Speaker 1: Pushkin. On the face of it, moving your body should
Speaker 1: be a really good New Year's happiness goal. Most research
Speaker 1: shows that exercise makes us feel good. In fact, one
Speaker 1: study showed that a half hour of cardio a day
Speaker 1: could be as effective for reducing symptoms of depression as
Speaker 1: taking an antidepressant medication. So I should applaud the fact
Speaker 1: about half of us intend to exercise more in the
Speaker 1: new year. The problem is, I worry we're kind of
Speaker 1: not doing it right. For many of us, hitting the
Speaker 1: gym isn't about enjoying ourselves or feeling better. It's about
Speaker 1: looking better. It's about not really liking our bodies and
Speaker 1: trying to get them to look like the ones we
Speaker 1: see on Instagram. But could there be a more compassionate,
Speaker 1: more happiness inducing way to get our bodies moving, and
Speaker 1: one that could help us achieve a bigger well being
Speaker 1: boost than we think. Of course there is, So if
Speaker 1: you're ready to learn how to be happier through a movement,
Speaker 1: then join me doctor Laurie Santos for this final New
Speaker 1: Year episode of the Happiness Lab. You know, I think
Speaker 1: that there was a time that I did really enjoy movement.
Speaker 1: This is another one of my heroes, Jessamin Stanley, I
Speaker 1: used to love just like running around in the yard
Speaker 1: and like run a lap and ask my mom to
Speaker 1: time me just so that I can know how fast
Speaker 1: I am, or like I would just try to turn
Speaker 1: cart wheels just because I can. Jessaman's childlike love of
Speaker 1: moving her body was pretty short lived, because, like me,
Speaker 1: Jessaman grew up as a chubby kid. Or she puts
Speaker 1: it even more bluntly in her book Everybody Yoga a fat,
Speaker 1: occasionally smelly, supremely awkward weirdo. Jessaman quickly learned to fear
Speaker 1: all things fitness, like Jim class and that awful lineup
Speaker 1: where you get picked for dodgeball teams, and that trauma
Speaker 1: inducing eight year old rite of passage of situps, pushups,
Speaker 1: and sprints the Presidential Fitness Test. I don't know if
Speaker 1: this is a thing for you if you did this
Speaker 1: test in grade school, but I remember that a component
Speaker 1: of the Presidential Fitness Test was running a mile, and
Speaker 1: I was the very last person in my class to
Speaker 1: the point where, if memory serves like, either one of
Speaker 1: the other kids in my class or the teacher came
Speaker 1: back to join me, and I was so mortified, and
Speaker 1: I felt so totally insufficient, and that directly impacted me
Speaker 1: never wanting to do sports at all. I used to
Speaker 1: on the way to field day in school, like try
Speaker 1: to look for holes in the ground so that I
Speaker 1: could turn my angle in a hole, so that I
Speaker 1: could claim that, like, oh, my angle hurts, and now
Speaker 1: I can't do field day. I went out of my
Speaker 1: way to not do physical exercise as much as possible
Speaker 1: because I was so worried about keeping up with other
Speaker 1: people and really just at a bare level being good
Speaker 1: enough and hating your body when it came to kind
Speaker 1: of gym class and the presidential fitness contest. That was
Speaker 1: part and parcel of not liking aspects of your body
Speaker 1: and your identity generally when you were growing up, right exactly,
Speaker 1: I definitely felt as though I was insufficient that as
Speaker 1: a fat black woman, I didn't see any representation of
Speaker 1: my body at all where my body was not the punchline.
Speaker 1: And this was in the era of like Jennifer love
Speaker 1: Hewitt and Christina Aguilera and the Olsen Twins, and there
Speaker 1: was definitely this very pervasive idea that being small bodied,
Speaker 1: small featured, having a blonde hair or brunette hair. Basically,
Speaker 1: just having like really straight hair was very important, but
Speaker 1: certainly not having dark skinned, big lips, really kinky hair.
Speaker 1: None of those qualities were represented, and so I just
Speaker 1: felt there was something fundamentally wrong with me, And honestly,
Speaker 1: I felt as though would always be something fundamentally wrong
Speaker 1: with me, that really, even if I did lose weight,
Speaker 1: those changes would never be enough because I just fundamentally
Speaker 1: was not good enough. Even if you weren't a fat kid,
Speaker 1: you may be able to relate to this sort of
Speaker 1: low grade self hatred. Jessman's talking about that deep sense
Speaker 1: that there's something bad about you that you need to fix.
