An Intro To Yoga Philosophy with Alex: Aka when Rory takes over the Pod

In this episode of Sober Yoga Girl Podcast, Rory Kinsella takes over the pod! He interviews Alex on yoga philosophy, and she does a basic intro into the yama & niyama - which are the starting point for a lot of beginning yoga philosophy students. In the episode we talk about our upcoming programs:

• Our May 25 - 31 Bali Sober Yoga/Meditation Retreat: We have a couple rooms left which you can book onto here! https://www.wisemonkeyway.com/a/2147781106/wGVhfYH8
• In July 2025 Rory will be teaching Vedic Meditation with Alex on the 200 Hour YTT. We have a few spots left in the 200 Hour YTT - join us! https://www.themindfullifepractice.com/bali-200-hour
• We also talk about my Yoga Sutra Study course that I teach online - next cohort starts this week! You can sign up here. https://www.themindfullifepractice.com/yoga-sutra-study

Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hi friend, this is Alex McGrobs, founder of the Mindful Life Practice, and you're listening to the Sober Yoga Girl podcast. I'm a Canadian who moved across the world to the Middle East at age 23, and I never went back. I got sober in 2019 and I now live full-time in Bali, Indonesia. I've made it my mission to help other women around the world stop drinking, start yoga, and change their lives through my online sober girls yoga community. You're not alone, and a sober life can be fun and fulfilling. Let me show you how.

SPEAKER_00 0:31

Hello and welcome to the Sober Yoga Girl podcast. And you may notice that this is not Alexandra speaking. This is a special takeover edition where we're turning the tables on Alexandra. My name is Rory Kinsella. So I um am a Vedic meditation teacher and sober coach. And some of you may know that I've run a retreat with Alex last September in Bali, and we're running another one in May. So partly to celebrate our upcoming retreat, we wanted to get together. And yeah, take Alexandra out of the hot seat, well, out of the questioner seat, and put her under the spotlight. And I'm gonna ask her today about yoga philosophy. So this is something that I've been really interested in since working with Alex, and I'm also doing her her Yoga Sutras course at the moment. So I thought it'd be a good opportunity to bust some myths about yoga philosophy, which I know lots of people get confused about. But yeah, welcome to my show, Alexandra.

SPEAKER_02 1:39

Thank you for asking me.

SPEAKER_00 1:42

If you'd like to introduce yourself, I love that.

SPEAKER_02 1:45

Yes, yeah, I'm Alexandra. Um, I love how you interchangeably called me Alexandra and Alex. A lot of people do that.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

Um learning.

SPEAKER_02 1:55

I get it. It's totally cool.

SPEAKER_01 1:56

And I appreciate the effort. I've just uh recently transitioned into my full name. Um and but I accept both names from from people that knew me before. And uh yeah, I'm a I'm a yoga teacher. Um, I'm also sober coach. I have been teaching yoga for 11 years and sober for six years, and um I love doing this work, supporting people in recovery through yoga philosophy.

SPEAKER_00 2:25

Well, yeah, great. So, how about um I I'm guessing that people listeners to this podcast know about your journey with with yoga asana. I know it's covered um in your book, but maybe talk about when you when you discovered the wider aspects of yoga beyond beyond the mat, if you'd like to talk a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_01 2:48

