What The World Needs Now is Yin Sweet Yin

What the World Needs Now Is Yin Sweet Yin
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[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to a Yin Yoga podcast. Today we are going to talk about the topic of what the world needs now is yin, sweet yin, and I’m not just talking about yin as in yoga, although definitely that too. I’m talking about the overarching theme. Philosophy of yin and why this is what we so desperately need right now, , in our world.

So stay tuned for more on that.

Welcome or welcome back Yuni to a Yin Yoka podcast. If you’re new around here. Welcome, welcome. If you are a familiar welcome back. The first thing I wanna just address is that I’m at the very near end of a cold. A lovely spring cold. You know, just when I [00:01:00] was arrogant enough to think that I got through a whole year with nothing, then bam.

And so I am still a little bit weird in my throat, a little nasal sounding that probably is coming across for those of you that are used to my voice. , And my apologies if there’s the odd little before I pause. Um, this is real life stuff, the show must go on, and so here we are. The other thing to mention, and I have mentioned this for a couple episodes recently, is that I am sitting in a different spot.

So if you’re watching the video, I’m in a different spot than I normally would record. I normally like to sit on the floor actually and record these, but I’ve been having a bit of a knee issue, and so I’ve been sitting kind of in my dining nook area. Which is, you know, a lot busier than my usual spot, but also a lot busier than my usual spot, meaning I’m at a less stable surface.

And so you might, if you’re on YouTube, see the [00:02:00] odd time the camera might jiggle a little bit from the table being bunked. Also, the cats are a lot more active jumping on and off this table., I think a couple weeks ago I had. Episode come out where it was like the cats were knocking over the light and playing with the microphone and all the things they’re currently sleeping.

So I might be lucky, but just a heads up, there might be some real life moments happening in today’s episode. Before we get into the topic at hand, I wanna shout out a couple thank yous. , To those of you who have sent me a little cashola. So you may not know this ’cause I only mentioned it sporadically, but in the episode notes it’s a little link that says if you wanna support my work you can um, you know, buy me a coffee or whatever and it goes right to PayPal.

And so some of you have been doing that recently and I definitely appreciate it helps to keep [00:03:00] the mics running and me. Matcha so that I can function and edit podcasts. Um, so I really, really appreciate that. Uh, so I don’t have a name for this one. Just head to toe Pilates. Thank you. Um, and Sally Cooper, thank you.

And then there is my anonymous benefactor. He knows who he is. He does not want me to mention him on the podcast, who has been sending me a little money for every episode. So grateful. Thank you for you as well. So just wanted to give that little shout out. And then the other thing that I wanted to mention, I wanted to read you a little comment that we got on Spotify, which I thought was lovely.

This is by Joanna n. Each single episode of this podcast becomes more and more of my favorite in the yoga verse. Let the toes shooting towards the sky bring us all enlightenment. A little smile emoji. Those of you who didn’t listen to that [00:04:00] episode she’s winking to, , the episode I did recently on function versus form.

And how I used the example of dragonfly and whether or not your toes should point to the ceiling and how this was touted for years and years as like the way, and I joked that, you know, your toes pointing towards the sky isn’t gonna bring you enlightenment. So that’s what, that’s a little wink to. So thank you very much Joanna, and for giving me some feedback.

So my friends, if you’ve been listening to the podcast for quite a while. And you wanna show your gratitude in some way. Here are some ways that you can do that. You can, if you have not already made sure that you are following or subscribed, whether that’s on Spotify, apple, or wherever you listen to your podcast or on YouTube.

If you’re on YouTube, you could like the video and give me a little comment below. That would be swell., For those of you that are. , On Spotify, you can leave a comment under the episode as well. So let me know what you thought of the episode. Is there any [00:05:00] ahas or key takeaways, et cetera? Um, so that you can do on Apple, you can do a stars and a written review.

So both would be great. Either or. Gimme five stars. Let me know in a written review, uh, what you’re thinking. Then of course there’s the, if you have the funds and only if you’ve got the bonus funds, there’s a little link in the episode notes, , that says, , I wanna support my work. You’re welcome to click that as well.

