Latest / Hurdle with Emily Abbate / 208. Manoj Dias, Co-Founder & Vice President of Mindfulness at Open

Transcript

208. Manoj Dias, Co-Founder & Vice President of Mindfulness at Open · Hurdle with Emily Abbate

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: You're not alone.
• 0:01
  Speaker 2: I think we can feel like our experience is happening
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: just to us, like we are the only one going
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: through depression or anxiety, or even worse, like it is
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: us that's suffering. But the reality of the nature of
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: all of our lives is that we will all suffer, right,
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: And if we can actually remember that, if we can
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  Speaker 2: remember that as a byproduct of our evolution, our ancestors
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: have suffered and they have overcome that, and so it
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: is in our DNA that we can overcome suffering. That's
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: not poetic or spiritual, it's fact, like we can overcome things.
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: Hey, everybody, Emily Abadi here coming to you from the
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: AG studio. You are listening to episode two hundred and
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  Speaker 3: eight of Hurdle, a wellness focus podcast where I connect
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: with that everyone from your favorite athletes to top experts
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: and industry CEOs about their highest ties, toughest moments, and
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: everything in between. We all go through hurdles in life,
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: and my goal through these discussions is to empower you
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: to better navigate yours and move with intention so that
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: you can stride towards your own big potential and of
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: course have some fun along the way.
• 1:24
  Speaker 4: For today's episode.
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: I am sitting down with Manage daias he is the
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: co founder and vice president of Mindfulness at Open, a
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: modern mindfulness studio, emerging technology, culture, cinematography, and proven practices
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: to create community and presence. We talk all about the
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: particulars of what Open is and how he got to
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: this place. In today's episode, I was so excited to
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: have the opportunity to sit down with Minoj in their
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: Venice space out in Los Angeles and was so intrigued
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: by his backstory. In today's episode, Dias talks to me
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: about being born in Sri Lanka and becoming a meditation
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: and mindfulness teacher after a decade spent working in marketing
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: and finance in Australia. He talks to me about the
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: hurdle moment that brought about this big career shift, and
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: we get into a really beautiful discussion about how each
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: of us can become more present, how breathwork and meditation
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: actually feed off of one another, and the importance of
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: rituals in our day Today. Again, loved this conversation with
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: such a nice kickoff to my time last week in
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: Los Angeles, I myself have been using Open regularly I'm
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: going to talk about that a little bit into the episode.
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: But if you too want to get in on Open
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: and give it a try for yourself, you can head
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: on over to with open dot com that's whop e
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: n dot com slash Hurdle and get thirty days free
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: just for hurdle listeners. Again, that is with Open dot
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: Com slash Hurdle. There you can try meditation classes, breathwork classes,
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: and movement classes. Make sure you're following along with Hurdle
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: over on social media. It's at Hurdle podcast. I myself
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: am over at Emily a Body And with that, let's
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: get to hurdling.
• 3:35
  Speaker 4: Today.
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  Speaker 3: I am sitting down with Minaj the co founder and
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: vice president of Mindfulness for Open.
• 3:41
  Speaker 5: How are you doing today?
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: I'm doing great, I think I said to you right
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: off the bat. I'm feeling good because finally I'm in
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: La for a weekend and I had plenty of rests,
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: plenty of this beautiful sunshine.
• 3:52
  Speaker 5: So I feel really good this beautiful sunshine.
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: Although every time I come to La, I like wake
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: up on that first morning and the marine layer throw
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: me for a loop. Yeah, as I think to myself,
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: it's always sunny in la And then I look out
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: the window and I've got a gray morning, but it's
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: burning off. I saw it on the way over here.
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: I'm ready to get in a hearty dose of vitamin D.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: Great, and you're in the right place. You're right by
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: the beach. It's perfect you.
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: Thank you for having me. We are sitting in opens
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: space right now. I feel like before we really dive
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: into learning about you, that you should give us a
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: little overview on what open is.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'd be happy to so.
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  Speaker 2: Open is really a mindfulness studio at its core, But
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: what we really believe in is that there are many
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: ways to experience mindfulness. Mindfulness has been around for longer
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  Speaker 2: than twenty five hundred years, and specifically around the last
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  Speaker 2: thirty forty years, it's kind of become part of the
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: popular vernaculb. But for many of us, we associate mindfulness
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  Speaker 2: as been this really rigid practice in which we have
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: to sit and what we think is emptying our mind
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: and being really peaceful and quiet. What we've done is
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: we've partnered with researchers and advisors and our expert teachers
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: to really find new ways to drop into that same
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: place of presence and connection. And so we can do
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: that through music, we can do that through sound, we
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: can do that through our breath. And so all of
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: our classes integrate these elements into yoga classes, breath work classes,
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: and meditate and polarates classes.
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  Speaker 1: So each practice will have this.
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  Speaker 2: Hybrid integration of breath, sound, music, and movement, and some
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  Speaker 2: effect of all of that is this really embodied experience
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  Speaker 2: of mindfulness and not something that's very cognitive, but something
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  Speaker 2: that we can just feel and take with us into
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  Speaker 2: the day.
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  Speaker 3: I missed one day, but I'm on like almost now
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: a two week streak of open classes, and I have
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: done and practiced breathwork before, but I don't think I've
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: ever found a platform that was or that is excuse me,
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  Speaker 3: as accessible as open in terms of it offering me
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: breath work options that kind of meet me where I'm at.
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  Speaker 3: And I feel like that is, you know, one of
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: the most practical pieces of advice when it comes to
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: establishing a new habit. It's like, rather than seeing that
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  Speaker 3: someone else has a twenty minute breathwork practice and say
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: I want also a twenty minute breathwork practice, like, okay,
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: maybe eventually you can get there, but if you don't
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: have one yet start with one to three minutes.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Absolutely, And you know, maybe you don't need a twenty
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: minute breathwork practice at all. Right, I think it's in
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: a breathwork specifically, it's so functional, Like if I'm feeling anxious,
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: I could just do five deep breaths and you know,
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: regulate my nervous system that way. If I'm feeling tired,
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: then I can do five really quick breaths and up
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: regulate my nervous system. So it's so functional, and we
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: can take it with you where we go because it's
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: literally sitting underneath our nostrils.
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: And I feel like the thing with breathwork that I'm
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: still trying to get over this hurdle with meditation is
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: that breathwork. It's like I have something that I am
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: doing the entire time. For someone who has heavy thinker energy.
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: This really feels like I'm in my boat now. I'm like, oh,
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: I have this exercise to do for the next three minutes.
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: Like it's a task, right, I feel as though I
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: should work toward feeling as though I am better at meditation,
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: But the breathwork is like a new adventure for me,
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: and I really pick it.
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, a lot of people are surprised to
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: hear like I also have heavy overthinker energy as well,
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: and I always.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: Had that, you know, throughout my life.
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: Breath work is for me not an end in itself.
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  Speaker 2: It's a means to an end. It really gets us
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: into our body. It drops us out of the habitual
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: thinking and the planning and you know, the doing, and
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: it gets us primed to meditate, to go into that
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: place of awareness and stillness and meditation. When you combine
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: the two, it's like a really powerful combination.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: Right, you drop out.
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  Speaker 2: Of the rat race, so to speak, and then you're
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: able to experience meditation with a little bit more clarity
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: and a little bit more sense of groundedness.
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  Speaker 3: I guess I didn't think about the potential for stacking
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: them like habits, stacking breathwork and meditation. And it's interesting
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  Speaker 3: now that you say that, and the light bulb goes
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: off in my head, because what I was speaking about
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: last week with my life coach was stacking my breathwork
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  Speaker 3: and my journaling. And at first, when I started this
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  Speaker 3: two weeks ago, I was journaling and then doing breath work,
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  Speaker 3: and she said to me, what if you flipped it
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  Speaker 3: because I'm working again heavy thinker, trying to get to
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: feel more often on unlocking that. So she said, what
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: if you sit with yourself and calm and notice how
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: that feels, and then get to a place where you're reflecting.
