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 glad you're here. Thank you for joining me for this great conversation I had today with my friend, Rebecca Sebastian. I'm excited to share it with you. Rebecca is someone I talk to all the time about what's going on in yoga, and it's fun to share some of that here with you today. We talk about a lot of topics. We explore a little bit about the difference between yoga teaching and yoga therapy, the state of yoga today, she shares a bit about a new project she's working on, which is digital magazine for yoga professionals, which I'm very excited about. I just really appreciate Rebecca's support and service to the yoga community. She also has her own podcast, which I'll link to in the show notes, and she's had me on as a guest a few times, which I really appreciate. So I hope you enjoy this conversation with Rebecca Sebastian.
Jivana Heyman 1:48
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Jivana Heyman 2:56
Hi, everyone. Hi, Rebecca! (Hi!) How are you?
Rebecca Sebastian 3:01
I'm good. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to have this conversation today, because honestly, I feel like you and I can talk for a long time about anything.
Jivana Heyman 3:10
[laughs] I'm a little nervous how long this might go, so we should think about the time, but I agree I could talk to you for a long time about, well, especially about yoga. So before we get into it, I just thought maybe you could introduce yourself more. I don't know if you have anything you want to share.
Rebecca Sebastian 3:25
Sure. Hi, I'm Rebecca Sebastian. I am the host of the podcast, Working In Yoga. I admin a Facebook group called The Future of Yoga Therapy. I'm, like, super nerdy about the yoga world. I'm a big nerd about us and how we work in yoga.
Jivana Heyman 3:25
Yeah, and actually, I wondered if we could go back a bit, because, you know, this whole season is kind of like going back through my 30 years. And I just wondered if you could share a bit about your yoga journey. I just wonder, like, how it started, and I know you've had many roles in yoga. I just wonder if we could talk about that?
Rebecca Sebastian 4:02
Sure, I think, okay, so I don't think I've ever told this story, but I'm going to tell you the story about my first yoga class, because it was when I was in college in the 90s, you know. And it was the classic 90s experience of, you know, you go down a back hallway and there's a random cat that doesn't belong to anybody, and you're in some weird ass room. And you know, it was very non traditional. It was counterculture at the time. And the first yoga class I ever took was 95 minutes long, and it was 30 minutes of asana, 30 minutes of some sort of kriya, so like a breath work or meditation, and then it was 30 minutes of discussion, and it's so funny for me to think about, like, that class is how I got into it. I was like, oh, I really felt impacted by the full scope of everything that I learned in that class. And it's bizarre to have had that start of the experience and then watch the evolution of a yoga class over time where, you know, tight 60 minutes, and we're not talking, and it's pretty much, you know, 55 minutes of asana and five minutes of laying on the floor. Yeah. (I agree.) So that was my first yoga class!
Jivana Heyman 5:12
Right. And so, where was that?
Rebecca Sebastian 5:14
Iowa City, Iowa. I was at the University of Iowa, in college. Yeah.
Jivana Heyman 5:19
In the 1990s. Yeah. No, it's interesting because I actually never talked about this either, although I learned yoga from my grandmother, and then I went back to yoga, you know, in 1990. But I found a teacher, but at the same time, I actually went and took a yoga class as a college course, kind of just like continuing education when I just moved to San Francisco at City College, and there was a great yoga class there. It was also such an odd experience, like in a huge gymnasium with a really great teacher and a very traditional hatha yoga class. But I also love the fact that that class had a discussion in it, because when I started teaching in 1995, I started teaching yoga for people with HIV and AIDS in San Francisco at a hospital, and we had two hour sessions, and it was an hour and a half of yoga class, which included a really long yoga nidra and meditation and pranayama, and then a half hour discussion.
Rebecca Sebastian 6:19
Yeah, we need to bring back the discussions.
Jivana Heyman 6:24
It was amazing. I mean, it was so community building and bonding, like, that same group stayed together for almost 12 years. I mean, a lot of those guys died, actually. I mean, it was, you know, in the 90s, and AIDS treatments weren't that great. And so a lot of those guys died. But we would support each other. We would visit each other in the hospital, like when they were sick. Sometimes we'd have a class in their hospital room instead of, like in that conference room. And yeah, it was a really sweet class. And I think the discussion was that bonding place, you know.
Rebecca Sebastian 6:56
Yes, so even now, so the journey of teaching yoga. I'm like the most reluctant, accidental yoga teacher. You know, I never felt called to do it. It was always people pulling me to teach classes. But eventually I ended up owning a yoga studio, which I sold recently, and in that studio, we had yoga book clubs where it was asana and then discussion over a book that I had sort of curated, and I'm still going back to do that. And everybody who's coming back for that, I'm going back to the studio that I sold, and they're all in it for the discussion. The discussion and then I essentially lead them through like a short nidra. That's what they want. That's what people really want from us!
Jivana Heyman 7:39
Well, that's what my students wanted. I mean, that's a part about Accessible Yoga that I think that people are surprised about, that I was really focused on giving people access to those more subtle teachings. Because back then, those guys, my students with AIDS, who were quite ill and some who died, they weren't concerned about asana so much. They had questions about like, spirituality and life and death and they were really way ahead of me, like they were really addressing major life issues, and they wanted to know what the teachings said. And so yeah, we would read. It wasn't really a book club, but we would read through the Sutras. So, like, each class, we'd have one sutra or one sloka from the Gita, and we went through the Sutras and the Gita, like, over and over. Or they someone to bring in a poem, or I would, and it was really powerful to have them reflect on these teachings that I was still trying to figure out, because I was really young to be doing that. It was amazing.
Rebecca Sebastian 8:32
Yeah. Oh, I love that! I mean, I do think we underestimate people's desire to have deeper conversations as adults like I remember when I first started having, like, these book club discussions. You know, before I even opened a studio, I was having book clubs at other studios. And people would come in and they'd be like, these are the conversations I haven't had since 3am when I was a junior in college, you know, like, where you sit up and talk about life and the meaningfulness of the things that we do in the world. I think there's, like, a hunger for that.
Jivana Heyman 9:05
Right, and the yoga teachings are so practical. Like, yoga philosophy isn't quite like a lot of other religious theory or philosophy. I mean, it's such usable ideas and concepts that I find, you know, changed my life. And I think so many people feel that way, like, here's, you know, reading the Sutras is life changing, or the Gita, it's incredible. Yeah. So what led you to own a studio, though? I mean, you said you're a reluctant yoga teacher, but how does that lead to...?
Rebecca Sebastian 9:37
I think there was a point where, in your teaching, that's funny, you asked this question because I just asked this of some of my followers online on Facebook, because I'm going to start a new series on my podcast about creativity. I think our job is inherently creative. (Yes!) And there was a point where you have to reconcile with the fact that, if you're an independent contractor teacher, which I was for 15 plus years, that you are working in somebody else's paradigm, right? They've given you sort of a structure in a box, and you're working for them, so you have to deliver what they expect from you. And it was a little restrictive for me, like I wanted to teach the way that I wanted to teach, and I wanted to be creative in the way that I wanted to be creative. And I also wanted to build that space for other teachers, which it took me a long time to have the language to say, like, oh, isn't it funny, I even started a yoga studio for teachers. Like, I'm so passionate about us as a collective. I wanted a place where people could come and feel unfettered in their ability to create within the structure of yoga. And so, like, I started a studio so I could do that work.
