Divas That Care Network

Svadhyaya an Interview with the Self

• Divas That Care Network • Season 16 • Episode 5

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Come and listen to our Host, Gia-Raquel Rose for our "Determined, Not Distracted” Podcast Series.
 This mini-series serves as your blueprint for a high-impact year, distilling success into three non-negotiables: Goal Clarity, Resilience, and Commitment. By sharpening your focus, hardening your mental toughness, and anchoring your habits in discipline, you’ll shift from chasing temporary inspiration to achieving unstoppable, year-long momentum. 

Gia-Raquel Rose, owner of Airs Above Yoga, LLC and a real estate sales associate in Tewksbury, New Jersey has had a love for horses stemming from early childhood. Growing up in “horse country” afforded her the privilege of beginning to ride from the tender age of four. It was a childhood illness, which brought her riding aspirations to an abrupt halt. It took twenty years before she was able to reunite with her long lost passion for horses and their ability to heal. In that time, she received a Bachelor of Arts in Corporate Communication from Arcadia University and became a twice two hundred hour certified yoga instructor in both Hatha and Vinyasa. It was the loss of her mother, Rose, to breast cancer, which ultimately shifted her trajectory from the corporate world to the internal work for which yoga, as a practice, is renowned.

We lean into a self-interview practice using ahimsa and svadhyaya to turn harm, friction, and regret into clarity and kinder choices. We show how flow versus friction, the sacred pause, and intuitive listening help us stop self-abandoning and choose gentle power.

• yoga sutras as practical guideposts for daily choices
• defining non-harming toward others, self, and in culture
• processing harm without revenge and setting boundaries
• using reflection to convert triggers into teachers
• flow versus friction as a decision compass
• discipline balanced with forgiveness and rest
• trusting intuition over social norms and “shoulds”
• guilt as a signal to redesign habits, not self-punish
• surrender as a final step to release outcomes

Please feel free to share the same with your loved ones
For more goodness, follow me on all the socials at Above the Ground Podcast and visit my website, airsabove.com
Don’t forget to check out my other episodes and all of my amazing sisters at Divas That Care
You can find us on Spotify, Odyssey, Apple, Amazon, iHeartRadio, or anywhere else that you may feel guided

For more Divas That Care Network Episodes visit www.divasthatcare.com

SPEAKER_00:

It's Divas that Care Radio. Stories, strategies, and ideas to inspire positive change. Welcome to Divas That Care, a network of women committed to making our world a better place for everyone. This is a global movement for women, by women, engaged in a collaborative effort to create a better world for future generations. To find out more about the movement, visit divas that care.com after the show. Right now, though, stay tuned for another jolt of inspiration.

SPEAKER_01:

I'd like to personally thank you for giving me the gift of your time. As always, it is my honor to hold space with you. And we're doing a little bit of a different format today. Generally, I do an interview episode uh towards the end of each series. Um, but today, uh considering considering just you know the start of the year, the end of the of the well, the end of the Chinese astrological year, um, the beginning of the calendar year, I thought it might be who not just myself, but anyone who stumbles across this video, to go into a self-interview practice. Um, and there is a specific word for this. This is basically very loosely based on the principle in yoga um from the Yoga Sutras of the Yamas and the Niyamas, which are part of the eight limbs of yoga. And uh there's a lot to unpack there. So I don't want to, I don't, I want I'd love to get into them, but I mean it's like one episode per limb, if you will, or one episode per per yama and per niyama, and there are quite a few of them. So we would be here all the live-long day. And, you know, I I like to keep people's attention to the best of my ability. Um, and because of that, I want to make sure that you know we take things as they come, and hey, maybe that will be a focus for this year is getting into the yoga sutras a little bit. Um, and even how, you know, they help you to live a life aligned with purpose and um, you know, have a tendency towards a spiritual, obviously, um, and and just are good kind of good guideposts, guidelines, ways to in the in the theory, in the keeping of what we're trying to do here today, principles by which to hold yourself accountable. I know I've mentioned in the past the idea of adulting as being responsible to and or responsible for and accountable to. Um, and I think that, you know, I've said it before, I'll say it again. One of the most important things is to be accountable to yourself. And so um there are five yamas, there are five niyamas. Um, and uh we're gonna touch mainly on two of them today. We are basically at this point going through a process of one of the niyamas, which is svagyaya. And apologies for my you know lack of lack of really on point pronunciation, but it's essentially it's essentially working, we'll say we're working backwards. Um, and that's because it is about self-reflection. And so as you look through the yamas and the niyamas, that is toward it's the second to last, if you will, and and that's just the way they're presented. So I think they're always all kind of circular. And we're also gonna talk about the the very first, which is ahimsa, which is non-harming or non-violence. And man, am I not going to unpack the worldly implications of that in the time that we have today? But what I'd like to do is go through, and I've done this quite a few times, but this is gonna be a little bit more specific. Um, go through kind of an interview process of your former self, your 2025 self, last year self, who you are now, and most importantly, what you can being really radically honest with yourself, which, you know, honestly, frankly, it's very hard to do. Um, and it takes a lot of self-confrontation for lack of a better term, because generally speaking, you know, and I see this a lot when I have conversations with friends of mine where, you know, they'll they'll start to, you know, defend an action to me when I haven't even, you know, accused them or anything or been accusatory, or just having a conversation, and they'll start to look at me. And I I kind of feel like I just generally have trigger people that are in my presence, and it it's it's something I've struggled with for a long time. Um, I kind of feel like a walking tower moment if you're a familiar with tarot. Uh the tower card is what makes people fall apart, if you will. Um, and so uh to that end, I like to talk a little bit about the idea of a self-reflection. That's what we're doing here, and and B, we're gonna start with the very basic of non-harming. And so, with that idea, one of the first questions that you know I like to ask myself, and I've talked about this ad nauseum when I talk about nutrition and health with regard to uh vegetarianism or being an animal lover and struggling with that. Um, so non-harming is why a lot of yogis, a lot of people in um maybe some more traditional um eastern cultures are vegetarian or vegan. Um, and a lot of that stems from a respect of life or respect for animals, etc. So that's one application of non-harming. Another application is nonviolence. I will look around us at the news any point in time you choose to, and you will see that as a whole, we're not great at humanity. And that was a slip, but actually I feel like it was a Freudian slip because we are not great at humaning. We are, as a collective, unfortunately, acting poorly in the public eye at the moment. Um, and violence is we are we are practicing the opposite of ahimsa. We are we are highly, unfortunately, violent in this moment as a culture in the United States. And we're not gonna unpack that. That's all I'm gonna say about that. But I feel like my Freudian slip was was pretty on point, actually. Um and so to that end, because we're talking about an interview with the self, an interview with me, who I was last year at this time, and who I am now, um, and for you the same thing, or at whatever point in time, yesterday doesn't have to be a year ago, it can be who you were yesterday. And the idea that you're only competing with your with who you were yesterday. There is no competition with anybody else. It is about becoming a better version of yourself every day, and as soon as you know better, you do better. And that's what this interview with the self, air quotes for those of you who are not watching, interview with the self is about. It's about embracing the striving to be a little bit better today than yesterday, and remembering that healing is