 Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Esoteric Atlanta. I'm joined with one of my good friends here, Emmy Simpson, a partner in crime with our Yaki services. We should copyright that, Yaki. That was a slip up. If you guys don't know what we're talking about, that was a slip up I made a while ago because obviously, Emmy is a Reiki healer and I'm a yoga teacher and we do teach a combined course online with yoga and Reiki and so we're just going to make it Yaki like a celebrity power couple, Yaki. So I'm so excited though. Today is going to be a video that we put together because we now, Emmy, we are a week away from the 60 day shadow work challenge. So today is January Saturday, January 14th Saturday. So the 60 day challenge starts and my words are getting twisted because it's marked very retrograde, but it's January 21st. Saturday, January 21st is the start of the 60 day shadow work challenge. But before we get into that, before we get into that, guys, I want to go ahead and remind you guys that if you have not subscribed to Emmy's channel Holistic Genie with Emmy, I told her, I pulled her channel up and look, guys, 1.1. That's an 11. Like that's such a God number, such a powerful number. And so if you have not subscribed to Emmy's channel, of course, it's going to be down in the description box below. Also, before we get into it and why we have the shared screen up, during the 60 day challenge, we are going to be doing a book club and Emmy and Nicole are going to be running the signal group and are going to be kind of taking care of that discussion with the book club. But I wanted to go ahead just to get the administration stuff out of the way. The first book of the first month or the first 30 days is going to be polishing the mirror. Both books by Rom Doss is one of my favorite books. So I think this was the first book of Rom Dosses that I ever read. That's going to be the first book. And the second book is actually recommended by Emmy. And this is going to be walking each other home conversations on loving and dying, which kind of goes into one of what Emmy, Emmy, Shanti and Catherine Edwards all helped me create the 60 day challenge template. And it took a lot to do it. And Emmy wrote a beautiful portion of it based on the practice of grief and moving through grief, which is something I don't think any human being can escape is grief. And so I know that this work is going to be very important. So I will put the links to these two books down in the description box below, guys. So if you want to go ahead and order them to join the shadow work challenge, the book group with Emmy and Nicole as we go through this really, really, really intense work that we're about to get into. So while Emmy is doing what she's doing, let's go ahead and look here. I'll go ahead and share the beginning part. Now, as I told the group this morning and on signal, if so yesterday, Friday, if you had emailed me on the shadow work challenge email, which is shadowworkchallenge at gmail.com again, that will be in the description box below. If you had emailed me prior to yesterday, which was January, Friday the 13th, that email, I had to clean out the email box because I needed to keep myself organized. So go ahead and re-email me at shadowworkchallenge at gmail.com. I'm just going to go ahead and read you guys the opening letter to this shadow work challenge just so you guys kind of know what to expect. Dearest challengers for the next 60 days, Esoteric Atlanta friends will be hosting a global shadow work challenge. This challenge will last 60 days and each day will hold a few activities for you to do to help you in your journey of healing and self-discovery. I'm so excited that you've decided to do this. Please know that of all these activities that have all that all of these activities are for you and your experience only. No one will be watching you, judging you or reading any of your journal entries. This is simply a private experience for you and you alone. Of course, you will be able to win prizes if you sign up for it. Your name will go into a raffle at the end of the 60 days. It is recommended that the exercise portion of the daily challenge be done first thing in the morning before breakfast and before the start of your day, but it is not doable. For now, you can do the exercise at whatever time of day that works best for you. Please note that this challenge is merely a template of what you can do to jumpstart your shadow work. With that being said, this is super important guys because this is how I am. If I have that personality, I'm Vata Pitta. If I don't get everything done, I think I've failed. That in itself is your own shadow work. If you don't get everything done in one day, don't give up. It's okay. If that being said, if a day passes and you don't get all the activities, don't stress. You just start again the next day picking up where you lift off. Don't stop because you had one bad day. You're human and humans are resilient. Now for ladies, if you are on your cycle, I have given like a very low impact stretching class here. You can do an exchange for the exercises provided on your period or you can do the exercises provided. It's up to you. So if you need a daily warm-up, before your daily exercises, a link to Bryce's Sun Salutations and hip opening stretches are available during the daily challenge. I have links to those to help you warm up. Please note if you have lower back issues, hip opening stretches will help. Please try to do them before you proceed with your daily workouts. For pregnancy, please be mindful depending on where you are in your pregnancy. You might want to do only the bar exercises, replacing them with more cardio exercises on the other days. Totally up to you. Everybody's pregnancy is different. So do not feel if you are doing this challenge and you are pregnant. Do not feel beholden to all the exercises. Don't feel beholden to all the exercises anyway, but especially if you're pregnant. What you will need for the challenge is the internet, a journal and castor oil if you wish to participate Friday night oil baths. There is one video that I'm providing that has optional of two to three pound hen weights. Please note this particular video can be done without weights. You can obviously do the exercises without hand weights and still have resistance of your own body weight or you can substitute them with soup cans or water bottles or someone said once wine bottles, which may be the best resistance ever because you're really going to be gripping those suckers so you don't drop them and break red wine all over your carpet. So find the resistance that works best for you. You might want to take a photo before photo on day one of the challenge and then an after photo on