214 - Five Minutes to Move (You)

Today I share a game-changer practice.

For some of y'alls, this episode might be all you end up needing from me--to propel you, to do the thing that is inside of you that wants to get out.

This is Five Minutes to Move, and this is how I come to my mat. It supports this connection to my own movement, and to my own flow, that greatly informs how I teach, why I teach, what I teach. 

This practice is to help you find that for yourself.

Play along with Five Minutes to Move on the 'Gram, and share your posts using the hashtag #5mtm

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Connect with Bonnie: Instagram, Email (hello@bonnieweeks.com), Website
Listen to Bonnie's other podcast Sexy Sunday HERE

The music for this episode is Threads by The Light Meeting.
Produced by: Grey Tanner

Transcript

Bonnie (00:01.342)

Hi, welcome back. Thanks for hanging out with me again. Have you ever learned from somebody and thought, well, that’s, like, all I needed and whatever they gave you in that interaction or in your observation of them taught you enough or propelled you enough to go and do the thing. Have you ever had that happen to you? 

And—have you ever felt like you got a little nibble of something from somebody and thought, Oh my gosh, I need more. So today podcast land, I'm talking a little bit about this because you might not need to be in person with me. You might not need me in order to help you in your transitions in—

as a teacher, and in mentorship, and as your yoga teacher, you might not need me. You might just need to listen to this podcast. You might need to just watch one video on Instagram where I have one billion videos, not one billion, but so many videos. Or you need to read one email from me where I really talk about the practice of paying attention according to life. And that's what I'd like to send emails about is, like, the podcast—

with written word, and you might just need that. And maybe it will give you the push to do the thing that is inside of you that wants to get out. And maybe there's some way that I might show up that you're like, oh, I could do that. I could do the thing in me. And not necessarily whatever I'm doing, but whatever you are being called to do. And specifically with teaching.

If you're a teacher, a yoga teacher, a movement teacher, a leader in your community, maybe you can listen to this podcast, maybe you can take a piece of something that I share and implement it. And it is exactly what you needed. And I know that there's people in my life that I have felt that with that I didn't need a deep dive with them. And I, and also—

Bonnie (02:24.638)

And also I feel like I really know that if I were to take a deep dive with them, if I were to say, wow, if I were to spend several days with a person, then what would I be able to glean? What would I be able to learn that I can't just by observation, that being in person and being a live time with a person is such a different experience than just gleaning something that's recorded or written.

Alright. Okay, so today—today I'm going to give you a practice. And I want to talk about how there are some practices, there's so many free things. This podcast is free. Like, you can binge it as much as you want. Maybe I'm on a run with you. And actually speaking of—I’m just gonna do a shout out to Cami; if she's out there running at this very moment, she can…

Kamie, hope you find this podcast. She was just here recently and came in person with me in Flow School and said that I've been on so many trails with her as she has been running and that is a gift that I get to be with you wherever you are right now. Just, hey, thanks for taking me along. And then she did show up in person. And so...

This experience of maybe you're getting to know me here and maybe you want more. But I guess I want to encourage you to take what you need and that may be the practice that I'm going to share with you today. If you're a teacher, especially, maybe it's enough and maybe it gives you the spark to do the thing. And I don’t want you to feel bad about that. I want you to embrace the hell out of it.

‘Cause you know that as I'm here, I'm like, I wanna help you own the hell out of your voice. If you're a teacher, if you're a parent, I'm a woman. So I'm gonna say, especially if you're a woman, but also whatever gender you wanna identify with, whoever you are, I want you to own the hell out of your voice and about and around your power. And I believe our power is really defined as our strength plus our grace. Okay, so let's jump in. 

I have a practice for you called Five Minutes to Move.

Bonnie (04:43.582)

and I introduced it on Instagram just this week, so as I'm recording this, but it's something I have given to Flow School people for a long time. So here's how it goes. I'm gonna give this to you and then we'll keep talking. This experiment—as everything is an experiment, right?—this experiment is Five Minutes to Move and there are three rules. 

And these three rules, are number one: you have to move for five minutes. And it's really helpful if you have some music playing because music can be a good mover of our bodies and we can feel the music. So maybe you'll need more than one song. And so pick a song, you can set a timer along with that. That's rule number one. Rule number two is that it has to be continuous movement. This means, and I'm speaking specifically to yoga.

