Karen East is a good friend of mine, she's a holistic life coach and personal trainer. She helps clients to live a balanced life by seeking possibilities, discovering what works and reevaluating each step of the way to dig a little deeper and shift the focus to finding happiness joy and total acceptance of flaws by building trust in our physical body as a reiki master and trauma informed yoga teacher. Karen has the ability to connect to community and offers safe space online and in person in her studio, She was a founding member of the fine come here community, helping me lead the very first fine come here event in November of 2019 has been a support, supportive in the twists and turns of my personal and professional life. Over the last few years, I met her quite a quite a bit ago in an actual in person networking community in the Harrisburg area here also she leads a variety of classes and workshops and retreats in the Harrisburg area here through her business, balanced life trainer LLC and she manages the house of Yoga in new york.

So with all of that, thank you Karen for being on the top income here podcast. Thank you for inviting me Deb it's always good to see you. Yes, always good to see you. So yes, so we've met in a group called psychopathy Central pennsylvania Association for female executives and it's been a while and so thankful to have met you because over the past uh I guess 778 years, I don't know how many at this point, but yeah, probably about that. Yeah, you've just been this like such an inspiration for me, guiding light and I knew like when I wanted to do in person events with fine calm here, when I first created what is now Fine come here. I really, um, I knew I wanted you to be the person that was here to lead the events and two because you offer this amazing ability to create a safe space and help people find calm and being present.

Because our first event, we had it on a sunday and it was like A four hour. It was a pretty long event. Um I think you came in the middle. I think lisa. We had lisa. She was talking about some things and then we had I think leah did the essential oils. I can't remember what the structure was but I know that we had a break and then we had some people coming in and out of my apartment because some people said they could come later and some earlier and you know when you're running around on a sunday and you're like popping into places, it's hard to like be present. You know, like you're thinking about the drive over, you're thinking about what you have to do for dinner. And I loved that you created this amazing ability for everybody in the room to just be here now. Mm hmm. And so I wanted to thank you for that. And then I wanted you to share a little bit about your journey and and how you went from um a marketing executive to what you're doing today. Yeah, wow, well thank you, you know, I really enjoyed being able to come to your in person event of course, and um the first virtual summit that you had done um it was, I truly enjoy doing what I do and being able to show up with people and help them come back to this present moment and it's it's a practice, you know, this journey that I'm on, I feel like I've only just begun and you know, however many years it's been um I always still wake up each day just feeling grateful and blessed to be able to do this um and have this be my life now.

Um it wasn't an easy road to get to this point um but being consistent and practicing showing up for myself I believe is how, how I'm able to hold that space for others now. Um you know, being able to create safe space, as you said, it really starts with giving that gift to yourself um and practicing, you know, being present to whatever is going on in your life. Um no matter who you are, there's good days, there's bad days, there's tough times and joyful times and it's not going to stop being that way just because we practice being present or we practice finding calm. Um reality is that life isn't always calm. There's lots of ups and downs and there's lots of ups and downs within a single week or even a single day sometimes. Um so being able to kind of ride that roller coaster and practice the tools to bring you back into the moment and what's happening in this moment.

You know right here, right now I'm alive and breathing. I'm talking to my friend Deb, you know, I'm not, I'm not trying to think about what comes next or even what we might talk about in this podcast and trying to just practice remaining present to, to being here with you and practicing that for myself has made it easier to show up and and practice that with others and practice teaching others. So tell me a little bit about your, you have, I know you had like um was it eight weeks that was like an online virtual experience. I don't know how you titled that. Um but I know I know you had started with that I guess before even the pandemic, you are doing that right? Mm hmm, yep. Um so the Journey to Joy, it's a, it's an eight week program. I'll actually be doing it in Person as a seven week program starting in august down in york. Um but we were doing it virtually for eight weeks at a time and I used the chakra system or the body's energetic system to become a basis like an anchor for our meditation and our movement and sort of just to have a focus like a topic of personal development and personal awareness for each week and as we kind of journeyed along together um you know, I found that that was a really fun way for people to connect not only to a group with each other and and learning something together but to themselves and the different aspects of who they are as an individual.

