Hello everybody and welcome to the Awaken Together podcast.
I'm Kat.
I'm Jen.
And in today's episode, we're really excited to talk with you about how to live a yogic
lifestyle.
But first, we want to catch you up on the past couple weeks because we have been busy,
haven't we?
Yes.
I know, I'm sure you've seen it on social media, but we just finished our very first
Awaken Together retreat where we got to co-lead together.
And oh my gosh, it has come in waves and layers, unpacking just all the beautiful things that
occurred at the retreat.
We had an amazing group of women come together.
We held it in Breckenridge, Colorado.
And I feel like it was such a journey and I continuously have shown that these retreats
are so beyond even just the teachers.
There is this really spiritual component that comes through when people gather with similar
intention and set the space and just the lessons that came out, the emotional releases that
came out, the epiphanies, the synchronicities, the play, the fun, the wild, the good, the
bad and ugly.
All of it was all there and I think it had just so much soul meaning to it.
And I know everyone has their own take and experience from it, but to me it was just
so special.
And it was also so special to get to meet friends that I've only had relationships through
online and get to meet in person as with Kat, just the people that I've been able to meet
virtually and then get to meet in person.
It's just so special.
What about you Kat?
Oh yeah, it was pure magic, pure love.
What an incredible group of women we had come together.
There were 10 women and then us.
And to give you a little lowdown of all the things we did, I mean, this will just scratch
the surface, but we went on a hike in a wintry wonderland, which we were not expecting to
be wintry.
We found ourselves in hip distance of a hip deep snow at some points and it was hilarious.
We all made the best of it and actually it was pretty enjoyable and we learned a lot
too.
I call it group trauma bond.
We came out different people.
It's so funny.
If you want to learn more, you got to go to all trails and read Jen's review on the Barton
Creek trail.
We'll post it on our awaken together.
I decided to make a tale of the story.
It was hilarious.
I promise you it's worth reading.
Yes, but between that hiking, nature time, spiritual work, we did Reiki, yoga, all plant
based foods, astrology talks.
There was a plant medicine circle.
We had some inner child playtime dance parties.
And we manifested a mama and baby moose into the backyard of our house and they hung out
for hours and it felt manifested.
It felt like we had drawn in that energy and it felt like they felt safe with us.
It was the coolest thing just to see them comfortably sitting in the backyard looking
at us through the windows and we were just eye contact.
Jaws agape like, oh my God, it was incredible.
It was beautiful and we are so looking forward to future retreats.
We want to keep growing this awaken together family.
And yeah, it's awesome working with you Kat.
Oh my God.
Likewise, it was just incredible.
And we're so excited to announce more to you all first here, our inner circle in just probably
a couple of weeks.
Yeah, we're working.
Yeah, we're getting stuff on the books.
So for today, how to live a yogic life is our topic, our theme.
And in yoga teacher training, which Jen and I combined have a collective 800 hours of
yoga teacher training between us.
And so today's episode, we're going to focus heavily on the first two limbs of yoga.
These are called the yamas and the nyamas.
And just to give you some context of where these fall in the eight-limbed path to enlightenment,
these are the first two, like I mentioned.
So the yamas, they are the abstinences, the things you don't do.
That's how I really think of them.
The things that you don't practice, you stay away from, your restraints.
They're also commonly known as the nyamas.
Now these are commonly known as the observances.
I like to think of them as the things that you do do, the practices that you embody in
your life.
Yeah.
And I think so much of the yamas and nyamas that we're going to cover today, we've kind
of covered indirectly.
These are a lot of the principles that fall under spirituality.
But I think the main difference, I often forget how much my yoga teacher training and my experience
on the yoga mat and with these practices, how much that has created a lens that when
I take in more new age and spiritual belief systems, I'm also kind of filtrating them
through the yamas and nyamas and some of these one of, yeah, it's two of the eight limbs
of yoga, which is a whole system.
Yoga is so much more than just what you see on social media.
And this is really like some of the basic principles.
One of the books that I read in yoga teacher training, it's called the yamas and nyamas
exploring yoga's ethical practice by Deborah Adele and A-D-E-L-E.
