Amy Boyle (amyboylephoto) (
00:00.078)
Feeling like you're constantly on a tightrope, balancing personal growth with professional demands? We get it. This is Speaking of Phenomenal, the podcast where we help you unlock inner peace, even amidst the daily hustle. I'm your host, Amy Boyle. Today we're joined by the amazing Dana Frost. Dana's the creator of the Inner Ease Mastery Program and the host of the popular Vitaly You podcast. She believes the issues are in your tissues and she's here to share five key steps to achieving
lasting inner ease. Get ready to ditch the stress and discover actionable strategies for real transformation. This episode is packed with practical tips you can use on your own personal journey. Let's embark on this exploration together. This is the Speaking of Phenomenal podcast.
Welcome to the Speaking of Phenomenal podcast. Dana, I am so glad you're here. Amy, I am so happy to be here. Thank you for the invitation. We're way overdue. We both have had podcasts for years and now we finally get the chance to sit down and talk to each other in amongst knowing each other for what, 13 years now? It's been 13 years. Yeah, that's a long time. I a lot of history. Why don't you give our audience an introduction to the Phenomenal You.
Thank you, Amy. I would love to introduce myself. This is going to be fun. I am almost 58. Just to like put me in chronological mindset, where do I fit in in the chronology of phenomenal women? I am a Midwestern by birth, but I always said I had a gypsy heart from, when I started taking French in middle school. I knew.
I was going to see the world. So I was raised in a family that sort of was set in place, set in Missouri. Parents who love Missouri, love camping, didn't really necessarily want to see the world. And from a young age, I wanted to see the world. And I've had the honor and privilege of doing that. I was educated in Missouri. And then I was able, after I got married, I moved to Minneapolis and my husband and I were able to live abroad for 10 years. lived
Amy Boyle (amyboylephoto) (
02:16.428)
Argentina, we lived in Brazil, we lived in Switzerland, and then we moved to Chicago, which is where I met Amy at entrepreneurial women's organization, Crave Chicago. Amy was one of the photographers and one of the female business owners. And that was a couple of years after I moved to Chicago, I was in the suburbs and I needed to meet some like -minded small business owners, women who were working.
And Amy and I met and it was just so wonderful because you had your four boys. I had my five kids. so we both, from my perspective, we understood what it was to juggle both worlds. And so much can go unsaid because there's a knowing of, yeah, you're, you've got these two priorities that you're negotiating or managing, navigating. So let me just back
To, you know, in terms of who I am in terms of my work, I was a social worker by education. And fast forward, we moved to Brazil in 2000, in 2003, we adopted two children. And through that adaptation process, I hired a life coach. I didn't even know what a life coach was, but I had a friend who had become one. And as I was sharing some of my challenges, she said, I think that you should hire me.
She was, she was expensive when I looked back. mean, I knew she was expensive, but I'm like, I'm going to show up. We're going to meet once a month. Plus imagine we did not have the technologies we have today to connect with people all over the globe. And so I actually had to pay also for our phone calls. I hired a life coach and honestly, that's why I'm here today because it was transformative. was positive in terms
You know, the work we were doing together, I was gaining tools for the challenges I was having. And I thought this is exactly what I want to do. So I did my life coach training in 2007 and 2008 and 2009. I finished my master coach training. So I started working with women in terms of transitions and what it's like to be a woman living in another country and the adaptation process
Amy Boyle (amyboylephoto) (
04:34.702)
You know, juggling the different aspects of being a woman. And then, cause I'm going to cut this kind of short cause I know we don't have a lot of time. But in 2011 is actually when while living in Chicago, I had my health crisis. That's actually, I would say what catapulted me to where I am today in my professional life. How are the issues that we go through in life stored in our tissues
That's not just a phrase. You know, it's a phrase I remember when I went to Sedona, I saw it, you know, your issues are stored in your tissues. And I was like, that is so true. I've experienced that. I know what that is. It's a catchy phrase, but there's so much truth embedded in it. And your listeners may be familiar with the Body Keeps the Score is a very profound book. So I went through this two -year healing journey and learned so much. And I made a commitment to myself.