That’ll take you to PayPal. So those are the ways that you can support the show, like, follow, subscribe, review, rate, uh, fund, or also share. So maybe you take a screenshot and you share it in your Instagram stories and you take me at Nick Denu yoga or at y yoga podcast. Or maybe you grab the episode and you share the link with a yoga teacher friend who you know, could benefit from it.

Or if [00:06:00] you’re in any yoga teacher groups on Facebook that I’m not privy to. And you an episode really struck you. By all means, please share, share, share. Sharing is caring. So they say maybe that’s a nineties thing. I don’t know. Do people still say sharing is caring? I hope so. Okay. My friends, I also wanna mention that I do have some notes because as some of you know, I have a DD.

So in order to keep me from talking in a very big, long oblong shape and not coming back to the point, I have some notes to keep me on track. So you may see me if you’re watching this. Video, you may see me, my eyes kind of moving a little bit here. And then the final thing to mention my friends is that, I have the soul of a mermaid, but the mouth of a sailor.

And so if you have small humans around, go and grab some headphones. I cannot guarantee that there will be colorful language, but I also cannot guarantee that there will not be. Okay, [00:07:00] my friends. So I hope we can get through this without too many pauses to clear my throat or blow my nose or et cetera. And, , my apologies if my voice sounds a little bit more like a Canada goose than a yoga teacher today.

, I’m sure all geese have the similar honky sound, but their, their nose and their beak, but Canada geese are a. Special, kind, special, kind of interesting if you’ve never, , never encountered one. Beware. , You can Google that.

There’s a meme that I’ve seen going around that I think is hysterical and it says, you know, what Canadians are afraid of and it’s got like a polar bear, grizzly bear, like a cougar. Can’t remember what other animal wolves, what other animals? Um, and you know, the Canadians are all just kinda like. And then there’s a Canada goose and the person’s like running for their lives.

So it’s, it’s more accurate than you think. Alright, my friends, I’ve had this in, a note in my phone for a long [00:08:00] time as a topic to talk about what the world needs now is Yin sweet yin. And I was just kind of, you know, put it there and was saving it for the right time.

A couple of things have happened, , recently just for me, , in my energy field that made me think, you know, I think now might be a good time to do this episode. The first one is that, you know, not to date this episode because when isn’t the world feeling heavy, but for me especially, and I’m sure many of us that I talk to, the world is feeling a bit heavy right now.

There’s a lot of darkness, there’s a lot of war, there’s a lot of violence, there’s a lot of, , people feeling, , like they can’t trust their political leaders. And that’s, I’m not just speaking of one country. I know certain countries of y’all like to think everything’s all about you. You know? You know, if you don’t know who you are, it’s probably you.

Uh, but no, I’m talking about worldwide. Worldwide. Most countries. If you were to say to the average [00:09:00] citizen. Do you trust your political leaders? Do you think they’re doing a good job? You would get a resounding no. So there’s that. And then of course there’s war and violence, and then there, there’s all the other stuff that happens all the time, right?

And some days, are a little easier to kind of just see the bigger picture of these things. And some days just feel like, as my grandmother used to say, the world is going to hell in a hand basket. And so this. Is one of the reasons that I wanted to do this episode now, and the other one was sparked by in episode 100, my friend and colleague, Dr.

Corina Smith, when I asked the question, why do you practice yin yoga? Her answer really struck me and I really loved it. So I will read it to you here. This is Dr. Corina Smith’s words. I practice yin yoga because it is a rebellion against the world telling me I have to move fast and keep producing.

Whenever I practice yin yoga, it’s a [00:10:00] reminder to me that being slow and mindful is my right, and it’s a place where I get to deeply connect with myself. So that quote also made me think about today’s topic, and I’ve often said,, that yin yoga or yin in general, the qualities of yin is a resistance. To hustle culture.

So if you haven’t listened to the episode on Yin and yang, I will link that one in the show notes, um, because we’ll talk a little bit about the qualities of yin versus the qualities of yang. And so I’m not just speaking about yoga here. Yes, I’m gonna talk a bit about yin yoga as well, but I’m talking about yin yang as a philosophy.

