Ep 1 - Heather LeFevre: Becoming a Health Wellbeing Strategist and Living Robustly

Ben Culpin: [00:00:00] I want to involve you in the process because you're I see that you're evolving. You're always evolving. Heather. I think you make an interesting person to talk to.

So let's have a conversation like we almost never met.

Heather Lefevre: Okay.

Ben Culpin: Okay, cool. I'll just give a little bit of a set up if that's cool with you. I'm going to start a podcast.

It has a name. It has a loose concept. I won't I won't recite it right now, necessarily, because it will evolve. But I do want to take a moment to pause and take a breath and to tell you why I'm doing this. In the past, I've made films, , around pretty chunky topics.

And they've often been done off grid. So I'll interview a series of people or I go away and I do something for six months and... It's all done behind the scenes. I never really show anything to anyone about that process. So it's partly about opening that up a little bit.[00:01:00] There is some concern about showing a more rural version of myself and the process, of course, which is something I'd like to talk about a little bit about being vulnerable.

I think that the theme maybe will be around healing. And you're my first, you're my first interview and I'm super grateful for that. So thank you very much for participating.

So maybe you could just start from the beginning. Maybe you could introduce yourself, your background. I'd like you to imagine that my mom's right here and, she doesn't know who you are.

She may not understand your professional background in the same way I might. So could you just start there, please, and just introduce yourself.

Heather Lefevre: I'm Heather Lefevre. I live in Oakland, California now, and getting here from Texas where I grew up has been a long journey. I would say, I started out my life very much in Reagan's America.

Get good grades, go to a good school, get married, follow the [00:02:00] script. And that didn't always serve me. So I started my working life in advertising and strategy, and I got married really young at 22. And those two factors really Influenced my adult life quite a lot. So I lived in Texas and then Boston, Massachusetts, Richmond, Virginia, and decided to get a divorce.

And then I lived in Miami, Florida, moved to Amsterdam. So all of these things of exploring and seeking have been an important part of my life. I got I decided to write the book. So I wrote a book about. Marketing strategy where I went and apprenticed myself to different people and lived with them in their home for two weeks each.

And that book became brain surfing. And in that period of time, I met another person and got into a relationship and we got married. By, we moved to Miami and he was European, so we had to get [00:03:00] married to stay together. And I've, , let's see, kept working and then lived nomadically around America. So by doing the book, I lived nomadically around the world, came back to America, lived nomadically around America, still exploring.

And in that process, I developed chronic pain. In my hip and shoulder, and that really sent my life into a new direction where I was exploring lots of different treatments, spending quite a lot of money on physical therapists and chiropractors and things like that, being told by traditional doctors to take very strong prescriptions and potentially get surgeries that didn't sound like that was the right thing for me to do.

One thing that I missed sharing was when I first moved back to the U. S. to Miami again I had a doctor discover I had a fibroid tumor. So it was like the size of a steakhouse baked potato and they were like, you have to get this out. And I decided to have an [00:04:00] open surgery rather than a closed surgery.

And by doing that, I know, so the difference between is Orthoscopic surgery is where they put like a camera in one small hole and something to grind up and suck out the tumor in another small hole, as opposed to a C section where they opened my abdomen, took the whole tumor out and cut it off.

By doing that, I didn't understand what open body surgery does to your connective tissue. And that really advanced the pain happening much more quickly because it wasn't just the surgery. It was the wearing the high heels. It was living a stressful life. It was not necessarily understanding what is aligned for me.

All these things come together.

Ben Culpin: No, it's okay. If I just interject, I'm going to, I really love that. You've actually basically set You've pre you've alluded to the structure of what I want to cover essentially, which is your early [00:05:00] life, writing the book, the project 100.

And I just want to take a moment to pause on, say your early career. Because when I'm and so I'd love to come back to some of the things that you've just mentioned as we as we move on but I want to just go back to, pursuing this early career and strategy you talked about.

Certain parts of the world and your professional realm not serving you I just like to tune into that a bit like What inspired you specifically to pursue this career and strategy at the time?

Heather Lefevre: It was the best fit for me. It like maybe wasn't five out of five stars But it was probably like four out of five stars in terms of suiting my personality Keeping me interested.

I've since, I haven't, I don't think I've shared this with you when I saw you in Amsterdam. I've learned that I'm autistic. There's a lot of women that are, like, not diagnosed. We're considered high masking to where you can't tell what's going on with our nervous system. And also, using the word [00:06:00] autism is very loaded.

Where most people have an image of A child, mostly white male child who is really annoying, and it's like that their behaviors are so out of the norm. That it's difficult for other people to deal with, and that's not actually what autism is at all. It's a different way of processing in stimulus that's coming into the body.

Ben Culpin: Could you describe that different for me, for you personally?

Heather Lefevre: Sure. From what I understand about it of if maybe 80 percent of the world is neurotypical, and 20 percent is neurodiverse. Neurodiverse has many Things. Some of them are things you're born with like autism or ADHD.

And some of them are happening at the same time. Border person, borderline personality disorder is one of them. Struggling to think of some others, but also things that can happen in your life, like trauma that can create a neurodiversity in your lifetime. [00:07:00] And so if you think about like 80 percent of the world, Is more of like a dandelion and they can thrive in many different kinds of environments and grow The neuro diverse are more like orchids and they need very particular Environments in order to thrive so in terms of the strategy work serving me or not serving me Times when I lived in boston and worked at mullin where it was in a mansion in the woods And we had lunch all together.

We would all take a walk every day. So I was in nature The surroundings like the building didn't have fluorescent lighting predominantly Similarly strawberry frog was like that. We did go outside quite a bit for lunch get a little walk in We didn't have fluorescent lighting But then places that i've worked like the lighting matters so much to me and I had no idea until I came back and saw Oh, have you heard of the concept of window of tolerance?

No, but I can [00:08:00] infer what it means, but do tell me.

So you can either fall out of the window of tolerance at the bottom or you're hypo aroused. You're not getting enough arousal, leads to depression. The other end of the spectrum is hyper arousal.

Ben Culpin: I've heard of, I've actually covered this recently in therapy, we refer to it as like the nourishment cycle.

Okay, interesting, I haven't heard that before. Please go on, yeah, this is interesting.

Heather Lefevre: What I've realized is my window of tolerance is a fucking porthole.

Ben Culpin: What do you mean by that?

Heather Lefevre: Most of the time that you have probably known me, I have been hyper aroused. Like this conversation that you and I are having is at a pretty even keel Wouldn't you say most of the time I was like maybe a little bit more amped

Ben Culpin: I would concur

Heather Lefevre: .And you can see it and like I couldn't see it until now And it took a year of massages to bring me down.