Uh absolutely. So um my initial discovery of it was pretty early on. So I started, I did a few yoga programs when I was like a child and teenager, but my initial, the first time I ever remember seeing the Yama and Niama or Yama and Niyam was when I did a 30-day yoga challenge when I was 18 years old, and we got a little pamphlet about the 30-day challenge. And it said it was like basically tips on how to sustain through the challenge. And then it just listed the yam and niyam. And I was like, um, kind of what are these things? And I got so interested and curious, and they became a really helpful tool for me when coming to crossroads of like, what should I do in this moment? How should I behave? Right. And so I'll start with like, I'll just kind of introduce the basic, I'll start with the yam. So there's five yam, ahimsa, which is non-violence, satya, which is truth, asteya, which is non-stealing, brahmacharya, which is moderation, um, and then alpari graha, which is letting go. And so those are like the first kind of foundational tools. And I started using them as like a framework for uh when I was like, how should I behave in this moment? I would turn to that chunk of sutras. And I think I don't know if I knew they were from the sutras. I don't know if I knew the context. I just was introduced to them and I became obsessed with them. I must have not known they were from the sutras, or else I would have started studying the bigger text, I think, if I knew that there was more. So the one thing I want to add though, as I'm mentioning that, is that I think I problematically practice them for a period of time, just in the sense that I use them as a way to like judge myself. And I think that's really important because people will use them as a way to judge themselves and judge others, not realizing they're doing it. Right. And like, so I would, for example, I would catch myself over-exaggerating, be like, oh my God, oh my God, I'm a liar, I lied, I lied, I'm not a yoga student, you know. Um, and that's not really the point, right? The point is not supposed to be like reprimanding yourself. The point is to catch yourself and be like, oh, this behavior is not in line with um with who I want to be. And then you just like pull yourself back and you're like, actually, this is the truth, you know? And that's really what this framework is for. And so that became like a wonderful guidance for me. And then I've talked about this book a lot, but I picked up Rolf Gates' book and Meditations from the Mat um is a next great next level book. I would say that I think I would have to look through it again and see what it covers, but I don't think it covers the entire, it definitely doesn't cover the entire Yoga Sutras again, which is fine because the entire Yoga Sutras is massive and it gives you the tools that you need as a functioning householder, like a functioning person in the modern world, which tools are relevant, which are not. Like it's probably not relevant that you know a yogi in ancient India could make themselves invisible, right? But like what's relevant is that you should tell the truth. Um, and so Rolf does a really excellent job of kind of diluting and synthesizing like what's the most important thing and how can I make this understandable and applicable to um a um an individual reading this in whatever year he wrote it, maybe I think it was like 2003. So it went 20 years ago now at this point. So I started leading yoga teacher trainings, and that was when I really started teaching this philosophy in a bit more in depth because it's a big part of the 200-hour YTT. And then the 300-hour YTT, I don't know where I got this idea to put in 100-hour yoga sutra study, but it's so interesting because that yoga sutra study course was actually originally and still is a part of my advanced training, but a lot of people just do it as a standalone. I would say majority of people do it as a standalone. And um this course, teaching this course was life-changing for me. Firstly, I will admit this, I had no idea what the F I was doing when I launched it. I did not know what I was doing. I I thought I knew because I had read meditations from the Matt. I thought I knew the Yoga Sutras. And I have been learning as I teach, and I'm still learning as I teach. And I say to all the students, they get like a 250-page document, and I'm like, do not make a copy of this, do not print it, because I am chain, I'm literally live editing it every day as I go, as my understandings evolve. And I look back at some of the things I wrote. The first things I wrote for that were in 2022, and I look back on some of the stuff and I'm like, that is totally wrong. Like, that is off the mark. Or I might teach something with presumption that I know exactly what it is, and now I've seen many perspectives on the thing, and I'm able to say, here's the many things this could be talking about, right? Like this morning we talked a bit about this sutra on meditating on dreaming. And I'm like, this could literally be so many things. This could be lucid dreaming, this could be reflecting on your dreams, this could be sleeping without thought. It could be the and multiple people say it's all these things, and you can just decide, you know, what relates for you. And so that is like kind of what I do now. And I'm actually working on a recovery program right now that is um kind of pulling out the most important parts again so that it can be really useful to someone who's in immediate recovery. Originally it was supposed to be for someone in addiction. Now, with what I've recently like the trauma I've recently experienced, it's just like it's gonna be a program for people in recovery from anything and how these yoga tools can um can help them along the way.

SPEAKER_00 8:21

Yeah, great. Um, so so many, so many interesting things in that. I have got meditations on the mat. I've got it in my bathroom on my bath mat. And I think in it he talks about so sutra, it can mean thread. And one of the reasons, one of the translations of that he says is that it's a thread that because these a lot of from from doing the course with you, a lot of these sutras, they're a bit um ambiguous or short, so they're threads that you can then weave your own, the the teacher can weave their own story on top of, like you were saying with the lucid dreaming, you can take any it's basically saying dreaming is a thing that is useful or an important part of life, and here's your here's your um here's your kind of lead-in to talk about that. But um, I also wanted to talk about that clarification you made about not using it as ways to judge yourself, and I think someone on our last retreat mentioned this when when you were talking about the yam and niyam, how some of them sound a bit like Ten Commandments, like thou shalt not do this. Um and and and is that is that something that is is that embedded, is is your view on it embedded in the sutras, i.e. don't be harsh on yourself, or or is that kind of in them?

