 really happy to be here with Jessica Jennings. She is a member of my Master Heart group and just brings such supportiveness to others in the program and experience and wisdom as both a longtime yoga practitioner and teacher and also trainer of yoga teachers and holistic practitioners. So really great to have you here, Jessica. It's wonderful to be here, always wonderful to be here with you, George. Thank you, thank you. There is so much I wanna talk to you about but I think an overall topic that is sort of like a nice grounding word perhaps for some of your work is alignment. So I just, well, first of all, I wanted to give you a chance to say more about your background, et cetera. And then I wanna get into this topic of what is alignment and there's so much we can discuss there, but anything else you wanna say about your background? Yeah, I mean, I think that my background kind of led me to alignment. So it's kind of a good segue. So I started yoga in the 90s for chronic pain, neck pain, SI pain, back pain and knee pain. I had it all and it was crazy how within two weeks the pain basically went away. Came back every once in a while but it was clearly healing or healed by yoga. And at the time I was living in Seattle and I could have kind of been done. I could have been like, wow, I'm gonna teach this. I'll take a teacher training, right? But something really felt like it was missing in my understanding, which was like, what is the mechanism? Like it didn't make sense to me. Like people said, oh, well, it's stress. Like what does that mean? And I was very curious about why we can get hurt in a yoga pose and why we can actually heal ourselves while we're driving or climbing up a mountain, right? So what is that thing? So I studied cadavers at UCLA and I got my master's in kinesiology. I thought maybe like that would teach me and it really didn't. There isn't much of a conversation really about that in Western science in terms of, what's happening under the surface, right? And so I finally discovered a kind of yoga called alignment-based yoga. It was called anasara at the time. It doesn't really, it's still around. It's very much around more in Europe, but it was really about like what we're doing inside the pose. It wasn't about trying to do a pose, you know, strength, flexibility, all those things. It was the basic idea that we all share this, you know, what we call an optimal blueprint, right? Our heads are up here, our legs are down there. Things go out of whack in pretty much the same way for all of us. And when we move toward this optimal blueprint, whether we're talking about biomechanically, right? Muscles and bones moving in their optimal direction or even our minds, right? What is the optimal place for our minds to be, right? We know that it's spacious, you know? So there are certain principles that we can follow and then energetically, right? We know there's kind of movement of chi or whatever you wanna call it through the body, but there's a particular direction, right? That's optimal. And then finally, spiritually, there is a way in which we can align with, well, the way you talk about it, right? Our souls, right? Our souls purpose. And all of this is packed for me into this idea of alignment. Wow, that's so amazing. Thank you for that. There's a lot to discuss there, but I love how you broke it down. And okay, so that's remarkable. I didn't know about the history about the pain and how it helped you. And so you have like this personal experience and now you've had, you know, so many people go through your programs who have experienced the benefits as well. Before we get more into this alignment stuff, I actually wanna ask you about your work because you are both a yoga teacher, but you're also a trainer of yoga teachers and those practitioners. So tell us about that. Like what do you see as the difference and maybe there's not much of a difference, but yeah, tell us a bit more about that kind of work. Yeah, I love that question. Thank you. So there's kind of a spectrum, right? Of, you know, all the way on one end, we go to a yoga class and we just wanna like leave everything at the door, right? Sometimes we've heard that from teachers, just leave it and just like kind of let go and space out, right? So it's just having this full experience without analyzing it or judging it or even that much self-awareness about it. And then all the way on the other side of the spectrum, there is understanding in every moment like what we're doing, why we're doing it, you know, having that inner awareness, learning things that we can then take away, right? Share with other people, do for ourselves. And so I think the kind of, so in answer to your question, I think a yoga class that I might teach or that my yoga, so I founded a school of yoga called my yoga in 2009 that was specifically for women's changing bodies and lives because I was, I started prenatal yoga, teaching prenatal yoga way before and I just love that time in women's lives. And I think it provides this opportunity to learn so much. But anyway, so even the yoga classes are gonna be a