Giving Yourself Permission to Be Imperfect with Callan Mielnik

0:00 Welcome to the yoga teacher Evolution podcast. Namaste. My name is Paul chiodo joined here with Michael Henry. Most yoga teacher, trainings are becoming watered-down and mediocre. So we have created this podcast to help supplement those of you who graduated from a teacher training and don't feel confident going out into the real world.

0:24 Michael, and I are lucky to have been trained by some amazing people. We've gone out into the world ourselves and had success and we want you to feel confident to Your students and to build your career with integrity and authenticity, Welcome to our podcast.

0:41 What's up everybody? Welcome to the yoga teacher Evolution podcast. My name is Michael Henry and I will be your host for today. And today we have a guest episode with one of my closest friends, closest new friends. As of, about two years ago. Callen Melnick.

0:58 That I see that right, you did. Oh nice nice. So Colin. And I actually met almost about two years ago at a Yoga Festival on Gili Islands. So if you've been to Bali before, Gili Islands are a small set of islands, just east of Bali and it was a slow food in yoga festival. And that was actually the first time I got introduced to acroyoga and Kalyn is all about the acroyoga but we're not necessarily talking about acroyoga. Today, we're going to be talking

1:26 about today is a very important topic, actually, for pretty much. Every one particular yoga teachers is how were relating it, but it's important for everyone and that's Giving yourself permission to give yourself permission to ultimately, right?

1:40 Yeah. How would you say it? I would say, like, okay, if you're a teacher giving giving your students permission to give themselves permission, right? So it is a little bit of a mind, fuck but it, it gets it cut Sandeep, right? It's a lot of permission ultimately and what that looks like.

1:58 Yeah. And it's interesting and we'll dive into this with some questions and stuff. But like, I did my yoga practice this morning and the Example, that kind of came up for me. It was just like giving myself permission to not do certain poses or not do something that's like super hard or super challenging and then that's kind of how we can unravel that a little bit.

2:15 So, before we started this episode, Callen was sharing a little bit about basically your experience with this for a year teacher training, so that's why don't we start with that. So, tell us a little bit about your teacher training experience and kind of how this kind of came into fruition.

2:28 Yeah, so, I did my teacher training with Sosa and I love them so much. It was the Exactly the training I needed at the exact time in my life and their biggest thing was giving them their students permission to give themselves permission and what that looked like was.

2:48 Maybe I'm on my period and we're about to do an inversion class and to be like, you know what, it is, my choice. Like, I can go and continue doing inversion or maybe I sit in childhood child's Post. Yeah, like, and that's my practice and And like, rolling out the yoga mat and sitting on it that can be my practice, I can do that for an hour.

3:13 I can do that for five minutes but that's listening to my own body and really tuning into what it needs. Right. Absolutely. And I think that's a huge part of yoga is tuning in and creating awareness of self creating awareness of your body, your physical abilities, your physical state of being, which can shift. From day to day from hour to hour. Sometimes, maybe not from minute to minute, maybe depending on the person, but being aware of those shifts. And those changes in those

3:45 differences of it from day to day, from practice the practice and a giving yourself permission to do something different or to say no. Right? Yeah. Something I like to remind my students. And you know, this is also something that I was taught is everyday.

3:59 I wake up, we all are in a new body like our cells start to regenerate. And over time, like we're Literally a completely new person and so our bodies aren't going to feel the same. So, you know, might have a vigorous schedule and you know, maybe I'm going to have to skip out, right, okay. Right.

4:18 Yeah. So in my practice this morning which was Paul has many of you guys know, Paul's really good at actually giving options and telling you because he'll give you a hill run, a hard class, right? They'll give you some options for some easy stuff that he'll give you option, two, three, four, sometimes five.

4:35 I've what you can do and it's not his responsibility to tell you what to do, or what not to do. It's ultimately hours, right? It's our responsibility to know what we should or shouldn't do and giving ourselves that permission to do it. However, sometimes it's really hard for us to do that without a little bit of queuing or reminding, right? So that's kind of what we wanted to talk. A little bit about with regards to if you are a yoga teacher do. You actually do that.

5:06 Do you give yourselves or do first of all? Yes. Do you give yourselves permission to give yourself permission to say no or to change things up, or to mix things up, depending on where your state of being is? And also, do you help to encourage and support your students or your class participants to do the same? Because that's kind of really important for especially everyone.

