 What's up everybody? This is Chris from the Rewired Soul where we talk about the problem but focus on the solution and today I am joined by Michael from Michael Miracles Yoga and Michael for my audience out there who does not know you can you please just introduce yourself and let them know what you're all about. Hi audience my name is Michael Miracles I'm coming from Pittsburgh I've been a yoga teacher for over six years now and it's been a really I don't know how to sum it up oh in one sentence but it's been a journey that's really helped improve my experience of life and now more and more helping me to bring that light of awareness to other people helping them find it. So awesome so I keep yoga basic yeah so you've been teaching for six years how long have you been doing yoga like in total? I took my first class about ten and a half years now. Okay and then you just you just took the class and fell in love with it and you're like I need to teach this to others? Well the first time I did it I was in a particular circumstance in my life where a girlfriend and I had moved from Pittsburgh we drove all the way across country to try to set up in Hollywood and so we were out there I was out there for about nine weeks and I came back to Pittsburgh again to play it I'm a musician too to play a show and she brought me broke up with me so when I went back to get my things I had tried it one time while I was out there and then I was I was distraught like I was having a real trouble doing anything I was crying in public. Yeah and yeah so the only thing I was able to do I mean at the time I like tried to drink away my thoughts I tried to drink away my you know whatever smoke drug away my TV away watch as much TV to just get out of it like nothing was nothing was working and I would turn to those things in the past to you know get out of my head but so when I was out there trying to you know deal with the whole thing I ended up trying that three yoga class again and at the end of the class and we're laying in the final wrestling pose Shavasana I for the first time I really felt like oh I felt a little bit of relief from my mental anguish I was like wow there's something to this so then with my tail behind my legs went back to Pittsburgh and I was already like for a few years you know trying to do the gym things trying to run stuff you know someone stay in shape or get in the first place and when I came back to Pittsburgh I found more of a you know a studio environment because one in Hollywood was in a park so it was like you know more of a free class and then the studio so it became like this huge physical thing for me at first it was a long way of telling this story but soon after I started to do that hot yoga I was like well this is more than any other physical one I've ever done you know like I would go to the gym and be like okay doing chest today I think yeah by the end you know by the end of those classes I was just like and in a way I think that's really what I wanted and what I needed at that point was to like sometime I'm not even sometimes I think a lot of the time a lot of us are disconnected from our bodies and that's how we're disconnected to our minds yeah so I was definitely get disconnected to both but away from the path in for me and that's why I think yoga especially when it's still held with with the philosophies behind it teaching and a lot of yoga classes are just focused on the physical fitness class which you know it's always it's good it's a good thing to be moving every day no matter how yeah yeah and like real quick like that it's it's interesting too because one of my questions we're gonna be like how did you get into yoga because uh you know I I'm a big meditator I haven't tried yoga yet and I'm gonna talk to you about that in a minute but like I often find that you know so many people you know they they come into things like yoga or meditation or um I'm also in recovery from drug and alcohol addiction like like when we when we reached this like extreme point of suffering you know what I mean and like something that I try to do and I don't know if you try to do this as a yoga teacher too it's like try to get people to start doing this before they reach that point of just severe suffering like do you find that when you're when you have new students coming in like are they you know going through a breakup or they lost their job or they're dealing with like a lot of stress or depression or like do people just like come in and check it out I think it's all of the above like you never really know you can't I never really try to assume when I know what's going on in somebody's life what I do as it this what I do as a yoga teacher as much possible is I see the higher vision the highest vision of them so even if someone might be having a bad day and they're like true don't be faced coming in yeah it's like oh okay you're here so that's what I can talk later about the the bonama stay thing you hear at the end of the yoga class I mean I really have a huge connection with that that's that's kind of that's my practice the fundamental that's the fundamental basis of my practice of yoga but I'm sure we'll get more into that later yeah but oh when it when people come it's all the above I'm sure and then one person might just be coming in for one thing one time and then maybe in a year they're they're coming back for more thing that's one of the things that separates yoga from most other physical activities too is it's really about the mind it uses the body that's why it's taken off so well in the west because in you know in America you know the west we're we're pretty body obsessed you know yeah yeah all things physical really not just the body but our possession so one of my my