How Yoga Principles in Motherhood and Life can Improve Your Well-Being with Janet Stone [Episode #855]

This week’s topic is: How Yoga Principles in Motherhood and Life can Improve Your Well-Being with Janet Stone

I am so excited to have my very special guest, Janet Stone, who is a global yoga teacher, sharing teachings from the heart. Through curiosity, devotion, and dedication she creates a unique approach to living yoga. Listen in as Janet shares how yoga can go beyond the physical aspect, the yoga journey of motherhood, tools to connect, feel and breathe into your own creative power, and so much more!

TOPICS COVERED

• Creating a sacred and holistic space in your own home…
• We discuss our yoga journeys and how our practices have shifted…
• How yoga goes beyond the physical aspect…
• The yoga journey of motherhood…
• Mothering and your sense of Self…
• Tools on how to connect, feel and breathe into your own creative power and expression…

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About Janet Stone

Janet’s studentship began at 17 under the meditation teachings of Prem Rawat. His reverence for simplicity and finding joy in the rise and fall of life live on in her practice and teaching today. In 1996, she traveled to India, the birthplace of her grandfather, and became dedicated to the path of yoga. Janet blends the alchemy of her own practice with decades of studentship. She aspires not to teach but to allow the practice to emanate from her, letting awareness blend with movement and breath. Based in Bali and San Francisco, she leads immersions, retreats, workshops and more.

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Other Podcasts you may enjoy!:

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Transcript:

Note: The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate. This is due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.

Kimberly: 00:00 Namaste loves and welcome back to our Monday interview show. I am so excited to share a very special conversation with you today with Janet Stone, who is a global yoga teacher. She’s based in Bali and San Francisco, but she teaches retreats, immersions, and workshops around the world, and she has for the past few decades, she and I actually had this conversation live in Mexico in early December when we were both teaching the Wanderlust retreat there, and we talk about how we bring this yoga philosophy into our lives, into motherhood, through the different transitions of life, including this juncture point where Janet is where her children are starting to get older and leave the nest, how we navigate change, and really live these principles. So I’m very excited to get into our show today. Before we go deeper though, wanted to leave a little reminder that we have so many resources for you over on our website, which is my sauna.com, M-Y-S-O-L-L-U-N a.com, which is our hub with podcasts, meditations, recipes, and articles, and so much is on there, so I encourage you to check it out as well as to leave questions for our Thursday q and a show. Alright, all that being said, let’s dive right into our conversation with Janet Stone.

Interview with Janet Stone

Kimberly: 01:38 It’s so nice to be with you, Janet. Thank you for coming on our show today.

Janet: 01:44 It’s the joy to be with you.

Kimberly: 01:45 It’s also this incredible place that we’re in just to acknowledge this jungle moment. Sometimes we don’t acknowledge and then we think, oh, that was amazing days later. But on the way over here from our room, we saw a monkey. My three-year-old was freaking out and just getting in the ocean. And then we saw the cenotes today. So it’s amazing to pause in life and come to this place and the retreat space and to be in experiential community.

Janet: 02:18 Yeah, it’s acknowledging what our surroundings are and our connection to nature. Yeah.

Kimberly: 02:24 It’s also interesting walking around how friendly people are. It’s like we come back to our true nature sometimes when we’re away. It’s this utopian sort of feeling where everybody’s saying hello and you get that when you go to India and certain places. But can you imagine if we were always living in this sort of retreat community, how different society would be the

Janet: 02:46 Power of the collective, the power of bringing our attention toward a particular direction

Kimberly: 02:51 Together. Yes. So do you enjoy Janet being on retreats for several days? I know you also in San Francisco, is it in the city, but do you really enjoy the getting away?

Janet: 03:05 Yeah. I absolutely love the balance, quite honestly, of having what we’d call a home sga. Sangha just means community. And in that presence of just showing upness, whether you’re high or low love or loss, birth or death, that we just keep showing up whether we’re crying on our mats, whether we’re laughing, whether we’re dancing around, whether we’re very serious about home. sga similar to here, when you walk into that space, people have come from all the tech jobs, all the restaurant jobs, all the various spaces. We come into one location and we’re looking in a particular direction. So you take that and you intensify it in an immersive, smaller space of a retreat or a training or an immersion or a pilgrimage to India. And we just come together. People are coming from all sorts of stories in their lives, wherever they are. They might be in a really hard chapter, they might be in a beautiful chapter, and we all show up.

Kimberly: 04:05 It’s beautiful to have that space to recharge. I’ll say for myself, this is the first time I’ve been on a retreat since I’ve been a mom, which is now seven years. My older son is seven. So it’s like sometimes we take these pauses in life and sometimes we don’t always get that opportunity. So like you said, creating home rhythms and home patterns, because those of us listening today that don’t have that chance to always get away, it’s something that you can create at home as well. Creating that sacred space and a holistic lifestyle and bringing that to your own home and your own life.