Ben Culpin: Yeah, can I just gonna throw in some random stuff here, but when we were [00:09:00] we recently saw each other And we were walking down the street together, and I, you said some things to me that were really sweet and nice, you may not recall, but it was about appreciating me, and it almost felt like apology, I don't know if it was, but you were just like taking a moment to really like tune into where I was at, or our history together, and I was just wondering if you'd, if there was any kind of connection to this idea of being quite, Amped up when we work together versus where you're at now.

Heather Lefevre: Maybe. Yeah, I don't know that I saw it that way. It was probably just me wanting to connect with you.

Ben Culpin: Yeah, apologies the wrong word. But yeah, I think so.

Heather Lefevre: I think just greater awareness self greater self awareness Yeah.

Ben Culpin: Yeah. I think that's wonderful.

And I see that I I connect to that truth.

Heather Lefevre: talked to like my past boss in Boston who does not know this about me and he referred to me as crazy. He's you were crazy.[00:10:00] That's not helpful

Ben Culpin: These things that happen to us when we're you know in our younger years of profession they can really Stay with us.

I mean I You know our we work together and that had an impact on me. I think Some of it was what some of it was hard. And some but some was really wonderful. If I'm a, if it's okay, I can share an instance, for example. There you were very high energy and also very like super quick you've got a million resources and references, a thousand books that you've read. And my approach to work has always been much more intuitive and feelings led. And at the time, and it wasn't your fault, but I felt.

Like I needed to be like that versus to be how I am have there been so have there, was there any kind of, I'm curious, do you have any learning? So wait one second. That was a negative implication. I also wanted to include a positive as well. [00:11:00] You also taught me to get out there and to shake the shake myself in the experience and to do not be too reflective and too like senses led but just to just Get out the world live it do something crazy do something tangential You encouraged us to do projects and side projects and we had novelty hour, which was an incredible thing So there was some really great experiences, too.

What was your experience of working with me? I'm curious I just want to take a second to tune into that

Heather Lefevre: Since I worked with you before I did the book, I think I probably did have a vision of an uber strategist. And by doing the book, it made me realize that there's room for lots of different kinds of people and ways of approaching things.

And you have to find your aligned way, the way that serves you. So I did not have that insight when we worked together, for one. I do think that I saw that we were all different and we had [00:12:00] different, yeah, I did believe in strength finders. I've always believed in that, but find your strength. And push on it rather than worry about mitigating your weaknesses.

And I always saw you as somebody who was very talented with design, with, with craft, with making the work look really good and how impactful that is on someone's emotions.

Ben Culpin: Yeah, no, I was, I just come out of a master's degree, which was advertising and design. So I was definitely leaning on that when we were together.

That was like one of the tools that, as a junior, you just, how can you help? How do you roll up your sleeves while you help make the strategy more compelling? Yeah. So you talked a little bit about the book just now, and I think you described, I was going to ask you what motivated you to write the book.

Do you, but I think you just answered that question to a certain extent.

I feel like lots of people these days are writing books and, or starting projects. I'm curious to ask you, What did you learn from writing a book and how has it served you [00:13:00] moving forwards?

I think one of the things that I didn't share about the motivation that motivated me was the Philadelphia cream cheese project we worked on and we produced this like 75 page document and it's essentially about cheese, when you boil it down, it's wow, if we can produce 75 pages about cheese, you would think you could write.

200 pages about something that you're genuinely interested in, which to me at the time was strategy. So that gave me the. You can do this and I think at any time like now there's more tools that make it easier for people to Produce their own ideas and I think that was already starting to happen in my ability to see that motivated me of oh, you don't have to have An agent and some big publishing house behind you to be allowed to put out a book But in terms of what it's done for me one it improved my writing so much That when I went into a [00:14:00] job After finishing it, like I would be writing manifestos and things that also creative directors would be writing and mine would get used, to have a creative ECD say to you that's really great, that.

Really happened from writing the book. And then also it brought people to me wanting to work with me. It became a lighthouse of, oh, I want to work with this person because they're interesting. How yeah I have a confession to make.

Heather Lefevre: What?,

Ben Culpin: I haven't read all of your book. That's okay. I However, I do know because at the time you were writing it, I think you shared a chapter with me and Ashley, who is a colleague of mine, a friend of ours.

And I don't know why I just, I think at the time, I'm mildly dyslexic officially diagnosed. I don't pick up books very quickly or easily But now you know with apps like speechify and read it later There's so many different ways to consume and learn these days. So it's not really such a [00:15:00] friction point but I bought your book Thanks No, I seriously I was like I have to read this I've you know, I haven't had we only scheduled this call like a week ago So and I read like the pace for tortoise.

So i've only just basically started it. But I did. I did reconnect with you as a person when I was reading the intro, which was written by Toma. How do you spell that? Yeah. No, it's really lovely. I I love this. I this quote, it was like a journey that honors the inspiration of prey love while feeling more like hitchhikers guide to the galaxy without a towel.

And that sort of reminds me of our time together. We just know. So very

spontaneous. Get out there and go shared experience that we had.

Heather Lefevre: That time at Strawberry Frog, I was promoted from what the job that I'd had before [00:16:00] to head of the department. And that was a lot for me. That was a lot of responsibility to me of what that meant.

And it wasn't clearly articulated. It was only demonstrated from other people that I had worked.

I put a lot of expectations on myself, which increased the rev of my nervous system.

Ben Culpin: Yeah, no, and it's great to be able to sit now. When was that? 10 years ago now?

Heather Lefevre: Over 10 years ago. Yeah, it was 2010. Yeah.

Ben Culpin: I'm grateful that we can talk about it.

Yeah, , , So you've got a couple of 10 polls in your life of like producing a big project. You had the survey before you had the book and now you've got project 100 does for me. A sort of three big items. If you look at These three and first reflect the last two and then we'll pivot to the current.

Like what's the theme if at all, like why do these projects? What's the impetus?[00:17:00]

Heather Lefevre: I think for me, I'm the person who wants to ask the question behind the question, of when somebody was asking me, what salary do I expect? I want to know that I'm actually expressing something that is fair and reasonable rather than a guess.

And then so that was the benefit of doing the survey ,

Ben Culpin: for everyone you did. I didn't introduce the content. What you did a planner survey. So you did a survey amongst our professionals to get people to declare their salaries. To help everybody understand their value and what they should be being paid fairly.

That's what essentially was the plan of survey if you want to add anything more to the context of that

Heather Lefevre: And I did it nine times like the first time it was 120 people and the last few times it was over 2 000 people.

Ben Culpin: So and so looking at the survey looking at the book And would you say?

