Jivana Heyman 0:37
Hello, welcome to the Accessible Yoga Podcast. I'm Jivana. My pronouns are he and him, and I'm joining you from Chumash land, known today as Santa Barbara, California. And I'm so happy that you're here. Thank you for joining me. It really means a lot. This is a really special episode, because I got to talk to my friend Kristie Dahlia Home, and I invited her here to be part of this special season of the podcast where I'm celebrating 30 years of teaching yoga. And the reason I invited her is because she took basic yoga teacher training with me 30 years ago, in 1995 we were the two youngest members of that cohort, and we definitely bonded during that time, and have stayed connected over these many, many years. And it's been really nice to, you know, watch her grow, and to see all the incredible things she's done, and she'll share a little bit about that. And I also really appreciate her reflections, the reflection she has for me, you know, as she's watched me grow and change and evolve as well. And that's the great thing about sangha, spiritual community, we're there for each other through good times and bad, which we've had, and through challenges and beautiful moments. And I think it's just one of the really, I don't know, maybe special and kind of unknown things about a long time yoga practice is that we have friends and yoga friends. Our yoga friends who are there with us, sometimes we see them a lot, sometimes we don't see them very much, but they're with us along the path, and it's just so nice to be able to sit back and reflect with them once in a while. So I got to do that in this episode. I'm really excited to share it with you. Thank you, Dahlia, for being here with me for this conversation, and thank you also to you for listening. If you're there listening, I really appreciate it. I'd love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave me a voicemail or a message of any kind. If you have any questions at all, I'd love to answer them. There's a great question today from a listener, which I'll respond to at the end. All right, so thanks again, and here's my conversation with Kristie Dahlia Home.
Jivana Heyman 2:59
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Jivana Heyman 3:51
Hi everyone. Welcome and special hello to Dahlia. Kristie Dahlia Home. Thank you so much for being here. Hi, how are you?
Kristie Dahlia Home 3:59
Great! How are you?
Jivana Heyman 4:02
I'm actually doing pretty well, considering. It's so good to see you. It's been a long time. Well, really long time. So I introduced you briefly already, but I just wondered if you wanted to say hello and introduce yourself and share anything about you.
Kristie Dahlia Home 4:19
Sure, I hadn't thought to prepare anything for that. I'm Kristie Dahlia Home. I have been teaching various healing arts for 30 years. Jivana and I met in teacher training, and I teach yoga, meditation, Thai yoga massage. I think of myself as a minister of sorts, and the name I use when I'm feeling bold is Priestess of The Mystery. To which I mean that my practice is devotional at heart and yet I am profoundly agnostic. I don't think we could know what all of this is. I love life, and I try to help people live well.
Jivana Heyman 5:10
Wow. Well, when you mentioned Thai massage, it made me remember a time when you gave me a Thai massage many years ago. I don't know if you remember that, but you know, we had spent a lot of time together when we were younger. Like you said, we took basic training together, and then we continued to both teach integral yoga for a really long time. I was more involved, you were kind of smarter, and you found your own way, including going and living on a boat. I just want to say, like, to me, that was always such a beautiful and exciting thing that you did. Like, I just wonder if you could share about that a little bit, because I think it's so special.
Kristie Dahlia Home 5:50
My husband and I, in midlife, as people who did not have children, sold our house, gave away most of what we owned and moved on to a boat with no specific plan. When people asked us what our plan was, we would say the plan is not to have a plan. We felt that we had accomplished a lot of the dreams that we had as young people, and that it was time for our lives to pivot and we wanted to take a good while to think about what that might look like. We had always lived in San Francisco, and we were pretty sure that we were done living in the city. We're living in the country now. We live in the woods in Washington, and five years living on a boat, four of them in Mexico. We sailed from California down to Mexico. We were there when the pandemic hit and on our boat in Mexico during the pandemic, and we called ourselves wandering the sticks during that time. It was the time of deep reflection and deep healing. We had been through a lot of tragedy in our personal lives, and it was really good to take some time to think about who and how we wanted to be in the world and return to the US and return to a more engaged life with clearer ideas. It's a great blessing.
Jivana Heyman 7:20
Yeah, that's incredible. I don't know if I would want to live on a boat, but I live a couple miles from the beach now, and I go pretty much every day to the ocean, so it's a big part of my life. And I know that's different than living on, you know, living on it is some kind of, that's a commitment. But I just feel like it is a way, like there's something about the ocean that really draws me, and I can imagine,
Kristie Dahlia Home 7:48
I didn't want to live on a boat either. I didn't even want to set foot on a boat, initially. A lot of the work that I did within myself to make that possible, my husband fell in love with sailing first. Neither of us grew up with it. He fell in love with sailing. We were just at the point in our, like, I think that point was like early 40s, where several of our closest friends were getting divorced, and we were thinking about what makes for a happy marriage? What makes for a long time marriage? And I thought, Is there a way that I could share with him this thing that he's in love with that terrifies me? And all of the things that I thought were reasons that I didn't want to do it were pretty irrational fear. And when I thought about it rationally, it seemed like something I would really like. And I spent a couple years doing deep healing on the old wounds from my childhood that led me to be a fearful person so that I could show up and enjoy this thing.
Jivana Heyman 8:52
Wow. That's amazing. And now that you're back, I mean, do you miss it or are you relieved?
Kristie Dahlia Home 9:02
I am not particularly prone to missing things. I'm being where I am and appreciating the moment.
Jivana Heyman 9:09
I appreciate that. I was wondering, since we met in our 200 hour training, I was just curious, like, I've been asking everyone in this podcast to reflect on a teaching and I'll ask you that too, to think in general. But I just wonder if there's anything from that particular moment that still sticks with you, like anything that you remember, or, I don't know, memories you have from that time. I'm just curious.