Um so I love teaching that way. It kind of comes along with the yoga and reiki path that I've been on. Um you know, bringing awareness to our ourselves as energetic and alive beings and um you know, all the power that we have to to focus that awareness back within and to kind of delve a little bit deeper into who we are, who we want to be in the world um as we walk around and as we conduct our business and you know as we are with our family and friends. So um so yeah, I've been was doing it online before the pandemic and then throughout the pandemic it was really nice to still be able to bring groups of people together in in a way. Um we met virtually we had you know, a private virtual community as well to go along with that and as I mentioned um beginning in august now that we're starting to come back together in person for workshops and events, I'll be teaching it at the house of Yoga in new york, so I'm really excited to do this in person now with a group or we'll meet once a week together.

Um I will include a virtual option if there are people who you know, prefer to meet that way. Um and I'm working on putting the program into a teachable format, so um the teachable community online is you know, kind of like a self paced course work type thing, so that if people wanted to take it on their own um they could complete the process in their own time, take a a month on each chakra if you wanted to or you know, move through it at a quicker pace and continue to access it. Um So I'm excited about both of those things upcoming. That sounds so amazing and I'm so excited for you and I know how much you've been wanting to do in person. Yes, I do enjoy coming together with a group of people and being able to um just share space together together in person is you know, you almost forget, I feel like because I did spend a good amount of time at home last year, just um you know, I conducted all of my business virtually and all of my group events virtually.

And for a good portion of the year, even the studio that I worked at um was doing livestream classes where we were shut down the physical location for a good portion of last year, so um recently being able to come back together with a room full of people or outdoor events, Um Having people come together just seeing smiling faces and um you know, being able to share hugs with family and friends is it's, you know, you don't realize how much you value that until you can't have it until it's taken away. So it's been a huge blessing to see people in person in this way and to practice yoga with people in person and meditation and and all of that. Um Yeah, truly, truly grateful and appreciative at this point. Um and I think we all learned something about not being able to take those little things for granted over the last year. I know I certainly did. Yeah, I definitely um just on a personal note, I I've I've so been challenged by this lack of in person connection And I speak to so many people I've met hundreds, literally hundreds of people in the last year from all over the globe.

Which is amazing. But I also have now this social anxiety. Mm hmm. So now now I'm like, oh now I have to see you have to see my whole body. Now I'm feeling anxious about like my outfit again. Like I didn't have to like just like I have the zoom feature or it could like make you like whatever. And I'm just like now I have to like see people in person and I'm not super confident about that right now. So I feel like that's been a new challenge since all this kind of reopening is happening, but I think we've all had, yeah, personal experiences have all been, it's what's really crazy. As I went to a, an event. Somebody, my friend had her birthday summers from the Harrisburg improv theater, um Jake her husband was reached out to me on a facebook message and said, hey, we're having a party at my brother's brewery if you want to stop by. And I'm like, what? Yes, I will, but I'm so honored that you invited me to this.

Like, I was like, it's like, yes please. Um and I got there and summer's just like hugged me and it was just like, it's so good to see you. Yeah, I was sitting at a table and talking to somebody else and I said, how are you? You know the question, how are you, is such a loaded one now, but like how are you? And she said, you know, life and it can all be summed up by like one word because everybody has had a varied experience about this, but it's like life. Yeah, yeah. Really good and bad things. Yeah, we never could have anticipated um such a dramatic change. I think in all of our lives again, I'll speak for myself, I could never have anticipated that things would have gone the route that they went and um all of the quote unquote plans we had in place would just, you know, dissipate and we would spend so much time kind of turning in with our own selves and our own family.

And for me personally, it wasn't a negative experience. Um I rather enjoyed it. I know it's shocking for people when I tell them because I do, I stand up and speak in front of groups of people on a regular basis. It's part of my job, but I'm actually pretty introverted individual and I crave time by myself alone in the garden or reading a book. And so I dove, you know, wholeheartedly into that. Um, and also, you know, to bring it back to creating safe space. We talked about how um you know, different, it is virtually as opposed to in person to do that. Um, but you know, I think it was really important to see that people were being so open and honest in the virtual space about how they were feeling and how that experience was affecting them because it did affect us all very differently for some people who thrive in that sort of extroverted environment.

