Psychedelics, Tolle & Vinyasa Flow - Quinn Travis - Ep. 13

In this episode of the Project Mindfulness podcast,

You will hear about mushroom medicine and vinyasa flow.

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Welcome to the Project Mindfulness podcast.

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Good day and welcome.

This is episode 12 and I am Christian Neteson.

Thank you for joining us.

Today I talk with Quinn Traffes about his personal experiences with meditation,

Yoga,

And psychedelics.

The podcast keeps growing and we are excited for the future.

If you have any guests you would love to hear on the podcast,

Just drop me a message.

Christian at ProjectMindfulness.

Com.

In this talk with Quinn,

We talk about his experience on psychedelics,

How it changed his life,

And why he got into yoga.

He teaches yoga and his energy and excitement will be a fresh motivation for all of you listening.

Welcome,

Quinn,

To the podcast.

It's great to have you here.

Thank you.

I'm super excited to be a part of it.

Awesome.

So,

Quinn,

For our listeners listening in and who don't know who you are,

Please introduce yourself.

Okay.

My name is Quinn.

I am going to college right now,

Getting an education.

My major is psychology.

I'm minoring in health and wellness.

So right now I'm just focusing on my academics.

I'm from a small town in Gunnison,

Colorado.

There's about 5,

000 people there.

So I went to a small high school.

I kind of grew up playing hockey,

Football,

Baseball.

I always have been moving my body.

I love the mechanics of the body.

So I always wanted to do something with it.

So my hockey brought me over to Northern Arizona University where I'm studying here in Flagstaff.

It's been a wonderful journey.

I love Flagstaff so much.

The college experience,

Nothing you've ever thought about as a kid.

As a kid,

You're like,

Wow,

You're such an adult.

You have your whole life going for you.

You look at the college students and then you get into college and you're like,

Man,

I have so many different paths I could take.

I'm not even close to being an adult.

I know what my passions are and what I want to do in this world,

But I don't know really how I'm still thinking and playing as a kid.

It feels like just an adult body.

So now I'm teaching yoga here at Northern Arizona University and I teach meditation as well.

That's through Northern Arizona University as well.

It's just a separate program.

It's called the recovery program.

Right now I'm just really focusing on being the best instructor I can be,

As well as maintaining a balanced practice for myself as well.

Yeah,

Makes sense.

What you said,

For you,

You found important to have the body and the mind connected as a whole and work with that through yoga and meditation.

It's great to hear that you're actually doing a lot with that.

Yeah.

So how did you find yoga or did yoga find you?

How did that happen?

I'm sure anyone who has fell into the beautiful practice of yoga never really was looking for it.

When I was playing sports,

I really undermined yoga.

I didn't know what it was.

I thought it was for girls.

I really had no knowledge of yoga.

I had this really eye-opening experience that just brought me closer to myself.

It brought me within.

I realized what we're here to do as humans.

One day,

With this awakening I was going through,

I went to a yoga practice.

I think it was a hot yoga.

I was like,

Okay,

Cool.

This will be fun.

I had a very open mind,

Really enthusiastic at the time.

I go into this yoga studio and there was a male yoga instructor.

I was like,

Wow,

This is new.

I don't think I've ever experienced having a male yoga instructor.

I didn't know if males could even teach yoga.

I just had no idea about it.

This class,

We went through meditation.

I was delving deep into meditation.

We did this meditation.

He gave us cues to connect within to our body.

How do your physical muscles feel?

How do you feel emotionally,

Spiritually?

Just connect.

From right there,

I knew that this was my calling,

The practice of itself,

Which is yoga.

Then later down the road,

The universe just kind of threw yoga teacher training.

It was just kind of thrown into my eyesight.

I kind of looked at a wall and I was like,

Wait,

Whoa,

That's affordable.

It was the universe going,

Hey,

Here's an opportunity.

You can either take it or leave it.

I took it.

Right after,

It's just kind of manifested into where I am today.

Awesome.

It was like a rocket flight to where you are now fully emerged into the world of yoga and meditation.

Yeah,

Totally.

You said that there was this sort of awakening or this turning point.

Was that a specific turning point linked to an event in your life?

Would you mind telling more about that or is it something that is like a secret part?

