Shelly Tygielski, CNN Hero, Self-Care Activist, Mindfulness Teacher, Author, Speaker, Good Human

This week on the show, we take a deep dive with Shelly Tygielski, self-care activist, author, speaker, community organizer, mindfulness teacher. 

We covered: returning to meditation (not just during a crisis), getting in your own way, non-profit disruption, bringing human connection back to philanthropy, mutual aid and communities of care. 

Full video interview available here: https://youtu.be/SvPi4ssztk4

About Shelly...

• Led a free weekly meditation class that grew from 12 to 15,000 people!
• Founder, Pandemic of Love, which has 4000 volunteers worldwide and has directly exchanged nearly $100 million in donations and has connected over 3 million people. 

Pandemic of Love has been featured on over 100 media outlets, including CNN, BBC and The Kelly Clarkson Show. It has enjoyed incredible support from influencers such as Debra Messing, Chelsea Handler, Maria Shriver, Busy Phillips and Kristen Bell.  Shelly was honored by CNN Heroes in 2020.

She believes that – in Audre Lorde’s words – “self-care is an act of resistance” unto itself because the only way to make change is to maintain your energy, health and mental wellbeing.

Shelly shares her methods of self-care in her book,  “Sit Down To Rise Up: How Radical Self-Care Can Change the World” which was honored as a Gold winner of the Nautilus Book Award and a finalist for the Fall 2021 Big Idea Book Club.

Her upcoming book, “How We Ended Racism: Realizing a New Possibility in One Generation,” co-authored by Justin Michael Williams, is due out in October of 2023 from Sounds True.

Shelly holds an undergraduate degree from the University of Miami and a Master’s Degree from Columbia University. She is currently pursuing her doctorate in Philanthropic Leadership at the Lilly School of Philanthropy at Indiana University.

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Connect with Shelly:
Buy her book here: https://www.amazon.com/Sit-Down-Rise-Up.../dp/1608687449
Website: https://www.shellytygielski.com/
Instagram:

Chapters

• 2:36 Returning to Meditation
• 13:54 Western Buddhist Leaders
• 14:54 Non-Profit Disruption
• 16:45 Mutual Aid
• 20:24 Communities of Care
• 25:55 What is Philanthropy?
• 32:06 Shelly's Upbringing
• 43:08 Getting in your Own Way

Transcript

[00:00:00] Shelly Tygeilski Video: Welcome back to the Mindful Miri Podcast. Today I have the great pleasure of introducing Shelly Toski. She's a mindfulness teacher, community organizer, philanthropist, author, self-care advocate, public speaker, former corporate executive, mother, wife, sister, daughter, friend, skater girl, mind ninja af.

[00:00:31] Shelly Tygeilski Video: After spending 20 years in corporate America, immersed in Fortune 1000 organizations and holding executive positions leading public and privately held companies, Shelly decided to stop following the expected path and start following her lifelong passion. Mindfulness and meditation and began to fuse this passion with her purpose, community organization and ensuring equity, social justice, and access to [00:01:00] wellbeing for all.

[00:01:01] Shelly Tygeilski Video: And she recently got into a doctorate program, doctoral program in philanthropic leadership. Is that correct? Congratulations. So welcome to the show, Shelly. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. Absolutely. It's, it's such an honor. I first saw you speak at Wisdom 2.0 last April, and I was hooked.

[00:01:27] Shelly Tygeilski Video: I was like, I feel so connected. She's speaking right to me. We have a common background in the Jewish culture and growing up immigrant parents and just the. striving and the expectations that come with that. Mm-hmm. ? Yes. And I, I grabbed your book and reached out and was, so, I just, I laughed and cried from your book,

[00:01:58] Shelly Tygeilski Video: And, you're pretty [00:02:00] vulnerable in terms of your sharing about your medical issue and the divorce and how you used mindfulness. You returned to mindfulness and meditation and really changed your life. Mm-hmm. , can you tell us a little bit about that? Yeah, no, definitely. thank you so much for having me.

[00:02:23] Shelly Tygeilski Video: Really appreciate it. yeah, I mean, the book really, you know, was this exercise of, Helping to expose this, like delamination process, this, you know, exfoliation, this excavation, if you will. And then moving, from this like lowest place, which many of us can, relate to. You know, we've, we've been there, we've each been there at a point in our lives or many points in our lives where we're like, this is awful.

[00:02:58] Shelly Tygeilski Video: Like things can't get any worse. [00:03:00] And, there's an emergence from that. and so, I went through this really terrible time and it's not the only time that I've gone through like a lot of stress in my life, but there was this convergence of just so much that was happening, you know, being a relatively new mother, uh, going through a turbulent, end of marriage.

[00:03:22] Shelly Tygeilski Video: Just getting physically ill. And, and of course, you know, just I'm sure as somebody who, studies like the mind body connection, you totally understand that there's no coincidence in that. when things like that converge, it's not like they're isolated events, you know, they may seem that way at the time, but it became really apparent to me that they were all really interconnected and you know, changes had to be drastically made in my life in order to, um, just be able to pick myself up and, [00:04:00] survive and hope to ever get to a position where I could not just survive on a daily basis, but actually thrive as well.

[00:04:10] Shelly Tygeilski Video: and mindfulness was really an anchor. as you said, I returned to mindfulness because, I really, you know, already had a meditation practice. I started meditating when I was in graduate school in the late nineties, and I was fortunate enough to meet Sharon Salzberg but you know, life happens and you get busy and like, yeah.

[00:04:32] Shelly Tygeilski Video: And then I got married and had a kid, and I sort of became this crisis meditator, which is the label that we tend to give to people who only when they're in crisis do they recognize, oh my God, I need to meditate. Things are so terrible. And then when things get better again, they sort of fall off the wagon again.

[00:04:52] Shelly Tygeilski Video: Right? So, that was what my practice had become. And it wasn't until really, this [00:05:00] moment where I was completely felt very broken, right? Felt completely shattered, felt completely, In a place where I had no other options available to me at that moment, that I remembered that I had the best possible option, the most portable option, the Frees option, available to me, which is essentially to turn inward.

[00:05:27] Shelly Tygeilski Video: Yeah, absolutely. I've been there where I, dread going there, going to the mat, going to the cushion, and I still, I still teach it, you know, and I have to practice what I preach. Yeah. But I still dread and I, I'm looking for, I keep looking for what is the obstacle. Right. What do you think the obstacle is for you?

[00:05:51] Shelly Tygeilski Video: I mean, or was well, I mean, my obstacle is always myself. Like, just, just , like my entire existence was an obstacle, [00:06:00] to be honest with you. Um, I think, I was actually just talking to a friend of mine yesterday. I don't know what we were talking about. And I said, I'm really happy that like, thought bubbles don't exist in real life , because nobody would wanna be my friend or talk to me.