This book was one I read in yoga teacher training and it really helped to take these concepts
and make them more modern to our day to day, which has definitely shifted from when they
were originally written out.
But yeah, it's sacred to learn through this lens.
And I think rereading this book and looking at this, even to prepare for this podcast
episode, remembering my little mind when I first took all this information in and seeing
how much it has applied through my years of spiritual growth.
It was a real moment of reflection just to look back and even prepare for this podcast
episode.
Love it.
Yeah, so like Jen said, the asana yoga postures that you commonly see or maybe think of yoga
as, that's the third limb.
So there's like a whole set of principles, kind of you can think of them as the yogi
commandments that you should in theory be doing before even stepping onto your mat in
order to live a yogic life and prepare your mind and your body for these postures.
So poses asana, that's the third limb.
The fourth limb is pranayama.
This is breath control, something that we're not commonly taught how to do in at least
the United States in Western civilizations.
But in Eastern civilizations, it is more commonly known and not all to say, but it's an ancient
practice that really teaches you how to channel your breath and think of it as your vital
life force energy.
It's really powerful stuff.
Then the next limb is called pratyahara.
This is withdrawal of your senses.
So taking out the external stimuli and just bringing your awareness inside.
From there, the next limb is called dharana.
And this is concentration of your mind, your inner focus.
This is all setting you up for dhyana, which is meditation.
Maybe you've heard of it before.
And finally, everything culminates to the final limb, which is samadhi.
This may also be known as nirvana.
This is oneness, complete absorption and just bliss, connection with God, goddess, whatever
you want to call it.
So beginning from the top with the yamas, we are going to run through each of them.
There's five of them, five yamas and five niyamas, and we'll break down each of our
experiences with them and our takeaways and teachings that we glean from them.
Yeah, let's dive in.
All right.
Number one is ahimsa.
This is really commonly known as kindness.
I like to think of it as self-love, self-care and filling your own cup to pour into others
while also being kind outwardly.
An idea that came up on our retreat is that sometimes when it feels hard to be kind to
yourself, being kind to others and showing that love to someone else can also help you
fill your own cup and feel that same love towards yourself.
Yeah, and I believe that the ability to be nonviolent to other people is really directly
related to our ability to be nonviolent to ourselves.
So it's looking at those little seeds that end up creating kind of that malicious behavior,
which usually can be rooted in fear and power.
So looking at your relationship to fear, your relationship to what happens when you feel
powerless, what sides of yourself come out, all of that is really good to look at when
you're trying to cultivate nonviolence.
And I think nonviolence can sound really generic, but it's really little things too.
I think one of the things that like hit me in the gut when I first learned about that
was when we are trying to subtly control other people or we think that our way is better
than others, we're kind of creating violence towards that person because we're teaching
them not to trust their own abilities and find their own answers that they are seeking.
And we're thinking our way is right.
So in a way you're taking from them.
And that is, was a big hit in the face to my people pleasing tendencies and my also
ability just to fight for so much control.
I wouldn't have thought of myself as violent, but when I saw it kind of through another
perspective, I definitely could relate to it.
Well said.
And to clarify, ahimsa is most commonly known as nonviolence.
The way that I translated it first is kindness is like the inverse.
So to just explain that a little bit.
Number two, the second of the yamas is satya.
This one is non-lying.
I like to just say truthfulness.
Just being honest with yourself and others and not sugarcoating things and just telling
people things that you think they want to hear rather than like what's actually true,
even though sometimes the truth can be hard to hear.
It's all about how we share it.
And living in your own truth takes a lot of time to develop that relationship.
So when you're being honest with yourself, once again, you can reflect that more outwardly.
And I think taking that previous yamas of violence, you have to learn to be truthful
in a nonviolent way.
I think we can often use our truth intentionally to hurt people.
So we need to keep in mind that there is a way to live in our truth and express our truth
and share our truth with other people, but without doing it within a malicious intent.
Number three is a stay out.
This one's non-stealing.
Jen and I were talking before a little bit about how non-stealing can be seen.
I think in the Bible, there's one really way to think of it, and that's material goods,
items, maybe people.
