Latest / Sukany4: The Walk and Talk Podcast / Rowan Carr - Cogra Moss - Black Body Heart Mind, Somatic Healing, and Finding Peace in the Lakes

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Rowan Carr - Cogra Moss - Black Body Heart Mind, Somatic Healing, and Finding Peace in the Lakes · Sukany4: The Walk and Talk Podcast

0:00
SPEAKER_02: Hi everyone, I'm your host Sakanya and I can't wait to share this episode, season three, episode seven of Sakanya the Podcast with you.
0:10
SPEAKER_02: What's the difference between releasing trauma and actually transforming it?
0:15
SPEAKER_02: How do we build resilience to harm that's still to come?
0:19
SPEAKER_02: And what does ancient yoga philosophy have to teach us about healing in today's world?
0:25
SPEAKER_02: Today I'm walking through Cobra Moss with Rowan Carr, founder and creator of Black Body Heart Mind, a somatic anti-racism practice to explore exactly these questions.
0:39
SPEAKER_02: Rowan's journey is extraordinary, from forklift driver to the first in his family with a university degree, from frontline racial justice work in Birmingham that burnt him out to finding healing in the peaceful fowls of Cumbria.
0:55
SPEAKER_02: He's integrated everything: academic knowledge, lived experience, tantric yoga, somatic healing, into a practice that works.
1:06
SPEAKER_02: We talk about his three pillars, empowered recognition, somatic processing, and embodied resilience, the three centres of body, heart and mind, and why letting go doesn't transform what's underneath.
1:22
SPEAKER_02: And then just as we were getting deeper into Rowan's anti-racism work, we were stopped by someone questioning where we're from, but where we're really from, because local didn't give him what he wanted, and in his words, that doesn't tell me where your skin colour is from.
1:42
SPEAKER_02: I mean the timing captures exactly why this work matters.
1:47
SPEAKER_02: Whether you navigate racialized trauma, want to understand it better, you're curious about embodiment and social justice, or you're open to learning about something totally new to you, this episode will definitely shift something in you.
2:03
SPEAKER_02: Let's walk.
2:11
SPEAKER_02: Hi Brian!
2:12
SPEAKER_01: Hi Sanya.
2:13
SPEAKER_02: How are you doing?
2:14
SPEAKER_02: I'm good.
2:15
SPEAKER_02: Good.
2:16
SPEAKER_02: Thanks for inviting me to this part of the world.
2:18
SPEAKER_02: Where are we?
2:19
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, you're welcome.
2:20
SPEAKER_05: It's Kogramos.
2:22
SPEAKER_05: Cogramoss.
2:23
SPEAKER_05: Cogramoss, yeah, just that sort of lampla.
2:25
SPEAKER_02: Oh, is that how you said lampla?
2:27
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
2:28
SPEAKER_02: I was trying to I was reading the sign thinking I'm not sure.
2:31
SPEAKER_05: You never know, the locals may pronounce it differently, but that's how I pronounce it.
2:35
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
2:36
SPEAKER_02: Lampla, it's beautiful.
2:37
SPEAKER_05: It is, it is.
2:39
SPEAKER_05: Um it's got a nice little fishing pond that's it.
2:42
SPEAKER_05: Apparently, kind of I don't know, are sort of owned or sponsored by Cockmouth Fishing Group.
2:50
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
2:51
SPEAKER_05: Um, and it's got a rain wait and right as well.
2:54
SPEAKER_02: Oh cool.
2:54
SPEAKER_05: Uh Blake Fell.
2:55
SPEAKER_02: Blake Fell, okay.
2:56
SPEAKER_05: One of the smaller ones.
2:58
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
2:58
SPEAKER_05: Which we can't actually see at the moment because it's so great.
3:02
SPEAKER_02: Look at that.
3:03
SPEAKER_02: The drama.
3:05
SPEAKER_02: Look at this view, it's stunning.
3:07
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, straight over to Scotland.
3:08
SPEAKER_02: Oh wow.
3:09
SPEAKER_05: Across the Solway Coast.
3:11
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
3:11
SPEAKER_02: Oh, I know the Solway Coast from doing Pagan's Wall.
3:15
SPEAKER_02: Okay, yeah.
3:16
SPEAKER_02: That's where we started.
3:17
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
3:19
SPEAKER_02: Wow, look at that cloud.
3:21
SPEAKER_05: I've actually been up on Lake Fell once and the cloud came in like that.
3:24
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
3:25
SPEAKER_05: I thought I knew my way.
3:26
SPEAKER_00: Oh no.
3:27
SPEAKER_05: And I was coming, I thought I was coming down, but I was actually moving over onto these ones.
3:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
3:31
SPEAKER_05: Because the cloud was so low.
3:32
SPEAKER_02: Oh okay.
3:33
SPEAKER_05: I mean it's okay because I was still able to get to where I only did it.
3:36
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, well it is very disorientating.
3:39
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
3:40
SPEAKER_02: I find it disorientating in sunshine, so but I'm not very very expert at navigating.
3:46
SPEAKER_02: So how long have you lived in this area?
3:48
SPEAKER_05: Uh okay, so since 2013.
3:52
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
3:53
SPEAKER_05: Where did you move from?
3:54
SPEAKER_05: From Birmingham.
3:55
SPEAKER_05: From Birmingham.
3:56
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, can you not tell?
3:58
SPEAKER_02: How would how was that?
4:00
SPEAKER_02: Going from such a busy, vibrant place, not that this isn't vibrant, but you know, such a busy place to quite quite a big lifestyle change.
4:09
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, well it was um it was considered purposeful.
4:13
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
4:14
SPEAKER_05: Um we f originally came up to Cumbria on our honeymoon in 2002.
4:20
SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah.
4:21
SPEAKER_05: Um we just kind of fell in love with the spot and we then would just come to Cumbria every holiday that we got whilst working in Birmingham.
4:29
SPEAKER_05: We just decided that let's make a life up there.
4:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
4:32
SPEAKER_05: Uh so 2012 we kind of handed our notice in.
4:38
SPEAKER_05: Okay.
4:39
SPEAKER_05: Um I used to work at Bourneville College, okay, and my wife used to work at the University of Birmingham.
4:45
SPEAKER_05: Okay.
4:46
SPEAKER_05: We took jobs as campsite assistants in Estdale.
4:50
SPEAKER_05: Oh, did you?
4:50
SPEAKER_05: So if you've been to Estdale, you'll know how beautiful Estdale is.
4:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
4:53
SPEAKER_05: And we did six months basically cleaning toilets and cutting grass.
4:57
SPEAKER_05: It was good.
4:58
SPEAKER_05: We we worked four days and we had three days off.
5:00
SPEAKER_05: Uh-huh.
5:01
SPEAKER_05: Kind of did that to get our foot in the door.
5:02
SPEAKER_05: We look for jobs.
5:04
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, get to know the area.
5:05
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
5:06
SPEAKER_02: That's a really good idea.
5:07
SPEAKER_05: We kind of left our daughter in Birmingham.
5:09
SPEAKER_05: Oh well, was she like nine?
5:10
SPEAKER_05: I know no, she's she's like old enough to have left home and she hadn't we could joke with her now and say, like, you're obviously not going to leave home, so we are.
5:19
SPEAKER_05: So um we left her with her partner in our house in Birmingham and kind of moved up to here.
5:26
SPEAKER_05: So we had a kind of a fallback if things didn't work out.
5:29
SPEAKER_02: Amazing.
5:30
SPEAKER_02: What was the transition to what you're doing now for work?
5:33
SPEAKER_05: Wow, okay.
5:34
SPEAKER_05: So I've been through a number of transitions first, really.
5:37
SPEAKER_05: So whilst I was born in Birmingham, uh-huh, my mother moved me out of Birmingham, age eight, okay, in 1978.
5:45
SPEAKER_05: Um to Tamworth, Staffordshire.
5:47
SPEAKER_01: How old were we?
5:48
SPEAKER_05: Yes, I know.
5:49
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
5:50
SPEAKER_05: Uh to Tamworth, Staffordshire, yeah.
5:52
SPEAKER_05: Which in the 70s was still quite a rural location.
5:55
SPEAKER_05: It was considered a Birmingham overspill town.
5:57
SPEAKER_05: There was a river, there were woodlands, more farmland.
6:01
SPEAKER_05: They're quite famous for what's known as a sandy back pig.
6:04
SPEAKER_05: Oh, okay.
6:06
SPEAKER_01: Very good.
6:06
SPEAKER_05: I don't think I ever saw one, but yeah.
6:09
SPEAKER_05: So I kind of then grew up there from age eight and didn't really find my way back to Birmingham to be with my dad's side of my family when I was 18.
6:17
SPEAKER_05: Then my young adulthood was still in Tamworth, uh-huh, but like as I say, kind of travelling backwards and forwards to Birmingham at the same time.
6:24
SPEAKER_05: Left school, went into kind of warehouse work, okay, and I worked for he built uh companies that don't exist anymore, like MFI.
6:32
SPEAKER_05: Right.
6:32
SPEAKER_05: Did you remember MFI?
6:33
SPEAKER_01: No, I didn't know Safeway.
6:35
SPEAKER_05: And then kind of my first daughter was born, and it was the same year, and around about the same time as Stephen Lawrence was was brudely murdered, yeah.
6:43
SPEAKER_05: Okay, and I had this kind of like whoa, because it wasn't just me anymore.
6:46
SPEAKER_05: I'd always kind of looked after myself in terms of working around and living with racism, particularly in Tamworth in the 70s, because that's when national march national front marches were still quite common.
6:57
SPEAKER_05: Right.
6:57
SPEAKER_05: So, but when my daughter was born, I was like, and Stephen Lawrence was murdered, I was like, no way.
7:00
SPEAKER_05: So I wanted to do something about that.
7:02
SPEAKER_05: So I thought to myself, Roman car fortift truck driver, yeah.
7:05
SPEAKER_05: I don't think anybody's really gonna listen to me in terms of what I've got to say.
7:09
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, so what does that mean?
7:11
SPEAKER_05: Oh, that means I've got to go and what I like to call it, I've got to get the man's paper.
7:14
SPEAKER_05: I didn't mean the the ones with the pound signs on it, yeah.
7:17
SPEAKER_05: I meant you know the ones with the the crest from the universities on it.
7:21
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, so by 99 I'd secured a place at the University of Birmingham to do interdisciplinary African Studies degree.
7:29
SPEAKER_05: I was like 28 or 29.
7:30
SPEAKER_05: Okay.
7:31
SPEAKER_05: Um so I did that.
7:32
SPEAKER_02: How was that studying at the age of 28 after you've kind of had all this freedom and you don't have to sit down to read and study and well I realised when I went to kind of college first to get and do my access course to get to you, but I didn't know how I didn't know how to study.
7:48
SPEAKER_01: Oh morning.
7:49
SPEAKER_05: Um I actually didn't know how to study, so I had to learn how to do that.
7:53
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I'd have to learn how to read.
7:55
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I mean I could read, but I had to learn how to read for study and take information in and kind of learn to digest that.
8:02
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
8:03
SPEAKER_02: Um the critical thinking.
8:05
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
8:06
SPEAKER_05: So all of that kind of wasn't natural.
