observe people in the comments in relation to a particular post and especially the topic of money. Because money is such a common topic where there are a lot of beliefs. I'm not good with money. I'm never gonna have money.

Karen Fabian:

Only only rich people can do that. There's so many beliefs. And all you have to do is spend 5 minutes on TikTok and go to somebody's video that might show them doing something that requires a lot of money, whatever a lot of money is. Right? I don't know. Staying in a fancy hotel or driving a nice car, being in a nice restaurant, and just look at the comments, and you'll see all the and it's oftentimes you can't tell how old some people are, but you can just get a sense. It's a lot of young people. And when I see that, on some level, it just breaks my heart because you just wanna say, okay. Stop.

Karen Fabian:

Like, it's just a belief, but all it takes is to comment to the contrary of the train of comments, and it just will start a whole argument because, of course, social media is not the platform to have a meaningful conversation on. But it also just shows the pull to just continue to be in some of these boxes that we live in. And from a societal level, whether it's money or there's probably a handful of other topics we can come up with that have a very strong pull to believe certain things. So if you're starting to think for yourself, you'll start to see some of these things and you'll say all this wasted potential. Instead of all these comments, you can do whatever you want. Now more than ever, you can pursue so many things on the entrepreneurial side than ever before so easily. You just wanna say direct your energy there instead of hating on all this stuff that just reinforces the beliefs that you have. But, again, most of these beliefs that we have, we didn't choose.

Karen Fabian:

We grew up in a house and somebody had a belief that raised us and we're exposed to that. And in the case of teacher training or yoga teachers, many of the beliefs they have come from the training they went to and their experiences as a student in other classes and then their conversations with other teachers. I have a very different view of things, and I feel like when I make my videos on social media for teachers, I have to be over the top energetic to cut through all of what they hear from other people. Because if I don't, it just sort of dissipates because the narrative is so strong in a lot of different areas in a totally different direction. For instance, just the sequencing. So many teachers will even see my videos and they'll write me. I just don't think I can do it. I feel like I have to just keep changing it all the time.

Karen Fabian:

So, again, it's the kind of work that needs to be done 1 on 1 and with someone else, even outside the yoga teacher example. That's where you get the best results.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

Yeah. One thing that you said earlier that I just wanna circle back on that I really liked is you were saying how you give your clients, like, just experiments, and you try to keep them playful. And I love that. I'm often talking with my clients. If we wanna be in a new way, we have to start titrating into a new way. Little by little, starting to change and shift. And I also like that because I'm very action oriented and I think sometimes we think it's all, if I just have my right affirmation on my mirror, it's going to be okay. No.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

We actually have to start to embody a new way of being. I love the idea. It doesn't have to be huge. We can do it little by little, but how do I start to take up more space or start to think of that future version of me? What would she do? How would she approach this class or this scenario that I'm currently working?

Karen Fabian:

Totally. And you're willing in the context of working with teachers, I say your confidence is more found in your willingness to experiment even more so than the hours of training that you pursue. Your willingness to experiment is basically you saying to the world, I'm in a growth mindset mode. I'm not a fixed person. Think of the old movie with Scrooge, the whole movie of A Christmas Carol. He gets visited by all these ghosts. And at the end of the movie, compared to the beginning, he's a completely different man and he's in his nineties and he's friendly to the neighbors and the young boy he yelled at at the beginning of the story, he's now saying, come on up. I'll give you a turkey or whatever it is.

Karen Fabian:

And we all have the power to change at any point in our life, to learn new things, to step outside an identity that we have to something new. Oftentimes, what blocks us is the fear. And at the same time, what can help us move forward is really staying attached to that vision of what we want. So for me, when I work with a yoga teacher, whenever they start to slip into their old ways, I'll get them involved in a conversation about their vision. So tell me about this, or tell me about what you wanna do. Or or if I'm talking to a yoga teacher who wants to enroll in my program, but she's on the fence, I'll focus her more on what does she want to do if she were to learn what I can teach her. And I'll try to keep her more focused on that versus all the things that are not working. Because when we're focusing so much on what's not working, it just keeps us in that loop of this is the kind of person I am, whatever it is.

Karen Fabian:

I'm not good with money. I'm not good with anatomy. I'm not good with teaching yoga. I'm not good with my cues. Rather than focusing us on something that energizes us. I remember I heard this really good video on TikTok. I'm fascinated by this concept of I think she called it, like, parallel lives. And she was talking about, like, the version of you that is what you want to be is already there.

