Alex: 0:00

I find that we get to our strongest place when we move easefully there and listen, and when you flow into strong life flows to you. It's the only way you can open up the channel to receive is when you've opened up your palm and stopped gripping and trying to plan every little moment or control. And this trip is divine in that it's an exact representation of what I've been trying to keep pushing forward through in my life, or flow into and teach others how to do the same.

Prue Aja: 0:38

Welcome to the Seen and Heard podcast, helping you enhance your connection, evolve your mindset and emerge confidently as your true self, living a life feeling aligned, activated and energized. I'm your host, pruaja, international photographer, motivational speaker and alignment strategist. This episode was recorded live in Antarctica on a music, wellness and conservation adventure hosted by Insider Expeditions. We danced all night and we went deep inside our minds with secular Sabbath, where we started the day with tea ceremonies that merged into yoga, a sound bath, meditation, and in the evenings we did group gestalt therapy. It was out of this world, as well as learning and adventuring and exploring the sacred, powerful land of Antarctica. If you're the adventurous type like me and live for wild experiences like this, make sure you check out the show notes for upcoming trips with Insider Expeditions, and I've also included a very special offer for my listeners. When I first spotted Alexandra Silverfagan on the dance floor on the World Voyager in the Southern Oceans in Antarctica, I saw her style. She wore some sparkles and was embodying her feminine energy in a strong, powerful way, and as we got to know one another, I learned that Alexandra has spent her life exploring the concept of strong and what it means to embody this concept physically, emotionally and spiritually. As a professional in the fitness industry for 10 years, alex has worked with clients to cultivate a confident, worthy and powerful expression of self. It is her life's mission to help the world work in and not just work out, as the creator and founder of her own method Flow Into Strong and RKC Kettlebell Specialist, 350-hour registered yoga teacher and the youngest Nike master trainer ever, at age 23. Alex knows that the journey really begins when we come home to ourselves through movement. Currently, she's the creator of Power and one of the teachers at Open, a breathwork meditation and yoga studio located in Venice, california, and has a digital app. Alex is also a mental health advocate, which we dive into in this episode, a published author, influencer and integrating all parts of her message, reminding her clients and followers that with passion and dedication, you can do anything. This episode we connect into how the land teaches us to surrender and the strength you can have when being in Flow. I hope you enjoy so you're saying before you've been doing a lot of traveling this year and about the landscapes and the places that you've been going. Tell me a little bit about that.

Alex: 3:48

I created a life for myself that was very structured and exciting at a very early age, and I was given a lot of responsibility, a lot of labels, of people telling me what I was good at and who I was, and so I just barreled straight ahead until the methods of my existence no longer applied to my life, meaning I was in a relationship and my job changed and my relationship ended and I didn't know how to function. I didn't know what to do when the storm came and how to actually navigate it, and I took a long time to just not do anything. I went to a mental health treatment facility. I took a whole year of just a reset where I got to actually understand who I was underneath the not necessarily just the chaos, but what life was showing me how to do and what to do and where to go. What would it be like to just exist? And I got really clear on my heart and then, once I was able to do that, life started providing me opportunities to move forward and dance and play in new ways. And so what? I find that now that I've been giving these opportunities, especially with travel and being in new cultures, new environments and also in group travel, where I'm not just on my own timeline, I'm on somebody else's schedule and a group schedule and group dynamic, that I'm still learning how to stay connected to just what's underneath all of that and flow, because it's not about honoring necessarily your own structure, but having your own value and what you want out of a sensation and then flowing with what's around you. So I find that it takes me a few days to drop into an experience and then I just fully surrender and I'm sitting here in a robe, in my pajamas, and I've been awake for a few hours.