Not just as a yoga class. All right, let’s do this, shall we?

[00:11:00] As I just said a moment ago, yin is a resistance to hustle culture, the world overvalues energy. I remember my teacher, Paul Grille, saying that years and years and years ago. Way back when I first met him in like 2007, that we are in a young dominated culture and there isn’t a lot of harmony with the yin qualities.

Our modern cultures celebrate speed, productivity, and constant output. Those are all very young qualities. We’re encouraged to move faster, do more, achieve more, and stay busy to do, do, do. And that, you know, being productive all the time, keeping up with the Joneses, et cetera, et cetera. And yin by nature reminds us that rest, reflection, receiving, and [00:12:00] stillness are equally necessary for harmony to be possible.

So when the whole world is telling you to do, do, do, do, do. Than it is an act of resistance or rebellion, as Karina said, to come back into being, to being a human being instead of a human doing.

And this disharmony that we have been in for, I don’t even know probably my whole life, but it feels like it’s been amping up more and more and more and more, especially as we get more and more tech. We’re getting more and more and more young.

Without yin burnout becomes a normal state, and I’m doing normal in air quotes here. Many people are living in a constant state of push and pressure [00:13:00] work, culture, social media, even fitness culture often reward intensity and pushing yourselves. But yin qualities. Remind us to pause, to recover and have spaciousness and to yin yoga, especially to help us with burnout and allow our nervous system to settle.

And so, you know, practicing and embracing these yin like qualities isn’t laziness. It, it is recovery and regulation and resistance and rebellion.

Yin helps us to listen. Y energy tends to speak, push and declare yin qualities, create space for listening, listening to our bodies, listening to the environment, and then [00:14:00] hopefully listening to others.

I don’t know if any of you have ever had this experience, but I definitely have with my partner. We’ve been together a very long time. We’ve actually been, we realized it a couple years ago, that we have been to together longer as adults than we were apart. We’re at that point in our relationship, and I remember, especially early on in our relationship, we would have these, wouldn’t call them fights ’cause there was not, definitely nothing physical going on.

And it wasn’t, you know, that kind of energy but a, a debate or dynamic. I used to call them. About something, some issue in the world, something between us, whatever it was, and we would get to the end of it and we would finally get clarity only to realize that actually we were saying the exact same thing.

We had the same opinion. We were just using different words to describe things. [00:15:00] And so instead of listening and maybe pausing and asking. What do you mean by that word? Or what does that word mean to you? We would go by what it meant to us, and then we would start to debate and then find out after a couple of hours of debating that.

Actually the whole time we were on board together, we had the same opinion. We just had different ways of describing it. So yin can help us listen, and we are in a noisy, noisy world right now, so noisy. We need to listen. We need to listen to other people when they talk. We also though, need to listen to our own hearts and our own, um, you know, nervous systems and bodies and interstates.

And we also need to learn to listen when we notice that our mind is getting defensive [00:16:00] and divisive. So when we are listening to others and we notice that little, yeah, but, but, but, but, but, but you know, that part that wants to just argue coming up, we’re not listening. Not only are we not listening to the person ’cause we’re listening with the intention of defending or arguing.

So it’s not really listening, but also we’re not listening to ourselves and how our own mind works. So yin allows us to witness what’s going on in our mind. So when we’re doing our yin class and we can witness the soap opera or circus of thoughts that go on during a pose, like maybe let’s just use Dragon.

It seems to be the example I always wanna use when I’m talking about challenges in Yin. Let’s just say you’re doing Dragon pose and your mind is telling you all kinds of things about Dragon Pose and how hard it is, and why are you so tight here and da, da, da, da, da, all the things. And then that other wiser part of you kind of goes, Hey, is any of that true?[00:17:00]

Will you notice that actually your mind is just telling you a story about Dragon Pose? So this is a yin quality, this listening, this observing, receiving instead of jumping forth with our opinions and our arguments, these half-baked, defenses that we have when we haven’t even heard. So it’s that way with ourselves.