Creating a sacred and holistic space in your own home

Janet: 04:44 Yeah. It’s actually one of my drives is to wake up every morning and remind myself and others that it is the simple ritualizing of our daily lives. And it could be 20 minutes in the morning. It could be really doable and accessible, whatever it is in the context of our lives. I had two kids, I raised them on my own. I had one on the front, one in the back, and we would show up to places all around the world, but also we would just be at home in simple rhythms. And it’s reading time. And for me it’s journaling time. And I would set that time aside in the morning, and I remember for a while when my kids are around that age, maybe a little bit younger, where I would try to race them awake so I could have my meditation and my practice. And sometimes I give up and just incorporate them, and sometimes I would get up at 4:30 AM But just finding that way in which we can bring the sacredness of a beautiful space and a beautiful life and retreat and where we cut that time out, but have that in an incremental sense at home where we just drink a really full glass of water where we warm tea for ourselves. I mean, it’s the simple things that remind us to come back and really feel into the gift of this breath, this life.

Kimberly: 06:04 One of the things I was saying, Janet, in my class this morning around our cornerstones, we were talking about body and being present in the body and being aware is that when we’re on retreat, we can be hyper aware and really take in the colors and the senses, but how wonderful to take those teachings and bring them with us. So it extends and extends and extends. And I think there’s this natural, sometimes it drops off during a certain time, but just keeping that alive, breathing more energy into that fire where that’s how we see the retreat as an extension of our lives.

Janet: 06:42 You use the word breathing, and I feel like that is one of the cornerstones. That’s one of the key aspects of really bringing ourselves into the present moment, into the sense of awe with whatever is in front of us. And this is also why in the ancient teachings they have altars and whatever it is you put on an altar, an altar, really just a place to bring your attention and bringing your attention back again and again and again of like, oh, right, I’m here. I’m in this body. So using the breath to come home, body temple, of course. And we can have other particular things that inspire us that feel beautiful, that remind us of this time maybe you bring a little sand shell or you have a little something on your altar that reminds you of what is possible and the beauty of being here.

Kimberly: 07:31 Beautiful. So I always am interested how people came into yoga, their yoga origin story. And I know for me, I believe a mutual friend of ours said, oh, Janet also found yoga in India. For me, it was backpacking around the world and then not really having a plan to go to India, but ending up there for many months. And then sort of getting called in and we’ll go out into my story, but it really was in this Rakesh. And then finding Paramahansa Yogananda. My yoga is more just purely meditation based, but it really did come from India. So I’d like to hear a little bit about which juncture in your life. Did it come during motherhood before, earlier in life, did you grow up with yoga or however?

We discuss our yoga journeys and how our practices have shifted

Janet: 08:24 Yeah, it’s always, I’d love to listen to people’s origin stories of whatever their passion is when it came in, and to me it was my grandfather and three generations prior had been born and raised in Hyderabad, India. So there was an essence and return back to California. And I mean, he was the only one that returned as the family sort of passed away, and he came back. And so being around him and his sister, his mother, I got the essence. I mean, they were very steeped in the life and the culture, and I was in a very different world. But when I was 17, I definitely was searching. And that you hit that moment and you’re like, what is the meaning of all of this? And what are we doing? And I found my first teacher, he was a meditation teacher from India, and that’s when it began for me. So I came in through the pathway of meditation as well. Around

Kimberly: 09:23 17 you said?

Janet: 09:24 Wow. Yeah. Deeply and committed, but not the postures. That was not at all anything to do with it. And in the interim, I was traveling the world. I was in the film industry. I raced mountain bikes, I snowboard and raced snow. I just did all the life things that one would do. But I had a diligent, consistent impassioned meditation practice. He called it knowledge. And so I practiced this all along, and it was on a journey to India that not through folks from India, but through all these travelers that I met, started doing asana and spent time in the ashram. And I started just doing asana around. It just was kind of fin me as I was traveling around the world. It didn’t matter what country I was in, somebody was doing yoga and truthfully did a big journey and then got home in Los Angeles at the time and wandered into Brian Kess class. And I’d been doing Asana for a long time, and Max Strom and these incredible fun anchors of teachers, and ended up studying with Patabi, Joyce and Iyengar. And then I just was like, Ooh, what’s this? And I was still in the film industry, and it took quite some time for yoga to be like, Nope, you’re over here. You’re coming with us.

Kimberly: 10:49 And so how has your Asana practice and how you teach shifted and evolved? Did you get to your key practice that there’s yogis that stick with their one thing, or is it still dynamic all the time? It’s

Janet: 11:04 So dynamic. I’m 55 and it’s been incredible. I started when I, again, the meditation bar when I was 17, the Asana in my mid twenties, three hour practices, intense, all the focus on the pran as in doing it all and making very diligent, very serious, studied all the things, calie pie and all the different modalities. And then having kids, I was like, oh, I hope I can get 20 minutes in today. And then making a living. It was fully on me to make a living, and so support them and bring them up into this world. And now they’re 17 and 20 and it’s incredible. So it’s been an incredible evolution. Lots of things fall away, new things come in, old things return, and yeah, I think it’s a passion to really weave and integrate these practices throughout my whole life, every aspect of my life. Wow.

