Brain-Body Resilience
A podcast dedicated to stressing less and living more. Equal parts personal development and story telling and a bit of brain science to back it up. New episodes drop every Monday! We're all busy so I keep it breif, just a little nugget to take into your day.
Brain-Body Resilience
BBR #189: Embracing Natural Rhythms: Transform Your Well-Being with Emilie Reid
Today we're revisiting a conversation with Eilie Reid, a yoga and meditation coach who integrates Ayurveda into her practices, on aligning with natural rhythms to transform your well-being.
In this episode, we’ll explore how seasonality and spirality influence our energy and focus throughout the year and our lives. Learn how to embrace a slower pace during certain seasons, prioritize self-care, and adapt your productivity to the natural ebb and flow of your energy levels.
We explore the challenges of maintaining consistent productivity, especially in areas with strong seasonal changes. Find out why what we often see as disorders could actually be a misalignment with our natural rhythms, and how traditional activities like gardening and connecting with local farmers can offer profound insights into these cycles.
We offer practical advice on setting personalized self-care routines that respect your individual needs and rhythms, and how "nervous system hygiene" is a pathway to better balance and well-being.
Finally, we delve into the deeper ideas of continuously learning to be oneself and embracing the cyclical nature of life and memory.
Get in there and give it a listen for more!
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Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Brain Body Resilience Podcast. I am your host, jpb, and this is episode number 189. This is a throwback episode. I had another one, a different episode, planned for today, but this one popped into my head and I am really feeling the reminders in this one, so I'm hoping it sparks something for you as well. Today's episode is a chat from about a year ago maybe last spring at some time with my friend, emily Reed, who is a yoga and meditation coach who works and lives in the principles of Ayurveda, giving a life inspired by nature's rhythms, and I think that there's so many good reminders in this episode. I am loving them.
Speaker 1:In this season of my life, you will hear more about seasonality and spirality and how everything kind of shifts and changes and comes back around, but I am reminded heavily right now that seasons are not only not not just the natural seasons that change throughout the year but the seasons that we have within our days and our weeks, with our energy and our attention and I've talked about this a lot in the last few episodes and our attention, and I've talked about this a lot in the last few episodes, and it's all still true. You cannot do all of the things all at once all the time, and this is where seasons come in For me. I am in the summer months here in the Northern Hemisphere and this is my favorite time. Sunshine and blue skies and an otherwise constant cloud cover here where I live Give a little bit of life, camping time in nature. I just got a paddleboard and I am in love with it. I have been wanting one for years and I finally did that. So very exciting. These slow summer days are feeling great and I am so happy to have my upgraded back patio space to have my slow mornings with a hot bevy and a beautiful view. If you visit my Instagram stories, you have already seen all of that, and I am feeling like these days are very aware of the short time span that we have for summer days here, and I feel like it's kind of slipping away, and so I'm really just focused on trying to be where my feet are, be in this space, and I've been in a season of slow, a season of really just doing the things that I want and focusing on me, focusing on taking care of me in a different way, slower, with more compassion, and acceptance of the choices I am choosing, and acceptance of the fact that when we say yes to one thing, that means no to everything else.
Speaker 1:I am in this season of accepting me, accepting my choices, accepting the consequences of those choices Not good or bad, just the results of the choices I make. The energy I'm spending in different areas. I've always worked two jobs or worked full-time, while going to school always, always been hustling, and now I understand more. So I was surviving in constant overwhelm and stress and striving for more. It's never enough in urgency and so I'm in this season now of slowing down, of pressing pause on the hustle, and that means I'm not putting as much energy into things like building my business and I'm not offering workshops in this season. I'm showing up less on Instagram. I am still taking one-on-one coaching clients. That's kind of the one thing that I have reserved time for and leaving it at that for this season.
Speaker 1:I do have an underlying feeling of some kind of fear and discomfort with that. I'm not just like, oh, this is great, it's completely different than what I of fear and discomfort with that. I'm not. I'm not just like, oh, this is great, it's completely different than what I'm doing and it feels good. There is some fear and discomfort, and so I noticed that and and the feelings of you know, if I'm not doing all the things, all right now, I'm not going to accomplish the things. I'm not doing enough. I need to be working more, doing more, cramming as much as I can into my time. And then, you know, I pause and I breathe and I remind myself that seasons are temporary and that they are needed. We are not meant to be going full speed all the time. Uh, you know, aside from counter to what our culture and capitalism and extraction without consideration for our humanity tell us.
Speaker 1:So I'll stop here and I will let you listen to this conversation with Emily, all about our natural rhythms in the seasonality of life. I hope you enjoy. Cheers, cheers, what is up? Hello there. My name is jessica patching bunch, you can call me jpb and this is brain body resilience. This is a podcast dedicated to growth, human development and stressing a little bit less so you can go ahead and live a little bit more. Hello and welcome back to the Brain Body Resilience Podcast. I'm your host, jpb, and today I've got a special guest for you. I am joined by my wonderful friend, emily Reed. I think the first time I was introduced to you and your work was through your conversation on Shantae's podcast, and I loved it so much I think I started following you on Instagram and the rest is history. We met in LA and it was lovely. And here we are. Before we dive in, I'm going to hand this over to you to introduce yourself and your work and whatever ways you feel, whatever information you feel like is important for for the people to know.
Speaker 2:Well, hello, thanks for having me, love always being in the conversation with you and, uh, super excited to share with your audience. So my name is Emily Reed I use she and her pronouns and I am physically located out in Western Massachusetts, so the other side of the American multiverse from you. It's traditional Mohican land, and I describe myself as a yoga, meditation and wellness coach. What does that mean, or what does that look like? What do I actually do in my daily life? Well, I teach yoga classes, like postural classes Most people kind of have an idea of what that might look like but I also guide meditation.
Speaker 2:I also guide outdoor hikes at the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health, where I work part-time, and then I also do all that minus the hikes, but all that online, in addition to really working with clients one-on-one and in small groups for seasonal resets. And I take the Ayurvedic approach on things which we'll get into shortly, I'm sure. But yeah, I get a mixture of online and in person, one-on-one and group indoors, outdoors, like all of it. So it really fills me up to do what I do every day.
Speaker 1:I love that. I just love that. You love it. I want more of that in the world. I want more of that in the world. Thank you, I'm so happy you're here. So I have previously mentioned seasonality and changing with the seasons here on previous episodes and shared your info, but now you're here and I'm so excited to chat about some of these things that you introduced me to. That just makes so much sense and, I believe, help to take the pressure and blame and shame out of the equation for those of us that tend towards that. And there are a few things I want to touch on, but let's start with seasonality. Will you share with us what that means to you in the work that you do? Yes, um, so that's kind of a large, large question.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you want me to talk about seasonality and spirality, or are we going to get to spirality?
Speaker 1:Oh, I was. I was going to ask the difference after seasonality.