the final day of the challenge so you can see how your body changed during the 60 days for your eyes only. This is only optional. Now I personally advise against weighing. Weighing can cause an addiction to the numbers and numbers are just numbers they do not define. So I'm going to reiterate this. The numbers on this scale do not define the internal and the emotional work being done. Okay some people can weigh themselves and they can still have that separation where if you are somebody who is prone to having disordered eating or if you have a weird relationship with food, I want you to be very vigilant with this and cut yourself some slack. I have not weighed myself since I was 27 years old. I only weigh myself now if I have to at the doctor for medical purposes. I just don't do it. My mother had some issues with that when I was a child and so I am aware that that can be an inherited karma and so I have made that precaution for myself but this is always up to you. Very important if the trauma work becomes too overwhelming in this challenge please reach out for help. Again this is just meant to be something for you to jumpstart your own personal work. If it becomes a lot please reach out to a trusted therapist or a healer like Emmy to help you navigate. Okay I really want to and we can talk more about this with the artful Dodger all that kind of stuff. I really want to tell you guys there's going to be a lot of deep work. We're going to be talking about a lot of really heavy topics over the 60 days and you're going to be doing this virtually. I mean you have the signal support group. You can always reach out to all of us who are sponsoring this challenge but I know people I have funny feelings about therapists. I loved my trauma therapist. Emmy is an incredible healer too. If you feel like this work is becoming a lot and you're feeling overwhelmed please reach out to someone for help. Help. There's no shame in getting help. No shame. Alright now when I send this if you have any issues pulling up the links just copy and paste the links to the YouTube for all the exercises and stuff. Here is a link to the book club for the signal book club as well as of the books I just showed you guys. There will also be an optional fast towards the end of this challenge. This fast is going to be run by Shanti from Aquarius Rising Africa and this is optional. If fasting is not for you a cleanse will also be provided. Again this is optional. Please keep your health a priority if you are prone to again disordered eating like starving yourself. It is advised that you do not or binge eating. If fasting is going to trigger an unhealthy response to your relationship with food then do not do it. That is my advice as a professional is the fast is only going to work if it actually helps you with your trigger and does not intensify your triggers if that makes sense and we can talk more about that because I know that you have some experience with this too. Please note that fasting or cleansing is not for weight loss nor should ever be used for weight loss okay. There's also going to be a 21 sun salutation challenge within the 60 day challenge that will be starting on February 27th. This challenge is not listed in this template. Shanti has a separate template for that when we get closer to February 27th which is quite a ways away from now. We will send out the template for those who want to do the sun salutation challenge. You can do the sun salutation challenge on top of the exercises provided in the template but that is only up to you and your level of physical fitness okay. And yeah so here's a link to the single support group. Here's all the participating challenges and yeah so here's the link to the last some tips from our last challenge if you need some help along the journey and of course we have lots of fun stuff that we are going to be presenting in this challenge. I'm almost done correcting all the edits and so that should be available to go out to you guys tonight. One thing people have asked me just getting through the administrative stuff before we get to the topic at hand I think a lot of people think that I'm just going to email it out to people who participated in the 30 day challenge know you're going to have to contact me. Don't send me people's email addresses for me to then send to other people. I honestly guys we already have close to 200 emails sitting in the shadow work challenge Gmail account from yesterday from my announcement yesterday. Our last 30 day challenge had over 600 people. I'm expecting to get between 600 and a thousand people for this challenge and so if people were just to send me a bunch of emails I that's just a lot that's chaos so it's just easier for me to keep everything organized and make sure everybody gets what they need by you reaching out to the email so I can just send it out. Also as I said in the group this morning if you are emailing the shadow work challenge at gmail.com don't ask me a bunch of questions so I'm not going to be able to respond right now. Okay it takes a lot to send these a lot of time to since I have to go through each individual email to send the template out and I don't mind doing it but I'm not going to have the time right now to sit and answer a bunch of questions and so what I'm thinking we can do later on in the challenge is actually have you guys go through those questions and answer them on a show so or you can send me a separate comment under a video if you have a question but right now I just can't it's already going to take the full week for me to get all these templates out so I can't I unfortunately I'm only one person I don't have an assistant I wish I had an assistant I got to train my dog how to do this so so I have you guys understand I just at this moment my most important thing is making sure everybody gets what they need to start so alright now that the housekeeping is done it over with how are you today I mean I'm doing okay I am so so ready for this retrograde to be over and even though it goes direct next week or this this coming week Wednesday I believe there's still a post shadow phase and since this retrograde was so intense I I imagine that the post shadow phases is still going to be affecting us a little bit so I am like waiting for February man I can't come soon enough my word I mean Emmy and I have both been on our own journey of shadow work and self-healing long before we opened up our YouTube channels where we weren't public public figures and we have Emmy we have been like crying to each other this week haven't we I want everybody to feel better about themselves you know it's no matter how human being a human being is is one of the most challenging experiences you will ever go through that your soul decides to put you through