Source: Nastasia Mora / Courtesy of Taylor Elyse Morrison

For Taylor Elyse Morrison, fitness is about a lot more than the physical; your ability to perform certain tasks of daily living or movements involved in work and sports to a certain level. Instead, she believes that in order to truly be fit, you need to be intentionally caring for all aspects of yourself, including the emotional and the mental. Of course, most group fitness classes out there only focus on getting you in good shape in terms of the body, and might throw in a mediation moment here and there to help you tap into the internal as a cool down, but the 26-year-old Chicago native wanted a class to focus on whats happening within us. When she initially started to prioritize her own self-care, it helped her look at the benefits of physical activity differently.

Ive been putting a lot of focus on self-care and listening to what my body needs and not thinking about calories, she said. Im not thinking about how good Im going to look in a pair of jeans or something, but really knowing that when I work out, my stress levels go down and Im better able to deal with my anxiety and looking at it from that perspective.

Once she was able to do that, Morrison realized it was something that everyone needed, so she created Inner Workout. She describes it as a mat-based self-care practice for your whole being on Instagram, but specifically, its self-care focused on five parts to help you gain access to the layers that encompass you. You reach them through the physical, which is the yoga, dance and kinesthetics class participants do, as well as through the energetic of breathing, the mental of journaling, the wisdom of active meditation, and the bliss, which is using the last five minutes of class to do whatever brings you great joy.

The idea for my workout came into being because I saw a lot of group fitness classes, but nothing that was really focused on looking within and learning how to actually build that skill into self-care, she said. For me, that is listening within and responding in the most loving way possible. So Inner Workout is yes you move your body and you might sweat a little bit, but its really about building that muscle, so to speak.

We spoke to Morrison about the importance of tuning in, how the Inner Workout works, and the necessity of prioritizing something far greater than the physical for true fitness and happiness.

MadameNoire:What inspired you to create this workout and how did you start working within to make self-care a priority for yourself?

Taylor Elyse Morrison: I am really interested in self-care because Im honestly really bad at it. I have burned myself out a lot of times. Ive always been a person who will have a full-time job and then a side hustle and then maybe volunteering at a non-profit on top of being in a relationship and trying to hang out with friends. There was one summer where I had a pretty demanding full-time job, still had clients for my side hustle and then had also just recently gotten married. I was spending a Sunday night trying to do work and Im just sitting in front of my computer typing and switching between tabs but realizing that Im not doing anything. So I closed my laptop, took a bath, and that was like my first self-care practice: shutting down on Sunday nights, taking a bath and not looking at anything work-related until Monday morning. When that really started to feel good for me, I started to think, how can I incorporate that feeling outside of baths? So I started doing more with journaling and meditation and just trying to listen to myself. As I did that, and I would talk about it more, other people would ask me questions about self-care, and I realized that this is something were not really taught. Were not taught how to listen to ourselves, were just kind of taught, okay, eat healthy, exercise, accomplish all your goals and try not to burn yourself out in the process. But no one tells you how not to burn yourself out.

How did you get to a place of focusing on the internal and having a sense of gratitude? What was the work that needed to be done to prioritize that regularly?

With practice. I talk about self-care being proactive and reactive. So the proactive things are my Sunday night baths or taking a walk with my dog in the morning, things I know that set me up for a good day. Then there is the reactive self-care where I feel like super anxious and I could sit and I dont know, scroll down Instagram and try and numb myself, but I would teach myself to tune in and say, okay, youre feeling really anxious. What are the things you could try right now? You could try taking some deep breaths. You could try calling a friend. You could try dancing to Lizzo in your living room, whatever it is. But its about training myself to have that moment before going into kind of the crutches and numbing myself out. Im actually seeing what productive things I can do. Its all an experiment. It changes. What works for me when Im anxious today might not be what works for me when Im anxious tomorrow.

What does your class consist of? I read that its a blend of movement, breath work, meditation and journaling.

