Bar Break: Wellness for Lawyers | Where Legal Practice Meets Inner Stillness

In this episode of Bar Break, we sit down with two amazing attorneys whose careers bridge the worlds of law, embodiment, and mindfulness: Justine Fanarof, founder of Fanarof Law & Advisory, and Vanisha Weatherspoon, corporate real estate associate at Norton Rose Fulbright. In addition to their distinguished legal careers, they are longtime yoga instructors, who bring presence, grounding, and somatic awareness into the heart of how they practice law - from navigating conflict and client care to managing the pressures of a demanding profession.

They share how yoga first became a grounding force in their legal journeys, how contemplative practice shapes the way they navigate conflict, responsibility, and client care, and what it looks like to build a sustainable legal career rooted in presence rather than pressure. 

Tune in for honest reflections, practical tools, and a reminder that reconnecting with your body can change the way you show up in your work - and more importantly, for yourself. 

You’re invited to pause with wellness breaks guided by Vanisha and Justine at 3:18 and 30:18, and then settle into a longer, 10‑minute “release valve” practice at 1:12:00 - a grounding meditation to help you release tension and reconnect inward.🤍

Justine and Vanisha invite you to connect with them at https://justineyoga.com/ and https://legalyogipodcast.com/, respectively.

🎧 Listen at the link below, or on any platform where you listen to podcasts:  https://tyla.org/resource/bar-break/

#tyla #younglawyers #legalpodcast #barbreak #wellness #mindfulness #attorneywellbeing #yogapractice #yoga #meditation #somaticpractice

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

You're welcome to Bar Break, a TechSoup Lawyers Association podcast dedicated to supporting attorney wellness through honest, relatable conversations.

SPEAKER_01 0:08

Join us as we explore real stories of setbacks, burnout, and growth, and share practical tools to navigate work-life balance and protect your mental health. This is Bar Break, where taking a pause helps you thrive.

SPEAKER_00 0:22

Welcome to Bar Break, the Wellness for Lawyers podcast, brought to you by the Texas Young Lawyers Association. I'm one of your co-hosts, Jimmy Vaughn, and I'm here with guest co-host Anettia Ekpan, who we're lucky to have.

SPEAKER_03 0:35

Thanks so much, Jimmy. Hi, everyone. We're so excited about this episode, and I'm so happy to be here with Jimmy today. We're joined in this episode by two incredible guests, Justine Fanaroff and Venetia Witherspoon. They're not only attorneys, but they're incredible yoga instructors and wellness practitioners, and they'll be sharing with us how their yoga practices show up in their legal work.

SPEAKER_00 1:02

Venisha Witherspoon is a 500-hour registered yoga teacher and a certified yoga sculpt instructor based in Austin, Texas. She began practicing yoga consistently in 2017 during her first year of law school at Georgetown as a way to manage stress and counter the mental health challenges common in the legal profession. While a 2L summer associate, she completed her initial 200-hour yoga teacher training and has been teaching since 2019, including during her time at Georgetown. Now, in her sixth year of practice as a corporate real estate associate at a global law firm, she brings a unique perspective to her teaching. Her classes are musically driven and intentionally designed to blend mindful movement with strength-based practice and informed that which are informed by her experience navigating a demanding legal career.

SPEAKER_03 1:51

And we also have with us Justine Fanaroff, who is the founder of Fanaroff Law and Advisory. She's a counselor at law, thought leader, and stewardship practitioner whose work lives at the intersection of law, contemplative practice, and the full complexity of carrying responsibility wisely. Her practice spans estate planning, governance design, mediation, mindful business counsel, ethics, and stewardship advisory. She brings experience as a yoga and meditation teacher, somatic coach, certified mediator, and Spanish speaker into the heart of how she listens, plans, and advises. A dog mom, avid adventurer, live music lover, and nature girl, she practices virtually across Oregon and Texas through Faneroff Law and globally through Fanneroff Advisory. So let's all welcome Justine and Venisha to the podcast. Thanks for having us. Twins. Twins. Yes. No, of course. I wanted to ask, you know, before we jump in, I again, on behalf of TYLA, Jimmy and I are so happy to have this time with you and this space with you. And so to kind of just kick things off, uh, Venisha, would you mind sort of uh blessing us with like an intention to kind of set the tone for our conversation and our fellowship today?

SPEAKER_05 3:18

Sure.

First Wellness Break

SPEAKER_05 3:19

So what I was thinking of doing is starting us off with like a little breath work practice. So nothing crazy, just something super easy. So let's all just first off take one deep breath in. Open mouth exhale, let it go. Maybe take a moment here to bring your feet onto the ground, feel the support of the ground underneath you. Maybe bring your hands to your thighs, or always an option to give yourself a little hug during this time. An option here to close the eyes or soften your gaze down the bridge of your nose. And we'll do a couple of box breaths together. Inhale, breathe in for four, three, two, one, hold at the top for four, three, two, three, one, exhale for four, three, two, three, one. We'll do one more just like that, and then we'll do something a little different. Inhale in for four, three, two, three, one hold at the top. Now this time take in one more breath of air. Exhale, let it go. In this next round, we'll take a three-part cleansing breath. So don't exhale right away. This is gonna help give us a little more energy. Inhale, breath in. Now take another breath in. Take another breath in. Hold for four. Three, two, one open mouth exhale. From here, maybe you start to just wiggle the fingers, wiggle the toes, maybe give yourself a couple of neck rolls if you're like me and you've been sitting all day. Roll the shoulders back away from the ears. And then eventually start to flutter your eyes open if they're closed. And break. No.

SPEAKER_03 5:35

That was so beautiful. Thank you. Thank you, Venisha. That was wonderful. Thanks. I um uh right when we were getting started, when we were starting to talk to y'all prepping for um, you know, to prep prep for the beginning of this interview, we had shared, me and Jimmy were sharing with y'all that um, you know, we're we're filming this episode in mid-April. And for a lot of us who are involved in bar work and bar service, this is kind of the time of year where we're folks, the the burnout feels real. And all of us who are interested in bar service, it's because we, you know, we love to pour into to others and into the profession, into the community, but you know, we end up sort of pouring from an empty cup eventually. And so um these uh sorts of practices, like you know, what you just did and and and what you know Justine will be sharing with us, you know, at the end of the episode is so important. I think this emphasizes the significance of uh of creating space for ourselves, uh, especially as um attorneys. And to kind of kick kick things off with each of you, and I'll start with with you, Vanish, and go to um Justine next. Could you uh just talk a little bit about um uh your own sort of yoga practice? What drew you first to yoga, the specific practices that you are an instructor for that you teach, and how those practices have sort of formulated or shaped your approach to practicing law.