and and no matter how deep you are into your work your perspective on the work changes as you get more and more experienced you understand it more but it doesn't take away the human emotion it doesn't take it take away the struggle and so I want to make that very clear if you're embarking on shut there's no finish line there's no finish line it's just you getting the opportunity to sit to sit in the shit basically and understand that you're not the shit but you have to sit in it first before you understand it so yes yeah but it's been a rough one Emmy hasn't it yeah yeah and should I should I go in and talk about the artful Dodger and the ego and how crafty it gets yes because that I do so Emmy in your words and I'm actually gonna put you on the screen in your words will you just explain to because you do my this retrograde is messing with my words you do such an eloquent job describing things and teaching things can you explain to the viewers right now what the what we say the artful Dodger what is that first of all okay so the artful Dodger is the ego and the ego is an illusion it is the story that we create of ourselves and Aaron Abki says that the ego is the act of identifying we're identified with our bodies we're identified with our emotions we're identified with the hurts and pains that other other people have caused us we're identified with this story character and all that that entails who we really are is Christ consciousness and that alone we are all the Christ and we are at different stages of remembering who we are and the ego will constantly try to come in and and help us to reattach to the story because that is the only way that the ego stays alive I had an experience that really opened my eyes recently many of you know I have a part-time nanny job and I have been wanting to let this job go for over a year but I stayed because of certain situations I'm not gonna get into details but but I decided to stay well we're at a point now where it would be easier for me to leave this job and I have many of you know I have had struggles with building and publishing my website I have also I have put this off I've dodged this for over a year and the timing of when I wanted to leave my job and build my website is is the same and and I didn't I didn't realize that there was a huge energetic cord and that my website was symbolic it was symbolic of my growth into working for myself instead of working for someone else it was symbolic in forward progress and forward movement and the energetic tie that I have to working for someone else was preventing me from moving forward with this when I realized that I had a moment of extreme emotion and I was just I was just like completely bulldozed over by this realization that oh my gosh I am literally hanging on to the cord that is preventing me from moving forward and so I did it I faced my fear I took the leap I talked to the both the parents and this family I told them what was going on because I'm doing so much I have so much on my plate it's starting to affect my mental and physical health and I need to let something go and the only thing that I can logically let go right now is my nanny job and so I did it I mean I'm still there I'm going to be there for another month or so ago until the person that replaces me is is able to take over but the cord was cut the tie was cut and almost immediately I had this urge and this like desire to work on my website and you guys I hate technology I hate it I have so little time that the thought of having to wrap my mind around learning something new especially technology pisses me right off it's like I don't have the freaking time for this shit I just don't but I don't have the money to outsource it yet you know that's that that's that's the transition that's part of the transition of work going from working for someone else to working for yourself you have all of these little things that you have to work through and go through and part of that journey is work in 24 seven because you still have to do everything with your house you can't hire out a nanny you can't hire out housework you got to pay for that or you got to do that stuff yourself because you can't pay someone else to do it because you're not bringing in that that income to be able to afford that so I do all the cleaning I do all the cooking all the errands all the grocery shopping all of the homeschooling all of the stuff with my business all the stuff with my YouTube channel like I do everything and I've added a stronger on top of it and it's just your soul is like here so the fact that I had this desire to work on my website was indicative of the release of that that energetic tie and I was so excited I was so excited and I had this past Thursday I had cleared my schedule I was planning on taking the entire day and working on pieces that I'm writing on to put on my website and uploading all of pictures of all of my certifications from my all my classes and just you know all these different things I had all these creative ideas flowing and this was the first time that this this was that it wasn't a fight to get myself to do anything with it and I was so excited about it well Wednesday night I was triggered I was triggered so badly that it caused a CPTSD episode my body went into full fight or flight mode my blood pressure was 151 over 97 and my resting heart rate was 98 like my body was in the thick of it and there is nothing I can do to stop that once it started I just have to wait it out and you know there are certain things that that I learned to do over the years when I was triggered to calm my nervous system down so I can get the process I shortened the process to about two or three days it used to be like a week or more that I that I would have to take to recover and I realized yesterday in talking with someone about this that holy shit that was my freaking ego because what I was triggered over was a nothing burger it was literally a nothing burger so can we pause on this for one second because I want to kind of explain what she's saying I want to I want us to pull this apart even more because I see this a lot in the spiritual world as the real no real spirituality is not rainbows and butterflies real spirituality is like cow shit and cobwebs and haunted forests like it's not you know you don't get to the rainbows and butterflies until you made your way through and you can't go around the forest you got to go through it you know you got to clean the muck off of you so I was telling me this morning I was take I took a bar class this morning and in the middle of our class Marnie Alton who I love said said something and she and she says really poignant things a lot like I can tell she's really worked on herself because she's obviously made these