5:27 That's going to walk into a classroom or anyone that walks into a studio especially if they're new. They're not going to really know, right? They're going to need those. Gentle reminders. So do you have you had an experience where after doing your teacher training, have you had an experience where this has come up a few times as either a reminder from other other teachers maybe or some teachers that didn't do it and you noticed it or is there any kind of other anecdotal situations

5:54 where this has come up more than just the beginning of your teacher training? Yeah. Actually the the thing that popped into my head immediately was like Being reminded as I'm teaching a class. And the way that that looked like was I had a student in there who was doing a lot of the hard, you know, maybe the harder options and then I noticed they didn't always take the hardest option. Maybe they didn't do that Vinyasa that extra Vinyasa and it reminded me of like, oh, this

6:26 person's really tuned in and has reminded me as a teacher, like I learned so much from my students, I learned so much from Teachers because I still continue going to classes as well. Like I love going to Paul's class especially what I want. That extra like Electric Power Yoga. Yeah, flower yoga.

6:46 As we go. Yeah, well our yoga but yeah. So that's like the first example that came into my mind and reminding For other people. Because sometimes like, I'll see like your students or when I was in newer student. I was looking around, like, oh, well, maybe I should take this harder option. Like, I'm gonna, yeah, I'm going to show you. I'm going to prove something to myself. I'm gonna prove something to other people. And for my experience, the more

7:15 of doing yoga and getting into this, it's like it's not about that and like tuning in it's like an internal practice. Actually this might be a good crossover and what are the other topics that we wanted to talk about? Which is the Hans between the masculine and The Feminine, right. And when it comes to all, say yeah, when it comes to yoga, there's a lot of ego that can be involved, especially in a classroom filled with other people. When you have a variety of

7:41 different levels of abilities or experience, right. There could be people that have 10 years experience or they could be someone. That's only been doing yoga for a year or maybe someone that's only done yoga for a couple weeks, right? But we're all doing generally, the same flow for following the instructor.

7:57 And it's really difficult sometimes without securing or some encouragement or some reminders to stay in your lane, right? Not to not to try to do something that's out of your lane. And with the ego, we want to be able to do as much as we can.

8:12 We want to be able to challenge ourselves. You want to be able to push ourselves which is very healthy masculine, but at the same time, we also need to intuitively tuned in. Like you said to know how far to challenge ourselves, how far to push ourselves.

8:24 Right? Totally. And I think, It's at. It depends for because I can only speak to my own Human Experience. Like it depends on like what kind of mindset of my end? Am I in a playful curious mindset? Like maybe I want to try that hand balance.

8:40 Like maybe it's out of, maybe it's out of my my reach, but that's okay. Because I'm in this like exploring mode. When do we make that choice to challenge ourselves? So that's the question, right? Yeah. How do we know when to push ourselves? How do we know when to take it easy? And ultimately I think the answer is, do you give yourself permission sometimes to maybe take the the low the road that's less challenging sometimes and like I'm an example that this morning like there was a couple

9:10 opportunity. I can't remember exactly what it was but usually, you know, if I'm my body's feeling really strong or I'm feeling like I'm having a good day, like I'll do everything that. You know, the instructor says, which is usually poly basically only take pulse classes.

9:22 But I usually follow everything he says, unless it's some sort of pose that I've never done before. Then obviously, I take it easy or if I know that my body can't do it, but just because I've done it before, doesn't necessarily mean that I need to do it every single time, right?

9:35 Or maybe it's like, force and citations A's which are the beginning in class, great way to build heat, maybe the fourth one you don't do. I, you know, depends on how you feel and giving yourself permission to say no or giving yourself permission to To be like I'm just going to chill for a minute or maybe I'll just stand down dog, or something like that, right? Yeah.

9:53 I think my favorite word you said, is it depends? It depends. I say all the time. Like, it depends like there is no right or wrong answer really. Like I can only speak from my own experience and it depends on what kind of mindset. Like I'd really dive into, like, what comes up for me and meditation.

10:13 What comes up to me when I'm journaling? Am I in a curious mind set. Maybe I'm Full, maybe I want to challenge myself a little bit more and that looks that's great. Or I maybe I'm in my ego and I'm like, you know what, I want to prove something and show everyone in this room that I can do this hand balance, it's not about that. And so, maybe that's the biggest challenge is just for me to be like, you know what, especially I'm if I'm in that mindset to say, no, I'm not going to do

10:43 that today and sometimes that's harder. Yeah, it is, it is harder to because it brings up thoughts of being like, I'm not enough, right? Do this. So, I'm not as good or, you know, whatever. All those stories and beliefs that kind of come from, whatever conditioning are patterning that we had as we grow up and stuff like that.

