Podcast 520: Why True Wellness Goes Beyond Weight Loss

INTRO: There are multiple facets to being well and I’ll just name them toxicity, malnutrition, stagnation and trauma. Being alone in a box, everybody starts to hallucinate. Yes, not hearing anyone’s thoughts but your own can be kind of scary. We can agree to disagree and you can go along and hang out with yourself and figure that out, but I don’t need to hear this, because I know who I am. We always have to dig deep right away and I feel that we have to start more simple and just look at ourselves from more afar and then as we add the layers we can go a little deeper and a little deeper. 

And that is the onion approach, we start from the outside and we work in and do it slowly. And it takes getting used to and it takes building confidence. 

When I was in a not so great relationship I started dumb myself down, because I was getting jabs from my partner at the time. I think the main thing is teaching people emotional resilience. So how I teach is through our spiritual connection and that can look differently for everyone but we have to kind of point to moments in our lives where we felt disconnected and ask ourselves what we would do differently this time.

MARTIN: Greetings. This is Martin Pytela for Life Enthusiast podcast, and with me today Sarah Alysse Bobo. She is a storm in the world of health and oh, I don't know how to put it well. But the thing is, there are some people of low energy and there are some people of high energy. We're getting the latter today.

SARAH: Thank you so much for having me today, Martin.

MARTIN: Sure. That's great. Yeah. I checked your website to make sure that I understood what you're all about, and you just have so many facets to your life.

SARAH: Yeah.

MARTIN: Indeed. Right? And,

SARAH: My background is crazy. So I love to explore different aspects of my health. I know you do too.

MARTIN: I do. Yeah. Well, I call it always to harmony. When I open up, I tell people: “Look, there are multiple facets to being well and I just named them toxicity, malnutrition, stagnation and trauma. Those are the things that are blocking you from expressing your wellness.” But there are of course the opposites of that. The opposite of toxicity is clean living. The opposite of malnutrition is eating well. And the opposite of stagnation is movement. And the opposite of trauma is soulful connection with your higher self and emotional wellness, and all of that. And I'm watching you approach it from that side, right?

SARAH: Yes. Yes. So important to do that.

MARTIN: Indeed. Well, let's have you tell the audience what, how you go about it. Well, okay. Two aspects to your work, right? One-on-one and corporate work.

SARAH: Yes. I started everything in my business one-on-one. I was a fitness trainer for many years and then I discovered a lot about myself that I was the unhealthiest fit person out there. I would work out constantly, but I wasn't nourishing my soul with good food or honestly, just a good lifestyle, right? So, I had to make sure that I was starting to walk the walk and it took me a while.

MARTIN: Yeah. In the men's world, it's like tough it out and I think when you get sucked into that, you are just working it despite the deficiency. I'm reminded of Monty Python, In the Life of Brian, “It's just a flesh wound.”

SARAH: Yes.

MARTIN: And with the limb hanging.

SARAH: Yes.

MARTIN: Right.

SARAH: Yep. And that's what your life feels like, you know? You feel everything. You're cut off from the world, but you're trying to appear like everything is great. I'm fine.

MARTIN: Yeah. The Instagram image of everything's polished.

SARAH: Yes. Yeah.

MARTIN: All right.

SARAH: Yeah. For me, that was just not the case. I kept on eating really unhealthy things because at night, I had that gremlin, that hormone that's basically called uh what is it?

MARTIN: Ghrelin.

SARAH: Ghrelin. And I kept on feeding myself with hot Cheetos. I think you told me that yours was Doritos back in the day, if you have it in the house.

MARTIN: Yeah.

SARAH: You just eat the whole bag. And that was me with Hot Cheetos. And I wouldn't even realize I was doing it. It was just a subconscious thing.

MARTIN: Yeah.

SARAH: And I have to change.

MARTIN: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's a hole in the soul and it needs to be filled. And if we don't feel it through emotional health, we'll be finding substitutes and some of us just have food addictions, but it can get worse. We can go for alcohol and sex and work and you name it. There are addictions of every sort, and they're usually a plug for something that's missing.