real that he's these self-realizations and then she shares them in her teaching she says and I actually took a bill a bill I'm going to try to hide my address here a bill and I wrote it down in a sharpie in the middle of it's not the nicest handwriting so like I have to pause this and write this down because we see this so much and this is what me is explaining we see this a lot in the healing arts if you've come this far and you're on the precipice of change don't go back from where you came from and the reason why that hit me so hard it's what any is saying this is what we think about we first walk into spirituality sometimes I think we don't understand what the ego is we think the ego we think like narcissism we think of the jock we think of like the big personalities that's not what ego is that's one flavor of an ego but the ego can also be the quiet guy in the corner that's wearing a bunch of mullabies the ego can also be a CPTSD symptom that's been triggered by the ego and what what what do I mean by this so when we come into healing practices or shadow work we want the change we know something is wrong and so we want to go on this path to to make the change but what starts to happen is when change starts to happen good or bad it's just change we tend to go oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit and we run back to where it was awful because where we came from because we know that that's the awful we know we're comfortable with that awful that's the old pair of slippers it's the old pair of slippers it's where we've been so we know it even though we might hate it mm-hmm we know what it's predictable and the ego went when it's things are predictable the false sense of self can thrive but if we're coming into this precipice of change and that change happens and we're not sure we doesn't know what's gonna happen once her website is built she knows her soul is calling for her to do this but this soul it's you know we have soul contracts but it's not like you're born and God comes out like here's your contract here's an outline no we were having to that's part of the journey is is facing the unexpected and going into the unknown but the ego knows that if you're relying solely on your faith solely on what your intuition is your intuition is not your ego right your gut feeling is not your ego that's your soul's voice that's God's voice so the ego goes oh hell no I'm gonna start pressing these because the ego controls the mind right it controls the survival and so it goes I'm gonna start pressing these buttons that I know this person has so I have caught both of them and I both have CPTSC which is complex post-matic stress disorder and she's right when you do have a CPTSD episode you can't just go for a five minute walk and be fine like your body starts to shut down you I start shaking uncontrollably I can't focus on anything sometimes I have to be held I have a weight blanket and so that sometimes the ego the ego is that crafty that where it will slightly come in and go oh yeah you think you're gonna do something that's gonna not require me how about now that's what he's talking about and this is and I and I said I mean I was talking about before we came on the the more you go down this path of understanding your own fault sense of self the craftier yes it has to get and I wanted I wanted to shift blame I wanted to place the blame on my husband because he triggered me and and when I say it was a nothing burger he said one thing and he five minutes later he apologized for it but I was already off and running my ego took that because because I wasn't aware of it I and that's how sneaky it gets I've been in and out of recovery programs for 22 years so I've been familiar with shadow work for a very long time and I've been familiar with ego and the way it works and how it comes into play for a very long time and it doesn't matter how long you've been doing this work it will find another way and then you have to come to that realization and and move a little bit farther and then it will find another way and you have to come there is never going to be an end to your shadow work as long as you're in a human body you're gonna have to be dealing with ego it's just what it is there you're never gonna be done you don't reach a space where tada my ego is it's gone no it's just gonna get your ego in the beginning of your journey is very noticeable and you start to understand that oh so my ego is literally so literally in a very basic sense your ego is who you are you know Bryce I mean that's the fault sense of self that's the the hologram that your soul has created the Shakti the Shiva as we talked about with Cindy for the soul to know itself it's the tango right and the ego then of course comes into the nervous system the pants my pain is real because we're using that we're using the ego that resistance of the ego to trigger the friction needed but as again it's so at the very beginning you kind of go through that oh my god that crumbling of reality well I'm not really Bryce I'm not really this person I'm well then who am I and then it's almost like the ego becomes a sniper for the special forces unit because all the sudden you've become you've upgraded so now that the egos your opponent is gonna have to upgrade to right and so it is it does get very very tricky that's where spirit spiritual egos the ego dresses up can we explain that to me what's a spiritual ego what's the character the ego takes when we go into the realm of spiritual ego spiritually artfully dodging so when we come into the spiritual community and we're exposed to these different ideas of being and this is just one example of being a light worker or a star seed and a lot of times light workers and star seeds have had really rough lives we have been beaten down we have been belittled we have been abused we have been in situations where we have been powerless continuously powerless and so we come into a spiritual community and we start finding people that we resonate with and these labels that are going around like light worker and star seed and it can be very very attractive to trying to find out who you are and we can almost and this is where spiritual ego comes in it's like oh I've been this nothing my whole life well I'm actually something I'm actually somebody oh well you know I'm a light worker I'm a star seed and then if you if you know I've seen people put so much emphasis on this on titles like that that they're presenting themselves as some type of see I don't want to step on any toes because this is such a touchy touchy subject when I see what you're so like so like you can be I know that both me and I most of us watching our star seeds most of us watching our light workers like this is part of what our soul decided