No,

I'll totally go into why I'm doing what I'm doing now.

Me and my buddy one day decided to take psilocybin.

I don't know if the listeners are familiar with it,

But it's mushrooms.

It's a chemical that interacts with your neurons and creates these hallucinations,

These visions.

Through this journey that I was going through on the psilocybin,

I kind of transcended my identity.

I lost touch with Quinn,

My ego's identification with myself,

Who I am,

What I do,

What I'm good at,

What I'm bad at,

What my mom knows me as,

My dad knows me as.

All of that was so intense.

I had a choice to hold on to all this pressure of attachment.

I was attaching to it.

I kind of just,

For a moment,

Had this experience of letting go.

When I let go,

I let go.

It was an instant.

I kind of lost touch with reality as we know and kind of transcended into the spiritual realm.

If that makes sense.

Did you make that choice or was it something that was happening to you?

Do you feel you had an active part in that?

No,

It was completely in another intelligence at that point.

Something else was upon me.

Does it make sense?

The choice to take the psilocybin was my choice.

I hope everyone is familiar that at the time,

I was taking it as a drug to probably disattach,

To kind of have another experience in a different way.

Now,

It's more of this spiritual connection that if I ever were to do it again,

It's totally on a spiritual basis because of what happened to me and because of the power of this drug or this medicine,

I like to call it.

Anyway,

I just kind of.

.

.

So the choice was that I did take it.

From then,

My hands were off the steering wheel.

I could think about it and hold on to it and be scared by what's going on because it's not normal.

I was feeling different.

My hands were feeling all clammy.

I was just scared.

As soon as I kind of let go of that scarcity of losing identity,

I think I was so scared of losing identity because I didn't know who I was on this medicine.

It was kind of like I knew I'm Quinn,

But I'm seeing the world totally different.

I had no control.

It kind of brought me into the nature of love,

The nature of compassion,

Not only to others,

But to yourself.

I was kind of on this spiritual high for months and months after this journey.

Without it,

I would not be where I am today.

That's for sure.

That's incredible.

It's funny.

I just read The Psychedelic Experience by Timothy Leary.

Yeah.

It's an amazing read because it talks about these different states that you can get through when you're on,

Let's say,

The medicine.

Yeah.

What you talk about now reminds me of one of those states where you really feel connected to everyone and everything around you.

Is it correct to say there's no separate identity at that moment that says this is Quinn and this isn't Quinn,

But it's more like this is all me or there is even no me.

It's just all connected.

You hit it on the head.

What's scary is knowing that you have a separate identity,

Which we call ego.

That is scary on psilocybin because when you're introduced and the drug is taking effect,

You do feel one with everything.

You feel one with yourself.

You feel one with the nature around you,

The wind,

The birds,

The sounds around you,

Your breath.

Your breath is so beautiful and so connected.

When you breathe out,

You're breathing out your love.

When you breathe in,

You're breathing in God or intelligence or the universe.

Does that make sense?

Oh,

Yeah.

Yeah,

Yeah,

Definitely.

Yeah.

You're just so connected and your heart opens.

What's the powerful part of this,

These drugs,

These drugs that are put on this planet,

We never made them,

Which is so crazy.

It grows.

It grows from the earth.

One day,

Timothy Lear,

I think,

Has the stoned ape theory where we gathered our intelligent consciousness and spirituality and beliefs and culture from actually our ancestors eating psilocybin,

Which I think is super funny and interesting because how do we know for sure?

That's just a fun little hypothesis about how we became so intelligent and so dynamic.

Yeah.

Yeah,

Sure.

It makes a lot of sense if you look at,

I don't know,

Mushrooms and mold and all these kinds of things that.

.

.

I mean,

Well,

If you take it all for reality,

We started off like bacteria and whatever.

We started off like these things.

It makes sense that these things also still are connected to us and have value to us.

Oh,

Definitely.

Yeah.

Timothy Leary in the book that I actually just finished reading and he talks about when you have this experience,

You after your trip is over,

Let's say when you start to return to reality,

You have the option to,

He calls it be reborn as a different person.

And he describes it in the way of the Tibetan book of the dead,

Which has like these different realms of like,

You know,

The deity realm or the Buddha realm or the human realm.

