The Wellness Creator Podcast is your go-to source for expert insights and actionable tips in the evolving world of health, wellness, and spiritual-based business. Join us as we explore proven online growth strategies, chat about current trends, and interview fellow wellness creators who’ve managed to turn passion into profit by helping people live better, healthier lives.
Marvelous (00:00)
Welcome Tiffany to the wellness creator podcast. We're so happy to talk to you on this very beautiful December afternoon. Happy to be here. Summer. December. I thought you summer. I'm like, it's snowing where I am. It's the furthest you would ever. You you wanted to hear, Sandy. It is actually pretty, it's pretty Canadian summer where I am right now. So maybe that's also true. Canadians are hanging out down in Arizona.
All right, Tiffany, welcome. We're very excited to talk to you. It's been a long time coming. And even this morning, we've all, each of us have had our own individual tech problems to get this, this, this interview on its way. So let's go. So Tiffany, do you want to introduce yourself to our listeners? Do you want to say who you are, where you live and what is your wellness niche? What do you specialize in? So yeah, I'm Tiffany Sankary. I live in Somerville, Massachusetts.
originally from California, but I've been here for a little over a decade. And my business is called Movement and Creativity. And I'm a Feldenkrais practitioner. And I also teach and practice Jeremy Kraus approach and organic intelligence and creative process. so I have a membership as the center of my business. And then over the years have collaborated with different teachers and
also colleagues of mine to produce and support and host their materials as well. yeah, that's the short, sweet version. Can you, yeah, I know you have an amazing business and of course you use our platform Marvelous. And I think what is so fascinating to me is like you do all this really interesting work that I don't fully understand, even though we've worked with you.
for a while now, but can you just go back and talk about Feldenkrais like let's start there and I know you do teach a lot of different disciplines, but it all started with Feldenkrais. Is that true? Yeah, yeah, I would say before Feldenkrais there was art and creative process was like the base foundation of things for me and then for sure the entry into being in my bodily experience was Feldenkrais for sure. So I learned about it from my mom.
who had one hands-on session and then decided she wanted to sign up for four-year training. Just really resonated with her. She only did about a year and a half of the training. But I also, at the time, was looking for way to have a more loving relationship with my body. I was very much a head, eyes, hands person and really trying to look at how to solve my problems through my mind and through creativity and through of more...
intellectual, emotional, aesthetic solutions or creative solutions, psychological, not so much through the body. So after this one session, I felt like I didn't understand it also from the beginning, but I felt different immediately. felt, after I left the session, I felt beautiful, which I hadn't been feeling in a long time. And I also felt like my hip joints had been oiled.
was like, what is this? So I was walking in New York City, went to a bookstore, opened the book, Awareness Through Movement by Moshe Feldon-Kreis. And the first sentence is, act in accordance with our self image. And then he goes on to say that this can change through awareness and through movement. And I ended up also in a training program spontaneously when I was 23 at the time. And I didn't have any sense that I was going to become a practitioner. I just was like, wow.
I feel different. Oh, I feel more different, more different. Oh, better. And then I, yeah, went from there. And he was there a pretty immediate connection in terms of how it impacted your creative process and your kind of intellectual processes. Like the physical movement kind of lend itself almost immediately to affecting that. Yeah, I would say it's.
started for sure for the physical affecting the emotional and the cognitive layers. The creativity, it took a little bit of time, but just basic things like all of a sudden realizing, my gosh, I've spent my whole life making art with my head down and in this posture, working very small like this, and I never ever look up. So I remember.
putting paper on the walls up high just to change my environment, which would then change my movement. things like that I remember concrete, or I remember also at the time I was making handmade cards with my art on them. And I remember there was this time being in the training and I looked over, I had set up this little station to sell some of the cards while I was in the training. And I remember looking over at that display situation and just really
having a big moment of reflection on like, why am I even doing this? And what is my intention? Is it just for other people or is it, what do I wanna be doing? And it just really shifted my experience of myself and my ability to observe my own thoughts and feelings and movement. yeah, and then, yeah, over time, I think that the art had more...