8:10
SPEAKER_05: Definitely, definitely.
8:11
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, but I was really, really driven.
8:13
SPEAKER_05: I was really, really determined.
8:15
SPEAKER_05: There was no way I was going to go to university and not complete.
8:18
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
8:19
SPEAKER_05: Um, so I did.
8:20
SPEAKER_05: I'll come out with the two one-ons.
8:22
SPEAKER_02: Ah, amazing, congratulations.
8:23
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it was you know, I think it's really important to celebrate these things, even if they happened a while ago.
8:29
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
8:30
SPEAKER_02: It's still such such an achievement.
8:32
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
8:34
SPEAKER_05: For me, it felt that way as well because on my dad's side of my family, the only other brother or family member, I've got two sisters as well.
8:42
SPEAKER_05: Uh, at that time I had five brothers as well.
8:45
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
8:45
SPEAKER_05: Um, the only other one who went to anything like that was my brother David, who went to central acting school in London.
8:53
SPEAKER_05: Um, and he's a successful actor now.
8:56
SPEAKER_01: Oh wow.
8:56
SPEAKER_05: Um, so but I was googling him.
8:59
SPEAKER_01: You certainly can, yeah, David Carr.
9:02
SPEAKER_05: Um, so yeah, and uh so I was the first one to actually go to university and get a degree within within my immediate family in that sense.
9:11
SPEAKER_02: So that's awesome.
9:12
SPEAKER_02: It was a big change.
9:13
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and just on that in terms of your parents, so I just want to talk about language.
9:19
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
9:19
SPEAKER_02: So so you your parents are from different cultural heritages.
9:24
SPEAKER_05: Yes.
9:24
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, is that the right way to say good money?
9:27
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, definitely.
9:28
SPEAKER_02: And is there a is there a right way to say things?
9:31
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, so I always re relate to myself as being as being black mixed heritage.
9:36
SPEAKER_05: I can't kick it now because you've got to stay with your people.
9:39
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
9:39
SPEAKER_05: Um so I relate to myself as being black mixed heritage.
9:42
SPEAKER_02: Mixed heritage.
9:43
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, but still preference with the word black because that's always been my experience.
9:50
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, okay.
9:50
SPEAKER_02: Oh, I see, okay.
9:52
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, so it w it wouldn't make no sense to me to say white mixed heritage.
9:54
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
9:55
SPEAKER_05: Because I've never been treated as white.
9:57
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
9:57
SPEAKER_05: I've always been treated as black.
9:59
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
9:59
SPEAKER_05: Even though I've, you know, mixed heritage.
10:01
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
10:01
SPEAKER_05: And I probably I don't like the term race because we as we know that that's a social construct and has no biological foundation whatsoever.
10:08
SPEAKER_05: So I don't say black mixed race, so I always say black mixed heritage.
10:12
SPEAKER_02: And that's that's kind of where I was going, because obviously in history people have used terms like uh mixed race and other not very pleasant ways of referring to people with dual heritage.
10:25
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
10:26
SPEAKER_02: And then there's there's also this um fairly recent term that's come out, um, both not half.
10:31
SPEAKER_02: Uh both not half.
10:32
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
10:32
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I mean it's more affirmative, isn't it?
10:34
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
10:35
SPEAKER_05: Because like half is kind of is taken away, isn't it?
10:39
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
10:40
SPEAKER_05: Um, but yeah, so I wouldn't if people feel comfortable and feel that that gives them a complete sense of self, yeah, then yeah, go for it.
10:48
SPEAKER_02: So I guess that's the point, isn't it?
10:49
SPEAKER_02: It's very personal.
10:50
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
10:51
SPEAKER_02: So it's down to that individual to drive that conversation.
10:55
SPEAKER_02: It's not for us to assume and put labels on people.
10:59
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, no, I'd agree, definitely.
11:01
SPEAKER_02: So the the way I would go about it is to ask someone, you know, how how do you prefer to identify yourself rather than say, oh hey, you're mixed race.
11:13
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
11:14
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
11:15
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and and you know, and it can it can even be, you know, deliberately made as an insult.
11:21
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, you know, I can remember times in my life when you know I've had you know people say, Yeah, you're but you're different, aren't you?
11:28
SPEAKER_05: Because you're not like you're different.
11:29
SPEAKER_05: You're you're not light because your skin is dark, yeah, yeah.
11:33
SPEAKER_02: Different thing.
11:33
SPEAKER_02: I've I've had people say to me that you're different.
11:36
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I just I can't wrap my head around it because I'm not different.
11:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, no.
11:41
SPEAKER_02: There's so many people that look like me, yeah, you know, so yeah, it just blows my mind.
11:46
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it and it actually it speaks to the lives experiences of the person saying it.
11:51
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, oh definitely.
11:52
SPEAKER_02: More than anything else.
11:54
SPEAKER_05: So yeah, for sure.
11:55
SPEAKER_05: I mean, you know, even because you know, my my my white biological mother was was of a certain age, and you know, even she unintentionally was a product definitely of the time.
12:07
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, one might argue that it doesn't really make a difference about what when what time it is, what year it is, because it's still very prevalent.
12:12
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, um, but I can remember her telling me when I was younger that she moved me out of out of Birmingham because she didn't want me to grow up like the rest of the blacks in Birmingham.
12:21
SPEAKER_02: So woman, how does that make you feel?
12:24
SPEAKER_05: Oh gosh, I suppose that that I was probably about maybe ten or a little.
12:28
SPEAKER_02: Oh okay, so you're pretty small.
12:29
SPEAKER_05: And you kind of just like you know, accept what your your parent might be telling you.
12:33
SPEAKER_05: It's only when I got older that I started to like question, you know, that kind of attitude or fundamental belief that she was holding.
12:41
SPEAKER_02: At that age, what do you know, right?
12:43
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's right.
12:44
SPEAKER_02: That's right.
12:44
SPEAKER_02: Back to what you were saying about ten minutes ago.
12:47
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, that's good.
12:48
SPEAKER_05: And well, from from university, because I really really found that hey, I really like this academia stuff.
12:54
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
12:54
SPEAKER_05: Um, and uh by that time my my wife had started working at um I can't remember the name of the next, but it's a Quaker meeting study centre in in Bourneville.
13:06
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
13:07
SPEAKER_05: Um and what is a Quaker meeting?
13:09
SPEAKER_05: Oh, so you know, well the Quakers actually founded in Cumbria.
13:12
SPEAKER_02: Oh, were they?
13:13
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
13:14
SPEAKER_05: So they are you know a religious organisation, but they accept anybody of any faith into their kind of organisation.
13:21
SPEAKER_05: We can go this way.
13:22
SPEAKER_02: This is stunning.
13:23
SPEAKER_02: It is, isn't it?
13:24
SPEAKER_02: Oh my goodness, the way this just opens up, it's just amazing.
13:27
SPEAKER_02: Um I cannot stop smiling.
13:30
SPEAKER_02: Which one's Blake's?
13:31
SPEAKER_02: Blake's what?
13:31
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, that's Blakefell, right?
13:33
SPEAKER_02: Blakefell, sorry.
13:34
SPEAKER_02: So atmospheric with the clouds.
13:36
SPEAKER_05: It is, it's it's it's whatever the weather, we've we've been here when it's been snow on the ground.
13:40
SPEAKER_05: Wow, uh it's always just a beautiful walk.
13:43
SPEAKER_05: And as you can see, really kind of quiet.
13:45
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's stunning.
13:46
SPEAKER_02: It's another one to add to the list.
13:48
SPEAKER_02: Apart from the really scary sort of single track roads, when you approach these places to park, apart from that sweaty moment.
13:56
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
13:57
SPEAKER_02: Once you get here, it's amazing.
13:59
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it is worth it's worth that stressful size.
14:02
SPEAKER_02: It is a stressful time.
14:03
SPEAKER_05: It really is a hidden gem, I feel.
14:05
SPEAKER_02: It really is.
14:06
SPEAKER_02: Wow, look at the way the mountains are kind of shadowed in the water because the water's so still.
14:11
SPEAKER_02: And is it a reservoir?
14:12
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I I'm not sure if it's a reservoir used for like water filtration or if it's just kind of pond.
14:18
SPEAKER_05: Okay.
14:19
SPEAKER_05: You know, that we'll have to look it up.
14:21
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, because it's very close to Enerdale because Enerdale is just a bit further on, yeah.
14:25
SPEAKER_05: Which is obviously a water reservoir.
14:27
SPEAKER_05: Um, but so I was interacting with with with Quakers who where my where my wife was working out, and um I came across a very lovely lady who at the time was the uh the chair for Joseph Roundtree's Racial Justice Committee.
14:42
SPEAKER_05: Okay.
14:43
SPEAKER_05: And I'd already started working, after finishing my degree, I kind of started working with uh inner city black youth around black culture, identity, that kind of stuff.
14:53
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
14:54
SPEAKER_05: And she knew my interest was really strong and I wanted to go on to do a master's.
14:58
SPEAKER_05: Okay.
14:58
SPEAKER_05: So I'd actually applied to Warwick University at their centre for research in Race and Ethnic Studies to do my master's there.
15:06
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
15:06
SPEAKER_05: And obviously, I wasn't gonna get funding, so I was kind of like trying to work.
15:10
SPEAKER_05: And Marian, Marianne McNaughton, the chair of Josie Franch's Virtual Justice Committee, had definitely met me a couple of times, and it just so happened uh her mother had recently passed away and she left some money and she wanted her daughter to use the money for somebody's education.
15:27
SPEAKER_01: Oh, amazing!
15:28
SPEAKER_05: And she had she said, like, well, I've got this money, and yeah, I'd like to kind of like sponsor you and give it to you for you to do your master's.
15:36
SPEAKER_02: What a great way to spend your sort of your estate, great way to give back with your estate.
15:42
SPEAKER_02: I love that.
15:42
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, definitely, definitely.
15:44
SPEAKER_05: So I did, and I complete my master's, and I also um Marion invited me then to have a seat on Joseph Roundtree's Racial Justice Committee, uh-huh.
15:53
SPEAKER_05: And I had a seat for two terms, which was six years in total.
15:56
SPEAKER_02: So, what does it mean to have a seat on a committee?
15:59
SPEAKER_05: Okay, so basically they would have a funding part.
16:02
SPEAKER_05: Um Joseph Roundtree have a number of different committees, uh, truth and reconciliation, uh stuff around Ireland as well.
16:09
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
16:09
SPEAKER_05: And we've got to go back, this is like in like the early noughties.
16:12
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
16:12
SPEAKER_05: And then the Racial Justice Committee, and we would have like a part of three odd million, four odd million pounds, uh-huh.
16:18
SPEAKER_05: And we would receive applications from black-led, black and brown-led organisations that were uh working in some way to kind of ease the the pressures of systemic racism.
16:31
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
16:31
SPEAKER_05: And basically the applications would come in and the committee would come together uh two to three, yeah, two to three times a year.
16:39
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
16:39
SPEAKER_05: And we'd basically decide and I'd get to put my two pence worth in as to which organization I felt would be most deserving of receiving the grants.
16:48
SPEAKER_05: Okay, okay.
16:49
SPEAKER_05: So yeah, so it was contributing to to organisations through saying, yeah, I think they should receive the money that they're looking for.