[00:06:16] Shelly Tygeilski Video: So that's the obstacle. The obstacle is that like my, I have a very, like, I'm just like, in life, I always have like 17 projects and things going on. Like, my mind is very chaotic and I tend to like default to the, like Larry David School of Thought when I about like, like where my mind goes and you're like, how did I even begin to go down this like slippery slope and think about this completely asinine thing that like, I wouldn't even wanna like verbalize or talk to about anybody.

[00:06:47] Shelly Tygeilski Video: And like, that's how crazy my mind is. Like, you know, so yeah, that's the obstacle. The obstacle is like not getting trapped, knowing that I'm like, you know, most [00:07:00] mornings, reluctantly and almost, I would say in some ways, sometimes even playfully like curious about like, what insane thing is gonna come up in my mind today.

[00:07:13] Shelly Tygeilski Video: It's just like that. I think it wason that talked about the leaves in the. . Yeah. And you just, or the clouds in the sky, you know, and you Yeah. You just let them pass you, you don't, once you get attached to it, it's really difficult to release them. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. Totally. It really is. It's so true. I mean, my, my obstacles, you know, for most people it's like, oh, you know, it's time, it's discipline, it's, to be honest with you, that's never been my issue.

[00:07:44] Shelly Tygeilski Video: Like that, that's something that I just have, I think is just embedded in my d n a, like, you know, I'm really disciplined when it comes to specific things and very self-driven, very self-motivated, but also very self-aware [00:08:00] to, to a default, to a point where it becomes a problem. It's like very self analytical.

[00:08:05] Shelly Tygeilski Video: It's like just critical, and then it becomes critical and then it leads to like tertiary and. thoughts and secondary thoughts and all these other, you know, areas of your brain where you're like, ah, make it stop. Yeah. So how do you deal with that inner critic? you know, I use, of course I use my, my core teacher, Sharon's advice.

[00:08:28] Shelly Tygeilski Video: You know, Sharon calls her in inner critic, Lucy from Peanuts. and she imagines that Lucy is like just sitting there like with the 5 cents, therapy, free therapy, or 5 cent therapy or whatever it is in the, in the comic strip. And Lucy never has anything nice to say, right? She's always like super critical, especially of Charlie Brown.

[00:08:51] Shelly Tygeilski Video: And so Lucy's in her brain and she has this like, name for her and.

[00:08:56] Shelly Tygeilski Video: And she says, you know, like at this point, like she's just been living with Lucy for [00:09:00] so long that it's like, ah, it's just you, you know? And so it's really a process of just, I think befriending, the critic approaching the, like naming the critic, literally. You can name it anything. It doesn't have to be like a funny, like a personal name.

[00:09:16] Shelly Tygeilski Video: Like it could be anything. And just, being curious about it. And the other part of it is, is that also like, I think it's about creating a balance. So I am very critical of myself and what I realize is rather than try to like suppress my criticism, cause that's never gonna go away, it's just who I am.

[00:09:36] Shelly Tygeilski Video: I'm very critical of myself. I can counteract the criticism with a nice comment. So like when I do something really just clumsy, and then I say, oh, you're so stupid. Then I could immediately say to myself, but I love you. Right? And that's, that's also a practice that I learned [00:10:00] from Sharon. or at least try to say something that kind of counteracts that.

[00:10:04] Shelly Tygeilski Video: So there's like a balance. So yeah, like that was a stupid thing to do, but of course my brain automatically goes to, I'm stupid. Not, that was a stupid thing to do, right? So trying to change language is important, but if you, if you sort of immediately default to saying something that really is like self-defining, trying to at least balance.

[00:10:26] Shelly Tygeilski Video: Yeah. I love that strategy. Every time I, I'm, you know, getting out of the shower or something, and I have that, you know, I see myself in the mirror and I, something pops in my head. I'm like, oh, I love that body because it birthed my son and it walks miles and miles and like, I try to undo all this programming.

[00:10:44] Shelly Tygeilski Video: Right.

[00:10:45] Shelly Tygeilski Video: and Sharon, Sharon Salzberg, very well-known mindfulness teacher, Is she the one who came up with the Bju? She didn't come up with it. I mean, it existed long before her because clearly like, but she, it was [00:11:00] definitely the first time I heard it from her. Mm-hmm. in the nineties. I think Bju or ju boos were like a thing since like the sixties really.

[00:11:09] Shelly Tygeilski Video: it depends where you wanna put the modifier, but really that's been like a thing since the sixties. Right. Because when you look, it's so interesting. There's a really great book, I don't know if you've ever read it, called uh, the Lotus in the Lotus in the Tall Mud, something like that. I think I've heard of it actually.

[00:11:24] Shelly Tygeilski Video: Yeah. Yeah. And it's like a book about how curious it is that like some crazy number of like our Buddhist, Western Buddhist teachers are Jewish here in the west. And so why is that? And like what are the overlapping intersections and connections between Buddhism and JU Judaism, which we don't think of and we definitely don't learn.

[00:11:49] Shelly Tygeilski Video: And especially as somebody who was like born in Jerusalem, like, and grew up, you know, in a very traditional Jewish family, Even when you're, when you're in, you know, very historic [00:12:00] places, like when you're, when you're walking the streets of the old city of Jerusalem, like you're in the Armenian quarter, you're in the Christian quarter, you're in the Muslim quarter, you're in the Jewish quarter, and, but there's no Buddhist quarter

[00:12:11] Shelly Tygeilski Video: So you're like, what does Buddhism have anything to do with Judaism? And you don't realize that actually there's, there's a lot, there's a lot of overlap in the contemplative practices. And certainly as you start sort of learning more about, the kaist, and I'm not talking about like kaba today, like the Kaba Center, like I'm not, no knock on the Kabbala Center, but that's very different than Alah that was practiced like mysticism that was practiced in Ara and other places in northern, part of the country.

[00:12:40] Shelly Tygeilski Video: And so, the rabbis there who used to, Practice Kabbala, would basically be in essentially transcendental meditation for hours, days, weeks, you know, and be in a trance to try to ascend, and to get [00:13:00] to, you know, a place of sort of clarity and unity and balance, et cetera. So there is, there is a lot of overlap when you start to sort of learn about, the practices, especially of the Jewish mystics and you lurk at all of the traditions, in the far East when you realize that like there really is that overlap.

[00:13:24] Shelly Tygeilski Video: That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. There are a large percentage of the Western Buddhist leaders are, or, and meditation leaders are Jewish. And I have wondered why that is. I think there's also, it's kind of a restricted sample because it's those Jews who have ventured into the US also. So there's, there's something about that, as pioneers or, that adventurous, individualistic spirit.