SPEAKER_05 7:10

Yeah, sure. So I have been teaching yoga. This is gonna be my seventh year teaching. I have been practicing for consistently for nine years. I always tell people it's probably closer to 11 years total, but the first two years of yoga practice for me was kind of at gyms around Austin. It was really, I had a roommate who she was a big yogi and she wanted me to like really start to tap into that practice. And I was a basketball player growing up, and I was kind of just like, if I don't sweat during a workout, then it's not anything real, like it's not a workout. Um, and so that's that's how I found yoga, but I usually tell people like I mark my practice in August of 2017, because that is when I started at law school. I was a 1L at Georgetown. And they, the dean of students, he literally said, Look to your left, look to your right, one of you is gonna become an alcoholic or a drug addict the first day of orientation. And I have alcoholism on both sides of the family. So I was like, that cannot be me. Uh thankfully, I was too broke to become a drug addict, so that was never gonna happen. But the alcoholism was what scared me the most. So they offered yoga on campus and they would bring in like teachers from around DC. They would just come to our campus to teach. So I started going to a couple of classes randomly. I was like, oh, okay, this is cool. But I think it was really the second semester of 1L when no one tells you this at the beginning, but apparently there's some point in time where some you everyone has a mental breakdown in their 1L year, especially at the school I went to. So I had mine second semester of 1L after grades came out. And I just, you know, background on me, I was always like the top dog in every class. In school, I was pretty much like the one everyone thought was gonna be president one day, like most likely to succeed, president of everything, and in college too. Literally, I pledged a sorority, and my line name meant smart. Like that's that was me, the smart one. So going to law school, which no one tells you this, is that you're taking the smart one from all over the US. So they're all coming, they're being dropped into one place, and you're being told that one of you is gonna get your first B. And that was, I got my first B. And I was literally in my room crying for two weeks. B is for basic, like I'm never gonna be successful. Basic. That was yeah, I was literally like, I'm basic. This is it. I can't believe this. And I ended up having um, I couldn't sleep. I went to my first, like my annual physical of that year, and my doctor asked, So how are you doing? And I just shattered. I just started crying and I had no, I didn't know why I was crying. I was just like, I can't sleep, I can't do anything. And she was like, Okay, we're gonna prescribe a couple of things to get you out of this headspace. It's also, I was in Washington, DC. They have real seasons there. I came from Texas where we have no seasons. We have hot and hotter. So in DC, there's apparently this thing called seasonal depression that no one warned me about. So I think it was a mix of the seasonal depression. I was away from my friends and my family. And then these grades come out. And the one thing I thought I always had going for myself was that I was the smart one. And then and and to be clear, like these are actually great grades. It was just, you know, it was the perfectionist in me that is still recovering. But I was on sleeping pills. She put me on sleeping pills, depression pills, and then told me something I did in college was I studied from my bed. It's it was my happy place. And, you know, the more you do that, uh, the more your bed becomes a workstation rather than a place of rest. So I was and I would sleep. The books would be next to me in the bed while I was sleeping. So it was just, I was creating a really bad pattern. And so that was the first thing I stopped doing is I realized I needed to work in a place of work and rest in my bedroom in my place of rest. So I stopped working from my bed and I started going to the library, and that helped tremendously. But I've been going to these yoga classes pretty much all year, didn't think anything of it. But then after I started taking these meds, I realized that was the one place I felt like I was enough. Like I felt like I was good, no matter how bad I was at yoga. I didn't even think I was very good at the beginning, but I just, which is fine because there's no way to be like good. Like everyone's good at yoga. It's it's a mental practice. But that was the one place I felt like no one was judging me, no one was expecting more of me than I could give. And I just kept going. And then my aunt actually, she had heard I was depressed and I was taking these pills, and she did her own research without me asking her. And then she reached out to me and she said, I need you to get off of those sleeping meds. And she's like, because they have the potential to make you addicted later on. And so I was like, Okay, let me figure out a way to get off of these because right now I can't sleep any other way. So, and then actually at the same time, I was noticing my friends around me were also struggling, but we just weren't talking about it. I was seeing one of my friends drink a bottle of wine a night. Like that's how stressed out we were. There were people in the library literally doing cocaine in the library to stay on par with everyone else. And went to school in DC. These are rich people. Like, so they can afford it too. So that's kind of why people were doing all this stuff there. But the more I started going to the yoga classes, the more I realized that like nothing else really matters. Like grades are grades. Has anyone asked about my grades in the six years since law school? No, no one cares. All they care about is that I have been practicing for this long in the same place and went to a great law school. And that's when I realized like this is where I need to be. Like, I don't know if I like the practice, but I like what they're saying to me. And then I kept going, kept going, and I started to get really good. I don't know if I was good or if the teacher just told me I was good. I don't know, but it felt like I was getting good. And that's when I really the I started going to classes off campus at that point. And I was like, okay, let me go to like a real studio. And I started going to other studios, and I was good um physically. Like I was because I was an athlete all my whole college, like high school life, everything. So going to the outside classes, I realized, okay, this is probably something for me. However, the other thing I noticed was that there was no one that looked like me teaching. It was all very, very skinny blonde women. So that was something I realized, okay, maybe like maybe there's something there for me. I've always been uh the way a partner at my firm he calls it is I'm good at putting on a show. So I've always been good in front of people. I'm always, always been the kind of person you want to like lead a class or to speak. Um, just didn't really like anything else. I'm not a litigator because I don't like the work that goes into putting on the show. But I started um going around. I met one teacher who she was the only other black woman with curly hair that I had ever met doing yoga. And she played the exact music that I liked to practice to. Uh, so that basically changed the game for me because she was playing Lauren Hill in the class, and I was like, this is perfect, like this is where I need to be. And she was the one. So I started going to her classes, and eventually she was like, Have you considered teaching? And I'm like, I'm gonna be a lawyer, like, I don't think I need to teach. Like, I don't think that's gonna work. She was like, Well, I mean, your practice is whatever your practice is gonna be. Like, you can set the tone for classes. Like, she's like, I think you'd be really good at teaching. And it was mostly because, like I said, I was very physically advanced. So I was getting into poses very quickly, like, you know, headstand, all that stuff. But then I realized I was getting into it on my own because I knew how to make space for my own body. And I noticed that no teacher could teach to my body type. And I feel like I have a very normal in today's society, normal body type. Uh a little curvier, but I realized maybe this is why I should be teaching, is because I could teach to all bodies. And I also had these friends in law school that were struggling, and I was like, well, maybe they won't go to yoga with me, but maybe they'll come to a class if I'm teaching the class. So that's when I decided I was at 2L. I had a summer clerkship in Austin. I found a yoga studio that had a teacher training being offered that summer. I had um the like activity director at the uh Georgetown gym. She told me, I will hire you if you get your 200-hour teacher training over the summer. Like, you have a job. I don't even need to see you like try out, you're you got it. So I ended up meeting um my teacher, Michelle Young. She owns the studio I teach at today, and she gave me an abbreviated training. So I did the teacher training with everyone, but then there were just a few like lessons that I didn't take, like the business of yoga, because everyone knew that that was this was not going to be my full-time career. This is just, I just need to have it. So I did my teacher training, started teaching, and that's kind of what started my yoga practice is that I teach for people in high stress environments. That's what I like to teach. I don't consider myself a fluffy yoga teacher who has beautiful words to say in the class. I typically don't have much to say in class. I'm just, my students say I'm I'm real. Um, I'm very, very raw. Uh, and it's because I'm on all day long. You know, I'm a corporate real estate lawyer. It's like I'm on. And then my yoga class is where I feel like it's my time to be myself. So everything comes down, let my hair down, and I just enjoy it. I have fun. They know I have fun with them, and they keep coming back because they realize that like the type of teaching I do is very physically intense. I teach basically we I call it a slow burn. It's basically power flow, but now we add, but it's very adaptive. So I'm a big proponent of adjustments, blocks, any kind of prop to get deeper into a pose because yoga was made by a skinny Indian man. And today's practitioners are not skinny Indian men always. So that's kind of why. And I'm also starting to move more into extra physical practice because I like to me, the ultimate like meditation for me is being lost in the flow in the music. So my flow is an RB flow. That's I teach exactly what I want to go to. I teach an RB flow. I think I'm the only R B flow teacher in Austin, but and people are and that's kind of what they are expecting when they come to me. And so it's been definitely like I would consider my practice a physically intense moving meditation.