Speaker 2:So, um, seasonality is this idea that it's what we live, right? Is that wherever we are, both in our lives and in our environment, there are seasons. So it could literally be like winter, spring, summer and fall, and those have a rhythm. Every year they appear in some form, and some familiar form, right, and we have a way that we like to be in each of those seasons. We have a way that we like to maybe not be in those seasons, and each season presents some challenges to our nervous system, to our bodies, and each season also has some really great joys and wonderfulnesses. And so there's that, you know, annual seasonality. But then there's also seasonality in the sense of your day, your week, your month, take it even bigger and go to your life. You know, we spend the beginning of our lives in sort of this infant growth stage, and then we have this very active, participative stage when we're later in our twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, and then later on in life, we call it the wisdom years in Ayurveda. It's the season where you're kind of like essentially starting to. It's the season where you're kind of like essentially starting to. You know, I don't want to use the word wither, but it's just. Things aren't as luscious in your body. Systems don't work the same way that they did, just like. They don't work the same way as when we were 12, right.
Speaker 2:And so there are things that feel great to do in each of those seasons of life or seasons of the year, and there are things that are harder to do.
Speaker 2:Right, if you're going against the season, like right now as we're recording this, I'm looking out my window and there's snow outside and so this is a great time to go snow skiing.
Speaker 2:But in the summertime, if I'm dreaming of snow skiing, like it's really hard to do, right, that is something that people can probably get their minds around. But we can use that same idea, that idea of seasonality, and really relishing and delighting in the season that we're in in a way that feels helpful, comforting also, not just in the body but also to our nervous system, and then just knowing that it is a season nothing lasts forever and it's very likely that some variation of the seasons that you're in will come back around again in some similar way, but will always be different. So spring will come again, right, until it doesn't one day, but spring will come again for you and there will be things that are very familiar about that time of year and how you feel in it, and then it will always feel and look a little bit different at the same time. So that's a very brief introduction to seasonality, is that?
Speaker 1:helpful. I love everything that you just said. Until spring doesn't come again, are we talking about, like when we transition out of this world? Yeah, okay, in my head was like it could be that, or the fact that the weather is changing the fact that the weather is changing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I meant it in the sense of when we transition out of this human realm and this form. I cannot remember for the life of me what it was or who said it, but there was this really eloquent thing that I read a long time ago of like at a certain age. This man was in his eighties and he was like at a certain age. A certain age, this man was in his 80s and he was like at a certain age.
Speaker 1:I wonder how many springs I have left Right.
Speaker 2:So that's so beautiful. Yeah, because there's this sort of looking forward to spring after a winter.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I don't know because I'm not 80.
Speaker 1:So I have no idea what that's like, but I just imagine like, wow, just relishing in the, in the springs that are that are here just relishing in the springs that are here and that is such an incredible like that gave me chills, almost because we don't know and we take for granted. I think we get so lost in just the daily grind and the hustle and kind of the heavy things and forget to look at that and really I mean, none of us know how much time we have, if we'll make it to 80, that's such a. I think that's such a gift, which is another kind of strange thing that we don't really here in the States, culturally we don't appreciate and celebrate age, aging, and I think it's such a disservice and I think that creates a lot of other, just a trickle of issues. But but just with that perspective you gain, I think, so much more appreciation for the moment that you're in, because you don't know how many more you have, and so I want to enjoy this moment now and ideally I think that's how every moment should be, if we could.
Speaker 1:I think that's difficult for a lot of us because we spend a lot of time, you know, in our past or in our future, neither of which exists now, but the brain likes to tell stories and that's, and it takes us to all kinds of places that are not right here and now. So I really love that you touched on the things that feel great in each season. But we do focus on, like you said, if we're, if you're, focused on snow skiing in the summertime, you're not going to enjoy all of the pretty little things about summer and and yes, that's just being where our feet are in those seasons is, for me, it takes it takes much intention. Um, I think it is easier for some folks, which I want to talk a little bit more about why that might be later. We had previous conversations about that.
Speaker 1:So what I'm curious to know because it's something that came up for me when we were talking, when you were kind of going over seasonality is this tendency towards like productivity hacks that we see out there, and how to kind of be the equal measure of productive throughout the year, or how to keep it going in these seasons where you don't feel like it, or especially in wintertime, where you know you're in the Northeast, I'm in the Northwest and it's dark. It's dark a lot. I actually just got a therapy, one of those happy lights, the light therapy, which I sit with in the morning times like a lizard, and it's lovely, but it is just dark and it's cold, and seasonal affective disorder is a very real thing for a lot of folks, and yet we still try to do the same things in the same way throughout the year.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the culture scape. By the way, I love that word. The culture scape is really strong.
Speaker 1:Culture scape. I don't think I've ever heard that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know where it's from my husband was the one who introduced it to me but the culture scape right, this idea of like it's not just culture. It's also like it permeates, right. We think of culture as like oh, this thing that we're wearing, but it's really the environment that we're in.
Speaker 2:Not just the natural environment, but also layer in the cultural environment, which includes historical culture and not just like, oh, today it's 2023. And this is what is happening in pop music, like it's everything that's happened before us. But I digress. I think the culture scape is really strong, and part of that culture scape is this idea of go go go, especially if we live here in the United States, potentially also in Canada, although I'm not there, so I don't know and I love that you brought up this idea of productivity and sort of an even.
Speaker 2:It's almost like we feel that often people will feel that, living in this culture scape that we are in, that we have to have a certain level of energy, both throughout the day, but also from day to day, and that that energy level also matches some sort of level of productivity in terms of whether we're producing work, whatever your work is, work whatever your work is, and that work could be at home, you know, raising children and whatever activities they're involved in or you're involved in with them.
Speaker 2:And the truth is that I'm so glad you brought up seasonal infective disorder too, because, as much as I do believe that it is a thing, I also read an interesting perspective on it, which is is it really a disorder or is it that we are living out of the natural rhythm and so, by trying to maintain a rhythm that is artificial to the natural rhythm of both ourselves individually, but also as humans living in the natural world, that that really causes this schism, if you will, both mentally, emotionally, physically, in all the ways, because we're trying to live at a different pace, a different rhythm. I don't love the word pace all the time, but like it's really the rhythm. Right, because most of us would agree that there's a time to sleep and there's a time to be awake, right, and ideally the time to be awake is when the sun is up, and, depending on where you live, the sun is up for different amounts of time during the day, different times of year.
Speaker 2:And so in the wintertime, where you and I are living now, it's really a time where nature is like hey, you know, do less, mostly because if you didn't have artificial light, you have no other choice, right, you literally have no other choice. And summertime, which, culturally, we think of like, oh, there's a time to, you know, be away and go on vacation, like traditionally, that was like the busiest time of year because you were farming, you were canning, you were preserving, you like things were growing. You know and people who garden know this like the beginning of the gardening season is like, oh, this is great, and then by the end you're like, oh my God, everything is growing and it's overgrowing and I can't keep up with it, right? So, and, by the way, gardening and connecting with your local farmer, if you don't have your own garden, is a great way to get some more clues as to seasonality and how it affects you, because you connect more with the food and the actual growing cycles that are alive and well in your area. So, productivity, energy levels I love talking about energy levels because there are cycles and I think you've talked about this too of not just seasonally, the energy that we feel, but also from day to day each month, whether you menstruate or not, this is a thing. And also during the day, you know, we think of circadian rhythms. People really connect with that idea because they're like oh yeah, the sun goes up, I feel more energy, the sun goes down, I want to go to sleep. But your cells, every cell in your body, has both a circadian and 24 hour cycle. But many of them have an infradian cycle which is less than 24 hours. So some of them are four hour cycles. Like you pee more than once a day. Right, that is one of the cycles. That is infradian. Your hormonal cycles are also infradian and so to expect that just because you're awake you're going to be productive and when you're asleep you're not productive it's sort of this interesting disconnect in our culture scape brings to.
