Season 3 Episode 4: Time For Some Radical Responsibility

In this episode I get a little spicy, contentious even. This one is all about were we can begin to take radical responsibility for how we live, the energy we bring, the interactions we have, the choices we make. You might not like what I have to say, but its true-in the end it starts and finishes with us. I hope you enjoy the episode.

If you have any comments, questions or anything you would like to hear about related to this podcast, I'd love to hear from you.

Please feel free to message me on Instagram or email me here: info@shraddhayayoga.co.uk

You can follow me on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/shraddhaya_yoga/

Or why not find out how we can work together with Yoga & meditation classes, courses and 1:1 coaching here: https://www.shraddhayayoga.co.uk/

With love and light,

Helen xxx

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Explore the special practices. Can I help heal and elevate us physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually in an ultra modern world together or deep and our practice, explore the connection to divinity and our own in the landscapes. With the help of special guests, guided meditations, how to, and all of so much more. Yoga has the incredible power to challenge your life at every level. And it all begins with stillness. Now let's begin. Welcome to season three, episode four of the podcast. Um I really feel like season three has got off to an amazing start. I'm so excited for what's to come as well. And I really want to say welcome to any new followers, subscribers, listeners here. Welcome to this space. Um, welcome to this little yoga community we have globally. Um, I so appreciate you, each and every one of you that hit the play button. Um, each and every one of you that share it with someone who say, Oh hey, listen to this. You are my dream, thank you. And um community are is so important, so so important. So I am fresh from uh Saturday, um, it was a very busy weekend. I was working all weekend, so I'm feeling a bit foggy-headed this today. I'm gonna have to get the rest of the afternoon off. But Saturday afternoon, evening, we had our second community kirtan here in Wellingborough in a little place called Finden. And for those of you that aren't local, um it's a really beautiful little place called the Mission Room, and it's uh it's an old church building, but it's not attached to a church. It's really interesting. I don't know the full history, but it's really, really old, and it has the most a the most beautiful acoustics actually for a small space. Had a high ceiling and the sound just bounces around beautifully, but it's just very cute and it's very oldie world y with stone steps, uh, wooden beams on the inside, lovely high windows that let in loads of light, and it's just perfect for yoga, and it's perfect for kirtan. Um, so I'm on a high from that, it was really beautiful, and we're really starting to build a really lovely little community, um, which is so so important. And for those of you who don't know, I've moved here only in the last I moved here last December, so I'm getting to know local people more and really settle into this area, and I'm loving every minute. So, again, if you're listening and you're local, thank you, thank you, thank you. Hand on my heart. I you mean the world to me. Um so yeah, so here we are, episode four, season three. We've had uh last episode, uh Tamara Kachira Levinson was just blew my mind actually. I really hope you enjoyed that episode. She's incredible. She is coming back on once she's done her anger course. I cannot wait to speak to her about that. I just think it's going to be absolutely fascinating. Um, and I have some other lovely guests in the pipeline as well. Um, but today I wanted to talk to you a little bit about something that's kind of on the top of my mind. You know, I like to do that, I like to talk about things that are really relevant in my life in the here and now, and it's really relevant in terms of our practice, living as human beings on planet Earth, our our growth, our self-development, our progress, our spiritual journey. And I think it's super super relevant now that tech is actually encroaching on every single aspect of our lives, and this is the fact that we are completely beholden to our nervous system, like it or not, we are beholden to it, but we are also responsible for it, and this is where it gets a bit spicy, and you might argue with me, so feel free, please. Um, I'd love to hear from you. I I love a good debate and discussion. So, what do I mean by this? I mean we are beholden to our nervous system because, for example, this morning I was on Instagram, I did a story about Kirtan, about my class this week. And because I'm a dog lover and have two beautiful rescue doggies, I follow Niall Harbison, uh, the Irish guy that's runs We Are Happy Doggo in uh Thailand. He's saving street dogs, he's doing incredible work. If you haven't checked him out, check him out. Um, and he was posting, and there's a story there about a dog called Bear. Now, my dog is also called Bear, and this poor beautiful dog uh is paralyzed and had been found by a sweet Thai local who didn't know what to do. The poor dog had been lying in his own feces for days and days and days, couldn't move, was starving, really on the verge of on the verge of death. And the recording of this dog screaming out in pain, oh, it could make me cry now, uh, jumped onto my screen and and the the sound of this