Tanaya & Matt: Hello, friends, seekers of truth, skeptics, and the quietly curious. You're listening to the Evolving Traditions podcast, where we take an up close and sometimes uncomfortable look at how the wisdom we inherit lands in the world we're living in today. I'm Matt Dyktynski and I'm here with my co-host and wife, Tanaya Ti'en Good morning. Good morning. Hi everyone.
Lisa Fabry: No.
Tanaya & Matt: Yes. Today we are joined by someone a little bit special to me, Lisa Fabry. Welcome, Lisa.
Lisa Fabry: Thank you. Good evening. Nice to be here with you.
Tanaya & Matt: Thank you. You're joining us from San Francisco. And it's the early evening there.
Lisa Fabry: It is the early evening here. Hopefully it doesn't get dark
Tanaya & Matt: Beautiful, beautiful.
Lisa Fabry: while we're talking to each other. No.
Tanaya & Matt: Only in theme and content. Well it's Sunday morning here, at eight
Lisa Fabry: will.
Tanaya & Matt: thirty in the morning here in Perth. We are the most isolated major city in the world. I believe so. I believe so. And it's meant to be winter, but it is actually feeling more like spring. Yes, the trees don't know what's going on at the moment. they're already flowering but Hey, I'm sure that's fine. There's no problem there at all. it's all it's all good. It's all good.
Lisa Fabry: Nice. Well, it's 5.30 in Saturday evening. You are my future. And it's supposed to be summer, but it's feeling like late autumn, early winter. So everything's
Tanaya & Matt: Okay.
Lisa Fabry: perfect as it should be.
Tanaya & Matt: As it should be. Well, Lisa, thank you for joining us. And here's a little bit about your good self. You've been a yoga practitioner for over 30 years and a yoga teacher for over 20. you're also a certified yoga therapist, a qigong instructor. nutritionist, author. you work with individuals and small groups there in San Fran, in Adelaide, Australia, and of course online where you can talk to anyone in the world. you're the creator of many live and online workshops, trainings, events. You spent more than 20 years working across two worlds that turn out to have surprisingly a lot of similarities with the wisdom of the body and the transformative power of the written word. And on that, you're an experienced editor. Proofreader, author with more than 20 years experience across publishing, education, and the wellness fields. And you help authors shape manuscripts, including my wife's book, which I know you put so much passion and work into, and finding the integrity of an author's voice. Do you ever get a day off? You are.
Lisa Fabry: sounds like a great person, doesn't it? Thank you for that description. It's always affirming when somebody looks at you from the outside like that. And of course,
Tanaya & Matt: Mm.
Lisa Fabry: as we'll probably discover, these are my passions, not my work. So work, think, is something you don't like doing. So I don't need a day off because this is what I choose to do for fun. And of course I do do other things as well.
Tanaya & Matt: No. Yes. Yes. And I've been very lucky to work with you in several different areas. I've worked with Lisa.
Lisa Fabry: It's her. It's her, yeah.
Tanaya & Matt: over the last couple of years, Lisa you were the editor on my recent book, Evolving Traditions, Yoga, Ethics and Modern Practice. and Matt's gonna give it a little
Lisa Fabry: Thank
Tanaya & Matt: plug there on the video. and we've also served together on the committee of the Australasian Association of Yoga Therapists, the AAYT, and later with the AusActive Yoga Therapy Advisory Group, where we participated in committee meetings, we hosted webinars, community sanghas. And we of course navigated the merger of the AAYT with AusActive of whom are Australia's peak body for the exercise and active health sector. So Lis and I have really got to share some quality time together over those different areas. Can I ask a question? What's a community sangha?
Lisa Fabry: Sangha is a Sanskrit word meaning unity or togetherness, And so sangha is about the community of yoga teachers or in this case yoga therapists getting together and supporting each other. Even though we were all working online, the idea
Tanaya & Matt: Yeah.
Lisa Fabry: was that we were sitting in a circle together in the same room.
Tanaya & Matt: Uh-huh. Thank you. Yeah, so the AAYT and indeed the AusActive Advisory Group for Yoga Therapists offered this beautiful forum where accredited or certified yoga therapists could come together and speak about case studies, we could share our findings so that we could expand our knowledge base and really support each other because yoga therapy is at the moment a really small minority aren't we in the big wide world of yoga there aren't many accredited yoga therapists out there and I'm sure we'll talk a little bit about that in a bit. let's get to the meat and bones. Lisa, of course, thank you for joining us. And we're going to start every podcast in this same way by asking our guests what the first piece of wisdom they remember receiving from their parents or from their guardian, the first bit of knowledge that you were given as a little human being that you took with you into the big wide world and has that served you in your life?
Lisa Fabry: Yeah, I thought this was a really interesting question. And it could go either way, but my biggest takeaway from early childhood, I think is a very positive thing. I feel like both my mom and dad, were incredibly curious people. They wanted to know about what was in the world and what it all meant. And they gave me the courage and the confidence to go out there and explore. So I remember right from when I was about four years old, I spent quite a lot of time wandering around. which you wouldn't get nowadays. We
Tanaya & Matt: Mm,
Lisa Fabry: lived in a big old three story house in a village in England. And my mom had a shop on the ground floor called The Wool Shop. We didn't have it for very
Tanaya & Matt: Mm-hmm.
Lisa Fabry: long, but it was one of her passions, knitting. And I used to wander around the house, down in the cellar, out in the car park behind. when I did go to school at four and a half, I was put on a bus outside the shop by myself and the bus driver kept an eye on me until I got off at the school and then I trotted into the school on my own. So I do remember just being brave out in the world. It
Tanaya & Matt: Mm.
Lisa Fabry: never occurred to me that I couldn't go anywhere or do anything. My dad used to love making Super 8 movies and instead of just filming what was happening, he would set up situations like a film director. And I remember he had me going out through the village on my tricycle and he would like cut in camera. Here she is cycling down the street. Here she is getting off and navigating the busy road, crossing it. Here she is going into the churchyard. And later on we lived in Libya because he worked in the oil industry and he would take out into the desert and he would say, okay, you climb up those stairs around that big oil storage tank. Do you know how big they are? I don't know if you know what I'm talking about, those giant tanks in the desert. And I would be climbing up these stairs and he'd be filming me from the bottom. And I just remember being at the top going, But things like that, you know, it was different times,
Tanaya & Matt: Bravery. Yes.
Lisa Fabry: but it gave me. independence, curiosity, courage, which I've carried into
Tanaya & Matt: I mean
Lisa Fabry: the rest of my life.
Tanaya & Matt: I I don't wanna be that guy because I understand and I think we're all of a similar generation. I don't wanna bemoan what the younger generation are doing because it's their world now and that's just the way it is. But there is still a big part of me that had similar experiences to you, being allowed to go and explore the big wide world without I Safety net, well that's how it felt at the time. I'm sure people were looking out for us. But where one's imagination was the driving force rather than being passive and letting a device do that to you. Again, I don't want to be negative about that because that is the world now and I'm sure they're being beautiful and creative in their own way, but you telling that story feels very romantic to me and it does seem like a lost time and perhaps a lost skill that our children aren't nurturing, finding things to do where they are the driving force in that imaginative world.
Lisa Fabry: I don't know. I think my children have inherited that from me too in
Tanaya & Matt: Mm-hmm.
Lisa Fabry: their own different ways. But I'm also of the opinion that you don't have to teach them to do these things. When you say, do you remember your parents teaching you, really what you're saying is, what is it you've inherited without even a thought from your family?
Tanaya & Matt: Yes.
Lisa Fabry: And I think
Tanaya & Matt: Yeah.
Lisa Fabry: both my kids have inherited that spirit of adventure from me and that ability to go out and get things done by themselves.
Tanaya & Matt: And indeed that's what you've you've done in your life because you are truly a global citizen, aren't you? You've lived in England, Australia, you're in San Fran now. what does being a global citizen mean to you and what are the pros and cons of that kind of life?
Lisa Fabry: I traveled a lot and because my dad worked in the oil industry, so we went to quite a lot of different places before I even moved away from home and then I visited him in a lot more. So before I was even 20, I'd been all over the Middle East, Libya, Iran, Israel. I'd also been to Venezuela, the US, much of Europe. And that was just normal to me. And I
Tanaya & Matt: Mm. Yes.
Lisa Fabry: just knew that when I grew up, I would be living in different countries. I just knew that. And I did. So I emigrated to Australia at the age of 40, my early 40s. And I always felt able to go wherever I wanted then. So I then met my partner who was American and began a long distance relationship where we would travel backwards and forwards. However, that was in 2018 and we all know what happened in 2020.
Tanaya & Matt: Mm.
Lisa Fabry: So... of that freedom was curtailed and I was in Australia at the time and he was in America at the time and they told both of us, you can't go anywhere. So we didn't know if we were ever going to see each other again at that time. You know,
Tanaya & Matt: Mm, mm.
Lisa Fabry: it was really scary and it's too long of a story to go into how we did, but... I still move back and forth between Australia and America because we're of an age where we're not ready to go up route and go and live somewhere else. We've got families, friends, parents, et cetera, to take care of. And we both like our own countries. And we
Tanaya & Matt: Mm.
Lisa Fabry: don't need to be together 100 % of the time either. I heard you talking
Tanaya & Matt: Yeah. Uh-huh.
Lisa Fabry: about the... joys of a successful marriage back a few episodes ago. And
Tanaya & Matt: Yes.
Lisa Fabry: it was a great episode, by the way, people definitely should listen to that. But I
Tanaya & Matt: thank you.
Lisa Fabry: love that you talked about this, it's that when you come to a second, third marriage or whatever later in life, you have different ideas of what it's going to be like, you've got your own lives and do your own things. You don't need
Tanaya & Matt: Mm. Yes.
Lisa Fabry: to be quite so dependent on each other.
Tanaya & Matt: Yes. Now that lifestyle that you've just described sounds like the perfect lifestyle for a Vata Gemini, which you are, which you and I both are. And a little bit of a side note, Lisa and I actually share the same birthday really? Yes.
Lisa Fabry: No.
Tanaya & Matt: I'm completely irrelevant in this conversation. I feel like Lisa is my long lost twin and very fortuitous circumstances brought us together. It feels very serendipitous how we came into each other's lives. Now on that going over to yoga which is How we met, we met through yoga therapy. So you've been practicing yoga for over 30 years, which is no short stint. Now, what drew you to the path of yoga and indeed qigong And when did you know that these disciplines would become a part of your life's work? And how do you make them work together?