Jivana Heyman 10:48
I love that. That's so beautiful. Well, first of all, I love the idea of creativity as being an essential aspect of yoga teaching and I talk about a lot, actually, in my last book, The Teacher's Guide to Accessible Yoga, because I feel like that is the part, the missing element, in accessibility, is the creativity that you need when you're in front of actual people. You know, it's like so different to be trained and to have all these tools, but when you're actually in real life, dealing with real people with real issues, creativity is essential. It's like any other skill, right?
Rebecca Sebastian 11:22
Yeah, I think that it's one of the things that I find it interesting. Amongst us, we don't talk about it, right? Like so amongst us, when we're talking shop with other yoga teachers or yoga therapists, it comes out, very prescriptive. It comes out, people ask questions like, hey, what poses would you use for, you know, insert whatever malady or thing they're thinking about. And then someone else says, oh, use, you know, pigeon pose, and this pose, and this pose. It comes out like a prescription. And then I read those, and I'm like, that's not what we do at all. Like, and I find that wild, because the best and most present teachers that I've had are wildly creative.
Jivana Heyman 12:04
Yeah, that's interesting. My background was actually in art, which I don't talk about very much. I studied drawing and painting my whole life, and then that was my degree in college, was in studio art, and I still draw a little. But what I find is that teaching actually took that energy in a different way and made it more service oriented, the same energy that I found in creating art I could find in teaching, and it's exactly what you say. It's like, it's not prescriptive. It's really about present moment awareness and also just having like, a sense that you're a vehicle. Like, there's something about creativity where you kind of get out of the way, you know, for me, at least. When I'm in the creative mode or in the zone, it's not so much about you. It's like there's this sense of not being there. I don't know how to say it, right? It's like flowing through you, the energy of yoga or art or music or whatever it is that you're being creative with, it's like time kind of disappears, space kind of goes away, and you're just in that moment, in that flow. It's a meditative flow that I find in teaching almost more than anywhere, you know.
Rebecca Sebastian 13:10
Same! So this is how, when I train new teachers, I also train them this way, because oftentimes new teachers are picking up a lot of classes each week. You know, to build. When I'm training, I'm pushing my teachers to build skill set, right? So pick up and teach everywhere that you can, because if you can build skill set quickly, you're then able to produce enough to make more money. But I always say, like, teach the same class Monday through Sunday. And I used to teach, I was one of those people in like, the early, 2000s that was teaching, like a stupid amount of classes week, like 18 to 22, classes a week, right? (Oh my God.) And it would be Monday morning, my first class on Monday would be like that, sort of, you know, the vessel of creativity would come through, and then I'd have built this box of what I was going to teach through the week. And then it was the creative game of being able to adapt what I taught that first class to every single group that I taught throughout the week. And it is wildly creative and super fun, if you look at it that way, you know. Like, I could never, I would have been bored if I was in one of those prescriptive teaching classes where you have to teach this, then this, then this all the time. Yeah, I wouldn't have lasted four months.
Jivana Heyman 13:30
Me too. I mean, again, that's what I love about Accessible Yoga is like, be able to serve people who have really different needs. So if you're working with a group of older folks, or, like, I used to teach a lot for people with advanced heart disease and people with multiple sclerosis at local hospitals in San Francisco through the MS Society, and people with HIV. Each group had, like, very different needs, and also, like, whoever was there that day. Like, the community of people with MS, I think was particularly useful for me to learn from, because there are so many different conditions related to MS and different symptoms. So it's like, just because you have MS, it doesn't mean anything in particular, it can show up in so many different ways. And so each student would kind of offer me, like, a particular challenge, which was so fun. And I don't mean fun, like, just like, finding that it pulled at my creativity and, like, really challenged me to think different. So within one class, you'd have people with just such different needs. I remember I had one student, she had been a dancer, professional dancer, and she had MS, so she was incredibly flexible and strong and mobile, and she could do any asana, but she had very intense vertigo, and so she had to keep her head upright all the time. And so it was really challenging to create a practice where her head was always level, her eyes were always on the horizon. She couldn't even lift her head up or down, but her body could really do any other movements. It was like, wow, what kind of practices could you come up with where that works, where her head is upright? It was really something.
Rebecca Sebastian 15:55
Yeah, and I think that there's like a balance that you have with being present with somebody's challenges, and also going, this is kind of a fun, sort of like structure that you've given me to be able to go, okay, so can I bucket all the different kinds of poses, but also keep your head in a place where you don't get sick.
Jivana Heyman 16:17
Exactly. It was really challenging, yeah. But anyway, so you owned a studio, but you also were a yoga therapist. So was that at the same time? Were you practicing as a yoga therapist?
Rebecca Sebastian 16:28
Yes. So I've been a yoga therapist since 2011, is when I finished my yoga therapy training. So before the credential, before, you know, the International Association of Yoga Therapists launched a credential in 2016. I was within the first like 500 people to get that credential. I had been practicing as a yoga therapist for five years at that point. I still see yoga therapy clients today, even though I don't have a studio, we meet. Yeah, that's essentially for those who are listening who don't know what yoga therapy is, it's taking the full spectrum of yoga, which is not just asana or movement, but, you know, breathwork, meditation, philosophy, lifestyle principles, and applying them to one person, oftentimes for a specific outcome. Someone will come to you and say, I need help with this. For a while, I had a whole lot of C-suite level people who are in the corporate world, who couldn't sleep. They'd gone to everybody else, because nobody sees a yoga therapist as their first option. It's like, their 18th option, and they're like, well, I'm out of options, and somebody told me to come see you. What do you got?
Jivana Heyman 17:36
That's funny. Yeah, and, I mean, it's funny, we had a conversation recently in our Accessible Yoga Community Facebook Group about this, about doing yoga therapy for a group. Because I remember, I was at some of those meetings representing Integral Yoga, I helped to create Integral Yoga's yoga therapy program, when I used to work for them in the 2000, 2010s. And I would go to some of those IAYT meetings, they'd have meetings of schools where they come and talk about those credentials, the standards that they were creating. And it was bizarre. There was a lot...like, everyone came from their school and like, had this idea of, like, oh, yoga therapy is what we do. And the loudest voices in the room seemed to win out, unfortunately, but it did seem like there was some effort to try to include groups. But in the in the conversation we were having someone who's saying that you have to do individual intakes with each person in order to have the yoga therapy with a group. I don't know if that was originally the case when they first came up with those standards, because it was a debate, could yoga therapy be a group or not? And my question was about Accessible Yoga and yoga therapy, and like, where's the line? Because before, again, before those standards, I used to kind of think of it all in one thing, like Accessible Yoga, yoga therapy, it's just anytime we're using yoga to address any issue that we have. But now it's different. Now, it's very much like a specialty that has a distinct definition, right?
Rebecca Sebastian 19:06
Yeah, to my understanding with groups, it is a group if everybody has the same challenge. So I used to work with people who had a particular sort of neuropathy in their feet, and so like I would see collectively, groups of people, everybody was coming with the same challenge, right, neuropathy in their feet. To my understanding that that's how it...this feels like a weird languaging to say, but that's how it, quote, unquote, counts as yoga therapy via the International Association of Yoga Therapists. I don't, I mean, I have the 'it's complicated' feelings about it, because I feel like two people who've been teaching for, in your case, 30 years, in my case, well over 20 years, you know, we should be able to define this and still, it's just like, sort of!