sensory, there was more photography, there was more movement in the art. And then yeah, this book that I made illustrating Feldenkrais's drawings came out of that as well. So yeah. So did you do that book early on? So I started that book when I was in my training, we had a study group studying Feldenkrais's writing and his writing is so dense when you read it, like every single paragraph is, is so rich. And so
I started drawing as a way to process what is he saying here? What is this sentence? And so then, and then when I showed it to some people in the very beginning, they were like, this should be a book. This should be a book. So, so I started it in the training, but it took me 10 years to finish. yeah. Cause it's, yeah, that's what I was going to say. Cause it's, I have it right here. It's, it's very, it's big,
for those interested, the book is called Feldenkrais Illustrated, correct? Yeah, Feldenkrais Illustrated, the art of learning. Yeah. Love it. I love it. So then is that part of Feldenkrais teaching? Is this creativity part or is that your spin on it?
That's a good question. mean, definitely it's the background that I come to the work with and it's my, it's sort of how I'm oriented to the work. would say some people maybe have a different background, like as a physical therapist or as a dancer or, or, or athlete or some, you know, there's a lot of different aspects to the work. But if you look at his work, I find it super creative. So yeah, but I would say that is for sure.
an orientation that I have to the work. Yeah. Yeah. I just think it's really unique and fun. I want to talk more about that, but can we go more into the other, like who the other disciplines that you teach are Jeremy Krauss approach and organic intelligence. Those are two things that I had never heard about. So can you just talk about those two things and how you were introduced introduced to them? Yeah. I
Jeremy Krauss approach was developed by Jeremy Krauss, who was a Feldenkrais trainer for like 40 years. And he went on to develop his own work. And actually, I was looking back the earliest advanced training I did with him as a Feldenkrais advanced training, was called Structures for Creativity. So it's immediately resonating with this. And it's so interesting because in this long arc of
studying with him, really feel like that is such a huge contribution to my own ability to think and create lessons and create structures that are creative but also super effective as well. So his work, I would say, is an evolution of the Feldenkrais Method or an application, and it's also gone on and kind of flowered in its own way. for me, it's really been...
something that's helped me understand also the strength aspect, not just the letting go and the becoming more flexible and becoming more free and open and organized, but also creating more stability and strength, which is something that is not specifically always focused on with Feldenkrais. And so that's been really helpful and also introduced me to working with children. And so that's also an interest of mine.
Yeah, so this is a big focus of mine these days is the Jeremy Krauss approach. Like more than Feldenkrais. Yeah, right now it really is like this is where I'm most inspired and interested in continuing to learn and develop. it has its roots in the Feldenkrais, but it's really exciting and alive and innovative. And really every single lesson is so new. I mean, I've been doing Feldenkrais for...
over 20 years and there is always newness in it, but there's this freshness to the JKA that I really am having so much fun with. And I was recently in Germany and I had this experience, like each lesson I was like, wow, wow, wow. And then I was like, it's like a fountain of wows. It just, the wows keep coming. The way that I feel after a lesson or something I'm learning, some new clarification.
something maybe I've done for years and years and then all of a sudden this new novel, novel clear aspect to it has been super, super fun and invigorating. Yeah. Yeah. So Tiffany, when I hear you talk about your work and when I witness your work, you come across as someone who loves what you do. Like you clearly love it and you've clearly made it your own. And
I'm just wondering, are you like this in other areas of life? Are you like this all the time? to your work? I'm so curious in what makes people tick and what makes them successful. like, is this, is this who Tiffany is like at breakfast, you know, out at brunch on the weekend? Or is this like really like you just found the thing in life that lights you up and that you get to do for a job? I love that.
