 everybody. I'm so excited about this episode today. I have my friend Cindy from Sacred Garden Yoga back with me looking beautiful in her yoga shala. How are you today, Cindy? I'm well. How are you? I'm good. I'm so excited. So as you guys know, last read through we did of the Yoga Sutras, we talked about Sutra number 34, which has to do with breathing, which I'm going to read it again. And I asked you guys to leave me comments if you wanted me to get one of my colleagues and friend on a show with me to talk about the power of breath. And I know for some people, you might be rolling your eyes. I know students who are new to yoga are always like breath work, breath work, how boring. But the breath work is magic. And it's ingrained into all these old religions, all these old scriptures, you see references to breath, even in the Bible, it says in God breathed life in a man and man stood up. And so there's a magic to breathing that I hope I hope Cindy and I can talk about today so that people watching who aren't familiar with this, this life force, this source of energy will start to understand how powerful that inhale and that exhale are and how you can start to really get in your body and start to understand your true potential by studying the breath. So I'm going to start I told today I'm going to start reading again sutra number 34 and the commentary. So the commentary again I'm reading is from Sri Swamisachitananda, which I would say Cindy, when you say this is probably one of the more popular commentaries on the sutras. I think so. I hear that when I saw I didn't bring mine, but I also use the Yoga of the Heart by Dessa Kachar. Yeah, Krishna Macharya. That's the one I use like in the teacher training and all that. And then it's mainly because it was the first one I came across. It was easy and simple. I just kind of stuck to it. But I think that one is a popular one. The one by Ram Das. Ram Das have a version that's really popular too. And B.K.S. Iain guard. His is a big one as well. I'll put all those links down in the description box below guys if you want to start collecting because again the Yoga Sutras I've said this almost every episode. The Yoga Sutra is only like 200 sutras. It's not a very long work and they're just sutras. But by what is said by Patanjali, there's so much power in every sutra that a lot of people will go back and write commentaries on each sutra, which is what Sri Swami Satchitananda did. Now he wrote this in like the 1940s and so some of the stuff he says is dated, but most of it is very powerful. And I do suggest people get multiple copies of multiple commentaries. I mean, I can't tell you how many different commentaries I've read of the Bhagavad Gita, you know, because people do bring up interesting information that you might miss. And so I'm going to read the commentary here by Sri Swami Satchitananda for this one sutra. So again, this is sutra number 34, which comes from the first Pada, which is the Samadhi Pada. And now I've said this on my show before and I'll say it again. When you sit down to traditionally study the Yoga Sutras, they take them out of order. So usually the student will first start with the second Pada, which goes through the physical practice. And the reason why we start with that is because the physical practice is something that's very elementary and something we can all relate to. We all are in our body, we can feel sensation. Then you'll go back and study the first Pada, which is a lot of philosophy. Now the third and the fourth Pada is very, very potent. So a lot of teachers won't even touch the third or fourth Pada with their students until they've been practicing for like 10 years, 15 years. But of course, the third and fourth Pada are in every Yoga Sutra. So it's not like they're censoring it from you. They just won't touch it with the student for a while until the student has a better, more grounded approach to the practice. So this is what I was just going to say this real quick about the Yoga Sutras in general, that it's, it's truly a sacred text, kind of like the Bhagavad Gita this, where just by reading it, it will start to shift you. It will work its magic on you. You might read it and might not understand a damn word you're reading the first time around because you're like, what, what is this? Because there's a certain the, the sutras they meet you where, where you are. And if you first read them, you know, you're newer, you might not quite be in like an alignment with them, but it doesn't matter. Like if you read them and you don't understand them the first time around, don't think that nothing is happening. Just by reading it, it's, they're, they're like magic. They're like word magic. Just by reading them, just like when you do mantras, right? Like certain mantras, you might not necessarily know what you're saying, but you know that the word has a power to it and it's working on you energetically. The same goes for the Yoga Sutra. So you might read them through and you might think, I don't understand this and I don't know what's happening, but just by reading them, just simply by reading them, it will start to shift, it will start to, they will start to work on you. And then if you continue on with the studies, if you read them like the second time, I, you know, I try to go in and read them at least once a year. And every single time I read them, it's like something shifts every single time. And so it's like this never ending pool of just accessing not just information, but the energetics behind it that does something physically to your body. Oh, absolutely. I could not agree more. And I do the same thing. I read the sutras. Usually I read them again in India, where we take our sutra classes every single year. And it is because it, Cindy's 100% correct. These sutras, a lot of times Patanjaleen who is credited for writing the original sutras, he's very point blank in a lot of the sutras. But what he's saying is so powerful and so complex at the same time that it does take a level of almost maturity within your practice to even start to somewhat see a perspective that maybe you didn't see the year before. It takes those experiences. And I absolutely agree. That's the power. That's why yoga, I think it's lasted for thousands of years is because there is so much cosmic power in this practice. And what started off, I mean, Sri Swamiji Chitinanda always calls Patanjaleen a scientist and he lived what 5000 years ago. And so he's talking about the mind and the power of the mind. But we know that the body is the mind field. We have these different elements of thought, which we have the brain versus consciousness versus the psyche. And so it gets kind of complicated. And what the sutras are offering you is a chance for you to be your own scientist. Because that Pratyahara, that self study, I mean, Cindy knows and I know as students of yoga and as I say, I'm mainly a student of yoga. And sometimes I teach, you know, that hour I'm in the classroom and teaching, but the rest of the day, I'm a student myself, you know, you can lead a horse to a water, but you can't make him drink that Pratyahara, that self study is only something that you can do. No teacher can do it for you. The teacher will help keep you on the track. I need a teacher sending it, we need each other to help keep us focused on what we're doing. But that self study is something that only you can do. And with the sutra number 34, with the breathwork, that's where it gets really powerful. And you really start to understand the way that your psyche is working by following the patterns of your breath. Because so much of what we do is subconscious anyway. Conscious thought is so minimal compared to what we're subconsciously thinking. So again, sutra number 34, and I'm not going to read the Sanskrit, I know I say this unlike every episode. The Sanskrit is super, super important, but because it's YouTube, we're just going to do the English. If you do have a actual teacher, they will probably go over the Sanskrit with you. But for the English translation, so sutra number 34 is or the calm is retained by the controlled exhalation or retention of the breath. Here Patanjali talks about Pranayama or the control of movement of Prana, which we find in our breathing. Some Pranayama specialists say Patanjali meant that we should retain the breath outside. Instead of breathing in and holding the breath, breathe out and hold. But Patanjali didn't go that deeply into the different kinds of breathing exercises. He probably meant that we should just watch and regulate the breath. We think we can begin with the deep exhalation and then watch the breath slowly in and out. This is also given in the Buddhist meditation called Anapana Sati. Anapana is similar to Prana Apana, which is what we're going to focus on of Hatha Yoga. So again, Hatha Yoga is spelled H A T H A, but it's Hatha because the T H in Sanskrit does not make the sound. So it's Hatha Yoga. The force that moves upward is Prana. The first force that moves downward is Apana. The aim is to bring the two together, the Prana and the Apana. In fact, Hatha Yoga is mainly based on the equilibrium of these two forces. Hatha means sun and moon. The two opposites must blend together in a gentle way. So here, he says that to bring peace of mind, watch the regulation of the breath. So I'm going to leave that right there. That's more commentary. If you guys want to read that, you can get the copy of yourself. But I wanted to kind of go into that with Cindy. And as before we started recording, we're just going to see where this conversation takes us. Cindy is one of my real life friends. All of my friends on YouTube are my real life friends, but I know Cindy, Cindy and I know each other. We knew each other before YouTube. So we know each other in real life and we can, we can get weird. Can't we, Cindy? We can have some very. This is the best kind of conversation. I know if anybody were to hear our private conversations, we might be admitted to a psych ward, but they're the best kind of conversations to have because there is so much magic in what we're, what we're doing. And I think for both, I don't want to speak for you, Cindy, but I think for both of us throughout our lives, working on our own practices, it's this shocking revelation of just how powerful and how magnificent human beings are and that we, we don't know. We haven't been taught properly who we are and how we can learn who we are. And the breath is so important. Can I start by asking you, when you first started studying yoga, what was your relationship with breathing? I don't think I really had much of one like normal people. I wasn't that conscious of it, but then, you know, it's interesting when once I started to watch my breath, I realized that I was breathing backwards. In other words, whenever I would inhale, you know, when you inhale, ideally you're supposed to expand your body like you go this way. So you allow room in for your breath and when you exhale, you contract. I was doing the opposite. I was an inhale and contracting my body and then exhale expanding. So I