Lisa Fabry: just doing maths in my head and I'm realizing it's actually more than 40 years since I started yoga. That's really showing my age, isn't it? But I was
Tanaya & Matt: Mm-hmm.
Lisa Fabry: at university and I had never been good at sports. it was very competitive and I wasn't good at it. And I found a yoga class I could go to at university that all the teachers and the admin staff went to. So in England at the time, was gentle Hatha yoga, very quiet practice. You were invited to move your body at your own pace. It was non-competitive. And for me, that combination of mind, body, moving according to the breath. was really very calming for me. I was always a very fast moving, in my head kind of person. And I just absolutely loved it. It saved me really for the rest of my life, helped me
Tanaya & Matt: Mm.
Lisa Fabry: through all sorts of difficult times as I know you know, Tanaya just having that practice. So I've doing that certainly most of my life. Throughout having babies, throughout bringing up young children, throughout all the different jobs I ever did. And I think maybe because of that I became very interested in health and nutrition. organic things, detoxifying my environment a lot earlier than before that was really fashionable.
Tanaya & Matt: I'm sure you're going to get to this, but everyone's familiar with yoga and of course there are many faces of yoga but I'm sure Matt may not and many people out there may not be familiar with qigong So perhaps for Matt's benefit and others who don't know what qigong is.
Lisa Fabry: Absolutely. I was going to fast forward to that rapidly. But just to say, I decided to train to become a yoga teacher at the age of 37, which is pretty old.
Tanaya & Matt: Mm-hmm.
Lisa Fabry: I've been practicing it for many years. And I also... started studying to become a nutritionist at that time too. So those were my two paths from then on. I didn't really see how they were going to come together. But eventually they did. I came to qigong much later in life. I was teaching yoga in Adelaide and a friend of mine was teaching qigong with the teacher that I currently work with. And I did some classes with her, but it wasn't until 2020 when I really decided to get into it because that was when I got COVID for the first time. And I've actually had COVID three times and certainly the first and second one, I was in it for the long haul. So it took me several years to really recover from from that. Yes. Yes. And
Tanaya & Matt: Really? what they call long COVID. Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
Lisa Fabry: I trained for my first Qigong training in 2021, which was two months after I'd contracted it for the first time. And it was all I could do really during that time to just lift my hands up and lower them. and breathe and have visualizations. And I found that the Qigong worked faster than yoga and more gently to restore my energy. So I just fell in love with it at that time. And I haven't forgotten about yoga. I haven't like moved from yoga to Qigong. But as I get older and with the illnesses and certain injuries that I've had, I found that my physical practice tends to lean towards the Qigong far more.
Tanaya & Matt: So for a lay person like myself, could it be described
Lisa Fabry: What is it?
Tanaya & Matt: as a more gentle almost I'm thinking Tai Chi movements with with a concentration on breath which no doubt would have helped with the Covid difficulties that you were dealing with.
Lisa Fabry: Yes, and because just like yoga, there are thousands of different types of Qigong and as many different ways of practicing it as there are practitioners.
Tanaya & Matt: Mm.
Lisa Fabry: So it has parallels with yoga in that it's the foundation of all the mind body practices in China. And out of that came Tai Chi, out of that came all of the martial arts. And it's
Tanaya & Matt: And of course we're speaking of the physical versions of these modalities as well. We're not speaking of the other ways that you can practice yoga and
Lisa Fabry: Yes, exactly. just as in yoga, you can just do Bhakti yoga, which is just devotional, hardly any physical work at all, just singing and praying. The same
Tanaya & Matt: Mm. Mm.
Lisa Fabry: is true of Qigong. There's religious Qigong, there's secular Qigong, there's martial Qigong. But the style I practice is called Taoist medical Qigong, which is based on Lao Tzu and the Tao Te Ching and the I Ching and the ancient traditions of shamanism. So it's very similar to yoga therapy. So it's about using this mind-body practice for healing
Tanaya & Matt: Mm.
Lisa Fabry: and to apply it to an individual with a specific aim in mind.
Tanaya & Matt: And and if you had to describe yoga therapy, is that the way you would describe it? As as the process of of tailoring something towards just an individual as opposed to a broader class structured approach?
Lisa Fabry: Yes, yes, absolutely. And the key word is therapy. So the intention being healing on all levels, know, physical, mental,
Tanaya & Matt: Yes.
Lisa Fabry: emotional, spiritual, and that choice of practice, depending on what somebody wants to heal at that time.
Tanaya & Matt: Mm, mm.
Lisa Fabry: And it changes, you need to change that practice to adapt to the individual's changing level. Like, you know, at the beginning, I only needed the very smallest practice. As I healed from the fatigue condition, I wanted to build stronger, more dynamic Qigong. And you certainly can do that. I wouldn't say that it was necessarily slow and gentle. The style I practice can be very dynamic and strong. But it goes incredibly well with yoga, so it doesn't conflict at all. In fact, they complement each other really, really well.
Tanaya & Matt: So yoga, qigong but you're also trained as a nutritionist and indeed as an editor as we know. You're wearing so many different hats. how do you balance all of that and synchronize that together? I mean I know what it's like juggling my artistic life and my admin life, which I find a nightmare. how do you do it?
Lisa Fabry: Tanaya you probably understand being a Gemini Vata. It's not like I haven't chosen to wear a lot of different hats. And to me, each choice or path that I followed has made total sense from where
Tanaya & Matt: Mm-hmm.
Lisa Fabry: I'm at. So I don't feel like they are all that different, although it might seem very... weird to say that, but I can explain why. And I don't see it as difficult to weave them together. In fact, I feel like they enrich each other. So in a way, they're all showing me different versions of the same truths. They're helping me to weave my tapestry of my life to fill in all the gaps, the interest, the curiosity and blend it all together to come up with Lisa Fabry's view of the world and how she's going to live in it. And
Tanaya & Matt: Mm-hmm.
Lisa Fabry: if anything, I would rather everybody got a chance to live this way rather than have to choose one profession and go in there
Tanaya & Matt: Yes.
Lisa Fabry: and then do everything else when they get home from work.
Tanaya & Matt: And look, it's very much the case for many yoga teachers, and yoga therapists, to pay the bills, we do need to be multifaceted in what we offer, unless of course you're an influencer these days, and making those online streams of income. I mean, the cost of living seems to keep going up and it's not easy making ends meet doing what we do. So we do have to have these side hustles. No. nor nor acting. Well
Lisa Fabry: 100 % Nobody ever went into yoga to become rich.
Tanaya & Matt: yes. I love your answer to that they all work hand in hand all these different modalities, the qigong the yoga, the nutrition. And so, balancing those without losing the depth of each. When you, for example, work with clients one-on-one. Do you come in with the yoga therapy hat? I know I had the the privilege of participating in your Yoga for Healthy Bones course recently, which I might mention in a sec, but during that course I loved how you did bring in yoga wisdom, you bought in the nutrition, you bought in qigong And it was a beautiful balance, but you advertised that under the yoga banner, but I thought that worked quite nicely.
Lisa Fabry: Yeah, yeah, I think the more I started out as a yoga teacher and that's, said to you, I didn't know how I was going to bring nutrition into that. And then I qualified as a nutritionist and I sort of practiced separately. But now what I really want to do is work with a client on their whole life or focus on a theme or a condition, menopause or bone health and recognize that those things are multifactorial. So just like any human is going to want to talk about what they eat, how they move their body, what supplements they take, what they do for their mental health. I feel like I cover some of
Tanaya & Matt: Mm.
Lisa Fabry: the bases and I love working with people one-to-one because then what comes out of it is what is it they want in their practice, which of these traditions draws the most and we'll put together a practice that works exactly for them. So it's yoga therapy meets medical Qigong meets food as medicine.
Tanaya & Matt: And of course that makes sense that holistic approach to someone's health. But how does that relationship play out when you move into the kind of more cerebral editing side of your life?
Lisa Fabry: Yeah, good question. One of the wonderful things about working with you, Tanaya is that we were both coming from the same tradition and working on content, which was reflecting our values and reinforcing them and then communicating with each other from a yoga perspective of mutual respect. And I feel like our practice informed our working relationship so much. So that was a joy and I do really particularly enjoy working with authors within the mind body realm to help them
Tanaya & Matt: Mm, mm hmm.
Lisa Fabry: get these really important messages out into the world to more people so that more people can be taking responsibility for their own health and feeling empowered about it. So that's how editing is inspiring for me, but it's also even a bit more similar in that, when you do yoga or qigong, you go inward and you look at what's within, finding the authentic truths within you, and then... you express outwards. So you manage your own energy and then you beam it out. And the same with writing. So you go within, you write, write, have all these ideas. And then you're like, really somebody should read this. So then you have to have the ability to project it outwards. And some authors find it really helpful. to have an editor to help them to realize that vision in the world And I can just help them to make that process more streamlined. But you can see how it's a similar inward outward dynamic.
Tanaya & Matt: when we were working together through the editing process on evolving traditions, it certainly didn't feel like you were just editing. there was a real process and a practice at work, and I would say of a spiritual nature. And there were times when it got very tricky. There were a few slippery slopes there with the technologies that we were using. We were moving between Mac and Microsoft Windows, which I'm a Mac person, and when I see Microsoft Windows, my brain starts doing cartwheels and with our unique understandings of the many and varied yoga practices that I I felt those challenges that we faced during that process was a real practice and it was very beneficial working with someone who was not only the editor but had such a rich understanding of the subject matter. So as most people out there in yoga land know, there are many different yoga lineages, interpretations, translations, perspectives, which I write about in the book, in that chapter on bridging philosophical divides. And I touch upon how crucial it is on the path of yoga, and of course you can apply this. To any tradition, how crucial it is to acknowledge the complex nature of interpretation, translation and perspective. And of course, interpretation, it's influenced by beliefs, values, education, all of that. but the process of translating ancient texts, it introduces nuances, errors, cultural biases, That may well indeed distort the original meaning. And for this reason, I hope that I made it clear enough and you helped me with that process at the beginning of the book. my intention was to offer a helpful framework that's really helped me in my own practice and one that's been helpful for many of my one-to-one clients. and just having the privilege of working with you through that. you helped me discover more of my voice Well, I remember we spoke a few weeks ago, Lisa, and you talked about finding the author's voice. And even in my world I've worked with editors on creative projects. And, any writer wants to hear that from an editor. I'm sure that they will find and bring out your voice and show the world what it is you're trying to say. How do you do that? Is that putting your own ego to the side? how is that achieved?
