Candice Wu 0:00

Hello, welcome to the Embody podcast. This is Candice Wu. I’m delighted to be talking with Gina Fitzpatrick today, the independent owner of One Key Yoga in Chicago, Illinois, and the mother of whom she describes as four very interesting humans.

Candice Wu 0:14

You can find her in the studio nestled in Ravenswood/Lincoln Square neighborhood teaching Yoga for everybody or having tea with friends and poised for joy and a tomato connoisseur. She is the seeker of Truth and the worst, bad pun.

Candice Wu 0:28

Here in this podcast, we talked about how her studio began, including the sweet origins of the name of her studio, One Key Yoga, how she and David Bowie are bonded. The struggle and beauty of moving through grief and being seen in her current mantra of “I am listening.” Without further ado, enjoy this conversation with Gina.

Candice Wu 0:48

Okay, Gina, I’m sitting here at One Key Yoga, and I love this studio. Tell me about it. Tell me about you.

Gina Fitzpatrick 0:56

Oh, okay. Well, firstly, thank you.

Gina Fitzpatrick 0:59

We are about three years old, we just had a birthday on February 2nd, and it’s just a place I really look forward to come into, I haven’t had one of those days where I thought, “Oh, God, I can’t go in there.” Or “Oh, God, I can teach another Yoga class there.” So, it’s just one of those places that feels very much like an extension of home, you know, and sometimes it feels more like home, actually.

Candice Wu 1:21

What made you choose the name One-Key?

Gina Fitzpatrick 1:23

Oh, that’s a great story, actually.

Gina Fitzpatrick 1:26

There was a while there where I was teaching at every studio, literally, like every studio in Chicago. And I had a key chain that was just filled with keys. And you know, I was going into studios, and I was going from, you know, Edison park to Humble Park and I just had this readily key chain. And I was working so much I was working every day, I was teaching two or three classes a day all over the city. And because my husband had lost his job, and we were really basically living on savings and Yoga money, I was really determined to you know, be a help, and to make sure that we were okay.

Gina Fitzpatrick 2:00

At that time, we had an 18-year-old daughter that was going away to college, and three other kids at home, I just felt like this was the best way I could continue making money and make sure that we were okay. And then when he got back on his feet, I realized I didn’t have to work this hard anymore. But I didn’t know how to give up my classes, you know, you get a bond, you get really attached to your people, and they get attached to you.

Gina Fitzpatrick 2:24

So, I couldn’t really decide like which studio, what group, what community I was going to say no too because I was exhausted.

Gina Fitzpatrick 2:33

The story is that I was sitting with a friend of mine, and I said, “You know, one of these days, I’m gonna open up a studio, I’m going to go down to one key. I’m gonna invite everybody that I know, to come to take classes.” And he said, “That’s the name of the studio!”

Gina Fitzpatrick 2:47

So we put it out there on social media, you know, I had other things like I really love the Sanskrit language, it’s phonetic so it just vibrates really well in my body. But we just kind of threw it out there. Like, what if you were to choose what would you choose, and it was on Facebook and Instagram. And overwhelmingly, people said One Key. And because keys are really personal.

Gina Fitzpatrick 3:07

And once I started doing my research, I realized, you know, three keys and Christianity what that means keys to love, hope, etc.

Gina Fitzpatrick 3:15

People collect them, and there are antique keys that are just worth millions of dollars. And I didn’t know that until I started doing this research. And I didn’t do this research until actually pretty recently, I’m just going to love the name. And then recently, I was like, let’s backtrack and see why.

Candice Wu 3:34

I’ve heard many students just love listening to you in the beginning of your classes. How do you approach your classes? And what do you feel you bring?

Gina Fitzpatrick 3:43

Well, that’s a great question.

Gina Fitzpatrick 3:46

It’s personal for me. Yoga’s personal for me. I mean, it’s the system that I use to, you know, get better to get well. And I couldn’t wait to learn more about it to share it. So this gives me an opportunity to do that.

Gina Fitzpatrick 4:00

My approach is, I don’t know if it’s partially from Kriya Yoga, from Kriyananda, from the Temple Kriya, and partially from, like, David Bowie stuff.