It helps us to listen to our own inner voice. Our own inner nature to what our heart and our body are trying to tell us and to the world around us. But it also can help us to listen to others thereby reducing conflict.

So yin helps us listen. When we slow down, we start to notice things we usually miss.[00:18:00]

Yin offers us depth instead of constant stimulation. So because our life is constantly full of stimulation and distraction, yin invites us into our depths. So instead of jumping from thing to thing, yin helps us to practice, to stay and to feel, and to receive. To surrender. To observe. So yin helps to increase and develop this capacity to stay, which is becoming a very rare skill.

I mean, we, anyone who has a smartphone knows this. The poll to like constantly be scrolling to doom scrolling. It even has a name now, dooms scrolling. This was not a thing when I was, you know, younger, that’s for sure. So, you know, this constant need to be plugged in, turned on. On our phones, doom scrolling, you know, um, producing content.

If you’re a, if you’re a, a yoga teacher, all of this, [00:19:00] you know, is a constant stimulation. So we never actually just get to sit and be and listen and feel and observe. So yin practice and yin qualities in life help us to develop the capacity to stay with experience. Instead of distracting ourselves constantly.

And what a skill to have to be able to stay with experience,

compassion and softness, and a culture dominated by the young qualities of competition, hard efforting, striving, fighting yin qualities, cultivate, receptivity, empathy, patience. All of which are deeply needed in relationships, communities, and in leadership. And I’m using leadership in the true sense of the word.

You know, I [00:20:00] don’t would argue there’s very little air quotes, leadership going on in our world, certainly not in the political landscape. True leadership.

So yin creates the conditions where kindness and understanding can emerge

cycles instead of constant growth. I often talk about this in the scope of the seasons. I’ve talked about it many times on the show. About how each season in TCM and Chinese medicine has a theme to it, , so for example, fall is about letting go. Winter is about dropping inward. Spring is about planting seeds and this new yang energy, and then summer is the maximum yang.

It’s all about, being a bit more outward, et cetera. So I talk about this all the time. I often as far as just how we live our lives, but I also also often talk about it. With the yoga teachers [00:21:00] who I support in their business. So I also do yoga business mentorship, which is sort of like consulting, but I don’t like the word consulting, so I call it mentorship.

Some of you may or may not know. That’s also something I do, and so I’m always talking about this more yin or feminine way of working in our business as well, honoring the seasons. So nature moves in cycles of activity, rest, growth. Decay. Our modern systems expect us to constantly be going, endless growth, endless performance, endless consumption.

More, more, more, more, more. Which of course is not sustainable. And you know, the funny part is that most of us know this in our logical mind, but are we putting this into our lives? Are we noticing within ourselves where we’re feeling that pressure to constantly be, go, go, go, go, go. [00:22:00] Can we say, Hmm, yeah, no, actually that is not what I’m going to do.

I’m going to rest, or I’m gonna do things differently, or I’m gonna do things my way, or I’m gonna pause. I’m gonna allow space and receptivity for wisdom to come in.

So yin reminds us that rest and dormancy are a part of every healthy cycle. There is no harmony without rest. You need that.

Speaking of space for wisdom, when everything is fast and reactive, it’s hard to access deeper wisdom. Yin creates a space for insight. As we just slowly surrender into the slowness and the stillness and the quiet, it allows clarity emerge the little nuggets of [00:23:00] wisdom and information that may have been there the whole time, but we weren’t paying attention to them because we were too busy.

So sometimes the important thing is not doing more, but actually pausing long enough. So that your own inner wisdom, having that space for your own inner wisdom can come to the surface.

And we’ll finish with this one. Number seven, yin supports nervous system regulation. I often say to my teachers that I work with, that the whole world is on its last nerve. Did anyone else have a parent that used to say that? My mom used to be like, you are getting on my last nerve. Okay, so if the whole world is existing in a state where we’re all on our last nerve, no wonder it’s such a mess.