was all turned around, which is not ideal for, for breathing. But it just kind of goes to show though how everything comes out through your physical body, through your breath. And that was just a response. It was kind of this, you know, artificial, probably kind of a trauma response that was held in my breath, where I was, you know, expanding and contracting not correctly. But those are the kind of things that when you start to study yourself, you know, you're talking about the self-study, Prachahara, that you begin to realize and how the breath can show you all these different artificial ways of responding to things that have been just, you know, like I said, it could have been a trauma response, but everything gets held within your body and most of it gets held within your breathing pattern. Absolutely. So my first relationship with the breath was, oh my gosh, I'm like breathing upside down and backwards and everything else. But it was, it's just kind of wild to, to realize the correlation between your, your mental state. It's funny because the piece of paper that I have right in front of me, because you're talking about breath and peace, it says, breath is in yoga the way to peace. Breathing is the key to being at ease in any situation. So yeah, it's the information runs the same. I mean, breath is the key to calming. If you just wanted to also take it to the pure physiological point of view, it's a way of making yourself feel better because isn't that where we need to start is if you're feeling like crap, you're feeling like shit, it's hard to have these esoteric conversations talking about expanding consciousness. If you just feel, you know, if you're feeling bad, yeah, and the first way to start to get a handle over that is as simple and as accessible as, as the breathing is to try to be able to find some kind of element of, of, of just relaxation or peace or grace or space or whatever you want to call it within you so that you can start to move further on in, into the work that, that you want to do for expanding or awakening or enlightening or ascending, whatever you want to call it. But first it's like, you just got to get out of, out of pain, you know, you got to get out of that place of being anxious all the time and breath is the key to get you there. The interesting thing I see about the breath and I see this in my own practice, obviously, because that's the real template that we all have as our own experiences, your mind can do a really good job at lying to you about how you're actually doing, you know, we, how many people do we know? It's like that episode of friends towards the end where Ross is like, I'm fine, I'm fine. And he's like sweating and you know, our mind can do this like really, really gnarly thing where it makes it convinces us of a reality that's not real. But the body and the reactions in the body don't ever lie. And you see that with breathing patterns. And, you know, on a very base level, the breath is connected to the nervous system. And so like Cindy knows, and now Cindy and I teach different lineages of yoga, but the breathing is the same for all the, it's, it's just kind of the same, the same purpose. Now when in a my source situation where you're working with students one on one in a room, you can hear more of their breathing and you can start to pick up when stress is happening in the body and part of the posture practice, the Austin practice is allowing your body to move into shapes that will intentionally trigger emotional thought responses. And we first start to see that triggering through the patterning of breathing. So when a student like holds their breath, we see a nervous system response. And so then you start to train yourself and you try to help your student when they feel that nervous system response come up to continue to breathe even when you want to hold the breath to then calm the nervous system down to go into this difficult triggering shape, which then of course translates into our life. You know, with the chronic breathing, which is the upward rising, which is the sun, it's the sun salutations, it's that creating the oxygen that you're breathing in when your heart rate starts to elevate to creates more of that, that life force and that energy. And you're right because I know I say this in our classes all the time, you know, if you try to do a handstand, for example, if you try to go up into an inversion, you can't do it on an exhale. You can't do it on a deflation. You have to take the inhale to have that spark of energy. It's that spark that brings it up. And then of course, the exhale is what's going to help in other areas and it is the Austin practice is balancing the two aponic energy. And of course, do we want to talk about like the Shoshuna and the bundas? I mean, I don't know if many people know about like the locks we have that are actually connected to breathing as well to hold in energy. Most people are familiar with the chakra system, but we also have a bundle system, which is like a lock in the body that holds the energy in its place. Do we want to go into that or is that like too much for people who've never studied breathing? I'm happy to go to go into that. And the thing about when you're talking about breathing, I know it doesn't, it's not very, it's always very exciting and very sexy, you know, it's much more sexier and exciting to talk about, you know, aliens and stuff like this or visions or, you know, talking to the Palladians and, you know, that sounds so much more like exciting, right? But when you're talking about doing your own personal work, this is truly where it begins. And it's not always sexy and exciting. I mean, sometimes it can be kind of like, ugh, and even like, you know, boring, but boring isn't bad, because this is where you get into the space of understanding yourself. You get into the space where you're no longer distracted by all these other things. Because the thing is about, you know, like, you know, the sexier things about having visions and seeing this and seeing that is that doesn't mean that your work is over. That just means like, you know, maybe some of the stuff is working, but you can also take all that stuff and use it to make your ego bigger or to throw your weight around and saying, oh, I'm seeing this and I'm having visions of this and all this and use that to grow your ego. You see what I mean? But when you come back to something that's very simple, like the breathing, it's humbling. And there's a sweetness to that that we need sometimes. Yeah. I mean, yeah, sometimes we need that uplifting and it's really exciting. We need that excitement. But there's an importance, I think, especially as you grow and you mature with your practice that you come back to something as sweet and simple as the breath, which brings you just back to yourself that brings you back to your humanity and back to being able to relate to others on a level that's meaningful. Yeah. Because sometimes you can just get so caught up in your your illusions, delusions and all this stuff that you lose sight of just like, you know, what's important just like coming back. And and that's what I think the breath does too. And it does that for me, because I know I can get caught up in there. I mean, I can get caught up in all sorts of you know, ideas and beliefs. And then I can tell when I get carried away with that, you know, like I can start to feel it physically in my body and mentally in my mind in the first place, like the first place spirit tells me to go when I go there breath. It just says take a breath, take a deep breath and just come come back in and just come back to something that's sweeter, more simple and very human. Because we need that we need to remember that we need to keep that that part of us too, because we're spiritual beings that are having a human experience, we're supposed to be human. And that breathing is very, very human. That's obviously that's what everybody needs. You can't you can't live without your breath. You know, so I totally understand that it's so funny, you know, when you when people first start practicing yoga, it's kind of that they want that sexy, they want to put their leg behind their head and do that. And they want to wear the cute clothes and have a great Instagram picture. But the more advanced you get, I think the more you want to go back to the foundation, because you realize there's so much beauty in that foundational work. There's so much beauty in that foundational work and that breathing is such such a part of it. And so when we talk about the power of the breath, again, this is spoken about in all the old religions as well, the old spiritual practices, you can go through all the old scriptures and they there's something in there about the power of the breath, the life force. So Prana again is the upward rising inhale. It's the correlated with the inhale, but it also means life force. So Pranayama, which is the Sanskrit word for breathing techniques, basically our breathing practices, really literally means to expand your life's capacity through breath. And in the West, we have this saying that like God knows the number of days you have on this earth like your days are already numbered. But in India, they have a saying that your number of breaths you have are already numbered. So your life is extended by you being able to control your breathing. Okay. And that also kind of goes back to controlling your mind too, because if you can focus on how your body and your mind is really reacting through breath and you can start to understand where you are, maybe having some delusional thoughts that are causing a bit of derangement or anxiety in you and stuff. So it all comes back to that breath. Now, when we're talking about bundas, everybody's aware that we have a chakra system, which are points of energy throughout the body. But something we focus on more in the Ashtanga lineage is the bunda system. And the bunda systems are like locks within the body. So we have three main ones we work with in within the torso, a mulla bunda, which is literally right in between your legs, Udyana bunda, which is in the navel area of the belly button and Dallandar bunda, which is in the throat, which you really enact in the Pranayama exercises when you're tucking your chin in to open up Shoshuna. And when we learn about controlling the bundas, we're allowing the body, we're kind of going into this area of bringing in breath and allowing the body to lock it and hold it for a moment for an execution of movement. I mean, that's so powerful. It's like putting gas in your tank and then holding it to be able to execute something by using that magical inhale of oxygen. It is so powerful. I agree because the Pranayama that you're talking about, you know, in part of what yoga, the practice is trying to teach us is it's to learn how to control our energy, our Prana. Because most of us, we go through life unconscious, not aware of how we're using our energy. We're using it, right? Because we have to be, but you have a choice. You can either use your energy consciously or you can move through life