Ricky McEachern: This episode's guest has a diverse background, touching on many topics. I am particularly interested in fitness, meditation, and mindfulness. She also uses creative writing as a way to process her thoughts and feelings. She is using all of this to help others find emotional, physical, and spiritual health. My conversation with Georgia Argiris, I am here with Georgia. Argiris. How are you doing today?
So I'm really excited to talk to you. We met in a very interesting way. You are my sister's personal trainer and my sister and I ran a half marathon and you are such an amazing personal trainer. You were there at the half marathon just to cheer her on.
Georgia Argiris: Well, I'm so proud of her,
Ricky McEachern: Do most personal trainers do that? That seems a bit above and beyond the call of duty to me,
Georgia Argiris: Not that I know of, but I personally go to every event that any of my clients have that relates to anything that's going on in their lives that they would like me to be at. And I always offer to come kind of push it a little bit just because I want to be there supporting them and for them to know how proud I am of them.
Ricky McEachern: Okay. Well, I was, I was very impressed with that. And my sister recently sent me your website because you were starting something new and wanted some feedback. And I started reading your website, seeing the variety of things that you offer. And to learn a little bit more about you. The name of your website is asyouarewellness. Tell me about the main things that you offer.
Georgia Argiris: Sure, of course. So group fitness, instructing and personal training sessions and Reiki sessions, and then also Reiki training. So certifications attunements and trainings in Reiki, and then also yoga and writing.
Ricky McEachern: Okay. So the writing one was the one that kind of sparked my brain and you and I had a conversation and,uI went on your website and you have a blog where you have all sorts of writing. So I'd like to start with that. So the writing that you, that I read it's a lot,uit's very far, it's all first person. It's a lot about heartbreak, a lot of love, a lot about a little bit of obsession. Uyou talk a lot about dreams and talk a little bit about like talking to yourself in the future. Tell me about that, that subject matter and just where that all comes from.
Georgia Argiris: Thank you for asking. Well, the, it comes from experience. So writing is a way that I cope and process with things. So anything that's going on in my life, whether it's something that's good, something that I'm excited about or something that's traumatic or something that's difficult or needs to be processed more. So I use writing as a way to not judge it, like not put a label on it versus like it being negative or positive. I just see it for what it is and right through it to process it and to go through it. And then everything is rain either as it's happening or reflecting back. But it's all been from personal experience.
Ricky McEachern: Now, when you are writing, are you feeling nonjudgmental about it? It sounds like what you just described as sort of like meditation, where you're supposed to have all of, you know, just thoughts come and don't judge it.
Georgia Argiris: I feel that writing is a way that I've always been able to just release things and to see things as they are versus in the, like my conscious self it's like, Oh, some of the process that I've had to do with letting go of the ego part of it and putting a judgment on it or a label on it, or I should be feeling this way, or I shouldn't be feeling this, or I should be letting this go with my writing. I just see it as it is. And I let the subconscious take over where there's no judgments and I'm free to say whatever I want and to feel how I want without any expectations or limits on those feelings.
Ricky McEachern: When did you discover writing as a way to help you process being a human?
Georgia Argiris: When I was eight years old and I was in third grade and my teacher read us a book, which is still my favorite book called When you Give a Mouse, a Cookie. And I always wondered after she read the book the rest of the day, what happened to the mouse afterwards? So I went home and told my mom and grandma about it. And my grandma said, do you want to write about what happens to the mouse? What would happen next? Let's write about it. And so I wrote about what would happen to the mouse in the next steps.
Ricky McEachern: So this would have been third grade.
Georgia Argiris: Yeah, I was in third grade. And that's how it started.
Ricky McEachern: And what was that experience like writing about what happened to them? How did that make you feel or think?
Georgia Argiris: It definitely, well, it definitely made me look at things differently. Like versus being like putting it, like, this is what should happen. It just, I just kind of thought of all these different like, well, what could happen? Like what all these different possibilities. And then I started to explore them with my writing and I let the rational brain move to the side and just let creativity, takeover and imagination and just slide whatever came to me. I just went with it and wrote it down.
Ricky McEachern: Nice. Now, did you continue writing after that? Or like, how was, how did writing how was it part of your life after that post mouse book?
