Spotlight Series

Guest Name: Crystal Lyon

Credentials: E-RYT 500, CBE, Prenatal Yoga Instructor

All right, welcome Crystal. Thank you so much for being on our spotlight series for the Best in Utah Public Health. I’m excited to jump in and share all about you and then dive into all these questions and learn more about you and your practices that you do.

So without further ado, I’m going to read your bio here for our audience and then we’ll jump into those questions. So Crystal is offering yoga, hypnobirthing, and more in Salt Lake and Utah counties. Crystal Lyon is a trained prenatal yoga and registered hypnobirthing instructor passionate about sharing her love for all things birth and yoga.

She shares a comprehensive approach to birth education and yoga classes that encourage a positive mind, meditation, stretching, mental centering, focused breathing, just to name a few that can help prepare you for a more peaceful pregnancy and birth. Crystal has been married to Ben, the love of her life, for 20 years. Congratulations, by the way, and they have three amazing kids, Hugh and Kate.

Kate, you’re gonna have to pronounce their names for me. Kellen, Kinley, and Nora. And Nora.

If you want to make her happy and get her dancing, blast some rap music, specifically Snoop Dogg. She can touch her nose with her tongue but cannot roll her tongue. On a weekend, you’ll usually find her in her jammies snuggling her family and eating some yummy food.

Awesome. What a pleasure it is to have you here, Crystal. Why don’t we just jump right in and like what got you into yoga and hypnobirthing and all the things birth? Okay.

Well, I appreciate you for giving us the questions beforehand because I don’t have notes, so I might be referring to those every once in a while. I’m like, I’m all over the place. But you know, I’ve listened to some of your interviews already.

And it’s funny how it’s like many are just like, you know, I was called to it. It wasn’t something that I was planning on this, that, the other and very much the same for me. I, you know, I mean, I went to college, got a college degree, thought I’d be doing something else rather than sitting on a mat all day long and watching birth videos and, you know, all the stuff birth.

But you know, it was, it was something that I feel like for sure was like I was called to. And mine’s a little sad to like, my journey is a little sad. But this last week, I always like to include like intentions in my classes.

And I found this one that just kind of like sums up my story. And it says, difficult roads often lead to beautiful destinations. And so my story kind of goes long in the way of, I was just living life and, you know, started having my kids.

And unfortunately, I have experienced loss in my pregnancy years. I have three babies, but six pregnancies. So miscarriage and ectopic pregnancy is a part of my journey.

And so, you know, I, that’s kind of like was where, where things started. And then with my last pregnancy, so I have three babies and my last pregnancy about nine years ago, kind of like with all of that said, there was also some other things that were happening. Life was just really hard.

I lost my brother and my dad within a two month period of time. And I was pregnant with my last baby. And because of my experience of losing babies and, you know, all the things I had, just like this deep seated fear of what if, what if, you know, something happens, especially with like the storms that were brewing around me with the loss of my, my family.

And so I was scared. I was so scared that I might lose another child. So that is actually when I found yoga.

I had never before that. Well, I guess when I was a kid, I went to like one or two yoga classes with my sister, like at a, at a studio. But I just, at that point, I was just like, you know, I need to, I know I need to move my body.

And so I just found some yoga classes online, prenatal yoga classes and just fell in love with it. I mean, I remember just practicing in this little tiny house that we had in South Salt Lake at the point and just thinking to myself, my gosh, I love this. And it was where my, like, it like healed my heart and grounded me and rooted me.

And it was like my, my anchor in those storms. And I was also preparing for my next birth. I have used hypnobirthing, the Mangan method with all my births.

And so I was kind of, I found yoga, prenatal yoga at that point, was preparing for my birth. And just the two together just were like, yeah, like I mentioned, just like my, my anchor. Hypnobirthing and yoga, they, I’ll probably talk a little bit about this, just hand in hand, just like complimented each other.

And yeah, that’s kind of where my seed was planted. And like I said, nine years ago, never thought that this is something that I would be doing, but that’s, that’s how my journey started. And I, I don’t know everything about birth.

I listened to all these different interviews and I’m like, oh my gosh, they’re so knowledgeable. But you know, I, I do believe that school’s never out for the teacher. And so, you know, I’m loving just this journey that I’m on and, and having the opportunity to learn from families that I’m able to serve and learn from, you know you know, all of you awesome, amazing people.

We’ve got an awesome community here in Utah. Yeah. Awesome.

Well, that’s a great sad, but beautiful story in the end, right?

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

Okay. What do you feel like makes you different in your approach and the way you teach and your yoga, like all the things like that? What’s your, what’s your difference?

So I’m going to like break them up, hypnobirthing and then yoga. So I teach hypnobirthing, the Mangan Method.

There’s a lot of hypnobirthing different methods out there nowadays. The Mangan Method was developed in the nineties. It was the first actually out of all of them.