SPEAKER_01 9:49

Yeah, great question. So there's two sutras in the introduction of the yam and niyam, and I don't know remember the exact Sanskrit, but one of them says, We make a great vow to practice the Yam and Niyam in all types of birth at all times, in all places. And so that is, and I want to say that's sutra, it's two point probably something like in the area of 3.1 to 3.4, something like something in there. Um, and so that's the first thing. It says you absolutely have to be in practice of these. But then the next one says the next one is Pradipaksha Bhavana, and it says, when you find yourself, it's it basically says when you find yourself going off track, come back, like something along those lines. So cultivate the opposite. If you find yourself being uh judgmental, cultivate love. If you find yourself feeling angry, cultivate whatever the opposite of that is, non-anger. Like if you find yourself being dirty, uh cultivate cleanliness. And so it's basically saying, like, we are vowing to do this every single day, but just bring yourself back if you're not in practice.

SPEAKER_00 10:57

Yeah. Yeah, I like that. There's a similar thing in in Vedic philosophy when I've studied it, where uh one of one of the things my teacher's teacher said was um, the wise don't bewilder the ignorant, right? And you can take it as don't bewilder the ignorant, or you can just say, hey, this is an observation in that wise people are not seen doing this. So it means that if you fall off track, it's not that you've broken this rule, it's just you stop being as wise as you were, as you were before. Um so you've started talking about the Yoga Sutras. So is is this when we talk about yoga philosophies, Yoga Sutras the the main thing? Is it the only thing?

SPEAKER_01 11:40

Yeah, okay. So um basically there's four paths of yoga. There's Raja Yoga, which some people call Ashtanga Yoga as well, which is where the Yoga Sutras comes from. There's bhakti yoga, which is the yoga of devotion, and that is basically accessing yoga, and yoga means union. So it's it's union with a higher power. So bhakti is a way to access yoga through prayer and devotional practices, and that's where Kirtan comes into, which is a practice that you can do all over Bali. And then there's jhana yoga, and jnana yoga is the yoga of wisdom. So any intellectual studies that you're doing to get yourself to a higher state of union that is uh called jnana. And then karma yoga is uh basically the actions, the way you live your life is yoga. So you can get to a higher state of union through the ways in which you're living your life. And Raja yoga is where Patanjali Sutras comes from. Now, the reason why I don't call it Ashkanga yoga is because I feel like that again makes people make assumptions about what it is you're doing and what you're not doing, because ashtanga yoga is literally this little section of the sutras from two point, I want to say three, I think it's 2.28 all the way until 3.6 is ashtanga yoga. And that's it. And there's a whole 80 sutras before that, and there's a whole, I think six, maybe seventy sutras after. And so ashtanga is really this middle chunk about okay, what practices can we tell someone to do? Okay, do asana, do yam, do niyam, do pranayam, do uh meditation, uh, which is concentration, uh, sorry, turning in words, concentration, meditation, and then come to consciousness. So that's the eight limbs of yoga, that's ashtanga yoga. And so when people say it's ashtanga, I'm like, no, you're missing, you're not talking about thought spirals there, you're not talking about practice and abhyas, you're not practicing about, you're not talking about the cities, you're not talking about um the karmic cycle and and all these things that go beyond that. So that's why I use the word Raja yoga. And that's where Patanjali's sutras comes from. There are other texts, but these texts, studying them, like you know, take me for example. I would say I've been, I've been looking at this text for like a decade. Um, and I I am just now starting the Bhavagad Gita, and I have three teachers teaching me the Bhavagad Gita. Um, and this is another major yogic text, but I didn't even feel like I could even put it on my plate until I had a full comprehension of the yoga sutras. And only now that I fully understand the sutras can I also look at things like the Buddha Dharma, which is kind of irrelevant to yoga because it comes from Buddhism, but it's cool to see the parallels and the contrasts. So, yeah, Bhavagad Gita, another major text. There's other major texts yoga, like the Hatha Yoga, Pradapika, um, the Upanishads, but I'm the first to admit like I'm very new in those. Like I could not tell you, like, line one point bucks is this from Bhavagad Gita, right? Whereas the Yoga Sutras I could like recall in my brain where they come, and that's because I've devoted so much time to studies.

