#awinewith Alena Turley
MEET Alena Turley, Founder of Alena Turley
You can find them here:
Transcript
Danielle Lewis (00:00):
You are listening to Spark tv, where we bring you daily interviews with real women in business at all stages. I'm your host, Danielle Lewis, and I am so grateful to have you here. So good. Elena, welcome to Spark tv. I'm so excited to have you here.
Alena Turley (00:16):
Thank you, Danielle. It's really nice to be here as well.
Danielle Lewis (00:19):
Let's start out by telling everyone who you are and what you do.
Alena Turley (00:24):
Okay. I am Elena Turley. I do lots of things. Let's start with that. It's always a hard question to answer. I just do this one thing. I am a wife and mother and northern beaches Sydney. I am a martial artist, a black belt, which I got when I was 50.
Danielle Lewis (00:44):
Oh my God. Okay, we got to talk about that more. Very exciting.
Alena Turley (00:46):
Yeah, we're going to talk about that for sure. I am a somatic therapist, which is a joy. I help transition women in transition release what holds them back. So stress, tension, a life that feels too small so they can be more easeful and regain vitality and possibilities with somatic therapy. So that's really fun. I also work with conscious brands, ethical brands at times to kind of get to the root of their visibility issues and help with content, which is really fun. It's just something I've done for a long time. It's not my main thing, but I do really love it. And I also create my own digital storytelling, so content mainly on Instagram and a little bit on a blog and sometimes in other formats. But yeah, so that's all the things at the moment. Oh, I'm an educator as well. Qualified
Danielle Lewis (01:44):
An
Alena Turley (01:44):
Educator on educator. I actually work in secondary education a couple of days a week, which I love. I'm a tech teacher, so I teach woodwork and multimedia and things like that.
Danielle Lewis (01:56):
Oh my God, I love it. So when you think about business, would you consider the somatic therapy?
Alena Turley (02:04):
Yeah, that's my business
Danielle Lewis (02:05):
Vain. That business.
Alena Turley (02:07):
That is my business. It's the working with women. Absolutely.
Danielle Lewis (02:11):
Wow. I love that. And I love, oh my God, the biggest thing that just landed for me is feeling like you are not living a life big enough that it's too small. I speak to so many women who feel like they are destined for more, and I certainly know it's something that I struggle with a lot, sometimes is a lot, sometimes. That was a bit of a ju I
Alena Turley (02:35):
Get you. I hear you.
Danielle Lewis (02:36):
Yeah, but it's like I often do feel like I'm going, what am I doing here? I'm meant to be here.
Alena Turley (02:44):
I call it made for more. That's my term for it. It's not my only mine. It's lots of people's, but that's the one that always comes back to me
Danielle Lewis (02:53):
Is
Alena Turley (02:54):
You're made for more
Danielle Lewis (02:56):
Because
Alena Turley (02:56):
So many of us do know that.
Danielle Lewis (02:59):
Yeah. I feel like we just get, one day we wake up and it's actually funny when I do a keynote, I always start it out by saying I was an excellent box ticker. I feel like you go through life and you're like, yes, I did well in school. I went to uni, I bought the house, I met a man, I got married. And then you wake up and you're like, what the happened?
Alena Turley (03:23):
I was an excellent box avoider. I wish a box ticking is kind of more practical.
Danielle Lewis (03:29):
Well, no, I'm running away from box ticking now where it started and we're meeting in the middle. Yeah, yeah. It's really, I know. I just find it so interesting and I think it's the curse of or not the curse of the whatever, of the entrepreneur. I think there's a real struggle sometimes between doing the things you think you're supposed to do in life and being a little bit more sensible. And then this other side to us that is, no, I have amazing, incredible ideas. I'm going to change the world. I'm going to do this, this, and I absolutely want to max out my life.
Alena Turley (04:14):
And
Danielle Lewis (04:14):
I think that it can be a real struggle as an entrepreneur and especially as a woman. I feel like as women, we have a whole other checklist that we're supposed to be ticking off as well. It can be really hard to feel settled.
Alena Turley (04:31):
It's a conundrum because I want to be settled and sometimes I'd quite like to feel content. And the thing is, I've discovered that for me, contentment doesn't look like what I thought it would look like. So contentment for me involves a lot of moving parts. I've spoken to people before about this in a way that it would be nice in a sense to be the person that doesn't need to do 12 different things every day.
