Transcript: Christine Garvin 0:02
Hey, everyone, welcome to this week’s episode of hormonally speaking, I am really, really excited today because I have been able to bring to you an old friend of mine, that we have not seen each other for many, many years actually. And she was the reason that I essentially got into the program that I did with my Holistic Health Education masters. She was the first class that I took there, and it was kind of my I’m going to try and see how I feel about this place kind of a class right? And so in taking her class, I was like I’m in let’s do this. I’m full speed ahead now. So super, super happy to have her here because in what she does around energy work, and you’ve heard me talk about energy work so much on the podcast at this point. I think energy work and trauma are so so important and often overlooked when it comes to hormones and health is she’s just always been fascinating, and her experiences with energy work and how she teaches it. So we’re going to talk about all of that today. My guest is Vicki Dello Joio , who is a life changing workshop leader, he Energy Master Teacher and inspirational speaker since 1975. Her brand of brilliance has empowered wellness, motivated and spiritually inclined seekers to infuse body mind spirit practices into their very cells so that they can tap into their birthright of joy, use it as a fuel not a goal for a lifetime. In addition, Vicki has drawn from decades of theater performance directing experience, along with her lifelong study of martial arts to fire up visionary speakers to amplify their charisma and deliver their message with passion, presence and power. Her methods for both crafting stories and her focus on the energy behind how they are told have touched and transformed hundreds of speakers to stand and deliver with joy, competence and ease. Popular host of monthly program, Qi Talks, and a hall of fame recognized teacher of the Chinese art of Qi Gong by the Association of Women martial arts instructors, Vicki’s spiritual fitness program and book the way of joy has transformed the lives of 1000s of participants since 1975. Welcome, Vicki. Vicki Dello Joio 2:19
Oh, thank you so much, Christine. It’s just a joy to see you again. I can’t even tell you Christine Garvin 2:24
know, right. As we were talking about before we got on, it’s been so many years now. It’s kind of crazy. Just time passes. Right? Crazy. I Vicki Dello Joio 2:33
think it’s 20 years since I first met you. Yeah, like nuts. Christine Garvin 2:37
Yeah. Right. And then so here we are in. And that’s, I think the good thing about you know, because we sort of reconnected via I guess, I guess LinkedIn is a social media way, you know, approach. And that’s the good thing about the social media platforms, right, is that you can reconnect and stay connected with people that at one time, you know, pre 2000 If aren’t able to easily do so? Yes. So yeah, so, let’s start off with just the basics for people that have never heard of Qigong. You know, what is it? What is going on? Vicki Dello Joio 3:13
Well, that’s a great question because there are a lot of people who haven’t heard of Qigong still. Qigong is a word that most people have heard of Tai Chi Chuan, and or tai chi and some people and Tai Chi is one style of Qigong. So Qigong is a word like dance. It’s a very broad word, and it includes many different styles and lineages and philosophies. There’s some there’s healing Qigong, or medical Qigong. There’s spiritual Qigong, there’s intellectual Qigong, there’s a whole bunch of different types. It’s martial arts style of Qigong, tai chi, would fall under that cap category. So it’s a word that came up in the 50s, I think, or late 40s, basically to encapsulate all of these different lineages and practices that focus on breath, visualization and movement. So whether that’s internal movement, visualization, or literally moving your body, and then sort of put that all under the cap of Qigong. So again, it’s a fairly new word to describe ancient practices. And there’s over 6000 was the last I heard over 6000 exercises that get called Qigong. So you could study with one teacher for years and learn everything they had to teach and then go somebody else in do entirely different practices. What they do have in common is most of Qigong is based on Dallas concepts or Dallas principles. And so it’s working a lot with how to be in flow, how to be adaptable in your life, how to be empowered and have a sense of agency over how your body works. Christine Garvin 4:50
And I was as you were talking, I was thinking about how those concepts have become so pertinent and available. I Think in our culture now, even when it’s not called Qigong, right, like its idea of visualization, this idea of breathwork. And maybe our science or allopathic science is kind of catching up with these ancient traditions that many, you know, different cultures understood how important they were for a long period of time, and we’re just kind of in Western culture, you know, catching up with that now, but I think that’s such a, you know, a beautiful encapsulation of these things that are part of the human spirit, right? They’re just starting to see how important they are. Yeah, Vicki Dello Joio 5:36
