Maureen Benkovich (00:01.016)
Welcome back to Sober Fit Life. As I always say, I'm so excited today, but today I'm extra excited. I'm joined by someone who is not only an incredible teacher, but truly one of my favorite people, Tina Lanzoni. Let me just share with you a little bit about her. Tina is a yoga therapist, meditation teacher, somatic instructor, and indoor cycling coach with over 10,000 hours of teaching experience. She is a certified yoga therapist in the Kripala School of Integrative Yoga Therapy.
a graduate of mindfulness meditation teacher certification program and level two, I-Rest Yoga Nidra teacher. She has trained over hundred teachers here in the local Annapolis area and is known for creating a grounded welcoming space where people explore yoga, breath work, meditation, somatic movement and deep healing in a practical way. And I know because I participate in these classes and I always learn something new and I have to add,
Tina, and you're gonna hear her voice, it is so beautiful and calming, but she regularly kicks my butt every week in SoulCycle class at Evolutions. I'll a shout out to Evolutions. So I know firsthand, she brings the same passion and energy to everything she teaches. So Tina, thank you so much for coming here today to Sober Fit Life.
Tina Lanzoni (01:07.027)
you
Tina Lanzoni (01:20.654)
thank you, Maureen. I love being here and I love being back with you. And yeah, that's that dual personality, right? Yoga and then in the spin room turning into somebody else. So thank you. It's an honor to be back with you again.
Maureen Benkovich (01:30.059)
Mm-hmm. Yes.
Maureen Benkovich (01:36.962)
Yes, I'm glad you're back. Tina hosts amazing retreats out of the country, some in the country, but some lately have been out of the country. And she just came back from Costa Rica and was motivated to send out an email. And of course it caught my attention because the title was, Why Yoga is Better Than Wine. And I asked her to come on here today to share some of her wisdom and what she's learned and her perspective and really kind of Tina, maybe we could start with what motivated you.
to write that email.
Tina Lanzoni (02:08.622)
When I came back, I don't exactly remember the exact situation that happened, but I do remember this moment of having a challenging day and I wanted to reach for a glass of wine. It was like almost like this automatic reaction to dealing with stress.
I paused and a pause is so powerful, but I paused and I just kind of sat with the feeling like what's going on here. And instead I just kind of became more embodied, which sounds simple, but it's really not. It's really hard to stay in your body and get out of your head. And
I just sat with an uncomfortable feeling and in the discomfort of it, the sensation kind of diminished and went away. And I believe I ended up putting on music and singing and allowing and allowing, you know, just everything to just kind of move through because I, you know, I think it's just.
Maureen Benkovich (03:23.373)
Beautiful.
Tina Lanzoni (03:34.446)
Who wants to feel uncomfortable? I mean, really, right? But it's natural to want to move away from it. It's a natural human response to scroll, to drink wine, to busy ourselves, to binge watch, all those things. I think interestingly, what that does is when you do that,
Maureen Benkovich (03:43.811)
Mm-hmm.
Tina Lanzoni (04:02.476)
you keep separating from yourself.
Maureen Benkovich (04:05.825)
Yeah, let's talk about that because you talked about being disconnected from yourself. And that is one of the ways we disconnect really is to reach for wine. And what I always talk about on here or any type of alcohol is it is a central nervous system depressant. It is very fast. So it gives you that effect that you want without pausing, without saying what is really going on here? What do I need? And sitting with the discomfort. We just sort of want to erase
the discomfort. But you everything you said in that example was you paused and you said, what do I really need right now? What is going on? And I think that's so key that you really practice what you teach all the time in classes to stay embodied. So can you talk about what does that mean to stay embodied?
Tina Lanzoni (04:55.892)
Yeah, yeah, sure. So kind of to what you were just saying, to pause, you have to have some level of awareness of what you're doing, right? And
Maureen Benkovich (05:10.637)
Mm-hmm.
Tina Lanzoni (05:14.38)
To be embodied is exactly what it sounds like. It is being in your body. know, people think about intelligence coming from here, but the body speaks to us all the time, but we're not paying attention to it. It speaks to us as language, as sensation. And if we keep reaching outside of ourselves for something,
we don't learn to trust ourselves. We actually separate from ourselves. It pulls us out of ourselves and we begin to lose trust in ourselves. And when we lose trust in ourselves, we lose confidence in ourselves. And then,
Maureen Benkovich (05:52.973)
Yes.