Question, you know, I love, I really love learning. I'm very excited about learning and that's something that's always been there. And so, you know, yeah, and creating and so that's a good question. I mean, what came to mind is I have two children, they're nine and 11 and I just got back from Germany from this training and
My daughter had this idea about gingerbread cookies or gingerbread houses and she was like, let's buy it. And I was like, no, let's not buy the thing. Let's make it. And I've got this New York Times article about, that. And I didn't read the whole thing. I just started it. Then it's become this like ongoing thing, but we're like, we made the most amazing cookies and the most amazing gingerbread I've ever had. And that's going to be so beautiful today. We're going to make icing, but I can see in her this like idea, you know, this
curiosity, this interest that she has. then this, to me, the thing of being able to follow her curiosity to its full, you know, create the environment that supports this follow through this interest or this passion. It's like super. So in that way, that's yeah, I it is. think it's I think it really helps if I have environments, if I'm in environments.
that support me following my curiosity. Or for example, if I was just in a regular job that I had to do X, Y, Z, I probably wouldn't be that excited about it, right? So this also, it suits me to do my own thing. yeah, no, really do enjoy, enjoy.
Yeah, moving and creating and collaborating and that's, yeah, I think it is, it's, it is me and it's also lines up well with what I do for.
And can you also teach us about organic intelligence? When we chatted before this episode, you were like, it's really important to talk about the organic intelligence piece because this is the emotional part that is often missing. Yeah. So, so as I said, I've been doing film and crisis a long time and then I had this experience both with my own self, my own emotions, always looking for, you know, different kinds of supports, therapy and different things. And then also with this
people on the table sometimes there would be like, you could find a way in, maybe it's not through the foot, maybe it's not through the shoulder, maybe it's through the spine or through, you where you find a way. But then there would be sometimes there would be people on the table where I'm like, I cannot find a way in, actually. I don't really know what is the tool that I need in my box that's actually not here. And then I started
doing different trainings and learning about different things. And then I saw this thread, followed the thread, and that's what led me to organic intelligence. And it's really been such a gift to have this in my toolbox, both for my own self and my own emotional, psychological well-being sessions for myself, learning for myself as a human and a mother and a partner and a person. And then also working with people
individually and in groups just having this other layer of intelligence or this other aspect of what supports a person's whole system. Sometimes the door that someone needs to go through first is actually not the door of sensation, is actually not the door of movement because for whatever reasons there could be reasons why a sensation sends them over
over their threshold, their, you know, sends them into fight, flight, freeze, or whatever it is. And that maybe through, maybe there's a door through that would be more in alignment or meeting the person where they're at is through image or through their story or through their feelings or their thoughts or connection to the environment. So I feel like it's really supported my ability to be with people and...
and meet them where they are and it shows up in different ways. I think it shows up in my customer service. It shows up in how I am in the course of working with someone. Maybe they get so much through the movement work, but then they've been like stressed and anxious in this area of their life and haven't been able to figure out how to deal with it. Then I actually have this skill set to be able to be with a person and follow their system. So it's less about like, I'm going to bring this technique to the person.
but it's more about being able to follow a person's system and join them with their organic intelligence and what's positively self-organizing and emerging in their system. And I find it super effective. It's very gentle and it's very symbiotic with Feldenkrais and JKA in that it's not corrective, it's not...
trying to do something to the person but more supporting them to naturally move in a positive, synchronizing, supportive direction. Well, if I was a... Okay, go ahead, No, no. It's not answering it in a very succinct way. But like if I was a client of yours and you couldn't find that door physically with me, like how would I experience the organic intelligence? Is that what you're going to ask,
Yeah, so I mean, so one of the things I love about it is it's like the the idea is that if we create the initial conditions of like positive connection and kind of like whatever the baseline of our connection is, there's this priming for what's to come. And so I would just really be with the person and ask them, yeah, what they're interested in or
it can be going that way or it can be actually start with like small talk actually because it's really like maybe it would be starting with you know I might notice the the paintings that you have in the background it's like starting with the whole picture of the person in their environment and it can be done online it can be done in person and so it's really meeting the person like what you're coming with
both what you're coming with that's in the foreground, but also what's in the background that you might, know, it might be that somebody walks in with like a big, you know, a t-shirt that says love on it, you know, and that's like part of the session in the background. I might not even point it out, or maybe I would, it would depend, but it's like already that's part of the whole picture. That's not through the movement door. That's through the...
So I wouldn't know that you're using organic intelligence on me. It's just the way that you interact with me and maybe ask me a few questions and try to bring out something. Yeah, so that's a good question. I mean, I think it depends because sometimes people do come see me specifically for organic intelligence. I also, you know, lay out what the different things are in the toolbox so that they know about that ahead of time. They may not know about it ahead of time too.
