Women’s Wellness and Healthy Community with Schuyler Grant [Episode #973]

This Week’s Episode:

In this conversation, Kimberly speaks with Schuyler Grant is the founder and co-director of Kula Yoga Project in NYC, the co-creator of Wanderlust, and co-owner/director of the Commune Topanga retreat center. They explore various themes related to personal growth, women’s health, and the importance of community. They discuss the beauty of Southern California, the power of clarity and directness in life, and the challenges of navigating transitions in one’s 50s, particularly regarding menopause. The conversation also touches on the impact of childhood experiences on identity, the significance of unconditional love, and the journey of self-acceptance. Additionally, they delve into the complexities of relationships and the balance between ambition and contentment and the importance of difficult conversations in relationships.

About Schuyler Grant

Schuyler Grant is the founder and co-director of Kula Yoga Project in NYC, the co-creator of Wanderlust, and co-owner/director of the Commune Topanga retreat center. Schuyler developed a unique and beloved style of alignment-based vinyasa called Kula Flow. The advanced teacher training she has led for over two decades has minted teachers and studio owners worldwide. She was also a creator of the 200- and 300-hour trainings for both Kula and Wanderlust. She is a regular contributor to the Commune platform, which hosts a dozen of her asana and breathwork courses. She is especially proud of Empowered Birth, a course she hosted and co-produced to support women’s journey through pregnancy, delivery, and postpartum.

Schuyler opened the first Kula just two blocks north of Ground Zero in 2002, in an effort to help bring some heart and community back to Lower Manhattan. She is exceedingly proud that Kula is still going strong in SoHo and Williamsburg, Brooklyn. She now resides in Los Angeles, with her beloved Jeff Krasno, their three daughters, and four chickens. She leads regular retreats and trainings and considers herself exceptionally lucky to still love vinyasa-style yoga—and the same man—after all these years.

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Guest Resources

onecommune.com

Kula Yoga Project

Wanderlust

Episode Chapters

00:00 Embracing the Beauty of Southern California
09:08 The Impact of COVID on Personal Transitions
15:25 Creating Community Spaces
22:01 The Complexity of Relationships
29:08 Finding Balance Between Ambition and Contentment
35:09 Navigating Health Challenges and Personal Growth
41:27 The Science of Health Protocols
52:44 The Future of Humanity and Collaboration

SOLLUNA PRODUCT LINKS

KIMBERLY’S BOOKS

Chilla Gorilla & Lanky Lemur Journey to the Heart
The Beauty Detox Solution
Beauty Detox Foods
Beauty Detox Power
Radical Beauty
Recipes For Your Perfectly Imperfect Life
You Are More Than You Think You Are

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Transcript:

Kimberly Snyder (02:44.814)
And it sounds disgusting, but it actually was incredible and the walls were actually sweaty. my gosh, that was good. Those were good times. But we live in really good times here. Even though LA feels very precarious in this moment, we’re so lucky to live in such a beautiful, beautiful place together. Such an incredible, fragile ecosystem that that has so much to offer. Here’s big love to Southern California, which is just a magical part of the planet. So one of the things that I want to share right away about you is there’s this ability to create and there’s also this clarity that I’ve always really appreciated about you and you could say it’s like a non BS.

But it’s really powerful because a lot of people, Skylar, and this is where I, know, it’s exuding out of you, but you’re this embodiment of not getting caught up in drama and not getting caught up in things, you know, getting goosebumps that don’t matter and that often sidetrack us, whether it’s the self-doubt or just getting distracted from what our goals are or sort of getting nitpicky with other friends, other women, other people. There’s this directness.

And can you share a little bit about that and when and if and when sort of distracting thoughts come in or you you sort of feel yourself getting pulled into something how you’re able because I feel like that’s why you’ve generated so much actual creation the studios these books these incredible community centers like Commute there’s this you know if you’re getting sidetracked and off your game you’re not able to create all that.

