Coach of the Month: Candice Claire Oksenhorn on Overcoming Chronic Stress

In this Coach of the Month interview, Cate chats with Candice Claire Oksenhorn about her personal and professional growth path. Candice began her career in media sales but felt a yearning to be in a career that resonated with her in a meaningful way and could help others. She started learning about meditation and Ayurveda. Despite Candice’s prior training in Ayurveda, she describes Body Thrive (the prerequisite for Yoga Health Coaching) as a profound, transformative process that tied all the “loose ends” together. In her personal life, Candice has experienced both chronic and acute stress and says it was the chronic stress that really wore her body down. She believes that the aligning with the rhythms of nature (dinarcharya in Ayurveda) is what helped her recover from stress and avoid disease. Now, through Yoga Health Coaching, she feels like she is able to offer others something that is both valuable and tangible. What she loves about teaching the habits is that it is just a very practical way of taking care of the body that works with individuals’ existing belief systems. Candice consciously avoids being “lofty” in her teaching. She teaches from a place that resonates with her and that puts others at ease.

What you’ll get out of tuning in:

• How the habits of Body Thrive directly affect our ability to resolve the effects of both chronic and acute stress.
• Why an academic understanding of Ayurveda doesn’t guarantee transformation.
• Why no two Yoga Health Coaches will deliver the same experience.

Links Mentioned in Episode:

• Yogidetox
• Body Thrive Book
• YHC Have a conversation
• Candice’s fb
• Candice’s website
• How to Build a Tribe webinar
• Yogahealer

Show Highlights:

• 1:50 – Our subtle anatomy is delicate, receptive, designed for connectivity, awareness and bliss, and in today’s society, we abuse it. When we go on a healing journey, we start to wake up our subtle anatomy.
• 3:00 – Despite Candice’s prior training in Ayurveda, she describes Body Thrive (a prerequisite to Yoga Health Coaching) as a profound, transformative process that, for her, tied all the “loose ends” together. She sees each round of Body Thrive as further refinement of the habits.
• 6:40 – Candice is now teaching her own group course, and she has found that her clients, some of whom are studying Ayurveda, are not practicing even the simplest of habits. Just as Allopathic doctors are not trained in nutrition and digestion, Ayurvedic practitioners often don’t adequately explore dinacharya and the daily habits.
• 9:20 – The habits are for everyone. Not everyone wants to study Ayurveda, but everyone needs a healthy body. Candice didn’t want to be “lofty” with her teaching. She teaches from a place that resonates with her and that puts others at ease.
• 11:55 – Candice has experienced both chronic and acute stress and says it was the chronic stress that really wore her body down. She was high functioning, but she felt a lot of pressure to do things the “right” way, the expected way. Her husband suffered from mental illness, and while she tried to work with and around that, she would internalize a lot of the inner conflict she felt. Additionally, Candice dealt with chronic insomnia after the birth of her daughter. She thought she was taking care of herself, but she felt herself “crashing.”
• 16:10 – Her studies fortified her for the acute stress she felt after her husband’s suicide. Despite the inflammatory physical reactions her body had to the acute stress, Candice had faith that her body knew how to heal, and she continued to practice dinacharya. She started Body Thrive in 2016 and has educated her daughter in the habits.
• 22:50 – Your habits can either work for you in a regeneration process or against you in a dis-ease process. When we learn the habits of thrive, we naturally want to share those and educate others so that they know they have a choice in how they experience life.
• 26:40 – Candice’s advice to newer yoga health coaches is 1. You’re never done, and 2. Just do your pilot. She ran her pilot in person, recorded her teaching sessions, and now uses those recordings for her online course.
• 29:20 – No two coaches will teach the same way because no two coaches have had the same life experiences. As coaches, the more interested we become in the results of our members, and the more we are able to connect with them, the more our coaching skills improve.

Favorite Quotes:

• “Understanding the information doesn’t equal transformation. You really have to find little ways to do it.” — Candice Claire Oksenhorn
• “If we . . . can get into beginner’s mind, if we’re curious about the depth of alignment to the daily rhythm, alignment to the seasonal rhythm, . . . if we can just get super curious, expect phenomenal things from really opening with curiosity to what I don’t already have dialed in.” — Cate Stillman
• “We’re never done with refinement.” — Candice Claire Oksenhorn
• “Not everybody wants to study from the intellectual perspective of Ayurveda, but everyone needs a healthy body.” — Candice Claire Oksenhorn
• “It’s hard to have faith in the moment when things don’t seem to be getting better fast.” — Candice Claire Oksenhorn

Guest BIO:

Candice Claire is a Yoga Health Coach living in Aspen, CO amidst the beautiful rocky mountains! Candice began her journey in Ayurvedic studies at the Chopra Center University in 2009 attaining her certifications to instruct Primordial Sound Meditation and Ayurvedic Lifestyle. The passion was ignited and she went on to study with other accomplished teachers in Ayurveda and Aromatherapy: Jai Dev Singh, Dr. Claudia Welch, Dr. John Doulliard, Cate Stillman, David Crow, Sarah Crow, WOTE (Wisdom of the Earth), etc…! Candice is passionate about healthy habits rooted in the ancient wisdom of Ayurveda. Her personal journey includes healing from a chronic inflammatory condition which became acute after her husband’s suicide in 2014. Candice chose a natural healing path by using the daily rhythms, organic food and aromatherapy rather than pharmaceuticals. Even with her Ayurvedic background,  Cate Stillman’s clear and easy format of focusing on one ayurvedic habit per week using modern habit research made a profound impact in Candice’s healing journey. Her personal experience, knowledge and wisdom, and powerful format of Yoga Health Coaching allows Candice to help others easily integrate healthful habits into their lives. Candice’s 10 week online course is called Body Bliss. She also leads cleanses twice per year and works with clients privately. Connect with Candice on her FB page and get more info on Suzanne’s website.