Jivana Heyman 19:58
Well, I mean, should we talk about yoga therapy for a minute? I mean, in this podcast and in my work, I mostly talk about yoga teaching and Accessible Yoga, which I feel like is, I don't want to say like the inverse of yoga therapy, but it's almost like, to me, it's about making yoga reach more people, about making it broader and available to everybody. And sometimes I feel like yoga therapy, it's like narrowing it down, becoming more focused on an individual and what they need. Which is great, you know, I feel like both are necessary. And then the other way to think about it, I guess, is to say that, you know, Accessible Yoga is just like those basic skills, like to make yoga available to everyone, the creativity that you need to adapt practice and that yoga therapists use that in their toolbox. They use that skill of Accessible Yoga. Yeah, I just wonder what you think about that.
Rebecca Sebastian 20:50
I think that how it's evolved, whether it's evolved this way on purpose or not, you know, a lot of things in the industry have been sort of happy accidents. I think yoga therapy has evolved to be able to sort of individualize and personalize it for a couple reasons, and one is because we needed jobs that paid us money. So the original intent was that we were going to somehow professionalize with the skills that we had as yoga teachers that we were then, you know, we would see private clients. And this was true myself, is that people would come to me and say, I want one-on-one, private clients. And this was true before I was a yoga therapist. So I was just taking a practice and going, well, what do you want to do today and then adjusting it for them. And that, I think, is how yoga therapy kind of evolved out, was that it was the evolution of what would be private clients into private one-on-one clients with a very specific, sort of, protocol and outcome desired. That's one thing. And I think that people who are good at that skill set, that's like one bucket and skill set, because not everybody's good at teaching one-on-one. I think it is a unique person who can maintain an hour long dialog without getting sidetracked talking about, you know, the dog that died when you were six, or things like that, you know. And then teaching group classes is a different skill set entirely.
Jivana Heyman 22:16
But, I mean, I still think you could be a yoga teacher and offer one-on-ones?
Rebecca Sebastian 22:22
Yeah, of course. I don't think every yoga teacher is good at teaching one-on-ones, and I don't think everybody who is good at doing one-on-ones is good at teaching a group class.
Jivana Heyman 22:30
Right, but I'm just saying that you could be good at teaching one-on-ones as a yoga teacher and not have to take 1,000 hours of training, and you don't have to be a yoga therapist, and you can still do one-on-ones. I think that's where the confusion comes in a lot, you know, because I think the yoga therapists have a bigger scope of practice. We can ask about medical information, which yoga teachers shouldn't be asking for, because we know how to protect that information. We can ask about medications people are on and about their history. We can also make a plan for them and follow up. But some of that, again, I think yoga teachers are doing occasionally, yeah?
Rebecca Sebastian 23:07
I think so too. I also think that right now, yoga therapy runs this really sort of like tense middle ground, because we're also not licensed healthcare practitioners, right? So yeah, we're in a tricky, tricky spot. Yeah.
Jivana Heyman 23:27
It's interesting. One of the things for me that's been confusing about it is that I started, one of the first jobs I had was teaching as part of the Dean Ornish program. I mean, Dean Ornish, don't know if you know him. He was like, this brilliant pioneer, because his work on yoga for reversing heart disease was so ahead of its time, and had a huge impact, almost started this whole, like, contemporary yoga therapy movement. And it was all done in groups, by the way, those sessions. We would have occasional one-on-ones, with our patients, our clients. But mostly it was group classes that they were part of, and it was so successful. It's such an incredible program that it seemed like there was so much energy behind it for a while, because his research showed, like real serious research, showed that you could reverse heart disease using this lifestyle, you know, exercise, diet, and stress reduction, which was yoga and meditation and stopping smoking. Oh, and group therapy. And he found out that it was the group therapy and the stress reduction that were the most effective parts and they actually reversed heart disease, which nothing has been shown to do that. Nothing else actually reverses that.
Jivana Heyman 23:35
Which is why heart disease is the one thing specifically a doctor can prescribe a yoga therapist for when yoga therapy is covered by insurance. Yeah, I actually trained with Nischala, I don't know if you know that.
Jivana Heyman 24:55
She was my teacher, too. (Yeah.) That's great.
Rebecca Sebastian 24:59
How did we not know that before?
Jivana Heyman 25:01
I mean, she's the one who brought me into the Dean Ornish program and she's part of integral yoga, which is the school I worked for. Yeah, she was originally, then she left and did her own thing. So we're talking about Nischala Devi and I can link to her in the show notes, and her incredible work and her books. But also then I met Jnani Chapman, do you know Jnani Chapman. Have we talked about her? (We have, yeah.) Oh okay, yeah. So Jnani was another, also Integral Yoga trained person who worked for Dean Ornish and was my mentor for many, many years. She also created the YCAT, Yoga for Cancer program, that continues today, even though she passed away, the program continues. And she was an incredible figure in yoga therapy. She was the president of the IAYT early on, before the standards, actually, and that's when I think she left. When she was there, it was a very different thing, like what yoga therapy was. And that's why I get all confused, because I was so influenced by her. She was just really incredible. She also was a nurse, so she had just like a different way, but she was an incredibly loving person, and just really great at connecting with people and being of service to them, and just her work was really outstanding. Both of them, just hugely influenced me, honestly.
Rebecca Sebastian 26:17
Nischala is why I am a yoga therapist. Her books influenced me so heavily in the work that I was doing as a yoga teacher. Essentially, I was like, how do I train with her? That was how I got in there and I, you know, went online and researched it and found that she was on staff for, and I trained through, Inner Peace Yoga Therapy, which she was on on team there and Integral Yoga Therapy, I couldn't afford to go away for two weeks because I was a single mom with a little kid, so Inner Peace was a better solution for me. But yeah, she's why I trained as a yoga therapist.
Jivana Heyman 26:53
Yeah, she's amazing. She's the one who designed the yoga portion of the Dean Ornish program. So she created that and and so when I went in there, she was training us, you know, on what we should be doing. And she basically taught me how to adapt. That was her thing, like, adapting asana. I mean, she had a very specific way to do it, but she also just gave me this freedom that I didn't have from my basic training. And that's what I applied to people with HIV and AIDS when I started teaching. So, yeah, I worked for them through Dean Ornish. And he had a clinic through, I think it was through UCSF, UC San Francisco. There was an actual clinic in the hospital that I was teaching part of and also we would do week long retreats in Oakland, at Claremont Hotel, if people know about that, and Nischala would come. It was amazing, Jnani, it was an incredible time. I feel like one of the things that we've sort of uncovered this is, and I think this is what you do in Accessible Yoga too. Like, the true skill set is the ability to adapt, right, to be creative and adapt to the humans who are in front of you. Like, it is that skill of being able to be present and see the people in front of us, which, you know, I just finished a while ago on my podcast, the series on AI and tech, and how we're going to compete with AI, because there's already AI yoga teachers who are not real people, not real voices, who are teaching yoga in some of our sweet spots, like nursing homes and retirement centers. Like I used to get paid a lot of money to teach at those places, and now they've just brought in an AI yoga teacher. And one of the things I think we really need to lean into is our ability to be creative, adapt, and be present with the people in front of us. Like, no computer will ever replace that.
Jivana Heyman 28:36
No, I mean, I hope not. It's worrisome. And actually, I think the human connection is really the key. I was thinking about it this morning, actually. I don't know why it came up for me. I was just thinking about teaching and about how that may be the most important thing that happens in the classroom, is just that the teacher shows that they have some love and care and empathy for the student. Like, literally, I think maybe people are just, especially these days, like, there's such a lack of that. Like, that wherever you go. I mean, maybe people find that in therapy, like in other therapeutic environments, but I don't know if there are many places you can go, and especially with a group of people, and feel like this person cares about me and is asking how I'm doing and is offering teachings and ideas to help me do better in my life and to feel good. And I just feel like that alone, like the gesture of caring, of kindness, I don't feel like we talk about that enough, as like the core teaching. And sure, creativity is like the skill, like the unspoken skill that you need. I agree, but also just being a kind and empathetic person, because I think about all the Accessible Yoga teachers I know, and probably all the people listening to this podcast, and I just want to say how the theme I find in them is that they are really loving, caring, and empathetic people, really service oriented people. It's a special group that's drawn to this work, and I feel like that's the essential ingredient.
