Notes from Yoga School 🧘🏽♀️🏫
3 biggest lessons from my time in Yoga Teacher Training 🐍🌚✨
Hello darlings! This past May I had the privilege of being able to complete a 200 HR Yoga Teacher Training at Durga’s Tiger Tantra School in Quito, Ecuador.
It was a month of 6:30 AM meditations, daily 3 hour sessions of Kaula Tantra Yoga, ecstatic dance, and theoretical sessions like Psychology of Chakras and Intuitive Anatomy.
But some of the most interesting bits happened in the yoga school of life in the few weeks after the experience was complete. The real challenge of course was in the art of applying the lessons and continuing the growth from a blissful month long retreat on the sacred Ilaló, in weaving this all into the chaos and mundanity of my regular life, in continuing to ride the tiger 🐯
Today I’ll be sharing 3 universal lessons/takeaways from Yoga School (and the yoga school of life)
If you don’t want to read about Tantric Yoga but rather want to experience it, I’m excited to share that I’ll be teaching twice a week virtually (Sundays/Thursdays) and I’d love fo r you to join me on the mat 🙏🏽 Check out yogawitharohi.com to learn more. First three classes are free with code THREEFREE.
Here at THE RADICAL BADDIE, you’ve been with me as I’ve traversed through a Dark Night of the Soul. You’ve been with me as I come to terms with accidentally spiritually awakening from my yoga practice and resulting encounters with the Dark Feminine. You’ve seen me try to spin words around the meaning of suffering and pain.
Through these experiences and writings, I’ve come to the conclusion that
The reckless violence and growing inflammation of our globe is fueled by our collective disembodiment
Collective liberation requires Mind-Body-Planet alignment and healing our Ancestral/Collective traumas
The path to healing these interlocking complex traumas is through Indigenous Wisdom and Embodiment
The last few months I had the startling realization that I had in fact emerged from my Dark Night of the Soul. Like the escaped prisoner from the Plato’s allegory of the cave, it was time to face the light and walk the path! And there’s no other way I know how to begin a path than as a student. So I went to Yoga School 🙏🏽
3 Timeless Teachings from Yoga School
1. “Breath is the gateway to the body’s intelligence.”
- Merve, one of the head teachers at Durga’s Tiger School
Science is catching up with the ancient knowing that our quality of breath determines the length and quality of life.
Some snippets from "Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art" by James Nestor:
"The greatest indicator of lifespan wasn't genetics, diet, or the amount of daily exercise, as many had suspected. It was lung capacity."
"Breathing isn’t just about the exchange of air in and out of the body. It’s a marker of our state of mind and a source of energy."
"Many chronic conditions are preventable, and they can be improved or sometimes eliminated with proper breathing practices."
It was interesting then to have 30 days of a luxurious amount of time and exploring a variety of exercises to bring awareness to breath. And I was surprised to find new levels of clear-headedness, calm, focus. I felt more steady and grounded. I felt more and more like myself.
As life inevitably throws curveballs and you have to surf chaos, I find coming back to my breath as *the* way to return to center. So I can be a zen surfer of chaos.
HOW TO PRACTICE BREATHING:
Notice where your breathing typically resides, practice breathing more deeply into the belly/lower back (diaphragmattic breathing enhances oxygen exchange and strengthens the respitaroy system)
Breathe through your nose, not your mouth (mouth tape at night!!)
Sloooowing down your breathing
Breath holds help you build your CO2 tolerance
Exhaling longer than inhales activates the parasympathetic nervous system, helping you relax and reduce stress
Staying hydrated helps facilitate smoother breathing!
It’s not just what you do on the mat, it’s bringing awareness to breath when you’re stressed, overwhelmed, when you exercise, through your daily routines. Woo baby this is the stuff!!!
If curious about what luxurious breathing experience might be like, you’ve got to check out the Tantric Yoga I’m teaching on Sundays.
2. If the Mind and Body are inextricably connected, then we should probably meditate while we move and in stillness.
Most of us, when we think of meditation, we think we have to do it “right” and “properly.” Sitting still, sitting up straight, finding a good posture.
I would say this is just one way to meditate. There’s actually a world of options of activities we can do mindfully. And if you’re in a state of functional freeze, the traditional way of meditating may actually exacerbate your symptoms.
Movement can help us get things unstuck in the brain that the brain can’t work through on its own.
As a creative, certified yapper, baddie with anxiety, I can find sometimes that my thoughts get away from myself. When I go on a walk and absorb the non-silent silence in the metropark or unfurl my mat and get some stretches in after sitting and working for a while, all while bringing awareness to my breath, it’s far more effective at achieving a state of calm in the body *and* mind then just simply “doing” guided meditation.
But the best is not only when I feel better but when a problem I was working through or a decision laced with uncertainty have unraveled themselves after I’ve literally moved my way through it.
Something I heard from my family a lot around a practice is, just do it for 5 minutes. I always thought it was a silly thing to say because what benefit can you get from anything when you only do it for 5 minutes.