Speaker 1: We feel deep down that will only be happy once
Speaker 1: we've lifted enough weights or run enough miles to get
Speaker 1: that new idealized body. But all of that is a
Speaker 1: lie that your mind tells you. And that's the important
Speaker 1: lesson that Jessamin Stanley learned, one that she now teaches
Speaker 1: to millions of people around the world. Her early furays
Speaker 1: into the world of fitness involved all the body hating
Speaker 1: that many of us are feeling when we make that
Speaker 1: got to exercise more New Year's resolution, But she was
Speaker 1: able to break free from all the body shaming in
Speaker 1: a way that transformed her career and her overall well being.
Speaker 1: But as you'll hear, her journey wasn't a quick one.
Speaker 1: My very first yoga class when I was in high school.
Speaker 1: My aunt at the time was obsessed with bihorn yoga,
Speaker 1: which is a style of hot yoga where you practice
Speaker 1: twenty six of the same yoga postures over a ninety
Speaker 1: minute period. Jessuman's aunt, Tracy was the epitome of nineties glamor.
Speaker 1: She was tall, and beautiful and everything teenage Jessaman thought
Speaker 1: she wanted to be, so, despite her reservations, Jessiman joined
Speaker 1: her on for that first ever yoga class. I remember
Speaker 1: it like it was yesterday. I went into the studio
Speaker 1: and it is extremely hot. It's like somewhere between one
Speaker 1: hundred to one hundred and four degrees, kind of depending
Speaker 1: on how sadistic the teacher is. Immediately I walk in
Speaker 1: and I'm just sweating in places that I didn't even
Speaker 1: know human being sweat, Like I was sweating from the
Speaker 1: tops of my fingers. And this is before anything has
Speaker 1: ever happened like this is there's no postures have been practiced.
Speaker 1: And I was like I gotta be in here for
Speaker 1: an hour and a half. And I mean I made it,
Speaker 1: let's say, a third of the way through the class.
Speaker 1: I think I'm being too generous with that, but I
Speaker 1: made it about a third of the way through the
Speaker 1: class where I was like, I'm done. I don't need
Speaker 1: this anymore. I'm good. And they're telling you before you
Speaker 1: go to a become class not to walk out of
Speaker 1: the room. But I was like, these people don't know me.
Speaker 1: I cannot do this, so like I'm going to die,
Speaker 1: And so I walked out of the room and I
Speaker 1: learned a very important life lesson about why you should
Speaker 1: not walk out of a hot yoga room, because the
Speaker 1: transition in your physical body is so intense going from
Speaker 1: hot to cold that temperature change can bring on a
Speaker 1: lot of different physical experiences. And for me, it brought
Speaker 1: on a wave of nausea, and after when we left,
Speaker 1: I was like, I'm never doing that again, and this
Speaker 1: is the worst. It's bad experiences like this that discourage
Speaker 1: so many of us from making exercise a regular and
Speaker 1: fun part of our daily routine. We can feel ashamed
Speaker 1: or humiliated by our bodies and abilities, or just discouraged
Speaker 1: because the esthetic changes we so desire don't materialize right away. Fortunately,
Speaker 1: Jessamin got a second chance to find joy in moving.
Speaker 1: I was in graduate school and I was going through
Speaker 1: a really tough time in my life that I now
Speaker 1: recognize is emblematic of being twenty three, Like I don't
Speaker 1: know who I am, what is the purpose of my life?
Speaker 1: What's going on? And one of my close friends she
Speaker 1: had gotten into Beak from yoga, and she was like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, you should come to yoga. You're gonna
Speaker 1: love it. And I was like, I am not doing that.
Speaker 1: I've done it before. I know it's not for me.
Speaker 1: And she got me caught up on a group on though.
