Mindful Movement & Motherhood

Interested in pilates, movement and the mind-body connection? Then you don’t want to miss this episode! Today, we’re joined by Pilates teacher and mindful-movement expert Morgan Palmer Bolton. For more than 25 years, Morgan has been a teacher of movement, from her years as a dancer to becoming a Lead Teacher Trainer for Real Pilates. After experiencing the powerful intersection of mindfulness and physical training in her own practice, Morgan got certified to teach mindfulness (MCT) in 2021. She is currently focused on creating continuing education content for Pilates instructors, re-engaging her dancing life and enjoying time with her young family.This week, Alix kicks things off by sharing how she and Morgan have been connected for many years through the Pilates community — for those who don’t know, Alix is also an instructor. Morgan shares a little more about her background in dance and choreography, her journey into teaching Pilates and her experience with the emotional connection to movement. If you’ve listened to Wake the F*** Up before, you know we love to dive deep and learn everything we can about the people we bring on the pod. So, it should come as no surprise that we dove right into how Morgan pivoted from being a performer to a teacher, mother and educator.Alix and Morgan also talk about the challenges of staying mindful and how music can be a powerful tool for grounding and connecting, especially when it comes to motherhood, family time and playtime with kids. Morgan shares her tips for how she tries to stay present in parenting by paying attention to her child's experiences.From there, Alix shifts the conversation to her shared Pilates experiences with Morgan, and they discuss the benefits of integrating different movement modalities into life – key takeaway: repetition is an essential part of your wellness practice. As Morgan explains, whether you’re interested in mindfulness, meditation, healing practices, yoga, pilates, dance or something else entirely, the learning and evolution is never really finished, and there’s always value in starting over with the fundamentals.The discussion on “starting over” allowed Alix the opportunity to share more about her experiences and learnings on trauma healing and nervous system work from her recent studies with experts Peter Levine and Deb Dana. Stress and trauma can have real physical effects on the body, and for Alix, the trauma of her first husband’s cancer diagnosis and death led to years of emotional dissociation. From there, Morgan dives into the importance of sensory perception in our daily experiences, and training her students for afference by helping them to become more aware and sensitive to their bodily signals so they are empowered to solve their own problems. She also explores the concept of feeling safe and its impact on connection and decision-making.Morgan wraps things up by sharing a little more about her passion for dance, and the importance of long-term movement practices that promote resilience and flexibility. Morgan says the mission of all of her movement work is to get people moving more freely and happily...we couldn’t agree more!