Leave Success to Find Success

Kim Sargent and co-host Hanna Koposhynska speak with Yoga and QiGong Teacher, Entrepreneur and Travelling Mom of 3, Laura Nugent, as she explores the art of reinventing herself in Costa Rica with her family whilst building a second brand in Yoga and Wellness. Laura left behind a successful yoga studio in Peterborough, Ontario and follows her dreams through the beach towns of Costa Rica, finally settling in the mountains to build their dreams amid the hummingbirds. Laura shares her wisdom of well-being, all with a fabulous sense of humour and the very real struggles of motherhood in motion.

You can find Laura Nugent at www.lauranugentwellness.com.

Transcript

Hello, and welcome back to Emotional Health Matters. My name is Kim Sargent. I'm the Clinical Director of Canadian Family Health Counselling and founder of Neural Network Therapy®, and I'm here with my co-host Hanna Koposhynska and Laura Nugent of Laura Nugent Wellness. I am very excited to have this conversation at long last, I think we've been a year in the making, trying to put this thing together.

So, Laura at one time, and I'll of course hand the mic over to you because you have the really interesting things to say, but Laura at one time started a very successful yoga practice just down the street from the counselling practice. And I made the joke that I could zipline from my third floor into the yoga studio and find my way to my mat.

And yoga became a really important part of my life. I'd always been doing yoga, but yoga became an incredibly critical part of my life. Following the car accident and brain injury, at which time I pleaded with Laura to teach me all she knew so that I could get my nervous system back on the rails.

And yoga is one fantastic way of doing that. So we will talk a little bit about yoga, but also and more excitedly I'd like to talk about your adventures in Costa Rica. Yeah, I guess maybe if you don't mind first sharing a bit about what your background was and how it led you to get into your original yoga studio.

Yeah, that's an interesting. It was more forced than anything. Um, A good forced, so I was an high level athlete playing for university Queens University rugby, nothing like yoga and then I played for Ontario. and was long listed, which was the goal because my coach on the territory was a really high level, amazing Canadian coach and had played for many years.

She was the coach of the Western Mustangs as well. Anyways, so she like really instilled that belief like you could play for Canada, like you can do this, Laura. Uh, So it became a goal of mine. I achieved it really quickly by that fall. So that was during the summer I played with her. By that fall, I'd been long-listed.

Which means you go to our barbarian game, and it just happened to be in Kingston, in Queens is where I was living, and you play on the barbarian side, which is basically you as this little minion go against the Canadian team where they see how you do. How many beatings can you take? So I was talking to the coaches.

Right, and they're like, oh, your name came up. Cuz it's very social in rugby. We did a boat cruise, like we hosted them as a club team. We hosted the Canadian team and the coaches, and they're like, oh, your name came up. Like you had to really good highlight video. I was like, thank you. I've made that myself.

So then I was like, I, yes, I'm in. I wanna play. On the barbarian side, I have a small issue. My rib, it doesn't stand, it just keeps popping out. I can't breathe that well. I got pain radiating down my back and pretty intense low back issues as well. Hurts getting outta bed. But if I could just wear the jersey and right, because, and I was just so passionate, I would be.

You know, I'd get my rib pop back in by a chiropractor and they're like, okay this, this will heal in two, three days. I can go back in and you'd be like, maybe... So I ended up tearing cartilage cause I kept doing that four or five times. I dunno. Tearing cartilage in your chest is hell, right. It's right over your heart.

But not a lot of blood flow gets there, surprisingly. So it took a year to heal and one of my teammates said, within that year where I decided, okay, I have to take off. She's like, why don't you come to hot yoga? I was like, Yeah. Stupid stretching.

What's that gonna do? Like I had also bought a bike cause I thought I'll cycle across Canada. If I can't play for Canada, I'll cycle across Canada. Do you know how much it hurt to like bend over and ride bike with torn cartilage? It hurt to breathe. Like it hurt to breathe. So I'm breathing heavily like this.