Is that also the case for this new project?[00:18:00]

Heather Lefevre: I would say the difference is those projects required a lot of going back behind the scenes and producing something like what you're talking about, your project. Whereas Project 100 is I make it up as I go. It's a weekly thing.

Ben Culpin: Yeah, why don't you introduce Project 100?

Heather Lefevre: Okay. So the impetus of that, I was interviewing for a job earlier this year and I realized... All of this is a lot of realizations, but you probably have heard of the idea of autistic people having special interests that they're very excited about. Have you heard of that?

Ben Culpin: Not necessarily.

No.

Heather Lefevre: If you think about me and planning, that was my special interest. I could monologue about it and talk about it ad nauseum and I wanted to know and find I'll do as much research about it as possible. And I was obsessed with it for a really long time. My special interest has either, I'm still interested in strategy, but I am much more interested in the human body now and how it [00:19:00] works.

So going after a strategy job and meeting people for the first time, it was difficult for me to not just, it's called info dumping when. You just feel like I am Can't stop telling you about something and I can see it happening. And now that I have these labels for them. It's okay Dial it back with fever This isn't gonna help you any so it was pretty clear after a couple of interviews that if I want to get this job I need to channel this interest in health in a way that is It's going to be serving me.

I need a place to put it. I need a place to put all this motivation. So it was like, oh, let's do a sub stack and I can tell them as opposed to every person that I meet. That's really where it started. But right now it's a weekly newsletter that One I like it because you can add voiceover So it's a little bit like a podcast and you can embed in [00:20:00] videos and so it's got more texture and context than a book For a presentation.

Ben Culpin: Where do you want to take it?

Heather Lefevre: Where do I want to take it? It's hard to see right now. I mean I have an idea for another book that incorporates most of these things that I could see it becoming, because it's now becoming quite a repertoire of writing.

I also would like to do off site digital detoxes where people come to me. And we spend two, four, six days of movement and body work and reflection, that kind of stuff.

Ben Culpin: Yeah, so you just touched upon another aspect of who you are, which is cranial sacral therapy, it's a hard word to say. Would you...

Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about that for me, please? How that's a part of your life these days and how is it connected to project 100, but also how maybe [00:21:00] you're integrating it into who you are up until this day.

Heather Lefevre: So I would say craniosacral is one bucket of this greater, more like wellbeing health strategist that I see myself becoming.

So I'm also certified in this movement modality called gyrokinesis. I'm almost finished with Pilates. So they're similar, but different which most people have experienced or seen or heard of Pilates, but both of these systems have their own bespoke machines that help move the body through its full ranges of motion, strengthening all of the muscles and fortifying all of the joints.

Craniosacral came into my life like I decided to go to massage school because I just wanted to receive a lot of massages because I will within that bucket of chiropractors and physical therapists. I would also get massages and I would feel better, but it would be like in the same day. The pain would come back.

So it's maybe I just need a lot of massage and [00:22:00] maybe you've heard of these in the U. S. There are not the same kind of places as there that I experienced in Europe. Did you ever go to Spa Zuiver in Amsterdam?

Ben Culpin: I was there just last week. Yeah.

Heather Lefevre: It's so great. I love that place.

Ben Culpin: The spar Salva is a huge bar on the outside, the outskirts of Amsterdam, just by this big forest. There's so many different sauna and steam rooms, and plunge pools and rainfall showers and infrared saunas, and there's a restaurant and there's a gym, and you can have a massage. They have a hamam.

It's extensive and it's definitely worth going. So they don't have that kind of experience in the U. S. at all.

Heather Lefevre: It's affordable is what's amazing about it. It's like you can go and spend a whole day there and be a regular person. Whereas, some of that exists here, but it's like in pockets.

And I've discovered them over time. Like here we have, you can go get cryotherapy. Float do the [00:23:00] floating tank and do a sauna red light therapy sauna in the same place But that will still cost you two hundred dollars to three hundred dollars for that, two or three hour experience There's another place called Canyon ranch.

It's a chain and I want to say it's fifteen hundred dollars a day to stay at a canyon ranch So a lot of it is very luxury driven towards a ultra high net worth kind of audience And What I decided was like, I started going and doing Pilates and gyrotonic, which is the parent company of gyrokinesis.

I, all the things I like have very complex names that nobody knows about. And then I started going to massage school cause massage school was 3, 000 for three months and you receive three to five massages a week, as long as you go to class and you're also working on your fellow students. So I was 41, 42 at the time and everyone else in my class, was 21 [00:24:00] 19 even there was a somebody who just finished like really young to 28.

And I thought I was only going to go for three months, get a bunch of massages, and then I'll be feeling better. And I'll go on with my life. And what happened was after three months, I Still had pain. I could tell that it was working and it was decreasing, but I still had pain. I was learning a lot about my body and realizing okay, keeping that shape of being hunched over a laptop for writing the book, sitting a whole lot, wearing high heels, all those things had changed my body shape over time to a degree that it was not going to change quickly back.

And so I went in for another three months, you had to decide are you doing the next quarter, so I go in for another three months and at month five, I still had this pain in my shoulder and hip and yes, it was decreasing, but it was still enough to be bothersome. And one of my friends in Portland was like, you should go see my neighbor, Dave.

I don't know what he does, but people travel from all [00:25:00] over the country to see him like, okay, I'll see Dave. I've spent thousands of dollars seeing all these other people. Why didn't you tell me this five months ago, so I go to see Dave and of all the things I had tried at that point, like we're talking, I had already spent like maybe 10, 000 on different kinds of treatments and things, and then the massage school and stuff on top of it.

And I go to see Dave and he barely touches me. And in my mind, I'm like, what kind of bullshit is this? This is a job, really barely touching a human. How could this do anything? But I could tell that I felt more relaxed. And I trusted the recommendation enough to go again. And when I had that second session, I experienced what's called a somatic emotional release.

So soma your body Emotional release from the body. I went into that appointment feeling like I was relatively normal And within five minutes, it felt like he made me have this big emotion of, I couldn't stop crying for the whole [00:26:00] hour. So then I was like, what kind of warlock are you? That was able to make me cry.

And really within that week it changed things for me. I was like, okay, the pain is really going away now. And I was like, how can soft touches do this? This makes no sense to me, even with the stuff that I'm learning. So that. Got me to finish massage school because the way that massage school is set up a last quarter.

You can take elective courses and they had a craniosacral introduction course. So I went ahead and finished and it also coincided with the pandemic. I'd finished 75 percent of massage school as the pandemic happened. So I had three months off to really just reflect because there wasn't a lot of strategy work going on.