Kimberly: 12:04 Yeah, I love to hear that as well. The evolution in my life. I got into the meditation part as I shared, and then I got really into the asanas when I was living in New York City, and this was circa 2011. I actually knew Skyler Grant went to

Janet: 12:22 Kula. I used to teach there. I used to teach a Kula. Yeah, I’d come to town and yeah.

Kimberly: 12:26 Oh my gosh. And Dharma Micra more the BTI yoga

Janet: 12:31 Studied with him too.

Kimberly: 12:32 Amazing. It was just this big part of my life, learning the handstands and learning these shapes. And then about five and a half years ago, my mom got sick suddenly, or we just didn’t detect her cancer. And then she passed in six weeks. And it was my son, my older son wasn’t a year old yet, but when that happened, something in my body said, you need to walk. So I just started walking barefoot on the beach in the mountains where we lived, and I gave up my asana practice. And it wasn’t something that was mental, it was just that I was called to a different yoga. So I was walking and sort of grounding myself and going deeper into the meditation piece. But it’s interesting, as you said, these different iterations, we don’t plan for them. And who knows if it’ll come back one day for me, but for now, it just shed away.

Janet: 13:22 But it’s as if we think it’s something that we’re doing. Yoga is actually a state of being. So I’m heading up to India shortly and I’m bringing people with me, and we’re going on a pilgrimage, and I get the questions, when are we going to do yoga? I was like, oh, we’re doing it.

Kimberly: 13:39 It’s life. It’s here.

Janet: 13:40 Yeah. Yeah.

Kimberly: 13:42 And so it’s just, I think that surrender, because people always ask me like, oh, why don’t you do yoga anymore? And there’s this western mentality that Warrior two is yoga versus all the different limbs and the different components of it and living it and breathing it. So I’m sure that’s something that you’ve had to teach or reteach people that it’s not just this physical aspect.

How yoga goes beyond the physical aspect

Janet: 14:06 Well, even myself, if I’ve been injured or because we still have the egoic attachment to like, oh, then this means I’m doing the thing, right? So I have complete compassion and empathy for that understanding of it, not drive for it. And it is a fantastic exploration because yoga is an art and a science, so it actually is a science, and this is the current culture of like, oh, science says. And I was like, yeah, the science of yoga has actually been saying the breath work as pranayama and all of these different modalities. What time of day to wake up because the liver is going, what time? It’s actually been speaking to that for a really long time. I love that it’s having a resurgence under the umbrella of science, which is incredible. Please, let’s keep going. But I feel so gratified that people are coming to it through a different avenue. It doesn’t matter how you get there for that vitality, that health, I’m not really interested in living longer. I’m interested in living more potently and with more vitality. And so these sciences, if whatever door you come in through that you can find your way to a deeper breath, a deeper connection to body, to a deeper connection to spirit, let’s just say to sense of purpose.

Kimberly: 15:29 And some people need that. The discerning mind or the linear mind, the quantitative mind wants to believe. And it makes it easier to believe for some, when there is that scientific attachment or this studies involved or something of that nature. And like you said, all pathways in, it just opens up the field more, opens up parts more to come in, which is really beautiful. I love when you mentioned about your kids, and I can really relate to that really in it

Janet: 15:59 Right now. I saw I have

Kimberly: 16:01 Three and seven year olds, and there’s a certain, there’s so’s so many teachings that really come as a mother, as a parent, the presence, our children teach us so much. And then that equanimity and that not being folded and entangled in the chaos, it’s just this ultimate lesson. Then there’s other lessons that come as your children grow. I’ve even experienced this with my 7-year-old, like, oh, he’s not. I nursed till four. And then it was like, oh, he’s getting away a little bit. And so there’s this lessons in attachment. And by your older child’s 2020,

Janet: 16:41 Leaving the house, oh my goodness.

Kimberly: 16:42 How has that yoga journey of motherhood been for you?

The yoga journey of motherhood

Janet: 16:47 It is truly one of the most potent journeys and really represents what it takes to diligently stay in the practice around your parenting. And really what I mean by that is open hands. It’s all coming. It’s all going. And every phase you’re thinking, oh, this is the phase and this phase. And it’s all just passing through. And it shows us that we are also just passing through that. We have these precious moments together and we own nothing. And I think so many get their identity through what it is they do for a living, their parenting or mothering in particular. And there’s a lot of projection and transference, and that’s all human nature. It’s okay, but eventually you’re just like swaha, which is this great word in Sanskrit of basically, I release, I release, release into the great flow of life, the fire of existence, and they’re going to make all of these choices, and they’re such individuals. We get to just be along for the ride for a little bit and then just be like, okay,