SPEAKER_00 14:54

Yeah. Well, I think maybe you need to practice moderation in the number of teachers you have for the Bhagavad Gita. Um, so we'll go on to the Niyamas in a sec, because we listed the Yamas, but um, I just wanted because that it's easy for that what you just listed to sound overwhelming to people, right? Because it's all these ancient texts and they're all like, oh my god, what is that? What is that? So I just wanted to talk about the way that you conduct your um Yoga Sutras course because I found it so uh approachable because you basically workshop uh say four or five sutras in each in each session with a really um householder type question. So, do you want to talk about your approach and how you structured it? Because it's from my point of view, you've made it not about um this kind of esoteric intellectual learning, but you know, there'll be a journal prompt of prompt of give an example of when you um would were not truthful or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 15:58

Yeah, yeah. So this I would say, like when I say I had no idea what I was doing when I launched the course, it was not originally like this. I mean, it always had storytelling. I would, I was always storytelling because I couldn't really because I couldn't comprehend what I was reading in all these ancient texts, and I was and I would I would pull up the sutras that I was doing for the week and I would um I would search so many resources to try and figure out what it was talking about. And that's how hard I find all these interpretations that I just don't understand a lot of them. And so that's why I started storytelling because I was like, the only way that this makes sense to me is like to give an example from my life. And so the storytelling element was always in existence, but it was only very recently when I started making it so much more practical. And I want to say some of I think some of this came to me from working with Anvita. So I started watching these Yoga Sutra YouTube videos midway through 2023, because basically, not many people have gone further than book two or chapter two of these this text because it's just so huge. And so Anvita was the only person, she's the most dedicated person I've ever found because she did every single, she made a YouTube video about every single sutra during COVID. And what I like about her is that she is um, she has the traditional studies of she was raised in an ashram, she is Indian, but she also went and lived in London and did her undergrad overseas. And so she, I feel like she takes the tradition and and makes it approachable to a Westerner. And so I watched all her videos and at the very end, she said something about like you can hire me one-on-one. And so I started working with her. And that was when the course really went to a next level because I don't know if she was doing super practical things with me, but I ended up, I would ask her opinion, or maybe she maybe she would give me examples. I think this is what happened. She would give me examples of how her teachers taught things. Like, for example, she started referencing all because when you get into the cities, which are superpowers, it's so unbelievable. But she started referencing movies. She would be like, This is a bug's life. This is honey, I shrunk the kids. This is, you know what I mean? And you know that movie, or you can Google it. This is the Matrix. And so that this is the Lion King, you know? And so I started thinking in terms of movies. So we haven't gotten to that chunk yet in your um group, but I reference a lot of movies at that point because you're like, okay, this is not relatable to like a human experience, but it's related, relatable to a movie you saw. And then I think she would give me activity ideas and a lot of them we've co-created. Like, I'll be like, hey, I'm teaching this this week. Um, is there any interesting way that your teacher taught that or any ideas you have? And so a lot of it is like a co-creation with her. And it just grows and grows. Like something I never did before was there's an invocation to Patanjali that I used to never chant. And I'm really into chanting right now with her, like now, because I'm kind of at an advanced level. So I'm trying to memorize the text, and we do like 45 minutes of chanting of it every week together. But there's a very brief one-minute invocation, which I think is just a great taster to get people uh understanding that there is a Sanskrit language and there's a chant that goes along with it. And I do that at the start of every class now. So yeah, every time I teach this course, it gets more and more in-depth. And I also have multiple groups happening at once. Like, so I because I just people will what will happen is I'll say I'm never doing, I'm not doing this again this year. And then someone will email me and say, Can you do another course? And I will launch it again. And that's how this happens. So, and because it's eight months, it takes a long time to go through the this text. So, like right now, I have your group that's towards the end of chapter one. I have a group that's towards the end of chapter two. That's so I have Tuesday, Thursday mornings, and then I have a Friday night group that they're at the very end. They have like two classes left. And then I have the advanced group right now. And the advanced is like an open, an open drop-in. So whenever your cohort ends, you can just insert yourself into the advanced course and you just have to join wherever you are. Um, but it's in that group, it's more about we're just like kind of re-going over everything and then also chanting as well. So learning the Sanskrit. And it really enhances my life because I do it. And then I have I study with Nvita once a week. The suit we have a two-hour session once a week where we study, and then I also do my Bhavagad Gita classes. And so it becomes my life and it's really enhances my life because everything I do, I try to look at it with this lens. And there's numerous things that have helped me with coping with like my stressors. But I take like this period of my life, I feel like I'm very well recovered from what I've recently gone through. And I feel like, you know, I've talked to you a lot of it as the meditation, but a lot of it is my yoga philosophy studies, and and these supports just really kind of build a support for me to move through challenges.