But this means that you're in a posture no longer than an inhale and an exhale. And then you have to move. Let's do an asterisk on this. A yoga posture is any position of your body. It doesn't matter if you think that it has a name or not, because every position your body can be in is a, is a way to move, and is a yoga pose. So make moves with your bod and call it good and call it yoga.

That's rule number two. Rule number three is the spiciest one. Rule number three is that you cannot repeat a single posture. That means that if you do one warrior two, you cannot do one on the other side. You have one down dog. You have one chaturanga. You have one mountain pose. You have one triangle pose. You have one dancer. You cannot repeat. We're not here to quote unquote, you know, like even out our sides. You're gonna do the posture once.

And then you're going to move on. And you're gonna do the posture, you're gonna hold it for no longer than an inhale and an exhale, and then you're gonna make another shape. And you're gonna remember that you can move on the mat and off the mat and come back to the mat. You're gonna remember that you can be on your back and on your belly and on your knees and seated and on your sides and on your elbows and standing all the way up and on your hands and on one hand. There's so many…

Bonnie (07:09.57)

ways to move your body. And so this is Five Minutes to Move. And this is something that I have given Flow School for a long time. And Flow School is really this experience for teachers where we get to dive into your own creative voice and creative sequencing. And y'alls, I have been doing this for over three years now and I have hosted Flow School 12 times. 

And it just keeps getting better because I get better. I get better at facilitating. I get better at helping people be able to find their voice as I have gotten more and more clear of what's really needed as I've worked with people. And if people show up and really lean in, then amazing things happen. 

And this is a practice that, as I have created Flow School, I've had to—think about what I do. So I think of the things that I do unconsciously, I have to make them conscious to myself in order to make them conscious to you so that you can eventually make them unconscious to yourself. And so it becomes this line of awareness and the practice of paying attention. And so this is a way that I come to my mat. My encouragement to you, Five Minutes to Move. 

If you're gonna post this, like you can post a piece of it on the ‘Gram, do it on social media, use the hashtag, #5MTM, 5 minutes-to-move, 5, #5MTM, so we can share and be there together. But you don't have to post it. This is like your own personal space, and this is what I do. I will go to my mat and I just move. 

And my connection to my movement, for me, is what inspires me to teach. It inspires what I teach, it inspires how I teach it, it inspires the joy that I have in my body around what I'm teaching, and how that gets delivered to the people that I'm teaching—because your joy is contagious, and it matters. And it helps other people be able to drop in and even want to be there. It helps them connect it from their head to their body, right, so brain to body and finding that like, okay, sure.

Bonnie (09:30.482)

I'm going to buy in with my brain first. We've got to get that trust of brain first. Then like, let's lead that into the body. We can't get brain body to breath until we start to land in that. And so my connection to my own movement and to my own flow is greatly. What informs how I teach, why I teach him what I teach. So this practice is to help you find that for yourself. And if you're listening to me, you're like, what the hell Bonnie it's impossible—I don't know enough!

You do. You do. And that is usually one of the first things I hear is like, wait, I don't I don't know enough. I've never heard anybody else do this. So this is I made this up and

Oftentimes people will start to plan. Like if you're like, okay, well I'll do that. And then this and this and this. I mean, you're gonna get like four poses in and then you can't think of anything else. Cause five minutes is a second. Like it's not a second, but it goes for a while, right? So encouragement to just do it. And I would love to hear about it. Like, let me know. Well, if you're listening to this podcast, repost this podcast, share it on social media. Be like, hey, I'm doing this. I'm doing this experiment and then try it out. I wanna hear about it. Send me a message.

I wanna know what you learn. This is something again that I've hosted or talked about hosted shared in Flow School, but people share it outside of Flow School now because I've shared it so much. So I wanna bring it to you here now. And when you come in Flow School, then you get my guidance as we're doing it, which is a different thing to have a little bit of support in it. But it's a powerful tool. And I'd love to hear what it brings to you.