Kimberly: 17:59 Was that challenging for you to learn these when the ego comes up? Because like you said, it’s kind of swaddled in, well, I’m a mother and all these identifications, which are beautiful, but at the same time, they are identifications. They’re ultimately not the true self. And was it confronting? I

Janet: 18:22 Think parenting is just confronting period, but there’s been a particular grace around it. I felt like when my eldest left the house, it felt like that moment before birth, if anyone can relate where you’re so uncomfortable, you’re just get out now. Yeah. You’re just like, it gets time. It’s goodbye. I’ll go through anything I have to go through to get you into the world. You’re just like, Ugh. Just that last little bit. And then that last little bit of time, it could be honeymoon, it could be super sweet, but there is a, it’s time. It’s time to, ooh, go into the world. And those happen all the time in parenting. It happens when they move from two to 3-year-old or they go into school. And then for me, having that stability of a practice and having the place that I anchor back into my own being and recognize that, of course we’re unified, all of us, but I am my own separate being. I just keep on keeping on and keep on breathing and keep on offering into moment to moment. And they’re going to have all their iterations just as you did as you were young. I did. And any listener here.

Kimberly: 19:40 And so as you said, just keeping that sense of self instead of my whole identity is being pulled into this, which I think can lead to a lot of suffering. And I see it in certain friends where if everything is being a mother and it’s such a beautiful thing, but at the end of the day, we all have our own soul journey. And so there’s this purpose to all of us being here, and part of it can definitely be in the mothering, but if that’s everything as they grow, then what happens to that sense of self?

Mothering and your sense of Self

Janet: 20:11 And we’re modeling, we’re truly modeling. And I always would, it would very challenging to bring myself back to remember what would I want for them,

Kimberly: 20:22 Right?

Janet: 20:23 I’d want them to live a full and independent and clear life, of course, loving and tending and doing all the things. But yeah,

Kimberly: 20:32 You talk about this creative power and this sacral energy, which we all have, and we’re able to direct it in different ways. So having kids and then in your practice or in your teaching and in your work, what are some of the ways, whether yoga or not, that you would encourage someone to really connect and feel and breathe into their own creative power and their expression?

Tools on how to connect, feel and breathe into your own creative power and expression

Janet: 20:57 Yeah, I mean, just by the nature of, if you think of it on a physiological level, you think of the synovial fluid. You think of the spinal cord fluid you think of as you relate to the pelvic floor and the pelvic bowl. I always think of it as when you’re swirling around a little marble in the pelvic bowl and just this energy that can come up because that’s actually physiologically what is happening when you tap into that space. And so whatever is maybe stuck or congested there or things that we brought down from our family or family’s family, things get passed down through the line. I mean into our bodies, the epigenetics, and we’re carrying all this, and then also our own lifetime. So releasing that and letting that flow up and through the heart and out into the world, whether through voice. I do a lot of work with voice, do a lot of chanting, a lot of oming because science says it’s good for you.

Kimberly: 21:55 And there’s a connection isn’t there, between the creative center and the throat chuah and this coming up and out of us. And I think it’s so important that we teach and acknowledge that there’s all these expressions for creative energy. We get a lot of questions in the podcast, especially from younger listeners. I think it can be a tricky time for women, especially because we have this creative power and then there’s different ideas coming up about sexuality and we want to express, and you don’t want to have shame, but then we don’t want to misuse the power again over identify that all I am is this physically attractive sexual being. So it’s an interesting time because it’s this energy, right? Yeah. All we’re playing with, and

Janet: 22:42 Yeah, I mean all of us are just crackling energy men or women or in between in the sense that men are, it’s been taught very linear and hold it, and it’s just this one thing and it’s like, oh, whoa, I can wait, awaken this creativity and move it in sensual, creativity, imaginative, intuitive, all of the stuff that can come up and through us is. And I really spent a lot of time going down because my whole life was very up and moving. If you’ve ever heard of Vata and the Aveda, it’s very creating everything running around. I have a lot of that too. So my teachers are down, down, down. And I always thought of James Brown that you got to get down to get on up. So it’s like this way of grounding the feet, walking barefoot on the earth and reconnecting to even the balance of our pelvis, whether it’s thrust forward or back, or how our femurs are asserting into our hips and hip sockets and the way in which we can have that carriage be something that sustains and allows us to get that connection to earth that comes up and through beautiful.

23:52 Because earth is just pure creativity. It’s pure beauty, it’s pure, and we are that.

Kimberly: 23:59 And that pureness can’t be put into a box, I think is the thing here. Whether it’s saying, oh, I’m a mother, or I’m this sexual identity. Those are components or how we, part of the ways in which we express, but we’re also just this pure energy that goes in many ways. So we don’t want to box ourselves in. And I think that’s with the women that feel like I’m just this one thing, or this is where my self-worth is. That’s where we limit ourselves.

Janet: 24:26 It’s the beauty of time person in the sense that hopefully if you’re around long enough that you kind of just go, oh, my value is actually not what I’m doing and not how other people are responding to me. My value actually comes deeply from within that I get this one brief moment here in this body, in this life. This is it. This is all I have that I’m waiting for something outside me to give me permission or tell me it’s okay. Not waiting.

