Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: How do you think yoga has contributed to you being a better person?
Do you think you'd be the same person today without it?
[00:00:07] Speaker B: I don't know if I'd be the same.
I think there are some people who are born seekers and spiritual hunter gatherers, for better or worse.
I think I've always been a person who has been curious and driven to be a. Be a better me. So I don't know if I would be the same without yoga. This is just the path that this. That I've taken in this incarnation, this lifetime that is helping me to be more myself.
I think it's hard to say better, better person, Right? Because, like, I don't think I'm reaching to be a better person. I think what I'm reaching for is, man, I want to cry when I say this.
I want to know myself. I want to know what the heck I'm doing here.
I want to know what am I supposed to be doing?
[00:00:59] Speaker A: What is meaning? Maybe that's meaning clarity. Clarity.
[00:01:05] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, I don't like the words purpose, because I think this is another thing with yoga that sometimes gets me a little, is that people are like, oh, find your purpose, and everything will just be a smooth path. And it's like, that's not reality. Reality is that we live in systems that are breaking down and we live in a violent world, and we live in places where people clash with each other. I want to know my soul. That's what I want to know. I want to get as close to knowing myself as I can.
And yoga has been that path for me in this lifetime.
[00:01:41] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think that can hopefully inspire some people. For sure. Yeah.
[00:01:46] Speaker B: I think there's a fear there, too. I will say knowing, trying to know your soul is scary.
Right? It's terrifying because it's like, what if at the end of it, I realize that I am like a snarling, pernicious pack of wolves? Right. That's not true of any of us. I will say.
[00:02:07] Speaker A: We're evolved chimpanzees, Right?
[00:02:10] Speaker B: But, like, there is fear there. Of, like, I don't want to get too close to that answer because what if I can't handle it? Even though I know. I know on a universal level that I can.
But that's what I think I'm here to do.
[00:02:27] Speaker A: Awesome.
[00:02:28] Speaker B: And I think yoga is a good tool for that. But I think there's other tools for that, too.
Yoga got me into therapy. It made me go to therapy because I hit this point in my practice where I was Like, I had a breakdown and I was like, oh, right, yoga's not the silver bullet. It's not the magic pill. And it is not going to save me from myself.
And really, by saying save me from myself, I'm saying save me from the cultural conditioning that I received, the familial conditioning, the intergenerational trauma that belonged to my ancestors that is now residing in me.
But therapy is. I shouldn't say did. It is. I'm still doing it.
But I hit this point in my practice where I was like, oh, I need help. I need someone who is. A yoga teacher is not trained to do this. A yoga teacher is not trained to help move someone through trauma. You know, as much as I love that we have practices in yoga to help people who have trauma, we're not therapists.
And it made me realize I needed to go to therapy. And it's been such a blessing. And boy, if I could give.
Like, you, like earlier in the, in our interview, you said if you could tell those teenagers who are practicing yoga to, like, stick with it. If I could go back and tell my, My younger self anything, it would be, go to therapy when you're 20. Start now. Because.
[00:03:58] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I guess just to, like, pick up on this thought thread, if you don't mind, is like, because hearing your words, like, in my mind, the image that's being created is. Yoga is a system that can help peel the layers to reveal, like, what's, what's true, like, what's actually within you. And maybe that's what if, if, if, if that isn't enough for certain people for, for whatever reason, like, that can also be like, an excellent tool to then, if you start therapy or enter therapy, what you're bringing to therapy is a more authentic version, a more aware version of yourself for someone to hold up a mirror and for you to get that valuable perspective, that additional insight.
And so that's where the. Sometimes you got to combine two tools in order to meet, like, a certain, like, objective or to make a certain thing.