Gina Fitzpatrick 4:13

And I’m not kidding. I know that sounds really crazy, but, like his way of just like reshuffling language and phrases from poetry or from writers that he loved, I was doing that with Yoga and didn’t even know that I was doing what he was doing until I was reading his biography. And I was like, “Oh, I identified immediate, like, that’s what I do I reshuffle things.”

Gina Fitzpatrick 4:36

So something might really strike me like, I might just be reading something, and it’ll hit me like, that’s a beautiful word or hadn’t heard that word, and then I’ll go and find out the many meanings of it. And I’ll loop that with music. So then I’ll go over to like, my library or might just go to Spotify, and I’ll start to type in that word or maybe a synonym of that word. And then it brings me to music, and then I loop all that together.

Gina Fitzpatrick 5:06

And that’s the way I began my classes. I know that sounds strange. And also know that sounds really arrogant to say that David Bowie and I shared a system.

Gina Fitzpatrick 5:19

And then in the beginning, if I ask questions, like, “What’s going on with your bodies? Like, how can we approach what you need?” You know, “What is your spirit saying to you today?”

Gina Fitzpatrick 5:28

That’s a big question to ask a group of people in front of other people. So sometimes it can be awkward. I’ll ask something that’s a little bit more benign than that, you know, not so intense. And if I get some feedback, and I get, like, if I’m getting that, oh, this mantra, or this music, or this class that I planned in this way, is going to land well with this community, then I continue.

Gina Fitzpatrick 5:54

Otherwise, I have to be on the fly and kind of switch things out. But normally, it’s well received, it has its own vibration, and it has its own momentum. And next thing, you know, it’s just weaving in and out of whatever they need, whatever the body is showing.

Candice Wu 6:08

In this last week, what’s one of those themes that you, or words that you have reshuffled and brought music together with?

Gina Fitzpatrick 6:14

This is not necessarily music, but I was listening to a podcast about the hero’s journey and the young expression in the hero’s journey, and I was looking at it specifically because I thought about how I have dear friends at my age, over 50, who are actually making this track, you know, where we start off in one place. And then we move through these different cycles of our lives. And then we wind our way back into that same place but in a different perspective.

Gina Fitzpatrick 6:45

And so for me what that was, was I was ballet-trained, and I worked with my body. And then I did it for a while. And then I was working in other fields that aren’t really making me happy. And I was home with children too. And that was lovely, but it also, I’ve missed this part.

Gina Fitzpatrick 7:01

And so now here, I’m back again in this full circle, in this journey of like, coming back to bodywork, but a different way. Better knowledge, more knowledge, more self-knowledge, more self-acceptance, etc.

Gina Fitzpatrick 7:15

Our journey is going to be from the beginning of the class to the end of the class. And we started with one pose in the beginning, and we ended with the same. And it wasn’t Shivasanasa, so it was a hard opener with blocks. And I wanted the continuity of moving through the body and then turning it back to that same place.

Candice Wu 7:33

Oh, I love that.

Gina Fitzpatrick 7:34

Yeah.

Candice Wu 7:35

Right. So you took the idea of the hero’s journey and gave it a pose.

Gina Fitzpatrick 7:40

And then just weaved it through. And then came back to it exactly the way we started. But, of course, with more information.

Gina Fitzpatrick 7:50

The mantra associated with that class was “I am listening.”

Gina Fitzpatrick 7:55

I think it’s a thread that people use a lot. And it really speaks to me and “I am listening,” such with Yoga is, an opportunity to listen, to quiet, to get information. This is a profound communicator, and so we need time and space to do exactly that. Sometimes it’s the community, and sometimes it’s home.

Candice Wu 8:14

I recently got into ballet.

Gina Fitzpatrick 8:16

Oh, really?

Candice Wu 8:16

And so it’s just taking your story about moving back around to bodywork.

Gina Fitzpatrick 8:21

Yeah.

Candice Wu 8:23

I started with cheerleading, then Yoga and all of the bodywork through Yoga and somatic work. But then I went towards ballet, which is just –

Gina Fitzpatrick 8:33

It’s very different, isn’t it?