unconsciously. And that's mind energy, of course, like with your thoughts, your thoughts, they can be conscious or they can be unconscious. It could be the just the actions that you take the way you move through life. Are you moving through life present? Are you living, are you moving through life like on automatic, on a script? You know what I mean? But it's all using your energy. Are you in another way that we use our energy? We don't realize it is to suppress things. And that takes a lot of energy, as a matter of fact. So if you're holding things down and you're suppressing stuff, that takes a tremendous amount of Prana. And if you're and if you're doing that all the time, that's one of the reasons people get tired and exhausted. It's not necessarily because they're like doing all this stuff, you know, like someone can be doing nothing and they wake up and they're exhausted. You don't realize how much of your energy, how much Prana it takes to like shove things down and hold things in. It's like there's a bit called the dark side of the light chasers that was written by Debbie Ford. And I think it's her, her example where she's like, if you're if you have a beach ball, and you're trying to constantly hide that beach ball, or I think there's an example too, if you're if you're holding like a glass of water, and you're just holding it and holding it and holding it, or you're constantly maneuvering to try to hide something. At first, it might not be that bad, but after a while, I mean, your arms are going to hurt. You know, your body is going to get tired. So anyway, it's a lot of this, these exercises like the bunda, the bunda work, the pranayama, it's a way to help free up your energy, right? So that it's not doing things unconsciously that you don't even know what's going, how you're even using your energy. So it's to free it up to liberate it. And for you to also become aware. And then once you free it up and you become aware, then you can start to direct it and where you want to go and live more consciously and manifest more consciously. Because again, you're always manifesting, you can't not be manifesting because that's what you are your creator, right? So you're either going to manifest consciously or you're going to manifest unconsciously. And when we're doing it unconsciously, this that's when we move through life thinking, why is this always happening to me? I mean, this sucks, I don't understand why am I always attracting the same things into my life over and over again. And it's because of all these unconscious ways of how you're using your prana, you're using your energy. So all this stuff that we're talking about, the yoga, the bundas, the pranayama, recontain regaining control of your breath again, it's all to help influence the most potent thing that you have available to you, which is your pranic life force. Yeah. In learning like through the practice of the bundas of how to hold it, how to direct it, how to become more powerful and then send the energy consciously where you want it to go. And then that's when, you know, life begins to unfold in a way that feels like, Oh, I'm doing this. Yeah, I start to feel like, oh, you know, this is working. And that is extremely powerful. Yeah. That is what, you know, that's the purpose of so much of the stuff. Yes, it's, you know, it's to obtain peace, but from that place of peace and mindfulness and your, your body and your prana being free of stress or of all these unconscious holding patterns, in that you find, you also find, you know, the power to then create the life that you want instead of feeling like you're just, you have no control over your life. I mean, all that, all that comes from this, this work that we're talking about, this is the foundational work to get you there. It's funny, there was a show on the other night that they said a quote that I loved and it said, it takes a whole lot more effort not to be free, not to be free. And a lot of times we don't even realize we're holding that effort of stress. But once you learn how to move it and work through it, there's so much liberation. And when you're, when you feel liberated, when your energy feels liberated, then you also are experiencing a level of peace because you can handle it, you know that you can handle it. And, and that is why, and I've told people many times, and I think with beginner students, like when it comes to, like, being mindful, we always start, it starts and ends with breath. Just sit down and watch your inhale and your exhale, start to get, have former relationship with that. Now we look at the Shishumna, which, so Nadi's, Nadi's 101 on Nadi. So Nadi's are like little energetic rivers that run through your body. There's like 75,000 of them. Now, we only really pay attention to three of them. And really one of them. And that is the Nadi that goes up the spine. And that is called Shishumna. Now this is not something that you're going to see on an X-ray or an MRI. This is very much energetic body. Don't go to your doctor and say, I watched a video on YouTube and I think my Shishumna is broken. They're not going to know what you're talking about. Okay. So it literally is this energetic, like portal almost that are, kind of think about like white water, like a slide that kind of runs up and down the spine, which of course then bumps up against all these energy cycles. And when you're holding the energy, you're kind of in the same vicinity of this energetic area. And this is also where the Kundalini rises up. We've heard Kundalini a lot. Yes, there is a negative Kundalini and there's a positive one, just like everything gets inverted. So don't freak out by me saying that there is a positive. The true Kundalini is a very positive awakening that's in the base of your pelvic region, which even that I remember taking a Pranayama class with David Greig years ago and realizing that I had such a hard time bringing my energy down to my pelvic region. And he even said that that is one of the hardest places, especially for women, to go to energetically, because we've been taught for so long that this is kind of an off limits area. This is taboo. And so to actually bring the awareness deep down into that pelvic region energetically, nothing to do with sex. It's just an energetic bowl, basically, was so freaking hard. And it's something for the past probably five, six, seven years, I've been really focused on in my practice is gaining access to that area, because that's where the actual Kundalini lays dormant. And that it only starts to, you know, wake up and move when it needs to or when it's being encouraged to. But for most people, it just kind of lays dormant there. I mean, do you want to speak about that with the breath a little bit? We can get real weird. Yeah, well, then the Kundalini too is just a very potent form of Prana. I'm sure maybe you've already gone over this too, but it's not different than Prana. It's still because I think sometimes people might get confused like what is Kundalini? It's still Prana. It's still life force. It's not anything different, but it's just a more potent. Let's just say it's a very a lot of condensed energy that's at the base of the spine, therefore making it more potent, right? Yeah. And it's a yes. And when it lies dormant, it lies dormant like a coiled serpent. That's why Kundalini is often the symbol of the Kundalini as a snake. And so it's coiled, right? And the idea is behind some of this eastern philosophy is that as you start to, as the Kundalini begins to awaken, it comes up and it starts to move up the Shoshuna, right? And your spine and your nerves are all tied physically to the Shoshuna as well because it runs up through your spine. And so it uncoils and unfurls and starts to go up and it penetrates through your energy centers. And they say once it gets all the way up, that that is when you reach that ultimate like, you know, Samadhi enlightenment or, you know, nirvana, whatever that word is, is for you. But the things that begin to activate the Kundalini is, you know, we were talking about beforehand is balance. Like, you know, there's alternate nostril breathing that comes in as far as like manipulating and learning how to use the breath to awaken you. That alternate nostril breathing helps to bring the balance between your polarities, right? Your left and your right side, your sun and your moon, the female and the male. And so much of this awakening process is coming back to that space of, yes, we are polarized beings. We're like, we're like a walking contradiction most of the time, but finding a way where that begins to integrate to create more of a sense of wholeness. So, you know, we're, we have, we have polarity, but we're trying to make it so we're, we're whole. And that wholeness is what starts to awaken, you know, and starts to liberate the Kundalini. And when you do this left, right, alternate nostril type breathing, or you start to bring in the work of balancing and integrating your, your opposites and all this stuff, that's one of the big things that begin to awaken the Kundalini. That's not the only thing, but that's one of the things that will start to do it. And then, yes, and then it's working just energetically through the different aspects of you, like you're talking about the base and the Muldahara, you know, that energy center and just working through anything that's might be held or stuck there that has to do with, you know, not feeling safe or not feeling like you belong here or, or not feeling like there's enough or being caught up in a lot of lack or scarcity that can hold and bind the Kundalini, right? And so the more you do that hip work, and then bringing the energy down, then that also like stirs the Kundalini ready for awakening. So any kind of work that you do, just to liberate yourself, liberates the Kundalini Shakti, and then any work that you do, just to balance yourself to, to make yourself more whole, is liberates the, the chronic Kundalini Shakti, whatever you want to. It's gnarly. Like it is so, I mean, the alternate nostril breathing exercises that we do, I mean, that to me, and, and guys, I know people who are new, new, new to this, it's not when you do, when you take like a Pranayama class, it's not just you sitting around just sitting around breathing, like they, it is some intense, there are some, I think I have seen my life flash before my eyes and more Pranayama classes than I ever have in Asana classes. I think I've sweat more in Pranayama classes than I ever have in Asana classes. It is tough, especially when you get to certain exercises where you're totally deflating the breath and then having to lock in the bundas and hold yourself with no breath and start to do like it's in, in, in India, you don't even, you're not even eligible to take Pranayama classes until you've reached a certain particular maturity in your practice, because there are some intense Pranayama classes where I know people have like lost sight for a few seconds, because it's so freaking powerful. So you do have to have a level of, of bravery, courage, and again maturity with the practice, but the