And so when you came out of the trip,

Or when you came out of this experience,

Did you feel,

You said it took you months and months and it like just continued on.

So you were a different person when you came out of it,

Right?

Oh,

Completely.

Yeah.

And you can ask my family,

My friends,

My closest friends,

They'll tell you completely.

It was a complete shift and the way I interpreted the world.

I went from being a person who enjoys life but is scared of change,

Is I push away relationships.

I don't make that extra,

I didn't make that extra effort to smile at someone or,

Or I thought of myself as a separate being upon a human race rather than being a human race that's a part of the universe,

Which is a part of everything,

You know.

And so I completely changed my outlook from fear to love,

From regret to compassion.

It's so,

So hard to explain in words because we haven't came up with words to describe this euphoric feeling,

The spiritual awakening.

Sorry,

But it's still sticking with me today.

It's like the spiritual high.

You don't have to have any substance in you.

It's just like this moment,

This present moment in itself is so fulfilling that you can't even handle to hold back a smile.

Does that make sense?

It's but constantly.

It makes a lot of sense.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But having that constant,

Like,

Yes,

You know,

It's you wake up,

You're like,

Yes,

Another day and you take a shower.

Wow.

Another shower.

That water feels so good on my skin.

And you,

You almost shed your experiences.

Does that make sense?

So every experience that I had was almost as like I was a child again,

Listening to the birds for the first time,

Looking at the light through trees,

Like the frequency of light,

Like the sunlight,

You know,

And just realizing that,

Wow,

I'm human,

You know,

Like,

This is cool.

I'm like,

I'm in a robotic,

Cool body.

I can run,

I can jump,

I can flex and I can walk on tightropes and climb rocks and skydive.

Like,

That's cool.

And I think that's what I,

The basis I came to realization of,

Damn,

I'm human.

And,

But that's so cool.

Yeah.

So from from that moment on you,

You sort of,

Let's call it saw the light and you started to pursue this path of what is it spirituality,

Yoga,

Right?

And meditation is that was there coming out of that some sort of tradition or like specific thing that you started to follow?

Or did you carve your own path?

I completely carved my own path.

And to all the listeners out there,

I recommend if if this is a new thing to you to to do the same,

I,

I read the books that I wanted to read Buddhism,

Taoism,

Zen,

Yoga,

The Bhagavad Gita,

You know,

Like,

I mean,

I just delve into the knowledge of spirituality.

And with that,

I,

I took out what what's right for me,

I took out my meditative practice,

I took out my movement,

The way I do my lifestyle,

Right?

It's,

It's so it's so unique and can be so individualized,

You know?

Yeah.

And the true,

Like the,

The truest thing I got out of that is I can't describe to you how my connection is to God.

You can't describe to me your connection to God.

But the one thing we have in common is that feeling of connection,

Right?

Whatever form you take with connecting to that,

To that divine entity,

Whether that's a person,

Whether that's,

You know,

Buddha,

Or Jesus,

You know,

Any,

Any,

Any figure,

Any spiritual figure,

The main essence of it is,

What I found is love is compassion is self observation.

And what do I need in this moment to benefit the people around me?

What do I need to benefit myself?

So,

In the teachings that,

You know,

I tell my students and that I've learned is,

You're,

You're,

You're,

You're number one priority.

So,

If you,

If you don't have love for yourself,

How are you going to find love in others?

If you don't have health for yourself,

How will you find health in others?

You know,

It's,

It's,

It's this interconnectedness again,

Like it's all connected.

Right.

So,

I've kind of figured out what works for me.

And like meditation,

For instance,

Works for me best as soon as I wake up,

You know?

And for others,

They can't do that.

They have to meditate at night because they probably have problems sleeping,

Or they just want to relax and,

And the relaxation part of their day is at night.

And I totally get that.

For me,

I want to,

You know,

Drop out after 515.

You know,

Like I'm ready to cook some dinner and lie down,

Read a book,

Maybe watch a movie or just kick the feet up.

But so,

It's just finding what works for you.

Yeah.

Yeah,

That's an important thing to take away.

And you seem to succeed quite well in,

In finding your own path.

As I listened to your story,

And you've,

You've talked a little bit about how your family and friends notice the difference from the Quinn before the,

Well,

Let's,

Let's call it the awakening and after.