Rebecca Sebastian 29:59
Yeah. I agree with you. That's that magic, right? You and I both know Theo Wildcroft. And Theo always, she's like, you know, it's part technique and part magic, and the magic is just like that sort of, whatever you would want to call it, you know, if you're a science based person, it's the neurochemistry of all our nervous systems co-regulating, or, like, whatever you want to say, to use your words, pull out, you know, more traditional, new-agey words, if you want to. But it is that magical piece that makes us all come back.
Jivana Heyman 30:29
Yeah, it is. I say yoga is magic, and it's also connecting to this ancient tradition. There's something about yoga that is special in this way, because I think it's this very scientific and practical approach to self-care, self-awareness, and connecting with those parts of ourselves that are okay. You know, like connecting with the spirit, actually, and I think that's what's so lacking today.
Rebecca Sebastian 31:00
Yeah, it's part of, I think, what makes us love this work too. Like, I can't imagine coming into a job, like, just as a professional, you know, like those of us who've done a lot of this, like, we could get jobs elsewhere, get paid better, but I don't want to do anything, but this, for whatever reason.
Jivana Heyman 31:22
Yeah. So let's talk about that. I wonder if you have ideas for yoga teachers or yoga therapists right now? I feel like it's a challenging a time in our world. Obviously, the world is going through chaos, and especially in the US. I wonder, do you have advice for yoga teachers right now, like how to survive? Honestly, I think a lot of people are maybe stopping teaching or not teaching as much, is the feeling I'm getting, honestly.
Rebecca Sebastian 31:50
Yeah, I have two pieces of advice. And one I'm going to bucket in a very practical, like, professional skill development bucket. And then the other, I'm going to bucket in the like, how your heart stays in this game bucket. And the first is the very practical thing of especially if you're new or newer as a yoga teacher, you have to build skill set. You have to teach, and you have to teach everybody all the time. It doesn't matter who they are. I mean, I don't know about you, but most yoga teachers I know who have taught for decades have taught at some weird places. I used to teach somewhere where there was a livestock auction. It was in the middle of rural Midwest, United States, and I would just drive there. People would come in, and sometimes they would like, literally have just sold cows and sheep in there, and we would be in there doing yoga. (That's not surprising.) Teach everywhere, teach everyone, and build your skill set as quickly as you can. Like, that's just the path, practically speaking, to making more money, to being able to ask more money. And the other thing I need you to do, and I think this probably more important is you need to make friends with other yoga teachers. Like, we have to actively push away the real, like in this industry cutthroat nature, that is, those people are your competition. You've got to go make friends with people. Go commiserate with people. Go say, you know, this is hard for these reasons, and, hey, how can I support you? We've got to build a community amongst ourselves. Because the truth is, I think that we as a collective have been waiting for somebody else to come in and sort of do that work for us, and we need to decenter organizations and center ourselves. We need to center ourselves as humans who do this work.
Jivana Heyman 33:47
I love that, and of course, I say usually the same things. I mean, just you have to get experience just like teach everyone you can. Teach your friends, teach your relatives, teach the neighbor, teach anywhere. I don't think you have to teach for free all the time, but a little bit is okay. Like, if you teach for free to gain experience, then it's not even free. You're actually getting something. Once you get more experience, you don't have to teach for free. But in the beginning, I think, there's not a lot of choice. I taught everywhere. I think the hardest ones were in schools, as my kids were growing up, teaching in their classes, and then teaching high schools and colleges, all over the world. And also like you, like, in the most random places. And I think part of what's powerful about that is teaching in non yoga spaces is actually really good for yoga teachers to gain that skill of bringing the yoga and actually holding that space stronger. Like, you said, if you're at a livestock auction. Or in a lot of hospital settings, actually, where it's a very non yoga space, and there's a lot of like, noise, literally, noise, like loudspeakers. Have you had that, where you're like, Code Blue, Code blue, like coming over the loudspeaker, while you're trying to do shivasana? And you're like, okay someone's, like, having an emergency, you know? And like, let's say a prayer for that person. You don't want to just ignore it. Or just people walking in and out during your class and they're like, what are you all doing here? You know, it's such a great experience to put yourself out there. And then the other part about yoga friends, I couldn't agree more too. You know, peer support is essential.
Rebecca Sebastian 35:22
Yeah, I love that you told that story of, you know, the loud speaker going off. So a lot of my up and coming time as a yoga therapist and yoga teacher was teaching older adults. I taught in retirement centers and places like that. And there was one place that I taught where everybody had one of those Life Alert buttons around their neck. And I taught a very traditional class. We were on the floor, we stood, we in the amount of times one of those Life Alert buttons got pushed, and then we'd hear like a brrrrring, "Is Jean okay? Because her Life Alert button got pushed?" Like all the time.
Jivana Heyman 35:53
Yeah, I know, it's so funny. And I know you said don't rely on organizations, but I do want to say that at Accessible Yoga, we have an Ambassador and Mentorship Program. I just want to plug it for a minute. It's run by Rodrigo Souza, who's amazing, and it's literally just for that. It's for that peer support where, you know, we meet twice monthly, and we just talk about, how is it, you know. And we have a guest speaker once a month, and their session is just like practicing and talking about how you're doing as a yoga teacher. And it's really amazing. I love those groups. I love being part of them, and it's just so nice to be with a group of active yoga teachers. And all the training I do, you know, over the years, I used to train yoga therapists for a while. My full time job was leading 200 hour trainings for Integral Yoga for a while. So I led over forty 200 hour trainings. And you know, these days, I can choose what I do, and what I choose to do is work with yoga teachers and do continuing education for this reason, which is, I love to work and support yoga teachers and just be with them, just like come together with a group of yoga teachers. And all of our trainings are like that. There's group support, plus there's an educational aspect, but just being together makes me so happy.
Rebecca Sebastian 35:54
Oh, it makes me happy too. I'm so glad you said that. I don't know why, I just love us. I love the work that we do, I've never felt more at home than with yoga people, which, I mean, maybe just says something about me. But I love us. This reminds me of, I was teaching in a conference last year, and a lady came up to me and she was talking about these classes that she teaches in a rural community in the middle of the state of Illinois, right? And she happened to be at this conference I was speaking at, and she was coming up telling me, she just looked almost apologetic. She was like, they're not very big, it's four or five people, but I know that they all come every week, and we mean a lot to each other, and we're able to move and breathe, and sometimes they can't do everything, and that's okay. And I just, I was like, this is us. This is our story of just being able to be a place where people can move a little bit and that feels good, breathe a little bit, that feels good, and meet other humans who are loving and nurturing. And our work is really powerful for that reason.
Jivana Heyman 38:22
I know I feel like we're cheerleaders for yoga teachers.
