Jivana Heyman 0:17
Hello, welcome to the Accessible Yoga Podcast. I'm Jivana, and my pronouns are he and him. Joining you from Santa Barbara, California, Chumash Land, and I'm so glad you're here. Thanks for being with me. Hope you're doing well. I have a great episode for you today with one of my favorite yoga and meditation teachers, Tracee Stanley. She has an amazing new book out called Living Ritual, and we get to talk about it today. It's really remarkable because I have to say that if there is one thing I think has been lacking from contemporary practice, it's the devotional piece. I feel like we've really lost this essential element in our contemporary yoga, which is the power of Bhakti Yoga, of putting our emotions and our heart into the practice that we do, and I think she addresses this in such a really accessible way. You know, very straightforward, very clear, lots of ideas about how we can incorporate ritual and devotion into our lives. I'm just so excited about that! Anyway, she and I get to talk about that quite a bit. I also love Tracee enough that I invited her to to write the foreword for my new book that's coming out in a couple months, the book that I've been talking about here for a while on yoga meditation. So I'm excited to... she hasn't written it yet, but I'm really excited to see what she comes up with for the forward for my book. Anyway, I'll leave you with that. Here's my conversation with Tracee Stanley.
Jivana Heyman 1:58
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Jivana Heyman 2:54
Hi Tracee, thank you so much for being here.
Tracee Stanley 2:57
Hi Jivana, it's great to see you. Thank you for having me,
Jivana Heyman 3:01
Yeah, I'm really happy and excited to talk to you, well, in general, and then about your book. I'm also excited because you're writing the foreword for my book. So I just want to say that - thank you.
Tracee Stanley 3:12
Yes, I can't wait.
Jivana Heyman 3:15
Actually on this podcast season, you know, Deanna and I do the second half - and I know you know Deanna also, she does some work for you - and we have been sharing a bit about the journey of writing a book. And so that's something... I kind of just wanted to start with that, just how you're feeling about this book of yours. You know, how are you feeling about this part of the process? So your book is called Living Ritual: Infuse Each Day With Purpose and Spirit. It's such a beautiful book, but I just want to know where are you at with it? Because I find it such an evolving process, like, book writing and publishing.
Tracee Stanley 3:51
Yeah, that's such a great question. So I think in the writing of the book, I really try to approach the writing of the book as a ritual. I set time aside each day to write. I did all of my morning practices that I've been doing for decades beforehand. I put the book - once I had the book cover - I put it in a little frame, and I created an altar for the book, and basically made offerings to the altar every day and tended the altar. So many different things that I weaved throughout the book writing process, and I feel like when I get to this stage, it's almost like a letting go. I feel like it's this attitude of not mine. So the ritual that I have, this being the third book, is that on the day that the book comes out - books usually come out on a Tuesday, and mine is coming out next Tuesday - is that I do a fire ceremony, and I burn the book, and so that to me is the releasing of, first of all, this book doesn't really belong to me. Somehow, it came through me. I'm the person who quote/unquote wrote it, but I feel like I have to release it into the world, and having a ritual to do that is the best way. I don't think I'm going to be able to burn the book this time because we have a fire that's burning not too far from the house, and, you know, we've had these crazy heat waves as we were talking about before we pressed record. So I'm thinking of a version of a paper mâché, of soaking the book in water and reshaping it into something else, and burying it on my land as a way to to release it, and I think that being able to release something like this that you've created and you spent so much time dreaming into and working on, you can't control how it's received. You can't control how it shows up on the, you know, bestseller list or whatever, you can only make an offering. And for me, this is my offering to anyone who is interested in living a life that's filled with more purpose and spirit, and is also a householder.
Jivana Heyman 6:19
Yeah, I'm very excited about this. So, I love that because I do... you know, I have a background in art. I studied art, and that's...
Tracee Stanley 6:29
I didn't know that!
Jivana Heyman 6:30
Yeah, I don't tell anyone.
Tracee Stanley 6:33
Now everybody knows.
Jivana Heyman 6:35
Yeah, I majored in studio art in college, and I always thought I'd be an artist. That was my plan, and then I, well, I wasn't going to tell that whole story, but basically, I got kind of burnout from the art world quickly. Like I spent a year working the art world in New York after college, and I was like, "Oh no, this isn't what I meant." It was way too money oriented for me. You know I was young and kind of... I had big dreams. So anyway, but my the reason I brought it up is that I feel that I'm at the end of the editing process with my book, and I feel like that part is the hardest of like letting it go. Like it's just like when you make art of some kind, it's hard to know when it's really finished, but it's also really hard to just give it to the world and just be like, oh well, here it is, and then feel like you have just no control over how it's interpreted or how it's received, right?
Tracee Stanley 7:31
Yeah, and I think that because we were also talking about this before we press record is the self-publishing versus publisher, and I think that regardless of whether I think I'm done or there's other things, because you're always dreaming into, "Oh wait, there's this other thing that I want to add!" And the publisher is there to tell you, "No you are complete. You're not adding another word, changing another thing." And, you know, I even found a mistake in the book where something had accidentally got transposed and wasn't able to change it for this first run.
Jivana Heyman 8:08
Ooh.
Tracee Stanley 8:08
So Deanna and I are actually creating a correction page that everybody can download and go get and make sure that they get the right information. So yes, this happens all the time, and for me, I feel like saving those little kernels and those things that pop as okay, they can make their way into the next workshop or the next retreat or the next something else. Because I do feel like when you write a book, that it's a living entity. I don't think that it's meant to even really stay in its form that you wrote it in the timeline that you wrote it in because that's a fixed timeline. And just like any other teachings that are alive, they evolve and they get built on, and people read them and they add their life experience to it. So it just goes to say that it's it doesn't belong to us.