I will spend my life on behalf of supporting women, whether they're going through a health crisis, an emotional crisis, know, whatever it is, I have learned so much that I want to support women in their journey. Thinking about the work you're doing today and the coaching, as well as sharing your information through your own podcast, what do you find to be the hottest topic that you're discussing when with other women right
That's such a great question, Amy. And because I'm talking about this, what I would say is our emotional health. What I have found to be so salient for women is looking at our emotional wellbeing. And how is it that to be human is to experience a wide range of emotions. And I consider emotions to be depleting or fueling. If we look at anxiety, depression, rage, grief.
Those are depleting, but there are emotions that all of us will have in life. That makes us a human if we can have this wide range of emotions. Then we think of emotions that are fueling emotions like courage, love, confidence, competence. Those are emotions that fuel our system. And so when we think about that mind -body connection, the body responds to those emotions by releasing hormones. So imagine every emotion that you experience
Amy Boyle (amyboylephoto) (
07:00.18)
It's either fueling your physical body or depleting your physical body. That is, when I learned that in my health crisis, that was very powerful because if we can be present with the feelings, whatever they are, metabolize them, process them, and then we can let them go, then they don't get stuck in our tissues. We don't have to have the issues getting stuck in our tissues.
So I decided I really want to teach women everything that I've learned about emotions. And so I created a system called the inner ease system. And that's really what I'm excited about right now is just teaching. It's like emotional intelligence coming from the deep well of wisdom from your heart. So the inner ease technique, it starts number one with the tension test. And so helping
helping women identify where's the tension in the body and how does my body talk to me and it talks to us always like moment by moment it's showing us are you at ease? Are you tense? You know, where are you holding tension in your body? And we can learn the language of our body. So it really starts with that. What's the language of your body? Where, where's the flow? Where's there? Where is there ease? Where's their tension? So it starts with the tension.
the tension test and teaching how to identify body language. And then after that, we want to move from just that's the awareness we go to embodiment where we, okay, we're going to be in our body. Now we actually get to embody this beautiful earth suit that we have and we get to, you know, sync up with
And that is, there are so many different things we do in the midst of embodiment in terms of different practices that are in that process. What's easy to do, it's easy to, I don't know if you've ever experienced this, detach from what's going on physically and you stay up here in your head and you're up here in your thoughts. You're trying to figure out life from your thoughts when really the answers are in the body. And when you understand the body language and
Amy Boyle (amyboylephoto) (
09:21.428)
embody yourself, you you can quickly identify what agrees with me and what doesn't agree with me because the body is just responding to your muscle reaction, through chemicals, through your heartbeat, through the electrical conduction in your brain and your heart. And when you can understand how those systems are functioning and you sync yourself up with those systems, then it's just amazing how you can like activate yourself in
So from embodiment, we move to what's called the Pneuma heart connection. So Pneuma is breath in Greek. And this is the idea that your breath is the expression of your soul in your body. And it connects your head to your heart. Heart, that's, I'm saying like your body. When you breathe in, it's the first thing you do when you're born from your mother. You take your first
The last thing you do is you take your last breath. If you look at your electrocardiogram, when you're a baby, the electrocardiogram, the heart rate variability, which is the uptick and the downtick of the heart rate variability is the strongest. It has the widest breath between the low point and the high point. And what happens when we transition to death or whatever's next, we flatline. The electrocardiogram flatlines.
And so the breath is the expression of your soul in human form. And so I have a process for teaching women how to connect with that, using the breath as the expression of soul and connecting the mind to the heart. There's so much to be said about just the first two things that you talked about in this process is that I, even as we're talking and listening to
I'm like, how am I sitting? How am I receiving this? You know, where are my hands relaxed or my feet clenched, these different things. and then I, too, one of things I find that is just so helpful is when we do slow down to let us concentrate on breathing, it's so peaceful. it, so often I certainly get stuck in my head. think we all do in this quote unquote fast paced world where everything's no, no,
Amy Boyle (amyboylephoto) (
11:44.086)
do this or it's just an easy way out to not associate, right? Just check out. yes. And we have at our fingertips through our phone, we have the distraction device. And when we want to disassociate, we can distract ourselves right here. And it totally takes us out of our body. It's embodied actually. Yeah. So we're at the Pneuma -Heart connection, which is number three.