Rebecca Sebastian 38:26
We need t-shirts! [laughs]
Jivana Heyman 38:29
It's true, that is what I do. I know I mentioned my last book, but I just want to say that's why I wrote that last book. Like, literally, that was what was on my mind the whole time. It was like, what can I give yoga teachers? Like, I want to support them. And my publisher, so I had worked with Shambhala, who published my first two books, and they were like, "This is too niche. Like, there's not enough yoga teachers out there who would read this." And so they didn't want to publish it. So I self published it, which was a fun adventure, because I just feel like I wanted to do it for yoga teachers. Like, I want to share this information, and I want to support them as best I can. And also, that's why I'm doing this podcast. I'm talking to you. It's like, what is the point of having done all this for so long too? Like, I feel like I have all this experience, and like you do too, if we can't continue sharing it forward and I wonder if that kind of reminds me of your new project. I wonder if you want to talk about that?
Rebecca Sebastian 39:19
Ooh, yes, I do, because I really want a place for us to actually talk shop in a way that feels productive, and people with expertise can come in and talk about the industry. I actually have gotten like, if you know me personally, I get ideas in my brain, and then they're just there, and I get obsessed with them. And this new obsession I have is with like, data and industry reports, because I know that we can make better decisions as professionals if we're able to share what's happening with each other in the yoga industry. So I'm going to launch a digital trade magazine for us yoga professionals, and so the initial issue zero will be a shorter issue that comes out this fall, and then the first full issue is going to come out in January, 2026. And again, like I said, my intention is to center us, the professionals, the workers, the teachers and decenter the organizations. We've been looking up at the sky for too long, and we need to be looking at each other and saying, hey, like, we all have this job that is really unique to us. Nobody's coming for us. Nobody's coming to do this, so we're going to do it for ourselves.
Jivana Heyman 40:32
Yeah, it's interesting, actually, because that...well, first of all, I'm very excited for you. Congratulations on the new project. I can't wait to see what happens. I'm sure it'll be amazing. I think we do need that. We need to be talking amongst yoga teachers more and yoga therapists. But what you just said reminds me of, kind of the heart of yoga, which is that, in the end, yoga is a completely personal inner practice, and yet we always look to the teacher. So there's this tension within yoga practice of being dedicated to your teacher and following what they say, and also learning to trust your own intuition. And I feel like, to me, a more experienced practitioner, I'm not going to say advanced, but maybe like experienced practitioner stops listening to those external voices after a while. Your own practice kind of takes over, and it has, like, a life of its own, and will guide you, because the teachings themselves are so powerful. So it's more like, if you can start connecting to those teachings, and I don't mean not listening to anyone, but I mean like, study on your own. Like, read the Sutras, read the Gita, read the Upanishads, whatever texts you like, listen to teachers a little bit, but start trusting your own intuition. And I feel like you're saying the same thing about yoga as a community, right?
Rebecca Sebastian 41:48
Yeah, absolutely. I need that for us. I need us to really shift into a conversation with each other, and I also need us to stop gatekeeping. I swear, I will scream the next time I see somebody who's launching a like, four week intensive about how to do an email list, or how to, like, just stop gatekeeping the stuff. We are all better and we all make more money if each of us are succeeding. So, like, I also want a place where we stop doing that. (Thank God.) I understand that I am maybe unique in the way that I have done a lot of jobs, yoga teacher, yoga therapist, owned a yoga studio.
Jivana Heyman 42:34
No, I feel the same way, because I feel like it's collaborative. To look at other yoga teachers as competition is a mistake. (Yes.) I spend most of my energy supporting other yoga teachers. I mean, I've been lucky because I have been successful myself, but I still feel like my only purpose is to serve others. That's what yoga is about, service. So yes, I'm constantly trying to get other yoga teachers connected with each other, find work for them or offer them. I think I've introduced more yoga teachers to talk to more people about book publishing than anyone else, and I know very little. Do you know what I mean? Like, I've had my own experience, but it's like people come to me and they want to know, how did that work? It's like, I feel like I've become my own little referral network.
Jivana Heyman 42:35
Yeah, I feel like the best of us share generously, and so I want a place for us to share generously about what we did to give other people a shot.
Jivana Heyman 43:28
Oh, I'm so excited. That's awesome. I mean, that's basically what Accessible Yoga became. We had our first conference in 2015 and it was like this incredible networking experience. And that's what got me to do it, to have a conference, because I felt like we're all so isolated. And I felt isolated. I had just moved to Santa Barbara from San Francisco, Bay Area, and I didn't really know very many people here. Actually, if I can tell you a story, I'm talking more than you in this podcast, like, I don't know Rebecca, I think it's just your natural like, kindness and generosity. You're just like, letting me talk.
Rebecca Sebastian 44:03
Oh, thanks. I'm here for it. Tell me all the stories.
Jivana Heyman 44:09
I've told this a few times, but I was gonna say it again. I moved here. I didn't know anyone I had left, like, my kind of, like, very exciting yoga work in the Bay Area. I was doing great stuff. I loved it. But, you know, because my family, we moved down here. It's complicated, but for many reasons, other than yoga, every other reason was like, we have to move away. And so we did, which was great in the end. I got to be near family. I got to move for my husband's work and for my kids schools. It was, like, so many reasons we had to go. But I was really sad, because I was like, starting from zero again. I had no yoga anything going on down here, and I wasn't teaching. I was teaching a little bit internationally. But anyway, I had one friend here, Cheri Clampett, who's a longtime teacher of mine and my yoga therapist, actually. She's who I go to still, and she was teaching in the hospital for people with cancer, which is something she's done for so long. And. I was jealous. I was jealous of her, and then I started feeling guilty, you know, like, oh my god, I'm jealous of someone who's doing amazing work. Like, what a weird thing. And I sat, I was in meditation one day, and I thought I should use my yoga to deal with this, because I'm incredibly jealous and frustrated about someone who's just doing this beautiful service. And so I thought, well, what would, you know, pradipikasha, bhavantu, like, how can I reflect or replace this thought with something more productive? And so, literally, what came to me was an image of Cheri Clampett on stage, like a conference, like I had, literally this visual of, well, rather than compete with her, why not elevate her and actually put her on the stage? And so that was this idea of, oh, I could have a conference. And so that's what turned out to be the Accessible Yoga Conference, and how the organization changed to focus on serving other yoga teachers working in the world of Accessible Yoga. And it was amazing for years. And then Covid happened, you know, and then we went online, and I didn't work, and then the nonprofit part of our work, basically, and the conference has ended. But it's all happening now through Accessible Yoga as one organization. Anyway. So that was my long story about that, about not gatekeeping. Thank you.
Rebecca Sebastian 46:13
I think those stories, though, are really useful, because one of the things that you said. I don't think there's any of us out there who haven't looked at other yoga teachers, either in your immediate community or in the larger community, and been like, oh, I really...like, you feel it in your chest a little bit. You're like, I want that. And this idea that we've also not talked to each other about what to do with that feeling. You know, like we know what to do with all the other sort of, like, complicated feelings that we have based on life, but then we don't use those skills within the yoga industry space. And I feel really strongly that as we're learning to be better yoga practitioners through practice and time, our obligation is then to take those skills and put them in the yoga space. And for so long, I feel like what's happened is that we've sort of divorced that from the yoga space and been like, oh, the yoga industry is just business. And I call bullshit on that. Like, I think we can do better if we use our yoga practice to inform what we're doing at work.