Jivana Heyman 9:14
No, and I love that you made the writing of it a ritual since it's about ritual, and that you're going to have a ritual when it's published, you know, I think that's beautiful. In fact, you made me want to ask you about this piece of ritual, which I think is in your book, but I feel like there's different kinds of rituals, right? You have, I think, what most people think about ritual, and then there's ritual in the yoga tradition that is very much part of the Bhakti devotional practices, and I feel like that piece has been kind of hidden or just, I don't know, ignored maybe? I'm not sure what you think. I think it's because it feels too religious or something. I'm not sure why, but I'm just curious about that, like you mentioned having a homa, right, or like a fire ceremony, and like I know any ashram I've been to, I mean, that kind of ritual is the heart of the practice, and yet it feels like we've been divorced from that in contemporary yoga.
Tracee Stanley 10:13
I would say 100%. I would say that what we've been divorced from is the devotion. The devotional practice is that when we make something just about the physical achievement of an asana or the physical achievement of, you know, whatever it is, some that there's some goal to reach that is something that is attainable by what you see, right? Because what you're attaining in the end is something that is unseen, right? It's something inside of you. It's not something that you can see on the outside necessarily.
Jivana Heyman 10:49
Yeah.
Tracee Stanley 10:49
So I definitely feel that my practice, my personal practice, blossomed the moment that I started to practice Bhakti Yoga. The moment that I started to learn chants and learn different mantras, the moment that I was taught manas puja, which is this idea of a mental ritual, a ritual that you do inside. That was before I had ever attended any kind of fire ceremony or any kind of puja, that I was taught these practices as a form of meditation, as a form of devotion, and when I finally did do a fire ceremony for the first time, I was like, "Oh, I've been here before. I've been to, you know, these waters. I've picked these flowers. I've collected these flowers in my basket. I've worn this color. I've made these offerings into the fire." And I think that those kind of practices build devotion because they're not performative. They're not for someone else to see. They're for you, and they're for your own transformation.
Jivana Heyman 12:05
Yeah, I love that. Can you explain that more, though, about what does it mean to do an internal puja or internal mental puja versus a physical one?
Tracee Stanley 12:15
So, in the way that I was taught and the way that I received it, it was basically visualizing an inner altar inside of you, usually inside of the heart center. And when you visualize that inner altar, you get to tend to that altar. You get to see who's there inside of that cave and meditate with them. Maybe it's a version of your future self, maybe a deity, maybe it's your Ishtadeva. I mean, there's so many different ways, but you are inside of your own altar and remembering that your body is a sacred temple. I mean, I think that's the thing that's really lost in contemporary yoga is that this practice, and this is why I love yoga nidra so much, is this practice of contemplating the body as a sacred temple, consecrating the body as a divine temple, remembering that our body is this place that houses the divine, and I don't hear that really spoken about. And I'm not really in a lot of contemporary yoga circles, but I think the more that we practice yoga and the more we practice with devotion, we're actually led to something that is outside of the contemporary yoga because we realize that there's something more that's there.
Jivana Heyman 13:48
I mean, it seems to me that devotion has been lost because there was abuse within so many... this is what I'm guessing, that maybe because there was abuse within so many yoga traditions, this idea of devotion sometimes was turned towards the guru, and I thought maybe that's why that was kind of left aside. And of course, capitalism also has its way. Well, you've talked about that in the book too, right, an extractive mindset. Maybe you could talk about that. But I guess I'm just still wondering about that piece. How do we, like, what is it that we've been afraid of with Bhakti? Like, I'm just...how can we? I don't want to say this, but how can we make it more accessible?
Tracee Stanley 14:41
Well, I mean, I feel like... I read a book a long time ago. I want to say the author was Mark Singleton, where he talked about...
Jivana Heyman 14:54
The Roots of Yoga
Tracee Stanley 14:56
The Roots of Yoga, and the influence of the military and the British military on yoga as calisthenics. I think that, if we go back that far, that once yoga gets to the West, it does have this kind of disciplinary feeling to it, more of a patriarchal feeling, and I think that the Bhakti Yoga has more of a feeling of the mother, right? It's like that devotion that you have towards the mother, or even to the Earth. And so, I feel like we... I don't know that in the West that, what do we have that we're actually devoted to?
Jivana Heyman 15:40
Well, that's another question I had for you, which is that I've seen, you know, like on social media, because I follow a lot of yoga accounts, I also get a lot of fitness accounts, and it feels like there is this very - I don't know what do you call it - like, ritualistic way that working out and health are shared, and I see reels of some you know kind of young muscular guy waking up in the morning, making his coffee, going to the gym, showing his routine, and it feels very ritualistic. But I feel like there's still something missing there, you know. I mean, yeah, there's the ritual which is beneficial, but I don't know. What do you...? Do you know what I mean? Like I think there is a ritual.
Tracee Stanley 16:22
Yes, I completely agree. And what I would say is, many, many years ago, before I practiced yoga when I was a teenager, I was very into bodybuilding. And so when I moved to California, the first place I went to was Gold's Gym, right? And so that culture has always been that way. In order to achieve a result, you have to do the same thing, same time, same place, you know, same way, right? Yes, you're switching up your legs and your arms in the days that you do it, but if you want results, you have to do it in the same way. I still think that it's overlaid with this idea of discipline, and I think that we have a very fraught relationship with discipline that doesn't make a lot of room for devotion because devotion feels soft in some way, and I think sometimes we don't want to be soft. I also think that devotion, for many people, has a connotation related to religion, right? But we can think about how are we devoted to our family, how are we devoted to our children, how are we devoted to our garden, right? How are we devoted to the practices and the things that we really love? You know, people who play guitar, are they devoted to their guitar, you know, to the learning the guitar or is it more of a discipline type thing? They want to get it. And so how do we shift that? I really feel like the answer for me - I didn't even know that was an answer I needed, because I came from a household that was very disciplinarian. It's like my parents were very protective; they were very strict. You know, I wasn't allowed to go anywhere or do anything, and so I was somebody who was very disciplined. I show up on time. You know, I had had very little tolerance for people who didn't show up on time. I did things in a certain way, and I think it was the mantras that changed me, you know. So I don't think if anyone had said, "Here's how you have to be devoted. Here's how you have to change yourself from you know being this way to this way." I really feel like it was the practices that shifted. Something opened in my heart, and that was the thing that allowed the devotion to blossom. And so, I really think that practice is the key to unlocking the devotion. It's the key to unlocking the heart space.
