Continuing my personal story of going from burned out travel presse attache to full time yogini.

Musing on how yoga quieted my burned out mind and brought my attention inward to the felt sense of the body.

Yoga was my way of returning to Source of vital energy.

Diving into the practice of yoga also changed my awareness of the place of body in our culture, as a disrespected vehicle for the working body and thinking mind. Small commentary on social values and our relation to workaholism, and how we shame retreating and taking a break.

I compare values of French versus American culture on this.

Relevant quote from Carl Jung:

"It is obvious that social group consisting of stunted individuals cannot be a healthy and viable institution; only a society that can preserve its internal cohesion and collective values, while at the same time granting the individual the greatest possible freedom, has any prospect of enduring vitality. As the individual is not just a single, separate being , but by his very existence presupposes a collective relationship, it follows that the process of individuation must lead to more intense and broader collective relationships and not to isolation."

Carl Jung, Psychological Types (1921) CW 6~758

www.GnosisoftheBody.com

Speak 0:01

Yoga is a body based practice with coming from a spiritual discipline with which the way it was taught to me, and of course so is depends on one's own teacher. The way it was taught to me. It had the aim of quieting the mind and focusing

the attention, I would say the consciousness is in the body and in sensation, and the more and more practiced physical pose yoga, a.k.a asana yoga for those who are down with their Sanskrit. I learned that indeed there was a purpose to every single exercise. So for example, when you practice balanced poses, if all of a sudden your mind started wandering, you would fall out of balance in the pose. Or rather I would fall out of balance in the pose. And so that there was a metaphor behind every single thing grounded positions really did quiet your mind when you were down on the floor. Ones that required strength required more fire. I remember reading Iyengar and he said of the ballerinas that came to learn yoga from from him, that Asana had nothing to teach them because they were so physically fit, they were so flexible. Asana had nothing to teach them. So I will always say that if you're out of shape, if you're inflexible, you're lucky, and this is a great moment for you to come to yoga.

I myself do have a natural flexibility, but when I started yoga, I was burned out. I was overweight. I did not have any of these physical abilities and it was very, very hard for me to do even the most basic things. So I was very fortunate. I now say, because I learned a lot from Asana,

the thing about quieting the mind, at least in the way that I was taught through my route teachers, is that the body feels, the mind thinks is what my teacher always said, and we always dismiss that the body has any wisdom to give us

Ram Dass. I was listening to a speech of his the other day on on his podcast, which I highly recommend you subscribe to, which is on YouTube and podcasts. And they've kept all his beautiful speeches and lectures and recordings. They're he was discussing how when he worked in psychology, how incredibly sexist they were because they believed that power came from using your rational mind and they openly said he said he said, pity us, We were so sexist at the time. They openly said intuition is for women and that intuition was weak and I believe those that do not understand spirituality, that look at sort of us, the Yogi tribe and dismiss us

sense inherently that there is feminine wisdom coming through it. Now, I wish to clarify this because when I say feminine, I do not mean female.

I mean anyone who is in touch with the body because throughout history and I have plenty of examples which I'll use later when I feel like getting out the books of quotes that I have.

integral ways that we have now pushed to the side, just as we have pushed the body to the side. And so to get back to it by quieting the mind and once coming back into the body and sensation and conscious awareness through the practice of yoga and my own personal experience, because it is a practice which comes from a spiritual discipline, it allowed me to get back in touch with what I would call source

and for the body to come back into relationship with its sources. What was given to me specifically because I was able to go away for a long period, sort of monastic or what I called yoga non period for 30 days in my yoga teacher training for me. For so long I had been forcing my body to serve my mind and it's at its own expense. I had no respect for the body. I had no respect for it as a resource. I really didn't even have the concept at all that the body was connected to a greater source, that it needed reconnection to in order to serve my desires.

I mean, as a metaphor, I would really say that it was a bit like using something that requires a battery. And then never recharging that battery or never replacing that battery. And what this looked like in my life was a constant state of work and work, travel, relaxation. I use that word in quotes, if you can imagine air quotes around it. Relaxation was only being reached by me via outside substances which were in fact burning me up further. Lots of wine, which was part of my job and I did enjoy, but it was a bit more of a forced wine down than a real rest. There was I wasn't really capable of giving myself the permission to let go and to truly, truly rest. So I would really just sort of fall into a burned out exhaustion when I, quote unquote, rested on nights and weekends.

And because as I we work in this culture, the society that has adopted this behaviour where this was normal, where this is lauded, I mean, I was not alone. This was echoed all around me by friends and colleagues. And it's really only through a series of unfortunate events and social structures and gifts that I was able to step back as fully as I was. And then I am now able to come back from that time or that journey or at this point it's been nine years of work and study to be able to impart this particular perspective to you.