[00:13:49] Shelly Tygeilski Video: Yeah. Maybe not individualistic, I shouldn't say that. but speaking of, you know, individualism, collectivism, you've started, an [00:14:00] organization, well, you have, I mean, years ago in, during the pandemic, you started an organization called Pandemic of Love. Tell us a little bit about that. Well, pandemic of Love was actually, It wasn't even called that actually at the beginning of the pandemic.

[00:14:15] Shelly Tygeilski Video: it just like a name that sort of stuck to it because of the hashtag, but, pandemic of love from like a very high level. And the way that we would describe it is a global grassroots mutual aid organization. It's volunteer run. We're not a nonprofit. We're actually a nonprofit disruptor. because we believe that there are a lot more efficient and effective ways to provide aid to people in need.

[00:14:40] Shelly Tygeilski Video: and aid doesn't necessarily just mean money, but ways that are much more direct and that create a direct connection. So not just direct in terms of like, Hey, let me, pay this bill for you. Let me buy these groceries for you. Let me mow your lawn for you. But rather [00:15:00] how can we, not remove. The human being from the equation of philanthropy.

[00:15:08] Shelly Tygeilski Video: And in many cases, that's essentially what's been done, by the philanthropic industrial complex that we operate in, right? Because it's so easy to just write a check and get a tax deduction and send it into somewhere. You never know where it's going, who it's going to, how it affect the person. You don't necessarily, some organizations do this where they like at least send you like updates about like, Hey, here's where your money went on a 50,000 foot level or on a 10,000 foot level.

[00:15:40] Shelly Tygeilski Video: And a, a few of them also do it like on a personal level. They say like, your money went to help this specific person and this is what it did. Right? But, but very, very few and far between. And I think it's not a knock on, nonprofits, but I would say that, there really does, we're in a time, I think, just in [00:16:00] history where we're rethinking systems and we're rethinking the way that things operate in general.

[00:16:05] Shelly Tygeilski Video: whether it's, you know, economically or societally or, you know, and philanthropically in other ways. And so I think that, what mutual aid organizations that have, by the way, been around for really since the dawn of humanity, but have been called mu mutual Aid since, 18, the early 18 hundreds, have just proven that, there's potential for the way that mutual aid organizations arise and organize for them to really help to create a new shift in the way that society.

[00:16:41] Shelly Tygeilski Video: Relates and people relate to one another. So pandemic Golov basically started, which is two simple forms, you know, give help, get help. And the idea was just at a time of disconnection during the pandemic, how do we not remove the connection that's needed between people, but [00:17:00] also get people what they need?

[00:17:01] Shelly Tygeilski Video: And at the time, that was mostly financial and obviously also that need for connection at the time of disconnection. So the model was that a person would fill out a form, online that said, I need help paying my electric bill this month, for example. And a person would fill out a form that says, I can give help for this amount, or I'm willing to pay somebody's electric bill this month.

[00:17:29] Shelly Tygeilski Video: And then our volunteers would vet the two entities, make sure that they're, kosher and good and, and real. And then we would connect. The two people directly and step out of the way. And something really amazing happened as a result of that is that, the donor, who usually was the person sort of driving the bus, would have the opportunity to walk a mile in a person's shoes that they otherwise never would've met.

[00:17:56] Shelly Tygeilski Video: That may very well even be like within a few city [00:18:00] blocks of their house, you know, that, just operates in a different neighborhood, in a different, part of a part of that community. and just sort of would've passed, continued to pass each other by. So it was a, became a very eye-opening experience for a lot of donors.

[00:18:15] Shelly Tygeilski Video: It also became a way for our donors, many of whom were needing connection, even if they weren't needing things that like are tangible, like food and, wifi and other things, you know, that money can buy, but having the ability to not feel helpless at a time when many of us felt very helpless, especially at the beginning feeling like, okay, at least I'm doing something for somebody in my community.

[00:18:43] Shelly Tygeilski Video: And then also, developing a friendship with somebody that you otherwise again, likely never would've met or would've passed you by and you would've just continued, you know, walking type of thing. was really an incredible byproduct of the organization. And [00:19:00] so many people formed lifelong friendships.

[00:19:03] Shelly Tygeilski Video: So many people were changed by the connections and for the recipients, you know? Yeah. Getting your light bill, for example, paid. It was great. It was definitely a relief for many people to have rent money and to be able to feed your kids and all that stuff. But for so many people, In that position who were probably already struggling even before the pandemic started, right?

[00:19:27] Shelly Tygeilski Video: To be able to hear the words from somebody, a good Samaritan, a perfect stranger, to be able to say, what do you need? How can I help? Is just startling. I think it really makes you feel very seen and it makes you feel like you matter. and it makes you feel like, you maybe even restores your faith in humanity to some degree because you feel, or you felt invisible, for so long. So it's a beautiful kind of symbiotic way for us to create these like safety nets and these [00:20:00] communities of care that I think need to exist not just in a time of crisis, but need to exist year round. I love that. and you talk about that in your book about creating communities of care and I've been talking to my friends about that kind of nonstop , um, because I feel like, we all kind of live in our own silo and we're not meant to live this way.

[00:20:27] Shelly Tygeilski Video: Yeah. We were raised in villages, you know? Mm-hmm. , our ancestors lived in villages and helped each other out. Yeah. And the women all pooled their, their time and resources for childcare. And there's an expectation that you're gonna get help from others and you're gonna help others. Right. And I've been kind of, I've been talking to my therapist about, creating that kind of community.

[00:20:53] Shelly Tygeilski Video: And it's interesting because The deprogramming that you have to do with the people within that community [00:21:00] in order for them to ask for help is huge. Mm-hmm. is huge. You have to just keep reminding Yeah. That same, that same group over and over. and what's been your experience in, tackling that?

[00:21:14] Shelly Tygeilski Video: I mean, I think my, in my personal experience, I feel like, it's not as difficult to deprogram people when

[00:21:23] Shelly Tygeilski Video: there's no risk of at when everybody's equally vulnerable. If everybody's ent, like completely showing up. in my book I described, and this was like before, I mean there was, there was internet, but it was like very slow , and there definitely was no like Google Drive or anything like that.

[00:21:42] Shelly Tygeilski Video: So like we would just send like spreadsheets by email, like back and forth, you know, and update them like a couple times a week. But the idea was that everybody had to put things on the spreadsheet. Like you were required to ask for [00:22:00] things on the spreadsheet, and you were required to pick up things that you could do easily that were not like a stretch for you, you know, and fill in the gaps for, for people who were asking for things on the spreadsheet, right?

[00:22:13] Shelly Tygeilski Video: Like need, I need help shuttling my, kids around. Or I need somebody to help with dinner on Wednesday nights or something like that. Right? So I think it's really, it's interesting. You know that you say that there's like this deprogramming, I'm not saying that, we're not programmed, especially women as, cuz we have been programmed to be caretakers and not self care takers, you know?