Speaker 1: She was like, what's the worst that can happen? You
Speaker 1: go one time? You paid thirty dollars for this past, Like,
Speaker 1: what's the worst that happen? And I went. And the
Speaker 1: interesting thing about Beacom yoga specifically is that I think
Speaker 1: of it as the McDonald's of yoga. It's literally like
Speaker 1: you could go anywhere in the world and get this
Speaker 1: practice exactly the same. So nothing had changed. It was
Speaker 1: still hot as hell, hard as hell, everything about it
Speaker 1: was the same. But I had changed, though I didn't
Speaker 1: realize that so much of what was making me unhappy
Speaker 1: and unsatisfied in my life was that I'd created all
Speaker 1: of these boundaries for myself, and I made all these
Speaker 1: decisions about the type of person that I am and
Speaker 1: about what I'm capable of handling, and I never allowed
Speaker 1: myself to step outside of those boundaries. And yoga requires
Speaker 1: that you step outside of your boundaries, and it put
Speaker 1: me in these situations where I actually had to look
Speaker 1: at the way that I talked to myself and look
Speaker 1: at the way that I process information and be like,
Speaker 1: you know what, I know, I decided that I'm not
Speaker 1: going to be able to do this, but maybe I'm
Speaker 1: just going to try. The example that I think of often,
Speaker 1: especially that first class back, I remember, we were practicing
Speaker 1: a posture called awkward pose that is literally it's so
Speaker 1: aptly named because it is extremely awkward. I was watching
Speaker 1: everybody around me just like to sit down into this posture,
Speaker 1: and it looked like they had all practiced it together beforehand,
Speaker 1: and be from yoga, you look at yourself in the mirror.
Speaker 1: So I'm looking at myself in this mirror, and which
Speaker 1: is traumatized on its own because I literally would go
Speaker 1: out of my way at that stage in my life
Speaker 1: to avoid mirrors. I went out of my way to
Speaker 1: not look at myself, but I'm forced to look at
Speaker 1: myself and looking at myself, and I'm just thinking, like,
Speaker 1: why did you even think you could come to this class?
Speaker 1: Like you obviously don't know what you're doing, and everybody
Speaker 1: here knows it, and you can't even do this basic thing.
Speaker 1: This is like maybe the third or fourth posture in
Speaker 1: the class. I'm like, if you can't do this, then
Speaker 1: why even show up? And I had this moment where
Speaker 1: I was like, you know, you could just try. Maybe
Speaker 1: you just try, Like yes, maybe you're gonna fall down,
Speaker 1: Maybe everyone in the room is going to know that
Speaker 1: you don't know what you're doing, Maybe the teacher's gonna
Speaker 1: know that you don't know what you're doing, And maybe
Speaker 1: that's just got to be okay, because did you spend
Speaker 1: this money to come to this class to just stand
Speaker 1: here and talk shit about yourself? Because you could have
Speaker 1: done that at home. And that moment that breaking point
Speaker 1: to this day. Ultimately, that is why I can and
Speaker 1: you to practice yoga. It's a cracking open of the spirits.
Speaker 1: It's being able to I think of a lot of
Speaker 1: like it's like you're looking in a foggy bathroom mirror,
Speaker 1: a mirror that you fogged up, and like just swiping
Speaker 1: across it and seeing your actual reflection back at you.
Speaker 1: And it was so profound for me in a way
Speaker 1: that I certainly didn't walk into class thinking I was
Speaker 1: going to experience. Jessaman's insight of noticing how she was
Speaker 1: really talking to herself kept her going back to that
Speaker 1: hot studio. But eventually her group on ran out and
Speaker 1: she was out of work and out of money. She
Speaker 1: couldn't afford the yoga classes that were teaching her so much,
Speaker 1: and she started backsliding to that bad emotional place. But
Speaker 1: she decided to fight back, and so literally one day,
Speaker 1: I just rolled out my mat in my living room
Speaker 1: and I like push. I had to push all the
Speaker 1: furniture out of the corner of the room. And I
Speaker 1: really didn't feel confident practicing any postures that were outside
Speaker 1: of the postures that I knew. So I would practice
Speaker 1: the same, like eight to ten yoga postures from the
Speaker 1: Beacons sequence, and that just became my medicine. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: do this yoga and I feel comfortable doing this without
Speaker 1: a teacher watching me. This is great. But then over time,
Speaker 1: you know, I became more and more obsessed with the
Speaker 1: practice and wanting to try out postures that I saw
Speaker 1: on the internet. This was back whenever Instagram like first
Speaker 1: came out, because I was practicing at home. I wanted
Speaker 1: to be able to receive feedback from other people. But
Speaker 1: I was also very scared to take photos of myself
Speaker 1: because I was so afraid to look at my body.
Speaker 1: And when I first started taking the photos, I would
Speaker 1: take them at really random angles. I'd be like, no,
Speaker 1: I think this angle is my good side, so I
Speaker 1: can shoot it from here. But after a while, I
Speaker 1: was like, I can't even see my body, Like I
Speaker 1: have to do something. So I had a timer set
Speaker 1: up on the camera. I have like thirty seconds to
Speaker 1: hold the posture while it takes four photos. And in
Speaker 1: that moment when I'm in the hostre, I'd be like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, yoga is amazing. I feel incredible. I
Speaker 1: am lifted up to another place, and then I would
Speaker 1: go and look at the photos and I would just
Speaker 1: immediately start talking shit about myself. I'd be like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, look at my belly. Look at my arms,
Speaker 1: look at my chins, Like every negative thing, that everything
Speaker 1: that I thought was negative was getting picked at and scrutinized.
