Yoga, Dharma and Smoke Alarm Action Day | Ep 31

On national Smoke Alarm Action Day in Australia. Host, Liz Albanis shares how surviving two fires reshapes her dharma.  How  yoga can be  mind training rather than a pose chasing habit. She share why interconnected smoke alarms matter. Why Australia’s smoke alarm legislation needs tightening, and how steady practice helps her keep pushing when people dismiss the message. 
• Content warning and personal context around house fire fatalities and legislation 
• Dharma as a life path shaped by what happens to us 
• Crow Pose as a mirror for fear and giving up early 
• Abhyasa and vairagya as consistent effort with non attachment 
• Yoga as mind training that supports change but does not replace work 
• Why working smoke alarms save lives 
• The importance of interconnected smoke alarms  
• Insurance risk when homes do not meet smoke alarm requirements 
• Liz's efforts with lobbying to state, territory governments. 
Be the voice, write the email, make the call, push for change.house fire doesn’t just burn timber and walls, it rewires what you notice, what you fear, and what you refuse to ignore. I’m Liz Albanis, and this season of Yoga for Trauma sits right at that edge where personal healing meets practical action. This is a raw, personal listen with a content warning: we talk about house fire fatalities, house fires, and smoke alarm legislation in Australia. Please take care of yourself, and if you’re struggling, reach out to a licensed healthcare professional or call Lifeline on 13 11 14.

If this hits home, please share it with someone you love, check your smoke alarms today, and consider writing to your local member. Subscribe, leave a review, and help me keep this conversation loud enough to save lives.

Update: thanks to 2CC Radio Canberra for having me on very early this morning!

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Transcript

Dharma After Surviving Fire

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Things that happen to us change or create our dharma. The mind training I got out of that pose is what really benefited me. But yoga doesn't do the work for us. We have to do the work and it's not a quick fix.

Content Warning

SPEAKER_00 0:19

Hi, I'm Liz Albanis, and welcome to season two of Yoga for Trauma, the Inner Fire of Yoga, where we explore how yoga can help release trauma, calm the mind, and reconnect you with your body. Before you start listening, I just want to make you aware that this episode could be distressing for some listeners as it talks about the house fire fatalities, house fires, and smoke alarm legislation. Please take care of yourself. I am not a licensed medical health practitioner. I am simply a yoga teacher and yoga therapist, speaking about my own personal experience, passion, and beliefs. I'm not a medical professional. I'm not a firefighter. I'm just someone who is a victim of a fire, two fires actually, who wants change here in Australia. If you're struggling, please see a licensed healthcare professional or if in Australia to call Lifeline on 1311 or today's episode is raw. It's personal, but it's necessary. I really believe that things that happen to us change or create our Dharma. In the book Yoga and the Quest for the True Self by Stephen Cote, he says this. We move ineluctably toward trust in the basic okayness of things and in the remarkable intelligence of life itself. We let our Dharma, the plan life has for us, find us. And when we surrender to life's plan for us, we discover that we are not the doer. God is the doer.