Gina Fitzpatrick 8:35

Well, mostly because neutral is very different in ballet than it is in Yoga. It’s a whole different trip. Your neutral spine has a completely different look, or feel, or direction in ballet than it does in the Yoga.

Gina Fitzpatrick 8:49

So I don’t know what’s changed in the world of ballet and dance in the last couple of decades, probably more than that. But I remember being qued all the time to pubic tuck and to sort of soften the nap —

Candice Wu 9:02

For sure. Absolutely.

Gina Fitzpatrick 9:03

Absolutely. Yeah.

Gina Fitzpatrick 9:05

That’s how I was trained at from Temple Kriya is that the natural curve of the lumbar and the cervical, almost mimic each other. And there is no talking down that disrupts the hamstrings and it shifts the pelvis in a way that’s uncomfortable, and it disrupts the breathing into the diaphragm.

Gina Fitzpatrick 9:22

So when I was ballet-trained, it was tucked in and under. And that grips hamstrings and equip your quads. And it really made you feel like you were solidly and purposely very grounded, very anchored to the ground, which I felt was a little bit different than what we’re teaching and Yoga, a lot different because we want to be buoyant, right? We want our feet, if we are touching the mat, to be our foundation, but everything else to have this buoyancy.

Gina Fitzpatrick 9:50

When I see some people in class and their fingers are really locked together. And I feel like okay, that’s one way of holding energy, right? And keeping energy and not dispersing it in the extremities. And then I see other people with really sort of buoyant arms and loose hand and prana moves freely. Right?

Gina Fitzpatrick 10:09

So what is it that you want today? Are you containing because you just need that container? Or, are you feeling like, I just want it to flow all around me? So I guess that we go back to the “What am I? What am I hearing? You know, I am listening?”

Candice Wu 10:22

That’s really lovely to remember and to release the right and wrong?

Gina Fitzpatrick 10:27

Yeah, exactly.

Candice Wu 10:28

As I said earlier, we all want to know, we’re human. And we all are experiencing many of the same themes, especially as human consciousness, we are interconnected. What are you struggling with or tussling within your life or in your business?

Gina Fitzpatrick 10:43

To get very personal right off the bat, I’m in the middle of a divorce that was unexpected.

Gina Fitzpatrick 10:49

It was unexpected. And when it began, when our process started to move in totally different directions, and there was a lot of heartache and a lot of sorrow, there was a lot of you know, upheaval and having children that really you know, you think you have to decide like, “Do I? And, can I change this Karma for my children? And is it my right? Is it? What am I obligations here, right?”

Gina Fitzpatrick 11:13

Because as soon as you decide to do what you feel is right for you, then that ripple effect just goes all the way out to the ocean. So there was a lot of decision-making, a lot of hand-wringing, a lot of other things that went along with it. And I had to sort of sit with the fact that yes, I’m going to be responsible for this shift. And four people who depend on me, their lives, and it’s not going to be great. And it’s going to suck for a long time for them. And for me.

Gina Fitzpatrick 11:42

It’s a kind of a bigger story than I think probably most people know, or that I’ve been talking with some very close friends have known the story. But last year, my brother died. That was unexpected.

Gina Fitzpatrick 11:55

And then I had moved out of my home and moved into an apartment. And I was running this business, we also had the first year of Inner Peace Yoga Therapy training here, that all happened in the same week.

Gina Fitzpatrick 12:10

25 of the most spectacular women show up and they came in and I was looking around and thinking how can this be us? You know, we’re, we’re just really only two years old. And all this other stuff is going on and here we are: The space is filled with some of the most brilliant Yoga therapist, teachers in the country. And they’re filling our space once a month, and I just couldn’t believe it was possibly part of my doing.

Gina Fitzpatrick 12:36

I mean, all that was going on at the same time I was unpacking this apartment, to you know, helping my mother with her grief. And that was pretty profound. And I have to say, I wasn’t really switched on with the group here. I was being really private and really protected.