Prue Aja: 6:15

We're just flowing, just going with it, and what a beautiful way to fully surrender into it. And actually I want to go back to you talking about having that year off, because I feel like that's what I went through in the last year. Probably six months ago I came out of it but it was really hard and grasping onto that old me and like, but this is who I am and this is what I do, and like, if I'm not doing that, then who am I? And being physically forced to have to let go. There were days I couldn't even make food to eat and I thought that I would have to send my daughter back to her dad because I couldn't do anything and it was scary. There were really, really scary days. And it sounds like a similar thing because I feel like now, once everything was fallen away and moving out of the head and into the heart space and really just trusting to listen and follow where that was leading me. And now we're here in Antarctica.

Alex: 7:27

Yeah, I also find that I'm learning a lot from being here, not necessarily just that we're on this trip, but Antarctica specifically. My intention for this trip was simplicity, because it's so different than my normal cadence. I'm always reaching for the next thing or on a schedule. I'm from New York. I'm used to having so much stimulus and the first day we had so much spaciousness, and then I had to keep reminding myself simplicity. That's what you asked for. And this continent, this land, this landscape is pristine, but it's also it's pristine and it's specific. So it chooses what it wants in the moment and we have to pivot. This morning we were supposed to go on expeditions. We can't because of the weather, and I'm learning a lot from the expedition guides and our, especially our, lead guide. I spoke to him this morning. He was like it's a conversation, it's a dance. You listen to her and then you respond and it doesn't matter what you've planned. You have to do what she wants. And I find that with our higher power, our universe, it doesn't matter what your plan is. There's another plan and if you're going to fight it, it might be dangerous. So you just got to pivot, learn and be some simple with your intention Just I'm Today is here's what I want to feel today. I don't know how I'm going to get there, but I need to listen and respond to what's around me.

Prue Aja: 9:19

And trust that that is what you need in that moment, right now and there. And if it's not now, it's some other time, and knowing what's meant for you is not going to pass you by. And I feel like this morning this weather is very much in tune also with the mood, even though it's rainy and stuff, but there's been so much excitement and so many different things happening on this trip that a lot of us need a lot more time in bed, we need a lot more sleep, and whether, like this, makes you feel less guilty about being in bed and just resting really resting. Even though this land is so still and when you were thinking of words and before I was thinking, dynamic, there's so much power to it in the stillness and groundedness and it does feel alive. If it was really closely connected to Gaia, mother nature at her essence, it's almost like this is the center, even it's the bottom of the earth. It's kind of like where everything comes from, almost mm-hmm.

Alex: 10:31

It feels like the the true description of our world's energy in any moment. Or it can be this crazy storm, or yesterday we had that beautiful moment of blue skies, and it's. It's alive, just like we go through emotions. This land goes through emotions, and I currently live in LA. I move from New York and I have trouble with California's energy because it's so, it's the same, and you don't get the highs without the lows. We need the stormy day, mm-hmm, so that we can really embrace the blue sky totally so, do you?

Prue Aja: 11:22

are you saying that you don't get storms there, like it's just sunny all the time?

Alex: 11:26

pretty much, yeah it's like a groundhog's day and then you don't have anything to anchor to yeah and I even look at my life and if everything was status quo and just copacetic, that would, that wouldn't allow there's no growth in that. Like you need, you need something to anchor, to like in this moment, even what you were saying. Like you, you had a time in your life where you needed to just stop and and and and look at yourself and not go back to all of these old patterns. And we need to anchor to those moments that we can keep stepping forward and growing and and being alive we have to be alive.

Prue Aja: 12:07

Definitely when you went to this mental health retreat, was it? No, it was a hospital, it was a treatment facility okay, yeah, so what things have you taken away that help you in your everyday life?

Alex: 12:27

to slow down. To slow down. Being in treatment wasn't the place that healed me. It was the place that I could look at what I was feeling and lay it all out on the table and be in a really safe space where I felt held, but I wasn't pushed or prodded to do anything differently. So I could be as happy as I needed, I could be as angry as I needed, I could be as sad as I needed, and got to actually stand back and observe and witness. And then, when I came out, that's when a lot of the work began. And so when you're rushing through all these thoughts or trying to push away emotions or push away thoughts and this is even what I teach with my in my career I'm a yoga teacher and strength coach and I invite people to find presence and stillness first, so that they can unlock the strength that they already have within.