Kimberly: 24:56 Janet, I’m a recovering perfectionist. Where my worth was in my grades, my achievements being number one and all these things, and weLearn sometimes where love comes from or how we get attention as children. So there’s this where I think yoga brings that presence of seeing our beliefs and our limiting beliefs so we can start to work with them and step away and not identify with them because it gives us that spaciousness. So it’s been this journey where now, oh, this wholeness, which is one of the reasons I talk about it so much because I know what it’s like to feel like I’m as good as my last report card or my last book’s bestseller list or whatever.

Working with limiting beliefs through yoga

Janet: 25:36 And people relate that to the last partner or what they’re being seen with or what they’re wearing. So it is very much out there in the world and really to come home to that space. One of the key tools in yoga is self-study, self-reflection, really starting to unpack all the labels and all the things that we have on us, whether born into the socioeconomic, gender, whatever the thing might be, that we are kind of wrapped in all these packages and the power of these practices just to kind of go like, oh, what? Oh, I didn’t know. Wait, what? This is on me. You just have, can I just unwrap these packages? And thus far, it’s a lifelong journey for me since I started really that inner exploration from the time of 17. Wow.

Kimberly: 26:26 Wow. And that’s not the norm. Still, like we said, more people are coming in, but more people would rather not look perhaps at this moment, the Netflix, the wine, whatever

Janet: 26:35 Helps to that. Oh, honey, the makeup. I mean, you have a million things that you can get yourself. I mean, we really have 1,000,000,001 1,000,000,000,001 ways to distract ourself and not come home and not sit with ourself and be in the discomfort and sit with the bubbling energy of emotions. And when we learn that we can be okay and come to the other side of just sitting with ourself, feeling alone, feeling unimportant, feeling bored, feeling insignificant, whatever it might be, pain, whatever it might be, it

Kimberly: 27:09 Passes.

Janet: 27:10 Yeah, it passes. And just to offer that gift to oneself so that maybe in other ways in your life you can offer it to others, it just turns down the volume of that discomfort and that grasping at everything to assuage that discomfort

Kimberly: 27:28 Do you find in yourself and in your students. The more you do that you just really let yourself feel. It gets a little easier to feel those tough sensations and emotions. It’s almost a life skill.

Janet: 27:41 It’s a muscle. We’re not

Kimberly: 27:42 Always taught that, right? We’re like, Ooh, ouch. I don’t like this. Let me jump into another relationship right away. Or let me try to lose 10 pounds. I don’t feel good inside of myself or whatever it is, versus being in it.

Janet: 27:55 It’s a muscle, for sure. Something to practice and getting support for.

Kimberly: 28:01 Yeah. One of your mantras, I believe, is compassion as a way of life. I’ve heard you say that you write about that. Where does that stem from, or can you speak a little bit about why this is one of your pinnacle sayings?

Compassion as a way of life and what that looks like

Janet: 28:17 Yeah. I mean, can you imagine if we just saw one another? Well, first, let’s go back to what we were

Kimberly: 28:24 Saying. So

Janet: 28:26 First we see ourself. We look in that mirror, we walk by the mirror. We have time alone. If we were to put down or if it was recorded, our internal dialogue, it’d be so painful. I mean, I almost get teary just thinking about what that internal dialogue can be and just turning that into a home of rewiring, into compassionate dialogue, internal kindness. And then that, of course is going to move out. We’re going to, without all this big effort, it’s going to be easy to be compassionate toward whatever it might be. Or someone who trips up or somebody who makes a mistake or someone who cuts me off or just understand, oh, they’re in a panic state.

Kimberly: 29:16 Compassion seems so heart-based. And then the mind, the ego though, says The judgment comes in and all the blocks for sure to compassion for ourselves. We start there and then other people,

Janet: 29:30 And some of it is brain wiring. It really is like retraining our brain toward ourselves and retraining what those little messages that come blurting out and those synapses that have been made to continue to go back to that, back to that, back to that, back to that. And it’s a reworking or rewiring, and it’s a different conversation. It’s like, I hear you. I hear you. It’s like you talk to a child like your inner voice and go, and we’re going to actually right now say something really kind to ourself, or we’re going to actually stop ourself from externalizing and projecting onto somebody else their intention and hold compassion for them and where they’re at.

Kimberly: 30:13 And so this powerful force, love in the BTI and devotional path, it’s so there. And then there’s other practices and other forms which may be seen as a bit more austere or cold, but just sort of getting to that place of equanimity and non emotionalism. Can you speak a little bit about love in your practice, in your personal practice and how you teach and the transformational aspect potential of yoga?