11:05 So it does, it definitely makes it harder to pull back, but I think something that's really simple and easy to remember, is that everyone's thinking the same way, I totally everyone in the class has thinking about themselves and the way that they look well, maybe not everyone but like generally speaking more people, most people are Concerned about themselves and are concerned about, you know, what you're doing, or what, you know, if that, that pose, that you're trying to do is like,

11:30 right, aligned, or, like, perfect or like stable, like no one cares, right? Everyone's focused on their own practice, everyone's focused on their own, Matt generally speaking, right? So that's this is permission. And this is just basically, this conversation is to encourage you to do the same to stay focused with in your in your lane, stay in your mat, stay in your mind with what you are feeling what you're able to do and those types of things, right?

11:51 That's basically what we're trying to break down. Italy. And that's a great intention to. If like if you're maybe you're a listener and you're struggling with something like that, that can be an intention for your practice. Hmm.

12:03 And like can I, maybe not look around and really like hone in on to my own practice? Like what does my body need today? And that's that's really good to do and it gets easier as you continue to practice. Because, I mean, if you're new at yoga, which I'm assuming most of you who are listening, Or not, because this is a yoga teacher Revolution podcast. But if you're a new person at T at practicing yoga generally speaking, you might not know what a lot of poses are called or where we're going.

12:34 So you need to look around the room. You likely to be like, what, what, what am I doing? Where is my foot supposed to be? Where's my hands must be. So, then, when you start to look around the room, that's when it gets more challenging, because now you're no longer in your Zone, you no longer in on your mat.

12:46 You're now looking or elsewhere, but that gets easier as you start to get more comfortable with the poses and understanding where you're going. Go. To some degree. And obviously, the facilitator of the instructor has a huge role in this because if they're communicating well enough from their queuing well enough, then it's easier for you to just stay in your lane.

13:03 So while we're saying the permission piece is like really important. We're also acknowledging the fact that it's not always so easy. Right? There's always ways that can things can be distracting and stuff like that. Yeah. So we're, how can we bring back to these feminine? Masculine energy because I really like that topic. I think it's something that's Really important because the balance between the two is Paramount, like, it's just so important, especially with the

13:30 yoga practice, especially, like a yoga practice, like Power Yoga, for example, which is not necessarily meant to be, you know, super strong and sweaty while it very much can be. It doesn't necessarily need to be, it's meant to be empowerment yoga. And empowerment, yoga is ultimately what we're talking about is giving yourself permission getman being empowered to say yes.

13:52 Or To certain things to being able to adjust things modify things or just do things the way you're feeling within that state of mind, right? Yeah. So with the feminine and the masculine, what would you say? Are some healthy feminine? Qualities, that kind of would come up in like a, what, whether it be a yoga class or it doesn't even have to be yoga class, could be anything in general, like, vulnerability, for example.

14:17 Yeah, I Surrender, the first thing that kind of popped up to my mind was like, you were saying, like Power Yoga is you know can be masculine and the flip side to that for is Yin right? And this surrender getting out of your own way, really? I think some feminine qualities are nurturing and softening. Yeah and I don't like to talk about masculine feminine. He's as necessarily like a gender, right? Yeah it shouldn't be and Think.

14:55 With it. Like, what I believe is in every person like and within myself, like, I have masculine and feminine traits and when they're in Balance, I feel I'm at my best and sometimes, like, my masculine will will be going up a bit more. Like, maybe I'm doing like a lot of like, really intense yoga Asana practice and I'll couple that with like Yen and really slowing down and softening, and Paying attention to my breath and nurturing myself, right?

15:34 Yeah, exactly. And you can and you don't need to necessarily separate them between disciplines either like you could still incorporate, you know, a strong Asana class with also that reflective internal focus. And you know making sure that your breathing with your movement like the movement being more that masculine and the breathing being more that feminine at least in my mind.

