Lola Manekin | How to Harness Your Body's Freedom and the Healing Power of Nature

Srini Rao

Lola, welcome to the Unmistakable Creative. Thanks so much for taking the time to join us.

Lola Manekin

Yeah, thank you for having me. It's an honor.

Srini Rao

Yeah, it is my pleasure to have you here. So you actually were referred to as by your husband, Teebo, who gave us such an amazing interview that we had to actually do it in two parts because there was just so much depth everything he and I talked about. And when he mentioned you as a guest, I was like, yeah, I don't even have to know anything. Just yes, here's the calendar link. So before we get into your actual work, I wanted to start by asking you where were you born and raised? And how did that end up impacting on what you've ended up doing with both your life and your career?

Lola Manekin

So I was born in the island of Florianopolis, which you've been there and raised there too. I only moved to the United States after I finished college. And I think the way that has impacted my life a lot was the freedom that we had growing up on an island and the Florianopolis that you see now.

Srini Rao

Mm-hmm.

Lola Manekin

is not what we grew up at, you know, in. It was the safest place to be and not a lot of people. And because of that, we were free. We're free kids. Our parents just never had to worry about us. We were everywhere around the island. I would have my bike, I would go everywhere.

and the amount of nature that place is also has impacted a lot of my life and the connection with all things and all beings. I think nature is a very healing place. Yeah.

Srini Rao

Mm-hmm Well, when you say it's not the Florianopolis we see today like contrast it for me a bit because Coming from Rio into Florianopolis Like I remember feeling like wow, I suddenly just feel so much more calm like everything here is like a lot slower You know, I don't feel like I'm constantly having to watch my back like in real like I got to the point where I would never talk with a talk on my phone when I was walking the streets because my

phone got stolen the first time I was there, like last summer. So I learned the lesson. I was like, don't stand on the street corner. If my sister would call me in the evening, I was like, I'll call you when I get home on the street. She's like, yeah, don't talk on the phone.

Lola Manekin

Mm-hmm.

Lola Manekin

Yeah, so it's definitely when you are comparing to Rio de Janeiro, it's a different animal for sure. Rio has been what it is since I remember being little and I don't think that has ever changed. And Flo-Di-Pa still has, of course, this incredible vibe, like island vibe. And I think that the difference, mainly the difference is that it is not the safest place.

to be as well in Brazil anymore. I would not let my kids, you know, get their bikes the way that I did and leave in the morning, come back in the evening. It was much safer to be. And also, I think the population now, I don't even know what it is, but the island is over packed.

people from all over the world and a lot of people actually from Rio and from Sao Paulo Have moved to the island. So it's Jammed all the traffic that you may have seen when you were there Not none of that existed when I was growing up I see the I mean the change is drastic in the 20 years that I've been gone basically

Srini Rao

Yeah. Well, you know, it's kind of funny you bring up kids being able to go ride their bikes for hours on end. Some part of me wonders if that's a function of the change in Florida and Opel is just a function of the change in times because I was telling my parents when we were kids, same thing, like we would just say I'm going out and you know, there's no way to check on us. Nothing. I honestly can tell you and I live in a really like my parents live in an upper middle class residential neighborhood and I was telling them I'm like, I never see kids playing outside here.

Like maybe once in a blue moon on like a holiday, on like Thanksgiving, I'll see kids outside throwing a football. So part of me wonders like, you know, is that part of it? But then also when you have such a small population, like how does that influence the sense of community that you develop with not just family, but the people who you were living with?

Lola Manekin

Uh, there's the, I'll start with the good side of that. There's definitely a sense of belonging and you know, you know your neighbors, 10 streets to the right, 10 streets to the left. There's, yeah, there was everybody knows everybody, which that again, that has the positive of the way that the community.

everybody almost belonged to the same community kind of feeling, you know, and because it's a small island and the people there are the education level there was never, you know, top notch education. There's also the negative side of being in a small island. Everybody's in everybody's business. You know, and you know, everything, you know, everything that's happening.

10 streets each way. Yeah.

Srini Rao

Well, you mentioned that the education level there wasn't really, you know, like super high or, you know, it was kind of subpar. But when I contrast what I saw in Florida versus like the rest of Brazil, what didn't strike me was like the sense that there were really poor people there, like at least from what I saw. And again, like I'm probably being restricted to areas and only seeing it on a surface level. But when I contrast sort of the...

inequality in a place like Rio and even where it gets worse in the north versus Florida, it was pretty stark. Uh, like, so talk to me about sort of that over the course of like the last 20 years, not just in Florida, but in Brazil in general.

Lola Manekin

Yeah, I, to be honest with you, I haven't since I moved out, I haven't been very connected with what's actually happening in Brazil. You know, I follow a little bit my parents who were, you know, totally a conspiracy theorist kind of at the edge of that. And so hearing from them is a little bit is like, I have to question everything that they're saying.