Gina Fitzpatrick 12:56

And we had a Chinnamasta who’s coming in next month and she came in for an Ayurvedic module. And she was sitting under that beautiful mandala. She didn’t know who I was. I never really introduced myself to these teachers as the studio owner. This was their space. This was their place to teach. I stayed out of the teacher seat and they were here.

Gina Fitzpatrick 13:18

And Chinnamasta, we looked at each other. I burst into tears. And I hadn’t cried like that. I hadn’t cried about the loss of my marriage in front of anybody. I hadn’t cried about the loss of my brother and hadn’t really dealt with all these tremendous losses. But she looked at me and she said, “I see you.”

Gina Fitzpatrick 13:40

I just burst into tears and they were tears of grief, tears of thank you, of deep gratitude. And then she just hugged me, and a really long hug. And it was a really long, uncomfortable hug for me like it was really long.

Gina Fitzpatrick 14:00

And I was like, “Excuse me, you’re breaking down my barrier. She’s taking all my walls down.”

Gina Fitzpatrick 14:10

Can I choose which one… and we sat there, that was a very tantric hug because we were sitting down. And she had her arms around me like she was really holding me. And she had me and that I’m you know, a middle-aged woman with my shit together, right?

Gina Fitzpatrick 14:32

And she had me put my left ear to her shoulder. And every few seconds she would whisper in my ear, “I see you.”

Gina Fitzpatrick 14:41

I hadn’t experienced that kind of intimacy before, where it was just like there was really nothing, no sound, no others, and I wept like a two-year-old. And I feel great afterward. I felt so relieved.

Gina Fitzpatrick 14:57

At the end of her weekend, we were sitting in a circle talking about what we learned and what we wanted to tell each other and for the first time in this group, I spoke up and was honest and said what you don’t know and I wasn’t very likable.

Gina Fitzpatrick 15:16

Believe me, I was very close to often very like writing notes and standing in the corner and making sure everybody had enough tea.

Gina Fitzpatrick 15:22

And I told them the story just about you know, my brother passing away and the loss of this marriage and how untethered I felt like, I was so Vata. I had no Earth.

Candice Wu 15:35

All your ground was shaken.

Gina Fitzpatrick 15:37

I was off. Yeah, it was all shaken.

Gina Fitzpatrick 15:42

And yeah, she was the first person that ever really, like, let me know, my friends were wonderful and beautiful. And they allowed me to carry on and do whatever I need to but I hadn’t had this kind of experience with anybody before or after.

Candice Wu 15:57

You’re speaking to just how much grieving and feeling with somebody in a safe, like, contained way. There’s just nothing like it. And it’s not like she said many other words to help you in your situation. It’s that she said, “I see you and held you.”

Gina Fitzpatrick 16:16

Yeah. And what was interesting to me as I really felt this very strongly, I almost felt it immediately, was that, you know, grief is, and you’ve probably heard this before, but grief is just love with nowhere to go. You know, I just have like a tremendous amount. I had no place for it. And, she gave me a place for it. You know?

Candice Wu 16:40

That hits me very deeply. “Grief is love with nowhere to go.”

Gina Fitzpatrick 16:44

Yeah, that’s not mine. I wish it were mine. But I hold it true.

Gina Fitzpatrick 16:47

When my brother, they brought him into hospice because his kidneys failed almost overnight. He knew he was passing and he was really afraid. So the hospice nurse got him on his feet. They put him, his feet on the ground.

Gina Fitzpatrick 17:03

And I didn’t know how people knew how to love like that, how to care like that for other people.

Gina Fitzpatrick 17:09

I mean, I think I’m a loving person. But I think, for a nurse to take the person and know that the what you can do is, is ground them as put their feet on earth. And he stopped being afraid. And that was a really big deal for me.

Gina Fitzpatrick 17:23

I think a lot of people who are afraid of other people’s dying like they’re one of the things I hear all the time is like, “I don’t want them to be afraid or I was so sad. I was so scared. They were afraid.”

Gina Fitzpatrick 17:33

Well, I was feeling that for him too. And when I spoke to the nurse, she said he was soon as his feet touch the ground, he was fine.