Jivana Heyman 47:19
Thank God. Yes, please. Business and yoga are separate things, but we have to, as yoga practitioners, we have to bring yoga into everything we do. It has to inform what we do. It's true, like, I don't think we should pretend that business isn't business. And I think people need to understand that, what business is, or what marketing is, or what law is, and taxes and all those things. They're not all yoga, but you can bring yoga to them, and that's what our job is, right? Like, to bring that understanding, that clarity of mind, right, to the work that we do. And I really love that. So, you know, I don't know if I've given you a chance to share a personal story, because something I've been doing on all these podcasts is asking each guest to reflect on something else. Have you shared already? I mean, mostly I've talked.
Rebecca Sebastian 48:06
I mean, there's so many personal experiences that I have had. I'll share with you a funny story from when I was training to be a yoga teacher, which, you know, I said originally, I'm the most reluctant yoga teacher that ever there was. I started teaching before I trained to be yoga teacher, which is not that uncommon for people. Started teaching in the very, very early 2000s, like this is not that uncommon. Today, that wouldn't be the case. But, you know, 2003 2004 it was more common. So I started teaching, and then realized that I needed to get trained. So I was terrified about hurting people, because I didn't know anything. So I just was really scared that people would get injured. So there was only one place training yoga teachers in my, you know, city of 400,000 people, there was one studio. It was my personal teacher. And at the end of our 200 hour teacher training that I paid $700 for, let me just tell you that -- I trained long enough ago that it was $700 for this training, we had to write a paper. And up until that point, most of my work had been sort of in event planning and fundraising. I was a professional fundraiser for the American Cancer Society in my early 20s, and that work can hurt your heart a little bit as a person. And I was so young and idealistic that I didn't understand that nonprofits worked the same way as for profits, and you kind of have this, you know, 21 year old Rebecca of having her heart broken when, you know, we had to meet bottom lines and deadlines in fundraising. And my paper, my final paper was, "I'm so surprised I actually like people. Thank you, yoga." (Thank you, yoga?) Yeah, thank you, yoga. Because really, up until that point, I had thought that I didn't really like people. You know, in my early life, when I was a kid, I had a pretty, by all objective standards, incredibly difficult childhood, and on top of that, I was bullied a lot at school, and I just thought people weren't for me. And yoga gifted me the opportunity to be able to see, and I think that's why I'm so passionate about us, is that teacher training was probably the first time I sat with a group of people who I felt nurtured with, and I could nurture them, and it felt like an equal exchange, like we were all in it for each other, and I had never had that experience before meeting yoga people, ever, in my life.
Jivana Heyman 50:35
I love that so much. Wow. That really touches me. I think I think I can relate to that, because I was incredibly shy. I never wanted to be a yoga teacher, just because I couldn't handle the idea of speaking in public. Like, it just blew my mind. I was so introverted, and I would never speak in school and just hid. So, yeah, yoga really brought something out in me too, and I love that it got you into that place where you can actually like people. That's beautiful.
Rebecca Sebastian 51:03
Yeah, I truly, the story I told myself, and still I'll catch it in my head sometimes, because it's, you know, those things never quite leave you. It's just like a reoccurring thought that comes through. I'll catch myself and think, oh, I'm not a likable person. Which again, like, yeah, I have close friends now who would be like, that's just laughable. Like, you know, that's subjectively false, right? But a lot of my early life taught me that lesson that that's what I took away, was that I wasn't a likable person. Yoga was the first place where I felt seen and like I could be with people who were there for my own best interests, and so that's like a real gift. Oh, I'm gonna cry. Jivana, you made me cry.
Jivana Heyman 51:46
Oh, my gosh. Well, thank you. I appreciate you sharing and crying with me. I'm gonna cry, too. It's so moving. I feel like something you just said though, that that stays with you now, I think is really important. Because, you know, I think sometimes it's like, yoga teachers think that we have to be healed and, like, all of it resolved, but it's like, yeah, maybe yoga can help show you the thoughts, those kind of deep thoughts, right, samskaras or whatever they are, that you've, like, built your whole like personality and life experience around, you know, and question them. Like, is it even true?
Rebecca Sebastian 52:27
What a gift to be able to do that, too. I've always felt truly, I don't know what would have happened to me had I not found yoga at 19. Because, again, like, an incredibly abusive childhood, I don't that I'd be here now, or if I was here now, how I would show up in the world would be so much different and probably so much more dangerous, because I have a notoriously low, you know, fear threshold. Like, I'm not afraid of a lot, you know, risk tolerance is very, very high. How I show up in the world would have been markedly different without yoga. And I know it, and so I'm so grateful. And I solo parent two kids, and yoga has allowed me to be, I believe, the best parent that I can be to them. So that's why I'm in it for us, is because I see the gift that the practice of yoga gave to me, and I know that I'm not alone, that I am everybody's experience. We all have stories like my stories. So I'm in it for us. Like, I want us to be able to continue to do this work for people.
Jivana Heyman 53:37
But you know, you're very brave to share. Because I think, yes, we all have those stories, but I think a lot of yoga teachers or people in this world tend to not be willing to share those parts, you know, that really sad and painful experiences, especially outside of therapy. I mean, this isn't therapy, but I'm just saying, do you know what I mean, to just share it like you did. I just think it was very generous.
Rebecca Sebastian 54:04
Thank you for allowing the space for that. And I think that the ability to share these stories is complicated when this is also your work, because a lot of us don't want to leverage our challenging stories in order to get work or do work, and I think that we sometimes see people who do do that. And so there's, like, a fine line. Maybe this is another thing we need to talk about as an industry, is how we're going to balance this idea of bringing our whole selves to the table.
Jivana Heyman 54:33
Yeah, because I see the opposite. I see people pretending that they're fixed and healed and like, everything's okay.(Yeah.) Like, a perfection, a false perfectionism in yoga.
Rebecca Sebastian 54:47
Yeah, you're very, very right. Sort of that particular wellness culture, especially online, like highlights, the perfection of, you know, getting up at 5am for your sadhana. And your green juice smoothie, wearing only organic cotton clothing.
Jivana Heyman 55:08
Right, but also like, being really good at yoga. Quote, unquote, good at yoga, air quotes here. Like, you know, whatever that means. Like, really, looking good when you're doing asana. Like, I just want to say for myself, like, I really struggle when I video myself doing reels. Like when I'm just incredibly stiff or, like, awkward, or just not, whatever image I have in my head I should look like. There's so much there's so much external pressure to look a certain way and perform, yes, and so I think people don't video themselves, they don't show their practice. And so you end up with only either narcissists or people who think they're really great at asana showing their physical practice. And that's the vision of yoga that we have. Do you know I'm saying? (Yes!) I think it's also that.
Rebecca Sebastian 55:54
That's really true. I had this idea the other day. I thought of you. I saw one of those, you know, of course, beautiful videos, you know, in the tiny outfit near a beach, doing the fantastic postures. And I was like, I should do what Jivana does. And side by side that, but it's just me and shivasana the whole time, just me laying on the ground. Because I do think there is, and this is another thing Theo said to me once, she's like, I think there's a point where you evolve to kind of just wiggling around a little bit. You're not doing the big, sort of heavily physical postures anymore, that you're just doing those things that make your body feels good. And I was like, yeah, that is, I think that is part of our arc.
Jivana Heyman 56:33
And that's why I mostly remix animal reels at this point, because of that. (They're so cute, though!) Anyway, so, thank you, Rebecca, that was so beautiful. And I really, I really appreciate your sharing. I mean, honestly, just to be so, I don't know, authentic and share. I'm sure that people listening will appreciate that I and I'd love to hear people, if anyone is listening and you have a story you want to share, you can leave me a message. Rebecca, you have left me more than anyone else, I think, I just want to say, I love your voicemails. It really means a lot to me. I want to hear your stories. It doesn't have to be a comment or question. It can just be a story. Or you can write to me if you need more space for that. And I'm looking forward to your magazine. Very exciting. (Thank you.) We'll link to your website, but anything else you wanted to share?