well, you know, it’s super exciting, because I think that there’s a way in which that split between science and spirituality or a sense of what what is underneath, you know, what, what, what’s driving us, what makes us who we are, that that’s all starting to kind of come together, because it feels like an artificial split that happened, what for whatever reason, long, long ago, at least in Western culture, and now that it’s coming together to the end of everything, from quantum physics to functional medicine to various types of approaches to Who are we here? We humans on this planet? Are we living beings on this planet? And what is that made of is become more and more unified over time. And I think that’s just the direction we’re going is kind of healing an ancient split that doesn’t really belong there. Christine Garvin 6:23
All right. And I think we’re partially getting there, because the other things that we were doing weren’t working to really make us healthy, because you can’t have a split. Right? Right, actually be holistic and truly healthy. And so I, you know, I think one of the positive things, if you want to call it that, that came out of COVID, was, I think a lot of people started to come around, maybe to these concepts, you know, I think it was already building, but then that just gave some time and some ability for people to kind of, you know, learn about different things than they had before. And also understand how much stress impacts our daily life and our health, and that we need other ways of dealing with stress than sort of these just things that we’ve been using that haven’t really been all that helpful, you know, or kind of just blunt stress. Vicki Dello Joio 7:21
That’s so so true. And I think that that’s, you know, I mean, I think that that’s part of someone’s like, there’s a new paradigm that we’re living in now, right? Because there’s, there’s no going back to pre COVID Even though people are going out more now. And the strains of COVID don’t seem as severe. There’s still a sense that we’ve opened up a different way, right? Definitely more in the virtual world, or what my friends saw a lot called Cyber Tao. But but really, you know, that there’s now there’s the sense that, okay, well, how do we navigate? How do we navigate connection now? And that’s, that’s something that’s really, really interesting to me, because it’s like, what is it that connects us? And I think that there’s, there’s, there’s a possibility here of building something new that can go beyond where we were even before the pandemic? Christine Garvin 8:13
Absolutely. 100%. So how did you find yourself learning about Qi Gong in the first place? Vicki Dello Joio 8:20
Ah, learning about Chi Gong, okay. My first encounter with with it was a Tai Chi class when I took that I took when I was in a theater program, that they brought in Tai Chi for actors. So this is a long, long time ago, this is like in the late 60s, early, late 60s or early 70s. And, and they, you know, at first, I wasn’t sure what this thing was, I didn’t particularly relate to the teacher. I didn’t feel it was a Chinese master teacher, but he came in and I was just his big claim to fame was that he had a younger wife who, you know, he was really old, he was maybe 60 years younger than I am. Christine Garvin 9:04
At the time. Vicki Dello Joio 9:08
That was a teenager, but he, he, he had a wife and he’d had recently they’d had a baby. And so his big, you know, it was this big, you know, see how vooral was not of any interest to me at all. Like, right, but when I started doing the tai chi and started doing the movement, it was like coming home, it was like, I almost it was almost like he was learning this but remembering it at the same time. I was just like, felt so right. So that was my first introduction to this whole world of of Tai Chi and Chi Gong and then I continued it when I started going to college, and and that after a while, I started doing more of the fighting arts, the martial arts that were more for self defense. And then can Back to Chi Gong after an incident that I heard you tell my story on another podcast. Yeah. It was like, Oh my gosh, she tells that so well, she’s really Christine Garvin 10:11
good. I know. I’d love for you to share it now. I think it’s so amazing. With me for many years. Vicki Dello Joio 10:19
Well, I was so impressed. So yeah, I was I was in a, I was in a martial art school. I was learning kanji Kimbo, which is really a fighting art that’s draws together five different arts in order to really learn how to defend yourself that was created by five martial arts masters to help street fighting in Hawaii help people take care of themselves and boy, but anyway, I was studying this, this art and there’s a lot of sparring and fighting in it. And I was fighting a lot at the time with my partner who I was breaking up with. And so she and I would be fighting at home. And then for some reason, our teacher thought it was a great idea to have us fight with one another at the school. So we would be kicking and punching, it was kind of it was not a happy time. But I had started it because I wanted to learn to defend myself, I had had some attacks on the street in the past. So when I, when I went one day, while I was coming home from the school, I was taking the subway Bart here in California, from, from from the, from the school