And I recognized it was a lot more difficult or for people who maybe didn't have safe space in their own homes. Um, much more difficult. So with that in mind, you know, being able to speak openly and honestly about who we are, you know, holding that authentic space for ourselves to exist, however, we're showing up, you know, even when you practice being in the moment, that doesn't make the moment joyful all the time. And you know, it really allows us to be okay with not being okay when we, when we practice holding that space for ourselves. Um you know, sharing the messiness of it all. We all went through something together. You know, whether it was extremely challenging or um you know, a little bit less challenging and say we all experienced some aspect of our lives kind of being turned on end. Um and it affected us all differently. So recognizing that and recognizing when we see each other and see other people that, you know, maybe it wasn't okay or maybe we just need to allow people to go through their own experience in their own way without judgment.

Um and that's really, I think in a nutshell, what holding space for people and creating safe space for yourself or your friends or your family or a group is all about. Um whatever shows up is what we need to sit with and experience without trying to run away or judge or fix or or hide from. Um and that is a practice. It's not an easy practice, but it is a practice and I really truly enjoyed practicing that with other people. Um, so yeah, so being back being back in the mix is is an interesting experience in and of itself. There's a little bit of that hesitation even with those invites or you know, again, I'm seeing a variety of reactions from different people and how it feels for them to be back in a public space or back in a group of people? Uh, some people are excited about it and really have looked forward to it and others maybe not so much.

Um, so being able to to honor that and you know, again, not judge anyone for how they're processing the experience and also processing this the process of coming back, you know, and being back out there. So I want to highlight some key points that you just he just brought up as far as creating a safe space. I think it's sometimes it's as a just sinking back into like, people who are listening to this are like mighty network hosts leading a community or maybe just community builders on a different platform. And I think the challenging thing is to get your members talking and people ask, well, my members aren't talking, how do I get them either to share posts in the community or, you know, show up on the zoom calls or want to talk on the zoom calls and so what you, what you just mentioned was a couple of core foundational kind of onboarding and best practices basically for for really allowing members to a feel that they're welcomed be to let them know what's okay here and sharing.

They can you can, there's no dumb question, you know, except the messiness of life. I like that. Um, I think diving into like starting from within so as the host, where are we as the host? Like how do we feel today? And like maybe starting as the example of saying, you know, I had a couple of challenging days and I'm just kind of, you know, reflecting back or I had a really great couple of days and I'm super excited. Um so just or anywhere in the middle, I just it's just another day, you know, and starting from like that place I think is an amazing at the more vulnerable I've learned is the more vulnerable you can be authentically yourself. Other people are going to see that acknowledge it and then show up as well. So um I think that you've really, you know done really well with that when I was in your Your eight week program through the pandemic was that you just were super vulnerable about what was going on in that moment, how you were feeling.

And I think then it allowed other people to say, okay, well now I'm okay too. I feel like I can share something, maybe I'm not as nervous about saying something to Karen because she's already shared, like some of her vulnerability. So I think the key fact that you pointed out there was starting from within um sharing a little bit being a little vulnerable and then just allowing people to come in their time and their space of um you know, some people might be in the beginning there there's a lot of, for me of course there was a lot of content that I wasn't familiar with, so I was kind of just like in the background like okay, I'm like starting to process what this means to me and you also brought up of just like the awareness piece of just like just paying attention and that sometimes it's challenging because my mind goes 1000 miles a minute and no judgment. That's the other key point you talked about, it's so hard for me. I'm just, I'm doing another program right now, that's a year long program in with a with a mighty network host that I'm from, that I met through the process of what I'm doing and You know, he in the beginning says, if you have five minutes to do this course today, that's perfect.

If you have an hour, that's perfect, like whatever it is, whatever time you have, if you can only stop into this course content once a week, then that's great wherever you are is fine because whether we're on module, whether other people are on module six or to or they still are in the beginning of like the welcome video, all of that is okay. And when he said that in the very beginning and his one of his first videos, I just immediately felt like, okay, yeah, because as, as somebody who takes courses and I take lots of them, I learned a lot, Like I always am like throwing myself into learning something like every week and then I get overwhelmed. I'm like, I really, I realized that I committed my overcommitted myself in june To like two different things. And the thing that you also mentioned is about the self study component and sometimes that's really helpful because maybe like I didn't realize I had overcommitted myself until I was like in throes of like june and I'm like, oh, I wanted to do all of these things and there's only a limited amount of time and space that I have and I want to find my calm.