16:57
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and is that by invite to be on a committee?
17:01
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it was, yeah, yeah.
17:03
SPEAKER_02: Cool.
17:04
SPEAKER_05: Um and again, because Marian, you know, knew me and she kind of had that investment in me as well, and yeah, and I've done my master's and uh you know came up with a distinction.
17:12
SPEAKER_02: Oh amazing, well done.
17:14
SPEAKER_02: Congratulations, Rather.
17:16
SPEAKER_02: Well done.
17:16
SPEAKER_02: Sounds a bit weird.
17:17
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
17:18
SPEAKER_05: Um yes, you knew that I was highly invested in in kind of racial justice issues, and uh well, it helped me as well because you know I learned a lot of way committees and funding organisations work, and yeah, and met some really interesting people from all over the country that are doing racial justice work back in the early noughties.
17:37
SPEAKER_05: And are you still connected with those people?
17:40
SPEAKER_05: Yes, yeah, uh small kind of loosely now.
17:43
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I haven't seen Marion for a long time.
17:44
SPEAKER_05: We did see her when we moved up here, yeah.
17:46
SPEAKER_05: She came and we spent a few days with her.
17:48
SPEAKER_01: That's nice.
17:49
SPEAKER_05: And also Lisa, like I said, Lisa then worked, my wife worked at um the the Quaker Study Centre, which is unfortunately now no longer there in Birmingham.
17:58
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, no, it's it's gone.
17:59
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so many things are disappearing, aren't they?
18:02
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's such a shame, and also not being passed down through the generations for that to sustain it.
18:10
SPEAKER_02: Yes, certain especially certain very important practices like the stuff you're doing, it'll just be a travesty if it's not handed down to other people to learn because it's so important, and we will get to that.
18:24
SPEAKER_02: So you've done your masters, fast forward, you've moved to Cumbria.
18:28
SPEAKER_02: So what at what point did you guys commit to where you were gonna settle?
18:33
SPEAKER_05: First we were in Pika, which is just just up the road from where the car park is.
18:37
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
18:38
SPEAKER_05: And uh, but then our daughter and her partner joined us.
18:41
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
18:42
SPEAKER_02: Oh, okay.
18:42
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so they tried to move out, then they moved back in.
18:46
SPEAKER_02: She moved back in, yeah.
18:47
SPEAKER_05: And they kind of joined us.
18:49
SPEAKER_05: So then we obviously we needed to get a a bigger place.
18:52
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
18:52
SPEAKER_05: Um, but the well, I say we got a bigger place, we needed they needed to get their own place, which they did.
18:57
SPEAKER_05: And when they got their own place, we then moved into another place and ended up in Camerton, which is just outside of Seaton, just outside of Workington.
19:04
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
19:05
SPEAKER_05: Um, but again, it's like, you know, there's no piped gas, it's gas bottles.
19:09
SPEAKER_01: Oh wow.
19:10
SPEAKER_05: Uh there's no buses, there's no that's amazing, yeah.
19:13
SPEAKER_05: There's no pub, there's none of no shop, none of that.
19:15
SPEAKER_02: To move from somewhere like Birmingham.
19:18
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
19:19
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I'm not sure I could have adjusted.
19:22
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, but I it's because we because I think I'd had that as a young person a lot of time in a rural ish.
19:28
SPEAKER_05: Oh, I see.
19:29
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
19:29
SPEAKER_05: Um, I kind of like never say never.
19:32
SPEAKER_05: No, I grew up cycling along canals and going into woodlands and building dents.
19:37
SPEAKER_02: This is like coming home.
19:39
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, well that very much kind of felt like what it was like.
19:42
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
19:42
SPEAKER_05: And I really had a strong affinity with the with the mountains, the fowls here.
19:47
SPEAKER_02: I mean, this is beautiful.
19:48
SPEAKER_02: I feel like I'm abroad.
19:49
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
19:50
SPEAKER_02: I really do.
19:51
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, where am I?
19:53
SPEAKER_02: So yeah, so that makes complete sense then.
19:55
SPEAKER_02: Because I was thinking, like, I grew up in London, in East London, not far from Hackney.
20:00
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
20:00
SPEAKER_02: I moved to Kendall, and just moving to Kendall, which is actually pretty busy, I was like, oh my god, what have I done?
20:07
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
20:08
SPEAKER_02: It's so slow.
20:10
SPEAKER_02: And it took me two years to adjust.
20:12
SPEAKER_02: Now it makes sense because actually, this is like a homecoming almost.
20:16
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
20:17
SPEAKER_02: So you had to buy your own gas canisters.
20:19
SPEAKER_05: We have to buy our own gas bottles, yeah.
20:21
SPEAKER_05: We've got a nice wood burner now as well.
20:23
SPEAKER_02: So okay.
20:24
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
20:24
SPEAKER_05: Oh, you're still there.
20:25
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, we're still there.
20:26
SPEAKER_05: Oh my goodness.
20:27
SPEAKER_01: We've been there for like 13 years.
20:29
SPEAKER_05: Still buying your gas bottles.
20:30
SPEAKER_05: Still buying our gas bottles.
20:32
SPEAKER_05: That's ice.
20:33
SPEAKER_05: And even though they've gone up.
20:34
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
20:34
SPEAKER_05: But yeah, I suppose you again we're kind of the way I see is we're kind of we haven't you have to pay for the the luxury of of living so remotely.
20:41
SPEAKER_02: Oh my goodness, that's lovely.
20:43
SPEAKER_02: What a nice way to frame it.
20:44
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, because it is a luxury.
20:46
SPEAKER_05: It is, it is it's a privilege to be able to afford to live in such a place that that offers so much kind of natural beauty and quiet.
20:54
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
20:54
SPEAKER_05: And peace.
20:55
SPEAKER_02: It is that peace and stillness.
20:57
SPEAKER_02: I really, really value that these days.
21:00
SPEAKER_02: Really wish that I had indulged in it more when I was younger, but everything comes to you when it's meant to.
21:07
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, definitely.
21:08
SPEAKER_02: And so I've kind of found found it, or been been attracted to it myself, so that's nice.
21:14
SPEAKER_02: So I feel lucky in that way.
21:16
SPEAKER_02: But back to you.
21:16
SPEAKER_05: No, that's good.
21:18
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
21:18
SPEAKER_05: And so I mean my daughter and her partner they live in in Disington.
21:22
SPEAKER_05: Uh-huh.
21:23
SPEAKER_05: And then they they got pregnant.
21:25
SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
21:25
SPEAKER_00: Oh.
21:25
SPEAKER_05: And so we have an 11-year-old grandson now.
21:28
SPEAKER_01: Oh wow.
21:29
SPEAKER_05: But because obviously both his parents are from Birmingham, his grandparents, but he was born in Whitehaven.
21:34
SPEAKER_05: Tend to call him a Brumbrian.
21:38
SPEAKER_05: And certainly when he's younger, he's kind of like his his accent was, you know, it's still developing.
21:43
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
21:43
SPEAKER_05: But like they like have a Cumbrian Brummy kind of Jamaican yardy patter, because he's used to hearing that two kind of slang to it.
21:52
SPEAKER_02: I think that's beautiful, and that really kind of is what the world is about to me.
21:57
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
21:58
SPEAKER_02: I love that.
21:59
SPEAKER_02: And is that
22:00
SPEAKER_05: When you set up your yoga business, so yes, uh my wife, while I was doing my degree, my wife was uh doing a yoga teacher training, yeah, and she kind of qualified in 2002 as I graduated.
22:11
SPEAKER_05: Okay, and I'd kind of joined her on her journey as in like just becoming a student, really, and okay, and practicing yoga and getting into yoga.
22:20
SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
22:20
SPEAKER_05: And whilst initially, for most people, like most people, yoga is very much first about arsenal practice, uh physical practice, and I was enjoying it for you know improving my flexibility, mobility, that kind of stuff.
22:33
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
22:34
SPEAKER_05: But I kind of really started to get more deeply intrigued by the spiritual aspects of things.
22:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
22:41
SPEAKER_05: So I started to to meditate.
22:43
SPEAKER_05: But I spent about 10 years of being a kind of consistently inconsistent meditator.
22:49
SPEAKER_02: Okay, 10 years, well.
22:50
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah, I've been a consistently inconsistent meditator.
22:54
SPEAKER_05: So that's kind of like you know, using it when I was feeling like stressed or or things are getting to me, and it's like right, I need to meditate again.
23:01
SPEAKER_05: So when you do a bit of meditation, things will get okay, and then you'd be like drop you'd drop off again.
23:05
SPEAKER_02: Oh, I see.
23:06
SPEAKER_05: But for the past 15 years, 13, 13, 15 years, I've been a consistent meditation practitioner.
23:14
SPEAKER_01: And is that daily practice?
23:16
SPEAKER_05: That's daily, twice a day.
23:17
SPEAKER_05: Twice a day, wow.
23:19
SPEAKER_05: And that's long taking time out to do long sits, doing silent retreats.
23:23
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
23:23
SPEAKER_05: You know, you've got a teacher, particularly within kind of classical uh tantric yoga, um, not the neo-tantra kind of relational yoga, but like the old classical tantric yoga.
23:36
SPEAKER_05: What does that mean?
23:37
SPEAKER_05: So yoga had its phases in development in India.
23:40
SPEAKER_05: Okay.
23:41
SPEAKER_05: And the tantric phase, which predated the Hatha yoga phase, which most people are familiar with.
23:47
SPEAKER_05: And the tantrikas were kind of really influential in yoga from around the seventh century up until the 1300s.
23:55
SPEAKER_05: Okay.
23:56
SPEAKER_05: Their yoga was less about doing physical postures, more about doing the inner work.
24:00
SPEAKER_05: So developing so many different meditation practices, energy bod, subtle body work, uh, and deep philosophical discourse that became my kind of like staple and what I kind of developed more and more in.
24:14
SPEAKER_05: And then I even moved into cometic yoga, which is Egyptian yoga, which even predates uh Indian yoga.
24:21
SPEAKER_05: Right.
24:22
SPEAKER_05: And they also have a tantric system.
24:24
SPEAKER_02: Right.
24:24
SPEAKER_05: So tantra really kind of means like bringing a lot of things together.
24:28
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, confession time.
24:29
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
24:30
SPEAKER_02: So the only time I've heard the word tantric used is in a different context.
24:34
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, like sex yoga kind of thing, yeah.
24:37
SPEAKER_02: And so now that you've explained it, it makes sense actually with the energy and that sort of stuff.
24:43
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
24:43
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, so that's we we refer to that as neo-tantra.
24:46
SPEAKER_05: Okay.
24:47
SPEAKER_05: Um, like if a lot of people, when you say yoga, they they all if they've done yoga teacher training, they'll go of all Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, um, which is actually a very comprehensive meditation text.
24:57
SPEAKER_05: Right.
24:57
SPEAKER_05: And to say nothing really about doing postures.
25:00
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
25:01
SPEAKER_05: Um, and yet it's taught in every yoga teacher training globally.
25:05
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
25:05
SPEAKER_05: But tantrit yogis were considered to kind of like dealing with the powers of yoga.