SPEAKER_03 20:02

That's I first of all, I have thank you, Vanisha, because you touched on so many things that I know all of us agree with. And and thank you for bringing up the um visibility part, because that was something I wanted to ask you about. And thank you for bringing that up because I do think for a lot of us there is a sort of cultural um maybe barricade isn't the word, but I think it's it's the, you know, well, we we do this instead, and and and and sort of expanding our ideas of of what sort of healing and what what can be healing spiritually, emotionally for us. Um, I think that's fantastic that you're an instructor so that there is that visibility of that. And um we we certainly need more. So I thank you for being that person. And I will be coming to an RB flow class. I will drive to Austin just to take the RB flow from the class. Um and and and speaking of sort of that like visibility and also accessibility, um, to jump to to Justine, just to kind of bridge what you were saying, I worked with Justine on a project during COVID with a nonprofit here in Houston that focused on making sort of yoga and wellness practices accessible primarily to diverse um children um in different parts of Houston. I remember Justine, you taught a beautiful like virtual class, like breathing class. It was so wonderful. So when you brought that up, Venisha, it made it it made me think of that practice and gift that Justine provided us um during COVID, which was such a difficult time mentally for so many of us. Um, but Justine, sorry, the same to you. Um I've I've had the pleasure of taking Justine's class a couple of times, beautiful, beautiful classes virtually. Um, Can you talk a bit about your uh yoga practices and how they've shaped you as an attorney and as a person?

SPEAKER_02 22:08

Yeah, thanks so much. Um, so just kind of reflecting on what Vanisha was saying. Um so it's we're so amazing beyond the surface, right? The surface is one thing that we see. And really, if we slow down and we pay attention um and we ask questions and we listen to understand, we all have such amazing stories. And I'm I'm really fascinated with people and I'm fascinated with our stories. And I'm fascinated in knowing um and sharing and holding, creating space where people can be themselves. Um, and that changes, that dynamic changes. We change, we are that which changes. Um then I'm also really interested in what is our essence? And um, does that change? Or is that something that has always been whole and always been healed? And kind of the more external layers in yoga we call it kosha, um, kind of the sheaths, the layers of our existence. Um, these are the things that sort of pile up as we, as we live in a body, um, and as we do, we do mental, mentally challenging practices such as going to law school, taking the bar, um, you know, existing under the circumstances of becoming a lawyer, um, working with challenging people, uh, working with ourselves, working with uncertainty, working with demands, working with conflict, working with extreme deadlines. And then I'm like, well, who is that underneath all that other stuff? You know, who are these people? What are we actually managing? And so, so my work, um similar to what I heard Venisha said, is it's a creative practice and it's a place where I get to create a dialogue and a space for people and for myself where they feel held. And they can feel held in a number of different ways. And so, really, um, the practice for me is showing up and offering that which I understand, but really seeing who's in the room and creating a practice that is joyful, that is potentially physically challenging. It may or may not need to be super physically challenging, um, especially with really anxious, stressed-out folks. Maybe the the last thing we need is another challenge. Maybe what we really need is to feel supported. And so there's different ways to offer that within um within a group yoga class. Um I came to yoga um or yoga came to me. I've always been a very deeply spiritual person. I was raised in a very um kind of traditionally faithful Jewish family, culturally Jewish in a lot of ways. And also I have a very strong lineage of social justice. My maternal grandparents were anti-apartheid activists, and I'm an immigrant, came to Texas um for work opportunities for my parents. Um, and uh I was a dancer and I'm short and I've got big boobs, and I didn't have like the typical, you know, classical ballerina body in any way, shape, or form, in any way, shape, or form. And yet I love to move and I love to breathe and I love this like, oh, I'm going into this space. I love going into a studio. I love walking into a place and knowing that we're all here for a specific practice that we are hopefully going to be held and um and that there will be tools in the studio space that will help us deepen our practice. And so Venetia described music as one of those tools, right? Music may be a tool, it may also be having props like bolsters or blocks or straps or a bar or a Yangar yoga wall where you can work with the wall to support the body. Um, and I too started at the University of Texas Rec Center. I know you're in Georgetown. I was in at Austin. And this was quite a long time ago. So I will consider myself a young lawyer for Texas Young Lawyers uh purposes, but I'm actually I'm 49. I turned 50 this year. And so I started my practice um in 1998 at the UT Rec. And um I then moved to California. I studied radio, television, film as an undergrad at UT. And I was living in California, and I took while I was living there an intro to yoga class that met on Tuesdays and Thursdays at the Forest Yoga Circle on Montana Street in Santa Monica. And this was just one of the most magical places that I've ever been to. And um what I what I learned there was that there is a way to be with with the body-mind, um, with the breath, um, that is generative, that is creative, that is nourishing, and that allows me to look and see where I am um holding a lot of expectations and where I'm not holding a lot of contentment. Um, and so I deepened my practice. And then in in 2004, I did a training, um, a year-long training with one of my teachers in Houston, Robert Busaney, who is a really prolific teacher in Houston, and many people in Texas and throughout the world have changed with Robert. And Robert's real skill set for me was energetics. And I didn't really have an understanding of energetics before I before I worked with Robert. Um, and then I I honed in with this other very physical um practice that's called forest yoga. And then over the years, I've studied with just some unbelievably creative and um skillful teachers in in different realms. And we'll I know we'll talk a little bit more about kind of the different practices of yoga, but I'd say I've had a very rich um yoga education, and probably the best teachers I've ever had in my life have been um on the on the yoga mat and then in the in the bigger picture of of what yoga is. Um, I did my master's in public health at uh University of Texas in Houston, and then I went to law school at South Texas, and I was a second career law student. So I was a little older when I went to law school. And um my friends in my law school class called me the Xanax mermaid because I always had really long hair and I was always really chill. Um and like maybe that's how I presented, right? Really chill on the outside. But as I got older, I realized that I was holding a lot of anxiety, and that not only was I holding a lot of anxiety, but that we generally hold a lot of anxiety as human beings. And especially if you live in a big city where you don't have to pay attention to your senses because you actually can't, because the city is so loud. Um, and the noise of society um is something that's allowed me to go deeper into kind of my own practices. And so these days, my practices are um really focused on teaching ethics. Um, and I teach ethics from a yoga perspective and uh understanding of Buddhist psychology, which is understanding the way that the mind works. Um, very interested in breath work, and I'll just say for a moment,