Jivana Heyman 19:07
Yeah, I love that. I actually do talk about that in my book. I talked about self-discipline versus discipline, and just how when it's self-motivated and it's a choice, that it's a whole different thing, right? Then you're making a choice to dedicate your time and energy towards something rather than being forced to from some external voice or external thing, even within tradition. That's what I was wondering too, is about like, the way that tradition sometimes to me feels a little bit like that too, and even in some of the traditions I've been part of, I find that the Bhakti part, the devotional part, is still very externally... like, we're told what to do. We're told the form that devotion will take, how to do it. Do you know what I mean? It's like, I don't know how to say it. But, even within that world of Bhakti Yoga, I think we can bring in this kind of external discipline that's not helpful.
Tracee Stanley 20:04
Yeah, I could definitely see that, and I think that for me, there was a bit of separation between the tradition that I was being trained in and studying, and this relationship with Bhakti, which started with kirtan, right, and that became a different thing because it was like nobody said, "This is what's going to happen when you do this. This is how many times you have..." It was basically just sit, close your eyes, and chant, sing along, repeat what you hear, and that really opened something. It was a different world and connecting to something higher than myself -- in community, which I think was really important. Is that no longer was my practice a solitary practice where I was comparing notes with myself, and maybe once in a while with other friends or people in the tradition, but I was having an experience in community that was bonding in community as well, and I think that's something that we don't have a lot of.
Jivana Heyman 21:19
Yeah, we don't. It's true that devotional practices and community are so powerful. But sometimes, again, it feels like, you know, you're being swept along. Do you know what I mean? Like, when you're in a group of people doing some practice like kirtan or puja, it's like you're just being carried along -- which is beautiful, but also I think a little scary, I just want to say. So I do think there's like... I don't want to keep bringing up this fear piece, but it's something that I'm trying to navigate in my book too. It's like, how do you share this safely and also remind people of their agency when so often I think... I actually think you've touched on the most powerful practices of yoga. I mean, you just... there it is. Like, you're sharing like the like... do you know what I mean? Like the battery, like the source of all of this power is devotion, I think. I think you just got right to the point. I ask you this, I think, every time I interview you, but like, how do you keep it safe? Like, I don't know why that scares me.
Tracee Stanley 22:27
You know, I think for me, I was very fortunate where when I first started yoga - and maybe you've read this book too - somebody gave me a copy of the Guru Papers, and this book, the Guru Papers, outlined all the way (not all the ways, because people are constantly inventing new things) but the ways in which spiritual communities could become abusive, things to look out for in a teacher, things to look out for in a community. So I think that I was already acutely aware of some of the things to look out for, and I don't know that it's possible that we can ever keep anything safe. I don't think that there is such a thing as a safe space because we never know what is going to be safe for one person is not safe for another. I think what we can do is we can try to hold a protected space and a space that allows people to have agency and a space that gives referrals for therapists and other kinds of support, so that somebody who's in a community has a way to go outside of the community for support and reflection. Because I think part of the problem is when you continue to stay inside of the community looking for support and reflection, you're getting a reflection, maybe, that's a little bit skewed because people are inside of a community that they don't want to break apart, they don't want that community to splinter. So what I would say is, you know, trusting your intuition. The other thing that I think to look out for is anytime someone is asking you to outsource your own knowing to them, that's a danger signal. And so I think that we have to be able to connect with someone who's outside of the circle, and I think when you start feeling that that, you know, whatever the group or the circle is is so enclosed that you don't want to go outside to look for reflection, that that is something to be aware of. And I think in my experience with kirtan, what was interesting was that the people who were leading the kirtans, they would open up their harmonium and they would begin to sing and everyone would sing and then afterwards they would close the harmonium and the class would be over and they would be on their way. They weren't really sitting to have, you know, conversations or dharma talks or presenting themselves as gurus. They were really sitting in the place of, "I'm in devotion to the divine, and I'm sharing my devotion with you." So I think that was also very fortunate, for me, that in those circles I was not encountering people who were looking to, you know, benefit in some other way. They were really giving.
Jivana Heyman 22:42
And also, I mean in a way, you're making it personal. You're giving people the tools directly in this book. Do you know what I mean? You're not asking them to join a community, necessarily, you're just sharing teachings and practices that they can do themselves. So you're actually giving people that power directly, I think, in this book.
Tracee Stanley 25:55
Thank you for saying that, because I'm not someone who is interested in gatekeeping a practice so that you can come into my community, you know, or come into some, you know, whatever it is.
Jivana Heyman 26:33
Yeah.
Tracee Stanley 26:33
I really feel like the best... when I think about, you know, the books that I was really privileged to be able to come across, and that was just fate in itself. You know, books by Thomas Ashley-Farrand, books by David Frawley, books by Georg Feuerstine. These teachers were, back in the day, you were reading and paying attention to what they were telling you in the book. They were giving you the practice. They were telling you, "Here is the practice.
Jivana Heyman 27:10
Yeah, it's true. I love those people that you mentioned, and I I agree. I think it takes a lot of attention to be able to read a book and then do it. Do you know what I mean? It takes a pretty devoted student, but I think well, you've given so many options here, and I wonder if there's a few that we could talk about that have been on your mind. I know that you talk about... one thing I wanted to ask was about pratyahara. I'm trying to find it in the book right now. I can't find that section, but I wonder if you could speak to that because it's something that I feel like is so lacking in understanding. And I wonder if there's other sections or a ritual or two that you wanted to bring up, that stood out to you?
Tracee Stanley 27:10
Yeah, thank you for the opportunity to do that. So pratyahara, I feel like, is the absolute most important thing for us to practice, especially now. This idea that pratyahara is the bridge between the inner and outer practices of yoga, the yamas and the niyamas and the asana, and then it's the bridge towards the meditation, right? It's to the pointed focus, to moksha. Without pratyahara, I don't believe there's the way to get there,
Jivana Heyman 28:43
Right, and I just want to say 'sense withdrawal' for people that don't know what that word is.
Tracee Stanley 28:47
Yes, and you know what I love, and I say this all the time because I love this definition from Swami Veda, "It's the withdrawal of the senses so that you can re assimilate into your true self."
