#172 Preparing the Body for Radiance — The Forgotten Foundations of Practice

In so much of modern wellness culture, it’s easy to rush toward the practices.

The yoga class.

The meditation.

The gym.

The breathing technique.

The cold plunge.

And while these practices can absolutely support us, sometimes we forget something simple:

The body itself is the ground.

The terrain matters.

In this short episode, I explore some of the foundational rhythms that help prepare the body for deeper practice — not through optimisation, force, or endlessly trying to improve ourselves…

…but through relationship.

Relationship to light.

Relationship to water.

Relationship to the earth beneath our feet.

Relationship to the subtle electrical intelligence of the body itself.

We explore themes that many of you have heard woven through recent conversations:

Light.

Water.

Magnetism.

Voltage.

Grounding.

Circadian rhythm.

Nervous system regulation.

And why simple foundations can profoundly influence how we feel, move, perceive, and practice.

Prāṇāyāma begins long before we consciously sit to breathe.

The body prepares.

The nervous system prepares.

The rhythms of daily life prepare.

When the instrument has been gently tuned, practice lands differently.

Breath lands differently.

Life lands differently.

This is not about perfection.

Not about chasing some ideal version of health.

But perhaps remembering a few simple things modern life can sometimes pull us away from.

For those tuning in through the podcast feed — deep gratitude.

Thank you for listening.

Thank you for supporting these conversations.

This is a shorter check-in.

If you’re enjoying these explorations and would like to continue further, the full extended discussion and accompanying 45-minute practice are available over on Substack.

Deep gratitude as well to everyone supporting the deeper work there.

Continue the Journey

Substack (writings and videos):
https://yogaheartmind.substack.com

Upcoming retreats, including Sri Lanka 2026:
https://www.stuartwatkins.org/sri-lanka-retreat-2026

This Episode Is Supported By

These are brands I genuinely use and value in my own life:

Ajjaya — ceremonial clothing and sacred wear
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Infraredi — red light therapy
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STEEP Ayurveda — ayurvedic bathing rituals

One Golden Thread — conscious clothing

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Sole Mechanics — barefoot and grounding footwear

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Aum Rudraksha — handcrafted mala beads from Bali

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Deep gratitude for listening.