Second Wellness Break

SPEAKER_02 30:18

like, let's all take a big breath, like inhale through our noses and just like feel that expansion. Just give yourself that space and then just slowly exhale out through the mouth. Um, one of the things that, and I'll just pause for a moment, allow for a little bit of radio, radio silence so I can take a breath. What I've learned and what I've experienced, this is a somatic practice. This is a practice of the body, it's also a practice of the mind, like what Venetia said before, is that most of us are not breathing in a way that is generative, in a way that replenishes our energetic fields. And um if we create a space where we can slow down and we can allow ourselves to feel and we can come into the moment and just simply feel, feel the bring our awareness to our shoulders. Very, you know, specific instruction, very, very useful instruction. You don't have to change anything, just let our awareness rest in our body. And when when I guide students these days, let the awareness rest in the jaw. And then we feel, oh my gosh, I've been holding my jaw. Like just touching our awareness to certain places can be so beautiful and so profound. Um, it can also be really scary. Um, it can also be triggering, it can also be um the unknown. And so there's, you know, over the years, the the world of trauma-informed yoga has really shifted, I think, the way in which people show up and they teach. And there's a lot more being offered right now than ever before. Uh, different body types, different colors, different ethnicities, different spaces where people feel safe. And so um for me, when I show up, uh, you know, whatever the whatever the space is with the people that I'm teaching and what I'm holding with my practice, I really just want to meet that person where I feel that I can and create a space where they breathe, where they allow their mind to focus, where they challenge their body enough for them, enough for them. And I don't know what's going on in somebody's body. Um so to practice skillfully in a way that allows me to offer possibilities for people so that they can breathe and feel held. And the rest is up to them, you know. Um, and one of the things that they say, like, I remember in yoga teacher training, and it's very true in life, you know, uh, five people come to the same yoga class, one person loves it, one person hates it, one person hurts themselves. You know, that's kind of the deal. It's like, it's the same class. You know, we're gonna have the experience that we're gonna have in a situation. And so people, people learning how to to understand their own minds, understand their own bodies is um it's it's really a necessary um practice, uh, sometimes, sometimes both necessary and sufficient to to deal with stress and to deal with anxiety, to deal with uh depression. Um, and it's a beautiful thing to be able to offer to the community.

SPEAKER_03 33:48

Yes. And we thank you for you and Venisha for what you do. And I I think something that you said that was really profound, and Vanish was alluding to this too, is in one class, you have a class of like 30 people, and there's 30 different experiences happening at the same time in that space. So, to your point, Justine, that you know, people come into these spaces for this for this sort of same purpose, but they're experiencing how they navigate that person purpose in different ways. I think for you and Venetia to to sort of adapt to those needs of people in your respective practices, I think that's such a beautiful gift. So that I thought that was just really profound.

SPEAKER_02 34:34

Yeah, I mean, and I'll just say, like, I remember when I was teaching a lot of studio classes, which I teach mainly privates these days and series. Um, since COVID, I took most of my practice online. And because I travel so much and I live, you know, I'm licensed in Texas, I'm licensed in Oregon. I spend a significant time portion of my year in California these days. Um, I teach virtually and um I don't teach as many group classes, but I remember planning a group class and it was a handstand class. And so everything in the class is like working up to handstand. And somebody without an arm came to the class. Like you cannot, you know, that's the reality is that um no matter how much I no matter how much I plan and think about this is the class that I want to teach, then the people show up and create the context and the content of the class. And so being adaptable, being resilient, these are also really beautiful skill sets for being an attorney, right? Knowing how to pivot, seeing things clearly, paying attention, watching and understanding, listening and utilizing the cues that we use from the people in the room with us to support the energy of the room towards uh let's say resolution, right?

SPEAKER_00 36:03

Um I'm gonna I'm gonna kind of jump around here because I I don't see where this is going. And you kind of touched on a point, but I want to expand on it a little bit between both of you. Obviously, I'm not asking for you to give up trade secrets and your legal practice. But you know, you've you mentioned like using your energy, using the way using yoga techniques to kind of change the tone of the room, move towards resolution, come to a solution. Um do you find yourselves uh implementing yoga grounding techniques when you're facing tough legal challenges? Um, and and if so, would you provide an example of that?

SPEAKER_02 36:48

Yeah, Venisha, do you want to go ahead and then I'll uh I'll follow up?

