 Before we get into the video today, I just want to give a quick shout out to one of our sponsors, Nostik TV. Nostik TV is ancient wisdom reimagined. This is a Netflix for those who are spiritually curious and want a place to go where there is no censorship. I personally am doing a whole series on Nostik TV called The Esoteric Explorer, where I am providing exclusive content to Nostik. Nostik TV is a host to all sorts of different content creators, many of whom are your old favorites. If you would like to check out Nostik TV, there is a link down in the description box below. Hello everybody, welcome back to Esoteric Atlanta or Sacred Garden Yoga if you're watching this on Sacred Garden Yoga. I am joined here with my friend Cindy from Sacred Garden Yoga. How are you doing today, Cindy? I'm doing well. Glad to be here. I haven't been on a channel in a long time. We were just talking about that beforehand, so it's going to be back. You've got stuff going on in your lives. You've got your life to live, so it's totally understandable. I'm really excited. We've actually been talking about doing this video for a while now. Scheduling just kept messing up and finally we're able to sit down and talk about this really. To me, a very fascinating subject. I know to some people probably not, but I'm a nerd. I think you are too, Cindy, when it comes to this kind of stuff. I posted up on my community tab on YouTube asking for questions regarding exercise, spirituality, mullabunda, all these things that I've been talking about that Cindy talks about in her classes. We've got a few questions and we're going to make you wait until the end because we're going to answer them for you, but you're going to have to wait until the end of the video to hear the answer to these questions that we got. Before we get started, I wanted to start with, Cindy, we're living, you and I, I don't mean to be rude, but you and I have been textbook weirdos since the day we were probably born. We were into spirituality before it was cool to be into spirituality, weren't we? Totally, yes. Before it was cool. Before that was the Instagrams and all that stuff. Back when I was looking for yellow pages, looking for a yellow video, that's how long ago it was. Yeah, my boyfriend the same thing, he had to find a recommendation for India and he had to go through the yellow pages to find Tim Miller over in California and had to like haul him up. You had to go on a scavenger hunt to get what you needed in order to find what you're looking for. I think sometimes I call it pop spirituality now that we have the internet now, which is great in a lot of ways. We can do this, we can talk about this, we can advertise our businesses, we can get this information out faster and quicker, but the flip side, we have a lot of fake spirituality. We have a lot of what I call pop spirituality that really isn't founded on any foundation of lineage. The beautiful thing about lineage when it comes to understanding spirituality is that you have these years of information of trial and error where people have really done the work to understand what it is we talk about when we're talking about spirituality. One thing I think people often times get confused about, when you're talking about having a spiritual practice first and foremost, you're talking about working on your own spirit. I think people want to skip all the way to like channeling, which is fun, tarot cards are fun, but they forget that first you've got to actually know your own spirit first before you can actually venture outside of yourself. Many people wanting to like open their third eye, but yet they're totally not even aware of Molladara and Mollabunda. Without Molladara or Mollabunda, it's like the foundation of a house. Without a good foundation, the house is going to fall. That's what I kind of wanted to focus on with you today, Cindy, because it's just so important. It is so important for anybody going on the spiritual path to not avoid the hard stuff because the Mollabundas, the lower chakras, well, bundas are a lock, but like Molladara, all the way to Manipura, these lower, like the hell of the body, that's the real tricky stuff, isn't it? Well, it's in those lower three chakras where your humanity lies. Like your true humanity, like those, the primal aspects of you that make you very human. And yeah, that's where all the gnarly stuff is. It is much easier to want to just bypass your spiritual bypass all of that and go directly up to here. Let me just skip all that. Let's go to the heart, or let's go to here, or let's go to here. This one's a gnarly one too, actually, the throat chakra. But we automatically want to skip what makes us human and go straight to the element of spirit, the matter. The part of this, we talk about in yoga, in the class of often times, is the unity of your spirit and matter. Again, it's embodying spirit or spiritualizing your body. But to come down and descend into what makes you human and all the feelings and emotions. You're talking about Molladara. That's where all the abandonment issues lie. The trauma from the inner child. And I know these days, this has definitely become a lot more popular to do some of that work, some of that shadow work. But then it's interesting, you're talking about how we started back in the day, the yellow pages and stuff. And I know I sound like a total Gen Xer now. It's like we had to go through almost like a pilgrimage. You had to have this deep hunger and this deep desire to want to know yourself and to go through the process of that and finding your teacher. I mean, it was like, you did it. It was like a pilgrimage that you went through because you had such a strong hunger for it. And now that the information, you're saying it's more easily available, yes, which is a great thing. It's a beautiful thing. That means that this information is available to more people. But at the same time, it is much easier to skip through the things that even the Yogi user, the people who are on their spiritual path back in the 40s and 50s and 60s, they didn't have access to the information that they have now. But it made them have to go through the process versus now. It is much easier to skip through and pick and choose what it is that you want to learn about. Right. There's this great story that the Hathor tell in the Hathor material by Tom Kenyon because we see a lot of similarity between old Egyptian alchemy and yoga teachings. There's a lot of similarities. Different words, pretty much the same practices. And the Hathor tell this story about, they had these different schools, like beginner, intermediate, kind of more advanced, and you had to work your way up. And they tell this story about this man who, out his whole life, kept trying to go to the advanced school without going to the beginner, Aaron, and many at first, and they kept turning him away and said, you got to start at the beginning. And he spent his whole life trying to manipulate his way into the advanced school, which he never got in, instead of just going to the beginning. And so he didn't progress in that life. Maybe he learned his lesson like you got to start at the beginning. And I thought that was such a great story for the Hathor tell because I see that a lot now where people have this, maybe it is social media, this sense of almost entitlement where they start their spiritual journey, but nobody wants to be a beginner. Nobody wants to start at the beginning. To me, the beginning is the best part. In the beginning, there's so many possibilities. In the beginning, there's an inspiration. Listen, towards the end, a lot of those possibilities are gone and a lot of the inspiration is gone and it's just hard work. And we always say in the Ashtanga world, anyway, the easiest students to teach are the beginning students and the advanced students because both the beginning students and the advanced students both know that they know nothing. It's the intermediate students who are difficult to teach because they think they know everything. And so I love all these stories because, again, I see that so much now where people just want to go into their third eye and they don't want to touch anything else. And, you know, there's that great book. My mind's gone completely blank now. Eastern Body, Western Mind, that's the one. That's the one that we would use in secret training. Yeah, that's a really great book. I recommend it. I think it's actually in my Amazon affiliate link, guys. I'll put that down below. She does a really good job explaining all the chakras in a very simplistic way that's understandable and it's not overwhelming. You can read one chapter, work through it, and then read the next. But I remember in her Ajna, her third eye, her sixth chakra chapter, she talked a lot about this fine line between intuition and delusions. And I've said that. If you don't have a basis in spirituality, if you don't have a basis in Mola Bunda and Mola Dara and these lower, if you're not constantly working on that lower belly area of your body where that spiritual lixir lies, then you run the risk of going into your imagination with your not intuition. And we're still, I mean, look, I was just telling you offline, I've been covering Chad Daybell and Lori Vallow. That's a really great example. They thought that their kids were zombies and were dark spirits because they were intuiting it. No, they weren't. They were married to different people. They wanted to be with each other and so they got rid of the people in their lives that were standing in the way of that. But their imagination ran wild and now they're both paying the consequences for that. And so I wanted to really, and also when we look at the physical body, we look at, when we talk about the third eye, if we take away, we just look at Shishumna for Kundalini. So Shishumna for people who aren't aware, that's, it's like, it's like your spine, but it's not your spine. It's where your spine is. It's like this, it's called a nati, but it's like this tunnel that runs from the base of the pelvic floor of the body all the way up through the back of the head. The chakras run up Shishumna and then the bandhas which we're going to talk about are this lock, this force that moves the Kundalini energy or the Christ consciousness energy. I know some people are afraid of the word Kundalini. People say Christ consciousness energy from the base of the pelvic floor up through the spine. And a Kundalini, like awakening, typically happens in stages. Headstand is a way to help that elixir come through the spine. But as it was described to me in India and I want your thoughts on this too, Cindy, Kundalini is oftentimes represented by a coiled snake, a snake that's just kind of sleeping at the pelvic floor. Now we live in my opinion in the hottest areas of the world because it's humid. I don't know anybody in the south that doesn't have a fan in their bedroom and air conditioning going at the same time. So everybody who's in the south or who lives in a warm area of the world knows that when you're sleeping at night and it's freaking hot outside, you don't get a good night's sleep, right? So when the Kundalini, the coiled energy starts to get moved and interrupted and strengthen and heat. That top is that heat starts to come into the body, the strength of the stomach, the strength of the muscles start to come in. It starts to wake up and it starts to move and that's when it starts to move up the spine. So you can't really have access, in my opinion, to full access to Ajna without also having full access to the pelvic floor region of your body, that energetic and physical and spiritual connection to the base of your body as well, if that makes sense. What are your thoughts on that, Cindy? Yeah, I mean, the body and, yeah, the Kundalini and the Muldahara, the base of the spine and Muldahara also, to me, very