Prue Aja: 13:29

And if you're, if you're rushing around, you miss, you miss the opportunity to actually hear, and so treatment taught me how to shut up and listen because there are just so many layers of distractions in our everyday life so much noise, people, phones, like not having a Wi-Fi here has been so incredible and it's brought everyone into this one place and being fully present with one another not being in our phones, obviously, taking photos and stuff, but, yeah, taking away those layers and actually really feeling your feelings. And imagine if everyone had that practice each day when they woke up and checked in and said how am I feeling today? Instead of I know, for me I used to wake up and go, I need to do that and that and that and that, and then it would layer up quickly in my head and then I'd just get up feeling stressed and go all right, let's run through the day and get all the things down that need to get done. And now I wake up two hours before my daughter does and really I potter like I slowly move through the day and the power in creating your own day as in setting the intention and going instead of going, this is all the things I have to do today. What do I want today to look like? And kind of visualizing the best day possible as well that's exactly how I feel with this land.

Alex: 15:07

we wake up and it's just, it's gonna be a great day, regardless of if we go on that 9 am expedition that was planned, we'll still have a fantastic, beautiful day, as long as we're in relationship and in conversation with what's around us and what's within us, and that's the essence of my work is to teach people how to be in conversation with what's within so that you can better navigate what's without so you also mentioned that you have been doing this since a very young age, so how did it all start? I went to school for theater, psychology, marketing. I went to NYU and so I also. My family dynamics invited me to grow up very quickly. I was taking care of myself from a really young age and when I went to school at 18, I was just living in the city and on my own and I I felt like I grew up very quickly and then my career happened very fast. I was in my last year at NYU and I was a bottle waitress at a nightclub, which taught me a lot. I didn't feel healthy at all, so I signed up for a bodybuilding bikini competition and that just the the domino effect of that decision put me, pushed me straight ahead very, very quickly. I was signed bodybuildingcom Nike found me. I was signed as a master trainer at 23. I was then a Wilhelmina fitness model. I was on the cover of magazines, I was teaching at these incredible events and I was in my 20s, early 20s wow, 23 when I was with Nike and I had no idea who I was. I didn't have that journey into womanhood yet. I went from young girl working in nightlife, where I was being validated for the way that I looked and if I could also get money for the club and and then also being validated for how I looked in a different way with fitness, and then validated for my titles and not actually learning who Alexandra is. And I've gone by Alex my whole career, my whole life, and this year I'm now 31. On my 31st birthday, I was in Morocco and I felt something inside of me that said Alexandra, your name is Alexandra and I identify as these different women inside me, or different girls. So there's like this little girl version of myself. There's this woman, and then there's also it's like in between gal, who she she skirts between little girl and Alex and Alexandra. It was the first time that I really understood what it was like to step into my namesake and who I am as a woman, and so I. That's when I went to treatment in 2020. The world took all these labels away and I had to figure out who I was underneath. And I'm now stepping forward as Alexandra and holding that vision, while rebuilding my career and these titles around me. But I know that if they went away and I'm not I'm still I'm still me.

Prue Aja: 19:07

There's a totally different energy between the two names as well. Sure, it does feel very young and playful and kind of suited your story of what you're saying where you were at. And Alexandra sounds like this grounded goddess woman that really just knows herself and her values and has so much strength from that so it doesn't matter what changes on the exterior, she knows who she is. That's exactly right. And it sounds like similar to me if I'm getting this right, really stepping into your feminine energy as well, so not being that yang and pushing and hustling and going and just like doing all the things, it's actually being in the trusting and the receiving and things coming in to you that serve you and so you can really be in your power and magnetize that coming forward?

