It's Where I Am with Zandra Polard

Unknown Speaker 0:00
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Zandra Polard 0:45
Good morning Las Vegas. It's Zondra Polare. It's where I am on 91.5 Jazz and thank you for tuning in. We have a wonderful guest today. Her name is Danielle MC. Tell me your last name

Unknown Speaker 1:02
McCafferty

Zandra Polard 1:03
make Cafferty we're going to name is that Irish? Yes. Okay. Danielle McCafferty is here in studio. And we are going to talk about trauma healing. And Danielle does this through yoga. What's interesting is Danielle started in the criminal justice field. Right? Like working trying to investigate criminal investigations or what is it called, like

Unknown Speaker 1:36
so called CSI CSI crime scene analyst. Yes,

Zandra Polard 1:40
yes. And somehow you trance. You know, you made it through to yoga yoga.

Unknown Speaker 1:49
When I tell it chronologically, it makes a little bit more sense.

Zandra Polard 1:53
Okay, well then help us out because I need to understand. So

Unknown Speaker 1:57
I started college really young here in Las Vegas. CSN High School. And then I transferred over to UNLV right here. And I studied criminal justice and criminal investigation criminalistics. And I worked with Metro as a volunteer. And I just saw so much hurt within the criminal justice. And I just saw so many people I saw past, you know, the bars or whatever you want to call it. It just saw so many people with so much hurt. Yeah. And I took yoga at the same time, kind of it's just a physical fitness activity. And I didn't really think anything of it until I started working within the demographic I already was in

Zandra Polard 2:39
Yes, because you're taking in all that energy. So I was putting

Unknown Speaker 2:43
the tools I was learning into the space, I was already in and started to see these transformations within people. And I was like, well, maybe there's something to it. Yeah, absolutely. So I took all of my experience within the criminal justice system, all the things that I knew about psychology, how people move through trauma, physically, physiologically and psychologically. And then how can we translate that to actual physical modalities within the body? Like how do we get those things out? How do we even recognize that those things are there, right?

Zandra Polard 3:18
Because so many times we sweep things under the rug? And we're like building all these layers on top of layers of just stuff? Yes. Right. So a lot of times, we don't even recognize that we're doing that, because we're trying to get through the day. Yep. Yeah. So tell us like, is it the end of the day? Is it every hour? Should we just do some breathing, or I

Unknown Speaker 3:43
tell people, it's anything that you can start with anything that you can stomach, but it's something that's authentic to you, really. So I always tell people yoga is your yoga yoga means the union of the mind and the body. So that can be running for you. That can be deep breathing, that can be journaling, that can be walking, whatever connects you to that deeper part of yourself, whatever you want to define that as just where you're not constantly in that little rat race. We'll have the same thoughts every single day, so that you can just rest that fight or flight that little rabbit in your head and chill. Let's

Zandra Polard 4:26
do that. Now. Let's take a deep breath.

Yeah. All right. So tell us about your book. You have a book called you have the key. Yes, yes. And you can find it on Amazon. Yes,

Unknown Speaker 4:47
it is on Amazon. So this is a labor of love with a question mark on the end. So I wrote this book, kind of to my Myself, I wrote it through a very dark patch of depression. It's mostly mantras and affirmations that I would write to myself. There's also some funny little things in there that I've gone through. But I came to a very stark realization in my life, but I had fallen into it, instead of chosen it, okay. And I was miserable. I had the picture perfect life. I had the career I had the house, I had the husband, but it wasn't something I actively chose. It was something that I was supposed to do. Okay, that is how things were supposed to be done. And it just wasn't what it meant for me. So I imploded my life.

Zandra Polard 5:46
So you weren't feeling it?

Unknown Speaker 5:48
Oh, yeah. So the book is all of those. Oh, my goodness moments in between? That kind of helps me get through it. Well, one

Zandra Polard 5:55
stuck out for me. I want to read it. Okay. It says, It is an honor to love and be loved by me. Love that one. Yeah. Because if I love you, you're lucky. Yes.