Lisa Fabry: I think the author comes to you with their own voice already,
Tanaya & Matt: Mm.
Lisa Fabry: they might not feel confident about it. And certainly Tanaya's writing and personality and... incredible vast knowledge was evident right from the very beginning. when I saw the sample that you showed me at the beginning, I knew immediately that you were going to be a great author to work with. But I think whether or not somebody's just beginning or they have a lot of knowledge and experience, really it's important to talk to them a lot or read them a lot, and absorb their words and try and, tune into what their message is rather than, just sweeping in and trying to do all the corrections. So I try to feel their vision and find the threads that are running through it. Sometimes people's threads aren't clear. And so I need to help them find those pathways through a text. So sweeping the pathway clean so that we
Tanaya & Matt: Mm.
Lisa Fabry: can make that vision as clear as possible and keeping their voice, which might even include, colloquialism, idioms,
Tanaya & Matt: Yes.
Lisa Fabry: et cetera, but making sure that it doesn't make actual errors. And in order to do that, it does involve removing your ego a bit. Because I think when I
Tanaya & Matt: Yeah.
Lisa Fabry: was first starting in this, I was like, well, I could write that much better than you. And I'd go in and I rewrite it all. And that isn't what people want. So you need a lot of communication and we had a lot of that. Tanaya sends me a section, I read it. I come back with, well, I can see this. What did you mean by this? have you thought about this? And then she'd come back and go, yeah, I meant this, blah, blah. So it wasn't just one correction, boom, we're done. It's a process, just like yoga therapy, and medical prescription, qigong you work together. It's a collaboration.
Tanaya & Matt: Yes. And because I was so close to the text having, worked on it for the last fifteen years, it was challenging for me to hand that over and entrust that to you. And and I know this might sound a bit woo-woo to some people out there, but I think Geminis have a particular way of thinking. And I think They certainly do. They certainly do. I think you really got my brain and you got that, I needed to have what I'd already written not messed with too much, but at the same time I needed someone to come in and say, okay, well we can make this better in this way, but it in a gentle way, in a way that acknowledged that I had been working on this for a long time and you weren't just going to come away and sweep it out from under my feet. And I think that's what probably any author worries about in working with. A publisher is that they are going to come through and sweep out, all of their hard work and edit it right down into something that perhaps isn't theirs. Is not theirs. And that's the beauty of self-publishing and still getting to work with professionals like yourself and like Karen. from Red Feather Publishing you get the professional insights but you still get to keep the integrity of the work.
Lisa Fabry: Yeah, you've really put your finger on that vulnerability that the author feels with their precious work that has taken so much heart. And as I said earlier, it's come from inside and now you are presenting it to somebody else. So it's a very sensitive area and I'm still learning how to be. sensitive and respectful enough as I'm going through going, that's wrong, that's wrong, that's wrong. But you were incredibly good at receiving the comments and very open and gracious about making changes if they were needed or just understanding that there were some things that I... understood better than you, perhaps some silly nitty gritty bits about grammar that I get very concerned about and you were like, goodness, so much of it doesn't matter. The commas go there, no they don't.
Tanaya & Matt: I know. what was that thing that we kept going back and forth on with punctuation and I
Lisa Fabry: comma after the and or before the and.
Tanaya & Matt: I couldn't get my head around that. The comma after the and... But isn't that interesting? with five hundred with five hundred and twenty-two pages,
Lisa Fabry: Only when it's a stuffed clause though.
Tanaya & Matt: that's the moment that you can focus on. And I know that from performing stand up comedy, to
Lisa Fabry: Yeah.
Tanaya & Matt: hundreds of people, and everyone is laughing except for one person, but that's the person that I'm focusing on, not all the other stuff. It's the little tiny minutia that gets under your skin sometimes. so I mean in the spirit of making messages clear for everybody, I know this is a passion for both of you that yoga and of course particularly yoga therapy, you want to see it brought into the mainstream so that people understand it and embrace it as a really legitimate healing force for good for their holistic health approaches. So how do you define yoga therapy for the lay person and its distinction from yoga and how do we put forward that message in a more positive and helpful and embracing way?
Lisa Fabry: Well, you're right, Matt, it would be great if it was offered more widely as part of a general holistic health approach integrated into the system. That's what I'd like to see. But the yoga therapy tells you what it is in the word. So... therapy, just like prescription Qigong tells you what it is. So it's a particular practice designed for an individual with the intention of bringing some healing, as we mentioned before. And so it's very much the same process, an interaction between teacher and student as it is with publishing. And it's about using your skills of observation and interview to help a person realize what it is that they need in their life and the same with the author too, This is why there are so many parallels. Can you see it now? Or does it make more sense?
Tanaya & Matt: Mm mm. Yes.
Lisa Fabry: But Tanaya do you want to pick up on this because you are working specifically in yoga therapy. So how do you see that?
Tanaya & Matt: Well, I did a full episode on that in episode three. so for me it's really about the personalization. So, I'm not sure how a lot of other yoga therapists out there work, but when I work with a client one-on-one, we go through quite an extensive consultation process to begin. And a lot of questions are asked not only about what's going on in their physical body, but we start to move through the layers. And I love using the koshas the five layers of the self, and so we go through the questionnaire and I get a holistic picture of where they're at through all of those different layers, and then that informs. over a series of months. I like working with people usually over a three month period. I love working in 10 session blocks over that three months and I find that's necessary to go beyond the tip of the iceberg because you know I used to offer A few sessions I used to offer one-on-ones and I just found this this is a bit of a waste of time, because we're wanting to go in deep here. We're wanting to get down to the root cause of what's currently going on in their physical reality. And in order to get to the root, that takes time. So what it isn't, if I'm hearing you both correctly, is You and one person just basically doing a yoga class. No. But one on one. Because I'm sure that's what a lot of people might in their mind imagine, I'm just gonna go onto my mat and I'm gonna do all these poses one on one and this teacher is going to adjust. And that's not what we're talking about. No, it's definitely not that. And I'm so glad you mentioned that because I often think is that what people think yoga therapy is that you go in and you've got the yoga therapist there just working on your tech and look for some people that may be necessary to begin that might be a beginning point, and by all means when I'm going through that consultation process looking at the person's physical body and doing a physical assessment is an important part of that process because you can see a lot of where that person has been metaphysically by the current posture posture, by the imbalances in their physical body.
Lisa Fabry: And their breath, the way they breathe, way they hold themselves, the way they move.
Tanaya & Matt: Yeah, so just on yoga therapy, Lis you stepped away from the AusActive Yoga Therapy Advisory Group before we closed that chapter, but I'm wondering from where you're situated over there in San Fran right now, what do you think are the biggest barriers to yoga therapy becoming more widely accessible?
Lisa Fabry: Hmm, well what I see here is that it's lot bigger than it is in Australia and it is becoming integrated into medical centers, nursing homes, hospitals and there's even a university with a degree program in yoga therapy. So,
Tanaya & Matt: and of course the beautiful Amy Wheeler. we're talking about the School of Integrative Health at Notre Dame of Maryland University. Is that what you're talking about, Lis?
Lisa Fabry: Thank you. didn't know the name of it or where it was, but I did know that Amy Wheeler was heading that up and she'll be doing a fantastic job.
Tanaya & Matt: And they offer a master of science in yoga therapy there. Okay.
Lisa Fabry: And it's not obviously the only way into yoga therapy because there are many courses in yoga therapy available as we studied ourselves. I think we did the same qualification as well, didn't we? Yes, yes.
Tanaya & Matt: With the Yoga Therapy Institute? Yes, we did.
Lisa Fabry: we have had a similar path even before we knew each other. But just like Australia, cost is a factor because coverage by the health system or by
Tanaya & Matt: Mm.
Lisa Fabry: insurance is not common. So most insurers don't cover it here just like most extras funds in Australia don't cover it there. It's not often covered by Medicare or NDIS. And I think that is obviously one of the huge factors, especially if you were quite right in saying it's really important to see somebody over a period of time. And if somebody's got to fund it out of their own pocket, know, 10 sessions is
Tanaya & Matt: Mm.
Lisa Fabry: going to be prohibitive for a lot of people. But I do think one of the other things that gets in the way everywhere in the Western world is a lack of confidence by doctors. and a lack of knowledge about what it is, a misperception, understandably. And so there's very little integration. There's no referral pathways like there
Tanaya & Matt: Mm.
Lisa Fabry: are for physiotherapists and so on. Really, there should be one for yoga therapy.
Tanaya & Matt: Absolutely. And I think that's, a danger as well with a lot of GPs telling their patients, go and do some yoga. And, what kind of yoga, and what I've discovered in my 20 years of teaching is that, a lot of people that come to my classes, they'll often say, My GP said I should go and do some yoga. And I say, I'm really glad you came to this class because you know you're full of all of these injuries. And I know if you had have gone to that other class, which might have been, a power vinyasa or something like that, you may well have been scared off and never come back again. So it's really important that GPs have this knowledge of. what kind of yoga are you sending your patients to? Because we want them to keep coming back. And I understand that a lot of people do shy away from yoga because perhaps they go to a class that's just not suitable for them.
Lisa Fabry: Yeah. And it can be very
Tanaya & Matt: Yeah.
Lisa Fabry: off putting and, you know, Matt, I'm so glad that you did jump in there with like a lay person's point of view, because I
Tanaya & Matt: Mm.
Lisa Fabry: wouldn't have thought of explaining that it's not a yoga class, but ultimately, and you all agree Tanaya probably a yoga therapy practice works out as being, 15 or 20 minutes a day, maybe even less. And might involve a little bit of breathing, a little bit of centering, some meditation and it may have very little movement at all. But if it does have movement it's not going to be a power vinyasa or an ashtanga practice, to
Tanaya & Matt: It may just be focusing on the joints, just a
Lisa Fabry: Yeah.
Tanaya & Matt: a simple joint awakening sequence, And that more subtle work is often so much more powerful because it involves a lot more stillness and it's when we start coming into the stillness that we start. really coming into the yoga.
Lisa Fabry: But you know, what is really, really important is that you have your own personal practice and preferably something you do every day. And from
Tanaya & Matt: Mm.
Lisa Fabry: my experience, preferably you do something at... beginning of your day, before you take yourself out into the world. So you are cleansed, readied, prepared for all the delightful and not so delightful things that the world is going to lay on you.
Tanaya & Matt: How do you start your day? What does your sadhana well what does your dinacharya look like in the morning? Your morning routine?