Georgia Argiris: After which there actually was books that came out about the mouse after that, which I actually find, I found funny. I still think I like my person after that, after that I, yes, I would still write and I used it as a way to internalize it and let my internal self speak to my external self. A lot of times growing up and even as an adult now, 39, I always have to be, I feel like sometimes I let my external self lead and like what I should be doing or what I should be thinking, especially at this age or as a woman or as a daughter in these different aspects of my life. And with the writing, it allows the internal self to come out and say, no, we're going to take all of those thoughts away and just let whatever comes comes. And then that helps my external self meet. My internal self,
Ricky McEachern: What you just described certainly makes sense. But that is a pretty sophisticated model and idea, which I'm assuming you did not have that when you were eight, you were just doing something that made you feel good. Is that, I mean, did you continually do that consistently?
Ricky McEachern: You just, you continually did it. And you know, when you were nine, when you were writing, you were writing to make you, like, were you trying to, why were you writing at nine? Like what, what was a nine year old thinking? She was getting out of it
Georgia Argiris: To see the possibilities of what could happen if I didn't think of, well, I'm nine years old. So this is what you should think or what you should feel. I just wrote as anything was a possibility of what I would be thinking about. Like anything could happen with a subject. I was thinking about what were all of these different possibilities. And that's how I started when I was eight. And I wrote about the mouse was all the endless possibilities. And then my grandma, he picked one and then went with that one and then I continued to write like that.
Ricky McEachern: Okay, good. And did you like when you were in school, was writing the academic part of writing, is that of interest to you?
Georgia Argiris: I love it. I loved it. Then I loved, I loved being in school. I always call myself a nerd still. I love learning so much and I love being in school and I love writing and researching things, still, something that I really enjoy doing that I just love doing like the academic writing. I do like doing that type of writing too. All of it.
Ricky McEachern: Fantastic. Now, when did meditation become a thing
Georgia Argiris: When I was going to? So when I was at Harper I had a teacher, professor Charles Brown, who is this big influence on my life because of his kindness and his, his desire to explore other cultures and explore worldly ideals. And he taught these ideals in this class that I took, which is honors philosophies, class and religions. And we learned about different religions and cultures. And we presented about them. And I presented talking about energy and the chakras. And in this class, when I, after I did that, he said, that gave me an idea. And he said this in front of the class, we should all meditate together. And I wasn't really familiar with it. I was familiar with energies, but not necessarily meditation. And he had a, another teacher come in to our class and teach us how to meditate. So we all sat at our desks and she had us sit up tall and she took us in professor Brown, through guided meditation. And then she said to us, if you're interested, we have a meditation club and it's where students and faculty can come together and meditate. And me and professor Brown we'd go every week. And that's how I learned to meditate was with them.
Ricky McEachern: Now is meditation. Do you have a regular practice? Can I, can I ask you about it? I don't know. I don't know if that's a personal question. Can you tell me about what you do and I'll tell you what I can share with you, my experience with it.
Georgia Argiris: Yeah, of course. So the first thing that I do is I find a comfortable, like, like a new way that I'm comfortable. Sometimes if I lay down, I'm not going to lie. I will fall asleep. And so I try not to lay down when I meditate, just because for me personally, I know I will most likely fall asleep. So in order for that not to happen I find a comfortable seated position. So it could be cross-legged or Lotus or half Lotus or my, like your, my legs out long, whatever feels comfortable that day. No, no like judgements rules about that. And then I sit up and then I just focus on my breath. So like, without judging it, just witnessing my breath, wherever it is. And then I start to come into my yoga breath or expand my belly forward and I fill it with air.
And then I just take in everything around me through my sentences. So like auditory, like what are my thoughts, feelings not judging them again, like any sensations, any noises, just taking it in. And then as I exhale, squeeze my belly to my spine and release all of that and then repeat that process. And then after doing that for whatever feels good, maybe it's a few seconds, a few minutes maybe longer or whatever, depending that day it is I'll then start to make my inhales longer and then make my exhales longer than by inhales. So sometimes if I have a lot of stuff going on in my head, I'll start to count. For example, like, I'll start, I'll count to seven as I inhale. And then nine as I exhale and I'll say the numbers out loud, I was count backwards. And then I'll take my hands anywhere if I'm not feeling in my body.
Like if I feel like I'm somewhere else mentally, or I just can't connect with myself, I'll take my hands and put them like here or on my heart space or like my abdomen, anywhere that I just, anywhere that feels good just to connect with myself. And then if I still need to even be more grounded and connected to earth, I'll take my feet and put them on the ground and then my hands and then place them on the ground. So you can exchange the energy with the earth. And then if it's the winter time and I can't do it outside, I use students.
