Chicken Yogi

The Ripples Caused by a Lack of Work Wellness

The Ripples Caused by a Lack of Work Wellness - Unscramblet by Chicken Yogi Although we might intellectually know that when we lack work-life wellness it affects other parts of our lives, sometimes it's hard to see that. We get so caught up in the drop hitting the surface ("work stuff") that we forget to see the ripples radiating outward. We're all connected. You're connect...

The Power To Be Found When You Crow & Flow

The Power To Be Found When You Crow & Flow - Chicken Yogi If I could distill the Chicken Yogi Way down to one simple concept it's that you should be free to crow & flow. What does that mean? It means speaking your truth, making noise when necessary (or for fun), and flowing with life as you work from your heart and what moves you. If you've

Episode 11: An Introduction to the Wellness Wheel

Episode 11: An Introduction to the Wellness Wheel - The Chicken Yogi Show The Wellness Wheel was created in 1976 as a way to visualize what holistic wellness looks like. It's been used by many organizations, and each one seems to put their own twist on it. Understanding that not everyone's wellness will be the same, in this episode, I discuss my vision of the Wellness Whe...

What does respect at work look like?

What does respect at work look like? - Unscramblet by Chicken Yogi If you've worked somewhere for a long time, or are used to poor and disrespectful working conditions, it can be hard to realize if you're being respected, or if this is simply "how it always is". So I wanted to take an opportunity to blog about what respect at work looks like. You deserve to

Episode 10: Rethinking Physical Exercise And Gym Class

Episode 10: Rethinking Physical Exercise And Gym Class - The Chicken Yogi Show Welcome to our first episode after our holiday vacation. This time of year people think about adding exercise as a resolution, and while that's not a bad resolution for many of us exercise sounds a lot like PE class. There's a lot of trauma there to unpack, especially if you were one of those picked

Less Workout and More Quiet Conversations With Yoga

Less Workout and More Quiet Conversations With Yoga - Chicken Yogi Our busy lives don't give us time to have conversations with ourselves, let alone check in with our bodies, our hearts, our souls. Instead, our minds race a thousand miles an hour and quieting that chatter--not completely--but bringing us into the moment can be difficult. There are many ways to fost...

Resolutions Should Not Be Cages

Resolutions Should Not Be Cages - Chicken Yogi Resolutions Should Not Be Cages by Kit Caelsto | Dec 26, 2022 | chronic wellness, Wellness Tips We’re coming into the time of year when the fitness equipment goes on sale at Walmart and the commercials change from holiday jingles to discounts as chain gyms. The new year rolls around and when peopl...

What’s Wrong With the Narrative of Control

What’s Wrong With the Narrative of Control - The Chicken Yogi Show On the blog lately I've been talking about connection and how the wellness wheel doesn't exist in isolation. Last episode, I talked about expanding the wellness wheel by adding charkas and energy work. However there's one thing that both our western health and wellness models and the mindset manifes...

The Wellness Industry Is Broken For Many of Us

The Wellness Industry Is Broken For Many of Us - Chicken Yogi The Wellness Industry Is Broken For Many of Us by Kit Caelsto | Jan 8, 2023 | health Although the wellness industry is good at pitching its goods year round, this is the time of year where it becomes most obvious. The entire belief of a “new year, new you” seems to put the diet and fitness indus...

Episode 7: Who are you? (The Early Episodes)

Episode 7: Who are you? (The Early Episodes) - The Chicken Yogi Show If you're a fan of Babylon 5, then you know the Vorlons asked "Who Are You?" while it was the Shadow that asked "What do you want?". Sometimes we need to ask these questions to ourselves and discover the answers. Note: The Early Episodes are shows I recorded before deciding upon the final form of

What would a neurodivergent small business incubator look like?

What would a neurodivergent small business incubator look like? - Unscramblet by Chicken Yogi I've been in the entrepreneur space since 2007, and it wouldn't be a lie to say that I've struggled most of that time. I've listened to coaches and webinars, free summits, and podcasts, and there's one thing I realized...most of that information is geared toward someone with 1) time 2) money and 3)....