I would like to share one tool just because I think it's helpful for listeners to like walk away with one tool and that is the inner ease technique. And this comes from heart map and it's a visualization. you're inhaling and exhaling and you visualize the inhale and exhale to flow to and from your heart center. Okay. So it's a visualization. Now, physically you inhale through your nose and it's deep, slow.
quiet and regular. So the four qualities of a healthy breath, just everyday breath, you're walking around, working, playing, is inhale and exhale through your nose. It's deep, it's slow, it's quiet, it's regular. That's physically what happens. With this inner ease technique, you visualize the inhale and exhale to flow to and from the heart center, 360 degrees from your body.
And you'll notice, like, if you bring up the feeling of inner ease, we can all bring up the feeling of inner ease. feels like flow, no stress. I can feel it right now as I'm doing it. I feel these very gentle waves moving to and from my heart center. That simple technique can neutralize us when we are in a moment, like when we're triggered or we don't know what to do, we feel flustered or frustrated.
Okay, so before we left Pneuma Heart Connection, I just wanted to share that one tool. And then we move into what I call Veritas Vision. So truth, it's really truth telling. And this is where we go into our mindset because our emotions really follow the stories we tell ourselves and the beliefs we have. And so we want to start unpacking, like if you have a backpack of beliefs and you've got them on your shoulders and you're carrying
Amy Boyle (amyboylephoto) (
14:04.898)
We want to look at those beliefs that cause suffering. And so there's a process that we move through to identify, okay, what are the beliefs that are causing me suffering? We really have to write them out on paper and not do this in our head, like use our hand to write, write them out when we identify them. And then we do the work to identify, this is a belief that causes suffering. How do I feel when I believe that?
What if I let it go? What could be more true? And this is from the work of Byron Katie and her work is called The Work. And so we literally do the work process for very test vision. when we, know, part of that has to do with telling ourselves about our relationships, our roles and responsibilities, where, you know, taking an integrity test in terms of what are the areas of our life, are we being honest with ourselves about
the different roles we play, our responsibilities, the relationships we have, and really being able to tell ourselves the truth. Because I might have said this in my own life before I became a coach, and it's held true as a coach. You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free. Until you know the truth, there's energetic static happening in your life if you're not telling yourself the truth.
If we ha if we feel safe and there's a container, there's a nice cradle for us. We can do the work and we can unpack our back. That's a great visualization. know, we're both of the generation. think of unpack your adjectives. think of the little visual from, schoolhouse rock, but at the same time we do, we carry all these burdens and other things that in less.
I was even having a conversation with one of my sons the other day. I'm like, but just face it head on. And it's not so scary. You know, get, tell it you're not giving it power anymore. Like look at it, whatever the thing is. And then, and then you can move through, but if we just bury it, it finds its way out again. shows up. It's hard to tackle it head on, but so much better if you can. Yeah. That's when it shows up as issues in your tissues.
Amy Boyle (amyboylephoto) (
16:28.968)
And it is scary. you I was, it's so funny, you say, you referenced talking to your son. I was talking to one of my daughters yesterday and she's looking for different job opportunities. And she said, I just have so much anxiety. And I said, you know, I would like to invite you to think about it's just nervousness because anxiety is so loaded. And I said, it is normal to be nervous when you're interviewing.
And actually being a little bit afraid and being nervous when you're doing new things, that's normal. And so I was giving her some tips. This is, these are some of the things you can do when you feel nervous about an interview. I think reframing some things that just become commonplace names now.