25:11
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
25:12
SPEAKER_05: So what they call siddhis, which is like um accomplished masters.
25:15
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
25:16
SPEAKER_05: Things like levitation, a dream yoga came out of tantrit yoga.
25:20
SPEAKER_01: Dream yoga.
25:20
SPEAKER_01: Dream yoga, yeah.
25:22
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, so that's like developing a level of lucidity where you can go into a dream and you can you can you can basically do your yogi practice once you're dreaming.
25:29
SPEAKER_01: Right.
25:30
SPEAKER_05: So you can like take yourself to to Arunachala Mountain and meditate.
25:35
SPEAKER_02: Kind of like a self-hypnosis.
25:37
SPEAKER_05: Well, no, in in dream state, yeah.
25:40
SPEAKER_05: In dream state, yeah.
25:41
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so it's a different state to being hypnotized because that's taking you to a different place to dream state.
25:48
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
25:49
SPEAKER_02: My god, there's so many layers to this.
25:51
SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah.
25:52
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
25:52
SPEAKER_02: So that was your area of fascination then, that's what attracted you most.
25:56
SPEAKER_05: Yes, definitely, definitely.
25:57
SPEAKER_05: So alter states of consciousness and how to meet them, how to refine them, how to work within them.
26:04
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
26:04
SPEAKER_05: And and how that could then kind of basically complement my life.
26:09
SPEAKER_05: Um, and you know, the the goal of all yogis really, um, because a lot of people often forget they talk about Buddha and they forget that the Buddha was a yogi.
26:16
SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah, morning.
26:18
SPEAKER_05: You know, he was a yogi he was a yogi, he had teachers, he was travelling around trying to find the best practices to understand why human beings suffer even when they might have their basic needs met, yeah, we still suffer emotionally and mentally.
26:31
SPEAKER_05: So, and that which which is was the aim of yoga, it was like, what's all this about?
26:35
SPEAKER_05: Who am I?
26:36
SPEAKER_05: Why am I here?
26:37
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and what's the point of it all?
26:39
SPEAKER_02: And it's you know, it's one of those questions that is eternal.
26:44
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
26:45
SPEAKER_05: But if you if you can the whole point is if you can realise it within your own lifetime, yeah, and realise the the the for yourself, yeah, then then your suffering ends because you have you're rid of the what they sometimes call the poisons, so the poison of ignorance, not knowing what you truly are.
27:02
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
27:03
SPEAKER_05: Um, and then poisons like anger, anger, attachment, um, aversion.
27:09
SPEAKER_02: Delusion.
27:10
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
27:11
SPEAKER_05: So and you know, that's from my own experience, I would say it works.
27:16
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
27:16
SPEAKER_05: It works.
27:17
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, I've um I've been to the Buddhist temple in Alderston a few times and I've done a couple of their day retreats, and I find it really, really interesting, difficult, challenging.
27:29
SPEAKER_02: The teachings are so um relatable, yeah, and you can see what they're saying, but to to put it into practice takes so much discipline and consciousness and call yourself out, pull yourself back in, and that's why I mentioned delusions, because that's the chapter I'm reading at the moment.
27:48
SPEAKER_02: Okay, and you kind of think, oh my god, as you're reading through through what they're teaching you, you're like, Oh my god, it's so true.
27:55
SPEAKER_02: Everything's a delusion, and it's what we're telling ourselves and how we're framing it.
28:02
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and actually, if we choose that differently, then oh my goodness, how liberating is it?
28:07
SPEAKER_05: Totally, totally, because you A, you stop taking yourself so seriously, yeah.
28:11
SPEAKER_05: Just on a basic level, you stop taking yourself so seriously and realize the preciousness of this human life, and yeah, and you know what the best ways to really experience it is through through compassion and love and kindness.
28:26
SPEAKER_02: And yeah, it's really interesting just to relate that to where I am at the moment with the podcast.
28:30
SPEAKER_02: And so I've um put stuff on TikTok.
28:33
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's a necessary evil these days, you have to be on something, yeah.
28:37
SPEAKER_02: Or do you?
28:38
SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's a whole other question.
28:40
SPEAKER_02: But I chose TikTok trying to grow my followers, but I don't want to show up like, oh hi, hi, guess what?
28:48
SPEAKER_02: Guess what I've done today?
28:50
SPEAKER_02: Because that goes against my energy.
28:52
SPEAKER_02: I'm you know, I am high energy, yeah, but I'd rather keep that energy for a hike than stand in front of a camera pretending I'm like this this high energy person.
29:02
SPEAKER_02: Because some people are and they carry it off and it looks really good and they go viral, which is great.
29:08
SPEAKER_02: But I was thinking about this a lot this week where I was like, well, it's not really authentic if I do it, and so it's interesting to see how this journey goes.
29:17
SPEAKER_02: So I met a hundred followers, and I'm okay with that because I kind of feel like um someone put it in context the other week.
29:25
SPEAKER_02: I went to this um marketing summit, and um the lady that was talking was like, just imagine you've got a hundred people in this room clapping for you.
29:35
SPEAKER_02: That's amazing.
29:37
SPEAKER_02: And I was like, that's so true.
29:39
SPEAKER_02: Like, what exactly are we changing chasing when we say growth?
29:43
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, because I'd rather stay at a hundred with the hundred aligned people than have a million of just anyone who doesn't get it.
29:52
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah, it's it's a lot like staying with your own authentic expression and also you know, and make you setting your bar of success by that, yeah, rather than by what the the medium of of how you're presenting yourself, their bar of success, which means a million subscribers and you know this many likes.
30:15
SPEAKER_05: Which is coming, by the way.
30:16
SPEAKER_01: No, it may do, it may do.
30:18
SPEAKER_02: No, will yeah, good luck.
30:23
SPEAKER_02: I mean there's eight billion people in the world, isn't there?
30:26
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, well, as long as you're attached to whether he comes or not, that's the main thing.
30:30
SPEAKER_02: I'm not, I'm not.
30:31
SPEAKER_02: What am I?
30:33
SPEAKER_02: We do the chapter on delusion, so we'll see how this journey goes.
30:38
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
30:38
SPEAKER_02: Once you qualify, did you qualify then in the yoga practice?
30:42
SPEAKER_05: So yeah, I didn't uh so I did lots of immersions with like Sanskrit scholars and and practitioners, yoga practitioners, particularly within the tractor tradition.
30:51
SPEAKER_05: Okay.
30:52
SPEAKER_05: And then I didn't do a yoga, a 200-hour yoga teacher training qualification until 2019.
30:58
SPEAKER_05: Okay.
30:58
SPEAKER_05: But by then I was already teaching meditation because because I knew how.
31:03
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
31:03
SPEAKER_05: Um coming from a kind of teaching background after once I'd kind of graduated and gone into that kind of area.
31:09
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
31:09
SPEAKER_05: Um, it's just kind of a natural expression for me.
31:13
SPEAKER_02: And also you'd practice for so long.
31:15
SPEAKER_02: Well, this is it, yeah.
31:16
SPEAKER_02: You get it, you get that you get the consistent inconsistency and you get the troubles with sticking with it.
31:23
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
31:23
SPEAKER_02: So, what were you teaching when you graduated?
31:26
SPEAKER_05: So, first I was working for a couple of charities.
31:28
SPEAKER_05: Uh so mentoring used to get a lot of money in the early 90s, yeah.
31:32
SPEAKER_05: Okay.
31:32
SPEAKER_05: And there's the Birmingham Mentoring Consortium, yeah, and I became the kind of the manager for what we called Step Up Programme, and that was matching role model mentors of the same ethnicity and and class kind of background with young people at risk of exclusion.
31:48
SPEAKER_05: Okay.
31:48
SPEAKER_05: So for me, that was mainly well, I actually worked with the Bangladeshi community, the African-Arabian community.
31:53
SPEAKER_05: I also worked for the British Red Cross, yeah.
31:55
SPEAKER_05: Same kind of gig, uh trying to encourage more black and ethnic minorities to become volunteers and to do training, that kind of stuff.
32:02
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
32:02
SPEAKER_05: Um, and then I kind of found myself working at Bourneville College and started teaching Princess Trust Team Programme, which is a 12-week programme for what I think they're still called NEETs, aren't they?
32:15
SPEAKER_05: Not in education, employmental training.
32:17
SPEAKER_05: Okay.
32:18
SPEAKER_05: 16 to 25 year olds, and also part-time we were also teaching petals, kettles, and gettles, which was the qualifications that further education teachers had to do.
32:29
SPEAKER_05: Uh there was a time before where if you had a degree, you could just start teaching in further education, you didn't have to do a teaching qualification.
32:35
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
32:35
SPEAKER_05: But then they said no, that's that's not good enough because standards need to improve.
32:39
SPEAKER_05: Right.
32:39
SPEAKER_05: So all kind of you know, FE teachers have now got to do these teaching qualifications.
32:43
SPEAKER_05: Okay.
32:44
SPEAKER_05: So I done then myself.
32:46
SPEAKER_05: So I also do I used to kind of um offer those as well uh while I was at the college and cover for lectures that were off.
32:55
SPEAKER_05: Um so yeah, so kind of the framework of lecturing and teaching was yeah, really quite common to me.
33:00
SPEAKER_05: And I I quite liked it, but even if I look back at when I was in warehouse work and safeway and MFI, um very often I would be asked to train train the new people uh within a very short time of me being there.
33:13
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
33:14
SPEAKER_05: Um natural calling.
33:16
SPEAKER_05: And even when I was even younger, when I was like 14, like 1983, 84, yeah.
33:20
SPEAKER_05: Um and I was a I was a breakdancer when the original breakdancing came out.
33:25
SPEAKER_05: And it wasn't long before I hired a little hall and used to teach young people how to break dance as well.
33:31
SPEAKER_05: Oh wow and bring them into the crew as it were there.
33:34
SPEAKER_05: So I was kind of teaching, yeah.
33:36
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and community, community spirited.
33:38
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
33:39
SPEAKER_02: So you qualified with your yoga staff in 2019.
33:43
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and is that when so did Lisa already have her yoga school going?
33:48
SPEAKER_05: Uh no, she was like a lot of yoga teachers, kind of working out of community centres and village halls and and that kind of thing.
33:55
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and it was actually only really when I was talking to you earlier about Lotus Dragon, yeah, that I had that experience, and I when I moved to Cumbria, yeah, I had a couple of different jobs working in first at the pupil referral unit.
34:07
SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay.
34:08
SPEAKER_05: And then I was spent six months at Carlisle College, but didn't want to keep driving.
34:13
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
34:13
SPEAKER_02: Um I mean you live really far from everywhere.
34:17
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah, we're right on the west coast, yeah.
34:20
SPEAKER_05: It's stunning.
34:21
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I get that.
34:23
SPEAKER_05: But uh yeah, so then I kind of took a job at a school and dropped down in terms of what I could do.
34:29
SPEAKER_05: I was a learning support assistant.
34:31
SPEAKER_05: Oh, okay.
34:32
SPEAKER_05: Well no, actually I went there first as a mentor, uh, so that was kind of harking back to what I used to do.
34:37
SPEAKER_05: Okay.
34:37
SPEAKER_05: Then we had a change of leadership, yeah.