SPEAKER_05 36:53

I think I definitely do in terms of interacting with my peers. And by peers, I mean up and down the chain on our on my end. I am I feel like in my group uh the the team, I'm the only woman that's uh not a partner on our team. And so the I feel like I often get categorized as the social chair of the group. Yes, I'm like I know how to do it. Yeah, I know, I know. Um we've been they've been doing better in the past, but I would say I am someone that loves to take a breath before we do something. And by taking a breath, it's also me being able to check in because I feel like in this practice, especially in big law, there's not many people asking you how you're actually doing, they're asking you like, do you have capacity to do X? So I think what I always try to do is one, I prefer to always have a call or a face-to-face interaction with anyone I'm either assigning work to or getting work from. And I think it just helps humanize the practice a little bit more because I think we forget, we get so busy that we just kind of forget that we're not doing brain surgery. So while it feels important, it's actually not that important. Like no one's going to die from like a document not being turned in by end of day, or no one is going to be harmed physically, or they might be emotionally harmed, but they won't be physically harmed from like turning something in a couple days later, or like revising a draft and getting it to the other side a couple days later. And what ends up happening, and I think right now is a big part of my my practice has been learning to be okay with slowing down in every aspect of like my day. I think there are times when you are a young associate and you are just wanting to be like the best you can where you're just like willing to do anything. And there's also a little bit of a cultural difference here. We've talked about this um in my, we talked about this last week actually in at my firm, but there are people like me who are the first in their family to, you know, go to college, do other all these other things, go to law school. And now I'm at this job and I feel like I've made it, but I'm still at the bottom of the food chain. Uh, not anymore, but I was at the bottom of the food chain. And I feel like I was because I was just grateful to be here because there weren't a lot of people that looked like me here, that I was willing to go all of the extra miles. And I noticed to this day, I still noticed that my male peers, especially white male peer peers, they aren't. I have young associates that say no. And I remember when I was a young associate, I never said no to anything. And I think like I would say now, now that I'm in the position of manager, I'm more conscious of like trying to understand how people learn, how they work. And I really do think that is a part of the yoga practice that I'm just trying to get to know people on a deeper level so I can work with them in a way that feels supportive to everyone without also causing any added stress. Um, something I was taught a lot of um trauma-informed practices when I was in teacher training and my um the owner of our studio, our biggest pillar is being accessible to everyone, so and adaptable. So I think that's kind of how I've approached my legal practice as well. Um, when people give me like evaluations, the first thing they say is she is a joy to work with. And it's because I prefer to connect as people, and then we can do the work, we'll do the work later, whatever. And I think I do that in all aspects. Like I do it when I'm recruiting lawyers to the firm, I do it when I'm working with clients, and when I am working with sellers council or buyers council, all that stuff. It's kind of my ultimate goal is to just like remind everyone, yeah, we're here for a job, but we're also people and we should be taking a step before we go into the heat.

SPEAKER_03 41:56

Yes, I love that the humanit, the humanness of us all. I feel like this profession strips it in a way that's just so terrifying and it it it it it saddens and and and scares me in many ways. And I know for you and and and you too, Justine, I can't imagine how many uh how many people probably walk into your respective spaces or who you interact with at work that are like, I just need to feel like a person because I think what happens is, especially with law school, which you brought up, Venetia, that's like the seed that really I think that that's where the the roots take place of the perfectionism for many that may already be there, but it exacerbates it and then creates these really unhealthy and scary habits because our profession, you know, as as much as a privilege it is to be a part of it, it it does unfortunately, there's a foundation of of really sort of unhealthy, dangerous habits where people lose who they are. And I remember in law school, a lot of people there, I was like, you were a person. I I just wanted to say I appreciated that point, especially in just connecting as humans. That's that gets lost in the sauce all the time in our profession. But I think sorry, sorry, Justine. I didn't mean to cut into your You didn't.

SPEAKER_02 43:25

I loved hearing what you have to say too, Anya T. Jimmy, were you gonna say something?

SPEAKER_00 43:31

Yeah, you know, I Anettia brought up a point I'd never considered, but think about law school exams, you're just a number.

SPEAKER_04 43:38

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 43:39

You are totally objectified and you have no control over the process, no idea of how the outcome's gonna go, and you've been pitted against everybody else that's in the room with you.

SPEAKER_02 43:51

Yes. Yeah, and we uh we have a tendency in our own psychology because um Way that we've evolved from a very like survival-based species, right? Um, we have this tendency to discern, to be judgmental, to that's potentially beneficial, right? But but what it ends up doing to our brains, even if you're not trained to be a lawyer, is that we all tend to be highly critical, right? Um, and we can live our lives, the entirety of our lives is a very wah experience. It's a very me, me, me experience. What are what do I need? How do I go first? You know, if you drive in Houston, Texas, like, and you're not first at the light, or you don't cut people off on the 59 to get to the galleria, like, what are you even doing, right? You know, it's like must-be first mentality. And um we don't always have to be first. I think that's one of the things that I heard Venisha saying. It's like we can be really skillful. So, so yoga and practice teaches us skillful means, skillful means to inner to to have interpersonal relationships, right? The relationships that we have with our colleagues, those are the profound um touchstones of our lives. Like if you are not a cool person and you treat people badly, um like that gets out pretty quickly into the world. And if somebody, you know, you come across somebody and you're doing a deal, we both do a lot of transactional work, Venisha and I. Um, I'm not currently a litigator, I've been one in the past, but like you need to work with someone and you're not a nice person, insert your own word there. Um, like that's one thing. Now imagine if you treat every single person that you come into contact with as a light, as a gift, as a, you know, at the end of a yoga practice, traditionally you'll say, the light in me honors and acknowledges the light in you, right? We teach every single person and we treat every person at every stage of the game, from the client to the paralegal, to the assistant, to the janitor, to the partner, to, you know, opposing counsel, opposing client, opposing, right? Even that that word. The word. Yeah, it's it's set up to be antagonistic. So so what if we actually create a shift in the way that we practice? That's a simple, simple shift, but it's very profound that we treat one another as partners. And that's um, that's how I implement this work into my practice. My practice is agreement-based and resolution-oriented. It is a mindful practice because the way in which I come to the work requires attention. And it is a practice because it has changed since I first became a lawyer. I would say I'm much better now than I was before, right? Like, and I also have different skill sets that I bring to the table. Um one skill that I think is really important, and I'll just share with y'all and with the listeners is um it's it's a mindfulness practice. Um, every Monday, first thing in the morning, before I do anything, I do a brain dump. I get everything out of my brain that is in there. I don't look at my phone. I I turn my computer away. So like eight o'clock Monday morning, I take a piece of paper, I take a pen, and I write personal care, family care, and professional care. And I frame these as care because care, unlike cure, is a continuum, right? We take care of things. Um, to me, that's that's stewardship and that's what my practice is all about. And then I write everything down in those categories that's like in my brain, because one of the things we tend to have is a shadow docket in our brain of or a shadow calendar of all these things that we should be doing that we have anxiety about, right? But if I get everything down on paper, like everything, put on music, write it all down. And then I look at it and I write next to it an M, a C, or an S, a must, a could or a should. And I go through and I prioritize, okay, this is gonna take me 90 minutes. This is gonna take me 15 minutes, but everything goes on my calendar, like nothing, no, no items left behind. And then I get to see um like what it is that my week looks like. And I choose one needle mover, and this is a Warren Buffett technique as well, which is pretty cool. Have one needle mover, like one item, one big thing that I can prioritize for the week. And no, I may not get to everything on my list or on my calendar, but what the beauty of the calendar is I can move things into the next week. And I can also look out. You know, it's nice to have kind of a 90-day practice. So I can look out over the next three months and I can say, sometime within the next three months, I need to accomplish this task. Put those tasks on the calendar, all the open tabs that we have on our browsers, put those in the calendar, close the tab. You know, if we've got all these things in our brain or in front of us all the time, we um we have a hard time focusing. And we also challenge ourselves with what's called context shifting, which is going from task to task in a way that is generative rather than an energy zapper. And our energy is something that we can generate. We can't regenerate our time. Our time is a one-time thing. We can't regenerate our attention. I'm either with you or I'm not. But our energy we can recreate, right? It's a renewable resource, potentially. So is money. Money potentially is also a renewable resource. But how we focus and how we use our time and how we think about our time, um, I think is one of the most important things that I've developed in my practice based on my mindfulness practices. And having that Monday morning dump is like it's set in stone. If I don't do it, if I don't plan my week, I feel really all over the place. Um, so I hope that that's a beneficial practice for anyone. And if anyone has questions about it or wants some more information, I'd be happy to share more information on that practice.