Ricky McEachern: Okay. And how is this a daily practice for you? Georgia Argiris: A few times a day in like, it's, for example, if I'm in a, like a busy day or you could just go into the bathroom, like you can do it, even if it's for 30 seconds, it doesn't need to be, I have to have an hour to meditate and have to have everything perfect. And it can just be that.
Ricky McEachern: And what is your intention for doing it? Like you do that for, for what reason?
Georgia Argiris: Yeah, so I do it so that I can see the view and myself in a different place. I feel sometimes that for me personally, when I'm like existing in the same way that I am, for example, doing, you know, things like, okay, I, this is my schedule for the day and I like schedules. And when I do that, sometimes I forget to like, try to view things differently from other viewpoints or from my own external viewpoint. So what it does is help me look inwards and see what's going on in my emotional body, my spiritual body, my mental body, my energetic body, and then connect with that internal view and then to use that view, to see the world and myself through.
Ricky McEachern: Okay, great. Tell you what I do. And I don't even know where I got this, but basically I try to bring myself back to when I was a little kid. I was a very, very happy little kid, like five, six, seven years old. And I had it. And when I was a little kid that age well, first of all, we didn't have any money. We didn't have any things. I didn't have all of the pressures and all of the stuff that you have, we all have now. I was just this little being, but it's the same being like, it's that little five-year-old is still me. So I try to go back to that, you know, that spot. And it's very helpful because you can get very distracted in way down in influence by all of the stuff. Now, I do think it's important to deal with all of the stuff you have to be.
Ricky McEachern: You have to deal with it. And the reason why I asked like what your intention was is my intention with it. It isn't to make myself happier. It isn't to make myself even to feel more calm it's to help me deal with life in a, in a, a better way so that I'm not dealing with things from a point of fear or stress that I can actually deal with things from a more logic and a more empathetic viewpoint. I'm sort of seeing the full picture of other other people's viewpoints, because when you're in, like when you get into conflicts with people, you feel like you're being attacked. And the last thing that you can do is see things from another person's viewpoint. And you know, that doesn't mean that they're always right, or I'm always right, but I think it's important to be able to just, Whoa, hold on, pause and see things from that viewpoint. And, you know, going back to that, five-year-old what I'm not, it's like viewing things from at the outside as a, five-year-old looking at adults and you know, so that's kind of, I just wanted to share with you that
Georgia Argiris: I love it. That's beautiful. I love that. I think that's amazing. Do you do it for a long time or does it vary the times that you do to just not judge and say I'm just going to maintain, see how it goes?
Ricky McEachern: Well sometimes it depends. Sometimes I set a timer because a lot of times when I'm, when I'm painting my thoughts get in the way of being productive. So that's why I started it, set a timer and do it there. But I oftentimes, I will just start my day in bed with like focusing on breathing and prayer and just kind of pulling myself out of it. Let me ask you this when you are, if you have a lot going on in your head, can you right.
Georgia Argiris: Yeah. So that's a great question. But what I do is I'll do Reiki on myself or I'll do yoga or meditate just to released all of this stuff that's going on in my head so that I can write from a place that I'm not judging it, because if I just try to write, sometimes I'll think to myself, why am I thinking this right now? I really trying to write. And then I feel like I'm judging myself for not being able to just sit down and start writing. So if I do have a lot of thoughts going on, I'll do that first and then start writing, or I'll just meditatively write, or I'll just write all of the thoughts that are in my head and give form to them and acknowledge them and read them out loud and hold space for those thoughts and start to write from a different viewpoint because I've viewed them and acknowledged it. And then I let them go and then I'll start to write.
Ricky McEachern: Okay. Now, do you write with a pen or do you write with a keyboard
Georgia Argiris: I'm with a pen and a paper?
Ricky McEachern: I agree. I do. I do every, I have like a closet full of these books. I love, love writing with a pen or a pencil. There's something about it. That's, there's something about using your hands? I was in my last podcast interview yesterday was with a guy who is a ceramics artist, so he uses the pottery wheel. And so he was just describing how there's something about using your fingers in your hands. And I didn't mention this on the podcast, but that's what it reminded me of. There's something about actually writing that it connects you to the thoughts.
Georgia Argiris: I love that. That's beautiful. I totally agree. And I feel like it's that physical act of actually like writing out the word that gives it life and it's like, like my energy or your energy is writing it, that it connects me to that word or to that thought it like breathes life into it. And then I can release it into the universe when it's written down. Then it has its own space to breathe.
Ricky McEachern: Yeah. Well, cool. Now, so we got the writing, which is sort of like a form of, it sounds like a form of meditation somewhat for you. And then we talked about the meditation. So could we talk about the whole fitness, physical part of this? Cause they're all connected. It's, it's like a, a path I'm clearly seeing that with you. Where did that start happening?