Janet breaks down the form of yoga that she personally practices

Janet: 30:46 Yeah. I mean, the form of yoga that I practice and try to share, do my best to share is really that. It’s taking all of the emotions and instead of pushing them away, saying, okay, and using that as a forest, there’s this beautiful story of the God, shiva, and this most noxious poison is bubbling up from below the surface into the ocean. It’s billowing out and it’s coming, and it’s this oil spill, whatever. It’s this massive thing, and it’s billowing out and it’s coming across and everybody’s running. They’re like, because one little tiny drop and everything is decimated, right? Shiva leans down, opens his mouth, slurps it all up, holds it in his throat, and begins chanting and turns that poison into this incredible power. And from that chant, this whole energy moves out across the world. I mean, of course it’s a story, but

Kimberly: 31:43 The transformational,

Janet: 31:45 The power of our most darkest shadows, painful bits,

31:52 Is the only way we really truly find that transformation. If we have everything locked away and pushed away, and it’s like, Nope, nope, nope, nope. That doesn’t mean we wallow in it. That doesn’t mean, or you can give it. Its time. You can give it, its due, but you let it like a wave, you let it come through and move that power. And then to me, those are the people that are most fascinating, the ones who’ve just seen them look themselves in the dark night of the soul and used all of that energy and power to move that into what they do, the way they love parent, interact, work, connect.

Kimberly: 32:32 Yeah, the darkness can be a great teacher. And it’s that contrast, right? We need the darkness to really feel and be in the light. Wow. I love how you put that as well. It’s something a lot of us try to run away from. But again, because we’re

Janet: 32:51 So busy or we’re doing that thing, we’re just not

Kimberly: 32:54 Taught it. You know what I mean? Just that presence. We want things to taste good and to feel good, and to be soft and cozy and wonderful.

Janet: 33:03 Yeah, that’s called raga. Raga is this desire to keep going, but it’s like let it all just be easy. And what we’re hearing now from science is that that is actually one of the most harmful things for us. If everything is just cushy easy, and we have it all just handed to us, and we don’t have the muscle of tension, of stress, of friction of our own inner coming awake. And again, I think it gives so much dynamic nature and depth to us.

Kimberly: 33:35 So I’m also really interested in teachers and people’s wellness practices and lifestyle, which is a lot of what I teach as well. I think that the way we live can also help. It’s a reflection. It helps to awaken us more and more to the true self. So I’d love to hear about, first of all, your personal yoga practice as a teacher. Do you mostly do self-practice? Do you like to go to other teachers’ classes? I know it’s always dynamic and shifting, so we’ll say currently?

Janet: 34:05 Yeah. Currently, yeah. I love to go to other classes, but I do most often. I travel a lot. Yes, I do a lot of self-practice. And really that has been a key discipline for me. And sure enough, I have fallen off that discipline from time to time, but I always come back, Aveda and very simple practices. I have the full Ayurvedic offering that I can do when I’m home and it’s all things are equal and I can really dive in. But when I’m on the road, I just have my key simple warm lemon water, tongue scraping oil polling, aga rubbing oil on the body, meditation practice. I do naly practice, pranayama practice. That is where you hollow out the diaphragm and you churn it. It’s really good for the peristalsis, but also clearing and also that muscle awakening in the lower body. And then just simple movements anywhere from the calori pie. I was telling you that I’ve studied the Southern Marshall Art in India and to other forms of more formed yoga, meaning to say, I’ve kind of created this very simple morning form, and I follow that. It opens up all the joints. It starts from Earth and goes up and back down again.

Kimberly: 35:25 So you’re not, was it racing the motorbikes anymore?

Janet: 35:31 Unless I’m in Bali, but I’m just racing the person next to me.

Kimberly: 35:35 And when you’re home, do you enjoy cooking for yourself, for your family?

Janet: 35:40 Shall I be honest? Please. I have a 17-year-old and a 20-year-old. I feel like I really went through the cooking era, and I’m definitely on the other side right now. I’m not in my cooking era. Yeah, I’m in a different era. I’m cook for me era. Please, somebody make me something. But

Kimberly: 35:57 Do you like cooking for yourself simply or would rather you just get

Janet: 36:00 What you like? No, I mean I will. I do it. Yeah. But

Kimberly: 36:03 It’s not something

Janet: 36:04 You, I’m just being honest. I don’t enjoy it presently. Well, that’s come back around. That’s it’s street. We’re

Kimberly: 36:08 Here on this retreat

Janet: 36:09 Where that’s someone else, this

Kimberly: 36:10 Amazing food, and we don’t have to cook right now. That’s a really nice aspect of being on retreats

Janet: 36:16 As well. It’s incredible. I mean, truly every time I don’t have to wash the dish, pick out the food, make the menu, make the food, it’s

Kimberly: 36:23 A lot of energy. Just

Janet: 36:25 Like I’ve just got to be honest, that’s not my vibe right now.