I think what they really meant was that if currently you have zero awareness of your breath or finding mindful movement in your day, then even doing it for a minute or two, even doing it half-heartedly, it still helps you build a tiny bit more muscle memory, an inch more from which to grow your practice.
HOW TO PRACTICE MINDFUL MOVEMENT:
Begin to notice if/when you disassociate throughout the day and specifically through your movement/exercise practice. Practice finding center through awareness of the breath.
Walk barefoot in the grass
Play music that you can’t help but dance to
Bring mindfulness to your daily domestic activities - cooking, gardening, cleaning. There was a trend on tik tok where people play medieval tavern closing music to set ~the vibes~ during the nightly re-set clean at home lol like this is exactly what I’m talking about
Walk or move or lay down in restorative positions when you listen to guided meditations
3. A spirituality embodied is one of substance.
I always thought spirituality emerged from the strength of our convictions and reside in the beliefs in the mind.
All of us, whether we call it spirituality or not, hold onto a set of values, beliefs, and stories. Whether we’re aware of it or not, this core foundation of ours guides every experience we have in life.
In our society that has come to value reason, evidence, (white christian male) rationality over other modes of thinking and seeing the world, humanity has largely lost its awe and reverence for the mystery of life.
The ancient mystic traditions taught that some things are not meant to be understood in the Mind. They’re meant to be felt in the Heart. They can only be experienced by the Body through practice, through ritual.
Growing up, I’d watch my Nani day and night without fail complete an Arti, a short ritual ceremony with incense, a bell, mantras, greetings and care for the idols on her altar. I used to think she was a blind worshipper, rolled my eyes at the silliness of it all. When she’d tell me that it was worth going through the motions of a ritual even if I didn’t fully believe in it, I thought, well then what’s the point?
My nani is someone who wasn’t loudly shouting her deeply devotional religious beliefs, on quest to conquest and convert through prostelyization. She was someone whose spiritual practice and religious discipline was deeply personal - it guided her daily practice, navigate the ups and downs of life, helped her find steady calm
She walked the talk.
Her spiritual hygeine translated into her life’s work and being in service. She earned a PhD in Child Psychology while most women in her generation didn’t have the opportunity to learn to read and write. She spent her life devoted to teaching children through music, play, stories, and love.
HOW TO PRACTICE EMBODIED SPIRITUALITY:
What is your current spirituality? What are the laws and rules in nature you believe in? How do you see the world and your place in it? Here’s a great set to start from:
A snipped from a really incredible book I’m reading called Anatomy of Spirit by Carolyn Myss How does what you believe in, talk about, and put into practice align or misalign?
What are the stories you tell about yourself? About the world?
When you look at your Life Wheel Map, where is there alignment, where different areas of your life are supporting each other? Where is there tension or disharmony?
Commit to your spiritual hygeine. These are the daily rituals you engage in to find your center, cleanse your energy, raise your frequency.
Consider that if the Mind, Body, and Spirit are connected, then the mindful movement I discussed above in Lesson 2 can help us find glimpses of the divine. What are the movement practices that help you experience glimpses of bliss, ecstaty, total relaxation?
Weave ritual, play, and conscious connection through your daily life
To re-cap, Breath, Mindful Movement, Embodied Spirituality. These were the most satisfying lessons from my yoga teacher training. Do these resonate with you? How do you practice mindful movement? How do you encounter the divine through your body?
After I completed my training I was supposed to start teaching in Nicaragua. When I arrived, they told me a yellow fever vaccine after my time in Ecuador. They promptly put me back on a flight in Miami, a city I lived for 6 years.
When the government entry requirements were unclear, the vaccine was $400, I realized the universe was pointing me elsewhere and I ended up landing up at my parent’s house in Toledo.
Instead of moving forward, the Universe sent me back to where it all began 🌀🏡
It was disorienting at first. My daily routine was out the window, I had lots of unexpected events, trying to figure out where to stay in Miami after a day of flights were cancelled due to bad weather. Through it all it was my breath I came back to, to find a sense of flow and ease and trust that everything would work itself out despite the current stress.
Then even after I came home, it took me a minute to fully get comfortable in the transition. But I had my mindful movement practices to come back to. The first day I went outside and laid out in the grass and listened to the birds chirping and wind blowing and realized I hadn’t felt that much peace in a long time. All of the anxiety of trying to make Nicaragua work dissolved, and I realized I’d been given an opportunity to pause, rest, and then begin again.
Even when my faith in the world and my own spirituality is relentlessly tested by escalating political turbulence and violence around the globe, I found respite in my silly little rituals and practices. I found comfort being around my family and eating good food.
When I was having a tiny panic attack after the supreme court rulings last week my mom reminded me that the world has always been this shit and now we just have front row seats to it on our phones and through the internet. She was right. I went outside and touched grass, and came back to center.
Life is weird, y’all 🎢🤸🏽♀️ The horrors persist, but so do we.