Many people are living in a state of constant fight or flight, [00:24:00] and these yin qualities can help us to move to towards rest, digest, and repair practices like yin yoga and meditation, give people the tools to downshift. I often see this in this sort of bro, you know, podcast hustle culture stuff. Um, you know that there’s all these hacks for this and hacks for that and productivity tools and you know, we don’t need more productivity tools.

We need more regulation tools. I’m gonna say that one more time. We don’t need productivity hacks. Productivity tools. What we need are regulation tools. What we need to learn to do is to rest and to go inward.

We need a whole lot more of yin, sweet yin. [00:25:00] And you know, I think sometimes people hear this and they think it’s nice, like a little motivational speech, and then they get on with their lives. But here’s the key. Can you take any of this wisdom and actually put it into your life? Can you actually look at the amount you are hustling, producing, et cetera?

And can you remove things? Can you give yourself more yin time? Right? Can you do what you need to do? And also value equally, if not more. And the reason I’m saying, if not more, is because. Y’s kind of had its time. Yang’s been running the show. So in order to kind of let Yang, get a little more sedated, we need to boost up the yin.

So what if you took, instead of just listening to this podcast episode, you actually took some of these ideas to heart, sat down with these. [00:26:00] So I’m gonna go over these as a review, but I’m going to go over them in the form of questions that maybe you could sit down with your journal and your tea and ask yourself,

where am I Overvaluing Yong energy in my life? Where am I Overvaluing Yang energy in my life?

How can I avoid burnout before it happens? What sort of practices, rest, time, quiet time, can you put in so that you are doing recovery and regulation on a regular basis before burnout hits? So that you’re not playing [00:27:00] catch up, but that you’re living your life from this well of support. This yin energy is always there for you to count on when you need it.

So yin isn’t laziness, it’s rest and regulation, and if we can do rest and regulation regularly, then burnout very rarely gonna happen. And I’m speaking as someone who’s burnt out many, many times in my life. I’m not pulling this outta my butt. This is pure lived experience, blood, sweat, tears, et cetera. So I, I do know of what we speak,

you know, a couple of summers ago, I haven’t been super public about this, but a little bit, um, a couple of years ago, I believe it was in 2024. I found out that I had what the doctor called a lesion on my [00:28:00] kidney. Very vague word to the average civilian. I’m like, what does that mean? Uh, I’m just gonna use the word tma.

If anyone doesn’t get the Arnold reference, it’s not a tma anyways, you can go back and watch. It was like kindergarten cop. Was that the movie? Anyway, I digress. Um, so a few years ago I had a lesion on my kidney. And I had it removed, but I was awaiting over the course of a summer after the surgery, the test results to find out if it was just some random anomaly or if it was cancer.

And that was the most strange and surreal summer of my life because every time I decided, what am I going, I was off work too. ’cause I was recovering. What am I going to do with my day today? Now I could do some work. I could record podcasts, I could, you know, record yoga [00:29:00] nidra and meditations and stuff. I just couldn’t teach ’cause I couldn’t do asana yet, till I had my checkup.

And so I’m in this limbo state over the course of a summer, and every time I would ask myself, should I do this or should I do that? The question kept coming up. Am I. I building my business for, for the future. This was all work that would come up. Or am I building a legacy? Because I honestly didn’t know for that brief window in time if A, it was cancer, and B, if it was what that meant then.

And so I was in this very strange limbo state. Anyone who’s had a serious health threat might, might not relate to this.

That’s, that was really when I realized that it was like, ah, yeah, I, my tendency as a human is [00:30:00] towards overwork as opposed to overplay or over rest. And the reason for that partially is just the way I was raised and my generation, but also because, um, I love what I do. And so when you really love what you do.

It’s actually harder to say, you know what, I’m gonna slide that over to the side and I’m gonna take rest. So I have to put kind of strict guidelines in place for myself now, just in case any of you are like, well, what happened? Yes, it was cancerous. It was a level one, it was well contained and I’m being watched and so far, everything is fine.

Everything is good as far as my kidney goes. I have a specialist that I. I get regular blood work and ultrasounds and MRIs and stuff. So I’m being watched just in case. And they gradually, over time, they space those out more and more. That’s where we’re at now. I’m at the things are getting spaced out more.