But we also like to think of it as energy.
So jealousy is a really good example of non-stealing, wanting what others have.
Also being happy for others is a great way to practice this in action.
And celebrating the good from an authentic place rather than a lack from what you have,
trying to get out of your own story and actually be happy for others.
Yeah.
When we compare ourselves to others, we're once again trying to control, to manipulate,
to boost our own ego.
And also when we immediately come and chime things in, we can be stealing from someone
else's experience.
And I also think it's really important to see how we're stealing from the earth, looking
at ways that we can be more intentional about that and give back to the planet.
That is a form of stealing too.
And yeah, I had this, you know, my first instinct when I initially read this book, I was thinking
of the 10 Commandments, as we said.
And I was like, oh, I don't steal.
I think people very black and white know stealing has implications and maybe isn't the best.
But yeah, once again, looking at things through the context, when we take and take and take,
it's going to throw us off of this energetic balance of giving and receiving.
And I think that's really important to look at how we do with in relationships with other
people, relationships to ourselves and relationships to the planet.
Yeah.
Yes.
That's a good segue into number four, which is Brahmacharya.
This one is known as the right use of energy.
You can also think of this as moderation, balance, not overindulging, whether that's,
you know, getting greedy with money or food or just kind of losing yourself in that present
moment and maybe letting your emotions or outside perspectives or feelings take a hold
of you just like coming back to that place of your energy and deciding how you want to
direct that from a place of presence and awareness.
Yeah.
And for me, when I went into this practice and yoga teacher training, I looked at what
I had too much of.
And I also had watched that documentary minimalist.
Yeah, so good.
I love it.
And I went on a cleanse, just realizing that when you have a ton of stuff, it might create
this kind of like wall of safety.
I really think there is definitely an emotional protection when we own too much stuff and
we're trying to like hide behind that.
But it it it scatters your energy.
You're always paying attention to so many things within your environment that you can
really lose that connection to self.
And if I learned anything on that year on the road of traveling, I lived out of one
car for an entire year.
I had one box of clothes, but I realized that it filled up my tank so much more.
And so I really have had a different relationship to access and how much stuff me and Danny
went on an even deeper detox of extra stuff that we had in our house, especially when
we unpacked our storage unit.
But we don't think of that stuff.
I think with the shopping culture and capitalism, we just we just end up owning so much and
we don't think much of it as affecting our spiritual path.
But in reality, it takes up a lot of energy to have that many things in your environment.
And yeah, the overindulgence of food and seeing just what you take in excess often access
is is showing us that there's something we're hiding from.
So I think it really is a response to not looking inward and seeing like where that
need is coming from.
So yes, this is also the Yama that sexual energy is often associated with.
And so if you think about everything we've been sharing with like being present and not
overindulging, not underindulging, just finding that sweet spot, you can interpret that however
you'd like to.
Yeah.
And the final Yama is called Aparigraha.
And this one is known as non possessiveness.
Generosity is the flip side of how I like to see this in action.
You know, giving, donating your time and your energy without expectation.
And I think that part is really important because, you know, how often have you heard
about someone who maybe gave something to a homeless person and then them sharing that
is like looking for some credit and it kind of, I don't know, to me sometimes feels like
it undoes the good act to a certain point.
You know, if you're looking for praise or something for like your good deed, then that's
a little sour taste.
Just like doing good for doing good.
Yeah.
So I see this.
Yeah.
And I just put non clinging.
I really see this as kind of like a general letting go.
And yeah, I put the quote, one of my favorite quotes is, when you love a flower, don't pick
it up.
Love is about appreciation, not possession.
I try to think of that all of the time that we can appreciate stuff without having to
attach ourselves so deeply to it.
And even like that overly clinging just creates this energy as well.
I think of that in my codependency as well.
So really just letting things be and realizing that when we tightly hold onto stuff, there's
an energy behind that that can get in the way.
Hmm.
Beautifully said.
Yeah.
So that's five of our Yamas and really practicing the Yamas pulls us back from needing so much
that's external and points us towards the unique expression of our own life.
I love it.