my theories on yoga is why it works really well is because even though it's not about the body it it's kind of like it engages that part of our mind that can identifies with the body yeah right or wrong or I'm good at this it makes it wants to participate with that so that's what go ahead no I was gonna ask so like because there's so much of this like like I got into meditation probably I think it's been about three years now and you know a lot of it is about that mind body connection but you know I just pretty much sit and I meditate well I practice mindfulness meditation and you know I'll do it you know walking or listening or you know just whatever I can bring my my attention to and awareness and like a lot of it is that that like mind body connection so one question I have too is like so as as a yoga practitioner do you also meditate or is yoga your meditation yes and yes that's a really good question I find I mean I haven't taken a scientific poll but it seems roughly that there's as many people who don't do yoga who meditate as actual people who do yoga on a regular basis that meditate so I think that there's a pretty I mean you might have a little bit higher people who do identify themselves as yogis or whatever to have a practice but I find there's a lot of people who do yoga almost every day that don't actually sit and meditate on a regular basis some of the thinking one on the physical I mean I buy into this a lot like ultimately the physical part is to prepare your body you know from outside in to be able to sit and notice yeah sit and meditate so again to your question for me personally I I had spoke to this when how I got into yoga I I didn't really know my my mind was making me miserable the way you know basically and so I would have been one of the camp where I hear a lot of people say this all the time where it's like oh I can't meditate I can't get my thoughts right yeah I can't deal with I can't deal with these thoughts that come up when I'm not doing something else so I think that's another that's the pathway where like okay well the part of your mind that is giving you all this stress in your that your awareness to and the the thought that I can't do it that's the part that is for some of us for a lot of us is going to be like okay yeah we'll do this we'll do this yoga thing because a lot of times like oh it's gonna make you look better or it's gonna make you yeah see more having it together in your life you know yeah so that's that's interesting but um yeah for me personally I did I think maybe three years ago myself give or take I started to get really disciplined at finding it's actually slipped off I didn't do it this morning but I wasn't so good that I didn't need I didn't meditate I would feel good but um yes I fairly you know almost every day I take 10 15 minutes at least okay meditate so I I got it all and then over time the the practice was really physical and I wasn't in a great you know I was okay physical shape I guess but then it was so hard so it was just like this thing where it was physical and then recently I feel like even in the past year I've talked to deeper levels of meditation yeah and uh like is there is there like what like I was mentioning like I practice like mindfulness meditation is there a specific form of meditation that you do like what's your meditation practice look like it's mindfulness and that's really how I think so and I mean I I'm not as studied in just meditation as I am in the yoga itself cross-section I am but um yeah um it's it's I just basically I sit and I'm like all right I'm here I'm gonna keep bringing maybe I'll choose to take my attention just to my breath or maybe I'll spot along my spine I guess got it yeah so just finding like an anchor spot and then any time a thought comes up you just bring it back and just keep noticing thoughts yeah and a lot of the time this is what I tell my students who would have trepidation and certain meditate is I'll maybe you know maybe by like if I'm doing 15 minutes maybe by like minute 14 I'll start to get a couple seconds of space in between I'm just okay with my mind just you know yeah this might be interesting one thing that I'm I'm gonna get a little bit more a little better at doing it myself but I again recommend it to students is if you're trying to develop a meditation practice take 20 minutes aside the first 10 minutes don't actually start meditating get a piece of paper and anything with your minds like I gotta figure this out or I have a thought I want to work this out today or just like just you know write write down your thoughts try to attend to something even if it means like you know sending one email or something like yeah get a free meditation time where you can be like okay now I can give myself this 10 minutes where does it still things might might show up like oh no no you you needed 20 minutes with that you know yeah I feel like that's even for someone's trying to start it up I think that's a good step to be like okay well then maybe I can just allow my mind to like not attach on to wanting to do that thing yeah so long story long story short to your questions for me personally I'm just I'm just there just like I'm here I'm sitting yeah I'm gonna notice my thoughts I'm gonna choose to notice my breath yeah so so can you like as somebody who has literally never tried yoga before like but as a meditator like can you kind of explain to me how how yoga might help calm your mind or alleviate stress or anxiety or like how does that work it's in I I'm pretty sure it's almost the exact same way as meditation except now you have this anchoring thing where instead of just asking you to just sit you know or you know you said you did there's other forms of it walking