Speaker 2:To talk about seasonality and to talk about balance, um, with your environment and within yourself, which is affected by our environment, has been so helpful for me and my clients. To both give ourselves permission to be like oh right, this is what's going on. So there's a little bit, yes, confirmation bias, but like understanding the self, understanding the body, just like your brain. Fact Fridays I'm always like, oh yeah, my brain, that's how it works, right.
Speaker 2:But then also to see if maybe there's some room for making some shifts in either your daily schedule, your weekly schedule, either your daily schedule, your weekly schedule, your monthly schedule, your annual schedule. You know and it doesn't have to be these huge, grandiose things, it could be really small things that we do either to connect a little bit more with your own natural rhythm and or to refresh. And or to refresh, restore, rejuvenate, because you are living in a world that is sort of slightly out of sync with that natural rhythm of yours. And that's where those self-care practices like meditation and other things can be so helpful, not just because it's like, okay, great, now I'm good to go, good to go for what? To be more productive again right. Because it's like, okay, great, now I'm good to go.
Speaker 1:Good to go. For what? To be more productive again, right, I'm good to go as in, like I've recalibrated, because I'm asking myself to be productive in this way or to live in this particular way that is slightly out of sync with my own natural rhythm. I, I love everything. I love these conversations because I get so much out of them and I just appreciate everything that you just said and and I and I appreciate you, uh, adding your perspective on on how we feel in the seasons that has been called a disorder, because, yes, I've done a whole episode on diagnosis and what that means and how a lot of the things that we diagnose as disorder are just because our nervous system is dysregulated, we are not living in a natural way, we live in a very unnatural way, and so I really appreciate that because my I sometimes I have to I'm so steeped in in in a Western science lens and I still work within, within the sciences, and so sometimes I say those things even though they are not where my beliefs are, and so having that check is just to to take a moment to pause and reflect, like is the words that we use are really important, and and I absolutely, I agree 100% with everything you said about that. It is.
Speaker 1:I don't think it's a disorder and that's so much of what I want to communicate with my work is that you know, I don't think it's a disorder and that's so much of what I want to communicate with my work is that you know, we expect, like you said, our energy levels when they fluctuate, they just do throughout our days, throughout, just always, depending on what's going on and just naturally that's. We have those rhythms. But so many times, because we have these expectations in the culture scape which I love that I'm going to adopt, that I appreciate that we start to ask the question what's wrong with me? Why can't I keep up? I must have this disorder, I've been diagnosed with this disorder and I think that's a super complex issue. I have another episode on that that I'll I will link, um, but so many of those things, I do believe that it's not about what's wrong with us. It's about the way that the world expects us to be in it, um, in this time, and so I I really appreciate that.
Speaker 1:And and the words that you used around connecting with your natural rhythm, um, the reason for the those self-care tools not to fix yourself or not, to be able to go back and be productive. It's just to connect with your natural rhythm, to connect with yourself, and I want so much more of that in my life. You have this uh to me, in my perception of you, you have this incredible um, it seems like you were very much in rhythm and have a balance and a very calm. You have a very calm presence and I am, you know, I don't know what's happening inside of you and so, but that's the way that you present to me and I appreciate it so much.
Speaker 1:And I appreciate these things that you're sharing, because I talk about the things that I talk about, because I have so much, I experience a lot of anxiety. I experience you know, I've experienced a lot of trauma, there is a lot of stress, and so I'm very I'm well acquainted with these things and sometimes it feels very much like that and I don't know if y'all have ever been around a person that just feels, feels calm, but that's. But that's how you, that's how you seem to me. So I appreciate, I appreciate that, and you sharing all of these things just comes across in that way as well.
Speaker 2:You're welcome and thank you for that. Um, one of the things that I was just thinking about, too, when you remembered the idea around taking care of yourself, the self-care practices, not just for the sake of more productivity.
Speaker 2:In Ayurveda, we talk a lot about a daily routine and sometimes this is where people will get like, oh God, I need to do these certain things at a certain time and in a certain way just because Ayurveda or whatever, insert whatever you know wisdom or person here says so, and what I love about the Ayurvedic perspective is it's like, it's like this your morning routine, whatever that is for you, your morning routine really hopefully should prepare yourself and prepare your sense organs for your day right.
Speaker 2:So we have to digest everything that comes into our system, not just food, but what we see, smell, hear, taste, speak, you know all of it, what we sense in our skin.
Speaker 2:This is the way that we, as humans, interact with our surroundings and interact with our world, which is why we all have a very different experience, because our sense organs, you know, are going to have a different experience with the same environment from person to person. Experience with the same environment from person to person. You know there is some variation. And so this idea of preparing yourself for your day in whatever that day is going to hold for you, you know, if you're a nurse, it's preparing you for that, if you're a mother, it's preparing you for all that, that is. And then, at the end of the day and this is the part that a lot of us Westerners don't think about we think like, oh, get up, brush my teeth, you know, take a shower, that's my daily routine but then we forget that at the end of the day, after your whole day, your nervous system and your sense organs need to be refreshed to prepare not only like recover from the day, but prepare for sleep.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And it's the evening routine that people tend to be like oh, I'm just, my routine is to just veg out or turn on the TV, which stimulates your eyes, which have probably already been stimulated over, stimulated by lots of screen time and other things throughout the day, depending on your lifestyle, of course, and so I just love this idea of like, yeah, let me prepare for my day in the way that my system needs, so that I can handle and thrive and delight in all the things, whether they're to do lists or beautiful experiences that I engage in during the day, and then, as beautiful as some of them may be or as challenging as some of them may be, I need to refresh myself afterwards, yes, and in order to be able to sleep. And so that's all the things that happen during sleep. Magical things can help me. Then, you know, wake up and be ready for it all over again.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And so you know, it's not about self-care, like, oh, I need to do this or I need to meditate this way or for this amount of time. It's like, hey, what is it that you and your system need to prepare for your day? To refresh after your day, to prepare for your day, to refresh after your day, to prepare for sleep and that's going to vary a little bit from person to person and it's hard to know until you start trying. And that's where, as individual as we all are, some consistency around the experimentation of like trying things to see how it actually feels for you is really helpful. Yes, that can seem overwhelming, but really, if we I've I've found that it's helpful to look at it from this way.