I don't want to be stressed. So you're also talking a little bit about lifestyle and talking about, we've talked about this on the podcast in the recent episodes actually of just what do you want your life to actually be, what's your best day or your ideal day look like And how does that, how does this all come together And how do you create a life that includes your business, includes your community, but also that you have a life and you talked a little bit about family and you got to connect with with your family a lot more over the last year, Maybe dive into some more personal connection and those are really important things too. So even just showing up and creating a safe space for others, but allowing your own safe space and that that is as an intentional step as saying I'm going to intentionally create this time gap space in my calendar so that I can like really think about, how do I want to invite people in? How do I want to do all these things? Did you have any kind of a structure as far as like an outline or anything that you um like road up ahead of time for yourself?

Well, I practice what I preach I think is the biggest thing. So every morning I wake up, I make sure that I'm taking time for myself before I do all the other things. Um and you know, I've not always been great at this. I was a single mom with three little kids. So um you know, now that they're grown, it's a little bit easier, but it's been years of practicing this. Um but I've really found that designating time for myself first. It's like, you know, putting the oxygen mask on right, you have to make sure that you're caring for yourself if you want to teach or care for other people, um you know, and we're, we're drawn typically to comparing ourselves to others all the time, but when we're in that comparison mode, like you said, like, oh, this person is doing this and you know, that person's further ahead and maybe I should be here, I should be there, none of that really exists. That's all just something fabricated. And you know, like you said, maybe that person is really far ahead in the study course, but the rest of their life leaves no space for them.

So if you're starting with space for yourself and then just becoming present to whatever it is you're trying to accomplish or do or work on in that moment, you know, everything else just kind of falls into place and you know, when you show up to teach others or build your network or however it is that you're showing up for work, you know, being present to, that means Yeah. You know, just because you're a teacher doesn't make you some perfect person and being an honest teacher means allowing that vulnerability to lead, you know, um I think there's nothing for me because I'm also a lifelong student, you know, I think if you're going to teach anything, you have to keep learning yourself and um you know, there's nothing worse for me when a teacher is showing up in authentically, like they're, you know, teaching from some perspective of um I don't know, I had to even say it like that, you know, that that they've got it all together or like that they they've somehow succeeded beyond having a messy life, right?

Or having ups and downs and that's just not realistic. No, not a single human, one of us, no matter, you know what you see on tv or here, you know, from the sort of podium or whatever it is that you're learning from, um, none of us has it all figured out and you know, I think if we get to a point where we think we know it all, then really we've got a lot to learn. Um, and so if you're teaching or you're leading, you know, being able to let go of the comparison to others and just be yourself and show up authentically, even if that means I'm having a bad day is what enables other people to feel comfortable in their own skins and to really truly learn something from you maybe, and really that's uh, that's the best we can hope to do is just, you know, show up in a way that makes others feel comfortable to even explore learning. Um, and you know, I, this sticks with me, I'm not exactly sure who said it originally, I heard it from a teacher years ago and now I say it all the time, but no matter where you are in the room, you're both the student and the teacher, right?

So whether I'm standing at the front of the room or I'm a participant in the back, you know, we all have something to learn from each other, Everyone's experience and knowledge is valuable and if we can recognize that as a leader, wow, you know, like where can we maybe go from there. Um, if we're open to saying, hey, I don't know everything, but I'm willing to practice what I'm talking about for myself and you know, show up authentically for the rest of you and you know, making that, that's sort of space for learning I think is where people can really thrive and share and we all grow from that experience and using the component of community and saying, you know, I'm struggling, whether it's myself or whether it's other people I've, I've actually in this, this program that I'm doing in the year long program I'm doing, I felt that I could finally show up as myself for the first time in like a year because I was just so hard on myself whenever I'm doing these, you know, the live or the podcast interviews when I was doing like live videos last year I was hosting all these events and like every time I thought I have to show up as like the leader, the person who knows what I'm doing, I've got my craft together and all that and meanwhile on the background I'm like losing my ship last year, just like going insane.

And I, you know, at the end of last year I was, I talked about this on the podcast a bunch, you know, just the fact That I just, my self care routine dropped in in the last year, I was like building this amazing wellness community, but then I wasn't practicing my own wellness and sitting at my desk 12 hours a day trying to figure out how to create an online business that's successful and you know, in the beginning of this year, I really wanted to refocus on, Starting with from within and starting from myself 1st and like blocking off that morning time for me to have the Foundation so that I can then um show up authentically in my calls and just having the shift in mindset that it's okay that I don't have things together and they don't know all there is to know has been really helpful for me, not only in, you know, the business I'm building with fine calm here, but in my personal life because now I'm able to show up on my other calls just more authentic even more so authentically. I just being like, we had a book, we start a book club and find calm here and I haven't read the book and we had a, we had a meet up in at the end of june and we had the meet up and I was like, well guys, I didn't finish the book yet, so I'm like, it's still in chapter one and that's just the reality.