alternate nostril breathing, that to me, it's one of the first, I think exercises people get to do. And it is probably for me anyway, in my experience, it is one of the most gnarly, informative, pranayamic exercises. I mean, I had no idea. When you first start practicing yoga, they're going to tell you to, to breathe through your nostril, like that you don't want to close the mouth and just breathe through your nose. That's because the mouth breathing can cause stress and the, the nose has a, it also connects down to Shishumna with the two different noddies coming to the nostrils. But when you sit and actually do the, where you're plugging one nostril in, taking in and then switching sides, you start to understand so much about where you're imbalanced, because one nostril is going to be like, so clogged, so not able to function. And the other nostrils going to be like, totally open and fine. And so you start to understand where you're seeing this imbalance happen. And, and yeah, and also different days, different times the day, one nostril is going to naturally be stronger than the other nostril. That's gnarly. No one, whoever told us that in school that, you know, one nostril is going to dominate over the other one, depending on what time of the day it is. But do you want to talk a little bit about the alternate, the nostril breathing? Because I mean, for me, that's one of the most wild exercises anyone can do. And I'm going to say guys, if you want to practice pranayama, I'm going to just say as a disclaimer, please find a teacher to teach you this, because we don't want anybody getting hurt or doing something that they don't quite understand on their own. So I would say, I would very much encourage you guys to find a teacher that can help you through this. Yeah. And the the nadi shodanam alternate nostril breathing, it is one of the more basic ones and one of the more safest ones that you can do from my understanding as well. But yeah, and it's interesting how like your left nostril is tied to the right side of your brain, right? And your right nostril is tied to the left side of your brain. And in my studies, if for instance, the left side of your nostril is more open, it means that the right side of your brain is more active. And the right side of your brain is like the, what is it, you know, the more, is that the that's the more masculine side? Not just your point, but, but yes, but anyways, the left, your left nostril is more active, the right side of your brain is more active and vice versa. If this is more open, if your right nostril is more open, your left side of your brain is more active. And so you can discern between what part of your, your brain is more active, just simply by your alternate nostril breathing. I think that's fascinating. So informative, like all you have to do is do a few rounds of this and say, oh, okay, I'm more right brain right now, or I'm more left brain right now. And you do shift. Yeah, you shift throughout the day, depending on what's going on with you. And, and another interesting thing is if you do like, like a breathing, and you just close one nostril, and you breathe in and out through that through through the, let's say the nostril that's more closed, and you take at least, I think it's at least 27 or 28 breaths, you can actually shift. Yeah, what side of your brain you want to be more active. That's the breath has, like you can actually, you can actually flip your brain by breathing and decide, oh, I don't want to be more right brain right now, I want to activate more this side, take more breaths through that one nostril, and you can flip your brain. I mean, that's just why it's powerful. There's an exercise you can do to and I'm not 100% sure of this, because I've never tried it, but I know you can like, make a fist under your armpit on the opposite nostril as well, that will also trigger the breath to pick up. And I know for people who are trying this home, if you do do this, make sure you're tucking your chin down, so that you can have that access in the back of your throat as well, so you can get more of a clarity. It's wild, it's so freaking wild. And we just don't, I mean, this is again, yeah, the alternate nostril breathing is something that's very foundational. It's one of the first pranayamas you'll ever learn. And it's just freaking wild, how you, and you could be a long time practitioner sit down one day and do alternate nostril breathing and be like, holy crap, what's going on. So again, that breath does give you clues as to what is truly happening within your psyche. You know, and yeah, with the alternate nostril breathing, of course, that comes down through the spine. These are the three, the three notties that were really, that these are notties as well, your nostrils as well as your spine. Yeah, eat in the pingala, right? Yeah. And they start at the base of the spine at your Muldahara. They start, I can't even get that tall, but they start here where they intersect is where your energy centers are. So that's the eat in the pingala. And then they connect here. And again, the eat in the pingala, they represent that same idea of polarity that we were talking about the left and the right side of you, the moon, the sun, the male, the female, and the idea behind alternate nostril breathing and by balancing. So your alternate nostril breathing helps to balance out the the, the, those, those opposing forces, right? And the more balanced you get, then the energy can start to penetrate and move up to the, the Shishumna Nauti. Yeah. And then it's also like when you do it, some of the other effects, it has a cooling quality to your, so if you notice like there's just a general cooling quality to your head. And it gives clarity because with cooling, you know, usually comes more clarity in your mind. So there's those, those kind of benefits as well, where you begin to see it immediately and your nostrils will clear immediately. Like if you round suddenly, you'll be able to breathe more freely through your sign. And that just feels good too, to be able to take fuller and deeper breaths, your nostrils feel more open, more clarity of mind, cooling effect in your head, plus the balancing work that you're doing with the Prana itself. So there's a lot that, that goes on with just that one particular exercise. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And let's, so let's, let's, because you were talking about the polarity and we kind of, we spoken about the divine feminine a lot, Cindy. And, and the idea that the pranic cycle is more labeled, more masculine, where the aponic cycle is more feminine, that again comes back to the pranic being the upward moving energy, the inhale, which is symbolized by the sun. Hence the sun salutations is creating that, that upward rising energy before your practice. But then the aponic, the exhale is, is the symbol of the aponic is the moon. And that's more of the feminine. That's more of the, of course, women, we have our cycles on a monthly cycle, which we get the word month from moon, and men have their cycles on more pranic, which is a three month cycle. So men do get their man periods every three months. So ladies, you start tracking that down. So you know, when they're going to get hormonal every three months, you know, and it is, and we see, you know, that the, the micro and the macro, what we're seeing right now in our timeline shift, where we're seeing the divine feminine coming back again and having that, I said this last night in a video, it's not that we, the divine feminine needs to take over the divine masculine. That's not it at all, at all, or else we're going to be right back in the same situation we were before, where the divine masculine took over. There has to be an equal balance between the two energies. Now, again, I'm going to specify just if you're female doesn't mean that you don't have Prana. We all have Prana and then have a Pana too, but it's just kind of labeled as masculine and feminine, which again comes to the two different sides, the body, the left side being the feminine side, the right side being the masculine side. But again, sometimes the way the human body works, if you're dealing with an issue in your right shoulder where you think, oh, this is a masculine issue. Sometimes that's not where the issue is. The issue might be coming from your left hip, but it's diagonally hitting the right shoulder. That happens all the time, doesn't it, Cindy? Yeah, it really does. Your body often will care the way it compensates, because if there's something and there's compensation that happens, sometimes that compensation happens in like this zigzag motion. Yeah, I remember being, I was with an Ayurvedic healer in India, like my first trip and I was certain that there were some issues on the left side of my body, like my left hip was screwed up, my left shoulder was screwed up. There was all these things going on. My left hip does sit a little higher than my right hip. That's normal for people. But I was certain something was going on the left side of my body and this Ayurvedic healer was like, actually, this is all coming from your right side of your body. Your left side is overcompensating for something and you're not even feeling it on the right side of your body because your left side is too busy overcompensating for something happening in the right side of your body. So sometimes you can even be fooled by not totally getting into that subtle aspect of what is actually energetically happening to you. And that's it too. I know Shri Salmi Satishananda talks about this a lot. When you first start your yoga practice, typically most people are very disconnected from their actual body. I know that sounds weird to say, but it's very common to have people completely just out of their body, not really understand. And so we have to learn the gross body first before we can even start to feel that subtle body response. And of course, yeah, I mean, and that's a response too. That's like a trauma response that happens. And then I see it happen with a lot of like star seeds, right? Like people who don't feel like they're from here, star seeds or empaths, where, well, one, there's a lot of different things that go into that one, the body itself just feels very constricted and contracted, especially for like star seed people, you know, where the energy of the earth, the energy of the body is just so like heavy, you know, heavier than what one might be used to. And immediately, what you want to do is escape. And that's a very common, common theme for star seeds is escapism is just simply wanting to be out of the body because the body in this earthly experience is just a lot, you know, it's a lot of sensation, a lot of things to have to to feel a lot of experiences, a lot of just craziness. And so we we escape. And that that's that's an energy that that usually pulls you upward and outward. And so even though we are technically technically, you know, still attached to our body, we're moving, we're doing our things, we're not fully in it, like we're not fully landed or, or, and you might think that