much has to do with the relationship that you have with your body. And to get fully grounded in understanding that your body is actually this beautiful temple, if you know you said it, houses the Shishuna from which everything has to rise up so that you can get to this level. The acceptance of the body, the relationship that you have with the body, the way that you feel about yourself, that grounding in your ability to know that you are safe to be here, that you have the right to take a room, that you have a right to be here. That is the right of the first chakra of your Muldahara, is that you have a right to be here and that you have that sense of safety and security that you have in your tribe. Without that, nothing else really matters. It's like that has to come in first or if it doesn't, if you just go straight up to here, then there's no true essence to it. Like you said, it becomes more of a delusional space. It's not anchored in anything that's earthy or it's not anchored in anything that's truth. It's not anchored in your ability to understand yourself as a human because we are humans. And it's like you got to understand yourself as a human in the relationships that you're in, how you interact with other people, the foods that you... In other words, everything that's material. If you take out the material from the spiritual, then the spiritual doesn't have anything to really anchor itself into and it becomes meaningless in your human experience because your spiritual experience should bring more meaning, more depth to your human experience. It shouldn't take you away from your human experience. In other words, it's not a form of escapism. That's what it can become if it's not anchored into the body, anchored into how it can actually help you live a better life as a human being. If it's not helping you, you know, have a good relationship with your body or if your body's falling apart or if your relationships are falling apart or if your finances are falling apart, then this stuff hardly matters. You know what I mean? This needs to help you with this. Otherwise, there's really no purpose of it. Of course, that's why you were born. That's why you were incarnated to know yourself as both human and spirits. We're spirit already. We didn't have to be born to be spirits. Spirit is who we are. We're born to be human. We're born to be embodied. That is the very tantra. That's the philosophy of tantra, too, is to be an embodied spirit or to spiritualize the body, to bring together both spirit and matter. And that's also the foundation of hermeticism, by the way, hermeticism. It's just the western esoteric philosophy that the Easterners, the tantra philosophies, practice just with a different language. It's embodying spirit or spiritualizing the body, bringing it together so that you can live the best life for yourself and for others. It comes back to service. Once you are here and present and aligned with your own purpose and clarity, all these things matter. Your purpose matters. Why am I here? Those are some of the questions that get lost when you're too much in your head. You can't ground your purpose. Your purpose never goes anywhere. It just stays up in this delusional realm. It never actually goes anywhere to be a service and to help other people. Absolutely. It all has to come back to being in your body, being in relationship with others. How can I help and serve others? It has to all come ground again. It's a current that's going up and down. It's not just about being up here. It's like you take it up, you take it down. You take it up, you take it down. You're moving the current through the body. It's not just staying in one place. Then your body, then you actually feel more fulfilled in life. You feel more satisfied. You feel accomplished. You feel like you're actually making a contribution and you're living your legacy that you are making a difference. Those are the things that in the end actually make us feel better as a person. If you're not feeling the same person then your spirituality really doesn't matter. Yeah, I love that. I hope that answers your question. I love that anchored because in the Law of One they talk a lot about how your soul chooses the cause and the effect. The cause is the soul. The effect becomes the body. The soul chooses to create this experience or the Shiva or the Shakti. It creates this experience for refinement to have. I know in the Emerald Tablet it's one of my favorite things in the Emerald Tablet that Thoth says. In the Emerald Tablet Thoth talks about reptilians. He talks about lizard people. There's some really saucy stuff. Spicey stuff in the drama in the Emerald Tablet. But the thing that I found most fascinating probably because of my years of work was when he said, you only know life because you know death. When you're in spiritual form when you're without body there's no creation because there's no understanding of life because there's no death. And that really hit home because that is what the purpose of the body is to have that nervous system and the cause and effect the karma, the friction of being human to have the shadow work to have to go back and navigate through that because that's what creates the refinement of the soul in the end. But when you're ignoring the body or when you've created this mental gymnastics I've heard a lot of people say this well I'm a spiritual person so therefore I don't pay attention to my body well then you're not a spiritual person but when you look at India all the great yogis of India they're all very in their bodies how else do you think they're levitating? They can only levitate their body because they're in their body or I see this a lot now I know I believe fully in past lives I think most people actually do and I know we pull karma over from past lives but I find a lot that people get so obsessed with past lives and living there then they get to be here now and it's like no, no, no don't use that as a disassociation from the sensation of the now because you're not there then you're now now you have to process this in this body and I've said a lot Cindy too and I want to clarify this as well so the bun does for people who are new so most people know what the chakras are but just if you don't know it's 7 points in the body that represent different people through but a lot of people are not familiar, surprisingly or have no clue what the bundas are but in my opinion Cindy the chakras cannot exist without the bundas and the bundas cannot exist really without the chakras they make each other kind of move and so I would describe the bundas you have three ones that you're working with jalandaras in your throat just tucking your chin in urianas in your belly button so the energy is coming up the spine and the mulladara is the mac daddy to me because it's the most interesting it's basically in your crotch it's in your perineum and it's this lock it's a lock of the perineum it's a lock of the belly button so if we're talking about that kundali energy rising up what's pulling it up is actually that perineum pulling up into that strength in your crotch do you have anything you want to add to that Cindy for people understanding what these bundas are yeah they it's an upward uriana uriana actually means upward moving so it helps to pull the karma upward and the interesting thing about mulladara you're talking about the pelvic floor the pelvic floor the actual physical pelvic floor it's such an interesting area because to get mula bunda going to get it going effectively we do hold the tension there's some people that hold tremendous amount of tension in their pelvic floor usually the tension that's building the pelvic floor is unconscious tension and this is now going back to the the energetics of what your chakras represents in the mulladara which is your base chakra, your root chakra again you're right to be here your safety it feeds down into the legs the hips, into the pelvic floor but how unconscious tension gets caught up in the pelvic floor you don't even realize how much we're over pulling up but then it's in an unconscious way and then it's just like this gripping, this tension that's coming from some kind of fear or protection and to get good mula bunda it's almost like you have to release the the health tension first it's like the first process is becoming aware of your pelvic floor which is a weird thing to become aware of in the first place it's like you got to take your mind's eye to the pelvic floor and then it's starting to do the work of undoing the unconscious tension that's there, the gripping the holding, the fear patterns the shame or the guilt or whatever it feels like you got to undo that first and then redo the mula bunda to where it's conscious upliftment a conscious upliftment, a conscious connection that you're making with that area for it to have the proper effect of the rising of the Kundalini whereas which is why the yoga is more important where you're doing all of the movement first like the hip work and anything else that you do, even the core work that you're doing, you're pulling up through the belly and everything that you're doing to bring you awareness to how that's holding within your body and to notice if there is like this gnarly gripping that's going on there and getting the movement to undo that first so that the mula bunda can be truly effective in creating that upliftment of the fodder, the shakli or the tea or whatever you want to talk through the body the crotch punch as I call it it's that control it's taking your power back and I'm glad you brought that up didn't want to talk about that because I remember and for those watching I want to make this clear too because I think sometimes I know I forget to say this as long as you're alive and breathing this is something you're forever going to be working on it's constantly rediscovering and re-experimenting with this and so I remember years ago before I ever went to India I was doing a pranayama class with David Greek, my original ashtanga teacher and he in pranayama is a bitch like the proper like I mean I think I've seen the light of God in a more stressed out state seeing the light like of death in pranayama class way more in a glass but he had the jalandara bunda guys and pranayama is the extension of life is the breathing that also generates that as well the same type of sensation and that's when you're using a lot of the jalandara bunda too when you're tucking in to open up the back of the throat and he had us like bring with the exhale try to bring the exhale as low as we could into our pelvic floor I couldn't do it I couldn't even get my mind to go there and that's when I realized how much trauma was there and it's not I think it's every culture I think every culture I can't name one culture in the world that doesn't have some level of of conservativeness or or tabooness around this area of the body for both men and women and it took me a really long time to first understand it that there was something there that I was missing when I was up in Philadelphia we'll get into the physicality of it but you know at one point David was like you're not even using your legs like you're going through your whole practice just using your arms and so he would have me do my practice up against the wall pressing my feet against the wall to get my legs which we'll talk about in a minute we'll talk about what the legs have to do with it just to get my and then all of a sudden things started shifting in my practice and things got easier because all of a sudden you know just in a very practical sense my legs were actually doing stuff now but we'll talk about that soon but then in 2016 I know I've told this story before I broke my sacrum and I had a choice to make I could either throw a pity party and quit or I could reevaluate how I did things and that's when I found Cindy