dog, I can hear it now, took me right into that space. So initially I'd been in a space of quite kind of relaxed joyfulness sharing, and then up on my phone comes this sound of a dog in absolute agony, despair, terrify, you know, absolutely terrified. You can see if you watch the video, this poor dog who who, by the way, just to settle your nervous system down, is now in hospital and getting treatment. Um, it's it's still on a knife edge because he was so poorly. They don't know if he's going to pull through, but he's showing signs of slight improvement and has eaten a little bit of food. He looks much better. And my dog bear is is stood by my feet and he hears this sound, and his eyes are like, Oh my god, where is this? Where's this sound coming from? Who's in pain? So immediately my nervous system goes, Woo! Because I am a sensitive person, I'm an HSP, and the deeper I've gone into my yoga practices, the more sensitive I have become, and I don't see that as a bad thing. I just have to live in the world a slightly different way to some other people, and I'll talk about that in a moment. Um, and then suddenly, you know, we've gone from being joyful and feeling fairly relaxed to oh my god, this poor animal is in pain, which to me is total, I feel it in my whole body, and I'm like, oh my god, my heart's racing, and I go into a stress response. And then the image is gone. I watch the rest of the story, but I'm still in a stress response, and I'm still I'm feeling quite shaken and upset, and kind of like, whoo, blimey, you know. And that's what I mean by being beholden to our nervous system. Our nervous system, as you know, is is an amazing gift, and it's not to be uh villainized. We should absolutely celebrate it for its incredible, the incredible mechanism that it is, the incredible survival um tool that it is. I mean, it our nervous system is incredible, it's beautiful, it's it's amazing. But we live in a mental world. I'm sorry, I shouldn't use that word that way. We live in a very um over-stimulating, overwhelming, overloaded world with a way too much information thrown at us. And this is where we have to take a little bit of responsibility for our own nervous systems. Now, this is not only by the things that we watch, the things that I've talked spoken about this before, the things that we consume. So, you know, social media, the news, the programmes we watch on TV. I am unable to watch really violent films anymore. I just I can't watch them, they don't make me feel good, I don't see the point. Um, it just really, really stresses me out. I'm there in that film experiencing it, and it absolutely drains me and makes me feel really, really horrible. So I don't do it anymore. Um, so it's not just um the things that we consume on social media, it's not just the news, but also entertainment, um, TV, films, cartoons, YouTube, documentaries, um, all of these things. Music, music is massive. There are certain kinds of music that I will not listen to because of the the vibration, the frequency, the feeling it gives me. Um, and I want to just caveat this by saying I am not someone who's risk-averse, in fact, the opposite. Um, and I'm not someone that shies away from hard things. So I don't live in a little world made of cotton wool, but I do have quite specific boundaries. So I've travelled a lot, I've been really lucky to travel quite a lot through Asia. Um, I've been to India and I've seen people living in real poverty. You know, I've I've seen walk through, observed um, you know, extreme poverty. I've seen, you know, the massive divide of the world. So I'm not someone who shies away from the difficulties in life. In fact, the opposite. But I do protect my system from overload, especially like daily overload. And this is where the responsibility part comes in. Now I also want to add in something, this is the spicy bit. One of my teachers, Carolyn, who, as you know, was my kundalini global teacher. Very I keep using this word spicy, I like it, I've got it off. Um, someone else that I was watching on Instagram and I like it. I like the word spicy, I think it it really, it really works. Um she used to say, if you're not regulating your nervous system, it's like going out into the world with a loaded gun in your pocket. I just want that to kind of land with you. If you've not heard something like that before, just to kind of land with you, because when I first heard that, I was like, oh my god, this is interesting. So, for example, if you're heading into, like I have recently headed into what I knew would be a difficult conversation, and I had the best of intentions, and I tried to reassure the person that I was having the conversation with. Um, it was a family member, and I tried to reassure them and I tried to be calm and level, and I tried to enter into that conversation with a nervous system that was grounded, that was safe. Even though I was still a little bit nervous, I held myself in safety. This is what the hold yourself program that my baby that I'm gonna be talking about very soon on an episode. If you're interested, watch this space, you're gonna hear more about it soon. So I held myself in safety, I did I did the work to feel regulated, to feel calm, to feel like okay, I'm ready for whatever is gonna happen before I entered into that conversation. And knowing that the other person wasn't going to be able to do that, and knowing from past experience that it's not gone well, this you know, conversations with this person have not gone well. And this is where so we can take