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Dr. Ginger Garner sat down to chat with Diana Florio about using yoga in healthcare as a physical therapist. Yoga is still not being utilized to the extent it could be in healthcare and oftentimes it centers around a belief that yoga isn’t safe for people who are sick or injured.
However, we learn through their conversation as they emphasize the holistic nature of yoga and highlight its unique ability to connect individuals to themselves and regulate their nervous system. When practiced holistically, it turns out that yoga is incredibly safe when incorporated into healthcare because it is so much more than a series of poses and stretches.
Yoga actually goes far beyond the common preconceptions and incorporates breath work and practices of interoception to achieve a balanced nervous system, reduced inflammation, and enhanced capacity for healing. By regulating the nervous system, individuals can cultivate qualities such as openness, empathy, compassion, and kindness. But also…less pain, greater mobility, and improved function and meaning in their lives.
Through practicing yoga in healthcare for a combined 4 or 5 decades, Ginger and Diana both share many ways in which yoga is safe and is accessible for everyone who wants to explore this healing modality! Because, it turns out yoga in healthcare can be used with just about anyone…and sometimes all a person needs is to move more mindfully, breathe with intention and attention, and reconnect with themselves and the present moment.
If you are interested in learning how yoga in healthcare can transform your personal healing journey OR expand your professional practice – this is an episode you don’t want to miss!
Diana Florio is a physical therapist, yoga teacher, certified strength and conditioning specialist, mother of three and the cofounder of Threes Physiyoga Method (TPM).
She received my bachelor’s degree in Biology from American University and my Master’s degree in Physical Therapy from Hunter college. She loves all forms of movement and considers it to truly be medicine. She has been practicing yoga for over 20 years, and has always treated my patients through the lens of yoga. I completed my yoga teacher training at OM Yoga in NYC in 2010.
Prior to founding TPM, she spent seven years working as a physical therapist at the Hospital for Special Surgery treating anyone from inpatient joint replacement patients to professional marathon runners. Through her work at TPM, her mission is dedicated to bridging the gap between yoga and healthcare by training both yoga teachers and physical therapists in the TPM method.
0:00 Dr. Ginger Garner: Hi, everyone. We are back again. This is Ginger, your host of the Living Well Podcast, and I am super stoked to be talking to a colleague who does some similar cool stuff to what I’ve spent a few years doing as a PT, as an athletic trainer. As a mom, like as a human, you know, like forget all the other labels that we have, just as a person. And so I couldn’t wait to bring Diana on the show because of that. She’s been in the yoga space for a long time and I’m going to get all fancy and read her bio for you because I want you to know about her background and that she knows what she’s talking about. That’s important. And we’ll get into all the ins and outs and the whys in just a minute, but welcome Diana.
Diana Florio: Thank you. It’s so great to be here.
(0:58) Dr. Ginger Garner: I am glad to have you here.
All right, so Diana is a physical therapist, a yoga extraordinaire, teacher, a certified strength and conditioning specialist, which is a pretty cool thing, a mother of three, which is, of course, the coolest thing of all, and founder, co-founder, let me get that right, of Three’s Physiyoga Method. We’ll call it TPM. for short.
She got her bachelor’s degree from American University. Gosh, I remember visiting years ago when I was an athletic trainer and covering soccer for Division One Athletics. So, cool school. She got her bachelor’s degree in biology and then went on to get her master’s degree in physical therapy from Hunter College. Diana loves movement and movement is truly, totally medicine. Diving into the literature for the last textbook I co-edited was so much fun, because it was just about movement, which is kind of a full return to physical therapy in general. So I totally resonate with you on that.
She’s been practicing yoga for a couple of decades, you know, five minutes or so. And she’s always used yoga in her treatment. She completed her yoga teacher training over a decade ago. in New York. Now, prior to founding TPM, she spent seven years working at HSS. For those of you who don’t know what that is, it’s the Hospital for Special Surgery, treating all kinds of things. All ortho, right? Orthopedics? Yeah.
TPM’s mission is dedicated to bridging that gap between yoga and healthcare and how they fit together, which I love because that’s a passion point for me. And we’ll put this in the liner notes and the show notes so you guys don’t have to worry, but you can go to threesphysiyoga.com to check out all the awesomeness.
All right. So Diana, welcome again.