Crow Pose And Limiting Beliefs

SPEAKER_00 2:25

The reason I started this podcast was surviving my second fire. I want to create awareness because lives are at stake and change is overdue. I'm lucky that my yoga practice has been taken off the mat in various ways. One of those ways is learning about my own limiting self-beliefs, such as not believing in myself enough to keep persevering with my pursuits and passions, giving up too easily. I discovered this with the Kasana a while ago, Crow Pose. Some of you may know it. It's a basic arm balance pose. And the first time I discovered it was way back in 2012, vaguely, I think, in a power yoga class, a really strong heated vinyasa flow class. And everyone else mostly seemed to come into it easily. I gave it a few goes and then I thought, no, there's no point. I can't do it. It's too hard. I'm scared. I'm just going to give up. Now I'm not saying that all yoga poses are possible, accessible to everyone. Often it's a matter of finding out what's stopping me. Is it fear? Is it laziness? Is it lack of belief? Is it a physical, a mental, or an emotional thing? And that's if we believe that the pose is good for us. So the way we react to poses on the mat, as I've said before, can really sometimes be light bulb moments. They can show us how we react to things off the mat. And this pose show that to me. Not straight away, though. So I gave up on this pose. I went, nah, it's too hard. I'm not athletic enough. No. And then after discovering more about myself and learning to believe in myself more. During lockdown, I did my second 200-hour yoga teacher training. As a lot of us were lucky here in Australia. We got money from the government and I was bored. Yes, I had a child to look after, but I thought I've always wanted to study with power living. And I'm going to do another 200-hour yoga teacher training because I'm forever a student and I knew I would benefit from it. I would knew I would learn more. And I did. Thank you, Power Living. I learn a lot. The concept of abhyasa is a consistent, unwavering daily practice, dedication to your own yoga practice over a long period of time. While also cultivating Vagra, non-attachment. So non-attachment to the outcome. Together, they balance action with letting go. And in lockdown, I also did a arm balancing course. Did you see what my body was capable of? If I was capable of getting into crowpose, I wanted to use it to test my mind with those concepts of abhyasa and bagra. I knew if I didn't get into it, it wasn't the end of the world. And I knew it wasn't the purpose of yoga doing these fancy modern yoga poses that the ancient yogis never used to practice. But it was the mind training of it. So I put in a lot of effort, this arm balancing program, my 200-hour yoga teacher training. And yeah, I eventually got into crow. And I could stay in there for maybe five, 10 seconds. I started off needing to use some blocks, both to stand on and to have one in face in front of me, so I didn't face plant because there was a lot of fear there. A lot of fear of falling and injuring myself. The way going up into a handstand frightens me, a full handstand. That has stopped me. And now also my shoulders have stopped me as well. But it showed to me those limiting self-beliefs of not believing in myself and giving up too easily. And worrying, all the effort wouldn't be worth it. It was a waste of time. So it was a great learning curve for me. I don't practice bhakasana anymore, especially after injuring one of my shoulders in 2024. And I don't really care. That's not the goal of it. The mind training I got out of that pose is what really benefited me. Because yoga really is mind training. But yoga doesn't do the work for us. We have to do the work. And it's not a quick fix, it's a long dedicated practice, a long-term thing. So abyasa and vagra, I think, can be really important. And abhyasa and vagra, and I'm probably not pronouncing them, so thank you, Power Living, for that. It was great to be able to do the course online in lockdown.

SPEAKER_01 8:38

I'm really, I'm really grateful for that.

Consistent Effort And Non Attachment (Abhyasa and Vairagya)

SPEAKER_00 8:56

To practice that non-attachment. And one of those efforts has been lobbying the government here in Australia to change the smoke alarm legislation because of my own experience. My Dharma has changed a little because of the 2024 fire. Today is the first day of winter here in Australia, the 1st of June, to mark this period where more heaters are used. And as it's an easy day to remember, being the first day of winter, it's also smoke alarm action day, with fire services across Australia urging people to check they have a working smoke alarm. According to Fire Rescue New South Wales, last year nearly half the homes damaged or destroyed by fire in New South Wales did not have working smoke alarms. A working smoke alarm is your best early warning sign of a fire, giving you and your loved ones the chance to get out, stay out, and call Triple Zero our emergency line instead of 911 here in Australia. I get it if you don't understand the importance of them. Unfortunately, a lot of us don't understand the importance of them until we learn the hard way. I never used to notice smoke alarms like most people. I never noticed that the house, the 1940s house I grew up in, didn't have smoke alarms until later on. I don't even know if the first property I bought had smoke alarms because I never used to notice them. I didn't look for them. Now I look for them. So I understand if you don't even notice or you don't check that your smoke alarms work. But my experience in 2024 changed all of this. One of the firefighters said that my neighbors were lucky to survive. Had they not had working smoke alarms, they'd be dead. Plain and simple, they'd be dead. And because they didn't have interconnected smoke alarms, because they weren't required to by law, they only found out the house was on fire when about half the floor was on fire and the smoke alarm upstairs sounded. One of them was in the shower, and the three others were sound asleep in the bedrooms, from what I know. No doubt it would have been very scary and traumatic for them because when they found out their house was on fire, half the floor was on fire. I cannot imagine how traumatic that would have been. But the fact that they were lucky to survive made me start to notice smoke alarms