Rebecca Sebastian 56:36
No, I just love that you're doing this. And of course, you and I know each other outside of this space, and I just love the work you do. Thanks for being you, and thanks for showing up in our industry, the way that you show up, which is very unique, and gives us space. Because for so long, I felt really alone in the yoga space, like I've never been that, like pretty asana person on a beach. That was never me, and especially in the early 2000s I think a lot of us were having that experience felt really isolated, and you built a place for the rest of us. So thanks for that.
Jivana Heyman 57:55
Oh that's very sweet. Thank you. Thanks for being here, Rebecca, and for all your work. And I appreciate talking to you. All right, okay.
Rebecca Sebastian 58:04
Yeah. Bye! (Bye.)
Jivana Heyman 58:13
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Jivana Heyman 59:27
Hey, there. Hi, Deanna!
Deanna Michalopoulos 59:29
Hey, Jivana. How are you?
Jivana Heyman 59:31
I'm good, I think. Yeah, I'm good. How about you?
Deanna Michalopoulos 59:35
Yeah, I'm good. All things, considering.
Jivana Heyman 59:38
That's what you always say. [laughs]
Deanna Michalopoulos 59:41
It's just, I guess, any sort of response sort of bakes that in these days.
Jivana Heyman 59:46
Yeah these days, things are rough. But, I mean, yeah, I'm good. I just got back from the beach or a bike ride and a run, and that's good. I'm always feeling better after exercise. So thank God for that. But, um, so that was a great conversation with Rebecca. What did you think?
Deanna Michalopoulos 1:00:02
Yeah, you two really traversed a lot of topics. You were talking about what to talk about --there's so many things to talk about. I loved that she talked about AI and yoga teaching. I wanted to dive into that resource that she mentioned that she worked on, because that seems very prescient and important right now. And then, almost to that effect, I really appreciated that she talked about creating space in yoga classes for conversation, like that was her first experience with yoga, that a discussion with other people in our class was a huge part of the session, which you do not see these days in usual studios that you go to.
Jivana Heyman 1:00:41
Yeah, we did talk about a lot. It was kind of a long conversation too. I mean, we're friends, so that's the problem. I mean, I'm friends with basically all my guests, but, like, she and I chat regularly, and so those are the ones that are dangerous. It's hard to stop talking. And we're also interested in a lot of, well, in exactly the same thing, which is how to support yoga teachers and the yoga community. And it's fun to talk to somebody who's really thinking hard about those things, you know, in the bigger picture. And I really appreciate that about Rebecca. Also, she has a podcast. I think I don't know, I feel like she was kind of interviewing me half the time, like I talked a lot!
Deanna Michalopoulos 1:01:20
Well, and now you're going to talk some more. (Okay!) I do want to bring forward her advice for yoga teachers, just in the vein of supporting yoga teachers, I thought this was brilliant advice. She offered practical advice, which was to teach everyone you can, learn the skills you need to teach everyone you can, which, of course, you would absolutely agree with, and this is your life's work, helping people teach everyone. But then also, I love that she offered something about how your heart stays in the game, which is, you know, in this world of AI and everything happening right now, it's kind of centering ourselves as humans who do the work, rather than, you know, and decentering institutions, which has been a little bit of a thread in the podcast. I'm thinking about your conversation with David, and really just focusing on ourselves as humans and having a connection, right? Which is like, even back to her thoughts on having conversations in yoga classes. It's just remembering our humanity.
Jivana Heyman 1:02:18
It's so important. I mean, I do think that community aspect is a huge part, that human connection that builds community. Because, like, sometimes we use the word community so, I don't know, almost too easily, and I don't know if we really reflect on what it means. I had made a post about it, I think, was it last week? Just talking about, like, how community does have such an important role in the yoga tradition as sangha, the Sanskrit word for spiritual community, or community of like-minded seekers. And, you know, traditionally in yoga, we would say that the practice is not individual, even though we believe it is, it's actually not, and that you need that support. Not just support, but you need to have community to reflect you back and also hold you accountable. And I think it's that human connection that she's talking about that is so important. I don't think AI can replace that. I mean, I think there's a lot of ways that AI can and will change yoga teaching. I'm sure of that, but at the same time, I just think the human connection is really important and such an integral part of our practice.
Deanna Michalopoulos 1:03:27
Absolutely. And, you know, as yoga teachers, you just sent out a newsletter about this last night, how, as a yoga teacher, you have certain responsibilities. Like, that could be one of the responsibilities, or just that you ensure that you kind of center that we're all human beings in this space, in this class, having an experience as individual, but also, you know, it's happening together. And I've mentioned this before on this podcast, but I love my local studio in Brooklyn, because, you know, every class, we would all say hello to each other, and that was just part of the thread of the class, integrated, and you would look in somebody's eyes and smile and recognize, okay, like I'm on my mat and I'm here maybe for, like, stress reduction or whatever I'm here for. But also, you know, there's a human being having an experience next to me and behind me and everything. So we're all in this together.
Jivana Heyman 1:04:14
Yeah, it's so amazing and so important. It's such an interesting, I don't know what the word is -- maybe a paradox, about the individual aspect of practice and how much it's important to have community to do that. It seems illogical, you know. I always say there's this image of the yogi, like a monk sitting in a cave all alone, you know, separate from the world. And I just think, even in the modern or contemporary view of yoga, almost like performance, you know, and this incredibly athletic endeavor where you can do these incredible feats of handstands and all that stuff, it still feels very individual. Do you know what I mean? So it's almost like we still hold up this concept of the individual as, I don't know, the goal of the practice, rather than to just reflect on the communal aspect. I actually talk about this in my book, Yoga Revolution, that I don't think enlightenment is what we believe it is as that individual experience, and that enlightenment is a communal experience. That it is literally seeing ourselves in other people. And that's what it says in the Bhagavad Gita, for example, that when we see ourselves reflected in others, and in the Upanishads, which is maybe the most ancient source we have about what yoga is, talks about the realization that I am you and you are me. That revelation is what enlightenment is, and I just feel like that can only happen in community. Anyway, I guess we made the point.
Deanna Michalopoulos 1:05:55
Yeah, that's beautiful. Thanks for that. I'd love to shift to our questions, because you have a really great one, and I'm interested to hear your response in this, especially because I know you love to teach the koshas. And this question came in from Lisa, and here's the question, "How do we incorporate anandamaya kosha, the more spiritual aspects of yoga philosophy in a class, while keeping it accessible to all, regardless of an individual's belief system? I'm realizing the benefit of all aspects of yoga and the obligation as a yoga instructor, to present the full yoga package to students, making it all as accessible as possible."
Jivana Heyman 1:06:39
That's so beautiful. I love that question. I don't know if there needs to even be an answer to that question. It's so good. It's just like, I have the same question. I guess it's worth maybe just reflecting for a minute on anandamaya kosha, though, because I don't know how to...what's the word? Sometimes I don't know if we can verbalize it, you know, and even talk about it in words. I think it's more experiential. And for people who don't know the koshas, you know, I think it's really at the heart of our practice. There's, again, from the Upanishads, the concept of the koshas appeared where it's this idea of multiple layers of being. And I think it's a beautiful way to envision human embodiment, because I think in the West, we have a very different perspective or perception of what we are as human beings. I always say, is it Descartes who said, "I think, therefore I am?" Was it Descartes? And that was, like, the end of it all. That was like, the ruin of everything, because, "I think, therefore I am" means that I am my mind. And yoga is the opposite of that, basically. Yoga is more just like, 'I am, therefore I think.' 'I am, therefore I have a mind.' So, in yoga philosophy, we are spiritual beings. You could say your Atman or Purusha, the Sanskrit words for that. And that's eternal, the unchanging part of you, the spirit that's always there, and that is reincarnated through multiple births, and that doesn't die, it doesn't change. And it's the body and mind that are constantly changing and that are mortal.