There wasn't a lot of, there wasn't any massage school. I was helping my Now ex husband at the time with his work and just gave me a lot of time to reflect. I'm like, yeah I want to finish this and I think I want to also practice this [00:27:00] So that's what I did. So immediately i'm finishing massage school. You have to do something like that You have to have what's called like a license to touch So that could be an occupational therapist, a registered nurse, or a massage therapist.

You come in to these extra additional courses. So that's the way like touch body work stuff works. You get massage school is like getting a BA, bachelor's degree, and then you start getting master's degrees, but they're not There it's one course at a time over four days, and then you learn a bunch of stuff you go practice it, so I'm through like the first four levels of craniosacral and there's six core levels and there's probably 30 different courses on their menu right now.

Ben Culpin: I don't think you apart from talking about the warlock dave you haven't actually like in simple terms describe this for me And also I want to know in a very innocent way. Where did he touch you?

Heather Lefevre: Okay. Yeah, like [00:28:00] All over the body and that are appropriate like basically other than your boobs and your butt crack You could possibly be touched and your places.

Ben Culpin: Yeah, but does it Yeah, I understand that but is it like Touch me where the pain is or is it like it pulls your toe and you have you know Your shoulders pop open, like

Heather Lefevre: It doesn't necessarily coincide with where you have the pain. So I predominantly had my pain in my shoulder and my hip.

I'm pointing to my hip. And so it might be like, he's touching me on my lower leg or he's touching my abdomen, my, my sternum. There's just really not a lot of correlation between where your pain is and where they touch you. So I'll explain when that, when you first take these courses, they'll bring out a toy like this is called, it's going to make noise.

So I'm showing Ben an energy stick. It has a little bit of metal on each end. And if I touch both ends. It makes a sound and it lights up. And if you were able to reach through the [00:29:00] screen and hold the other end, then would it turn on?

Ben Culpin: If I could touch it? I'd like to think so. No? Yes? The answer is no.

But surely it's an electrical circuit that goes only through your body, right?

Heather Lefevre: Knowing the word circuit is you are five to 10 percent of adults. Nobody really can come up with that, but to create the circuit, you would have to hold it with one hand and then we would have to hold our other hand together because then we are connected.

And even if we were in a circle with a thousand people. It would turn on if it's all connected, and if one pair lets go, it would turn off. So that tells you, okay, how does the body work? Oh, the frontal part of your brain says, we're gonna do this. The motor control part of your brain says, do it now. And it's do it this way.

And then it's down the spine, do it now. Those [00:30:00] messages are sent with salts and electricity. That's how that works. So that's one thing to Oh, maybe I don't understand the body quite as well as I maybe thought just seeing this and not understanding how that works of this, just touch can create this circuit.

So that's craniosacral are closing a circuit.

So that the nervous system can relax and release connective tissue and muscles.

Ben Culpin: How does that, this is super interesting, how does that, how does, if you don't have this like thing to show a circuit being closed, how do you close the circuit in a part of the body? Essentially, is it just by a certain kind of movement?

Heather Lefevre: It's just two hands, so it's a bit of my nervous system. I'm the energy stick, you're the energy stick. And now the pathway is closed, . I, it That's a good way to explain it. So the nervous system is sending the messages, but then it's important to understand that muscle cells are [00:31:00] also different than cells in the rest of your body.

So this was new news to me. I used to think of cells as like a fried egg, nucleus in the middle cell wall around, that's what I was taught. Muscle cells are more like a slinky. There's still a nucleus in there, but the slinky comes together to flex and it releases to extend. So if you think about your bicep, I'm flexing my bicep.

The tricep slinkies have to open, and you're talking about millions of slinkies working together to make that happen. You also, that's a little bit harder to explain, do you know about fascia?

Ben Culpin:  I'm familiar with the fascia in my body and this sort of connective tissue that can sometimes get tight and needs like stretching or released, but I would love it if you could explain it in your own words.

Heather Lefevre: So it's also innervated, meaning nerves and send messages through the fascia. And so the fascia is connective tissue. It's the white stuff that you see in a piece of meat [00:32:00] that's not the muscle of the meat. It's more like packing tape in some places. So the top of your head, it's really thick. Back of your lower back, you can imagine and feel around.

It's really thick. But if you go to the airport and you see them wrap up. Luggage to go on a long trip, the plastic, it's and then it turns your luggage, you're wrapped up that way. So if you think about like your internal obliques are like that, your external obliques, your transverse abdominis, you've got all those layers on top of layers.

That are then wrapped in connective tissue and they can get sticky against each other. They can get sticky for many reasons. Overuse of being in the same shape and not putting your body through its full ranges of motion all the time. But also emotion And that was the thing that really blew my mind and drew me into the craniosacral.

Is I had emotions trapped in my body that I had not fully processed in the moment. [00:33:00] That I experienced them, which is way more likely to happen with neurodiverse people. That I needed to have this extra zhuzh to process those emotions and let them go through my body.

Ben Culpin: Okay, so two questions. First of all, how can you prove that emotions can get trapped in this fascia?

How do you prove that?

Heather Lefevre: So I don't know totally how to prove it, but there's a quote in one of our textbooks. The craniosacral textbook that and plus, it just happens all the time. People have emotional releases with this therapy. Emotional release can happen in other times. So have you done yoga trainings, yoga school?

Ben Culpin: No, just plenty of yoga, but no training.

Heather Lefevre: But maybe have you ever had an experience in yoga? You had an emotional moment or somebody else you've seen have emotion come out?

Ben Culpin: Yeah. Yeah. Hold a lot [00:34:00] of emotion in my hips. Okay.

Heather Lefevre: Not to say that craniosacral is the only way to get emotion out of the body.

There are many other ways. So that was my first experience when I did yoga school. They taught us, you might have students who have this emotional experience. It may happen to you. It just happens sometimes of that is finally letting the emotion come through. Okay. So because you've maybe now experienced it, you're like, okay, I have seen that happen.

That is a phenomenon. I don't know how to prove that is a case, but in this textbook, the thing that convinced me the most, it's a physicist who said, okay if we can store a symphony, the recording of a symphony on a VHS tape, that's technically a piece of plastic. Or if you could store it on a DVD, that's a piece of plastic.

Sound and image. Then does it really, is it so unbelievable that you could store a memory and it's a tuned emotion on [00:35:00] a piece of your liver? Is that so insane to you? Or in your hips?

Ben Culpin: Yeah, I'm asking the question just to see what you say, but it doesn't mean I don't agree with you. Yeah. One of the books that's on my list, but I've not read it, but I basically know what it'll be about based on the title is like, The Body Keeps the Score.

The Body Keeps the Score, yep.