SPEAKER_00 20:56

Yeah, and that's such a good approach to I think just with any endeavor, people are very tempted to be like, no, I must have this perfectly ready before I put it put it out there. Whereas you're doing like we've got draft one, draft two, draft three, all live. But that's it's not that it's not useful, it's just it's it's really useful to get to because I guess everyone in those classes is helping you, helping you understand it, which means that that final product is going to be way stronger. Well, it won't be final because you'll always be developing it.

SPEAKER_01 21:27

But I want to say one thing is that I actually didn't know how little I knew, and that's how little I knew. Um, like people always say that to me. That's amazing that you just jumped in. You're really teaching me you don't have to be a perfectionist. I was like, I had no clue how little I knew until I started. And then I was like, what? That's like what the heck? And then I think the more I know, the more confident it makes me be able to say, I don't know. Like I would panic when people would ask me questions that I didn't know back then. And now I'm like, I'm not panicking because I know that I know enough to know I don't know.

unknown 22:00

You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 22:02

And the second thing I'll add is yes, oh my God, my students are enhancing this so much. And I love my favorite thing ever is when I get someone who who, especially there's people that really um can't that are more kind of logical thinkers that have questions about this. And they are my favorite. And I used to really be stressed out by them because I would be like, can't you just accept what I'm telling you? But I love when people ask me questions because it's forcing me to really figure it out. And I I walk away from these calls with like so many questions. You know, I need to really have a list going, a page going every week of like the questions to bring back to NVITA because sometimes I forget. Like I'll say I'll bring that to her, and then I forget. But it just it really enhances my understanding to have these in-depth conversations with people. And that's why I didn't make the course on demand. At one point, I actually was looking at making it on demand and I got like half of it, half the videos uploaded. And then I realized like this is for me as much as it is for the students. And so that's why I still teach it live.

SPEAKER_00 23:10

Yeah, well, that's great. Um, it reminds me of so in our in the Vedic tradition, there's this whole thing of uh teachers often turn up to to these big talks with no, they've not prepared at all, right? And the and the subject will be whatever a quest, whatever question comes up, that's that's the subject, right? And the and my teachers, teachers, teacher, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and what all the teachers they would say, you know, I'm nothing without my students, right? Without that inquiry, that's what triggers me to then find the answer in in consciousness. So I love how you're doing that um through this. So we talked about the yamas, so we had the the non-violence, the truth, the non-stealing moderation, letting go. Let's just be good teachers and cover off the niyamas.

SPEAKER_01 24:01

Totally. So I look at the yamas as more of like how we relate with our external world, and the niyama is how we relate more to our internal world. However, they're both interchangeable and they're both applicable, but just for simple categorizations and remembering what goes where. So niyama, you have um saucha, which is cleanliness, you have samtosha, which is contentment, you have tapas, which is commitment, you have svadaya, which is self-reflection, and then ishvara pranidana, which is surrender to a higher power. So um the great thing about all these is that Patanjali tells us what to do, he doesn't tell us how to do it. So so much of it is is transferable and applicable. So, like, let's start with socha cleanliness, for example. Everyone has a different level of that, everyone has a different practice of that. I am like, that's probably my if you ask me what's my biggest struggle in this, I would say it's saucha 100%. And um I know some people, like I used to do this podcast with my friend who was Muslim that I met in Kuwait. And she said that the saucha reminded her of the abolition process, which uh Muslim people do before they go into the mosque. And I love that connection because it just shows like, and I actually I was at this amazing place called the Abrahamic House in Abu Dhabi last week, which has um a mosque, a church, and a synagogue all in one. It was like the most profound thing I've ever experienced. And I learned a lot. I don't know a lot, especially I don't really know a lot about Christianity, I realize, which is so funny because I am Christian. Um, but I did notice that um in Judaism, they have a really similar practice. You have to wash your hands before you touch the Quran, uh, not the Quran, the Torah. So um basically I'm I'm bringing this up because some people worry, especially when it says devotion to a higher power, which is the last miyama. People think this is a religion. Um I like to tell people, so I used to teach the IB curriculum at an international private school in Abu Dhabi, and I B is inquiry. It's it's the inquiry approach to learning. IB needs is a framework, it needs to be on top of a curriculum, right? It's an inquiry, it's an inquiry approach to American education, it's an inquiry approach to British education. You're taking the curriculum, but you're inquiring into it. And this is what this is how I describe yoga. You're taking the curriculum of whatever religion you have. And if you don't have one, this is your curriculum. Cool. Um, but you're just putting yoga as a framework on top of that. And so you're you're, I'm not saying don't do your evolution. I'm not saying like don't go to the mosque. I'm not saying like believe in what we believe in. I'm just saying take this and use it to enhance whatever else you're doing. And uh in the middle there we have uh tapas, which is often translated as discipline. I prefer the word commitment because people think discipline is about getting in trouble. And what it really means is just like committing to a practice. And then svabhyaya, which is self-reflection, which can be done in so many ways. It can be done in journaling, writing, counseling, so many things. And then contentment is really just finding happiness like wherever you are.