The French have a verb whose source and the root is source meaning water spring from the earth. When a French person refers to taking time out from the world, particularly with the intent to relax and to restore their vital energies, they use this verb ressourcer, il faut se ressourcer il fast me ressourcer. I have to go source myself.

When I was working, I often saw this verb in press releases. I was translating from spas and water centers, of which there's many in France.

And I used to work for the French tourist office. So this is part of what I was promoting, but not anything I was benefiting from personally.

But France really is a great state which employs

all of these methods for its people. The history of spores is very, very rich. It is, in fact, something that is sometimes included in there. Their state health system for people to use. We working at the French government did not quite have the salaries to go in our spare time to enjoy these lavish places of the press releases, which I was translating. But the point is, is that this was an aspect of their culture just even the word and the fact these places existed,

which, you know, as I work for their government, as I became a citizen, I really deeply appreciated I learned a great deal about the values of what is really important through this this French culture, you know, coming from the American culture that I did. We're really taught via our capitalistic culture to not value ourselves. And in specific, I mean, our bodies. What I appreciate about my transition to yoga is self attention to my body breath and peace in my mind became my job. It was my job to give my body a long stretch session, for example, to immerse myself in this practice and to give myself permission to give my body what it needed. I had gone so deeply into being a workaholic that I needed to swing that extreme the other way. And because the culturally attuned, shame filled side of me

really felt that it would appear lazy to take care of myself and to just be indulging in this body based spiritual discipline, I had to take on the extra excuse of like, Yes, well, I'm training to be a yoga teacher. And it was something I actually passionately had wanted for a very long time, kind of in the same way little girls want to be ballerinas. I did want to be the woman at the front of the room telling everyone, you know, stick your leg up in the air and twist it behind your ear. I'm kidding. I'm not that kind of competitive. Liked pretzel twist yoga teacher.

But because very much I didn't want to appear lazy to society and because we have this doctrine of people who take care of their bodies, who take time out specifically to, again, that verb also see people who take a break when they're really at their breaking point, when they really have nothing left to give. You know, we've got this athletic culture, which, okay, that's great. If you're an athlete, push it to the end. Okay, that's fine. If you're building muscle in the gym, push to your limit. But we cannot apply this around everywhere. And unfortunately, again, coming from an American linear, upward progression, perpetually capitalistic, pursuing bigger, better, bigger, better, bigger, better culture. This is what we did. And so what I deeply appreciated learning from the French was this concept of also C rather years. And that means joy of life going back to the source. And for me, the discipline of yoga was very strict in allowing and in fact specifying that this is what was needed.

I mean, we view self-care in time out or we did at least eight, nine years ago when I when I started this journey and took my time off. We view it very, very negatively.

Weakness. And I think that's a very pejorative, aggressive perspective, which I hope we can all begin to move away from. I mean, everyone around me in my work and in my personal circle was completely cut off from their source. And they were slowly burning out, all each in their different professions of I was in tourism, but most of my friends were in law, in banking and fashion, in decorating in New York City at the time.

Another thing that I was given the great privilege of was freedom of time and also freedom of the body. And and this varies from person to person, which I just want to bring into awareness. So for example, coming from where I come in America, if you're residing currently in a block body, likely you are the descendant of someone who was kidnapped and brought unwillingly to the United States. I reside in a white body that, you know, was fleeing oppression in Europe. I do know my ancestral history. We were fleeing death Queen particularly, but then had to fight for our existence to stay on this land. And I'm sure at the same time that involved killing indigenous people. So freedom to reside in a body is very subject to our time, to our culture. And because in my personal belief system, we have incarnations.

I have to respect where I am and that the freedom that I experience in this lifetime and incarnated white body is very different from how yoga might be practiced by a person of color. As I was describing them of American background and origin. It's very possible that that person coming from New York City, we have a lot of Caribbean area immigrants and they could be someone who freely chose to come to the United States, but who does still come from an ancestry that has slavery in the Caribbean islands, from perhaps the French, for example, who are people I was able to mix with a lot in my career. So the way that we practice and the way that we devote time to yoga or meditation is going to be very, very subjective. And the way that we can give ourselves permission to engage in this practice is going to be very, very subjective to how we see ourselves, how the culture sees ourselves, because unfortunately, the freedom of time in the body are inherently authorities, the dirty word political

and the control of them.