It was a bad idea. Um, So in the first class, the teacher said, I remember this line so clearly, only push yourself as far as your body will allow. Not to the point of injury. I was like, oh, as a contact sport, high level athlete. , you're like, what? You break bones for a ball. So and I knew, I literally knew in that second, cuz it just started to feel good.

It was so hard. Hot yoga, it's usually a big room. It's like militaristic. But I needed that. Coming from a sports background, I really needed that. Like 36 poses repeated twice. Push, Push push. and in the heat, oh my God. It was brutal, but I just knew, I was like, I'm giving up rugby. So I told no one when I played.

I had that year off, and then I did one more year at Queens. I played varsity one more year, but I had lost the drive to play nationally or to go further. I'm like, no, it's. It's like I'm gonna go to yoga. And then I traveled to New Zealand just because I had no idea what I was gonna do. I did a fine art.

Which I love. Like I decided long ago, I was like, I'm gonna stick to passions and make it work. But at Queens was really good. They did a course on how to be an artist, the business of being an artist. I was like that sounds like a big failure, you know, it's just like all the odds are against you.

Maybe you'll be the 0.5% at make it, and I'm like, ooh. So I traveled to New Zealand just to get away. I had a good friend there and um, did that for 13 months and just happened to walk into a studio That was so ideal. It was an American couple that had opened it. It was called Hot or still is called Hot Yoga.

New. and um, it was a deviation of Bikram. It was called the Barkin series, so it wasn't the same 36 postures, which I'd gotten sick of. There were sun salutations. The sequence changed. It was in the hot room, which I needed, especially for my healing. And uh, yeah, I did my teacher training, it is a five month training.

They asked in month two if I would open a studio for them in New Zealand. And I'm like, I just cried , my God, I was 25. 25 at the time. My mother would kill me, . Cause I was in that phase of like, what do I do with my life? What the heck? So I finally, by the end of the training, said, thank you so much. This is such an honor and I knew it would've been successful.

But I decided I wanted to go back home, which is just outside Peterborough on Lake Chemong. I had no home really. Right. I stayed at the family cottage and um, just decided, oh, maybe I'll open in Ottawa or Vancouver. I was like, wait a minute, it's saturated with hot yoga or yoga there. And then I just got researching Peterborough.

I'm like, okay, they're really thick here. You know, it's a good community. I didn't grow up in Peterborough. We, I was born there and always had family there in the cottage. So, um, you know, I wasn’t super well known in the community at that time, but when I started to research, I taught for a year there, did the business plan and a lot of people wanted hot yoga.

So that's what I did. I opened a studio at 26 years old. Yeah. Amazing. You were just 26 when you started at the downstairs location, is that right? Yeah. Wow. Just a little spring chicken. Just little baby. That's amazing. I remember coming, actually when you had opened that first one, I didn't really, of course, get very committed to yoga again until I came to the studio when it had moved upstairs, but that's such an interesting story.

I, I knew you had these injuries and I knew the rugby part when I was talking to Hanna about doing this interview, she was getting really excited going, oh yeah, Hanna's got a sports background as well. I was gonna say, it's funny because my first hot yoga experience was also Bikram, and I was like, oh, this will be great.

Easy. I just finished my varsity sport career, whatever, and then I did it. I was like, oh wow. This was basically an hour of slow motion burpees. It felt amazing, but I was like, that was incredibly hard. . Yeah, it's. Yoga is harder for athletes cuz we're so tight and we're so used to similar emotions, like we're fit, but you do the same motions.

And you get very tight, especially if you're running like your back, your legs. So it's so good to diversify all the time, which is hard. But I do always the justice now. Yeah, I definitely regretted my coaches absolutely always told me, you have to stretch before and after, but when you're in.

in your early twenties, you don't really feel it. You can just run on the field, have a 10 minute warmup and ready to go, and then hit that age where you're like, oh, I need an hour and a half warmup now. So it definitely helps when you've been having that or building that foundation of stretching because it doesn't just hit you like a wall like it did me and I'm sure so many other people that, go through the varsity career and then retire.