Heather Lefevre: That book actually doesn't talk about cranial, but it talks about other methods, like... EMDR, Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing. I've done that kind of therapy, and I have had good results from it. It didn't get all of it out. It also talks about creating say you're in group therapy with 20 other people picking the people and saying like you're gonna be my real mom You're gonna represent my real dad You're gonna represent my ideal mom and you're gonna represent my ideal dad and creating like a tableau Of how you wish a scenario had gone down that can create emotional release for people.

So there's so many different ways I just personally [00:36:00] Had a much more profound experience through craniosacral than I ever had through yoga or EMDR or some of the other things that I've tried that can help release emotion. Journaling can release emotion. Meditation.

Ben Culpin: Yes, to all of those things out there.

I just, so I want to just circle back to this sort of analogy you had with the circuit device. And the fascia. Yeah. But in simple terms, how would you define it?

Heather Lefevre: So you have. liquid around your brain and spinal cord called your cerebral spinal fluid. Have you heard about that?

Does that make sense to you? That exists. Okay. And maybe you've ever seen a baby like their head slightly throbs like this. Have you seen that? You can see it on a baby. It's much harder to see on an adult because they used to think I'm showing Ben a model of a skull. And it's multicolored, and each of the colors represent the different bones of the skull.

So the one on your forehead is your frontal bone, you've got two parietal bones in the [00:37:00] back, your occiput, so your temporal bones, so a lot of these, your mandible and your maxilla, we do know the names of these. Now that fluid inside your brain, it's in a semi hydraulic system, and that's what makes it make the baby's head ever so slightly elongate, so I go hot dog.

hamburger. It makes your skull get slightly elongated. It's filling and then extending. So what that also does is while the person is on the table, it makes their shoulders and feet ever so slightly roll out and in. Okay. So as this is happening all the time, like 5 to 12 cycles per minute.

Ben Culpin: So just so I understand correctly this sort of, I'm going to use the word isn't really correct, hydraulic system or the system of moving plates as they move will have this effect on, on, on your feet.

Is that what you're saying?

Heather Lefevre: It's happening right now and you just are not noticing it. It's just as much as your respiratory system is a system and your circulatory and your [00:38:00] digestive system, your craniosacral system is a system of this cerebral spinal fluid going around your brain and spinal cord.

And it becomes... A way for a therapist to tune into it to know where the restrictions are in your body. And then also the people that came up with the modality. It's also, it was made up by osteopaths. So doctors who took these different, who created these methods, because osteopaths usually work on things that are really causing people pathologies, lots of problems of like their heads really hurt and they need a significant intervention, but it's Oh, actually you can do things that are very soft and have results.

So this one osteopath was like, I'm going to take these very soft techniques. And teach them to massage therapists because it's too important for the world to miss out on and to only think of osteopathy as a serious intervention. [00:39:00] So sometimes in Europe, an osteopath will do, it's just really hard to know who to go to because there's a lot of overlap in our skill sets.

But The other important thing to know is that I used to think that my brain was just a lump in my head I knew about right and left brain, but I'm now showing Ben a model. How do I, you can basically see it. Can you imagine your brain around this model and you're going through space, right?

So these membranes, so the, I'm showing Ben a model of the membranes in the brain to say that down the middle of the skull. And across separating upstairs and downstairs, the membranes are more like balloons, and the texture of your brain is more like oatmeal. And then you have a whole other balloon like membrane around and down the spinal cord, the fluid, and then a whole other membrane.

And these central membranes are more attached on the skull at the mohawk place. And along the sides where your ears are like [00:40:00] amongst kind of thing So in addition to being able to feel for the restrictions We have different moves protocols techniques, whatever you want to call it of okay Stretch the membranes from this direction stretch the membranes from that direction And like I showed you the bones before can you see that the bone is pink in the middle?

Like these are orange, but this one is pink.

Ben Culpin: @So that would be Yeah,

Heather Lefevre: You know the name of that bone, it goes, your eye goes through it.

Ben Culpin: So you're pointing to the sort of this area that's like right behind the eyeballs and I guess behind the, this bone, the nose bone, whatever this is called.

Heather Lefevre: It's part of your maxilla, your upper jaw. And then you have a little tiny nasal bone at the end here. It's so fascinating to me. Can't you see me info dumping in front of you? So the pink ones called the sphenoid And most people don't know that one, but it's like the keystone of your [00:41:00] whole head because it touches so many bones.

And the only way that we as therapists can touch it is through your temples. So that's often why you rub your temples because it will influence the sphenoid. And so all these other bones, like the blue one, the frontal bone, your forehead bone, We use our third finger, whatever you want to call it, and grab underneath the eyebrows and try to lift it.

If the person's laying on the table, we're trying to lift it towards the ceiling. That's how that bone can stretch the membranes. So you're getting around under the eye almost. Not under the eye, under the eyebrow. It's like there's a little bit of grip there and it's so light. Like they also teach us, they put a US nickel in our hand and it's that's five grams.

That is how much pressure the little tugboat of the, on the membranes that otherwise it's going to just seize up of Oh no, we're not safe. [00:42:00] We're not changing our structure at all. And you can experience that. Have you ever been in a massage where somebody mashes you way too hard for that place on you?

You guard. That's just a natural reaction. So some parts of the body need very gentle traction or compression to loosen up. And that is what craniosacral is. Listening to the fluid, how it moves, when we can't feel it, That's where we need to work. It's not able to get through. And then also, in the same way that we could all line up according to height, we can line up according to how sensitive our nervous systems are.

I have a really sensitive nervous system. I'm going to be able to hear something that's three rooms away that maybe somebody else can't hear. If lights are a certain way, they bother me. They don't bother other people. Strong sense bother me. They don't bother other people.

Ben Culpin: So I really love the detail that you've been able to go into.

I would like to just [00:43:00] zoom out now and just say, how is this training? How is this kind of therapy influenced your approach to healing and to your own personal growth?

Heather Lefevre: So I would say it's now a core therapy that I yes, there are restrictions that you want to get rid of that are maybe causing you migraines or that are part of the pattern of that's creating tension in your body that is giving you long term pain, but it is also a way to down regulate the nervous system.

So when I use that word rev before that, when you touch different people feel differently. So now that I've touched thousands of people, some people come to the table feeling very buzzy, like that amptness, their rev is way up. And some people are very depleted and they're very down. And that sensation changes over the hour of being, having the soft touches.

And I [00:44:00] can't go into all the different techniques that we do, but there are different things to help person. It's basically just touching them with focused intention.