And do you see that?

Do you feel there has been a significant change?

And if so,

I mean,

You talked a little bit about the fear that you seem to have lost.

And,

Well,

Maybe I wonder also,

Like,

The person that before the awakening,

What was he afraid of?

Or was it just in general a fear to lose something or?

Yeah.

Before the awakening,

I was afraid of other people,

Other people's judgments,

Other people's criticism,

Other people's negative energy.

I'm so I was always super receptive and,

I was always super receptive and,

And sensitive to that.

You know,

I could tell when someone looks at me and there's a judgment or there was,

There was criticism.

There was just this negative feeling I would get.

And the one thing that I took away after that experience was I didn't care anymore.

There was no judgment for myself.

And,

And the underlying message was I was the one judging.

I was the one criticizing.

I was seeing my own reflection in everyone else.

And so I kind of lost all of that.

And so when you lose so much of what you're so used to,

You're free.

Does that make sense?

I was so clogged all the time with this inner dialogue of you,

You don't surmount to anything.

You,

You need to do better.

You need to achieve more.

What are you doing with your life?

Right?

This stuff that's so negative.

And I thought that was me.

And it's not,

It's completely just the way you think,

You know,

It's just,

Just a thought that you've been primed to think.

And you have,

I have a choice and you have a choice to either make that thought yours,

Put a symbol on it,

Put a name on it,

Give a feeling to that thought.

Or you can say,

Does this thought benefit me?

What can I learn?

And if you can't learn anything,

And if you can't benefit from that thought,

Simply just let it go.

That's beautiful about being human is you can either hold on to it or you can let it go.

You know,

And so that's what I came out with is just the ability to control my life in the positive and effective way.

So it's not like these thoughts don't come up anymore.

They come up,

But you now realize that you have a choice where before you felt that this was reality.

Yeah,

Accurate.

Definitely.

And I mean,

I'm human.

So I just don't let I don't hold on to it.

Almost,

I allow those thoughts to now teach me,

You know,

If I even have a sense of judgment come up,

I instantly take a breath and go,

Whoa,

Why?

Where did it come from?

And let it go.

Because,

You know,

It's distracting.

It distracts you from the only truth that we have is this moment,

You know.

Like this is a beautiful time to be alive right now,

Right here.

Wherever,

You know,

You are,

This is the most precious moment you have.

And so don't let a negative thought that comes from nowhere,

No one else can hear.

It's only your thought.

And so,

You know,

You have control of it.

It's like it's like a dog,

You know,

It's when you put a leash,

You can keep that dog kind of close,

But the mind just loves to run off and,

You know,

Go check everything out and one wants to think about everything and come up with these stories and predict the future and regret the past.

And,

And it's nice to,

You know,

Have control.

It's also,

I get the feeling with these negative thoughts that it's so easy to externalize them,

Right?

It's so easy to put them on people or even put them on society or the government or your parents or whatever.

And in that way,

Sort of justified that it really exists.

Someone is really judging you or someone is really putting this negativity in your life.

And that's,

I still find that sometimes very hard to distinguish,

You know,

Like there's these moments where I get a thought or I think about someone and there's this negative thing coming up and I realize like,

Well,

Dude,

Wait a second.

This is just you thinking this,

Like,

It's you accepting the negative thought as something you want to contemplate,

So to say,

Right?

It's like,

It's like you shopping in a shopping mall and sure,

They're like,

They're good fruits and bad foods,

But you're taking in the bad foods and you're taking them home and you're chewing on them.

That's basically what you're doing in thoughts.

Yeah.

And every,

Every time that happens,

I'm just so mind blown,

Like,

Wow,

Why,

Why,

Why do we do that?

Well,

I,

I read an amazing book.

It's called You Are The Placebo.

I don't know if you've read it or any of the listeners,

But it's by Dr.

Joe Dispenza and he explains this so well.

He says,

Our bodies are addicted to negative emotions.

So have you ever just been,

You felt a little anger and for some odd reason,

You just want to feed that fire.

You just really just want to make it big.

This anger now is,

Is now overtaking your physiology.

It's,

It's literally taking your body over.

So you act out,

You want to punch a wall.