you are like, you might think, oh, I'm here. But then when you really start to do more of the work, and you're like, oh, wow, you know, maybe that was it, you know, you go, you go into so many different ways of understanding how we are really good at cutting ourselves off from our bodies, so that we don't have to feel so much. Right. And we do it so frequently. And we do it so like, to the point where it's almost like a natural response that we don't even know that we're doing it anymore, you know, it's just it becomes one of those subconscious slash unconscious responses, until you start doing the work of, you know, because the breathing brings you back in. The yoga brings you back in all of this, all of this work. Yes, just as you said, the first thing is, it's going to require you to do is to come back into, into your body. It's like, it's going to require you to descend before you, it's like, you got to do first, then you can re ascend, but then it's in the more, you know, connected whole way instead of just trying to escape because anchored world is too much or this body is too much. Yeah. And it's like, it's, and that goes back to a lot of times people are under the impression that you're going to go to yoga to like be comfortable. And the most traditional practices, it's the exact opposite. They're, they're going to try to trigger discomfort in your physical body. You know, it's not comfortable to put your leg behind your head. It's not comfortable to do a handstand. It's not, this is not, it's not a practice of comfort, but they're taking that gross, those sensations as a way for you to actually feel them, to actually feel them. And, and when you feel run from them anymore, but just to be with them, not that you have to analyze them or anything like that, just simply let them exist within you again. Yeah, to lean into them. It's, I tell this story all the time, my original Ashranga teacher, a man named David Greek up in Philadelphia, I would fly back and forth to Philadelphia to study with him before I started going to India. And he was a student of Guruji's in India before Guruji passed away. And he said once he asked, because the Ashranga practice is very painful. It is a very painful practice. And, and he asked Guruji once, he said, Guruji is, is all this pain necessary? And Guruji said, yes, because pain is real, pain is real. And that's that bringing you back into your body, that, that understanding that you, you are in this avatar, you can't leave this avatar, you can't disassociate from this avatar. This is your experience on this earth plane for this life. And now I was just going to add in part of that work is just shifting your relationship that you have with the sensations instead of turning it into like, Oh my God, this is just suffering and all this. But just shifting your perception and the relationships that you have with all the different emotions and the sensations, because you're like this whole spectrum being, right? You're like, you're a container for, for it all from the light to the dark to everything in between and all the sensations that come in with that. And the, the, the better that we can just simply be with them and to hold them the, the, the quicker they'll pass through. So you don't have to like sit in deep, deep suffering or anything. No, yeah, just a matter of saying, Oh, okay, you know, these are these, this is just part of being human part of being human is highly sensational. And, and, and, and how we perceive the, how we perceive those experiences, instead of labeling them as it shouldn't be happening this way, or this is just really bad or trying to control it. When you try to put too much control around them or, or make them stop happening when it needs to happen. That's when it gets uncomfortable. But to the point where you're, you're stopping, you're hindering your growth versus leaning, like, like you said, like leaning into some of these sensations and, and changing your perception around it, the way you think about it, the way, you know, the way instead of just labeling everything as, Oh, this is just bad, bad, bad, bad, bad. And I hate this, I hate this, I hate this, you know, like saying, Okay, no, well, no, I'm going to just open my mind to this being just, just another sensation, another part of being alive, of being human. And then those feelings will, they'll pass through you much more quickly, instead of Absolutely. Well, that goes back to the breath again, because when you do feel an uncomfortable sensation, the first thing you do is hold your breath. But then if you allow yourself to control, holding your breath is part of control. Yeah. And instead of telling yourself just to go into it. And, and I love Ram Dass, because he often says, you know, if you're in a posture and it's really uncomfortable, instead of labeling, just be like, Okay, that's interesting. And the more you work, the more you allow it to happen. And we see this in the very physical aspect of posture practice, the more you allow that to happen, the more you just settle into that posture that you really hate the posture that's uncomfortable, the more you work at it, eventually it does, you don't hate it anymore. And that comfort that discomforts gone. Exactly. And now there is one thing though, like for the people who are watching this, it doesn't mean that you should actually be doing postures that are harmful to the body. Yeah, absolutely. There is a teacher that is not a good kind of payout. Yeah, no, let's I'm gonna, yeah, let's do that disclaimer. That's why you need a teacher telling you, you need to stop that right now. You know, so there's, there's certain levels of discomfort in the body that you need to, to be aware of, like certain discomfort is, is growth, you know, growth pain, but then there's other pain that's just pure like, Hey, you need to stop that right now. So, right. And that's, there's a sermon in that don't, don't, if you're new to yoga, do not, even if you're, you feel like you're naturally flexible, that's don't take an advanced class yet because you need to actually build the strength out. There's, you need a teacher to help you. That's going to understand the posture and what I often tell students with pain, like bad pain versus good pain or discomfort, when something is wrong in the, that you need to get out, you can usually point to the exact place on your body. It hurts right here. You can actually point to the place where there is a pinch. That is when you need to abort mission and reevaluate. But if it's just the general vicinity of an area that's kind of uncomfortable, that's where the juices, that's when you stay. So, so in most good teachers, we'll, we'll not give you more than you can handle. We'll, we'll give you, I mean, that's why there are, you know, in the Ashtanga lineage, there are six different series that you move through. You don't leap frog. You go through them posture by posture by posture. And there's only one person alive right now that's actually completed all six series. And that's my teacher in India. I don't care to go past the third series, because after that, it just looks like a gnarly exorcism. And honestly, like watching four series makes me want to throw up sometimes because it's just, it's just, you know, and, and most people practice between first and second series. It's just, it's wild. It's, it's very much a lot of, a lot of high demand postures, high demand, which is why it takes so long to get through each series is because you have to be able to really put the work in. You can't just do it. You know, it's high demand as far as like what you have to actually experience to be able to hold down the series. And that's why, you know, with a, with a lineage based yoga, you can't dabble in it. You have to like dive in head first because it's, it's going to ask that of you. And we even say in Ashtanga, we say there are three teachers in this practice. There's the teacher, there's the practice and there's the injury. That injury also becomes a part of that learning process because the posture didn't injure you. You injured yourself in the posture. And so that gives a different perspective of taking a step back and really getting to know yourself better. And God knows there's no one on this earth that has ever engaged in a full practice of Ashtanga yoga and not been injured at some point, you know, but our perception of it is different. It's like, okay, well, let's pull back and let's reevaluate what's happening in this practice because that's another learning experience for you. And I think in the West, we get really afraid of that sometimes. Like we'll run from that. That's kind of a Western thing. You know, you go to India and the, I mean, India's might one of my favorite places in the whole world, the culture there is just, they accept there so much better at accepting things of just being where they are versus us in the West who don't want to be uncomfortable. We have to have the heated chairs in the car. We have to have the food quickly available. We have to have comfort, comfort, comfort. And so the slightest bit of uncomfort is so triggering, which that's actually where the juice lies. That's where the potency lies. Is that a comfort? Yeah. So you're saying it's just a matter of perception and learning how to to know yourself, you know, it's part of the self studies, the, the, is learning the discernment between, all right, this is uncomfortable from growth, like, okay, I need to lean into this versus this is my ego pushing me to hurt myself because I want, you know, there's so many different layers to, to all that and the way that we, the way that we learn how to be with sensations, I think that is part of the, of the work is, is learning within your own body. Okay, this is one I need to lean into. This is one that I need to back away from, you know, this is one I need to approach maybe I can approach it, but I need to approach it with great care. And that's part of your intuitive development, though, through, through the practice is learning how to read all that within yourself. And then learning how to read the sensations or the pain or discomforts. And, and yeah, and not, you know, again, it's not like you want to run away from all the pain, but there are certain things that you, you stay away from too, but that is like that's a maturity that begins to happen. The more you, you do this kind of work, you know, do whatever kind of work that you do is you learn how to read the, you know, you begin to learn how to read your emotions in your sensations and use them as a guidance system. Instead of like, Oh, I don't want to feel any discomfort at all, you do that, then you don't develop your guidance system, you know, yeah, you don't learn what's the good, you know, what, what you lean into, what you back away from this, because you're, you're shutting it all down to be more numb and comfortable. And your whole guidance systems doesn't have any training to, you know, to, to, uh, it's like building a muscle. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And that's why people always say like yoga is so life changing because it's not, you know, in the beginning, I think people are very attracted to the postures and looking pretty, but honestly, like, I've been practicing for over a decade and my practice is gross. It's sweaty. Yeah. Usually, my pants are on inside out because it's super early in the morning, you know, times I've come in the class, I'm like, Oh crap. I don't match, you know, it's not, but I think the more and more and more, it's just, it's just funny kind of thing, the more quote unquote advanced you get with being able to do certain postures, the less you actually care about the, the ego of the postures. I mean, I have a bunch of, you know, as, as teachers, we have like awesome shots, like photos of us doing stuff that we use for marketing. I can't tell you the last time I had awesome shots and I just keep reusing the same stuff because it's, it's so, you know, the more, the more attorney you develop in the practice, the more kind of boring that is, you know, you, you want to talk about the, the, you know, using the postures. The postures are, again, this is kind of opposing forces because the postures themselves are not important at all, but also of the utmost importance because it depends on how you're using them. If you're just using them to dance and do gymnastics, then you're in the wrong discipline, but if you're here, if you're using them as a tool to self-examine, then you're using them for their proper purpose and that's all they are, is, is a way to self-examine. And, you know, everybody's different. There, for me, my leg behind my head, forward folding, has always been pretty easy for me, but back bending. I mean, I think I've told my classes the story, I punched a teacher coming out of a backbend before, like literally that was my reaction coming out of a deep backbend and I smacked him coming up. And, and that, you know, it was fine if he laughed about it, but, you know, then I proceeded to throw up on that same teacher in India one time. So, he definitely had some, some karmic ties, but, but that, that is where my work lies is literally in the deep backbending. You know, I do the forward folding leg behind the head stuff as well to keep that energy flowing through the body, but that's not where the bulk of my work is because it doesn't trigger me like the backbending triggers me, but some people are really fine at backbending, but you try to get that leg behind their head and all hell breaks loose. Yeah. Yeah, that's me. I'm not flexible in any way, shape or form. I mean, I'm more flexible now because I've, I've, I've practiced it, but none of it came naturally, like every single bit an ounce of flexibility that I have in my body was earned. But taking all that back, see, like this conversation back to the breath and like learning what's good for you, what's, your breath is going to tell you your breath is part of your intuition and the discernment to let you know, okay, this is something that I can lean into. Or, you know, my breath is going totally spastic right now. I center my, my sympathetic nervous system is about to turn on. In other words, my fight or flight system is about to, your breath will tell you. Yeah. Part of your nervous system turns on and, and ideally when you're practicing yoga, you don't want your sympathetic nervous system to, you don't want your fight, flight, freeze, spawn. No, no, you don't turn on, but your breath will tell you if that's about to happen. So you don't want to send your body into this spastic danger mode. And that's where you do have to come back to your breathing, pay attention to what the posture is or whatever you're doing, you know, how you're responding to it. And if you want to know how you're responding to it, just see how you're breathing. If you suddenly stop breathing, your body starts spazzing out, then that means hey, you need to, you need to stop, you know, because you're about to send your body into fight or flight mode. Let's try to keep it, you know, yes, work through some of the levels of sensations and discomforts that come on, but let's try to keep your nervous system intact. In a controlled, it's like you're trying to have like this controlled demolition almost a controlled trigger. You don't want it to get out of hand. You want it to be, you don't want to open up, opening up Pandora's box is never good or one of my favorite sayings, you can't get the shit back in the horse. Like once you cross that line, you've crossed that line. And so a good teacher will be able to kind of help you manage that. And I was telling Cindy, because we were talking about this on Sunday before we were going to do this episode, I have probably gone through almost every injury in the book. And when I was in India once, I fractured my wrist and I had this big thing on my wrist. And we still practice even with broken bones and it's just modified. And in Ashtanga, we do this thing at the end of our practicing a back bending where we cross our hands and we're wound up. I'll see if I can find a picture to put up for this, but we wind up like a batter and then we go back and we catch our ankles or our legs and the deep, a really deep back bend. And again, for me, back bending is where I get triggered. But because I was injured at that time. Now usually what would happen is when because a teacher has to do has to wind you up. So the teacher is there with you. And because I was injured, usually when my breath would stop, a teacher would say, okay, I need you to breathe, keep breathing, keep breathing as they're pulling you into this back then, keep breathing, keep breathing. But because I was injured, my teacher, Shirat said, when you stop breathing, that's when I want you to come up because I was injured. And so he understood that because my body was not at its 100% capability, that at this moment, when my breathing stopped, instead of telling myself to breathe more to push deeper, I come up. That's it for that day. And so that when he said that to me, and this was years ago as my first trip to India, I was like, boom, there it is. It all comes down to that breath. It all comes down to the breath. And yeah, and instead of him saying that he's going to tell me when he feels my body reacting, he wanted my breath to inform me and him when my body said enough for today, enough for today. And that's a sign of a very mature teacher to be able to kind of let go of the teacher's ego at that point and let the student's breath be the real teacher of what's really happening in that student's psyche in their body, whatever the energy is, because our energy, you know, that's the thing too. And we see this and I think this, I think we deal with this more in the West, this idea of like change being like brutal for us. Sometimes the body is always changing. I mean, we see this, we're in what January people are now doing their New Year's resolutions to lose weight and they'll gain it again and then they're depressed again. So the body is always in this yo-yo of change, right? And that's, and that's, that's the beautiful thing because then the breath can kind of guide you where you are. You're never permanently stuck. You're never permanently in that it's always some type of change. And if you're not aware of that change, that change is going to happen maybe to the detriment of you to the things that you don't want to happen because you're not aware of the power you have to actually move that change in a positive directory again through the breath. It's wild. I mean, and it's so, and as to kind of bring it back to where we're talking about the beginning when students first start studying yoga, usually that breath work is the most boring subject for them. I know it was for me. I wanted to do a hand. You don't want, you know, yeah, especially if you're, if your mind is used to having its own reign, free reign, sit and breathe. Oh my god, your mind is going to fight you on so many different levels telling you, you shouldn't need, you need to be doing this. You have so much more other things to be doing. You're wasting your time right now. I mean, your mind is going to give you all sorts of, of hell, all your programs. Yes, yeah, all at once. All of your, oh my gosh, but you'll see it. It gives you the time to, to witness it. But that's what the breath does. You know, the, you come to the breathing, it makes you come to the present moment to where then you have to actually be with yourself and being with yourself at the very beginning. Well, it can either have two effects. One, it can either be very liberating because it's what you've been waiting for for all this time or, you know, just depending on your personality, not one is right or one is wrong, but if you have a fighting personality and that, that might come in and start saying that you need to do, you know, and you might meet resistance right away, but that's the beauty. If you meet resistance right away, that means it's working. It works. That doesn't mean you're doing something wrong. It means that you just, it's, you're doing something right. Yep. That's what David Greig used to say, you know, because in Ashdanga, especially, I know I've told this story to Cindy and people before, but it really changed my perception because, you know, karma, we talk about karma a lot. That's just your work. It's just cause and effect. It's just the stuff you have to work through. And we all have it. We all, no one, no one comes to earth without karma. Like we all have our work to do. And David Greig used to say, the lucky ones in this practice are the ones whose, whose karma comes up in primary series, who struggle right away. The unlucky ones are the ones that have to get all the way up to third or fourth series before they actually hit a wall. And I find that to be very, very true because even in India, the ones that, the people that I know that struggle in the Asana, that struggle, that really struggle, they're the most humble, wisest, coolest people. But the ones that are just naturally acrobats, they're missing something, there's something missing in their understanding. You know, not saying that people who are advanced, that's not all, there are people who are very advanced in the physical practice that have worked really hard and are very cool, calm and collected and grounded as well. But, but yeah, it's because their work came up early. The alchemy worked early for them. And so you don't run from that. I love that you said that if you take a Pranayama class or just a basic yoga class and all of a sudden you feel that agitation and that frustration or that anger or you just want to leave or your brain is going haywire, you know, going off the list of laundry and things you got to do, then that means it's working. Yeah, just stick around. You just stick around because it's working. It's working. It's going to piss you off. Yeah. And I know people don't like that. Like they don't want to always hear that or believe that, but it's the truth. I mean, there really are no shortcuts. No, these things are just their accelerators, you know, yes, teachers and these practices, they help to