to do but when you solely identify is that and it gives you power you feel power over others then that's another that's another trick of the ego right that's another trick of the ego and so you have to there's a way to be these things without also being these things at the same time I'm gonna bring what you just said trigger to memory I'm gonna bring something that I said earlier back into the statement again Aaron Abki says that the ego is the act of identifying so you know we're identified as these people who before we came to the spiritual community people who were oppressed and abused we identified that that's our story well we come into the spiritual community well now I'm a light worker I'm identifying as a light worker I'm identifying as a star seed I am this this is who I am that's ego that's spiritual ego the act of identifying with anything other than the Christ you are the Christ everyone is the Christ we are all fractals of God no one is better or worse or less than anyone else it's just where we're at in our remembering and embodying that remembering that's why that's why I mean I I you know we talk a lot off the phone about like past life existence and stuff and you can have a deep respect for your past lives because there was a lesson to be learned but that's why I also especially for people who are new to spirituality I don't as a as an ashtanga teacher I don't even want them like looking at that because it's just another label it's just another label and it's just it was just another experience that your your soul decided to do it's for it to know itself and that's why I love in the yoga world it's like the whole point of yoga is finding the nothing Ram Das has has a documentary in a series talk where he talks about trying to be nobody we as he says in the talk like we spend our whole lives trying to be somebody be the best lawyer be the best attorney be the best yoga teacher be the best reiki healer be the best this the best that well what if you try to be nobody what if you use these things use the shadow work use the experience as a very personal thing to be nobody and I know that that sounds for someone who's new to spirituality that might sound depressing but to me that sounds actually liberating because when you're you go back to the soul you have no bondage yeah it's very freeing it's it's very freeing when you can let go of all the labels you're attached to you know I was very much attached to the label of victim I played a victim very very well very very well you know I I endured stuff in my childhood that created this created this attachment of trauma bonding in my nervous system and from then on I attracted those types of people in friendships in partnerships in work collaboration I attracted the energy signature I was putting out and it's just so freeing when you can let go of the identity I'm not a victim I'm not a victim at all I am I am a fractal of God like everyone else on this planet living out the story of Emmy yeah that's it and I'm trying to you know learn about myself through this filter I'm just a filter yeah oh that was beautiful but you say it yeah and that's why that's one thing that bothers me about a little bit about our community our quote unquote true their community is that we're so attached to the story of this timeline and true spirituality will tell you that being happy and being at peace is you internally being at peace despite what's happening outside of you so I've said before what if you found out that nothing was going to change for another ten years are you at peace with that because if you're not then there's where your work lies is how do you find that peace within you when everything else is so chaotic outside of you and are you looking for that's one thing that I blame a lot with the church and a lot of religions is that it's giving you an external your salvation quote-unquote your peace is only giving to given to you from something outside of yourself which actually that's not what Yahshua taught anyway Yahshua Yahshua did not teach that he taught you that heaven was inside of you and so was hell they both were equally inside of you so when we look you know I say I said this to you Emmy like one realization I had like a couple weeks ago was are we replacing Jesus with the white hats to bring us salvation because if you're waiting for some I know this is going to make a lot probably gonna get a lot more death that's from this from this video but oh well if you're waiting for somebody outside of you to bring you what you think will fulfill you then you're gonna be waiting for the rest of your life it's no different what are they called what are they called drug addicts they're chasing the dragon you're gonna be chasing the dragon for the rest of your life because nothing outside of you is ever going to heal you you have to heal yourself and you do that by leaning into the dancing in the shadows looking taking a long hard look at yourself and that ego is gonna artfully dodge and it's gonna try to fight you at every every every every step of this journey there's it's gonna be it's very crafty it's very sneaky and but but it's saying that there's your resistance if Emmy had not had the situation that she had this week she would she learned more about herself in that process when she realized what was going on so in that way thank you ego thank you for showing me something else about myself and yes as we were saying the ego can cause all sorts of physical limitations all sorts of physical reactions in order to stop you you know I see the art we were laughing earlier this week I totally my my spiritual I my my artful dodger my ego got real crafty this week in a different way from Emmy where I got up in the morning and I as I say I kind of piddled around for a little bit before I get on my mat and I had a the show special forces on because it's all these celebrities doing this marine military type training and I started watching it and the whole time my ego was like look at that shadow work man I want to do what they're doing this is incredible and my fucking Matt was sitting right there waiting for me and all of a sudden I realized the time and I was like well holy shit I have to now go take a shower because I have a show with Shanti soon like and my map so my my artful dodger was like we're gonna watch other people getting their asses kicked and see what's coming up for them and we're gonna remark on how great they are and how we want to do this ourselves instead of actually getting on the fucking mat and doing it and as you know today guys like when Emmy and I were kids like the TV show came on when it came on and if you weren't home to record it on a VHS you missed it but that's not true today I could have watched that episode after