Alex: 20:08

Yeah, and the feminine power isn't aggressive. She is receptive and grounded, and I'm now understanding what that power feels like. It's not having to control everything. It's being able to stand in your intention and in your integrity and in your grace and allow everything else to swirl around you as you're, this pillar of softness and strength.

Prue Aja: 20:39

I love reminding myself to move through the day with ease and grace, because before it was like having to do this, like just this heavier energy and I've also learned recently that masculine energy is a lot for a feminine body too, to carry that weight and when we can actually just be in that feminine energy, it feels lighter and everything just flows more easily around you. And there are definitely days where my head still gets in the way and goes but what about this and what about this? And I'm remembering just going to that really deep, scary place has taught me it's me, we go, it's okay just to let it all go, because even at the very bottom you're going to die and you've got to go there sometimes. And just to keep letting it go and trusting that, yeah, witnessing it, checking in how you're feeling about it and how you're really feeling about it. What does it mean to you? And it actually gets to a place of something that you've been holding on to that needs to be let go as well. I haven't quite finished processing that thing. It needs to go. Do you know what? I can really let that go.

Alex: 22:00

Yeah I say my brand is called Flow Into Strong, and so I find that we get to our strongest place when we move easefully there and listen, and when you flow into strong, life flows to you. It's the only way you can open up the channel to receive is when you've opened up your palm and stopped gripping and trying to feed, trying to plan every little moment or control, and this trip is divine in that it's an exact representation of what I've been trying to keep pushing forward through in my life or flow into and teach others how to do the same. That's really magnificent.

Prue Aja: 22:44

It really is. What would you say has been your awe moment?

Alex: 22:50

Yesterday we hiked up this incredible mountain with pristine, crystal white snow, powdery, beautiful got all the way to the top and we did it in silence. Thank you to Pruah for suggesting that we have a meditative, silent landing. And so the expedition was that walked up silence. I was with one of my best friends, who I brought with me, and then we got to the top and he and I sat down just in meditation and watched the sun blanket the peaks in front of us, and then there was the Antarctica Peninsula and then another island that was framing the sun hitting the other mountains further off, and we were quiet and you can just hear. You heard the water and little bits of the penguins and the wind and the voice of, I feel, the goddess so powerful and so soft at the same time, because the elements are intense here, but they're also just. It's an exhale. Everything feels like an exhale and I just started crying and my grandpa came to me. He passed right when my career started and I was with him and I was just hoping he was proud of me and it was a really beautiful moment to just sit and listen to what was around and what was within. So it was a peak life moment right there.

Prue Aja: 24:35

What an incredible moment and memory that you have forever. Yeah.

Alex: 24:42

I also. I'm also feeling super blessed that, remembering that not everybody in the world will get to see this, and my hope is that if they don't get to actually see that, they can feel it in another way. And it's not that we're I was sitting on the top of a mountain looking at something, to have that sensation that is available to us all the time.

Prue Aja: 25:07

It is, yeah, it's within, and you'll be just got to do it in such an expansive space. But anywhere in nature and closing your eyes, you can be anywhere and being in silence and listening to the intricacies that nature offers you around you.

Alex: 25:27

You can do it in New York, you can do it in LA, do it in Byron Bay.

Prue Aja: 25:32

It's totally changed my life meditation. I started Vedic meditation eight years ago and it really helps with my mental health and also just being in flow and trusting that everything's there, because you're creating that space to connect to your higher self and allow what's meant to come through, come through. And I feel like if we don't create that space, then we're just doing what's in front of us and not connecting to our path as well.

Alex: 26:00

Totally, and this isn't brand new information, this is we've actually, we have to, we have to remember this information. I was my last trip. I was in Tanzania and we were dancing on the top of this rock in the middle of the Serengeti and one of the guards because they always have armed guards just in case there's water buffalo or water buffalo wildebeests and he was standing there and I sit down to start meditating and just look out at the landscape and he says to me go inside. I said what I didn't expect this man to start talking to me. Go inside and listen and you'll hear God.