suggested it ballet my friend Chris up in Canada suggested bar class and it took me a while to find a teacher that I really liked but when I started to do this work that's a little bit different from yoga it's got the same purpose in my opinion I was like oh my god there it is and it took that restructuring of the same concept and then it totally shifted my practice again that breaking my sacrum was like the best thing that ever happened to me because it absolutely I was laughing at 41 I've said it at sacred garden when I can get my boyfriend to adjust me normally he won't but when I can get him to he always makes comments about how my body feels very different than it did at 31 right because there's more I have more awareness of that an injury does that too an injury basically on some levels just designed to redirect you an injury is not always there to be a pain in the ass although it is but it's just not something needs to be redirected and that's exactly what it did you had an injury again you could have used it to whatever but you redirected you just knew that something had to be redirected and once you realign yourself to where that's going that's where all the difference happens where the change happens where the shift happens everything opens up my core got stronger and again you guys when we're talking about my mom's family they're from the coast of South Carolina the foundation of Mola Bunda I always get this image in my head houses on the coast of South Carolina or Florida the Atlantic is a very South the ocean it's very powerful and they're all built you see these mansions up on stilts and the stilts are there for high tide for really rough weather so that doesn't knock the house down growing up there that's just what I'm used to as I got older and I bring friends or boyfriends would come to South they would always be weirded out by the fact that these mansions were like up on these stilts like how are these stilts holding up this house well it's because the foundation of the stilts is sturdy enough so that when the high tide comes now hurricanes sometimes the hurricanes might take the root off but those stilts are still standing strong and that's what I think of with Mola Bunda also like the root of a tree when a tree is firmly rooted in the earth the wind can come and it will move with the wind but it rarely gets uprooted it has to be a pretty gnarly thing for it to get uprooted and that's Mola Bunda and I guess we can kind of get into the physicality because this is not and I'll use because you're a dancer too Cindy you know one thing too I'll say about I love all the fancy sans grit words I think they sound witchy and cool but sometimes it's better to explain these things from a very practical perspective because they're almost every athlete out there is using Mola Bunda as well as dancers you know what I often say you know when you start to get into the physical body and steadiness you know finding that steadiness first and then the rest of your body can sway and move you know something that I often say to clients that I'm working with or you know to students it's where you want to redirect your safety because we're always there's a part of us that is in protective mode but what happens is sometimes we direct the energy of safety and protection and the way I see or the way I feel especially when working with different bodies you know through the work that I do is that sense of protection is safe to use in the wrong place for instance your heart will often be put in this the sense of safety like in a heart area but the heart isn't really where safety belongs your heart is a place it's very opposite to that actually the heart is vulnerable the heart is open it's reciprocity it's where giving the line of giving and receiving coming out through the heart and this is not where safety goes this is not where protection goes it can be here if it does it closes off the heart but instead where can you redirect the safety to where it's actually going to provide your body what it needs to be more open and free but yes steady you redirect the safety down into your legs your legs your butt think about the muscles that you have you have a tremendous amount of muscles in the legs because it bones around think about the size of the muscles the size of your muscles the size of your muscles the size of your glutes your hamstring your calves they can take the anchor they can take the safety so if you want to feel safe take it out of here take it out of here let this be open free and more fluid and put the safety down where it belongs get it moved down into the legs now that's going to require you probably when you're doing the work to move through we're talking about some of the trauma that catch you from anchoring in the first place so part of that work is also recognizing there's another unconscious belief that a lot of us have when we don't realize is that we don't feel like it's a safe place to inhabit and so we directly go out of body because you know maybe we in our younger lives we have some traumatic experiences and what we did to to help get us through to cope is to disassociate is to come out of the body and then somewhere within the language of our mind we decided that our body was not a safe place to inhabit so it's like first body that this is what you've been given and you can't it was given to you from your first breath and you're going to take it with you until the last breath you really can't escape your body no matter what you do you can try to but coming to peace with the fact that your body is here for you, your body is not against you it's here for you in making it a safe place again and then bringing that safety back down like anchoring safety and bringing it down into the legs and down into your butt and down into your hips and anchoring it and giving that firmness and that structure I mean those stilts that you were talking about down to where it's supposed to go to where it needs to go because the lower part of our body can handle that it can take that it can take a hit you know and then the rest of you can be more free but yes it all begins with the relationship that you do have with the body that it feel like a safe place for you to inhabit can you move that safety down into where it's where it belongs within your body and then it helps to clear up everything else I've done videos on body Morphic Disorder which I've struggled with I love your saying this too because maybe for me it's also getting older as well but I've been that sick kid I was sick a lot growing up I've hated my body I've been into my body I've but when and that that existed through a lot of my ashtanga practice too oddly enough there is a lot of ashtanga people who have disordered eating you know you see that a lot but again what came back to that I was 33 years old 2016 broke my sacrum when I started to really incorporate the bar which was actually incorporated more mollibunda work what started off just to strengthen my sacrum back now at 41 years old I can love my body I feel sexy I love what it's been through I love all my scars on my body because I earn those suckers you know I look at my legs and I say this in class sometimes like the femur bone specifically the femur bone is like the strongest bone in your body and it takes a lot like if you break your femur bone I want to hear the story because you probably like skied into a tree or something or hit by a Mack truck because it takes a lot to break the femur bone the thigh bone the quadriceps you know and the inner thigh which a lot of the work that we do with mollibunda involves the inner thigh which we'll get to sometimes the quadriceps because they're so big they'll take over from the inner thigh but that inner thigh that's where all that magic but these beautiful quadriceps they're so willing to help you know and so that shifted in me it wasn't it wasn't something that wasn't a goal I had actually when I started doing this other work it was just to strengthen my sacrum again so I could get back on my mat right that was all it was but it turned out that everything in my life shifted and so and it's not you know as I was saying this mollibunda work that we do can be done in so many different forms of exercise because in my opinion even though I practice ashtanga or yoga which is one of the most dogmatic yoga practices I really think that this work can be found in any form of movement and I don't know if you have any thoughts on that Cindy but like we see it in dance we see it in long distance runners we see it in football players we see it in all sorts of different movements so there can be spirituality like this and everything involving the movement of the body correct would you say well it's in your anatomy it's built into your anatomy so it's built into the physical body the possibilities to access that kind of power it's built into anybody's anatomy system and it depends on what kind of language you use you know it depends on so people who are very much into sports they're saying a lot of the same things but they're just using more anatomical language or you know dancers in the same way I mean they have to use their inner thighs they have to use mollibunda but they're not calling it that because there's no way you can do those even basketball players the ones that do those tremendous leaps yep you know the dancers that leave that that comes from that upward that learning how to access that upward movement to give you likeness and the muscles and all the deep internal work to give you that lift they might not you know call it mollibunda or call it you know you know anything spiritual but what's happening regardless of the language is they're connected to their purpose yes you know they're connected to to their passion they're connected to flow to their body and they might not yeah to flow and they might not call it a spiritual thing in just different languaging but in the end again just going back to what we were saying at the beginning it's all about tapping into that legacy and serving and feeling like you're on purpose you know a basketball player a football player or a ballerina you know again they'll just use different languages like if you hear like true the ballerinas and the ones that are in in their their their power with it you know they use their own power words they'll tell you there's nothing else that I would rather be doing you know this is my passion I feel like you know I could do this for for hours and days and they're aligned with their purpose and in the end that's what spirituality is about it's not just about whatever all this you know it's about living your legacy like living your purpose and aligning yourself with that and the people who have connection with that type of power within their body they're doing that automatically like Olympic Olympic swimmers Olympic medalists they are automatically connected to their legacy to their purpose to to their passion to their connection with life and why I'm here they're connected to that they're being alive my friend Janie Saleh who is an Olympic figure skater I've often thought when we look at and I love that taking off even in all sports in order to physically jump up and do the layup or whatever they have to go down first it's a literal going down it's not just coming up and I think about my friend Janie Saleh who did couples, the gold medalists to be able to be thrown up into the air by her partner with these heavy skates on twirl and land strong we see when the ballerina leaps across the stage and makes it look easy and if you have a still shot of the ballerina in that moment every single muscle in her his or her body are engaged you can see the muscles engage because they're alive and they're moving in that and then when they land they land softly because that's that control it's not a thump and we say that a lot