That’s so interesting, Kim, because I’ve actually been thinking a lot lately. I’m gonna, I’ll come back to that. I’m putting a pin in that. But I’m actually gonna leap forward and then I’ll circle back. But I would say that one of the things that I’ve really been wrestling with in my 50s, you’ll get there someday, young lady, is that

Kimberly Snyder (05:07.502)
I know this is true. I mean, I’ve spoken to Dr. Sarah Gottfried about this and other women who think a lot about this next chapter of life. What is the post-menopause moment? What does that…

enable you to do, what does it inhibit you from doing, what is the possibility, what are the self limitations and then the societal limitations, like all of it. Like it really is a turning of the wheel and I’m not someone who naturally…

thought about or engaged in like women’s cycles, you know? Like I’m not like a women’s circle girl. I’m just really not. I never really went in for, I just didn’t really, it wasn’t a big deal to me. Like I had babies, nursed babies, I did bowling babies. know. Identifying. Identifying with like being a woman and like embracing.

I don’t know, like I just wasn’t really that, wasn’t really my… But there’s almost, well you’re talking about the strength of just being yourself instead of any identity. Yeah, it felt really just like a confidence. Well I felt like personhood. So I guess what I’m saying is like really for the first time going, almost being on the other side of it, it wasn’t like I went through menopause. It like, oh my god, I’m like in para-menopause and I’m feeling all these womanly things and I’m gonna read about this. Like I never read a pregnancy book. I never learned about my period, learned about menopause. didn’t know anything about it. was like, my mom told me, yeah, it was no big deal. You know, if I stop having my period sometime, I was like, okay, someday I’ll stop having my period. And then like, I sweat a bunch. I was like, fuck, this sucks. I’m sweating. But I didn’t like, I didn’t like, I never thought about like…

Kimberly Snyder (06:56.28)
taking

But then when COVID hit, just like went off a cliff. Like my hormones just like, it went from being like, maybe I’ll be in menopause someday because my period was kind of irregular to it being like, okay, I’m just never having a period again. Like the stress was so high that I just shut my period off. I mean, I really was like, I was so, you know, we were all so like fucking ridiculously stressed, but the stress thing was like, okay, heart stop.

you you are no longer in that stage. You’re in a whole other thing. And it was very intense. mean, wasn’t clear in the moment, in the moment, we were all just going through that collectively and individually. But…

When I look back on it now, I’m like, yeah, there was a pandemic and then there was also just my own little small, you know, hormonal pandemic of like absolute utter transition. And now, I mean, I wish so much that I had had the resources that are on commune and are all around, you know, the wellness space that are, think,

Like it’s one of the really incredible movements that’s happened is this opening up about women’s health, which is just so absolutely stepped on and stuff down and gas lit for, you know, forever for centuries. Let’s be honest. It’s true. Millennia. Let’s actually really be honest. But that being said, I’m going to I am going to get back to your original question. I in that transition for me, I

Kimberly Snyder (09:08.942)
have been a little adrift in like, my God, my kids are older. All of my businesses shifted in the pandemic, like our studio closed. All of the train that I was on that was insanely busy, like running two businesses, raising three girls, the going, going, going, which made being quite singular and focused and no BS because I was so

good at being a doer. Yeah. Do you know what I’m saying? And I really enjoy doing like, I’m very good at putting in steady work without letting it overwhelm me. Suddenly, it’s not like there wasn’t lots to do, but it didn’t have the same kind of clarity of focus. And that was really, really challenging to suddenly be faced with, my God, not only am I in a new biological hormonal chapter, I’m actually in a new like,

logistical chapter of life. It’s really tricky. Do you think that drivenness to do so much came from, like where do you think it was that you loved being creative? For some of us, and I have hints of this myself, it was trying to prove worth being a perfectionist. No, and I guess that’s where I would say I was so lucky. mean, would now to backtrack. I mean, I was extremely, extremely loved.

as a child. And accepted for yourself. accepted. And like not to say that my parents weren’t all kinds of fucked up too, which they absolutely were, but their fucked upness was taken out on each other largely. so like the trauma, the big T and the little T trauma that was playing out in my childhood was felt, my experience of it was that there was like

a safety bubble around me as a child. And that there was chaos and there was like, you know, whatever, some low level violence and certainly lots and lots of fighting and power dynamics and money issues and all that kind of toxic stuff that many of us go through in our childhoods that was all very there. But there was always this feeling of real like safety for myself.

Kimberly Snyder (11:34.048)
and that both of my parents just loved me, had high expectations of me. But they’re, I mean, and you now that I think about parenting and as a parent, like how do we do this well? I really have come around to the, like the basic ideology that that is the key is high, like high and clear expectations with absolute unconditional love.