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  Speaker 3: And in doing that, I've been less in my journaling
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  Speaker 3: kind of writing down the steps of what I did
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: yesterday and more thinking about how it felt as I
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: went through the steps of what I did yesterday. So
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: I really like this idea of stacking the breath work
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  Speaker 3: and the meditation.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean traditionally in the ancient Yogic lineages, that's
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: how it was taught. You know, you would sit first,
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: you would do the breath work. Sorry, you would actually
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: practice first. Oh, I mean, there's different ways of doing it,
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  Speaker 2: but essentially there was the arsenal, the prmi arm, which
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: is the breath work, and then there's the meditation. And
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  Speaker 2: so whether that's doing the breath work, going into meditation
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  Speaker 2: then going into practice or vice versa like, it was
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  Speaker 2: taught sequentially and you can definitely do it these days.
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  Speaker 1: For sure.
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  Speaker 3: Where were you when you first started practicing breath work
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  Speaker 3: and meditation?
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  Speaker 1: So I was raised in Sri Lanka.
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  Speaker 2: Actually, I was born in Sri Lanka, and in Sri Lanka,
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  Speaker 2: there's a big Buddhist influence, you know, in that country,
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  Speaker 2: and so I was around spirituality for a big part
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  Speaker 2: of my childhood, but I never really understood it, you know.
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  Speaker 2: I just used to see monks coming in chanting, meditating,
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  Speaker 2: and I would just be fascinated by how they looked.
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  Speaker 2: But then I migrated to Australia, and in Australia, I
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: really lost connection to Buddhism, to meditation, to that culture.
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  Speaker 2: And it wasn't until I was in my twenties when
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: I had a pretty serious panic attack that led to
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: a whole host of other health issues that I serendipitously
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: found my way in a Buddhist meditation studio. And when
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: I rediscovered it as an adult, it was a completely
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: different experience because at that point I was suffering. I
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: was going through a lot of health issues, and I
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: was looking for a way to get better, to get healthier.
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: And I didn't know at that point that the way
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: to get healthier was to really understand my mind, because
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: my mind was creating most of the suffering at that point.
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: And so when I rediscovered this ability to notice my thinking,
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: notice the anxious thoughts as they were arising in my body,
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: to notice you know, the sadness, the loneliness, all of
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: these things that were coming up. I then had a
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: tool to be able to respond to that. And that
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: tool was the tool that meditation really gave me, right
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: the awareness and then also the wisdom that it gave me.
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: And so finding it at that point was so different
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: to like being raised in the experience because I needed
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: it and.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: I was ready.
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: And I think it's serendipitous when we kind of come
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: into contact with these practices at times in our lives
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: where it just really makes a difference.
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: Can we unpack the circumstances around the panic attack?
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: Absolutely? I love unpacking my trauma.
• 11:18
  Speaker 4: Do it.
• 11:18
  Speaker 5: That's my favorite. That's my favorite.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I was. I was in the corporate world.
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: I was in marketing and advertising. I was burning the
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: candle at a lot of ends, you know. And I
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: don't think many of us are taught how to regulate
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: our nervous system.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: Most of us.
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: Have low grade anxiety, you know, especially in that environment
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: and that culture. I probably also had ADHD, like a
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: whole host of things I was really unaware of and
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: then you combine the stress and the anxiety of a
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: high pressure job, which is what I was doing, sixty
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: seventy hours a week, with lots of caffeine, drinking two
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: or three cups of coffee a day, with like on
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: Friday nights, going and drinking and having very sleep, and
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: this kind of builds up, and for all of us,
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: there is a point in time where you can't take
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: that level of tension anymore, and it will come out
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: in some way, whether it's like blowing up it your partner,
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: whether it's your body breaking down, or whether it's your
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: mind kind of having a moment. And for me, it
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: happened at work and I literally just had like a.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: Breakdown of work.
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: I started crying, I was emotional, didn't know what was happening.
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: My arms were shaking. I literally thought I was about
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: to die because I'd never heard of anxiety, to be hones,
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: I thought it was something that people that are really
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: messed up actually experienced. And this was like, you know,
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: sixteen seventeen years ago, so we don't we never talked
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: about it like we do now. Now it's pretty common.
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: Everyone's got a therapist, everyone's anxious, like it's just such
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: a normal thing, but back.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: Then it was very unfamiliar to all of us.
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: And so yeah, it was a big pivotal moment in
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: my life, and it led me down the path of
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: seeing a therapist and speaking to doctors, speaking to psychologious
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: but the majority of them at that time were just
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: prescribing medication for these things. And so I have nothing
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: against meditation medication at all, but it was a very
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: quick assessment of Oh, you're anxious, you should go take this,
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: or you know, you're deprissed, you should go and take
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: that and just rest.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: It was a very simplistic, reductionist kind of diagnosis of
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: my experience at that point. But I'm also thankful for
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: that moment now, for that breakdown, because that was a
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: moment that life was like, Hey, you need to look
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: at yourself.
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, and what a beautiful kind of pivot on
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: the perspective that you started with. I'm sure to be
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: able to look back at that moment and think about
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: the path that it led you down, and what that
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: stress and that difficulty brought for you, what that did
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: for you, how it happened for you.
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think as a teacher, it's really hard
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: to help people suffer less if you've never really suffered
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: in that same way, you know, And I went through
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: tremendous you know, I refer to suffering but stress, anxiety, depression,
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: and a lot of pain through my own resistance to
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: emotions and things like that.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: And so, yeah, it is.
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: You can look back on it and you can say
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: it was a gift, but in the moment, it's like,
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: oh my God, like will I make it out of
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: this experience?
• 14:23
  Speaker 4: Right?
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: So for you, after you go through this hurdle moment,
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: where does your life lead you professionally from this marketing job?
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah? So I couldn't work for two years. You know,
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: I was really sick.
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: I had developed like an eating disorder, and I was
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: really sick and feeble. And I was essentially living at
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: this ashrom with my teacher for a period of time
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: before my mother came and she was looking after me
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: for a while, and I had some savings and it
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: was dwindling every single day because I didn't work for
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: two years, and I was literally down to like the
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: last three hundred dollars or one hundred and fifty dollars
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: or something like that.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: And I remember asking my teacher.
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: One day, I'm like, I don't know what I meant
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: to do with my life, like you know what I
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: wanted before, Like I just can't see myself chasing money
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: and climbing this ladder and it just doesn't feel in
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: my body like it's what I want to do. And
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: he just looked at me and it's like yeah, because
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: you know you're you're going to teach one day. And
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: I was like teach what? Like being a meditation teacher
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: wasn't sexy, Like no one even taught yoga, Like it
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: was like a weird sort of occupation that only hip
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: his did. And I grew up in Australia, right, so
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: it wasn't like a big thing like it was in
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: LA And I usually just think he was like crazy,
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: But you know, the next week I started helping him
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: out in his classes and assisting and I started to
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: maybe think, oh, maybe maybe I could teach, Like you know,
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: I would get like twenty dollars a class, which was
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: like nothing, right, And one day.
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: When you when you have one hundred and fifty dollars
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: to your name and you're getting twenty dollars a class,
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: that's not nothing.
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: Exactly exactly but I was so used to this different lifestyle.
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: Is six foot a lavish lifestyle. It didn't compute in
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: my mind that this could be a feasible thing, right.
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: But one day I came to practice my teachers class
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: and he's like, oh, I can't teach today, Can you
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: teach for me? And I was like what. He's like, yeah,
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: go and go and teach, and I'm like okay. So
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: I quickly started writing down all these notes and as
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: I was about to walk in, he took the notebook
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: to go and teach, and then he came and sat
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: and he wasn't sick. He was just kind of there
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: observing me or whatever it was doing. But that was
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: really my first class, and from then on he kind
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: of every now and again got me to come and teach,
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: and I eventually went and did different trainings, and I
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: started traveling throughout the world sitting with different meditation masters.