15:58 That's the way that I see. especially for a Vinyasa class or power, which is also a Vinyasa if you're moving and moving and moving and doing all these things, but you're not paying attention to your breath, I would consider that very masculine and then whereas Yen, if you're just, you know, you're in a pose and you're breathing and you're just focusing on that you're not moving, that would be very much feminine but you can incorporate the two doesn't necessarily need to be power

16:21 Vinyasa, But ultimately the breath is, is I would say a part of us that is a When we focus on it, it's very much a reflective or an internal or awareness sense of at least in my mind, it's a feminine thing. Does that make sense or myopic, you know? No, it makes sense like it's, you know, I separate it into like The Yoga practices to like be really simple, but you can bring that into any practice, you can take it outside of outside of the Asana classes and

16:52 so I think you broke it down really beautifully. Like, I love that nurturing. The flow of the breath, and maybe an intense, like, you know, muscular isana class like that's, that's beautiful. Mmm. And I also liked how you said about the balance between the masculine and The Feminine and that not being gender-related.

17:14 Even though we kind of quickly went over that. Some people may not see it that way. Yeah, if you're listening to this, and you see masculine as like a male and feminine as female like. That's, that's not how it should be.

17:24 It's very much. We all have masking and feminine qualities and we all need to have them in order to be ultimately, right? If we're too much of one, then it's an imbalance and like Colin said earlier and I feel the exact same way as whenever I'm in balance or whatever.

17:40 I'm feeling imbalance is usually because I've I'm juggling those two very well where I have either some of that surrendering, that intuition that tapping in that reflective time. But at the same time, I'm also Incorporating that and giving myself some direction or goal or somewhere where to in which I'm moving which would be more that masculine and finding a happy balance.

18:03 Between the two of those is honestly, it's like a daily to daily thing. Oh, totally. Yeah. So it's not something that you get it and you're like, oh, I got it. I got my balance of an accident. It's like, it's going to go up and down from day to day from experience, to experience.

18:15 Our two hours, sometimes from a and then also and a lot of that probably has to do with, you know, our Environments. I mean hormones affect our, don't say our hormones, affect our masculine and feminine qualities but they can influence them. Yeah.

18:33 Right testosterone being more that masculine Drive, adrenaline push, and then estrogen and I forgot the other one is, but being more of that like common kind of intuitive tapping incense. So as those are kind of fluctuating within our endocrine system, those can also make things a little bit more. I don't say imbalance, They can be shifting and moving from our to our day-to-day.

18:57 So it's not like a clear-cut system where You know, I've got it figured out, it's something that we need to work at I work at and sometimes I forget and that's tapping into it reflecting back being like how is my balance between?

19:10 I mean I don't actually say this stuff but you kind of eventually get a bit of a groove of like am I being too aggressive and whatever it is that I'm doing? Maybe it's my yoga practice. Am I being too aggressive? In my teaching, you know my just my just commanding movement and commanding.

19:25 And and not a not not allowing enough time to rest or to sit and to talk about Tension and talk about I don't know inspiration or something like this. So it's something for me that's really an even just having this conversation as a reminder, right?

19:41 Even though I know this stuff, it's always a healthy, reminder to come back to that on a regular basis, right? And do you do the same? Do you have a like a regular? I want to say this a battle that a conversation. I guess in your head about the balance between the masculine feminine. I do.

19:57 I have like little like checks, like Like maybe like SOS like okay, I need a maybe I need to look at that for me like being really assertive, can be hard for me and so sometimes I'm like, you know what, I'm gonna go full fucking blown masculine on this and maybe it can come across a little intense.

20:19 And and that's usually when the anxiety starts and all this stuff, but if I can reflect on that, I mean like, okay, well maybe I can like soften this up because I don't really need to be like that that aggressive and I can be assertive and still kind and like that gentle softness to myself without having to overly explain. I don't know if that makes sense or if you if you've come into this before.

20:48 Yeah. Well what comes to mind when you say that is not getting lost in one of them not getting lost in the assertiveness not getting lost in the masculine quad or not getting lost in the feminine quality and allowing that to Grover and consume and bringing yourself back to kind of teetering, forwards, and backwards with whatever qualities they are to give yourself that healthy that healthy balance between the two. I mean, I don't even know how you would how to like, talk about that like how to actually

21:17 do that, besides probably practicing it and just creating more awareness around it journaling has been huge for me like, to find the patterns. Like, that one came it up into my mind, is because it's something that I've been working on and I have a daily journaling practice.

21:33 So like I wake up in the morning, I write three pages. I'm half asleep, I have one eye open sometimes, like I start to see a pattern and that one really came up for me when I started looking at the lens of like masculine and feminine like really honing in like, what's going on here, okay, I see that I'm really going through my masculine because I'm uncomfortable with being maybe super assertive, if that makes sense. And so I I go full-on mask and

22:01 I'm like, well, you know what, I'm actually much more of a soft-spoken person in some ways. So how do I merge these two? And for me journaling, is really helped me see that and pinpoint it that. But the process is going to look different for everybody. And this is, you know, one example, out of, you know, infinite amount and yeah, people can have different ways of doing it.