little bit over on the spectrum in alignment-based yoga in the sense that we want people to bring it all, bring it to the mat, you know, bring your awareness, your thoughts, your everything. Why not? Like why not use all of us? And then the teacher training very much is much more like, you know, let's talk about why we just started with the exhale instead of the inhale and really learning the why behind it all. Yeah, brilliant. And okay, so a bit more about this my yoga and then we'll dive into alignment. So I love that name by the way, my yoga, it's really cool. And you also, so my yoga, so let's talk about that. A lot of the students you've had and trainers obviously are women who have been through some, you know, parenthood, motherhood, et cetera. And but tell us about this kind of framework about my yoga. Like there's a kind of a larger framework there that maybe you can touch on. Yeah, well, so I was asked to teach prenatal yoga right out of my first teacher training in 2000. And I was terrified. I knew only what I had learned in this back then we didn't even have like 200 hour yoga teacher trainings. It was like just an immersion. And then it's like, hey, do you want to teach our prenatal class? And so I kind of walked in thinking, well, they're just so full of beauty and the goddess, right? And I just kind of like said, you don't need me. Just, you know, and they just like looked at me like I was absolutely crazy. You know, they had aches and pains and they had so many worries and very valid worries and everything is changing and their bodies or feel like they've been taken over by an alien. So I then decided, well, if they have aches and pains I got the therapeutic stuff. So let's, you know, who has wrist pain? Who has knee pain, right? And so we addressed it in that way. You'd think as a yoga teacher, I would know to turn my phone off, but. And, you know, that was fine, but I still felt that there was something more. And I think when I started asking myself this question I really fell in love with prenatal yoga which was what is the opportunity that this brings, right? It can't just be misery, right? I mean, it doesn't make any sense. It's this natural process. In my experience, everything, everything has some gifts to it eventually. So, and what I started to recognize is that people who chose to do this process in a conscious way went through a transformation that they show up in class, they're stressed out full of anxiety, you know the anxiety is becoming even more common than postpartum depression. And they go through these steps, right? Of starting with turning, nurturing energy inward. That is the first choice, is to just slow down and start to listen inward in a new way for many people, right? I'm gonna, my body's tired, I wanna take a nap. And we do it because we have this new motivation. There's a baby growing, right? We know taking care of us means taking care of baby. But that's the opportunity that we step out and we start to listen, right? We slow down. And then from there I saw that people began to step into their power and step into their wisdom. So I started to look closer at this idea of the feminine and the masculine, right? So in yoga we have shiva shakti in Chinese medicine with yin and yang. So these are just, you know, it's not gender, it's not archetypes, it's not sexuality or anything like that. It's just a way to kind of divide these complimentary parts of ourselves, right? So the more masculine part is that more achievement oriented, you know, linear, logical, I got this, right? Very independent, self-reliant. We need this very much. We needed to have businesses. We needed to run, you know, have the food on the table, the right food on the table for the family or whatever. So neither is better or worse. They support each other, you know, like the yin and yang symbol. But the feminine is the one that's more maybe more intuitive and kind of feeling our way forward, sensing, listening more than putting ourselves out there, you know, taking our time. And society doesn't necessarily reward us for this more feminine side, right? So the beautiful art and wonderful like relationships that we build like in your community that are real, they only come from being connected to that part of us. But society doesn't necessarily say, oh, you're gonna take a month and just be and see what comes to you, right? You know, you don't get that. So anyway, so thus I think that's really the foundation of my yoga is that we all have this opportunity with every breath really, right? To slow down and imagine, imagine turning that same attitude that you would have toward maybe like a toddler that you love, right? This toddler's trying to learn to walk and they fall over, right? You would never say to them, I mean, like, you know, I can't believe you just fell, you fell again, you're never gonna do this. You know, you just don't have it. Like this is how we talk to ourselves, right? But you would say, it's okay. It's part of the process. Of course we're gonna fall and how great that you are picking yourself up. And so turning that inward