Jivana Heyman 29:02
Beautiful.
Tracee Stanley 29:03
And so in some ways it's like we can't reach the true self if we don't have pratyahara. And I think that a couple of things happen. One is, we are not in control any longer of our senses. All of our senses are being pulled away from us. Our eyes are scrolling. Where people you know listen to podcasts and you know whatever else they're listening to in moments that we normally would see people in silence, right? It's like years ago, and I'm going to say pre-pandemic, you would see people hiking, and it was very unusual to maybe see people hiking with their headphones on or their earbuds in. And now, when I see people hiking in the forests, most of the time they have their earbuds in. So, you know, the biggest way in which we lose our energy is through our eyes, and our eyes are fixated on our computers and fixated on our screens. You know, and so I really feel like we need to have a reclaiming of our attention and of our senses, and we need to, at this point, double down on our meditation practices. We need to double down on the practices that ask us to withdraw our senses, like yoga nidra. This is the time to do this, and you know, the reason why I share practices that I find to be powerful, that I know are potent if people do them is because, and I've said this before, the time for playing around is over. The time for trying to figure out the proper, you know, alignment for Trikonasana and, you know, it's done. We need to be doing something deeper because we are in and approaching even more dire time that are going to require us to know who we are and to be able to have control over our attention.
Jivana Heyman 31:15
Yeah, and our attention is our energy too, right? Like you said, like through your eyes, you lose energy, but it's like, in my tradition we always... my teacher's teacher would say, "We have a finite amount of prana, and all you get to decide is where you focus that energy."
Tracee Stanley 31:32
Yeah, yeah, and I've heard that before, right? It's like how many breaths do we get, and if we think about that the number is finite, and we don't know what that number is, maybe that helps us to redirect how we use our prana.
Jivana Heyman 31:50
Yeah, and so in that section in the book, you talk about tea ceremony, I believe, is the practice that you offer. You know, my first... well, my first real yoga teacher, I was trained by my grandmother, but afterwards, when I found an actual teacher, she was a Japanese woman named Kazuko, who was a master of Japanese tea ceremony. She never really trained me to do it, but she would do it sometimes and let me watch, and it was just mind-boggling. It was just mind-boggling, like, the amount of attention, honestly, that she could focus while she was preparing, you know, even cleaning before, you know, like just washing the instruments. It kind of blew my mind, honestly.
Tracee Stanley 32:42
I love that you're that you connect those two things because tea ceremony, for me, is my personal practice, right? Every once in a while, I'll share it with others or invite people over to share it. But it's my personal practice, and it is absolutely the practice of harnessing all my presence and all my attention into one space, one thing at a time, one moment at a time, one sip at a time, and being able to connect the practice of tea ritual into all of the cycles of nature with acceptance and love, which is something that we don't really do. We don't want to know about the cycles of death and rebirth, right? We only want to stay focused on the vitality and the blooming, and, you know, what we think is vital, and I think we also then start to lose a part of what's important in life. So tea ritual and doing tea ritual daily has actually always been a part of my life, at least since I've been an adult. I've had a practice of drinking tea and sitting outside doing morning pages for decades, and now practicing this Chado, this other kind of tea ritual or tea ceremony, is just another version of that. That also originated with my grandmother, because she was British Bermudian, like teaching her how to make a proper cup of tea.
Jivana Heyman 34:26
Uh huh, that's awesome. Oh wow, that's amazing. I love that the way tea has connected us throughout the world. Um, but I want to go... you just mentioned grief. That was another thing I had noticed in the book, and I wonder if we could talk about that.
Tracee Stanley 34:43
Yeah.
Jivana Heyman 34:44
Yeah, I don't know. Just any thoughts? I mean, you talk about rituals around grief, I believe, is what you did.
Tracee Stanley 34:52
Yeah. So you know, we don't have enough rituals, period, in our Western. We're losing the space to have pauses to observe transitions in life, right? And of course, yes, we have funerals and we have memorials. But after the funeral and the memorial is over, there are people who are affected by the grief, by the loss, and I do believe that we need to be able to have rituals to hold that space. And in the book, I talk about a place that's here in New Mexico that's actually a grief retreat center called Ăšnashay, and I think it was like two years ago I went to a a talk by Bayo Akomolafe on grief, and there were about 50 or 60 people who gathered here to you know to talk about grief and to listen to him speak. And what was so amazing is that. automatically everyone felt connected without even saying a word? While he was talking, people started holding hands, people started comforting other people who were weeping, and it was like a place where everybody had joined in. You didn't have to tell your story of what had happened, but everybody knew that they were there for a singular purpose, which was to honor grief in some way, and that created a field of healing like nothing that I've ever seen before, and so it just kind of reiterated for me the importance of having space, even if it's just silent space with a friend who's lost someone, where nothing needs to be said, but you're there tending and holding and preparing food or doing whatever is needed. It could just be in silence. We need to have these spaces so that people can feel that there is space for them to heal.
Jivana Heyman 37:04
And you shared a ritual of full moon threshold passage. Was that related to grief? I think that was...
Tracee Stanley 37:12
That's related to... well, it is related to grief in a way because it's a ritual for menopause. It's a ritual for moving through the cycles of life. And yes, when you're in menopause, there's a lot of grief because your body may not be the same as it was. There's something that you are saying goodbye to, a part of your identity you might be saying goodbye to, and so there are currently no rituals or rites of passage for that space and time to say I'm moving from one, you know, kind of phase of my life to another phase of my life. I'm leaving something behind, and in leaving that behind, I might be leaving a dream behind as well. I might be leaving a dream of having a child or having a family behind as well. So there's always grief, I think, involved in any kind of change of life.
Jivana Heyman 38:19
Right. Yeah, because you talk about divorce, I believe and other transitions.
Tracee Stanley 38:26
Yeah, all the transitions should be honored, in my opinion.
Jivana Heyman 38:33
And is there anything else you think that I - I don't want to keep you too much longer - but anything else that I that I should have asked you? Anything else that's on your mind?
Tracee Stanley 38:43
No, I mean you always ask the best questions.
Jivana Heyman 38:46
Oh God!
