Natalie: Hello, Everyone! My name is Natalie Ledwell and this is the Inspiration Show. Today,
we have an awesome show. Actually, this is one of the live versions of our show. So, if you are
here live and would like to ask questions, make sure you add them in the box at the bottom and
we’ll do our best to answer them here on the show live for you. Today, we’re actually talking
about a very unique way to approach coaching. My special guest today is Paula D’Andrea and
Paula has like a very unique of being able to help people not just through their life but
through their fitness and things as well. So, welcome to the show Paula. How are you?
Paula: Hi Natalie. Thanks so much for having me today. I’m doing great and look forward to
having a great conversation with you.
N: I know. I’m so looking forward to it as well, because what you have or what you have
developed is actually quite unique. But why don’t we start first with your background and your
story on how you got to doing what you do?
P: Oh okay. Well, I’m originally from the east coast in Rhode Island. I have a pretty extensive
background in fitness, that’s where I actually started training. That got me to get an action
and start looking to expand my career and I was looking for a resort area may be Hawaii or
Arizona and I ended up in California for a week and at the end of the week, I was like, I’m
going to stay another week and then on the second week, I was like, you know what this is close
enough to rock and roll for me, so I ended up just staying and really (1:41) into a really
abundant and fun fitness training career in Los Angeles. (overlapping with Natalie)
transformation for me is just that, I had made this in starting, when I was starting training
back east, I was training by another trainer who was a natural body builder and he really gave
me a fantastic foundation. I changed my body. It was actually people coming up to me and
saying, hey, can you write a routine? Can you train? All these got me interested in going,
well, I should be looking at this and started getting into a training career. And then that
kind of launched me into moving, which was also something on my docket, more or less. It really
just blossom from there and really flourished for it.
N: Yes, because what you do now is not just fitness, does it?
P: No. it’s an integration of truly a wellness scope, pretty holistic and intuitive aspect to
it. So, truly my focus is on helping people being healthy. So whether you know, it’s freedom to
get in better shape, get a hand on their weight issues or get a lot of pain or some type of
darkness that they’re in, in their life or you know, career transition or whatever it may be,
it’s that transformation that they’re looking for and then looking to transition in their
lives. So, it’s about focusing, of course, on the physical aspect as well as the spiritual
aspect being really be strong on who they are to align with their core values so there’s enough
flow. So, it’s totally being in harmony with the different dimension of someone to bring them
into that area of health that really makes them rock solid and living the way that they really
want to that’s really congruent for them.
N: Yeah. I always find that when I’m fit and healthy within myself, then I actually have the
energy and I have the motivation to be able to look at the other areas of my life and make sure
that I’m really performing in there as well. So, tell me, your program is called FIT, what does
that stand for and why is that different to most other program?
P: Well, the acronym is Freedom, Integration and Transformation. So, it really is the focus,
you know, while I have the opportunity to train hundreds of people and coach as many people as,
it’s really, it’s about being able to tap into them and see what they were looking for in their
life, what their bottomline was. And really, a lot of it was, people repeated the same cycles.
You know, they were self-sabotaging all the time. They have the same limitations. They had the
same issues with weight and it’s really like, what’s wrong with this industry? So, how about,
get into what the core issue is in (4:48)? And then, really change that story and get walking
on a new persona so to speak and really start living a life that is probably what’s in their
heart of hearts but may be clouded by outside zones, whether it be cultural, upbringing,
religion, family values, anything like that or even a past event that really had them kind of
like looping in this same kind of story kind of a thing. So, it’s really about that. It really
is more of an energetic, intuitive type of approach that, kind of like a bootcamp approach. So,
it’s one of the biggest differences there. It’s very comprehensive. I have a very in-depth
skill set. So, it really allows me to go down to a lot of places with. I just love being able
to help somebody make that change that they’ve been looking to change for a long time and they
go at it several times and didn’t quite get it. So, you know, I just want to take them and just
walk them out and totally lift them out to where they’ve been and be free of that. That’s the
freedom aspect of that, could be free from their past, free from a relationship that isn’t a
good fit for them or could be freedom from being more confident so that they could have other
things like good relationships and more money or you know, that over-all health in their life
as well, but it really is feeling good about themselves. So it’s really more an integrated
process and you know, the transformation being able to make the transition that isn’t just for
the time but really a lasting type of a change.