So with that, I'm gonna look back to what I was saying in the beginning and saying, even me saying this and sharing this practice, it is one very small tool, one very small part of Flow School, but maybe that's something that lights you up once you do it, once you do it, just do it even once a week. I have people who are like, I'm doing this everyday. Great, do it everyday. Just even just do it once a week. You have five minutes, five minutes just for you not to plan—

Bonnie (11:41.63)

not to prove anything, not to have to show up anywhere. I don't care what clothes you're wearing. I don't care where your mat is located, just you, just you, for you. I wanna hear what it brings you. And maybe listening to this, you'll do this practice. You'll do this experiment and it will be enough. And you'll be like, oh my gosh, things have changed for me. And maybe it's the little nudge in a direction that you want to go or was feeling like something in you was stuck and it unlocks it. Just very possible. 

And maybe that's why you needed to listen to this podcast. And maybe that's enough. And maybe you listen to this and you're like, OMG, what just happened to me, Bonnie? Please give me more. And I want to be, I want to dive in, right? And maybe you come to Flow School, maybe you participate with me in some way.

Bonnie (12:46.586)

I just want to be here and let you give yourself permission to find freedom to move. And I want to show up here reminding you that it can look like a lot of different things. And I am here to support however that looks for you. Because I truly live in trust.

This year, my word for the year has been trust. And I've decided that it's really my word for life because it's worked. Because at the beginning of the year, my body was hurting because I had a lot of back pain. And I have been on a big journey, I think, of finding my voice in a new, in a bigger way, in a more clear way. And...

So much of that has to do with trust. And I decided, I said, you know what? I'm gonna trust the timing of my body healing. I'm gonna trust that I'm gonna be able to be okay. I'm gonna trust my voice. I'm gonna trust my business. I'm gonna trust myself. I'm gonna trust that I can show up as a parent, as a mom. I'm gonna trust my kids. I'm gonna trust my co-parent, my ex. I'm gonna trust my lover. I'm gonna trust my relationships. I'm going to trust that I'm gonna be able to pay for my house insurance. Y'all.

My house insurance just came out of my bank account today. I did not know it was gonna be so much, but you know what? It's gonna be okay and I can do it. So I'm here trusting and that's real. And I'm gonna trust that you're gonna be exactly where you need to be. And it's interesting having stepped into business…

Bonnie (14:36.446)

showing up on the ‘Gram for years and years just because I love it. Just because the process of creating visuals, video and images and sharing words is so fun to me. And then it's coupled with like this solo creative process with this community and y'all that's my magic sauce. Like give me some solo creative time and let me be in community and Instagram is like this place that I have found that.

Bonnie (15:05.158)

And I really just feel so grateful for the ways that we get to interact. And I trust that the timing of us interacting more will happen when it needs to happen, if it needs to happen. And you could drop this mic right now. Be like, okay, drop this podcast, not pick up another podcast. And maybe this is the only one you ever listened to and you're like, that was it. That was it. My life has changed.

What do I want to create? Right? Where do I wanna go? What happens for me? What is unconscious in me that is being created through me? The other people are asking questions about how can I make that conscious to me? Maybe you take that piece from this podcast. Be like, wait, Bonnie did that? Yeah, that's what I did. So what are you doing unconsciously? The people are being like, hey, how do you do that? And there's some things that...

are truly just part of who we are and how we show up in the world. And there's some things that we can really help others with. So what can you make conscious to you? How can you make it conscious to somebody else? How can you light them up in that way? And it is not a rush. There's nothing fast here. But how can you trust that? And where can you move? And what happens if you give yourself just five minutes to move?

With an experiment that has weird rules. And reminds me of Mary Oliver's poem. Mary Oliver's poem where she talks about how there are no rules and how maybe, maybe it's about bending the rules. And.

Three rules for five minutes is something that we can do. And maybe there's places in your life that you can make new rules and it changes the whole story and maybe the whole feeling of what you're doing and how you're existing and you decided to choose again and do something.

Bonnie (17:15.446)

That's it. That's what I've got for you.

I know for me there are people that I have heard small things from that have stuck with me for years and years and years and it's one thing.

And it was enough. And I trust that I got what I needed and that I will move in places and learn from others that I need to learn from. And when the calling is there and I can't not do it, then I move. When you can't not do a thing, move, go, follow. When you can't not do it.

That's the magic sauce, y’alls. I'm sending you big giant fucking love right now. Please message me and let me know how Five Minutes to Move goes. #5MTM. If you're going to post and share it on the ‘Gram, um, share this podcast, share this idea with other people because it truly is a game changer. It's a game changer. 

Your joy is contagious, and you are free to move.