Georgia Argiris: When I was in high school, I would say I became best friends. My freshman year, the first day of gym class with a girl she's sitting in front of me and she had beautiful long red hair. And I remember telling her that, and we became best friends because of that. She encouraged me to try out for cheerleading. So do you remember like the VHS, like I'm totally aging myself in the VCR. So we recorded her and like that I would watch these videos every night and practice them. And so that's how it started for me with fitness from then and then going into dance. And then as I got older, I wanted to I wanted to keep, I like dancing and I had danced when I was little and then I wanted to get back into it as an adult. And there is a lot of pressure on myself when I started doing ballets and adult to be a certain size and look a certain way.
Georgia Argiris: And that was my own pressures that I put on myself and my own judgments. And so I started, I got an exercise bike, and I had soup cans that I would use as weights. And I would use them every single day. And then I would go to ballet class and cause we had to wear traditional like the tire as adults too, with pink tights and black leotards. That's how I started getting even more into fitness, warn a fitness. And then originally I just wanted to look a certain way in ballet class. And so that's how it started. And then it progressed into more of like the fitness aspect with starting to learn about other ways of like working out like running or not just learning, but just participating in those ways, such as running, lifting weights and these different activities, Pilates. And then I started trying these different things and made an on my own schedule.
Georgia Argiris: So each day I would have six days a week, something different related to fitness I would do for an hour, at least a day. And then that's when I saw a woman in a magazine and hurting was Jamie saying, she's like the most famous fitness. And I said, Oh, I want to, I'm like, she's beautiful. I want to look like that. So I went to a powerlifting gym at the time. I didn't know his power lifting gym. And I went there and met the owner and he's like, you look like a skinny runner and this girl's like, do you want to look like this? She's super muscular. And I'm like, yeah. And he's like, okay, it's a toll. So I started training like that. And then I became a bodybuilder six Dover for a really long time. Yeah. For years then I switched over to power lifting and I'm back to bodybuilding and my body just kind of like done with you. I need a break and a lot of injuries and my own accord because I was definitely pushing myself obsessively. That's kind of my things. And a lot of injuries and a woman came to one day, just came to the power lifting gym and said to my coach who owned the gym where opening a yoga studio in Arlington Heights. And she gave him the flyers and shit, can we leave these here? And he was like, sure. And he looked at me and he's like, you're going. And I was like, no way, I'm not doing that.
Ricky McEachern: So Georgia, from what you're describing, everything, at least the way I'm hearing it, everything from this fitness journey up until now is about how you look and looking a certain way and, and wanting to emulate how someone looks. Was there a mental portion that you're not sharing that it was making you feel? Okay.
Georgia Argiris: Yeah, definitely. For sure. Mentally I would push myself to the point of as like literally as far as I can push like my body, like, and it was an obsession, it like affected my relationships like family or men that I dated. It was the number one thing in my life. And that's when I realized I went to this yoga class because my coach made me and I unwillingly wet. I did not want to go. And that's when hearing this woman speak of the mind and the connection to the body. I just, it was very much, much about at first for me for a long time, just the way I looked. And then I started to look internally and then it was about feeling stronger and feeling like empowered myself physically, and then mentally that I could do something I didn't think I could. And that's kind of where the mind sets switched for me.
Ricky McEachern: Okay. Yeah. I think that fitness is amazing. Like, you know, eating healthy and being able to change your body and to get fit. It just, it is such a great thing to do for at least for me and for a lot of people that I speak to for your mental state. And also it has, it's something that you can control. Like there's so much. And I know that that that concept can lead to bad places with certain people with people, but you know, living in this world where so much is out of control you do actually can control, you know, your diet and your fitness and how you treat your body and your body will respond. That's, what's so cool. It will respond and I know at least for me it responds pretty quickly.
Georgia Argiris: Yeah, absolutely. It's so amazing. It's like a miracle watching what your body can do. And then during that, instead of just, I was so focused, like you were saying of like controlling what I was eating and controlling what I was doing. And like, it was very much like everything was just being able to control all these aspects of my life. And then it kind of switched for me when I realized that I can't control my mind. Like I can't control like these thoughts and still having, I would walk by like a mirror and I'd be like, no, I literally, I look at myself and be like, I don't even recognize myself. I'm so small, but I still didn't feel good about myself. And I'm like, well, what is that going to start? Like, I look at myself and ask myself, what is that gonna stuck when, when does that start? So that's when I realized I'd exercise my mind and my mental body and my emotional body as much as I was working on my physical body, which I did not do for a long time. And that's how the journey of yoga and meditation even more so started to affect me.