SPEAKER_00 27:12

Yeah, so good. I love the idea of you laying that approach over other things, which also helps with you know, with people where they have got a religion, say, and and what what we do in in yoga and and and Vedic meditation, they're not opposed to that, even though they are from these, you know, they're from Hinduism or or you know, other practices are from Buddhism, but but because they're not they're not dogmatic and they're not theological, we can just say, hey, this is just an approach that can complement those other things that you you may believe in. And I love I love saying that, you know, I'm not asking you to believe anything. We're we're we're we're we're having tools and ways of thinking. So, all right, well, let's talk about our retreat. So, so how how how does it how does it work to have things like yoga philosophy, things like yoga, things like Vedic meditation, how do they all fit together in your mind and what's the benefit of doing that? Because I know you talked about all these groups you do online. What's the what's the real differentiator to when people make an effort to fly somewhere to be together?

SPEAKER_01 28:28

Oh my gosh. Um yeah, so I want to share first that I had no intentions of becoming a Vedic meditator when we decided to do this retreat together last year. I was like, I'm it's gonna be fun, you know, I'm gonna learn what Rory does. And um, it was so transformative for me that it is my practice now. It is more my practice than, you know, I practice chanting, I practice Vedic meditation, I teach asana. Right now I'm not even doing a personal asana practice. And I think that's important to highlight because that just shows the power of what Rory's teaching. And I wholeheartedly believe in it. And I I refer everyone to Rory. He's he is also teaching in my online courses because it was that incredible. So I just highly recommend the Vedic meditation practice and what it did for me. So I have actually done a Vedic meditation training, or not exactly Vedic, but um a similar thing online in January. And that was great, but I didn't have enough support around me to maintain the practice for the long term. And so it works for some people, some people that are really good at being disciplined, great. I needed a submersion where we were building this routine every day. And I actually even needed it more than once. I'll tell you that, because we did it together in September, and then I came out of it and I couldn't, I could not cope with this. I was like, I don't have enough time, I need to walk, I need to do asana, blah, blah, blah. And Rory said only do 10 minutes. And I was like, cool. Um, and I still didn't really get solid in it. I tried, but I didn't get so solid. And then what massively solidified it for me was that on my advanced teacher training in November, October, November, we included mantra meditation as part of it. So the same teacher that taught me online taught our group. And we were practicing it every day together twice a day for a month. And I'm that was it. I made it to 60 days. And I did take about maybe seven days off, noticed my life falling apart, uh, got back on again, and now I'm at 60 days again of meditation. So, what is the benefit of coming together in person? I would not have a Vedic meditation practice if we had not done that retreat last year because I needed um, I needed to be submerged in a space of like-minded people who had the same goal in mind. And that's the thing is like in your, I mean, you're you that would be wonderful if your spouse and your kids also were trying to develop a yoga meditation practice. But the reality is you're probably going on this path as alone in your family, right? If you're if your family's in it, then you're probably like, I mean, that would be amazing if your whole family was practicing yoga. But so far, the only person I've met who lived that life was Anvita, who was like born into a yoga ashram, you know? Um, and so for the rest of us, we need to put ourselves in these spaces. And even if you have a practice, get into a group, get into a group of people that are that have this goal in mind. So, like last week I was in Abu Dhabi staying with Carolyn, who learned my learned mantra meditation on my advanced YTT. And she was still doing a morning practice, but she wasn't doing an afternoon practice. And she just got into it again from me being there, right? Because she just saw me doing it and me carving out the time for my day. And so I want to add that, yeah, there's just that power of like the peer support of someone else doing what you're trying to do. And so that, yeah, the the retreat last year that I did with you was pivotal for me. And now I'm I'm incorporating this into my teacher trainings as well. So Rory's coming in July and he's gonna be teaching Vedic meditation to our our 200-hour students because I really think it's an essential coping skill.