Srini Rao

Mm-hmm.

Lola Manekin

But I can tell you that the south of Brazil is definitely the least poor part of the country. As you said, when you begin to go real north, it gets worse by a lot. I am actually not sure why. I don't know if it's connected to...

Srini Rao

Mm-hmm.

Lola Manekin

the when it was time for, you know, the colon, the when they when Brazil was colonized and who went where kind of thing. But definitely if you compare the south of Brazil is definitely the best place to be. There's definitely a lot of poverty. The islands there's lots of areas that you don't want to go. But I don't think you'll ever get to the point where Rio is.

Srini Rao

Mm-hmm.

Lola Manekin

Like, ever.

Srini Rao

Yeah. Well, you know, one of the things that really struck me when I was studying there in 2008, I took a Brazilian culture class and the guy was talking about racism in Brazil. And I was like, that's such a like odd thing to me because of the fact that like virtually anybody could be Brazilian, right? It's like this just melting pot. Like you can't actually spot a Brazilian from a crowd. Like I could very easily pass for a Brazilian person because it's just such a mix of cultures. In fact, that's one of my things my friend

And you don't notice when we were there, he's like, this is in a lot of ways, a melting pot like America. So a couple of things about that one, you know, like, what did your parents teach you about that as well as making your way in the world as an adult? Like how did they influence you what you've ended up doing for better or worse?

Lola Manekin

It was, to be honest, never a conversation. When I look back now, I realize we grew up very simply as well, very, very simply. And we were fortunate that my mother used to work at a school, a private school, and part of her benefits was free school for her children. So I went to a private school, it was a Catholic school. And...

I don't remember seeing a black person in that school at all. And again, now that I look back, I'm like, I don't remember anybody. But it was never, there was never a conversation either way, you know, of good or bad or racism. I heard that my grandfather, you know, was racist, but I never heard him being racist. I've never. So it's this.

Yeah, the conversation about diversity, about humanity, about all of that, it was never brought to us that way for my parents. We just watched them being hardworking, extremely good humans. And I think that's really how me and my brother and my sister were impacted mainly to see this hardworking, incredible, funny, playful, loving adults.

Srini Rao

Yeah.

Lola Manekin

existing right in front of us.

Srini Rao

Yeah. So, you know, like, what is the sort of, if you could pick a stereotypical narrative for how Brazilian parents raise kids in terms of teaching them about how to like make their way in the world? Because like, you know, the joke with Indian parents is doctor, lawyer, engineer failure, right? Like that is kind of embedded into the culture. And I'm wondering, like, do Brazilians have any of that sort of embedded into the way that their parents think about, you know, educating them and preparing them for adulthood?

Lola Manekin

I don't, I think that has changed as well from the time that we were kids and now from the time that our friends now have kids and the way that they're raising their children. I don't even, I don't remember, you know, like I don't remember what I saw then other than there's, you know, for my parents, I guess I can speak about my parents specifically that we've always went to English classes.

since we were very little and it was that we could not choose whether we wanted to go or not. We hated to go to English classes and now we're so grateful that we did and they would let us choose music, sports, you know, and if whether we wanted to we liked it or not we had to finish the semester. So it's their own values. They let us try everything.

Srini Rao

Hahahaha

Lola Manekin

And I think because in Brazil, here's the other thing as well. The Brazil schools are only half day. So you either go to school in the morning or you go in the afternoon. So usually the other period, I know that most Brazilian parents are driving their kids around for classes. Swimming classes, things that maybe you would do in school, you do it separately. English classes, you know, ballet classes or whatever.

Srini Rao

Mm-hmm.

Srini Rao

Hmm.

Lola Manekin

Yeah, but and also because my mom has six sisters and I and I'm and I. I have a feeling, Srini Rao , that like Latin's family, they just go with the flow. You know, I see the way that Thiebaud, for example, has the plan, the future of our of our kids, fully plan until the day they die. And and it's been

Srini Rao

Wow.

Srini Rao

Mm-hmm.

Lola Manekin

I've been teaching him how to release that, you know? So I think that the culture here is very different because there's this pressure, there's this pressure with the sports, there's pressures with college. And in Brazil, there's none of that. I've never felt pressed and never seen any of the people that I love and my friends or anything being pressed to be someone or, you know, anything like that.