22:23 Yeah, and different. And this is why it's kind of hard to talk about. Like I'm kind of like tripping over my words a little bit because I'm like, well how do I The Listener is kind of like find their own way and honestly, probably just listening to us talk about.

22:36 It is a great way to start just having the awareness about it and then I'll share an example for me, for example, like, I'm a male, I would say I'm more masculine that I am feminine. And that nuts doesn't necessarily mean because I'm a male, I have more masculine because I know some males that are also quite feminine but they're not necessarily gay or anything like that. They just have more of a feminine qualities that's come to them a lot more easily and

22:58 nurturing Easily opening up vulnerability, like exactly and it could be again for whatever reason. Maybe he or they were raised with all sisters or only a mother and that's just kind of what they they worked into or it could be the opposite effect where you only had sisters and, you know, you didn't have a father growing up and then you kind of accommodate the lack of and therefore you become more masculine. So there's no real right?

23:24 And I should say right way, but there's no real definitive way, unlike how we kind of become to be. But for me I am more of a masculine dominant person instead of saying male more masculine dominant person. So for me my day-to-day usually gets it is getting up and like going like doing doing is kind of more that Matthew and quality so getting up and you know getting into work and like getting focused and starting to you know, take care of business

23:53 ultimately which is very much the Western mindset. Like go, go, go, fast, fast, fast. That's all. Masculine masculine and even though, you know, I have my practices and I do yoga and all this stuff I still and I meditate, I still have a difficult time with it. Especially almost every single morning, I'll say in talking about morning, routines with Paul a couple episodes ago and having to challenge myself, to do a 30-day meditation every morning, or trying to do it

24:25 every morning to get myself to do it more regularly that's sitting in meditation. Sitting in Stillness sitting in just kind of being more of that. Feminine is really hard for me to jump into first thing. So I really have to like, push myself to do it. But when I do every single time, I have a better day because I've created a little bit of balance, if I know my math skills going to take over.

24:48 Like, I know, I'm just more masculine, generally speaking for again, whatever reasons. So I have to allow myself a little bit more encouragement, or a little bit more of a push to do. The feminine things even though it doesn't come to me naturally because when I do that, I find my balance better and then I become more of my better self more effective at my work, more efficient with my work, I probably have better conversations, I'm probably better at empathizing recognizing how to be around

25:21 other people. It's almost like it. It allows me to take my focus Beyond just like a single Direction which masculine is very directional and feminine can be very much intuitively tapping in and finding out which direction to go. Right.

25:39 Yeah. Oh, you know what came to my mind Michael as you're saying these like beautiful, like I love, I love what you're saying and the thing that popped into my mind was Disney Disney. Characters. Mmm. And you know, I mean, we're probably most of us are familiar with like Snow White and the Seven Dwarves and you know, the princess, you know, she's asleep and she needs a prince, you know, whatever.

26:08 So I feel like this is a way like a lot of people see masculine feminine as gendered. My favorite Disney right now especially talking about this is brave and she has that balance of masculine feminine where it's genderless.

26:26 Hmm. And I love this example, and Maybe like the way that Disney and like these like princess movies are kind of coming about is more balanced and lately. There's been a shift for sure when movies in general. Oh, totally. Yeah, I think it's fantastic.

26:43 That's great. Yeah. And there and again, they're probably just trying to find the balance between, how do we Show this as a true reality of a balance between the two, which is probably not easy as a producer as a movie filmmaker because like it just kind of it and that's actually probably what makes it more authentic.

27:01 And real is that it's not that easy in general in life. Anyway, like everyone's kind of like figuring it out from day to day you. And I even though we're talking about this, we're just still figuring out as well and just finding out our own ways of doing it, whether we journaling for you meet, you know, pushing myself to do more my meditations. And there's Other strategies to be able to do that, right? Yeah.

27:20 I mean we're you know, we're just being Rebels like, you know, like Society pushes one way and what's going to feel good for us, you know, might not look the same but I mean, where where are we right now, Michael. I mean, this is not typical.

27:33 Yeah, that's true. That's very true. I think one thing that's probably easier for the person that's listening to this, or for someone else, who wants to help Inspire other ones to other people to be able to find a balance between the two. Uh to is really kind of figuring out which one you're more dominant in.