Kristie Dahlia Home 9:36
The thing that stays with me the most from that time is the heart centered devotional aspect of the practice. Just before we met, when I was making breakfast, I was chanting the grace that we learned in that lineage together, which remains one of my favorite Sanskrit prayers. I chant it while I cook these days.
Jivana Heyman 9:58
Which one?
Jivana Heyman 10:00
Annapoorne.
Jivana Heyman 10:01
Oh yeah, Annapoorne. I can share that in the shownotes. It's such a beautiful chant. That's funny, because I was doing some mantras too before we started, but I was doing, the one that one that really stuck with me, do you remember the aarti, Jyoti chant, which I find just so compelling.
Kristie Dahlia Home 10:25
Offering light to light. I haven't thought about that one in a while. I'll go back to it, thank you. Yeah, the practice of chanting and as we understand more about the nervous system, as our science evolves, because we've been doing this long enough that we've seen the science around the chanting and the long exhalations involved in the chanting and the vibration, all of those things are stimulating the vagus nerve, getting the parasympathetic nervous system active. This morning, I woke up, and today is one of the days on which I read the news. I read the news, and I was feeling more, like, just the stunned part of grief. I didn't even access tears. I was just kind of sitting and reeling and then to ground myself to meet with you, just chanting seemed like the right way to go. And I usually do it when I cook.
Jivana Heyman 11:17
Yeah, I mean that we were lucky in that way. I think Integral Yoga did have kind of a, does still have that breadth of tradition, you know, addressing the more intellectual parts, the physical part, and the devotional part. And I love that. I mean, it is beautiful. The teachings are amazing. I think just, you know, I have a lot of disappointment with Swami Satchidananda, and like the fact that he had sexual relationships with his students and then lied about it. But I also recognized that, you know, he didn't create these teachings. So, like I really tried to look at that, at the fact that these were, not just older than him, but that they're bigger than him, you know, and that he was just a vehicle. And flawed, like, I mean, we all are flawed in some way, and I'm not apologizing for him in any way, just that the teachings themselves, I think, can be...we say, can you separate the teacher from the teachings? But I think you can, because it's an ancient tradition that he was sharing.
Kristie Dahlia Home 11:17
I hope that people could learn from the useful things that I have to offer, despite the fact that I'm a flawed person. I'm not counting my flaws on the scale that he did. We were both very involved with that lineage for a long time, and I was always a little more on the edge than you were, because viewing the guru as semi divine was always uncomfortable for me. But I was very, very and remain very grateful to be friends with, I didn't have a relationship with him, what I knew were the monks and people who were avowed monastics and having personal relationships with people who had devoted their life in that way was really profound for me. I was raised in the Catholic Church, and having an example of a spiritual tradition which was so different was very healing for me in a lot of ways.
Jivana Heyman 13:18
Can I ask what you're doing now? So you're still teaching. I like to follow your work. I really appreciate your, what I see is like a an approach to teaching that feels creative, actually, like there's a aspect, like, maybe it's poetry, that's where you came into it, I don't know. But like there seems like there's a creative flow to the way you share. And I just wonder if you could talk about that a little bit? Like what you're sharing now and how?
Kristie Dahlia Home 13:45
You mentioned poetry. So originally, as a young person, I was the first person in my family to go to college, and so my parents didn't have any thoughts about what I should do, and I went to go study poetry, not even literature, writing poetry. And I actually was successful as a young poet, and was halfway through my Master of Fine Arts program before I left that but I realized that I did not want the academically oriented life. That's how one earns a living in that. And around that time, the yoga world started to take off. Yoga was this funny little thing that I was doing privately. It was not popular. It was weird and out of fashion. And, you know, we were both teaching at the time yoga really started to boom, and yoga became the place where I could express creatively. The thing that I wanted as a poet was to talk about the deepest and most meaningful things in life, and so teaching has become this ground where I can creatively explore the meaning of life and embodiment with other people. I began by teaching yoga, and then my friends began to have children, and I studied prenatal yoga. One of my friends died, and I studied yoga for people with cancer, and taught in hospitals for many years doing that work. I was curious about energy, so I studied Reiki, and the combination of my curiosity and the needs of my community that I was serving kept drawing me forward and drawing me forward. When we were at the 20 year mark in our teaching, two of my students at the same time asked me where in town they could go to study meditation. And I thought, one, oh, knife in my heart that you don't know it's me. And two, finally! I began to teach meditation, and those offerings have become the heart of my work. I called them meditation courses for a long time, just this year I started calling them 'workshops for living.' Because it's the practice that we share, but really they are groups in which we work on how to be human and talk about life. There's a lot of community support and talk about how the meditation practice is weaving into our lives. And so the heart of my work, it feels to me, is those meditation courses. I also teach yoga on many different levels to many different people with different interests and kinds of bodies, body work, and energy. I minister weddings and occasionally support births, and I've supported dying and ministered funerals as well. And there's an element of spiritual support too, people will just come and chat with me one on one to talk about life. Often, when people do that, they're usually wrestling with something and looking for something a little more intimate and spiritual than what they're finding in therapy, or they haven't tried therapy, but they know it would be good for them, and I help them access that.
Jivana Heyman 17:07
Yeah, I love that, because I was a minister through Integral Yoga and really saw myself in that role for a long time, and was doing similar work, and I really stepped back from that, to be honest. I don't know what exactly it was, but it's such a beautiful service. I think I shifted to try to simplify my life a little bit. I had to so much going on, and it was hard for me to really focus on that individual support that I used to offer, the way you're doing. Just between all the training I was doing and writing, and then my family, like, I had a lot of family demands, especially when my kids were in their early teens, like, that was really rough. And now my kids are older, so I have a little more space again. So I'm kind of reflecting on the choices I've made, but I had to simplify. But I when I look back, I think, wow, those are such incredible times. Like, just what you described. I mean, just talking to people about, and I still do talk to people about their stuff, but when it was really in the role of minister, when I was ministering funerals and weddings, that was really special. So what an incredible service. I love that. I also love the focus on meditation. In fact, I don't know if I told you that's the topic of my new book that I'm working on right now, which is really around, you know, making meditation accessible. And mostly, I think, well, I would say there's really two themes in the book. One is just that, like, yoga is meditation, right? That we've separated something that can't be separated, which is kind of when you said like that stabbed in your heart, people don't recognize that when you're teaching yoga, that you're actually teaching meditation. And then around, I think, some of the misconceptions that I see around meditation, and just trying to look at how we can address those and make it more welcoming and more universal. That's how I heard you say it. You talked about life, like how to be in this world. Is that what you're...? I like that broad, I don't know if that's what you're saying, that kind of broad definition of meditation, just like how to be.