back to my home. And as I was walking home, from the BART station, this guy walked around the corner. And you know how you can sometimes I think most women are very alert to there can be some energy that you feel is funky, or you can feel something feels menacing. So he came around the corner, and I just might my antenna went up went up. But I didn’t go into any kind of fighting stance where I was ready to kick or punch him, I just did something instinctively where I just got a little taller. And as he came up to me, he reached out to grab me. And as he grabbed what reached out to grab me his hand bounced about six inches or a foot from actual contact with my body. And I knew he hadn’t missed because he walked away looking at his hand and looking at me and looking at his hand and looking back at me like what happened? Yeah, so I didn’t even know what happened. It wasn’t until I got home. And I got a phone call from somebody who became my first big Qigong teacher who’s calling to say, I don’t think you need to learn these fighting arts anymore, I think you need to focus on some of these internal arts like Qigong. And she had been just doing that off of a chart that she’d read about me. So I started studying Qi Gong and learned that the name for this thing that happened was an actual real palpable field, that’s called wei qi, it has to do with external energy and Chinese medicine, it has to do with which it has to do with your protective energy, like what keeps you from, you know, your, your immune system from powering pathogens, and pathogens, and allergens and that kind of thing. But there’s an actual field that you can start to play with that expands and contracts according to what you want. And it’s the same type of energy that when somebody comes into a party or something like that, and you sort of are drawn to them, or you’re sort of repelled by that person to pass that has to do with this energy that’s emitting from them, even though even whether you believe in energy, so called energy or not, it’s there, we read that in each other instinctively. Christine Garvin 13:22
Right. And, you know, I think, I mean, this is just something that came to my head, it’s an interesting approach to for women, you know, I have long thought, oh, I need to take some self defense classes, you know, because I’m not trying to carry a gun, I’m not trying, you know, trying to do any of these things. And so I’ve always kind of thought, self defense classes, but there’s a kind of a part of me that just, it’s such a masculine thing, that I am not necessarily drawn to doing it. And so as you were talking, you know, I don’t want to masculinize or feminize, any of this stuff, but the the way, he almost sounds like, a little bit of more of a feminine approach, right? It’s like you’re utilizing your own energy as a protective field where you don’t have to, like, necessarily come at somebody. Right. And I could be completely off, but I was just like, Oh, that’s so powerful that you were just aware you were using your intuition, which I think you know, so many women in cycling people really have a deep connection to but main be disconnected for whatever reason. And then from that place, you are extending your energy as a protection mechanism. Vicki Dello Joio 14:41
Yeah, instinctively I think the thing is that you know, with women I think we’ve also there’s something about which he that has to do with really having agency owning your own power right to be able to stand because basically what I did was I remember I had this thought that as my spine lengthened. And it just I got I just stood really tall. And I remember having this thought I am. And when I started to really explore more with Wei chi, particularly now I’ve been teaching it for so long, and had so many students report amazing experiences with it, that that I think that that there’s something that with women, I think in terms of the gender piece of it, we tend to be trained out of it and trained out of sort of that owning your power being aligned between, you know, what routes you and what inspires you and being able to express that with a play from a place of passion and power to be able to do that is something that at least in my generation, was definitely scolded, right. frowned upon, like, my father was a perfect example of somebody who was like, you know, you should, you know, I remember one time, I was visiting him, and his wife was asking me about some of the work I did, and I was telling her, and she was saying, this is great stuff that you should tell people about this all the time. And my father turned to her. And he said no, about her, she never talks about herself. And I remember thinking at the time, thank you so much for saying that, because now I realize where that came from. There’s something about, and I think that many women and I think, you know, women who are in a different generation than me, are sort of standing on the shoulders of the work that women did before that in the women’s movement, and so forth, to be able to white women’s movement, and be able to really, you know, own that. So I think there is a piece of it, that’s genderized that I hadn’t even thought about, but But when a woman stands up in her power, it can be incredible. Christine Garvin 16:40