cyclical, so that today may not look like a week ago, may not look like a month ago, may not look like next month, and being okay with that, forgiving yourself, but remain forgiving yourself and remaining disciplined at the same time, and striking that balance is I think where people kind of tend to struggle. So coming back to the idea of non-harming, and hopefully you have not harmed anyone else. Um, but potentially maybe you have, whether inadvertently or I hope not, but purposefully for some. Um, or even if you have come across others who have purposefully harmed you, that I have come across quite a bit in the past year. Um, and the idea of rectifying that uh and stuff and not, you know, I saw the the so many different posts about, you know, the person that got bit by the snake and chasing the snake down and you know, explaining to the snake why did you hurt me, why did you bite me, and you know, how helpful is that really? So having that idea of starting with non-harming and the outward expression of that, making sure you're not harming anybody else, right? And then the receptive aspect of that, the opposite, where if you have been harmed, whether purposefully or or accidentally, right? Like a car accident, right? It's not that anyone tried to hit you with their car, but it happened and maybe you were harmed from it. And then how do you rectify that within yourself? And you know, a car accident is a physical manifestation, but let's say that you were in an abusive relationship, or let's say that you like me have a tendency to inadvertently trigger people around you. And so sometimes you get hostility from people when you took no action towards them. I've experienced that quite a lot, and definitely in the past, in the past year, two years, and I I kind of chuckle a bit as I say that as I started my you know journey of sobriety, that I started to notice a lot more. And I don't know if that's me noticing more and it was always there, or if that as I became more self-aware, more conscious, more as as I begin to know more about myself, that I see things in the people around me uh that maybe I I overlooked, ignored, didn't see, wasn't focused on, wasn't paying attention to? And are these questions, are these things that's that that start to come up for you as well? And then what do you do with that? How do you process knowing that someone intentionally tried to hurt you, tried to harm you, tried to get in your way, tried to do something, gossiped about you, um, took you know subversive actions against you, lied to you on purpose, right? Like as who does who who lies without purpose? There's always a meaning to a lie, right? Um, and and then what's your response to that? And hopefully, there's there's listen, there's only so much we can do as humans. Um, and I think that one of the most important things is to understand, firstly, that actions, harm towards you more often than not, is not about you, it's about the person inflicting the harm. Acknowledging that, step one. Step two, attempting to not take it personally, kind of hard, especially if it's aimed at you. But those two kind of tie hand in hand where it's it's that acknowledgement and that acceptance with the caveat of yes, it was done to me, and and yes, I'm the recipient of this lower vibrational energy. But also, what is that? What can I learn from it? So the step three to that is to process, sit with, not internalize, but analyze what you can, what that can teach you. What it taught me was I don't ever want to treat anybody else that way, first of all. A second aspect of that is is to understand and give love back to a person that is so wrapped up in the absence of a practice such as this self-reflection and and sitting with and confronting these tough thoughts and these tough emotions, and sending them love, praying for them if you do that, sending them positive energy, which, you know, is the opposite of a revenge mentality, right? So we're trying to get away from that revenge mentality. And then from that, going a step further and saying, and why did why did I how did and I I I hesitate with this one a little bit. This one's the one I'm still working on. Can you tell? How do I understand that on some level I attracted this as a reflection into my life? And that I think is the big piece to learn from. That's what we take away. What's the takeaway? Right. So we have realized this harmful experience has occurred directed to us. We are the subject, I don't really like the word victim, but we have we have come under this passive aggressive attack or this in, you know, this however it comes across for you, if this has happened to you. And how do we then understand it, accept what has happened, and move forward from a positive place? And a lot of people will get hung up on, you know, wanting to get back at a person or you know, trying to like let's use gossip because I think that's a pretty easy one that people are familiar with, trying to, you know, rewrite the narrative. Um, that you might not even know what the person said. You just have an inkling, right? Um, and I believe personally that consistency and experience of who you are is the best narrative that you can tell. And that feeding into the negative energy of another person and their again, I don't even like to use the word hate, but their malice towards you is is a waste of your energy, whether from a revenge perspective, whether from a vibrational perspective, it will lower your vibration down to the level of the person that came towards you. And so again, my recommendations are to understand it, fit with it, ask what to be learned from it when you're ready, come from a place of healing, prayer, love, and positive energy towards the person, and allow that awareness, that lack of taking it personally, even if it feels personal. Creating that energetic boundary of recognition. And I saw something recently