Speaker 2:Instead of like, oh, I have to exercise for this amount of time, certain time of day and every day and you know that that can feel overwhelming it's like, why am I exercising? It's to prepare my body for the day. It's to actually wake up through that morning fog, because exercise, even 10 minutes, is so much more effective than coffee. I'm not saying give up your coffee, I'm saying you know to prepare, literally prepare yourself for your day in these ways. So that was another tidbit that I wanted to bring to the conversation.
Speaker 1:And to me it sounds a lot like nervous system hygiene, and that is preparing, yes, everything you said, preparing your nervous system, because our nervous system isn't attached to the outside world. Our senses translate all of that information, the millions of pieces of information every day, through our nervous system to create our experience. And so, yes, we have to prepare our senses to go out in the world or stay at home or just to go into the day and experience those things, and then there has to be some processing and releasing and preparing for the next part, which, again, yes, the sleep. And so many people who experience anxiety and hold a lot of stress have a really hard time sleeping, and I think that that is a huge piece, like you said, that is missing and yes, so so much yes On the, just the, the idea of self-care not being a. You know a thing I have to do this for this amount of time because this, you know a thing I have to do this for this amount of time because this, whoever said that? I, this is the magic trick, this is the magic hack and this is going to fix everything, and I think that we, and we have the way that our culture has shaped around healthcare and medicine in and speaking like throughout a Western lens, and then tell you what you need to be doing and prescribe how to fix yourself in this certain way. Follow these instructions that come from this expert and you will. You know, you'll be fine after that, which, however that goes it, may or may not be helpful. May not be helpful as opposed to us being autonomous creatures who have the ability to participate in creating our wellbeing, who have the ability to, through trial and error, try these practices.
Speaker 1:How does this meditation fit me? How does this movement feel to me? What is it that my body is asking for? And I think it comes back to that connecting with yourself and your natural rhythm and even having an awareness around that. I think that so many of us and I know for myself for so long, like I'm just learning to know what that means, to listen to my body, to even understand what that feels like and what that is, and it can be really overwhelming if you have practiced disconnecting from yourself for so long and ignoring yourself and your needs, something as simple as your body's telling you I have to, I have to go pee, and you're like, no, no, I'm going to finish this thing first, and we, we practice so frequently in just little ways like that, ignoring what our body's telling us until it's screaming through disease and sickness and whatever all these things that come up. And I just I think that's such a huge part also of the work that I do and people that I interact with, like yourself is reminding humans that we have the capacity to interact in our days and prepare ourselves, interact with our nervous system and our senses in a way that is useful, and it doesn't come from a prescription from outside of us that we have so much internal wisdom and we we need to learn how to tap into that and and just listen and be aware of what, what, what we need in this season, in this moment, with the energy that we have.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and to honor that. You know, I think. I think it's really easy to say like, oh, I'm sick, I'm going to honor that. I don't have the energy that I normally would to do whatever task is on my to-do list. So you kind of give yourself permission, or people give themselves permission, to not look at their to-do list when they're sick, but then your energy levels are going to vary throughout the day and throughout the year and throughout the month and throughout your life, and so honoring that and it can be really, let's say, it can be a little uncomfortable If you're one of the only ones in your family or circle or environment or workplace that is creating boundaries around these things to basically make sure that you are nourished and and held and fed in a way that works for you and your system.
Speaker 2:And they're not, you know, and so that's. I think that's why often, when people will enroll in like a yoga teacher training or some other kind of really intense training that ends up helping them get to know themselves better, that they end up like quitting their jobs or making these dress seemingly drastic choices and changes in life, life choice and path, because they're realized, they realize like, oh my gosh, this just doesn't fit for me, and that's okay when that happens, like can we be also be okay with that too? Three things came up when, when you were talking that I want to mention One is you mentioned Western doctors, and, and I have a lot of Western doctors that I appreciate and and respect, but I've started thinking of them more like coaches of like you know when, when, like I know a lot about what I know about, I know I don't know a lot about what I don't know about, and even in my own work, I have a coach or several, depending on the topic and the time who I go to when I kind of need a different perspective. Even if it's talking about this topic that I know something about, it's like all right, I didn't see that that way, or I didn't see this, how I could do this in my business that way, if it's a business coach, for example, and so I've started thinking of Western doctors or doctors in general as like hey, you're a coach, like maybe you can help me see something that I'm not seeing, but I'm not going to take your prescription and air quotes as solid gold, right, because they're working off just what their experience is, too, and what they've been taught and what they know, and that's all we're all doing.
Speaker 2:Yes, so why would that be any different? So I, I love this idea is like doctor as coach, instead of instead of gold or gold standard. And then you also mentioned this idea of like oh, when you're not listening to your system, and then it can present, prevent, excuse me, you're not in rhythm with your own natural rhythms, and then it can sometimes present as discomfort, disease, and I say dis-ease, right, you could say it quickly and call it disease, but like dis-ease, like discomfort, whatever that means in that moment.
Speaker 2:And my one of my mentors, kobe Kozlowski, who I love, she calls it the cosmic two by four. She says sometimes, you know, the universe is kind of tapping you on the shoulder and goes, hey, you're not taking care of yourself. And this is how I'm showing you like hey, tap, tap, tap on the shoulder, like you're still not listening. Like you mentioned the holding the P thing. Right, I have a client who used to work a very vigorous job and she would hold in her poop until one day the cosmic two by four showed up and it was like impaction and her touch in her colon. You know it's like. And then, after tapping you on the shoulder, that the universe picks up, the two by four goes whack because you're not listening.
Speaker 2:We think, we think things happen overnight. We're like, oh my God, all of a sudden they felt awful. It's like nothing happens overnight, nothing. There's that tap on your shoulder and often we can look at hindsight 2020, you know to come up with some clues. But I just love this idea of like the cosmic two before. Can we, can we listen to the tap on the shoulder that your, your body and your other clues might be giving you before the cosmic tube, before hits.
Speaker 1:I love that yes.
Speaker 2:And then another spiraling back to, or returning to conversation about the senses and the sense organs and how they're really the go between between your inner system and your environment. In Ayurveda, they say that there are three main causes of this disease, and one of them is misuse of the sense organs. And so that is why there's this primary importance in Ayurveda of lots of self-care practices around caring for your sense organs, because if you're misusing them, you need to refresh them right, which is not necessarily a reason to continue misusing them, but like how can you refresh, restore, rest and maintain the health of your sense organs in order to prevent?
Speaker 2:Ayurveda is a very preventive system prevent dis-ive system, and so it's why there's all these like self care things. And sometimes people will come to me and be like I don't, I can't do all the things, I don't have time for them. I'm like then don't you know, it's not about overwhelming your system just for the sake of caring for your system. And I find that sometimes, when people get introduced to these things and they understand why not just like, oh, I have to do this thing, it's like they understand the why. Then they can also tune in better to themselves as to what they need when, because not every self-care thing is appropriate all the time, Just like eating strawberries 365 days a year is not a great choice, right? So I think we tend to use logic in one area of our lives and not in another, and it's like no, we can share the logic across things.