So nonviolence, truthfulness, non stealing, non excess and non possessiveness as a quick
little recap.
And we will go into the Niyamas.
Yes.
So starting with the first of the Niyamas.
And again, these are the practices that you do.
The first one is Shaucha.
This one's commonly known as purity.
And we can look at this again in so many different ways in our lives.
One really direct way that comes to me as a health coach is eating organic, local, whole
foods and actually caring about living a clean life.
Also the more direct ways of like showering.
I remember one of the early principles I learned in yoga teacher training was that you
should show up to your mat clean.
Make ideally if you can.
And life I know can get crazy.
Sometimes they go right from work, had a sweaty day, whatever.
The idea is that your mat is a sacred space and you're bringing forth your best energy
so that you can really channel that and work through it.
So showing up clean for yourself, for others and just approaching it from that pure place
in that sense.
I was very scared of the word purity with all the purity culture of church.
I remember when I first read it I was like, oh gosh, here we go, down that rabbit hole
again.
But honestly, yeah, looking at everything through an energetic context is super helpful.
I see this as just purifying our bodies, thoughts and words.
And I also think it's important to drop the image of what purity looks like to start gaining
your own sense of purity.
It's going to look a little bit different for everyone depending on, yeah, some of the
other principles, what you fall into, what your past experiences has led you to turn
to.
I think it's going to look a little bit different.
So I think having this image of what perfect is can once again be an unequal energy exchange.
So it's really looking at what is making you feel good and whole and balanced.
I also think of regularly cleansing my space and myself, which I do very often, which we've
talked about on this podcast before, kind of like an energy reset.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I like what you said too about minimalism.
We can also see here cleaning your space.
One thing I always say when I'm cleaning is, okay, clean space, clean mind.
It's really true.
So then the second of the nyamas is santosha.
And this one's one of our favorites.
This one's translated as contentment.
I see this as being grateful for and making the best of what you have.
Not always searching for the next big thing and focusing on growth mentality at all times,
but actually, it's healthy to take a step back from that.
Maybe pause your healing work if that's something that you've been really deep in for a long
time and just allow some space to just be and be content with what you have.
Yeah.
Oh my gosh.
This one is one that has just come up again and again for me.
I think it's really important.
I don't see people in day-to-day life paying attention to this enough, but when we have
really extreme preferences, that really leads to when something is pulling you out of your
preference, you feeling extremely discontented and upset and just out of alignment and not
feeling good and we can have all this resistance to things that are not for us.
I think that definitely pops up in spirituality more than I like to see of people being like
cut out anything that's not serving you, get rid of everything.
And there is a beauty to not feeding into toxicity, but I also think that when we learn
to ebb and flow and release kind of the grip on our preferences, we also will be so content
and regardless of what is happening in our external environment.
I really did a lot of work on that early in my spiritual journey of looking at what I
preferred and why.
And I started intentionally practicing making myself uncomfortable, doing things with less
convenience so that I could learn to find reframing and just overall contentment regardless
of what was happening.
So yeah, look at that.
Look at maybe where you lean and kind of holding it version to certain things and look at the
why because that really can probably be where you can explore to find more joy and just
the ebb and flows, the ups and downs.
More flow in life is such a goal.
And I also put to gratitude practice.
I think contentment is also really easy to fall back on when you have a good practice
of reflecting on the things that you're grateful for.
I love the practice of waking up in the morning and picking a couple things.
I also usually do that at the end of my yoga asana practice.
Yeah, gratitude can link us back.
So if you're noticing that there's just a lot of trouble finding joy, maybe even reflecting
on that as well.
Yeah.
And for all our science people, it has been scientifically proven that gratitude, practicing
gratitude actually uplifts your state of being your mood and has physiological positive effects
as well.
Very nice.
Check out the contentment.
Contentment.
Yes.
Then the third of the niyamas is called tapas.
There's a lot to this one.
It's often said as self-discipline.
In yoga, we say it as heat or internal fire a lot.
It's leaning into discomfort.
And the first thing that pops into my head is holding plank pose.
We all hate it.
Who actually likes holding plank pose?