[00:22:37] Shelly Tygeilski Video: But what I found is that if we are all committed as a group to showing up with radical vulnerability, it sets the stage for, all of those conditionings to sort of get dropped because you're no longer, like, you don't even need to ask for help anymore. Like, it's just, it's in a [00:23:00] way like we're using technology, it's so easy to text somebody something rather than say it to their face, you know?

[00:23:06] Shelly Tygeilski Video: Which is why a lot of people like popped out to have difficult conversations and instead send an email or write a text, right. Nowadays, But I kind of feel like on the flip side of that, like, okay great, so it's so difficult to ask for help. So why can't we like baby step our way there? Why can't we use technology to our advantage in this case?

[00:23:25] Shelly Tygeilski Video: And actually, it's much easier to like write down the things that you need than to like verbally be able to like, get up in a group and say, hi, my name is Shelly and I'm inadequate, unable to like, take care of everything on my plate and this is what I need help with. You know? so instead, it's so much easier to go into a spreadsheet that is shared by so many other women that are in that community and look at the 27 other things that people have on the list and feel like, oh, I could do these three things.

[00:23:55] Shelly Tygeilski Video: And then you no longer feel bad. Cuz it's like tip for tat, you know, you feel like I'm both [00:24:00] a contributor and I'm also somebody who needs something. And guess what? So does everybody else. So you no longer feel like it's just you, Yeah, I love that. I'm in a community now. it's a women's networking group called Women Making Waves.

[00:24:14] Shelly Tygeilski Video: And I am finding that, we're supporting each other in our businesses and, there is that reciprocity that I, yeah, you know, you're talking about. I love it. and I think that the next step for us might be to formalize it a little bit more and say, I mean, I'm a newer member, but to ask for help about, you know, website design marketing or something like, or just picking up my kid.

[00:24:39] Shelly Tygeilski Video: Something like, there's always something that somebody can offer easily. Yeah. Something that I can offer easily. And just having a platform to trade is Exactly crucial. Is crucial. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the thing is, it's so easy, it's like we do it with stuff. We figured out a way to do it with like [00:25:00] Craigslist or like Right.

[00:25:00] Shelly Tygeilski Video: You know, free cycle or all these other websites. And yet, for some reason there's like a blockage between things that seem less tangible to us or intangibles, you know? and those are the things that we really ultimately need help with the most. The most. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Where do you think you got your philanthropic tendency or your interest in philanthropy?

[00:25:29] Shelly Tygeilski Video: I think we should define like what philanthropy is, cuz the way I define it is really steeped in, I think a definition that, hearkens back to. organizers, you know, in the fifties and sixties who look at, philanthropy if you will, not just as, or not as charity, but rather as, solidarity.

[00:25:53] Shelly Tygeilski Video: So the, the for mutual aid, the right, the, sort of tagline for mutual aid is solidarity, not [00:26:00] charity. and that for me is the whole concept that Dr. Martin Luther King talked about. making sure that everybody has boots and not just telling people to pick themselves up by their bootstraps, if you don't have boots, like you can't do that.

[00:26:15] Shelly Tygeilski Video: So making sure that there's real equity in that and there's access and there's, the ability for people to actually pick themselves up. And so, My interest started at a really young age, and I talk about a little bit in the book about my experience, you know, in junior high school when I was 11 or 12 years old, and just really starting to understand that one person can actually create a huge influence and make a change.

[00:26:43] Shelly Tygeilski Video: And for me, it, it started out as going door to door with a girlfriend of mine who, was the impetus for my, sort of empowerment, if you will, in this space as an activist or, or as somebody who like recognized, oh wow, okay. I can [00:27:00] rise up in solidarity with people, but also get other people interested in the same thing if I can, like, convince them that there's an issue here that needs to be changed.

[00:27:09] Shelly Tygeilski Video: And so it started out with you know, animal rights and Greenpeace and saving the planet. Starting, yeah. Like going door to door to save the whales and boycotting, organizations or companies that were testing on animals. And then, it evolved into bigger campaigns, like getting a recycling program started at our school, which was like a big deal.

[00:27:32] Shelly Tygeilski Video: This was like in the late eighties, you know, this wasn't like a thing where automatically like people didn't even know what recycling was It was like Earth. They had just started, so, you know, we were successful in doing that. And I realized that, oh, like, okay, you can mobilize people and if you provide them with information and get them emotionally charged about something and get them to actually get off their butts and like do something you know about it, [00:28:00] that's really cool.

[00:28:01] Shelly Tygeilski Video: And I could be the person I, like, I, and you and everybody else can be that person that is charged up about something. And so, it started for me at a really young age, and I think that on the other side of it as well, I will say that, you know, my parents, and especially my mom was always like the person who very much embodied the, the Jewish philosophy of like tikkun la repairing the world and like starting with her community.

[00:28:25] Shelly Tygeilski Video: she was always volunteering. not just, at the synagogue, but at the local food bank or, she would always volunteer at our, at my school and she always showed up and even though we didn't have like much when we first arrived at this country, and they didn't have much to give.

[00:28:44] Shelly Tygeilski Video: The one thing that my mom was always able to give was like her time and her attention and, these skill sets that she had, you know, to be able to help. communities that, that needed something. Right. And I think So for me, like philanthropy, you [00:29:00] know, when we just used the word today, the way that people normally define philanthropy is like, they think of, when I say philanthropists, your mind automatically goes to like billionaires and foundations and family offices and people who like, have, these large charitable orgs that give out a ton of money and like, oh, that person's a philanthropist, but really, like all of us are philanthropists or have the capacity to be a philanthropist even if we have no money in the bank, because our worth isn't just defined, even though it's been told to us that it is defined in many cultures, it's not just defined by how much money we have.

[00:29:39] Shelly Tygeilski Video: that's not what, how wealth is defined. our wealth can be many different things. and the beautiful thing about, what Pandemic OFA affirmed for me was that every single person on this planet, regardless of their socioeconomic status, has something that they need [00:30:00] and something they can offer.

[00:30:01] Shelly Tygeilski Video: And every, so that no matter how rich you are, or you may be struggling, you still have something to offer to the world, right? So I think that we just need to redefine wealth so that we can redefine what philanthropy actually means in our. Wow. I love that. I've been playing a lot with worthiness and wealth in my mm-hmm.

[00:30:31] Shelly Tygeilski Video: journaling. Mm-hmm. . And there's a lot of, I think imposter syndrome around mm-hmm. , especially, women entrepreneurs. Mm-hmm. , and not only is the mindset so crucial to the business, but also for the service that you're giving. Yeah. You're, you're making it. everyone has to give, like you said, and we all have a purpose, and you find your purpose on this [00:31:00] planet to make some kind of positive impact, but if you don't feel worthy, then you don't, you're not able to share the wealth of what you know, what you have, what you care about, your passion, even if you think about that as wealth.