And it just says, Pat, yeah, it’s just as powerful as just as powerful Vicki Dello Joio 16:44
as a punch in the jaw. Right, right. Christine Garvin 16:46
Right, exactly. You know, and I think, Vicki Dello Joio 16:47
yeah, hurt your hand doing. Christine Garvin 16:50
Exactly, exactly. And I do think that’s a huge piece of what we’re, you know, facing and dealing with right now is how does the feminine rise within her power, or their power, you know, in order to help balance this world that has been, you know, so far in one direction for so long, you know, and, and to me, it’s not about you know, the feminine taking over and suppressing the men like it has been or the masculine as you know, it’s been, but that really just a rebalancing, you know, that we are, hopefully, I always like to believe that we are in the process of that happening, even if not all the things that you see on the news every day feel like that, but, you know, the wider circle, so yeah, yeah, there’s Vicki Dello Joio 17:44
a rise in that type of consciousness, I think, and, and I think it’s necessary, right, is we need to have that balance. And we need to have that sooner rather than later. And it’s just it’s an it’s an it’s a new paradigm. So one of the extent patriarchy or white supremacy, that’s, that feels to me, like, it’s kind of, it’s certainly more bold and bald than it’s been in the past. But it also feels like it’s, there’s more and more consciousness rising that says, No, we can do another way we can become a collective, you know, if you want to go, you know, if you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go with that African proverb, if you want to go with others, you know, if you want to go far go with others, that concept of how do we how are we interconnected to really recognize that we are all part of a, a consciousness of planet, you know, that sort of we are all one consciousness is, you know, and I’m watching more and more men embrace that part of themselves, what they call the feminine, you know, and for me, it’s this, you know, this is this yin and yang, which I’ve never really liked gender rising those two concepts, but has to do with the balance of what our internal world is with what we’re creating in our external world. Christine Garvin 18:53
Absolutely. So you’ve continued to do Wei Chi and Chi Gong, essentially. I mean, I know Chi Gong is kind of the umbrella term, but all of these years since then, I think that that’s just an amazing there’s not many people that stick too many things for that long period of time. What do you think has made you really, you know, stay with it for this long? Vicki Dello Joio 19:21
Um, what a great question. You know, it’s one of those things that happens in cycles that I fall in love with it again and again. So there’s different things that have happened in my life. Like I remember when I was first training myself to be a teacher, which I was doing two and a half to three hours of very intensive practices a day. So that I would be able to sustain what I thought was important to sustain as a as a Qigong teacher and what I was being led to through the teacher that I had at the time, and I was I was also very stressed in my life. At that time. There was a lot going on I remember I got I got hit by a car. And while I was walking across the street, I got thrown up in the air how If I told you that Christine Garvin 20:00
story Ah, no, I don’t think. Vicki Dello Joio 20:04
So I was walking across the street, this car hit me I remember looking over my shoulder seeing that I thought it came to a stop sign. And then I just kept walking, I was jaywalking, I have to confess. And then I looked over my shoulder again, and he was coming in at me really fast, it was about 3030 miles an hour, I got thrown many, many feet up in the air. And in that moment of being thrown up in the air, I had this moment where time stopped. It just same way the time slows down for people who’ve had car accidents and stuff like that. For me, it was like I was up in the air time stopped. And I remember, literally looking around, it was like I was a seed inside of a hole. And I was looking around at the inside of my body and going, Wow, I really am just a seed in this hole. And I can choose to stay or I can choose to leave. What do I want to do. And it was not a given that I wanted to stay because I was I was struggling with some depression and some issues that were going on for me. And I decided to stay obviously, and I opened my eyes and I was coming down to the pavement and I just tucked into a Aikido role basically, out of it. And then I stood up and I started to do some Chi Gong and the guy leaped out of his car. He’s like, What are you doing? I just hit to Christine Garvin 21:18
take care of it. Okay, Vicki Dello Joio 21:20