Speaker 1: And it took a really long time, like I would
Speaker 1: say months before I started to really question that. And
Speaker 1: I would be like, no one else is here saying
Speaker 1: these things about yourself, like I. You know, we always
Speaker 1: want to blame the media, and I want to blame
Speaker 1: my family, and I want to blame my partner. That's
Speaker 1: why I hate myself. No, I'm looking at these photos,
Speaker 1: I am saying these awful things about myself. This is me.
Speaker 1: I have to own that. And if I'm the one
Speaker 1: saying these things about myself, are these things that I
Speaker 1: really believe about myself? Like it turned into this whole
Speaker 1: space for therapy that again, I didn't go into it
Speaker 1: thinking like, yes, I'd like to have any or emotionally
Speaker 1: complex relationship with my higher self. No, I was just like,
Speaker 1: this is dumb. Like I hated that aspect of it.
Speaker 1: But it really opened up so much for me in
Speaker 1: terms of just being able to understand where self hate
Speaker 1: resides and that it's something that I have to own
Speaker 1: as an individual. It really helped me to understand that
Speaker 1: I am a body shamer at my core, Like how
Speaker 1: an alcoholic is an alcoholic forever. I am a body
Speaker 1: shamer forever, and all I can do is just be
Speaker 1: aware of it. I can just know it and see it,
Speaker 1: and I have to accept it about myself. But I
Speaker 1: think that had I not started that practice of photographing myself,
Speaker 1: then I would never have started that conversation. When we
Speaker 1: return from the rake, we'll try to figure out how
Speaker 1: being ashamed of our bodies and exercise got so intertwined,
Speaker 1: and how we can all begin to separate them out again.
Speaker 1: The Happiness Lab will be right back Through photographing her
Speaker 1: own fat body and tough yoga postures, Jessam and Stanley
Speaker 1: began to realize that fitness could be about feeling good
Speaker 1: and loving yourself just the way you are. In the
Speaker 1: years since she's turned this simple insight into a mission,
Speaker 1: she's now a world renowned yoga instructor, an author of
Speaker 1: the book Everybody Yoga, Let Go of Fear, Get on
Speaker 1: the mat, Love your Body. As one article put it,
Speaker 1: she's now become famous for everything. Yoga instructors are not
Speaker 1: supposed to be black, queer, messy, unapologetically fat, and she
Speaker 1: swears a lot. Jessamin has used her yoga practice not
Speaker 1: to achieve some perfect body, but to accept and allow
Speaker 1: her imperfect reality to be there just as it is,
Speaker 1: and in doing so, she's realized that a more self
Speaker 1: compassionate approach to exercise can be an important way to
Speaker 1: boost your health and your happiness. When you look at
Speaker 1: people who are extreme athletes, people who run ultra marathons,
Speaker 1: they're not doing that for their health, like, they're not
Speaker 1: obsessed with that experience because it's like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: my body is going to look this way. No, they
Speaker 1: are working out deep psychological truth. So they're having a
Speaker 1: spiritual experience. And I think that the more that we
Speaker 1: can approach fitness from that perspective of just wanting to
Speaker 1: get inside yourself, just wanting to touch something that is real,
Speaker 1: it's really ultimately coming back to that experience of being
Speaker 1: a child, that experience of just running around the block
Speaker 1: just because it feels good, not because there's any kind
Speaker 1: of goal or any kind of expectation. You run around
Speaker 1: the block, you try to turn a cartwheel, you swim
Speaker 1: in the ocean, not because something is going to change
Speaker 1: about you, but honestly to honor who you are right now.
Speaker 1: And this is something that really isn't talked about in
Speaker 1: the main stream with yoga because in the mainstream yoga
Speaker 1: is only about fitness. It is postures that you practice
Speaker 1: for exercise. I think that what really shifted things for
Speaker 1: me was understanding that yoga is really a spiritual life path.