[00:31:16] Shelly Tygeilski Video: Right. Um, it's just an interesting dynamic, you know, how, how closely those two are tied, the wealth and the worthiness. No, you're, you're a hundred percent right. But again, it's like, where does that stem from, and how long have we been told that they're so interwoven and that they define each other?

[00:31:35] Shelly Tygeilski Video: And, that's where the conditioning needs to be undone. Yeah. You know, growing up in an Orthodox Jewish community, what kinds of messages were you given about, you know, being a woman, being worthy, not worthy? appropriate, not appropriate. well, so first of all, as you know, so in, Judaism in Gen, I mean, there's many different ways [00:32:00] to be a Jew, of course.

[00:32:01] Shelly Tygeilski Video: Right? And there's many different affiliations, you know, even more so here in the United States, like Reform Orthodox Conservative, and there's like in between that there's like dozens of other types, of groups or groupings or, or beliefs or what have you. but generally speaking, you're either a Sephardic Jew or you're an Ashkenazi Jew.

[00:32:22] Shelly Tygeilski Video: And if you're a Sephardic Jew, which I am family doesn't come from Eastern Europe or from Russia or, Western Europe, even for that matter, your family comes from, Africa, Northeast Africa, from the Middle East.

[00:32:36] Shelly Tygeilski Video: And so, for a lot of my friends growing up who, most of the people that I grew up with, Ashkenazi Jews, so, they were very I don't know if it's always intrigued, but also confused by like, just Sephardic traditions in general. Especially if like, you didn't grow up with Sephardi Jews, you're kind of like what you guys do.

[00:32:59] Shelly Tygeilski Video: What?[00:33:00] because there are like a lot of differences in culture and like the way that rules are followed, et cetera. So, I remember growing up, like I would go to, bar in bat mitzvahs for my friends, and first of all, girls were bat mitzvah. Most of my girlfriends, you know, growing up were about mitzvah and would get to hold the Torah and like stand at the Bema with their family.

[00:33:27] Shelly Tygeilski Video: And you know, I would go to the conservative synagogue or the Reform synagogue and everybody would be sitting together. And then when it came time for me to quote unquote be Bat Mitzvah, my parents were like, what are you talking about? We don't do bat mitzvah. It was like, girls are not supposed to hold the Torah.

[00:33:45] Shelly Tygeilski Video: Like, right, what do what? You know? So I was like, well, can I at least have a party? Because I just wanna a party like my friends. So my parents were like, yeah, sure, whatever, we'll throw you a party. So I did have a Bar Mitzvah party, but I never actually had a service [00:34:00] because my parents were like, in our Sephardic kind of upbringing and, Belief system. Right. And again, I'm not speaking for all sephardi Jews. Cause I don't know what all the different types of Sephardi Jews, but just all the ones, all the types of sephardi communities that I've encountered. Like the girl doesn't ever go to the, bema, which is like the altar.

[00:34:22] Shelly Tygeilski Video: They never get to like hold the Torah, touch the, to like, it's just No, no, no. Absolutely not. It's like a men's thing. And women are always sitting not even in a separation, like a za that's like 50 50 where like the altar is like in the center mm-hmm. , but they're like women in the back. Yeah. or if like if the fancy synagogue, they're all the way on top, like three stories above and looking down.

[00:34:47] Shelly Tygeilski Video: Yeah. But at the, the synagogue where, where we attended services growing up, like the Meto was the women were all the way in the back and like the wall that was built. Was so high that you [00:35:00] literally were peeking through like peepholes to like even see what was going on.

[00:35:03] Shelly Tygeilski Video: And I was like, what kind of a, you know, that always felt like just so wrong to me. and it wasn't until I decided to try to go to seminary in Israel, uh, in Jerusalem. it was kind of like, okay, I'm gonna see, I need to like delve deeper into my Judaism and try to like, understand all of it.

[00:35:30] Shelly Tygeilski Video: Like what I wasn't being taught as a woman in a sephardi culture, in a household where I was just told, where I would ask a lot of questions. Cuz that's who I am, like super inquisitive and I would be told, that's what we do because that's what our parents did and that's what their parents did.

[00:35:44] Shelly Tygeilski Video: And my mom, bless her soul, but Even going to Hebrew school, I would be taught kind of womanly things, like how to run a household. I wouldn't be taught like things that I was super interested in maybe knowing more about, right? Like about text [00:36:00] or scriptures or things like that.

[00:36:01] Shelly Tygeilski Video: Because what do you need to know that for? Like, you don't need to know that. You just need to know how to keep a kosher kitchen, you know, things like that. So I decided, you know, I'm gonna go and try to obtain this knowledge from an Ashkenazi like culture. And I went to a seminary for all girls when I was, in my last year of, of college.

[00:36:23] Shelly Tygeilski Video: And on day one I asked if I could study Talmud, which is Oral Torah for people who are listening that don't know what that is. oral, but written down basically. And I was told, no, absolutely not. You can't, first of all, you're a woman, and second of all, you have to first study all these other things. And then you can maybe, with permission, you can, kind of graduate to that.

[00:36:54] Shelly Tygeilski Video: And I said, but I don't understand, because I had a friend at the time, a friend of mine, [00:37:00] who also was in seminary, but literally came from a very reform household. never went to Hebrew school, didn't even know how to really read Hebrew. And he went to a yeshiva for the summer in Israel in Jerusalem, and was given a Talmud, like on the very first day that he arrived,

[00:37:19] Shelly Tygeilski Video: So I was like, but that what, that makes no sense. So that's kind of like where this, where it started to all go down. I mean, Really, it started to go downhill for me where I was wait a minute, hold on. And then, ultimately, I was actually asked politely or I was told, I was not told to leave.

[00:37:36] Shelly Tygeilski Video: I was told this may not be the right place for you. because I would always question the rabbi, like publicly when he was giving a lecture about like specific things that just didn't make sense in my brain. and so I wound up leaving seminary and going to study with a rabbi who taught at Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem, an American rabbi,[00:38:00] rabbi Shimer, and he was a tamu scholar, not like a Rabbi Tadic scholar, like he was a toric scholar, with like a PhD in like biblical studies, from a university, like not from Shiba type of thing.

[00:38:15] Shelly Tygeilski Video: and also ordained as a rabbi, and he was like, yeah, absolutely. You wanna learn hamud? Like, let's go. it was so interesting to me, you know, just to kind of like experience that. I just, I feel like in a way, this is a long-winded answer to your question, but I think, in a way like having all of these obstacles put in front of me, these walls that were built, if you will, I think being told that as a woman I wasn't allowed to do certain things or like watching my brothers be allowed to do certain things, but not being allowed to do certain things.