Unknown Speaker 6:07
Yes. It's an honor to be loved by such a person that is connected to themselves. That's right. It's an honor to be loved by anyone. So

Zandra Polard 6:18
and to love yourself? Absolutely. You know, this is all about loving you. You know, you have to love yourself first. And that means giving yourself the time and energy needed. Right?

Unknown Speaker 6:29
Absolutely. And sometimes that shows up in different ways. A lot of people think that self care is taking bubble baths and lighting a candle and it can be it's, that's it is that too. But sometimes it's you know, cleaning the house or paying your taxes, oh, setting out goals for your business, you know. So my goal is to bring this wellness initiative, I say that with air quotes, in a more authentic way to the demographics so that people can meet where they are. So they don't have to step into a space where they're so uncomfortable, where they can come in, you know, their gym shorts, and their basketball jersey and just come and access tools that they can use. Okay,

Zandra Polard 7:20
so now how do we do that? Do you have a brick and mortar? Or do you travel? What is getting to Yoga with you like?

Unknown Speaker 7:30
So I do a lot of events around the community, I try to make them very accessible in spaces that people like to come to so that they're fine. They're very, very low pressure. Okay. I curse a lot. I mean, I know, I, there's lots of giggles, there's lots of falling over and shaking and all kinds of things. So I do lots of events. And they're always posted on my website, which is route number two yoga.com and

Zandra Polard 8:02
go back. So it's R O T? The number two, yes. Okay. yoga.com yoga.com, okay.

Unknown Speaker 8:08
And I'm also an Instagram, I post a lot of things on there. I post a lot of informational things on my website and my Instagram as well, because that's my entire goal is to spread this information and to spread these tools. I do the community events, but I also work with in behavioral health centers around the around the valley. And I set up behavioral health initiatives. Right now I mostly work with adolescents within behavioral health and substance misuse. Okay, I love them. They're great. But it's difficult because you're meeting people at their darkest day, you are meeting someone in crisis every single day. So how can we connect to them in a way? That is our authentic, accessible and fun? Right, right? Because nobody's gonna want to come to a yoga class that is boring and miserable and dry, dry, right? Especially not 17 year old boys. Yes. So we have a very different approach. We use a four quadrant system, we use lots of worksheets, lots of games, lots of interaction. Just for my time over the criminal justice system. I saw what works and what doesn't how to really meet people where they were. Yeah, that's all. Yeah, absolutely.

Zandra Polard 9:32
And that's why the show is called it's where I am. Yeah. Right. Because you're meeting the person where they are. Exactly, yeah, yeah. So are you you're in mental health agencies. You can find events that you are doing in the community on your social media. Do you work with any businesses? I do, other than the mental I do,

Unknown Speaker 9:49
okay, like, so I work in some corporate sectors as well. So we set up like corporate initiatives, we'll set up corporate trainings for like lifestyle or stress reduction. In and employee retention. So yeah, I'll set up like, for example, we work at a agency that services CCSD. And so they're like the services of the teachers. If you can imagine how

Zandra Polard 10:14
stressful that is, yes, I know that

Unknown Speaker 10:17
we do yoga with them every single day for 30 minutes a day. Oh,

Zandra Polard 10:21
well, my thing with yoga, I'm not gonna lie. I'm not the most flexible person. That's perfect. So I get embarrassed, like, you know, I don't want anybody looking at how far you know, I'm getting to my toes or my knees. What about someone like me? Like, who wants more of a private session? Because I don't want people around me?

Unknown Speaker 10:43
Absolutely. I tell everybody that it's scary. To go into a yoga studio. Um, it

Zandra Polard 10:48
is. Your legs start shaking and stuff. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 10:52
I always tell people I'm like no one cares about you. Pinky promise in the most beautiful, most respectful way? No, I'm looking at you. No one cares. They're only concerned about themselves. Yes.