just a little bit in my experience is it opens the door to what I call feminine wisdom and power. I love that. I love that. And it's just a name, my yoga is a reminder of that. And I think this, I'd like to move into the topic of alignment now more. So you earlier mentioned these kind of three aspects, the biodynamic or the body, the mind and the spirit or the soul. When you think about alignment or you start working with students and other practitioners about alignment, which one do you tend to start with? Or I guess the pen zone, but which one do you like to start with? Yeah, wow, love that question. I start with the physical. I start with the physical. And the reason is that we are physical beings embodied with our limits. And there's actually a wonderful framework that I use also in my yoga, which are the five natural elements. And they work in the order of the most gross to the most subtle. In yoga, this is the kind of pathway we take on the path to enlightenment. So it starts with space. So that's really the most subtle. And that's like almost like before we enter a body, like we're just kind of whatever we are, potentiality, right? And then the next one is earth. This is the most solid thing we know of, right? So we come into a body and then we go water, fire, air, which is to the more and more subtle awareness as we walk this path. So if you think about it, we're running around through our day, and we have an interview. And so what are we gonna do? We sit and we become conscious of our physical being, right? And through the breath, we can start to go deeper and deeper into more and more subtle levels, right? So then we maybe start to become aware of our thoughts and go, oh, wow, my thoughts are really racing around my head so we can slow the breath down. And as we do, especially with that exhale, start to sense our energy settling down from the lower belly downward called upon a value where we release what tends to grip or groin muscles, right? And then we remember, oh, gravity is there for me. It's holding me. I don't have to lift myself up. I can let the earth support me. And then we move into this remembrance of being supported by whatever it is we believe in, right? I mean, this isn't really proscriptive or religion or anything. It's just, if you have a sense that the universe is not just chaos, but there's something there that when you set that really clear intention, we don't get to control the world around us but that somehow we seem to get supported in really weird ways and people pop up in our lives. And if that's you, then that's, you know, that's then what you can remember from that process, I think, hopefully. That's beautiful. I love that. And yeah, these so interesting five elements, right? Are like said to be different things in different sort of frameworks, but I really like that you, there's a space and then there's earth and then water, fire, air. It's really cool. Am I getting that right? Yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah. Actually, yeah, you did it perfectly. And if I could just jump in a little more because these principles have guided me through 20 years of my life, those five steps, I actually call them the five sacred steps. And again, they can work on any of those levels, but like I offer an 85 hour prenatal yoga teacher training and you can even map them out over pregnancy, right? So in some ways like it's a guide for any co-creative act. So if you look at planting a garden, you're gonna make the space, right? Then you're gonna pack the earth around your seed, then you're gonna add water. And then this root situation like in our body when we draw our belly in and root down, we create this heat, it's called lulabanda and yoga. So that's the fire, there's a rooting down and then a rising up. And so you can see that in nature, right? Working with nature anytime we are co-creating, right? Instead of like building a house where you just follow the plan, right? You're working with bigger forces. You can start to see this. And it's so cool when you're working with pregnancy that it can really guide us as teachers. Oh, they're trying to get pregnant. We need much more of this element of space, of allowing. That's connected to the feminine, right? Letting go, listening, right? Because so many of us go into that process, me included. Like, okay, I got all my ducks in a row. I'm gonna make this happen and this happen and then I'm gonna have a baby. And I'm gonna have my intention really strong. And it's like, oh yeah, we're actually not really in charge. And that feeling of being in charge can make us grip. Like I said, in our grinds, it blocks that energy that wants to ground down through the reproductive organs and boom, we're actually really kind of preventing what we want to have happen. So each of these principles is so fascinating, so many gifts to dive into in the journey of pregnancy, but really in any co-creative act, you can look at writing a book, you can look at a new relationship that way. It's really kind of cool. Wow, that's so cool. Yeah, I love that you're using these different examples