Speaker 2:So yeah, the three main causes of disease, just because some people might be like. But what are the other two? So one is misuse of the sense organs. Another one is misuse of the intellect, or what we sometimes call crimes against wisdom, and this is the idea that like. So let's give an example Misuse of the sense organs might be like watching Netflix for 10 hours, right, your?
Speaker 1:eyes. Thank you, I was going to ask yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:Right, it's like that is not great for your eyes. Your eyes will be tired, in addition to some other things that might end up affecting your sleep, right, and we think like, oh, we do it once, not a big deal, but depending on who you are and how your system responds, like that might be a huge deal. And for 99% of the population, that does set them up for, like some, some being out of sync with their rhythm the next day. So if we take that same example and go, okay, how would we think about misuse of the intellect? Think about misuse of the intellect you could think of.
Speaker 2:Like it's 1030 at night and you've been watching an episode and there's another one You're like, but I got to get up in the morning I could watch another one, but I know I'm going to feel a certain way if I do, and then you do it anyway, right, and we're all guilty of this. I am like we do this all the time, not just with netflix, but we'll see many things, but it's it's not because somebody else thinks it's better than you. It's because when, when you know what's good for you, when you go against that anyway, which is kind of like going against your nervous system going again. It's like it's like I know my system, but no, I'm going to interrupt it. And it's okay if it's like I know my system, but no, I'm going to interrupt it. And it's okay if you make that conscious choice once in a while. But if you continually do that over and over again, then it can cause a lot of problems.
Speaker 1:Yes, and how. That one, I think, is just I know there's another one, but that is just. There's so much that that is. That's. That's a really deep, deep one for me, because so many of us just walk around in our days knowing that I, I am very aware of when I say the word should and I don't like it, but sometimes I don't have a better word I intuitively know that this thing is going to be good or bad, or I don't want this, or I do want this, and then we just talk ourselves out of it or into it, whichever way, and go against that, that internal wisdom and knowing, and I, I appreciate having that. Thank you, so what? And then what is the third?
Speaker 2:The third is things related to time or temporal factors, and this is where Ayurveda gets so connected with seasonality, especially seasonal eating. People connect Ayurveda with that, mostly in our culture. And time or temporal factors. It could be like too little time, it could be too much time. It's like what's the appropriate amount of time for a certain activity, whether it's Netflix or like if you're thinking of food and eating, like you know, if, if you don't leave enough time, like it's too little time between meals, that can cause problems. Or if you spend all day eating, like nonstop eating, that can be a problem too, right.
Speaker 2:It's also misuse of your sense organs. Thatstop eating that can be a problem too, right. It's also a misuse of your sense organs that the mouth, your mouth, needs a break, your taste buds needs a break. And so this idea of like also the right time for the right for certain things, right. Like eating strawberries when they're in season, that's a great time. But eating strawberries in November in New England, not the right time, and so that can cause problems because they're sour, they're not ripe, and that's not actually what you need right now because it's November. So you need, like, heavy soups and stews and all of that good stuff. So those are the three, according to Ayurveda, the three main causes of dis-ease.
Speaker 1:I love those. I'm so curious. I've always kind of had a curiosity for Ayurveda and never really. There's just always been so much other, so many other things to explore and I am so intrigued. I love, I do, I just appreciate the perspective so very much. And just what you said about you don't have to do all of the self-care. There's so many different ways that you can care for yourself and care for your nervous system. You don't have to do them all at once. Which one is?
Speaker 2:needed right now Please don't.
Speaker 1:They're not all needed all day, every day, and it's about learning which one. I have this tool bag with all of these tools that I can use. Which one is going to be useful right now. If I need to screw something in, I don't grab a hammer and that's that's what we need to use. And so many times I hear you know people's like can you just give me the exact thing that I need to do at this time when I'm feeling like this? It's like I don't know. I can't do that for you because I don't know. It depends, and you have to create that.
Speaker 1:You have to try on a few of these tools and see which one genuinely helps you the most. Like I know that these are going to affect your physiology. I know that these are going to calm your mind. I know that these are great practices in general, but what you need in that moment I cannot tell you, and something is always better than than nothing. Try something. Maybe it works great. Maybe you understand that in this moment, this is not what I need and I need to try something else. It's not that it didn't work or these things don't work for me. It's that this is not what I need right now. So how do I find what I do need? Which of these tools can I pick up? How do I find what I do need, which of these tools can I pick up? And learning. And we have to do that until we have an understanding that, when I am feeling this way, usually this is the thing that helps me.
Speaker 2:And it's always going to be evolving right.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Yes, my father-in-law, who is now 81, but a couple of years ago he was turning 80. And I, on his birthday, I said happy birthday, how does it feel to be 80? And he said I'm just learning how to be 80. Like, I'm just learning how to be myself every day. And I love this idea of like, yeah, we're just learning how to be ourselves. Yes, we can, we're not brand spanking new to the game, so we have some information that we can, you know, feed into our system to make some choices. And we are also still learning, which I think is beautiful yeah.
Speaker 1:Yes, and that is and that is such a nice segue into um, my next note that I have here for you, um, and and for me. That brought up the the idea that so many times just I don't know how many times I've said to myself previously and and how many times I've heard people say like, oh God, I should know this, I should know this thing, I should know how to do this by now, I should have my shit together by now, which is not a nice thing to say to yourself and, um, how do you? How do you know? This is the first time you've ever been in this exact space and time as this version of yourself.
Speaker 1:You don't know, you shouldn't know anything. You're, you were. We're just learning how to do this this moment, because this moment is new and our brains are always changing. The world is always changing around us, which means that we learn new mental skills as we go to help us respond in the moment, and then we get to take those onto the next state of life and the next moment to try them on and see if it's useful there. And that kind of makes me think about spirality, and I want you to explain what that is and how it's different from seasonality.
Speaker 2:So if we think of the seasons, like winter, it falls by spring, and then there's summer and then there's fall and then we're back in winter again, some people will think of it as like a visual of a circle. And there are so many circles in nature and in life. And just since I mentioned my father-in-law, he is native and so he would say, oh you, white people draw straight lines, like nature doesn't have any straight lines. And so here's this idea of like you as nature, as a human body, as a human being, there are no straight lines here. And so this idea that we have to then also create a life that is in a direction of a straight line, and culturally the culture scape says that line should be at a slight diagonal, going up right, improving and getting better with time. Right, it was really artificial and that what really life feels like is a little bit more like the bumblebee trajectory, which is a spiral that, even though I've experienced winter before or I've experienced spring before, it don't always like to consider it forward movement, because culturally that's such a concept that I realized that is very much ingrained in me, especially as a white person like, okay, that's how things go, but it's really more of a spiral of like.
Speaker 2:We're moving, but we're not always like back in the same place every time. We are really in a different place each time, even though the surroundings feel familiar, the environment may feel familiar, our bodies might feel familiar in certain seasons or places like literally like a place that you've been to many times. You might be like, oh, I know what I'm doing here. Just like you might be like, oh, I know what I'm doing here. Winter, hello again. Um, just like you might be like oh, I know what I'm doing here. Winter, hello again. And it's both. And right, it's, it's that. And there's also it's a slightly different experience every time, and so you know more about this than I do, actually, when it comes to the brain, but my understanding is that the brain helps us by creating some shortcuts of the things that we need to remember every day.