Kimberly: 36:29 And for me, it’s gotten really simple because I think there’s all this pressure to always come up with new recipes and all these things. And it’s simple. Doesn’t mean better. I mean complicated. It doesn’t mean better. It doesn’t mean that it’s healthier. It doesn’t mean that it has to. I don’t know. I’m not drawn to any of that for, we make one pot meals, we make kitchery, we make smoothies, we make things that are, my kids help me a bit. But yeah, I’m drawn to just increasingly more simple and practices.

Janet: 37:03 That’s actually the best for the body anyway.

Kimberly: 37:05 Yeah, it’s better for digestion and so on. So I love that you do aga. Do you do it in the morning? Yeah. Okay. I wish I had time in the morning. I know it energizes you. Sometimes I do it in the evening just to settle my nervous system.

Janet: 37:19 Yeah, I do dry brushing and then the AGA feels really good. Super good for circulation as well.

Kimberly: 37:25 So daily you’re working with your skin.

Janet: 37:27 Wow. Yeah, I had went through a bout of melanoma, and I think really from the, I mean, I was already doing various adic things, but I definitely dove in a little bit deeper.

Kimberly: 37:37 And because you’re teaching so much, because you’re out with people a lot in your spare time, would you consider yourself or you need how?

Janet: 37:48 Yes, that’s what I did Inward. Yes. Very quiet.

Kimberly: 37:53 Yes.

Janet: 37:53 You will not see me out at the big nightlife. No, you’ll not see. No, it’s very quiet.

Kimberly: 37:59 Isn’t that funny? Because I think a lot of us teachers, I’m like, okay, I can do this. But then we now have moved to very rural places where I don’t like to see a lot of people, and I dunno, it’s just very private and that feels very regenerative to me.

Janet: 38:16 I love the visual of the expansion and contraction, which is everything. It’s in all of our cells, and we move out and we’re out in it. And then I can feel the moment it’s just back inward and regenerate and then move back out, and then come home and regenerate. And whether home is just taking the kids, doing certain things, school, getting things done, really simple stuff, and then move back out. Some of these experiences are really big and they’re big energy and a lot of people, A lot of people meaning a lot of energy exchange. So yeah.

Kimberly: 38:52 So

Janet: 38:53 It’s quiet

Kimberly: 38:54 And where you are in your life, Janet, where I don’t say You’re done raising your kids, but

Janet: 38:58 No,

Kimberly: 39:00 They’re going to

Janet: 39:00 Start raising me soon, I think.

Kimberly: 39:02 But they’re getting close to not needing all your care and all your time and attention anymore. And you’ve spent so much energy on that and what you’ve been through as a single mom, and you’ve just created all these different things. So at this point in your life, do you feel like, oh, now I’m onto this whole new faith, my creative powers coming up? Or do you feel like now is a time more for me and going inward, my own spiritual growth and my own practices? I

Janet: 39:33 Think it’s a combination. It’s interesting. And they don’t feel like they’re at odds, which is good. It feels a little bit like, yes, I want to take slowly that energy is just kind of coming back to me as I have expended it outward toward them so much. It’s coming back to me, and I am excited for what it is that is new and what is being created. If any other woman is listening to this who’s of a certain age, you’re absolutely constantly being transformed. But definitely in your mid fifties or maybe some people in their mid forties all the way through, there’s a lot going on in the body. And for me just to attend to that and pay attention and go, wow, so much fascinating, wild, sometimes frustrating changes happening. And on the other side of that and on letting myself fully attend to that, there is so much potency and so much power. Like I was saying, there is a falling away of a lot of stuff that seemed super important before. I’m just kind of like, Nope. Not that there’s a grace in it. And I really, that’s what I try to bring my focus to the grace and the creativity that is in this time and available as they get older and as they move out

Kimberly: 40:50 Now there’s this more prominent conversation around menopause and this new phase, and it used to be not talked about so much, but there’s these wonderful doctors like Dr. Tess who came on my podcast and saying, well, actually, this is a time of leadership for women and empowerment, and we don’t have the same obligations. And now look at all that we can do with all this power. It’s shifting that perspective to say, wow, this is amazing time. No,

Janet: 41:18 The more people who own it, the more people who step into it and it gives permission and we don’t have to just close ourself off and hide away again. There’s times for regeneration. I think that’s always been a part of it for me, and there might be a little aspect of that, but then I feel like some sense of really coming forth and through in a way that is not needing the permission or needing the approval from anything outside. Yeah, it’s really beautiful.

Kimberly: 41:46 Is there anything upcoming, any projects or anything that we can be on the lookout for you retreats that you’re particularly excited about?

Janet shares upcoming projects and offerings

Janet: 41:56 I’m always somewhere. I’m always going some beautiful places in Bali. I’m part-time in India. I’m San Francisco as a home base. I have an online platform. I’ve been running 10 years and I’ve got with, I bring in amazing doctors and teachers, and it’s just so much content. I’ve got four albums on every streaming platform. I saw

Kimberly: 42:17 That.

Janet: 42:18 I’ve got a book that I’m working on, and I’ve got some property up in the Pacific Northwest. I’m excited to have it be a space for people to run intimate community-based program. So yeah, my daughter’s high school graduation, so all the things and really getting her launched into the world, not youngest.