accelerate you on your path. But you don't get no shortcut. No, what's funny when students first sign up like Barb again or courses or something and they're talking to me, they're like, I just want to find something to give me light and love. I'm like, Oh, bless your heart. You're about to walk through so much darkness, my friend. Like you have no idea the storm you're about to walk into. Because a lot of that is the shadow work. A lot of that is that's that's a lot of that, you know, the light and the love comes at the very end of a very long journey of you having to really just deal with yourself. And that's that's the thing about the yoga practice in general, too. I've said this on Zooplick show as well, the Dark Outpost, you know, we when we talk about like spiritual warfare, which yoga is very much dealing with you spiritually at the end of the day, but yoga is not going to take that into consideration. Yoga is going to be like, No, it's you. It's not a deal. Yeah, it's you. Yeah, it's like, forget about the yeah, there's all this collective stuff that's going on. But the the practices, your yoga practice, your spiritualist, it's about you and yourself. Yeah, you're better seen than you. But it's there, though, so that eventually you can turn that about turn that back around and serve others and show up. Yeah, where you can you can be of service. You know, so so it's not just like this, the selfish, I mean, the right word, but I mean, it's work on yourself that's necessary to do so that you can turn that that back around. But yeah, I mean, I find that sometimes it's just really fascinating what the mind will do to come up with all sorts of excuses not to do this one on one work. I mean, and it will come up with all these creative, very moralistic, even stuff to keep you from doing your work. Like, yeah, like, oh, no, because I got to do this with the collective and all this stuff. And I'm like, you know, it has to come from you with yourself. Yes. And you, you know, then to take it out to the, you know, to the rest of the world and to the collective, but you're doing you have to do it's both, you know, you can't, you can't skip out on your work, you're all going to, you know, it's all going to bring you back to yourself. You got to go ahead and might as well just go ahead and do it because it's all going to bring you back to that space. Well, the more you if we want to talk about the greater collective and the high collective consciousness, the more you work on through your own shadow work, which is really all you're doing. If, if, if going to yoga meant that you were constantly having blissed out thoughts, then our classes will be packed every day. Most people are going through like, they're going through a shit show in their head. Like you see it on students faces when you're teaching, you're like, oh, they hit something like you, you see it, they're going through hell and back on there on their yoga mats with, with their own stuff, with their own emotions that are coming up, their own traumas, their own triggers. And, but the more you work through that, so you can release it, which doesn't happen all in one day for the most part. It could take years and then you think you released something and then it comes right back up again. But the more you do that, the more you change your vibration and just by working on yourself, you have shifted that collective. You didn't have to do anything exterior. You didn't have to go out and do anything. All you had to do was just work on yourself and everything would shift, everything. And that doesn't mean you have to have an advanced practice. It doesn't mean you have to do like two hours of pranayama. It can start with 10, 20 minutes on your yoga mat every day. And by doing that, you've already started to shift the greater collective because you are owning up to your own accountability to your own work. And there's something in the yoga sutures I can't remember which pada it was in, but I remember coming to it every time and thinking, I love this particular yoga sutra. And basically Patanjali says in it, no effort goes wasted. Yeah. So even if you're doing, you know, like you're doing pranayama and you do it for two minutes and you feel like you sucked at it, you're like, oh my gosh, this just sucked. That was such a terrible practice. It did not go to waste. No, there's never like a wasted practice. So whenever you put it in the effort, it might feel that way to you, it might feel like it was bad or wasn't good enough or you didn't get some hit that you wanted to get or whatever, but no effort goes unwaisted and all those eventually accumulate. Oh, absolutely. You know, to feed into, you know, that greater awakening for yourself. And another piece too is that it's all available to you right now. I mean, your highest self, your highest good, your highest potential, it's right there. In other words, the reason you do the work is to simply clear away the confusion of you believing or thinking that you're not already magnificent. Right. Because when we talk about like the shadow work and, and doing the work and all this stuff, it's not because you need to enhance upon who you already are. I mean, you are, it's already there. It's all except it's all already within you. You just simply have to go through all the different layers that have convinced you that it's not, that's the work. It's not like, it's not like you're having to become something. You are already the thing. You are already there. But you just, maybe you just don't see it. You don't realize it quite yet too. You don't quite know how powerful you are. And the work is simply trying to dissolve all the delusions, all the misinformation, all of the constructs, you know, all of these viral programmings that have been going on, not just individually, but collectively, because collectively, there's all these viral programs that have been at place to keep you in the dark, to keep you from knowing your power. And so we're just trying to obliterate through the practices, those programs, those narratives, so that you can actually know what's already here, what's already available. You're not broken, you know, bringing you to the ultimate sovereignty. Yeah. Yeah. And it is, it is shedding off that the fault since the delusional thought, which sometimes is, you know, there are some people that have delusions of grandeur, but most of your delusional thought is I'm not enough. I'm not correct. I'm not good enough. I'm not going to be able to do this. And that's, that's, that is a huge part of the realizing, no, I, I, it's like, I always say that, I have to be careful. I always say this because the D word is bad on, on YouTube, but the passing away, the mortality, that's even an illusion itself, because you, you don't go anywhere. You know, you are that, you are that consciousness. Just change forms, that's it. You drop one form and your, your form shifts into something else until you decide to take another form. Yeah. Next slide. I want to have really great backpins. I think I know. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. This one will be tall. I actually, I'm like five feet tall, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, but she's got a strong, I know I teach you every Sunday. Cindy's got a strong, strong, strong practice. So Cindy, speaking of, so you're at your lovely yoga school right now at sacred garden. We have had some people join the school. That's so awesome. We've had so many Alicia. We've had some great people join the yoga school just through these videos. Do you have any classes coming up or any pro or courses coming up that you want to? One of the things I really love teaching is about all the magical stuff. I mean, I can, we, I consider this space a modern mystery school. You know, it started off as mainly yoga, but yoga is a mystery within itself. It's just one aspect of the mystery. But bringing in some of the other esoteric and the things to empower anything is just mainly to empower you. There's so many resources, so much available to you. And to know that you're not walking that path alone. But yeah, I have the courses coming up. Jen and I do is called Ignite. And this is where we work with the planets, with the fact that, you know, I was just reading this yesterday when it's just isn't interesting that I had, there's all these different mythological stories. But when we as a star being, you know, as a star soul, and we decide that we're going to descend down into the earth, we take pit stops to the planets, like we stop in Jupiter, we stop at Saturn, Mars, we start, we stop at Mercury. And then, you know, we take in what they're, what they're wanting to, or how they want us to show up in their energy within this form, you know, and then, and so we land already, we have already journeyed through the planets when we land here. And now it's just a matter of us, okay, now we just got to awaken to, to that information. And so the planetary work is just a way of delving back into yourself, because you hold all of the planetary magic, like you hold the magic of Jupiter, which is all about growth and expansion, you hold the magic of Venus, which is all about just beauty and pleasure. And, you know, coming together, you hold the magic of the sun, which I mean, the sun is like the ultimate, you know, there to remind us of our Christ consciousness and all this. So anyways, it's just a way of remembering who you are through the planets that you've already journeyed through, right. And so that's the course ignite. And we go through Jupiter, the sun, and Venus and how we're not astrologers, but we know a little bit about astrology, but how they also sit within your chart and how that influences you as well. So that's, that's the ignite program that starts January 22nd. And then there's another one that I do, it starts February, February, February 20, February sometime, I can't remember anymore. But that is where it's the same kind of, but instead of walking with the planets, we take a journey with the goddesses of goddess work. This is where we journey with Mary Magdalene, Mother Mary, Isis, Hathor, Tara, Kwan-Yen, White Buffalo Woman, Kali. And we go through the activations of the female ascended masters. And I just finished it up. And it's, I mean, it'll, it's an activator, let's just say it's a definite accelerator. And that's a five month program. We meet once a month on, on Saturdays for like, but that one though, that one's only in person. Cause those kind of act, we take field trips. I mean, we actually go to the woods and we do this, we go to this, we do all sorts of things with that one. So the, the planetary one people can do on Zoom if they, if they live out of this, out of the state or out of the country. Yeah, there is a, there is a virtual option for that one. Okay, cool. And you know what I was thinking, Cindy? Cause I, I, we've been talking a lot, you know, you and I have talked about the Magdalene a lot and the Magdalene lineage and their mother Mary and their true purposes. And I was given some information that confirm things that you had said