Zandra Polard 11:02
Because you know what? Because I am only concerned about myself. I don't know why I'm thinking someone is concerned about me. Yeah, you're right. Don't

Unknown Speaker 11:09
care about your baggy t shirt or your ponytail or nothing. Okay. Yep. But for I always start people with private, too. I have a lot of men actually. In my private

Unknown Speaker 11:20
Oh, yes.

Unknown Speaker 11:23
I have a lot of athletes. And they say the same thing that they're intimidated to move into a studio space. Oh, which is completely okay. To I

Zandra Polard 11:32
forgot about that. In your bio. You do work with the NFL. And so are you with the raiders here? Yeah. Okay.

Unknown Speaker 11:38
And then I'm contracted with a couple other teams that are around near here, like the Chargers? Or where else is around here?

Zandra Polard 11:47
I have no idea. I don't know. I'm not into sports.

Unknown Speaker 11:50
I'm not either. They get so mad at me. They're like, Yeah, you know,

Zandra Polard 11:53
I had a boxing coach on the show not too long ago. I think that would be a good idea to deal with. Yeah, you know, the boxing community. Absolutely.

Unknown Speaker 12:01
I have worked with Mike Tyson. And he's a phenomenal man. And I've worked with a couple boxers, they just have such a unique physique. But it's really the mental aspect. I think of boxing that could use yoga, because yoga, scientifically reduces your HRV your heart rate variable. So it makes the your heart rate come back down to a baseline quicker, which is what we need in sports so that we can think clearer so that our chemicals are moving through our body at an appropriate rate so that our lactic acid is moving appropriately. Yeah. So it actually makes your athletic performance that much better, just by learning how to train the mind as well. It's a muscle. And that's what yoga does, right? You're laying, we call it Shavasana. And you're just like, Oh, my goodness. So you train your brain over and over. It's kind of like a puppy, like, No, we can relax, we deserve to relax, we can rest without guilt. So it's ever have to ever learn the journey, you

Zandra Polard 13:06
know? And then how do you become a yoga instructor? Like, can someone just say, hey, I want to be a yoga instructor? What type of training is Yeah, with that?

Unknown Speaker 13:15
So there's a couple different certifications. The first one you would get would be a 200 hour certification. I got my first one right here in Vegas. And then my next ones, I got in like Bali and Thailand and Ireland.

Zandra Polard 13:29
Oh, so you have to travel. You've traveled? Yes. Okay, so

Unknown Speaker 13:32
I've had for 200 hours and 300 hours. Okay, so I'm e ry T 500 certified. I know that kind of sounds like there's a there's an international hub that certifies yoga instructors called the yoga Alliance, and you can register through them and they monitor if the school is accredited, and what kind of curriculum that they have. So they set up a guidelines on what yoga instructors should be aware of, and the practices the history, and I

Zandra Polard 14:07
do have to say, I have taken a few yoga classes. And not everyone knows what they're doing. So I'm loving to hear this training. Instruction.

Unknown Speaker 14:19
Yes, I've been a yoga instructor for 10 years now. Okay. And I have over 3000 hours of training. Okay. Yes. And I mostly specify with trauma informed training, but I trained other yoga instructors as well. I'm called a Yep. I air quotes as well. So that just means that I'm certified to teach other yoga instructors and mental health professionals continuing education. Gotcha. Yeah. Yeah. So it's been. I'm deeply passionate in education. My whole career has been founded around the foundation of education, experience and science based protocols. And that is a lot of my experience from UNLV. Right here and my criminal justice and my chemistry background. And taking that into a holistic space so that it's more structured, it is a little bit more science backed, we have a curriculum to follow. And all of the instructors are personally trained by me. And I have training programs laid out for them. So

Zandra Polard 15:27
Justin yoga derived from India, yeah.