Kristie Dahlia Home 19:18
I did a meditation teacher training a couple years ago with Lorin Roche and Camille Maurine. They have each been practicing for 50 years. So it was wonderful at our age to find someone who was very much more experienced than I was and who was on the same, a very similar path, but farther ahead. It was very liberating. And they, like, freed me into this beautiful idea that I was coming to myself too, which is just meditation is a natural capacity we have. We get taught this idea, you know that it's kind of forceful and we're controlling the mind, but we just naturally drift into contemplative reverie when we're in nature and when we do repetitive activities, which, for the vast majority of human history would have been all day, every day. And so I just see it as cultivating a natural capacity that we have accidentally divorced ourselves from.
Jivana Heyman 20:19
I love that. It's so beautiful. Yeah, I mean, I love the idea of natural also, because I think that it else, it's more accessible. It's just naturally a skill that we already have. We already kind of go there naturally. And maybe in yoga, we're just consciously cultivating something that is already there, right?
Kristie Dahlia Home 20:37
To be in the mind that are not prone to stillness, then you might think that you can't meditate because you know you have to sit still and focus. And making practice accessible, I think makes it more accessible. I mean, accessibility is for all of us, right? I mean, there are folks you can point to that might very specifically struggle, and yet everyone benefits when we tease apart the meanings and look for the heart of the practice and look for what we're truly after. I'm so excited to read your book.
Jivana Heyman 21:11
Well, I have to write it first, but thank you! And I love that, the way you just defined accessibility, which is really what I try to get at too. It's just about teasing it apart and trying to get to the heart of it. You know, that's what I guess I'm trying to do. I was just wondering, I didn't really give a chance to answer the big question that I've been asking all of my guests around, like, if there's a story teaching or practice? I mean, I specifically asked you around our 200 hour training time and becoming a teacher. But I just wonder if there's anything else that stands out for you that you want to share, if you when you look back on your, I mean, 30 years of teaching and I know longer practice, I just wondered if you have anything that comes to your mind?
Kristie Dahlia Home 21:49
The devotional aspect really is the core for me, everything else feels like it weaves through that. And particularly in the last maybe five to seven years, as I have been thinking more about appropriation and what is appropriate to share. There are a lot of things that we were taught that were coming from a very hierarchical lineage, things that we did to be respectful, things that we did to be honorable, and that, in time, came to feel like appropriation, depending on what different things were. Like, my altar here, I have a big, beautiful Ganesha and on the private altar in my bedroom. The altar in my home is a candle that's in a window that faces out at the forest. I have a personal relationship with Ganesha that I feel is appropriate, because I feel that I have been invited to do that, but I'm not Hindu, and I don't feel like I have quite the capacity to teach that as the core of what I'm teaching. And in the same way that exploring accessibility leads us to look for the heart of practice, I found that thinking about appropriation did as well. What is really here? Where am I using things from a culture that I am not from to lend a sense of sacredness and specialness to the practice? And how can I access that within the culture that I am a part of? Where should I be honoring tradition and using the old chants and where should I be creating my own? And all of those things, I think, made me a better, more humble, wiser teacher and practitioner.
Jivana Heyman 23:55
I love that idea. Say it again?
Kristie Dahlia Home 23:58
Both more humble and, like, I created my own prayer song! And in terms of ministering, you had the authority of our lineage at the time, behind you, and I was just kind of calling myself a minister without that authority, which felt very bold, and yet it was really what I was called to.
Jivana Heyman 24:29
I love that! I just want to remark on that for a minute, that to me, there is, well, there's always been, what I've seen in you is like a strength and truthfulness, you know, as like a priority that I really appreciate, and which I think is what you're getting at here around appropriation. But more than just appropriation, I think you're also talking about like your place, like, what is your place and what is truthful and honest about how you can practice and share these teachings, which is so beautiful, and I've seen you do it over so long, and it's always been remarkable to me. Yeah, like to call yourself a minister. I was so impressed, especially because then I actually ended up leaving ministry, right? Because it was like, here I was aligned with an organization that I don't trust. You know, that I feel like was not being in alignment with the yoga teachings. So it's like you did such a smart thing, you know you had that intuition all along to keep your distance from the tradition, to find your own way to practice, but also kind of make it your own and be honest about that. I love that.
Kristie Dahlia Home 25:45
You're saying kept my distance, but I taught there two or three times a week for 10 years and I was on board of directors, and I was in service to that organization for 25 years, I think, I just recently stopped, which breaks my heart.
Jivana Heyman 26:02
I know. But there's still, even through all that service you did, and I didn't mean to minimalize it.
Kristie Dahlia Home 26:04
One foot in, one foot out.
Jivana Heyman 26:05
Yeah, like, that felt really smart! I mean, honestly, you had some intuition about it, like you you knew something. That was really remarkable.
Kristie Dahlia Home 26:21
Trust of the hierarchy and the organization, where I think, perhaps you found comfort there you offered me such a beautiful reflection. May I offer you one? (Sure!) I have always admired your willingness to lead. I've kind of stayed over on the edge. It tends to be my thing to be a little bit lone wolf, and I really admired your willingness to step forward and lead and hold authority. As we look at the terrible things that are happening in this time, it's often the case that people who are willing to hold authority are not coming from an unselfish place. And I really see you as someone who is willing to hold authority and stand in the spotlight and take risks for the good of all of us, and that's something I feel so deeply about you.