So how does it all fit in? It's just one of the tools because what I'm starting to realize is okay, highly sensitive people that are neurodiverse like myself, are the ones who most are more likely to seek it out and benefit from it. And not feel like, what kind of bullshit is this, but, I, it's not the only therapy that I seek out on a regular basis. And last week, I just spent a week learning how to do... On a completely different end of the scale. If craniosacral is generally five grams of pressure, I went and learned how to massage people with my feet with very deep pressure.

That one's called Sarga. And it's different than, so maybe you've come across Ashiatsu where the therapist is holding onto bars above the table. Have you ever seen that? That kind, it creates a very [00:45:00] perpendicular pressure with the person, or if there's a lot of, you can just do compressions into the person, or maybe they put quite a lot of Massage oil on the person so it's really slidy.

The one I learned is there's a piece of fabric that is attached to the table and then it goes around the shoulders of the therapist so they can lean into it and it's creating, I'm pushing into the fabric as I'm pushing with my foot into the person. And that creates an oblique angle of tension and by doing that connects, it's fascial release.

So that's an it's fascia will release in different ways depending on the kind of restriction it is and that one Like I wanted to do it because you watch that you look at a video of it And it's like I want that whereas craniosacral looks like nothing. I Have to go through all these explainers to be like, maybe I'll try it.

It sounds [00:46:00] weird

Ben Culpin: So you I mean you'd like You really are trying a lot of different things out here, but you use the term earlier you know You see yourself becoming a I think it's a health strategist, but it might be in the right word a well being strategist Yeah How are you integrating all of this?

Heather Lefevre: so I think it will be by doing off sites where you're going to come to where I am and We'll do like you've never done gyrokinesis, like we could do some right now. Let's do two moves. So imagine you're listening to the wall. You're a seaweed in the ocean.

Ben Culpin: Okay.

Heather Lefevre: You met Matthew Scott, right? He calls this one eavesdropper.

You're eavesdropping over here. You're eavesdropping over here.

Ben Culpin: Okay.

Heather Lefevre: That's one of the moves. You do it eight times and you breathe while you're doing it. And in the opposite, you dive with your head. So remember Stevie Wonder. [00:47:00] And I don't know if you can tell, but do you see how your neck is your head is going like that?

Versus, you can't, you don't have as much neck mobility, no offense, as I do. Because I do this every fucking day.

Ben Culpin: I've got, I'm going to try now, but I have an ongoing issue in my shoulder, and it's bleed radiating into my neck.

Heather Lefevre: So I know maybe 300 different moves that are based on the movements of the spine.

So like another one would be your shoulder, your arms are coming up to shoulder length and then you're drilling down your hands by your side. So you're arching your spine as your arms come up, inhaling, you're exhaling as your arms go down by your side. That's another one. Just up to shoulder height drilling down by your side.

Yeah. I'm doing what I feel like a totally different person. If you do a hundred moves that are all designed around. So your spine arches, curls, side arches, [00:48:00] where like my ear and my hip are coming closer together, side arch and spiraling, looking back behind you. You have 24 vertebra and they never get to go through their full range of motion for most people.

Ben Culpin: So how are you? I. Your, how does this live right now, though, in relation to being also a strategist, if at all?

Heather Lefevre: So it helps me to realize when my nervous system is more amped, and to really monitor that, of that is not a healthy zone for me. How can I do this other work that I like to do and I'm interested in, but keep my nervous system even keeled?

That's one way it fits in to like when I've done work in California where I am certified to work, I have brought my table with me. So I have worked on my colleagues. I have worked on my clients inside of the project. It's adjacent. [00:49:00] It's not really blended together, but it's also taught me things like learning things about the body have made it so that I can work on brands and understand Them from a different angle, like I'm more interested in health and wellness brands than I was before.

Ben Culpin: I'm last year was nerding out a lot on different things and Have you have used, have you experimented with me metabolic health, like wearing CGMs for example?

Heather Lefevre: No, but you brought that up when we saw each other. Yeah.

Ben Culpin: So CGMs are constant glucose monitors. They're normally used by diabetics to make sure that they keep a check on their blood sugar levels. And so they can either put insulin in their body or eat something depending on where they're at. But. We're all now starting to experiment with what is the implications of a yo yoing blood sugar on a regular person who has a healthy pancreas.

And yeah, I've personally found it hugely eye opening into how my mental [00:50:00] state. Basically, I'm so much more clear minded, less prone to anxious thoughts if I just do a few little tricks. And it doesn't mean oh, no sugar. It means there's so many little hacks when you can literally change the way you eat different food types.

And it will have a a dampened effect on your blood sugar, your glycemic response. So instead of just eating the fries straight away you eat the protein you eat the fats and then you eat the carbs and it can just that alone can completely dampened a response and lead to a much more stable day and a much more pleasant night's sleep.

But it reminds me of what you were saying about how we all respond differently to these treatments It's the same with food You know You could eat a banana and I can eat a banana but it may not affect me in the same way It will not affect me the way it will affect you.

Heather Lefevre: Has that impacted your work? Is it a [00:51:00] Jason or is it embedded?

Ben Culpin: Currently it is just in lifestyle, but I want to work for these, these new tech startups that are, producing these environments, for example spoiler alert,

yeah, it's hard. It's hard. The only place that it shows up at the moment is in, in, in lifestyle. But I'm, the reason I asked you is I'm curious how you how you're doing it and how your approach to it.

Heather Lefevre: I would say that, I see probably, around 10 people a week from my local community to just do craniosacral on them.

And I probably envision a future where I'm doing that. So right now I'm doing it two days a week and I think I'll get to the point where I'm doing Sarga on people two days a week and maybe I'm not going to do brand work anymore.

Ben Culpin: Would you like that?

Heather Lefevre: It's I don't know cause the thing is like when I get to know people better, if say I've done cranial on them two or three times and I start to get to know them and they know that I do [00:52:00] business strategy, we sometimes end up talking about their business life.

In relation to their health and by having a clear path forward in business that takes away tension and stress on the flip side when I meet people and I understand their issues, it's if I meet somebody and they're having daily migraines. craniosacral may not be the thing that stops that and it may not be the best thing for them.

And so that's where my strategist brain comes in. It's have you tried this? Have you tried this? Have you tried this? And maybe I do one of those things. Like the gyrokinesis is really applicable to most people, but they may not enjoy doing it. But there's things like neuroemotional technique that I found to be extremely effective for me, but I'm probably not going to go get trained in it.

So I refer people. To do that kind of therapy.

Ben Culpin: Okay. So we've talked a [00:53:00] lot about we've been speaking for an hour. And we've covered a lot of ground and I feel like I've learned quite a few things specifically about craniosacral therapy, which is super interesting, but I'd like to, I'd like to start to draw this conversation to a close by asking a few sort of like Open questions, which I'm, I feel like a little sort of list of questions I'm asking myself, which may be very revealing about where I'm at in my life.