Gina Fitzpatrick 17:41

So I shared this with a class and then, later on, Chinnamasta sent me a note. And she said, “When you are unsure, know that I’m holding your feet to the ground.”

Gina Fitzpatrick 17:52

So I think about that all the time. And I think about her energy. And I think about how all of us are like that. Wanted someone in your life that you’re going to meet, you’ll have an exchange, and you might have that experience with them. And you get to, you know, walk alongside them with this journey. And it’s pretty amazing.

Gina Fitzpatrick 18:10

What would it be like, if you didn’t have to walk around with all this that you’re containing, maybe it’s more feminine than masculine, but to also not be a burden, or to bother, or to be the problem? It’s not appropriate to unleash or come in and vent or anything like that. But then you get so used to like making sure that’s contained. But that container gets filled up and filled up and filled up, and there’s no place for it to go except for up and out. And yeah –

Candice Wu 18:36

Yeah. And I’ve been thinking about how the more we play to that, we think maybe we’re going to be seen a certain way or we’re going to see ourselves a certain way. And yet, we contain and then we’re only playing to the fact that we believe this and it’s not even real.

Gina Fitzpatrick 18:54

It’s not even real.

Candice Wu 18:56

Like not the truth.

Gina Fitzpatrick 18:57

No. I mean, what was I fearing? I’m not sure, you know, looking vulnerable or not pulled together?

Candice Wu 19:03

Well, and even just facing the feeling of it, can be so hard, whether or not people are around? What are some challenges you found as a business owner?

Gina Fitzpatrick 19:12

You know, it’s not an easy way to make a living, you know, I mean, we try to make our classes and our workshops just as affordable as possible. And that’s honestly the truth. Because I felt very difficult at some points in my life to be able to afford to go to Yoga. And, you know, having to decide, you know, to Yoga or something else, you know.

Gina Fitzpatrick 19:33

And so we really tried to make it as affordable as possible. But then I have these really expert teachers that have invested time and money and have educated themselves. And they are avid learners, and they’re self-taught and they’re certified. And I really want to make sure that they’re paid well. And I want to make sure that this is a living wage for them and that they want to stay, we have almost no turnover, not in a long time. And I want to maintain that. I want the community to grow with our teachers.

Gina Fitzpatrick 20:06

My other perspective is that I hire very young teachers. What I mean by very young teachers, I mean, not that they’re young in age, but that they’re new to Yoga.

Gina Fitzpatrick 20:16

And I do that on purpose, I’m trying to give them a place to find their voice, and a place where they can learn from their students. And they can track their growth.

Gina Fitzpatrick 20:29

That’s not as easy as it sounds, because they don’t come with a following. Right?

Gina Fitzpatrick 20:35

So, there’s some sacrifice there on the business side. But the personal side is to watch them really blossom and really grow and get really curious about learning more and they’re awesome because they come to each other’s classes. And the return for me, it’s been spectacular in terms of friendship and community and how they feel about working here. And how they feel about teaching in this community.

Gina Fitzpatrick 21:05

It’s really pretty spectacular, no rock stars here. They come in and they love what they do. And I want to continue to have that.

Candice Wu 21:13

If you had advice for a new business owner of a Yoga studio or Yoga teacher, what would you say?

Gina Fitzpatrick 21:20

Oh my gosh. I don’t know. Because this place has just taken on its own vibration. I really thought we were going to do like a lot of Vinyasa. And that was going to be,- but it’s turned into something else.

Gina Fitzpatrick 21:34

It’s more about health issues, we do a lot of women’s issues stuff here, we’re going to be doing a meditation workshop with journaling, we’ve had those before. We have the Yoga therapy, we have pelvic floors.

Gina Fitzpatrick 21:45

So we’re doing these things that are just kind of like moving in their own direction, they’re branching out from each other. Just be open to everything, choose wisely, who comes into your space and wants to use your space. Really get to know the people who come in before they do workshops so that you know what you’re offering your community and go slow, go really slowly, intentionally say slow down, because every time I haven’t slowed down, something’s happened, from losing a wallet because you’re running through the, you know, the parking lot at Trader Joe’s, you know, and every time and then I find the wall and I’m like, okay, that’s a gift. And that’s also the same lesson over and over again, slow down.

