Joining Yuliana today is Erica Mather, author of Your Body, Your Best Friend.  Hand-selected by Ana Forrest to become a lineage-holder (called “a Guardian”) in the Forrest Yoga system, Erica is also the founder of ‘The Adore Your Body Transformational Program’, a 7-step system for getting a handle on body image challenges, as well as ‘The Yoga Clinic of NYC’. In today’s episode, Erica shares with listeners the story of how losing her dad at a young age propelled her into making certain life decisions and taking responsibilities for herself.

She begins by delving into the tragic event of losing her father and how that became a point of inflection that reshaped the direction of her life to be the ‘captain of her own ship’. She discusses what led her to Yoga - a result of chronic migraines - and how Yoga has helped her in the battle with her illness. She also details how she switched careers from being a professional musician to becoming a Yoga teacher, and reveals the inspiration behind her book, Your Body, Your Best Friend . The episode comes to a close with Erica sharing the song that describes her life, a song about humanity. Filled with wisdom borne out of life experiences, Erica Mather has so many valuable lessons to teach us all about living life without regrets. Listening in today will definitely be time well spent.

Episode Highlights:

-  Erica recounts the challenging event that reshaped the direction of her life

-  When parental expectation disappears.

-  The various points of inflection that changed Erica’s life.

-  The battle with adult onset migraines - the path to Yoga.

-  How Yoga makes you take a long look at your body and spirit

-  How to resolve that feeling about being viewed with a desire to teach?

-  Lessons from the book, Your Body, Your Best Friend.

-  The impetus that inspired the writing of her book

-  The one song that describes Erica’s life

Quotes:

“ I just decided I'm going to be my own person, I'm going to be the captain of my own ship, and I am not going to work for people who don't care about me.”

“It's made me have ultimate responsibility for the direction of my life.”

“You know, if I'm unhappy with anything about my work life, or my relationship life, or my friendship life, or my family life, or my spiritual life, I’ve got one person to truly point a finger at.”

“He valued my creativity, my intelligence, and it set me on a path of writing some music and really doubling down on being a professional musician.”

“If you don't have a relationship with your body, it'll be hard to monitor signs that it's giving you.”

“Part of our maturity around body image is coming to understand how people might react to you, and then managing your own response to that reaction.”

“The main message of the book is to not waste more time on things that don't produce real outcomes in your life.”

“We have a very finite amount of time, we have a finite amount of energy, and time wasted hating the way you look, disliking the way you look, is time wasted.”

Links:

Phoenix Tales Homepage

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Phoenix Tales on Spotify

Phoenix Tales on Facebook

Erica Mather Homepage

Erica Mather Instagram