You describe yourself, because I’ve been reading, you describe yourself as a 100% self-proclaimed science nerd, right? Yes. And for those of you don’t know, if you know and love a PT in your life, that describes a lot of us. We absolutely love the science. It’s why we got into it. Some of us are more introverted and surprised, ‘oh, we have to work with people’ when we graduate and get out, you know, and then others of us are like, ‘no, totally. I’m an extrovert. This is why I got into it. And I love the science’.
But you said some of your favorite moments are spent diving into literature and studying the why of the human body and the mind. So my first question is, why yoga?
Diana Florio: Why yoga? Personally, I started yoga because I was going through a really challenging time in my life. So in my early 20s, pushed up against the wall with a really tough decision. Felt like no matter what I did, I couldn’t get inside of myself deep enough to find out an answer. And Emily, my current business partner, took me to some really cool, sweaty, full yoga classes in the heart of New York City. And having never done any of that before, I would say it was the most spiritual thing I’ve ever done and the most transformative, some of the most transformative experiences in my life where I was like, holy shit, I am getting into some deep parts of my body, some deep parts of my mind, and boy, do I really feel connected to myself. And I was like that, that’s amazing.
Dr. Ginger Garner: You said it was at OM Yoga, right? It was one of the first places there.
Diana Florio: Yeah. So OM was where I got my certification done, but Jeeva Mukti, across the street from OM, on 14th and Broadway, was the place where it all went down, where it all started. Those were, yeah, big.
Dr. Ginger Garner: I took a class there. Yeah. I’m feeling that, you know, when you’re, I’ve been in that space. I remember, um, for those of you don’t know, Cyndi Lee, you can look her up. She’s the founder of that. And I remember I was in a class there in 2004. I don’t know when you were, what timeframe you’re talking about, but it’s probably,
Diana Florio: Yeah, we definitely overlapped. Oh yeah.
Dr. Ginger Garner: That would have been crazy. We were there at the same time, but yeah, I remember taking a class there, but let’s get back to what you were mentioning about. I want the listeners to hear that sentence that you said again, a spiritual experience, like that’s the closest you had felt to yourself. And I think that’s important because, you know, we talk, we throw around spirituality all the time and people think, oh, it’s about religion. Not really. Is yoga religion? No, it’s not. And to say that you had that spiritual experience that was so deep is, is what it’s all about. So tell, tell us more about that.
Diana Florio: So I think defining spirituality is different now. Like my definition of spirituality now definitely reflects what I felt then. Part of it is connection to something greater. So connection to this practice that all the people in the room and thousands of billions of people across the world have been doing. So connection to something bigger, but then also having that deep connection to self where I could reflect and the end result being this sense of goodness, kindness, empathy, compassion toward myself and toward others.
And I know that sounds a little woo woo, but I think when you, I think when you back it up with science and when some of the most powerful things about yoga is that it’s a very sneaky way to regulate your nervous system because of the breath work, because of the practices of interoception, of going inside and sensing self.
And when you have a regulated nervous system, it’s a lot easier to be open, empathetic, compassionate, and kind. And so I take a lot of steps and a lot of connections to put all that together to say that for me, deeply connecting to yoga, to self, to the practice, to the community, made me feel more spiritual, more connected, and more good.
And I continued to do it while I was in school for PT. I continued to do it while I was working with clients in a setting that was so highly non-yoga. I mean, HSS, when I was there, was surgery and rehab and protocols and guidelines. And step one, start with doing quad sets for your knee replacement and step two, doing range of motion. And there wasn’t anything written in these guidelines about how to stay present and positive and calm and regulate your nervous system so you weren’t fearful of these exercises.
(08:34) Dr. Ginger Garner: Mental health was just left out.
Diana Florio: Siloed to something that didn’t have to do with the body.
Dr. Ginger Garner: Completely different. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mind and body were somehow separate. Yeah.
Diana Florio: Yeah. Yeah. And I saw places to integrate mind with body. All of the different stops on my journey at HSS. The first stop was working with people in the inpatient rehabilitation setting. So these were patients who had had their hip replaced or knees replaced hours ago and it was our duty and if you’ve had your hip or knee replaced you know you you get out of bed pretty early on and that’s freaking scary.
You’ve got a new joint in your body you’ve been cut open and now someone’s saying some stranger is coming in and saying time to get up and let’s walk and I really just started doing simple things like I get people from laying down into sitting up. And before we went to stand, that first transition, we do some breathing practices together, or we do some interoceptive practices.