I was done practicing but my my artful dodger was like no we're gonna watch it at five o'clock in the morning because that's when you should because that's when everybody watches TV right you know and ignore the fact that your yoga mat is literally sitting right there waiting for you to do your own so you're gonna remark on how you want to do this and I find this a lot too like people will do that they will you know how many times have people joined a yoga Shala are gone to a Reiki person and they back out because they their intention their ego is like let's do this we're gonna do this and all of a sudden let's not do it so it's a bypassing right and so with that come with that being said I you know for you guys doing the 60-day challenge knowledge is power knowledge protects and knowledge is infinite the only person that's really going to be able to calm the beast of your ego is you right and so if you're but if you're not aware of what that looks like then it's gonna get it's gonna have if you're not aware of what it looks like it's gonna have an easy job but if you make it hard for it make that ego work for it like make it like and then you challenge it and you you know and we see it a lot I see a lot with injury and I wanted to cover this as well because I've got some more questions about injury and I'm not saying that you don't have to that you don't modify yes if you've injured yourself absolutely you're gonna be modifying in your exercise okay I'm not saying that you're gonna break your ankle and then go run a marathon that's ridiculous but a lot of times people we use injury as the artful Dodger will come in and say oh well we sprained our ankle so we're not gonna do anything for a while no well your arms are still okay you could do arm stuff weight stuff I use that when I first started a few months ago with Ostronga I was like oh you know what I've had major abdominal surgery there's a lot of ab work in Ostronga I shouldn't be doing this well that's a bunch of bullshit I just got I just got myself some compression tank top so I have like a built-in belly brace and fine yeah I was like oh people were braces all the time they weren't they weren't e-braces they were you know it's it's you know but of course like so Emmy because she's had those issues if she were my student in Atlanta like if she were coming to the Shala I would want to know those things because that informs how I teach her so obviously I'm not going I'm gonna be aware that there's there is a gross body a physical body weakness because of and there's probably gonna be emotional stuff come up from it too because that's all traumatic you know anytime your body gets hacked open that's a trauma you know and so it's it's you know Emmy we had a conversation off camera this week about Kundalini and I've told you guys that my back my back bending I've punched a teacher coming out of a back then it's been you know what before I started Ostronga when I was doing the fake yoga they would because it had back surgery they would tell me not to do back bending but when I got to Ostronga and I said oh I've had back surgery they're like oh then more back bending that's where we focus with you and I was like fuck you know I punched a teacher and all this but that's where I've had the sensation of Kundalini is in deep back bending so these these issues that you have in your body your first of all your body is is made to change and so nobody is ever going to go through life or any type of exercise program without experiencing some sort of injury but the way we see it in Ostronga yoga is that injury trauma is a teacher it's not a bad thing now again we don't want to be reckless in our practice but we also want to be okay so I keep hurting my ankle in this practice what is that telling me what do I need to learn what is what is my psyche trying to tell me let me let me investigate this more you know David Green has a beautiful video about it where he talks about like there is karmic there is karma stuff that's gonna have to come up and that might result in you having a shoulder injury for little bucks there's a karmic issue there right that you need to look at and karma is not nothing to fear it's just cause and effect it's just your work it's what you signed up for it's your body in your body will not lie what what prompted me to look at my ego with the PTSD trigger is some muscle issues around my right hip well the hip is all about moving forward and forward movement and it's it's your foundation it's your it's where you're going and the right side is masculine technology is masculine it's like holy frickin shit are you kidding me like my ego just ripped me right the f out like I am blown away at how this this happened and how this works it's just like wow just the body doesn't lie you guys we ourselves all we want but the body is never gonna lie so if you're so let's say like you have you're someone who's constantly dealing with knee issues well have you looked into what knee issues mean spiritually what is your body trying to communicate with you and that's not necessarily a bad thing that might be where you're going to grow the most where that friction that spark of light happens so if you end up having an injury and you find yourself trying to send me an excuse or send me an email as to why you can't do something because you stumped your big toe is that you your soul sending that email or giving that excuse or is that you giving into the art for Dodger that's for you to decide you know if you and the level of self-honesty I mean you you can you can convince other people of things you can be honest with other people but when you have to get to this level of honesty with yourself it is it is really it really perpetuates your growth when you can be honest with yourself because you could get away with a lot of stuff but when you it comes to being honest with yourself about things it's like you stop it yourself you stop it yourself yeah and I think that we we use sickness we use injury I mean the awful Dodger is literally going to find anything I can it's going to be digging through all of the filing cabinets of your life you know I people use their age a lot as an excuse and you know if you're in your 80s obviously you're not going to go run a marathon your first week of doing this challenge not saying it's not possible if you're in your 80s I know a lot of people in their 80s who are very physically fit but you can still do a 10 minute bar video you can still start the process you know because it is quality over quantity anyway you know so it's some it's it's just it's a tricky one you know people will intentionally I've seen this happen a lot they'll intentionally stay up late blaming that on something else just so they don't have to get up