So it's both and, you know. Okay. So this could, in some circumstances, function like almost like therapy or coaching. Yeah. So it's not therapy per se, but it is, I think the term that they use is coaching, just because that's sort of... The word coaching doesn't really fit for me particularly, but that's what it is called.
It's called a coaching. But I do one-on-one sessions with people and receive one-on-one sessions for myself. And that is my form of therapy for myself. Got it. OK. And so people, do you come with a specific question in those cases? that you're looking for the practitioner to help you source the answer inside of yourself?
Yeah, well, what's cool is that I might come with a specific thing or sometimes I'll book a session at the end of I'm doing a big event and I'll sort of punctuate it at the beginning and at the end, you know, just to help also with this transition or integration of what just happened. Sometimes a whole session is just being...
with the practitioner helping me actually take in what is good about what just happened. So it's really actually about this integration. And I love this quote from Steve Hoskinson. would say, it's in the domain of trauma healing kind of thing, but his work, calls it the end of trauma or with a PTSD. He phrases these terms.
post-trauma system development. He sort of takes the thing and flips it on its head. So the thing that I love about it is that it's, getting back to this quote, he's like, it's not processing the trauma that's the goal. It's not even embodiment that's the goal. The goal is returning to a natural oscillation process. So the oscillation is like the natural ups and downs of life, the rising and setting of the sun, a heartbeat like.
inhale, exhale, there's these natural rhythms. And so it's just reconnecting with this natural rhythm. So I also bring in this kind of rhythmicity into when I teach a workshop, for example. So there might be this balance of connecting to the here and now in relationship to the environment and movement work and creative process and connection with the people. So there's this rhythm to the
It's not just like you're going into some internal process that's super deep and then you're like, how do you actually bring that into your life? But so, yeah, and then that was also one of the things I really liked about the Jeremy Krauss approach is that the lessons themselves, they're a lot shorter. There's a sense of like, you can really integrate this. You can remember this. This is very simple. This is like, has these clear pieces that you can just bring straight into your life.
And then I think that helps with this smoothing out of the rhythms, know, this rest balance. Yeah. So how do you communicate all that to potential? I know this is like the million dollar question, but how like it there's it's so deep and nuanced and not what everybody else is teaching, right? Because of your creativity and artistic background and all your different trainings that you've just explained.
How do you attract clients who will understand this, get it, and want to meet and those that need this work? Well, it's always been a challenge how to explain it for sure. So a lot of what I do is create situations to give people an experience of it, you know, because I think that the experience is really what
is the most concrete way. So, but then how do you get them to that point? That's just, you know, like trying different things, you know, over the years. mean, sometimes it's a lot of words and a lot of images. And sometimes it's, you know, I don't know, lately I've just been like, here's a very simple image and here's like one sentence, come try this. then people come, but maybe it's also sometimes word of mouth. think it's
I think it's always for me been about trying from multiple directions, you know, like a little bit this way, a little bit this way, a little bit this way, and then somehow those things add up. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I just try a lot of different things. Yeah. And I think that's what I love about working with you is just like watching you pull in an image you drew five years ago and go here.
And you'll put a beautiful couple lines of like, to me, it's poetry. I can't do that. And then you're like, I'm just going to send it. I'm like, wow, girl, like, wow. Like you just approach your business with this beautiful creativity. And it seems to me, and this may not be true internally for you, but it seems like you don't, you don't have any need to people, please.
That's great that it looks that way. I would really like to move more in that direction, but I think that that desire or need or impulse to people please doesn't, I think it just doesn't stop me from doing things, trying things. It doesn't go away, but for sure, yeah, the images and the words, when I'm in my best self, it is like that. It's like, I can look up.
Anything. can look up, you could tell me right now to look up a word in my hard drive and I probably have like 20 images with that word in the title, which is fun. yeah, I think the, what I, I try to make things as simple as possible, even though it's very, there's a lot of complexity in the background. And sometimes it takes a long time to, to,
take the complexity and try to make it simple as you. I think you said it before, is I think what you're really good at is just trying different angles, right? Like you're not hung up on like, this email has to result in this many sales or this many new whatever. You're just like, hey, let's try this. Okay, let's try this. And there's no like, you don't beat yourself up and there's not a lot of emotion around it. It's just like, okay, yeah, let's, and it comes from that place as you said, curiosity.