Ricky McEachern: Okay. That's an amazing story. Yeah. I do think that it all starts with the mind and it's, it's interesting because people used to say that and in my twenties I would read books and they would always, you know, and I did yoga and people would always talk about you're, everything starts with the mind and how you view the world and your attention. And I'm like, yeah, kind of, but it's all about hard work and it's all about, it's all about having the right schedule and working harder. And I don't know, at some point I think I sort of realized just like you just expressed it really well, like you doing all this work, but your mind is still feeling terrible or you have like crazy, crazy thoughts or just disturbing thoughts. What's the point. And I think that having a S a, a sound mind, I don't know what the word is we're looking for, but I think that that is an important place, an important starting point for anything.
Georgia Argiris: Absolutely. I agree with you. And then that's when I started to see when I would focus on my mind, like my emotional body and my mental body, the way that, the way that I would think started to change and the thoughts that I would have, and the way that I viewed myself started to change. And I wouldn't be so hard on myself if I didn't, if I like had like a piece of chocolate or something that I would consider normally before it would be bad.
Ricky McEachern: Yeah. Right. Tell me about your business, because now that I know more about you, I want to know more about what you are offering, because it appears what you're offering is all of this experience that you have, and you're sort of offering services to help people. So tell me about what you're offering.
Georgia Argiris: It's an exceptionally an experience to bring yourself back into yourself, like to connect your subconscious with your conscious, and then the external self to the internal self. So it's really working on not just the physical body, but all of the other bodies. So the spiritual body, the emotional body, the mental body, the energetic body, and connecting all of them together and exercising each part of those bodies, as much as another part of those bodies and offering all of those services together or individually, depending on what somebody needs, but also letting them know why I offer them each time as well, so that they understand why it's important to connect those things. Because I know from firsthand, you can change the way and as you do it, like the way somebody looks with hardware physically, but then I feel like we forget about all the other stuff that's going on in our bodies.
Ricky McEachern: What are the services again? Can you list those off?
Georgia Argiris: Yeah, of course. So meditation and personal training group fitness, instructing yoga, Reiki, and writing.
Ricky McEachern: Okay. Writing. Okay. Wonderful. Do you think that this whole concept of, I wouldn't call it mental health, but I guess there's the mental health aspect of it, but the, the mind, and I hear this term, like self care, everybody uses. I mean, it sounds like this is becoming more mainstream and people really understanding how important this is.
Georgia Argiris: Yeah. I definitely feel that and that, I definitely feel, I agree with you a hundred percent and I feel that it's important to not just look on the outside, but to look internally. And I feel that it's been such a taboo subject for a long time. Like we would not. We, I personally remember when I was really heavy into bodybuilding and powerlifting and like, just, just remember just the first time I ever went to a gym, which my first experience was a power lifting gym and like just going into a gym and it being the aesthetics and there's, and there's nothing wrong with that by all means with people who have that desire. But for me, the further down that I was working on my physical body, the more I personally was breaking down my mental bodies. And it was again, no fault of anyone's, but my own, because I was exercising those different parts of my body.
Georgia Argiris: And that's when, for example, my coach said to me, you're going to yoga. And I'm like, no way, like, I didn't even want to entertain the idea of anything else than what I was doing. And then learning for myself when I started to exercise those parts of my body. And they all connected how different aspects of my life changed. Like the way that I view myself, the way I would interact with other people, the way that I see myself, my quality of life. So it wasn't just like physical for me. It was also mental, like thoughts would start to change for that, for example.
Ricky McEachern: Excellent. So, right. So in terms of what you do for yourself, obviously you do writing and what do you do? You do meditation. And what else do you do as your whole package that you do for yourself to keep yourself physically and mentally healthy?
Georgia Argiris: I do yoga and I also do Reiki on myself and I also work out and then my workouts, my workouts change because I love so many different aspects of fitness. Like I love weightlifting and I love using my like physical body way. I love to be outdoors and do activities. So I like to try different things and new things related to fitness. So I'll do all of those different things but together for my, for my self care.
Ricky McEachern: Okay. Wonderful. And your website is Georgia Argiris: It's asyouarewellness.com
Ricky McEachern: Asyouarewellness.Com. Well, thank you so much for talking to me. I really appreciate it.
Georgia Argiris: Thank you so much for having me. You're so much fun. I'm so great.