in practice in the morning because they didn't get enough sleep well who's forcing you to stay up late and ask for help too because you know sometimes especially when you're first getting into this it's good to bounce things off of other people you know because sometimes sometimes you shouldn't practice and you should really know the difference between types of pain like like muscle pain and soreness and ligament and tendon pain and soreness is is normal in a growing exercise practice that's normal but kinds of pain that like causes like searing shooting hot things like inside your joints like really that is an indication that there is something else that needs to be and you should not push through that yeah if you're having if you if you feel like you have an injury and you feel like you're using that as an excuse not to exercise just bounce it off some some other people ask ask questions ask for help asking for help huh wait a signal group yeah and asking there asking for help is a sign of strength not a sign of weakness yeah and I will say so when I when my arthritis got really bad around the same time I broke my sacrum my teacher in India put me on a four-day a week exercise our practice schedule versus six so he wanted my body to rest two extra days during the week because of what I was going through so there is and you can always ask but I I would definitely so unlike our stronger yoga we say that you're not allowed to have an opinion on the practice for the first ten years because you're still learning so much and the artful dodger comes in and so I would say that's what Emmy saying is really good advice just ask someone so if something is confusing you just to make sure it's not the artful dodger to make sure it's not yourself tripping yourself up ask ask away you know ask away you know we we talked about this last challenge a lot of times people will use their kids as an excuse not to do something and every single person at AYA has children and they come in every morning you know so so instead of you know it might be that you do have a child that needs your attention early in the morning and therefore you might have to shift your your practice time to a later time that's okay you can do that but don't don't put that responsibility off on your children or off on someone else because if it's important to you you will make time and yes and you can you can you can train I don't want to say train your kids but it's almost like train you can train your kids to respect your time when I first started in my recovery program one of the disciplines we do is a half an hour of quiet time in the morning well my son was three at the time and a three year old needs attention in the morning and and I really wanted to devote the time and effort to this program I really wanted to put the work in because people before me said if I put the work in I will see change and I wanted to change so what I ended up doing was I he couldn't read yet so I drew pictures of what he could do and I put it in a plastic sleeve on my bedroom door and I taped it to my door when I was in there having quiet time and it took probably a few weeks of coming to the door when he would have his little meltdown and whatnot and say buddy look at this sheet this is what you can do when mama's in here I'm gonna come out don't worry about I'm gonna come out okay and just the repetition the repetition the repetition the repetition and being willing to be interrupted being willing to calmly tell him hey no this is what mama's doing right now and he got used to it yeah well you stand that you're coming back you prove to that it will be over and you're coming back I mean we have art we have people that bring their kids into the shower and they sit at the wall in a color while their parents practice and I know a lot of you in the last challenge your kids join you and they were all they joined you and that's incredible because you're and think about this I mean think about this is heavy too is like because your child was three when you started doing that your kids learn by watching you so what an incredible opportunity for your youngest child to watch you oh yeah he takes he goes alone by himself when he's angry because he knows that works quiet time works for him and so he will about the worst outburst I get I mean he yells and makes noise and stuff and he'll say the worst he says is I want a long time leave me alone okay all right thank you buddy you know you go do you and come back and talk to me when you are able to talk and use your your normal voice and that's what he does and and I let him have his little outburst because he knows what he can do to go calm himself down and he goes and takes 10 15 minutes and he comes back I'm sorry for being mad at you mom he's gonna make the best husband and father one day because that's what that's what we're be that what be the be the change you want to see in the world right like you know and so if your kids are seeing you take time to heal yourselves guess what they're gonna do guess what they're gonna learn how to do heal themselves and I want to make this clear your child came to this earth with their own karmic journey so don't feel like by me saying that it means you're screwed your kids up we all decide to and incarnate into human beings to go through our own lessons and so you are teaching you are giving your children the tool that they're gonna need to go through their own lives and that's amazing that's it's that's one thing I'm really grateful my mother wasn't my mother exercised a lot growing up now yes she did have some eating issues but she taught my sister me the value of exercise and yes this was before I understood the exercise was a modality of healing but I learned that by watching her she was on all these tennis teams I remember sitting at the back of the Jazzercise gym watching her do Jazzercise like I added Richard Simmons back to this baby because that she did I remembered watch watching her doing those Richards so my mother gave us that my sister is very active even though my sister doesn't do spiritual stuff like we do she's very active and it's because I think it really is because we watched our mother do it and it became you know we're using exercise as a way to heal your soul but even if you're just using exercise as a way to make your body healthy that's the body is where the soul lives the body is the as the great instigator of the soul in this life and so even if you know your husband or your spouse just use exercise simply as a way to make their health better we already know most even like people who aren't on a spiritual journey know that exercise could relieve stress and so just on the very simplest of levels before you get complex into the spiritual stuff you are