Koya Webb - Get Loved Up

Guesting on this episode is Koya Webb, an internationally recognized yoga teacher, celebrity holistic health coach, author, speaker, and vegan activist. Her core mission is to promote daily self-care, oneness, and eco-friendly living to combat some of the world's biggest challenges, including mental health, social injustices, and global warming. Koya is the founder of "Get Loved Up," an international lifestyle community and Yoga School that inspires mental, spiritual, and physical health through an app, online courses, retreats, in-person yoga teacher training events. Today, she shares with us how Yoga has changed her life.   Why should we listen to you? [3:24] I'm an empath and a compassionate person. That means I actually can feel like if someone's feeling sad or someone's angry, even if they're not stomping around, and I can pick up specific energy for them. [4:25] I naturally love people, and if something has happened to you, I love just hearing your background. As a little girl, I naturally cared about people when people were hurting, I'd feel pain, and I feel sadness.  Who is Koya as a Coach?  [6:54] I am a holistic health coach and wellness entrepreneur, holistic health coach. I help people mentally, spiritually, physically, and not just by saying those words. Still, I have tools, courses, and practices that spiritually help people learn meditation and breathwork, physically plant-based nutrition, and working out, whether it be Yoga or fitness or just going for a walk in nature. To live a healthy and active lifestyle, you need all of those aspects and well-being rituals that can help you through any time you're going through it in life. I love developing products that help people live healthy and active lifestyles. Feeling a Connection in Yoga  [9:49] I got an injury, and I hurt my elbow for my lower back. I was stressed out and depressed. So I went into a yoga class, and it was when the teacher guided me to my breath that's when I felt alignment with spirit. When I got in this class and felt this full-body chill when I breathed, it felt like the Holy Spirit. And honestly, now, that's where I find my connection. [13:41] Yoga taught me to rest, relax, recover, and how important my health was. The injury taught me that I can't run myself into the ground and still expect to be 100%. But I didn't learn right away. I would move to California and got a coach to coach me, and I went right back into hardcore, personal training because that's what I decided to do. I was stressed out. I was jumping, and I got injured again. After the second injury, I decided to go back to Yoga. It healed me again. But the second time, I said, "everyone should have this gift in their life." How Personal Training has helped Koya  [18:41] It helped me out so much because I understand the body and how it works and the science behind losing weight, gaining weight, and how that part of the physical part of it. I learned about bodies by spending time with people and noticing I worked at 24 Hour Fitness. So it wasn't just a specific type of body that I was handling; I work with many different kinds of bodies, men and women of all different sizes. I had to get creative. I had to listen to people. I had to learn what was going to work for their body. I hadn't had to learn how to keep them safe, how to diagnose injuries, and keep people safe. For me, it was really about a healthy lifestyle. Creating a Balanced Lifestyle  [21:52] Everyone loves the fact that they can eat whatever they want. So that's the biggest thing that I get pushback on. What I do now is figuring out how you can have what you like in a balanced way and achieve the goals you want. When it comes to spirituality, I try to connect you and align with your lifestyle and purpose, no matter what you're doing. As a holistic health coach, it is bringing those things together and seeing how you can create an optimal lifestyle for yourself. You don't have to be perfect. You can still eat some, but if you're eating junk foods every day, you might not achieve that goal you set out for yourself. Koya's Biggest Challenge  [27:11] I think my biggest battle was codependency and over-giving and over-loving people. There is a balance in giving or serving others, and you cannot love others to the detriment of yourself. [31:02] If you're a lover and a giver, and you don't set boundaries for yourself, you will find yourself running all over the place. Anytime someone calls you, you're there. If someone asked me for something, to get something to help with something, you could depend on me to do it. I was a woman of my word, and I will sacrifice myself. So I literally would give to a fall, and it had to create some balance. So set some boundaries for yourself. Have something that you're regularly doing. And now and then, you can push the limits for someone else. But check in with yourself first before you say yes. Koya's Mission  [34:01] The experience is a journey. I want to create a resource, a toolkit, where people can reach inside this health and wellness toolbox and find what they need to enhance their lives. My goal is to help people inspire people to live healthy and active lifestyles. Because I feel like it's not only suitable for the person, but it's also good for the world. The healthier we are individual, the healthier we're going to be collective. [34:45] Our motto is "Love yourself. Love others. Love the world." Many of us want to skip to love in the world and be of service, but we do not love ourselves, or maybe we do not love our partner or that person who is different from us. But it is about practicing self-love, self-forgiveness, and dialing in with yourself because if you can acknowledge your fears and flaws, you can have compassion. "You are Enough"  [39:05] You are enough. I think people do things in life, and they're trying to get to attain something, and it's purpose-driven. So it's something that I constantly have to tell myself that I don't have to do anything to be loved, and I don't have to do anything to be great. Just breathing and taking up space is enough, just like nature. Telling someone they're enough, I think, is one of the most powerful things that you can say. What promise did God make to the world when He created you?  [42:58] Love. So Love is like presence. We all are Love, and we all are oneness. So I'm just an awareness of the vibration of Love. I do believe that's what we all are. Weirdly, I think that we function in different dimensions frequency of that divine oneness. But it's still all part of Love. It is all part of the experience. When we're experiencing anger, fear, sadness, it is just feedback to where we are in this in this in this oneness in this vibration. So I feel like life is very vibrational, and the vibration that created us is also the vibration that sustains us, even when things aren't great.  Key Quotes: [14:35 – 14:48] "That mental 'slow down and listen' that you get from Yoga is what is healing and allowing your body to heal at the same time." [27:58 – 28:02] You cannot love others to the detriment of yourself. [47:10 – 47:25] Everything we decide, there's no right or wrong. It's just choices, and when we make those choices, we're honoring ourselves.   Learn more about Koya Webb on: Website: https://koyawebb.com/ Facebook: https://web.facebook.com/KoyaWebbOnline/?_rdc=1&_rdr LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/koya-webb-6775bb75/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/koyawebb/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/KoyaWebb Podcast: https://koyawebb.com/podcast/