Jivana Heyman 1:08:29
So in yoga philosophy, you know, I think it's important to remember that when we're looking at the teachings, that it's all based on this different perception of what it means to be human, which is that we're a spiritual being, having a temporary human experience, rather than the other way around. And there's a famous saying, I can't think of who said it, you know, about like, we think we're humans trying to be spiritual, but we're spirits being human. And I think that's why Eastern philosophy, in general, there's a lot of that, but in yoga, very specifically, that perspective. Anyway, the koshas start with kind of layers from subtle to grosser. You know, you have your spirit, and then you have anandamaya kosha is the most subtle layer around that, the bliss body, which I think is a really hard one to talk about. I'm not sure what it means. You know, bliss body. It's like the part of us that is still individuated, but is close to that spirit. You know, perhaps enlightenment is being in there, in that place. And then the next subtle layer beyond that is vijnanamaya kosha. Vijnanamaya kosha is with wisdom, the wisdom body, the intuitive body, sense of not self, knowledge and awareness, the deep wisdom that's within us. And then manomaya kosha, the mental body, kind of ego mind. And then pranamaya kosha, the energy body. Or sometimes we think of that as breath, but it's really the energy body, and then beyond that, the most, the grossest or most physical layer, the anamaya kosha, the physical body, or the body of food, the food body. And I mean, yoga is very much about working on the different layers and reflecting on how one affects the other.
Jivana Heyman 1:10:23
So in yoga practice, you know, we work with the mind and also recognize that that impacts the body and vice versa. You can work on the body and know that it will impact the mind because they're not separate. They're just different, different vibrational levels of the same thing. I often use the analogy of ice, water, and steam. You know what I mean? Like, different energetic forms of the same thing. So like, they're all H2O, they're all water. But ice is like, maybe the body, which maybe is easier to control in a sense, you can put a piece of ice on the counter and it sits there, it will melt eventually, but it'll stay. In water, you need a container. It's harder to control, that might be your breath. And steam is like your mind, which is basically very hard to control, but it's still the same. There's no difference there. And in yoga, we're definitely working on quieting the mind, getting the mind to be peaceful, to then experience those deeper layers. Anyhow, that's a long way of just avoiding answering that question, because I don't know. I don't know. I wish I did. I mean, I would say it's a natural result of yoga that, well, let me say it a different way. I actually think that everything we do in life is looking for that. We're always looking for that connection. So all of our actions come out of some desire for connection with ourself, and sometimes it's misdirected, you know, like, we might look externally, we might look to others to fill us up. We might or for that connection that we're seeking or we might look to, or it could be addiction. We might look to alcohol or drugs or something to fill us up. Or it could be work, you know, like, I've been there where I think work is going to solve my problems. Or, you know, it could be power or money, which I think is really at the heart of our problems.
Jivana Heyman 1:12:16
Anyway, I think we're all seekers. It's just, where are we looking? And so yoga is actually telling us, look inside. So yoga is literally just like a big sign saying...or like a big mirror, almost. It's reflecting us back. So rather than looking outside, we have to look back at ourselves. And I think any yoga practice, if it's truly aligned with the yoga teachings, is going to give us an experience of anandamaya kosha, and I don't think it's something that we as teachers can control, and other people we can simply offer these tools and ask people to apply them and try to apply them ourselves, you know, to be brave enough to take that journey back to ourselves, which is easier said than done. So I guess I would just say one more thought is just to reflect on, is what you're teaching actually aligned with yoga? Do you know what I mean, like, are you teaching in alignment with your understanding of yoga philosophy and the yoga teachings? Are you working on applying ethics and working with the mind, which I think are two themes that we see in all the yoga teachings. And if that's what you're doing, then you're on your way, and you're really serving your students well. How does that sound?
Deanna Michalopoulos 1:13:34
Well, thank you for that lesson. I feel like we all just got a little workshop here, and I've been nodding vigorously. I guess, the thing about the koshas that have been interesting to me, like when it's visualized, sometimes, when you see those little diagrams, is that, as you described, it's like the sheath start with the physical body, and then you move in, in, in, you know, and that's pure consciousness. So to me, sometimes it feels like, like you said, when you're kind of exploring and getting to know your true nature, I think, kind of what you're saying through these different sheaths, it's almost like you're working with yourself. This isn't like a belly gazing activity, it's more like yourself as a portal to something bigger. And, you know, and it's not like you said, it's not like we're looking out toward all these things that are external, but it's like you're going inward in order to access this bigger connection to something outside of us, which I think we're all as humans, kind of equipped to seek, in some way, shape, or form.
Jivana Heyman 1:14:28
Well, that's how we started this conversation, because we were talking about Rebecca's interest in community, and talking about supporting the yoga community, and how to experience that in yoga classes. So it feels like it's all connected in this conversation. I agree, it's funny, because I think this question, Lisa's question, is the internal part. So it's like yoga has an internal part where you need to do your practice and be and find your way back home to yourself, and ironically, when you do that, I think you then feel more connected to others. So I just think that, one of the things I say sometimes is, when I turn within, I find you there. And that's what I mean by that, is that yoga is about turning within. But actually what happens, I think, when you do that, is you learn that, oh, we're actually the same. We're connected and I see you because I see myself. So it's like, I think it's not an intellectual thing either, it's more of a feeling. That's hard to describe. That's why I say words are hard with this. My experience of anandamaya kosha, within the context of a yoga class, is when there's silence, so it's not like anything is being said particularly, but there's a sense of connection in the room. That, to me, is like we're living in that space, in that time, in that moment when we feel it, you know, like in a in a minute of meditation, or in a yoga nidra, or even in a postural practice. But I find yoga nidra and meditation especially, and I've really felt that. And I actually find it most when I'm teaching, more than when I'm a student, like, as a teacher, holding this space, it forces me to be attentive and brings my mind there more because I'm serving the students. So to me, that's why yoga teaching is such an incredible practice. It demands my attention more, and that is actually an incredible opportunity for me as a practitioner to be more focused, which is what we're really trying to do in yoga, is bring our attention to that place. Anyway, I love that question, Lisa. Really, I just think it's a brilliant question, and I hope that you keep asking. Keep asking that question!
Jivana Heyman 1:14:28
Thanks so much, Jivana.
Jivana Heyman 1:14:41
Yeah, I could talk about that one forever, so maybe we should stop. Stop me!
Deanna Michalopoulos 1:16:56
I think this was a great conversation, and I appreciate the lesson on the koshas.
Jivana Heyman 1:17:00
Okay, well, you're welcome. And thanks, everyone. Thanks, Rebecca, thank you, Rebecca, for your friendship and for your dedication. I mean, you know, she's really serving the yoga community, and I just appreciate that so much. Thanks to all of our listeners, and for Lisa for asking that great question. And thank you, Deanna, thanks for being here.
Deanna Michalopoulos 1:17:21
Thanks, everyone. Thanks for having me.
Jivana Heyman 1:17:23
Okay, bye!