Cool. Makes perfect sense. Well, So in that first passion, before we get on to the next part of what you did, tell me about the yoga part of life. what were the teachings? What can you share with the community here? Everybody that is listening, for the most part, I assume to this emotional Health Matters, PO podcast is here because they have, they're looking to grow.

Um, You know, their skills, their knowledge base about how to be able to care for themselves in new ways. We have a lot of people that are here proactively looking at how they can enrich their lives. Certainly there are people who have serious mental health issues that they're looking to treat perhaps in a variety of ways, not just with maybe taking some medication or yeah, I think it's just a full range.

So what, can you share with us from all the wisdom that you had during those years? Yeah, I think the biggest thing we can take away, whether it's yoga or not, if we're not physically moving our bodies, emotions can get so stuck, right? So what I learned from yoga and from chigong, so I'm a medical Chigong instructor as well,

Eastern philosophy looks at the whole body from physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, and they wanna move from there. So there's energy lines in our body called meridians, just think of it as streams or rivers running to and from the organs out to your limbs and back in and just circulating this energy, which.

which we wanna say in a, let's say a Western way. You're like, ah, I don't believe all that. Which I initially was like, chakras, this is ridiculous. Like in my whole first teacher turn, whatcha you talking about? But we say these things like, I'm low energy today. Oh, I feel energy. Oh, my body just feels alive, right when you're dancing or something.

Or there's times like, oh, energy, like you. We use that language as well. We just don't necessarily know the metaphysics behind it. So if we just commit to moving our bodies, whether that's walking, you know, initially it depends on your physical abilities, it depends on your ability maybe to get out of bed if you have a lot of, if you're depressed, right?

If we just move our bodies just to get a little bit. , right. so that would be my biggest suggestion is, okay, maybe it's not yoga. Maybe I'm not gonna go dive into a 90 minute hot yoga series. I do initially , but high level athlete, like an athlete who really likes I call it a fiery person. Someone who's like always go, go, go.

They initially need that type of yoga to then eventually maybe end up in a yin. , but maybe not ever. . So interesting. As an instructor's, I owned that studio for 10 years, right? And so I so saw my evolution to where now I'm like, let's just lay in child's post. Like, It's just, I was like, sunation, no uh,

Especially now that I'm very pregnant and have two small babies. I use yoga for con. and then I might swim or walk. I don't rem. I'm not a runner anymore by any means. So the biggest thing I would say to people is move your body and find a community. Cuz community is one of the biggest things we can do for emotional health.

One of the absolute biggest. So that's why Covid was like all the lockdowns were brutal for so many. I still feel. , we're dealing with that aftermath. Some are scared to even like, I normally still run virtual classes at the studio cuz some are hesitant to be in a space, right? That really affected a lot of people's mental health.

So to find a community, whether it is online, which is completely fine, or whether you need to be around people that can help support you is still key. That's great advice. Advice for sure. I'll share this one story though that I just came to mind as you were talking, cuz I remember you were encouraging me at the beginning to go and try out a variety of classes.

And I had done yoga. I was a Sean Corn Yoga Vinyasa person at the beginning, so that fiery personality move, move, move. And it was a workout, I call it now actually my sport yoga. And that was just the way I looked at it. I wasn't doing a lot of the zen part of anything there. But I remember going in to restorative yoga and sitting there and it was an hour long class and it was in your smaller studio and somebody else was teaching the class.

It wasn't you that day, but anyway, and you just said, go ahead and lay down. And I laid down on the mat and then, the pillows were all just laid out to do the whole heart open. And so I was there with maybe four other people to my left, a window windows actually all around me, and I'm laying there and within two minutes I'm like, I've gotta get outta here.

Like, Oh my God, I had this massive, what I didn't realize at the time was an anxiety attack on this. Thing not recognize, and I finally had to open my eyes and go, Kim, I don't think any of those people are terribly threatening. . You know, There was just this, whoa, what just happened? But it was the same.