to illustrate these five elements. And so this is really how we become aligned, right? Or how do you relate these five to the process of becoming more and more aligned? Well, when you look, you know, hatha yoga, right? Hatha is the umbrella term for we do poses, right? To explore our possibilities. So there's other, you know, there's other paths of yoga like bhakti yoga where you, you know, is a path of devotion and karma yoga, which is a path of action, good action, right? And of course, you don't have to pick one, but they're just descriptors. But anyway, hatha is very much about using the body physically, right? Exploring what's possible. And through that, obviously you're gonna experience all those at the level. So each one of these has very specific practices related to it in every single pose. So if there's any yogis out there who have done, you know, warrior two, right? And maybe people in the past have described it like try to do straight arms and try to bend your front knee to a 90 degree angle. Well, that's a descriptor of the outer form. And I'm much more curious about, well, what am I doing inside this thing, right? So first space, let's exhale fully, let's bring space into the back of the body especially. Traditionally that's more connected to our universal self, right? And to the sense of like, we're part of something bigger, like we've got your back, right? So moving into the back of your body. And then earth is connected to muscles, stability, steadiness. So we're gonna draw from the periphery into the core from the fingertips, from the toes. We're gonna use those shoulder blades to help open the heart. Then we have water. So when you think about water, it's very playful and it's hard to be very serious around a bubbling brook, right? And it goes down, it flows down. It takes the easy path. So we can think of it as our playfulness or the dance within us. And when you think about dancing, it's usually the hips swaying. So there's a release, here's the third time that groins have come up in this interview. I bet that's like a new thing for you. But a release of the groins when we kind of stick our butt out, right? So that's that watery, playful action. Then we have fire where we exhale, draw the belly in and root down. And right from there, there's this expansion outward that's air, like freedom. And you feel this transformation on the deepest level. Now many of us feel this transformation even if a teacher hasn't been trained in alignment, but it's a little bit hit or miss. And if someone has, let's say, wrist pain, it's caused by this misalignment actually in the shoulders and they're doing chaturanga and plank pose and then they say, I loved my yoga, but ow, that hurts. For me, it's like, well, your yoga can be healing you, right? Wow, that's amazing. Thank you for that. I mean, that's just one pose that you're talking through. And I think this can be applied to so many things. And I think your students are lucky to be able to have that guidance from you. So let's talk about that. I want to, so those who are watching this, some of them are yogis, yoga practitioners or aspiring, maybe aspiring to be a yoga teacher and some watching are yoga teachers or holistic practitioners that bring yoga in. So tell us about the support and the offers you provide to each of these two groups. Yeah, thank you. So most of the people who find me are looking for a prenatal training. They're either a yoga teacher who is nervous about having a pregnant woman in their room and we don't get that much training in it in the 200 hour or they want to offer a mama circle, right? A prenatal yoga class or it's someone who is not a yoga teacher but is really drawn to that side of it to supporting pregnant women and moms. And so this is the foundational training that they take. I also have birth practitioners who want to add tools to their tool bag. And then I have some people who just take the individual modules because they're just interested in therapeutics or I have a course called Myerveta which is off the mat self-care daily rhythms and fruit as medicine for busy nurturers of people and projects. And so you can take the individual one but all together it's an 85 hour RPYT program and that is a yoga alliance register program. So we offer it live and self-paced or combination. Once you join, you're part of my community forever. You have evergreen access to all of the things even to come back in and take the trainings live again. I personally invest in everybody who's taking it. So whether you're a brand new teacher or a seasoned teacher, I'm just there to help make sure you feel super confident teaching well specifically pregnant women but really these principles work in all of your classes. So it's hopefully a really transformational experience for everybody. Beautiful. Thank you so much for your work and just for taking the time to share with us today and those watching, please look below for the links to check out Jessica's work and social media. And yeah, so thank you so much, Jessica. Thank you so much, George, it's been just a pleasure. Thank you.