Karen Fabian:

It's just in another timeline that you're not currently in. And all you need to do is get yourself into that timeline. It's almost like putting on a coat. It's already there, but the jumping into that timeline requires a shift in your mindset, in the way you see the world. I think about a lot when I I go for a walk every morning. I have this path I take. It's very wooded. It's very, like, nature y and stuff.

Karen Fabian:

If I listen to certain songs or if I have this curated feed that's all good videos that I've seen, it could be anything, neuroscience, relationships, somebody singing. If I just scroll through that curated video stream, by the end of my walk, I will be in a completely different energetic way of being mindset versus if I listen to a podcast. I'll be in a learning mindset. So if I wake up and I'm not in a good mood or if I really am at a point where I'm wanting to step into that higher version of myself, I need to be out in nature and I need to fill my brain with positive stuff. Anybody could do this. Maybe they wanna listen to opera, but maybe walking isn't their thing. Maybe it's cooking. Whatever it is, you need to start looking for those things that put you in that energetic space where you feel great, where you feel invincible because that is the space where you're closer to that person that you wanna be.

Karen Fabian:

Not when you're at home, alone, in your room, emotional about what you don't have. That's an energetic state where it's so much harder. So for anybody listening, think about the things that really elevate your mood. It's a very basic concept. It could be anything. Go into Starbucks and reading a book. It could be going for a walk. Exercise just on a biological level has an actual effect we can measure when we look at the hormones that are released and the cardiovascular effect and all of that.

Karen Fabian:

So that's an easy thing. But a lot of people don't like to exercise. It doesn't have to do that. It could be sitting and knitting. I love to knit. Knitting makes me feel super calm. So whatever it is. And that's the place where you wanna start to think about that vision you have for yourself.

Karen Fabian:

So you've bumped up your way of being, you've bumped up your energetic level, you're in a higher frequency. It's a closer space between where you are now and where you wanna be. That other version of you now start envisioning, what does that look like? What do I really want? Who do I really wanna be? I remember Deepak Chopra once said, the more we meditate, the more we till the soil of our way of being of our psyche, something along those lines. You're dropping a seed into the soil that so rich and so ready with nutrients to grow the seed. And that's the same thing here. Not when we're feeling really badly and feeling really defeated. We can't drop any seeds in that and expect growth. We have to do something fun, do something you like, and then drop the seed in, and it's so much easier to start to see growth.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

Oh, I love that. We work a lot with rituals in my community, and, like, rituals are very intentional action. It's gonna help us shift state, expand our consciousness. So I can even see that, like, before going into teaching a class, before going getting on an Instagram live, if you're starting a business. But what's a ritual that I can do to remember the consciousness that I wanna bring into the situation?

Karen Fabian:

Absolutely. I remember a story about Beyonce when she was on the Oprah Winfrey Show many years ago, but she was popular at the time. She wasn't, like, brand new. But she talked about how she had this avatar that she called Sasha Fierce. And she would put on this persona before she went on stage because she was nervous. And when she became Sasha Fierce, she had the confidence to go out there and perform. And it got me thinking about if I had a alter ego, what would I name her? And I came up with this name, Valentina Spark. And that became for a while, I was a little bit, like, struggling with my business and struggling with where I was at with things.

Karen Fabian:

And so I had this sticky note in front of my desk or right above my computer at my desk that said, Valentina Spark. And I would just and but as always, if I ever had a daughter, that would be the name. It's like an Italian name.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

Beautiful name.

Karen Fabian:

Yeah. And I remember I was at this time, I was taking a walk and I was listening to a podcast and the word spark was in the podcast. And I was like, that's gonna be the last name of my avatar. And so in my work with yoga teachers, I use that power avatar as a point of conversation with them, especially if they're really nervous. Think of some avatar that you can embody before you go in and teach your classes. Maybe do a yoga pose that makes you feel really powerful, chair pose, warrior 2, whatever it is. These things don't just happen. We want to coach our body and coach our mind into this way of being, especially because so much of what we get messaging to us as human beings in this oversaturated world is not always designed to elevate our energy, to elevate our mindset.