So sort of body scanning, feeling your feet on the ground. Can you bend your knee a little bit and feel what that feels like to bend your knee? Getting people to gradually get accustomed to their new experience before they’re just like up and walking down the busy hallway in a New York City hospital with a gown on.
(10:03) Dr. Ginger Garner: It’s often, you know, what you’re describing is so often, which is why I consider, you know, yoga my kind of chief go-to modality as well. It’s because it’s the compassion that we have bound up with our mechanisms we’re teaching them for regulating the nervous system. It’s not just, here’s some stuff. And I hear that in your taking this knee patient from being afraid to walking.
They’re in such a vulnerable situation. I think that’s often what’s missing is that deep kindness and compassion that drives all of us into health care. But then the health care system ends up not being a place where we can embody it. Yeah. And so it’s kind of an act of, um, it’s like a rogue act to say, no, we’re going to go in and we’re going to take yoga and we’re going to, you know, inject this back into a system that seems to have lost it and seems to have skewed unfortunately towards productivity and profit over people.
(11:15) Diana Florio: Yeah. I think what people think, how do you integrate yoga into healthcare? Um, it was not like I was working with that total knee patient post-op day one saying, we’re going to do some crazy yoga poses. And that’s, and that’s one thing that I think it’s nice to understand about yoga is that it’s not just poses. It’s that connection to self.
And so helping people connect to themselves and helping people regulate their nervous system out of a place of fear and anxiety. And I think you’re better suited to help people do that as a healthcare provider if you can do that for yourself. So if you can stop and be present in the space and see the person in front of you and kind of get an understanding of what they need and not just treat everyone the same.
It’s like read the room, don’t come in there 10 out of 10 enthusiasm in every room, because you may walk into someone’s room and they may be tearful, and they may need a softer touch. So I think that presence and that self-regulation is important, and then having the ability to offer tools for people that you’re working with to be present and regulate. I think it’s both. The both and, yeah. And so then I ran the gamut.
So after inpatients, then I just started adding yoga into every piece of my journey at HSS. So I was working in sports medicine, and then it was fun because now we’re working with athletes who really have to understand how to let reactions go. o failure or to having movement goals that they can’t attain yet because they’ve had surgery. So working with the athletic mentality, but then also being able to finally integrate some of the poses to help athletes who need more mobility, pitchers, and doing things like high lunges with rotation for pitchers and things like that.
And then the culmination of integrating yoga and physical therapy really happened when I got to open up a clinic in a very large, prominent New York City investment bank for HSS. So HSS contracted to open a physical therapy clinic within the largest banking institution in the city. And I was to start that up. And this building had 4,000 employees in it. And every employee was type A, plus, plus, plus, goal-oriented, driven, competitive out the wazoo.
And it dawned on me that this population more than anyone was completely disconnected from their body and so stuck in their heads and the narratives and the stories they told themselves about how hard they had to work and how they must meet their deadlines and they must meet their goals.
And these patients would come down with persistent pain in their hips and low back and neck and they would have prescriptions from doctors with diagnoses like, you know, rotator cuff tear or hip labral tears. And we would quickly unravel those symptoms, because they weren’t, they weren’t coming from us from some superior imaging, but it just some diagnostic tests that the physician would do. We would quickly unravel those symptoms by getting people to breathe and connect and let that stress and anxiety siphon off so that they could return to come out of that like fight or flight state and move into rest and digest.
And I was like, oh my goodness, like I don’t even need to do home exercise programs with patients in this setting. Like we just need to move and breathe and connect. And it made huge changes in people’s lives, huge, unimaginable, unmeasurable. And that was like, okay, this is it. This is, I need to just, teach this, create this, make this accessible for all.
(15:46) Dr. Ginger Garner: Yeah. So you, and this you kind of touched on this already, but I want to dig into it just a little bit more deeply. Cause I think for the listener, there’s a lot of ways that you can come to appreciate what the power of yoga can do for you. Just merely asking the question. What’s my next thought going to be? Or how does the next breath I’m going to take feel? Like, congratulations, you’re mindful, you know, like, that’s mindfulness, it’s so easy to access.