Srini Rao

Let's come back to that because I definitely want to ask you about both, you know, marrying a guy outside of your culture as well as raising kids with somebody else. But talking about your own experience of first coming to the US, like what aspects of it led to culture shock? Like what did you find crazy? What did you find funny? Because like I remember there are certain things like I remember thinking and here's a really silly example just to your reference, you know this because you're from Brazil, but I remember thinking I was like this is brilliant.

bar or nightclub in Brazil, you don't open a tab. You literally just get handed a consumption card and they close the tab at the end of the night. I was like, why doesn't they do this in the United States? This would drive so much more revenue and people would drink a lot more. I was like, this is a stupidly simple business idea. I don't know why nobody does it, but that was one of those random things I noticed. And of course, there are a lot of small nuances that we caught. But I remember in pretty much in all of Latin America, like I remember in Chile, every time we'd order a meal,

right after you get done, it's like, wow, this is the South American upsell. It's like, I'll go, Masa. I'm like, no, I told you everything I wanted already. Yeah. But talk to me about the aspects of coming here that you found funny, odd, shocking, all that when you first came.

Lola Manekin

Mm-hmm.

Lola Manekin

Hmm, um...

trying to remember. So I moved, when I moved to America, I moved to Florida. I was in Naples, Florida. And we had a Brazilian community there, which helped. I'm trying to, I'm trying to think of those.

Lola Manekin

I don't think there's anything that was very shocking to me when I came. I think in general there's a stiffness. You know, I found Americans just very stiff. And now that I'm a movement practitioner...

I can use the body to speak about that because there is no separation of the mind, the mind and the body and the emotions, you know. So I realized that I actually think that one of the reasons why I was sent to this country as a very supple Brazilian woman was to teach other humans, American humans, how to find that.

Srini Rao

Mm-hmm.

Lola Manekin

that suppleness, that flow, that movement in their bodies and as a consequence in their hearts and in their minds. So I think that was like the biggest shock that I had was in relationship to that.

Srini Rao

Yeah, I know what you mean having spent so much time in Brazil. And the other thing I noticed was like, Americans seem like they're in a damn hurry for everything. Like when you sit down at a restaurant in Brazil, it's like a three and a half hour deal and not because like, you know, it takes forever to get served. It's just the people like, Oh, we're sitting down for dinner. Like this is what we do. And you stay for a long time. Uh, whereas I noticed that is not something that

that happens here as much. It's like, okay, let's get you in and out. Even my mom, like we're sitting at our own dinner table in our house and she's like, hurry up and finish eating. I was like, why? I'm like, where do you have to go and what do you have to do that you need me to finish eating? Like, what is the point of this? Like we're having dinner together. Like, why are we in a rush? The whole point of dinner is also to talk to each other. If all we needed to do is eat, I might as well just order Soylent and not show up for dinner. But let's talk about one other aspect of this and we'll get into your work.

Lola Manekin

But.

Srini Rao

as we'd said at the beginning of our conversation, you're married to Thibaut, one of our former guests. And so this is something I'm always curious about when you have parents from two different cultures, you being Brazilian, Thibaut being American, how are you preserving and integrating aspects of both your heritage and your culture into the way that you raise your children? Because the one thing I always think about for me and even my sister, even though she's married to an Indian guy,

They're both from different parts of India and speak different languages. So I always think about, okay, what's the first thing to go here? And for me, I'm like, okay, if I don't marry an Indian girl, the first thing to go without question will be language. So talk to me about that. Like, how does that play out in the lives of your kids?

Lola Manekin

Yeah, so language is definitely one of them. They're both fluent, both fluent in Portuguese. The yearly trip to Brazil is something that is really part of our commitment. And during the pandemic, we actually ended up moving to Brazil for almost two years. It was not part of the plan, but we...

We had planned to go spend a year in Brazil, the year of 2020, and then we arrived in Brazil in February, and then in March, the world shut down. And as you may imagine, you know, Floripa was the perfect place to be when the whole world was shut down. We, yeah, we were outside, outdoors, doing so many fun stuff. I wanted the kids to experience great, like great grandparents, you know, like my great my.

Srini Rao

Yeah, sounds like it.

Lola Manekin

Wait, my grandmother, my grandfather's still alive. You know, so I wanted them to experience the way that Brazilians do life, that community that we meet at least once a week for everybody to have coffee together or we sit around the couch and we can just stay there a whole afternoon. And for them, all of that is very, very new. It's definitely not the style here.

Srini Rao

Mm-hmm.

Lola Manekin

So the trips to Brazil is the most important thing. The language is important. You know, Teebo's mom is French. So the kids joke that they're, you know, half Brazilian, one quarter American, one quarter French. So we still have that to bring in. We knew from the beginning, the minute that we found out we were pregnant.

that we were gonna raise children for the world. And that has been, you know, the case since the beginning. Another way that I'm thinking right now is that in Brazil, we have a little bit of like the village raises the children, which now that's coming back to me when you said about a shock, you know, that was a shock in America.

Srini Rao

Mm-hmm.

Srini Rao

Mm.

Lola Manekin

I was struggling being a new mom. And here nobody just talks about it. Everybody's in their own home with their kids, you know, doing their best. But there was no village. And we did the best that we could with the amount of friends that we have or even Thibaut's parents and his sisters.