Karen Fabian:

Sometimes it's meant to go the other way. All you have to do is turn on the news and unfortunately, it takes us down a completely different energetic timeline. So it's not that it's work. It's just that we have to be or we get so much benefit from being more aware of how this kind of stuff that we do, this kind of work that we do has such a positive effect. And the more we do it, the easier it is. This is the momentum and pretty soon we're moving forward. And then those other things happen, the news comes on and we're like, I don't need to watch that or I have enough resilience built up that it doesn't even really bother me that much or my husband calls me a wallflower, it rolls off my back or something happens with my money and it's no big deal. I know that I can move past it.

Karen Fabian:

I can fix the problem. It's just building up that resilience. Yeah.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

Oh, I love that. That's so much beautiful wisdom. Thank you so much, Karen.

Karen Fabian:

Yeah. I find that it's so interesting how a lot of what I have come up in conversation with yoga teachers, it's in the context of teaching yoga, but it's really about how to have a better relationship with yourself. And that's why what I found is in the process of anybody who wants to be a better yoga teacher, however they define that, they will end up having a better relationship with themselves as a person because you're going in there as yourself. I mean, we've talked about avatars and that sort of thing, personas. It's all though ultimately to get you to the point where you walk in, you're unconsciously competent. You're not even thinking about what you're doing. You're so yourself. You're laughing.

Karen Fabian:

You're not thinking about doing it. You're just doing it. You make a mistake. You just keep moving forward. You're walking over like, that's what it looks like in the context of being a yoga teacher. They just end up having a better relationship with themselves. I mean, that woman I talked about earlier, she grew so much as a person and her relationship with herself, and she would have never gone through that if she didn't enroll in a teacher training, start teaching, bump up against this resistance, these problems that had to be identity based and have a willingness to work through them. And now she's emerged.

Karen Fabian:

I don't wanna say a completely different person, but in her own words, I mean, she has a different relationship with her husband and kids because of who who she became in service to being a better teacher. That was the outcome, but it also helped her on a deeper level. She used to tell me when she would leave to teach, her husband would say, have a class. And it used to irritate the crap out of her because he knew how much she was struggling. And so his sort of flippant, have a good class, really graded on her nerves because she would leave thinking, this is not gonna be a good class. Then it got to the point where she'd be like, okay. Great. You know, it was like no big deal.

Karen Fabian:

Like, of course, I'm gonna have a great class because I love doing what I really want to do.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

Yeah. And that's like you said, it's coming more of yourself, and that's what we're doing. Anytime we start to step into these bigger roles, it can feel at first in Austin, but we're just flexing a muscle where it does become just another expression of ourselves, like that next best version.

Karen Fabian:

Yes. Anybody that wants to be the best version of themselves. It's not that it doesn't come easy. It's just that it's not a given. Even when you watch little kids, little kids for the most part are themselves, unless, God forbid, there's some trauma or something going on. Most of the time when you watch little kids playing, they're themselves, and yet we, of course, lose that access to that as we grow older and the beliefs develop. And so in a way, it's kind of getting back to that that sort of carefree, really showing who I am without any fear of how it's going to come across or how somebody's going to judge me. It's doing it for me because I love showing up as myself.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

Yeah. I love that. How can listeners get in touch with you, find you? Do you have anything coming up that you'd like to share?

Karen Fabian:

Sure. So the best way to connect with me, see my videos, anything that I share, certainly for yoga teachers, but, obviously, a lot of what I talk about is applicable to anybody, is my Instagram, which is Bare Bones Yoga. That's also my TikTok, b a r e, Bare Bones, like the skeleton bones, and my website, barebones yoga.com. And for anybody listening who is a yoga teacher, if you wanna find out more about working with me and my program, all you need to do is send me a direct message on Instagram, and that's the best way to to be in touch.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

Great. And I'll have all of that in the show notes as well to make it easy for folks. And, oh, happy birthday. I know you just said you just celebrated the 60th. Fantastic. I thought it was lovely and

Karen Fabian:

It was great. I actually went to Paris. So, yes, I had a big celebration. Ben and I went to Paris for 3 days, and it was amazing. I ate so much food in 72 hours, and we walked all over. It was just like a walking tour. It was so magical. I must go back now that I've been there once.

Karen Fabian:

I definitely have the bug. So it was really, really special. Yeah.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

Amazing. Glad to hear it. It was lovely connecting with you.

Karen Fabian:

Of course. I am so thrilled to be here, and I thank you for inviting me on.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

Thank you.