Kimberly: 42:39 Amazing. The albums, just for a moment, what kind of music is on there?

Janet: 42:44 Oh, my kids used to always joke and tease me. I would be like, it’s number one on iTunes. And they’d go like, yeah, it’s number one on world. And I was like, yeah,

Kimberly: 42:54 World

Janet: 42:55 Is awesome. I said, yeah, the world, it’s number one on the world chart. Hello. It’s not just pop. So anyway, I had to convince them that that was cool. I don’t think I ever did. But yeah, so they’re very devotional, but kind of modern of the modern times. I had some English and reworks of tracks.

Kimberly: 43:18 Beautiful. I’ll have to check it out. Thank you. And it is a form of meditation, isn’t it? All this chanting and

Janet: 43:25 Well, it is a form of restoring for sure. Right? Again, that nervous system, the moment you start those long exhales, those long vibrations, it sends a direct message to your vagus nerve. And just that system reset and that bringing you into that space. It also unearths on earth so much emotion from people. People don’t know why they’re emotional, what it is. Kids love the albums too. They keep ’em really simple. So I get people posting all the time or sending me their kids singing these little chants on the way to school. It is just so cute.

Kimberly: 44:04 Wow. It’s so pure. The vibration.

Janet: 44:06 So

Kimberly: 44:06 Pure music and carton. I remember Krishna Das came on this podcast as well, and he said, if I don’t chant, then my energy, my feeling starts to go down. He charges him. It’s his meditation for him as much as others

Janet: 44:25 Too. Oh yeah. No, I’m selfishly out there chanting away.

Kimberly: 44:29 So this area of the throat, the Rashta chakra, there’s this potency, like we said, that’s connected to the creative. Oh yeah. So when you open the center, you’ve heard your voice changes a bit, becomes more resonant, more clear, your language, how you speak. Have you noticed that in your

Janet: 44:49 Journey? Absolutely. Absolutely. Wow.

Kimberly: 44:52 Do you notice that? Is that something you teach to your students?

Janet: 44:55 Yeah, absolutely. I teach about really pulling it from the earth, really pulling it from below, because a lot of people speak from about this space right here, and they get a little bit reedy, and they’re staying in the reedy voice. And especially I’d say more in the feminine energy. People are hanging out in this little spot, and it’s just in that space as opposed to getting down all the way into the muck and pulling it all the way up and letting it move out. Of course, it’s diaphragmatic, it’s also pelvic floor, it’s all of that. And then softening of the root of the tongue. We carry a lot of tension in the throat, in the tongue. My teacher would always say The most advanced yoga pose is the soft face. And by soft face, he meant soft tongue and not soft, as in what they’re talking about these days. The mouth breathing and how you have to exercise the tongue, but really soft and in a sense of open. And instead of carrying that tension in the jaw and tongue and throat softening that,

Kimberly: 45:54 Is that something we can start to cultivate with simple awareness? Oh, yeah. Saying to ourselves, you’re holding again. Oh yeah,

Janet: 46:01 Your tongue. It’s like the shoulders. We don’t feel our shoulders going up, and then suddenly I’m like, oh, my shoulders are up by my ears. But same with jaw tension. I think it just starts to tighten up as we go.

Kimberly: 46:13 And also around the eye sometimes, right?

Janet: 46:15 Oh yeah, furrow. Oh yeah, for

Kimberly: 46:17 Sure. Your face tightens. So your teacher taught you to just soften the face. Wow. Well, that’s accessible.

Janet: 46:24 It is accessible. And then hopefully, like you said with the eyes too, it helps you just see yourself in the world with a little bit more spaciousness.

Kimberly: 46:32 So beautiful. Janet, is there anything you want to add? You’ve shared so much of your beautiful philosophy and wisdom with us today. Is there anything I didn’t ask you that you’d

Janet: 46:41 Love to? Oh, we could be here all day. So I’m just honored and delighted to be here and both to be at Palm Maya and be back with Wonderlust. I’ve been there since year one, and so it’s really fun to come and meet you and see what you’re up to these days. So thank you.

Kimberly: 46:58 Beautiful. Thank you again so much. It’s been a real pleasure.

Janet: 47:01 Thank you. Yeah, it’s been a joy.

I hope you enjoyed listening to our conversation today. As much as I genuinely enjoyed chatting with Janet, please be sure to check out our show notes for links where you can find out more about Janet’s work, as well as other podcasts I think you would enjoy. And as always, tons of other information. There are articles, blogs, hundreds, maybe thousands at this point of simple, delicious, properly food, combined plant-based recipes and more. I look forward to connecting with you. You can always reach out to me on the site. You can always reach out to me on social media. My handle is at Kimberly Snyder. I love to support, I’m always listening. So look forward to connecting more this year. Wishing you a beautiful day, a beautiful week, and we will be back here Thursday as always for our next q and a show. Namaste.