Srini Rao

Mm-hmm.

Lola Manekin

or even school, the teachers, or their school friends' parents. You know, we let the kids being raised a little bit more by the village than, you know, us claiming ownership or claiming that we knew what we're doing because we definitely did not and still don't know. Ha ha ha.

Srini Rao

Yeah, rumor has it that like being a parent is just this gigantic shit show and you're just making it all up as you go along and you know, like just making sure like I realized this with my nephew like you know he's 10 months and he's mobile now and suddenly he's standing and he's getting into everything and it's like I got to let you have the freedom to explore. And at the same time I'm like, doing everything I can to prevent him from hurting himself, which I feel like is just an on like that seems like parenting in a nutshell for the rest of your life.

Lola Manekin

Basically. Yeah.

Lola Manekin

Mm-hmm.

Lola Manekin

Yeah, yeah. And Thibaut, I don't think that Thibaut is a, I don't want to say, I mean, I want to say average father, but I also don't want to put anybody else in that box, you know, so I'm not comparing him to anybody specifically, but he wanted so much to be a dad that, you know, when these kids were born, he was just doing what he was really, really good at. I struggle more with

Srini Rao

Yeah.

Lola Manekin

with being a parent than he did. So almost my job was just to make sure that they had food, that they had clothes, that they had milk and love. And I was doing like the day-to-day basics, but he was the fun for sure. I was not fun. I was not fun at all.

Srini Rao

Mm.

Srini Rao

Yeah. Well, that's what my sister says. My nephew adores me because she's like, he knows he's like, you're nothing but fun. He was like, you don't change diapers. You don't give him milk. You're just here to hang out and talk to him and pay attention. That's why he's like, you're one of your you're one of his favorite people. But you know, earlier in our conversation, you alluded to the notion of Tivo having your kids whole lives planned out and all that like, talk to me about like, not just that aspect.

Lola Manekin

Mm-hmm.

Srini Rao

as far as a contrast between the two of you and how you think about that going forward, but also bringing two families together from different cultures and how that has actually influenced the work that you do.

Lola Manekin

Mm-hmm.

Lola Manekin

We...

There's this beautiful way that Tibo and I know how to dance with each other. It took us a while. I'm actually going back a little bit, if it's okay with you, to talk about our relationship because when we met, I was like a super warm, in the moment, crazy Latina.

Srini Rao

Yeah, of course.

Lola Manekin

You know, if I was mad, he knows I'm mad, but if I'm happy right away, he knows I'm happy. And he did not know what to do with somebody that could clearly express the truth of each moment so freely the way that I could. And what ended up happening in our relationship is that every time that I would express something that he didn't like, he'll be like, don't talk to me like that.

You know, like don't use your voice like that. And it took us a long time to realize how little by little that part of me that was very true to the moment started to shut down and becoming just a little bit more singular with my emotions. I almost felt like at some point I just needed to show up in the same exact way every time. And...

And it took us, you know, on our 10th anniversary, we reached a point where the kids were ready a little bit bigger. And I looked at him, I'm like, is this what the next 10 years are going to be like? Because if it is, I'm out. You know, and he didn't see that coming. And he's like, you know, what's going on? It's like, I just feel cold and disconnected. And you know, I feel like we're just high fiving each other at the door.

So we start diving into this beautiful work of intimacy, sacred intimacy together, you know, and really understanding how the greatest gift that I could bring to him as his wife and as his oracle was my ability of expressing, you know, like, again, like, Latinas are just, we're so good at that. And that part of me just went numb. And

So we spend after that time, I think this was like six years ago, we've basically been bringing together, healing that part of our relationship and for me to allowing that version of myself to exist again and for him to adore that, and hold space and be this like container in which I can show up fully.

Lola Manekin

So our relationship from that moment changed completely. That's when I feel like almost he went from being just another white American dude to this.

Lola Manekin

masterful, you know, king and lover and all of that. So this work that we've done together now has influenced the way that we also relate in parent or children. You know, children are, this work that we do, it's called the polarity work, it's like alpha and omega. So I'm omega, which means I'm allowing

you know, all the emotions to arise. He's alpha, which holds the container. There's more to it, but I'm summarizing it. And kids are, they're fully omega. They're like showing the truth of the moment, each moment. And it was my ability to teach, you know, it was because I was able to teach that to Thibaut and him understanding that he holds space for our children to also show up.

Srini Rao

Yeah.

Lola Manekin

you know, in all of that emotions. Otherwise we would have raised two boys, you know, wearing a t-shirt that says boys don't cry almost. So that's one of the best ways that we were able to be in service of our children, but also of each other. And any barrier that we had when it comes to...

Srini Rao

Mm-hmm.