(05:07):
That'd be quite nice in a way, but that's just not me. So it's so much about knowing who we are. Last night, for example, absolutely exhausted, came home from work, went to bed, and I work every day, sometimes even six days a week in various capacities. And I'm not like an overworker. There's plenty of spaces in there. It's pretty flexible, but I do a lot. And so last night came home, went to bed at four in the afternoon, spent two hours in bed, binged reality tv, and then got up and went to training and it was like training. Was it whipped my ass. It was so hard. And at the end I was absolutely right in the face dripping with sweat. So much so that when we did our quick meditation at the end, a couple of minutes meditation after this CrossFit worthy warm down, it was so intense. I was crying in meditation. It had cracked me open. That's a good thing. I believe that's a good thing. I had moved something in the body. That's what I do for work. So something that moves emotion through the body, that's a good thing. But I was cracked open, and then this morning I was crying in the car with my son, dropping him at school, listening to bat out of hell, crying about the motorbike accident that meatloaf had in the seventies. That's how much it cracked me open.
Danielle Lewis (06:38):
Was your son like, mom, what the hell?
Alena Turley (06:41):
No. No, he understands. He knows me well. Good. Yeah, he's eight. So I just think there's so much richness in a life that is full of difference and contrast and challenge and all those things, but that's not for everyone, but that's what I
Danielle Lewis (07:00):
Like. Well, I like what you said about knowing yourself. I think that I guess it's a good move on from the box ticker. It is. Am I ticking the boxes because that's the life that I want? Or am I ticking the boxes or avoiding the boxes because that's what I think I'm supposed to want.
Alena Turley (07:23):
That's the Simon Sinek start with why are you ticking the boxes? Why are you not ticking the boxes
Danielle Lewis (07:30):
And what lights you up? And I do love that you said the variety because I feel a bit that way myself. Sometimes I want to be the girl boss. I want to do all the things. I want to make all the content and be in the spotlight. And then the next day I'm like, if I have to speak to one person today, I'm going to just go mad.
Alena Turley (07:55):
We do have to honor that. We have different energies on different days, don't we? And I think I've designed my life to honor that as much as possible. So they're still pushing through. They're still showing up for things you have to show up for when it's hard. Last night I had to get out of bed to go to training because I'm martial artist. That's what you do. You go to training, you know what I mean? But you still show up. But I do think if we can actually engineer and build in that capacity to honor where we're at, then everything changes. But I'm definitely the multi-passionate or polymath, I've got a bunch of terms for it. There's squiggly careers is one I learned recently.
Danielle Lewis (08:32):
Love that one. Yes.
Alena Turley (08:33):
I've got 12 different careers and qualifications that make no sense. If you put them next to each other, that makes sense to me, but not to anyone else. So I think it's great to understand who you are and work with it, not against it as much as possible. And then there's life and what you have to do.
Danielle Lewis (08:53):
Where on earth did a black belt in martial arts fall into the spectrum of life?
Alena Turley (09:00):
Oh, good question. So in my twenties, I lived in Ni King's cross on my own and was often walking home. I think I was always a bit drawn to Eastern philosophies and that sort of stuff anyway, and also quite physical and wasn't really training or ded to dance when I was younger. And so martial arts has got a degree of that kind of movement. And I just needed, I was nervous about walking home on my own at night. I was a single woman, early twenties, didn't feel that safe. It wasn't that safe around there then. And sure enough, I did need to use it. So it was good that I learned it. And then I did five years of training and then I wasn't capable of becoming a black belt in my twenties. I was kind of too all over the shop, had some personal stuff I had to deal with and ended up spending 20 years doing all that and then having three kids and then moved back to right next to this beautiful place that I train now. So another five years of training. So 10 years of training leading up to the black belt with a 20 year break in the middle.
Danielle Lewis (10:08):
Isn't it interesting how you're allowed to come back to things
Alena Turley (10:14):
That if it's important, it'll still be there? That one. I love that.
Danielle Lewis (10:18):
And also, I guess I'm just reflecting on conversations I've had with people as well that kind of do that. Well, I tried that or I missed that goal, or I failed at that. And it's like, well, you can always just try it again.