Its a 60-minute class and really the teacher is the facilitator. Its not like a yoga class where you need to be in a specific pose and hold it for a certain number of breaths. This teacher, the facilitator, gives you a set of movements, and then you flow within it. Youre training yourself to listen to whats going on. You might find one part of the flow where you just need to hang out there because your hips are tight. You dont even need to worry about the rest of it. So the first 20 minutes or so are movement, and then you move into a time of breath work, which is really a time to access your breath but also start to notice your energy. Then you move into journaling. Theres always two journaling prompts. Its called journaling, most people write, some people dont connect to writing, some people doodle. You have a good chunk of time to do that and then we move into a meditation. After journaling, youve brought up a lot of stuff, and so the meditation is a good time to kind of observe your thoughts and synthesize. And then the final portion is five minutes of flow. So hopefully, by this point of spending 55 minutes listening to yourself, youre starting to understand what you need. So the last five minutes, some people will do more stretching, some people will journal more, some people will just lie there and breathe. Its really your time to say, okay, what do I need in this moment? What can I give myself?

Source: Nastasia Mora / Courtesy of Taylor Elyse Morrison

Youre based in Chicago and the classes take place in the city. I see that you have a way though for people to get involved remotely, online. Since they cant be physically in the class, what is it that theyre getting?

So theres two aspects of online. Theres the free online community and thats open to anyone, whether or not they want to do Inner Workout. Thats just a place for conversation, for encouragement, for accountability. Its really cool at this point because its something that were co-creating together. So the people who are the members now are getting to see what they want to make it into. Then the other piece is, in January, well be launching video classes. You can buy the pre-recorded classes and incorporate an Inner Workout class into your day or your week, however it fits for you. Theres a package thats available for pre-order where they can get an Inner Workout journal that can go under the tree or whatever you do for holidays, and then whoever youre gifting it to can then enjoy the videos when they launch in January.

How important is it for people to prioritize self-care in this way, the way you offer with Inner Workout? It seems especially important at a time when people are becoming more comfortable talking about mental health and fitness in general has become more appealing.

In general, I think mental health is extremely important. I think its good that were starting to have this conversation, especially in communities of color where traditionally, its something thats a little more taboo. I think where Inner Workout is really helpful is that it provides a time and a structured framework for this. Theres so many people, my friends and myself included, where we know the things that are good for us. We know we should meditate, or journal, or stretch, but its something that at the end of the day gets put down on the to-do list. Whats great about Inner Workout is its something that you can put on your calendar and come to whether youre in Chicago, or schedule a time to watch a video. Youve got everything you need to have a really rich self-care practice. But Im also a big proponent of saying you dont have to buy anything to practice self-care. You just make a commitment to listen to yourself and respond with love. Its going to be hard and youre going to have to keep working at it. Even right now, as Im saying that Im thinking, I dont think Ive had any water today and were halfway through the day. I havent been doing a great job of listening to myself, but Im committed to doing the work, and thats all any of us can do.

And how important is this message of fitness not just being about the physical?

I love that you mentioned that. Thats why I love that were rooted in the kosha model because its the five layers of yourself, or the five aspects of yourself. In self-care and fitness and wellness, were still focused on the wellness, what goes into our physical bodies, how were moving our physical body, and not thinking that we are whole, multi-dimensional human beings who have so many layers and things that are going on. So yes, I think its great that we have pushed the conversation and were starting to talk about health and mental health and wellness and fitness, but yes, to really in my opinion be someone whos a fit person, you have to be accessing all of who you are, which goes beyond just the things that you can do in the gym.

Be sure to follow Taylors Inner Workout page on Instagram and check out the rest of our inspiring Fitness Fridays profiles here!

Continued here:
Fitness Fridays: After Realizing She Was Really Bad At Practicing Self-Care, Taylor Morrison Created A Workout Class To Help Others Listen Within -...