in Ashdanga like with the jump backs and the jump throughs it's a thump with a jump back then you've lost mullibunda because there needs to be that control and you're right because when I started doing these bar classes they don't call it mullibunda that's not what they're calling it but I knew that's what it was because I had been studying this and I was like oh wow wow this is what they're doing it they're not calling it, they're calling it pelvic tucks they're calling it this is mullibunda, that's what this is so again it's like accessing to your place of personal power where in the end what it provides you on all the levels it's beyond just physical you know it's like you are connected at that moment to something bigger whatever you want to call it because it is all about going back to the anatomy it's about that physical alignment and being able to channel and take in and receive not only receive but then to um what's the word I'm looking for it's like you receive the information but then you recode it distribute it to make it do what you want it to do you're manipulating in a positive way like you're in control, you are the alchemist you are the sorcerer, you're able to take that energy and you have to like get yourself an alignment to it first pulling it through the body, through the mullabunga through whatever to receive it and then once you receive it you decode it or whatever to get it to do what you want it to do whether it's again a ballet dancer or if you're just cooking or if you're a musician or whatever it is but the whole purpose of it is to get you in that alignment of being receptive and receiving and then learning what to do with it and some people just do that naturally some of them might have it naturally some of them put a lot of practice into it like any musician or Olympic medalist they put a lot of practice into it and just like we put practice into it they might not call it a spiritual practice but in our language it totally is a spiritual practice learning how to be in flow with life that is spiritual practice all together learning how to be in flow with life and then using that life to manifest to live and so there's some people that do that without the spiritual talk well that kind of brings us full circle back to the beginning too because that dancer that's leaping across the stage or that basketball player that's like piano players like your son they're using their feet to control the pedals the whole body you watch their body is controlled and it's moving with the flow of the music a drummer is a good example you watch a drummer's body they're constantly pulling up that's why most of them are very got a six pack right because they're constantly like pulling up and that's that moment like we talked about in the beginning like a lot of times in this pop spirituality people want to leave the experience of the body they want to get out of the experience of the body but in these moments of being that drummer or being that swimmer or being that piano player that dancer you're in that moment of being alive right everything else has it has to go through the body your body is actually the the instrument yes the conduit exactly it's the conduit from which the artistry can come through and people understand it like the ones who are living life that way they understand that even if they don't talk about it is that they have a visceral understanding that this has to come through my body like this artistry needs to come through and so therefore they naturally understand their body as the conduit for life and that in essence is the root you know a lot of not just the root but then you're going into the second chakra too especially I was going to say creativity absolute creativity and the power which brings we'll get to that too I'm glad you brought that up but even like yeah you're right because like your son when he plays the piano he doesn't just sit down and just point out notes no he he fix like we come to psalmisty he has to set his body up set his feet up his whole body if you watch a pianist their arm muscles move they're sitting up they're not slouching they're sitting up my grandmother though used to tell a story when she would play the piano she'd get quarters put on her her knuckles her aunt taught her her mean aunt that she used to say and if the quarters fall off she'd get whacked with the ruler but the body is totally you watch I mean one of my favorite bands to watch old bands to watch is AC DC because that guitarist like he just he is one with his guitar and it is a physical they're channeling yes they're like channeling you know something bigger than themselves maybe that's why it's easier for them because they take away the expectation of spirituality they're just doing it exactly it's good enough to rock and roll they just do it the dancer just dances right I think sometimes maybe we that's funny I say maybe we overthink it as yoga because the second sutra is yoga which Patanjali is literally like you're over thinking so maybe maybe that's why they have such a higher rate of success because they don't overthink it they just do it and they're just being they're being if they understand here I mean their practice is understanding their instruments whether it's the body whatever instrument and they have a very specific usually a very specific goal in mind and you know when you have a very specific goal in mind that's the the yoga part of focusing the mind because in your mind it is distracted by all these other things it's very focused and that's what the the whole third third chapter of the yoga sutras is about I mean they talk about you focus everything and you can pretty much become an expert at anything yeah you have the capacity to hone it in on any superpower that you want if you focus your mind and that's what the these artists these people that you know you're just in awe of that's what they can do it's they have their natural they have the capacity all natural because they train them so they have a goal it's like they very much focus their attention on this is who I want to be and this is what I want to do and they take every single bit of that attention of that life and focus it through for it to come out yeah you know so I love that it's not just it's not just like spiritual talking yeah I think maybe that we can overthink it maybe overly spiritualize it when it's really just living life to your fullest that's what it comes down to maybe Nike has it all summed up just do it like just do it you know and you guys have not read the yoga sutras the third are wild they're fun the first two he's like you suffer because XYZ now do this do that now let's talk about the city let's talk about the fun but it is the first two potas to learn how to to incorporate that in order to get to that place of total and that's what Guruji used to say you know we say oh yogas yoking and joining all these things but Guruji used to say it's just focus all yoga is his focus its focus attention and one thing about now you guys if you're I'm sure some of you are aware we I just now started I I literally learn so much from my experience what I thought was just going to be something I was going to do for a short amount of time to get my practice back has turned out to be a practice that's so freaking important to me because it's changed my life just as much as I stronger has changed my life and I started to incorporate this stuff into like we would have a moon day t-tashanga on moon days and so if by chance I was scheduled and it was a moon day we would do some of these practices in the class with Cindy and everybody else because I thought this is just so good I can't I need to share this and so we've now just started doing a Wednesday morning class at 6 30 a.m. a yoga fusion class where we're doing a lot of this stuff that I learned in the bar sequencing and I want to talk about to a little bit about the anatomy and the reason why we focus so much on the legs is because the legs are really are the root of mullabunda and one thing everybody watching right now your big toe if you follow the inner thigh pressing into the big toe that's carrying that energy up the inner thigh into the crotch and I already knew that because as in our stronger teacher I can't Cindy would fire me I can't go in my class and crotch check people to see if mullabundas engage I don't want to do but that would just be weird they do it in India and it's not weird in India but in America it would be weird so how I can see a student a student's progress with understanding the shape the alchemy of the shape and the bunda the potency is I look at their their feet if their toes coming off the mat I can see there's there's something is disengaged and I can sometimes I'll go and I'll step on the person's foot not like heart but I'll push my foot just to get their toe to press down so that they can activate into the inner thigh well something that the bar does the bar classes do that we do in the yoga fusion class that we don't get to do in yoga that that often I've never done in yoga is we come to the balls of our feet we come to the balls of our feet and we bend our knees and we put a prop in between our thighs like a ball or a block and that forces that that forces that that focused attention on the stability of the body because the body's trying to always find that stability right to really get that energetic connection up through a course when you're holding that block as well and so that's why these practices with the legs even though they're only the root of Mollabunda that's the root is where it all begins it's where you have access to really understanding that pulling up of that pelvic floor if that does that make sense yeah and I've been refined they might enter thighs I didn't realize how you know you think you're connected to your your legs or your bodies but then you go to you find something new or nuance and you realize I wasn't connected at all but um reception yeah um yeah the yeah it's great that access to the inner thighs that you could we've been working on some inner thighs in this past week and our yoga class as well I've been you know summoning the I think you have to the the great sage of the 1980 Suzanne Summers who was ahead of her time and she understands she understood the purpose of the inner thighs she knew it she was into something go find your thigh master guys go find that thigh master that is going to help you find Mollabunda real fast real fast exactly but the positioning your pelvis makes a difference in the how well you can access your inner thighs because if you have too much of a like a tilt I can enter your tilt in your pelvis it won't allow you to find the access and push through the inner thigh so that the or if you have too much of that posterior where your hips are forwardly thread thrusting but without any connection to your lower abdominals that can also make you lose access to your inner thigh so the positioning of your pelvis and how you're using your belly to position your pelvis can also help to give you that that Mollabunda access that rooting down but then that also pulling up that gives you the access and the focus to to your power all these little details this is you know where we can totally nerd out all these little nuances all these little details make a difference and it just goes to show you how how much is stored within the body how much unstored or not necessarily maybe unfulfilled potential is within the body but how much potential we have access to if you do the work to actually find it and to connect it it's all you've got to find it I mean it's literally you've been exactly it's all there you just got to find the right movement the right alignment to that that's the good news you came here with all the tools we just got at you and again lifelong practice that's I actually work a lot and I