meditation you know you can actually draw you don't have to like sit in the lotus pose on the pillow yeah yeah you can actually with mindfulness meditation you can be in a meditative state at least I don't know if there's actually I don't know what you think but maybe there's layers to it maybe it seems like there's layers to it but you can drop into a meditative state oh yeah no matter what you're doing but answer your question this this physical this is a really cool list so I feel like the more I don't I think for some people are just like you know I got it I got a meditative practice it's making huge changes in my life and I love it and good but for those of us who would have had trouble just sitting down and starting to meditate it's great and as to how well it these each yo let's look at it this way each yoga pose is almost like can serve as a mini scientific experiment or a metaphor okay so it's and it's all low states relatively speaking so if we go into a pose and you're balancing on one leg and kicking your other leg back behind your head and you fall out of it everyone's gonna fall out of that pose hundreds and hundreds of times or even if they've been doing it for 10 years they'll still fall out of it occasionally so you start to notice how you react to all these variables and I practice a lot of hot yoga to teach it too so that's another variable the hot yoga the hot the heat in the room to actually scientists scientists doing more studies on it that on different elements of yoga but that one element in particular it's actually turns out that it's really good for your lungs breathing in stronger and the sweating is just you know it's not it's not a magic bullet like oh if you sweat every day you're going to be healthy that's right it's of itself but it is it is something that is helpful you have like the element of heat in a room where it's actually helping you but it feels but your mind comes in and says oh no that's good out this is poor you got it yeah it's almost like a little oh and here's another one in the metaphor well I could go two places with that but um in different spiritual studies that I've been coming more and more familiar with some of them over the years and a lot of them will say like and this is what you pointed I believe you just pointed to this um a lot of people having a lot of suffering before they start to have awakening before they start to progress well in a way you're kind of in a safe environment a controlled environment making them very many very many um what would you call it a a chance where you could suffer yeah a lot of us end up doing it over these stupid yoga poses right yeah and then the first thing I noticed I think when I first doing it for a couple years and like I have to I was not really diagnosed but I'm probably probably whatever the diagnosis is pretty severely depressed my whole entire life with things fluctuation between anxiety and depression my whole life and pretty miserable um what I started to notice is that it was you know it's my thoughts for doing that that can kind of break into a different thing but I just wanted to say on this point that when I was first getting into it I noticed I was stressing out and worrying about these poses but then at the end I was like oh well I got all that time away from bigger problems that are right yeah as your practice develops you start to see that there is really actually not that you only give as much significance and weight to all all the problems yeah so there's there's a lot of interest I don't know I don't I'm definitely here yeah I'm digging I'm digging it though like it's all it started to make sense because I've read some books and stuff like that by you know meditators who practice yoga and stuff but um you know part of it too and like can you like you said that kind of controlled suffering like um I teach a lot of my clients I work at a drug and alcohol rehab and you know a lot of them struggle with depression anxiety anger issues some traumatic and when I'm teaching meditation and we bring up certain emotions or anything like that I kind of talk about it like a five pound weight you know what I mean like like let's practice it here like in this controlled environment think of something think about maybe that guy who said something that you didn't like rather than dealing with like your mom who you like hated your entire life or whatever it is like now we can start practicing and kind of building up that resistance you know but it also sounds like what we're talking about with yoga especially like when you did that thing like I could just imagine me falling over and top you know and a lot of meditation is noticing noticing judging myself noticing frustration and not attaching to those things but just simply noticing them you know and letting them be and then and yeah and that makes sense because then it carries out through the rest of my day and not just when I'm meditating like I was just talking to somebody and you touched on it earlier like so many people think that they're failing at meditating like meditating is supposed to clear your thoughts and if you can't do that you failed you know what I mean I'm like now it's just about noticing my saying is if you're trying to meditate you are meditating exactly exactly you know so I dig that so yeah and sometimes it makes me wonder like where these misconceptions like came from because I think they like think of that Buddha I have like right there not the panda but the Buddha you know and they're just like oh this is gonna be you're just gonna clear you're gonna find Nirvana it's like no man no it's just to sit down with the poses too it's the well you you the term ego yeah the mind the ego the ego wants to be good at