Jivana Heyman 27:11
Wow. Thank you. I really appreciate you saying that, because I have to say that is my practice and something I really struggle with. And I don't know how many people recognize that, maybe because you've known me so long, but yeah, I don't always see it as leadership, but I think I see it as like just being willing to speak out publicly, and I guess that sometimes takes a conscious effort. I mean, I'm naturally drawn to do it, but I also, like yesterday, I made a post on Instagram about what's happening right now, and I just feel like it's a little scary, like, I want to make a statement, but I also think, okay, I'm just, like, putting myself in there. I'm putting myself out into that mess when I'd rather kind of just hide. So thank you.
Kristie Dahlia Home 28:00
That moment where I said, oh, you said speaking out, and it gave me a sense of your through line where, and this is what's so beautiful often about sangha, isn't it? People who don't necessarily weave in your everyday life, but see you trying to do your best over spans of time and straight as an activist, and all of that is being willing to speak out and, yeah, it's a risky time to speak out. I hear that yeah, I spoke with someone this week who was having a marital issue where one partner wanted to protest and to be vocal, and the other partner felt that was a danger to their family. And the appropriate, safe, and ethical path for them was causing friction between them. You know, when you hear a lot of people talking about that right now. Don't obey in advance, the fear based actions that are scary.
Jivana Heyman 29:03
I appreciate you mentioning activism because I was in New York last week, and I was remind remembering my roots of activism, that's really kind of, where I immersed myself in ACT UP and I learned from incredible activists who were leading that, mostly lesbians, actually, which is surprising. A lot of people think that AIDS activism was mostly gay men, but it was really the lesbians, I just want to say, in ACT UP, who kind of gave me an education at a very young age. And I just realized how much it impacted me. And I've been thinking about it a lot, and what I saw mostly is that it's about community organizing and connection. Like you said, sangha, I mean that literally is what activism is to me, and I see you, and every yoga teacher that has a community is actually doing that. You know, you're actually, you're a leader, and you're leading that group. And so I think it's a question for all of us, all yoga teachers, I would say, is how are you handling your leadership? Like, what choices are you making right now, and especially in the midst of chaos andpotentially even worse, things, like, can you be open about it? Can you share? Can you bring your people together? Like, you know, how do you do that? I think that's our role. Like, we are leaders.
Kristie Dahlia Home 29:47
And there's a difficult line there with the different motivations that people bring to yoga. I'm thinking of a moment where, I haven't done a lot of teaching in commercial studios, I've generally served in the ashram, and in hospitals, and in private practice, in schools. But I've done some studio work, and I was teaching in the studio, and I had slowly built up my following there, and I had reached a point where, like, the classroom was full, we had both sides of the room full, and the middle of the room was full, and I had this one day where I said, if you are using yoga like a band aid or a cocktail to just make everything better, you know, I never say this, but I'm just going to go ahead and say it today, you're doing it wrong. That's not what yoga is for. 25 people jammed into the room that day, and the next week, I had eight people.
Jivana Heyman 30:49
Oh, wow! [laughing]
Kristie Dahlia Home 31:02
They just wanted to be comforted! They didn't want transformation and revolution and liberation, and that's the part of the yoga that we have in common, is the sincere desire to better the world.
Jivana Heyman 31:39
Yeah! I mean, I get that. Some people, I think people who are really marginalized, who are actually suffering, need that comfort part. But if you have a lot of privilege, then maybe not, maybe you actually need to be pushed. I agree and that seems like what's happening in a lot of the wellness world is, people who have privilege, who, especially, you know, white people who seem to use these teachings just to kind of soothe themselves.
Kristie Dahlia Home 32:06
And I wouldn't have said that in every context. I was in a room full of middle and upper middle class people, and I was like, you know, come on, y'all, let's, let's do what this is for. Let's set everybody free!
Jivana Heyman 32:18
You are reminding me a lot of, I've mentioned this in the podcast before, but my friend Anjali Rao, who is an incredible teacher, and kind of, I don't know, thinker in yoga, she has a new book coming out, and I was going to look for the title. But I keep bringing it up, it's Yoga As Embodied Resistance: A Feminist Lens on Caste, Gender, and Sacred Resilience in Yoga History, I think you'll really enjoy that book. It doesn't come out for a couple months. I think there's pre orders available. But I just want to say, she really looks at that piece through history. Like, I think sometimes when we people have this conversation, I feel like people are thinking, oh, this is kind of a modern way to talk about it, and, you know, about appropriation or about colonialism. But I feel like this is a thread throughout yoga. There's been a tension there throughout the history of yoga, you know, this connection between personal liberation and community liberation and also power, you know, the way that spiritual teachings in general are used through power. I mean, we can look right now at what's happening in the US and how religion is part of that process. And I feel like it's important for people who do spiritual work to speak up against that too, to recognize okay, spirituality means compassion, empathy, and care for each other. I have a lot of thoughts.
Kristie Dahlia Home 33:47
I appreciate your thoughts.
Jivana Heyman 33:51
Any last thoughts from you? We've gone on for a while here. Do you have anything you want to share?
Kristie Dahlia Home 33:56
I just I really want to appreciate you. I feel like I'm in a unique place to appreciate you, and your willingness to leave the lineage in which you had made a home for so long, your willingness to speak up in the yoga world against organizations that are not honoring the path. I'm in a scary place myself in that, I have set down all of my certifications. I don't have any certifications anywhere, because I had a quaundry with every place that I was certified. And I should have the highest level of certification there is, and I have nothing.
Jivana Heyman 34:15
That's awesome. I'm really impressed.