Lisa Fabry: Well, I do some Ayurvedic practices in the tongue cleansing and oil pulling, things like that. But I do start my day with some... as I just mentioned, centering, grounding, coming into myself, having an awareness of myself in a body, meeting the new day. And by the way, before I do this, I have not checked my phone or had a cup of coffee.
Tanaya & Matt: Mm. Mm.
Lisa Fabry: I'll do this first, as I said, to give me the grounding to meet the day. So it'll involve that, it'll definitely involve a focus on the breath in order to calm or energize depending on what I need. And it will always involve some gentle movement. At the moment, I have a broken toe. I'm nursing that injury and I
Tanaya & Matt: Yeah.
Lisa Fabry: can't really do very much standing work. but I have been doing some seated work and some gentle standing work. nothing ever stops me doing my practice. My practice
Tanaya & Matt: Yeah.
Lisa Fabry: changes to adapt to who I am on that particular day. And that's what I love to teach my clients is I'll help them develop a practice to do now, but help them know how to change it when they need to and respond to their body's own demands or requests.
Tanaya & Matt: Absolutely. You know, centering and breath, for example, which we know has had many, many medical and peer reviewed studies. We know it's true. We know that the centering of the breath calms We've got data on it, we know the physiological effects of it. We know all that. And yet when you bring it up as under the umbrella of yoga therapy, all of a sudden for people it goes into it's all scary and eastern and whatnot, when it's proven that you can improve the quality of your life.
Lisa Fabry: That's right, yeah. And my white tiger Qigong teacher, Tevye Fang, is unique in that he has brought together the ancient understandings of the practices and the ancient texts with a modern understanding of sports science. a bit like we do in yoga therapy. And so
Tanaya & Matt: Yeah.
Lisa Fabry: that when I'm teaching either yoga or Qigong, I'm explaining to people what it is that's happening to their bodies, minds and nervous system and why. So they know why they're doing the practice and it isn't
Tanaya & Matt: Mm.
Lisa Fabry: just a magical woo woo spiritual
Tanaya & Matt: Yes.
Lisa Fabry: scary thing as you just implied.
Tanaya & Matt: Yes. And of course there's a big section of our world that is a lot of people with no mobility at all and can they
Lisa Fabry: Yeah.
Tanaya & Matt: not practice yoga? Of course they can be the best yoga practitioners through the more metaphysical practices. now Lis, all of your incredible work aside for a moment, because you do wear so many different hats, teleporting back to where it all began. If you could go back, would you do anything differently?
Lisa Fabry: hehe Wouldn't it be nice if we could do that? I want to preface it by saying I recognize it had to happen the way it did. And, I wouldn't be me if it hadn't happened the way it did. And oftentimes we get the most transformation from the most difficult and painful experiences. So... If I say, I would have liked this, it's just with a tongue in cheek because really I'm happy and grateful with what life has given me. But I will say that what I'm feeling more and more as I get older is that we are all vulnerable human beings who don't really know how to live in the world and we just get born into the world, we muddle through and wouldn't it be nice if we all learned how to thrive from day one rather than having to strive and
Tanaya & Matt: Mm.
Lisa Fabry: struggle? I have been exposed to some amazing influences in my life that have helped me so much and I guess I might think wouldn't it have been nice to have been exposed to those earlier? Wouldn't
Tanaya & Matt: Mm-hmm.
Lisa Fabry: it have been nice to know more about parenting before I did it? Wouldn't
Tanaya & Matt: Mm-hmm.
Lisa Fabry: it have been nice to understand about communication between boys and girls when I was a teenager or
Tanaya & Matt: Mm.
Lisa Fabry: how to even talk about my own emotions or become aware of them. But as I said, I recognize It comes through a lot of time. Wisdom is, I say it's the accumulation of knowledge plus experience plus intuition. And you can only get that over living through a lot of, you know. But
Tanaya & Matt: Mm.
Lisa Fabry: you know, get to the end of your life knowing more than you did at the beginning
Tanaya & Matt: Hopefully. Hopefully Well that that's the grand and cruel irony of the life we lead, isn't it? Is that you go out going, I wish I'd known that bang, I think the knowledge that we end up with as we become wiser is that, as Socrates said, there is one thing I know, and that is that I know nothing. And coming into this starting the day and going out into the world with a beginner's mind instead of going out there, professing that we know everything and that we have all the answers. I'm much more interested in the curious minds and you know, the conversations that remain open rather than the conversations that seem to have definitive answers because I don't think there are any.
Lisa Fabry: Absolutely, yeah. And I think that's one of the beauties of coming into this phase of life that I like to think of as my wisdom years. I agree with everything you said. It's a very much process of simplification, letting go. It's very much about tolerance and just allowing everything else and everyone else to be as they are. And instead of saying, I know about this, do it my way. It's, I've had this great experience with this. Would you like to try it? So
Tanaya & Matt: Mm.
Lisa Fabry: I think that's kind of like the way I work now.
Tanaya & Matt: Now, Lis, I recently had the pleasure, of immersing myself in your online Yoga for Healthy Bones course. So thank you again for giving me access to that. I've really enjoyed it. And in the final module. I lit up like a Christmas tree when I saw the phrase that you used to introduce the module. You said Yi Dao Qi Dao
Lisa Fabry: Chi
Tanaya & Matt: Which can be translated in so many beautiful ways. Where intention goes, energy flows, where the mind goes, energy flows. When intention arrives, qi arrives, or more simply, energy follows intent. Now it's a principle that runs through many of the traditions that we both draw from Yoga, Chigung, Taoism, the internal arts. All pointing to this relationship between mind, breath, and energy. So whether we're talking about the koshas in yoga, or how focused awareness guides our internal processes, it all seems to echo that same idea. And it also connects to something that you and I The Gemini Vata twinies that we are, we've spoken about before that over time practice does become simpler. Less about doing more, more about refining attention and intention. And that's very much a principle in yoga therapy as well. Often the most effective practices are the most subtle. So with that in mind. How do you see your work evolving from here across yoga therapy, Qigong your editorial work? And what does that kind of refined simplicity look like for you going forward?
Lisa Fabry: Hmm. Well, I think, yeah, as I just said, my approach now is much less about pushing forwards in order to tell people what to do. And instead of... putting myself up as an expert. And I must confess in the past, I might've put myself up as a supposed expert, but I felt like that imposter syndrome. And I think I was trying to offer too much and not feeling fully confident. Whereas now I'm in a stage where I've tried all these things I know. what they do, I understand them from the inside, I've embodied them. And I'm in a stage of acknowledging that I built up all of that experience and I want to share it. And I like sharing it one-to-one, I like sharing it in groups, on videos, at retreats. I love working with people and I... I've got to a point where I'm really like, I don't really care about earning money. you know, it's nice, but when it's your motivating force, it's not quite
Tanaya & Matt: Mm.
Lisa Fabry: as good as when you are giving so freely. And really I love the Buddhist way of doing it, where you have your Dharma bowl in the corner and the people come in and do the practice. I would like it to be like that if possible. But I have taken it into this modern world as... I put up stuff freely on YouTube. I put out content, full length content instead of just a little snippet and then say, buy this. I'll always offer people in the spirit of sangha. a community rate, a reduced rate for anybody's experiencing
Tanaya & Matt: Yeah.
Lisa Fabry: financial hardship. I just want to have this knowledge be preserved in the spirit and tradition of both the yoga and the Qigong lineages is that we... take our teachings from our teachers. We live it and we rework it and then we share it to me, that's what these traditions are about. They're about helping people to be more aware of their body, emotions, the sensations, their energy, helping people to feel, in control of that, not in a tight way, but in a grounded, steady. calm and aware way and from that place being able to go out into the world and choose what they do.
Tanaya & Matt: Beautiful.
Lisa Fabry: And yes, I wish I'd known that at the age of 30 and I could have been doing that ever since and made so much more difference but
Tanaya & Matt: Mm-hmm.
Lisa Fabry: I'm doing it now.
Tanaya & Matt: I feel like there was so much that we wanted to chat about today, and we've really just chipped the surface of all of the things that we could have spoken about. But I hope that we've given listeners a little sneak peek into the world of Lisa Fabry and all of the wonderful things that you do and thank you for letting listeners know that you have these free offerings. where might they find some of these free offerings just to have a sneak peek at what you do and perhaps that might inspire someone to reach out and work with you more on a one-to-one basis because of course these days even though you're in San Fran, they could work with you
Lisa Fabry: be anywhere.
Tanaya & Matt: You could be anywhere. they can have a Zoom session with you from anywhere.
Lisa Fabry: in Australia over the Christmas, New Year, early part of next year period as well.
Tanaya & Matt: Well, you are nice.
Lisa Fabry: So, well, my name is quite unusual. Really, you don't have to remember much, but if you put Lisa Fabry into Google, you'll find out all sorts of interesting things about me, not just what
Tanaya & Matt: Yeah.
Lisa Fabry: we talked about today. But my website's called lisafabry.com. So there's things on there. There's blogs and recipes and links to other things. I have a YouTube channel. It is very small and in development. I also have published videos on the White Tiger Qigong YouTube channel. that you could search for. I do have Facebook and Instagram. I'm not a crazy social media poster, so I don't have a lot going on there. I dropped back into a quieter, more authentic approach for me. But I do have this course that you mentioned, Yoga for Healthy Bones, and... No?
Tanaya & Matt: And thank you for all the wonderful recipes in that as well. You do have some some lovely
Lisa Fabry: You're welcome. I've written a recipe book too, by the way. but if people are interested in that yoga for healthy bones, I wonder if you would like to share the link with them in your show notes. And I would like
Tanaya & Matt: We will. We'll put all of those links in the description, yes.
Lisa Fabry: to offer them a gift, which is a discount off the course which is a 44 % discount just because it was a number that I liked. So I'll give you a code for that, a coupon that you can use if you're interested in the course and if you just want to chat to me and see if there's anything that we can do together there's a link to book a free call with me.
Tanaya & Matt: I I do recommend because I offer those 15-minute free chats as well, and I really recommend that people take you up on that because it's free, there's no obligation, and you know, I think it's not a heavy sales call,
Lisa Fabry: Yeah, it's not a heavy sales call, that's for sure.
Tanaya & Matt: in that 15 minutes you can really get to the root of what someone's looking for and and at the very least we can help people point them at least in the right direction for them so I do encourage people to take you up on that. Well Lisa, thank you so much for joining us this evening for you, this morning for us and being part of the conversation. May we continue to Hold the traditions that we inherit with respect, while making room for what is needed today with compassion, with kindness, and with a little less certainty. So respect the roots, welcome the growth, and let's keep evolving. Goodbye for now.