everything right off the bat never even wants to be or mean some of us will be in beginner mind but like it's like a fear of public humiliation and it's I mean it all boils down to a very simplistic way of putting it that you want to either the ego it wants to be right it wants to be right about this pose or even if that means oh I'm right this isn't for me yeah that's interesting I haven't thought about it like that so I did want to touch on because okay because you mentioned the namaste thing and like I hear it I hear it all the time and I have no idea what it means so like explain explain this to me this namaste so it points to um a deeper philosophy predating yoga the practice of yoga the dance the Dante I mean I think I'm not very good at the same script words either but it means non-duality now on a very non-duality I'm not going to really get I hopefully not going to get too deep into that but on a very practical experiential level and this is I feel like what happened to me is um well I'm going to have to maybe expand out to bring it back in around the same time that I tried yoga for the first time I had this experience and that's a whole different it potentially another interview but I had this experience where it dawned on me that I did have I actually did love all being all human and uh with that realization there was a huge you know awakening but then I needed something to be able to actually practice it experience it so even though that I intellectually came to that thought where oh I love I love all people right uh I wasn't you know feeling that recognizing that uh living that a lot almost all it was it was pretty much how it was before this thing that happened so then going back you know um going back to your original question what is the namaste I mean you'll hear the yoga teacher at the end of class the light in me recognizes the light in you and that's the very general of what it means but a lot of even yoga teachers never really got exposed to or you know get into what is the light you know what is that light we're speaking of so what I believe that light is is conscious awareness um and then the whole non-duality thing I brought up is uh basically that philosophy proposes that we're all actually connected and we never left each other and we've had experience of separation suffering of the world for us to remember and to come back to each other yeah so yeah you say the light is um the words I like to associate with it is loving kindness unconditional love there you go boy um I feel like laughter laughter is part of it it's it's joy and it's a it's a sign of healing and a symptom of joy yeah so when you and then the other factor of it which leads to the non-dualism is what I am experiencing this is why I still say after every class and that's why I'm talking about it right now is the more I can you know pass any expectation any judgment any separation and just like I said I was I see the highest vision of my student that's not a mistake I so the more I actually see people like that and then goes way beyond these things being but yeah um the more I see that the more I feel it it's like it's completely connected it's reciprocal it's like another way of looking at it is like you can't truly you can't really have something unless you get you're willing to get it you don't really know something unless you teach it and like teaching it you're always teaching I don't know it's yeah it's the way that's where everything the yoga practice the meditation practice supports my ability to not mistake so let me ask you this how much so like and this is something that I I came to kind of this like realization is that it's easy for me to kind of do that with my clients right and like you your yoga students how is it do you find it difficult to do that like just in the everyday world going to the grocery store the gas station or you're driving and somebody somebody like cuts you off are you like no mistake or like you know what I mean like yeah does that kind of make sense like that's funny because I talk about that's that's a great example um less and less I realized in the past I was driving around not only anxious but angry like beyond angry like I wanted to like one thing and like so and then I'd link this into balancing poses too because what I what I noticed is that you had mentioned a moment ago about working with your clients it's um what yoga can help you do is it helps you this is the mind body connections like a buzzword that you know I don't think a lot of people really even unpack but really what this is it like this thing happened you notice how you feel when your body you notice what your thoughts around it are and then you kind of step out of it for a second to like do I want to feel that way yeah I be okay feeling that in my body and then the key to all of it is really breathing in my opinion so like anytime I anyway I'm going back to the traffic so I'm still not to that point where it's not I still feel like I get that first I get that first sting of annoyance or that sting of fuel that person yeah that maniac five miles under the speed limit right now and then then I'm able sooner and sooner to just step into that second response now but but yeah like that's that's something I try to teach people about like just developing a practice what happens is is that you start to notice it you start to notice that and that initial kind of you said like that little sting of irritation and now we can step out of it and we have a choice like how do I want to respond to this but so many of us we get into this autopilot and people snap at people they they argue they fight they yell at a stranger you know all these things but the more you start developing this thing had to be