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: The rest is kind of history, but you know, in
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: twenty sixteen or twenty fifteen, I opened a meditation studio
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: in Australia. It was called a Space, which was at
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: the time Australia's first drop in meditation studio, and that
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: really began like a very different path, which was merging
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: this entrepreneurial of me and the meditation side of me
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: and led me down.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: The path of co founding Open.
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: When you say that you started traveling around the world
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: and meeting and studying under different experts, how did you
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: go about finding and then solidifying these opportunities and also
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: supporting yourself during these travels.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So I started supporting myself by teaching a lot
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: of classes. You know, I was teaching yoga for a
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: little bit, I was teaching meditation, I was doing privates.
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: I was literally everything I could and at that time
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: it was like a real joy because it was something
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: I was deeply passionate about. It was something that I
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: knew would help people. I think that was the big
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: stage shift within myself. Like before working marketing and advertising,
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: I didn't really feel like I was I was necessarily
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: helping or being of service to people in a way
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: where I knew that specifically, you know, helping people with
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: their mental health was and so there was a lot
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: of energy that I had in my body. But then
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: finding these teachers wasn't hard because you know, the meditation
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: world is fairly small and you have like certain teachers
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: like Sharon Salzburg, Joseph Goldstein, Jack Cornfield, and specific centers
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: like Spirit Rock Insite Meditation Society where they're just legendary,
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: you know, for having teachers that had really traveled from
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: India and Sri Lanka in the you know, forty fifty
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: years ago and had blown up meditation in the West.
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: And some of it was also very serendipitous, Like you know,
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: me finding my teacher was just very serendipitous. It wasn't
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: like I searched for him. I was on Facebook one
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: day and a friend posted this video about this teacher,
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: and as soon as I saw him, I'm like there
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: was something about his his voice and the way he spoke.
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: I'm like, I got to sit with him, and I
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: ended up, you know, practicing with him every day for
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: five years and sitting with him for like eight nine years.
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: And so, you know, when I genuinely believe when you're
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: in alignment with life, when you're in a sense of
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: flow with life, things tend to just be presented to
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: you on your path. And I felt very fortunately that's
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: what's been the case.
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: And when you say you sat with him for eight
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: or nine years, for someone who's never heard that terminology before.
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: What does that mean?
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: It just means I practice with him. You know, I
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: would come and practice his class every day. I would
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: go and you know, go to lunch with him, and
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: just I think in the world of meditation, you learn
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: so much from your teachers by how they relate to life.
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: And there's a little bit you learn from, you know,
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: practicing with them, but just how do they relate to
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: difficulties in their life, how do they relate to money,
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: how do they relate to arguments, and you know, relationship breakdowns?
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: Like learning so much from those moments by being next
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: to him was even more beneficial than actual the meditation
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: practices that I did with him.
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: And it seems as though you would have to be
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: open to a certain level of vulnerability when you're the
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: person that's leading other people through this journey. Was that
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: something that came naturally for you as a teacher or
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: was that something that you had to get more acquainted with.
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: I think it's something that I've learned over the years.
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: Like I I also have I am working with my emotions.
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: I think that's like a real block for me, and
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: over the last few years, I've actively tried to explore
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: emotions from a somatic level. But you know, as I
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: started teaching, it's this balance of like how much of
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: yourself do you share where it doesn't become about you,
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: because ultimately, when you're teaching thousands of people, you don't
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: want to go there and vomit your relationship issues or like,
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: you know, all these different things. It's like, this is
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: what I've learned from this experience, and this is what
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: this tradition has taught me, and this is what science
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: has told me, and this is what research has taught me.
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: And then you blend all of those things to give
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: something to someone that's beneficial. You know, you can't go
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: in there and necessarily think everyone wants to hear this
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: super spiritual definition of something, all this highly pragmatic scientific explanation.
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: It's like taking from all these different worlds, rooting it
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: in something that is like not you, you haven't just
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: made up, it's actually proven, and then delivering in a
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: way where people feel like it's accessible, it's understandable and relatable.
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: I think that's a skill that is something that you
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: step into a little bit. The more that you put
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: yourself in this position to be a teacher, regardless of
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: what it is that you're teaching, there's beauty and vulnerability,
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: but to your point of not making it all about you,
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: that takes time and understanding. And I remember recently I
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: was going through my fair share of personal things as well,
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: and I was speaking to someone and I said, how
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: do I show up for my community when I feel
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: like I'm hiding so much at this moment? And the
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: answer was simply saying, Hey, I am dealing with a
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: lot right now, and I know that I can't be
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: the only one. So coming together with that level of
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: vulnerability was a really great opportunity and wasn't just a
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: great opportunity for them, but a really beautiful opportunity for
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: me to end.
• 22:00
  Speaker 5: Power all of these people who.
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: I'm so grateful have told me how much I've offered
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: them to then come back and be here for me.
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: And I think what you demonstrated there was your humanity
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: and people can relate to that, you know, and whether
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: it's a meditation teacher, you know, a podcaster, this public figure,
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: people really want to come into contact with a human
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: because so much of our humanity is under threat right now,
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: because we're working under conditions that are really stressful, where
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: hyper driven a lot of us, right, So from the
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: moment we wake up where go go go, we have
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: a sense of disconnection from what makes us truly human.
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: And you know, we talked about emotions a lot, that's
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: one element of it. We talk about suffering a lot
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: because that's also part of our human experience. Like, there's
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: no way to actually avoid that. One of my favorite
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: teachers it is also a good friend of mine. His
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: name's Johnny Pollard. He once said, and he gave me
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: this beautiful concept of sharing from the scar, not the wound,
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: And the concept is really talking about moments where there's
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: been some sort of healing that's gone on, right, and
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: that's the scar, There's been some sort of healing that's occurred,
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: and from that healing, we can share the lesson that
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: we've learned from that. Oftentimes as teachers, like I've fallen
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: into that trap of going into a class or going
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: into a live stream and the wound is still raw,
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: you know, whether it's a breakup, or whether it's something
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: that's happened to my health, or whether I've lost someone,
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: and then speaking from this really deep wound where the
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: lesson really hasn't fully formed yet, just like the scar
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: hasn't fully formed yet. And so it's something that I
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: bring to my teaching is that I'll never really share
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: something unless that I've really processed that, unless I've really
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: understood that, and there's a deep lesson within that. Now,
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: that doesn't mean that we can't acknowledge the fact that
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: we're going through some stuff. And that's a really beautiful trait,
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: you know, to be able to vulnerably say, Hey, I'm
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: going through heartbreak and I'm feeling it, I'm processing it.
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: I don't really have all the lessons yet, but I
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: just want to. I just want to acknowledge it. And
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: at that moment people would be like, Wow, Emily's a human.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: That's wild. Who would have thought? Who would have thought?
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: This real person speaking to us three times a week.
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: You know, Also with that, the acknowledgment is so healing
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: in itself, right, because if we don't take the time
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: to admit what's happening around us or how we're feeling that,
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: you can't do anything. You can't move forward until you
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: start there. So starting there is so important, and that
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: in itself can certainly be a hurdle.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: I mean, you can't change what you can't see. That's
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: really it, right.
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: So in order for us to transform anything, to change anything,
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: we first have to recognize that it exists. And what
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: you said is exactly it. We've got to name it,
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: We've got to talk about it.
• 24:53
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: So you start a space and you say Australia is
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: so much different than I say Australia.
• 25:00
  Speaker 5: Australia.
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: I can't even pretend that I'm going to say it
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: like you can say it Australia.
• 25:08
  Speaker 5: You miss the whole middle part of the word. I mean,
• 25:11
  Speaker 5: it's just your accent.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: I've never heard that.