34:40
SPEAKER_05: Uh, and then I was kind of dropped down to a learning support assistant.
34:43
SPEAKER_05: Uh, then eventually I kind of they saw that my my skills are better applied to me being the social, emotional, and health, well-being lead.
34:51
SPEAKER_05: So then I was working with all the young people across all of the year groups and who were having difficulties, and I generally worked with them one-to-one.
35:00
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
35:01
SPEAKER_05: And then when yeah, when I had this experience with the Lotus Dragon, and then it was kind of like, yeah, my time had definitely come up at the school, already dropped down from full time to four days to three days, uh, with the intention of leaving.
35:14
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
35:15
SPEAKER_05: And just kind of going it on my own and doing my uh stuff, which I already was doing.
35:20
SPEAKER_05: And then it was like Lisa was also kind of tired of what she was doing.
35:24
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
35:24
SPEAKER_05: She was a manager of um of Heidi's in Grasmir.
35:28
SPEAKER_05: Okay.
35:28
SPEAKER_05: I don't know it.
35:29
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, was it cafe?
35:30
SPEAKER_05: It was Cafe B and B.
35:32
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
35:32
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
35:33
SPEAKER_05: So it was like, okay, well, let's let's let's get a studio.
35:36
SPEAKER_05: Because then we can I've got so much of because again, for me, yeah, I don't just I don't I I really rarely teach a yoga class, like as in like an hour or an hour and an hour and a half yoga class.
35:46
SPEAKER_05: That's not my thing.
35:47
SPEAKER_05: Okay.
35:47
SPEAKER_05: I design courses.
35:48
SPEAKER_02: Oh, okay.
35:49
SPEAKER_05: So I teach meditation courses.
35:51
SPEAKER_02: Um for people to run the courses themselves.
35:55
SPEAKER_05: No, for me, me, for me, I run the course, yeah, and and people to come on and spiritual development courses.
36:01
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, so for me it was always about oh, I'd rather deliver a course and because again, we I come from the perspective of like, you know, I don't just want to feed a man of fish on it, I want to teach them how to fish for the whole day, yeah.
36:14
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, no, that makes sense.
36:15
SPEAKER_05: So it's like, yeah, this is you know, this is the benefits you could get out of this, yeah.
36:20
SPEAKER_05: So this is how you can do it, yeah.
36:22
SPEAKER_05: But then you know, it always comes then down to and if you ask any of my students what is my go-to word whenever they ask a question, yeah, they will summarily tell you practice.
36:33
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, because every question I ask I say practice.
36:37
SPEAKER_02: Practice, yeah.
36:38
SPEAKER_05: You want to know the answer to that?
36:40
SPEAKER_05: Practice.
36:41
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's true though, it's actually applicable to everything.
36:46
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, like I I kind of wake up now and I'm just like the first thing I'll say is discipline and consistency.
36:53
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
36:54
SPEAKER_02: That's like the first two words I say to myself, discipline and before I go to bed, I'm like, discipline consistency.
36:59
SPEAKER_02: Because I was falling into this trap of like scrolling, scrolling Netflix, not watching Netflix at like 10 30 pm.
37:07
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
37:08
SPEAKER_02: And then quarter past eleven, I'm still scrolling.
37:10
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, what am I doing with my life?
37:12
SPEAKER_02: Well I haven't I've got time to watch.
37:14
SPEAKER_02: What what should I I should be in bed?
37:16
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
37:17
SPEAKER_02: Like, why am I here?
37:18
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
37:19
SPEAKER_02: So I had a stern word with myself.
37:21
SPEAKER_02: Good.
37:22
SPEAKER_02: And also I leave my phone in the kitchen.
37:24
SPEAKER_02: So if I'm watching something, I'm intentionally watching it.
37:28
SPEAKER_02: I'm not just putting it on for noise and scrolling on my phone.
37:31
SPEAKER_05: Good.
37:32
SPEAKER_02: And uh do you know what?
37:33
SPEAKER_02: I feel so much better for it.
37:34
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I feel more energized, I feel less tired.
37:38
SPEAKER_02: Obviously, I'm going to bed better.
37:39
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
37:40
SPEAKER_02: I'm sleeping better.
37:41
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
37:42
SPEAKER_02: So what time do you normally get to bed now and get up?
37:44
SPEAKER_02: 10 30.
37:45
SPEAKER_02: I naturally wake up at 6 30 regardless of what time I go to sleep.
37:49
SPEAKER_02: Good.
37:50
SPEAKER_02: So no alarms then.
37:51
SPEAKER_02: I don't need to, but I do, because that second sleep is deadly.
37:55
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
37:57
SPEAKER_02: What I should be doing is jumping out of bed.
37:59
SPEAKER_02: That bit hasn't happened yet.
38:00
SPEAKER_02: But I'm kind of okay with that.
38:02
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, that's okay, I can ease myself into my day.
38:05
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
38:06
SPEAKER_02: Um, and then I do try and start the day with cardio, and then in the evening I do weight training.
38:13
SPEAKER_02: So I have two workout opportunities.
38:15
SPEAKER_02: Each day?
38:16
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
38:17
SPEAKER_01: That's really good.
38:18
SPEAKER_02: Um, but the way it panned out last week was one a day, two on one day, one a day the rest of the week, and that's fine too.
38:26
SPEAKER_02: But the main thing is movement.
38:28
SPEAKER_05: Yes, that's the really what movement is life.
38:30
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
38:31
SPEAKER_02: And my future self will be really proud of me for the discipline and consistency.
38:37
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, no, it's good, it is good, and it's uh and it's it's part of uh of a well, I would say really a healthy whole life.
38:45
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
38:45
SPEAKER_05: Um to to to definitely be going to bed at a at a a time that your body needs it.
38:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
38:54
SPEAKER_05: Um I once dropped into a meditation, was sitting in my living room and I was playing with the singing bowl.
39:00
SPEAKER_05: I've got one in my rucksacks over there.
39:01
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah, I was wherever I go, I carry my singing bowl.
39:04
SPEAKER_02: Awesome! Oh, let's do that.
39:06
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, that'd be amazing.
39:08
SPEAKER_05: Um I was sitting there, my brother, my brother was there because my brother moved up here as well.
39:12
SPEAKER_05: Oh my god.
39:13
SPEAKER_05: Um and Lisa and Lisa's brothers moved up here also.
39:16
SPEAKER_02: You guys are the magnets, I love that.
39:18
SPEAKER_02: That's so great.
39:19
SPEAKER_02: Uh and I well I think you have to like show people what there is, and they will be like, God, this just makes sense.
39:25
SPEAKER_02: Because whenever you are, you've got to earn money, haven't you?
39:27
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, of course.
39:28
SPEAKER_05: You know, yeah.
39:29
SPEAKER_05: Um, so why not do it in a place where you can get outside and go, Wow.
39:32
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely, yeah.
39:35
SPEAKER_05: So I was playing my bowl, and I just dropped into a meditation, a spontaneous meditation, and um I came around, I was told I came around after about 45 minutes.
39:45
SPEAKER_05: Right.
39:45
SPEAKER_05: Because my wife was there, and my brother was there, and they just carried on doing what they were doing.
39:49
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
39:50
SPEAKER_05: Um, and when I came around, I was like, all the clocks have got to go.
39:55
SPEAKER_05: Oh my god.
39:56
SPEAKER_05: I went around my house removing all of the clocks.
40:00
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
40:01
SPEAKER_05: Um, because I you know not binding yourself to a time.
40:05
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, well, and not only that, then it's like you you start to do everything based on the time of the day rather than what your body wants.
40:12
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
40:12
SPEAKER_05: So, like, is it lunchtime?
40:13
SPEAKER_05: Oh, yeah, it's 12 o'clock.
40:14
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we better eat.
40:15
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
40:16
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
40:16
SPEAKER_05: Are you actually hungry then?
40:18
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, exactly.
40:18
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
40:19
SPEAKER_05: You know, listen to check in with yourself.
40:21
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
40:22
SPEAKER_05: So that was kind of even really when I think about it, one of the start of my more move toward a more embodied somatic stance in terms of how I live my life by tuning in more carefully into my into my body.
40:37
SPEAKER_02: So, to the uninitiated, what does embodied somatic mean?
40:42
SPEAKER_02: Ah, okay, yeah.
40:43
SPEAKER_05: So um, I tend to distinguish the two, although they can be used interchangeably.
40:50
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
40:51
SPEAKER_05: So to me, embodiment um is about recognising how you are in the world.
40:57
SPEAKER_05: So what your attitudes, what your and how what shapes your attitudes and your behaviours, and how you present them through your expression in the world.
41:07
SPEAKER_05: That's embodiment.
41:09
SPEAKER_05: And then embodiment practices, you can use embodiment practices to change those attitudes and behaviours.
41:16
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, somatics, people maybe argue is the same, yeah.
41:20
SPEAKER_05: But I tend to relate to somatics as more about regulating the nervous system, the neurology, um, through movement still.
41:32
SPEAKER_05: Um, but yeah, more on a kind of like uh yeah, a kind of regulation narrative.
41:39
SPEAKER_05: Um but again, you you know, through movement you're still going to challenge your attitudes and your behaviours.
41:45
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
41:46
SPEAKER_05: Um, so yeah, but for ease of working with others, I say okay, embodiment is about learning practices to change your attitudes and behaviours.
41:54
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
41:55
SPEAKER_05: Um, and thematics is about learning how to be a much more regulated and in tuned person to how you are, yeah, moment to moment.
42:03
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's that's great because that's so um aligned to the stuff I'm really interested in, anyway, naturally.
42:12
SPEAKER_02: What I find is there are in conversations with just you know people that I come up come upon, is um not everyone does the work on themselves.
42:24
SPEAKER_02: And so when you say that you're going to, I don't know, practice yoga or something like that, or the Buddhist temple, you get the look.
42:33
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
42:35
SPEAKER_02: And you're like, Well, you know, you should try it, but until your mind is open to that, you're not gonna try it, and then you're not gonna reap the benefit, and the benefit feels amazing.
42:45
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally.
42:47
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I read a quote the other day, I think it was from Hippocrates, and it was something like, you know, everybody wants to heal until the healing shows up as discipline.
42:58
SPEAKER_05: And that is very much the case, but you know, we uh the the modern cultural paradigm is one about kind of like being done to rather than doing yourself.
43:10
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the the accountability's been shook.
43:13
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah, definitely.
43:14
SPEAKER_05: And it's like you know, if I if I've got this problem, I'll go to this person, they will do a thing to me and I will be solved and it will be cured.
43:21
SPEAKER_02: But I haven't done anything of just taking the pill, yeah.
43:24
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah, and that's just really not how it works.
43:27
SPEAKER_05: No.
43:28
SPEAKER_05: It's really not how it works.
43:29
SPEAKER_02: Everything starts and stops with us, doesn't it?
43:32
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
43:33
SPEAKER_05: Otherwise it's a temporary band-aid on something that that will just keep showing up.
43:37
SPEAKER_02: Up to this point, then, has any of the work involved your degree and masters subject around race theory Yeah, because I mean I mean I I always used to say like, you know, African studies, what what's what'd you get out of that?