tell the students every Wednesday I say this a lot especially we have new students like the practice we do on Wednesday morning can stand as its own practice but my intention is to give them full on an hour's worth of practice into this area of their body so that they can then incorporate that into their yoga into whatever else they're doing in their life and we do a lot of those tucks because you're right it's that pelvis it's being able to do it's not just you know that's one thing I say a lot too Cindy like yoga is not about flexibility yoga is about mobility which is that control it's an openness with control it's being able to open the hip but also control the openness of the hip being able to manipulate in a positive way it gives you access the important of the mobility work is it gives you access to more of your potential because if you're locked up you just won't have access to it until you unlock yourself so it's like everything gives you access to deeper parts of you and that's you know the reason and then when you do have access to more of your own potency and your own power your own mobility your own movement your own strength that it fuels you not just physically but spiritually as well because you you feel like you're in control like you like you have some momentum where you're like you're in control of your life instead of everything being just like seized and locked up and hidden and protected well that goes into the second chakra as well we're going to say creativity because like in Ashtanga we don't listen to music that's actually against the rules right because they they view in this lineage they view that music can distract you from what you're doing and it would just be kind of weird because it's on a certain beat but in the class I teach on Wednesday I rely on the music because when you're in these positions and you're having to bounce up and down in a controlled way I tell the students that I'm like find the beat your body knows the beat find the beat find that natural primal instinct that comes to that second chakra creative where you can move with the with the expression of what you're hearing as well it's incorporating the full simulation of you being alive in that moment and I often tell them to cause strength work I mean that's what it is guys it's you know Wednesday morning we do a little bit of the stretching or the yoga but I always say listen you're doing your stretching all week in all the classes in yoga let's focus really hard on the strength in this class you know to really help you find that that crotch punch so that when you go to do your hand stands in yoga or your drop backs you have more access to what it is you're actually looking for anyway and yeah it's it's I tell them though because I always say you know make this the hardest thing you got to do today because in the rest of the day you're going to be great right like find the raw strength and I tell them to that emotion like sometimes we dig deep into mulla bunda and we get and we're shaking our muscles are shaking and we're dropping lower and we're squeezing the block and we're shaking we feel that rage come up let the students let it come up drop a few f-bombs if you have to find it find that area that anger did someone piss you off this week did something piss you off as a child is that memory come up be there with it but it's okay to have that rage it's okay to find that human experience you're not you're not going to you're not going to all you're doing is you're in a class you're not going to hurt anybody with it but this is a healthy way of exercising that's why exercise is the root word of exorcism of exercising that which does not serve you anymore and strengthen that which does serve you and the more you can ground into that the more then you can have access to the that's why the third and fourth part are the third and fourth part and not the first and second part right you got you have to you gotta start with the whole training you gotta start yet to understand the basics yes right he didn't start with the cities and actually like in India you know you get your yoga sutra book and you got they're not hiding anything it's there because they all come together the third and fourth chapter there but they always say oh wait ten years wait ten years and then we'll look at like do ten years of first and second work first consistently then we'll talk about the third and fourth you can read it but I'm not going to teach it to you until you actually completed about ten years that kind of and of course as the solar plexus in the stomach it's stronger because it's going to just naturally that's going to strengthen your the monipora your third chakra which is like your willpower and that brings that you know you stand that's kind of like you stand up taller you don't shrink down when you've got that secure you know so the physical and the spiritual are literally one and the same when you're in this existence they one cannot exist without the other and so I wanted to kind of go through some of these questions and now before we get I've already let we've already talked about some of these questions before hands guys but you guys know I talk a lot about how exercise and spirituality come hand in hand and the first question was a great question now I want to make this clear before we get into it when I when I talk about exercise and spirituality going hand in hand I'm not saying you have to be an Olympic athlete I'm not saying you have to train so hard that you're going to have a 12 pack right take a walk start which is taking a 30 minute walk you know get your body get your energy moving because we have this concept and I think this gets confused a lot in the western world it's called Hatha and a lot of people in America say Hatha it's not Hatha guys because in TH it doesn't make the sound in Sanskrit it's Hatha which is like sun moon so what is the sun it's Prana what is the sun it's an up on it so Hatha is like juggling energy it's basically it comes from this book I'm going to say this real quick too about Hatha it's interesting that you say sun and moon because like in astrology words the sun is spirit and the moon is matter oh wow that's also what I feel what we're doing is we're talking about spiritualizing the body you know it's the divine pago you're spiritualizing the matter you're spiritualizing the body you're bringing the sun and the moon the spirit and matter into one form here and that's what we're in the end trying to become anyways I love that I love that it's the divine tango well so many people in the west get this Hatha or Hatha as they say think confused they'll say I teach Hatha yoga that's persons vinyasa and I'm like no no no any type of movement any type of movement is Hatha swim as Hatha because it's just you and if you really wanted a fun read the Hatha yoga predikapa now it's only going to be interesting and fun to people who are nerds like Cindy and me but it's actually there's some comical stuff in there like for example they tell you and they still do this in India that you should only wash your shallow with kowdong that's fun and they talk about how your shallow door to your shallow your yoga school should be really low so that you have to duck to come in and I'd always had that but I kind of skimmed over it and I remember Lakshmi my sanskrit teacher asking like do you guys know why that is and no one said anything and it was like so you have to bow before God like duh like duh yeah duh before you even enter before you enter and none of the the doors in India now are average size but I thought that was interesting but the predikapa it's all about these yoga asanas or these yoga poses and like what they're doing they also talk about how because at this point when it was written it was only males who practice so you're not supposed to fraternize with women that was that's in the predikapa and also it tells you that vegetables are bad for you so there's some maybe not correct 2000 year old book guys you should eat rice like you eat carbs like you know so anyway but that's where that comes from so when we get to this idea of exercise being a part of spirituality that's besides the bundas which go into hatha that's what I'm referring to it's you understanding your life force you being able to move in your body it's a hatha and so I also that kind of leads us to the first question but I do want to also say just on a very practical level again I don't expect any of my students to be athletes I don't expect them to what their body is able to do what they look like in their body is not what impresses me what impresses me is their behavior in their character just going to put that I've seen it all Cindy seen it all I've seen if you seen one leg go behind someone's head you've seen all right like if you seen one back then you seen them all be a good person that's what impresses me and your hard work is what impresses me too right so with that being said don't put added pressure on yourself when I say that just taking a 30 minute walk to begin with this really really awesome and great and that you sweating and get that energy that sweat is that literal expression of that hot that movement of energy second of all don't ever compare somebody's chapter 10 to your chapter one so people like Cindy and myself have been doing this for years so of course you're going to see teachers who are going to look really fit in their clothes or having you know they've been doing this for very very very long time and you want your teacher to be a few steps ahead of you right that's how they're able to kind of guide you and also you know just to make it clear Cindy myself other people that classes you go to this is what we do for a living too so it's not just our hobby but it's also what we do for a living so there's going to be a different you're going to you know if you're a lawyer a doctor you know that's what you you know so it's going to be a different you're going to see different expectations from different bodies I also too like for Cindy and me we're adjusting students so I want to bring that practicality into it too like when I used to teach my sore I would have to drop back men who are twice my size so that level of fitness was also important to keep my body safe so that I didn't drop my student or hurt myself in the process of working with students so don't ever compare yourself to the person who is teaching you what your backstory is the only person you need to compare yourself is to you and what you're learning about yourself and the journey that you're on I hope does that make sense Cindy because I get that a lot where people all of a sudden think they have to be like these marathon runner athletes it's like no no no no no that's not what I said does that make sense like just if you have to give yourself permission to be a beginner and give yourself permission to do crappy yoga yeah but then pretty yoga is boring like we gotta find it's just too pretty then I gotta do more work to make it make it harder for you to get sloppy again because that's where it's interesting where it's sloppy is where it's interesting well it's honest too it's vulnerable this is where I am it's honest and this is what it looks like and that's what your teachers are there for they're helping to try to get you through those beginner parts and starting to direct you where you want to go give you some direction say yes this is where you are it's beautiful it's great and be where you are but then you know trying to give them the direction of where they want to go yeah and we also see your blind spots too we can see I can see when somebody's ego or their imagination is taking over because it's happened to me I can only recognize it you only recognize what's in your so I know for me when I'm doing my practice and I get to a part of my practice I don't particularly