Speaker 2:And the things that we need to remember every day and the things that we don't need to remember kind of get put behind there. It's not that we don't ever have them or never had faculty of them, it's just we don't have enough space to remember how to compute algorithms if we don't need to use them every day, right or whatever. It is Calculus I hated calculus. It was so hard. Don't need my calculus every day, so I've forgotten it right. In the yoga philosophy, we also have this idea of rahasya, which is the remembering. It's like, for everything that we learn, something gets pushed behind that we don't really have access to, pushed behind that we don't really have access to, and so, instead of beating ourselves up when we're like I should have known that it's like oh, I'm remembering, like of the remembering is, can be part of your experience in life, can be part of the delight of oh my God, I remember you spring.
Speaker 2:or oh my God, I remember you how you move arm or leg or whatever you know it is. Or I remember, like for me, I just started taking ballet classes. I did ballet for years, growing up, but it's been 26 years since I've put on a leotard and I've been putting on a leotard once a week and I tell you just that when I put, just putting on the leotard, it was almost like this visceral memory of all the ballet that was ever done in my body. I don't have specific ballet memories. I mean I know and I remember certain moments, but it's not like I remember my body moving in these certain shapes. But when I put that leotard on it was like it all came back.
Speaker 1:That's amazing.
Speaker 2:I'm expressing it that way in the beauty of whatever my former self used to be able to do now. But it's so fun, like the remembering is such a joyful thing, and just know that in the remembering meaning something's coming forward, something else gets not remembered, gets put away.
Speaker 1:I love that.
Speaker 2:Instead of beating yourself up for it, like, oh, what am I going to remember today? What am I going to discover today which also could be like what am I going to forget today?
Speaker 2:Lots of things probably some good, yeah, hopefully lots of things. That's how things work. We want to not remember all the things, right, and we don't need to, so I wanted to throw that in as part of the spirality of like. It's not just like, oh, we're back in winter, and there's this spiral of the seasons of the year. There's also these bigger spirals of life, right, like you and me, as form has happened before.
Speaker 2:Right, we are not the first ones to be where we are in our lives and doing the things and being this age and experiencing some of these things, and yet we're also doing it in our lives and doing the things and being this age and experiencing some of these things, and yet we're also doing it in our own way. So it is new. And then there are these like bigger spirals of humanity, right, these larger cycles of multi years or generational spirals of ideas coming back around, like we think of, like styles. We're like, oh, yeah, we did the cutoff belly crop thing when I was, you know, in the eighties. Like, oh, it's back. Right, these things keep coming back around and that's okay. They're not the same every time, and neither are you, which is why I can't wear a belly crop, and neither are you, which is why I can't wear a belly crop. I just choose not to.
Speaker 1:It's not, it was a thing when I was of a certain age, but I'm like I don't really know, I'm not in the same space anymore.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so celebrating that, just be like. I don't have a memory of 1982. I was alive then, but I was young. I don't have a memory of 1982, right, so I have no longing or attachment to that experience in my life. It's only when we long for and are somehow connected to some experience that we're like, oh, I just wish, and that's okay.
Speaker 1:That signifies connection, and how awesome that you remembered that, that it returned to your awareness in some way, and yeah that is such a beautiful, beautiful perspective and I am so glad you shared that with us, because that is you know, I say a lot that the source of so much of our stress is wanting for something to be other than it is right now, wanting to resist what actually is, and I think so much of that is longing for something, a time, a situation, maybe a loved one that has been lost. Lots of things in life that we can long for, but the idea of celebrating instead celebrating the remembering, I think that's such a beautiful, beautiful perspective, thank you.
Speaker 2:You're welcome. Yeah, and there's always. There's usually some bitter sweetness attached to the remembering and so being okay with the fact that that signifies some connection, some yeah, I like that word connection. There's a great book called Bittersweet. She talks about that and a lot of other things in there. It's really wonderful. I can't remember the author off the top of my head, but it's called Bittersweet and it's. It's one of those books. I just wanted to underline every, everything.
Speaker 1:I love that, yeah, and I think that, yes, I was trying to remember the word you said, the connection. It, the remembering of the connection to that time, to that place, to that memory, to that experience, to that person, and again being okay and this and I talk a lot about this too just being okay with the feelings that don't feel great, like we think that they should. We celebrate so much the happy, joy, excitement, whatever else I'm admittedly, my vocabulary on feelings is very limited. That's something I'm working on right now. But the ones that create a little discomfort or give us the sadness, the grief, even anger, these aren't bad emotions. Emotions are not bad, they just exist, they just are.
Speaker 1:And I think we tend to want to push those away and only hold on to the ones that are more acceptable, happy, the ones that we approve of, only hold on to the ones that are more acceptable, happy, the ones that we approve of. And so many times, like you said, the bittersweet it's not, it is both, it's both and and, allowing for that complexity to exist. Because we are complex creatures, humans, we hold multitudes all at once, and it's not rarely is it one emotion, one thing at one time. There's so much involved and intertwined and separating. Trying to unravel that and piece it apart and partition those pieces of ourselves just detracts from what a beautiful, complex experience life is, and the grief and the pain and the sorrow and the sadness sometimes is just part of what makes it. You're alive and you're feeling those things and that is beautiful.
Speaker 1:I think sometimes that's really hard to, it's hard to remember, hard to have that perspective and complexity is something that I just in the past maybe five years, learned to allow because it exists, just to recognize and allow that all of these things can exist at the same time and that's so freeing and it allows for so much expanse expansion within myself, my life, my, what it is that I'm allowing. I guess, um, which I don't know if that allowing myself to acknowledge because whether we'd want to allow it or not, things exist, yeah, I like that word and I also like I often use the word welcoming.
Speaker 2:Like can you welcome whatever emerges?
Speaker 1:Yes, Thank you. I love that. Yeah, so allowing feels like oh my God, I have to just let it get out of control.
Speaker 2:You know, can sometimes have a I love that, yeah, so allowing feels like, oh my God, I have to just let it get out of control. You know, can sometimes have a little bit of that. It's like, oh hi, that's the part of me that you want today, which is why, when we have, you know, every winter.
Speaker 2:Different parts of us showed up that winter. So we have a different experience. You know, just like when you go to the dinner table, different parts of you are going to show up and I think yes, welcoming that Other parts yeah.
Speaker 1:That's beautiful. I really enjoy that. And yes, and understanding that those bittersweet experiences, they're not any less because they contain complexity and multiple feelings and the bitter does not make it less sweet, it's just an additional flavor. And I think welcoming that feeling is, I think it can just open up, open up a whole, whole different piece of world. It can open up worlds that that you may not have been able to see before. I think in in the way that our perspectives are shaped.
Speaker 2:You could have.