You might as well have told me that somebody in that room had a gun. Like it was the same. You know, Biochemistry that shot off in my body. That was clearly, I think, me hanging on to all of this stuff and having this whole fear factor that just needed to be released in that great heart opener, which is now my favorite pose.

For a while there, I'm like, I'm not doing that. I don't care. I don't, I'm not doing that , like I just was completely anti heart opening poses for a little bit until I knew. Oh, I see what's going on here. So for me, also being in this field and every day working with people, climbing up into my head and working in this very intellectual capacity, yoga was such a great way.

Any body stuff, but yoga was such a great way for me to get out of my head and just let my body do the work it needed to do without me getting in the way of it. . It was really helpful for sure. Yeah. Yeah. You never. Fully known as a teacher, nor are we supposed to like, we're not the psychologist, the therapist. Right. That's actually how I got into life coaching. Cause I was like, okay, people need this for me and I am helping them. So let me create this second sector right, of what I do. But you never fully know what they're going through, but you learn as an instructor to hold space.

And to say the words of, you know, to say it's okay if emotion's coming up, it's okay. And I really started to tap into, with women specifically, cuz it's a lot of women in yoga, it's okay if you're in Sebastian and you're pissed off because we have so, so much anger. But women we reserve, we can, it's just how it's in our dna.

Like we can reserve ourselves more in whatever situation cause we're trying to make things okay. Or nurture and you might just be pissed off and we're not necessarily gonna go get in a bar fight, right? Or just get it out that way, you know, and there is martial arts too, which some women take on, which is awesome.

But it can be challenging to get out that specific emotion and to feel okay with. To get it out, which is was my rugby side. Right. It's like, okay. You used to beat people up a little bit. Yeah. . Um, And I remember I did cuz it was very, you know, we're talking about mental health. Me, I was definitely uh, I don't know if we used the word depressed very, very low when I could not play from that injury because my identity had just.

My dreams had just been woo. I was like, oh, okay. But I felt I became very good friends with my yoga instructor. I would've been, I don't know, 23 or something at a time. And we talked so much about metaphysics. I was like, oh gosh, this is like physics with like spirit and this is great . Um, It's all making sense to me.

And I remember telling her, I'm like, I'm literally being pulled, like I wanna go back to my rugby, feel like a Viking. Like, Yes, I can do this, but I'm literally feel like I'm being pulled into yoga. Like I'm, she's like, you'd be a really good teacher. I'm. I don't think so. . Um, And she was right

So, Yeah. When was like, when was the moment that you went like yoga? Is it like, this is what I'm meant to like teach and share with the world? Was there a defining moment? I think when I walked into, well my dad said before I went to New Zealand, he's cuz it wasn't really in my radar. My yoga teacher had said that and I was like, yeah, maybe just in that confusing stage of what the heck do I do with my life?

Like, I knew I wanted a family eventually too, so I'd even thought, cuz I went to Guelph for half a semester cuz I wanted to be an architect and there I could build my portfolio and then apply for two years to go to Dalhousie. But I actually left there and went to Queens, so I. , I don't know. This is a lot.

I'm planning everything. I'm just gonna switch and do what I love, which was fine, art and rugby, and I'll figure it out. So that's when I decided do what feels good and make it work from there. And I would've been 19 at that point. And then I think, yeah, my dad said, why don't you do your yoga teacher training in New Zealand?

And I was like, so I looked up some and I didn't really. Yeah, maybe. And it was literally in the last four months of my trip that I found this teacher training. I had extend my visa by a month and I walked and I just felt it. I'm like, yes. And I still call Lou and Claire cause the couple, they no longer own it there in Arizona.

No. Then I called them my yoga parents. They help me set up the studio. Peter, bro, like they're. I just, I, and I haven't seen him for years, but we still talk, right? So you find this family that you absolutely love and adore. But I'm almost on the other end of that, where it's like yoga's a part of me, but it's not everything I do by any means.