like all of a sudden I need to go change the laundry that's interesting isn't it all of a sudden at 4 o'clock in the morning I gotta go change the laundry no my mind's creating escape routes my mind's creating that negotiation and so because I've dealt with that and I still deal with that Cindy too as a teacher we're able to track you know be the compass for being able to take the journey yeah and especially well it happens it doesn't matter if you're a beginner or an advanced student but when the ego gets in the way and then the ego gets embarrassed like the ego might be embarrassed about oh you know I feel stupid here I can hardly do this you know I'm panting and I'm losing my breath and I'm all flustered and everyone else is doing just fine so our ego will come in and create the story about how you're not like enough or you're not you know this is too much for me or I shouldn't be here but that's just the ego trying to come in and protect you from certain things but part of the practice especially as a beginner is to get through that like get past you gotta get past that and get past your humiliation or whatever it is that you're feeling and just give yourself permission to be a very sloppy beginner I will tell you guys and I'm sure Cindy you can vouch for this as somebody who teaches and watches students all the time everybody's in there struggling so even if you your classmates aren't struggling they're struggling even the advanced students the ones that are hyper focused those are usually the more advanced students who have been practicing for long because they know how to focus the mind but you can see it in their eyes you can see it so don't ever feel like you're not and I tell this to students too all the time everybody is so focused on their own basically they're not even paying attention to anybody else in the room I promise you they're not so don't ever feel that way and I believe and my personal belief is you're always where you're supposed to be so if you find yourself in a class and you're struggling and your association is happening that mind chatter that monkey mind is happening and you're beating yourself up just remind yourself as my friend Tamara says just be like cancel, cancel thank you but cancel, cancel and remind yourself that you're there for a reason and nobody was born as far as the athletic we were all born being alive and having a body but as far as being doing it everybody, every teacher we all started at one point in our lives so just get that silly talk out of your head get it out of your head so this brings us to a really, really good question we got from one of our viewers let's go back here she said yes I asked if any I said hey y'all do you have any questions about Moldar and Moldanda now and so we got this question yes I have a burning one I hear you frequently say exercise is the foundation of spirituality this leaves me wondering about people with disabilities or physical limitation that restrict their ability to exercise how does this not exclude them from being spiritual following a spiritual path they can be some of the most enlightened people out there I'm just trying to understand how both things can be true thank you for your excellent work and dedication to all of us watching and I said this question is super easy to answer we will discuss this in the video so I want to kind of go back to this what you said here with disabilities and physical limitations so everybody everywhere has physical limitations I have a really bad back I've had back surgery, I have arthritis we all have these limitations and as I say a lot we don't work against these we work with them and it depends on what the disability is somebody asked you my son is moderate several palsy and I'm determined to help him figure out a way to move we and Carol, we and I answer this we have a student at AYA who has several palsy so let me just bring up this first then we'll get back to this question up here I'll talk about the several palsy first I won't say his name but we have this awesome student we've had him at AYA for years now he comes every single day and he has several palsy he came to AYA because he had trouble with other yoga teachers because they didn't know how to help him and because Ashtanga mostly is my source style he was recommended to try Ashtanga because he would be able to go at his own pace and the teacher would be able to my boyfriend would be able to work with him one on one well I have said since the beginning of this student coming to Arshala we have a lot of students at AYA who are practicing series A, third series but in my opinion the student in Arshala who has several palsy who will never finish primary series in my opinion is the most advanced student at AYA he comes into that Shala every day he's already got limitations he's already got friction and he comes in there with such a good attitude and we've had to change the practice up a little bit he has to work with props when he comes to do his son salutations he has to his one hand which is not working he takes his other hand and pulls it up and then Ford folds with it so he works with his several palsy he doesn't work against it and my boyfriend works with him so for your son I would say find a really good teacher or a trainer or someone who can work I follow there's a gem I follow on Instagram I think it's over in the UK where they specifically cater to people with disabilities specifically so you can find resources to now again with any disability or physical issue going on once again we're not asking you to be Olympic athletes at all we're asking you just to move just start moving whatever that means for you now let's say and I'll let you give your perspective to Cindy let's say that you have your quadriplegic let's see somethings happen and you are like paralyzed well what we've talked about is the focus to mine right so I have seen it happen before and I have advised this before say you can't move your body doesn't mean you can't move your mind doesn't mean you can't lay there and go through a physical yoga breath yourself through in your mind's eye a yoga practice or watch a ballet class and try to bring yourself into breathing through the movements that you're seeing on screen and actually in your mind's eye see yourself feel yourself doing those movements even if your physical body isn't moving so there's always ways to work around it there's always ways and trust me as teachers I think Cindy you can we want to know I want to know if you have an injury I want to know if you have a bad knee I want to know if you've got something going on I need to know that so that I can help you help yourself and work with it not against it do you have anything you want to add to that Cindy yes well I do work with like I have a client right now who lost the whole function of her left side of the brain she's young she had a stroke and I I see her she I knew her before that happened but what we do is we we just sit and you know one of the things that we kind of talk about or maybe I talk about because she can't talk right now is you're you still woke up today you know you woke up you're breathing and I know it's hard to figure out what the heck why you know we can we can get really caught up on the fact that we have this thing but for some reason you still woke up today you're still breathing and there's still a purpose for you I mean there's still a purpose here for you to be here and to be alive and you know to focus on first of all to focus on that purpose so you know the people who have in sure that's easy for me to say being fully functioned I don't know what that's like but but still you know it's the things that you know when I'm having a hard day is you know to redirect and focus your attention on the fact that I'm breathing I'm here alive I have still a specific purpose whether it is to just you know heal myself better whether it is to wake up every day and try to get function and mobility back into my body and what it's like to do that and what it's like to go through that process you know so I think for you know first that first part of it is kind of like you said it's just like that mental where is where is your mind and what is it focusing on and you know and some of the things that I've and she's the only one that I've worked with with disabilities but it's just coming back to like what can you do so you have disabilities you have physical limitations but instead of focusing on what you can't do yeah what can you do yeah and let's work on you know what it is that you can do and what is your goal what is your your purpose here for for being with me you know today like what is it that you want to you want to get your mobility back what is it and then how can I help you you know with that but I think a lot of it is just focusing on what you can do even if all you can do is you know this with one arm yeah absolutely yeah you know or or maybe this is all you can do right now is turn your head from side to side and just to come in as hard I could say that I don't I don't I don't know that challenge from a personal experience so I can't you know I can't begin to comprehend what that's like but you know just that idea of I'm still breathing I'm alive today I have the means I have purpose and I have value and how can I align myself with that and what I can do yeah and I'll say too I've told this story before but I think it bears repeating you know again in the ashtonga practice you see a lot of it's one of the most elaborate you know you see crazy posture Cirque du Soleil it's very intense and you walk into my sore room a lot especially if you're new it can be quite intimidating because you do see people standing up with their leg behind their head doing forward and back hand springs and I remember the one of the greatest lessons I learned from David and I repeat this a lot in the yoga class there are two lessons that at Sacred Garden I talk about this a lot there's two great lessons I learned from David but as I've watched David who's one of the foremost most of the senior ashtonga teachers in the United States he you know he would have these young girls in Philadelphia that were like in their early 20s who had been cheerleaders or gymnasts who had a lot of already had a lot of physical ability and so they would kind of go through some of these Asanas pretty quickly and get to more more of the advanced Asanas and it never seemed and this is my perspective like David never seemed to be too totally interested like he didn't really interest him that much but however when a 60 70 year old man would walk in who was overweight and could hardly touch his toes David would get so excited because now and I want you guys to remember this with your friends or your children or yourself if you have a disability or a physical limitation or several palsy you have something to work with you have something to actually work with that's what David would say these guys would come in these old men who could hardly touch their toes and be like great we have something to work with now we have resistance because that's what you're looking for right and you're looking for resistance like that's going to create that that sweat and so if you know and I've say this in our classes a lot David would also say if your karma, if you struggle in primary series you are one of the lucky ones because your karma came up early and trust me I've been in India where I've seen these people who've had to get all the way up to like fourth series, advanced series B which I've said many times looks like a fucking exorcism if you watch it it's disgusting but I've watched these people have such ease through first, second, third series and they get to fourth series and all of a sudden they hit struggle and their world explodes whereas people who found the struggle in the beginning are usually