We do it because we know it's good for us and that future us will be happy that we actually
stuck through it.
And there's a pride that comes with that too.
I think the shadow side of self-discipline can be seen as forcing yourself to do things
that don't actually serve you or don't feel good or don't feel aren't actually aligned,
like starving yourself or pushing yourself to do poses to their most fullest, advanced
settings, just because that's what other people around you are doing when that's not actually
what serves you.
So I kind of prefer the word integrity and that's holding yourself high to your own goals
and standards.
Yeah.
I think we're talking a lot that this one's touchy because self-discipline can really
create like a visceral response because we've been fed so many ways that we need to do things
right that it can feel really kind of disgusting to feel like you have to like have this hard
self-discipline towards something.
Some people really thrive in self-discipline and then other times it just has kind of like
a yucky feeling.
I also think there's a lot of context within this one that you're reflecting on kind of
your own path, but yeah, building a routine that is yeah, actually kind of like my happiness
formula, you know, I found like a way where I can invite in a lot of body work, reflection,
meditation, but in a way that's pushing me, but also not like choking me and making me
feel so tightly gripped that I end up just releasing it.
And I've been able to keep that little formula for myself to stay on track and I've done
it for three years and it's given me enough ease and space, but also has applied me to
something that I can reflect back on to continue to grow and develop my soul.
So yeah, love.
And something you shared reminded me too that this Niyama in particular, there can be a
lot of ego attached to it.
Yeah.
Right.
If you're focused on maybe more than the others, not taken in balance, ego can be tied to a
two of like, well, I'm a very disciplined person or, you know, the people who we see
not straying from any plans and then it actually causes some dysfunction in your life.
So just look out for that too.
Yeah.
And I think because it's self-discipline, it has to do with self and often when we find
this like magic, we also want to push it on to other people.
I definitely was guilty of this early on in my journey, especially when I started doing
yoga.
I was like, everyone needs to do it.
And then when people weren't doing it, I was like, you're missing the point.
Like still, yeah, definitely so much attachment to ego thinking that, yeah, this everyone
is so structured and so built differently.
We know about soul blueprints and this stuff.
And so yeah, a routine that makes you feel like it's pushing you for growth is going
to be very different person to person.
So I think they're sharing your experience and then there's, does your whole thing fall
apart the second other people aren't doing it with you and is then that really self-discipline.
So reflecting on that too, definitely a good point, Kat.
Yeah.
Then the fourth one is spotty.
I, uh, we could talk about this one for days.
This one is self-study.
If I am not the queen of self-study.
I do not know any of Graham Myers, human design, astrology, all of it falls in here.
It's being the watcher, the witness of your thoughts, checking back in with yourself on
how things are going periodically.
And I mean, if you don't have those points of mindful check in with yourself, how will
you celebrate how far you've come?
Um, sometimes, you know, when we're just looking forward and not, uh, studying ourselves in
our past and having these mindful moments of reflection, then we're just looking towards,
you know, what's next constantly rather than being content on where you are and how far
you've come.
Yeah.
So this is really kind of the epitome of spirituality shadow work for sure.
It's really unpacking the boxes you've created around yourself.
It's looking at your belief systems and yeah, what is inside of that box, what you can release.
It's unboxing yourself from those things.
It's releasing ego.
It's releasing old wounds.
And you do that through a lot of self-study and reflection.
And it's the witness is something in yoga that we, you just learned again and again
and again.
And it's like the watcher of your thoughts.
It's seeing what you're doing, which comes from a real place of mindfulness.
That when you notice like those little subtleties in your body, you notice like, Oh, I just
tightened up when somebody said that I just did this.
And then reflecting on that, it's taking those responses to where you can figure out the
root cause so that you can be moving through life in the present moment very intentionally.
And yeah, as Kat said, this is something that you are going to keep coming back to because
we're in a constant state of growth.
So self-study doesn't really end.
And I think a lot of people in the spirituality world, you know, it gets exhausting overlooking
at yourself.
And I think there's definitely like an excess that can happen there where you're just like
dissecting absolutely everything.