SPEAKER_03 51:12

I was taking some notes, so thank you. I was like three categories. That's very awesome.

SPEAKER_02 51:18

Happy to share more with you, um, Anya T and with everyone. Yeah, we can put those in the show notes even.

SPEAKER_03 51:25

Yes, please for sure I can absolutely. Um I was going to do something.

SPEAKER_05 51:32

Um, Justine mentioned, sort of, you kind of talked around it too, but something that we're taught as yoga teachers is to basically we thank the students for coming to class for allowing us to share the practice with them. And that's what I've also incorporated into my work life is I thank everyone. Whoever sends me an email, if they send me a document something, my first response is always thank you for sending this. And I think that's like something we miss in legal practice because I don't know how many of you, but I can often count on one hand how many times people say please and thank you to me. So right, uh I think that's kind of what I always try to like give out to people is I'm thanking you for even doing this one little task for me. And yeah, I think it's I think it does work well because I notice that people are much nicer when you thank them.

SPEAKER_02 52:35

Yes, yes, yes, I love that gratitude and like making that a part of our practice and and honoring and acknowledging that there's an actual person that we're dealing with. And I also love what you said, Venisha, about you know, the preference to meet someone in person or to pick up the phone over an email, um, if possible, to always have that facial connection, that human connection, that capacity to understand. And then on the other side of that is to be to let people know kind of vulnerability. Um, if you're working on a deal with somebody or you've got something going on in your life, let that person know. That person is also a human being. Yes. You know, um, let them know if your mom is in, you know, hospice. Say, say I'm dealing with this specific thing. You you get to choose what you disclose. Um, I have this other thing going on in my life. This may take me a little bit more time than I contemplate. Just want you to know that people are remarkably um compassionate, I find, when we're when we let each other know, when we communicate with one another, what's going on in our lives, you know? Um, and we don't have to live on eggshells around other attorneys or other human beings. Everybody has competing priorities. Um, and I do think where we're practicing in 2026, right now, the legal profession has shifted in certain ways. Um, and also the yoga profession, like what we've been talking about before. 20 years ago, there were very few women of color, people with different kinds of bodies teaching yoga. Today it's like, yeah, you can go in Austin to an RB yoga class with a woman of color who's also like an incredible attorney. Like there's all these things going on that we didn't have access to before. But part of that is being human and saying hey, or I hate it when people say hey, say hello. That's a big pet peep of mine when I get an email when someone addresses me, hey. I'm like, ah um, but but just say hi. This is what's happening in my life. What's going on with you? How are you? Take that time. And then, like Venetia said, say thank you. I also love writing an old-fashioned thank you note. And um, you know, going to the stationary store. Oh, Anietti, you are the best at letters. I love it. And it's something, it's beautiful. Go for it. It's so beautiful to receive something that's not a bill or a junk thing in the mail. Um, these things matter.

SPEAKER_03 55:20

I think we need, well, we're we're just gonna have to arrange or schedule like a part two with y'all because we have so many of so many things we wanted to keep talking to, but we know want to be respectful of y'all's time. This has been such a like nourishing, I I've loved this so much. Jimmy and I've had so much fun prepping for this. And you know, one thing that we wanted to to ask you um uh a sort of kind of like a rapid fire question, which may not be fairly labeled as rapid fire before we go to um Justine, if you if Justine doesn't mind closing us out this afternoon, is you know, we have a lot of people who listen to this podcast, um, a lot of lawyers, a lot of people who've been who are new to the practice, a lot of people who've been practicing a long time, um, a lot of law students, and a lot of people who are considering maybe becoming a law student. And so the question to y'all is and and Justine, I'd love to go for you first on this one. For anyone who feels uh sort of disconnected from themselves, we've we've talked about disconnect uh quite a bit on this episode, um, in a variety of ways, mentally, spiritually, emotionally. Uh is there sort of one sort of, I won't say small because any sort of step towards, you know, sort of making changes is a big and beautiful thing, but sort of one accessible step that they can take to begin reconnecting?