lay down. And I just started doing it internally. And you know, I kept going, you know, they took me to the hospital, we’re just, you know, I was twisted, but nothing was broken. I remember the people standing around and not doctors and nurses going from that double impact of that being hit at that speed and then hitting the pavement that hard, she should be dead or broken. Yeah, I was fine. I walked out I was twisted two years to untwist my spine to the degree that I needed to, but it’s but but the bottom line is, is that that’s when I fell in love with Qigong again, because it was like I realized it was this energy practice that that first of all made me that resilient Second of all, allowed me to slow time down to kind of make that choice also helped me in terms of the reflex action of going into a role there was a lot about Qigong that what I’ve learned through and from Qigong, that, so that’s just one time, I have many, many instances where it just kept came back around. And then after a certain point, it became watching what happens for my students, because that’s really, for me, where the rubber hits the road, it’s like all fine for me to have, you know, these experiences, whatever. But when I see my students, really, I mean, I have students who studied with me, some of them for 25 or 30 years, I’ve been doing this for a long time. And then I can host why you keep coming back. And they said, because you keep renewing how you’re doing it. So I keep people’s attention. But but it’s really seeing everything from from people just owning their power and a whole new way, being able to use these cheap practices to to really accelerate what they’re doing in a way that feels less effort and more results. I mean, it’s so rewarding to watch that. Even if I didn’t have a practice myself, I’d still want to be able to help people that way. It was just it’s, it’s just it’s very gratifying. So that’s what it is. And at this point, it’s just a habit. Yeah, I get up. I do my cheek. Christine Garvin 23:12
Yeah, like it’s deep in there. Well, I was thinking about, you know, I think probably some of the popularity of some of the martial arts movies are basically what you explained. And what happened to you, right, was that you were able to I don’t want to you weren’t manipulating anything. But you were able to work with the situation because of this thing that was already deeply embedded in you, right? It’s not that one no happened probably that way. Vicki Dello Joio 23:36
Had you not done? Oh, was it? I was in such a deep practice at that time. Right, right. And it was almost like that was like a kick in the butt literally, because I got hit on the side of my hip butt kick in the butt too. Because I was sort of over extended, stressed and depressed. And so this was a moment that happened in serendipitous type of moment. That did not harm me in a in a long term way. And that actually redirected how I started to think about what my life was going to look like and what I was going to do next. It was one of those, Christine Garvin 24:07
you know, yeah, those moments? Yeah. And I can certainly relate just with my you know, fibroid surgery gone wrong store, how that, you know, redirects. What I did with my life and sort of got me going gave me the shove to redirect. But I also was thinking about I don’t know if you remember boxcar he’s he was also a JFK. Vicki Dello Joio 24:36
Remember the name? Yeah, I Christine Garvin 24:37
was like, boxcar. How can you forget that? Yeah, he at one point. He was, I don’t know if he walked the entire length of the country or with the country, but he walked quite a bit, right. He did this for, I don’t know, a year or two. And I remember him telling a story of, you know, being somewhere out in the woods. And he was just walking along and Basically, he just like, jumped up, and then landed on the ground. And he didn’t even realize why he had jumped, you know, he didn’t do it consciously. And he looked back and there was a snake right there. So, you know, it’s the power of really connecting to your body to and getting into, I think the practices that really bring us back to our bodies, and really, you know, deepen that relationship where so much of unfortunately, in our culture is kind of splitting that relationship. Yeah, you know, and, particularly, you know, with a lot of the women that I work with, we have a deep disconnection, unfortunately, from our bodies, because we live in a culture that’s like, push, push, push, push, do all the things, handle the things, hustle, you know, hustle culture was so big there for a little while before COVID kicked in, and it’s there’s still remnants, you know, what I see? And so we miss all those signals, Vicki Dello Joio 25:58
right? So let’s change your body, right? It’s this constant thing of like, your body’s not okay? Right? You’re gotta be this weight, you’ve got to be this shape, you’ve got to be you know, you’ve got to fit this particular false ideal exist. Um, you know, that’s there’s a lot of pressure in that way. And I see that even still, with young women, it makes me so sad to you know, that I’m an old person. I don’t have the same level of like, you know, frustration around my body. But but, you know, there’s and the thing is, is that our bodies, the cells, the very cells of our bodies have such wisdom that when we tap in, that’s what I love about Chi Gong is really following the wisdom of your body. It was that wisdom. That that, that when we really listen in that can just can change everything. Christine Garvin 26:44
Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. And it’s funny actually just did a social media post, I think on Instagram about what you’re saying, You know what one of the things in the past few years around the the woman’s body ideal has been, you know, to be it’s like being more curvy, and having a bigger booty and all of that. And apparently now 90s heroin, Schick is what they call it, you know, it’s coming back in style. And so the super skinny thing, I guess, that was happening in the 90s. And I just, I did a little screaming post is what I like to call it, because I’m like, at what point can we see the manipulation here, you know, of the eye. And even when we were accepting curvier bodies, and bare booties, that was only creating an ideal that not everyone can fit into none of these ideals, or any that majority of people can fit into, right. And they’re harmful, and they’re harmful. And they’re going to try and sell you products right here that way. Now, plastic surgery on a whole different level. Right? Oh Vicki Dello Joio 27:46
my gosh, oh my gosh, yeah. It’s just, Christine Garvin 27:48
you know, it’s really incredible, the mental, physical, emotional things that, you know, were put through by trying to get this ideal. So I just, I was in that mood when I posted, Vicki Dello Joio 28:02
I’m gonna go on and so right after my podcast and listen to you, with pleasure, Christine Garvin 28:08
we’re gonna step out of the insanity, right? You know, leave them to try and create that and just step out and just be in your body as it is right now. And I love what you’re speaking to, because it shows all the beauty and power and, you know, just loving connection that you can build when you start to do these practices, you know, and without a doubt, you know, the energy level has such a huge impact on our hormones. You know, I say energy and trauma are the probably biggest overlooked things when it comes to our hormones. And those are often very interlinked to right, because that hidden trauma, you know, sort of comes, impacts us on these energetic levels that we don’t even realize Vicki Dello Joio 28:50
those traumas hold hold in our bodies of stagnation, right, what we want to do is get that to move. Yeah, yeah. Christine Garvin 28:58
And so what a powerful, you know, practice something like Chi Gong is to even you don’t have to necessarily tap into that trauma. Right. It’s just you’re moving that energy that has been stagnated. And that can have such a huge impact on your reproductive system. Because not only is it trauma, you know, from this lifetime, but it’s ancestral trauma. And if you believe in past lives, it’s that trauma too. Right. And so, utilizing these practices are just much more powerful, I think, than a lot of people realize. Vicki Dello Joio 29:29
I agree. I absolutely agree. Yeah. So let’s talk a little bit Christine Garvin 29:33
about the other thing that you do, and you really bring your energy practices into supporting this and this is working with people to get up there. Do the speaking do the presentations, tell their story. So tell us what that’s all about. Vicki Dello Joio 29:50
Well, I this is something that came to me because I was I was back into Atlanta in 2013. I decided to take my show began teaching more seriously as a quote business unquote, is, you know, I just sort of follow the flow unfolding. And it had worked well for me. But I wanted to, I wanted to go to a new level. So I began speaking a lot on stages. Because I have this big background also in theatre and in directing, it was very easy for me to make that transition. A lot of times, I’d be on stage with other speakers. And when I see the other speakers speak, I’d noticed that there are they would be losing their audience. And I remember one time I gave a talk, it was, you know, got great responses and nice line of people afterwards wanting to talk to me. Somebody came up to me and said, I love how you tell stories and how you speak. Can you teach me to be more like you? And I said, No, but I can teach you how to be more like you in a way that really makes the kind of impact that you know you’re born to make. So So I started classes at the time I called it Rockstar, speaking and storytelling, not because I wanted people to be rock stars. But because I because when you’re at a rock concert, you can feel your bones vibrate, right because of the volume. And I wanted to have the level of impact that people stories to have that bone moving, you know, that recreate that kind of bone, bone moving response in people to really get people motivated and moving, whether it’s towards a call to action for people who are platform speakers who are speaking to earn money, or bring people into their promo programs, or keynote speakers who are really wanting to inspire people to take action about something or another. So so. So I started to work with storytelling, especially the storytelling part. And since then it’s developed, I call it now your power presence, because what I realized that it all boil down to communication. And to me, there’s four elements or four pillars that are really important to address, especially if you’re going to be on a live or virtual stage speaking, which is what is your message? Right? What is that? What are the stories that carry that message in a way that’s succinct and clear? That doesn’t have too many details or too little details? Sometimes it’s right, because it’s hard to see the picture when you’re inside the frame. Right, right, and have an outside eye. And then the delivery, how are you? How are you delivering it? And and