Like I'm on the end where I'm like, teach a class. I'm like, I'm okay. Like we used to live really close to the. And they offered free classes, which I would go to, was like this older gentleman who I loved, and just a couple teachers would rotate me, had quite a big group going, and I'd go when I, oh, you come and teach,

have so much energy to put into this little family. So I have a five year old, a two and a half year. 35 weeks pregnant. Do you know, what's that next month? And yeah, it's a lot of energy to be that nurturer, the giver, the teacher, and then to do it all for your family. And I was like, I need to step back and just use it for me right now.

And I think that happens with a lot of careers, right? Once you've said and done something enough times in a row and you could do it sleeping, we. Know now with neuroscience, your brain is saying, Hey, there's a whole lot more neurons that you're not making use of, so we're just gonna take them down.

And so those little telephones in your brain come down and suddenly you feel lower energy. You just feel like you're just going and hitting repeat again and again, and doing these things. So I think we're supposed to maintain a creative edge of some sort, and we've mastered something. We've come to that end.

I think it's. Our time to go and what else? And so you're doing the what else part? Right. I mean, It's, you know, transitioning. I've learned to catch myself a little earlier now. And so I start into a project and I realized, nope, this is not lighting me on fire the way it was. And so I put it down and I picks up something does that does light me on fire and it feels great.

So, Yeah. So tell me about the decision to move your entire family to Costa Rica and start your life there . Um, Covid, which is Covid lock-on, are a huge factor, right? Because we te me and my husband, he had a gym in Pickering, Ontario, so we both were forced to take it all online. Um, And it was almost a year, essentially like it opened a little bit in closed and opened a little bit in closed, which was like so frustrating as a owner and for the.

So you just eventually keep losing a little bit more. People losing, you're like, oh my gosh, but still paying all your bills, . We're just like, if we can do it online, like it wasn't like our businesses were tanking by any means, but we're like, if we can do this online here, we can do this anywhere.

and my husband, he has, his parents are Jamaican, he's first generation Canadian. He always wanted to retire somewhere hot in Nice. And he'd said that over the years, he said it every winter essentially. He's oh, we need tomorrow, , right? I was like, yeah, we'll get there. But then he really, he's a research master and he just really started.

Researching where, because he decided I'm done and he brought the idea up to me and I'm like, yeah, but then by the third or fourth open, open and then shut down. I was like, we're going . And he said, Costa Rica, has good healthcare, which it really does. Which we're learning a lot with this baby on the way.

And good school. They have public and private options in healthcare and in schools, and pretty affordable. It's definitely rising because so many North Americans have done the same thing as us. But yeah we literally, it took time. It took some emotional toll on people close to us and then us in return trying to deal with, getting out of Canada

But in the end, it's not like it's been, oh, this is the paradise. People, like you're living the dream. Yes, there's definitely some amazing adventures, but we have two young kids who we moved around essentially for the first year, and eventually just ended up staying somewhere 10 months.

Because we wanted to get them in school, set some roots down and that was in LA Coast in Coco, less Coco. And it was just in the summertime, which is now summer is, February to essentially April. It went from hot to hotter, like. Hot yoga hot And I'm like, no . I, especially my second pregnancy, I was like, I hate heat now.

Like I'm done . We decided to move inland, which is where we are now. So we're building in the mountains. We discovered we're more mountain people than beach people. Cause the coast can just. , they're beautiful, but they can just get so hot. So you can end up spending, hours during the day just inside in air conditioning.

There's some people who love it, like there was a lot of Canadians there who just bask it up. But no, I was so grumpy human, so no. Okay. And and then of course I think even Brian has changed tunes from, so he was originally going one direction and he's made a whole, he's into building. Is that right?

What's, yeah, so something. Okay. How did that happen? I would say, he had a health and wellness business. He had the fitness studio, he had his life coaching practice. He had his personal training practice. He wrote books. But he's a businessman at heart. Like we did a veggie burger business.