Tracee Stanley 38:48
You know, I really just think that I want people to know that living a life that is supported by ritual is not about having to have you know a goddess dress or a flower crown or an hour or two or a whole day to do some sort of elaborate ceremony. This is something that can be weaved in your day, throughout your day in five minute increments, and it really is about bringing presence to everything that you do, re-harnessing your ability to be able to be in control of your senses, and looking at the rituals that you are currently doing that are not life affirming, looking at the rituals you're doing that are actually depleting, that are not for your best and highest interest and making a shift with some of those habits, rituals, whatever you want to call them, the things that you do without much attention -- they're kind of on, you know, automatic pilot.
Jivana Heyman 40:00
Right, because it seems to me that you could say ritual is a way of being conscious about the choices you're making in your life. You know, making conscious choices instead of yeah, being on autopilot, like you just said, which feels to me like presence. And the point of spiritual practice is to be awake to life rather than just kind of going through the motions, you know, like we often do.
Tracee Stanley 40:25
Yeah, and doing it consistently. And if it's only three minutes a day, that's enough.
Jivana Heyman 40:30
Yeah, yeah. No, I um, I love that. I find, you know, that's what I'm doing, and I don't know if I've ever heard anyone speak about it as clearly as you, honestly. That's what I've found in my life, is I've taken what I've learned from my teachers... I hope it's not extractive, which is what you talk about in the book too. But, you know, just found a way to bring that into my life in terms of what my practice looks like and the way I organize my day. And, you know, with that same goal, and I definitely find there are blind spots. It kind of reminds me, like sometimes when I think back and I try to remember things, I think what is sticking in my memory and what stays with me? What is lost and why? Do you know what I mean? Like what is it that has had my attention?
Tracee Stanley 41:22
Absolutely, no, I totally agree with that. It's funny to to see how the mind works, right, and what we hold onto, what we choose to forget, and that's you know, in part of the book, I actually write about the forgotten ritual, the ritual that you were doing that was helping you, was supporting you, that was nourishing you, and then some kind of way you forgot to do it, and then all of a sudden it becomes a forgotten ritual. And being able to know that you can pick that ritual up, also the abandoned ritual, the ritual that you abandoned because a teacher, you know, hurt you or caused harm, and how do you close the the loop on that ritual and either reclaim it for yourself or say that it's complete? Because I do feel like sometimes these things are still running in our mind. Like, oh, I'm still remembering how I felt from that ritual that I did, or that practice that I did, or that mantra that I had, but I don't want to do it because it also did something.
Jivana Heyman 42:29
You're speaking to me. It's like my personal therapy session. Thank you. No, really, I mean, it's just that couldn't be more true for me. Just so many rituals that have had meaning for me, and I've either lost or let go of because of difficult relationships with past teachers. And you know, I had a guru who was abusive and had to let go of so much, a mantra, practices, so many practices. But yeah, I know I was looking at that part of the book about that forgotten ritual too. That there are things that I've let go of that I think really got me through my life and yeah, it's such a good question, you know, to reflect on. Just making conscious choices, you know, rather than doing it because it's a routine or habit and making it a ritual instead. So it's a it's a conscious choice. I've consciously chosen to do this.
Tracee Stanley 43:26
Yeah, consciously, presence, consistency, and just starting with again three minutes every day. Starting with three minutes every day, and then at some point, I think what happens is you start to notice all the spaces that you can fill with presence because of that three minutes every day. It starts to change the way you see things and the way you feel things.
Jivana Heyman 43:55
Yeah, and I think that is the power of devotion and spiritual practice, in general. I mean, which is, I'll just say, I mean, trying to make conscious choices in life and working with your mind, having a relationship where you can see yourself and recognize that you have choice, rather than kind of just like doing what you've been told or doing what's easiest and going through like, kind of asleep versus being awake to life.
Tracee Stanley 44:30
Yeah.
Jivana Heyman 44:31
Anyway, I could talk to you forever, and I don't want to keep you any longer. Anything else you want to share?
Tracee Stanley 44:36
No. I mean, this is the book and comes out on the 25th on Tuesday, the 25th, and it's available everywhere books are sold. That's it.
Jivana Heyman 44:52
Congratulations, honestly. Another incredible book. I'm just so grateful to you for what you've shared with the world. I mean, really, three amazing books. So, thank you, Tracee. Yeah. Okay. Bye.
Tracee Stanley 45:06
Thank you, Jivana.
Jivana Heyman 45:17
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Jivana Heyman 46:08
Hey Deanna. How are you?
Deanna Michalopoulos 46:09
Hey Jivana, how are you?
Jivana Heyman 46:11
I'm okay. No, I'm actually really good. How are you doing?
Deanna Michalopoulos 46:15
I'm good. I'm good. I see you very soon, just in a couple weeks, in Ireland. I'm looking forward to it.
Jivana Heyman 46:20
I know we get to be together in person in Ireland. I'm coming to teach there, and you're there because you have family there, right?
Deanna Michalopoulos 46:28
That's right. My partner and his family's from Ireland, so yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing you.
Jivana Heyman 46:33
You're all over the place. It's amazing.
Deanna Michalopoulos 46:35
I am all over the place, in all the ways! [laughs]
Jivana Heyman 46:39
Yeah, no, I'm excited. I'm excited to come to Ireland and to teach. I haven't taught there before, so really looking forward to that. And then in London as well. I just haven't been back in a long time. So yeah, it'll be good to see you. And I know you love Tracee, and that was such a great conversation, wasn't it?
Deanna Michalopoulos 46:59
I loved this conversation. I love the both of you, and so having you talk together was just incredible. And I help support Tracee a little bit, and you know, and also I would have to say that she's one of my teachers. I owe my current practice that I've been doing for years to her. And I think Tracee is amazing also because everything she shares, she has completely embodied herself and practiced for such a long time, and then she'll share it with folks. I feel like it makes such a difference, or at least I feel like there's a resonance there. So anyway, I love Tracee.