Unknown Speaker 15:30
Yoga is derived from India. And originally only men could participate. Oh, I didn't know naturally right. And then we kind of women kind of took it over in like the 70s. And now it's starting to be more culturally recognized, recognized around the world. Yeah, absolutely. So it's been a huge shift over the past 10 years, and I'm really glad to see it. One thing I've noticed is the inclusion within the yoga community, I suffer with a chronic illness. And a lot of the space kind of has this toxic positivity, okay, is what I call it. It's just all love and light. Everything's love and light. And like sometimes, things aren't loving light, like Sure. The trauma, we go through the diseases, we move through the experiences we move through, and yoga and life aren't always loving light. And we're allowed to recognize that we're allowed to honor the dark, but with the recognition that through our practice through our strength, grit, whatever you want to call it, we have the balance to move through it, like race to move through it. So everything's not going to be love and light. But no, it's no longer private,

Zandra Polard 16:51
right? Breathe through it will stretch through or whatever your curriculum, right.

Unknown Speaker 16:57
Yeah. Laughter It will fall through. I

Zandra Polard 17:00
don't have to laugh because like my favorite thing in the world,

Unknown Speaker 17:04
there's a laughter yoga. Is there. laughter yoga.

Zandra Polard 17:08
I wonder if laughter yoga will change my lap? Because my lap? I have a very specific laugh.

Unknown Speaker 17:17
I don't think so. I think your specific laugh will only help the laughter yoga. Oh, I think.

Zandra Polard 17:25
So, beyond the laugh beyond the understanding of yoga, I want to get into the trauma. So we're kind of working our way backwards. Sorry about that. But I was going with the flow and the energy. Yeah. Okay. You don't always recognize that we have trauma. When I read your bio, you are explaining to me, and I think I can relate to this. We can be so resilient sometimes. And we don't think that we need to the attention. Yep. Absolutely something that is harmful. Again, we're pushing that stuff down. And we think if we just push it down, or I think if I just push it down and keep moving forward, and then I forget about a lot of the trauma. You know, yeah, like, I don't even remember it. Yeah. Sometimes people be like, remember that type? No, I don't remember.

Unknown Speaker 18:24
So there is an incredible book called The Body Keeps the Score. Okay. And it's by Bessel Vander Kolk. And he is a therapist and yoga therapist. I don't actually know if he's a yoga therapist, but he's the therapist based out of Germany. He explains where animals when it comes down to it and what animals do when they experience something that overloads their sensory system. Do they run, they run? They shake, they move? They yawn, right? What do humans do when they experience they go to bed? Yeah, you how you go to bed, we are naturally inclined to let go of these sensations throughout our body. And it's been now there's a lot more studies coming out that trauma will store itself physically within the body and manifests itself as ailments. So by not getting these things out of our bodies, whether they're conscious or subconscious, they're still affecting us. For example, say you're walking across the street, and you hear a car, oop, you jump, right, you're gonna jump back that immediately startled your fight or flight. So you do that when you're three every time you go to the street here and expect that car with the horn. So you're gonna have a little jump of cortisol within your body, you're gonna have a little jump of stress hormones. So your body holds on to these experiences to keep you alive. Our bodies and our brains are not meant to keep us happy. They are meant to keep us alive. Okay. It is our responsibility to maintain a healthy life to maintain our mental health to maintain Happiness and balance, you're responsible for your own happiness. Yes. And our body and our brain are not responsible. Our brain is meant to keep us alive. It's like, oh, look at that oncoming car. And it thinks that we're being chased by a lion because that's what we used to be. So now when we open our phones, and we read an email, it's a stress hormone jump as if we're being chased by

Zandra Polard 20:19
a predator. An email, yep.

Unknown Speaker 20:23
They can use, they can watch your stress hormones. Obviously, everybody has different triggers. But they're seeing that these modern day everyday occurrences have the same stress triggers as being hunted by a provider. Wow, yes. And we're not getting them out in the same way. So we're angry and we're inward, and we're collecting all this trauma and hurt and we don't know what it is, where it is more how to get it out. And the first step is to stop and breathe and notice and listen. That's that's, I always tell people, my very first session with anyone I stepped, I sit them in a chair. And I just walked what they do. That's it. Two minutes.