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: But I'm gonna I'm going to Australia Australia.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: Have Australians been saying Australia wrong this whole time?
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: No, they're saying it right, and I'm just saying it
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: like I'm from the Northeastern United States. So you start
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: a space in Australia, and then how does that journey
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: bring you to open?
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: So A Space was a really beautiful, heartfelt project with
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: me and a dear friend that we started. We both
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: had had this wild idea when I was actually in
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: New York once and we were exploring all these different
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: yoga studios and meditation studios, and at that point we
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: were just doing pop ups around Australia and working with
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: large organizations and we started to see this community form
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: everywhere we went, and I'm like, I want to give
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: them a home, Like I think we can launch a studio,
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: and my co founder other times like with what money,
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: Like we haven't, Like we were just two friends that
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: had this wild idea and I'm like, I don't know,
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: but like I feel like if we'd start, it'll something
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: will happen. And we literally went home and I kept
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: on pushing him to do it, and he succumbed to it,
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: and we took out two credit cards and we maxed
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: out two credit cards. We found like this really beautiful
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: little studio at the back of a psychology practice, and
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: we just invested everything that we had into this. And
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: because it was the first thing, it was the first
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: of its kind in Australia, We've got a lot of publicity,
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: lots of awareness, and we were managed to attracting well,
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: we managed to attract some really incredible teachers and so
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: this little thing became like a big thing, right, But
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: we really weren't prepared for that.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: We weren't prepared for it to be.
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: What it became, which was people traveling from it to
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: stay abroad to come a practice with us. But also
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: we didn't really have the experience, the business experience, the
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: venture experience to scale that. And eventually the pressure of
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: not making much money and all the money going back
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: into the business really took its toll mentally on both
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: of us and on our relationship, and he ended up
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: leaving the company and I ran out for the last
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: eighteen months. And November twenty nineteen, I was fundraising to
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: launch an app, and I was fundraising in New York
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: and I had found investors, I'd found new partners, and
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: we were about to do this thing. I was so excited.
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: And I had a girlfriend who were living in New York,
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: and I told her, I'm going to be back in
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: a few weeks. I'll close everything up and I'll come back.
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: And this was February twenty twenty. Oh my god, right,
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: And so when I got home, that's when New York
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: specifically got hit really bad with COVID, and everything changed,
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: not just for me but for the whole world.
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: And in my.
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: Investors, I were like, hey, we're a bit nervous about
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: jumping in right now, Let's wait a few months. I'm
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: sure it'll pass. And my partners were also like, whoa,
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: We're going to hold for a bit. And then obviously
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: that didn't you know last It lasted for two years
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: even more, and in that period I didn't know what
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: I was going to do. I was like, okay, cool,
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: Like can I do this without my partners and my investors,
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: I'm like no, Do I want to keep operating at
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: this level as a solo founder?
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: I'm like no.
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: And then again, serendipitously, a mutual friend of me and Ryde,
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: who's the CEO of Open, introduced us and Open was
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: at that point a small breath work pop up based
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: out of San Francisco. They had dreams of launching an
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: online product, but they were just live streaming on Zoom
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: at that point, and I joined as an investor. I
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: saw not as investor, as an advisor, just helping them
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: set up all their operations, helping them recruit, and in
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: that period, over the course of like three months, me
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: and Rye became really good friends.
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: I really bought into the vision.
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: Of Open, and he really appreciated my experience and background
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: and we just decided to kind of merge forces. And
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: with that, I moved to California, which I had no
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: intention of doing because I was such a New Yorker.
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: At my girlfriend was there all that, and.
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: Moved there in the middle of the pandemic, and we
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: launched an app. In twenty twenty one, sorry, twenty twenty
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: we launched our first pop up studio here in LA
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: And you know, the last few weeks we've signed a
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: lease on our first venice studio and we're about to
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: launch like a nationwide tour across you know, New York, Miami, Austin.
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: We've got an incredible team of teachers, We've got an
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: incredible team, an incredible engineers product, and it's a really,
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: really exciting time. And as I sit here and I'm
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: saying all of these things, I'm like, holy can I swear?
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: Holy shit? Like how did I get here?
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: And how did all of these different things really culminate
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: in me being at this particular place, at this particular
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: moment in time.
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: Speaking to you, what would you say as you have
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: these thoughts, is the most prominent feeling that you have
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: reflecting in the past two years, and where do you
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: feel it in your body.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: I love that question.
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: I feel like a really deep gratitude, like in my chest,
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: in my heart. I also feel like there's this element
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: of surrendering that we need to sometimes do on this
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: path as either entrepreneurs or athletes or spiritual practitioners. Like
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: so much of life, we're fighting against something, you know,
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: we're battling up against, whether it's tiredness or our own
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: mental health, or you know, we're just working, working, working, hustling, hustling, hustling.
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: What I'm really trying to work with in my own
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: life at the moment is just surrendering. And that's not
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: like a poetic spiritual thing, but it's actually just asking
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: myself where do I need to let go in this moment,
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: whether it's a conversation with a partner or investor, you know,
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: where can I just let go and where can I
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: just go with a flow. And it's not easy for
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: me because I'm not used to I'm used to hustling.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: I'm used to working really hard. And as I look
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: back now, you know, two years in there have been
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: moments when I've just had to let go, like the
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: decision to move to California and join Open It wasn't
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: an easy decision because I had a lot of offers
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: at that point, but I tuned into my body and
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: I tuned into what I felt, and I was like, Okay,
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: this feels like it's the right.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: Thing to do.
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: And then, you know, moving from SF to California was
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: another big decision. I'm like, Oh, this feels like the
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: right thing to do. You know, when it comes to
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: recruiting people, it's like, I drop into feelings so much
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: more than I ever have in my life, and sometimes
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: it works, sometimes it doesn't. But you know, more often
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: than not, just following and surrendering and letting go has
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: led me down a really good path.
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that was going to be my next question is
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: has surrendering to feeling and leading with feeling ever led
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: you astray?
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: I think what I'm really unpacking is how much of
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: the big decisions I've made in my life have been
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: through what I've felt, or have been through what I
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: thought I should do. You know, and I look at
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: decisions I've made in relationships as an example, and there
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: I've been decisions I've made through my head. It's like,
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: oh I should do this, I should say this, I
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: should be with this person, not with this person. But
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: I'm really unpacking those moments in my life where I've
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: trusted my body and trusted what I felt, and those
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: moments that I have it's been incredible, Like the felt
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: sense of going into this studio where I met my teacher.
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: It wasn't a head decision, it was just something pulling
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: me to that moment. It was my illness plus this
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: feeling that, oh, I've tried all of these things, why
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: didn't I try meditation?
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: You know?
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: And I think for my life and for a lot
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: of students' lives, what I'm really teaching now is to
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: trust the body, you know, because we don't often have
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: a good relationship with our body. We have a very
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: discombobulated relationship because of trauma or emotional wounding or just
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: a general disconnection from our body. And so learning how
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: to first relate to the trauma, relate to the experience,
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: to create space for that, to heal that, and then
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: becoming a friend to the body, because once we're a
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: friend to our body, it's just a different state of flow,
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: you know. It's it's being with someone and being able
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: to just relate on a very easy level and not
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: kind of thinking, Oh, I should talk to this person
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: this way, I should present myself this way, I should.
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: Try to sound smarter like you know.
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: And I've been in podcast episodes where I have I've
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: done that. I'm like, oh, I should say this and this,
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: but like you know, in this moment with you, it's like, no,
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: let's I'm just going to be myself.
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that feels good for me.
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: Taking a break from today's episode to talk to you
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: about my sponsors.
• 33:50
  Speaker 4: First up, Elements Element is a tasty.