And, and y’all, it’s the cheapest way possible to get fit, you really don’t need a lot. You don’t even need a yoga mat, really, half the days I do it, I’m not even especially in the winter, I’m just like, on my bathroom floor on my rug, after I get out of a hot shower, when my joints feel really great, then I’m like, I’m gonna knock out 20 minutes before I go back into, you know, the three-kid deal and the life deal and the running the business and stuff deal. So it’s really such an easy way to help ourselves.
But one of the things that I am always curious about is you mentioned this, the kind of this, the disconnect that you’ve felt that led you on kind of a spiritual, the spiritual experience to bring you back to yourself because you didn’t ever lose yourself. It was there, you know, you’re just like plugging in again.
What are some of the ways that, and if there aren’t, just say, well, it was mostly spiritual experience? Because I think that’s important to mention too. A lot of people think about yoga as asana and pranayama, you know, as the breath work and the postures, but it’s a whole system of lifestyle medicine. Kind of one of the original indigenous systems of lifestyle medicine is the way I like to think of it.
So was there a physical aspect in kind of when we, in therapy, we talk about, you know, and this is for the listener, like biopsychosocial, what the heck does that mean? It just means we look at you as a whole person. So from the whole person aspect, it helped you spiritually? Was there also like a biological or physical aspect to how yoga specifically helped you in your experience?
(18:08) Diana Florio: I think when you do yoga and this is new, right? So before I really dove into yoga, I was a personal trainer. And that’s when I got my strength and conditioning specialist. And I was playing some sports. So I was always active, running. And I think that difference in the bio is the paying attention.
So it’s not like, it’s not like, I don’t know. I mean, I use my body so differently in yoga classes. And when you first start it, you’re like, “Oh my God, this is so hard.” But now looking back, I realized that it’s, it’s not that, it’s not that hard anymore because I understand how to do it. So it’s challenging physically, but what really struck me was the paying attention.
Was the how I could use my mind to feel different parts of my body work, stretch, struggle, how I could use my mind to get muscles to work more if I wanted to or work less if I wanted to. So it was really like, that was the difference. I never really learned that when I was doing sports or running, but that mind. I’m going to tune in and see what’s working, turn it down, turn it up. And also just listening to my body work. That was the difference for me. And that’s one of the best things. Yeah.
(19:45) Dr. Ginger Garner: That is a beautiful nuanced answer, because a lot of people might think, oh, it helped my rotator cuff injury and I got over that, or I had an ACL reconstruction and it helped me get over that. But the pace at which our lives move in the United States and other similar countries is not one that allows us access to feel. In fact, in many ways, we’re like socially conditioned to just ignore that. That’s fine.
You know, just go take your run and check off your box for physical activity guidelines for Americans minimum 150 minutes per week, you know, at a talk, but not saying pace. I mean, we can rattle off what the requirements are for physical physical activity, and it moves so much beyond that. So far beyond prevention of injury even, because yoga, yep, it’s pretty darn good at allowing you to prevent injuries. It’s absolutely wonderful allowing you to treat.
I know I came into it feeling and seeing that. My entry point was from a chronic pain perspective, you know, for my patients, that I really honestly felt like next to nothing that I learned in PT school. I hate to say this out loud, but it’s kind of true. That I learned all this stuff in PT school, but it wasn’t helping with the chronic pain population, being where I was stuck in like the number three county for the opioid epidemic in the country. That smacked me around, you know, a lot, like, whoa. And so, including that, you know, that piece of yoga, and then hearing you kind of underscore that it’s the nuanced way that yoga allows you to feel a joint, a breath, a thought, you don’t even have to move, you can just be kind of comatose on the floor. And that’s also yoga. Yeah. It shows you a whole other universe. It really does.
(21:54) Diana Florio: Yeah. And I think it’s part of the way that we can do those things, that we can recover from the rotator cuff injury, the ACL, probably more effectively trauma.
Dr. Ginger Garner: Trauma. Yeah. Yeah. So I’m curious because I have a certain, we all have our experience with yoga and we’ve talked about that. We are yoga kind of, yoga fans all day long, but what, if any, did you feel? Because I know we have a different, slightly different timeline of when we came into yoga. What pushbacks did you experience between blending the two things of yoga and physical therapy? What was your experience?
21:53 Diana Florio It was varied and vast. I mean so being at this institution which is an amazing institution and you know what the number one institution for orthopedics and rheumatology in this United States. I think one of the things I was up against is just , “this is how we do things. We don’t we don’t use yoga and physical therapy. We use the the protocols that we wrote to rehab a rotator cuff.” And so there’s pushback from therapists.