Maureen Benkovich (06:05.315)
Mm-hmm.
Tina Lanzoni (06:06.913)
You keep doing that, like, okay, let me go on Instagram, let me pour a glass of wine. And then all of a sudden, it's now, as you know, better than any one morning, is now it's a habit. And we, again, we get so far away from ourselves that we don't even know how to trust what's inside of us, or how to listen.
to what's inside of us.
Maureen Benkovich (06:38.455)
Yeah, yeah, we decrease our ability to handle stress when we outsource it to externals like scrolling, binging, drinking, know, gambling, all those things, all the negative INGs. So it decreases our stress tolerance, our ability to sit with discomfort. Why do you think we are so afraid of sitting in discomfort? I know you said nobody wants to, but what are we afraid of?
Tina Lanzoni (06:52.301)
This is it.
Maureen Benkovich (07:07.971)
It's a big question, but what do you think?
Tina Lanzoni (07:08.531)
Hmm, that is, boy, that's good. It's a really good question. Honestly, I don't think...
culturally, that we've really taught ourselves to be still. You know what I mean? To just sit with ourselves. We don't value the way, you know, I've always been kinesthetic. It's the way that I'm born. So I've always been in my body. But I see it all the time in class, like to ask somebody to be still and be with themselves.
Maureen Benkovich (07:26.435)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Tina Lanzoni (07:47.182)
They are so, no, that's not true. That is not true. No, I disagree with that. I disagree with that. I see like restlessness and if people can kind of reframe it rather like looking at it like with curiosity and with compassion rather than, I can't do this.
Maureen Benkovich (07:48.899)
I have a challenge being still people.
Maureen Benkovich (08:00.131)
Mm.
Maureen Benkovich (08:11.893)
yeah.
Maureen Benkovich (08:15.981)
Yes.
Tina Lanzoni (08:16.021)
I can't do yoga. I can't be still. I can't meditate. I can't all these things. We're just not taught it from a young age. You know, like a baby cries and it's like, here, have a lollipop. Right? Come out. Yeah. Come out of yourself. Don't be with, my goodness, that must hurt. That hurt is not going to last forever. Just sit with that hurt for a minute.
Maureen Benkovich (08:30.775)
Have some sugar. Yes.
Maureen Benkovich (08:38.253)
Yes.
Maureen Benkovich (08:44.555)
Yeah, it's the person who's experiencing the hurt, sitting with the hurt. And you mentioned another thing like give someone a lollipop or hey, have a glass of wine, you're feeling bad. The other person is also uncomfortable with sitting with someone else's discomfort.
Tina Lanzoni (09:00.013)
100%. 100%. I say that, you know, I've led a lot of teacher trainings, which really opened people up, you know? And I always say to the other students, if somebody is crying, let them cry. Right? Boys don't cry. We tell our boys, like, man up. Right? I mean, it's so sad. Why do we have emotions?
Maureen Benkovich (09:16.695)
Mm-hmm.
Maureen Benkovich (09:23.873)
right right
Maureen Benkovich (09:29.443)
And if we don't let them out, we're going to try to numb and suppress them instead of being curious. You use two words that I use all the time in my coaching too, curiosity and compassion, self-compassion for yourself, for, know, why do I feel this way? How did this get to be a mindless habit? Let me try to understand it instead of hiding in shame or beating myself up. And then the curious part is what?
other choice can I do? like you were there saying, well, why am I feeling uncomfortable? And then you said, well, let me turn on some music and dance. So you replaced, you did something else to down regulate your central nervous system instead of choosing the artificial down regulation. And you taught yourself, you can sit with discomfort and then do something else to move. And then you said another thing that you noticed, the actual thought or craving or urge went away. It does dissipate.
Tina Lanzoni (10:25.197)
Exactly. Yeah, exactly. And isn't that really a training of your nervous system, right? Like, you know, like you were saying, those things happen so quickly we don't even think we just open up the bottle and we pour. And what we're teaching our nervous system is that discomfort
Maureen Benkovich (10:43.319)
Yes.
Tina Lanzoni (10:54.121)
is a danger and we need to escape, right? That's what the primitive part of our brain does. It is just like, let me escape to get relief. And we don't realize that like, you know, the rope that we saw on the path that we thought was a snake is actually just a rope. We didn't give ourselves time to see that, right? The pause.