that really that I really took to heart. Um and and that is that again, while we are in theory bringing into our lives or or having if our if our external reality isn't is a reflection of us, how then can we make sure that that reflection is reflecting back things that are happy, beneficial, and wonderful to us? And if we're not, what do we need to learn to to start to see that external reality shift into things that are? And if if you're coming up against these things, uh then starting to sit with and learn from them, finding meditation is a wonderful way to go about doing that. Um, and uh and actually meditation itself, guess what? It's it's it's part of the eight limbs of yoga. Shocking, I know. Uh, but that's one way to look at it, you know, sitting in and you know, having that conversation with it, mulling it over in your mind. Now, that's not to say becoming obsessive about it, and you know, but sitting with it and allowing that place of receptivity to understand why this continues to occur, potentially, or what it is that you're meant to learn from this that you haven't learned, and potentially the the lesson is repeating itself until you have learned it. And ultimately, another another part, the final, and I was only gonna touch touch on two, but they're so relevant to this. The final the final niyama is about surrender, and it's generally talking about surrender to the divine, but that's also what what you do at the end of this process of understanding is surrender to the fact that if this is happening, there's a reason that it's happening, and hopefully that reason is is still for my highest and best good. It's still helping me to reach a next level up in theory. And so part of this conversation, this interview with who you are in this moment versus who you were yesterday is going through this process, and we're using again non-harming. So I've talked a little bit now about the non-harming aspect of being harmed, right? And it's, you know, let's go with the car accident model of the same idea, right? So you get into a car accident, you are, let's just say banged up, not horribly, but a little bit banged up, your car's banged up. Well, now you're dealing with, you know, potential hospital bills, potential car car bills. You may have a lawsuit, right? You may have, you may have workmen's, who knows, right? There's all of these like 3D tangible things, inconveniences, physical, you know, rehabilitation, being set back, experiencing pain and and suffering. And, you know, a lot of times you'll go to the why of it all, right? Why did this happen? How did this happen? And and all of those questions. And again, trying to come from a place of, you know, like the radical acceptance, the surrender, and saying, okay, well, it it's happened. Maybe the why doesn't matter as much as the what, as much as the what, what can I learn from this? What is the experience I'm now in after this occurrence? What can I what can it teach me? What can I how can I be better from it? How can I choose better? How can I do better? And what about how is this serving me? That reframe. And it's it's just as hard, you know, with a physical ailment or illness as it is with a a non-visual, right? Like a an emotional or a mental accident, if you will. So there are all these ways to look at this idea of non-harming, but the harder one, maybe the hardest one, is self-harm. And I feel like that's one that we are all guilty of on some scale, on some level, from the person you were yesterday to the person you are today, because self-harm can be as visceral as people who truly physically harm themselves. Again, we'll talk about the car accident, talk about people who who cut themselves, people who, you know, we talked about alcohol, people who are alcoholics, you know, physical, repetitive harming of yourself. Talk about people, former cigarette smoker, right? Like people who smoke cigarettes. That is not practicing ahimsa. That is harming yourself and knowingly harming yourself. And this idea that, you know, you worry about it later, right? It doesn't matter right now. And you could even argue that you're in the present moment if you're not worrying about it later, but you know that it's not benefiting you. And and I don't mean benefiting in a base selfish way. I mean benefiting in uh uh for your health and well-being, for treating yourself well and with care, and and prioritizing the boring things, um, like a good night's sleep and you know, a facial routine, right? And and your your your exercise and your just taking care of yourself, self-care, right? Um, and kudos to the people that do that. And there's you can always do more, right? It's a it's a never-ending practice of self-care. There's always a way. And there's no that's why what I love about this idea of of self-reflection is that it's a it's a journey without an end, right? I mean, maybe you could argue nirvana or enlightenment or coming to one with price consciousness, all those fun things, like there, there's the pinnacle, that's where you wind up. But even in that, the it's about the journey, right? It's about how you got there. And the idea that this is a big one for me. So the idea that who I am this year, who I am today, through all of the choices that I've made from last year, from yesterday, is just just a little teensy bit better. Just a little teensy bit better. And one of my biggest struggles, one of my biggest ways that I have harmed myself in the process is by by knowing better and questioning myself and not listening to the voice that knew better. And thinking that the choice that I made in the moment wouldn't have consequences down the line, much like smoking a cigarette, right? So I feel as though it's imperative for anyone to really cultivate, and I've said this, I will continue to say it, I will focus on this this year as my gift to you. Cultivate that inner, that connection