Undeniably, it was usually the therapists that were a bit older and didn’t have exposure to yoga. And then there was curiosity and a lot of like, I wanna understand how you did that, why you did that from younger therapists who had done yoga before. And so, and then the orthopedic surgeons, again, I’d say the majority of them unfortunately don’t understand all of the layers of yoga. They see it only as a series of poses. And so therefore, you know, when their patients say, okay, I just had my rotator cuff repaired, can I do yoga? And the blanket statement from most orthos is “no”, because they don’t understand that it’s not just like handstands and headstands that they’re sending their patients back to.
So I think I ran up against a lot of that, but I was able to do a lot of pushing back gently, like explaining this is what it is. And we did a lot of education for physical therapists. We ran continuing education courses for PTs. And we tried to share it with any orthopedists or physiatrists who are a bit more skewed toward that, to yoga, as much as we could. Patients too, it’s like you kind of get a sense of who might be interested in adding some and who might not. I think when you get people, especially with patients and clients, when you have someone in your office, in your clinic, and they’ve been in pain, they’ve been suffering for so long, and they’ve tried the traditional route, they’re open to trying things that are different. So I think more often than not, patients were open if they were going to get help, if it was going to help them. So the pushback mostly was with the older therapist, the orthopedist, and trying to sort of break down the barriers so people can understand that this is a powerful tool to use.
(25:47) Dr. Ginger Garner: Yeah, and depending on where you are in the country, You know, for our listeners, you’re still going to hear some of those similar things. You might go to a physician, your primary care, you know, doc or whomever, maybe even your physical therapist. Say it, but it’s true. And you still might get the same answer. Oh, yeah, yoga, not appropriate for you. Not true. Yoga is appropriate for everybody. Yeah. Everybody for every mind.
If you skew towards, you know, physical injuries, like we’ve been mentioning knee stuff, shoulder stuff. Yeah, it’s absolutely usable for that. I have been working on education locally on hip arthroscopy with, um, physicians because they’ll immediately say no to yoga, but then again, when I send the notes back, I will gently say, and here’s the yoga that we included and how it was different and what it looks like.
So just because your provider says no, just because your PT says no, or your surgeon says no, your PCP, your primary care provider. I don’t want to throw out acronyms and then it kind of, and then blow over them. It doesn’t mean they’re right. You know, so investigate that. And from, you know, Diana and I sitting here who’ve been using yoga for goodness knows a combined over 50 years, it’s usable for everyone. So if someone says no, they’re wrong.
(27:29) Diana Florio: Yeah. And I think it’s about, you know, asking the right questions. And saying, “can I?” Instead of asking if you can do yoga after an injury and saying, you know, I’m interested in adding some maybe modified yoga to my movement diet or some breath work and mindfulness. And then asking, you know, what movement should I avoid instead of if you should avoid yoga completely?
Dr. Ginger Garner: Instead of what you should avoid..
Diana Florio: Yeah. Yeah
Dr. Ginger Garner: And, you know, sometimes, don’t be surprised too. And this is not shocking for me to say, but it’s still kind of a delicate statement. There’s a lot of ego in healthcare, you know. So that if you ask them about what you can or can’t do, or you ask them even better, what movements you can or can’t do, if they don’t know, you might listen for an ego answer, because you might get the, well, just don’t do that at all, or just avoid that altogether.
I heard a health care provider say the other day, and I just had a moment where she said, oh, if you haven’t exercised before pregnancy, they’re not going to let you exercise during pregnancy. It’s a contraindication. That’s from a health care provider. So there’s so much misinformation out there. And if it doesn’t sit right with you as an individual, in your gut, listen to that, you know, like, you know more about your body than anyone else.
You want to find a provider that trusts you and trusts you with your own story and your own experience. And that’ll lead you to good places. But one thing that I want to mention is that leads to some other things that I know we have both heard confusion about. One is the whole spiritual piece, which I brought up earlier, because I’m in the South. I’m in North Carolina.