And it was developed by a hypnotherapist. Her name is Marie Mangan and that’s why it’s called the Mangan Method. And the difference, I think from, I mean, a lot of childbirth education course, they’re, they’re, they’re, they can like flow along, kind of along the, like what’s happening now when you’re pregnant during that perinatal time, you know, before, during and after birth.

But what we kind of bring in is that we try to teach and encourage that, that the mind leads the body. You know, the mind has a big impact on, on birth. If your mind is scared from fear of anything, not necessarily fear of birth itself or, but fear of like the unknown, like, Hey, what am I supposed to be doing? I don’t know how to deliver a baby, you know? So it’s funny that they don’t teach us that sort of stuff and that, we have to seek out that education afterwards, but we truly believe in that the mind leads the body and that through, you know, it’s called hypnobirthing.

So hypnosis through hypnosis, which for me as a yoga teacher, I really resonate with the thought of it being more like deep meditation. So like hypnosis and meditation are, are basically the same hypnosis. We basically just have kind of like a, we put those blinders on and we have like a, like a goal in mind, like a peaceful, more whatever pregnancy, you know, just our birth, like a more peaceful birth and being able to be a little bit more mindful of the act in itself.

So yeah, we’ve got, we work with the mind a lot through affirmations, meditation, hypnosis, visualizations, breathing, education, just education is powerful in the birth world. Again, if you don’t, I mean, we don’t know what’s really going on. Birth is pretty simple, but I mean, it is, if you think in one way and in other ways, it may not be so quite simple, but yeah, we just give you tools and techniques to be able to perhaps be a little bit more mindful about, about birth and, and during birth and that we were all meant to do this.

Women have been birthing for a long time and then just kind of like opening up the eyes to, to what birth, what birth really is. So as well as many, I’m a little different of a hypnobirthing teacher. I did not have home births.

Many of my hypnobirthing sisters all had home births and without medication. I truly believe that all birth is natural, whether you have medication, whether you have an epidural, whether you have a C-section, whether, you know, it’s, it’s without medication. So my three babies, I’ve got three different birth stories.

And I think it’s funny because for all birth has its own journey. Like they’re all different. And so I truly believe that well, hypnobirthing is for any birth and any birth is beautiful.

No matter if it’s you know, if it’s in the forest, at your home, wherever it’s, it’s beautiful. And if it takes a different journey, if your journey is different than perhaps your vision of birth, that is okay. And that that’s, that’s, that, that happens and, and it’s okay, for sure.

So yoga. So I model my classes. What’s kind of makes me different, I think, is that I model my classes after birth, after the rhythms of birth.

So I’ve mentioned that birth is kind of simple in the way that basically what birth is, is a surge or contraction, then you have a rest, surge or contraction, then a rest, you know, so a contraction comes in, and it kind of peaks, goes back down, it’s slow as it starts peaks. And so that’s what I do with my classes, I start my classes out, we’re in, you know, seated positions, hands and knees positions, we start out slow. And we have some peak postures.

But then we also have rests, rest times in between I, I bring in restorative yoga, as well as vinyasa yoga. So we’ve got movement slow, maybe a little quicker, not, it’s gentle yoga, very much gentle. It’s, it’s for all phases of pregnancy, you know, trimesters, before, during and after.

So that fourth trimester as well. But yeah, so I bring in a lot of rest and bring in a lot of touch, I believe in the power of hands on. Some people don’t get that.

And you know, of course, I ask I bring in aromatherapy. And I love music. So that kind of is what makes, makes me a little bit different in those two areas.

Awesome. Well, thank you for sharing all of that was great. Okay, who would you say is an ideal fit for you? Like, what’s your favorite? Like clients to work with?

Um, so really anybody that perhaps want it wants a more intentional pregnancy, pregnancy and birth, you know, those who are seeking out, perhaps a little bit of movement in their pregnancy for yoga, that, you know, are seeking out help with pain, you know, all those little aches and pains that can come in the pelvis and the sacral joints, IT bands.

So just really anybody that’s that is, you know, wanting a little bit more of an intentional pregnancy and birth. But also people who may be serious about about that, you know, sometimes people come in and and they I do tell my hypnobirthing families, I’m like, this really does work. If you do.

And it’s not hard. All you have to do is relax and, you know, practice a few breathing techniques. So really anybody who is who is seeking out, you know, a little bit more more peace in their pregnancy before joining an after journey.

Awesome. Okay. What does the process look like to work for you that work with you then? How does someone sign up? Um, so really, it’s,

Um, I’ve got myself some good processes through my website.

And through Google, you know, people can Google prenatal postpartum yoga or hypnobirthing. And usually I’ll pop up and then everything is just kind of streamlined through my through my website, it just kind of allows you there’s some pages that talk about prenatal and postpartum yoga as well as hypnobirthing. And then it basically says, do you want to register? Do you want to sign up? Hypnobirthing is a little bit different.

I only do hypnobirthing four times a year just for my family’s busy life right now. It’s that’s all I’m able to do. And so that those hop are pop up every once in a while.