Speaker 1: I love to dive into some of these benefits because
Speaker 1: I think they're so powerful. So, I mean, one of
Speaker 1: these approaches about thinking of yoga not just as fitness
Speaker 1: but as kind of life changing is to recognize that
Speaker 1: yoga really is about mindfulness. It's about being present with
Speaker 1: whatever is going on. And this is something we talk
Speaker 1: about a lot on the Happiness Lab that being present
Speaker 1: even for negative stuff is good. Right. This is the
Speaker 1: kind of thing we need to do is to work
Speaker 1: on allowing and so, you know, talk about how that
Speaker 1: works in yoga, either as a practitioner as a teacher.
Speaker 1: When you're holding these postures that might not feel great
Speaker 1: in the moment, but the act of allowing that, like,
Speaker 1: how does that change you? It really, I think allows
Speaker 1: you to see life as being so much more than
Speaker 1: it's seen on the surface. Let's take a posture like
Speaker 1: chair pose. For example, you look at a posture like
Speaker 1: chair pose, and it's like, what do I need to do?
Speaker 1: I need to turn my thighs toward one another. I
Speaker 1: need to engage my core. I need to fall down
Speaker 1: backwards while also sitting upright. I need to lengthen out
Speaker 1: of the crown of my head. When I'm feeling challenged,
Speaker 1: when someone is pushing back against me at work, when
Speaker 1: I feel like someone is being mean to me, those
Speaker 1: are the same things that I need to do. I
Speaker 1: need to pull into my core. I need to try
Speaker 1: to fall down backwards but also stay upright. I need
Speaker 1: to lengthen up to the sky. I need to pull
Speaker 1: It's all of these ideas that seemed theoretical and that
Speaker 1: seemed like philosophical, but that are really actually very practical,
Speaker 1: And I think it makes it easier to deal with
Speaker 1: the parts of life that are really hard, really really
Speaker 1: hard and complicated, and that are not meant to be
Speaker 1: anything other than that. I think sometimes in life, bad
Speaker 1: shit happens and you think, this isn't how things are
Speaker 1: supposed to be. Things are supposed to be good. I'm
Speaker 1: supposed to be happy. This is wrong, and what yoga
Speaker 1: reminds is that everything in life is not good, everything
Speaker 1: in life is not happy. You need for things to
Speaker 1: be hard so that you can actually strengthen from the inside.
Speaker 1: So practice the things that you do when things get hard.
Speaker 1: Pull into your core, draw your butt, cheeks together, whatever
Speaker 1: the things are. Practice that in the moments that feel
Speaker 1: emotionally hard, and you will be strengthened as a result.
Speaker 1: In yoga, we talk about it as tap us and
Speaker 1: tap us as many definitions, but I would loosely define
Speaker 1: it here as fire, and that we step into this
Speaker 1: fire that is burning away the pieces of ourselves that
Speaker 1: don't to be there. And you think about how anything
Speaker 1: becomes strong, how anything becomes honed and and deepened, and
Speaker 1: it is always through intensity. It's always through things being
Speaker 1: complicated and messy and unpleasant, And really it's just are
Speaker 1: you okay with that? Are you willing to get okay
Speaker 1: with that? Are you willing to take the tools that
Speaker 1: you have in your arsenal to withstand that intensity. I
Speaker 1: love that you brought up chair pose in this capacity,
Speaker 1: because that is one of the poses that anytime one
Speaker 1: of my yoga instructors is like, let's go through chairs
Speaker 1: secretly in my head. My first reaction is like, I
Speaker 1: hate you, Why did you do that? Then I have
Speaker 1: to turn on the sort of voice that I talk
Speaker 1: about a lot on this podcast, my sort of stoic
Speaker 1: voice that says, no, I invited this. You know, this
Speaker 1: is a nice challenge, right. I didn't want to just
Speaker 1: go through this yoga class and just you know, flop over, right.
Speaker 1: You know, I invited this challenge so I could work
Speaker 1: through it and allow it. And so it's great to
Speaker 1: hear that that's such an important part of it. But
Speaker 1: for me, another thing that yoga gives me is it
Speaker 1: allows me to experience my body not just in terms
Speaker 1: of the way it looks, but in terms of what
Speaker 1: it can do. And that for me has really been
Speaker 1: a game changer. And it's one of the reasons I
Speaker 1: love following your practice and practicing with you. Right. You know,
Speaker 1: sometimes when we're engaging with any kind of activity, we
Speaker 1: can get sort of obsessed with how our body looks
Speaker 1: in that moment or what our body is supposed to
Speaker 1: be doing. And I think one thing about yoga is
Speaker 1: that it really allows you to sort of see your
Speaker 1: body flexibly to kind of understand better what it's doing.