And so you can hear all kinds of things with is yoga religion, you know? And then there’s a lot of education that goes on. I keep a whole sense of humor about it, because for the three decades that I’ve been doing this, I’ve heard it all, you know? So, no, yoga is not a religion. But the other thing that people will get confused about is, where do I go? What do I do? How do I explore this? Well, I’ve heard of yoga, but then there’s this yoga therapy thing. And then there’s this, you know, there’s what are you doing? And how is that different? So let’s kind of iron all that stuff out. Like what’s the difference between everything that’s out there? And maybe we’ll get into a couple of examples. Like if a person experiences this, maybe where’s the best place that they could go and what are some resources that they could look towards?
(30:24) Diana Florio: Oh my gosh. There’s so many different types of yoga. That’s what I feel.
Dr. Ginger Garner: I could start very high level and go there’s the yoga at the studio down the street, right? Where there’ll be yoga teachers, who you’ve probably heard of yoga alliance, like registered yoga teachers. And then there’s this idea of yoga therapy, or therapeutic yoga, and that kind of thing. And then there’s all these different which, thankfully, I think we’re moving away from like, guru and lineage-based yoga to just safe yoga, accessible safe yoga.
So yeah, let’s kind of unpack that for a little bit to just kind of, I guess, quell some of the fear, like clear some things up for people so they’re not confused and they can kind of head off into their future after this podcast going I know where to find that resource.
(31:25) Diana Florio: Yeah. I’m thinking about my mom and how she’s never really done yoga in the past and how she would be most likely to do it at her gym, at her local gym, because she just retired, she’s gonna join gym and she’s gonna do yoga. And then I think about her walking in and the teacher’s young and the students are young and her just saying, nope, not for me, or her doing it and getting hurt. And I think that that is a story that happens a lot.
I think there’s a lot of, first of all, I think there’s a lot of older people that are aging and are starting to feel achy, creaky, stiff, and they’ve read that you should do yoga. And where should they do that? I think, yeah. I think yoga, yoga down the street at your local studio could be an option, and yoga in your gym could be an option. A lot of classes may have words like gentle or slow, or they might have levels like level one, two, three.
Generally speaking, you would assume that a level one would be a simpler class with poses that don’t require a whole lot of like contortion-y type shapes. You might even investigate a chair yoga class: class where you’re sitting in a chair.
(32:53) Dr. Ginger Garner: It can be very challenging.
Diana Florio: Yeah, it can totally be very challenging, but at least you know that you’re in a container that you can succeed in. Yeah.
Dr. Ginger Garner: And I said that because when you said chair yoga, some people will think, oh, right, yeah, that’s easy. I’m like, it can be hard.
Diana Florio: Yeah. I think beginner and brand new yoga classes exist in a lot of studios. So I’d always recommend if you’re new that you should try to do that. I also think you’re not going to, even if you go to a level one class at your local studio taught by, you know, the teacher named Lisa on Monday, but then you go to it, to the teacher named Susan on Wednesday. It’s going to be two different classes. There’s so much variety in the way a teacher teaches.
So communicating with the teacher every time, what are you comfortable with? What are you not comfortable with before the class begins is important. I think like you said, there’s a lot of different styles of yoga. There’s Hatha and Vinyasa and Anusara and Bikram and these sort of, like you said, lineage-based yogas. And I’d recommend finding the one that feels right for you and trying them out and reading up about them and educating yourself.
I think when it comes to having a physical injury or ailment, You’ve got a chronic ankle sprain or a knee injury or chronic hip thing or low back thing. You could tackle that in a traditional yoga class. Again, making sure you’re speaking to and sharing your story. But that’s one of the reasons why physiyoga exists is to help people integrate. So physyioga is what we do and that’s integrating physical therapy principles and yoga together. So that we’re taking into account your alignment, your joint alignment, the way your joints work and biomechanics and things like that and teaching yoga.
That’s different from yoga therapy. Yoga therapy is not orthopedic focused for the most part. Yoga therapy is offering something that is really taking all of the elements of yoga that exist outside of the movement and really exemplifying them to help with certain issues.
And it could be more systemic type issues, things like blood pressure or helping you recover from other disease or disorder in your life. And I don’t know if you can find a lot of yoga therapy classes, but a yoga therapist could be someone who could help you specifically.
I think the bottom line is educating yourself, and educating yourself in style. Being open and honest with yourself, with where you are in your body and practice. Communicating with the teacher. Finding a teacher or a community that doesn’t intimidate you, where you can really be yourself and feel safe. I think those are the things that are most important when you’re looking for yoga for the first time.
(36:18) Dr. Ginger Garner: Yeah.