Let's see what this, what, who responds to this or let's try this. Like you always say that, let's try this, let's do it this way. Let's just see. And there's no, it's got to be right right now, which is like a huge skill in business. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely trying, trying a lot of things. And even to the point where if I've done things that, and maybe this is a skill that I need to develop more, but I've done things that have worked well in the past or like,
I, because I'm so interested in somehow this kind of like freshness or authenticity with where I'm at in the moment, it's like, I can't just redo, reuse, or just all of a sudden, like now it's time for supposedly it's like time I should be doing a sale or something. And like, I just don't want to, you know, I just don't, it doesn't feel right. And even though I know that that could work, I'm just like, no.
not right now. So somehow I'm trusting these different waves of like, now is the time for a lot of space because there's a lot of things that are coming together in the background. Sometimes things take more time. And then sometimes there is time for spontaneity and trying things and playfulness and yeah. What you're describing Tiffany reminds me of the tension in the, I see as the
the biggest tension in the creator economy, which is that this was like a movement that was birthed because people had things that they loved in the world and wanted to share, like early blogging, early social media was really about, like, love this thing and I want to share it with lots of people and I want to publish it somewhere on the internet or out in the world for others. And then it's sort of as...
we realize that this is actually a way to make a living or a way to build a business and it's kind of lucrative. I think we've seen this influx and we've been a part of this wave of sort of formulaic business, turning these very creative, personal brands into these formulaic businesses. I think there's like a tragedy to that, but also like it's amazing that there are people who can make a living doing
what they love every day by sharing it with strangers on the internet. And I think that that tension is really important to talk about in this space because we work with both kinds of clients on our platform. And more and more so though, like the sort of unique creator creatives are not in the space. And it's more people who I think see an opportunity to have a business and make money. there's an
nothing wrong with it because the early days of the creator economy, everyone had another job and this was just what you did when you got off work. Like I used to blog every day the second I got out of school or got off of work. It was like the greatest, it was like my favorite thing to do every day. And there was never an expectation that I was going to make any real money. And when those things start to happen, it shifts your relationship to the work. And I guess my question for you is just like, as you've seen your success,
grow in your movement and creativity business? Has it changed your relationship to the work? Has it influenced things that you wish it hadn't? How do you keep that truth to your work in light of it becoming a business? Yeah, that's a good question. I think in the pandemic, I did a lot of hosting other teachers. And I was like, I've been doing this. And you have great
teaching and I can put you up here and host this. And so I started doing a lot of that. And then I got to a point where I was like, this is great and this is working, but what about my own teaching? I forgot about that or I've put that as, maybe it was also good for me to take a pause from it because I think I had been doing it the same way for so long. And that's also a rep, you you can get in.
And then I was like asking myself this question, what would I teach if I wasn't teaching what I've been taught? And just living with that question and also playing with different experiments online, creating different structures and things. But then there was a point where I was like, okay, I really need to shift things to make space for my own teaching and prioritize it. And it was more became kind of came to a place of.
needing to change things so that I can bring it back in. And that's been super, super fun and super good to have it. And then it's, it's always lately, maybe always this thing about the balance of things is kind of, think, you know, lately I'm like, wow, there's all this administrative stuff that I do. What can I do to reduce that so that I create more space for this? And I think it's just this constant re
balancing and that's part of when we spoke to about this vision work that I do this weekly vision, quarterly vision, mid-year vision, annual, move your vision. This work really helped this practice really helps me with kind of this shifting of the priorities or looking doing this like zooming out and zooming in and again this it's this movement back and forth between the little things and the bigger things and how they interact and
I think I've never, the formulas and things, they don't work for me. I've learned a lot about marketing over the years and I enjoy learning about it and it's always like, take what you like and leave the rest type of thing. But as soon as I kind of am inspired by something or some, there's a way that I just feel compelled to keep it fresh and alive. As soon as it, as soon as it like,
or as soon as somebody else does what I'm doing, then I'm like, they might as well do it. That's, you know, like they can do that. Maybe I'll do something else. I'll just do something else. So yeah, so that's also interesting to dance with, you know? It's like, what, and there's always this balancing act.