Maureen Benkovich (10:55.127)
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Maureen Benkovich (11:14.403)
Time, right. The pause, like you said, the power is in the pause. And that takes mindfulness and awareness, which is a practice.
Tina Lanzoni (11:28.383)
as a practice. 100 % right.
Maureen Benkovich (11:29.195)
Yeah. Well, I love how you apply this even to cycle class. So it's not just, you know, yoga where you're being still even in cycle, you apply all these principles and I'm always in the back. I wish I had like a notepad to write down the things that you say. But for instance, everybody, when Tina is challenging us to, let's say cycle to a harder resistance and we're testing our quadriceps and our heart rates going up and she'll say, yes.
This is uncomfortable right now. Don't you want to get better? And this is how you do it because your body will adapt. If you stay with a discomfort, it will adapt. And that is just such a key life lesson that you share all the time in class that makes me keep going. But it's just so cool how you weave it into every aspect that whenever I talk to you, you're just so authentic the way you live this. even, you know, exercise, let's talk about that when you're
building a muscle, you have to go through the discomfort of breaking it down for it to build back up. So it's if when you're looking at a habit, you have to go through the discomfort of breaking it down to, you know, be curious, see what's really going on there, what do you really need, and your body will adapt or your brain will adapt. So I love how you apply those principles in all areas that I see you doing.
Tina Lanzoni (12:50.54)
Yeah, and you know that discomfort that you're talking about is on all levels of our being, right? We have to stress our muscles, our brain, our emotional state, so that we're more resilient in life, so that we can handle what's coming at us. And we don't even give ourselves a chance to do that.
Maureen Benkovich (12:59.523)
Mm-hmm.
Maureen Benkovich (13:09.773)
Mm-hmm.
Maureen Benkovich (13:20.151)
Yeah, there's that mistrust, right? We don't trust.
Tina Lanzoni (13:20.844)
Right? Right. Or it's just like, I'll tell you what, this happened today. I'm teaching a group of people who have never taken yoga before. And it's, you know, this somatic yoga. And I went up to somebody and I could, you know, she was like this. And I said, are you okay? And she said, I'm in a lot of pain. So.
Maureen Benkovich (13:35.181)
Mm-hmm.
Maureen Benkovich (13:46.787)
Hmm.
Tina Lanzoni (13:49.961)
I said, what does pain feel like? And she said, tight. And I said, okay, I call that discomfort. Let's try to feel that discomfort. And I was guiding her and breathing. And then I had my hands on her and I could feel her body letting go. And I said, do you feel that? And she said,
Maureen Benkovich (14:05.571)
Hmm.
Maureen Benkovich (14:17.933)
Hmm.
you felt.
Tina Lanzoni (14:22.43)
Yeah, and that's the whole thing with embodiment. People aren't in their bodies. When I have a client or a small group and I'm like, what's it feel like? my right leg feels longer than my left. Great. That's where you are right now. But in time, you just unravel and you're like, I can feel almost like blood flow.
Maureen Benkovich (14:49.954)
Mm-hmm.
Tina Lanzoni (14:50.228)
or I can feel pulsing or tingling or I can feel like I'm stuck here. And you develop that, you know.
And it's not a quick fix. Nothing is, right? Is anything good a quick fix? I want to ask you that. You know, really, and what you do.
Maureen Benkovich (15:04.287)
Not a quick fix, it's a practice.
Maureen Benkovich (15:12.853)
No, no, no, and it's not a quick fix. And often when I do these 30 day resets, it's really just introducing people to the principles of curiosity, pausing, self-compassion around their drinking, looking at it without shame. But often I'll get the question, well, when is this, when am I going to stop feeling, you know, these cravings or urges or feeling FOMO or resistance? And I said, let's think about this. You've probably been drinking for decades.
And we've done a 30 day reset. While that's fabulous, it's a drop in the bucket, no pun intended. And so it's just the beginning of your curiosity journey. Yeah.
Tina Lanzoni (15:54.989)
Right, right. There isn't anything quite 30 years of drinking and that is so entwined in your nervous system that, you know, that release that comes with it. And yeah, it makes perfect sense. And I think that's just part of, you know, the yogic teaching is that it's just such a common thing.
Maureen Benkovich (16:07.468)
Yeah, exactly.
Tina Lanzoni (16:24.478)
to hold on to things that are pleasurable and have an aversion towards things that are painful.
Maureen Benkovich (16:30.179)
Mm-hmm.