[00:38:55] Shelly Tygeilski Video: I think it actually in the end, not, of course it annoyed me, [00:39:00] but it also like, I think eventually just really became the fuel. Of like, oh, okay, yeah, sure. You'll tell me I can't do it. I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna prove you wrong. I'm gonna prove that I can do it, Or I'm gonna find a way to do it.

[00:39:13] Shelly Tygeilski Video: I'm gonna find a loophole, or whatever, whatever it was. And I actually think that it wound up providing me, like with a lot of fuel being kind of like poo-pooed and told that oh, but you're just a girl. You're just a woman. Like, you can't do that.

[00:39:27] Shelly Tygeilski Video: Yeah. It's, it's interesting what adversity can, the level of passion that adversity can fuel in us, or Kindle in us, you know, sometimes. Yeah. I grew up not Orthodox. my parents are both from, communist, Soviet Union, former communist, Soviet Union, so very secular.

[00:39:47] Shelly Tygeilski Video: and. my dad actually got permission first to come to the States and the Hasidic community embraced him. Hmm. And so when, when he went for my [00:40:00] mom, he had like the full-on Pius and everything. like coming from a, I mean his, wow. His family was more practicing underground in Ukraine, but still not, not hardcore by, by any means.

[00:40:14] Shelly Tygeilski Video: But, you know, he came in and my mom knows, like, I love my mom, but knows nothing about Judaism, like very, very little. She doesn't even know the prayers. Like she doesn't know the like has not had a Jewish educa education at all. so that was a, a quick, um, , a quick change. But I think that some of those, patriarchal.

[00:40:37] Shelly Tygeilski Video: Messages are still, yeah, we're still very much there. And even coming from com, communist Russia, Russia, where it's like egalitarianism, like you're a comrade, she's a comrade. Everybody's a com, you know what I mean? Like it, there was still very much like the woman is in the house, she's, she works now, she also works all day.

[00:40:57] Shelly Tygeilski Video: She's still shakers, take her over the kids, right? [00:41:00] and does all the dishes and does all the laundry and everything else, but she goes to to work all day and she serves her man, right? Mm-hmm. and is not allowed to do things. She needs to be a martyr. That kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. I mean it's interesting cuz I've had like conversations obviously, like since all in the last several years.

[00:41:25] Shelly Tygeilski Video: Mm-hmm. , and I know a lot of like rabbis who are like, and Robertsons, you know, women who are married to rabbis who like, the women seem perfectly content, I should say, with this lot that they have in life. and that to me has always been, I've been at first, you know, I will tell you that, you know, many years ago I held this, probably this resentment or this kind of like, what are you nuts?

[00:41:51] Shelly Tygeilski Video: because you don't know what's on the other side, you know, type of thing. And now I approach it completely differently where it's like with this like sense of [00:42:00] curiosity and maybe they are holding the possibility that yeah, maybe they are content, maybe like they would choose this route, and many of them did have a choice. You know, some people kind of like return to becoming like very orthodox and they knew what life was like before and some people need that rigidity and they want, to sort of have things very structured and, hierarchical, et cetera.

[00:42:23] Shelly Tygeilski Video: but it, I think having had to break out from that always made me feel like I wanted to go out and like, save everybody else that was in that situation. You know, like, blink twice if you need help. oh, come save you. and it took me a while to finally realize that like, no, some people are very happy living this life, and that's okay too.

[00:42:42] Shelly Tygeilski Video: everybody's got their own path to happiness or contentment or fulfillment in life, you know, and that's just not mine. I will always remember. From that movie Mona Lisa Smile. Mm. Where have you seen that? No. well, there's a part [00:43:00] where, one of the girls gets into Yale law and it's the 19, it's set in the 1960s, I think.

[00:43:07] Shelly Tygeilski Video: she gets into Yale law and Julia Roberts, runs up and she's like, oh my gosh, how exciting. You know? And the girl says, I can't remember the actress's name, but she says, that's wonderful. I'm always gonna have that. But, I mean, part of feminism is mm-hmm.

[00:43:24] Shelly Tygeilski Video: the choice. Mm-hmm. and I wanna choose to be a full-time mother. Hmm. And. Not go this other route, you know? Mm-hmm. . Um, and it took me a while to, to sort of not be judgy about that. Yeah. You know? Exactly. Yeah. It's, it all comes down to your own values. Whether your values are, this is my calling is to be a mother.

[00:43:48] Shelly Tygeilski Video: My calling is to make an impact in a different way. My calling is to work outside the home, you know? Yeah. it really is about choice. Right. That's a really good point. I think [00:44:00] that is exactly it. I think for me it's about like free will and agency and, don't push things down my throat, but if somebody chooses to live this life, like really fully chooses to live this life,

[00:44:14] Shelly Tygeilski Video: Godspeed. be well , but just don't like push it onto other people or push it onto me or tell me that this is the way that it has to be. You know what I mean? Totally. I wanted to ask you about, what my clients are struggling with is ashamed of their bodies. Mm-hmm. or feeling like they're in, the body won't, will not comply. especially coming from an orthodox sephardi, you know, upbringing.

[00:44:44] Shelly Tygeilski Video: What kinds of. Things. I mean, did you have an awareness about your body, about your, about modesty, right? And kind of how did you evolve as you got older and your beliefs changed and things like that?[00:45:00] It's so interesting. Like modesty was always like, obviously a big, very big thing, but I don't feel like I ever had issues with body positivity or like dys, body dysmorphia or whatever, like growing up, because I guess genetically it was fortunate enough to be always like a small person, you know, like, skinny and not too skinny, but the type of kid that could eat whatever they wanted and like, was short and small and stature, , like always the last person in line in the photo line, you know, in the front row there to take a picture with the class. it's interesting to me because I've actually struggled more with it recently.

[00:45:38] Shelly Tygeilski Video: being perimenopausal, like you hit your forties, your whole metabolism changes. So going from a person who could be, yes, I've always been an active person, but going from a person who's been active but could eat whatever the heck I wanted my entire life and not really worry about gaining weight to suddenly especially I think with the onset of like the pandemic and like [00:46:00] just moving less, when things were shut down and Just kind of getting out of your routine and your habit and the stress levels, so your cortisol levels are up and blah, blah, blah, and being menopausal and everything else.

[00:46:14] Shelly Tygeilski Video: I have never felt worse about myself than I had in the last, probably two years from 2000 to like this past summer, I was in Grenada this past summer and I'm a person who like grew up, in south Florida, like, went to the beach all the time, literally like, most of my adult life at least, you know, since being mom has been, much of it has been lived in a bathing suit, you know, in a pool in Florida, like on the beach or somewhere.