And the idea here is not to be super in the detail about what's going on in my life, but just to ask these questions. So that I may hear a perspective that may help me in my own process.

Heather Lefevre: So you lay it, lay out, lay it on the table. Ben, what's going on? , , .

Ben Culpin: Okay. Here's a question for you. How do you retake your passion? Have you ever lost your passion? And what did you do to get it back?[00:54:00]

Heather Lefevre: I don't know that I've lost my passion, but I have definitely been depressed and overcome by grief. Melinda passed away the same week that one of my uncles died by suicide. And that was extremely traumatic for me.

Ben Culpin: Would you just say the context of who Melinda is, please?

Heather Lefevre: Okay, so Melinda was our managing director at Strawberry Frog and she was an incredible woman and I just adored her to pieces and she passed away in 2013 from an aneurysm which was very sudden and it happened in a business meeting so it was like all kinds of layers to that of she was a very healthy person from the outside, very thin gym rat kind of person.

But also, super rev. Her nervous system was on rev a lot. And... She passed away in her early sixties, I think I've had these few points in my life. So [00:55:00] when I was eight, eight years old, my, I had another uncle died by suicide. My grandmother died in the same sort of span of time and the family dog died.

So I would say there's these sort of points in time where suicide is it was so incomprehensible to me of, like, how much it impacts the entire, group of people that have experienced it cultural overlays of my family lied to not my parents, but the children of the uncle have lied to their children saying that uncle, Died from a heart attack, so that creates Tension and secrecy and stuff that I don't agree with and align with.

psychology side of it, of needing to work through those things and find us a method that works for me. So like the EMDR really helped me. The craniosacral really helped me. And to be able to get over those things helped [00:56:00] me reconnect with my passion or find new passions.

Ben Culpin: Yeah so an acknowledgement that you are in that place, in the first place, and to not,

Heather Lefevre: and then losing love too, or like realizing that you're incompatible. And that there's another cultural overlay there of like I come from texas where you get married one time Usually when you're still like a fucking teenager and you are set for life and there will never be anyone else You know i'm like i've now been divorced twice And i've had another significant relationship like when I was with you when I worked with you That we had lived together and that in it So each of those relationships were very significant to me and difficult to get over and you know for a time Disconnected me from other passions.

Ben Culpin: I'm you know on the topic of love like You've married twice and you I mean, I saw you this summer. You seem very much in love again what's your attitude towards love[00:57:00] ?

Heather Lefevre: My attitude towards love is that it's the most important foundational part of life so getting that or feeling good about that in your life.

Have you ever been told this? analogy of imagine there's a cylinder and you have rocks, gravel and sand that if you put the sand into the cylinder, then the gravel and then the big rocks, they won't all fit. But if you put the big rocks in and then the gravel around it and then the sand, they can all fit.

So to me, love is a rock. And it's something you need to put it in the cylinder first. Oh, I like that. So yeah, I don't think that it's a sign that a relationship is a failure because it didn't last your entire lifetime. I believe that you change and oftentimes people do not change together unless you're really conscious about it.

And also where I don't think. [00:58:00] It's conscious and unconscious. I think it's conscious and non conscious is a lot of things like you could bring it to mind if we talked about it, but it's just not in your current awareness. It's not necessarily influencing you, but there's It impacts so many other things of making you feel stable in your life.

Ben Culpin: So on the backside of that, what would be your advice to someone who is, who maybe their love is coming to an end?

Heather Lefevre: Yeah, accept it. And once you've really decided, Decide, make a decision and then you'll know, if you're thinking about that, it's over. It's probably over.

Ben Culpin: Yeah, I had a conversation with someone the other day and they'd recently broken up with someone and I think one of the things that came out of their mouth was that we broke up, X amount of time ago, but I think actually I [00:59:00] decided about two years ago. Yeah, I think that's really common.

All right.

Next, next little question for you.

Heather Lefevre: All right.

Ben Culpin: How can you be raw and vulnerable publicly without destroying your own credibility?

Heather Lefevre: So I think I alluded to this earlier that I'm taking this TikTok class, and I have learned absolutely so much from taking it, of, my teacher is in his, he's either like late 20s, early 30s, young person, and talks about You have a gift to share.

You can help someone else on their path. Are you really going to let your insecurities get in the way of you helping people while you're here? And that's been particularly impactful for me because this summer I had a huge eczema flare up. On my face, so it's like I don't want to be on camera. I feel like I look hideous [01:00:00] But i'm doing it anyway So and it's been getting better, it's not gonna These are things that are slow and like other people won't notice it that much and like you can cover it up with makeup but I would say that's a really practical example of, this would be a reason that would hold me back from doing this, but when I realized I still have value to add, I think a lot of people that I meet who are significantly older than me, who are like, I don't even look in the mirror, I hate the way I look, I hate this it's so sad to me because I get so much value out of them, and I don't want to be That to somebody else of like i'm not gonna give what I have to give because i'm Self conscious embarrassed, I feel vulnerable So I just try and get over it.

Ben Culpin: You know this these interviews this podcast whatever you want to call It's a question i'm asking myself because I want to be relatively honest And to reveal [01:01:00] what's going on in my mind or my heart But you also need to find I think I'm trying to find like the window where you have had enough reflection and enough understanding of what it is before you, you make it clear.

But I think what you're describing is a nice impetus to make sure you don't hold it and you don't hide. Which is another sort of question I have, which is very abstract, which is like, why do we hide? Why? Why do we do that?

Heather Lefevre: I think it's embedded in our evolution. If you look at evolutionary stuff, it used to be we were in one group.

And if you were excluded from the group, that meant no survival. But now we're in many groups. So if you feel excluded from one group, it casts a negative shadow over everything. Rather than, okay I fucked up at work. That doesn't necessarily have any impact on my family life, or this other community that I'm a part of.

But [01:02:00] I can see how it's impacted my mood or, I'm trying to use my logic brain to see what, so there's a model of how, of the brain that's not necessarily exact, but it's you have the reptilian brain, the mammalian brain, and then like the, Advanced frontal cortex kind of thing. I was like, most of that I think is coming from the lizard brain and maybe the mammalian connection part, but is it really coming from here?

Okay, I see these different groups. I see how humans evolved and we're living in a time that is so different from All of this evolution that made the heart and software of who we are. And that really helps me.

Ben Culpin: Have you read a general theory of love?

Heather Lefevre: No. Should I?

Ben Culpin: Yeah. The first chapter is basically about the brain.

It's by two or three. People it's really beautifully written. My friend is a psychotherapist. He got me onto it. [01:03:00] I'll read it. Check it out. It's just this. I'm having a lovely conversation. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. This is fun. It's so good to see you. Yeah, it's good to see you too.