with your higher self. Holy Spirit, source, you know, whoever and whatever you preach. If you believe in something like that, or just your higher self, if you don't, your connection, your direct higher soul. And hearing that and coming up with a way that you can begin to trust it, because it is so important, so important, because a lot of times the answers you receive will defy logic. And eventually you'll get to the same place anyway. So, you know, it goes against the grain, right? But I have had advice from therapists, I've had advice from you know healers, and I had followed that advice and you know, kind of regretted it in the end. I've taken the advice of friends and kind of regretted it in the end. And it's not about putting the blame outside of yourself because let me tell you this if you start to develop this idea with your intuition and you start to follow it and things don't go according to plan, you're not gonna know why it's still in your highest and best good. At least not out of the gate. It's gonna be something that you maybe realize in hindsight years down the road. So having that idea of if you know better, if the little voice inside, if the feeling in your gut is telling you something, just listen to it. Just don't self-abandon. And I think that is probably, if I have to say, what's the hardest interview with myself that I've had to come up with this year? It's it's self-abandonment. It is having made choices, not just in one aspect, but in multiple aspects, that did not serve my highest and best good. And and kind of knowing that they might not, and having that like underlying kind of like tension in my chest when I made those choices, and I made them anyway, and not beating myself up about it, but now that I know better, do better, and that is the hardest thing. And it's happened recently where I was asked by a qualified therapeutic professional um about, I'm not gonna get into the details of the specifics, but I was asked about a specific situation, and my response, well, yeah, of course it's not the highest and best use of of who I am as a as a person. And I heard myself say it and I knew it was the truth for me, and yet I continued in that vein because the 3D reality that we all live in, it was the path that uh is known to be normal, air quotes again, for those of you who are not watching. And and I felt that that was the right move because it's supposed to be the right move. It was the societal, societally accepted right move. And um, and I I sat there going, does it resonate with me? Is it is it flowing? Um, I had done an interview with a a friend of mine a while back. Flow versus friction. Was it friction or is it flowing? How is it flowing with my life? How is it flowing for me at my energy? How is it flowing for me? And and oh, it it was not. It was not. And it was it was unceremoniously removed from my existence. And I think that well, first of all, I felt just liberated when that happened, just free, like I was me again, like I could breathe again. And as scary as that was at the same time, it well, I should say wasn't is, but it is still that's the feeling. That's the feeling. The the lack of the heaviness, the lack of of the repetitive beating your head against a brick roll over and over and over again. That self-abandonment, it can come in many, many forms, even in forms that you feel are positive for you in the moment. So you really have to, like I said, cultivate that self-awareness because that is the best guidepost, better than the the qualified professional who was suggesting that you know I continue in this vein, uh, better than a former qualified professional that suggested that I make a move that I did not resonate with and did it anyway because I was young and she was older and I thought she was more spiritual and had more insight than I did. Um, and that's not to say not to take the advice of qualified professionals, disclaimer alert. It is to say that even if it doesn't look like it on the outside, if your gut is telling you something and it's screaming at you, or even if it's subtly going, well, this how like why is how what are the reflections of this not working? Getting sick all the time, being drained of energy, being stressed out, being feeling unsafe in whatever capacity, feeling uh antagonized, right? Like all of these things, that these are your indicators for friction. This is your indicator for then, maybe this is not for me. Um, and that idea of self-abandonment being self-harm, and that it can come even when you're doing something positive. Let's take a physical outlet. I like to work out, it helps with my mental and emotional health. When I'm upset, especially, I like to work out. But if I'm really upset and really angry, like when I was younger, I would go and I would hit a heavy bag at the gym, and it felt lovely to do that. I messed up my wrists, I messed up my shoulder, my neck has an injury, not from that, but now, so I can't even do that anymore. And so my point is that even things that are good for us, such as lifting weights, working out, cardio, can still be detrimental if you're not paying attention, if you're not listening to yourself. And so to that end, today I had it's happens to be a weekend, I had the day off, and I really wanted to go to the gym because I haven't gotten there this week. And my energy is just low. I have a low energy day. And because I've been implementing my my one, my one, we'll call it a New Year's resolution, but it's more of a just I really wanted to bring my my daily morning yoga practice back. And due to just lifestyle changes, it was it had been difficult for me for a short while, and I hadn't been doing it. So I have implemented it, save a few days here and there, which I think I've mentioned. And so it's a great test to you know, your levels, your energy levels, your mental, your check-in. It's just a great way to