Alena Turley (10:35):
Yeah, totally. And we self-imposed these limits, and I'm not going to lie, it was full on,
Danielle Lewis (10:42):
Oh my God,
Alena Turley (10:43):
Can I imagine five years old, three kids later. And I come back into the room and I'm an almost black belt. So I got tested. I was training with the body of a white belt, but at nearly black belt level. It was just ridiculous. So yeah, five years to get back to where I'd been, right? So it takes determination, but I do think if you love something enough, I was listening to something yesterday about what is love? Love is three things. This is Thomas, someone I was in a podcast I heard yesterday, it'll come to me. And he was saying, love is three things, commitment, passion, and intimacy. And I was reflecting it how and intimacy, not as in sex, but intimacy as in closeness and intimacy. The type that you have with your children or your best friend, or actually with my training partners.
Danielle Lewis (11:40):
Wow,
Alena Turley (11:41):
That's a really intimate act like training together. We physically touch each other all the time because we are throwing each other on the floor or whatever. But we also come up against our biggest fears and our biggest resistances on the mats in training as well. And that's intimate, falling apart in the middle of sparring or something, or accidentally punching someone in the face. That's an intimate thing too, believe it or not. I'm really sorry. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Intimacy, commitment and passion. And I thought, oh, I'm lucky I have this love for hapkido, my martial art because yeah, it does a lot for me.
Danielle Lewis (12:21):
I can imagine that it would actually really empower all of the other elements of your life. Having this slice of reality that you love that you can go to that's just for you, that is intimate, that is challenging, that is something that you're so committed to. I can imagine that having that actually sets everything else on fire as well.
Alena Turley (12:50):
It does actually. And it informs a lot of other things I do as well. Just the understanding, the experiential understanding you get from it. But we do often talk about this, particularly myself and a friend I train with that whatever's going on in life will show up on the mats. And you talk about stepping on the mats and leaving everything out, which is also a great practice that you just show up and train. You don't bring anything of your day, you don't bring any of your troubles. But if something is coming up for you in life, some sort of imposter syndrome for example,
(13:25):
Or you're feeling disempowered, that will show up in your training. And it's fascinating to have this kind of other space, this kind of transitional other space in which to explore it in a different way in a, yeah, it's fascinating. And then that does translate back. So the ability to sit with, in fact, it's very crossover with entrepreneurial principles. You need to be able to sit with uncertainty. You need to be able to have faith in a bigger goal that isn't real yet. I'm a black belt in my heart, but I'm not a black belt out there yet. But the ability to stick to something and persevere and not give up even when there's setbacks and there's huge challenge, the ability to be resilient and strong, the ability to believe in yourself and believe in your ideas. Creativity, like improvisation. There's so many crossovers because I do sometimes think entrepreneurial life is kind of artistic, not autistic, maybe that sometimes as well. But I mean it's kind of got those elements of being able to improvise and create and respond all the time.
Danielle Lewis (14:37):
And I also think just the simple act of moving your body to work through,
(14:45):
Well, anything really, I just think about sometimes you get to the end of the day and you've been sitting behind your desk and you are tight and tense and stressed and questioning everything. And it's like your energy is just so constricted because people say, oh, I forgot to eat lunch today. It's just such a reminder of you're not moving, you are not working through things physically. You're just like that energy is just tightening in on itself and that getting out and moving your body, I can totally relate to then anything in business, personal life coming onto the mat or coming into our movement because it's like all of that energy has just been pent up from the time where you've been still, it's got to come out
Alena Turley (15:39):
And breaks perspective when you leave your little bubble. So easy to be in a bubble as a solo entrepreneur or even an entrepreneur with a small team. And it is incredibly useful to be able to find built in ways in your week to step out of it and find a perspective. I can't tell you how many times I have been stuck on something in my business and then gone away or stepped down the road for a walk or had dinner with a friend or whatever. I stepped out of my usual routine and come back with a completely different energy and a different way of thinking about it. And it's like an athlete will tell you they can train six days a week, but the rest day is the most important. And so we have to be able to, I call it choking the monkey. Sorry, it's a bit graphic, but when you get so caught up in something, you get so caught up in an idea and you sit at your desk for six days tweaking your website, and then it's like, oh my God, what have I done? You can just get so caught up in that. You almost stop the flow.