And so some people will punch an actual hole in a wall that they have to fix later because their body is so addicted,

Like,

Like it is addicted to nicotine or alcohol or any other substance,

Right?

It's anger or negativity,

Jealousy.

These are just chemicals,

You know?

And so when we feel that,

Either our body sends that to our mind or our mind sends that to our body and it's this communication system of my body needs more of that anger,

Jealousy,

Judgment.

I need it.

I need it to survive.

The ego,

Right?

It's like,

I need that.

Like that,

That's what keeps my identity like alive.

But,

But realizing that you can also change that,

Right?

You can think about something positive,

Thinking about something that uplifts you.

As soon as that negative emotion,

Instead of feeding it that negative,

Negative energy and feeding onto that fire.

Now,

Before you even feed it,

Stop,

Take a breath and throw a positive thought in there.

I am healthy.

I am love,

You know,

I'm going to do great today.

I'm going to make a person's day to day.

Boom.

Instantly your physiology changes,

Right?

So no,

But it's so crazy.

It's all around us,

The media and the United States government.

I mean,

Look at,

We can't stop talking about our president.

What about the big issues that we have,

Right?

Like we feed,

We feed the egos.

We feed violence.

We feed hatred.

We want to build walls instead of take them down,

Right?

It's,

It's a part of our evolution and we all have to recognize that,

But we have to just take a step back and go,

Okay,

What's going to benefit our children?

You know,

Not building walls,

But let's take them down and let's,

Let's hug and let's figure something out that will work for everyone.

And that could just be,

You know,

You know,

Very,

Very liberal point of view or just me being a yogi,

Right?

Or,

You know,

Just,

Just me being me,

But I don't know.

So it's everywhere around us.

So you just have the choice to put your attention on what you want to feel.

Like I put my attention on videos or on my practice or things that enhance me,

Like books that enhance my life,

Right?

And that's my choice,

But some people,

They don't want to do that and that's totally okay.

But it's just recognizing the negative and the positive within you.

Yeah.

And it's,

It's also,

It reminds me,

Or what it,

What it says to me sometimes is that because there seems to be a lack of focus,

There also seems to be a lack of,

Let's say,

Purpose.

And because,

Because of this lack of purpose,

People seem to become reactive.

Looking foremost at myself,

The times where I was most reactive is usually the times where I'm lacking a sense of purpose or a sense of where am I going or what am I doing?

Yeah.

And I feel with meditation is you,

You bring your focus,

Like you,

You literally learn to direct your focus,

Right?

Yeah,

Definitely.

And I mean,

If you think back,

Like to our conversation earlier that we're just like this bacteria,

Right?

This fungus.

Every single cell and every single fungi has a purpose,

Right?

And so being human,

We,

We,

We need a purpose.

But what's hard is that we're,

We're so reliant on that purpose when,

When we forget about our vessel,

Our bodies,

Our,

Our minds,

When we're always focusing on a purpose,

We never know what we're doing.

And so meditation gives us that chance to tap out,

You know,

Let the world around you continue,

But bring your world within you,

You know,

And to accept the present moment fully and to just be completely observant of your reality,

You know,

Like,

What,

What gets me up in the morning?

What,

What,

What do I love?

What,

What makes me feel good?

What empowers me?

And I think the more you do that,

The more you practice and find answers,

Self-realization,

You,

You find your purpose.

And that purpose begins in it.

And your purpose is so simple yet so effective.

You know,

We want to make money.

That's,

That's what most of our purpose is,

Right?

We,

That's what we go to school for and this and that,

But you make money doing what you love,

Doing,

Doing what makes you feel good,

Doing,

Doing things that,

That,

Yeah,

That,

That puts a smile on your face.

Yeah,

That makes a lot of sense.

I mean,

In the end,

You,

I don't know,

You see it time and time and again,

That when someone does something that they love,

They become so effective in it that immediately,

Or there will come a point where they,

They will just reap the benefits of that,

Which is also money.

And,

But instead we're,

We're,

I feel like sometimes we're doing it the other way around,

Right?

We're trying to find ways to make money and not looking what is already here and what is already inside us.

And,

And somehow,

I don't know,

It all becomes a search for external things instead of looking inside,

I suppose.