Stuart

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Hey everyone, much love to you all. Hope you're doing really well. I apologize for the potential poor sound. I don't have a mic on today, but had an hour up my sleeve and felt really inspired to share and connect with you all. So I'll open up with a kind of Dharma talk, public contemplation, public conversation for the podcast. And for those of you that are digging it and want to dive into the practice that will follow this discussion, hop on to our Yoga HeartMind Substack, in which we have a whole archive of practices there, including what we are about to do today. So once again, I'm a little bit of a broken record, but I feel like some of us need to be this broken record right now and repeat some of these fundamentals that many of us forgetting in our current times. So maybe you can hear just in this audio right now birds chirping, wind rustling through the leaves. That is a necessity for our biology, for our nervous system. Okay, so right now I'm hearing the birds chirping, I can see the sky, the trees, and the phone. So I've got the phone, which is it's become a part of our humanity, unless you're logging off and going off the grid completely, going back to a flip phone. I respect that, I get it. I have a smartphone, I'm filming on a smartphone, but many of us we are on it too much, and we all we we all know the emotional and psychological price we pay when we are on it too much, but there's also a very real jarring effect on our nervous system from the fast flicker rate of the screen to the blue light, of course, all the other non-native EMFs of Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and so forth, 4G, 5G, which is still up for debate as to if that is toxic for us or not, but I feel that it is, and we need to return back to nature whenever we can, even if that is just stepping outside, like I have done now. So it's very, very common to when we pull up to a car park waiting for our kids or waiting for work or something like that. It's becoming increasingly common just to sit in the car on the phone. So if we think of that moment where many of us would have just gotten outside and read a book or gone for a walk, whatever, many of us are missing out on that. We're not getting that photonic energy of nature, that panoramic light, and that varying of distance for our eyes. We need that. So, what I notice right now as I'm out in the in the forest is you can see a distant tree, a close tree, the vast blue sky, the close phone. And our eyes, our brain, our nervous system loves that varying of distance in our focal point, in our gaze. But if we're on computers, phone, that close fixed proximity for too long, it's very fatiguing on our eyes, our brain, our nervous system, stressing us out without us even realizing it. And then many of us with good intentions, we get up early for a workout or a yoga practice, and commonly the first signal of light is from the phone, yeah, and then straight into our car, straight to the gym, straight to the yoga studio, which is beautiful. We want to work out, we want to practice at studios, we want to refine our skills. But if we're not getting that feedback from the first light in the morning, that pre-9 a.m. beautiful morning sunlight, we're kind of setting ourselves up for failure, so to speak. We're setting ourselves up to be easily frazzled, easily triggered, just very sensitive in our nervous system. Okay? Whereas if we respect the electric nature of the body, the circadian rhythm of the body, and do some other things. Maybe have an analog alarm clock. And many of you have many of you have installed this habit, and it's been life-changing. So awesome to hear that. So you get up with an analog alarm clock, haven't even touched your phone yet. Hydrate with good structured water, go get your feet on the earth, go get that morning sunlight. Just those little habits is sending beautiful feedback through your eyes, through your brain, through your whole body to be in energetic coherence, electrical coherence, rather than training our body to be out of coherence, out of tune. We want to feel inspired, we want to feel relaxed and creative. But if we're sending the opposite signal, it's very, very similar to sitting down to play a guitar or a violin or a piano, but it's out of tune. And we're wondering why it's not playing a good note. We first we gotta tune the instrument. So these fundamentals of light, water, magnetism, hydrating, structured water, grounding, light is gonna help us out drastically. Immediate tuning of the instrument. Okay? So I wanna I I am gonna keep harping on about that. We those of us that it's a priority, I think we need to remind each other compassionate compassionately, but remind each other because it's so easy to forget in our current times. So from there, we can do some great practices. So we've grounded, we've hydrated, we've got that light. Then, you know. So a common thing in the in the popularized yoga scene right now is to go to a breathwork class. That is great. It is great. But if we have not grounded our energy yet, which is no longer regarded woo-woo, we got plenty of biologists, physicists, neuroscientists talking about this stuff now. It's not woo-woo anymore. It's ridiculously sensible and backed by science, okay? So say we haven't grounded yet, we haven't got light yet, and we just buzz off straight to the gym or yoga studio to do some intense breath work. Metaphorically, just to get an understanding of the electrics of our body and the prana body. It imagine trying to pump a whole lot of light through a system that is not grounded yet, it's not primed yet. So imagine like a house. You know what I'm saying? And we haven't grounded it. It's kind of like not even having a foundation for the house yet. So it's like having a wet cement, quick sandy foundation, yeah, no solid foundation with poor electrical work, and then trying to turn the lights on, wondering why there's no light and no water flowing. I didn't talk about plumbing, but it's kind of like that. Or one more metaphor we're trying to grow a beautiful garden. We're trying to grow a beautiful garden, but we haven't got good soil. Nowhere for the roots to go. That plant is not gonna be happy, it's not gonna take root, it's not gonna rise. We need to root to rise, we need to ground and prime the electrics of our body in order to really get the fruits of breath work, pranayama, kundalini work. Okay. If we look back and this latest trip to India, it further reinforced this inspiration. The way my teacher Vishvaji Guruji has built the jungle ashram, the Akanda Jungle Ashram. He has brought this into awareness. So when the weather was appropriate for it, we would go and practice under a tree, like this. And I've been hearing from many of you going outside and practicing under a tree next to a tree. Beautiful. I co-own a yoga studio, and it it from a business perspective, it's not very smart of me to say, don't rush to the studio first, practice outside. This is how important it is to me. Okay, I've worked I've worked in gyms for the first chapter of my career, love gyms, but but but but if we have not taken care of the primal electrics of the body, rushing off to the gym could be, it could be doing more harm than good. If you have grounded, hydrated, gotten that morning sunlight, then go to the gym. Also, go for it. But if you haven't, it could be stressing your body out more than you are even aware of. So listen to lingering fatigue, listen to injuries of the body, listen to dullness