SARAH: Exactly. And for me, there was a lot missing. I actually really dove into this when my father got sick in 2016, and I noticed that something was similar that we have. We both were emotional eaters, but I didn't realize that was how I was coping with everything. I didn't cry at first. I was just, let's get everything done that needs to be done for the funeral. I'm going to be there for my mom. And then I shut myself down from any emotions by just eating. And I started to do the work and learn about holistic lifestyle choices. And then I realized, wow, If I just substituted that for a plum or a nectarine, I would start to get a little more fulfilled both with my soul. I would start to connect deeper. And over time, I started to develop these solutions. So, you might have seen a lot on my website that s-o-u-l?

MARTIN: Yeah.

SARAH: It's basically to get solutions that optimize an unparalleled lifestyle. So, it's to help my clients see what they can have by choosing to follow some guidelines to tackle physical barriers, mental barriers and then also spiritual connections with themselves.

MARTIN: Yeah.

SARAH: Could be a higher power or just themselves, just finding what makes them happy in life.

MARTIN: Yeah. Yeah. It's so easy to be reactive just react, react, react, but actually we need to be able to respond. You need to be able to introduce the little gap to engage the frontal cortex and just say, "Well, if I were at my best behavior, what would I choose?"

SARAH: Exactly. Exactly.

MARTIN: Yeah. So, that's how you help people, too, right? I mean, I was watching you have it in chapters where you're dealing with the mental, physical, and emotional side of our existence, right?

SARAH: Yes. And it's just helping each individual get quiet with themselves. So, put them in situations where they have to focus on their breath. They have to move their body and find out what are some challenges that they're currently facing in those areas. And when they get quiet, it's always the loudest voice that comes out. They're able to discover what their childhood self wants right now, all their needs versus just,

MARTIN: Yeah. You have this structured approach to it, right? There's a course you teach, right?

SARAH: Yes. Mastering The Soul System. Everything's soul, to make it simple.

MARTIN: Sure. Could you describe that? How does a person interact with that?

SARAH: Yeah. I have a 12-week course that people can do at their own pace. Just think of all the working moms or dads out there that don't know how to connect just with themselves because they're taking care of everyone else. So, essentially, it's to help balance their mental, physical, and spiritual well-being so that they can be there for the people they love the most. Because if you can't do the work for yourself, how are you going to help anyone else? How are you going to thrive at the office if you can't just take those moments to pause and see what's going on inside?

MARTIN: Yeah, that's the classic when the oxygen mask drops down from the ceiling, put yours on first.

SARAH: And so that's the whole point of the course. And I try to start simple with mindset and then as the weeks go on, weeks five to eight is about the soulful body and how to connect. Something that I focus on isn't just the physical body. It's also like different parts of our body that we don't use. I try to teach people how to use their voices more so that they can communicate better to their partners, to their child. And it's literally singing. It's a singing lesson so that you can let out whatever tension is in your body and just give singing techniques so they can learn how to use their voice.

MARTIN: Looking at your background, I loved the... Actually, we should probably mention just all the things you've done because people will appreciate that this is not just another coach who took a little degree in coaching.

SARAH: Yeah, there's so many out there, too.

MARTIN: Yeah, it's a depth of experience. I mean, I was looking at you and you did dance, pilates and yoga and fitness. Yeah. When you say, "Oh, I was a fitness trainer." Well, not just any fitness trainer.

SARAH: Yeah. No, I,

MARTIN: Brag a little, will you?

SARAH: I will. It’s so funny because over the years, you take all these courses and they're like, "This is just what you're supposed to do as a fitness instructor.” But as I got into the practice, I  started to specialize in little niche things. Golf. A lot of my clients, I'm in Florida, they love golf. And specializing in how you hit the ball and what movement is going to be the most effective. And just getting into the nitty-gritty of what people want to work on is my favorite thing to do.

And I love working with people who have had injuries and I love learning in other words and my background was musical theater. So I got my BFA at Columbia College in Chicago and then on the side I was teaching Pilates and personal training and over time I just started to develop this philosophy of enriching your soul and everything still connects but you get all parts of me. You have my creative self, that's my musician and dance instructor. And then you have all of the science behind it with my fitness background and coaching, health coaching,

MARTIN: Right. And this is important because we humans, we mess up, we break down, we make mistakes and we need structured help. We need someone who actually understands all the pieces. I get this call, and the person says, "Well, yeah, you're telling me that stuff but what is the most important thing I need to do first?” To which I say “Well, which is the important wheel on your car?” It's the holistic thing you started talking about, holistic right? When you start thinking holistically you think about all the corners of it, not just the one spot.