Yeah, for sure. For sure. When you look back at this whole business and specifically online business journey, what was the most unexpected challenge?
I mean, I think one of the most challenging things was I had built my whole membership on a different platform and then, and then, and had so much on there and then moving it over into your platform was like probably the biggest thing I ever did. I got a lot of support from your amazing team for sure in logistically making all that happen. But that was, yeah, I mean, I think having
hiring somebody to make it, was like, okay, I need to, this platform that I had before wasn't working, so let me try something. I hired somebody to make a WordPress site, that really didn't work, fell through, lost that money, started, and then I was like, one night, in the middle of the night, I was like, this thing is not working. I need another solution. Let me go find that solution now. I looked up again, because I had looked at Nomastream before.
And at the time it was, some things worked for me, some things not. And then when I saw your marvelous site, I was like, okay, this is, yeah, that was very good. So it was- came a long way. Yeah, so I think that the, yeah, probably the greatest challenge was also greatest blessing. And I think that maybe that's part of how these things are, right? I have, that's-
Yeah, that's what's coming to mind now is like the most, the biggest challenges right on the other side are the biggest blessings. And that's part of this oscillation and integration thing. It's like the both and. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I love it. And so what is happening for Tiffany and the membership movement and creativity in 2025?
Well, I had for this year, my word was depth, choosing depth as the word. And wow, it really was a super deep year for me this year. And so I was thinking about this. What does it be for 2025? And I was thinking what would be so nice given also the nature of the complexity of things that I'm up to and everything. So what I'm thinking is...
simple. I had to guess that simplicity would be your word. Yeah. Cause I see you doing that. You're like, let's simplify this. This is crazy. Let's simplify this. What can we take out? What can we call, you know, how do we make this more clear? So yeah, but I think you have to kind of go through that to reach this place of simple, right? You to try a lot of things and get messy. Totally. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. Anything else, Jenny? No, I just
want to say how amazed and impressed that I am and what you've built on our platform. So our platform is just a vessel. And I just want to say that like the magic happens when someone like you takes it and turns it into something beautiful and healing for people. So if you all haven't heard of Tiffany or seen her work, just highly encourage you to go check it out. And Tiffany, can you go ahead and share where folks can find more about what you do online? Movementandcreativity.com.
is the hub. then there's yeah, movement and creativity on sketched on sub stack and podcast and Instagram and all the places. I'm going to creativity. Yeah. And I just want to say your, website has so much information for anyone who wants to explore what this work is and what it's about. And if I love the idea that like, if somebody wants to like,
become more creative or be able to pull that out of themselves. your work is said, you know, I'm sure most people come to it for the physical, but like, I love this blend of like physical and geez, I just like, I'm really inspired to write a piece or draw whatever, or in your work come up with creative solutions. just, I love the blend of that. So if anyone's interested, yeah, there's so much material on her site.
Yeah, I often feel that like the most meaningful feedback that I get and people email me like I mean, yeah, it's just well your testimonials are off the chart So much positive feedback coming like every day but the feedback that really just is so moving to me is Along this line when there's this combination of well my shoulder feels better and I feel creatively inspired, you know
But that combination or that cocktail of like this, yeah, the movement and creativity, when those really meet for people is so beautiful. And sometimes like the idea of the different doors, sometimes it is through the movement door that then becomes the creativity door. I'm thinking of this. Yeah, like a writer who came to me with like carpal tunnel, but then actually after working with me, feeling better, then she felt more confident and more able to...
clearly write her book with so much more spaciousness and how she was approaching it. So, and then sometimes it is through the creativity door that then the movement also becomes more available possible. yeah. I love it. I love it. Thank you so much, Tiffany. So movementandcreativity.com and Tiffany, thank you so much for spending the time with us. It was amazing. Thank you. Thank Thank you both.