of energy. Yeah, these are all intelligent feedbacks from your body, trying to let you know, trying to let us all know how to live beautifully. So, yeah, at the Akanda Jungle Ashram, practice under a tree sometimes, we'll practice by the river sometimes. They got this beautiful cave amphitheater type thing. We'll do some of the lectures and dharma talks and practices there. The new extension of the ashram that they're building is completely set up around these principles of light water magnetism. So they've literally built the ashram out of clay and rocks from the river, which is grounding in and of itself. Under the ashram, even before the foundation, they've done these classic techniques of using certain metals and certain geometric structures to set up this really charged, grounded environment. It's conductive. Okay. Many temples have done this in the past. We look at Egypt, many pyramids of ancient life, they did this. They built the pyramid structures and the metallic the linking of various metals to create a conductive, high vibe, resonant environment. So if you ever get the opportunity to go to the Akunda Jungle Ashram, it's so beautiful. So they've built it out of the river rocks and the clay. And then right in the middle, it's there's the big fire puja, fire, the fire element. That's photonic, that's healing. And then there's lots of natural light coming through. Not many windows filtering out the light, not many doors filtering out the light. They've built it in a way where light is flowing, the fire is flowing, around the fire puja is water flowing, right? It's next level. We might not be able to go that far in our own house. Maybe you can. Maybe you can. We're not at this point, you know, in our house, but we are we do have land down south, and we're intending to build it in this very beautiful, coherent way. At our house in the in the suburbs, um, we're doing what we can to make it conductive. So house plants, beeswax candles, ground grounding, so you know, turning off the modem at night, turning off Bluetooth, Wi-Fi whenever we can, putting silver and copper cloths and sheets around around the house, especially where there's a lot of wiring, yeah, so bedheads and stuff like that. You don't want all that wiring right at your head. I digress, kind of, but it is relevant for sure. Creating a supportive healing sanctuary in our house. And you can do little things even if it's a rental house plants, beeswax candles, copper sheets, silver sheets, create a little field to protect your energy and fortify your energy. Okay. So each morning we ground, get that morning light. If possible, it is possible, of course. Salty water, do your neti pot. A lot of people don't know what neti pot is. Look up Jal Neti, neti pot. You can get a neti kit off like iHerb or even at most pharmacies now, rinsing out your sinuses. Rinsing out your sinuses, tongue scraping, get a copper tongue scraper, brush your teeth, oral hygiene, maybe oil pulling as well, tongue scrape. So you're clearing the channels. So just think about that for a moment. Grounding, light. That's the optimum signaling for the body than Jalnetti, tongue scraping, clearing these pathways. Now we are more ready for something like breath work. You hearing me? If you're not hearing me, I get it. I didn't this wasn't really on my radar fully, not in an integrated way until pretty relatively recently. It was kind of there, but not not a priority, not super important. I was still practicing on a rubber mat in shitty lighting, in Lululemon clothes, and it wasn't didn't didn't seem important. Now I know. And I don't just know, but I can feel it. I can feel it. So I've cleared out plastic clothing, and some say that's wasteful. No, I'm I'm giving it away to people that appreciate it. But I can no longer wear Lululemon clothes. I mean, every now and then you might see me in it, but I think I've given most of it away. Yeah, it's it just does not feel good on my skin. And now I've actually tuned into the frequency of it. So literally right now, everything I'm wearing is organic cotton. Actually, this t-shirt is hemp. Natural fibers cross the board in wisdom traditions, yoga included, Ayurveda included, traditional Chinese medicine included. They've paid close attention to the fabrics they wear. It's like both a shield and it just feels good on the skin. It's got a higher frequency, better frequency. So the ideal is like good quality linen, good quality cotton, hemp, silk, and so forth. That again, ideally undyed. So these pants I've got on are unbleached, so so comfortable. Got them from Betty Brown, Onecta, beautiful Fremantle clothing brand. A lot of it's undyed and plant-dyed. Both my t-shirt and this jumper is from Mr. Simple, an Australian brand that's doing a lot of organic fibers. It's a natural plant-dyed jumper, hemp t-shirt, plant-dyed. Actually, Mr. Simple, maybe not plant-dyed, but they do pay attention to good quality dyes. But whenever possible, unbleached, undyed, or plant-dyet is great. But just small things, I'm not saying do all this at once, but once you know, you know, and it starts to become a priority. So with already, just with the grounding, the light, the jal netty, the tongue scraping, good hydration, we are tuned. Set up the morning with some mindful breathing. We are tuned. Couple of other things you may want to add into that is every now and then, a few mornings a week, start your your gut health, stoke your inner agony with some warmed ghee. That gets this oleic acid flowing, it it primes your your digestive system. You could say it lubricates the gut. Ghee. I like to then have some home fermented kafir, milk kafir. So good. Apparently, the the range of good bacteria in it knocks everything out of the park. But you want to make sure it's stored in glass, not plastic, which most shops do. So home fermenting is the way to go. It's super simple and so healthy. Before that, actually, something I want to note this trifecta of herbs, cloves, not garlic cloves, even though they are great, depending on where you're coming from. Some schools of health don't love garlic. Ayurveda apparently doesn't love garlic. It's very tamasic. But if I'm feeling sensitive, colds and flus around, I'll I'll pop a whole lot of garlic, chew on a whole lot of garlic, you know. No, cloves, like the spice, yeah. Get the whole clove. I love to, after I've hydrated or kind of while hydrating, chew on a few cloves, yeah. Antibacterial, uh sets off this whole series of this chain from mouth to gut to brain, it refreshes everything. It's been a game changer. So I'll I'll chew a bunch of cloves while taking the dog for a walk in the morning. So good. After meals, chewing on a few or like a teaspoonful of fennel seeds, so good. And then fennel Greek a few times a week or every day, have some activated fennelgreek. Soak it overnight, drink it, and then chew the seeds in the morning. Drink the water, chew the seeds, they're good. Take it to another level after an hour of soaking it, rinse out the seeds and chuck out that water, then re soak it, soak it overnight, have it in the morning. That first hour soak and rinse will get rid of a lot of the What are often called anti-nutrients, which a lot of nuts and seeds have if we don't activate them, soak them. Okay. Okay. So let's get into a practice. So for those of you that have just listened to the podcast and you're digging this, we're gonna now segue it into a practice. So hop on over and join me on Substack. For those of you here on Substack with me, thank you for your continued support.