And I got that. So I grew up really in like my bones feeling like I was loved and I was okay. You’re one of the rare ones. I’m one of the rare ones. I- You see the difference. I see the difference all around me in people who like are not given that gift of unconditional acceptance and that they’re basically like a good person. I mean, I felt like I was like, yeah, I’m meant to be here. I’m wanted, I’m loved.

And I got to work hard and I’ve got to be a good person. I’ve got to prove myself. But it’s not like, it’s not approving. It’s like approving to reinforce a given, a positive instead of approving to fill a lack. Yes, to fill a hole. I you’re one of the rare women that, I remember the first time I encountered you, I was kind of stretching a little bit on the mat and I heard this booming voice come in.

I had never seen you in person. The Schuyler, right? The Wizard of Oz was coming in and his booming voice said, everybody get a block. I didn’t even remember this to this day. This was like 12, 13 years ago, or however long it was. Everybody get a block, you’re gonna want one. Just that. And you did. yeah, everybody did. But it’s rare too, and this is why, before we move on from this point, it’s just so beautiful to see this embodiment of a woman that isn’t trying to derive some sort of worth or validation from.

how she looks, how, you this comparative, I mean, it’s really rare, Skylar. And I’ve always noticed it about you. And it’s really, that’s why I think it’s really important that, and I love that you’re out doing all these things and creating it because it shows a different sort of North Star. Even if we didn’t receive that in our childhood, and I say, I didn’t exactly. Yeah, well, and I was gonna But we can reshape and we can reform. you my work’s so much about.

Kimberly Snyder (13:57.71)
the heart and the heart-brain giving us a different perspective from these really tricky thoughts, which can feel really pervasive. Well, and this is what I would say from that. And this is where I, at a certain point in my life, as I got older and I became self-aware enough to be like, oh my God, you were so lucky. Like, you know, my parents, my parents didn’t have a pot to piss with, but I grew up in a really funky situation. know, it was like very, you know, it was like a really…

sort of small little communal situation, like no, we had like a wood stove and like not much. And so there wasn’t like tons of privilege that way. I mean, I did have, you know, other, like I was lucky in other ways I was given an education through my grandparents who are otherwise like very unsupportive of my parents’ lifestyle educated us. But like we were given the like abundance in

the treasure of love and attention. And so as I did start to wreck, mean, when you’re a kid, that’s just, your life is a given. I see the way you mother and you’re like an amazing mother. Like you are so present and so fun. mean, like my mom was a player. My mom was on the ground and in the dirt with us, playing goat with me. I was like, anyway, TMI. But you are that, you’re like a

you’re like a get down and dirty mom. that is like, those are like anybody who’s listening who is a mom or is thinking of becoming a mother. That is like, that is the thing. It’s not like, and that doesn’t mean that you don’t go out and work and do that hard thing. I was also a working mom and I was dealing with the guilt of like not being there as much as I thought I should be. But I did know how when I was moming.

to be really present and like give myself, give my time, like my undivided attention when I was giving, you know, when I was giving attention, it was real attention. And so I have learned like that is really why I feel like I’ve been caught, like if I have a calling, it’s not so much to teach yoga, which I love to do. And I think of teaching yoga as like- and unique. Well, thank you. But that’s like the-

Kimberly Snyder (16:24.18)
icing on the cake. You know what I mean? That to me is so pleasurable and so even fun and rewarding. And I get, you know this, you never feel better than after you’ve taught class. It’s like you got the reiki. I would go in to teach and I would be eight months pregnant and I would feel so shitty. Or I’d be two months pregnant with the worst morning sickness. Barely able to scrape myself off the floor and all I wanted to do was call in and…

like find a sub and then I, you know, cause it was my business, I couldn’t do that. Like drag myself into class. And then after 90 minutes, you just feel amazing because that it’s an energy exchange. Well, and you’ve also been in service, right? Totally. you’ve given, but you’ve given in a way that like, you get it back right away. It’s not like giving in the abstract and you’re like, my God, I’m doing this amazing thing. And I’m going out and I’m like, you know, doing a whole bunch of like,

fire clearing or whatever. There’s a lot of ways we can be in service where you don’t get the actual co-regulation. I mean, this is what it is. It’s human to human co-regulation. When you’re teaching a class, you’re, we’re having a mammalian like exchange of pheromones and all the other good hormones that we get by being together. In the heart field of each other. The coherence. The coherence. Yeah. And that’s, I didn’t know anything about that, but I would leave and I would be like, my God, I am so lucky that I get to

step out of doing payroll and going to the Department of Buildings to deal with the building violation that we got in the mail or all the really unfun stuff of running a yoga studio. The teaching was the icing on the cake. But for some reason, I have always been called to create community spaces.