Zandra Polard 21:13
And we do that we didn't do we did? Oh, oh, you did? I did.

Unknown Speaker 21:20
And just to let them acclimate to let them breathe, just give them permission to exist and just be nice to themselves for like, one minute. When was the last time anyone sat there for one minute? Nowhere to go, nothing to do, the grocery list will wait walking the dog will wait. Just exist, like you have permission.

Zandra Polard 21:42
Yesterday, all day,

Unknown Speaker 21:43
watching Netflix. But a lot of people with trauma can experience that relaxation. They're constantly in this fight or flight. And they don't, myself included. I didn't recognize I was in fight or flight because I always had been. So there was no, there was no Valley, it was only peaks. So a lot of people had experienced that. They think that it's normal. And they're like, I don't know why I'm so burnt out. And it's because you've been burning the candle at both ends for 30 years. So a lot of my clients will come to me and they'll be very successful air quotes. Again, that's always different to different people. But they're like, I just something is wrong. I got all the things, but there's things inside of me. And I know, there's something pulling me, that is always the main main thing I hear there's something pulling me. They don't really know what it is. It's this pole for healing this pole towards connection, something. Unfortunately, trauma is the thread of humanity. All of us have experienced trauma at some point in our lives. And so bringing it into the light, so that we can explore the dark together. So

Zandra Polard 23:04
I'm sure a lot of your clients, they must

Unknown Speaker 23:08
cry. Oh, yeah, we cry. I cry a lot. Oh, yeah. We all cry,

Zandra Polard 23:12
crying and shaking. Yeah, imagine that we

Unknown Speaker 23:15
could cry a lot. I do a breathwork event. And this is the secret. But we do a big screen in the middle of it. Oh, wow. Huge screen, okay. And I am a very introverted person. And I always have been, I've always been, you know, very studious, and kind of in my books. And so moving into yoga teaching, I had that poll. I couldn't keep it to myself anymore. I just something was pulling me and I have to get this information out to whoever will listen to me. And it's not my job to make them like it. It's my job to expose them to it. Yeah. And give them the tools. If that's not the tool for them. That's not the tool for them. No harm, no foul. Absolutely.

Zandra Polard 24:01
I love that. Yeah. You know, I always push journaling, I find it to be very important. And just, as you said, a great release, right after a private release, no noise, just writing. Yep. And for those who don't, or, you know, those who are not motivated to do that every day, I will recommend you take a look at this book. Thank you. Because this book shows it's your thoughts. You know, it's not a lot of reading, but it's kind of like a you can see it's a tool to help you begin to express yourself. So start with this and see how you do after that. Yeah, thank you. You're welcome. And this, I'm pointing to the camera. Because for our listeners, if you know or if you don't know, you can always find Me on it's where I am.com You know, I have a YouTube channel for those who don't know. Yeah, so you can find me on YouTube. Also, if you've missed any part of this broadcast, you can listen to it on all your major podcast platforms such as Apple, Spotify, Google, and the like, whatever you like. I'm there. It's where I am with Londra. So I want to thank you again for coming. And before I let you go, please give us those social media handles one more time. Absolutely.

Unknown Speaker 25:38
So you can find me at my website. It's www dot root, R O T, R

Zandra Polard 25:44
O T, R O T the number two yoga.com.com.

Unknown Speaker 25:49
And then I'm on social media under our two period yoga. Okay, on Instagram or Facebook. Also, Danielle McCafferty yoga, on Instagram, Facebook. Well, they're two bald things. Yeah. Okay.

Zandra Polard 26:05
She's on YouTube. All right. So I want to thank you again, everyone. Anyone points by jazz and more. Thank you so much. You know, I'm here every Saturday at 7:30am. The show is it's where I am. And I'll talk to you next week. Thank you for tuning in. Bye

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