responsibility for what we consume, we can take responsibility for what we look at, what we listen to, the voices we hear, the people we share our time with. This is a really big one, the rooms we enter, the communities we're in, um the opinions we listen to, and we can also take responsibility for holding ourselves before we take a difficult or enter into a difficult conversation or take a difficult action. Now it doesn't mean it's gonna be perfect. In fact, in this conversation, I got started to get really angry. It it had gone on and it gone on and gone on, and then I just felt myself starting to go beyond a point. I'm a human being, I'm deeply flawed human being, by the way. Aren't we all? And I said, look, I need to put the phone down because I'm getting really, really angry, and I don't I don't want to get really really angry, and ended the conversation. But because I'd prepared myself before, afterwards, I'd felt much more grounded. I did some work to get that anger out. Um, I did some breathing, I did some noise making into pillows. So that instead of directing it at that person, I directed it somewhere else. I moved my body, I shook it around, I gave myself, I ate some food, I gave myself some time, and I didn't do anything else. I didn't speak to anyone else, I just was quiet still after the movement, and then I felt much more grounded. It's really when you when I first heard that phrase, if you're not regulating your nervous system, it's like going out with a loaded gun. It really made me look at people differently, and you might disagree with this, but it really made me look at people differently, and it made me look at essentially myself completely differently, in light of the fact that this means we have a certain degree of personal responsibility for our emotions and for our reactions, and I fundamentally believe this. It doesn't mean that we're going to be zen and perfect all the time, in fact, the opposite, but it does mean that the more we practice that emotional regulation, the more we meditate, the more we do our breath work, the more aware, the more self-aware. You know, I'm always banging on about awareness, but it really is it's central to everything. The more we do that, the more that we can actually come back quicker to a regulated state, and actually when these reactions start coming up, when you start feeling feeling the rage, um you're more able to come away from it quicker, you're more able to recognize it quicker, and you are more able to just pause in that moment and take a breath. Um, and hey, listen, I want to be really clear here that I think human emotions are beautiful, all of them. As we were talking with uh Tamara in the last episode, we this is part of a massive part of what makes us human beings, you know, uh fear, anger, joy, love, you know, all of the plethora, what a lovely word, plethora of human emotions. They make us human, they are part of what we are. And at no point am I saying we should suppress them, the opposite. At no point am I saying we should not express them, I'm saying the opposite. But what I am saying is that we have we have a responsibility to ourselves and to those around us to regulate our system, and you can see it all around the world at the moment. There are a lot of very angry, a lot of angry people, a lot of people that don't feel like they're being seen or heard, which is a massive trigger for me. A lot of people that are have unresolved traumas, emotional stuff that's not being expressed, and this can come out this is the loaded gun. You know, if you're not and this is the difficult piece because if you haven't started a journey of self-inquiry yet, then you will be unaware, you will be unaware of these reactions. And where do you begin? So if you if you're you know walking around with a black cloud over your head and really not feeling great in your life, really not happy with your work, with your relationships, just everything is feeling really shitty, and you're just like, ah, you always need to bring it back to the one common factor in your life, in your relationships, and that's gonna be you. And that's gonna be hard, really hard. You know that time where you just go, okay, what part do I have to play in this interaction? What part do I have to play in the consequences, the effects of the life that I'm living? What is my part to play in the life that I am creating for myself, for my children, for the people around me? What is my part to play in the energy I bring into a space, the voice I bring into the world? What is my part? And I would say that that's the essential first question when we begin self-inquiry, like what's my part in this? And that's not to take on the responsibility of the world, that's not to then crush yourself with blame and shame. No, no, it's it's actually to empower yourself because this is the really beautiful thing about taking personal responsibility for your actions, your reactions, your nervous system. It is deeply, deeply empowering because enable us to develop self-awareness. When we sit on the mat and when we do our yoga practices, our asana practice, our breathing practices, all of them help us develop our sense of awareness. They help us to watch and listen. Yoga is all about observing, listening, becoming the witness to yourself, so that then we can be a bit more objective, so that then we can create space between the mind and the body. We can know that we're not our thoughts. We can know that we're not we're not our emotions. Our emotions move through us. There