[00:46:40] Shelly Tygeilski Video: And this summer when I was in Grenada for four months in the island of Grenada and the Caribbean, I felt completely, unhappy with myself. I will go so far as say, felt completely disgusted with myself. Like, didn't even wanna look in the mirror. Very harsh words. Right. and then when I got back to [00:47:00] the US in September, I had to go for my physical, my annual physical.

[00:47:04] Shelly Tygeilski Video: and I, I'm a, I've ne again, never been the type person that ever weighed myself. And I got on the scale and the doctor told, you know, oh, this is how much you weigh. And I was like, what? And I just like, literally hit the wall in that moment. And, it took me a while to like work through this mentally.

[00:47:23] Shelly Tygeilski Video: I will tell you, I've come out on the other side of it now, like I'm definitely, again, hyper self-aware, like working through it, but in approaching it with a curiosity, trying to not add judgment to like what I am feeling. It's like you have to move from a place of like feeling shame, feeling, anger, feeling maybe even like ambiguous loss to a certain degree.

[00:47:45] Shelly Tygeilski Video: You know, there's like a grief there of especially if you had something and then you lost it, you know, like, I could fit into these jeans and now I can't, whatever. but I was able to sort of get to a place where

[00:47:56] Shelly Tygeilski Video: not just from a logical group, I, I think a lot of us are [00:48:00] logical, right? I could say to myself logically, it's a privilege to grow old. It's a privilege to have this body and be able to do this and to do that and whatever, and blah, blah, blah. Like, yeah, sure, of course logically sounds great, but if you don't really believe what you're saying, where is that getting you?

[00:48:18] Shelly Tygeilski Video: And I have girlfriends who unfortunately are no longer with us because they had cancer, because, you know, just life, life happens and we lose friends along the way as we age and we get older. And so to think about it in that sense, of course, yes, it is absolutely a privilege that I'm here and that I'm relatively speaking healthy and et cetera, et cetera.

[00:48:37] Shelly Tygeilski Video: So what if I'm 20 pounds heavier? You know? but what I realized is that the kind of feeling I sort of like started to, dig in a little bit deeper and I tried to understand like, well, where is this really coming from? I mean, where is this feeling of just being unhappy with myself coming from?

[00:48:55] Shelly Tygeilski Video: And ultimately, you know, I think that it was that I didn't feel a [00:49:00] comfortable in my own skin. And I also feel like it had a lot to do with that. I didn't feel healthy, right? I felt like. , is this a tipping point where it all goes downhill or is there a way to get, to get back to at least feeling healthy and healthy?

[00:49:16] Shelly Tygeilski Video: Doesn't necessarily mean that I'll ever be back to whatever I was when I was 30 or 35 or whatever, but for me it was just a realization that I need to be able to control what I can control. And if I have to come up with a new definition of what health means for me at this age and have some grace when I do it, then that's what I need to work towards.

[00:49:37] Shelly Tygeilski Video: And so, I got myself an accountability buddy. and my job is to send her on a daily basis, like a snapshot of whether I'm running or whatever activity that I'm doing to help get my body moving again. Cuz for a while it kind of like came to, like I said, during the pandemic, I think for many of us it just came to like a dead stop, and it required, I think just going back and this [00:50:00] com takes our conversation full circle, but I think it requires sometimes hitting rock bottom, or hitting a place where you're like feeling so bad about yourself. whatever it is in your own skin physically, that you're like, I ne I'm okay now.

[00:50:15] Shelly Tygeilski Video: I'm ready to do something about this. And I think what I've learned in this process, just merely the act of moving my body and doing something like actually investing in myself and makes me feel like, oh, this body matters to me. I matter. This body matters to me. I am doing something.

[00:50:38] Shelly Tygeilski Video: I'm like nurturing it. I'm taking care of it. Like I've spent so many years taking care of my mind. . and now it's time to also, do the outer work too, not just the inner brain work, so I think that, you know, look, it's an ebb and of flow, but I will say that it's hard.

[00:50:53] Shelly Tygeilski Video: i I totally empathize with the women that you're, that you work with. but again, as somebody who I don't wanna like, be [00:51:00] like, oh, I have it all figured out, whatever, you know, I'm going through it too. I think as we age, we start to go through it, cuz in our minds we think we look a certain way and then we look in the mirror and we're like, ah, who is that?

[00:51:12] Shelly Tygeilski Video: What happened? so I think just learning to, to laugh about it and to sort of, Take the compliments when you can and also compliment yourself, you know, but also feel like what can I control that is providing nourishment and love to my body today? That's beautiful. Yeah. And what, what you can control not only physically, but between your ears.

[00:51:37] Shelly Tygeilski Video: Right? You, you can't control all those thoughts like we were talking about earlier. Right. But if there leaves in a stream, we can Yes. Let them keep going and not correct. Put not put a dam up. Yeah. Or get attached. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But you know, it's, and then you start, when you create that shift though also mentally and you're committed to [00:52:00] whatever it is, whether it's.

[00:52:01] Shelly Tygeilski Video: Diet issue. Like you're, you're eating differently or you're moving more, whatever it is that you decide, or you and your team of whoever you're working with decide that you wanna do. it's also exciting to see and to celebrate your wins, you know, versus just saying like, oh, but I still have this much more to go.

[00:52:22] Shelly Tygeilski Video: And I think that like once, for me at least, what was motivating was like starting to see the results of showing up for myself on a daily basis consistently, and not just physically, but less mentally. seeing, like really feeling the results. and just thinking about where I was mentally when I got on that scale at the end of September versus where I am today are two completely different places.

[00:52:46] Shelly Tygeilski Video: That's awesome. Like, I feel empowered now, like, I feel like I am no longer. Just helpless. I feel like, okay, I've taken control back. I could do this. Even the smallest step helps with that. [00:53:00] Yeah. You feel empowered, you're not helpless and you feel like you're taking actionable Yeah. Steps towards you know, what you want.

[00:53:09] Shelly Tygeilski Video: So Yeah, and that goes back to the community, you know, like getting, I think having an accountability partner is very important because for me it's harder to let other people down than it is to let myself down . So, not wanting to let a certain person down is It's crushing to me to think that I would let that person down, but letting myself down.

[00:53:32] Shelly Tygeilski Video: Yeah, sure. some days, sure. I'm the same way. I think a lot of women are Right. Going back to what you said about having, you know, you don't have it all figured out and clearly you're articulate and you're brilliant, very generous heart and mind, and you've always had that going I imagine throughout your life.