Lisa Fabry: Goodbye, thank you so much.
Tanaya & Matt: Thanks, Lisa. Thank you, Lisa.
Lisa Fabry: No.
Tanaya & Matt: Yes. Today we are joined by someone a little bit special to me, Lisa Fabry. Welcome, Lisa.
Lisa Fabry: Thank you. Good evening. Nice to be here with you.
Tanaya & Matt: Thank you. You're joining us from San Francisco. And it's the early evening there.
Lisa Fabry: It is the early evening here. Hopefully it doesn't get dark
Tanaya & Matt: Beautiful, beautiful.
Lisa Fabry: while we're talking to each other. No.
Tanaya & Matt: Only in theme and content. Well it's Sunday morning here, at eight
Lisa Fabry: will.
Tanaya & Matt: thirty in the morning here in Perth. We are the most isolated major city in the world. I believe so. I believe so. And it's meant to be winter, but it is actually feeling more like spring. Yes, the trees don't know what's going on at the moment. they're already flowering but Hey, I'm sure that's fine. There's no problem there at all. it's all it's all good. It's all good.
Lisa Fabry: Nice. Well, it's 5.30 in Saturday evening. You are my future. And it's supposed to be summer, but it's feeling like late autumn, early winter. So everything's
Tanaya & Matt: Okay.
Lisa Fabry: perfect as it should be.
Tanaya & Matt: As it should be. Well, Lisa, thank you for joining us. And here's a little bit about your good self. You've been a yoga practitioner for over 30 years and a yoga teacher for over 20. you're also a certified yoga therapist, a qigong instructor. nutritionist, author. you work with individuals and small groups there in San Fran, in Adelaide, Australia, and of course online where you can talk to anyone in the world. you're the creator of many live and online workshops, trainings, events. You spent more than 20 years working across two worlds that turn out to have surprisingly a lot of similarities with the wisdom of the body and the transformative power of the written word. And on that, you're an experienced editor. Proofreader, author with more than 20 years experience across publishing, education, and the wellness fields. And you help authors shape manuscripts, including my wife's book, which I know you put so much passion and work into, and finding the integrity of an author's voice. Do you ever get a day off? You are.
Lisa Fabry: sounds like a great person, doesn't it? Thank you for that description. It's always affirming when somebody looks at you from the outside like that. And of course,
Tanaya & Matt: Mm.
Lisa Fabry: as we'll probably discover, these are my passions, not my work. So work, think, is something you don't like doing. So I don't need a day off because this is what I choose to do for fun. And of course I do do other things as well.
Tanaya & Matt: No. Yes. Yes. And I've been very lucky to work with you in several different areas. I've worked with Lisa.
Lisa Fabry: It's her. It's her, yeah.
Tanaya & Matt: over the last couple of years, Lisa you were the editor on my recent book, Evolving Traditions, Yoga, Ethics and Modern Practice. and Matt's gonna give it a little
Lisa Fabry: Thank
Tanaya & Matt: plug there on the video. and we've also served together on the committee of the Australasian Association of Yoga Therapists, the AAYT, and later with the AusActive Yoga Therapy Advisory Group, where we participated in committee meetings, we hosted webinars, community sanghas. And we of course navigated the merger of the AAYT with AusActive of whom are Australia's peak body for the exercise and active health sector. So Lis and I have really got to share some quality time together over those different areas. Can I ask a question? What's a community sangha?
Lisa Fabry: Sangha is a Sanskrit word meaning unity or togetherness, And so sangha is about the community of yoga teachers or in this case yoga therapists getting together and supporting each other. Even though we were all working online, the idea
Tanaya & Matt: Yeah.
Lisa Fabry: was that we were sitting in a circle together in the same room.
Tanaya & Matt: Uh-huh. Thank you. Yeah, so the AAYT and indeed the AusActive Advisory Group for Yoga Therapists offered this beautiful forum where accredited or certified yoga therapists could come together and speak about case studies, we could share our findings so that we could expand our knowledge base and really support each other because yoga therapy is at the moment a really small minority aren't we in the big wide world of yoga there aren't many accredited yoga therapists out there and I'm sure we'll talk a little bit about that in a bit. let's get to the meat and bones. Lisa, of course, thank you for joining us. And we're going to start every podcast in this same way by asking our guests what the first piece of wisdom they remember receiving from their parents or from their guardian, the first bit of knowledge that you were given as a little human being that you took with you into the big wide world and has that served you in your life?
Lisa Fabry: Yeah, I thought this was a really interesting question. And it could go either way, but my biggest takeaway from early childhood, I think is a very positive thing. I feel like both my mom and dad, were incredibly curious people. They wanted to know about what was in the world and what it all meant. And they gave me the courage and the confidence to go out there and explore. So I remember right from when I was about four years old, I spent quite a lot of time wandering around. which you wouldn't get nowadays. We
Tanaya & Matt: Mm,
Lisa Fabry: lived in a big old three story house in a village in England. And my mom had a shop on the ground floor called The Wool Shop. We didn't have it for very
Tanaya & Matt: Mm-hmm.
Lisa Fabry: long, but it was one of her passions, knitting. And I used to wander around the house, down in the cellar, out in the car park behind. when I did go to school at four and a half, I was put on a bus outside the shop by myself and the bus driver kept an eye on me until I got off at the school and then I trotted into the school on my own. So I do remember just being brave out in the world. It
Tanaya & Matt: Mm.
Lisa Fabry: never occurred to me that I couldn't go anywhere or do anything. My dad used to love making Super 8 movies and instead of just filming what was happening, he would set up situations like a film director. And I remember he had me going out through the village on my tricycle and he would like cut in camera. Here she is cycling down the street. Here she is getting off and navigating the busy road, crossing it. Here she is going into the churchyard. And later on we lived in Libya because he worked in the oil industry and he would take out into the desert and he would say, okay, you climb up those stairs around that big oil storage tank. Do you know how big they are? I don't know if you know what I'm talking about, those giant tanks in the desert. And I would be climbing up these stairs and he'd be filming me from the bottom. And I just remember being at the top going, But things like that, you know, it was different times,
Tanaya & Matt: Bravery. Yes.
Lisa Fabry: but it gave me. independence, curiosity, courage, which I've carried into
Tanaya & Matt: I mean
Lisa Fabry: the rest of my life.
Tanaya & Matt: I I don't wanna be that guy because I understand and I think we're all of a similar generation. I don't wanna bemoan what the younger generation are doing because it's their world now and that's just the way it is. But there is still a big part of me that had similar experiences to you, being allowed to go and explore the big wide world without I Safety net, well that's how it felt at the time. I'm sure people were looking out for us. But where one's imagination was the driving force rather than being passive and letting a device do that to you. Again, I don't want to be negative about that because that is the world now and I'm sure they're being beautiful and creative in their own way, but you telling that story feels very romantic to me and it does seem like a lost time and perhaps a lost skill that our children aren't nurturing, finding things to do where they are the driving force in that imaginative world.
Lisa Fabry: I don't know. I think my children have inherited that from me too in
Tanaya & Matt: Mm-hmm.
Lisa Fabry: their own different ways. But I'm also of the opinion that you don't have to teach them to do these things. When you say, do you remember your parents teaching you, really what you're saying is, what is it you've inherited without even a thought from your family?
Tanaya & Matt: Yes.
Lisa Fabry: And I think
Tanaya & Matt: Yeah.
Lisa Fabry: both my kids have inherited that spirit of adventure from me and that ability to go out and get things done by themselves.
Tanaya & Matt: And indeed that's what you've you've done in your life because you are truly a global citizen, aren't you? You've lived in England, Australia, you're in San Fran now. what does being a global citizen mean to you and what are the pros and cons of that kind of life?
Lisa Fabry: I traveled a lot and because my dad worked in the oil industry, so we went to quite a lot of different places before I even moved away from home and then I visited him in a lot more. So before I was even 20, I'd been all over the Middle East, Libya, Iran, Israel. I'd also been to Venezuela, the US, much of Europe. And that was just normal to me. And I
Tanaya & Matt: Mm. Yes.
Lisa Fabry: just knew that when I grew up, I would be living in different countries. I just knew that. And I did. So I emigrated to Australia at the age of 40, my early 40s. And I always felt able to go wherever I wanted then. So I then met my partner who was American and began a long distance relationship where we would travel backwards and forwards. However, that was in 2018 and we all know what happened in 2020.
Tanaya & Matt: Mm.
Lisa Fabry: So... of that freedom was curtailed and I was in Australia at the time and he was in America at the time and they told both of us, you can't go anywhere. So we didn't know if we were ever going to see each other again at that time. You know,
Tanaya & Matt: Mm, mm.
Lisa Fabry: it was really scary and it's too long of a story to go into how we did, but... I still move back and forth between Australia and America because we're of an age where we're not ready to go up route and go and live somewhere else. We've got families, friends, parents, et cetera, to take care of. And we both like our own countries. And we
Tanaya & Matt: Mm.
Lisa Fabry: don't need to be together 100 % of the time either. I heard you talking
Tanaya & Matt: Yeah. Uh-huh.
Lisa Fabry: about the... joys of a successful marriage back a few episodes ago. And
Tanaya & Matt: Yes.
Lisa Fabry: it was a great episode, by the way, people definitely should listen to that. But I
Tanaya & Matt: thank you.
Lisa Fabry: love that you talked about this, it's that when you come to a second, third marriage or whatever later in life, you have different ideas of what it's going to be like, you've got your own lives and do your own things. You don't need
Tanaya & Matt: Mm. Yes.
Lisa Fabry: to be quite so dependent on each other.
Tanaya & Matt: Yes. Now that lifestyle that you've just described sounds like the perfect lifestyle for a Vata Gemini, which you are, which you and I both are. And a little bit of a side note, Lisa and I actually share the same birthday really? Yes.
Lisa Fabry: No.
Tanaya & Matt: I'm completely irrelevant in this conversation. I feel like Lisa is my long lost twin and very fortuitous circumstances brought us together. It feels very serendipitous how we came into each other's lives. Now on that going over to yoga which is How we met, we met through yoga therapy. So you've been practicing yoga for over 30 years, which is no short stint. Now, what drew you to the path of yoga and indeed qigong And when did you know that these disciplines would become a part of your life's work? And how do you make them work together?
Lisa Fabry: just doing maths in my head and I'm realizing it's actually more than 40 years since I started yoga. That's really showing my age, isn't it? But I was
Tanaya & Matt: Mm-hmm.