Speaker 1: To pay attention to it in a way that I
Speaker 1: never had with any other kind of movement practice. But
Speaker 1: I think one of the things I loved about practicing
Speaker 1: with you we had this wonderful opportunity to practice together
Speaker 1: at a retreat in Montana, was that you also, as
Speaker 1: a teacher, really encourage people to listen to their bodies
Speaker 1: and allow their bodies to be however their body has been.
Speaker 1: One of the poses I've often struggled with is a
Speaker 1: gomu casana or cow face, where you kind of exactly
Speaker 1: squash your hips over one another, you kind of like
Speaker 1: leg over leg, and then you kind of bend over
Speaker 1: to stretch. And immediately when my body gets into that position,
Speaker 1: my stomach is in the way, and I take the bait.
Speaker 1: You know, it's so hard for me to be in
Speaker 1: that posture without saying like, oh my god, my stomach
Speaker 1: is so big, wise my stomach here, I'm doing it wrong.
Speaker 1: And the first time I did that posture with you
Speaker 1: in your class, you said, and if your stomach isn't
Speaker 1: in the way, move your stomach out of the way.
Speaker 1: You like, make space for your stomach, because your stomach
Speaker 1: is going to be there anyway. And this was like,
Speaker 1: you know, a bomb went offered my head of like
Speaker 1: wait a minute, Like I can still practice this posture
Speaker 1: with my stomach in the way, It's okay, Like it's
Speaker 1: good to take up space. And so you'll talk about
Speaker 1: the kind of freedom that you give to your students
Speaker 1: by kind of acknowledging that you know, yoga is for everybody.
Speaker 1: You know. I think that it is the great benefit
Speaker 1: of my life that I have had to learn how
Speaker 1: to love my body, learn how to love a body
Speaker 1: that society has actively told me to like because it
Speaker 1: allows me to have more empathy with the fact that
Speaker 1: everybody is having that experience or feeling like not good
Speaker 1: enough for that something is wrong with their body. Because
Speaker 1: when you started talking about that with Goma Cosana, I
Speaker 1: was just like, literally, the reason that I know that
Speaker 1: and feel that is because I feel the exact same
Speaker 1: way about that posture, Like it is one of the
Speaker 1: most challenging postures for me. It's something that I've been
Speaker 1: extremely critical of myself about and very judgmental, and it
Speaker 1: always comes down to just accepting it exactly as it is,
Speaker 1: exactly as I am right now, so that like maybe
Speaker 1: my legs are not crossing over each other entirely. Maybe
Speaker 1: I'm using a block. May I'm resting my foot on
Speaker 1: a block. Maybe my fingers are not pressing together. Maybe
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to even get my arms somewhere near
Speaker 1: one another. And that is okay. I am okay exactly
Speaker 1: as I am right now. And in addition to that,
Speaker 1: I think getting okay with exactly as you are then
Speaker 1: opens the door to for this idea that you were saying,
Speaker 1: taking up space. And that idea of taking up space
Speaker 1: has been a game changer for me because I don't
Speaker 1: know about you, but I really try to make myself
Speaker 1: small all the time. I'm like trying to take up
Speaker 1: as little space as possible. And it's not just physical space,
Speaker 1: it's emotional space, spiritual space. It's like I don't want
Speaker 1: to encumber anybody else by existing, Like I don't want
Speaker 1: to offend anybody else with my existence. And that idea
Speaker 1: talk about a pervasive idea. It seeks into everything. You
Speaker 1: can't do anything because you don't want to take up space,
Speaker 1: and so just allowing yourself practicing taking up space in
Speaker 1: the yoga practice the effects in the rest of your life.
Speaker 1: It resonates in a way that words can't express. It
Speaker 1: becomes about something that it's not just about a yoga
Speaker 1: posture at all. Like if you can practice taking up
Speaker 1: space in a physical posture, you can take up space
Speaker 1: on the rest of your life. And another way I
Speaker 1: think that kind of coming to terms with your own
Speaker 1: body and you're through your yoga practice can be really
Speaker 1: profound in terms of increasing your happiness is a way
Speaker 1: that it kind of connects you with the rest of
Speaker 1: the people out there, right, I mean, I think, you know,
Speaker 1: like allowing my body to be just as it is
Speaker 1: on the yoga mat allows me to see that everyone
Speaker 1: you know has these critiques of their body. You've talked
Speaker 1: about being you know, a permanent body sham or in
Speaker 1: body shaming recovery. But I think you know, secretly most
Speaker 1: of us are right. You know, if I don't like
Speaker 1: how I'm doing a pose, it means I just kind
Speaker 1: of share common humanity with like basically everyone that's ever
Speaker 1: tried yoga or done any fitness thing in their life.