Diana Florio: And I hope that, and I, we strive that our studio, digital studio is inclusive, accessible, and safe. And that’s our mission is for people to find what they need at an accessible level where they can feel safe, where they can feel comfortable, where they can feel supported. and where they can learn things that will help them not just on the mat, but in their life. It’s hard. That was a tough question.
(36:52) Dr. Ginger Garner: It is a hard question. I think that, you know, what I take out of that, because that’s a question that I get all the time. I’ve yeah, decades, you know.
Diana Florio: And I didn’t even touch upon yoga alliance, because honestly, I don’t look to them as a reputable resource. Currently, where I would send people to. And maybe that’s my fault, yeah.
Dr. Ginger Garner: Well, I think there’s a lot of, I think what I would take away from that question, because it’s a question I’ve been answering, like I mentioned, you know, for years in training other people and having owned a yoga studio in the past, that was the yoga physical therapy hybrid, you know, back in 2000. That makes me feel like a flippant dinosaur, like a T-Rex with short arms. Hey, but T-Rex’s can do yoga too.
Like we’re talking about green flags of yoga. You know, when you go to your yoga studio down the street, if I didn’t do what I did and I walked in, I would automatically feel intimidated if I saw people do it really bendy and flexible and strong and wearing the hot yoga pants and all that stuff. And it seems like an expensive endeavor.
Those are some things that would intimidate me. So if you don’t feel intimidated, green flag. if it’s if it’s a price point that is reasonable, you know, because there’s a lot of stuff out there that I think is inflated for what it is, it’s, they’re not looking to provide safety, they’re looking to push and challenge you or even kind of egotistically get in there and flaunt themselves.
And this is not saying that to say anything negative about the yoga community. It’s just that we want you to look for green flags, you know, we want you not just exactly what you’re saying, to feel safe, to not feel intimidated. That if you ask a question and say, I had a hip arthroscopy, I just had my third baby, that they would say, This is, they would say not, oh, we cover all that, which is impossible. It’s impossible for a yoga teacher.
So if you go in and Yoga Alliance or not a Yoga Alliance, to me is kind of irrelevant. I want to look at how they answer you and how they respond to you. Because if you go in and you’ve had a hip scope or three babies, and they say, no problem, we can take care of it. That’s a red flag, that’s not a green flag, you know?
I want my yoga teacher to say, oh yeah, I can talk to the, you know, I’ve got a great relationship with the PT clinic in town and we refer back and forth to each other and yeah, and she’s doing this workshop or he’s doing this workshop. It’s on higher level stuff because that’s a lot. You’ve been through and this is what I think. Or there’s a yoga therapist and they’re doing this class and it’s on, you know, having depressive symptoms or something and just going through a hard time and they’re going to be talking about Ayurvedic principles. You want to hear about resources like that.
You don’t want to hear from your yoga teacher, oh, I can handle that because nobody can handle all that, right? If someone comes in with endocrine issues and pelvic health, sure, we can look at labs, but then I look at those labs, and then I know I’m informed enough to refer. And that’s what an interdisciplinary real team effort looks like. That’s what building a community looks like.
And I think both the healthcare communities and tell me what you think about this. I think both the healthcare communities and the yoga community have siloed and kind of fought with each other. And it’s silly and stupid. And we need to work together.
So I’m going to be quiet and let you say a few things about that because I know we both come from a passionate place of wanting to help people access yoga that’s safe. It’s why you guys started TPM. It’s why I started teaching continuing ed for yoga and PT and OT and mental health like dogs years ago, like 25 years ago. We care about it and we want everybody listening to be able to access really safe, really fun yoga that changes your life.
So what do you think about, you know, what can we do, and what can the listener do to go out and feel comfortable either entering a yoga studio or entering a healthcare practice so that, you know, yes, we’re still kind of siloed. Yoga’s over here, healthcare’s over here, but you’ve got two people talking about it right now that have been integrating it, you know, for a really long time. What, what encouraging words would you have for them as they go out to search? Plus we’re going to give them your resources too, but what encouraging words would you have for them?
(41:49) Diana Florio: For the person who wants to integrate. So the person who’s on their, own medical journey.
Dr. Ginger Garner: Yeah. They have some health issues because rarely does anyone walk around on this planet with like nothing wrong and no stress whatsoever. That just doesn’t exist. If it does, please reach out in the comments. We would love to know.