SARAH: Exactly, but it can really be hard for people to even understand what holistic means. 

MARTIN: Right. And what does it contain, right? You don't even know that there is a room out there that you actually have to attend to, right? There are monsters in there. You can't just close the doors on it. You need to deal with it.

SARAH: Exactly. And it's interesting. Weight loss is huge. Always has been for a lot of my clients. And I always say you have to shed the mental load first because there are so many things that build up in our subconscious. And we may tackle one little baby aspect of it, but we have to find the big meaning of why you want to lose the weight, because if you don't have a big why, then you're going to keep going on that hamster wheel.

MARTIN: Yeah.

SARAH: And you might not lose weight because all the stress that you've loaded up onto your body over time is going to just stay there because you haven't dealt with the real baggage.

MARTIN: Yeah. One of the good spiritual teachings says, you need to first solve it on the inner before you can manifest it on the outer.

SARAH: That's really good. I like that a lot.

MARTIN: And well, and so in the process, you're mentioning that you teach people journaling, right?

SARAH: Yes. Journaling is so important. And I know that a lot of people don't love to journal because they're worried about what they write down sometimes. But if you do it, either I always, right before you go to bed, because you have everything that has happened through the day going through your mind, so you can just get it all out on paper. Or when you're waking up fresh and rejuvenated, that's another wonderful time to do it as well, because then you can just start that day with something intentional.

MARTIN: Yeah. I remember reading some passages that I wrote long ago, and I'm thinking, "Oh my gosh, that was so insightful."

SARAH: Yeah.

MARTIN: Oh, prescient. Yeah, that's the word, how you pronounce it. Just sort of announcing to myself something that took a few years to manifest, but there it was written down, and I didn't know that I was, I didn't know what it meant when I wrote that down, but then years later it manifests and I just happened to open it up and see the page and thinking: “Hmm. Something from out there or up there was pushing my hand to write this down.”

I had no idea what that was going to look like physically. But five years later, there it is. So yeah, nobody should ever underestimate the power of sitting down and writing things down. Especially if you're trying to do something to manifest.

SARAH: Yes.

MARTIN: I want to be living in a house that has a pretty view, and I like to be walking out barefoot from my kitchen onto something. You write it down and just let it sit. 5 years later, 10 years later, you'll be in it.

SARAH: Yeah. Because it's again in the back of your brain. But if you continually read that message to yourself or you still see it, even if you haven't written it down again, but you continually see it and live it and know that this is what you want, it's going to happen for sure.

MARTIN: Yeah. Well, I see the universe as a big restaurant cafeteria where you come in and you place your order and you placing your order with your statements and you're doing that with your thoughts. You're doing it more so with your speech, but you're doing even more so when you write it down and just make it a permanent physical form, in your hand. Don't type it into a computer. Write it down with your hand. And those things are physically significant. They manifest.

SARAH: Definitely 100 percent.

MARTIN: Anyway, okay. So, let's have you explain some more on the other side. I don't know how many people here are actually working for somebody or own a business and employ people, but they should hear about what can happen when they talk to you.

SARAH: Yeah. So, wellness is kind of a check mark for a lot of companies, but what needs to happen, and this is what I work with teams on, is understanding what your employees actually need. And the way I go about this is through improvisation. Again, with my background in theater, I take the art of improvisation, apply it to the corporate room, and we just do fun games and these ways to just break out and have a little fun and not even think about work. And then as time goes on, we'll utilize those exercises and apply to what they're actually working on. So, it's actually something that they can do on a regular basis and it's very easy to say yes-and, versus always shutting down their team.

MARTIN: Right. Yeah. Get over the initial embarrassment of, “Wait we don't know how to open the conversation.” You're the facilitator there to just allow this new way of thinking or looking at things to be open.

SARAH: Totally. Yes.