Prue Aja: 26:43

Wow.

Alex: 26:44

And I was just. It's like I doubt he's got an app on his phone that teaches him how to meditate. We just. This is built into our being. It's not rocket science. We just have to be quiet and trust. And cultures like that are so simple they don't have as much of the stimulus around them, so they don't have that much to remember.

Prue Aja: 27:16

Yeah.

Alex: 27:17

This is already there, and we're in this constant state of unlearning and reprogramming, and so it was really special to have that moment.

Prue Aja: 27:26

That is an incredible moment and memory as well that you will always have, so profound. I had acupuncture earlier this year with this. You know those really old Chinese men and they're really old, dusty Chinese acupuncture places and I thought I'm just going to go to that one, one of these modern, cool ones. And it was incredible. I was so wired when I went in there. I was like you know, when you feel like I don't know if you've had this like electric shocks through your body, it's like you've just been electrocuted. You're so frazzled and I ended up being in there with the needles in for over an hour and a heat lamp. And he came in after about 20 minutes, half an hour, and he put his hand on me and he was like how are you feeling? I said my head's still just spinning and he goes. There's only one question you need to be asking yourself is who am I? Whoa. And so I just went into that, but also without attaching labels, not being like, oh, I'm a photographer, I'm this, I'm this, I'm my mom, just really surrendering into that and it's kind of like a meditation, like a mantra, and just going back to that and by the end of the session I floated out of there, and the more I'm aware of getting into these states of being frazzled, the more not I'm going into them. A lot less, because as soon as I start feeling it coming on, it's like okay, take a step back, you're going too hard, it's too much happening and you don't have to live like this anymore and just keep calming, calming down.

Alex: 29:05

Yeah, Well, the tension is when we're trying to resist what's around us and we're pushing forward in whatever decision that we had made for that moment, even if it's not reflective of what actually needs to happen. And when you release, when you release the desire for your own way, all of that tension disappears.

Prue Aja: 29:29

Yeah, I can't believe how we're not taught this from a grade. And we have to go through it. We know it. Yeah, we know it.

Alex: 29:39

We're actually, we're taught something else, we're pushed for something else. You need to be this. What do you want to be Like when you grow up? Right, we think about labels, or we see these movies of epic love stories that you need to find the one, or you need to earn money to be successful and we just need to slow down, eat from the land and lay down and snuggle your people and close your eyes and dream.

Prue Aja: 30:08

Simplify and just come back to what's actually important in life and realize we're just here to experience. We're not going to take anything with us except the memories, the lessons and, since, coming out of my transformation as well, just laughing at life, at the things and not taking things so seriously anymore, because really we're only here for such a short, precious moment and we need to enjoy it with ease and grace as Queen.

Alex: 30:48

Amen. I've been saying that instead of amen, amen, amen.

Prue Aja: 30:52

I love it. Is there anything else you wanted to share from this trip or about your journey?

Alex: 31:02

I'll just put out a an intention for the next year, because we're almost towards the end of 2023.

Prue Aja: 31:10

Yeah, because I feel like we've been actually out of space, out in space. Totally, right now in time we're on a good still, whereas everyone back in reality right now is getting prepared for the holiday season and for Christmas and for New Year's, and might be in the same way.

Alex: 31:27

Time does not exist here. The sun never sets, which has been turning me inside out. I'm so confused, but it's been great because it's also allowed me to drop my oh. Now the sun is setting, so I have to start getting tired and I have to go to sleep at this time and I have to wake up at this time, just just wow, whatever, whatever it be. So we're coming towards the end of the year and my intention for 2024. My intention for 2023 was grace and security, and I found that I was able to experience security and safety. I created it for myself. I didn't really travel, I was just working for the first few months. I realized how unfulfilling it was and that creating security around me wasn't actually feeling secure. And then life gifted me all of these trips, and so I would like my intention for 2024 to be Wonder, wonder. I want to be exploring and feeling safe and just continue to wonder what else, what else, what else? Because when you're safe and secure, you stay in this little box, and I want to. I want to expand out.