SPEAKER_02 56:49

Yeah, it's a it's a really profound question, and it's a very important question. Um, and I want to be be really conscientious in in the way that I answer this. And the the first thing to know is that we all experience um pain and um and it's part of the human condition, and and and being able to to very gently hold the pain um and acknowledge it is uh is uh is so profoundly human. Um there's there's something that we most of us have, I don't want to say all of us have, but at the the tip of our nose, we have two nostrils, right? And if we can bring our awareness to those two nostrils and move where where the brain is focusing on to the gentle feeling of the breath moving in and out through the nose. Just a few of those breaths, just a very gentle redirect of the mind from thought, which mind is um one of our senses, thinking is one of our senses. It doesn't always have to be our most profoundly active sense, right? We can move from mind to feeling, to sound, listen to the sound of the breath moving in and out through your nose. Listen to the sound of the birds chirping outside your window. If you feel comfortable, you can take your hand and just let it rest anywhere on your body. Feel what it feels like to have a body. Allow ourselves to slow down. We can bring our hands when we're in a meeting or when we're with other people and we're feeling agitated or nervous. We can place our hands on our thighs and simply put a little bit of pressure there. Let yourself feel the weight of your hands on your thighs, feel your feet resting on the earth, and then go back, go back to the breath, bring your awareness back to your nostrils, listen to the sound of the breath. And that's kind of the cornerstone of practice, um, is uh returning in um Sanskrit. The word is smirti, and um it's mindfulness. But what is it mindfulness of? What are we paying attention to? What are we returning to? We're returning in this practice mainly to the breath. I'm gonna leave it at that because there's a lot of other things that we can return to in practice, but cultivating that return to our breath can be one of the most powerful gifts we can give ourselves, not only to ourselves, but to our families, to our to our um organizations, to our communities, to our democracy, right? To our democracy to slow down, to feel that we have a body and that we can take a breath. And if I'm breathing and Vanisha's breathing, and Jimmy's breathing, and Anietta's breathing in a way that is like conscious and grounded, and then all the people that are listening to the podcast are slowing down and taking a breath. We're actually impacting the pace that's happening in the world. We're all slowing down a little bit, and we're becoming a little bit more comfortable in the moment in our lives, in our minds, and that can have a profoundly um positive aggregate impact. So I say give it a try. Yes, bring your awareness to your breath.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:46

Beautiful. Thank you, Justine. That that's and what you said that links exactly to how Venisha started us off today. Um Venisha, any anything to to add?

SPEAKER_05 1:00:58

Yeah, I'll give a couple of like tangible, just like rapid fire suggestions. But I will say the box breathing we did at the beginning of the session, I want to say class, beginning of class, is something I love to offer to people because I feel like what and Justine basically said this, I'm just gonna pair it way down for us so people have like one word to focus on, and it's like presence, like finding presence. And if you can incorporate little ways of presence into your day, into your practice, both you know, legal, home, whatever that means, that will help just your overall it's what allows people to be in this kind of profession for a long time. You just have to find a way to manage it yourself. So that's why we tell people sometimes to do something that you love and do it every day. Um, and don't let the work get in the way of doing that something that you love. Or if you need in Sanskrit, we say, you know, there's sira and sukha, effort and ease. In between all of the effort, you need to find a moment of ease, find a moment of peace just for you, whatever that is for you. Um, so that's where the box breathing can come in. After you have a call or a before, what could be, you know, a pretty tough call. You might take a couple of breaths, and then afterwards, I always tell everyone to stand up, move around. And if you need a little pose to do, just forward fold. Easy forward fold. It's a really nice way to just get the blood moving around, it releases all of the harshness in your head. Like it's a really good tool to use. Another one I always tell people is just put put your phone down because the problem we have in this profession, and we also talked about this briefly earlier, is that we can now do our jobs from anywhere. So we need to find real moments of intentionality. And it's so bad at this point, even for example, at our firm, you can you have to um to enter our office, you have to scan your phone on a little scanning thingy. So people like you take your phone everywhere at that point because otherwise you're locked out. So in those cases, I say obviously you can't put your phone down, but what I ended up doing is I have a bracelet um little pin to clock in that way to the building so I don't have to use my phone. So that's always an option. But even to go to the restroom, like just put your phone down, give yourself a little extra time just for you. Maybe take the long way to the restroom, or maybe go to the restroom on another floor. And I always tell people on the way home, if you've had a tough day, sit in silence. That will do wonders for your mental space. Or I noticed for me personally, there was a last year I was really was a really tough year for me. I was really stressed out and I had a lot of like health issues. But I noticed on my way to the office, I would listen to this hardcore rap. And you know, it's kind of hard to listen to curse words, all of that first thing in the morning. And I was wondering why I was arriving to the office stressed out. Well, that's why. So maybe in that case, listen to something a little more lighthearted. And uh my yoga studio uh functions as a yoga therapy clinic as well. So I get a lot of like yoga therapy from my the owner of my studio, a lot of my uh friends. But one thing they suggested to me was just play something you love. And I'm like, well, I love Janet Jackson. So like let's listen to Janet Jackson on the way to work, and that has changed a lot for me. So if that is you, maybe listen to the the words and the songs you're listening to on the way to work. Or are you listening to something that could potentially cause you more stress? Are you listening to the news on the way in? Are you listening to true crime podcasts? You know, anything. Just see if you can change one little thing. It doesn't have to be a huge difference in your day. It doesn't have to cost you any extra time because time is valuable to us, especially those who bill our time. And also, one more thing is think about the um the little pockets of empty space that you have in your day. I'm thinking about the time when you're arriving to your office when you park your car or get off the train or whatever, and then you're walking to the office, walking into your office, you're maybe on an elevator. That's all free time for you. So rather than staring down at your phone, looking at email, put your phone down and maybe just. Take note of what's around you. Do a little bitty itty bitty meditation right in the elevator, 30-second meditation. Think about what sounds do you hear? What do you smell? What do you see? What do you feel? Like just something super easy that you can incorporate into your day that doesn't cause you any extra stress. And I also forgot to mention at the beginning that I was able to get off of the depression meds through the yoga practice. That is what that is where I was going in that conversation earlier that I forgot.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:35

No, that's wonderful, Venisha. Thank you for sharing, sharing that. That's that's certainly a full circle story. And I know a lot of people listening have had similar journeys, um, especially in again the the the garden weed that law school can be at times. Um so um thank y'all for staying on an extra few minutes. I know everyone has to go, but um, but yes, we we would just we'd be so honored um to to be led by any sort of sort of closing um exercise by Justine. And again, we're both so grateful for you, you and your time. And um y'all are both just the best. So thank you for this.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:21