Kristie Dahlia Home 34:36
I admire the risks that you have taken. I did that personally, and you did that with your organization, and I admire the way that you speak up and speak truth to power within our community and continue to be a voice for freedom and justice. I'm just so grateful for the way you've taken the things that I saw you value as a young person and made them your life's work. It's beautiful.
Jivana Heyman 35:02
Wow! Thank you. I didn't know this would be so much about me, but I did want to, you know, spend this time with you, reflecting, and I appreciate that a lot. You know, it's been, yeah, it's been incredible to... I don't know, I remember I felt connected with you during that time in our training, because I think we were the two youngest people in the program, and you were even younger than me. Do you remember? I mean, you were really young, but I think, yeah, everyone else is much older, and so, like, we were already kind of on the outs, but it was fun.
Kristie Dahlia Home 35:35
Yoga was an old people's thing. We were the weirdo young people.
Jivana Heyman 35:40
Yeah, it was like older hippies, kind of, maybe. I love that. Anyway, so thanks for being there with me and for being here now and all along. Thank you for for this conversation today and for being willing to do it on the podcast. All right, so I'll talk to you later. Thank you, and bye, everyone!
Kristie Dahlia Home 36:02
Bye bye.
Jivana Heyman 36:16
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Jivana Heyman 37:10
Welcome back. Hi, Deanna. How are you?
Deanna Michalopoulos 37:13
Hey, Jivana. I'm good as can be. How are you doing?
Jivana Heyman 37:17
Yeah - good as can be, that sums it up. Yeah, I'm doing I'm doing fine, all things considered. I'm curious what you thought about that interview with with Dahlia. It was really fun to talk her. It was like a trip down memory lane for me.
Deanna Michalopoulos 37:35
I was gonna say the theme of this podcast is kind of looking back on your 30 years of teaching, and given that you knew Dahlia from the time you took your basic yoga teacher training, like this is the ultimate throwback. It's almost like your story starts here, in some ways.
Jivana Heyman 37:51
Yeah, my yoga teaching story, well might have started a little earlier, because I did actually study with another teacher for about four years before that, that was 1995 that I met Dahlia at in our basic teacher training at Integral Yoga in San Francisco. But I've been studying it with a teacher, Kazuko Onodera, who I spoke about before, who was kind of mentoring me for a long time. But yeah, it was 1995, I met Dahlia at that basic training, and we were the two youngest people. It was like older kind of hippies, mostly, taking teacher training at the time. And then the two of us, you know, we definitely bonded just being so young in that environment.
Deanna Michalopoulos 38:33
And clearly, I mean, we heard in the episode like, you know, life has changed a lot in three decades. But also, like the yoga teacher, like, or the yoga practice, sort of the culture around yoga practice at this point, and there's like, so much more to consider, which you both talked about, touching on appropriation, and, you know, sangha and how that kind of...
Jivana Heyman 38:56
How it has changed, you mean? How it's changed over...? (A little bit, yeah.) Yeah, no, yoga has really changed in the US in the past 30 years. Yoga itself has never changed. But,yeah, for sure, yoga culture in the West has, like, really, I don't know. Well, like I mentioned, it was kind of a hippie thing. I think we talked about that, and then it was around then in the 90s that it was becoming kind of exclusive. You know, yoga studio culture was happening, especially in California, which is where we were. And we were kind of part of this older lineage, you know, like, Integral Yoga was more traditional. We had monks teaching us, you know, swamis who were our teachers, and it was very formal. In good and bad ways, like there was really good things about that. I feel like we had, you know, thorough education, and I think we learned some of the more traditional aspects of yoga. It was all integrated into the program, you know, service and devotion and self inquiry. These were practices that were part of that lineage, for sure. I mean, Integral Yoga, Swami Satchidananda was the guru, and he was really amazing at that, you know, kind of the comprehensive approach to the practice. And it wasn't just asana, you know, and then in the studios at the time, it was really like asana was happening, like, big time, you know. And it did feel like we were part of a different, a whole different thing. Like, asana was a big part of what we were doing, but it still was just one little piece of a big puzzle. So, yeah, I mean, I appreciate that I learned through that lineage. But as I mentioned and we talked about in the episode, unfortunately, there was abuse. Swami Satchidananda was having sexual relationships with many of his students, and it was slowly coming out at that time. And so it was really, it was such a strange phenomena to, like, getting involved in something at the same time that I was like loving it and loving the yoga so much, it was also really kind of scary or, like concerning that...I don't know, every time I would question, what is going on? Is it true? Did that happen? I would be told lies, actually, that it wasn't true. And denial, and so that kept me involved longer than I should have been, probably.
Deanna Michalopoulos 39:29
And I think that, you know, I think you both had the conversation of whether you can separate the teacher from the teachings. And I think yoga as an ancient practice, you know, carried through the centuries, you know, through practitioners and teachers, carried in that very careful, thoughtful way. The teachings in some way, you can carry those teachings and maybe, like, call out the abuse, while also, like, carrying forward the good parts of practice that benefit the collective.
Jivana Heyman 41:19
Yeah, I mean, I think you can separate the teacher from the teachings, in this case, at least, because we're talking about a tradition that is thousands and thousands of years old. And so, I mean, it's one thing to separate out a teacher from the teachings if it's something that that person created. Do you know what I mean? That would be hard or harder to do. Like someone's art, for example, if they're the creator of this particular art, or, you know, painting or literature or something. But with yoga, I realized eventually that Swami Satchidananda was a really great teacher, but he was also just teaching something that he didn't create. I mean, he was just reaching back to what his teacher taught him, Swami Sivananda, and all the teachers before that. So that helped me a lot, and it really helped me when I felt just so disheartened and disappointed and really devastated by the realization that there was abuse and that I could no longer trust Swami Satchidananda or the people that support him, and that was almost harder. Because, I mean, I did have a relationship with Swami Satchidananda. I did, but at that time, by the time I was involved, he was already in his 80s, and, you know, I lived in San Francisco, and he lived in Yogaville, Virginia. And he would visit a few times and I'd go to Yogaville every year, so I'd see him a few times a year, probably. And, you know, people there were so many people around him that we couldn't get very close. I just had a few interactions personally with him. Like there are a few really interesting moments I've had of actually speaking with him. But much, much, much more of my education was through his disciples,the main people around him who were also brilliant teachers, some of whom I'm still in touch with. But, I was so disappointed in them for supporting him and, like, kind of supporting the lie. And I realized that that's what happens in these I mean, based on my experience, what I saw happening is it was the people around him that allowed it to continue for so long, right? They're the ones who are, and some are still denying it, and it's just so, it's so disappointing, because it's against yoga basic ethics. And I feel like without ethics, you can't have yoga, right?