understand yoga from a deeper perspective are a humbler really have a deep understanding of wisdom so don't ever see disabilities or sicknesses or physical limitations I like how Cindy said what can you do, not what can't you do wake up and be like yes I have something to work with I actually have I'm one of the lucky ones in that sense like I'm not saying obviously I don't have I have a bad back and arthritis so I know what some pain is like in the practice but change your perspective change your perspective on what this is you have something to work with which is exciting if you don't have anything to work with then you have nowhere to go but if you have something to work with then you have so many possibilities in front of you I hope that makes sense I would really encourage you guys even if you're just a regular Joe like Cindy and me if you are a little overweight or have a we have a lot of people with that issue okay little chubby okay we got something to work with we got that belly to work with and that's awesome that's such a great place to be so don't see physical limitations as actual limitations see them as something to work with I used to practice with a man who had a fake leg he had his leg amputated when he was in his 20s so by the time I was practicing with him when he was in his 50s he had spent most of his life with it so it was no big deal to him I remember the first time David worked with him David like walked in and was like he just got so excited because he'd never worked with someone before he was an amputee and just the excitement to be able to even though my friend worked really well with his amputated leg but the fact that it was a metal leg on one side was exciting to David to be able to see the we have different possibilities now right we have different possibilities because you don't have a physical leg for me to work with energetically you still do energetically what's this going to be like so okay we have someone with several we have different possibilities now and that's exciting there's still growth there and so again you're not Olympiad you're not going to be all just shitting for the Rockettes it's not what we're doing we're just trying to help you wake up that hatha that upwards and wake up that pelvic floor wake up that life force inside of you through any type of exercise does not have to be a marathon so anyway okay we got this one too this is great Alicia who comes to our classes on zoom which we'll talk about at the end I have huge issues with my dad girl same he's passed on now but those struggles are still there I also have major back issues so finding connection is something I'd love to learn more about Cindy I'm going to let you take this one away well you're your body you always say that your body is an acoustic record in itself and it holds the memories of everything that you've experienced in this lifetime and all the lifetimes it holds the genetic material of your ancestry and your family is all coated there within your body your body responds to every thought that you're having every thought that you're having every cell in your body responds to that thought so the information is in the body and if you're trying to figure out okay so I've had some daddy issues I've had daddy issues too and what your body basically tells you especially if you're having issues it might be saying well maybe there's still some emotional some residual emotional stuff that's going on and if you're you know if you're and it could be that there is a connection there it could be that that the back issues could be a totally different thing so it kind of depends on what you're wanting to work on you can go through the body and then you can start to work with the back issues for instance that's what you receive inform your psychology because you can go so your mind informs your body but your body also informs your mind so maybe just like deciding okay I'm just gonna work on my back issues right now I'm gonna like work on them I'm gonna listen just intuitively listen to what my body has to say and eventually if there is some kind of a connection there it will come through just by simply doing the work and asking the question and not putting your own interpretation into it but letting letting your body inform you and you never know what you're gonna get it could be a daddy it could be something totally different you know what I mean and your dad kind of thing that could be itself I mean I'm not saying that it could be a back issue but it's it's tapping into that deeper intelligent asking the right questions and like if you're going through the body like working through what helps what works what feels right listening to it and often time just by doing that the connection will reveal itself to you that makes sense yeah I love that ask it what it what is when your back hurts just say like what are you trying to tell me like what are you trying to communicate with me I love that and that's because it's your because again it's a redirection right usually if we have an injury or we have something that's out of alignment is telling you you need to redirect something you need to redirect either your thought you need to redirect you maybe you need to redirect how you're holding yourself yeah and if you think of your back issue as a redirection and you're just saying okay how how do I need to redirect myself here how do I need to redirect myself here then a lot of that answers will begin to come up not just physically physically it will but then you'll get clarity and other things as well too I you know that's literal redirection I have a bad back to Alicia and I I punched a teacher coming out of a back then like I really struggled with doing these back back whole my whole I'm good better at them now but what really shipped for me it was that redirect and I say this in the class all the time I had a teacher say it's not back bending it's stomach opening and when I redirected the energy to the front of my body the back of my body lost a lot of tension and was able to actually bend and I was actually able to strengthen the front of my body which is probably with the back of my body needed because the core isn't just your stomach it's also your back and so that is a literal redirect I think a lot of us have daddy so you know I think you're in good company and I want to bring on something too that happens a lot sometimes when you start the path of spiritual healing especially through yoga or an exercise program a lot of times what's going to happen is like three months in maybe it's different for different people sometimes six weeks in and old injury will flare up and a lot of people make the mistake like quitting at that time or thinking they need to rest don't that's the worst thing you can do tell your teacher if it's flaring up take modifications but keep moving keep moving the energy because if you stop and you rest for a minute to let it just it's not it's going to get stagnant again right it's like that flowing water so like if you have a knee issue for example and all of a sudden your knee issue flares up if I have a student they need to let me know so I'll tell them the modifications to do so that they're not they're working again with the energy not against or with the injury not against it but we're keeping the energy moving we're keeping it going a rolling stone gathers no moss right we're keeping it flowing and then eventually hopefully it will end up they say that Guruji used to get really excited because like when you one knee would get bad he gets so excited he'd be like okay this knee the next knee and then going like this is going to get bad but it's going to get better but then your other knee is going to get bad but then it's going to go it's all going to go you're going to work through it you know another thing is the yoga fever it's very very common when you started deep spiritual practice especially involving exercise after a few months in maybe at night to have like a low grade fever and then it will be gone the next day and that's what we call the yoga fever and Guruji used to get really excited about this too because it meant that old karma in order to create new patterns old patterns need to be be removed and that would be like burning a compost pile right now of course if your fever gets really high you need to address it with a doctor where however you feel like you need to address it but like low grade fevers are common in the beginning and then they'll pass they'll pass every time I start incorporating new postures into my practice I get still I'll still to this day we'll get a little low grade fever sometimes it's just it's just it just means that your body your body's reforming itself it's creating new patterns now this one I already answered because I just said looking at the DOSHA system I have an immune disorder that I know is my body goes through frequent cycles of extreme exhaustion and digestive issues my whole body will feel weak and I won't be able to do anything but sleep it's not caused by depression and it's not psychosomatic actually I will say everything is actually psychosomatic that's kind of the spiritual perspective is like literally everything is psychosomatic I thought I had Crohn's for a while but my doctor was thinking has hematosis I don't know what else to do or anymore I'm low-income I said for digestion issues literally everything is to an extent psychosomatic because the mind creates the thought came first right the body yoga to devotee Narodaha everything is reacting to thought but I've done many many videos on the DOSHAs and for my digestive issues it literally was fixed with eating for my DOSHA do you have anything you want to add to that Cindy? there is yeah I mean I also am into the thought of that especially when you're dealing with something that's chronic even though you you might not think it's psychosomatic but when I have the issues like for instance I'll give you an example I'm pretty sure that I have this familial something so my body produces less rel I mean to the point that it could cause problems down the line with heart issues and strokes and stuff like that and it's a genetic thing and yes I could go about it and say it's just a genetic thing and yes it's a genetic thing and it's something that I have to be mindful about I have to watch certain things that I don't want to put an additional cholesterol to my body when I have more of my body is already producing too much but what I did start asking myself is what is it within my body why does my body feel the need to produce like what is my liver feel the need to produce an excessive amount of cholesterol because your body is not usually trying to work against you you might know it might feel like it body is actually trying to help you or support you and some of the the psychological analysis toward high cholesterol especially if your body produces it it's creating a blockage in my body what is it trying to block and in the case of cholesterol a lot of it is it's blocking your ability to feel joy and so I'm like well why is my body wanting to produce this inability to feel a whole lot of joy because that is kind of my life I'm I have a mindset that I've been working on where nothing is ever in that there's always got to I get something, got it next what's the next thing I have this compulsion I always have to be doing more so I have that which definitely blocks me from feeling joy but where is that compulsion actually coming from why what is it that my body is trying to not having joy it could be a survival mechanism maybe it has to do with being too complacent and if you're too complacent you die so it's like when you get diagnosed with something that's chronic one of the first things that I or if I've seen a client is asked why is my body producing this for me and it is more I could totally blame mine