I'm just trying to decide whether I should ask you one or more two questions. We've got another 15 minutes, but yeah, why not? Let's just keep going for just a bit longer. Okay. Let's see. Okay.

Yeah, I was on Instagram about a week ago and I saw this it's gonna not sound very appropriate, I say this, but he looked Southeast Asian.

He looked like he could be a monk. He, but could maybe have been a samurai, like very nice, beautiful appearance. And it was a short reel that said something like sometimes you need to know when you need to throw it all out. You need to empty the cup, empty the tea, and pour yourself some new tea.

And I was like, oh, I like that, but I thought I had to integrate everything from the past into the present to go to the future. Question is, sometimes they [01:04:00] say you need to throw it, all out and move on. Is that always true? And if so, when?

Heather Lefevre: For me, that's been in ending relationships and needing to move away from that person. So I left Portland after getting divorced and moved to Oakland, California. Because I wanted a fresh start. I would say that's been the most that has applied to me because with my work, it all, I can't help, but be a strategist it's who it really is, who I am, or it's been embedded in me and doctrinated in me so much.

And I don't want to let go of it. And what does that mean to me of I'm going to look and as long as time allows, I'm going to look and absorb and ask questions. And then when I have to decide, I will have to decide.

Ben Culpin: Yeah, do you? But okay, maybe put it more simply. Do you believe in this statement or not?

Do you think that it is more [01:05:00] about totally letting go of something? Or is it about trying to acknowledge what you have and Accept it and build on top of it.

Heather Lefevre: I think that comes in the discovery of is this serving me or not serving me. So if I decided that the relationship was not serving me completely cut it out.

Ben Culpin: Could be a work relationship just to be clear.

Heather Lefevre: Yeah, for sure. But then if it's like wellness and strategy, they both serve me to a degree and I like the idea of them being blended. So I'm pursuing the blend. Yeah, exactly.

Ben Culpin: So I'm professionally speaking that works for me. I think in the instance of relationship.

Doesn't always work.

Heather Lefevre: Maybe if you're polyamorous.

Ben Culpin: True. How do you feel about polyamory?

Heather Lefevre: The [01:06:00] pandemic was a good time to research it and to see is that me? Is that why? My that's why i'm on my second divorce, you know thinking about it, yeah, it's not for me But it's for some people.

Ben Culpin: Can I ask why?

Heather Lefevre: Can you ask why? Sure, you can ask why. I just really like knowing somebody very completely and having that kind of trust and, connection with one person.

Ben Culpin: Yeah, I've never been in a polyamorous relationship, but I... certainly curious. I would, it would be a tough line to walk. But I have heard people talk about it that are more involved in it and I can't help but also connect with some truth in it.

This idea of sharing more love can give you more love and that it creates more abundance of it. [01:07:00] And that it's not about if I give my love to this person, I will not Be able to give it to that person and they will not be able to receive it but I do think it does really come down to the person I suppose I prefer it.

Yeah, I don't know for me. It's also this idea of I associate intimacy with a one on one kind of thing

Heather Lefevre: I think it depends on how it's structured. So i'll point out two references. So there was a Show in america on netflix called how to build a sex room. Did you catch that?

Ben Culpin: I've I heard the title.

I've not seen it.

Heather Lefevre: It's pretty hilarious It's essentially ethnographies is where the mary poppins of sex rooms comes in and she'd ask them like why do you want a sex room? And what are you into? And so some of it is traditional married couples. But one of the episodes is about seven people who are all in a relationship together and there's no hierarchy Of this is a primary relationship and these are secondary.

They're in like [01:08:00] a seven person relationship And that works for them. And so watching that show and seeing how they are, it's Nope, that's not me. I would not want to be in a seven person relationship. But then I have a, another person that I know who their tag on Tik TOK is openly committed. And that person has been a strategist.

I don't think she ever says her real name on, so I won't. Divulge her, I think she says her first name for sure on, but so she has a primary relationship with her husband and she has children, but then they're allowed to date. They've they're ethically non monogamous, is their lingo that they use.

And that makes a little bit more sense to me, particularly in the context of their relationship, of for example, she likes to go do things like snowboarding and really active outdoors things, and that's not his thing at all. So she tends to date people who like to do those [01:09:00] things and share with them.

She's also found out she's bisexual, so she sometimes dates women. It's okay, he can't provide that, I think it really depends

Ben Culpin: I love hearing that example because it's a sign of a healthy relationship, this idea of being able to trust in that person to that they will not fly away in the process, but they will actually come back more grounded, more grateful, more connected and appreciative to that person, but also feel more fulfilled.

Heather Lefevre: Exactly. So I think it comes down to if you think you're like a primary partner kind of person. Are you finding a lot of compatibility and all the getting your needs met from that one relationship or no, I find that I've been able to find somebody where I'm able to get. My needs met. Love it.

How about you Ben?

Are we allowed to say, are you [01:10:00] dating? Are we allowed to send you people?

Ben Culpin: No comments. No, vulnerable. No. My situation is complicated. And I would say that I would, because of very recent events, it's, Oh no, let me rephrase this. In my past, I have been in a relationship that ended very publicly, and I was not the one that was public about it, and it was quite upsetting.

To respect, my current situation, I wouldn't, at this time, talk about stuff, wrong word, recent events, because they are so recent.

Heather Lefevre: Okay. That's clear.

Ben Culpin: Yeah

Okay, last question very abstract. Here we go. We got seven minutes. What do you trust in?[01:11:00]

Heather Lefevre: I trust in people that I believe are wiser than me I believe in wisdom. I trust in wisdom. And what does that mean? Like knowledge that has an application. And it's very clear that it is true. Correct.

I'm genuinely, I think that is what made me pull away from strategy. Like I spent more time with these luminary people and it's actually I don't aspire to be you. I don't aspire to be not very, not very well, not very fit continuing to climb this career ladder.

It just didn't appeal to me like when I see it in practice. But now I do feel myself in the wellness world. Feeling aspirational towards I do want to be like this person, oftentimes in my cranial [01:12:00] world, I want to be their mind. I don't want to be their body. And then when I'm over in the movement world, it's I want to be their body, but their mind feels like it's not getting enough time to play.

So that's why I keep trying to bring these two things together.

Ben Culpin: Heather, I have really enjoyed talking to you today. And I think that, wanting to go on this journey of talking about healing and the practice of healing you've brought a lot to the table today and I'm just super grateful for your time.

So thank you so much for sitting with me today.

Heather Lefevre: Thank you, Ben, for having me.

Ben Culpin: Thank you.

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