Deanna Michalopoulos 44:15
According to the Yoga Sutras, it's true that ethics are the first step of the entire practice.
Jivana Heyman 44:20
Yeah, according to the eight limbs, for sure, that's the first thing, ahimsa, and satya, truthfulness. So, I mean, there was harm happening, there was lying happening, and that's just unacceptable to me and so I could no longer see him as my teacher. And that was hard, because I had dedicated, you know, probably close to 20 years to him and to that organization. I was way involved. I was, you know, Dahlia mentioned her involvement there, and I didn't really share a lot about mine, but I was basically managing San Francisco Integral Yoga Institute and I was on some other international boards for the organization, including the Teachers Council, which was like the main board that oversaw the teaching and how Integral Yoga was taught. I was doing my best to, kind of, make yoga accessible within Integral Yoga for that time. I mean, that was my focus, of course, because that's the work I was doing. And I learned from so many incredible teachers through Interval Yoga about that. I mean, some who were involved and some who left. Like Nischala Devi and Jnani Chapman, and then some that were involved, you know, like so many of the swamis, like Swami Ramananda, who I hope to have as a guest, actually. He's the one who I still have contact with, and who was really one of my main teachers there. And then when I left, I was really devastated, but also looking back, I realized that actually freed me to create Accessible Yoga as a separate organization. I had been trying to do it within Integral Yoga for a long time, and it wasn't getting anywhere, really, because they're very strict, whatever, controlling. Then when I left, it was like, oh, wow! I could just do whatever I want and it was amazing. And really amazing, incredible things happened when I left. Plus, I didn't feel any longer that I was out of alignment with the teachings by supporting them and the organization. You know, once it dawned on me that this really did happen, and that they were lying to me about it not, and it took a while for that to actually click in my head, then I was out of there. I was like, I'm done.
Deanna Michalopoulos 46:34
It's like that concept of moral injury, which I learned from Pamela Stokes Eggleston and Amina, where it's you're in a situation that you know is ethically, morally, not in alignment, but for systemic reasons, you're kind of in that system and forced to operate within that system.
Jivana Heyman 46:53
Yeah, I definitely felt that very much. There was moral injury by recognizing how I've been lied to and misled and how so many of us had. Part of it is that we were told that, you know, Swami Satchidananda was a monk, a celibate monk, and he portrayed himself in that way and put himself up on a pedestal. Literally, his photos were everywhere, statues of him, his pictures were on our altars. It was like we were to see him as God, as the Divine. And I think that's a dangerous thing to do with the human and so many people got hurt through this process. So not only the women that were abused, I mean, of course, I mean, we should think of them first. They were abused and then they were lied to and misled and never believed, really. But all of us who were lied to after that, you know, the denial, and I mean, it was deep, and it's still continuing. The organization still hasn't addressed it officially. I remember when I posted a blog about it at one point after I left, and I was cut off. I mean, they literally they stopped...like, they used to promote my work. Even after I'd left, I hadn't really said anything publicly about it, and they still and they would promote Accessible Yoga, and all the things I was doing proudly. And I was still friends with so many people there, but the minute I spoke about it publicly, I was cut off, like, excommunicated. They stopped speaking about me. They stopped inviting me, which is fine. I didn't want to go. I lost a ton of friends. I mean, it was really devastating, you know, and I made the choice to speak out, but I still feel like I had no choice, honestly. Anyway, thanks for listening. I feel like I just needed to share this. You know, it's part of why I had her on, Dahlia, I think, you know, it was nice to talk about our journey more generally. But I just really want to share about my experience with Swami Satchidananda, because some people know about my story, you know, maybe just a little bit.
Deanna Michalopoulos 49:14
Thank you so much for speaking out and for continuing to, you know, practice satya, truthfulness.
Jivana Heyman 49:22
I mean, to the best of my ability, you know. I'm sure I've made ton of tons of mistakes, but I feel like it's a practice. That's what we're doing here, right? That's what yoga is for, doing our best. To be honest, to not cause harm. It's a constant struggle. But yeah, and I really want to say that I know there are probably some people who have a similar experience with me listening, I'm happy to hear from you what you want to share. But also just want to go back to the episode and to say there was a lot of beautiful things covered and Dahlia shared so many. I love what she was sharing around meditation. And I thought it was really beautifully said, right? Do you remember that part?
Deanna Michalopoulos 50:09
Yeah, she said, "Meditation is a natural capacity we have. We naturally drift into contemplative revelry when we're in nature." Which is just absolutely beautiful, contemplative revelry, that really sticks with me.
Jivana Heyman 50:23
I love that. I mean, I agree. That's probably why I go into nature so much.
Deanna Michalopoulos 50:30
Are you eyeing the clock? You want to get to the beach before the tides?
Jivana Heyman 50:35
I know. Do we tell people that? That I schedule our meetings around the tides?
Deanna Michalopoulos 50:41
This is true. I try to schedule a meeting with Jivana, and then he's like, one sec, and then he's looking at some app, which is incredible, that he schedules meeting around the tides.