Jivana Heyman 47:34
Yeah, she's amazing. There's a feeling I get from her that she's embodying the teachings, that she's doing the work, and I think you know that's the key to a yoga teacher is that they're doing the work, and I do get that feeling from her too. And I can, yeah, when I talk to her, when I read her books, I definitely get that feeling.
Deanna Michalopoulos 47:58
Yeah, her new book is out, Living Ritual, by the time this episode publishes, so that's exciting. And I also have to say, like it's easy to practice with Tracee. She has an online community too, and so you know she shares a lot of the practices too that that are in the book in her online community.
Jivana Heyman 48:17
I mean, I read a lot of yoga books, which is great, and I even get to talk to a lot of authors on the podcast, and they're all amazing. But I have to say, I always love Tracee's books. There's something about them. I feel like they're books that I wish I had written. Do you know what I mean? Which is like, I'm always like, oh wow, like I wish I had done that. Like it's just so, mmm, just gets right to the point. I just feel like, like I said to her in this conversation, I feel like she really got down to like the essence of the practice, and that is often overlooked, or just I don't know why this it's ignored, or I don't know, hidden almost, and that's this devotional piece. And I think there is good reason. She and I talked a bit about that in the episode, you know, I mean, why that might be the case, but I just feel like that my experience has been that those have been the most powerful practices for me, and it's hard to teach them, actually, it's hard to find the balance to teach them in a way that is authentic and safe and effective, and I think she does that really well in her books -- especially this book. So, I'm just really amazed by her.
Deanna Michalopoulos 49:32
Yeah, and I liked her point. Yeah, we are divorced from the devotional. I think that's what she said in the episode, and I do feel that if you're, you know, a casual practitioner and you'd like to go deeper, I do think that sometimes, like feeling like you can go to a kirtan class, it feels a little elusive, right? Like, you know, in New York, I don't necessarily in like when I'm looking for a yoga listing where I'm looking for classes, I'll see restorative yoga, I'll see meditation, but you don't necessarily see kirtan in mainstream spaces. And so sometimes that has the effect, if you don't know somebody who's already in that community or practicing in that way, it feels a little out of reach. And so, like I think you're right, the book really makes all of these practices so accessible, and you feel like you belong, and you also feel like you're, you know.
Jivana Heyman 50:26
Yeah, and I mean, kirtan may not be the way for everyone to experience Bhakti Yoga. I mean, I think that's an incredibly effective way. Like kirtan, which if people don't know, I mean, basically it's like usually call and responsive chanting in a in a musical way with a musical accompaniment, and it's a devotional practice. But there are other ways to bring in that devotional quality, and I think she's getting into it, like into the heart of it, when she talks about ritual. I think ritual really is at the heart of it, and that's the piece that I find has been really, like I said with her, like divorced from our contemporary practices. There doesn't seem to be, you know, ceremony and ritual outside of asana itself. I mean, asana and the way we practice is a ritual, and I think that's part of the beauty of it. Like a sun salutation, I think sun salutation is a great example of how we have successfully integrated devotional practices into contemporary yoga. Even though sun salutation, well, or maybe because sun salutation is a relatively modern invention. I mean, it's only been around for a couple 100 years in this way, but it is connected to, I think, a history of prostration and devotional practices in yoga that are much much older. I think there's a few things we bring in, like maybe we chant Om, or we do some mantra, maybe in a devotional way. Maybe we bow. There might be an altar in a yoga space. Like, having an altar alone - that's a Bhakti practice, that's a devotional practice. But like, what do you do with the altar? Like, how is it respected? How is it treated? I feel like there's this piece that's often lacking in contemporary yoga. There isn't instruction, or you know what I mean. Like, how do you care for an altar? Do you know what I'm saying?
Deanna Michalopoulos 52:22
No, absolutely, and you do get a sense in her book too that like it's all connected to a sense of roots, right? Because I think you can create rituals out of many things in your life, right, and adapt a sense of like, reverence for what you're doing. I'm very short on time over the last month here in Ireland, and you know, Tracee asked in her community, like, what ritual is holding you now? And I don't have an altar set up here where I'm traveling in this moment. I do have little pieces that I do take with me. So I guess that is, in a sense, on my bedside table. However, my daily ritual has been taking the coffee grounds and finding, you know, my mother-in-law has many roses in her garden, and so I'll find a plant and I'll empty the grounds and the, you know, but the way I'm doing it, I do feel like it's connected to something deeper. It's not just something I'm doing because I have to. I enjoy the quiet of leaving the house, like the air, like breathing in the cool air, and that's sort of become part of my day.
Jivana Heyman 53:21
Well, yeah. So that shows the impact she's had and her teachings, because she's taught you about the fact that anything can be done as a ritual if it's done consciously, and I think that consciously is the point -- that's the yoga part, that you're bringing conscious awareness to an action, you're working with your own mind. I think the reason that ritual and devotion are so effective is because emotions are so potent and so powerful to work with in spiritual practice, and I think it can be difficult to find a way to do it that feels safe and like... I don't know what the word is. I don't think safe, but I think it's like... in the tradition, devotion is usually towards the guru. Like, that's how it usually is framed and I think that's part of why we've gotten away from it, is because of the abuse and what we've seen through the potential danger of having devotion to a guru. But there's such a loss when we take that away. There's such a a lack of devotion and the power of that emotional piece of the practice seems to be missing. So I guess, what I love about her book and what I'm trying to say in a complicated way is that I love the idea of bringing back devotion, bringing back ritual in a way that feels empowering to individuals, rather than potentially disempowering, or rather than putting people in a position where they might be abused, because I think that it's the devoting part. It's the part of having that connection of doing a ritual that is the point. It really doesn't matter what it's towards. Doesn't have to be towards a person as a guru, right? It can be towards nature, like you were describing, being with plants and caring for them - that's a beautiful ritual. Nature is probably the best source of our devotion, right?
Deanna Michalopoulos 55:32
What does your devotional practice look like these days? If you'd like to share.