done they were wrong yeah exactly and yeah yeah like I was just teaching my clients about meditation the other day and they said how do you how do you know when it's working how do you know when it's working and I tell them I said chances are a lot of the people in your life are going to notice it's working before you do like your husband or your wife or your kids might be like you're not as much of a jerk as you used to be you know what I mean because you're you're learning how to respond to this stuff and you know in a loving kindness matter rather than snapping off your basic primal instincts um but yeah and you touched on like when you were talking to Namaste like and you mentioned loving kindness that's where I I find it too like it really just helps me develop empathy because I I think you know now more than ever not to get too deep in that is we're so disconnected you know what I mean it's just those are those people these people those that's a stranger and stuff and the more I practice any kind of loving kindness I'm just like this is another human this is a person with their own struggles their own emotions their own past their own history and it helps me it helps me cut them some slack you know because we're all dealing with this human thing you know yeah even if you step further than Namaste would be like that's not even a different that's me that's me someone someone slightly born in a slightly different time in a different space like but in the grand scheme of the universe the universe is so vast that space doesn't even show up as a numeral you know right yeah exactly and that's helps build empathy too is like you know what even if I don't like what that person's doing right now and it could be something that almost all of us could agree like oh that person is meeting their kids right now I wouldn't I would never do that that's a different that's a different tension altogether about the projection but that person you know I can I could very easily you know what if I was in there's exact same shoes and had the same experiences I would be yeah true but every single person that's interesting that helps them but the two is like you can't hold someone I mean they did what their level of consciousness was at at that point so yeah you know this this is a little bit this isn't something you would introduce to someone just getting into all this yeah right it's the key to never have any grievances or or hate or fear against any other person it really is yeah yeah it's just it's cool because you know a lot of people who are going to be watching this or listening to this you know a lot of them are you know gonna be being introduced but like I know when I first started I liked hearing these conversations because it kind of let me know like oh wow that's where I could be eventually like I can get to that place like it sounded crazy at first like when I first got started and all this stuff and just working on my own mental health but like I saw people were happier I saw people were able to treat others with more empathy and I was like how do you do that because maybe I can do that too you know what I mean there's huge payoff in doing it too I mean and again coming from my past I was walking around miserable my my mantra in my late teens in my early 20s was I hate people like I hate that person like a person stupid that person stupid that little much friend's okay but I was so miserable and now I mean again I had to get to that level of suffering apparently yeah this lifetime to find the opposite but I found the opposite now and it's like I walk around like man I just love people I just yeah yeah exactly it's a it's a huge payoff I mean if you just even want to think about like you can do it for selfish reasons like I want to feel good I'm just gonna love everybody exactly so uh so one thing we got a couple minutes left one thing I wanted to ask you okay now that I'm finally talking to a yoga teacher so as you can see I'm a pretty big dude I have been making the excuse I've been making the excuse forever that I can't practice yoga because I'm a bigger guy like I need you to sell me on the fact that maybe I can like where should I get started I would like the since you're already in a meditation mindset maybe just doing ones that are more geared towards a meditation but the the type of there's two main types of act of physical yoga that I practice um one the more ubiquitous one is is called like you hear it called venosa or flow yoga and that's the one that's a lot more like calisthenics like a Pilates type of thing where you know yoga's been around for a lot longer than Pilates but yeah it's gonna be tangent the most of the yoga poses you see nowadays are just developed over the last 200 years and most of them over the last 40 years oh a lot not all of them maybe I'm just gonna say roughly maybe like 16 positioning all leading the lotus pose basically where develop over the years so people could sit meditate and you it goes back 3000 at least 2000 years in the in the 1920s or so a lot of the modern day yoga poses you see in the yoga class came from the imperialist armies in India the Dutch and the English the the yogi we're like watching them do their routines like this stuff could be useful in teaching the 11 year old or 11 year old pupils yoga so that's where all so the poses you know if just see it as like I'm gonna not not just I'm not I'm gonna do my my meditation practice but I'm gonna move a little bit today I'm gonna get you don't have to do it like they like it looks like on Instagram you don't yeah oh yeah I've seen I've seen your Instagram I'm like I can't do that Michael I can't do that yeah like you said when you're like you were working with your clients something about