it's just genetics but honestly I feel like there's something deeper more to that for me to be able to do something about it because if you get caught up in the mindset of saying this is just it, this is what I have period it's very disempowering for me but if I can start to figure out things that I can do so yeah maybe feeling weak, feeling tired, feeling sleepy what is it about disengaging from life closing yourself off from life, disengaging from life being sleepy what is that trying to protect you from and are you willing to allow more you know like get out of the mindset of this is just what I am this is who I am this is just what it is the doctors have told me I can't choose any differently no matter what I do I always feel sleepy you can get caught up in that loop believe me I know I've been caught up in those loops before is that loop really helping you is there something anything that you can do to start to ask this is kind of like with Alicia can you start to ask different questions approach it from a different point of view you may have not considered before and I will say the digestion digestion issues that speaking of psychosomatic because I agree like in my perspective literally everything is psychosomatic because the consciousness it's like that whole idea what came first the chicken or the egg well and spirituality keep talking I need to plug in my computer yeah you're fine and spirituality consciousness came first and so everything that's in your life is directed by your thought consciousness and your body is not trying to punish you I agree with Cindy the body is trying to talk to you is trying to show you it's your template for where there is inaccurate understanding where there is no enlightenment and we all have that every single one of us has this that's why we're in a human experience for that refinement so the digestion issues that is a fascinating psychosomatic rabbit hole to go down we can't go down everything because we're already well over an hour now but I would someone someone 9 4 3 2 I would I would challenge you to look up what digestion issues mean spiritually what is an immune disorder is your body literally attacking you why what ask your stomach what your stomach you have people who struggle with depression also typically have digestion issues as well so there's there's because there's just as many neurotransmitters in your stomach as there are in your brain so if you're think about when you're nervous you get butterflies when you're excited you get butterflies your stomach holds a lot of emotional information and it for me a lot of mine went away with with when I started eating for my dosha but what happened even though the food was changing and the energy the food was also happening though is that I took my power back because I had been a slave to what my parents had given me to eat what society told me I should eat but when I said oh my body telling me with this these digestion issues that a raw apple isn't good for me because I'm a Vata when I realize that I just stopped doing that I started eating for what my body needed I took my power back and my digestion got better also what helps with digestion again is exercise ok like look at if you start with constipation we listen no one ever wants to hang out with yoga people because all we talk about is poops and periods but if you watch marathon runners a lot of times they shit their pants because they jiggled their colon and I'm not I'm not telling you to do that I don't want you to do that but if you start to like move your body and that up and down you start to simulate that movement of the getting the organs to move up and down you're gonna start to get the digestion fluids going again it's like when we do inversions like downward dog or a head stand you know we're we're resting the organs because we're flipping them upside down and sometimes giving them that different you know flipping them upside down even just a downward dog is gonna give that simulation as well so I I look at that in this just my perspective as someone who's worked in this business industry for 18 years and I say someone someone look at your dosha and also it's totally psychosomatic so I wouldn't count that out I I think you and I think that's the gift because now you can take your power back and again it's the same thing just start with what you can do at least that's what I feel I mean the thing you know if you're struggling with income and and stuff that you know there it and it's really easy and I've been there before several times just to get caught up in the loop of feeling trapped like oh my gosh you know I feel trapped I feel like everything is kind of going against me and it's just it's a it's a very yucky uncomfortable feeling and I know that feeling and it sucks but I also believe that there is always one solution that's available to you right now so even if you you know you have one dollar in the bank account your body is in this condition it's a mess and then your life might be falling apart there is always one solution even if it's just a baby stuff that is available to you right now at this very moment there is one thing there is one thing that you can do right now at this very moment that will help to take you to the next step into the next step into the next step and so it's like doing that one little thing whether it is you know going for a little walk or and it might be totally unrelated it could be you know you have to clean out your closet or you know make your make your bed every day or there's something I guarantee you I promise you I promise you there is one thing that is available to you that you can do right now that will lead you in the direction that you want to go and so just listen and do that one thing whatever that one thing is I would say too when you're feeling exhausted and you want to nap I because that's a problem I would say put your favorite music on and dance just by yourself and see what happens see how that changes your perspective on life because yeah absolutely 100% Cindy well we this has been a really awesome episode I want to take a moment you guys make sure I'm going to put all Cindy's links in the description box below make sure you're subscribed to our YouTube channel now Cindy we at Sacred Garden we have zoom options so we have she's been zooming in so what what days do you teach Cindy what times do you this is all eastern time guys so if you are coming from a different time zone make sure you realize that we're in eastern time so just act you know schedule yourself accordingly for your your time zone but what what days and times do you teach Cindy at Sacred Garden at your not every single one of my classes are available through soon but the ones that are I have a Monday 5 30 p.m eastern standard and I have a Wednesday today and I can't remember if my Saturday you know I think those are the two classes that I have that are available to me Monday at 5 30 and Wednesday at 10 a.m and mine right I don't know you can you can also look on the schedule and see which ones are available I just live in the area I just call my classes are available through zoom but not all of my classes are available to me so few of them and then part of the reason is because some of the classes they get really crowded and studio space is really small and then the whole camera just gets completely walked out yeah yeah I will say I'll tell for Alicia who asked the question yesterday after we were finishing the class up I you know I watched the zoom during the class but at closing I knew she was there but she keeps herself and all of a sudden she immuted herself and said something I jumped I thought it was a ghost I laughed so hard because then all of a sudden she immuted herself to say goodbye and so I laughed so hard because all of a sudden the voice came out of the zoom but yes Maya 6 30 a.m eastern time a fusion class is available on zoom and the ashtanga class on Sunday not Wednesday Sunday morning at 8 30 a.m eastern time but there are so many great teachers at sacred garden who have classes on zoom you guys and so if this is something you're interested in I'm going to put sacred gardens website in the description box below so you can read all the class descriptions and if you want to try a class you can sign up for zoom I know for my 6 30 a.m Wednesday class if you sign up for that class do it before Tuesday afternoon because since Cindy is the night owl so she's not going to be available in the morning to send the zoom link if you sign up so make sure it's the night before sign up for the class the night before and I'll get you I'll get you the zoom link but yes don't that we're 30 in the morning I'm sleeping yeah she's not going to be able to send you the link so if that ever does happen we'll just put it towards the next class but like just make sure that you're you get that in before before the night the evening comes so and yeah all there's so many great teachers at the at the secret garden that you can zoom into if you live in the area please we've gotten a lot of students through YouTube that now are coming a lot and so that's awesome so all are welcome everyone is welcome there's so many different body shapes and sizes that are in secret garden you are totally welcome to calm we'd love to have you you have a beginner course starting soon hasn't already started the beginner series yes already started but you probably join in if you because there's only one it only went one session and it goes off through the Sundays in April so that's something you're interested I'll also put Cindy's email if you've got any more questions about that do you have any more courses coming up Cindy you want to advertise I'm in the middle of the alchemist right now the shaman will start again in September so if there's something that you want to think about all that information is on the website too so if you want like deeper work about it is very much deep spiritual work and a lot of it is some of the things that we've talked about already making that body-mind connection and through cultivating relationships outside of you that really support you through all the lulu stuff if you like the lulu stuff this class is for you so I always believe that the lulu stuff needs to inform your life and it needs to improve and better your life this lulu for the sake of lulu it doesn't mean it's not meaningful to me so I try to bring in that aspect of how it can actually make your life better don't be a spiritual materialist don't just be lulu for the sake of having an image of being lulu that drives me crazy when you see these guys and I love a good man bun every now and again but when you see the guys with the man bun in like 20 gazillion mollipedes and I'm like shut up you haven't annotated today shut up shut up you know so yeah it has to be it's supposed to enrich your life not be your life right so anyway alright well thank you Cindy that was a long one today thank you and if you guys have any questions you wanted to cover any other aspects let us know in the description in the comment section below and of course check out sacred garden come see me come see Cindy come see all the other fabulous teachers at sacred garden yoga yeah or if you're if you're on zoom zoom in if you're in the area join us listen we rock out on Wednesday mornings I'm telling you like I don't know what the neighbors think of us but we've got that rap music playing we got the the light candles lit we're all having the grand old time on Wednesday morning so please come join us if you get all the cool kids are here on Wednesday morning so anyway yeah so all the cool kids are talking about abundant squeeze and blocks so alright well I thank you guys so much I hope that helped clear up any of your questions let us know if you have even more questions and we will talk to you all very soon bye everybody