43:52
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
43:53
SPEAKER_05: And he's like, Well, hey, it's an interdisciplinary social science degree by the you I hit pause on that conversation.
44:00
SPEAKER_02: We had that chat, then I wish I'd kept it playing.
44:02
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
44:03
SPEAKER_02: Because that played out like it was like what's that timing?
44:07
SPEAKER_01: We couldn't have made it up, could we?
44:08
SPEAKER_02: So we're just about to talk about race and we get stopped and asked about where we're from because of the colour of our skin.
44:16
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
44:16
SPEAKER_02: I mean he literally just said.
44:18
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, we we we said we live local.
44:20
SPEAKER_05: He's like, and you said you're Windermere.
44:23
SPEAKER_05: He says, Yeah, but that doesn't tell me about the colour of your skin.
44:25
SPEAKER_02: I mean that that just is divine intervention.
44:29
SPEAKER_02: I wish I'd kept recording.
44:31
SPEAKER_05: What a shame.
44:32
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so anyway.
44:34
SPEAKER_02: I did that.
44:35
SPEAKER_02: African studies.
44:37
SPEAKER_05: So A was an interdisciplinary social science degree, so that was politics, history, culture, development, economics, spirituality, religion.
44:46
SPEAKER_05: And I always used to say to everybody, well, if you haven't studied Africa, you you haven't studied the world because the past 500 years wouldn't have wouldn't have showed up.
44:58
SPEAKER_05: Wouldn't be uh wouldn't be the way it is without Africa.
45:03
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
45:04
SPEAKER_05: You know?
45:05
SPEAKER_05: Um and to people who are like, why is that?
45:08
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, well, you know, so many people don't even realise like people of African heritage weren't indigenous to the Caribbean.
45:15
SPEAKER_05: That that happened out of the Atlantic slave track.
45:18
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, of course.
45:18
SPEAKER_05: Or you know, even America and they don't they really tend to generally don't have a clue because of the the good kind of the making invisible of of of slavery and of colonialism that that those powers did.
45:34
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
45:34
SPEAKER_05: So yeah, so it it plays out in everything that I kind of did and went on to do.
45:39
SPEAKER_05: So when I was working with the young black inner city, young people who were who are very much ghetto eyes, we're talking Handsworth, Aston, Nietzsche's, yeah, and their kind of young black masculine identity was you know, this is a place where you know postal code can cause you to get stabbed, shot, uh beaten just because you're on the wrong street and your streets only another two streets away.
46:03
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
46:04
SPEAKER_05: And it's in our I remember doing like a writing a short paper on like notions of power amongst the most disempowered.
46:13
SPEAKER_05: Right.
46:13
SPEAKER_05: Because that's where that was coming from, though if we can control this street, yeah, you know, we have we have power.
46:19
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
46:20
SPEAKER_02: Um I like that title, Notions of Power from the Disempowered.
46:26
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, that's because they were the most disempowered, you know.
46:29
SPEAKER_02: So that's where that power is so important then.
46:32
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah, totally.
46:33
SPEAKER_05: But we know where they use that power though is within their own community, yeah, and to not generally not to good ends.
46:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
46:40
SPEAKER_05: Um so my whole argument was like, okay, you you need to know more about your your history, your culture, yeah, the diversity of it.
46:47
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
46:48
SPEAKER_05: Find other ways of of expressing your heritage, which is not just Mitchell's being born in Aston or being born in Handsworth, yeah, you know.
46:58
SPEAKER_05: So my African studies helped me a great deal with that.
47:00
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
47:01
SPEAKER_05: My master's in race and ethnic study did exactly the same.
47:05
SPEAKER_05: It just allowed me to, in many ways, have because early on I was kind of militant.
47:12
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
47:13
SPEAKER_05: Um, you know, when people when people talked about Dr.
47:17
SPEAKER_05: Martin Luther King, and I've been like no ha Malcolm X.
47:20
SPEAKER_02: Oh, I see.
47:20
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, so like by any means necessary is was my kind of attitude.
47:25
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
47:26
SPEAKER_05: And yeah, I'd get involved in really heated debates and arguments.
47:30
SPEAKER_02: All really bad for your nervous system.
47:32
SPEAKER_05: Totally, totally, totally.
47:34
SPEAKER_05: And I spent 10 years in Birmingham doing that.
47:36
SPEAKER_05: Wow.
47:36
SPEAKER_05: And that was kind of the reason one of the reasons why we came out to Cumbria, and I didn't know it at that time was like that was my nervous system response saying you need to look.
47:46
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, actually, that's very similar to me leaving London.
47:50
SPEAKER_02: I just innately knew I needed not to be here, I need to get out, and I need stillness.
47:57
SPEAKER_02: It just took me a while to understand it.
48:00
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
48:00
SPEAKER_02: But there's a reason that these moves happen, and yeah, definitely decisions are made.
48:05
SPEAKER_05: And whilst I came up to here then, and I deepened more in my yoga practice.
48:09
SPEAKER_05: Yes, I deepened more in my meditation practice, I did more in my my understanding, and really what I was doing was I was taking myself through a healing process.
48:18
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
48:18
SPEAKER_05: But again, I didn't really realise it at the time.
48:21
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
48:21
SPEAKER_05: And it was only when when again George Floyd happened, because up until that time, I kind of like I knew I was only one in a few up here, so I didn't have to get involved in racial justice issues.
48:33
SPEAKER_05: Just keeping my head down, out of the way.
48:36
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
48:36
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
48:37
SPEAKER_05: And then George Floyd happened, and the few black young people that were at my school, yeah, those repercussions, um, after that football game and the missing goals, yeah.
48:49
SPEAKER_05: So I was kind of called back into it.
48:51
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
48:52
SPEAKER_05: And then I connected with anti-racist Cumbria.
48:54
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, which is how we know each other.
48:56
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
48:56
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
48:57
SPEAKER_05: I was like, right, okay, let's get back on the saddle.
49:00
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
49:00
SPEAKER_05: And and the first summit that I was having, me and Nick were supposed to open it.
49:04
SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
49:05
SPEAKER_05: And we were going to do the whole kind of presentation about uh racism and being black and that kind of uh what our kind of our our life history was.
49:14
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
49:14
SPEAKER_05: And then I had one of of quite a few, but I'd managed to kind of like hold it down while I was at the school.
49:21
SPEAKER_05: But this time an incident happened where I was just like, I couldn't hold it down.
49:25
SPEAKER_05: I'd already put my notice in, but like this had me literally leave the building.
49:30
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
49:32
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
49:32
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
49:32
SPEAKER_05: Well it just it just brought back all of the stuff.
49:35
SPEAKER_05: Triggering.
49:35
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, totally.
49:36
SPEAKER_05: And so triggering that I couldn't I couldn't I could I had all this knowledge that no time before I'd already started to get my PowerPoint together for the summer.
49:46
SPEAKER_05: I couldn't access it.
49:48
SPEAKER_05: I got locked out.
49:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
49:50
SPEAKER_05: My body locked me out of all that stuff again.
49:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
49:54
SPEAKER_05: So I literally remember having to kind of like speak to Janet and say, Janet, it's not gonna happen.
49:59
SPEAKER_00: I can't do that.
50:01
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and it's so important that you listen to your body, you don't push through and force yourself to into a situation that was gonna further harm yourself.
50:09
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
50:10
SPEAKER_05: And I was kind of like, but you know what I can do, Janet?
50:13
SPEAKER_05: I really know what I can do is I can I can bring my bowl.
50:18
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
50:18
SPEAKER_05: And actually I feel I could hold space for anybody else who were at the summit and get triggered by being there.
50:25
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
50:26
SPEAKER_05: Because healing's been something I've been doing.
50:28
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
50:28
SPEAKER_05: Um, so I realised how important it is.
50:30
SPEAKER_05: So can I do that instead?
50:32
SPEAKER_05: And she was like, Yeah.
50:33
SPEAKER_05: And hence she was probably at the first summit, and I had my conch shell and my bowl.
50:36
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
50:37
SPEAKER_05: And I was just wandering around, yeah, offering the good vibes.
50:41
SPEAKER_02: Actually, you start the whole thing started with the conch shell.
50:44
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
50:45
SPEAKER_05: And that was really kind of like then it was like, okay, well, this is where you can do you can still do the work, yeah, but you can't do the upfront line work of of talking to people about racism.
50:58
SPEAKER_02: And that's that's really powerful and empowering to know that actually without knowing it, you've developed these skills that are literally to hold people up and help them do what they do every day and teach them how to regulate and teach them how to be kind to themselves.
51:19
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
51:20
SPEAKER_02: Because when you do this sort of work, I mean you just saw that interaction just now, we both experienced it.
51:25
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah, it was hard, we both experienced both.
51:28
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and it's just exhausting.
51:30
SPEAKER_02: Like, why do you care what my colour is and what where that places me here?
51:35
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
51:35
SPEAKER_02: Like, that's not your business.
51:37
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
51:38
SPEAKER_02: I didn't ask you.
51:39
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
51:40
SPEAKER_02: And I didn't assume that you were local, but you parted that onto me.
51:45
SPEAKER_05: Well, it was very much, you know, what my masters gave me was a greater understanding of of how white bodies and white body cultural supremacy works.
51:55
SPEAKER_05: So in a way, it gave me more tolerance for their attitudes, behaviors, and acts.
52:01
SPEAKER_05: Okay.
52:01
SPEAKER_05: Because I understood how deeply ingrained in their blood in their DNA it is to other people.
52:08
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, because it's been centered for so so many generations.
52:12
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, totally.
52:13
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
52:13
SPEAKER_02: Totally.
52:14
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, so it doesn't it still doesn't mean that we don't at some level kind of experience experience you know harm from particularly that kind of encounter.
52:24
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
52:25
SPEAKER_02: Because it's it's I think it's intended to be friendly, isn't it?
52:28
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
52:29
SPEAKER_02: But it's not.
52:31
SPEAKER_02: It's actually rude.
52:33
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
52:34
SPEAKER_02: And entitled.
52:35
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
52:36
unknown: Yeah.
52:36
SPEAKER_02: So yeah, so it's really great that you have the skills to sort of share this this knowledge and to educate people, black and brown bodies, and how to protect themselves and how not not to get so triggered by these kind of interactions.
52:53
SPEAKER_02: Because you do kind of you could, you could choose to walk away and be really irritated, really frustrated, question yourself and think, why do I bother?
53:03
SPEAKER_02: Why do I come out here?
53:05
SPEAKER_02: But actually, why do you need to be that person?
53:07
SPEAKER_02: You don't.
53:08
SPEAKER_02: That that's on him.
53:09
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
53:10
SPEAKER_02: And he can carry that curiosity if if we should be so kind as to call it that.
53:16
SPEAKER_02: And we don't need to.
53:18
SPEAKER_02: No.
53:19
SPEAKER_02: No.
53:20
SPEAKER_02: Because we're just we're just taking a walk in a beautiful place.
53:23
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
53:24
SPEAKER_01: We've almost got a full circle.
53:25
SPEAKER_02: We have.
53:26
SPEAKER_02: We're gonna have to go around a bit more because I'm not done with you yet.
53:30
SPEAKER_02: So I feel like we've just started the Do you want to take a seat on the bench?
53:33
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we can do.
53:34
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it is a walking.