• 33:53
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• 33:57
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• 34:00
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• 34:03
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• 34:06
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• 34:11
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• 34:20
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• 34:25
  Speaker 3: and athletes can lose up to seven grams per day
• 34:28
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• 34:31
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• 34:35
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• 34:38
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• 34:41
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• 34:43
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• 34:46
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• 34:50
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• 34:52
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• 34:58
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• 35:00
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• 35:08
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• 35:12
  Speaker 3: Next up, let's talk about Open. Open is a digital
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: mindfulness platform combining breathwork.
• 35:18
  Speaker 4: Meditation, and movement.
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: I have been on the Open train for about a
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: month now, doing about three to five minutes of breathwork
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: every morning, and since having this conversation with Minaj, I
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: have since added a five minute meditation of practice after it.
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: Trust me, if you were to tell me that I
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: would be doing ten minutes of mindfulness work every morning
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: like last year, I would have laughed at you. I
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: have never successfully in my life incorporated a regular mindfulness
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: routine in my morning to dos, never until starting Open.
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: I love to do my back to back breathwork and
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: meditation sitting on my couch.
• 36:00
  Speaker 4: It's right after I make mine espresso.
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: I sit there and I come into my body and
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: have some time just to feel before I reach through
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: my journal and get to the next stage of my
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: morning routine.
• 36:13
  Speaker 4: Huge fan of their platform.
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: I love all of the different facilitators and practitioners on there,
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: and I feel an overarching sense of calm now that
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: this is something I'm finally incorporating regularly.
• 36:26
  Speaker 4: Open has unlimited live and.
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: On demand breathwork, meditation, yoga, pilates, and more. It's designed
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: for all levels, and they partner with musicians, producers, sound designers, DJs,
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: and curators to co create classes for an immersive experience
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: that takes you deeper into your practice.
• 36:43
  Speaker 4: You're gonna love it. Let's take a class together.
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: Openness giving Hurdle listeners thirty days free when you head
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: on over to with Open dot com slash Hurdle again.
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: You can join me on open by going to with
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: open dot Com slash Hurdle let me know what y'all think,
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: and I'll see you in class. You spoke about the
• 37:11
  Speaker 3: difficulty that you went through when you had your panic
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: attack and the two years that followed that, and then
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: the difficulty that came with twenty twenty and the pandemic.
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: In the pandemic, did you feel as though you had
• 37:29
  Speaker 3: to reach for some of the same tools that you
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: acquired and developed back when you were working with your
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: illness and trying to come to terms with how to
• 37:39
  Speaker 3: move forward from that.
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, and no.
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: So I was actually writing my first book at the
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: same time, and so my book Still Together was a
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: back connection, right, and here I was disconnected literally everyone,
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: and so as I was writing that book, I had
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: to really think about, Okay, how do I feel connected
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: to other people in this moment? And Zoom became like
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: a lifesaver. Like reaching out to people became like my work.
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: Because I'm so used to just naturally being around people,
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: I didn't realize I had to actually call people and
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: be like, hey, like, how are you? Like, you know
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: what's happening? You know, this is what I'm feeling. But
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: also I had to actually think outside the square. I
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: was so rigid in my practice that you know, Buddhist
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: meditation and mindfulness were my only thing, you know, and yoga,
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: they were my only things. But then I'm like, oh,
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: hang on, breath work is actually way more powerful. I
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: was only doing it, like, you know, once every now
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: and again back then, but just this ability to drop
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: out of the mind and viscerally come into contact with
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: my physical experience, which is what breath work did, really
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: started to transform my experience. Journaling, which you know, became
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: a new part of my experience. Dancing actually became one
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: of the biggest experiences in my life because when I
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: most enjoy like, I would dance and it was something
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: I hadn't done for twenty thirty years. But every morning
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: I would wake up because I was living in Australia,
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: had this beautiful warehouse space with a friend of mine.
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: I'd put on my favorite song and it's a song
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: from the nineties.
• 39:11
  Speaker 5: What's this song?
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: It's called Everybody, Everybody.
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: It's great and I would just like dance and it
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: was I felt ridiculous at that point because I'm like
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: a grown ass man dancing in my bedroom, but I
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: just realized, wow, like it actually just gets me in
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: my body, like I'm not thinking when I'm dancing, and
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: it became like a really special tool for me to
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: start my day just feeling like I'm existing underneath my chin.
• 39:35
  Speaker 5: Is this like jumping around dance. I'm just trying to
• 39:39
  Speaker 5: like envision this.
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: No, No, it's just like I'm getting sexy with it.
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: Like I'm just like moving my haids like a couple
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: of body rolls happening. I might put on like a
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: little shirt, get funky. Like There'll be days, like you know,
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: There'll be days I'll just get up and I'll jump around.
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: But no, like I would just want to feel really
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: connected to my body, and when I dance, I just
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: I feel really embodied.
• 39:58
  Speaker 5: So I love that. What time of day is this,
• 40:01
  Speaker 5: like how early?
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: Seven thirty eight o'clock?
• 40:03
  Speaker 5: Okay, so like the neighbors are already.
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: Up, neighbors already. I don't blast the music. I'm not
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: that crazy with it. But you know, sometimes I'll have headphones.
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: I had like a housemate for a period of time,
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: so i'd, you know, have my earbuds in. But you know,
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: it's just we all have these different ways of dropping
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: into our body. For you, it might be running or
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: yoga for some people, and for me, it was a
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: very It was something that I didn't have to think about,
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: you know, and it felt ridiculous and that's why I
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: did it. I'm like, this feels ridiculous, so I'm just
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: going to see what it's like.
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: And it was great.
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: What would you say was one of the biggest hurdles
• 40:39
  Speaker 3: after moving to LA stepping into this new role with
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: Open It was loneliness.
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: Actually, that was the biggest thing.
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: I was so used to having such a beautiful community,
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: not only from a space but also friends I'd grown
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: up with in Australia and I moved to LA where
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: I knew very few people. And you know, my relationship
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: my girlfriend at the time moved out to New York
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: with me, and you know, we broke up after like
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: six seven months. And then I was by myself and
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: I realized, wow, like I actually have to invest in friendships,
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: I have to invest in community, I have to put.
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: Myself out there.
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: I have to reach out because there's not something that
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: we can just take for granted, right And when I
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: didn't even know I was lonely until I just realized
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: one day, like I was unhealthy. I was putting on weight,
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: I was eating bad food, I was just feeling sad.
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: And then I just really made a commitment to myself
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: that I want to connect with other people, not from
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: a selfish point of view that I want to get something,
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: but I want to actually learn, Like, Okay, let me
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: go out to the east Side, because you know, la
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: people west Siders don't go to the east Side and
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: vice versa. I'm like, let me explore some friends over
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: there and see what life is like for them, and
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: let me go dancing with friends downtown, and let me
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: just go to these pot like dinners. And I became
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: like this, yes, man, everything people were inviting to I
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: would go to. And it really got me out of
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: this rumination in this sense of like overthinking and over analyzing,
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: and I was able to really be with other people.
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: And in that interaction of being curious about someone else's life,
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: I was out of my own experience and I was
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: trying to connect to someone else's experience, which inadvertently dropped
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: me into my own experience. Right Like hearing about someone
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: talk about their sense of loneliness, I was able to
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: reflect them like, oh yeah, yo, I have that too,
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: And it became like this really beautiful thing, and now
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: LA feels like home. And I never would have said that,
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: because I used to always think it was cheesy and
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: it was like I had to drive everywhere and people
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: wear bright clothes.
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: And like all these different things.
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: But you know, I really appreciate that moment for reminding
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: me of connection as being something that's vital to our life.
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: It's interesting that moment you spoke about just now, sharing
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: how you realized you're like, hey, I'm unhealthy. I think
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: a lot of people, or I'm sure a lot of
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: people listening to this right now can really relate to
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: that moment, and you were able to do something about it.
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: But many people feel paralyzed in that moment. For someone
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: listening who may currently be there, who may feel paralyzed,
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: what advice do you offer them?