One summer we would go to festivals and it would just work. Cause I can cook and he can. and it was really successful, but I'm like, this is way too much work. Like cookings all the time. And he also got into jewelry at one point yeah, like the stones, like the yoga crystals and stones, malo beads and stuff.

He got into making that and was like, he like sold them in front of $300. What's happening here? . So, um, He's definitely a businessman at heart. Well, How this one evolved. He looked at so much real estate before we came here, was like a little bit obsessed with, he's like, let's look at houses in real estate.

And I'm like, I was like like we don't know where we're gonna stay. So I just found a pointless. I'm like, let's look when we know where we're gonna be. But he had learned so much just from looking at homes and all the real estate. When we got here, he'd already connected with builders to talk about our home.

So that's when we met Benell with Stro. Who is essentially a fourth generation builder in his family and he was working with his father at the time. That would've been maybe October, 2021 when we met him. And by that, by January the following January, 2022, they'd essentially started business together cuz Brian saw how successful Burnell.

He had great builds. Really relatable, great guide, but he had no website, which is common in Costa Rica. , no website, no business card, no advertising, and Brian's like, I can bump this up for you, man. Like we could really do amazing. and then Bryce started connecting with, you know, like people from Caldwell and Banker and Brokers especially we're in Coco cuz so many people build on the coast.

And it just took off like they're doing big developments now. Like he's in a meeting today about it's 40 plots, which Benell always wanted to do, but he was so busy doing everything. Like even though he is working with his dad, He was connecting with the clients. He was the architect. He was the builder, right?

This man never stopped and his health was even declining from it. So Brian took away, he is like, I'll deal with the clients, I'll do the sales, all do the advertising. So it's actually this really wonderful business partnership that is thriving very quickly. Like it's almost like it was just meant to be.

Cause I'm like, how does someone even do that ? So, That's great. Well, I did see online, and obviously we'll share your details at the end, but um, yeah, the new build, and that looks awfully exciting. It looks like. Yeah. Quite the dream house you're building, so that's Yes. Yeah. Is this this builder? Yes. Yes.

There's so fu home designs of their company and it's it's like a chalet. It looks like almost a ski cha. , but there's no snow. It is in the mountains. There's a volcano off in the distance. And yeah, we're very excited. I'm so excited not to live in condos anymore. . That's what we've done since we've been here.

That makes sense. Yeah. So we'll. . So I guess the last thing is I'd love to hear about, tell me about Laura Nugent Wellness. What are you doing with it? What pieces have you put together from all your adventures to make some sense out of this work that you're doing? And yeah and how can we find you?

Yeah, so it is pretty simple. Laura NuGen wellness.com is the website and then Laura Nugent Wellness on Instagram and Facebook is where I'm most. I've started Pinterest. Don't really get it yet, but it's there, . So essentially what I've done is, cause I've had to of course figure out how do I be a mom and there for the children.

But then I think a lot of mothers struggle with this is like, how do I do it all right? And still run a business because I love business. I really do, and I really like helping people. But to have a facility like the yoga studio, I did have traveling 40 minutes in and out and managing lots and lots of people.

Wasn't becoming realistic anymore. So I'm creating online courses and I created one for yoga instructors, so it's for new and aspiring instructors, and I called it how to Teach like a Yoga Pro. And just broke down all the tips from all the knowledge I have on, how to start, how to market yourself even about sequencing, because I find a lot of yoga instructors will do their training course and either just never.

Or dabble in it, but perhaps a lot more. So I put this together, three 20 minute videos that they could do as an online course. And then right now I'm running a Rise up coaching group coaching session, which is live, but I'm gonna put into an automated course, which is essentially about one letting go of your fears.

Cause I launched in January course now when people have all their re. and then I tell them resolutions don't work. Cause one of the things, because I think we have to let go of a lot of these things we're hanging onto, you know, first how do you let go? This is a question I asked, like, how do you let go?

And that's a lot with the physical movement, with meditation, with, all these different health and wellness things we do. You know, Feeling that eating the right things. , then I moved them into talking about the five elements, the Chinese five elements from Qigong, like the stages of your life and where you are and what are appropriate goals and things you should be doing.