Manifestation and Energy Work Isn’t About Control

Manifestation and Energy Work Isn’t About Control - Chicken Yogi Going as far back as the early centuries B.C.E. people have tried to control their thoughts to reduce suffering. It's natural, and when we look at the story of the Buddha, there's an aspect of "If I can do it so can you", which has carried forward to our modern times. However, there's also been

Weight Loss Programs & Weight Stigma

Weight Loss Programs & Weight Stigma - The Chicken Yogi Show Did you know you can now "watch" our podcasts on YouTube? Check it out and subscribe to our channel. The entire weight loss industry is built around two things: control and making money. Except our weight isn't an indicator of health and it isn't something that's 100% under our control. In this epis...

Why should we care about energy work?

Why should we care about energy work? - Epona Energy by Chicken Yogi The very idea of energy work, chakras, reiki, harmonic vibrations, and other associated concepts, is often dismissed by people who claim to be rational and scientific. And yet, the scientific community has started to take notice and if you go to a database that holds the results of scientific studie...

Episode 19: Meditation, Tea, and an Interview with The Punk Rock Autistic

Episode 19: Meditation, Tea, and an Interview with The Punk Rock Autistic - The Chicken Yogi Show Today's episode brings together a conversation about tea ceremonies, meditation, Buddhist philosophy, yoga, and the love of autistic special interests in a discussion that hopefully changes the way you think about meditation and perhaps, even tea. I'm pleased to be joined by Dani, the Punk Rock Auti...

Why the Sacred Needs To Be Part of Daily Life

Why the Sacred Needs To Be Part of Daily Life - Chicken Yogi Many of the people I talk to are so busy with the work-sleep-eat hustle that capitalism forces us into that they don't have time for the spiritual or the sacred in their lives. I know that as I put the pieces back together from my burnout and craft the life I want to lead, I'm

Episode 9: What is wellness? (The Early Episodes)

Episode 9: What is wellness? (The Early Episodes) - The Chicken Yogi Show The WHO defines health as the absence of disease and being physically healthy. Except, for many people, especially those with chronic illness, this seems an unachievable dream. Instead of thinking of health as a switch you flick on or off (healthy/not healthy), let's start thinking of it as a spectr...

The Hidden Sensory Overwhelm of Pain

The Hidden Sensory Overwhelm of Pain - Chicken Yogi In the cartoons when a character like Elmer Fudd gets hit on the head a big bump appears, pulsing red, so the viewer knows the character's head hurts. It's a comedic element, the bump an obvious sign of the injury (And far more palatable to Saturday morning cartoons than the real effects of having a...

Episode 8: Affirmations and Neurodiversity (The Early Episodes)

Episode 8: Affirmations and Neurodiversity (The Early Episodes) - The Chicken Yogi Show In this episode, Kit discusses why affirmations may not work for neurodiverse people and how that's not a failing or something bad. It simply means that to change our mindset as we wish to (if we wish to) we need to go beyond "lying to ourselves" and other tools neurotypicals use to create affirmati...

How Trauma Affects Us In Cultivating Connection

How Trauma Affects Us In Cultivating Connection - Chicken Yogi In the last blog, I talked about how trauma affects social interactions for autistic individuals by focusing on the work of the amgydala. In this blog, we're going to talk a little bit more broadly about cultivating connection while still dealing with the impact of the trauma in our lives. When some...

Watch your words. Furniture is functional; people shouldn’t have to be.

Watch your words. Furniture is functional; people shouldn’t have to be. - The Autistic Yoga Teacher Recently I watched a yoga series for low back issues and the instructor looked at the camera, smiled, and said something to the effect of, "you really want to spend 20 minutes a day doing this so you can remain functional." My heart sank. I immediately thought of my spinal arthritis, how I'd been fu...

Safety is Required for Wellness

Safety is Required for Wellness - The Chicken Yogi Show CW: This podcast episode mentions within the context of needing safety in all aspects of our lives the topics of: restrictive eating, diet plans (like Weight Watchers), physical safety, physical assault, and sexual harassment and assault. This episode is very close to my heart and something I've bee...

Trauma? PTSD? Does the label matter?

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Episode 12: Expanding On The Wellness Wheel

Episode 12: Expanding On The Wellness Wheel - The Chicken Yogi Show In this episode, we take the Free Range Wellness Wheel and expand it to provide a path towards finding holistic, radical wellness. Each section of the wheel can be taken into its own wellness wheel in order to provide a fuller picture of that area and the steps toward finding wellness. This also mea...

Life’s Storms Reveal What We Need

Life’s Storms Reveal What We Need - Chicken Yogi I've lived in the Ozarks for a decade and though I've heard stories about days-long power outages (or even ones that last *shudders* for more than a week), I'd never experienced one. As our well runs on electricity, I admit that it was one of my fears, because how could I store enough water for

What Do You Do When The Systems Fail You?