Maureen Benkovich (16:35.713)
Yeah, let's go back to this woman for a second because she sort of embodies what you're talking about because you brought it up that most people are walking around living in a contracted state, which it sounds like you saw this in her, a chronic tension. What does that mean or look like?
Tina Lanzoni (16:46.71)
This is... This is...
Tina Lanzoni (16:54.38)
That looks like, you know, one of my favorite sayings that my daughter once said to me, what exactly do you mean when you say that? Is that you don't know what you don't know. And I think that a lot in life. I think...
Maureen Benkovich (17:03.203)
Yeah.
Maureen Benkovich (17:10.498)
Mm-hmm.
Tina Lanzoni (17:15.018)
When life is coming at you all the time and the body's language is sensation, the body contracts against something that's uncomfortable, i.e. this woman that was in class today, right? It's uncomfortable. Rather than relaxing her body to feel what's there and teaching herself that she can handle what comes at her. Otherwise,
she keeps contracting and pretty soon the contraction leads to chronic tension. And you know what people call that? Aging. Like, I feel this way because I'm getting older. And what I have studied is the work of Thomas Hannah, who really kind of coined somatics, if you will. And
Maureen Benkovich (17:57.387)
Yes.
Tina Lanzoni (18:12.571)
And he calls it sensory motor amnesia, where like we lose touch with how to move. We lose touch with how we used to feel and just blame aging and saying no to life. And part of saying no to life is not accepting what's coming at us, right? Like we, I mean,
Maureen Benkovich (18:39.073)
Right, right.
Tina Lanzoni (18:42.399)
This always blows my mind about human beings and guilty as charged, right? Is like, if something is difficult, if there is sadness, if there is grief, if there is anger, that something's wrong, we're not supposed to feel that. Yes, you are. Yeah. And so if every time that you contract, right, you're like,
Maureen Benkovich (18:58.519)
Right.
Maureen Benkovich (19:03.757)
knife.
Tina Lanzoni (19:12.107)
And the body starts to know this. The body forgets how to let go. And then I'm living in this state where I'm wound tight. I'm reactive towards people in my life. And I form this like tunnel vision of, you know, how I perceive the world all the time, you know? It's crazy.
to your point, it's a practice, it's difficult, but it's creating your future.
Maureen Benkovich (19:51.556)
Future self, yes, what do want him or her to look like? Move like, act like, yeah.
Tina Lanzoni (19:55.852)
Yeah, mean, yeah. Yeah, I mean, you know, so can I try something with you? Yeah, yeah, just because I think for people listening, it would be like, you know, it would be a good practice for them to practice and to realize, you know, people are like, what's the big deal feeling your body like I feel myself touching my chest? It's so much more than that. So.
Maureen Benkovich (20:02.261)
Yes,
Maureen Benkovich (20:21.123)
And this would be somatic.
Tina Lanzoni (20:24.467)
This is part of somatic, part of yoga nidra, and I'll tell you about that after we do this, but I want you maybe more into think about like a little recent irritant. When you're doing this work, first of all, I usually do things one-on-one when we're getting to this level, but if you're teaching yourself about this,
Maureen Benkovich (20:30.723)
Okay. Okay.
Tina Lanzoni (20:52.713)
You don't want to go to the hardest, most difficult thing in life because you don't have the resources to handle it. So you just take the littlest thing and you learn to feel it in the body and then you take the next level and the next level, okay? So can you think of a time in the last week where you just kind of were maybe annoyed with, yeah. Good, okay, okay, pick one. is, pick one, this is called.
Maureen Benkovich (21:07.075)
Mm-hmm.
Maureen Benkovich (21:12.583)
yeah, like five.
Tina Lanzoni (21:21.611)
titration and basically this is going to teach you well let's just do it we'll talk about it after okay
Maureen Benkovich (21:27.723)
Okay. I often get annoyed with myself around technology. So as I'm learning this craft of podcasting or running this entrepreneurial business, I always come up against the wall of technology and I get really frustrated with it and also myself that I don't instantly understand it. I get, yeah.
Tina Lanzoni (21:48.364)
There, I totally get that. Okay, can you close your eyes if that feels okay to you and take a moment to just come into the body however you can do that. Maybe you feel your feet on the ground, maybe you feel your feet, but there is some kind of feeling that you are connecting to in your body.
just shifting your focus from our conversation and being in thinking to being in feeling.
And I just want you to take a slow, deep breath in.
and a full deep breath out.