Jivana Heyman 50:53
It's a tide chart. You know, to know when there's a high... because see, on our beach here in Santa Barbara, it's like, at low tide, you can, like, I've been running these days, you can run much further. You can go around the like, past the, I don't know how to say the rocks. So basically, when it's high tide, you can't go that far, because you can't get through the rocks. So I like to go at low tide, and I also like to look for sea glass, and that's more likely to be there in low tide. But yeah, the beach is just different in low tide. It does get me into meditation.
Deanna Michalopoulos 51:29
I love that, Jivana. We should all work our days about when we could kind of connect with nature a little more deeply.
Jivana Heyman 51:35
Yeah, and you can ask me anytime, what's the tide in Santa Barbara and I can always tell you.
Deanna Michalopoulos 51:41
New Instagram pop up coming.
Jivana Heyman 51:43
I know. Do people do that? It's on my watch too. I have tides. Yeah, and there were other things too. Well, actually, speaking of tides, one of the things I also love about Dahlia is that she and her husband spent many years living on the boat, which I was always blown away by. I was like, I was ready to do that when I was younger, just like, give up everything and like, go live out in the woods or on a boat. I mean, how incredible is that? And scary, like, literally living on a boat for years! Storms and all those things, oh my gosh.
Deanna Michalopoulos 52:14
Just the rocking alone when you're trying to sleep! Maybe eventually you can get used to it.
Jivana Heyman 52:21
She did. I mean, to live there for years. Yeah. I mean, they weren't always moving around. A lot of the time they were in harbor, but they were living on their boat.
Deanna Michalopoulos 52:33
Those boats in the harbor are still bobbing.
Jivana Heyman 52:35
Yeah, they're still bobbing! That would keep me awake, probably. I don't know, it seems like it could lull you to sleep. I love sailing. I love being on boats. When I was a kid, we used to go sailing. I lived by the water then too. And we used to take out these little boats there, I don't know what do you call them even. We used to call them Sun Birds or something and they're like these tiny little boats with one sail. Have you seen them, little sailboats? (Oh, yeah, sure.) Like, one person sailboat. And I used to sail those when I was a kid. It was so much fun, but really quite dangerous, actually. But it was amazing to work with the wind. You know, I was always amazed by the ways you could sail into the wind. Do you know about that? It's just remarkable. It almost defies logic, but you can sail into the wind if you do it, if you zig zag, you know. (That's right.) There's a word for it, I can't think of it now. But it's like, if you go like that at an angle and keep going back and forth. Packing, I think it's called?
Deanna Michalopoulos 53:40
There's certainly a metaphor in there.
Jivana Heyman 53:42
Probably. Anyway, thank you, Dahlia. Thanks for talking with me and for being my friend and what's the word? My sangha, to being in sangha with me, community all these years, that means a lot to me. I appreciate the nice thing she said about me too. That was really sweet. Yeah. Any other thoughts?
Deanna Michalopoulos 54:07
Well, we have a voicemail to share, and it's a question for you, Jivana. And this is from Claudia Buzzetti. I'll go ahead and play that now.
Claudia Buzzetti 54:18
Hi, Jivana. First of all, I wanted to thank you for the great work and being such a source of inspiration for all of us. I have a question regarding the Yoga Sutras. I'm working on a master's thesis, and I would like to draw some parallels between yoga texts and philosophy and trauma informed practice. And I would like to ask you if you would be able to show me which elements you believe are inherently yogic, and at the same time, accessible and trauma informed. Thank you.
Jivana Heyman 55:09
Claudia. I love Claudia. She trained with me in Italy last year. She's in Italy. Hi, Claudia. Ciao! That's a great question. I have so many thoughts. I mean, in so many ways, yoga is already trauma informed. It's something that a few teachers have been talking about recently, especially Shyam Ranganathan who I think you can find him if you search. I think it's yogaphilosophy.com and he translated a version of the Yoga Sutras, Penguin Classics, and he has a bunch of other books too. And another teacher that we have on faculty, sometimes, Sangeeta Vallabhan who teaches trauma informed yoga, she'll be teaching as part of our trauma series that's coming up in a few months. They talk about the fact that yoga is already trauma informed. And to me, I think trauma informed, it's very much like Accessible Yoga. Like, I think trauma informed yoga and Accessible Yoga are almost the same thing. And I would say, when people ask me how do you make yoga accessible? It's like, well, actually, yoga is already accessible. Yoga, by nature, is accessible. But what's happened is, through culture, and like we talked about the shifts in the yoga culture just since I've been teaching in 30 years, you know, from kind of a hippie thing in California to now much more like an exclusive studio based practice, at least in the West. And I think that's true not only with accessibility, but also with the trauma informed nature of yoga, that the heart of yoga is already trauma informed. It's already accessible and it starts with this idea of wholeness, of fullness, that regardless of what's happening, we are whole, and full, and complete. And Patanjali begins with that. He says in Sutra Two that, "Yoga is about quieting the mind, then we can be in the state of yoga." And then Sutra Three it says, "And then we experience our true nature." Right, we abide in our true nature. And Four says, "At other times we are identifying with thoughts in the mind."
Jivana Heyman 57:22
So it's like that already is trauma informed, I think, to say when you're not caught up in the thoughts in the mind, and by the way, trauma is part of that, the vrittis, according to Patanjali. Memories, memory is one of the vrittis which he describes in the next section. He goes into five kinds of vrittis, and one of those is memory. But he's saying, when you're in the state of yoga, or when you're in touch with your true nature, you're fine. Do you know what I mean? Does that make sense? So it's like you're already full and whole. And that even comes back to the Upanishads. The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad begins with a beautiful mantra about fullness. From this fullness, that fullness comes and that fullness still remains. This is a very famous mantra there, and I think it's just a beautiful concept, this idea of being whole and full and complete. And that's why I love yoga so much, because, you know, and that's the heart of Accessible Yoga, too. It's saying that we are fine, whole and complete, no matter what's happening to us, no matter if we're going through trauma, if we have a disability, if we're going through some injury or struggle in our lives. Patanjali even goes on and talks about the obstacles and just even in Book One alone, just in the first chapter, he's talking about some of the things we might connect to trauma. You know, he talks about, let's see, he says, I'm just looking at it now. In Book One, Sutra 31, he says, "Accompaniments to the mental distractions include distress, despair, trembling of the body, and disturbed breathing." I feel like he's, in a way, describing trauma there, right, like someone who's triggered through trauma.