And I do think that, you you see your life, it’s always easy to see it in hindsight in 2020. And I do feel like having come from such a secure childhood, I really wanted, or somehow had a knowing that people need places that are consistent and secure. And they are like…

Kimberly Snyder (18:46.464)
It’s not as maybe not as good as having like two secure parents, but at least it’s a play. It’s a community place, a real community of people that you see over years, over decades. I mean, like the fact that Kula is still around after 25 years is like, gives me so much pride and pleasure. And like that we have people who come back with their children and there’s just this

amazing, amazing through line to it. And to be able to help facilitate that is like, is like a real, it’s a real honor. Like it really, really feels like, it feels like a calling. Yes. Well, it’s, it’s, it’s again, back to this uniqueness. And I wonder as I’m listening to you, again, not everybody has this, is born with that gift, that blessing, but you can start to learn and say, you know, I actually can love myself.

And I found that my journey is that as I’ve loved myself, you can be in community and accept others and there’s just less sort of turbulence, right? Or just sort of like people annoy you less because you’re like, everybody’s on their journey. Yes. I’m Kim, I would say honestly, for many people who didn’t necessarily have that kind of secure attachment as an infant and child, and then they have to go through

the hard work of learning, of a learning that original hurt. And then learning how to heal themselves and like to really, to really like heal that wound and then also learn how to go forward and be giving and productive and like forgiving of themselves and all the things that they’ll do wrong and all of that.

Those people I find, especially in the wellness space, are often better teachers of those methodologies because they’ve had to do the hard work on themselves. Do you know what I mean? It’s like in some times, the best teachers of beginners in yoga are people who haven’t been teaching forever because they’re closer. They remember like,

Kimberly Snyder (21:09.038)
Trichonauts is a really freaking hard pose and you need to like, here’s how you do it because I remember. And so the space for people who have really had to do the work themselves is so, it just has a potency that I will never have. Like I will never be, like I’m more of a rock. Like I am, I’m earth. I’m like a place. I’m not like, I’m nobody’s guru.

and never wanted to be a known spiritual teacher and don’t want to be. No, it’s a different calling. It’s a different calling. I have no, I mean, in some ways I feel very lucky because I have zero interest or pretension about wanting to be that. I mean, would sometimes back when I taught a lot in person, people would be really looking for a spiritual teacher or looking for a…

quote unquote guru and I was always like, that’s not me. No, that’s a clarity. Definitely not me. like to have smelly farts and definitely not your guru. I don’t know what to say, but that’s not my path. So, you know, and I think I feel very lucky because I think a lot of people who enter our space are trying to like figure out how, I mean, guru is a very loaded word, but like how they…

fit into the matrix of being, now you could call it like whatever, the influencer world, like I no interest. Like. Well, there’s a genuineness again back to, I’m just here. Nothing’s added on top, not trying to conform to some sort of identity or mental construct. It’s just this simple, like here it is and there’s a power in that. So what I wanted to ask you before I get off this was.

as I’ve healed, right? Because there’s a lot of triggers and wounds of not being seen. you know, just I had that feeling like in it sometimes in community, like, that person’s interrupting me. They don’t like me or they just saw these thoughts. Right. And as I started to heal and come into my heart, they’re drawn into these different modalities, I think, where we need to be healed. First, it was food because I had eating disorders and then I healed that. And then it was the heart. Then it just became really easy for me to be in community.

Kimberly Snyder (23:19.79)
So my question is, because you had this, you know, this rock as you started to create these communities with very different personalities, would you still notice sort of personality aspects or things about people that would annoy you and then you would let them go? Or do you feel like built into your constitution is a very deep sort of tolerance? And Jeff has this too, your husband, right? This sort of patience where, you know, because I’ve come to your dinners before and your groups and there’s very different…

people, right? Some people that some other people would label as like, you know, loud or maybe a little bit disingenuous or more offensive. You know, there’s all these labels people get and you guys just seem to be, especially, you you both, but as far as this conversation, relatively really interesting. you can have, mean, Jeff is very open about this part of himself, but you know, he is very much a, we’re opposite this way. And in that way that partners,

I’m so curious to know how you and John fit into this matrix, but you know, we are just absolutely opposite in this regard and he is absolutely a pleaser. I mean, he is a… He said that. He is just, he does have a… And it’s not that his parents went through a really, really difficult divorce and as he, you know, I’m not telling any story that he wouldn’t tell on himself, but he moved around the world and was relocated to a million different locations.