SPEAKER_00 32:17

Yeah, yeah, and that's that's so so great to hear and to witness. But and then the other side of that is that I'm becoming more of a more of a an asana, having more of an asana practice because, and this is what's so good about our our partnership is that we, you know, and and us, I guess as students, we're both we're we're we're always open to learning new things. So I've been going to yoga three or four times a week. I'm not just coming to teach meditation on your YTT, I'm coming to do yoga teacher training, um, which I think is such a beautiful, you know, way of kind of um playing off each other. But yeah, the idea of surrounding yourself, it being immersive and surrounding yourself with like-minded people are reminded of that stat, which says something like you're the product of the five people you spend the most time with. And you know, they might not be yogis if that's at home, but you can you can get up and running with the group by taking yourself out of your normal environment. And then what's also good about our last retreat, for example, is we we have that WhatsApp group that I think you said is one of the most still used WhatsApp group from a retreat, and we're having you can't make it because of the time difference, but we're having our six-month reunion tomorrow morning. Uh, and it, you know, it's a kind of a cliche to say, look, you make friends for life, but it is true, right? And I'm sure you've you've witnessed that on many of your other retreats.

SPEAKER_01 33:50

Yeah, oh, totally. I have groups that still uh people on the retreats that still will get together, will do, you know, vacations, meetups in different cities. And uh, and yeah, in your retreat in particular, and I think it has to do with the intention of building a daily meditation practice and the fact that we so we were using the group for accountability. People were sending little check marks into the group if they wanted to, they didn't have to. Um, but I think that is really what kept the group active because people are just used to going in there and messaging. And it's it's very impressive at how active that group is because I'm in so many of them and not even like not just the ones that I've run, but I'm also in groups for uh ones that I've participated on. And so I really see that that difference.

SPEAKER_00 34:36

Yeah, great. All right. So it's uh anything else you'd like to talk about with with the yoga philosophy. I'm just scared that we're gonna scare people off it by going into too many other variations, but I think the yamas and yamas are a really good starting point. And it's it's I think it was it was the main thing you taught on the last retreat, is because they're very people you can it's easy to see what what they mean, right? And it's not it's not something super um super out there. And I guess one other thing that we should mention about the retreat is is that it's not all hard study. There are some fun, fun activities as well. So you mentioned bhakti yoga, which which one of the versions of that is is kirtan. So call and response singing, which I um it's easy for people to think, oh my god, what is that weird Hare Krishna singing? But but uh and I I seem to remember there are a few people in the group who are kind of like, okay, we're here, but what is this all about? But once it's once you I think it's just witnessing the the the Kirtan leader, whether that's you or or or Emil who we had come in, they're just always so into it that you're like, oh, this is great, and it's a fun thing. And the reason I like it is I'm terrible at um remembering song lyrics. And what's the good thing about this is you can have a really good sing song. You only have to remember like three words.

SPEAKER_03 36:10

Yes, totally. Totally.

SPEAKER_01 36:13

And we're also doing um, yeah, we did some activities last year. I don't know which of them that we'll be in including again this year, but we did uh we made mali bead necklaces, we went to visit the pyramids of cheat and did a full moon ceremony there. We will, I'm sure we'll go to Kadak's house, definitely. Our driver, that was like I think a lot of people's highlight getting to go to his house and meet his family and kind of experience his mom teaches us how to make the little offerings and yes, bosses ever and around.

SPEAKER_03 36:46

Yeah, and then makes lunch and we got to be on the rooftop, but people love that day.

SPEAKER_00 36:52

Yeah. All right, so anyone listening who wants to find out more, we'll include a link uh in the show notes. But it if you want to go to wisemonkeyway.com, it's it's a link in the header there, and we will welcome you um in May. But I wanted to thank you, Alexandra, for appearing on my podcast, the Sober Yoga Girl Podcast. You've been a great guest. Um and yes, thank you all for listening, and we will see you soon.

SPEAKER_01 37:27

Hi, friend. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Sober Yoga Girl Podcast. This community would not exist without you. So thank you for being here. It would be massively helpful if you subscribe to this show and leave a review so that we can reach more people. And if we haven't met yet in real life, please come hop on Zoom at the Mindful Life Practice because the opposite of addiction is connection, sending you love and light wherever you are in the world.