Definitely.

And money is energy,

You know,

And if you're always exerting all of your energy on looking,

Looking at like,

Okay,

How do I make money,

Right?

You have energy.

You're putting a lot of energy into trying to get more money,

Which is like energy,

When if you focus your energy within yourself to boost your energy field and to enhance your physiology and to feel the best you,

Like to feel healthy and to feel healthy and to feel rejuvenated,

You get to put your,

Now your full energy into getting money,

But in such a more simple way,

Rather than thinking about so many different things on,

Okay,

If I don't get a job now,

I'm going to have to pay for my rent.

I'm gonna have to figure out how to pay this loan,

This and this and that and that,

Boom.

And then,

Wow,

Now where are you?

You're totally not centered.

And so our energy is so dispersed with money in that way is what do I have to spend?

Where do I have to spend it?

Rather than where's my next paycheck going to come from?

Right?

Yeah.

And it's also what you say we,

We lose so much energy with thinking about things and not doing things,

Right?

Yeah.

Right now,

What is your,

Like,

When you get up in the morning and you do your meditation practice,

What do you do?

Do you focus on the breath or do you have a specific method?

So,

Yeah,

That's actually sweet.

I've never been asked about my own personal meditation.

And so,

First thing in the morning,

Yeah,

I'll sit down and if I'm,

If I'm feeling a little off,

Right,

If I'm feeling a little tired,

Or if my energy field is just kind of funky,

I'll like light some sage or put on some incense,

Like in a humidifier,

Something to just calm me down.

Yeah.

And so for the first like 10 minutes,

It's all breath.

It's how does my breath feel?

Checking in.

How do you feel this morning?

How do you,

How does your body feel?

And then going,

Okay,

Cool.

Now silence the mind.

Completely stay in a meditation.

I want no thought,

Just breath,

Just space.

And then once I come out,

I start bringing awareness back into my body.

And then,

Then it's affirmations.

I am healthy.

I am love.

I'm courageous.

I am fruitful.

I am dedicated.

I have a purpose.

Just very strong affirmations of to boost,

Not my ego,

But just to boost my emotional state,

Like to feel one with the universe,

Right?

And then hands,

Hands at heart center and I bow the chin and I set an intention for the day.

What do I want to conquer?

How am I going to do that gracefully?

And I give thanks.

Just,

Just,

You know,

Being grateful for waking up,

Being human,

Being in a beautiful house,

You know,

That I live in and I'm going to,

You know,

I have roommates,

So I'm not saying I live in a very gorgeous house or anything.

I'm just in my room,

But you know,

I'm just being grateful for the little things.

And I'm,

And so my meditation practice is just,

Okay,

It's completely quin time.

There,

There are different kinds of yoga,

Like Kundalini yoga,

Or I'm not,

I'm not very familiar with yoga.

Okay.

So I'll let it all up to you to explain it,

But what is the kind of yoga you practice and teach?

So I specialize in Vinyasa flow.

And so Vinyasa is just incorporating your breath with your movement.

So with every inhale,

You lengthen the spine,

You either reach,

You become long.

And as you exhale,

You relax and you fold.

And so what this is doing is just tuning yourself in.

All right.

Where's,

How is this breath moving into this next sequence?

Right.

You're just kind of,

So yoga means to yoke or union,

To unite mind with body and mind and body with spirit.

Um,

And so it's very intentional based yoga.

I love,

I love taking my students and myself inwards throughout my practice,

Um,

To completely be in your own space,

To breathe with love,

To breathe with compassion and to move with the universe.

It's just,

You're manifesting,

Um,

Um,

Our physical consciousness through yoga.

Um,

And so we hold a lot of stress,

You know,

In our bodies.

And so,

Um,

All these asanas just open up our energy systems.

So opening up the hips,

Opening up the hamstrings and allowing,

Um,

The prana or the energy force,

Life force to flow up and down your spine to connect the mind with the body,

To allow those nerves to become decalcified.

If you want to say that,

You know,

And,

Um,

And it's,

It's a cool philosophy with yoga too.

You have like,

Um,

The,

You have peace to yourself,

Uh,

Which has been in the yamas and the yamas,

Which are peace that you give to the world.