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: You're not alone.
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: I think we can feel like our experience is happening
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: just to us, like we are the only one going
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: through depression or anxiety, or even.
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: Worse, like it is us that's suffering. But the reality
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: of the nature of.
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: All of our lives is that we will all suffer,
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: right And if we can actually remember that, if we
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: can remember that as a byproduct of our evolution. Our
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: ancestors have suffered and they have overcome that, and so
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: it is in our DNA that we can overcome suffering.
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: Like it's that's not poetic or spiritual, it's fact, like
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: we can overcome things. And then realizing in the next moment,
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: we get to choose what happens.
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: Right, if we can become.
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: Aware of our thinking, our thought patterns, our spiraling thoughts
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: and all of this and be aware of that, we
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: can be like, oh, okay.
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: Now what's next.
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: How can I choose something that's going to lead me
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: towards less suffering and more happiness. And when we make
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: that next decision, we're already in a place that's better
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: than the place we were at. And from that place
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: where again presented decisions right like what's the next thing?
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: Oh should I eat?
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: I was like smashing breakfast burritos every single day, drinking
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: coffee three or four times a day, and there was
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: a moment I'm like, this is probably not healthy for me.
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: And that moment I realized, oh, I'm going to have
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: a smoothie or eat healthier. I started to feel better
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: straight away. And from that I'm like, oh, I'm going
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: to start going to yoga classes again. Oh I started
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: to feel better. From there, I'm like, oh, maybe I'm
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: going to go and catch up with friends now. And
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: you start to fall into this little cycle of making
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: decisions that are just better for you and are healthier
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: for you, and you become wiser, which is ultimately what
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: mindfulness gives us. It's not just feeling good in the moment.
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: We start to feel wiser, and when we're wiser, we
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: make better decisions.
• 45:09
  Speaker 3: Right, And these realizations, these understandings can be difficult for
• 45:15
  Speaker 3: anyone also being vocal about maybe how you feel. I
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: would imagine that maybe for you, as a man of color,
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: even a little bit more, can you share a little
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: bit about how that may have made your experience a
• 45:29
  Speaker 3: little bit more intricate?
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, And thank you for asking me about that, because
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: you know, twenty twenty wasn't just all about the pandemic.
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: It was about like the racial app the reckoning really
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: that we had. And you know, for me, as an
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: immigrant migrating from Sri Lanka to Australia, growing up in
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: very barren conditions and the place I grew up in,
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: I often refer to it as arguably the most racist
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: part of Australia and then kind of coming into this
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: reconciliation of who I am in this world, how the
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: world sees me, you know, how opportunities don't come my way,
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: and you know, there's a lot of other things that
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: people of color have to navigate beyond, like the normal experience.
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: And we all suffer, yes, and not that anyone suffering
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: is better than you know, another one, but there's a
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: nuance to it and different layers to it. And so
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: my experience as amount of color is that I would
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: often go into spaces where I didn't see myself reflected,
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: you know, going into these Buddhist places in the West
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: where I was often the only man of color, often
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: the youngest person as well, and having to look beyond
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: the fact that, Okay, I don't feel like this teacher
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: is necessarily speaking to me. But there's something I'm going
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: to extract from this moment. And when we launched a
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: Space as an example, our focus was an accessibility, Like
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: we had to speak a language that everyone could relate to,
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: and we had to show people that they were welcome
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: here and they felt safe here. So the language that
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: we used had to had to change and it open
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: is the same thing, Like we have a representation not
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: just across our teachers, but within our company as well,
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: and it's reflected in our branding, and it's reflected in
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: who we attract all these audiences. I mean, I don't
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: think it's it's not lost on me that Open is
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: co founded by three men of color and in the
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: wellness world, that's pretty wild to actually have that experience,
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: to have entrepreneurs of color with a product that's for everyone.
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: And so a lot of learnings, you know, even migrating
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: from Australia to the US and learning about the history
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: of America and how nuanced that is, and how we
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: have to change how we speak, We have to change
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: how we show up.
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: We have to be.
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: In recognition of people's lived experience whenever we teach a class.
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: And that's as simple as saying sometimes, hey, I would
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: always say in Australia, when you're ready to close your eyes,
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: let's practice. But for a lot of people, people don't
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: feel safe closing their eyes here. So to have that
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: understanding to be like, okay, if you feel safe close
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: your eyes, if not, to shift your gaze down, Like
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: they are things that you learn if you have an
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: interest in making what you're doing accessible to everyone, you
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: have to really understand the lived experience of everyone.
• 48:21
  Speaker 3: I feel like that example is so strong this like
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: people might not feel safe closing their eyes. So it's
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: almost as though I'm curious as to like what other
• 48:28
  Speaker 3: considerations maybe that you have taken into account when it
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: comes into creating the programming for open As.
• 48:34
  Speaker 5: It continues to evolve.
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: And I think you said it in your last comment,
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: like it continues to evolve, right, Like nothing is static.
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: But I think for me in my own personal life,
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: having a better understanding of trauma has really changed the
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: way that I teach, specifically because I'm speaking a lot
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: more to the body these days than I was, And
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: when I first started teaching, it was all about the mind.
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: But in my own life and in my own teaching,
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: I'm seeing that there's a disconnect from body and mind,
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: and for most of us to heal our trauma, that
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: trauma exists in the body, right, It exists within the fashion.
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: Tissues exist within the deepest layers of our lived experience.
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: And so if I want to teach people to really
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: transform their life, I have to speak about that. And
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: when I speak about that, it's very tenuous, like it's
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: very it's challenging, right, because you don't know how people
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: are going to respond to that, and you know, we're
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: on like a live platform where there are thousands of people.
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: Sometimes in class I don't know who's going to show up,
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: whereas in a classroom you might see your friends and
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: people you practice with. So you know, in environments where
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: I'm familiar with people, I tell people, hey, have a
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: look at the room, like notice where your exits are.
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: Notice that you're in control of this practice. And if
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: your breath work practice is activating you too much, you
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: can slow it down, like you can stop. You can
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: regulate your own nervous system. And I think I think
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: that ability to transform the power dynamic of it being like, hey,
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: I am not going to transform your life. You are
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: going to transform your life. You are in control. You
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: have the tools, the wisdom, the understanding to heal whatever
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: needs to be healed yourself and putting the putting the
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: power in the hands of the student. Whereas you know,
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: for me, coming through the very rigid, conservative and old
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: school way of practice, it was so much about reverence
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: to teachers and I still have that, and I think
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: that's really important. But I think we also have to
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: give agency to the student now and to tell the
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: student that there is a whole array of skills that
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: are now part of their toolkit that they can use.
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: And trauma now is a lot more of a requirement
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: than it may have been five years ago, and definitely
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: ten years ago, and definitely thirty years ago. And we
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: need to be able to consider that in how we
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: approach our wellness practices.
• 51:02
  Speaker 5: Requirement in what way?
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: Well, we have to just as a teacher specifically, right,
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: we have to And requirement might have been a very
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: strong word, but I think it's a consideration if you
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: are doing healing work. I'll speak about like, you know,
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: people of color, as a man of color, if you
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: go in there, if I go into a class and
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: the teachers like, let's cultivate some love and like let's
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: be free.
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: And I'm like.
• 51:30
  Speaker 5: Your face just now, right.
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: I'm like free? For who?
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: Like do I feel free in my body in this
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: part of the world at this moment in time? And
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: who answers that question might have a very different response, right,
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: And it's just this nuance, it's a real it's a
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: nuance because you could go into a completely white audience
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: and say that, and it might be like, yeah, let's
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: be free together, right, Or you go into a completely
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: black audience and they're like yo, like who free for who?
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: And so that might land, but it also might not.
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: But for a teacher to have an understanding of that
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: is just important because they then get to choose how
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: they approach that experience.