Jivana Heyman 55:35
Yeah, I mean it's something that actually I use a lot. I think for me, having an altar is very important. So I have an altar that, you know, if I'm home, that's where I do my practice. If I'm not home, I'm picturing it in my mind. I don't bring it with me or any part of it with me because I know that all I have to do is just close my eyes and I can be there. Like it's just part of me, and she even mentioned that as a practice, right? She mentioned it as puja, like what did she call it, like the mental puja, mental offering. But it's also having the altar in your mind, I think, is a beautiful practice, and it helps me a lot. I do a lot of mantras, and when I'm doing them, I also think of my ancestors, and I feel like I'm dedicating my practice to them and I pray to them. I also do an aarti. An aarti is a light ceremony where you chant and you wave a light -- I do that at the end of my practice. And then of course I feel this towards my life, like I feel that, you know, I hope that my life can be an offering. So I try to practice Karma Yoga by serving my family, mostly, and anyone around me, including my students as much as I can in a devotional way. Like I feel like my service comes out of devotion, like my care and love for them. Like, I often talk about the fact that I make my husband coffee every morning, and I really do feel like that's an offering. Like, I want to do it out of love for him - I want to do something for him. And as a parent, it's very easy to do that with my kids, you know, it's easy to care for them. So yeah, I don't know. That's what comes to mind.
Deanna Michalopoulos 57:26
It's interesting too, because I think, you know, along the lines of sometimes like devotional practices can feel inaccessible because it feels like oh, I don't have access to the teachings. Like, it feels like it might be outside of my scope as a practitioner, to like you know, you need to be with some sort of guru in order to access them. But I, but the way you described your practice, I suspect that a lot of our listeners like these are acts of service that we do every single day, right? Like both of our rituals involve coffee, by the way. So, like the things we're doing in our daily lives, with like a little shift, become a ritual.
Jivana Heyman 58:08
Right, and I actually think the key is again the conscious part. That literally is the definition of yoga. I mean that's what I'm trying to talk about in my book, you know, my book which we've talked about on and off. I don't want to shift away from Tracee's book, but I would just say, you know, my book Yoga Meditation, it's really an effort to get to that piece, that essential element of what makes something yoga. And I think it's that awareness, the consciousness, the working with your mind in a conscious way. I think that's really the underlying kind of defining factor of what makes something yoga. It's like the magic ingredient, for example, turns exercise into yoga. You know, is there conscious awareness there? Oh, then it's an asana, I think, then you could call it a yoga practice. And same with really anything that you're doing. So we can call it Bhakti Yoga, devotional practice, if there's a conscious reason there that you're really engaging in this act of love and service to work with your own mind. So part of it is also consciously to work with your own mind. I I was thinking about, you know, in my book I talk about a few ways that people can bring Bhakti Yoga into their personal practice and I think it can be very small. One of the most simple things - and it sounds kind of weird - but I would say is to bow before you start meditating, and this is something that's done in almost every meditation tradition, and yet I think it seems to be lacking in contemporary practice. And it's so again, it's so minor, but I feel like it's such a symbolic element of what is lacking in contemporary practice. I don't see people bowing much in a yoga class these days. I'm not saying you bow to the actual teacher there, but just, you know, if you're home and you're meditating, you put your head down, and it could just be putting your head below your heart. It's not so much an inversion, but like this idea of like, shifting what is above, right? Like my heart over my head. And humility, like lowering my head in humility, to my own spirit. It doesn't have to be to any external anything. It's to my essence, right, to the truth of who I am, and I feel like that is such an important part of my practice, just bowing, just putting my head down at the beginning and the end of my practice. And the other piece, I would just say, is to dedicate practice in some way, which I've talked about before, I think maybe on here, but I feel like that's also been lacking. It's like you're building all this energy in your practice. That's what these are - these are prana building practices. What are you doing with it? So consciously dedicating the practice at the end by saying prayer, praying for something beyond yourself. You can pray for yourself, that's fine, but also pray for others. And prayer can be such a beautiful act of devotion, and yet prayer feels very religious, and these things feel very religious. And I think that's maybe the biggest obstacle to them. Do you think too? Like, is it the religious quality that we're afraid of?
Deanna Michalopoulos 1:01:33
Potentially, it could be the religious aspect. It could just be the that you feel like you don't have access to the proper teacher. And I'm having you know air quotes wrong proper teacher right like you don't have access to someone who can teach you about them or like you said like maybe it's not realizing that our daily activities and rituals can be yoga when we apply yoga principles to them. I'm thinking a lot about your book and how you included some details about your first teacher Kazuko, and how a lot of your time spent with Kazuko was in a garden, and you were in the kitchen. And I don't mean to speak for you, but you were saying we weren't really practicing. So right, for a little while, you wondered what you were doing there. But I'll let you take it from here.
Jivana Heyman 1:02:19
Yeah, yeah, no. Kazuko was my first real yoga teacher, and she would invite me over. I was young, and I didn't really know what I was doing myself. I was floundering, and she told me I was coming for yoga classes, but I would spend hours and hours with her, and mostly we would garden together, and cook together and just hang out and I was thinking at first like I wanted to do yoga, like I want to be meditating. Like, I thought I had to be doing like formal practice and so honestly for weeks I was confused by that. I mean, I loved hanging out with her because she was like really cool and like very peaceful like I didn't know many people like that except really my grandmother, honestly, but to get to hang out with someone when you're young and they're like really like, mellow and together. And she was fun too, she was very fun and funny, but like really mellow. Anyway, yeah, I didn't realize until later, you know, she really was practicing when she was gardening and when she was cooking. She was very conscious, and I talk about the fact that she - and I talked about that with Tracee in the episode too - that she was a practitioner of Japanese tea ceremony, which is a Zen and a samurai practice of meditation, and it's actually a very difficult practice of Japanese tea ceremony, where you really have to be like very precise and very, very conscious and mindful as you're cleaning and preparing tea. It's an incredibly formal ceremony, and I think her training in that and her work - that shown through all that she did, and it did make everything special. It just shifted my understanding of yoga to this idea of mindfulness as the key underlying element, and that everyday actions can be meditation, can be rituals. Well, like Tracee says, that's the heart of her book, and I think Tracee does it so beautifully. Like, offer ways in to that, ways you can practice ritual in your daily life instead of what I think we often do, including myself, which is kind of a mindless going throughout the day and scrolling on our phones in a sense to numb ourselves. And I totally do it too. There's something so nice about it. I mean, I'm like an avid reader, and it was funny when Tracee was talking. I was thinking, "Gosh, maybe I shouldn't read so much." You know, because I just get lost in books. Like, I just read constantly, mostly fiction. Like I just love stories, and... anyway!