53:37
SPEAKER_02: Oh, okay, okay.
53:38
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you swayed me.
53:40
SPEAKER_02: There we go.
53:41
SPEAKER_02: So what I was gonna say was um with the anti-racism practice, so that's an embodied somatic thing.
53:48
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, what do you do for people?
53:50
SPEAKER_02: How do you help?
53:51
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, so it was recognising that that that's what I'd been doing, yeah, and then kind of seeing that alright, okay, so I can't do the front line kind of work.
53:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
54:00
SPEAKER_05: And because obviously my 10 years prior to that in Birmingham is what kind of burnt me out.
54:05
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
54:06
SPEAKER_05: So recognising it as that, whereas I hadn't recognised that when I moved away.
54:09
SPEAKER_05: So then it was like developing a formula, if you like, through my understanding of somatics.
54:15
SPEAKER_05: How can I because again coming into my teacher head now?
54:18
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, how can I how am I gonna how am I gonna develop this?
54:21
SPEAKER_05: So again, doing more doing more courses.
54:25
SPEAKER_05: I'm a prolific educationalist, if you like.
54:27
SPEAKER_05: I love I love learning.
54:28
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
54:29
SPEAKER_05: So doing more courses, learning with others, yeah.
54:32
SPEAKER_05: Uh people like Resma Medicare, and just people who kind of kind of been doing the somatic work around racial justice for a little while longer.
54:39
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
54:39
SPEAKER_05: Let's have a little bowl.
54:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
54:58
SPEAKER_02: That's just lovely.
54:59
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, it just brings you to the present moment.
55:01
SPEAKER_02: I need to get one for my house.
55:03
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, every house should have one.
55:05
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
55:09
SPEAKER_05: Because I've also been developing in other areas such as working with sound and sound healing, as you know, I've gongs on you know, 50 plus bowls.
55:18
SPEAKER_05: 50?
55:19
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah, just a few.
55:22
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
55:23
SPEAKER_05: And there's always room for more.
55:24
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
55:25
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
55:27
SPEAKER_05: That's why we needed the studio.
55:29
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
55:30
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, just for storage, right?
55:32
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
55:32
SPEAKER_05: So yeah, so I thought, right.
55:35
SPEAKER_05: So the couple of things that which I did, like I studied with Resmene and I liked some a lot, I definitely liked his approach, but there's still something missing.
55:43
SPEAKER_05: So then I kind of started to develop my own sense of things.
55:47
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
55:47
SPEAKER_05: And I realised that there is a process we need people first need to have what what I call empowered recognition.
55:54
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
55:54
SPEAKER_05: So an empowered recognition is like being in a well-resourced place to go have that experience caused me harm.
56:02
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
56:03
SPEAKER_05: And I'm still kind of holding that harm.
56:06
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
56:06
SPEAKER_02: Letting it go, isn't it?
56:08
SPEAKER_02: Learn to learning to let it go.
56:09
SPEAKER_05: Well, yeah, yes and no.
56:11
SPEAKER_05: It isn't.
56:14
SPEAKER_05: Normally what you can let go of is something which kind of arises in the moment.
56:19
SPEAKER_05: Okay.
56:19
SPEAKER_05: Like if like you triggered, say for instance, something happens, uh what I call a somatic opening arises and you you you become tearful.
56:28
SPEAKER_05: That's a letting go process.
56:30
SPEAKER_05: Okay.
56:31
SPEAKER_05: But that's not actually transforming the harm.
56:34
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
56:34
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
56:35
SPEAKER_05: So just like a bot let's say it's made like a a bottle of coke, yeah, and let's say the harm in the coke is the fact that it's it's a fizzy drink.
56:44
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
56:44
SPEAKER_05: It's all it's all the sugar, for instance.
56:46
SPEAKER_05: And you can shake it up and you can release the top and you're gonna let some of the pressure out.
56:53
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
56:53
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
56:54
SPEAKER_05: But you haven't transformed the sugary content.
56:56
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
56:56
SPEAKER_05: Do you see what I'm saying?
56:57
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
56:58
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, it's still still harming.
57:00
SPEAKER_01: No.
57:00
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
57:01
SPEAKER_05: So you have to transform.
57:03
SPEAKER_05: So you have empired, but the first part the first step to that is first recognising that harm has been done.
57:08
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
57:08
SPEAKER_05: Because part of the system is a really good point.
57:11
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, part of the system is to not recognise that harm's been done.
57:14
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
57:15
SPEAKER_05: I'll get on with life.
57:16
SPEAKER_05: It's just the way things are.
57:18
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
57:18
SPEAKER_02: It's just how it is.
57:19
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
57:20
SPEAKER_02: So you know, I carry it and we move on.
57:22
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
57:23
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
57:23
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
57:24
SPEAKER_05: So you're not recognising that harm has been done, and it's impacting your attitudes, your behaviours, the choices you make in life.
57:31
SPEAKER_05: Where shall I live?
57:31
SPEAKER_05: Where shall I stay?
57:32
SPEAKER_05: Where shall I leave?
57:33
SPEAKER_05: What job should I take?
57:35
SPEAKER_02: You're not as free as you could be.
57:36
SPEAKER_02: No.
57:37
SPEAKER_05: No.
57:38
SPEAKER_05: So first you acknowledge okay, empowered recognition, these things have caused me harm.
57:42
SPEAKER_05: Okay, so now what can I do about it?
57:44
SPEAKER_05: So then coming back to somatics, so then we call you know somatic processing or somatic healing.
57:51
SPEAKER_05: And that then is a process of like, okay, I acknowledge harm has been done.
57:56
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
57:56
SPEAKER_05: Where is the harm in me?
57:58
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
57:58
SPEAKER_05: And how is it showing up in my body?
58:00
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
58:00
SPEAKER_05: Why have I always got a really sore neck?
58:03
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
58:04
SPEAKER_05: Why do I have you know a bloated belly?
58:07
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
58:07
SPEAKER_05: Why do I always feel sick to my stomach?
58:10
SPEAKER_05: Why have I got low back pain?
58:12
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
58:13
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, or whatever it might be, because it shows up as symptoms in the body in various different ways.
58:18
SPEAKER_05: Okay, so can I actually tend to those somatically?
58:22
SPEAKER_05: What does that mean?
58:22
SPEAKER_05: It means okay, so identifying the places, offering kindness and tenderness through your own body to those places, breathing into them, offering them lights.
58:32
SPEAKER_05: So again, here the kind of the my yogic experience and energy body work and subtle body work starts to come into play.
58:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
58:41
SPEAKER_05: So I develop practices around that.
58:44
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
58:44
SPEAKER_05: And then the final pillar, so these are coming out as three pillars.
58:48
SPEAKER_05: The final pillar is this kind of embodied uh resilience.
58:52
SPEAKER_05: So that means simply right, okay.
58:54
SPEAKER_05: What do I need to keep practicing to reduce the impact of the harm that's still gonna come?
58:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
59:00
SPEAKER_05: Because you're not in my lifetime, are we gonna change white body cultural supremacy, that's not gonna end.
59:04
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah, which means at any moment the harm can walk down the path.
59:09
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, holding a tin of paint, yeah.
59:12
unknown: Yeah.
59:14
SPEAKER_02: You know, than all guys is yeah, yeah, yeah.
59:18
SPEAKER_05: So you've got to have if you know that you're doing practices, A to reduce the harm you've already experienced, B to build embodied resilience to the harm that is yet to come, yeah.
59:28
SPEAKER_05: Um then you can obviously always be in a position where the harm comes, yeah, but it's less harmful because you're more resilient and you also have the somatic tools to deal with the level of harm that has come anyway.
59:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
59:40
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
59:41
SPEAKER_05: But it all starts with this sense of sense of empowered recognition, recognising that hey, harm is done to us on the daily.
59:48
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I love that you've you've kind of recognised how important it is and actually how it pulls everything you've learnt together and channeling it to support people, that's wonderful.
59:59
SPEAKER_02: What about black mind, body, heart?
1:00:02
SPEAKER_05: Well, that's what that's what I yeah, I call it black body, black body, heart, mind.
1:00:06
SPEAKER_05: Heart mind.
1:00:06
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, black body, heart mind.
1:00:08
SPEAKER_05: So again, what I'm what people won't mostly understand from that, and I just think it's nice words, isn't it, to put together.
1:00:14
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
1:00:14
SPEAKER_05: People often say kind of journey.
1:00:16
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
1:00:16
SPEAKER_05: And but and and but it actually relates to an understanding that can be found in classical tantric yoga, it can be so found in Qigung, and it can be found in ancient Kemetic yoga.
1:00:27
SPEAKER_05: Okay.
1:00:27
SPEAKER_05: And that that there are three points of singularity, so three points of pure conscious presence if you ascribe to that philosophical position that all of this is just consciousness, expressing as a multiplicity.
1:00:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:00:40
SPEAKER_05: But there are three points to it.
1:00:42
SPEAKER_05: So in Qigung, it's known as the lower Dantian, the middle Dantian, and the Upper Dantian.
1:00:47
SPEAKER_05: Okay.
1:00:48
SPEAKER_05: In uh classical tantric yoga, it's known as the Kunda, the Shakti Bindu, and the Shiva Bindu.
1:00:56
SPEAKER_05: In Kemetic Yoga, it's known as Atun, Atun Amun.
1:01:01
SPEAKER_05: Okay.
1:01:02
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
1:01:02
SPEAKER_05: Now these points of singularity, so the the lowest one relates to consciousness's primordial sense of existence.
1:01:10
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
1:01:10
SPEAKER_05: It knows that it exists.
1:01:11
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:01:12
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
1:01:13
SPEAKER_05: Equally, this is your sense of knowing that you exist, that you are.
1:01:17
SPEAKER_05: Right.
1:01:17
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
1:01:18
SPEAKER_05: You are a being, that you exist.
1:01:20
SPEAKER_05: So any areas around kind of not feeling confident or not feeling a sense of belonging.
1:01:25
SPEAKER_02: That's kind of in your gut, your abdomen.
1:01:28
SPEAKER_05: That's the body.
1:01:29
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, okay.
1:01:30
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, that's the body aspect.
1:01:32
SPEAKER_05: And that's the lower this lower center.
1:01:35
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:01:35
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:01:36
SPEAKER_05: It's not an energy center because it's primordial consciousness.
1:01:39
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
1:01:39
SPEAKER_05: Um, a point of singularity.
1:01:41
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
1:01:42
SPEAKER_05: The heart one is your creative impulse, yeah, and your energetic expression.
1:01:49
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:01:50
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, which includes passion and love, okay.
1:01:53
SPEAKER_05: So that's body, yeah, heart.
1:01:55
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:01:55
SPEAKER_05: And then this one is your is your wisdom.
1:01:58
SPEAKER_05: So again, consciousness knows that it exists out of its will and desire to express itself, manifests all of this.
1:02:06
SPEAKER_02: Oh, okay.
1:02:07
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
1:02:08
SPEAKER_02: Like everything we're seeing.
1:02:09
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
1:02:10
SPEAKER_05: And it has its own wisdom, it is its own knowledge, yeah.
1:02:15
SPEAKER_05: Its own wisdom, its insight.