• 52:14
  Speaker 3: You mentioned the word toolkit. What is in your toolkit
• 52:19
  Speaker 3: to navigate and process trauma outside of dancing and your practice?
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and so my practice has also evolved, right, My
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: practice now involves exercise, like physical exercise.
• 52:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, give us some insight into what your wellness situation
• 52:36
  Speaker 3: looks like right now?
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, so as soon as I wake up,
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: I meditate. I'll do breathing exercises. The breathing exercises just
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: drop me into my body, and from the breathing exercises,
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: I'll meditate for twenty thirty minutes, focus on a practice
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: that comes into contact with what I'm feeling sematically. From there,
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: I'll walk outside. I'll walk for fifteen twenty minutes. I
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: get sunlight as soon as I wake up, and thankfully
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: I'm in La so it's always sunny here and then
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: I'll do something for my heart, you know. And what
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: I mean by that is I'll do something intense like
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: cardio or running or exercise, and straight away I'm like, Okay,
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: I feel in my body, I feel connected, I can breathe.
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: And then I try to eat well throughout the day.
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: And my vice is food.
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: Like when I'm emotional, I'll eat bad food and I'll
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: consciously eat to the point where I'll feel sick. And
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: so I'll I know that when I'm out of alignment.
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: That's my thing, So I create the conditions that I
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: don't fall out of alignment. So another thing is being
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: on my phone and being in social media. I'll get
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: anxious in my body when I use it for twenty
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: thirty minutes, and that's my cutter to log off. So
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: I try to limit social media to like twenty or
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: thirty minutes a day later on not first thing in
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: the morning.
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: I'll try to eat foods that.
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: I know fuel my day and don't deplete my energy.
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: And I'll do like afternoon practice as well, which is
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: usually like ten to fifteen minutes, and I prioritize catching
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: up with people, not to the point that it becomes overwhelming.
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: But I make sure that I do something that's not
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: work related, because I can also become a workaholic and
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: that can be an ally for me. So meditating, getting
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: out in nature is really important, eating healthy foods, drinking
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: enough water, and just connecting to my breath.
• 54:25
  Speaker 3: I love the note of being aware of your environment
• 54:29
  Speaker 3: because I think that some hear that and they're like, oh, well,
• 54:33
  Speaker 3: what kind of life is that?
• 54:34
  Speaker 5: If you don't want to keep x or Y around?
• 54:36
  Speaker 3: But it's not as though you don't allow yourself x
• 54:39
  Speaker 3: or Y Like, it's not like you, I don't know
• 54:43
  Speaker 3: it's someone's birthday and you're not gonna have a piece
• 54:44
  Speaker 3: of birthday cake.
• 54:45
  Speaker 5: But you might not always keep a cake inside you
• 54:49
  Speaker 5: on your kitchen counter, right, And.
• 54:51
  Speaker 3: So I appreciate that recognition and that level of awareness,
• 54:56
  Speaker 3: and also the opportunity to articulate this is how I
• 55:01
  Speaker 3: feel when I do X. So if you know that
• 55:04
  Speaker 3: eating some kind of weight doesn't make you feel good,
• 55:07
  Speaker 3: or not connecting with people doesn't make you feel good,
• 55:10
  Speaker 3: then articulating.
• 55:11
  Speaker 5: That and then figuring out how to make it a priority.
• 55:14
  Speaker 3: It takes diligence, and it doesn't mean that you won't
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: ever fall off of this bandwagon and you will never
• 55:18
  Speaker 3: slip again. But recognizing that is so powerful to help
• 55:23
  Speaker 3: you get into a space where you do feel like
• 55:25
  Speaker 3: you can be more productive, happier, live a better quality
• 55:28
  Speaker 3: of life.
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I really, I really love that you said that,
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: because I think what adds to our suffering is the
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: thoughts we have about our suffering as well.
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: For example, my teacher when we would go out after
• 55:40
  Speaker 2: a class, he would order cakes for everyone and coffee,
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: and I'm like, yeah, like, shouldn't like this?
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: Is like, just enjoy it?
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: Just enjoy it and like, you know, obviously we wouldn't
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: have that three four times a day. But just being
• 55:52
  Speaker 2: able to first of all say to ourselves, okay, I'm
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: feeling this way, become aware of it and acknowledging that
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: that's fine. We can experience that in the body. We
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: can feel our anxiety, right, But then when we attach
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: the story around I shouldn't feel this, that's when it
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: becomes like a mental issue for us, because now instead
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: of the physical symptoms of anxiety, we've now got the
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: mental burden of anxiety. And you can relate that to
• 56:18
  Speaker 2: other things. Right, if we're if we had a bad
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: time at work, a meeting that didn't go well, or
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: a project that didn't get well, we add this additional
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: layer of suffering and story to it that just prolongs
• 56:30
  Speaker 2: that experience. So mindfulness, which is what you're talking about,
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: is really becoming aware of what is occurring. Okay, I'm
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: feeling this. Can I be with it? Can I be
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: compassionate to the fact that I'm feeling something that my
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: ancestors and everyone in the world will feel, and then
• 56:48
  Speaker 2: can let it go? Can I not let the story
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: become what fuels this experience? And that takes practice, and
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: that takes effort, and it takes some gentleness right, which
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: again a lot of us aren't used to being used
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: to being gentle with ourselves.
• 57:01
  Speaker 3: I also love what you said about prioritizing connection and
• 57:05
  Speaker 3: understanding the importance that it has in your life. As
• 57:09
  Speaker 3: someone else who can really relate to the work work
• 57:12
  Speaker 3: work mentality, I have made it a point to not
• 57:17
  Speaker 3: overschedule and not spread myself too thin, but strategically placed
• 57:22
  Speaker 3: moments of connection throughout my week, ideally like thinking about
• 57:26
  Speaker 3: them toward the beginning of the week so that I
• 57:28
  Speaker 3: can make sure they're dispersed in a way that fills
• 57:31
  Speaker 3: me up and also owning my know and recognizing that
• 57:35
  Speaker 3: although I'm not a flaky person, but I in recent
• 57:40
  Speaker 3: years more than ever, And I think many can relate
• 57:42
  Speaker 3: to this after the pandemic have certainly recognized if I
• 57:47
  Speaker 3: have something on deck and I know that I can't
• 57:49
  Speaker 3: be fully present there and it's actually not going to
• 57:52
  Speaker 3: be good for me on this particular day. And it's
• 57:54
  Speaker 3: not that I don't want to see this person or
• 57:57
  Speaker 3: do this thing, but it would be better for everyone
• 57:59
  Speaker 3: involved if I push it or reschedule. Having some grace
• 58:02
  Speaker 3: with that because I used to be a well, I'm
• 58:05
  Speaker 3: not flaky, Yeah, so I shouldn't cancel this, right But
• 58:09
  Speaker 3: now it's like, no, I'm actually saying this and articulating
• 58:14
  Speaker 3: my boundary for both of us, for both of our betterment, And.
• 58:17
  Speaker 2: You're saying that from a place of compassion totally, like
• 58:20
  Speaker 2: for yourself and for the other for the other person,
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: right Like it's love actually actually self love to say that,
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: oh I need this right now. I need to just
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: stay in, I need to just have a quiet night in.
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: And that's okay, But I think, like again, culturally, we're
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: so conditioned to be on and to do things and
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: to constantly be active. That slowing down feels like unheard of.
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: It feels like we're wasting our time. Yeah, but it's not.
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: It's it's love, right, slowing down actually is it's love.
• 58:49
  Speaker 5: It's love.
• 58:50
  Speaker 3: We need love outside of your work. What brings you
• 58:55
  Speaker 3: joy right now?
• 58:59
  Speaker 2: You know, like I when I left Australia, I left
• 59:02
  Speaker 2: my daughter likes she's old now, like a.
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: Full grown, full grown adult.