Lisa Fabry: at university and I had never been good at sports. it was very competitive and I wasn't good at it. And I found a yoga class I could go to at university that all the teachers and the admin staff went to. So in England at the time, was gentle Hatha yoga, very quiet practice. You were invited to move your body at your own pace. It was non-competitive. And for me, that combination of mind, body, moving according to the breath. was really very calming for me. I was always a very fast moving, in my head kind of person. And I just absolutely loved it. It saved me really for the rest of my life, helped me
Tanaya & Matt: Mm.
Lisa Fabry: through all sorts of difficult times as I know you know, Tanaya just having that practice. So I've doing that certainly most of my life. Throughout having babies, throughout bringing up young children, throughout all the different jobs I ever did. And I think maybe because of that I became very interested in health and nutrition. organic things, detoxifying my environment a lot earlier than before that was really fashionable.
Tanaya & Matt: I'm sure you're going to get to this, but everyone's familiar with yoga and of course there are many faces of yoga but I'm sure Matt may not and many people out there may not be familiar with qigong So perhaps for Matt's benefit and others who don't know what qigong is.
Lisa Fabry: Absolutely. I was going to fast forward to that rapidly. But just to say, I decided to train to become a yoga teacher at the age of 37, which is pretty old.
Tanaya & Matt: Mm-hmm.
Lisa Fabry: I've been practicing it for many years. And I also... started studying to become a nutritionist at that time too. So those were my two paths from then on. I didn't really see how they were going to come together. But eventually they did. I came to qigong much later in life. I was teaching yoga in Adelaide and a friend of mine was teaching qigong with the teacher that I currently work with. And I did some classes with her, but it wasn't until 2020 when I really decided to get into it because that was when I got COVID for the first time. And I've actually had COVID three times and certainly the first and second one, I was in it for the long haul. So it took me several years to really recover from from that. Yes. Yes. And
Tanaya & Matt: Really? what they call long COVID. Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
Lisa Fabry: I trained for my first Qigong training in 2021, which was two months after I'd contracted it for the first time. And it was all I could do really during that time to just lift my hands up and lower them. and breathe and have visualizations. And I found that the Qigong worked faster than yoga and more gently to restore my energy. So I just fell in love with it at that time. And I haven't forgotten about yoga. I haven't like moved from yoga to Qigong. But as I get older and with the illnesses and certain injuries that I've had, I found that my physical practice tends to lean towards the Qigong far more.
Tanaya & Matt: So for a lay person like myself, could it be described
Lisa Fabry: What is it?
Tanaya & Matt: as a more gentle almost I'm thinking Tai Chi movements with with a concentration on breath which no doubt would have helped with the Covid difficulties that you were dealing with.
Lisa Fabry: Yes, and because just like yoga, there are thousands of different types of Qigong and as many different ways of practicing it as there are practitioners.
Tanaya & Matt: Mm.
Lisa Fabry: So it has parallels with yoga in that it's the foundation of all the mind body practices in China. And out of that came Tai Chi, out of that came all of the martial arts. And it's
Tanaya & Matt: And of course we're speaking of the physical versions of these modalities as well. We're not speaking of the other ways that you can practice yoga and
Lisa Fabry: Yes, exactly. just as in yoga, you can just do Bhakti yoga, which is just devotional, hardly any physical work at all, just singing and praying. The same
Tanaya & Matt: Mm. Mm.
Lisa Fabry: is true of Qigong. There's religious Qigong, there's secular Qigong, there's martial Qigong. But the style I practice is called Taoist medical Qigong, which is based on Lao Tzu and the Tao Te Ching and the I Ching and the ancient traditions of shamanism. So it's very similar to yoga therapy. So it's about using this mind-body practice for healing
Tanaya & Matt: Mm.
Lisa Fabry: and to apply it to an individual with a specific aim in mind.
Tanaya & Matt: And and if you had to describe yoga therapy, is that the way you would describe it? As as the process of of tailoring something towards just an individual as opposed to a broader class structured approach?
Lisa Fabry: Yes, yes, absolutely. And the key word is therapy. So the intention being healing on all levels, know, physical, mental,
Tanaya & Matt: Yes.
Lisa Fabry: emotional, spiritual, and that choice of practice, depending on what somebody wants to heal at that time.
Tanaya & Matt: Mm, mm.
Lisa Fabry: And it changes, you need to change that practice to adapt to the individual's changing level. Like, you know, at the beginning, I only needed the very smallest practice. As I healed from the fatigue condition, I wanted to build stronger, more dynamic Qigong. And you certainly can do that. I wouldn't say that it was necessarily slow and gentle. The style I practice can be very dynamic and strong. But it goes incredibly well with yoga, so it doesn't conflict at all. In fact, they complement each other really, really well.
Tanaya & Matt: So yoga, qigong but you're also trained as a nutritionist and indeed as an editor as we know. You're wearing so many different hats. how do you balance all of that and synchronize that together? I mean I know what it's like juggling my artistic life and my admin life, which I find a nightmare. how do you do it?
Lisa Fabry: Tanaya you probably understand being a Gemini Vata. It's not like I haven't chosen to wear a lot of different hats. And to me, each choice or path that I followed has made total sense from where
Tanaya & Matt: Mm-hmm.
Lisa Fabry: I'm at. So I don't feel like they are all that different, although it might seem very... weird to say that, but I can explain why. And I don't see it as difficult to weave them together. In fact, I feel like they enrich each other. So in a way, they're all showing me different versions of the same truths. They're helping me to weave my tapestry of my life to fill in all the gaps, the interest, the curiosity and blend it all together to come up with Lisa Fabry's view of the world and how she's going to live in it. And
Tanaya & Matt: Mm-hmm.
Lisa Fabry: if anything, I would rather everybody got a chance to live this way rather than have to choose one profession and go in there
Tanaya & Matt: Yes.
Lisa Fabry: and then do everything else when they get home from work.
Tanaya & Matt: And look, it's very much the case for many yoga teachers, and yoga therapists, to pay the bills, we do need to be multifaceted in what we offer, unless of course you're an influencer these days, and making those online streams of income. I mean, the cost of living seems to keep going up and it's not easy making ends meet doing what we do. So we do have to have these side hustles. No. nor nor acting. Well
Lisa Fabry: 100 % Nobody ever went into yoga to become rich.
Tanaya & Matt: yes. I love your answer to that they all work hand in hand all these different modalities, the qigong the yoga, the nutrition. And so, balancing those without losing the depth of each. When you, for example, work with clients one-on-one. Do you come in with the yoga therapy hat? I know I had the the privilege of participating in your Yoga for Healthy Bones course recently, which I might mention in a sec, but during that course I loved how you did bring in yoga wisdom, you bought in the nutrition, you bought in qigong And it was a beautiful balance, but you advertised that under the yoga banner, but I thought that worked quite nicely.
Lisa Fabry: Yeah, yeah, I think the more I started out as a yoga teacher and that's, said to you, I didn't know how I was going to bring nutrition into that. And then I qualified as a nutritionist and I sort of practiced separately. But now what I really want to do is work with a client on their whole life or focus on a theme or a condition, menopause or bone health and recognize that those things are multifactorial. So just like any human is going to want to talk about what they eat, how they move their body, what supplements they take, what they do for their mental health. I feel like I cover some of
Tanaya & Matt: Mm.
Lisa Fabry: the bases and I love working with people one-to-one because then what comes out of it is what is it they want in their practice, which of these traditions draws the most and we'll put together a practice that works exactly for them. So it's yoga therapy meets medical Qigong meets food as medicine.
Tanaya & Matt: And of course that makes sense that holistic approach to someone's health. But how does that relationship play out when you move into the kind of more cerebral editing side of your life?
Lisa Fabry: Yeah, good question. One of the wonderful things about working with you, Tanaya is that we were both coming from the same tradition and working on content, which was reflecting our values and reinforcing them and then communicating with each other from a yoga perspective of mutual respect. And I feel like our practice informed our working relationship so much. So that was a joy and I do really particularly enjoy working with authors within the mind body realm to help them
Tanaya & Matt: Mm, mm hmm.
Lisa Fabry: get these really important messages out into the world to more people so that more people can be taking responsibility for their own health and feeling empowered about it. So that's how editing is inspiring for me, but it's also even a bit more similar in that, when you do yoga or qigong, you go inward and you look at what's within, finding the authentic truths within you, and then... you express outwards. So you manage your own energy and then you beam it out. And the same with writing. So you go within, you write, write, have all these ideas. And then you're like, really somebody should read this. So then you have to have the ability to project it outwards. And some authors find it really helpful. to have an editor to help them to realize that vision in the world And I can just help them to make that process more streamlined. But you can see how it's a similar inward outward dynamic.
Tanaya & Matt: when we were working together through the editing process on evolving traditions, it certainly didn't feel like you were just editing. there was a real process and a practice at work, and I would say of a spiritual nature. And there were times when it got very tricky. There were a few slippery slopes there with the technologies that we were using. We were moving between Mac and Microsoft Windows, which I'm a Mac person, and when I see Microsoft Windows, my brain starts doing cartwheels and with our unique understandings of the many and varied yoga practices that I I felt those challenges that we faced during that process was a real practice and it was very beneficial working with someone who was not only the editor but had such a rich understanding of the subject matter. So as most people out there in yoga land know, there are many different yoga lineages, interpretations, translations, perspectives, which I write about in the book, in that chapter on bridging philosophical divides. And I touch upon how crucial it is on the path of yoga, and of course you can apply this. To any tradition, how crucial it is to acknowledge the complex nature of interpretation, translation and perspective. And of course, interpretation, it's influenced by beliefs, values, education, all of that. but the process of translating ancient texts, it introduces nuances, errors, cultural biases, That may well indeed distort the original meaning. And for this reason, I hope that I made it clear enough and you helped me with that process at the beginning of the book. my intention was to offer a helpful framework that's really helped me in my own practice and one that's been helpful for many of my one-to-one clients. and just having the privilege of working with you through that. you helped me discover more of my voice Well, I remember we spoke a few weeks ago, Lisa, and you talked about finding the author's voice. And even in my world I've worked with editors on creative projects. And, any writer wants to hear that from an editor. I'm sure that they will find and bring out your voice and show the world what it is you're trying to say. How do you do that? Is that putting your own ego to the side? how is that achieved?
Lisa Fabry: I think the author comes to you with their own voice already,
Tanaya & Matt: Mm.