Lola Manekin

you know, the countries that we're from or the ways that we were raised were completely removed when we learn another language that it's really the language of the heart that we can communicate from, you know? And then we can, within that, we can honor his limitations as an American man. I can honor my limitations, you know, as a Latina woman. And it's really beautiful.

Srini Rao

Yeah. So talk to me about how this all connects to the work that you do now, as it relates to movement and body and mind, because I feel like that this seems like it probably has had an instrumental role in all of that.

Lola Manekin

Mm-hmm, yeah, yeah. It's almost, I don't know which guided what. I have been in this world of integrative medicine almost since we were born. My mom was always ahead of the game and our physician was a homeopath and an acupuncturist. And at that time, 40 years ago, that was not something that was just very...

you know, that everybody knew about it. And my mom always has been this incredible, I wanna say shaman, she's a shaman, she's a medicine woman. And it was definitely her heart that continued to lead our whole family as a family, even when my parents divorced. You know, she told us, she said, don't you worry guys, if one day the five of us are gonna be together again, it's just gonna be different.

And sure enough, about two years after they divorced and they didn't speak, my parents became really good friends and now they hang out together a lot. We travel together as a family, but they're not married anymore, but they're best friends. So it was her guidance of this way of being that basically led me into going to college and studying integrative medicine.

finishing that, going to acupuncture school, and then moving here to the United States. My in-laws gifted me my master's degree in acupuncture. In that process, meeting this community that teaches movement and that dances. And it was really when I reconnected to the Brazilian in me when I started to dance again.

because even that part of me had kind of died a little bit. And it's my work today as a culmination of all of that. Basically, I am a true believer that the body is, I mean, I'm a big fan of the body, of the human body, and it's amazing.

Srini Rao

Thank you.

Srini Rao

Mm-hmm.

Lola Manekin

how many people just live their lives from the neck up and how disconnected they are from the sensations. And it's really this vessel is what's, it's the biggest GPS that it's literally telling, it's the only thing of us that it's in the present moment. I'm cold, I'm hungry, I'm hot. And my work with this combination of movement and embodiment and integrative medicine has been

Srini Rao

Mm-hmm.

Srini Rao

Mm-hmm.

Lola Manekin

teaching people how to embody this body in living a life where...

Hmm, let's see how to say this in the best way.

I use a lot the words together in embodied freedom is to find this freedom of existing as an embodied person, you know, through this body. I feel like I'm repeating myself, but it's really, I don't know if you want to ask anything in relationship to that, but yeah.

Srini Rao

Yeah, of course. Well, okay. So, you know, when you're thinking about this idea, talking about this idea of, you know, sort of suppressing emotions, I realized that actually, to me, is something that had become pretty normalized in both, you know, an Indian family where we're just not emotionally expressive. Like, it's almost like we hold back, like we're like, it's funny to even watch my parents being physically affectionate with each other is so rare that the

first time I saw it, I cringed. I was like, Ah, like, I don't want to see that. And I, you know, I've said this before, like, I had an Indian friend when I was in eighth grade, and he was like convinced that the only two times in his life, his parents had sex for when his brother and him were conceived. Like, I was like, no, at the time, like, we kind of all thought that about our parents, because like, nobody wants to ever think about their parents having sex. It's just kind of like, you don't do it. But like, all joking aside, like,

Lola Manekin

hahahaha

Srini Rao

First, let's talk about how people get to that point where they are living from the neck up because I think that to your point, even as I watch my 10-month-old nephew, I think the one thing I realized with him was how present he is and how present he forces me to be. And I realized the thing he wants more than anything is attention. He doesn't want you to get in his way. I've realized that too. He's like, he'll basically, you can kind of tell in his mind, he's like, look.

He was like, I want you to let me do whatever the hell I want and, you know, explore everything and, you know, open every cabinet. He's like, but I want you to stay here and keep me company. Like he really doesn't like it when people leave.

So how do we get to that point in the first place? And then talk to me about finding our way back to this point where we actually are living this embodied experience and how we can use it in our lives to improve that.

Lola Manekin

Yeah, yeah. I think that the, you know, each person's childhood really is what sets the tone for what their adulthood is going to be like. You know, I was fortunate to watch my parents being affectionate and hugging and loving like every day. You know, we watched them dancing in the living room. And I think that absolutely affected the way that we grew up in many.

many kids didn't have that, even if there was no trauma, if your parents, even using you as an example, if that's okay, if your parents were hugging you and kissing you all the time and saying, I love you, it's like learning a language that you don't know. And then we enter the world of school and speech

I think also like work and sports, whatever it is that everything that we need to do is to become better than somebody else at something. There's a lot of competition. I feel like the world outside can stimulate us so much to the point that we have no time and we don't even remember that we need to look at the world inside.

and check in to see how am I with this, the situation or anything. So I think there's just too much distraction. And also, let me, sometimes I just need to take a breath and see what wants to come through with that.