Speaker 1: Or if you know, maybe you're perfect in the fitness realm,
Speaker 1: but in a different realm you're kind of feeling shamed
Speaker 1: and so kind of talk about what that sort of
Speaker 1: connection has done for you and your happiness as you've
Speaker 1: practiced more and taught this practice to others. God, it
Speaker 1: has been crazy. I mean I had so many assumptions
Speaker 1: about how other people experience life. I felt like it's
Speaker 1: only people who look different than the mainstream that feel
Speaker 1: uncomfortable with themselves. But the turning point for me, I
Speaker 1: hope I never forget, but knowing me, I probably will eventually.
Speaker 1: So let me say it now while I still remember.
Speaker 1: I was teaching in London and it's this huge class,
Speaker 1: like hot as all hell in there, and it was
Speaker 1: like we were really getting into it. So it's like
Speaker 1: it's sweaty, there are tears, lots of energy in the space,
Speaker 1: and we get to the final posture, a resting posture,
Speaker 1: and I had to pee so badly. It was taking
Speaker 1: up all of my mental space. I had to pee
Speaker 1: so bad, and I was like, I'm not going to
Speaker 1: be able to get out of this room before meditation,
Speaker 1: like I'm gonna have to pee on my mat. So
Speaker 1: I peed on my mat in this class, right, So
Speaker 1: I'm feeling all this. I'm feeling a lot as the
Speaker 1: the teacher, As a practitioner, I'm feeling a lot, and
Speaker 1: the class is over and people are coming up to
Speaker 1: say thank you and say goodbye, and this guy came
Speaker 1: up to me. He just looks like a like a model,
Speaker 1: you know, just like a very traditionally attractive cis het
Speaker 1: white guy. And he comes up and he's just like,
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I want to thank you for this class.
Speaker 1: It really needs a lot to me. I've been feeling
Speaker 1: so down on my body. And he just launches into
Speaker 1: this whole emotional tale of what's going on with him
Speaker 1: and his body. And I really hope that I processed
Speaker 1: anything that he was saying, because what I thought in
Speaker 1: the back of my mind was like, you have body
Speaker 1: issues too? Is every Wow? Like I was really like, damn,
Speaker 1: this isn't everybody problem You're like we think about probably
Speaker 1: because of the way that body positivity as a concept
Speaker 1: has been co opted as something that is only for fat,
Speaker 1: cis het women. But I think that because of that
Speaker 1: misunderstanding of like who needs to feel better about themselves,
Speaker 1: we miss that like everybody has this and this is
Speaker 1: a universal issue. In fact, I would argue that people
Speaker 1: who see themselves reflected in the mainstream are more likely
Speaker 1: to feel uncomfortable with themselves because they feel like they
Speaker 1: have to reach that standard in a way that if
Speaker 1: you don't see yourself represented, you can just be like, well,
Speaker 1: the options are, I can either get used to this
Speaker 1: or die. So I guess I'll just get used to it,
Speaker 1: And so I think that there's there's like a low
Speaker 1: key freedom there that can't get forgotten. But for me,
Speaker 1: it has been really transformational to understand that every problem
Speaker 1: that I have with myself is a universal problem and
Speaker 1: that everyone is struggling with themselves and it might not
Speaker 1: be struggling with your physical body. It might be struggling
Speaker 1: with something in your emotional life or somebody who's in
Speaker 1: your life. There's there's always something that is holding someone
Speaker 1: hostage from themselves. And really being able to understand that
Speaker 1: has been I say transformational, but that just feels so
Speaker 1: small to me because it has been. It's really changed
Speaker 1: my worldview because it makes me understand that if I
Speaker 1: am able to accept myself, then I can reflect and
Speaker 1: from their reverberate energy that allows for other people to
Speaker 1: accept themselves. So that the more that I can accept myself,
Speaker 1: the more that I can lean into my truth, the
Speaker 1: more that it can resonate in ways that I will
Speaker 1: probably never understand, Like I will never understand the impact
Speaker 1: fully of making space for even one person to be
Speaker 1: comfortable with themselves, because that person is going to influence
Speaker 1: another person and then so on and so on. And
Speaker 1: this is one of the most powerful concepts that we're
Speaker 1: talking about in this mini season, is this idea of
Speaker 1: self compassion, right, like kind of giving yourself some grace
Speaker 1: can feel selfish, but ultimately it's one of the biggest
Speaker 1: gifts we can give to the people around us, because
Speaker 1: if we allow ourselves some grace, that means that we're
Speaker 1: naturally extending grace to other people who need to give
Speaker 1: it to themselves too. I think that's one of the reasons,
Speaker 1: at least when we practice together in Montana, you ended
Speaker 1: your class with a wonderful phrase, and I thought it'd
Speaker 1: be a nice ending for this mini season on self compassion,
Speaker 1: about the light in me sees the light in you,
Speaker 1: but the darkness in me also sees the darkness in you. Yes,
Speaker 1: the thing man, because it's like it's not about changing anything.