Speaker 2:You know, your entire meditation practice could just be like wake up every day and be like I welcome myself here, like I welcome me, I welcome whatever emotions and thoughts and sensations that are are emerging Right Cause it's never just like what's present, it's like it's constantly emerging.
Speaker 2:I think we, at least in our culture scape and I can only speak for me because this is the culture I live in, so I don't know about other cultures we think of like we need to attain something that is a still point or balances, something that's even and doesn't move and doesn't change, or or like that line I was talking about that's constantly going upwards and forwards. It's like that's not how the natural world works and we are nature. So then can you embrace whatever is emerging and can you, on a regular basis, just welcome yourself here's like like you would a guest. It's like all right appears like like you would a guest, it's like all right, who showed up today, like what, what's here? And honoring that. There's a rhythm to that too, because when you tune in every day, you might notice like oh, this is what's emerging for me lately, and then nothing lasts forever, so it can and will change at some point.
Speaker 1:So let me, let me ask you this If I for someone who who sits down and and tries to you know, welcome, can I, can I welcome myself? I welcome all of these people, but it's not. They're not in a space where that is true for them and in a genuine feeling that they are able to welcome those pieces.
Speaker 2:If it's, if the word welcoming is is hard, then you could allow, you could, uh, acknowledge. I think often for us, just feeling acknowledged can be so powerful, and so that's a gift that you can give yourself, right? And, and there's so many parts of you inside. They're like, hey, remember me, like hi, over here, you forgot about me. And then we're just like trucking along trying to do this other thing, and but then when we're in a group or in a family or in whatever relationship, we're like, hey, remember me over here.
Speaker 2:And we can, we can also give that to ourselves by by just spending a few moments, enjoying a few moments of like, hey, just checking in who, who showed up or what showed up. Right, if it's an emotion, if you're thinking emotions and sometimes for me that practice looks like, oh, I welcome myself here. And then if I'm feeling like an emotion, I'm like, oh, I welcome the tired in me, I welcome the person that's excited for the day, I welcome the one that's like dreading that meeting and I welcome you know, and it's totally normal, especially at the beginning of the day, for you to kind of be rehearsing your day at the same time, and so, yeah, that could be what you do for a few minutes and that by itself can be very refreshing, restorative, rejuvenating of like all right, everything has been welcomed. I think I'm good for now, until you do it again sometime.
Speaker 1:I love that, and you might hear the beeping of construction vehicles outside my window.
Speaker 1:I don't know if that's coming through on the recording, but there's a lot of ruckus outside. I very much appreciate that and I think that what came to my mind is, I think that that is, we have this narrative in our, in our culture scape. I'm so grateful for that, for that phrase. I really appreciate that. Um, but we have this, this narrative that we should be all these things and this is where we get that that shooting ourselves, not accepting what, what just exists, and welcoming what exists, what you know, allowing whatever it is in the moment, but that we shouldn't be tired, we shouldn't be dreading our meeting. I think that's another thing if you're dreading it, but we should be whatever it is.
Speaker 1:You think that your day should look like that, you should look like that, your energy levels should look like that, your capacity for that day should look like, according to whatever your neighbor's doing, or this person on social media is doing and says we all have the same 24 hours and you just have to follow this magic routine and you'll feel this way too, and I think so much. That is just the recognition of all of these pieces of yourself that are like hey, I'm tired and saying like, okay, I, whether again, yes, whether it is. I just I see that part, I welcome that part, I allow that, whatever, however that feels in the day, but just that recognition, I think that is like you said, is so important, because there are all of these pieces to us that are like, hey, come here and we're like, nope, I'm over here, I got this thing to do. There's always something to do. I've got kids, I've got grocery shopping, I've got my job, I've got you know whatever it is we're trying to do.
Speaker 1:And so taking that moment just to sit there and say, I see you, if we think about what love is and we, you know how we show up for other people with our attention, do we give that to ourselves? Do we give ourselves attention? Do we give that to ourselves? Do we give ourselves attention? And I think for a lot of us the answer is no.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it doesn't have to be like this whole sit down for 20 minutes thing. It can just be like a few minutes eyes open. Whatever I like to do it, I'm still in bed, like waiting for the second alarm to go off. I call it my snooze button meditation. It's like for me that works, for you it might be somewhere something else.
Speaker 2:And within that too, I think we often forget to honor the rebel, and my meditation teacher, lauren Roche, talks about this a lot Like honor the rebel, the one that doesn't want to get up, the one that doesn't want to do the thing, the one that doesn't want to do the meditation, or the one that doesn't want to do the meditation, or the one that doesn't want to do the self care, that doesn't really give two roots about whatever. This is that the PTA meeting is taught, whatever. And to really honor that rebel inside of you in different moments, because you can show up in multiple parts of you at the same time. And if you're like, okay, I honor the tired and I honored the, the one that's kind of looking forward to it, and it's like what about the rebel man?
Speaker 1:Yeah, she or he or they, just they're part of this too and um, instead of just jumping to the shame and like I shouldn't feel like that, you should, yes, honor that part. That is like no dude, this is not what I want. That doesn't mean we're not going to do it. I don't want to go to work. I honor that. And now we're still going to go to work. But how is that different from dismissing ourselves? I guess, because what just went through my head is sometimes we have to honor that space, like in that example. I don't want to go to work every day, um, and I honor that. I feel maybe I'm like do I know? I have questions? I'm going to, I'm going to be more intentional about that. But sometimes you have to honor something and it doesn't mean that you, you still have to do that thing.
Speaker 2:Um, thoughts on that yeah, I think that sometimes, when we acknowledge the rebel in us and whatever that moment might be whether your your example of work, um it it maybe feels easier to then be show up a little bit more authentically in whatever you decide to then do. Right, because I know for me there have been moments in my life where it's like I don't want to go to work. Okay, fine, I guess I'm not right. It might become a problem if that becomes more of the mo, and then maybe it's that your work isn't really for you, and then right, like the yoga teacher training that then sparks all kinds of different paths, more of the mo. And then maybe it's that your work isn't really for you, and then right, like the yoga teacher training that then sparks all kinds of different paths.
Speaker 2:Um, but I think sometimes it says we just don't listen or don't acknowledge that those pieces of us and it doesn't have to just be the rebel that we're talking about. It could be the angry one, you know, or the passionate one, the one that's like so angry about something related to justice in the world and trying to figure out a way to create something out of that. By create I mean, like creativity could be. A lot of things could be showing up in different ways. Or, in your case, in this example, right, the rebel that doesn't want to go to work, because then there's also, simultaneously, the part of us different parts of us that show up, that go, yeah, and I really want to go on that ski trip and I'm looking forward to my paycheck, you know. So there are other things in there. There's not just the rebel, but if the rebel is strong enough, you won't go to work that day, right?