taking them to the point where they can deal with it yeah practicing there that's what I'm gonna suggest oh a lot of people they don't we're in gym mentality we're in American you know baby I don't know what the heck we're in right now we're yeah make people like no you find the spot where uh I'm noticing things happening this is this is a little bit challenging can I be calm can I breathe calm here I can breathe calm here let me try it here so got it that's the way to do it and I would really recommend um hot yoga and the type of hot yoga is the the guy has no longer you know he's had he's had his problems with the way he's behaved apparently you know um allegedly but um the bickering yoga is a really good way to come into it because it's unlike the flow yoga they're longer held poses and you get space you get breaks in between the poses so if someone's just trying to find their body they have time to come into the pose they have time to hold the pose they have time to come out of the pose they have times are you know recalibrate in between the poses but at the same time they're blasting me with heat and humidity so yeah someone doing it for the first time and somebody like me who's been practicing that style for eight and a half years you know there's the the the the body can just keeps you know the body just keeps providing a slightly different scientific experiment for you to do the yoga got it okay when you're practicing next together you're gonna be having your experience and it doesn't matter what looks I mean our ego thinks it matters but it doesn't matter what it looks like you're gonna be practicing yoga and then with the heat and humidity both of us by the end of the classroom be like they're like oh something's happened here yeah whereas you know there's especially I think people just trying to find more relaxation you know more of a meditation in their life you know more of a gentle style is fine and I you know I'd like to do a gentle style I probably should do one once yeah when I practice on my own it appears gentle when I get into a room I'm like let's let's do the work you know yeah got it so this yeah so yeah and kind of like you said like I think that's where my issue has been like because I get that gym mentality where it's like push it push it to the limits like go crazy you know and like I like how you use the word gentle and it's just kind of like just checking my limits you know and then eventually like progressing and all that kind of stuff how easy can you do this because that's like basically yeah and really a lot of times when our body and our minds are like okay yeah I'm not going to try and then you don't you don't actually try how can you how easy can you do it while you're still fully trying and then it could be different like one week you get a tight shoulder out of nowhere so it might be a little bit different you know got it okay I'm willing I'm willing to find out this in the present moment what's going to be like got it teaches you so much you know yeah present moment it teaches you possibly how to enter states of love cool cool all right now I so you got my word and everybody else watching or listening you got my word I'm going to try this thing I might even document it um but yeah it's it's something I really want to do to kind of step up come down to Vegas let's let's go to a yoga class together oh yeah you're coming to Vegas okay hopefully and I'm gonna be in like I think it's ooh like 14th of February around around Valentine's Day around Valentine's Day that weekend I think it's the 16th and the 17th okay yeah yeah no that'd be awesome that'd be cool yeah that'll be a whole another video beautiful awesome okay cool well Michael we are out of time so do me a favor for everybody who's watching out there let them know where they can find more information about you and what you got going on in your world sure the best way especially if you're not in Pittsburgh to just see see what's going on and to hear more about some of the things I brought up is on my instagram you know you'll see me doing the the yoga pose yeah that's you know and they're fun to watch they're nice to look at but the words with it is really what I'm I really that keeps me doing it you know I'm not as as the years go and I'm like I'm so sick looking at myself but uh the word so the to answer your question it would be check check out my instagram Michael Miracles yoga oh and word I don't know if you need a hashtag in front of that or not but just yeah follow me on instagram and you know I get in about three days a week and there's there's useful I like to call it practical spirituality what we just talked about today is what I would call you know who you call it Michael this cool practical spirituality so that instagram and um yeah and from there my website as well Michael Miracles got it and I have a ebook I released a few months ago with oh cool more of just that it's like a day by day like you know inspirational blurb to read maybe a page maybe just a paragraph oh cool that's that's available on my site as well so uh if you're interested check out my site and come to one of my classes that's the best way beautiful awesome so cool and yeah everybody who's watching or listening I will have links to his instagram and his website as well as the link on his website to his ebook it'll be down in the description but Michael thank you so much for taking time out of your day to come chat with me and we're going to link up and we're going to talk and we're going to meet up when you come down to Vegas next month all right that'll be really fun I think cool all right all right everybody but yeah if you like this video give it a thumbs up be sure to subscribe and we'll see you next time