Speaker 1: I was just saying to my partner the other day,
Speaker 1: like I would spend so much time trying not to
Speaker 1: accept something about myself and like just trying to change it.
Speaker 1: I'll be like, I don't need to look at that,
Speaker 1: because I'm going to change it. Whatever the thing is.
Speaker 1: It'll be like, yeah, I don't I don't need to
Speaker 1: look at all of that. I'm just going to change it.
Speaker 1: But how can you change it if you don't look
Speaker 1: at all of it? All you're doing is just making
Speaker 1: a bigger mess. And so really being able to see that, like, no,
Speaker 1: there is darkness inside of me. There is pure darkness,
Speaker 1: and I can see that darkness, and if I make
Speaker 1: space for it, I can accept that darkness. And the
Speaker 1: beautiful thing is that when I accept that darkness in myself,
Speaker 1: I can accept that darkness in somebody else, in everybody else,
Speaker 1: because it is in everybody else and there's no there's
Speaker 1: none among us that get away from that darkness, and
Speaker 1: that the darkness has to be there or else how
Speaker 1: could the light be there. There's this assumption that comes
Speaker 1: with being a person who's on a journey of self acceptance,
Speaker 1: that there's an assumption that like, oh, well, that girl,
Speaker 1: she's got to figure it out, like you figured out
Speaker 1: how to love yourself and how to be okay with
Speaker 1: everything and so, and I just do not find that
Speaker 1: to be the case. I think that I am on
Speaker 1: a journey for the rest of my life to accept
Speaker 1: what the universe has brought me. And I think that
Speaker 1: the more that I can just accept that it is
Speaker 1: an ongoing journey and that there will always be new
Speaker 1: ways that that journey looks, the more that I can
Speaker 1: accept that the better, because it's never going to end.
Speaker 1: I'm so grateful that I've discovered Jessimin's yoga practice. She's
Speaker 1: really helping me break that link in my mind between
Speaker 1: exercising and some dark urge to change my body. Nowadays,
Speaker 1: when I roll out my yoga mat, I'm trying to
Speaker 1: be more okay with how I look and to concentrate
Speaker 1: instead on how the poses make me feel. But that's
Speaker 1: because yoga is my thing. For you, it could be
Speaker 1: something different, running, hiking, cycling, it doesn't matter. What really
Speaker 1: matters is that the goal of exercise should be that
Speaker 1: it brings you some sort of enjoyment and happiness. It
Speaker 1: shouldn't be some panting, sweaty ordeal of self loathing. With
Speaker 1: January coming to a close, this is the final episode
Speaker 1: of our New Year's season, I want to thank all
Speaker 1: of the experts who came on the show. I hope
Speaker 1: we've convinced you that self compassion can be a much
Speaker 1: more powerful weapon in our happiness arsenal than most of
Speaker 1: us usually think that. Happiness Lab will be back this
Speaker 1: spring with more of our happiness lessons of the ancients.
Speaker 1: We look at what we can learn from the spiritual
Speaker 1: and philosophical thinkers of the past. And until then, I'll
Speaker 1: ask you to do just one thing, which is be
Speaker 1: kind to other people, but never forget the power of
Speaker 1: being kind, caring and compassionate to yourself. Dappinus Lab was
Speaker 1: co written and produced by Ryan Dilley. The show was
Speaker 1: mixed and mastered by Evan Viola, and our original music
Speaker 1: was by Zachary Silver. Special thanks to the entire Pushkin team,
Speaker 1: including Neila Belle, Maggie Taylor, Carl mcgliori, Heather Fame, Sophie Crane, mckibbon,
Speaker 1: Eric Sandler, Jacob Weisberg, and my agent Bendinis. Dapinus Lab
Speaker 1: is brought to you by Pushkin Industries and by me,
Speaker 1: doctor Laurie Sanchos.