Latest / Master Your Yoga Teaching with MaKenzie Fly / 15 Minute Meditation for After an Argument | Find Calm & Perspective
Transcript
- MaKenzie Fly: What's up everybody and welcome back to MYYT, where you are learning to level up your yoga teaching one masterful class at a time. OMG! I am celebrating 20,000 downloads on the podcast. Y'all, thank you so much for coming back each and every Wednesday and listening, listening to the show, being a part of the community, the NYYT family. I cannot tell you how much it means to me that you do so, that you're here. I started this podcast three, maybe four months after Finn, my first son, was born, and he's about to be three in November. I was in the thick of early motherhood and just desperately craving adult conversation in general, but also about my favorite topic, which is yoga teaching and all of the stuff that comes with dedicating your life to this practice. But the beautiful thing is, is just like being a yoga teacher holds you accountable to your yoga practice. This podcast has been such a gift in the sense that it holds me accountable to continue my learning, to stay curious, to ask questions, to be in the student seat when the guests are here to maintain a beginner's mind because we all have a piece of the puzzle. No single teacher, no single lineage, no guru or expert or mentor or human can hold all of it, which is actually the theme within today's. meditation here that I'm sharing on the podcast, nobody can hold it all. It's just too big. This topic of yoga is so vast that not one person can wrap their head around it, at least not in one life. I'm just so grateful to every single guest who has come on here to share their genius. I'm so grateful to you, dear listener, for plugging me into your ears and coming back each week. And it just means so much to me. So I wanted to start by saying thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you for being here. We are really just gaining momentum and traction and energy. And I would also love to know who you would love to learn from. So if you're following me on Instagram or if you aren't yet, you can click the link in the show notes to connect with me and let me know who you'd love to hear from next because we're just getting started, baby. It's so fun. And thank you. Thank you. Now for today's podcast episode, I'm sharing with you a meditation that I created for my YouTube channel actually. And I know, I know that you are a yoga teacher who has a standard. You don't want to just show up and phone it in when it comes to your yoga teaching. It's important to you to show up every single teaching opportunity that you have with something important to say. You don't just want to stretch hamstrings, you want to stir hearts. How do I know this? Because I am just like you. I have that standard, I have that expectation for myself. And so I identify as a theme weaver, and this is my methodology. This is the way I live, teach. Build business is through this lens of theme weaving, meaning how do we infuse yoga philosophy and principles into everything that we do, not just the way that we teach yoga, but the way we live our life and build our business. With all that being said, I want to showcase what that actually looks like. And so that's why I am posting more practices, whether it's a meditation practice or a stronger remix practice, a flow vinyasa class. So that you can directly experience this. A lot of a lot of you have reached out and been like, I don't have a lot of teachers who are doing this in my area. And it is difficult to build this skill if you're not receiving it as a student. You have to get it to give it. And so I want to give it to you as much as possible. And hopefully you'll get a sense and taste of that even within this meditation. If you really, really loved it, make sure you also check out the link in the show notes to be introduced to. What's now called Theme Weaver Weekly. If you've been around a while, this used to be called Inspired Flow Monthly. I have rebranded it to this new name. And inside, this is a class planning subscription that basically gives you my theme-centered class plans to help alleviate the constant class plan and grind and make teaching beyond the pose easier than ever. So you can swipe this exact script and share it with your students. I know they're gonna love it. I already taught it this morning. And I'm just like, you know, you know, when you finish and you're like, wow. That healed me a little bit to share it. I had that feeling. So I'm really excited for you to try it. Thanks again so much for being a podcast listener. 20,000 downloads. I can't even believe it. And enjoy this meditation. What's up everybody and welcome back to Theme Weaver, the virtual yoga studio here on YouTube for both yoga practitioners as well as yoga teachers who really appreciate when insights, story, philosophy are woven into the practice. This is a 15-minute meditation that will be especially supportive after an argument. It will help you find calm and perspective. So go ahead and begin by creating your seat of meditation. Ideally sitting on a cushion or in some way raising your hips higher than your knees. And then position your legs in a comfortable way that is good for your knee joints, your hips and your ankles. Sit upright, but not necessarily uptight. A bit of softness between your shoulders all along your neck. Position the arms and the hands, whether that's on your knees or in your lap. And decide what you want to do with your eyes. Either gaze down the bridge of your nose or close your eyes. Bring your mind to your breath. And take three intentional breaths. Inhale through your nose. Open your mouth and exhale. Again, inhale through your nose. Open your mouth, exhale. One more like that. Inhale through your nose. Open your mouth, exhale. release any manipulation of your breathing, but try to hold your attention and concentration on the natural flow of your breathing. There's an old parable about two people encountering an elephant. One touches its trunk and says, An elephant is long and flexible like a snake. The other touches its leg and says, No, an elephant is sturdy and solid like a tree. Their descriptions are completely different. And yet they're touching the exact same animal. Both are experiencing something true, and neither is experiencing the whole truth. Notice the sensations that you brought to this sit. Allow any feelings to be present. And use your breath. As an anchor, return to your breath. to help soften those sensations. This story teaches the skill of perspective taking, recognizing that what you see depends in part on where you're standing. Sometimes an experience is simply too big for one person to see all of it. Your perspective can be valid without being complete. And remembering that creates room for curiosity instead of certainty. Allow any sensation in the body. Any feelings in your heart, turbulence in your mind, allow it to be there so that you don't deny your experience. But bring your attention and your concentration back to your breath to the best of your ability. And in doing so, you're creating that room, that spaciousness. Meditation is so effective at helping you develop the skill of perspective taking because instead of getting swept up in the story that your mind is telling you, you practice stepping back and observing it. Instead of being so certain and saying, this is what happened, you can notice instead, this is how I experienced what happened. That tiny bit of space allows you to hold your perspective without being held by it. Notice physical sensations, allow them to be present. And then bring your mind back to your breath. Perspective taking is especially useful after an argument, but by no means easy. You can walk away completely certain about what happened while the other person walks away equally certain of something different. So instead of asking, how could they possibly see it that way? Ask, what part of the elephant am I holding? And what might they be holding that I can't see? Understanding another perspective doesn't require abandoning your own. Allow any feelings occurring in your body to be. Notice your mental narrative. and calm those feelings by bringing your mind back to your breath as it is. Because of your time spent here, may you be a little less attached to being right and a little more curious about what you cannot see. Your experience is valid, but it may not be the only valid experience. Sometimes peace doesn't come from proving who has the elephant right. Sometimes it can be from remembering. that you're only holding one part of something much bigger. Notice how being with the breath for even just 15 minutes has made you feel the sensations in your body or the narrative, the story in your mind. Hopefully a little more space, a little more calm, and a different perspective. Go ahead and take a deep breath in. And a sigh out. Open your eyes and release your seat of meditation. I sincerely hope that this supported you and that you're able to re-engage with your day and your life with a little more composure. Thank you so much for meditating with me and until the next time, namaste.