You're like, I wanna be a rockstar. And you're like 57, like you're gonna actually have too much die. So it was not an example, but it's a very extreme one, . Um, And then we just move into heart-centered, meditation. Like how you said Kim, I was on the Mac. I didn't know I had all that stuff in me.

And this really nice meditation where you just breathe into your heart with each inhale, with each exhale, you see the energy expand around your heart. And that's how you figure out well,

what do I really want? What are my goals? As opposed to what are the goals maybe I think I should have at this age?

or maybe pressures from society or family members. Right. And then finally I'm going into a 90 day plan on how to make that happen. And baby steps, I would say like achievable daily steps of how to get there, because it's not, I never guarantee people that they're gonna get where they wanna be in one yoga class or one coaching session.

It's something that you just, you have to change your lifestyle, but incremental steps work best. Cause if you just try to do it hard and fast, that's usually when we fail. That's kinda the resolution model. So that is the main focus right now. I'm not doing any more one-on-one mentoring, just cuz the baby arriving and yeah, online courses on how to be a better.

That's amazing. I love that you've put, taken all of that and put it into something cuz your story's fantastic and I think it, thank you. Lands with a lot of people in different ways, I'm sure. Hannah, do you have any questions? I know you've got so much I can see you just smiling over there with all of this sports stuff with your background.

But oh yeah. Are there any questions that You've got. Yeah. Yeah. So do you have any advice for anyone who's wanting to start out but isn't sure where? Especially around, I would say like consistency. I feel like that's something that people struggle with so much. You like do it once you feel great, but then it's hard to get it rolling.

So do you have any tips around how to work at that? You have just schedule it in. It's the step one. And then you just have to, if you go into a physical space, like a therapist or a yoga studio, then you just have to get through the front door.

Mm-hmm. .. It's literally it. And then once you're there, like I always notice that from yoga, like once you're there, you never regret it. Mm-hmm. ,, right? That's okay. So it's all, you always feel like schedule. And it's just as important as your job, literally. Like it's just as important as your job. And it's challenging at first, but then you get into this pattern, you start liking it, and ideally you stay with it.

But uh, It's not always the case. Sometimes it takes a few goes at it. , so Perfect. Yeah. the I remember actually walking into your studio when you were in Peterborough and that would be it. I would just say, you, you just need to go in and do five minutes of yoga, or you can just go and lay on that mat in that room for the next hour.

You don't have to actually do a single post. Just go and do that. And of course, never would I ever go and just lay on the, on the, you know, I might take a little few breaks and now and again, and so for sure, I find that with online, unfortunately, it's so easy to go in there, do a little bit of something and then go well, that's kinda enough.

I certainly don't push myself as hard as I would getting into the physical space and doing it, showing up for it. So I do think that there's something to be said. There's also energy there, right? There's other people that are talking and interacting, and there's a vibe, especially in a place like a yoga studio.

I think anywhere, you know, I walk into the Y M C A and I smell the chlorine, and I go right back to this great rush of childhood and doing all the great swimming lessons and whatever other fun things that happened. And there's just a buzz of human energy that I think is, I just think that helps.

That becomes part of the little bite you're going to take of what's happening out there in the world. So I think that's helpful too. I don't think we're, we're supposed to do everything just online , but it's great that there's an alternative for it for sure. And I do. Yeah, I found that it's helped to just to commit to even saying if I do a 20 minute something, maybe it's not an hour, but if it's 20 minutes, then I end up feeling great.

And I'm just gonna add one last piece to that. The other thing I did actually on my yoga mat is every single time I would get there and I'd be laying on my mat in that first little bit going. Okay, I'm here. And honey, I'm so proud of you for being here. I'm so proud of you for being here. And it was like this little self pat on the back just to go, you just did a good job.

You don't have to worry about anything else now. And that was it. Like Laura said, once you're in the door, the work is over. You're kind of like, oh, . And of course someone else tell you exactly what to do. Yeah, that's what I about fitness classes. And you know about, going to the Y like someone is literal.