What Do You Do When The Systems Fail You? - Chicken Yogi It's the question that's at the heart of Chicken Yogi. Those of us who need to "free range" our way to wellness because the systems simply don't work for us. What do you do when the systems fail you?

Episode 17: Rekindling Yoga’s Power of Liberation

Episode 17: Rekindling Yoga’s Power of Liberation - The Chicken Yogi Show Liberation has been forgotten in the modern yoga movement, especially modern postural yoga, from which today's yoga studios, yoga teacher trainings, and yoga organizations have arisen. And yet, if we put the liberation back into yoga, we can use it as a tool for liberation. While my focus is specifi...

We Need Cooperation Within The ND Entrepreneur Space

We Need Cooperation Within The ND Entrepreneur Space - Unscramblet by Chicken Yogi It's lonely being a solo business owner, an entrepreneur...whatever term you use, it's pretty lonely. One of the main reasons why it feels so lonely is that too often getting the word out about the work you do, the creations you make, seems to be a pretty difficult venture. Social media algorithms a...

Episode 20: Ableism in the Guided Meditation Space, an Interview with Emma Barnes

Episode 20: Ableism in the Guided Meditation Space, an Interview with Emma Barnes - The Chicken Yogi Show In this interview Emma Barnes, we chat about the big problem of ableism in the meditation space (and we talk about yoga, too) and how the image of a thin, white, affluent person seeking "just a little stress relief" does a big disservice to a lot of individuals who could use meditations (and yoga) t...

It’s Not Accessible If You Don’t Feel Like You Belong

It’s Not Accessible If You Don’t Feel Like You Belong - The Autistic Yoga Teacher Accessible yoga has become a buzzword lately. People talk about making their yoga accessible, trauma-informed, inclusive, and I am glad to hear these concepts being discussed. However, when the discussion is still being had in groups that center the able-bodied individual of at least average fitness...

Energy Work Isn’t Like Tuning A Radio Dial

Energy Work Isn’t Like Tuning A Radio Dial - Epona Energy by Chicken Yogi When many people undergo reiki attunements or read books about reiki, the analogy is given that reiki energy attunements are like turning a radio dial to a frequency. When you're "given" the frequency, then you're able to access that "station". In other words, you're able to perform reiki treatments...

Explaining The Autistic Yoga Teacher & Fibromyalgia Yoga Teacher Blogs

Explaining The Autistic Yoga Teacher & Fibromyalgia Yoga Teacher Blogs - The Chicken Yogi Show In today's episode I do a little "shameless self promotion" by talking about a couple of sub-blogs in the Chicken Yogi universe. Please forgive the fibro fog. I had a few moments of trying to find my words. But in this episode, I discuss my philosophy and the reasons why I have sub-blogs for both

Powerful Ways to Create Personal Traditions with Meaning

Powerful Ways to Create Personal Traditions with Meaning - Chicken Yogi When I was a child, I wasn't allowed to dye easter eggs. We weren't a particularly religious family, and I was the only child/grandchild for a very long time so it wasn't like we had big holiday get togethers. We used the plastic egg wraps that shrunk down in hot water over the egg and

Yoga Teachers, Are You Aware of the Stories You Tell?

Yoga Teachers, Are You Aware of the Stories You Tell? - The Autistic Yoga Teacher Offering a trauma informed space means working to cultivate safety in all aspects of your yoga classes--on and off the mat. This includes the icebreaker games you play before classes and the stories you tell online. Recently I attended a yoga teacher seminar and the very seasoned yoga professionals....

The Concept of Right Livelihood On The Wellness Wheel

The Concept of Right Livelihood On The Wellness Wheel - Unscramblet by Chicken Yogi One of the steps on the 8-fold path of Buddhism is the concept of right livelihood. In general terms, this means that we're supporting ourselves in a way that is healthy for us physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally, and morally. For too many people in today's world, however, the job that th...

Episode 16: Same Foods and Wellness

Episode 16: Same Foods and Wellness - The Chicken Yogi Show Today's show discusses same foods within the context of being neurodivergent and chronically ill. We discuss how food is trust and how same foods represent a trust with your body, which is vital to feeling safe and well. We'll also talk about how same foods help wellness, and how they present challe...