You’re really literally like 10, he lived in 10 different places by the time he was like seven years old. So he was in different languages, different countries. So he was always shape shifting. There was no like ground under his feet. And then his parents later had a very, very tumultuous divorce. So there was a lot of what I, I lived in this, my parents still live in the same house. They’re still married. pretty rock solid that way. And so it’s strange how, I mean, this is always,

my philosophy about people and relationships, both, the things that are our biggest weaknesses are often our superpower. And then conversely, our superpower is our greatest Achilles heel. In the same way that in our relationships, the thing that attracts us to someone is also the thing that repels us. You’re gonna say like wounds, matching wounds. But also, right, there’s this like,

Kimberly Snyder (25:46.734)
If you’re two the same, mean, it’s this opposites attract thing, but even more than that, it’s also like, I’m so, am very, I’m like, I find Jeff so mysterious because he is, like, he still find him mysterious because he’s such a, he’s such a shape-shifter and he’s so, I don’t know anyone who’s better at more things. Like, literally he is like so good at everything he applies. I mean, it’s.

frankly insanely annoying, also like incredibly impressive. But it’s part, that’s part of this proving himself, like everything he does. And I’m kind of like, yeah, well, I don’t know. I’m good with that. You know, and I, I’m like a hard diligent, I’m more like an ox. And I just kind of like, like, I, you know, I keep just tilling the toil. people? Do you like being around people all the time? like, like, yeah, I people around, I’m less like, I’m less…

Yeah, I’m more interested in creating the place than I am in always interfacing with all the people. Do you like also having alone time? Yeah, I charge. like like I like alone time or like time with just like one or two people. But no, I love I mean, I love the I love being in the I like I love having the party more than I like being the life of the party because you guys love like giving I don’t love giving the speech.

Jeff loves to give the speech. He’s really good at like, you know, being toast master. I’m always like, no, don’t need to like give the speech. It’s just amazing, Skylar, watching how, I mean, there’s this, I mean, it really is your superpower, this imperturbability around all these different personalities. I’ve always wondered that, it’s like, does that person annoy you? Right? And I saw it once when at one of the dinners, someone said something that…

you know, we could say, without saying it judgmentally, the kind of said something that was a bit egoic. And you kind of, you know, put her down in her place, but not unkindly, we were like, and da da da. And then just kind of was quiet, right? So you didn’t notice What was it? Do tell. I’m not saying, no, we won’t name any names, but what can she say? So it was just someone was talking about some project or some book and how well it did, but it was sort of this like.

Kimberly Snyder (28:09.292)
not from the heart, was just sort of like, look at me moment. And then you kind of like, just kind of like made a funny statement. So I knew that you noticed, but then it was just like, you said it and called out and then let it go. Whereas many people ruminate in the mind. And again, back to, think it’s just like, you stay so steady, whether you use that language or not, we would call this in the heart stage as the steady heart, right? You’re here, you’re showing up, you know what you wanna do, you’re going forward, there’s a self-awareness and you’re not into this.

which I admire so much because I can get into the thoughts in many of us. But the converse, the flip side of that is like a, there is a spark that a certain amount of insecurity, you could say, gives people to be creative and be productive because it drives them to prove themselves. as long as you’re, it’s like if you can use that kick in the

just enough to propel you forward to do things that are meaningful and additive and productive. And I see that very much in Jeff. mean, his like little bit of insecurity and people pleasing has like made him so incredibly productive. And I’m just not, I’m really not a very ambitious person. And that’s-

I mean, mean, know that’s funny because you created so much. I know, but those are like slow and steady. Do you know what I’m saying? Like I am being very, I mean, really honest here. it’s like people have asked me to write books a bunch of times. I’m like, world doesn’t need another book. I mean, and then at the same time I’m like, yeah, there’s a, writing a book is a great way to get ideas out there and then have conversations and to jumpstart the next thing. And I’m sort of like, yeah, I don’t really need, I don’t think I need to do that.

And I mean, it’s part of like what like this book that that Jeff just wrote. this is this is third book. But this is this is really his first like the other books that he wrote. He was more of an editor. like I I play stories. kind of played the I played the Jeff