Lola Manekin

Yeah, I believe that the childhood and the speed in which the world is running right now is what gets us from disconnecting completely from our bodies. I don't think, and actually maybe a little bit more right now, but I don't think schools are teaching us the real education of emotional education. You know, how do you feel in expressing how you feel?

And then I think that that's to me is how we get to that disconnection. A lot of emotions end up coming from that shame, fear, you know, when I'm, when I am vulnerable, people don't want to be vulnerable with each other because it's super scary, you know, what if you don't like that version of me? Am I gonna lose you? So all of that gets us to

start wearing masks. You know, for you I am this way, and for you, for that person I am that way, and putting this armors, layers and layers and layers, and we do that for years. And then there's come, I think that there comes a moment in time where that begins to catch up with us. There's this wisdom of the body that is always calling us back to it. I think that disease,

is really a lack of ease in some ways that we're being invited to revisit and look at it. So the way that I think we get back to it, the way I can tell you the way that I do it and the way that I teach the people that come to me is through any practices that uses the body as a vessel.

For some people it's dance, for some people it's martial arts, for some people it's breath work. Anything that we can do to be very physical in using the body to express the truth. You may gonna hear me saying that a lot because it's really what the body does is expressing the truth of each moment. And we lost our ability of expressing our truth.

Lola Manekin

And every time that we're able to, through some movement, through some embodiment, through some breath work, to release some tears, release a shout of anger, release something that we're feeling, we remove one of those layers, one of those masks that we put up at some point in life. And then there's the sensation of a little bit more of freedom.

And then the, I think that we as humans spend, we'll spend our entire lives.

Lola Manekin

liberating one mask at a time until we continue to connect to the most truthful version of ourselves, like our true essence basically. And there's this sentence, this quote that I love that it says, you know, the way that we reach enlightenment is through embodiment. And I'm a true believer on that.

There's a lot of the spiritual practice that feels like we keep wanting to reach this enlightenment and spirits and spirituality and it just brings us to this ethereal place that we don't know what the hell is that. And I think we were gifted this one opportunity to be in this body and experience life on earth. And it's really what separates us from spirit is that we were given the opportunity of seeing.

and tasting and smelling and listening and, you know, to really master the basics with the five senses. And we got so fancy in this world that we forgot the basics, which is a little bit what you're saying about the, you know, eat fast. We forgot how to sit around the table with people that we love and savor each bite of that food. So, I'll pause here for a moment to see if there's anything that you want to, you know.

Srini Rao

Yeah. You know, so as you're saying that a couple of things came to mind, like my I always joked you mentioned that part about your parents dancing. I always think, man, if only the Portuguese had colonized India instead of the damn British, then we wouldn't have been a bunch of prudes. You know, like that's like my theory of this is like you imagine the Portuguese military generals like, you know what? Let the British go where it's hot in the weather or it's cold and, you know, we'll just go where the women are hot and the weather is great.

Lola Manekin

plugin.

Lola Manekin

Hahaha.

Srini Rao

Like I feel that my friend joked that was effectively Portuguese's colonization strategy. If you look at where they went in the world, it kind of like makes sense. All joking aside, they got me thinking, as you were saying that about surfing and why surfing had such a profound impact on me. And like I said this before, like, I don't think I ever really knew what the meaning of presence was until I caught a wave. Like that was the first time I was like.

with this is like the one and only time I'm like, I'm not thinking about the past, I'm not thinking about the future. Like I am truly in the now. And it just explains so much about why you feel the way you do when you get out of the water because it's so much about being in touch with your body. And like for somebody like me who has spent a lot of time in academic circles, like I'm in my head a lot of the time. So I think that was probably what it is. So when people come to you, like what is going on in the life of the average person who comes to you to do this work? Like why does somebody

come to you and in addition to the problems you help them solve, what else do they discover in the process?

Lola Manekin

Hmm. So usually, I think the reason why people come work with me is because they first they acknowledge the amount of work that I continue to do to continue to find the most liberated version of myself. And I think in some ways, they desire that for themselves. You know, I definitely don't.

don't feel like I help the resolution of any problem, mainly because I don't see anything as a problem. I have spent a lot of time studying quantum physics and just really understanding like the laws of the universe and this idea of action and reaction of, you know, how the perfection of the ups and the downs and the contractions and the expansions.

So I, but that's how we experience life on earth through duality, right? Hot, cold, I like the summer because I've experienced the winter time, kind of what you're saying. I like the hot girls because I've experienced the cold girls and it's just like all of that. And so when I meet the people that come through my doors, I hold the space to everything that it can be. It's almost like...

moving a layer above the duality, the right or wrong, the broken or that needs to be fixed or anything like that. And it's already meeting people in their perfection. I truly like honestly believe that everybody, in the perfection of everybody, you know, do I, am I blind to say that people don't have work to do? No, everybody has a lot of work to do. But the potential and the possibilities...