And it's a cool little philosophy of just compassion,

Um,

Non stealing,

Non-harming,

Um,

Keeping things simple.

It's,

It's cool spiritual like lessons that are so simple,

You know,

And,

And on the mat,

You get to experience every single one of them.

You get to experience how to be compassionate to yourself.

You get to experience how to be compassionate to your significant other,

To your,

Your group mate,

Um,

To your partner at work.

Um,

You,

You learn that,

Um,

To resent,

To resent an asana,

Right?

To,

To feel like,

Oh,

This sucks.

I hate being in this pose.

Well,

That's completely beautiful in itself because you're teaching yourself that you're staying,

You're being negative in the present moment.

You,

You aren't enjoying the present.

And so even though that these asanas can be super difficult and super challenging,

It takes you off the mat into life when you're in a difficult situation or a difficult circumstance.

What are the teachings in yoga to come back to your breath,

To surrender to the pose,

To allow it to happen as it is without,

Without creating something that it's not,

To just observe and to,

To just watch,

To be,

To be the observer for one moment or for one moment in your life to just observe without trying to control everything,

You know?

And so yoga has taught me a lot about finding my authenticity in my practice,

Um,

You know,

And in myself,

Like there's a spiritual side to me and there's,

Um,

A fun side to me and there's a humorous side to me.

How can I take all of these and put it into one?

Like where,

Where do I fit?

Like who am I,

Right?

And how,

How do I want to,

Not how do I want to,

But how do I feel most comfortable presenting myself,

Right?

Like just to be myself,

Just to be.

And,

Um,

Yoga has taught me just to be and it's,

It's beautiful.

And so my practice consists of a lot of,

A lot of breath work,

A lot of movement.

I really like arm balances.

Um,

I don't,

I don't teach that because I'm teaching at NAU right now,

Uh,

Northern Arizona.

So I,

It's kind of an all levels yoga.

So I can't really throw some arm balances in there with students who are coming in there and go,

What?

I didn't want to do this,

You know,

So,

Um,

And,

And it's a fun,

Fun journey that,

Uh,

Yoga has taken me on.

Okay.

Well,

It's super interesting.

I mean,

Um,

I love learning more and more,

Uh,

About yoga and it's really cool cause,

Um,

Yeah,

I've been talking with some,

Uh,

Guests now about it.

So I'm happy to talk about it with you.

And actually,

Um,

Right now I'm wondering what is,

What is the book that is next to your bed?

What are you reading?

It's called,

Uh,

A New Earth by Ed Cartoli.

Oh yeah,

I know.

Yeah.

And so,

Uh,

One of my,

Actually,

Um,

One of my yoga instructors recommended it to me and I didn't know it's from Ed Cartoli cause he's by far,

Um,

One of my favorite authors,

Like the power of the now and,

Um,

All these beautiful books that he written.

So when I was reading it,

I was like,

No way,

It's from Ed Cartoli.

That's awesome.

So yeah,

It's beautiful.

It's beautiful.

Awesome.

Yeah.

I also read a power of now.

I think that was one of the first books that got me back onto the whole path,

So to say,

Or journey.

And it's really,

He has a way of,

Of making the present moment very,

Uh,

Uh,

Straightforward,

Right?

Oh yeah.

It's like,

Um,

It's,

It's just clear.

It became clear to me what he's talking about.

I also gave the book to my mom and she loves it.

And I feel you can give that book to so many people and they will just,

They get it.

It's,

It doesn't make it very complicated.

There's no,

Um,

There's no weird lingo going on where you have to first learn all the installations of the stars and the movement of the galaxies to understand the name of a God.

And then,

You know,

It's like,

It's,

It's very straightforward and I love that.

Yeah.

And it's so funny that you said,

Um,

That that book,

Um,

Kind of brought you back onto your path.

Cause it's funny that that was the first book I read after my,

Um,

My medicine or my,

Uh,

Psilocybin journey.

Yeah.

That was the first book in,

In that book,

I was crying.

I mean,

Literally crying in every chapter of just awe because it made so much sense.

It resonates with your spirit.

I mean,

To anyone that reads it,

Whether you're Christianity,

Buddhism,

Judaism,

Whatever you are,

Like if you read that book,

It really is like,

Wow,

You're right.