N: Yeah. You bring all the important point about the relationship between our mental health or
the way that we think and how that reflects in our body like how do you see that playing out
with the people that you work with?
P: Well, what I see is a lot of people carry a lot of things in their body and that’s what
happens…the simplest example would be this, I think everybody could kind of relate to is the
kind of, at some point in your life you might have been in an argument with somebody and
everything is escalating, your emotion is high and may be some tightness in your face, your
blood pressure is going up, you know, all these things and the other person is like gives you
the hand or walks away or something or hangs up the phone and you, and you’re like up here
(gestures) and it just goes like this (gestures) and you just close everything to your body.
There are examples like that and it’s happening over and over again. Even if somebody cuts you
off of traffic, it’s the same thing, your hands grip on the steering wheel, you know you get
that tightness in your face and you know, you have that adrenalin rush, your heart starts
beating fast like that and all of a sudden it settles in your body. It really is all about, a
lot of it living and going in a cellular level, people who aren’t dealing with emotions, people
who aren’t dealing with energies that all becomes trapped inside the body. It can eat you.
On-going chronic pain, sabotage cycles, flare ups, all those types of things and then it just
brings you out of focus. So, when you’re dealing with all of that pain, you are able to see
everything else that’s right in front of you and that becomes, there are people, who are, I
don’t know, automatic pilot like with that, works like a subconscious painting and they’re so
used to it that it’s just how they live. One of the things that I found out, Natalie, is that,
for years with working with people is that, people, oh I have a bad back, you know, tight ham
strings, all these type of things, really it wasn’t anything inter related or anything like
that. A lot of it would either be an emotion pocketed in an area and then it also became a
postural deviation. So, those two things coupled together really put people out of sync.
N: Yeah, absolutely. I know personally with me, if anyone has seen videos of me from earlier
last year, I actually, my husband and I separated in august of last year and I dropped twenty
pounds in 3 weeks. I don’t know how but I know a lot of it was because I have this release and
I was happy. We both wanted the decision, it two good friends, business partners and it is all
great, but just having that, oh my god, I’m feeling happy and excited about my future
completely changed my body shape because for some reason I was holding on to that weight while
I was in that relationship and since that was no longer an issue, I was able to release the
weight. And I say release because it hasn’t gone back and not even, nowhere. So happiness level
also has a big influence in our body as well, right?
P: Yeah, yeah, most definitely. It’s interesting what you brought up too because what I see
quite a bit is, people have that release and then everything about sort of matrix kind of a
thing, you know, (makes a gesture and sound) it’s kind of like lines up and things just leave
and I think that’s really when you are able to, chemical release in the body, so all of that
sort of just drains right out and it just disperses. And it is just amazing to watch somebody
who looks 5 years younger, they look like 10 pounds lighter. So, it’s yeah…
N: Cool. So do you recommend that most people like you know, when they work with you, are they
working with you as a personal trainer? Or can they do the work in person or do you work
online? How do you work with people?
P: I work formally, I do work online. A lot of it is really coaching. I made that transition
from fitness training into transformation and personal development. I do a lot of global
coaching and we do energy work. We get into a lot of areas and I also do nutritional paths for
people and do routines as well. And where I get really hands on is when I get VIP sessions, so
that is an in-person, you know, where people here in LA will come and visit or people who are
regional that really want to get together and do want that hands-on. So at this point, my time
on the gym floor is really is geared towards those VIP sessions and that’s where I get really
hands-on. I have a move that I kind of like developed, I called the body wrap and it really is
the ability to get in and to be able to release a lot of these trapped energies in the body and
do that in the cellular level. So that it starts to get out of the body. So, it’s really, it’s
working in getting trapped energy, emotionally, physically and you know, letting everything
released from the body and you know put everything in, you know, use light and love meditations
and that helps to bring in a whole new energy for somebody and that really comes from, again
that connection back to them. And I think that really is, you study the law of attraction and
for me, I say, people love because it’s really that law of vibration and that’s really, you
know, wanting them to be really rocking that kind of vibe. So the more that you are able to
resonate with who you are, that’s really a lot of energy, especially people who are really used
to, you know, who have been through stuff either illness or loss of loved ones, divorces,
anything that’s kind of, you know, or even if it’s work transition or move or something like
that or something that just affects you at a deeper level, as you know, you’ve experienced
that, it allows them to kind of rewrite this story a little bit to get rid of that past, to get
rid of all that pain and really bring in something new and bring in where they are now. So that
really complements who they are and what they really want to be living.