I've always held that for myself in life. And it's a genuine thing that I can hold for anybody that walks through my door. And I think one of my biggest lessons have been sometimes they cannot see it yet. And I almost sometimes may have the tendency of trying to rush the process and be like, what do you mean you can't see it?

Lola Manekin

You know, so I have one of my mentors always says that we meet people where they are, not where we want them to be, which has been a very beautiful practice. So people come to find the most embodied, liberated version of themselves. And that usually looks like looking at everything that it's in the way. You know, so it's more.

an undoing of things than a doing of things, if that makes any sense. We already are, if we already are this perfection and what we're doing is operating in the world with the masks that we use, we have to look at these masks and begin to peel them off. And I do that with movement classes that I teach.

I have a retreat house up here in a very small retreat house up north in Baltimore County, where I lead private sessions of breath work, shamanic work. I've trained under incredible people from all over the world now. I hold some medicines like hape and cambo. And I meet, you know, I open our doors and I feel for the moment.

and whatever they need in the moment, it's what comes through.

Srini Rao

So talk to me about what happens in their lives after going through this work. Because like the funny thing is the Indian in me is always like the person who's like, I want, you know, granted, you know, like I trust your judgment because you've been educated, you've actually studied this. And I'm always like, there's this like balance between one of our friends is like, yeah, just cause you can't explain it with science, it doesn't mean it's not legitimate. And I'm like, yeah, kind of. But I come from a family full of academics. So talk to me about what happens after in their lives. Like how do their lives change for the better?

Lola Manekin

Mm-hmm.

Lola Manekin

Yeah, I totally hear what you're saying. It's the majority of the people that are like that. This is definitely.

Srini Rao

Well, for good reason, because there's like a lot of like, honestly, new age bullshit that is not validated with anything. I mean, you have to have real credibility in my mind. Yeah. Whereas there's a lot of people who are just kind of like, you know, claiming to be credible when they're not and using a lot of anecdotal evidence.

Lola Manekin

Mm-hmm.

Lola Manekin

Yeah. So one thing that I wanted to say is that this work of the soul never ends. I feel like our souls are very curious and it's kind of like comparing to surf. You know, if you realize that you're killing it, the one meter waves, you're going to be like, I'm going to go for the two meter now. I want to see what that feels like. You know, and I think that summarizes basically the way that our soul works.

We expand a little bit and then we're like, oh, what else? What else? And so it's not one session, even if they do get, major breakthrough, like a big release or a big download, something that they can, the hardest part of the soul work actually is the integration. I know I've done enough plant medicine myself and have met.

many people who's done it. And plant medicine is nothing if you don't know how to integrate everything that you received in the journey in a day-to-day life. Because it's like, there's that funny quote that says you wanna see how spiritualized you've got. Just go spend a weekend with your parents. You know? And it's like everything that you learn just goes down the drain, because the worst comes out. And so...

Lola Manekin

So usually people after a session or after a retreat, there's something very profound that has been revealed to them. And then it's up to them to decide what to do with that. There's something that free will is a real thing and we have the potential of the soul, we have the potential of humans that it's unlimited.

and we all have the free will to say, do I want to continue to go down this road or not? You know, and also sometimes people don't even come for an outcome specifically of like, I need to come because I have this podcast that I'm doing tomorrow or whatever. They come because people...

Srini Rao

Yeah.

Lola Manekin

people really have this deep desire of being heard and being seen. And honestly, Rene, we don't see each other anymore. We don't listen to each other anymore. Your job is beautiful, because it's actually you made a choice of sitting for hours with people to just really listening. Outside of that, people talk on top of each other. And nobody listens.

So those containers that I like to create and sometimes all that people want is a place where they can put their armors down. And that itself is the gift.

Srini Rao

You know, I appreciate you bringing up this idea of integration, particularly plant medicine journeys, because yeah, otherwise it's just like recreational drug use, there's not a whole hell of a lot of difference. Cause like I was thinking back to my own experiences with a handful of psychedelics, like only mushrooms. But I, you know, like the first experience I had with it was with two friends on New Year's Eve. And that was like really, really profound. But I think it's largely because we were super intentional about how we, we did it. And I noticed the last two, three times after that, like after the third time I was like, you know what?

I'm done. Like this isn't doing it for me. I think we got like got what it was supposed to do from the first one. And then I realized like this is just as like screwing around after that.

Lola Manekin

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, it's very important. I have seen, you know, I know plenty of people who are just, you know, journey after journey after journey. And I mean, there's, I have no judgment about it because again, that's their journey. The journeys are their journey. You know, I have a friend who I really love, you know, he's actually from India and we were catching up the other day and he said, you know, Lola, I just realized how...

Srini Rao

Yeah.

Srini Rao

Mm-hmm.