Why Interconnected Smoke Alarms Matter and Alarms in Bedrooms

SPEAKER_00 12:21

in buildings, including houses. I actually stayed with someone else and I vomited when I found out they didn't have any smoke alarms in the house because they didn't think they needed any. They'd never had smoke alarms and been fine for their whole life. I've been ridiculed and mocked by members of my own family, blood relatives, one of whom doesn't believe in smoke alarms except for children, and that's okay. I don't really care. I can't control what people think or feel. I cannot make people have the same passions as me. But that's not going to stop me pursuing my own passions, my dharma. When smoke alarms are interconnected, when one alarm goes off, the rest of the house goes off. So you know immediately to get out and call triple zero. And this is especially important for those people who can't get out quickly because of mobility issues, especially for people in two-story houses and the fire starting downstairs because often we can't get out of a two-story house unless we go downstairs. But regardless, every house should have interconnected smoke alarms. And don't get me wrong, I am grateful that Australia has smoke alarm legislation, but it needs to be tightened to match the state of Queensland. Plain and simple. There have been many deaths here in Australia and overseas because smoke alarms were not interconnected and they weren't in bedrooms. Before we moved into this new house in Canberra, the first thing I did was I got the electricity check. And because of the age of the house, it needed some upgrading with more safety switches. And I got new smoke alarms put in because the two smoke alarms in this two-story house were ionized type and they were not interconnected. So I got more smoke alarms put in. They are in every bedroom, and there's one in the garage because of all these fires that have started in garages. Here's something else that might also convince you. Most insurance policies will not cover homes that don't meet legislation, or others significantly reduce the payout. I know this because I've researched it extensively after our fire. Sadly, some people only listened to me when I told them this. This means you can lose your home and your coverage in one night. This includes contents. Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful that Australia has smoke alarm legislation of some sort, as many countries do not have smoke alarm legislation at

Lobbying For Change In Australia

SPEAKER_00 15:44

all. Here's what I've done and what I invite you to do too. The more people who can do this, the more likely there is for change. I've now contacted numerous politicians here in Australia, in the states of Victoria and New South Wales, and here in the Australian Capital Territory, federal, state, and members of the Legislative Assembly here in Canberra. On both sides of government. I've shared our story, I've laid out the case for aligning our laws with Queensland on deaf ears most of the time. I am grateful to the politicians who responded to me, even when not in a timely fashion.

SPEAKER_01 16:35

But I will say this if you're a politician here in Australia, at the very least you can do is respond to constituents.

SPEAKER_00 16:48

I understand it's a tough job that you signed up for, and most people wouldn't do it. But responding to your constituents is the bare minimum. Because I have had one politician who has never responded to me despite multiple phone calls and emails. Nothing, no reply. This is disappointing. Because this isn't a partisan issue, it's a human one. Especially when lives are at risk, is not a favor, it's the bare minimum of their job. This isn't just about building regulations, it's not just about technology, it's about people asleep in their beds being oblivious to a fire that could kill them. I'm about family members who never get the chance to say goodbye. Let's not wait until another family loses everything. Be the voice, write the email, make the call, push for change. I'm not giving up. My yoga practice has taught me that I used to give up too easily, too quickly. And I'm not giving up now because no one else will protect your family the way you will. Be the change you want to see in the world. It starts with us and it starts now. Firefighters and emergency workers, you are needed in this conversation. And I appreciate all that you do. You are heroes. Thank you for walking this path with me by listening to this episode. I appreciate it.