just setting such an incredible by taking in that time to show your child that you're gonna do a 30-minute bar video or you're gonna do a half an hour of yoga holy shit your kid might not like it now but that's gonna leave in imprints on them and when they're in college or when they have whatever happens them in life they're gonna be like you know what I need to go I need to go take a yoga class or I need to go and it's because you led by example and so I want to I want I really want to reiterate that with everybody because your kids are watching and so let them let them see what it means to be a badass and it takes courage to do this it takes a lot of courage I know I wanted to talk a little bit about more about aerobic and anaerobic but maybe we can do that in a second video with the next upcoming week because I think this is a lot to talk about with the artful Dodger and all that kind of stuff so and where I think we're about an hour now so we might be over an hour I never know I could talk to Emmy all day so but so guys so if you have any questions about the artful Dodger let us know in the comment section below and we will try to help you through that again if you want to join the 60 day challenge send me an email at shadowworkchallenge at gmail.com and just put I meant and once I get finished editing it up tonight I will start sending the templates out I will be putting up so the evening before the next day so Friday this upcoming Friday January 20th I will be posting day one of the challenge on which is Saturday's day and this Saturday I'll post Sunday Sunday I'll post Monday and so forth I think the participating challenge will also be doing that so you'll also have a reference point from our YouTube channels last challenge I did daily videos I'm not going to be doing daily videos this challenge because it's 60 days so it's a lot so I'll probably do be doing weekly updates or every few days and it will be back on we'll be talking about the subjects that we're talking about that week to give you guys kind of a feat to help you work through it all that kind of stuff so is there anything you want to end with any um oh the very first day of the challenge is the very first group Reiki session it's on the new moon it's on January 21st Saturday January 21st at 2 p.m. Eastern I'm gonna create a zoom link and I can share it with should should I create all the zoom links and put them in the ones that you want send it to me I yeah just create the zoom links and email it to me before and before tonight now put out whoops I'll add it to the template okay and then yeah and then I'll also post the I'm also gonna post a zoom link on my social medias and my YouTube community page and in the signal group as well just to to give people up because I think I might create a separate group for people who are interested in doing the group Reiki so I have a centralized place to keep it organized yeah yeah so and and the theme for for this new moon is is our one word mantra for the year and then we're gonna do a guided meditation and Reiki healing to embody that so bring your journals because I'm gonna have a couple of journal journaling prompts for you to to guide you to your one word you know everyone everyone's gonna have a different word I mean some of us might have the same word I've already picked mine but yeah it's a it's a really powerful very helpful exercise and I think that it would it would really be beneficial for people to do this and it just so happened that it fell on the first day like this time all divine timing all right so I mean we'll set up those new links she'll send it to me I'll add them to the template so you have the zoom link on the template and I'll also put it on my community tab as well so you can also just click from there too these are all great tools there's a lot in this challenge guys and so a lot I said Emmy like I said Emmy contributed a lot to this challenge so did Shaunty we're all here to help you so don't don't ever reach out for help if you need it and these group shares with Reiki with Emmy are gonna be an incredible way to get that support also the signal group is a great way to get support before we end I'm just gonna say one thing that Sri Swami Satish Ananda says in his commentary the Yoga Sutra is what if you're still trying to figure out the ego as clean on to identity and separating it from the soul so you have a better understanding and I think this is brilliant what Sri Swami Satish Ananda recommends start changing your vocabulary like when you're tired instead of saying I'm tired say my body's tired you're hungry my body's hungry when you're sad my mind is sad when you're happy my mind is happy and so you start to understand that these experiences on a very subtle level are all just created experiences for your soul to know itself because your soul is that fractal of God that is always pure consciousness and pure love exactly and it can't be harmed the essence of who you are cannot be harmed so when when we're stuck on identifying with pain identifying with hurt identifying with things that people have done to us and we've hyper focus on those things and we create more and more and more hurt like what my body did with the PTSD I was putting an experience from the past and an overlay on top of the present when it was literally nothing nothing that that was so profound I am still like just shows you how clever that freaking ego is very very clever very clever so long as we're in a human body we will be having to work on the identifications that we have I love that definition of you I really have to and just know that I mean that's you're never gonna transcend your ego the minute you transcend your ego is when you die leave this ego behind again what happens guess what a new one so so you know it's just it is what it is and it's just that's why I love how Ram Dass just says see everything is interesting oh what happened to any interesting interesting oh that's so interesting so interesting and that's what happened what happened to me but mine wasn't as as dramatic as Amy this week with the whole TV show but I was I was I thought it was hysterical once I realized what had happened I was like well I'm a dumbass like okay you got me on that one you artful Dodger you got me on that one I'll give you that like that was really clever that was so clever so you know but alright guys we love you all you guys can do it this is amazing I'm so excited to see the feedback to see what happens to each and every one of you personally over these 60 days and collectively over these 60 days you are the storm there is nobody that can save you you have to save yourself which is so powerful that's so powerful so alright you guys we love you and we'll talk to you soon bye everybody bye