Gina Fitzpatrick 21:46

I mean, you know, to be honest, is that, you know, I opened up the space with the intention of having this as a family business. So I had my husband had an income. So you know, I could open up the studio and not worry about making any money.

Gina Fitzpatrick 22:39

If someone was opening up a studio and decided, I needed to be a money-making business tomorrow. I would say that is a mistake because it’s not a money-making business tomorrow.

Gina Fitzpatrick 22:51

Also, if you are really over the top with it, your people are going to feel it. There’s nothing anybody wants in a Yoga studio that smacks of anxiety or stress or we gotta make this work kind of stuff.

Candice Wu 23:03

What’s something you do when you are exhausted? Or you feel like maybe you’ve taken on energies that may or may not be yours? Or just you need nourishment? What is something you do?

Gina Fitzpatrick 23:18

I watch television. I watch old reruns of Twin Peaks.

Candice Wu 23:26

I don’t know that show.

Gina Fitzpatrick 23:27

You don’t know, Twin Peaks?

Gina Fitzpatrick 23:28

Okay, well, it’s a bizarre series that started I think, in the 80s. And I didn’t have a television in the 80s. I didn’t grow up with television, because my parents didn’t really have one. And that’s maybe a little overstatement, but we just didn’t have it. It wasn’t like the center of our living space and growing up in the 70s, you went outside, you ran wild, you didn’t stay home and watch television, there was no such thing as cell phones and everything like that. So, and then I was in a whole artsy world. So I didn’t have a television. And then I was raising children. So I didn’t have a TV, so now I am watching, like all this crazy stuff.

Gina Fitzpatrick 24:05

I know I want to say something more spiritual, I want –

Candice Wu 24:11

I love that. Just like total authenticity there.

Gina Fitzpatrick 24:15

I would love to say that I have lavender candles that I don’t… I have them here. And I do practice and I meditate on my own. But I’m here so much.

Gina Fitzpatrick 24:24

And by the time I walk home, I’m ready for a totally different switch. A totally different vibration.

Candice Wu 24:31

That makes complete sense.

Gina Fitzpatrick 24:34

Like this new term I’ve heard, “innerstanding” and I sort of adopted that in my world, there’s like, there’s an understanding and then there’s an innerstanding. And I feel like, by the time I’m done here, and I’m closing shop at 830, I often sit and listen to music by myself. And I have this overwhelming sense of understanding and innerstanding before I even walk in my door before I get home. And I can walk from here to home and that feels great.

Candice Wu 25:01

A lot of healers and wellness practitioners are feeling challenged with boundaries, like they feel exhausted by other energies or feelings or then their impacts in there and taking stuff in and what do you have to say about that? Or what do you experience?

Gina Fitzpatrick 25:19

I think it’s really human, that’s part of it, you know, I do for sure do that. And there were times when I was way younger, that I would feel so strongly. I hid from somebody just when they were walking down the street, could feel like true sorrow, and it just felt like a really deep pain.

Gina Fitzpatrick 25:37

And when I was younger, I would move away from that, like, I would go in the other direction. And then when I was like in my early start as a Yoga teacher, then I would go in that direction.

Candice Wu 25:46

Bring towards the fight.

Gina Fitzpatrick 25:47

Yeah, to me, it’s so human. For people to have human experiences of pain and sorrow and grief and loss.

Gina Fitzpatrick 25:54

And then actually, Antonio, when he came in to teach our module about grief, it turned my whole perspective around it, where I didn’t really have to be afraid of other people’s very big feelings, very strong feelings.

Gina Fitzpatrick 25:54

One, I think that most of us are looking for a big feeling. And two, when we do have these big feelings, and we’re sharing them, or we’re in a community, we have to say them out loud, and the teacher other people are picking up on them is that I’ve learned that you can, you know the term “holding space,” right, that’s a term that we use in our business, to hold space for people but to do that, in a limited time.