But for most of us, we have a thing and we have something going on and I want everybody to finish listening to this podcast going, Yeah, I feel better about that. Yeah, I know healthcare has issues and the yoga community has its issues, but I feel better about seeking out safe yoga for me.
(42:30) Diana Florio: Yeah, I think, I mean, we set out to bridge the gap. We set out to bridge the gap between healthcare and yoga. And I think within both disciplines, physical therapy, healthcare, and within yoga, you’ll have people on two different ends of the spectrum. You have people that are in the medical community that are like, no yoga, just medicine. And then you have people in the yoga community that are, no medicine, just yoga.
Dr. Ginger Garner: Yeah, beware of both sides.
Yeah, exactly. So find the people that, you know, find people that have, find medical providers that have done yoga, that have yoga experience. Find medical providers that are more integrative, maybe, or that work in clinics that potentially have acupuncturists or Chinese medicine where signs like that might say, okay, this person might be open to exploring different types of modalities in my health journey.
I think for the yoga teacher and finding a yoga teacher, I think it’s, you know, maybe finding a yoga teacher who’s been through their own health struggles and injuries and have sought out traditional medical providers to assist and aid with their journey. I think it’s hard and there’s not a huge, there’s not a set in stone resource to turn to, to find those people. But it is a bridge that we’ve been trying to, or a gap that we’ve been trying to bridge together by educating physical therapists about how to integrate yoga and educating yoga teachers how to speak the PT language. And that’s something we’ve been doing for a while.
So, I think knowing that there’s a spectrum of both. Of both the medical community and the yoga community and understanding where to draw the line and say, this person, this doctor says no to yoga all the time. It’s probably not the doctor for me. This yoga teacher says no to antibiotics and surgery all the time. Maybe they’re not the person for me.
(44:50) Dr. Ginger Garner: Yeah. I think what we’re talking about is searching for people, for providers, whether it’s a yoga teacher, a therapist, um, any kind of physician is to find a community of people where there is perpetual curiosity to learn new things. If you have providers and teachers and therapists that are curious and that you feel listened to. And that aren’t marginalizing or minimizing your story, and that take the time to listen, you’ve got something good. Yeah, curiosity.
And that goes for this like kind of a universal perennial philosophy, really. It’s not just yoga, and finding, you know, your zen and yoga. It’s everything in your life. It’s your relationships. It is obviously not just your health care.
(45:44) Diana Florio: It’s openness. Yeah.
Dr. Ginger Garner: Yeah, and I think that we’ve experienced too long of both things. I know I experienced it in the yoga community, very close-minded, to be shunned and to be excluded. I totally know what that feels like. I also know what it feels like in the healthcare community.
Because when I first started out, both of them, I was ridiculed from both sides. So it touches on a really important thing that I really don’t want anyone else to have to go through. So I think that if you search for that, and obviously reaching out to Diana with any questions that you have, we’re going to put her website. Let me make sure I get it right. Threesphysiyoga.com will be in the show notes.
Reaching out to them with questions. If you have questions for us, if you’re trying to find someone nearby, or do you want to participate in their digital studio? Because everybody has different needs. You know, maybe the online stuff is hard for you or you’ve got a lot of issues going on. We’ll help you find the right people for you to plug into because they exist all over the place. There’s fantastic providers, lots of open-minded people who are lifelong curious learners. So I just want everybody to feel encouraged.
(47:07) Diana Florio: Yeah, I think it’s a beautiful way to put it. Yeah. I look for concrete resources and I’m just wishing that they were there for people.
Dr. Ginger Garner: Yeah.
Diana Florio: But traits like openness and curiosity are good places to start.
(47:22) Dr. Ginger Garner: It reminds me of, and this is maybe a really good thing to end on, Mr. Rogers’ mom. Was it his mom that said, when you’re struggling or in pain or you’re suffering, go look for the helpers? Maybe. Look for the ones who are helping. Beautiful. Look for the ones who are helping. And that was kind of the point of our time together today is to let people know that’s what we’re trying to do.
So you guys look up Diana and her work and her co-founders, Emily’s work at threesphysiyoga.com. Keep doing your yoga. Don’t let anybody tell you it’s not adaptable for you. It totally is in every physical, spiritual, and social, emotional way possible. So thank you, Diana, for being here.
Diana Florio: Thank you so much. This was lovely.
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