[00:53:56] Shelly Tygeilski Video: High achiever. And there's always room to [00:54:00] grow. We're lifelong learners and we have to come to each situation with a beginner's mind. Yeah, but you're a big fucking deal right now, . I am . Okay. You see that in my world, you are and you've got book out.

[00:54:18] Shelly Tygeilski Video: You're a well-known speaker. but you're humble enough to say you don't always have everything figured out. Still. I have nothing figured out. , I don't know everything still. Like I literally am working through this. that's the thing. Nobody has everything figured out. Nobody has things figured out.

[00:54:38] Shelly Tygeilski Video: it annoys me to no end when I. Read books that are like those seven steps to this and the 27 things to this. And it's like, thank you. You know, it would be, I think, better worded as like, here's a roadmap that I used and, use it, but feel free to get off this path and like carve your own path.

[00:54:56] Shelly Tygeilski Video: And, this is what worked for me. I just feel like we live in [00:55:00] a, in a world where it's not a conversation anymore. And so my whole, promise to myself was because I was crushed by like a few people that I, you know, when you like, meet people that you really admire and then they turn out to be not who you think they are.

[00:55:15] Shelly Tygeilski Video: so there's a lot of teachers that I had that, I was like, you know, read their books, went to their re you know, retreats or like workshops or whatever and and they just turned out to not be the people that I thought they were or like, They put on this air of who they were. Like they had it all figured out and then when you actually really got to know them, you realized how messed up they really were.

[00:55:35] Shelly Tygeilski Video: And like that they literally had nothing figured out or like not a lot figured out. And I just realized I never wanna present in that way. I never wanna present in a way that somebody looks at me and goes like, oh my God. so that's why I'm correcting you before you even get to your question.

[00:55:50] Shelly Tygeilski Video: Cuz I'm like, I have nothing figured out. I am. We're figuring it out together. And I always wanna talk about the mistakes I made and the struggles I'm having [00:56:00] because I wanna encourage people to be able to do the same. And I never want people to look at me and say like, oh, this is my teacher and she went through all this and she's got it.

[00:56:09] Shelly Tygeilski Video: Like I have to do all these things to be able to get to this place. And it's like, no, no, no. We're we're walking together we're walking together and sometimes you'll be a few steps ahead of me, and sometimes I'll be leading the way, and sometimes you'll be leading the way.

[00:56:21] Shelly Tygeilski Video: But this idea that we can't all learn from each other is just, limiting us, slimming us in this wellness space that we operate in. Beautifully said, beautifully said. I was gonna ask, how you deal with the pressure of being a leader, but it sounds like you don't really consider yourself a leader.

[00:56:43] Shelly Tygeilski Video: Maybe? Or, yeah. I, I'm not gonna say that I don't, usually like try to take the helmet lead, but I also think I'm a very good, I am also a team player, so I want to mm-hmm. , like even when I was running companies Yeah, sure. I was, the VP or the president or whatever, but I would empower [00:57:00] people to make decisions to be leaders as well.

[00:57:05] Shelly Tygeilski Video: And I would step out of the way, you know, and recognize like, I need to hire people who are way smarter than me or who are experts in this specific thing that I know nothing about, or I don't know as much as they know, and so the pressure I have has nothing to do with producing things it has to do with, or like keeping up an image or anything.

[00:57:28] Shelly Tygeilski Video: It has to do with the pressure. there's two things, not letting people that I care about down.

[00:57:34] Shelly Tygeilski Video: And so that's like a very big pressure that I feel a lot. Because I am gonna let people down. That's just the reality of it, right? I can't help everybody all the time, and I try, but it's hard. And then, not coming to the end of my days, feeling like I squandered time in a way that, didn't contribute to my overall sort of purpose in life.[00:58:00] 

[00:58:00] Shelly Tygeilski Video: You know? So I'm not saying that I have to again, be productive in every single moment because doing nothing. It's doing something right and like it feeds my soul. And like I talk about it, you know, as a framing it as self-care. going out today, you know, I went cross country skiing in the morning, taking that hour to myself in nature and, you know, is very meditative and like, sort of recenters me and helps me to renew my commitment to doing the work and working, for other people.

[00:58:29] Shelly Tygeilski Video: But I think feeling like if I'm not continuously leveling up, to me feels like I'm going backwards. So if I'm not continuously in a pursuit of learning more, wanting to do more, expanding myself, emulating the universe, constant expansion, then, what am I even here for on this planet?

[00:58:47] Shelly Tygeilski Video: That's the.

[00:58:49] Shelly Tygeilski Video: that's a great place to come. Full circle on expansiveness and self-care.

[00:58:56] Shelly Tygeilski Video: So in my community we talk about [00:59:00] body freedom as feeling light, healthy, mm-hmm. , confident, liberated, resilient. Being able to walk around in a burlaps sac and start your stuff.

[00:59:11] Shelly Tygeilski Video: What does body freedom look like or mean to you?

[00:59:15] Shelly Tygeilski Video: I think body freedom for me at this point in my life means, number one, feeling comfortable in my own skin. Mm-hmm. , being free from my own judgments about my body. I'm not even talking about judgment from other people like I could, I haven't even gotten there yet, cuz it's so loud in here.

[00:59:34] Shelly Tygeilski Video: and being able to physically. Maintain

[00:59:39] Shelly Tygeilski Video: the level of activity that I enjoy, in the, you know, sports that I partake in and activities that I partake in, et cetera. without restriction, without feeling like I can't do it.

[00:59:52] Shelly Tygeilski Video: Beautiful. Beautiful. Thank you. Thank you so much for your time and your candor. [01:00:00] And you have a new book coming out. Mm-hmm. , it's called, remind Me what's called How We Ended Racism. Okay. Realizing a new possibility in one generation, and I've co-authored it with Justin, Michael Williams, and it's coming out October, 2023.

[01:00:20] Shelly Tygeilski Video: So Woo. Keep an eye out for it. Yeah. Wonderful. You can join a main mailing list, right? To get on the Yeah, yeah, yeah. Definitely. People can find me on my website. They can also go to my Instagram, which is where I'm most active. Mm-hmm. , um, which is Mindful skater girl. That's my handle. and there's the link in the bio will take you straight to my website or take you straight to the book that currently exists or allow you to sign up for my newsletter.

[01:00:50] Shelly Tygeilski Video: Beautiful. So the current book is Sit Down To Rise Up, how Radical Self-Care Can Change the World. I'll have a link to that in the show notes. I'll have a [01:01:00] link to Pandemic of Love, the new book and Shelly's website and all of her social media stuff. Yeah. Awesome. Shelly, thank you so much for your time.

[01:01:10] Shelly Tygeilski Video: Thank you for your, for opening your heart to us. Thank you. And you know, if we reach just one woman with this podcast and make her life 5% better, then we've done our jobs. Definitely, definitely. Thanks, Miri. Thank you.