Tina Lanzoni (22:40.139)
And maybe do that again, just letting the exhalation become a little longer than the inhalation because that in and of itself is down regulating.
And then now maybe recall that time maybe in the past week where you had this irritant of technology.
And just maybe for a moment, let it become vivid in your mind. Like, where were you? What was frustrating? See it. Use as many of your senses to make it come alive again, the memory come alive. And then just see if you can feel in your body an area that lights up from that experience. It might
feel like a contraction. might, your throat, chest, okay, maybe, yeah, tightness in the chest is pretty common. Maybe a gripping in the jaw. Yeah, shoulders lifting, all of those things. So now I want you to be brave and just be with the feeling of it. So the first thing you did was like your throat. So just kind of feel your throat and feel what happens to it.
Maureen Benkovich (23:41.763)
Mm-hmm.
Tina Lanzoni (24:05.983)
for a moment.
and maybe so much that you could describe what the feeling is in the throat. Is it a tightening? What do you feel when you feel your throat?
Maureen Benkovich (24:20.599)
Yeah, it's tightening and it goes into my chest. And my shoulders rise, so my neck gets tight.
Tina Lanzoni (24:23.713)
Yeah, yeah. And your shoulders rise, yeah. So what's tightness feel like? What's it feel like?
Maureen Benkovich (24:32.611)
and pain and uncomfortable.
Tina Lanzoni (24:35.422)
Okay, those are ways that your brain is saying, this is uncomfortable, but see what I mean? Like in your head, what does it feel like? Does it feel hot? Does it feel burning? Does it feel suffocating? What's the felt sense of it?
Maureen Benkovich (24:40.109)
Mm. Mm-hmm.
Maureen Benkovich (24:56.333)
The word that came to my mind is close, like not a lot of room. Suffocating, I guess, would be the thing.
Tina Lanzoni (25:01.322)
Mmm, yeah, okay. Suffocating. Okay, then is there is there somewhere in your body right now that feels a sense of ease?
Maureen Benkovich (25:15.063)
When I breathe, that helps me.
Tina Lanzoni (25:16.872)
Yeah, your breath, your breath. So maybe feeling the breath in the belly or in the nostrils, you feel a sense of ease. And then just go back to the throat, just touch it. This is called titrating. I don't literally mean touch it. I mean, just touch it with your awareness, like feel it. And then go back to your breath and feel that.
Maureen Benkovich (25:26.019)
Mm-hmm.
Maureen Benkovich (25:35.17)
You okay?
Tina Lanzoni (25:47.998)
And so let the nervous system just kind of register that there's discomfort here in the throat, but there's also support here in the breath.
Maureen Benkovich (25:58.628)
Mm-hmm.
Tina Lanzoni (26:02.015)
And so that's just like a quick little practice that both can be true, that I can have an irritant, the body is telling me that my throat is clenching, but at the same time I can also have ease. And in a really slow, subtle way, you're teaching your nervous system to be with discomfort.
Maureen Benkovich (26:28.739)
Mm-hmm.
Tina Lanzoni (26:30.292)
You're going back and forth and pretty soon the next thing that comes is that there's a bigger challenge, a fight with a spouse or whatever, you know? And I think you said this earlier, it's all about that pause. And in that pause I go from like, can't believe this person did this to me, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, to being in the body. And I'm giving information to the nervous system when I do that.
Maureen Benkovich (26:39.169)
Mm-hmm.
Tina Lanzoni (27:00.263)
escaping.
Maureen Benkovich (27:01.825)
Yeah, you're actually asking me and just like you do with that client to lean into the discomfort, not pull away from it, not ignore it, not numb it, but to lean into it and think about how it felt in my body. Yeah, that is so different.
Tina Lanzoni (27:19.178)
So different. And what you're doing, back to what we talked about in the beginning, is you're connecting with yourself. You're learning to trust yourself again, right? Otherwise, the tightening just keeps getting tighter. And pretty soon, we forget how to release. And then we think,
Maureen Benkovich (27:33.517)
Mm-hmm.
Tina Lanzoni (27:48.939)
tension, fatigue, restlessness. It's all about part of life and getting old socks and all the other things that we tell ourselves. then when the body is tight and chronic and fatigued, guess what? It changes our emotional state and it changes the way that we think and the way that we perceive. And so that's really the teachings of somatic yoga is embodiment.
Maureen Benkovich (28:07.819)
yeah.