Danielle Lewis (16:44):
Yes. Yeah. And I think it's interesting. It's even why I feel like business takes a long time. The first idea you have the first piece of content you put out the first website, you have the first you statements, messaging that you make about your business. You often look back five years later, 10 years later, however many years later, and you're like, what the
Alena Turley (17:08):
Quite confronting actually, yes, I've definitely done that.
Danielle Lewis (17:12):
It's that time and that space and the experiences that help us consolidate our ideas, that help us solve problems that help us grow. I think of when people say, oh, I always get my best ideas in the shower because away from the problem and you're in this beautiful state of relaxation, energy, of course, that's where you get your best ideas
Alena Turley (17:39):
And you're more in your body actually. There's something about taking the dominance of the mind and the rational thoughts out of the way. That's a big in my work as well, in the therapeutic work. It's very much about that. How do we get into the body, the wisdom of the body. It's massive.
Danielle Lewis (17:57):
So how did you get into then the business stream, which is the somatic therapies? How did that come
Alena Turley (18:05):
About? I've only recently started calling it that. I've been doing it for a really long time and not known what to call it. I was never calling myself a coach. I know I'm not a coach, but over the years I've developed so many practices and resources and tools and experiences and trainings and just so many things I've always been kind of obsessed with. How do we become clearer? What if it were easy? What if we could feel fully alive and be in touch with the possibilities in our lives without being so held back by our past hurts and our tension that we carry in the body from life, from experiences that have not been easy or have turned into held trauma or held emotion, stuck emotion. And these are things that we all have, but when they get to the point where they actually stop you from living or your self-doubts actually become so, so loud that you can no longer move forward, what do you do then?
(19:11):
Or worse things can morph into panic attacks, nervous breakdowns, chronic pain, chronic inflammation diseases. And it's all really, I believe, stemming from this inability to listen to the messages the body gives us all the time. So how do we get back in tune with that? And that's something I've kind of always been obsessed with since I was quite young. And so probably because I needed to be, probably because I had stuff like that going on from a really early age. Had early life adversity that happened, some of which happened before I was two. So that's nonverbal, that's in your body, that's a hundred percent in your body. So it does change. I think it's always changed my way of viewing the world a little. And yeah, I've just kind of gathered it and now I've done training as well as a somatic therapist in various different ways. And also as an educator, some of what I do is actually education. This is the rig you're running, this is how it works. This is how you have the system.
Danielle Lewis (20:18):
Isn't it wild? This is just so powerful and so important and something that I'm sure people will go through life and never know about.
Alena Turley (20:30):
I'm astounded actually. Sometimes people come in, even today you can have a client and you say, have you ever experienced anything like that before? They'll go, no. And it blows me away. And I love that, that I'm able to help them experience something completely different.
Danielle Lewis (20:49):
I think about my mom when I have conversations with her and I think about what I know now and just sometimes I hear the words she says, and I think, oh my God, you need to go to a bloody therapist woman. I don't say that. Don't worry. I have said that a lot nicer than that. But it is interesting you think about the different generations, even with my siblings, how different we are, but the different generations and what you've gone through, what is socially acceptable, and then you think about what we know now where someone like you and I can sit here and talk about how important this practice is. And I know people will be listening going, what are you two talking about?
Alena Turley (21:36):
Some people will. That's right. But the beauty of it is, I'll tell you what's beautiful more and more the science, medical science, psychological research is actually bearing out in evidence exactly what so many cultures other than Western culture have always known. You look in the cultures that are older than ours, so Ayurvedic medicine or Chinese medicine, they're all based around these fundamental principles of emotion or energy moving in the body. And we have lost that vernacular,
(22:13):
But it was there. We just rode over it with the enlightenment in the middle ages. That's all. We just got really rational. We just made a choice as a culture that we would prioritize the brain and the church has something to do with that, and history has something to do with that. But reasons aside, that's where we've ended up. But even scientific rationalism is now actually proving that these modes of healing or therapy or treatment are extremely effective. And people referred to me by psychologists and doctors because they know that there are certain limitations in those systems. I'm not knocking them. I'm absolutely going to doctors and psychologists as well. But there are elements of trauma and certain things that can happen at a level that is not accessible through that conventional medicine.
Danielle Lewis (23:12):
Oh, I love it so much. If someone's feeling stuck, where would you even start with them?