then finally, what’s the energy behind it all? So I’ve sort of taken these four pillars, and I work with, with speakers and speakers of all kinds also, I’ve worked with, you know, lawyers presenting to the Supreme Court all the way to people speaking, you know, women’s march to 1000s of people to people speaking in a boardroom or a court, you know, what, or speaking from a stage about their business. So working with people, anyone who’s as everybody’s a speaker, right? We’re all speaking unless you’re mute for some reason. So it’s like how do we how do we really elevate that, because I really believe that speaking and telling stories is vital for anybody to move towards you. It’s, I think of stories as being the vehicle to empathy. Maya Angelou once said that, You people will often forget what you said or what you did, but they’ll never forget how you made them feel. And I think stories are the way you help people know, feeling the feeling that the feeling connection, that they get to know you know, like, trust, that important factor for all entrepreneurs. It really stems from what it is that you’re telling yourself about yourself, and what are you telling others about yourself? So I started, how are presents individualized programs for people to and so I work with people who are like, you know, got a big TED talk coming up, or some kind of big, vital, important thing coming up all the way to people who are just thinking, you know, what, I think I need to speak more to build my business, I have different levels of programs that I work with folks. And I use Qigong as part of it, it’s Qigong informs everything that I do, right, it’s part of, you know, I’ve been doing it for so so long that it comes through and and I do have, you know, I do have stood the people who are open to it, practice some some of the basic, easy to learn quick to learn practices, particularly right before they step on a stage or step into a Zoom meeting. They can really be their their full present. Yes, most most shiny self. Christine Garvin 34:17
Yeah, yeah. Well, and I think we are in a time, right where this, there’s a lot of talk about authenticity, and owning your story, right? And that’s how you sort of stand out. You know, I was actually just having a conversation with one of my colleagues, because, you know, it may not feel like this to the outside world necessarily. But, you know, we’re just like, man, there’s a lot of like functional medicine people these days, right? And on social media in these different places, you’re trying to kind of figure out well, how do I stand out from the crowd, you know, because it’s getting oversaturated. And, I mean, that’s what we came back to, right. It’s telling your story. It’s owning your story, and And what you said to about one of the main points that you work on, I mean, for me, it can be so hard to determine what is too too much in the details and what is too little in the details. Right. And, and I can hear it when other people are presenting or you know, telling their story or like, oh, they just, they got it, you know, or Yeah, that was a little excessive, you know, versus in yourself. You’re just like, I don’t know what’s going to hit. Vicki Dello Joio 35:26
Yeah, yeah. And that’s, that’s a true from a lot of people who I get to work with is, you know, they they come in, they’re just not sure. And I either to tell you the truth, I always use a director when I’m formulating something new, I want to see what’s landing and what isn’t. So it’s good to have that outside eye. Because I think that the detail piece, especially, which is, you know, like I said, it’s so common, that that a lot of speakers that I’ve seen, ended up, you know, when they’re in there about me part of their talk of signature talk, they go so much into like, it’s like a reciting their resume, or, you know, I did this and then I did that, and then this happened. And then I did that. So they’re describing something, but they’re not really feeling it. And I there’s their audience, or they get so lost in the weeds of the details that they forget to come back to the essence of what they’re Christine Garvin 36:17
probably more like, oh, well, and then this happened, and then this happened. Alright, we got to make that a little more succinct. Vicki Dello Joio 36:26
Yeah, to have that core thread know how to weave that through is really, Christine Garvin 36:32
yeah, well, and I was thinking about to when you were talking about, you know, doing exercises before going on stage. I mean, I can think about that in the, you know, the times that I face that, but even talking to friends that have done TED Talks and things like that, you know, I mean, that is when the rubber meets the road, right is when, you know, all of this sort of practice comes to a head when you get on that stage. And it’s just a big light on you. And, uh, you know, you can’t even really see the audience, but you know, all these people are there and your mind just wants to go blank, you know, so, you know, I know that there’s lots of different sort of approach it and there’s different hormones, essentially that are at play during offseason, right? Vicki Dello Joio 37:12
Literally neuropeptides going nuts. Christine Garvin 37:14