Yeah.

All we do have is the power of the now.

Yeah.

And it's so cool.

I also love the,

Um,

Like sometimes I remember reading the book from Dan Harris and,

Um,

Uh,

He also shortly talks about Eckhart Tolle.

And I think it's funny because Eckhart Tolle does say something about a new consciousness.

And I don't know,

I find that very interesting to sometimes see this,

Um,

You know,

What we talked about previously,

The,

The,

The capability of you directing your focus to something else than maybe what your even evolutionary system wants you to be busy with.

Uh,

Why,

Right.

Which is reproduction,

Making money,

Getting food,

All these,

Like,

It's just survival and you tapping out of that system,

Not completely tapping out of that system,

But just also cultivating a new system.

I,

I just love that idea of this new,

Well,

I mean,

That's,

That's the title of the book,

Right?

A new earth.

A new earth.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

If you think about it,

Um,

You know,

Going back to our ancestors,

We were so connected to nature and then all of a sudden,

You know,

We,

Some very brilliant people came along and started inventing,

You know,

Automobiles.

And then we started building upwards into psych skyscrapers and we started repopulating the earth exponentially,

Um,

Creating new technology to connect us even deeper,

But to disconnect us as well,

You know,

To connect us to the internet,

But then to disconnect us from ourselves.

So now we're coming into such an age where technology is not a problem.

We have that,

But now we're,

We're kind of missing something.

And I think this,

This raising or rising consciousness is,

Um,

Us coming back and getting in touch with mother earth,

With,

Um,

With spirit,

Right?

With just what we're here to do.

And that's not to create and to build more,

But now it's like,

Okay,

We've done that.

Now let's use what we have in like reuse,

You know,

And we're staying like,

Um,

Yeah.

And so I think,

I think with all of this,

We're,

We're raising our consciousness and our conscious awareness of like,

Okay,

Man,

What's important.

Is it,

Is it this iPhone that,

You know,

I constantly look at,

Or is it my real relationships around me?

I think people are coming to terms with that.

So yeah,

Super interesting.

It's a good book.

Um,

For anyone listening right now,

What would you give as an advice to anyone listening?

Like what,

What is on this journey that you've gone on from,

Um,

Let's say the awakening to the,

Uh,

The yoga that you're now daily doing and practicing?

What,

What is one of the big lessons that you've learned that you would like to give as an advice?

Um,

Yeah,

That's,

That's an awesome question.

Well,

That's it.

Yeah.

The awesome opportunity,

Um,

To give,

To give my heart.

So it's going,

It's not going to be,

Um,

The easiest because,

Um,

For me at least,

Uh,

I was so,

All I had was love to give.

All I had was my happiness and I just wanted,

Um,

Everyone around me to experience what I was experiencing.

Um,

And so what I was doing is I was telling people,

I was trying to explain what was going on,

Um,

And I was kind of forcing it on to other people,

Not forcing it,

But to be like,

Yo,

This is so crazy.

Um,

Like,

Do you understand that?

Like,

We're just nothing but energy.

And people would look at me like,

What?

You know,

Like you can't.

And so to just,

To know that whatever is manifesting and is being created within,

Um,

Only to tell the people closest to you and that you trust because,

Um,

There will,

There will be critics,

There will be people who judge you.

There will be people who call you fake and call you names.

Um,

But that's their own ego.

That's their own problem.

And to just focus completely on yourself and that the experience that you're going through is taking you in a beautiful,

Beautiful direction and to follow it and to trust it and to just to,

To engage with it fully because we have this one life.

Um,

We were born into this moment.

We are going to die in the next moment and to look back and to,

To just know,

Man,

Did I love fully?

Did I give my happiness to the full potential?

Did I free myself from materials?

Right?

Like,

And my number one takeaway is just follow your path and screw whoever tries to make you feel bad about that because it's your path and it's not there.

It's not their business.

It's completely your path and to do it fully.

Yeah.

It makes a lot of sense.

Well,

Thank you for that advice and,

Um,

Thank you for joining me on the podcast.

It was great talking.

Yeah,

It was awesome.

Awesome to talk to you as well.

Thank you.

Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast if you enjoyed this talk and thank you for listening and have a great day.