Jivana Heyman 59:11
And he then he goes on to explain that, you know, concentration, like meditation, is the best way to remove those obstacles and to deal with that, that trembling and shaking as well as the locks and keys. You know the locks and keys? (Maybe you can talk more about that for folks who don't know.) The locks and keys says, "By cultivating attitudes of friendliness towards the happy, compassion for the unhappy, delight in the virtuous and disregard toward the wicked or non virtuous, the mind stuff retains its undisturbed calmness." So again, he's offering that as a way of dealing with the trauma or with like, the problems that we're struggling with. And then he mentions pranayama as another way, and again, more kinds of meditation, things you can do. That's the section, or the sutra that our friend Tracee Stanley talks about in her incredible book, The Luminous Self. Doesn't she talk about one sutra that inspired her? She said that, I think that was Sutra 36, "Concentrating on the supreme, ever blissful light within." This idea that we have that light within us ready. "Or an experience we had in a dream or in deep sleep, I mean, or by meditating on anything one chooses that is elevating. So basically, Patanjali is telling us how to address the struggles of being human, which is very much what trauma is. Anyway, that's what I have to say for now. What do you think Deanna?
Deanna Michalopoulos 1:00:47
So, I mean, the yoga practices are, you know, accessible and meant to be for everyone. So essentially though, when they're not accessible in our modern studios today, and the way that yoga is delivered to people, it's a teaching issue. It's like maybe a little bit of an ignorance. And I don't mean that in a negative way, but just we don't know what we don't know. If teachers aren't learning the true essence of yoga and their trainings, they don't know it in order to pass it along to everyone, they're being taught a very narrow view that is incorrect of what yoga is.
Jivana Heyman 1:01:23
Yes, that is exactly true. And yeah, I think it's, it's a little bigger, which is maybe not just teaching, it's also based on culture and and the filter that we're experiencing yoga through. So like in the West, we're experiencing kind of a Westernized Yoga. But even in India, there's obstacles to yoga. I mean, there's a caste system and the way that impacted yoga. Patriarchy in particular, I think you can see that throughout the history of yoga. And I always mention Anjali's book. Like I say it every episode, but Anjali Rao has a book coming out in October. And, you know, looking at gender and caste in the history of yoga. And I think that book helped me see that, you know, just more clearly, again, the ways that what we've learned as yoga is impacted by patriarchy. And patriarchy is a complex thing. I mean, it has to do with who gets to be a teacher, who gets to decide what is the truth, which teachings are important and which ones we can let go of. So I think in modern times, you're exactly right that a lot of it has to do the way we're instructed to teach, and what we're told is important to teach. But I think if you look at some of these types, well, even the Sutras might be considered part of a patriarchal lineage of yoga, and yet even within that, I think you see that there's a sense of fullness that is there, that yoga is already accessible. It's already trauma informed. So the question is, how can we teach in such a way that we share that important message?
Deanna Michalopoulos 1:02:58
Thanks so much for that question, Claudia. You can always feel free to call back and let us know your thoughts.
Jivana Heyman 1:03:04
Yeah, it's such a good question. I feel like that question is like a whole book. You know what I mean? I could see doing a thesis about it, actually. I mean, it really is such a great exploration. I imagine you could probably look at every aspect of the Yoga Sutras, and even at the Gita, and really explore that question, like, what pieces are about trauma, and looking at, especially if you consider trauma as just the human experience of suffering. In fact, one more thought I have is, if you look at chapter two, which is probably where I should have gone immediately, but in in the second section, where he's talking about how to practice yoga, in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, he's describing how to do it. He's directly addressing suffering, you know, and he says that future suffering is avoidable, and I think that's a really beautiful statement. And he explains how to avoid future suffering, and that feels very much about trauma, is understanding how to be human in the world, how to exist so that we don't constantly cause more suffering than we already have. I don't think he's even saying that you have to let go...I mean, it's like we have enough, but how can we avoid future suffering? Which I think is a beautiful question. And he says, the way we avoid it is by discerning between what part of us is spirit and what part of us is nature. What part of us is just? I shouldn't say just, but what part of us is body-mind, constantly changing? What part of us is eternal Spirit, never changing? And that when you separate those two things and begin to see clearly which is which, that's how you avoid suffering.
Deanna Michalopoulos 1:04:49
Gosh, thanks. Jivana, this is like a mini workshop.
Jivana Heyman 1:04:52
Yeah, I could go on. (Incredible.) Well, it is incredible. I mean, these teachings are just life changing. Definitely for me, and I feel very grateful to have access to them. I think so often in contemporary Western yoga, we just don't even get to explore that, you know, this questions of yoga philosophy. In fact, when I even talk about philosophy, I think half of the listeners probably ears closed. It's like, I don't know what it is. What is it? Why do we have a block against philosophy? I don't know. I want to know. Let me know. Leave me a message if you have thoughts about yoga philosophy and what teachings you like, I'd love to hear from people.
Deanna Michalopoulos 1:04:57
That's a great question. You can either call in and leave a voicemail or type out a message to us and we'll read it on the pod.
Jivana Heyman 1:05:47
Right, all right. Should we leave it there?
Deanna Michalopoulos 1:05:50
Let's leave it there. It's great episode, Jivana.
Jivana Heyman 1:05:52
Oh, thanks. Thanks, Deanna. Thanks, Dahlia, that was such a great conversation. And thanks, Claudia for that great question, and we'll talk to you all next time. Okay, bye.
Deanna Michalopoulos 1:06:04
Bye, everyone.