Maureen Benkovich (28:14.712)
Hmm.
Tina Lanzoni (28:17.94)
to break that habituation, to move in different ways.
Maureen Benkovich (28:21.251)
Yeah, I think you're right. The more you talk about it, how disembodied we are, really. You know, we got all these screens, maybe multiple screens, know, blue light, we've got lights on till nighttime, we're not in touch with circadian rhythms outside, and then we reach for something fast because leaning into discomfort feels maybe scary and it's also some work and a practice, whereas grabbing a glass of wine doesn't take any thought.
and it gives you what you think you're looking for. So what is the difference between, I talk about the chemical difference, but the effect on your emotions and everything when you continue to reach for something else instead of getting this curiosity about your body and practicing this embodiment.
Tina Lanzoni (29:08.746)
That's a really, really good question. When you asked the question, the first thing that popped into my mind is that the difference in doing and putting the time in and putting the work in is that you build capacity in yourself and you're teaching yourself, your central nervous system, to ride the waves of life, right?
And as you learn how to feel, and I think we talked about this on the last podcast, you learn that the feeling doesn't last forever. And then you learn to be safe in your body. And then when you feel safe in your body and you trust your body, you start to feel safe in life. And then you realize, my gosh, I can do difficult things. I can...
feel sadness and I don't have to numb it and it doesn't last and I can feel loneliness because these are a grief and I don't have to numb it and this is all the practice in learning to listen, right? To listen, right? Rather than, I think this was your word, rather than outsource it.
Maureen Benkovich (30:16.387)
grief?
Tina Lanzoni (30:35.049)
I'm learning to insource, right? I'm learning, I have the strength and the wisdom within me. And then I, yeah, the capacity. And you stop abandoning yourself, which is really what you're doing when you're looking for something else, right? You're abandoning yourself. You are not believing in yourself. And that messes up your self-esteem.
Maureen Benkovich (30:44.471)
Yes, the capacity.
Maureen Benkovich (30:55.607)
Yes.
Maureen Benkovich (31:04.779)
And it filters out to every aspect of your life too.
Tina Lanzoni (31:05.064)
Right?
Tina Lanzoni (31:10.505)
100%.
Maureen Benkovich (31:11.553)
Yeah, it's far reaching. How you interact, how you react, like you said.
Tina Lanzoni (31:15.017)
100%.
Right. So if you can learn to be with yourself and pause, then you can pause when you're with your partner rather than attack. Right? And you know, like that thing that I said, you don't know what you don't know, but then when you really start to feel like you said your breath and you start to feel ease, and I always talk about somatics like it's like unwinding, it's teasing you apart.
Maureen Benkovich (31:27.843)
Mmm.
Tina Lanzoni (31:48.072)
All of sudden you're like, I feel a little better. And you didn't know that because you didn't know, right? And again, this is all Thomas Hannah's work where he, this is in the seventies, know, where he, yeah, he's amazing. was like, he was like the pioneer, if you will, of.
Maureen Benkovich (32:00.589)
Mmm.
just gonna reference him in the notes.
Tina Lanzoni (32:11.422)
brain plasticity and the connection between our brain and our central nervous system and our muscle function of that contracted state. So think about it. If you're tensing and contracted like you are saying my shoulders do this and my gosh that burns a lot of energy. We get fatigued. We're exhausted.
Maureen Benkovich (32:19.395)
Mm.
Maureen Benkovich (32:34.327)
Yeah, it does.
Tina Lanzoni (32:40.649)
That's not how we want to live our lives.
Maureen Benkovich (32:42.861)
Right. But then learning what you do when you're fatigued and exhausted. What would be the healthy, supportive choice? You know, so when people are listening to you and we all love listening to your voice, I do. But when we're listening to you and someone's listening saying, well, how do I start this? This sounds so different from anything I do. How would you suggest that somebody would start embodiment or somatic practice?
Tina Lanzoni (32:57.01)
Okay.
Tina Lanzoni (33:13.651)
So part of it is kind of what I just did with you.
or how this whole podcast began of like, I feel stress. Where do I feel stress? Like going from here to going in here. And at first it's gonna be, or from the head really to the body. And at first it's like, I don't know where I feel it. I have no idea where I feel it. And I see that all the time.
Maureen Benkovich (33:32.611)
from the head to the heart, your body.