But yoga I do every Saturday and every other Tuesday night at your amazing space there. And we love it. Um, and so yoga, you basically just buy what I call class pass.

And you can save some money by, you know, if you buy a bigger one, you can buy just a single class pass as well. And then you just go in there and you can see when we have classes and you can you can just sign up, sign up to that. Awesome.

Awesome. Okay. Um, next question is, what does recovery look like to you from that pregnancy to postpartum transition? So how, how do I help with my, how do you have, how do you view it? What’s your like, ethos around recovery, as you will? Okay.

So, um, in, in hypnobirthing, we do chat a little bit about, about that fourth trimester, how important it is to, um, I mean, of course we got it, you have a new great baby, right? And many times in, especially in our Western Westernized culture, that’s all we focus on, although it’s changing, it’s changing. And I’m so happy about that, but, um, I do, uh, grind in a little bit about like how important it is to, um, be mindful of not only baby, but also family, mom and partner, um, how much, how important it is to take care of yourself. Um, you know, many different cultures, um, outside of our culture, they really put big emphasis on that fourth trimester on that recovery time.

And, um, like in, in the Hispanic culture, they have, uh, cuarenta, like 40 days that they stay in and around their home and, you know, nourishing foods, high protein foods, and, you know, nourishing the body. Um, I always suggest get, get a, get a massage if that’s in the budget, if not have your partner give you a massage, you know, um, and just really making sure that you’re, you’re paying attention to not only baby, you know, loving and, um, uh, figuring out however you want to feed your baby, whether it’s breastfeeding or not, you know, getting, getting that, um, all figured out sleeping. Um, but also making sure that you’re, you’re taking care of you.

They say that, uh, the, uh, a woman there, um, they’re like their energy field after birth is wide open. And so it’s super, super important to just make sure to, to kind of protect that, um, as best as they can. So, yeah, yeah.

Taking care of yourself in that way in that postpartum time. Yeah. Okay.

Next question is what is something that most people think that you should think, or let me start over. What is something that most don’t know that you think that they should know either about hypnobirthing or birth in general, or yoga, or it can be any topic. What’s like the one thing little nugget that you can give us.

Um, well, uh, so I think it’s important through that, uh, that I, that I think people should know that it’s okay to be still to settle to, I mean, again, back in our culture, our society, um, all we just go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go. And, um, I think it’s super important that we realize that we don’t have to do that all the time that it is important to take those times, those times of rest, um, as, as well. Um, and then kind of just about my, my something else that I think that people don’t realize that I do, I do private sessions as well.

It’s actually been a really big thing lately where I bring everything to you, um, mostly, uh, just hypnobirthing right now. And sometimes people can’t make classes, you know, or like I talked to a family yesterday, a sweet, cute mom. She was like, uh, my boyfriend does not want to be in front of everybody watching birth videos.

And, you know, sometimes you just want it to be a little bit more intimate. So, so I do do private classes. Um, and I also work with senior citizens.

So I, that I, I have a birth and all the way up to, to senior citizens. So I think in the way of, of not birth of yoga, anybody and everybody in all bodies. Love that.

Love that. Kate, is there anything special that you want to promote besides like your one-on-one yoga and things like that to our audience?

Um, uh, just that I do have, um, uh, no birthing session coming up. Um, uh, for, I have, wasn’t able to do one this fall, like a group session, but the one for winter is coming up.

You can just check out that on my, my websites, which is C-R-Y-S-T-A-L. And then there’s a dash L-Y-O-N.com and then just yoga, um, come to yoga. Great.

Okay. Last question. My favorite question to ask is what do you want to be known for?

Um, that’s like, we can, um, pursue things, um, that it’s okay to pursue things that can decrease fear as well as, um, know that any journey, any journey of birth is beautiful.

That’s kind of one big thing that I’m like always trying to advocate that like, you know, in our, especially right now, it’s like, that’s the cool thing to, you know, birth in this way and without medication. And I love that. And I, and I want that for those who want that.

Um, but I also want to let those others who perhaps maybe the journey didn’t go in the way that, that you were like anticipating to realize that, um, any birth, any birth is beautiful, any which way that your baby is born. Yeah. Awesome.

Okay. You’re already looking at your website. Where else can we find you? Social media, all things like that.

Um, my, uh, Instagram, I told you I’m really bad with, with anything technical. So my Instagram is crystal and then there’s an underscore D underscore lion and all that. You can find all that stuff, all that stuff on my website too, but that’s really all that I’m on.

Um, it’s just Instagram and my website. So perfect. Perfect.

Well, thank you so much for us all for coming on the spotlight series. Thank you for all your knowledge and information. Thank you for sharing our space with us and hosting the hypnobirthing and yoga here.

We love having you, our patients love having it. Um, and thank you for everything that you do in the community here. You betcha.

And thank you. You are amazing. And I’m so happy that you’re doing this.

It’s you’re just bringing all this awesome knowledge to the, the, to the top, to the forefront and we can find it easily.

So thank you.