And then a couple other people were like, yeah, me too, or they were like, I've gotten to chapter three, but I'm still like, and then I said, well do you want to just keep going with this book for july for the july book of the month and they're like perfect, that sounds great, we could even spend three months on this book and like really pull out like these amazing things that we're learning and share it with each other and just that experience alone was like, oh, so I don't need to like plan out a year of books or what, you know, all of these things. I can just ask the community what they want to do and then say, okay, here's what I'm, here's where I'm at because I just then I can show up more authentically and even in that other in the group that I'm in, um in the other marine network I'm in with this year long course. I've been just people are holding space for me and it's just, it's just really nice to be able to go somewhere and not have to be the leader and just be the person who's like, I really need help.

Like this was the year that I was always like I can do everything myself. I can figure it out myself this year. I'm like, guys, I need help. Yeah. So it's just been really powerful for me to like experience that personally in other communities that I'm a member of and and then being able to experience that in the fine conquer community as well. Um I wanted to circle back to one thing. Do you have a comment before I go no, I was just going to add to what you were saying and just sort of reflect that I don't think a single one of us has it all together, you know? And so if we're showing up in that way and pretending like we do, it doesn't allow other people to feel safe enough to say, oh well I didn't read the book, you know, um and so there also, I think we all know like not everybody else is perfect, so if you show up and say yeah, I read the whole book, you know, and then everybody else was going to say, oh yeah, me too, Meanwhile nobody had the opportunity to read what might have been a really great book, you know what I mean?

So just being honest about it is what creates that honesty is what opens up um that sense of safety for others, so that's awesome. I'm really glad you got there with your group. Yeah, me too. Well I never go back going back to the like just kind of um instruction and course building and things kind of things. I'm so excited because I just built my first digital course, which I'm calling the calm guide and my first is called the calm guide to building your money to launching your money network and it's all about the step by step process of like how I launched how I create a launch plan, I created a door to enter the money network and that was depending on how I wanted my members to enter and then the next guide I'm creating is going to be a guide to onboarding, and how do you create this safe space and how do you have a engagement and people that want to participate and they're excited to participate, and how do you create that as a host from the very beginning?

Uh and I think, you know, giving that option, like, if you're doing an instructional course at like you're bringing people together through a course or some kind of a instruction, just allowing that space to say, you know, this is you can do this in your own time, so there will be some videos, it's nice for live, right? Because then people can, like, ask questions live, but it's also helpful for other people to either a not everybody is available at the times that you have the live event anyhow, so, like, there's automatically somebody who's going to say, oh, that doesn't work with my schedule, you know, there's automatically that um and then there's, you know, there's also the ability for somebody to say, well, I really need to revisit this because I'm, you know, I'm not sure I'm getting what I need to get from this, and so I have to, like, stick on it, like you said earlier about, well, maybe I just spent, you know, a whole month on module one, because that's where my work is, that's where I need to be, versus like, well, I have to move on to Module two, because that's where everybody's at now, Um and just having that awareness to say it's okay, I think as a host, as somebody who's instructing um I think that's a really important step in creating that that safe space and allowing for them to just feel like they aren't, that removes the judgment of oh, I'm not where I need to be.

I think when you say things like that, Yeah, Yeah, because who I mean who's to say where you need to be, you know, it could be argued that wherever you are here and now and how, you know, however much time you need to spend is the correct amount of time, you know, you're in the right place already and the only person who loses out if you try to match somebody else's um you know, schedule in some way is you, you know? Yeah, we just we all learn at different levels in different ways. We all retain different information differently. I know for me personally, I love being at a self paced study when I'm reading or studying something, or taking a course. I prefer learning that way because I love to go back and reread information or maybe something particularly interests me and I want to go deeper down the rabbit hole um to have the autonomy to kind of explore in that way and not feel like I should be doing something else just because someone else is I'm not that other person with their life experiences and there, you know, and their goals and aspirations, I'm someone else.