Lola Manekin

I went a whole few years just trying to find these answers through lots of journeys and I just realized that I didn't integrate anything. So I'm taking a break and I'm going to spend, you know, I'm going to catch up with the amount of information that I received to integrate. So I do believe that at some point it clicks to everybody. It's just, you know, I just, it's hard to tell when.

for some people like him, it was pretty fast, couple years, you know, some people may are gonna get to their 90s to be like, oh shit, I didn't do that. So it's very individual.

Srini Rao

Mm-hmm.

Srini Rao

Yeah. You know, it's correct me like, again, this is only based on just, you know, like, stories I've heard from people like who have told me about their experiences with certain plant medicine, particularly ayahuasca. Like, I don't know who has a friend of mine once had he's like, he's like, basically is like, it's like going through 13 years of therapy in one night. He's like, it's hell. But then you come out of it. And it's beautiful. Is that accurate? Or like, is that just, you know, one person's experience?

Lola Manekin

Yeah, I've seen a lot of that and I experience a lot of that for myself. I think that one of the things that I do love, I'll tell you, about some journeys and some medicines is that they bypass the cognitive mind. So for you, for example, that it's sitting in your front cortex a lot of the time, having to understand everything.

And you know, those experiences can be so powerful because it takes the, I need to understand everything and it does the work by itself. I went to this ayahuasca retreat one time, a long time ago in Costa Rica, and they said that one of the things that can happen, it's called nada, you know, which means nothing. And when they say the nada, it means when you fall asleep, they call the nada.

that night it didn't work for you because you fell asleep and you felt nothing. And they were explaining how sometimes the amount of work that the medicine has to do is so profound that if you're actually awake, you wouldn't be able to take it. So he puts you to sleep and does the work without the mind have having to understand. So I do think that it's life changing. I've witnessed people, you know, coming out of

alcoholism, depression, but it's really after that. I've been working with this one person right now who I adore and completely free from alcohol. And sometimes he needs to remember that version of ourselves that we meet when we are in plant medicine.

because we see all that it's possible. We actually see ourselves as the universe, as source or as God, whatever. And so the medicine I feel like shows the full potential. And then we come back to this body and we'll be like, all right, there's a different truth that I didn't know and now I know. You know, and now how do I sustain? What is it that I need to do? So I think it's incredible, incredibly powerful.

Srini Rao

So two final questions about this. Like, you know, given the benefits of this, I mean, we had to add Dylan from Mind Bloom here recently, you know, talking about ketamine in this therapy and like sort of the therapeutic effects of a lot of this plant medicine. Like, what do you think? Like, I'm pretty convinced at this point, like the biggest resistance here is big pharma, even based on having read Michael Pollan's book, How to Change Your Mind, where he actually says he's like, you know, why would you have a drug?

Lola Manekin

Mm-hmm.

Srini Rao

like psychedelic mushrooms or psilocybin where we can cure PTSD in three sessions when a pharma company can basically make somebody take a drug they have to take for the rest of their lives. He's like, they're probably the biggest sort of opponents of all of this going mainstream.

Lola Manekin

Yeah, I agree with you. I totally agree with you. And I think that we're in such incredible times right now where they're losing a little bit of that power, you know? And the perfection in which things unfold, I also love that because maybe it's in the pace that we as humans, as a collective can handle. You know, it's like, okay, we are allowed to smoke pot now.

You know, so I think that we're gonna get there and I do think that it is the big pharma that gets in the way. But I also believe that there's a force behind it all guiding the speed in which things need to happen. You know? I don't know if you know what I mean when I say that, but I truly, yeah, I really do.

Srini Rao

Well, yeah.

Srini Rao

Beautiful. Well, I have one final question for you, which is how we finish all of our interviews at the Unmistakable Creative. What do you think it is that makes somebody or something unmistakable?

Lola Manekin

Yes.

Lola Manekin

Say that again.

Srini Rao

What do you think it is that makes somebody or something on mistake?

Lola Manekin

unmistakable creative.

Srini Rao

however you want to answer it. How do you define unmistakable?

Lola Manekin

Uh huh, okay.

Lola Manekin

I think you cannot make mistakes when you are following the path of the heart, of your own heart. Yeah, the wisdom that this, you know, that the energy of the heart speaks to us all the time. And when we're listening to that, I think it's what makes what we do, you can go wrong.

can go wrong.

Srini Rao

Well, I can't thank you enough for taking the time to join us and share your story, your wisdom and your insights with our listeners. Where can people find out more about you, your work and everything else you're up to?

Lola Manekin

Yeah, I am on social media, you know, Lola Manekin on Instagram, on Facebook. I do have the website, LolaMannequin.com, which people can still reach me through that. It's going through a major reform. But yeah, those are usually the main the main ways.

Srini Rao

Awesome. And for everybody listening, we will wrap the show with that.