are different parts of us that feel different emotions at different times. Just like Tamara was saying in our last episode, and I've spoken before about parts work. You know, Tamara was talking about a village within us. I love that analogy, and I've done some parts work therapy, internal family systems, which basically is brilliant. If you haven't tried it, it's absolutely amazing that we are made up of so many different parts. One part of you at one part time could be feeling angry, another part of you is feeling okay about it, another part is feeling humiliated. So all of these practices deepen our awareness, and then the magic of yoga, and then when we go into our pranayama, breath work practice, um, and our asana practice, particularly when we do meditation, relaxation, they all work on the nervous system and they all help some more than others, and some are very specifically good for this. Um, on regulating your nervous system. I used to be completely unaware, unself-aware. I literally feel like I was walking around with a blindfold on, and then slowly, bit by bit, bit by bit, bit by bit, you start to learn more about yourself, you start to see, and the more you can see how you're acting, how you're being, how you're living, gives you agency because then you can create change, then you can go, okay, what do I need to work on? What is my part to play, and how can I change that? Because if you don't know what your part, your role to play is in your life, or the things that you know you're not happy with that you want to change, how can you change that? So, this is where the responsibility comes in. I am responsible for the way I live my life, I'm responsible for the way I choose to react, engage, respond. I am responsible for my own emotions as much as possible. Perfectly imperfect, remember? Always perfectly imperfect, and then we can really start to work on boundaries, regulation, all of these things. So, my invitation for you with this short episode is to look at areas of your life where you feel really stressed. Look at areas of your life that cause you anxiety. You may suffer from anxiety, um, chronic anxiety, and that's quite different. Again, that hold yourself is perfect program for you, um, if that's you. But from day-to-day life, what are the what are the conversations, what are the what are the actions, the conversations, the people, the places, the things that you listen to, the things that you watch, where you can actively feel yourself reacting, whether it's a stress response, whether it's fear, whether it's anger, whether it's you know, any of these negative feelings. And start to look at what you could do to create change. Perhaps it's how you check in with yourself before you have that conversation, like I shared with you, how you treat yourself, how you talk to yourself, how you check in with yourself, how you care for yourself before that difficult work, maybe it's a work conversation. How you look after your body, how you regulate yourself before and after, so that you can come away going, you know, I did the best that I could, I was prepared as I could be, I was as calm as I could be, might not go to plan, like mine didn't, but that's okay. Perhaps it's what you watch on TV, you know, if you're watching stuff that's full of crime and violence before you go to bed, and then wondering why you'd wake up in a bad mood or you're having nightmares or you're just not sleeping, getting grumpy with your partner because there's knock-on effects of all of these things. What can you put into place that would help you create change around that? And now listen, there are things that some things that we cannot avoid, there are some things that we cannot prepare for, but this is the beautiful cumulative effect of all of these yoga practices of a deep self-inquiry practice. Is it when you do practice on a regular basis, when life throws its stuff at you, because it will, that is just life, isn't it? When life throws its stuff at you, you will be far more regulated, far more able to handle it. You will react far less, you will respond far better than if you hadn't done any practice at all. The effects don't go away, they stay with you. The more you practice, the more effects you have. It sounds kind of boring and simple, and in many ways it is. You do the work, you get the benefit. You take accountability, agency, you empower yourself for change, you take responsibility, and you get the benefit. There's no blaming anyone else, and there's no shaming yourself, but there's a really critical balance in between, and it's about empowerment for change, positive change. It's about accepting things that you can't control, you know, just like the serenity prayer. My mum always had that up in the downstairs toilet. Love that prayer, and the things that you can and the things that start with you will end with you, where you're the common denominator. What can you take responsibility for? These, my friends, are my questions to you, and I'm gonna leave you there, and I wish you a really beautiful rest of your day. Thank you so much for listening to the Be Still and Notice podcast. I really hope you enjoyed this episode and perhaps it even added something to your life. If you know someone that might benefit, please share this episode with them, and of course, a review would be so much appreciated. Please find all the information relating to this episode, including relevant links, in the show notes, and until next time, sending you so much love and light on your path to yoga.