Um we can only really show up for ourselves in that way and in doing so and showing up for yourself. That's what creates that sense of safety for other people to do the same, which really if we're doing anything as a teacher or a leader, you know, starting with that seems really important to me. Yeah, and I want to just comment, I want to wrap up in a few minutes here, I wanted to just comment about impostor syndrome because I was really feeling imposter syndrome with this digital course. I'm like, oh, I'm going to build a digital course and who am I to, you know, be this like person teaching. But there's, you know, a there's people already asking for my help and be I'm creating the content with the community right now. So I put up the guide for launching your Mighty Network and I have one person that's in there, they're doing all the worksheets, they're commenting on it. And I have a live workshop.

I don't have like live event, like a live call every week, but it's because it's a self study guide because I really wanted to create something where people could like small videos, like five, five or 10 minute videos throughout, you know, the step process. So I wanted it to be something like that. Simple and the whole thing is open. So like there's no like you have to do module Like less than one, Section 1 before you can Get to Section two. I wanted to have it be open for the money network hosts that are in fine calm here because they're at different places in their community building journey and so they might need help with different things. But what I'm doing is live workshop call a 2-hour workshop call to go over this guide with them and then to take questions and to be open to criticism and feedback so that I can make it better. I've had a hard time in the past, I will say with taking criticism. I usually take things very personally and find it like, you know, I'm feeling like attacked or something versus they're just trying to help me.

And what's been magical about this experience is that I thought I had to create all this content by myself and then I thought I had to have it be perfect. And then I allowed myself to a say I'm letting go of the I don't need to have it be the highest quality video and I don't have to put makeup on every day because I'm just going to use my picture icon instead of an actual video. Um like there's so many barriers, I like just let go of that allowed me to then I built my course in a week and it's now up and then I'm getting feedback from people on it live in the community to improve it so that then I can go out and then create some revenue, hopefully by having it as a digital product in the world in august and my whole plan was not to even do any of this until december because I, I don't have the time to do this. And then through the process of like in my community that was really what I needed. I really needed something for like a start here button and I didn't really have that in the first place within come here because I was just again that we launched in May and so I'm just trying to like dabble around like what's helpful and what's useful and and how to kind of go, I'm like really listening to the wind, come here members and that's what they told me.

They said, well we really, really, really be helpful if we had some guides. And so I'm just like using their language to create this and then with my experience of like how I have worked with clients and like what's working for me and just taking my own experience and then sharing that. So it's not like I have to build, you know, this extensive, massive big course. It's just simple, small short to the point, like here's the things and then I'm asking for feedback before I like put it out into the world, for example. Um, so I just want to share that experience because it literally just in the last month has been magical to see, hey, that's something I'm creating is helping other people be that I can be open to like taking criticism because something I need to work on and see. I'm also, when we talk about money, network hosts wanting to have reoccurring revenue and expanding their, you know, portfolios as far as like diversity of income, I'm creating that for myself in the future.

Like I'm building things that will then be able to help me scale and grow my business and creating different revenue streams and so that's also another part of Yeah, I feel feeling like I have to do it all at the same time, but then realizing, hey, I can do it with my community and I can do it over a period of time and I can like change it as I go. Yeah, well, you know, when you recognize that perfect doesn't exist, it gets a lot easier, you know, and when you become open to receiving feedback from your community, really, there's nowhere to go but up from that. You know, when we stop taking it personally and were willing to openly received that objectively and you know, trying to put ourselves in the lens of the person who will be the client or the customer and give them what they really want. Um, we all win, right? The people who get to experience the content that you develop when you win because you get to continue growing your business to be even better than whatever you started with and you know, we're never going to get to some imaginary perfect place where we're going to have, you know, the perfect guide or whatever, you know, it just doesn't exist.

So what you have to say is important, you know, I want to hear what Deb Schell has to say and you know, be able to provide feedback or whatever is going to help Deb because I love Deb and I'm sure that your community members feel the same way and so you openly receiving, that only helps you grow, it helps your community grow, you know, really, and it helps you be able to offer better feedback to others too who are trying to grow their own, you know, guide or whatever it may be on there and you know what I mean? So yeah, that's a huge skill, that imposter syndrome man, I don't know, a teacher alive, that's being honest about it, that hasn't gone through some of that. But you know, once we realized that we really being able to receive criticism or feedback or whatever and implemented into something positive, um you know, we grow as teachers and leaders and we help others grow Cool, Well I wanted to just wrap up with you sharing a little bit about a little bit more about what's going on with what you're doing and where people can learn more.