Prue Aja: 33:10

I love that. I feel like we've been. That's another construct that's been put onto us is that you have to be safe and secure. Safe is important, but this form of security owning a house, having plenty of money in the bank, you know it's another thing that how do you know when's enough money or enough stuff to be secure?

Alex: 33:34

It's all energy. It's all energy and you can tap into it at any moment.

Prue Aja: 33:39

Yeah, totally. When you were thinking of yours, I was thinking of what mine is, and it's curiosity Just following that curiosity and seeing what comes out of that.

Alex: 33:52

I feel minus anonymous, as Wonder and my right now my Instagram says curiosity is my superpower, so I do believe that's gotten me to some pretty good places. After my year of spaciousness, I had a year of yes where I said yes to everything that came my way and it's led me. It's led me to my community, my tribe, to a new life in LA, from New York. It's led me here sitting on a deck in Antarctica with you. And, yeah, we need to be curious and secure that we'll be okay as we lean into our curiosity and step forward, and actually I want to add one more thing in.

Prue Aja: 34:36

So when I found out about this trip, I said I shared it on my stories and just said I am manifesting, going on this. And two weeks later, which was 10 days before the trip things shifted and changed and I had a ticket to come, and then there was fear that came up, though I was like I shouldn't be doing this now. Who's going to look after my daughter and my dog? And what about working? And what about having, you know, working up until Christmas, so I've got enough time, money to have time off over summer. And inside it was a hell, yes, but the fear was getting in the way and my friend supported me and said you have to go and then just taking that step into it. So these things are always a bit scary for me. And then, as I step, the universe supports me, but you have to show that you are willing to take that leap and trust that it's all going to work out as well.

Alex: 35:35

Yeah, I've done the same and it hasn't served me wrong. I've had more moments of regret than the discomfort of the fear of what you're leaving behind. There's always something else. I feel the same. I didn't know about this trip until I was sitting in Tanzania with the organizer of the trip and he said you're coming to Antarctica. I said I guess I am. And I had no plans to travel until the following year. And I believe when you get invitations like that, it's truly a nudge from the universe. It's like, hey, I got this for you. Yeah, You're like okay, Are you like? Nah, nah, nah, I'm good in this little box over here and I know it's scary because we, especially in our society, we need to work and there's a family and there's responsibilities and obligations, but things you can always find a way.

Prue Aja: 36:37

You can and you're never going to let yourself down, and if you do, it's just a redirection.

Alex: 36:43

Sure there are reasons that you don't go on trips as well. I was actually invited to go to Antarctica on my 30th birthday and I logistically was not able to go on that trip and I did regret it, but it led me to going on this trip and I needed to be here right now because if I had gone on that trip, I wouldn't have been further along in this exploration of my mission and my purpose and myself that I probably wouldn't have my conversation with Antarctica, with her, wouldn't have been as rich. And so I think the goddess that it took me another year and a half before I was able to step foot on this continent and it felt like it felt like I missed out. But I didn't miss out on anything, and it's a good reminder that if something doesn't happen for you in that moment, it's going to show up even better.

Prue Aja: 37:43

That's what I love. Sometimes you miss these opportunities or things didn't quite work out. That's like no, because that's not quite all of them. It's something way bigger than that for you, something that's beyond your comprehension, that you can even create in your mind, and that's what I'm really excited about next year. It really feels like a blank canvas and so much expansion and opportunity ahead, and especially as the world evolves as well by coming into a new world and everyone's shifting and changing and there's so much more love and connection and connection to nature, and it's exciting, it feels good.

Alex: 38:24

Keeps getting better, forever and ever.