Kriste Brushaber, owner of Homeostasis Movement, cofounder of the Frontrange Barefoot Hiking Group, enjoys the view that comes with
 a barefoot rock climb

Hello!

After a long hiatus, AB now continues it's Barefoot and Powerful series which explores how being barefoot is empowering to women. Up to now, our specific focus has been on Yoga. Barefoot and Powerful explored how being barefoot on a Yoga mat is empowering to the women we interviewed

Almost Barefoot continues to support positive female empowerment and we are now branching beyond the confines of Yoga.

Our newest interviewee is Kriste Brushaber. Her own holistic life practice includes Yoga but takes us far beyond previous confines. Her own journey of discovery began with teaching Pilates, another discipline that is always practiced barefoot. She got into integrative therapy and coaching and now teaches therapy and rehabilitation from the ground up, literally.

Her clients break old habits and learn constructive reconditioning from their foundation-bare feet-and reconstruct the entire positioning of the body for improved health through a process called Somanoetics. 

She is the owner of Homeostasis Movement in Metro Denver, CO. 

Kriste shows the complexities of the foot, the foundation for the body that is often forgotten until injuries occur.

When she's not working with clients, Kriste can be found rock climbing and hiking barefoot in the foothills near Denver. She tells us a very inspiring story.  

 

AB How has being barefoot in Pilates and beyond empowered you as a woman?

Kriste  Practicing holistic well-being is a personal choice contributing to my body/mind’s most efficient state of being— bio-mechanically, energetically, emotionally, and spiritually, and exploring new frontiers as a spirit having a human experience.  As any choice, the choice to do so comes from an already empowered state of being. 

AB Before you began doing Yoga or Pilates, did you go barefoot very often?

Kriste Before I was a holistic movement practitioner, I wore shoes at work, but they were off as soon as I was home.

AB When did you start practicing holistic movement?

Kriste I was born into a movement and performing arts family by vocation.  In my 20’s, Pilates, Gyrotonic®, Feldenkrais®, then just exploring what “natural” and “functional” movement really was as a modern human.  This led to physiology, neurology and psychology beyond the bio-mechanics.  More recently, adopting a regular meditation practice, increased diligence in observing my daily choices, behavior and emotional states, and utilizing a variety of heart coherence practices. 

AB  What made you decide to teach it?

Kriste  I witnessed the pathological side the pursuit of health, and wanted to improve that.  There’s a fundamental difference between movement practice motivated by fear, competition and entertainment, and movement inspired by authentic well-being that varies by individual. 

AB As a coach and a teacher, you’re a woman who not only has the power of authority also the ability to empower others. What’s one way you encourage your students to empower themselves?

Kriste working with a client at Homeostasis Movement

Kriste To drop any story/belief/habit that keeps them from discovering and expressing their unique potential, no matter it’s source or even if if was helpful in the past. 

AB  What’s an empowering message you would offer to women and girls?

Kriste  That the more they strongly identify themselves as a gender, race, age, or any other label, they limit themselves accordingly, adopting the baggage of everyone else’s struggle.  When they categorize and make judgments of others by those categories, they limit everyone, and further isolate themselves.  None of these labels are who you, or anyone else, really are. 

AB  The Yoga community has also been very welcoming to men. How can we continue to make sure that the Yoga community remains a place where women can empower themselves and have it still be as open as it is today?

Kriste  Empowerment is a personal, unconditional connection with Source: genderless, raceless, ageless, and timeless.  I have both male and female clients.  Each client is welcomed as a unique Soul, already powerful, seeking some temporary guidance.  It’s a deliberate choice of every teacher to create an inspiring, welcoming environment as an expression of their own beliefs and what they feel is the potential of their students.  If any student doesn’t feel welcome, hopefully they will choose elsewhere, even if they have to begin with an online course.  There’s so many choices, something for everyone no matter their comfort level or personality.  The responsibility lies in everyone. 

AB Add something else that is your unique thought on this discussion……

Kriste:

1. Due to the core intention of any spiritual practice, which includes forms of Yoga, I feel many of us, and therefore humanity as a whole, is realizing our personal connection to Source.  A natural result of this is experiencing wholeness.  Within wholeness, there is no other.  Any duality that exists in the human psyche such as gender inequality does not exist within an experience of wholeness.  As we integrate this experience into our ever-evolving identities, we perceive our external environment differently which changes our behavior and the energetic signature we are emitting to the Universe.         
2. Empowerment is misunderstood. Power is omnipresent, it cannot be given or taken by anyone.  You can also view power as Love, Source, God, Universal Intelligence… We can choose to align with it at any moment, but so many are conditioned to believe otherwise.  “Empowerment” is simply recognizing you are already powerful, and every choice you make is proof of this.  It’s not THE choice one makes, but the act of choosing anything, and that you can choose differently regardless of past choices.  Practicing that recognition helps break the old conditioning.   

Thank you, Kriste!

Blessings!