So, and then finding your people who listen to you and understand you so that you do have that safety in your community, right? That's got to be something very big. Absolutely. I think that's really important. As I said, a safe container, a cradle. In order to tell yourself the truth, you actually have to feel safe. That's a requirement. If you don't feel safe, your truth is not going to come out. The last step is called the peaceful
And I love this step because I realized this step actually when I had a crisis in my marriage and I had a lot of feelings that were depleting and it felt like the earth opened up and swallowed me. And yet I could move through that with inner ease. Here, what I'm saying, you can simultaneously have feelings that are depleting.
and still be in a state of inner ease. And that comes from going through this process of being able to look at your own truth. When we look at all the parts of who we are, we see our shadow and we see our light. And we realize when we can look at our own shadow, we realize, the potential is in all of us and it's what we give our attention
Amy Boyle (amyboylephoto) (
18:43.574)
And when I, when I began over a period of years of forgiving myself for the things I felt shameful about, I just didn't judge other people. Why, when I accepted my own shadow, it cleared out judgment. And then when I was in a crisis, I really was able to step up and move through it. Even though the feelings were challenging and depleting.
move through it with inner ease and really come from the peaceful pathway, come from it as a peacemaker and from love. Love is greater than fear and approach it that way and do the healing from that place instead of doing the healing from a place of fear. So that's in a brief description. That's really the work I'm doing.
With women right now, this inner ease system that really is wrapped up in emotions because the emotions is part of the body, right? It's all we're connected and it's a part of the mindset. So for the audience, how do you get started? Like, what do you suggest for, if this has sparked an interest in the audience to how to take charge and maybe look at their lives in a new and different way? Yeah, that's a great question.
One, I would invite you to get in contact with me. And so that you'll be able to do that in the show notes. Amo will have those, those links. And, know, I would just honestly, you really want to start with doing and identify what's happening in your life right now. You can do your own tension test. Actually, I've created a, a tension test that I'm going to be putting out there. So maybe by the time this episode goes,
that tension test will be available, but do an inventory. Start there. Like that's number one, how you can begin to tell yourself the truth. So I would start there and I would start with paying attention to your breath, your inhale and your exhale. Make that connection with your soul through your breath. Is my breath deep, slow, quiet, regular? And then I gave you that, the inner ease technique. Move into the end, play around with that and see what, what do you discover?
Amy Boyle (amyboylephoto) (
21:07.042)
When you, when you, you know, ask yourself the question, what's true? How do I feel right now? You know, begin to identify what's going on in my body. What's going on with my feelings? Well, why might that be? Ask yourself why five different times. Just making the time, know, putting down the phone, finding quiet time for yourself. Make it not finding, making it because we have the time. It's so easy to say, I have X amount of things in the way, but.
That's really important. Amy. And to that point, I think time is the biggest hurdle. Not giving ourselves a piece of our time every day for our own self -care and growth. Yeah. No, I love it when I see on your social media for the podcast, but I think it's the vision I have of you that gives me peace when I think of it is you sitting on your deck with your sound bowl.
And just like look it out and I'm like, actually just looking at you doing that makes me like stop and go, huh, breathe Amy. This is like calm, right? I should repeat that myself. Like where's my cup? have a little area of my house. call my tree house and it's off my deck and it's up in the top of the locust tree. And I feel
a seven year old kid in a tree house and that's my place. that's what I do. love it. That sounds, that sounds inviting. I want to go to your Locust tree. Yeah, absolutely. Come on over. Well, I can't thank you enough for sharing the techniques and the work that you're doing. And I'm so grateful that you continue to find this passion to share with women. there's so many of us in the world that need to make
time for ourselves and to be shown the path from someone who's been through a lot and continues to give. And I love that. I think there's magic in that. And I'm so, like I said, grateful for you being on the show today and everything will be linked in the notes. So you can learn more and you can get in contact with Dana too. Thank you, Amy. Thank you for joining us on this episode of Speaking of
Amy Boyle (amyboylephoto) (
23:20.972)
Be sure to subscribe, rate, review, and even share the podcast, as well as stay tuned for more inspiring conversations. Remember, each and every one of you is capable of extraordinary things. Until next time, take care and remember, you are phenomenal.