Deanna Michalopoulos 1:02:48
Is that some sort of humble brag? [laughs]
Jivana Heyman 1:05:19
I'm just saying - actually, I felt like I maybe I shouldn't be doing it so much. She was like talking... like I often walk or run and listen to audio books, or like, and she was talking about like not wearing headphones. Yeah, I was like, oops.
Deanna Michalopoulos 1:05:32
Ah, no, in a day where books are endangered - people's writings, I think books are an amazing thing to... it's an amazing ritual, reading. However you get your books delivered, right? Whether you're listening or reading.
Jivana Heyman 1:05:46
Yeah. Anyway, I mean, I just think it's interesting to think about this, like how you're working with your own mind, and and I think in the end, it's just about conscious choice. I think that's what she came back to, also, and that she and I kind of came back to and the conversation is like: are we making conscious choices about where we're focusing our attention? Because that's really all we can do. It's like, the only choice we have is that. Where are you putting your attention? And I think it's so valuable. And I talk about that in my book too. And I think it's especially important today. That's what Tracee was saying. That it's like this moment is calling for that, for us to make conscious choices about our attention and to regain control of our attention. Is that what she said? I was really moved by that.
Deanna Michalopoulos 1:06:35
Yeah, it's an important point to make today. I mean, I'm sure if you just think about your day and how many distractions and how many like beeps or vibrations you're getting on your Apple Watch, on your phone, it leaves you like you're very much not in control of your day or like, you know, where and if you think about all those little micro moments where you were like kind of on one train of thought, you know, and then just getting distracted. It's like on a scale that it's happening, it really alters the course, not only of our day but our lives, right, days become weeks, become months, becomes like the year, and then the last few years. Where have you been putting your attention?
Jivana Heyman 1:07:16
Right. That's actually I can't think of where that comes from, but that's a famous teaching in our tradition that it's like the the daily activities you do decide your destiny, and the teaching has often showed that you know like what your your daily activities create your routine that creates your habits and habits create your like personality basically and that predicts your entire life and your future, everything. And it's so true that, I mean, not to be overwhelming, but it's true that the choices we make each day do really predict our lives and the direction we head with our lives, as much as we can. Sometimes we don't have choice, you know. Sometimes we're in a situation where we don't have control. You might be controlled by society, or you're being controlled by the people around you, and you don't have a choice about what you're doing with your life and your choices. You know, someone who's incarcerated, or someone's in school and they have to do this thing, or someone has a job and they need that job and they're doing a job they don't want to do, but they have to do it. I'm not saying that we always get to choose the things that we're doing. Obviously, that's not true. But I do think that we can still make choices in the context of whatever our lives have presented us with, of where we're focusing our attention, and what is the quality of attention that we're bringing to everything that we do, and I think it can change our experience of that. You know, it can change our experience of that moment just by being present with it. It's interesting. To me, also, I think about the habits and the things I do every day, and like I kind of feel like sometimes I do them mindlessly, but sometimes those daily habits... okay, this is gonna sound silly, but I like putting away the dishes from the dishwasher or cleaning up like, in the morning. To me, there's something very calming about that as a ritual, and I don't know what it is. I don't know why, but there's something about the routine, and I find like, I could do it mindlessly, but I can also enjoy it. There's somehow it seems like such a banal thing to do, but I personally find joy in that particular thing. I don't know what it is.
Deanna Michalopoulos 1:09:41
I mean, it's it goes back to what we were talking about before, you bring in some consciousness and presence to it. And, you know, and in this day and age, like, analog activities, right? Like bringing coffee grounds to the roses, handling dishes, like you know, you're not swiping. There's no screen. There's no ping. You can just be fully absorbed.
Jivana Heyman 1:10:02
Yeah, it's pretty interesting, and also I think that's why I've embraced physical activity so much, and exercise. I find asana incredibly helpful, but also for me, biking, running, walking, swimming sometimes. These activities have just made a huge impact on my mind. There's something about being away from my computer, not being like in that world of screens that helps me think better. Just when my body is moving in a meditative way, running, walking, biking, those are very meditative. Swimming, they're very meditative actually for me, because they're just like repetitious activities. Anyway, also one last thing is, you know, we talked about pratyahara and I just want to bring that back up that I feel like that's the other thing that I enjoy talking Tracee about and I love that she brought it up in her book. I think that's literally the practice of yoga that does this. That asks us to be conscious of the places we're putting our attention, of what we're experiencing through our senses. It's about being conscious of what we're experiencing through the senses, and then making different choices, or just making choices. Usually, it's described as turning those senses inward, but in a bigger sense it's that consciousness of like, what are you looking at? What are you listening to? What are you focusing on? So I feel like that's key in our practice, especially in any kind of meditation.
Deanna Michalopoulos 1:11:39
Thanks so much for sharing everything, and this was such a great conversation. A privilege to listen to it.
Jivana Heyman 1:11:46
Yeah, thank you. Thanks for your thoughts, and thank you, Tracee. My gosh, I love that book. I hope people will read it. And thanks everyone for listening. And please give us your questions. I miss having questions, so please leave me a question or comment. I'd love to hear from you. All right. Thanks, Deanna.
Deanna Michalopoulos 1:12:04
Thanks, Jivana.
Jivana Heyman 1:12:05
Okay. Bye.
Jivana Heyman 1:12:16
Before you go, I just want to mention one more thing, and that is our Accessible Yoga Mentorship Program. It's a really special place where we come together as yoga teachers for peer support, encouragement, to learn, to answer each other's questions, and to practice together. It's such an amazing way to find that support that yoga teachers so often need and I'd love for you to join us. I lead one session a month, and then Rodrigo Souza leads the other, and it's a great way to stay connected and keep improving your teaching. You can find more information on our website at accessibleyoga.org. There's also a link in the show notes. Hope to see you there.