Lisa Fabry: they might not feel confident about it. And certainly Tanaya's writing and personality and... incredible vast knowledge was evident right from the very beginning. when I saw the sample that you showed me at the beginning, I knew immediately that you were going to be a great author to work with. But I think whether or not somebody's just beginning or they have a lot of knowledge and experience, really it's important to talk to them a lot or read them a lot, and absorb their words and try and, tune into what their message is rather than, just sweeping in and trying to do all the corrections. So I try to feel their vision and find the threads that are running through it. Sometimes people's threads aren't clear. And so I need to help them find those pathways through a text. So sweeping the pathway clean so that we
Tanaya & Matt: Mm.
Lisa Fabry: can make that vision as clear as possible and keeping their voice, which might even include, colloquialism, idioms,
Tanaya & Matt: Yes.
Lisa Fabry: et cetera, but making sure that it doesn't make actual errors. And in order to do that, it does involve removing your ego a bit. Because I think when I
Tanaya & Matt: Yeah.
Lisa Fabry: was first starting in this, I was like, well, I could write that much better than you. And I'd go in and I rewrite it all. And that isn't what people want. So you need a lot of communication and we had a lot of that. Tanaya sends me a section, I read it. I come back with, well, I can see this. What did you mean by this? have you thought about this? And then she'd come back and go, yeah, I meant this, blah, blah. So it wasn't just one correction, boom, we're done. It's a process, just like yoga therapy, and medical prescription, qigong you work together. It's a collaboration.
Tanaya & Matt: Yes. And because I was so close to the text having, worked on it for the last fifteen years, it was challenging for me to hand that over and entrust that to you. And and I know this might sound a bit woo-woo to some people out there, but I think Geminis have a particular way of thinking. And I think They certainly do. They certainly do. I think you really got my brain and you got that, I needed to have what I'd already written not messed with too much, but at the same time I needed someone to come in and say, okay, well we can make this better in this way, but it in a gentle way, in a way that acknowledged that I had been working on this for a long time and you weren't just going to come away and sweep it out from under my feet. And I think that's what probably any author worries about in working with. A publisher is that they are going to come through and sweep out, all of their hard work and edit it right down into something that perhaps isn't theirs. Is not theirs. And that's the beauty of self-publishing and still getting to work with professionals like yourself and like Karen. from Red Feather Publishing you get the professional insights but you still get to keep the integrity of the work.
Lisa Fabry: Yeah, you've really put your finger on that vulnerability that the author feels with their precious work that has taken so much heart. And as I said earlier, it's come from inside and now you are presenting it to somebody else. So it's a very sensitive area and I'm still learning how to be. sensitive and respectful enough as I'm going through going, that's wrong, that's wrong, that's wrong. But you were incredibly good at receiving the comments and very open and gracious about making changes if they were needed or just understanding that there were some things that I... understood better than you, perhaps some silly nitty gritty bits about grammar that I get very concerned about and you were like, goodness, so much of it doesn't matter. The commas go there, no they don't.
Tanaya & Matt: I know. what was that thing that we kept going back and forth on with punctuation and I
Lisa Fabry: comma after the and or before the and.
Tanaya & Matt: I couldn't get my head around that. The comma after the and... But isn't that interesting? with five hundred with five hundred and twenty-two pages,
Lisa Fabry: Only when it's a stuffed clause though.
Tanaya & Matt: that's the moment that you can focus on. And I know that from performing stand up comedy, to
Lisa Fabry: Yeah.
Tanaya & Matt: hundreds of people, and everyone is laughing except for one person, but that's the person that I'm focusing on, not all the other stuff. It's the little tiny minutia that gets under your skin sometimes. so I mean in the spirit of making messages clear for everybody, I know this is a passion for both of you that yoga and of course particularly yoga therapy, you want to see it brought into the mainstream so that people understand it and embrace it as a really legitimate healing force for good for their holistic health approaches. So how do you define yoga therapy for the lay person and its distinction from yoga and how do we put forward that message in a more positive and helpful and embracing way?
Lisa Fabry: Well, you're right, Matt, it would be great if it was offered more widely as part of a general holistic health approach integrated into the system. That's what I'd like to see. But the yoga therapy tells you what it is in the word. So... therapy, just like prescription Qigong tells you what it is. So it's a particular practice designed for an individual with the intention of bringing some healing, as we mentioned before. And so it's very much the same process, an interaction between teacher and student as it is with publishing. And it's about using your skills of observation and interview to help a person realize what it is that they need in their life and the same with the author too, This is why there are so many parallels. Can you see it now? Or does it make more sense?
Tanaya & Matt: Mm mm. Yes.
Lisa Fabry: But Tanaya do you want to pick up on this because you are working specifically in yoga therapy. So how do you see that?
Tanaya & Matt: Well, I did a full episode on that in episode three. so for me it's really about the personalization. So, I'm not sure how a lot of other yoga therapists out there work, but when I work with a client one-on-one, we go through quite an extensive consultation process to begin. And a lot of questions are asked not only about what's going on in their physical body, but we start to move through the layers. And I love using the koshas the five layers of the self, and so we go through the questionnaire and I get a holistic picture of where they're at through all of those different layers, and then that informs. over a series of months. I like working with people usually over a three month period. I love working in 10 session blocks over that three months and I find that's necessary to go beyond the tip of the iceberg because you know I used to offer A few sessions I used to offer one-on-ones and I just found this this is a bit of a waste of time, because we're wanting to go in deep here. We're wanting to get down to the root cause of what's currently going on in their physical reality. And in order to get to the root, that takes time. So what it isn't, if I'm hearing you both correctly, is You and one person just basically doing a yoga class. No. But one on one. Because I'm sure that's what a lot of people might in their mind imagine, I'm just gonna go onto my mat and I'm gonna do all these poses one on one and this teacher is going to adjust. And that's not what we're talking about. No, it's definitely not that. And I'm so glad you mentioned that because I often think is that what people think yoga therapy is that you go in and you've got the yoga therapist there just working on your tech and look for some people that may be necessary to begin that might be a beginning point, and by all means when I'm going through that consultation process looking at the person's physical body and doing a physical assessment is an important part of that process because you can see a lot of where that person has been metaphysically by the current posture posture, by the imbalances in their physical body.
Lisa Fabry: And their breath, the way they breathe, way they hold themselves, the way they move.
Tanaya & Matt: Yeah, so just on yoga therapy, Lis you stepped away from the AusActive Yoga Therapy Advisory Group before we closed that chapter, but I'm wondering from where you're situated over there in San Fran right now, what do you think are the biggest barriers to yoga therapy becoming more widely accessible?
Lisa Fabry: Hmm, well what I see here is that it's lot bigger than it is in Australia and it is becoming integrated into medical centers, nursing homes, hospitals and there's even a university with a degree program in yoga therapy. So,
Tanaya & Matt: and of course the beautiful Amy Wheeler. we're talking about the School of Integrative Health at Notre Dame of Maryland University. Is that what you're talking about, Lis?
Lisa Fabry: Thank you. didn't know the name of it or where it was, but I did know that Amy Wheeler was heading that up and she'll be doing a fantastic job.
Tanaya & Matt: And they offer a master of science in yoga therapy there. Okay.
Lisa Fabry: And it's not obviously the only way into yoga therapy because there are many courses in yoga therapy available as we studied ourselves. I think we did the same qualification as well, didn't we? Yes, yes.
Tanaya & Matt: With the Yoga Therapy Institute? Yes, we did.
Lisa Fabry: we have had a similar path even before we knew each other. But just like Australia, cost is a factor because coverage by the health system or by
Tanaya & Matt: Mm.
Lisa Fabry: insurance is not common. So most insurers don't cover it here just like most extras funds in Australia don't cover it there. It's not often covered by Medicare or NDIS. And I think that is obviously one of the huge factors, especially if you were quite right in saying it's really important to see somebody over a period of time. And if somebody's got to fund it out of their own pocket, know, 10 sessions is
Tanaya & Matt: Mm.
Lisa Fabry: going to be prohibitive for a lot of people. But I do think one of the other things that gets in the way everywhere in the Western world is a lack of confidence by doctors. and a lack of knowledge about what it is, a misperception, understandably. And so there's very little integration. There's no referral pathways like there
Tanaya & Matt: Mm.
Lisa Fabry: are for physiotherapists and so on. Really, there should be one for yoga therapy.
Tanaya & Matt: Absolutely. And I think that's, a danger as well with a lot of GPs telling their patients, go and do some yoga. And, what kind of yoga, and what I've discovered in my 20 years of teaching is that, a lot of people that come to my classes, they'll often say, My GP said I should go and do some yoga. And I say, I'm really glad you came to this class because you know you're full of all of these injuries. And I know if you had have gone to that other class, which might have been, a power vinyasa or something like that, you may well have been scared off and never come back again. So it's really important that GPs have this knowledge of. what kind of yoga are you sending your patients to? Because we want them to keep coming back. And I understand that a lot of people do shy away from yoga because perhaps they go to a class that's just not suitable for them.
Lisa Fabry: Yeah. And it can be very
Tanaya & Matt: Yeah.
Lisa Fabry: off putting and, you know, Matt, I'm so glad that you did jump in there with like a lay person's point of view, because I
Tanaya & Matt: Mm.
Lisa Fabry: wouldn't have thought of explaining that it's not a yoga class, but ultimately, and you all agree Tanaya probably a yoga therapy practice works out as being, 15 or 20 minutes a day, maybe even less. And might involve a little bit of breathing, a little bit of centering, some meditation and it may have very little movement at all. But if it does have movement it's not going to be a power vinyasa or an ashtanga practice, to
Tanaya & Matt: It may just be focusing on the joints, just a
Lisa Fabry: Yeah.
Tanaya & Matt: a simple joint awakening sequence, And that more subtle work is often so much more powerful because it involves a lot more stillness and it's when we start coming into the stillness that we start. really coming into the yoga.
Lisa Fabry: But you know, what is really, really important is that you have your own personal practice and preferably something you do every day. And from
Tanaya & Matt: Mm.
Lisa Fabry: my experience, preferably you do something at... beginning of your day, before you take yourself out into the world. So you are cleansed, readied, prepared for all the delightful and not so delightful things that the world is going to lay on you.
Tanaya & Matt: How do you start your day? What does your sadhana well what does your dinacharya look like in the morning? Your morning routine?
Lisa Fabry: Well, I do some Ayurvedic practices in the tongue cleansing and oil pulling, things like that. But I do start my day with some... as I just mentioned, centering, grounding, coming into myself, having an awareness of myself in a body, meeting the new day. And by the way, before I do this, I have not checked my phone or had a cup of coffee.