1:02:17
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
1:02:17
SPEAKER_05: So when I talk about the the black body, heart mind, I'm talking about these three centres.
1:02:22
SPEAKER_05: Right.
1:02:23
SPEAKER_05: And very often I will do practices depending on maybe what people where people where the harm has been caused.
1:02:30
SPEAKER_05: So, you know, maybe you feel like you can't express yourself creatively because of racialization and racism.
1:02:38
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
1:02:39
SPEAKER_05: Maybe you feel like you don't have a sense of belonging, you don't really fit in anywhere.
1:02:43
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
1:02:44
SPEAKER_05: Maybe you have doubt about your own intellectual capacities and wisdom and insight about your lived experience.
1:02:51
SPEAKER_05: So I will use these three centres within my somatic practices to bring about a deepening.
1:02:58
SPEAKER_05: And people don't I don't have to explain all this to people, it's just not just focus on your lower belly, just focus on the centre of your chest, just focus on the centre of your head.
1:03:04
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:03:04
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
1:03:05
SPEAKER_05: I know what I'm working towards uh and why.
1:03:09
SPEAKER_02: And people aren't there to learn the theory, they're there to beat the benefits benefits and the results, yeah.
1:03:14
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
1:03:15
SPEAKER_05: And I know that it works because this is how I've worked with myself and with others.
1:03:20
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
1:03:20
SPEAKER_05: Outside of uh an anti-racism context with just other bodies, but coming with similar kind of issues, you know, not having low confidence, low self-esteem, not feeling like that they can express themselves creatively and and or are not in tune with their own intuition.
1:03:36
SPEAKER_02: So words are so important as well, aren't they?
1:03:39
SPEAKER_02: Like finding the right word over time through this practice to use words that are not harmful to yourself, to not take responsibility for something that's done to you.
1:03:50
SPEAKER_02: Because I think a lot of this work is what I've kind of really focused on is that this is done to me.
1:03:58
SPEAKER_02: I'm not responsible.
1:04:00
SPEAKER_02: And the words I use with myself is very different because I'm not accepting that responsibility where media and other sources are trying to make it my responsibility to stop this happening to me.
1:04:17
SPEAKER_02: And it makes no sense.
1:04:19
SPEAKER_05: No, no, we can't.
1:04:21
SPEAKER_05: No.
1:04:21
SPEAKER_05: That's that's the thing, we really can't stop it from happening.
1:04:24
SPEAKER_05: All we can do is acknowledge that it's happened and then work to limit the harm that it's caused.
1:04:30
SPEAKER_02: And try and educate people when you talk to them because it's it's just such a clever PR campaign, like you know, corporations will have a EDI department and assume that oh, that's gonna be really good for someone like you.
1:04:47
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:04:48
SPEAKER_02: Like, but why?
1:04:50
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
1:04:51
SPEAKER_02: Because having an EDI department doesn't benefit me if you're not gonna teach the people who are causing me harm.
1:04:58
SPEAKER_05: I mean, I I like I I I I came out of EDI work and it's only later when when working with Rezma Menikan, and he says, Yeah, he said, Well just think about equality and diverting inclusion.
1:05:11
SPEAKER_05: Equal to whom?
1:05:12
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, deviant from what.
1:05:15
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, what are we centering and who's who what you meant to be included into.
1:05:19
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's true, the words are so important.
1:05:22
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
1:05:23
SPEAKER_05: So EDR doesn't really work, yeah, because it's centering white body cultural supremacy, and we're gonna do our very best to uh uh give you some equal positioning in our structure, yeah, yeah, because you are divergent from the norm.
1:05:37
SPEAKER_05: The norm that has been put on us.
1:05:39
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
1:05:40
SPEAKER_05: And a deviant, because you know diversity comes from the same root word to deviant.
1:05:44
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
1:05:45
SPEAKER_05: You're a deviant from the standard, yeah.
1:05:47
SPEAKER_05: But we're going to find a way of including you into our standard.
1:05:51
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:05:52
SPEAKER_02: When you break it down and when you think about it, it just changes, and this is why the words are so important, and that that's why I'm so much more.
1:06:00
SPEAKER_02: Conscious of how I respond to things, I don't laugh at jokes, you know, certain things that are said in jest are just not funny.
1:06:08
SPEAKER_02: Actually, I'm not gonna laugh at that because you're upholding a racial um stereotype that is harmful.
1:06:15
SPEAKER_02: So no, that's not funny.
1:06:18
SPEAKER_02: And I think we have to we have to be alert, and that is exhausting because our norm is always different then.
1:06:26
SPEAKER_02: Well not not different, our norm is liberate not liberated as it could be.
1:06:31
SPEAKER_05: And it's it's like you know, like we say what just happened there.
1:06:34
SPEAKER_05: We couldn't we couldn't write it, could we?
1:06:36
SPEAKER_05: No, we couldn't we couldn't have like couldn't have been scripted.
1:06:40
SPEAKER_02: No, I should have kept recording.
1:06:42
SPEAKER_05: No, look at how how many people have we seen on the walk?
1:06:45
SPEAKER_05: Like literally five.
1:06:46
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
1:06:48
SPEAKER_05: I know one in five.
1:06:51
SPEAKER_05: Just gonna go, yeah, but where are you really from?
1:06:53
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean the way the way it played out was just I just couldn't believe it.
1:06:59
SPEAKER_02: I was like, that's what I thought, right?
1:07:01
SPEAKER_02: Very nice to meet you.
1:07:03
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:07:03
SPEAKER_02: See ya.
1:07:05
SPEAKER_02: We're not gonna talk anymore because what's the point?
1:07:07
SPEAKER_05: And then to list all the places he's been.
1:07:09
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it was yeah, I mean, what are the chances you bump into someone who's gonna question your skin colour and then tell you he's been to your place of heritage many times that he's memorised the map.
1:07:22
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
1:07:23
SPEAKER_02: So I'm just gonna stand here and tell you place names.
1:07:27
SPEAKER_02: Okay, congratulations.
1:07:30
SPEAKER_02: I mean, what do you say to that?
1:07:31
SPEAKER_02: I've been to Sri Lanka like maximum twice as an adult.
1:07:35
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
1:07:36
SPEAKER_02: Don't know what to say.
1:07:38
SPEAKER_02: Just nod.
1:07:40
SPEAKER_05: It's good you wouldn't go to Jamaica because I haven't been I haven't been at all.
1:07:45
SPEAKER_02: Maybe that's what we should do.
1:07:46
SPEAKER_02: We should do that anti-racist Cumbria on tour.
1:07:50
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:07:50
SPEAKER_02: Go to Jamaica.
1:07:53
SPEAKER_02: That'd be fascinating.
1:07:55
SPEAKER_02: Oh, well, thank you, Rowan.
1:07:57
SPEAKER_02: That was amazing.
1:08:08
SPEAKER_02: I don't know about you, but I'm not sure where to begin processing that conversation.
1:08:14
SPEAKER_02: Walking back to the car, I found myself thinking about that interaction we had, the one where we were stopped and questioned about where we're really from.
1:08:24
SPEAKER_02: And I kept thinking this is the tip of the iceberg of the sort of interaction Rowan helps with every single day.
1:08:32
SPEAKER_02: This is what we as black and brown bodies navigate constantly.
1:08:37
SPEAKER_02: And yet he's found a way not just to survive it, but to transform it into something that helps others.
1:08:45
SPEAKER_02: That's the power of embodied resilience.
1:08:48
SPEAKER_02: I want to leave you with a few questions to sit with.
1:08:52
SPEAKER_02: Firstly, where in your body do you hold harm?
1:08:56
SPEAKER_02: Maybe it's not racial trauma, maybe it's something else entirely, but we all carry something.
1:09:02
SPEAKER_02: Where does yours live?
1:09:04
SPEAKER_02: Is it in your shoulders, your belly, your jaw?
1:09:09
SPEAKER_02: Just take a minute to notice it.
1:09:12
SPEAKER_02: That's the first step Rowan told us about empowered recognition.
1:09:17
SPEAKER_02: Secondly, what would it mean for you to transform harm rather than release it?
1:09:23
SPEAKER_02: Remember Rowan's analogy about the Coke bottle?
1:09:27
SPEAKER_02: You can release the pressure, but if you haven't changed what's inside, it's still harmful.
1:09:33
SPEAKER_02: What would transformation actually look like for you?
1:09:37
SPEAKER_02: That's the second step Rowan told us about somatic processing.
1:09:43
SPEAKER_02: And finally, what practices are you building to create embodied resilience?
1:09:49
SPEAKER_02: Not just for the challenges you faced already, but for the ones still to come.
1:09:54
SPEAKER_02: Because as Rowan said, harm is still going to show up.
1:09:58
SPEAKER_02: The question is, will you have the tools to process it?
1:10:02
SPEAKER_02: And that is the third of Rowan's three pillars.
1:10:06
SPEAKER_02: I'm still sitting with these questions myself, and I think that's the point.
1:10:11
SPEAKER_02: This isn't about having all the answers, it's about committing to practice.
1:10:17
SPEAKER_02: If this conversation resonated with you, I'd love to hear about it.
1:10:22
SPEAKER_02: Please leave a comment sharing what came up for you or what part of Rowan's story really landed.
1:10:28
SPEAKER_02: And if you know someone who really needs to hear this, maybe someone doing racial justice work, someone navigating similar challenges, or someone who's never had to think about this work, please share this episode with them.
1:10:42
SPEAKER_02: This is the kind of conversation that needs to reach beyond our usual circles.
1:10:48
SPEAKER_02: And if you haven't already, please subscribe so you don't miss future episodes.
1:10:53
SPEAKER_02: We're having more conversations like this, real and potentially transformative.
1:10:59
SPEAKER_02: Hit that subscribe button wherever you're listening.
1:11:03
SPEAKER_02: Also, if you have a moment, leaving a review really helps others find the podcast.
1:11:09
SPEAKER_02: Just a few words about what you appreciated or what challenged you.
1:11:13
SPEAKER_02: It makes a huge difference.
1:11:16
SPEAKER_02: You can find more information about Rowan and Black Body Heart Mind in the show notes.
1:11:21
SPEAKER_02: He offers courses in meditation, spiritual development, and somatic anti-racism practices.
1:11:28
SPEAKER_02: He also designs comprehensive yoga courses and gives you the tools to practice independently.
1:11:34
SPEAKER_02: Thank you for walking with us today and thank you, Rowan, for sharing your wisdom, your story, and that gorgeous singing bowl with us.
1:11:43
SPEAKER_02: Until next time, keep walking, keep questioning, and keep doing the work.
1:11:50
SPEAKER_02: Before we go, I want to share one more sound from Rowan's singing bowl, recorded right there from Kogramoss.
1:11:59
SPEAKER_02: Let this be your invitation to pause and breathe, to come into your body, whatever that means for you today.
1:12:08
SPEAKER_02: So just to end, shall we have another sound bowl?
1:12:12
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, definitely.
1:12:12
SPEAKER_02: I'll use more of the biggest.
1:12:14
SPEAKER_02: Just give me one sec to get this little camera set up.
1:12:18
SPEAKER_02: Oh, there's a yappy dog going past.
1:12:21
SPEAKER_05: There is a yappy dog going past.