Tina Lanzoni (33:46.77)
It is such a practice to learn to be embodied. is, I see it happen over and over again. People do it all the time. They think they can't, but they can. And it's just learning to feel. And in time, it just might be like, my goodness, I am clenching my jaw so much. Let me me let that go. And it's just stopping the looping.
Maureen Benkovich (34:15.831)
Yes.
Tina Lanzoni (34:16.421)
of the patterning of the behavior. And the more that you stop it, the less power that it has. I forget who this person was, but he was talking about, it was a book that I read and it's been a long time, but basically like, you know, pain.
Tina Lanzoni (34:39.881)
chronic pain, which can happen just from resistance to life, from just tightening, right? But it can certainly happen from injury. If I like, my pinky finger got cut off, it would light up a certain area of my brain. If I keep like, you know, if the pain is gone, it's like the phantom limb, right? If the pain is gone, but I'm still reacting to the pain.
Maureen Benkovich (35:00.076)
right?
Tina Lanzoni (35:06.437)
It takes over more and more of my brain that keeps me in a state of chronic pain that I'm really not really still in physical pain anymore. I mean, it's crazy. just starting to allow yourself to feel like being kind, being compassion, like, you know, I said something I shouldn't say. Where is that shame? Like everybody says things they shouldn't say.
Maureen Benkovich (35:15.629)
Mm-hmm.
Maureen Benkovich (35:31.171)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Tina Lanzoni (35:36.029)
Be nice to yourself. Yeah.
Maureen Benkovich (35:37.454)
Self-compassion. Yeah. I will share with you and the audience, because I saw Tina individually two separate times in my life when I was really going through two different struggles. And I'll link episode, our first episode, where we talked about some of this. But I was very much in grief over not having children. And I drank a lot around that. And I can remember having some conversations with Tina and her sharing some of this with me.
And then the second time was after my father passed. And I really was again struggling with grief and I was still drinking. And she shared these same principles with me. We worked one on one. Now when I work with her, the difference that I want to share is when I was drinking, I couldn't get embodied. I was so disconnected from myself. And now that I no longer drink, I'm so much more open to
to feeling these, to feeling the discomfort, to understanding, to learning, to growing, to creating those new neural pathways, which is basically what we're talking about. But when I was drinking, it was very hard to be embodied because I just wanted to disconnect from myself. And that's what I was doing and what a lot of people do, you know, in different ways with alcohol. So just from my own personal experience, I see a huge difference.
on the other side of alcohol as far as being able to get in touch with my feelings around my somatic feelings.
Tina Lanzoni (37:14.707)
That's amazing. Thank you for the candidness of that, you know, and just sharing that. And I would imagine that it would, you know, again, that disconnect that alcohol gives you doesn't allow you to feel your body. And then you so wisely today when we did that little practice, like your
Maureen Benkovich (37:15.905)
Yeah.
Tina Lanzoni (37:44.201)
place of ease was your breath. And so, you know, for your listeners, like a one, you know, a one breath pause, you know, just stopping, taking a deep breath in. And then what begins to happen is you begin to understand yourself. And that, to me, you know, like saying, what is happening right now? Like what it...
Maureen Benkovich (37:47.32)
Mm-hmm.
Maureen Benkovich (38:12.045)
Mm-hmm.
Tina Lanzoni (38:14.053)
Self-awareness is our responsibility as human beings, right? And then we're not prisoners.
Maureen Benkovich (38:17.239)
Yes.
Maureen Benkovich (38:23.393)
Right. Yeah. Prisoners to the coping mechanisms that we've been turning to instead of trying to understand and feel and lean into the discomfort and have consistency with these practices. I there is that piece too, the consistency piece.
Tina Lanzoni (38:24.808)
Because otherwise we are... Yeah.
Tina Lanzoni (38:43.59)
Right. It's not easy, but to what you said earlier, you know, like, how do we want to live this one beautiful life that we have? And what we do now matters. What we do today matters. And yeah, of course, we are all gonna, you know,
Maureen Benkovich (38:57.763)
Mm.
Tina Lanzoni (39:06.818)
not do it, not do what we should do, we're gonna, you know, of course, but you just try again. It's that simple. We lose our way and you, you know, when I'm teaching people to be in their bodies, like I think I say it probably a hundred times in a class, like, are you in your body? It's okay if you're not, probably thinking that's okay. Come on back, come on back, come on back. And that's the practice, come on back.
Maureen Benkovich (39:11.075)
great.