Speaker 1:So sometimes just the acknowledgement.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think sometimes that could by itself can be really helpful. It doesn't mean you're dismissing it. I think sometimes it's a way to almost give the rebel what they want, which is to be heard.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:If we take the really terrible classic example of like the kid in school who's always acting out, it's like that's, there's a part of you and I inside of us. It's like no, I don't want to do it this way and, and you know, sometimes it's just attention you mentioned attention and I in inside of the word attention and I get this a lot from my meditation teacher, lauren Roche, because he's a lover of words and Sanskrit, which is the language of yoga. Is this word tend? It's not just attention like focus, concentration kind of attention, it's like the tending to the tenderness kind of attention.
Speaker 1:I love that.
Speaker 2:Oh, rebel, like you showed up today, like, oh, oh, I know you really just don't want to go to work. Like, oh, okay, yeah, let's just have a moment, you know. And then sometimes for me, then I feel like I'm, I'm Nicolas Cage and gone, gone in 60 seconds, where I'm like, just a minute, okay, let's go. Like you know, like you know what I'm talking about, that scene where he's like, and everybody stops because they're like, oh no, what is he going to do? Or say we're not going to go through with this? And it's like no, just like, give me a second, all right, this. And it's like no, just like, give me a second.
Speaker 1:All right, I just need to pause. Yes, and I love that you bring up that. Um, just the example of the kid who's acting out because that child needs something. Why are they acting out? They need something tended to, they need care, they need attention, they need there is a reason they're asking for something, without maybe having the vocabulary to articulate or the space, or there's a lot of reasons, um, and we all have that piece, and so it is when we're, when we're tending to ourselves, when we're acknowledging that, like, okay, what is needed, what, how do I need to care for myself in this moment? And coming back for that, to that, you know, not all, not all of the tools, the self-care tools, are going to be appropriate in that moment. Not all of them are what you need. So we have to have this tool bag of, okay, what, what can I pick from? To try on to see, like, what is needed in this moment, what is going to be useful now? I, I really like that. Um, I am aware of the time. This time has come by so quickly. I love our conversations. I was.
Speaker 1:I wanted to ask, uh, about meditation. I feel like that is a whole other episode. So maybe, if you're willing, we'll do this again. Um, I want to wrap this up, but I do just want to ask, because I know that, uh, I have an. I I'm not a meditation teacher. I have an idea. I do meditate, I have ideas about what, uh, from more of a kind of brain and attention lens, what meditation means to me. Uh, I guess I just want to know, from your perspective, is there a right way or a wrong way to meditate?
Speaker 2:The short answer is yes.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:But it depends on you, I think, when we think of, is there a wrong way to meditate? It's not a technique that you can name. It's an approach that might not work for your rhythm. It might not be like if you're someone who lives in the world a certain way and then you try to like box yourself in in your meditation technique. That isn't going to work, it's not going to give you the benefits and the restorative, regenerative benefits of that time, but it might also actually like quash your, your whole being.
Speaker 2:You know and I think that there there's a lot of that out there in meditation of like, oh, it needs to be this certain way. And how many of us are like you tell me how to do. But then, when it comes to something like meditation, I'm like okay, guru, I'll follow whatever your instructions are, because I think that will help me to enlightenment. It's like so there is just like finding your connecting with your natural rhythm and daily life. I think your meditation can also help you with that. It can help you both strengthen and also maybe discover your rhythm and strengthen your sense of sovereignty.
Speaker 2:You know that you are in choice and in charge always, and that is both freedom but also can be scary, because in order to do that, you have to start with freedom in your meditation technique, and so many of the beautiful techniques that we've gotten from the monastic traditions are very like you 16 year old boy who want to be a monk. You must sit quietly, you must not think about anything else and you must quash all your desires. It's like, yeah, that 16 year old boy who want to be a monk. You must sit quietly, you must not think about anything else and you must quash all your desires. It's like, yeah, that 16 year old boy, what else would I mean? What's a, what's a normal 16 year old boy going to be doing?
Speaker 2:Not that not that Right. So of course they had to come up with ways to like stop that from happening, because that was a different path. The rest of us are living in the world.
Speaker 2:We're intimate with other beings, with our environment, and so it's very possible that some of those approaches you can still use, some of the like ways of attention or tenderness right, not just attention focus, but tenderness or mantras or different things. But maybe the approach is needs to be a little bit different depending on you, depending on your nature. And so some people can't sit while they meditate and then trying to force themselves to sit doesn't isn't helpful, right? So, yes, there are great ways to meditate and yes, I think there are wrong ways to meditate, but I don't know that.
Speaker 2:To say these are in this camp for you, right, it's part of the discovery process that you go through, and I think that, again, it's like the joy of remembering, it's like, oh yeah, these are the things that I love, these are the things that calm my nervous system. My meditation teacher, lauren, would these are the things that I love, these are the things that calm my nervous system. My meditation teacher, lauren, would say that the things that we call meditation techniques are really just codifying all the ways that our nervous system can chill the fuck out.
Speaker 2:It's like all the different ways like looking at the sunset holding your baby you know, if you're a mom, like rocking your baby, perhaps yes your dog. All these things are totally natural and instinctive to humans, and so can we. You can do them naturally, but you can also use them as as a doorway into meditation. Also use them as as a doorway into meditation, um, and so finding the things that work for you is, I think, part of the fun process with with meditation.
Speaker 1:Um, and I love that. I think that that I mean from everything that we've talked about today. It is that last part there is is my biggest takeaway is connecting with your natural rhythms and finding what works for you in this part of your season, and I I love that perspective. I'm so grateful for you coming to share it. Um, I do want to wrap this up. We're over an hour, but, uh, if there was, if there was one takeaway or anything additional that you want to leave and I know sometimes it's like, oh, now I'm on the spot. If there's not, that's okay too, but do you have anything you want to say to the people?
Speaker 2:Do I have anything I want to say to the people? Just really, it's about trusting yourself. Activities, people, environments that foster that trust is one of the great journeys and, I think, joys in life. You know, like our friend Shante, totally not a winter fan. She's like I'm getting up moving to LA, right, she has created more of an environment and, yes, there's some privilege that comes along with that. That she also acknowledges flat out, um, but you know, surrounding yourself with people engaging in activities that really help foster your own sense of trust in yourself, yes, I think are again, it's like the greatest journey and joy of of being a human, and so I think that's a beautiful place to leave this.
Speaker 2:Um, tell us where we can find you, so I'm online on my website is seasonalintentionscom, and I'm on Instagram as well at seasonalintentions underscore, and if you're listening to this and you want to follow me along, like, send me a DM. Let me know that you heard this episode and I always love connecting with people as close to in person as we can. So actually you know, having a conversation whether it was something that struck you in this awesome, Whether it was something that struck you in this awesome, or if you want to tell me what your astrological sun sign is, we can always have a lovely conversation about astrology too.
Speaker 1:I know that was something that we also left out of this. We'll have to do this again because there's so much.
Speaker 2:There's so much left.
Speaker 1:There's so much, okay. Well, I want to say thank you to everyone listening. I am so grateful for your time and attention. You know I don't take that for granted. Those are some of the most precious of our resources. If you enjoyed this episode, please do share it with someone who can also enjoy it and benefit from it. Until next time, I wish you the most beautiful week, jpb and Emily out.