start your day, uh, not only with intention, but also with the the idea of, you know, where where am I in this moment today? And just in getting on my mat, I was like, oh no, this is not a this is not a gym day. This is a this is just not a gym day. It was if you're struggling physically on your yoga mat, doing things externally at the gym, pushing yourself in that space is going to again be an act of self-harm. So that ties back to earlier when we were talking about discipline and forgiveness. And it it's it's something that I that it's a theme for me frequently, and I I come back to it because I don't think there's any right one true answer to discipline versus forgiveness, other than you have to have that alignment with your higher self so that you're able to know in every moment, in every choice, in every decision, what is correct, forgiving myself for not going to the gym today, or the discipline of pushing myself to make it happen. And I like to look at that as a great metaphor. So the discipline is in my daily yoga practice, right? That's the discipline. And even on the days that I skip that, if I choose rest over that, it's because that rest is for my highest and best good over that external yoga practice in it when it comes to something like today. I felt pretty well rested. I was able to do my yoga practice. And when I went through my yoga practice, I realized that my mental idea of going to the gym today, because that's what I want to do, that type A drive. I said, no, I'm not in a space physically today to do that. I'm going to have this be my exercise, and maybe I'll go for a long walk. And that's the forgiveness. And that's an expression of the balance between the two. And the idea that a year ago I would have forced myself to go to the gym, and that idea of self-reflection. And so while I could come up with 10 different inquiries for you to go through like a checklist and just check off, well, you know, how did I harm others? How did I harm myself? Was I harmed by others? How am I going to navigate that? I think these, this one, this, this one little yama, or I should say this one, the first yama and the second to last niyama, again, this is the practice of Svadhyaya. Just working through ahimsa, working through non-harming, as the practice of self-reflection is a big one. It might be the biggest one. It might be the biggest one. And if if you need to recognize when you're doing it. That's the most important thing that I can share with you is that self-awareness button, that that pause and do it practicing this with every everything that you can in every moment, pausing the sacred pause, if you will, and taking a step back, non-reaction, the practice of turning in words, taking external information and processing it before taking you know immediate extreme action or reaction. That that peace is huge. But coming from a place of okay, this has occurred, and how am I going to benefit from it? How why is this happened for my benefit? Reframing always, and what can I learn from it? And how can I send love, be love, and love myself? How can I turn this into a teachable moment for my own self-care? And in so doing, become a little bit better today than I was yesterday. And doing that as a practice at life until you reach enlightenment or heaven or the next step, whatever that may be. And I will never pretend that I have the answers to those questions. But and this isn't about, let me just say one more. It's not about this is not about shame. This is not about beating up the self that you were yesterday. Because guess what? That's another aspect of self-harm, right? Guilt, shame, self-flagellation. That's that's doesn't that's energy wasted. That's energy that you could be giving to others with. That's energy that you could be taking care of yourself with. That's energy that is wasted in beating yourself up for where you fell short in the past. It's useless. It's useless. The only reason that I find guilt to be a useful tool is if it highlights where you know you could have acted and done better. And then instead of living in that guilt and saying, now I know, and using guilt as the tool for the self-awareness, for the self-examination. And remembering that anything can be an act of self-harm, even things that are positive, right? It can be an act of self-harm. And the only way to know that is to is to cultivate that bond with your higher self and that self-awareness, and knowing that you're not gonna always get it right, and that's okay. But the more you cultivate, and even if it doesn't look right in on the outside to you, uh having a little bit of faith and a little bit of trust in in the last, in the last Niyama, which is that surrender, that that idea of the higher consciousness, the higher self, the trust in the universe, the trust in God, the trust in faith that it's all working out for you and it's not happening to you. And that's where that self-analysis and that interview with who you were yesterday really comes into play. And so, as always, I just want to say how much I appreciate each and every one of you for sharing your space with me. And I ask that you please feel free to share the same with your loved ones. For more goodness, follow me on all the socials at Above the Ground Podcast and visit my website, airsabove.com. As always, don't forget to check out my other episodes and all of my amazing sisters at divas that care. You can find us on Spotify, Odyssey, Apple, Amazon, iHeartRadio, or anywhere else that you may feel guided. Again, my name is Gia Raquel Rose, owner of Airsabove Yoga, and you are listening to Above the Ground Podcast, where every day is a good one.

SPEAKER_00:

Thanks for listening. This show was brought to you by Divas That Care. Connect with us on Facebook, on Instagram, and of course on divas that care.com, where you can subscribe to our newsletter so you don't miss a thing.