MARTIN: Yeah. And I've paid for massages for people who worked for me out of pocket. Never mind, never mind the boss. I just had colleagues who were supporting me. I would say, "Yeah, you just need some help." And I pay for it out of my pocket. I don't care. Because I know that the team as such will perform when they feel like they are a part of the team, right? 

SARAH: Exactly.

MARTIN: You can't fake it. You can't just say, "Oh, yeah. I'm going to just do it." You actually have to care. You can't just put caring on the list of things to do.

SARAH: Exactly. I remember the first team I worked with, they're like, "This is interesting. This is something I wouldn't expect from my boss.” And their relationship with their boss and the retention that they had with their team was way different from any other team in that company. So, it takes just a little TLC. You just have to invest in it.

MARTIN: Right. And not be afraid to just get close. Emotional health and language, how we talk to one another, there's just so many aspects to that, right?

SARAH: Yeah. Yeah.

MARTIN: Well, and you teach it. So, let's just dive into that a bit. Okay. How do you speak to yourself? How do you speak to others?

SARAH: So, a lot of it is instead of me focusing on “I” focus on the team, the “we” collective, and just having me come in and chat with them about how we're going to work on saying yes-and to everything with a couple of exercises is such a game changer, because it just opens possibilities. And it also helps them to set boundaries which is something you wouldn't think about because when we are communicating ideas and experiences and also playing with these made up circumstances, the where and what the scene is about. 

They're able to just let go and play as a team versus being like: “I want to be the funniest. I want to be in charge of this project because I think I'm the best.” They have to experience the “we” aspect. So, it's just us talking differently with one another. 

For me personally, I took an improvisation class in college, and that was extremely helpful because in musical theater land, it's very much so about myself when you audition, and everyone is focused on getting the role. And when I started to just add the yes-and improv to my life, I was able to get the roles because I was always working with my scene partner with ease. I didn't have to worry about being the best in this scene. It was no, let me make this other person the best possible. And then I got the lead role. It just is so crazy how that works.

MARTIN: Yeah. It's interesting how theater is a whole lot like a team sport, right? If you imagine a football team, soccer team, whatever.

MARTIN: Somebody's going to score the goal, but everybody else has to actually get to it. When you really think about it, the Super Bowl was won by the guy who chose the shoelaces for the shoes, the guy who cut the grass on the training field, and the guy who washed the uniforms and all of that. Those all counted in that whole scoring the last six points or whatever the thing was. Right.

SARAH: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. It's a team sport, and work and life is a team sport.

MARTIN: Team sport. Yes. Yeah. Sometimes it's just team family, but, it's that

SARAH: Yeah.

MARTIN: So, we need to understand that we are always on teams. We humans are a team animal. We hunted together, we gathered together, we raised children together, all of that. It's not supposed to be, actually, now that I think of it, I'm not finishing the sentence, but the worst punishment we can give a human is to put them in an isolation cell.

SARAH: Totally. 100% yeah.

MARTIN: I've never had the opportunity to be with myself more than just a day or two, but I understand that after 3 days of being alone in a box, everybody starts to hallucinate.

SARAH: Yeah. Not hearing anyone's thoughts but your own is kind of scary.

MARTIN: Yeah. Okay. Well, so let's make it a little less panicky. Okay. So, you teach the thoughts, the expression, the writing, the introspection, the getting to the core of a problem, right?

SARAH: Yup.

MARTIN: And converting a problem into a solution. And then emotional health, I think, is a big deal.

SARAH: Yeah. I think the main thing is teaching people emotional resilience, too. And that's with that idea of boundary setting, because we can help everyone else once again, but if we don't help ourselves, the oxygen mask, we have to let it come over ourselves first. So, how I teach this is through our spiritual connection. And that can look differently for everyone, but we have to kind of point to moments in our lives where we felt disconnected and then ask ourselves, what will we do differently this time? 

So, I'll give you an example, in my own life. When I was in a not so great relationship, I started to dumb myself down because I was getting jabs from my partner at the time that he thought I should be doing this or he didn't agree with my stance on some belief and I just started to quiet myself and I think that's why the whole idea of singing and speaking out more is so important to me. So I then made a note in my brain that I'm never going to let a relationship like that influence how I behave or act with the world. 