Telling you what to do, which is so nice. Cause oftentimes I just want someone in my day-to-day life. Like, Laura, make the snack. Now. Laura, your child is crying like Laura . Right? Like, Wouldn't that be nice if we just had this narrator through our life? But and I think it, it gives us a mental break too.

. So showing up is key. And the community, like you said, like the human energy. is, Is priceless, I think at this stage in my life, it's like I do more online because I have little ones, running around but it is, it's shorter I noticed. So that's why I do like, okay, here's three 20 minute online session.

You have to break it down. And I personally do a course on. how to win the toddler phase, which is all the toddler craziness, and they literally just will do five minute videos or less. So you can take these chunks and less and be like, okay, I'll find that. Okay, good. Which is so beneficial. So yeah, I think both have their value for sure.

That's great. Any other questions, Hannah? You did a great job answering a lot of them. Let's end with this one. What's been your favorite experience or adventure that your wellness journey has taken you on so far? Hmm. Well Know , I just opened the first space you spoke to the first yoga studio, and so that winter was in the first year I came to Costa Rica and did a training.

Uh, Power Vinyasa training and I did so many, like they have all these actually pretty close to where I am now, but they like Mayan belly massage and all these healing practices and I was just able to dive. Into it cuz I had set up the studio. I had some teachers who could take care of it for me, and I got away for, I don't know what it was, either days or so I really cherished that experience, which is why I was pulled to Costa Rica as well.

Now not everything is a retreat in cost. , , we're learning the real life behind it all. It's not bad, but it's different. You know, there's language barrier. There's different cultural differences. Even though they might be sub, you're like, why would they do that? And it's just so like they come to Canada and say like, what is wrong with you?

So yeah, I would say that was definitely a huge. And then the teacher you just get to immerse yourself in upgrading yourself, being around like-minded people, and it's just wonderful. Right? Mm-hmm. , I, I crave a bit of that now for sure. I'm gonna see if I can find a mommy baby retreat just for me in the new babe, and I can just go bond with this.

And ignore all other responsibilities. And sorry, what don't you do, Laura? You said in the next month, is that right? Yeah, end of February. So between February 22nd, I guess March 1st could be my last two were born at exactly 40 weeks and three days.

So we'll see if . I'm consistent. . Yeah. Scheduling it in . They know. They know when it's time. found up yesterday. Baby's off them. Baby's always been good. Uh, Mom's crazy, but baby's good. Uh, Head down probably about six pounds already, so I think I'll have a nine calendar, but my last one was eight, nine, but honestly uh, was easier cause it was the second.

And he said to me, he's like, oh, it's a big bank. And I was like wait a second. Cause Costa Ricans are smaller . That's North Americans, and I'm already tall in North America. I was like, is it Tika? Which you know, Costa Rican women Areka. I was like, is it bank? Or he's like, well, yes. And they typically would do a C-section if the baby's over eight pounds.

And I was like, no. Just write down on your birth plan. You got this cuz he's not necessarily the doctor. I'll have, we decide to go through the public system. He's not necessarily the doctor I'll have, so I'm like, okay, interesting. . Wow, that's amazing. And then I guess then yeah, a whole new life.

As I said to you in our email exchange, getting this lined up, you and Brian are gonna be outnumbered here very shortly. . So when you had just the two, I get it. But the third , so this will be a whole new world. I said the other day is, if you don't talk about this so much, like excited, I literally have two onesies.

That's all I've bought so far. I was like, I'm just more concerned. There's another one coming. But there is lots of, caretakers everywhere around us. I literally just dropped the kids off before we started in a building. We're in a bunch, there's a bunch of condo buildings around us, we'll be okay. We'll be okay. Yeah, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us today. I really appreciate it, Hannah. Thanks for questions there. You've got some interesting things to add to, and it's laura nugent wellness com. They can find you.

And certainly reach out if you have any questions for Laura or of course, connect with her directly. Until next time.