And so yeah, but for a summer there, I honestly didn’t know anytime I was doing something work related [00:31:00] if that was going to help build my business for the future or if that was just gonna end up being out there somewhere in the internet if I died. Sounds morbid, but actually sometimes a little bit of those thoughts will really help put things in perspective for you.

So the yin qualities, pause, recover. This can help us to avoid burnout. So how can I put in practices in place regularly to help nurture this yin energy, this yin qualities to have yin be overflowing in me So that. I can avoid burnout. There’s a journal prompt for you.

Yin helps us to listen. So the question here might be for you, where in life are you not really listening? Is it to yourself, to your own heart, to your own [00:32:00] body, to your dreams, to your goals? Is it in relationships with others? Are you not really listening to your loved ones, to your friends, especially to those of you, those that disagree with you, or you maybe hold different viewpoints.

So where in your life could you learn to listen more? Ah, this one’s a tricky one. So depth instead of constant stimulation. I’m just gonna name the phone. So where could you turn off your phone more often? So one thing I started doing a while ago was I don’t bring my phone into the bedroom. In fact, it’s not even turned on when I’m getting ready to go to bed.

Now I have a very old iPhone that I have on airplane that I use for an alarm, but I don’t need that. I could get a different alarm clock. I just happen to have it. , But I turn my phone off at night. [00:33:00] Yes, that’s right off. I power it off. I give it a little break. I go get a break. , I do that at night so that I’m not tempted to, , wake up and scroll if I wake up and go pee and come back and scroll or, , do that first thing in the morning.

Um, so I leave my phone outta the bedroom and I turn it off. And then there’s also other times where I’ll just leave it. If my partner and I are gonna go into one room, for example, and you know, we’re gonna eat some dinner and watch a movie, like I don’t need to have my phone beside me. Like it’s okay to not Google what other eight movies that actor was in.

Sometimes when him and I go out and about whether it’s to run errands or just have the day together, you know, he’ll say to me, do you have your phone? I’m like, no. And actually I’m leaving it at home. So the reason I’m harping on the phone is ’cause that’s where most of us are constantly stimulated. If you don’t believe me, install one of those time trackers on your phone that tells you how often you’re on your phone and where you’re spending your time.[00:34:00]

People are always like, oh, I’m so busy. I have no time. And then they, if they actually add up how much time they spend scrolling on their phone, there’s a good chunk of time that you, you could get back in your life. So where in your life could you. Get rid of the constant stimulation or reduce it and the distraction and invite in a little more yin, a little more quiet,

compassion and softness. So in our very loud culture where everyone’s yelling everything at everyone, this is another reason to put the phone away. We’re dominated by these young qualities of competition. Being hard and efforting and striving and fighting. Ask yourself, where could I embrace more compassion and softness for yourself, for your loved one, [00:35:00] for your communities, and then hopefully for the world at large.

Where could you embrace cycles instead of growth? So working seasonally, living seasonally is a great way to do this. I’ve talked about it in numerous episodes, and I’m sure I’ll have a spring episode coming up where I, I talk about this again, but just as brief little touch points fall about letting go in Chinese medicine, clearing space, getting rid of what doesn’t work.

Releasing what wasn’t a good idea for you, et cetera, et cetera. So whether that’s physical stuff, mental emotional stuff, letting go clearing winter is about rest and going inward and seeing what messages might be there for you. Deep, deep rest Spring is about planting seeds and taking the. The dreaming , [00:36:00] and the journaling and whatever it was that you were doing in the winter, and now actually starting to put those into envisions and plans in spring.

And then in summer, we’re just continuing to nurture what we’ve done in the spring and there’s this sort of outward energy of , of networking maybe, of meeting people or, , being outside more. So, where in your life can you start to think of the cycles of nature instead of constant growth? If your life is the same effort wise all year long, there’s then we’re not living in the cycles of nature.