And so I started to talk about this more with people, be like, "Tell me a time for you that you needed to speak out more." And from there, they learned so much about themselves. They were able to say, well, whether it was a moment in time like dumbing myself down, they would say something to themselves like, I need to share or set a boundary with that person. Maybe it was their mother or their father, and I need to set this boundary with this person that I am smart, and if you feel this way about me, we can agree to disagree, and you can go along and hang out with yourself and figure that out, but I don't need to hear this because I know who I am. And it's just having that ownership over self that I think is so important, and it's really hard for a lot of people because we listen to everything and we compare ourselves to other people.

MARTIN: Yes. Yes. Yes. Figure out what you need, who you are, and oftentimes we're not really supportive of that. Many of us grow up in situations where we don't end up knowing who we are or what we want. It's there for others, because of others, whatever. We're made to think that we don't matter, stuff like that.

SARAH: Yep.

MARTIN: All right. So, that's all there is hidden inside that 12 week course.

SARAH: Yeah. That's the last layer because I feel you have to start outward. Everyone always says that we always have to dig deep right away, and I feel that we have to start more simple and just look at ourselves, more from afar. And then as we add the layers we can go a little deeper and a little deeper.

MARTIN: Yeah, it's that onion approach. We start from the outside and work in, and do it slowly, with. It takes getting used to, and it takes building confidence, and so on, you can't, it’s sort of like on the first date saying: “Will you have my children?” Let me first find out about who you really are.

SARAH: Don't want to scare everyone away first. 

MARTIN: You want to build up to it.  Yeah. I don't want to bare my soul to just anyone. Yeah.

SARAH: Yeah.

MARTIN: Good. Well, so it's online, right?

SARAH: Yep. It's all online.

MARTIN: Livewellenhanceyou.

SARAH: www.livewellenhanceyou.com/soulsystem

MARTIN: Okay. So, we should probably spell it out for the ones who are just listening. 

SARAH: Yeah.

MARTIN: www.livewellenhance you.com/soulsystem

SARAH: And you can find out more about that on there.

MARTIN: Right. All right. Do you want to say some more or do you think that we have filled the cup sufficiently? 

SARAH: I feel we covered a lot and I love that you get right to the meat of it. So I think it's easy for people to process.

MARTIN: Right. I just want to be sure that people understand what they're going to get from connecting with you. Which is a rich tapestry of a life well-lived and experiences had. Many many of us need guidance. That's just a common problem. And guidance, to be a guide needs to be earned and we earn it through life experiences, and I feel that you have done a nice compressed rich tapestry of thinking hard and living the emotionally difficult moments, because when you go for performing arts it really tests you hard, it's one of the hard paths. It looks easy but it's not.

SARAH: Yeah, and I think a lot of times life can be full of rejection for people, but it also can be a life filled with opportunities as well, you just have to take a peek and see 

MARTIN: What you're talking about is the sunny and the shadowy side of the same coin where if you're really afraid of rejection you will actually not reach for the possibility.

SARAH: Totally.

MARTIN: And that's an important lesson that we all of us need to be learning, and people who have worked in performing arts who have auditioned will know just how challenging it is to step up yet again and see, oh yeah, you came in third. Well, nice, but not the role that you wanted.

SARAH: But yeah, but that's the thing, there's so many opportunities out there. If you need to take a pivot for whether that is so fully with the mind, soulfully in your body or in your spirit, just make some little adjustment. You can do it. It just takes that initial yes that you say to yourself.

MARTIN: Then, before I can say yes to me, I have to get comfortable inside of my skin. And before I can get inside of my skin, I actually have to be willing to see it as it is. And that journal is probably the first step. Well, I'll be talking just to me.

SARAH: Yes. Yeah.

MARTIN: So, yeah, those are wonderful lessons. And I'm really encouraging people who feel the need for excellence or the need for growth to reach out. This is Sarah Alysse Bobo and her business that's called “Live Well Enhance You” and the method that's called the Soul System. All right.

SARAH: Thank you.

MARTIN: Yeah. Thanks for being here today Sarah Alysse.

SARAH: Thank you for having me, Martin.

MARTIN: This is life-enthusiast.com. My name is Martin Pytela and you can find me here online life-enthusiast.com. Thank you.