Of course, it's a pleasure and it's so nice to be together. And there's you know, there's so much to cover. It's such a vast topic. Um I think just for people to know that there are so many different entry points to a practice and and to give something a try and to to just sort of see like, did this resonate with me? And maybe the practice or the teacher or the location doesn't resonate with you, try something else. You know, I would say like be very uh diligent in searching out for ourselves what are the practices that work for us at different points in our lives, and it's gonna change. And if you're interested in trying um a restorative or yin class, go for it. If you want to try something that's harder uh physically more challenging, more active, go for it. If you want to chant sacred names, do mantra practice, go for it. There are so many entry points to quote unquote yoga. Um, if you want to take a meditation course, go for it. And I know sometimes people don't know where to start at all. And I'll just say if you ever want to send me an email and say, I'm in this place. Um, my yoga website is justenyoga.com. I have a contact form there. You I know a lot of teachers, I know a lot of practice, I know a lot about working with the body. If you feel like you want to send a message and just say, hey, Justine, do you have a suggestion for me or whatever? I'm happy to help you. Um, I think that's also the part of it is like we are a part of a community. And the more well-being and wellness that there is within our community, the better we are in general. There's no doubt about that. And the more that we know we can lean in and ask questions and not be afraid. And like, yeah, like there's there's so much, there's so many resources online, right, these days as well. Um, so if you're a little more introverted, you don't want to go to a class, you feel self-conscious, like I get it. There's a place for you. If you're an extrovert and your schedule is crazy and you only have 15 minutes, you can practice at home, right? There's so many different ways to practice. We're we're not limited. Um, and I also have a couple of books that I'll that I'll share references to um um that we can put in the in the call notes. Yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:49

Glad to share my studio IT chat. We have an online community as well. So they offer online classes, they have an app as well for like the short five-minute meditation, five-minute breath work. I am not on the app, unfortunately. I only have the one class. But to piggyback off of Justine, if you don't know, there's tons, there's so many different types of yoga out there. So just don't get discouraged. If you go to a class, it doesn't resonate with you. Maybe it was just that type of class or that specific teacher's practice just didn't resonate with you. It's kind of a never-ending journey to find your teacher. But once you do, it is amazing. And I'll also just throw out if you're someone who is very fiery, like I am, who loves, you know, a really tough class, you want to sweat, you might actually benefit more from a cold practice because that will help slow you down a little bit more. And the same thing, if you're typically, you know, a slower person, you move intentionally, those kind of things, then maybe you try a faster practice and just see how you feel afterward.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:01

Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, it's that's that's the thing. It's like many lives, many masters. Like there's there are so many. Um, I think for each of us, there's there's there's a practice, and um, and that practice can change and um and ultimately we are our own teacher, right? And it is also so nice to feel held. Um so with that, I'm gonna just take us into a little a little closing practice. Um, and I encourage you, um, if you're able to, uh, before you do sort of a seated meditation practice or a body scan or a body-based practice, take some time to move around. Shake off the day or shake into the day. One of my teachers says, shake now or shake later, like shake it off. We hold so much tension. So I'm just shaking my wrists right

Final Wellness Break - Release Valve Meditation

SPEAKER_02 1:12:00

now. If you're in a place where you can do that, that's a nice thing to be able to do. If you're at home and you're listening at home and you can kind of bounce around your room a little bit, shake, jump, you know, jump, just like let the body move because the body holds tension and it has to find an outlet, a release outlet. And so the practice that I'm going to work with y'all on to close up our session today is called release valve practice. And um, it's one of my favorite practices. And I do it all the time. And why do I do it all the time? Because stress and anxiety aggregate. Um, and so it's really helpful, I've found, to have this practice that I do regularly so that when um when things get really chaotic, I'm not trying to like learn a practice or develop a practice. I already have a practice that I'm working with that's accessible. So if you're able to right now, um just let your feet rest on the floor, uncross your legs. If you can take off your shoes, take off your shoes. Just let your feet find the floor, spread through the toes. Maybe lift up onto the ball of one foot and then the other foot, like you're walking in place. Maybe extend one heel long and then drag it back in towards you, feeling the backs of the legs turn on. Extend the other leg long, flex the foot, open up through the base of the foot, the planar fascia. And then just let the legs rest. Feel into your hands, let your hands just rest on your thighs. Feel into your pelvis and just notice is my pelvis tipping forward? Is it tipping back? Just have awareness of the positioning of the way that your pelvis is tilting right now. And it may feel really nice to counter that tilt. So to either tilt the forward, tilt of the pelvis, tilt the pelvis forward, or tilt the pelvis back. You can say to yourself, I have a pelvis, it tilts. How cool, how special. It's my pelvis, it tilts. How are you tilting right now, pelvis? And then feel feel from your pelvis all the way up to your heart, center of your chest, and just let your shoulders now melt back down in towards your back pockets. Feel the back of the head, the occiput, the little bony part of the back of your head, press back, reset your neck. If it's safe for you to close your eyes, you're welcome to do so. And now just very gently turn your hands so that the palms face up towards the sky. Gonna inhale through the nose. I want you to pause and feel the breath inside of you. And in addition to feeling the breath, feel if you can soften, relax a little bit as you hold the breath. And when you're ready to exhale, you're going to exhale out through your mouth, extending that exhale, and simultaneously feel the navel draw in towards the spine. We'll do that a couple more times. Inhale through the nose. Softly hold the breath. You hold the breath for as long as it feels comfortable for you. While you hold the breath, allow yourself to relax. Maybe relax in your hip flexors, relax across the chest, relax through the jaw. And then exhale whenever you're ready. Long exhale out through the mouth. And we'll do that one more time. Inhale through the nose. Softly hold the breath. So as you hold, relaxing in the hold. Maybe relaxing your glutes, your shoulders, your jaw, face between the eyes. When you're ready, you exhale out through the mouth. And then just let yourself return to your natural breath rhythm. You're going to bring your awareness right into the center of your brain. And softly feel your breath, feel your energetic center expanding like a soft flame right into the middle of your brain. Soft expansion, center of the brain. Inhaling, feeling yourself light up from the inside. And exhaling, feeling the brain relax away from the sides of the skull. Inhale softly, center of brain, your awareness is resting there. And as you exhale, relaxing, relaxing through the back of the brain, relaxing into the brainstem. Inhale softly, lighting yourself up from the inside. And exhale, feeling your nervous system from the brain, from the brainstem, down through the spine, spinal nerves, all the way into your fingertips, your toes. Let yourself soften a little bit. And take some time for yourself if there's a space where you do feel some more tension in your body. Just simply direct your awareness into that area. Feel yourself lighting up from the inside. Your own eternal flame that you can direct into different areas of your body. Maybe notice the color of that light. Paying attention to the light and the color inside of us. Starting to deepen your breath. Maybe a little bit of movement, a little sway from side to side. Maybe a little stretch of the body or a big stretch of the body. And here we are. What time is it? It is right now. Where are we? We are right here. So we release and let the steam out to arrive time and time again in the here and the now. We release those valves of tension and stress and anxiety that build up in the body, in the mind, around the heart. And we do it regularly so that it is sustainable and accessible. And that's how we bring our yoga into our lives and use it to bring the world more into balance. So our yoga practice is actually something that helps cultivate both inner and outer peace and inner and outer ease.