So where could you, in your life start to get in touch with the cycles of nature? Endless growth is not sustainable. So yin reminds us that resting is part of, and dormancy are part of our seasonal cycles[00:37:00]

space for wisdom. When you unplug your phone or turn your phone off and you have time without that doom scrolling that we’ve been doing, then you have space for wisdom. So maybe you take some more quiet yin like time, whether that’s your actual yin practice or meditation or whatever you find spacious and resting.

So I’m not saying, , turn your phone off and then, , power clean your house. Although, I mean if that nurtures you, rock on with yourself. But pausing, giving yourself space for insight, slowness, maybe getting in nature more. Connecting with your animals more your loved ones. So allowing this space for wisdom, a good amount of alone time is necessary for us to, you know, have any wisdom that’s of our own.[00:38:00]

And then yin supports our nervous system regulation. When we’re all on our last nerve, I’m sure we’ve all been there at some point where you’ve been really stressed out. Really frustrated. Maybe you’re, , dealing with chronic pain or health situations and you’re just snappish, right? , You just don’t have the patience.

’cause the whole world is on their last nerve right now. And so your yin practice can support this nervous system reset and regulation. So where could you put more of that in your life, even if it’s just in small amounts? Maybe you have a regular practice, but maybe you take five minutes or 10 minutes before bed and you do a pose.

Or maybe when you come home from your workday and now you’re going to engage with the family. You take a few minutes first and you go sit quietly and you meditate. Where can you add these little nervous system supports throughout your day in a more regular basis? [00:39:00] In the morning before bed, when you come home from work.

Those are great times, but take a look at your life and see where you could put little pockets of more nervous system regulation, whether that’s a few yin poses, some very gentle breathwork, some down reg regulating breath work. Or maybe it’s, you know, a meditation, getting outside in nature. Whatever it is.

I, of course, am talking about a yin practice, but it doesn’t have to be your yin practice. So yin supports nervous system regulation. Where can you make space in your life for more little pockets of regulation so that instead of looking, at our phones or the news or the whatever, all the things, we can pull that attention and that energy back away from that.

We can say no instead, actually I’m going to [00:40:00] do this. I know that the whole world, and believe me, you, the cell phones and social media, those are set up to be addictive. So if you feel like you are addicted to your phone, it’s true. It’s real. This isn’t some kind of crazy conspiracy theory. Social media apps and phones want you on there.

That’s the whole reason they’re successful. ’cause the more time you spend on there, the more they can sell you ads, et cetera, et cetera. This is no accident. This is no coincidence. Coincidence. So will it be easy if, if you know you, if you’re sitting here and listening and you’re like, yeah, you know what?

Actually I do spend too much time on my phone. Will it be easy to change that? Nope. But we can have new habits, right? We can. Turn your phone off, leave it in the other room, don’t bring it when you want. Some people even have like apps. I don’t know what they are. Sorry, I can’t help you with [00:41:00] that. Where they, the app will shut their phone, their social media down after a certain amount of time.

Like, oh, you’ve been on Instagram for your allotted time, and it just kind of like, you can’t access it. Sad to say that we need these things, but if that’s gonna be helpful, then do that. Okay. So what the world needs now is yin sweet yin,

okay, and I wanna close our chat today with a quote, which always makes me a little misty. So let’s see if I can get through it without tearing up. This quote is by ENS Thomas. Every day, the world will drag you by the hand yelling, this is important, this is important, and this is important and this is important.

You need to worry about this and this and this. And each day it is up to you to yank your hand back, put it on your heart and say, no, this is what’s important.[00:42:00]

Okay, my friends, I hope that somehow all my rambling about what we need in the world, being in Sweet Yin and ways that we can do this, including some journal prompts for you is helpful. , Some of these episodes are straight up teaching skills and some of them are just, , a way of nurturing ourselves as teachers or humans.

For those of you who are not teachers, and listen, there are a few hardcore folks out there listening. Who are not teachers put up with all the teacher talk. So thank you for you. Okay. I hope you found that this was helpful or a soft place to fall. Hope it’s given you some ideas and some ways that you can practice a little more yin, sweet, yin in your life.

And until we meet again, bye for now.