Yeah, exactly. And obviously, your cortisol and your adrenaline are just like shooting through the roof, you know? So it’s like, how can you work with that right to channel it. And I used to teach dance and this is what I would tell my students all the time to is, you know, taking that what can feel like fear and nervousness and channeling it into the opposite, which is excitement, and being able to really, you know, hone in on that aspect. Vicki Dello Joio 37:43
reminds me that wonderful Fitz Fritz Perls quote, that fear is excitement without breath. Have you Christine Garvin 37:49
ever heard that? No. Yeah. So true. Yeah. Yeah, Vicki Dello Joio 37:53
it’s waiting that cheek, that stage fright into excitement is a really good way. And of course, Qigong is really helpful for that, right? It’s all about breathing and coming back to center so that when you walk on stage, you’re back aligned, instead of, you know, what if what if they don’t like me? What if? What if? What if? Yeah, yeah. accordion? Christine Garvin 38:10
Yeah, yeah. And it is fascinating to write because the body’s kind of set up in this mode of wanting to protect you, right. That’s why all of these hormones are being released. And everything’s kind of going crazy inside. Because it’s like, we may have to run or fight or any of those things, right? So it’s like, you’d have to figure out how to down downshift, maybe as a way of looking at it, you know, and I can see how much how Chi Gong really can help with that. You know, those energetic practices. So yeah, oh, yeah. Well let people know how they can contact you and work with you. Vicki Dello Joio 38:46
Well, the best thing that I would suggest is to go to your power presence.com. Because there are people can they reach out to me directly, and we can happy to have a conversation with you. But you can also download my free book called, let’s get real about charisma, three keys, to inspire and motivate your audience every time you speak. That’s what I call it. And I geared it towards speakers, but I have a lot of people who’ve downloaded it because they find that it’s useful in terms of how to communicate in a way that’s non defensive. And clearly in their power when they’re having high stakes conversations, whether it’s with a colleague, a boss, an employee who’s being difficult, or a kid or a grandkid, you need to set boundaries with the finding that some of these techniques are actually helping them when they’re just about to have that kind of high stakes conversation. But it’s certainly useful for those of us who who spend a lot of time on stage. Christine Garvin 39:41
Yeah, very cool. That’s a wonderful offering. Thank you for doing that. For people. I’m Vicki Dello Joio 39:46
very proud of it. It’s it’s pretty much hot off the presses. So I look in and I’ve been getting such wonderful feedback not just from people who have enjoyed it, but from other speakers so that that’s very validating. Yeah. Christine Garvin 39:58
100 Yeah, like, oh, yeah, that’s important information. Vicki Dello Joio 40:02
It’s a different it’s a different approach than the general presenting types of coaching. So Christine Garvin 40:08
that’s great. And then if people want to do Qigong with you, or wei qi with you, do you have some offerings to Vicki Dello Joio 40:16
the Qigong classes? Yes, absolutely. I have something, I do seasonal workshops. So there’s one coming up at the end of March, the best way to find out about that is to either reach out to me directly through that power, your power presence, or to go to my website, which is my name, Vicki della joyal.com. And that always has pop ups of what the latest classes and workshops are coming up. Christine Garvin 40:38
Nice, perfect. You have a newsletter, too, that people can sign up for Yeah, Vicki Dello Joio 40:44
if you download the ebook, you’ll get the newsletter. And if you don’t want to be on my email list, after you get it, you can just unsubscribe. But I’m a big believer in eliminating spam of all kinds. I hear. I’m pretty pleased to take yourself off the list. Yeah, yeah, Christine Garvin 41:00
exactly. I’m the same way. I’m like, don’t take your personal if I do it to anybody else. And I will take it personal if you get off my list, Vicki Dello Joio 41:07
right? Yeah. Because we’re all inundated, right? We’re Christine Garvin 41:11
bandwidth getting smaller. So Well, this was such a beautiful conversation. I so enjoyed catching up with you, and just talking through all these things. And I’m really glad that you got to share that story that I remembered from almost 20 years ago, and then some other powerful stories, because I know that some of the listeners are going to be very excited and you know, and I just kind of want to hammer in that point, how much it can help with hormonal dysregulation and irregularities to you know, it is a very powerful practice when it comes to that. Vicki Dello Joio 41:46
Yeah, well, it balances so much, especially within the hormones. I think that’s right. And I’m so glad that you are bringing your highlighting and bringing focus to that piece. Christine Garvin 41:55
Absolutely. Yeah. All right. Well, so Good seeing you Vicki Dello Joio 41:59
is totally an honor to connect with you again, Christine. Thank Christine Garvin 42:03
you so lovely. All right, you guys. I will see you next week. Transcribed by https://otter.ai |