Again, sorry to get into this, but it is an important part of the conversation because I can't just talk willy nilly, you know, in this sort of rainbow joyful way about yoga as many people do, even though it has opened up enormous spiritual wells of wisdom to me, which is the entire obvious point of this podcast, I wouldn't use the word gnosis lightly. If the practice of yoga had not through the body, opened up the freedom of spirit to come through in greater wisdom to come through me. But I don't think I can move on to all that level yet until I talk about the base of freedom of time and freedom of the body again, both being inherently political because the control and the use of both our time and our bodies have a great power. There is a great power in freedom of time. There's a great power in the freedom to use your body. Again, going back over a bit of the cultural history that I was mentioning, anyone who comes from an ancestry of enslavement, they know better than I what freedom of the body might entail and how that feels.

Women as well as people of color. When we walk down the street at any given city, we have to think about how we walk, behave and dress, because the freedom to just move our bodies and the way that we attract visual attention or opinions or judgments which we can feel. Is a level of freedom or not freedom that we experience daily everywhere. And so people of the ascendancy who are incorporated, who have incarnated in male bodies this lifetime, they cannot quite understand this level of freedom, not freedom as it feels in our bodies for us. So once again, because freedom of time and freedom to use the body as the individual chooses has a power, The control of our time and our bodies has always been of interest to structures of power

and structures of control. Although I really doubt that any company or politician would ever overtly put it this way, I doubt that they're actually even conscious of this. But I think it is absolutely paramount to keep that in mind because to have freedom of how to use your time and this doesn't mean to have 24 seven freedom.

So many people have no time. Our attention is pulled everywhere. And so what I deeply appreciate about the practice of yoga is that it is a practice which says I am going to create this time for a free expression of my body within a discipline which has a spiritual aim at its core, because it is clearing out the clutter of the noise of waking up with the to do list, with the clutter of the mind and the noise that comes in with like everything we use on any electronic device, news, work, emails, social media texts from friends, Wood could shoot all those things that we do to ourselves all day long. It

stops that and just calls you into the body and coordinated breath. Inhale, do this. Exhale to this. Inhale. Do this, exhale. Do this. Which is the work of the yoga teacher to her students to hold that space of like, zip. All that mind noise has no place here. Let it go. And it is only through practice that both our breath and our bodies finally, finally drop into the permission of

Inhale. Raise my arms up. Oh, grocery list. Exhale. Let that go. Stop thinking about it. And for me, I was so exhausted. I was so burned out that I just melted into that permission that was given to me by any yoga teacher whose class I stepped into in person or online. I craved that. And personally, I was unable to give myself that permission. I had abdicated so much of my power about my time and my body over to this image from society that I had to be working, working, working to be good, good, good to deserve, deserve, deserve, and otherwise. Even if I was not always was working, working, working to survive, survive, survive, I did not deserve anything. And I was becoming a burned out husk of myself.

And so that is why I am incredibly grateful to yoga, because it reconnected me through the body and smoothly, slowly. It took a long time. Slowly, after quieting the mind,

just naturally, this concept of source came to me and it didn't come to me consciously. Yes, I was studying a lot of philosophies and listening to things that teachers say, but I really didn't understand them very well. Frankly. They were all the gods, goddesses, all the Sanskrit words, the kind of, you know, weirded me out and I didn't get it. You know, sometimes they drove me away from it a little bit. Things that I do daily now, it would have completely weirded me out nine years ago or ten years ago,

but because when it is taught correctly, because spirituality, especially in yoga, can be used to alienate and other just as any other discipline can be. But when it's taught in a very open way of focus on sensation, as my teacher said, the body feels the mind thinks away from thought. It allows the inner wisdom, the inner gnosis of the body. It allows the wisdom of what I will call source to come through and this is why I like yoga, is because it is particularly what we call syncretic a.k.a it can be applied to any well, I'll use the word religion, but that's not really what I mean. But any higher spiritual power concept which believes that once again we need a little plug in for this unit into a greater battery. And we have the batteries of food, we have battery recharge, hour of sleep, yes, but slowly, slowly, the body based practice with the spiritual aim of the discipline of yoga. Opened me up in felt direct, experienced knowing not conscious mind thought, knowing that there was a source greater to which I could reconnect and find great, great energy and great great. As I say o sourcing, it was literally like a spring of water coming through my very inflamed, burned out body and cooling me down. And I had to go through the discipline practice of yoga to get there

again and again and again. And it builds and it builds and it builds until that connection got stronger, which is why I think this practice is something that can be accessed by anyone of any cultural background, of any religious belief, simply as long as that belief includes that you are a being which comes from a higher source, whether you know what it is or not. So you can be very agnostic about it. So this is why, regardless of who I'm talking to, I do go around sounding very much like a yogic proselytizer, as my friends annoyingly called me when I came out of all my training because I was enthusiastically,

unreservedly saying everyone needs to get into yoga.