N: Yeah. So, basically what you are doing is helping people get healthy for life. But you’re
doing for people that’s, the ones that would want to work with you, the one’s that would have
been, like I know, on my 30s, all my predominant thoughts was all about trying to lose weight,
you know, about my body. It tried everything. I was exercising most days. I was doing
everything I thought was right and it wasn’t when I changed my happiness levels that I would
see those difference. So, you’re coming in not just for the fitness point of view but a
holistic kind of thing, getting our spiritual self, our intellectual self, our physical self
and our emotional self all connected to one, working together so that we are working at our
most optimal pace, right?
P: Absolutely, absolutely. It’s something that, you know, the bottomline is I worked with
people from all over the world, from a whole sorts of different walks of life and really it
comes down to everyone wants to be healthy and everyone wants to feel good about themselves
first and foremost. It doesn’t matter if it’s a man or a woman. Sure, there is like certain
body parts that they’d like to enhance and everything, but really it’s absolutely, they want to
feel good about themselves, I mean, really good about themselves and that’s really where you
know, the focus is on that aspect to round somebody out, to really just let go of those things
that aren’t serving them anymore. So it’s like, you’re doing workout for women, it encompasses
usually arms, abs, thighs, you know things that need your manner, a little bit more on the
chest and back, you know those guns and things like that, so it’s really anyway you look at it
it’s a transformation of the body. I did it for myself. It was amazing how that changed my life
from where I was living and then actually the confidence to come to LA and I don’t know a
little of being naïve even, just a willingness but I really put myself out there in a bigger
way in a city of angels, that’s full of trainers. I’ve had an amazing career and met, you’ll
appreciate this, when I was going out, my entire bedroom was a vision board, of course that
wasn’t the word given to it at that time, but it was like you know, all the way around, top to
bottom, there was everything that I wanted in my life, which at that time when I was growing up
wasn’t really the greatest career design for me and so I kept this in front of me and that’s
also, I think a lot of people do the manifestation and looking to see it out and when I moved
to Los Angeles, it really brought my dreams to life and brought my walls to life and I met some
people that are around there like Mohammad Ali and Fay Donaway, you know, I was in the mix, I
was in the music industry and then the film industry and everything like that and it was really
exciting to do that. And even with the glitz, the glamour, the money and everything like that,
it really just comes down to people just wanting to feel good about themselves and to have
their health, you know the old adage that if you’re, if you don’t have your health, you don’t
have anything is so true, as well as life is too short. That’s, you know, those are things that
I have experienced first-hand as well, with an accident that has left me with 4-knee surgeries
and a (16:38) infection in the middle. So, I know that full well, recovering from that and I
also lost my sister in a night club fire, so it really, really brought home that message that
life is too short. You don’t want to wait until something goes wrong. You want to get out. You
want to have that zest for living. You know, you want that every single day be making the
choices that make you happy and that are fulfilling for you.
N: Excellent. So, Paula, if people want to work with you to get like permanent transformational
change. Where can we send them?
P: My website is pauladandrea.com and my email is paula@pauladandrea.com, it’s one word (spells
it).
N: Beautiful.
P: Thanks.
N: Well, I think you said it. Thank you so much for joining me today. I think you are right on
the fact that, we just go to the gym all the time and slugging it out, if you don’t get it
anyway, chances are there is a part of your life or your body or your connection to spirit,
that’s lacking. The fact that you do is such a holistic approach is just amazing. So thanks
again for joining me.
P: Thank you. Thanks for having me. It was good to be here.
N: Right. Now guys, I encourage you to share this video. You could do that by clicking on the
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And make sure you leave your email on the box on this page because I would love to send you the
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send it to you for free. So, until next time remember to live large, choose courageously and
love without limits. We’ll see you soon.