about the ascended masters of the divine feminine of Mary Magdalene and then of Isis and the priestess hood of Isis. And that is something that people are having a hard time with because we've been, that's hoping has been inverted where people see the Isis as being something bad. And if you want, Cindy, I would love to plan a show with you. And I know Stephanie, my friend, Stephanie has been really studying Sophia and the teachings of Sophia through, through Mary Magdalene and, and Yashua Jesus and an Isis. And I would love to do a show with you if you, if you want, we can plan it going through all of this. And who, yeah, I mean, I love talking about the, the magic of yeah, the Isis and the Hathor, you know, they're Egyptian, but yeah, it's very much. And I've seen it in so many places where Mary Magdalene, Mother Mary, and, and their grandma, I mean, it's in other words, it's not like just like their mothers and their grandmothers that they're, they're part of this, this magical lineage of priestesses, of high priestesses. Yes. And that's interesting because what we don't with Mary Magdalene historically, where we have information, we obviously don't can't, can't confirm it 100 percent that she was actually Egyptian, that she grew up near Magdala, but she was Egyptian. And so that's very, very interesting because that does connect the dots with some of the other stuff that I've been given to me about the Ascended Masters through Isis. And all the, I know this is going to trigger people watching, but I, Stephanie and I laughed before we, we came on and I said, I don't really care if the fundamentalists like me or not because I want the truth and, and on this side of it. You know, she, she carried around her alabaster drawer, right? Which had like the, the, the, all the different ointments and stuff for anointing. That was known from back then. Not everyone carried those things in some of the, the anointing oils. They weren't very cheap. They were kind of expensive. And they were known like the women who carried around these jars and who had these specific anointment, anointment oils. They were known as priestesses. You know, that was like part of their, their mark. And for someone to anoint, you know, anoint to the feet and do all this, like she did to, to Jesuits, you know, to the, to, to Christ before he passed away. I mean, those were things that the priestesses did back then and not just anybody, not just anybody did that. It was high ranking. Perfect people who did those kind of rich, because that was a ritual. That's the ceremony. Like I've always said, you know, Magdala, Magdalene, she was a mage and, and, and Yeshua, he was just the ultimate, he was the ultimate mage. She was a wizard. They were, they were the two. Sandra, he was a magic maker. They were the two, like, you know, we talk about the balance of the divine feminine masculine. We're learning that the Christ consciousness was both of them. It was, oh, she, she stood next to him in the teaching. She didn't stand above him or below him, but she stood, she stood next to him, especially during a time when women were being subjugated. I mean, that was a big deal for, for her to, you know, stand up in that way and for him to, to be okay with that, you know what I mean? I mean, that was part of his, his enlightenment too, is like, this is how we're gonna, we're gonna stand it together and, and how we, you know, and how we're, we're doing our ministry. They serve together in their ministry hand in hand. And that's a lot of what's coming up. You know, we were having this conversation beforehand that this new earth that we're stepping into, and even this Kunalini stuff that we're talking about, about the integration, that that's what it's calling for, for now. This is what I really feel, and I've talked about it, like in newsletters and stuff like that, that I've written, is that the call for the divine masculine in the balance and the fact that we're getting to a phase now for, for women, there's nothing that you have to prove anymore. You know, like we did have to go through a phase where we had to like fight our way up and that was necessary. I mean, we had to go through that just to find our voice. But we're getting to a place now where we can start to decide how we're going to have these relationships. We don't have to be in battle with the masculine anymore. And that if you want to, like if you want to, you know, own an empire and run a business and be this very strong, independent woman, that's beautiful. You know, you have the right to do that. You can do that now, right? But if you want to be like a housewife and taking care of your children, you can do that too. And it's okay. You don't have to feel embarrassed or ashamed or like you're not being right woman. If you want to have both, and this is like where, you know, part of, part of my integration of it is like I, you know, part of my learning and my personal growing is because I went through that phase of, you know, I need to own my own studio and I need to be this independent woman, you know, you know, went through that. But, you know, I've been married for, for quite a while too. And then I started to feel this energy shift where I'm like, but you know what, I want to really feel supported by my husband. It's like, I get it. I get it. I want to be protected. I want that because that feels really good. Yeah, I get it. My husband has my back. He has it financially. And I'm like, I can do that. And I don't have to be embarrassed or thinking, no, you're an independent woman. And you know what I mean? It's like you have, I absolutely have both. You can feel like you want to be protected and supported by your man. And you can have, and you don't have to feel like, Oh, you're a weak woman because you want that. But, but I think that's what's part of this integration is happening now is that you have choices, and you have options, and you don't have to be in battle with having to prove anything. And the, the masculine doesn't either, because you know, the man has had to go through so much himself with your two sensitive or you're not sensitive enough or how do you be a man? And what does that mean? And you shouldn't cry or you should cry or just a lot of just, you know, confusing information. And plus, you know, with people showing up to with different genders and all this, it's like, you can stop having to, to prove anything. Like that's just not. Yeah. No, it's so funny you say that because I'm the same way. I feel like I'm a pretty independent person and I'm not really that shy. I, you know, we'll go off to India by myself and, you know, have my own channel and I'm the only female authorized in the state of Georgia. Damn. And at the end of the day, I just want a man's arms around me. I just want that big old man. It's fine now. Like we're getting in a space where that can all that be okay. Yeah, absolutely. And that's, and I think that men are men are evolving to the point where they can be the alpha male. They can be that, but also give you space to, to be that divine feminine, you know, and, and that's, and I, and it's going to be so beautiful to find that. I know I've been watching a lot of mystics talk about the return of the twin flame. A lot of people are coming back to their twin flames that whole, which is a whole other topic in itself. We should do another one on Plato's symposium because honestly, the early Christians did take a lot of Plato's work as well, which a lot of churches don't tell you that, but they did take a lot of Plato's work with the Plato symposium and the idea of like soul maids, soul clusters, twin flames, all that kind of stuff. So, so yes. So guys, I really want to do that episode on ISIS with you and Stephanie. So I will text you guys and we'll figure out, kind of figure out what we want to do with that. And I want to also ask the audience, regarding yoga. Now, Cindy and I were talking about this before we went on, because we both have been in the yoga world for such a long time now that sometimes we forget. Well, just nonchalantly talk about topics that we don't realize that other people maybe aren't familiar with or maybe and I'll get comments. I'm like, oh, damn, snap. I didn't even think that people wouldn't understand this because I've just been so used to this for so long. This is what we do for a living. This is what we do as our own practice. So there's anything we've said in this episode that you want us to elaborate more on or if there's anything you've run across in discovering yoga that you have questions about different lineages, whatever you're confused about, please leave a question down in the comment section below and I'll shoot them over to Cindy. And we can also do some episodes on that as well to help answer some of those questions for you. I understand I keep telling people that you need a teacher. You need structure when you're coming, especially if you're new to a practice. But I do and I think Cindy and I do understand that there's a lot out there and it can be very overwhelming at first to just dive in head first and try different things. And so if there's something you need our help with then please just leave a comment down in the comment section below and we'll see what we can do to help elaborate more and give you more information. So anyway, alright guys, I'm going to leave all of Cindy's links again down in the description box below. She has a YouTube channel which has got some practices up on there. If you want to have a good teacher that you can do at home, you've got that as well. You can also check out her schedule on her website which I will place again down in the description box and you can see the option if you are from another state or another country or another city and you do want to participate in some of just the weekly classes, not necessarily the courses but the weekly classes with Cindy or any other teacher at the studio, you can look and see where the virtual options are available. My classes, there are no virtual options available because I do need to actually, that's the tradition of Ashtanga, that's just kind of how we do it. But Cindy's classes, a lot of other people's classes do have the virtual option. So for you guys that live in different countries or different cities, you can take advantage of that as well. Please know that we are on Eastern Standard Time. So we're on the same time zone as New York. So if you're coming from a different state or a different country, please keep that in mind when you book a class that we are on Eastern Standard Time. So and of course, all the courses that she's offering will be in the description box below as well, of course to the website. So you can look into that if that's something you're interested in. All right, Cindy, this has been so fun. I always love chatting with you. This is basically what we talk about on Sundays after my class, guys. This is basically what we talk about. So all right, well, I hope you have a wonderful day, Cindy and everybody watching. I hope you're having a fantastic day for having me. Of course, of course. Bye guys.