Tanaya & Matt: Mm. Mm.
Lisa Fabry: I'll do this first, as I said, to give me the grounding to meet the day. So it'll involve that, it'll definitely involve a focus on the breath in order to calm or energize depending on what I need. And it will always involve some gentle movement. At the moment, I have a broken toe. I'm nursing that injury and I
Tanaya & Matt: Yeah.
Lisa Fabry: can't really do very much standing work. but I have been doing some seated work and some gentle standing work. nothing ever stops me doing my practice. My practice
Tanaya & Matt: Yeah.
Lisa Fabry: changes to adapt to who I am on that particular day. And that's what I love to teach my clients is I'll help them develop a practice to do now, but help them know how to change it when they need to and respond to their body's own demands or requests.
Tanaya & Matt: Absolutely. You know, centering and breath, for example, which we know has had many, many medical and peer reviewed studies. We know it's true. We know that the centering of the breath calms We've got data on it, we know the physiological effects of it. We know all that. And yet when you bring it up as under the umbrella of yoga therapy, all of a sudden for people it goes into it's all scary and eastern and whatnot, when it's proven that you can improve the quality of your life.
Lisa Fabry: That's right, yeah. And my white tiger Qigong teacher, Tevye Fang, is unique in that he has brought together the ancient understandings of the practices and the ancient texts with a modern understanding of sports science. a bit like we do in yoga therapy. And so
Tanaya & Matt: Yeah.
Lisa Fabry: that when I'm teaching either yoga or Qigong, I'm explaining to people what it is that's happening to their bodies, minds and nervous system and why. So they know why they're doing the practice and it isn't
Tanaya & Matt: Mm.
Lisa Fabry: just a magical woo woo spiritual
Tanaya & Matt: Yes.
Lisa Fabry: scary thing as you just implied.
Tanaya & Matt: Yes. And of course there's a big section of our world that is a lot of people with no mobility at all and can they
Lisa Fabry: Yeah.
Tanaya & Matt: not practice yoga? Of course they can be the best yoga practitioners through the more metaphysical practices. now Lis, all of your incredible work aside for a moment, because you do wear so many different hats, teleporting back to where it all began. If you could go back, would you do anything differently?
Lisa Fabry: hehe Wouldn't it be nice if we could do that? I want to preface it by saying I recognize it had to happen the way it did. And, I wouldn't be me if it hadn't happened the way it did. And oftentimes we get the most transformation from the most difficult and painful experiences. So... If I say, I would have liked this, it's just with a tongue in cheek because really I'm happy and grateful with what life has given me. But I will say that what I'm feeling more and more as I get older is that we are all vulnerable human beings who don't really know how to live in the world and we just get born into the world, we muddle through and wouldn't it be nice if we all learned how to thrive from day one rather than having to strive and
Tanaya & Matt: Mm.
Lisa Fabry: struggle? I have been exposed to some amazing influences in my life that have helped me so much and I guess I might think wouldn't it have been nice to have been exposed to those earlier? Wouldn't
Tanaya & Matt: Mm-hmm.
Lisa Fabry: it have been nice to know more about parenting before I did it? Wouldn't
Tanaya & Matt: Mm-hmm.
Lisa Fabry: it have been nice to understand about communication between boys and girls when I was a teenager or
Tanaya & Matt: Mm.
Lisa Fabry: how to even talk about my own emotions or become aware of them. But as I said, I recognize It comes through a lot of time. Wisdom is, I say it's the accumulation of knowledge plus experience plus intuition. And you can only get that over living through a lot of, you know. But
Tanaya & Matt: Mm.
Lisa Fabry: you know, get to the end of your life knowing more than you did at the beginning
Tanaya & Matt: Hopefully. Hopefully Well that that's the grand and cruel irony of the life we lead, isn't it? Is that you go out going, I wish I'd known that bang, I think the knowledge that we end up with as we become wiser is that, as Socrates said, there is one thing I know, and that is that I know nothing. And coming into this starting the day and going out into the world with a beginner's mind instead of going out there, professing that we know everything and that we have all the answers. I'm much more interested in the curious minds and you know, the conversations that remain open rather than the conversations that seem to have definitive answers because I don't think there are any.
Lisa Fabry: Absolutely, yeah. And I think that's one of the beauties of coming into this phase of life that I like to think of as my wisdom years. I agree with everything you said. It's a very much process of simplification, letting go. It's very much about tolerance and just allowing everything else and everyone else to be as they are. And instead of saying, I know about this, do it my way. It's, I've had this great experience with this. Would you like to try it? So
Tanaya & Matt: Mm.
Lisa Fabry: I think that's kind of like the way I work now.
Tanaya & Matt: Now, Lis, I recently had the pleasure, of immersing myself in your online Yoga for Healthy Bones course. So thank you again for giving me access to that. I've really enjoyed it. And in the final module. I lit up like a Christmas tree when I saw the phrase that you used to introduce the module. You said Yi Dao Qi Dao
Lisa Fabry: Chi
Tanaya & Matt: Which can be translated in so many beautiful ways. Where intention goes, energy flows, where the mind goes, energy flows. When intention arrives, qi arrives, or more simply, energy follows intent. Now it's a principle that runs through many of the traditions that we both draw from Yoga, Chigung, Taoism, the internal arts. All pointing to this relationship between mind, breath, and energy. So whether we're talking about the koshas in yoga, or how focused awareness guides our internal processes, it all seems to echo that same idea. And it also connects to something that you and I The Gemini Vata twinies that we are, we've spoken about before that over time practice does become simpler. Less about doing more, more about refining attention and intention. And that's very much a principle in yoga therapy as well. Often the most effective practices are the most subtle. So with that in mind. How do you see your work evolving from here across yoga therapy, Qigong your editorial work? And what does that kind of refined simplicity look like for you going forward?
Lisa Fabry: Hmm. Well, I think, yeah, as I just said, my approach now is much less about pushing forwards in order to tell people what to do. And instead of... putting myself up as an expert. And I must confess in the past, I might've put myself up as a supposed expert, but I felt like that imposter syndrome. And I think I was trying to offer too much and not feeling fully confident. Whereas now I'm in a stage where I've tried all these things I know. what they do, I understand them from the inside, I've embodied them. And I'm in a stage of acknowledging that I built up all of that experience and I want to share it. And I like sharing it one-to-one, I like sharing it in groups, on videos, at retreats. I love working with people and I... I've got to a point where I'm really like, I don't really care about earning money. you know, it's nice, but when it's your motivating force, it's not quite
Tanaya & Matt: Mm.
Lisa Fabry: as good as when you are giving so freely. And really I love the Buddhist way of doing it, where you have your Dharma bowl in the corner and the people come in and do the practice. I would like it to be like that if possible. But I have taken it into this modern world as... I put up stuff freely on YouTube. I put out content, full length content instead of just a little snippet and then say, buy this. I'll always offer people in the spirit of sangha. a community rate, a reduced rate for anybody's experiencing
Tanaya & Matt: Yeah.
Lisa Fabry: financial hardship. I just want to have this knowledge be preserved in the spirit and tradition of both the yoga and the Qigong lineages is that we... take our teachings from our teachers. We live it and we rework it and then we share it to me, that's what these traditions are about. They're about helping people to be more aware of their body, emotions, the sensations, their energy, helping people to feel, in control of that, not in a tight way, but in a grounded, steady. calm and aware way and from that place being able to go out into the world and choose what they do.
Tanaya & Matt: Beautiful.
Lisa Fabry: And yes, I wish I'd known that at the age of 30 and I could have been doing that ever since and made so much more difference but
Tanaya & Matt: Mm-hmm.
Lisa Fabry: I'm doing it now.
Tanaya & Matt: I feel like there was so much that we wanted to chat about today, and we've really just chipped the surface of all of the things that we could have spoken about. But I hope that we've given listeners a little sneak peek into the world of Lisa Fabry and all of the wonderful things that you do and thank you for letting listeners know that you have these free offerings. where might they find some of these free offerings just to have a sneak peek at what you do and perhaps that might inspire someone to reach out and work with you more on a one-to-one basis because of course these days even though you're in San Fran, they could work with you
Lisa Fabry: be anywhere.
Tanaya & Matt: You could be anywhere. they can have a Zoom session with you from anywhere.
Lisa Fabry: in Australia over the Christmas, New Year, early part of next year period as well.
Tanaya & Matt: Well, you are nice.
Lisa Fabry: So, well, my name is quite unusual. Really, you don't have to remember much, but if you put Lisa Fabry into Google, you'll find out all sorts of interesting things about me, not just what
Tanaya & Matt: Yeah.
Lisa Fabry: we talked about today. But my website's called lisafabry.com. So there's things on there. There's blogs and recipes and links to other things. I have a YouTube channel. It is very small and in development. I also have published videos on the White Tiger Qigong YouTube channel. that you could search for. I do have Facebook and Instagram. I'm not a crazy social media poster, so I don't have a lot going on there. I dropped back into a quieter, more authentic approach for me. But I do have this course that you mentioned, Yoga for Healthy Bones, and... No?
Tanaya & Matt: And thank you for all the wonderful recipes in that as well. You do have some some lovely
Lisa Fabry: You're welcome. I've written a recipe book too, by the way. but if people are interested in that yoga for healthy bones, I wonder if you would like to share the link with them in your show notes. And I would like
Tanaya & Matt: We will. We'll put all of those links in the description, yes.
Lisa Fabry: to offer them a gift, which is a discount off the course which is a 44 % discount just because it was a number that I liked. So I'll give you a code for that, a coupon that you can use if you're interested in the course and if you just want to chat to me and see if there's anything that we can do together there's a link to book a free call with me.
Tanaya & Matt: I I do recommend because I offer those 15-minute free chats as well, and I really recommend that people take you up on that because it's free, there's no obligation, and you know, I think it's not a heavy sales call,
Lisa Fabry: Yeah, it's not a heavy sales call, that's for sure.
Tanaya & Matt: in that 15 minutes you can really get to the root of what someone's looking for and and at the very least we can help people point them at least in the right direction for them so I do encourage people to take you up on that. Well Lisa, thank you so much for joining us this evening for you, this morning for us and being part of the conversation. May we continue to Hold the traditions that we inherit with respect, while making room for what is needed today with compassion, with kindness, and with a little less certainty. So respect the roots, welcome the growth, and let's keep evolving. Goodbye for now.
Lisa Fabry: Goodbye, thank you so much.
Tanaya & Matt: Thanks, Lisa. Thank you, Lisa.