Maureen Benkovich (39:30.381)
Yes.
Maureen Benkovich (39:33.934)
Yeah, always coming back, not looking for perfection, but the process, learning curiosity, being interested. But yes, you always catch us at the end of class. You're like, don't get into your to-do list now. This is the most important part at the end with the stillness and just really breathing. Even at the end of cycle class, you encourage us to take those moments of stillness.
Tina Lanzoni (39:36.838)
always coming back.
Tina Lanzoni (39:47.953)
Yeah
Tina Lanzoni (39:59.112)
Teach yourself to be still.
Maureen Benkovich (40:02.121)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, big lesson.
Tina Lanzoni (40:04.957)
We always need stimulation and we're missing in the external stimulation, we're missing a deep connection to peace.
Maureen Benkovich (40:19.427)
And that is really what everybody is seeking and yet unknowingly turning to things that truly don't offer peace.
Tina Lanzoni (40:28.774)
and pull you away from it.
Maureen Benkovich (40:30.433)
Yeah, and connectedness to others and yourself.
And so that is why yoga is better than wine. Yeah. Look what happens when you put out an email, you end up on a podcast talking about it. Hey, if anybody wants to find Tina, Tina, can you share a little bit about your work here in Annapolis? And do you also do online virtual training?
Tina Lanzoni (40:39.144)
Yes! Amen, sister, amen.
Tina Lanzoni (40:58.192)
Yeah, yeah, thank you. I, you know, I lead classes, somatic classes, workshops, retreats.
at evolutions and at groundswell yoga and people are welcome to hop in and my website is TinaLanzoni.com where I do probably once or twice a year offer a virtual class in the fall. I'm going to be offering something on chronic pain so yeah, would love and if I can help anybody at all they can email me through my website or have any questions or comments. Yeah.
Maureen Benkovich (41:39.373)
We will have all that in the show notes. Tell people about these fabulous retreats you've been doing.
Tina Lanzoni (41:44.878)
Yeah, so, so cool. So cool. So talk about being able to down regulate, right? So the next one coming up is the Azores. I'm leaving in about two weeks for that. And it's just lovely. We wake up together and do yoga and meditation and end the day that way. And it just gives people a time to.
Maureen Benkovich (41:49.666)
Mm-hmm.
Tina Lanzoni (42:09.683)
feel ease, which sounds like a big whoop, but people don't really feel ease anymore. So, yeah. They do. They do. Yeah, they do. Which is just a reflection that people need this, right? Yeah.
Maureen Benkovich (42:17.389)
And these fill up fast, I will tell you. I've seen it. Now you also, yeah, yeah. And you also had one in Pennsylvania, right? A yurt? What's a yurt?
Tina Lanzoni (42:29.384)
I have one coming up in the fall in a yurt like, it's almost like glamping. It's a glorified tent where, you know, there's running water and a bathroom and you know what I mean? And yeah, so that's coming up in the fall. So yeah, try to do like three of them a year, which is, it's fun for me and fun to really get to know people better.
Maureen Benkovich (42:53.111)
Yeah, yeah, I want to go on one of those. So next next year, maybe. Thank you. Well, I'm sure you can all tell why Tina is one of my favorite people. And I bet you all feel a little bit more relaxed listening to her. But if you want to learn more about somatics, check out her website. And again, if you're interested in changing your relationship with alcohol or at least just exploring it.
Tina Lanzoni (42:55.898)
I would love you to come.
Bye.
interesting.
Maureen Benkovich (43:15.491)
please give me a call, a shout out, a discovery call, or I have a free quiz where you can answer, I drinking too much? And there's no labels, no judgment, just real world questions and answers, and you get a guide to what is gray area drinking. So if you're curious, just check it out. And thank you, Tina, so much for coming on to Sober Fit Life. And I forgot to ask you this question that I ask everybody else. What do you do to be sober fit in your life?
Tina Lanzoni (43:43.324)
Yoga. And Maureen, I have to say thank you for the beautiful work that you do. Yeah, yeah.
Maureen Benkovich (43:43.935)
Yeah, I think we know the answer, but...
Maureen Benkovich (43:52.422)
thank you, Tina. I really enjoy it. And you're one of those people along my journey that encouraged me to want more, to be better, that I had more potential. So I'm always so grateful for you too. Yeah. Thank you. You too.
Tina Lanzoni (44:05.321)
Thank you. Thanks. It's been a pleasure.