Alena Turley (23:18):
It's really personal. I mean, I've had three clients this morning. They've all been completely different. There's common elements. Often it's a little bit about getting to the real root cause. So I don't need to hear. I can hear, I sometimes do hear the stories of the past, and sometimes that's important, but it's not the only way to access something that is trapped in the body or something that is causing pain or discomfort in your life. It's fascinating. There's other ways that we can now set up a dialogue with the less conscious parts of you, like the body or the unconscious or whatever you want to call it. It doesn't involve hypnosis. It's just actually knowing how to kind of navigate around the resistance that the mind will put up. And that's natural. The brain wants to protect you from past traumas. So there's tools that I can use to just help a person become aware of what's going on beneath the surface, and they give me cues, and then I can use those tools to help them to understand what's happening at a deeper level. And that is really powerful because awareness is transformative in itself. So you bring some awareness to something and also focus. You get somebody to focus on something that is going on that they weren't previously aware of that can help them to find the tools they need in themselves to navigate through it. So I would say I'm not doing that much except packing them with safety and helping them find ways into the knowing they already have, if that makes sense.
Danielle Lewis (24:49):
Oh, absolutely. And I just think anyone listening right now who is feeling that there is something blocking them, that this is just so powerful and so important.
Alena Turley (25:03):
Thank you. And I had a business client recently and she was talking about how she just knew something was holding her back. She didn't know what it was. There's a theme of our conversation, isn't it? But she was saying she wanted used great words, optimize her herself in her business and get out of her own way.
Danielle Lewis (25:25):
I love
Alena Turley (25:26):
That. She just really was feeling that. And so we did something like three sessions together with something, it's called Root Cause therapy. It's really fascinating, and it was absolutely remarkable to see the results of it for her subtle but powerful shifts, just like things suddenly felt easier. She just was like, oh, I couldn't, for some reason before I just couldn't bring myself to do this thing in my business. But now just it's easy. What was stopping me? I don't even know. So it's like even the process of healing can be easier than we think, given the right support, and that's a really cool thing to watch.
Danielle Lewis (26:03):
Oh my God, I could talk to you all day. I
Alena Turley (26:05):
Love talking to you. Danielle, can we do this again? Can you come on my podcast, please?
Danielle Lewis (26:10):
Oh my God, absolutely. I would love that. Me too. Now, I always love to wrap up these podcasts with one last piece of advice. So reflecting on your time in business, and I want to extend that to life because I know you've got so many more facets. So what would be a piece of advice that you would give to another woman on her business journey?
Alena Turley (26:35):
No pressure. There's so many I could think of, but I would say, look, for me this year, it's all about flow. And I think sometimes we get into this, I have to do all the things. I must do this. I must do that. I must do this, I must do that. Whereas what I'm really filling into this year is actually a more kind of feminine approach, a yin more than the yang, which is what if I allowed the things that I've already done or are already in play are already in action or opportunities? What if I just trusted the system? I'm not saying you do nothing. Of course, you take action, you take the action that's required, but what if you allow a little bit of space, trust flow for things to just come easily? So make space, make space for things to flow naturally to you and open to receiving. Because often we want so hard, we desire so hard, we forget to allow space for that, just receptivity.
Danielle Lewis (27:47):
I just had that moment. I was meditating, I was having a mental breakdown earlier this week, and I was meditating yesterday morning and a sale came in and I was like, oh, yeah, things can just happen. I don't need to push all the time.
Alena Turley (28:03):
Right? That's right. Sometimes the pushing is blocking, choking the monkey. It's that thing. So it's natural and don't beat yourself up, but also what would it look like if it were a little bit easier and more flowy and if you trusted. Yeah, I love that.
Danielle Lewis (28:20):
You are absolutely incredible. Elena, thank you so much for sharing your story on Spark tv, and I just know everyone listening, I'm hoping they had the aha moments that I did as well.
Alena Turley (28:33):
Oh, thanks so much for having me. It's a real pleasure. Thank you.
Danielle Lewis (28:36):
That wraps another episode of Spark tv. Shout out to Spark TV sponsor IP Australia for their amazing support of the Spark Podcast and women in business. And if no one tells you today, you've got this.
✨ Thank you to IP Australia for supporting the SPARK podcast and women in business ✨