• 59:07
  Speaker 2: But you know, it's it's been really wonderful to it's
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: the first time, you know, leaving her. It's been really
• 59:13
  Speaker 2: wonderful just connecting with her and seeing her navigate adulthood
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: and to be able to relate to her as an adult.
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: You know, like it's been really great to kind of
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: see that and to see how humans evolve as well,
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: you know, from watching a child become a teenager.
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: To an adult.
• 59:32
  Speaker 2: So that's given me a lot of joy just seeing
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: her navigate all the challenges and the grace that's out
• 59:37
  Speaker 2: there in the world. But also like I think I'm
• 59:40
  Speaker 2: really coming into this full circle moment of having a
• 59:44
  Speaker 2: lot of joy from my own experience of going through hardships,
• 59:49
  Speaker 2: finding moments where there's stillness and then knowing that life
• 59:53
  Speaker 2: will again throw me out of the nest, and really
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: just finding joy in everyday moments, like you know, having
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: a cup of coffee today and this week and I
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 2: said to you, like it was my first weekend in
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 2: La in a long time, and just walking to the
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: beach and I'm like, wow, I don't need these big moments,
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: like this moment's really great. I have a beautiful bed,
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: I can sleep in at night, and have great friends,
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 2: and you know, I think everyday moments really is the
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 2: most simplistic answer is what I'm finding joying.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 3: And I think that again referencing the pandemic is certainly
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 3: a sentiment that so many people can relate to, just
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 3: finding these simple, small joys in the day to day
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 3: and things that may be previous to this last two
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 3: year period we didn't take as much notice of or
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 3: put as much stake into.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, oh yeah. And it just shows you how.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 2: Impermanent things are, right Like, we don't know how much
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: we're going to miss something until it's gone, and because
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 2: everything is going to be gone at some point, like
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 2: how much can we drop into that appreciation while it's there?
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 3: Right so, right now? How many users does Open.
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: Have yeah, I don't know the exact number, but it's
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 2: I know it's growing like weak on. I should probably
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 2: know that as a co founder. But you know, we've
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: got a really big worldwide audience. You know, classes will
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 2: have like hundreds of people per class. It's just a real,
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: a real joy to see people kind of connect around
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 2: this message of presence and connection.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 3: So basically, in practice, thousands and thousands and thousands of
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 3: people come to you for maybe a sense of calm,
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 3: maybe to do some introspective work. They see their facilitator
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 3: standing in front of them when you look in the mirror.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 5: What is it that you see looking back at you?
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: Oh wow, what a question. I don't think they come
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: just for me. They come for all of our.
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 5: Beautiful teachers, but they're only here for you.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: Right I.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 2: You know, what I see when I look in the
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 2: mirror is someone that's just constantly evolving and learning, and
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 2: it's just someone that is coming into a sense of
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: appreciation for the imperfection that stares back at it. You know,
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 2: I'm a recovering perfectionist and I used to look in
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 2: the mirror and I used to see so many imperfections
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 2: physically when I look in the mirror, and I know
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 2: I'm evolving because now I see things and I'm like, oh,
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 2: I love that little, you know, nose of yours. It's
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: a little crooked from this football injury. And oh your
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 2: skin that's looking great. And I know, like my evolution
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 2: with my body, and my evolution with my spirit, and
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: my evolution as a human comes from just befriending the
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 2: person that's looking back in the mirror. And so I
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: see something that is like a relationship that is blossoming
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 2: between me and that vision.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 3: For someone who struggles to get to that place of
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 3: gratitude and appreciation, what advice do you have for them?
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 3: How did you work on flipping that script?
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: So set the intention, Like sometimes when you know, we
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: write a gratitude list, it can feel like it's just
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: a very cognitive exercise, right, But if every day we
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: wake up with the intention and we're like, oh, I'm
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 2: going to be grateful for this interaction because I remember
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 2: a time when no one wanted to interview me. I
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 2: remember a time when I was just like a quote
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: unquote nobody just you know, teaching. I think about like relationships,
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 2: like I remember a time when I wasn't in a relationship,
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 2: and I really craved the love of someone else, and
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 2: so then in that relationship you're like, Wow, this feels
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 2: really great. I remember a time where I didn't get
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 2: six hours of sleep and I had six hours of
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 2: sleep today.
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 2: Like, just that intention to constantly look at the world
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 2: as something that is beautiful and not look at the
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 2: world as something that we have to endure can really
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 2: transform us.
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 3: Can you be a realist and also someone who sees
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 3: the world that way? There are going to be different
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 3: schools of thought on this. I have a feeling you
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 3: and I might have the same approach.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I think reality is holding the totality
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 2: of our experience.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 2: There are beautiful things and there are ugly experiences. The
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 2: ugly experiences we can look back and think, wow, that
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 2: was a really beautiful experience, right. The beautiful experiences we
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 2: can be like, WHOA, that was actually a really ugly
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 2: experience in retrospect.
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: But to be able to say that life contains both
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: is really beautiful. Right.
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 2: In totality is that we can acknowledge that life contains joy.
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 2: We have a saying in Buddhist meditation, you know, life
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 2: contains ten thousand joys and ten thousand sorrows. It contains
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 2: praise and blame, gain and loss, fame, and not knowing
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 2: who the hell you are. And so this little metaphor
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 2: is that life contains all of it. And if we
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 2: can just recognize that, and we can come to terms
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 2: and make peace with that, then our nervous system and
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 2: our whole life changes, because then we don't hold and
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 2: grasp the things.
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: We can let things go when they're not meant for us.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 2: We don't have to chase after things that are not
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 2: meant for us, and there's an equanimity that we actually
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 2: develop in our life.
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 5: I love that.
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 4: I love that.
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 5: All right, winding down.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 3: Right now, you have an opportunity to offer yourself a
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 3: piece of advice back when you are in the thick
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 3: of going through this major life change. You're fresh out
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 3: of this panic attack, You're trying to figure out where
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 3: you go from there. You've got one hundred and fifty
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 3: dollars in your bank account right now from where you stand,
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 3: What advice do you offer yourself with the wisdom you
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 3: have now looking back on that hurdle.
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 2: Moment, I'm just closing my eyes and stropping into my
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 2: body to answer that you know, I don't know if
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 2: I have anything really poetic to say, necessarily, but it's
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 2: just this recognition that things change and it's not always
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 2: going to be this bad and it's not always going
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 2: to be this good. If you learn to regulate your
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 2: nervous system, which for me was the biggest lesson, if
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 2: I learned to move out of my anxious, hyper vigilant state,
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 2: if I learned to be a friend to my body,
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 2: the world becomes a really wonderful place, you know, And.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: To believe that the world is a wonderful place, and
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: even though there's tremendous suffering and we're seeing it now,
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: our world can be a wonderful place and we can
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: transform our experience.
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 3: So glad we got to do this today. Yeah, this
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 3: was really so howe we got to sit down together?
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 3: How do the hurdlers keep up with you? How do
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 3: they keep up with Open? Give me all the details?
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean everywhere?
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 2: Really like we You can connect with us on Instagram.
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 2: Just look up Open on the app store, look up
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 2: Open Mindfulness with me. You can look up my name
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 2: m A N O J D. As it's Instagram these days, right,
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 2: No one like checks websites and stuff, right.
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 5: Yeah, for the most part, but you can give them
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 5: a r L.
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 2: Right yeah, I mean it's just it's just open, like
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 2: oh dash pe dash dash and dot com, which is
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 2: really annoying every time I have to spell out my
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 2: email address. But yeah, check us out on the app store,
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 2: check us out on Instagram, TikTok, and you know, you
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 2: can practice with us for free for a month and
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 2: just see what we're all about.
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: And so just.
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 5: Try it, try it.
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 3: I'm over at Hurdle Podcast and at Emily a Body
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 3: Another hurdle conquered. Catch you guys next time.