Gina Fitzpatrick 26:32

Make them aware of the time boundary. And you too and stick with that. It’s great for them. And it’s great for you. So you can give them what you can give them in a time that is suitable for both of you. I think it’s really good. That boundary really resonates and lands well with people who are in these big states. Because they can’t be unleashed. They can’t be untethered, they need some earth as well.

Candice Wu 26:57

That containment — clear boundaries.

Gina Fitzpatrick 27:01

Like, it’s different than talk therapy, because I think that talk therapy, and forgive me, is when it gets to the complaining stage as opposed to the purging stage. So, I think there’s that difference, you know, when you’re moving with your bodies.

Gina Fitzpatrick 27:17

And I’ve had these kinds of conversations and this goes back a little bit too, personally too, like, through my divorce. And speaking to my divorce lawyer is that we’re rehashing a lot of stuff. And I’ll say things like, “I don’t live in that anymore.”

Candice Wu 27:32

What would you say is either the theme of your life overall?

Candice Wu 27:36

You know thinking about your soul’s curriculum.

Gina Fitzpatrick 27:36

Okay.

Gina Fitzpatrick 27:38

Oh, that’s fantastic. I love that!

Candice Wu 27:40

Or what is it now? In the moment?

Gina Fitzpatrick 27:44

What is it now? I’m learning about now? Yeah, learning about right now and the significance of right now. Everything reveals itself in a really interesting way. Every layer, every groove, every experience, is daily, and every day it changes.

Gina Fitzpatrick 28:01

And honestly, every day something really magnificent happens. I know that sounds like an overstatement, but it’s true. Whether it’s for me or when I’m looking at a student or whether there’s, you know, when you’re in the middle and you can see the transition, it’s hard for me to explain what is my — ask me that question again.

Candice Wu 28:20

I said, “What is your life’s theme or your soul’s curriculum?”

Gina Fitzpatrick 28:23

My life’s theme, my soul’s curriculum? I don’t know, just to be here. Just to listen, I think I did. I like this. I think I’m going to stick with “I am listening.” I think that’s my new thing. I guess it’s going to hang around for a while. I think no one said very wisely. If you’re talking, you’re not learning.

Candice Wu 28:45

Right. Because we can talk and talk and just keep distracting ourselves or filling the airspace.

Gina Fitzpatrick 28:50

Yeah.

Candice Wu 28:52

That’s a great response. Like listening, there can never be enough of inner listening, outer listening. And it does seem like that’s what you’re bringing here to your students, in that community, is like, listen to your body, what’s happening, listen to the moment.

Gina Fitzpatrick 29:08

And I try to stay away from things that people can’t vibe with, like, what if we spoke only in Sanskrit, and you had half a dozen people here that wasn’t their thing? You know, it was never going to be their thing.

Gina Fitzpatrick 29:19

And part of the theme of our training at Temple Kriya was you know, teach to the difference. Teach to the population that you’re in front of. This is all — it’s not man-made, its woman-made so the, everything in the space has been designed by a woman.

Gina Fitzpatrick 29:36

The floor was put in by the woman that was our subcontractors. She was also our Carpenter. The woman who brought us in, she works for the company, Candia, who runs the space she’s there. She’s their lawyer. She’s there everything. And she brought us in.

Gina Fitzpatrick 29:51

So, this is a very feminine feel. I can’t believe we’ve been here for three years and I can’t believe it’s only been three years.

Candice Wu 29:57

Well, thank you so much it’s been such a pleasure to talk with you and to see you.

Gina Fitzpatrick 30:03

Yes, come to class!

Candice Wu 30:05

Gina offers spiritually grounded workshops to explore yummy, cosmic energies including dream work, spirit totems, and all the way down to the pelvic floor and body, and an amazing Yoga Therapy program. She truly brings her gift herself to her practice, and to her students.

Candice Wu 30:24

Thanks for listening in on my conversation with Gina. Before you leave today, I’d like to invite you to subscribe to the weekly Embody Podcast at CandiceWu.com/podcast or stay connected with me in my newsletter or the Embody Community on Facebook. All that can be found on my website, CandiceWu.com. See you next time.