But I really think that self-study can be so fun if you do it from like a more lighthearted
place of like, I'm just trying to figure out why I do what I do.
It's not because something's wrong with you.
You just have to constantly check in on the things that you're picking up or living this
life or respond responding to circumstances.
We have different relationships with different people and all that stuff is constantly at
play and how we respond and move through things.
So I think the self-study, I find it very beautiful that it never ends and I don't put
as much weight on it.
I think some people feel that they're going to get to the bottom of all of it.
I don't really think there is a bottom.
It's more just a constant check back and reflection.
Like you said, Pat, it comes in layers.
I think you have to do a ton of it at the beginning because if you've never done any
intentional work, there's going to be a lot of stuff that comes up early on as you start
unpacking those traumas and your childhood experiences.
But it gets lighter and more kind of fun just to kind of reflect back.
I think there can be a real ease with it as you go further on your journey.
Yeah.
And we promise just understanding the language behind why you are the way you are between
all of these different personality tests and dissection of all that.
I promise you it's validating.
It's very, very validating.
It's eye-opening and it might stir the pot, get uncomfy.
But at the end of the day, that's the whole point of it is to validate your experience
and help you bring some compassion to it and bring your best self forward from there on
out.
Yep.
And releasing what you are not.
That is what I say.
Personality tests should not add a label.
It should help you work on removing some labels.
Love it.
Yeah.
Well, friends, we're at our final of the Niyamas.
And this one, it makes sense that it comes last because it's all kind of a building up
here.
But it is Ishvara Pranidhana.
And this literally translates to surrender to God.
So it's surrender.
It's having done all of these amazing things for yourself that can be triggering and hard,
and then just kind of letting it go, loosening your grip, releasing, allowing yourself to
live deeply and trusting that the universe has your back and that it's working for you
and your best interest.
Yes.
Which is so beautiful.
And I so deeply believe it.
And it's I really feel that maybe this one didn't make as much sense to me early on.
Yeah, I had a weird relationship with the universe early on in a sense of just surrendering
to the rhythm of life.
I so feel like I can tune into that flow state so much more now where I'm really realizing
that so many experiences that happen around me have very little to do with me or are a
part of this bigger cosmic picture.
I love thinking like that.
I love that just surrendering to the experience.
I think that can be a really hard thing to do early on is trust that it's all kind of
going to work out in our favor.
And I still think there's a lot of intentional steps you can see through all of them that
are important to take.
But yeah, just that general knowing if that is in the back of your mind, there's just
such a general sense of peace.
Still think there's a lot of action steps.
I think you can take it so far as you don't do anything because you think it's all going
to work out.
But I think having that in the back of the mind in the back of your mind as you move
through life and just knowing that, yeah, it all ends up coming together and that when
you continue to release and let go of the things not serving that there's this going
to be this really profound and beautiful connection guiding you.
And when you've actually felt that and experienced that, like we just did at the retreat for
sure, you just feel, yeah, it just life seems so much more beautiful.
Yeah, that's what this is all for.
So friends, little check in with you all.
Having learned all of this, how to live a yogic lifestyle, like these are the bones,
the foundation of yoga.
Like how does it feel?
Does it feel like these are some things that you're already doing?
Are there some new things that you'd like to incorporate into your day to day life for
everyday sadhana practice to to hop on this path and dig a little bit deeper and make
your life a little more rich and whole?
Yeah.
And this yoga practice, me and Kat would not be here today if it weren't for this way of
thinking and all the beautiful epiphanies that have come on the mat.
And yeah, my yoga practice really shifted when I started adding in these deeper levels.
I really think I understood what teachers were saying when they meant that yoga is so
much more beyond the asanas, the poses that we do, tons of benefit from the physical yoga
practice.
But when you add these layers in, I think you see it more as like a mission of life
versus just something you go to and do periodically.
Yeah, this is this is yoga off the mat.
This is yoga and everyday action in life.
So we hope that you learn something new and useful.
And please let us know your thoughts and takeaways.
If you could leave us a review, that's always super helpful for us.
Find us on Instagram at Awaken Together podcast.
And we can't wait to see you next time.
See you next time.
Bye.