Yeah, definitely. Well I have a website, it's balanced life trainer dot com. Um As I mentioned, or as you mentioned, I also manage the House of Yoga in york. Um I teach yoga classes regularly, scheduled three times a week Mondays at 9:30 a.m. And Fridays at, I'm sorry I got that backwards Mondays at noon and Fridays at 9:30 a.m. At House of Yoga and Tuesday mornings at six a.m. Closer to the Harrisburg area in Mechanicsburg and all my yoga. Um we have workshops back on the schedule, so I'm doing a beginner's workshop on july 17th um at the House of Yoga, I'm also going to be leading the chakra series, they're beginning august 17th and that will be a seven week series. So each week we'll do a little bit of education and sort of um you know group discussion and Q. And A. Or whatever may come out of that. We may even have some activities or who knows I might bring a craft, you know, me or something to get people engaged and also meditation, breathwork, yoga practice, all to support that learning.

And there will be a community online group experience behind the scenes as well. I'll be teaching at the Central P. A Yoga love festival this year in september and hosting a retreat in november which were super excited of course last year that didn't come to fruition that was put on hold so that's coming the second weekend in november um and it's just nice to see, you know, people signing back up for things and coming back out to share space in person, so really excited about all that. Um I also have a new Ricky room over at the house of Yoga, so I've started seeing Ricky clients again, one on one in person, which is really nice. And yeah, of course private training is still available virtually or in person depending on where people are located and stay tuned because that online version of that course is coming. I'm also working on the content right now and this was helpful reminder to not get too in my head about having it be too perfect as well.

Yeah, so amazing. There's so many exciting events coming up. I hope I can join some of those at some point. I'll make sure I look at my calendar and see if I can make it to some of those and connect with you back in person because I don't think I've seen you since like january or whatever. It was a long time ago. Yes, and you're right, it might be that long. I think it was 2019 because I don't think I saw you in january. You couldn't come to the fine, come here in January of 2020, we had a final com here event and it was, we had a Ellie who I forget her name now, but we had a lady who did Condoleezza yoga with us. Okay, No, I didn't make it to that right, You had a conflict that day or something, So yeah, it's been since that Fine come here event in 2019, that's so crazy. Yeah, it really is, Time just goes, man, I know I'm so excited for you and all that you're doing, thank you you as well and if anybody is listening and they're in the Harrisburg york central pennsylvania area, please make sure to and you're interested in learning more and maybe joining care that some of these amazing awesome events, I can tell you you will not be disappointed.

Uh thanks for sure. So um just a lovely human being and somebody who has always been supportive without the judgment that no judgment zone is like, I think of Karen and I'm like no, no judgment zone right away, just like instead of like the, the gym, I'm like, Karen is my new judgment zone. That's really sweet. I can honestly say the same thing back to you Deb, I love what you do, I love what you create and I'm always happy to chat with you. Well thank you. So um just to wrap it up everybody, Karen does not have a mighty network at this point, but she decided to build her her actually, I guess you have a ah building a course on teachable, is that what you're doing is correct and then you have like a community somewhere else. Yeah. So my um my personal website is probably the best way or social media is the best way to connect at this point. I love that you're just allowing space to like say I'm going to do what I can do right now and we'll Uh huh.

That's right, right. Yeah, Well, the studio in york um actually, amazingly, it's a donation based studio house of Yoga. I talked about it all the time, I love it there and um miraculously through this whole experience, um we just recently opened the doors on an expanded space that's three times the size of what it was. So, you know, when the community comes together and helps each other, there's so much power in that and so much beauty to come out of it. So yeah, a lot of my focus is shifted to, you know, assisting in that process. I can't take credit for any of it really, but you know, being there and helping, helping out at the new space and yeah, I would love to see you down there sometime. That'd be great. Yeah. Cool. Alright, well, thank you all for listening. Hopefully very able to tweeze out some amazing uh tools, resources guides that can help you to find calm in your community building process, whether it's on the way networks or wherever you're connecting with people in person or online.

Um Hope you're finding calm in your day, evening, monday morning Wednesday afternoon or wherever it is, whenever it is for you find calm and take care until the next time. Bye. Yeah. Mhm.