27:51 Yeah just because you're a male like I said you're not going to be more masculine just because you're female doesn't mean you're going to be more feminine but just thinking of the qualities that are masculine and the qualities that are more feminine, which one would you say?

28:03 You Teeter towards more? And then knowing that it's probably going to be that that one is going to be more easily that that one's going to come to more easily, right? So then you might have to work a little bit more on the other one. Yeah.

28:16 And then when you know that that at least gives you somewhere Start, right? And that can be something that you can share with, you know, we're not really talking about like, in class, but you can actually use this stuff to share the beginning or the end of class with regards to feminine masculine qualities. Because I think it's really important for everyone to just kind of like create awareness around this, but yeah, once you know, your dominant space then

28:38 you know which one you need to work a little bit more at and at least it gives you that masculine direction. If I need to work towards being more feminine like applying the masculine to the fat or the feminine to the mass.

28:47 You like you can kind Of play on both. Yeah, I mean, themed classes. I mean, there's a lot in here that can be really, you know, unwoven unwoven, if you will. So, what do you mean by theme, classes theme? Like, okay, well, now I'm going back to the like Vinyasa again classes, like, you know, solar lunar classes.

29:07 Like, you know, we can play in these and, you know, I don't know. As a teacher, we were, we're constantly learning, we're constantly exploring Then solar lunar just because I only recently learned this. I don't want to assume anyone know who this man?

29:23 Please please, please explain. No, I want you to explain some of the difference between solar and lunar cost. So solar is tend to be like the sun. The sun is burning. It's red-hot that is technically like traditionally more masculine and so that's going to be like maybe more of you like your power yoga Vinyasa that maybe is a little bit more you know, heat-generating Cobalt color body bread. Fire breath.

29:50 Like all of these are really warm lunar is going to be the moon. It's going to be a bit softer more nourishing nourishing, like your Yen classes, or maybe it's a Vinyasa slow flow class and really feeling into it and for like a solar lunar class, like maybe I'll have like, you know what? Like a heating heating a yoga class. And then I like towards the And I start to slow it all down. Like, you know, that way, if there's a way of your glow, your class in like your Peak pose and

30:25 it starts to come down the beginning in the end being a little bit more lunar. Yeah, right? Yeah, yeah. And then the middle or the build up being more that heat of that solar. Yeah and you can do it like that too. Like you can definitely like play around in it.

30:41 Yeah. Yeah that's cool and I think it's something that. Can I think the lunar gets I mean I can't say this for sure because I'm in Bali but generally speaking I think in the Western World a lot it's very solar. Can I say that it's more?

30:56 It's more masculine, it's more solar. It's more heat building. It's more work out. Gotta get a sweat on. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Because people got things to do, right. They got families at home like at work. If the shavasana, wow.

31:08 Many people don't do it. I love shavasana. That's my favorite. Definitely, don't want to ship the skip the savasana and definitely don't want to skip the cool down to the warm up especially coming from me. It's Super important for injury prevention, as you guys know, but it's also a great time to tap into that lunar or that feminine qualities conversation talking about surrendering and letting go and like, you know, I love it.

31:33 At the beginning of a class, whether it be Paul or someone else, even I do this sometimes is just really reminding people to just let go of everything else. Except for what you're about to do, for the next 90 minutes, or 60 minutes or whatever it is, nothing else is important for the next 60 Minutes or 90 minutes.

31:48 Except for You're about to do which is basically being in this mat and just following along tapping in. Yeah letting go of the stress. Like I went to yoga class this morning and I was feeling a lot of stress and a lot of things were going in my brain, which is obviously, a great opportunity for me to go to yoga and let go of that stuff but I needed to let go of that before I started practice, otherwise, I'm just going to carry it with me. I had to remind myself like let

32:11 go of this for the next 90 minutes. It's not going to do any like it'll be there when I come back. Don't worry like it'll still be there but for now I don't need it. So let's just focus on me. But not everyone knows how to do that.

32:23 So sometimes reminders are really helpful to the class, participants of the students to just Let go. You know, just focus on this. Nothing Else Matters right now. Yeah, right. Cool. So we kind of we went from permission giving ourselves permission to the masculine feminine balance between the two which I think is all kind of interconnected to some degree but let's maybe bring it back to the permission thing a little bit. What do you think?

32:52 I think the permission piece. Is doesn't necessarily need to fall within Yoga practices. And the reason why I say that is because the last couple days for me, I've been feeling a lot of. How do I say this? Maybe not stress.

33:10 Yeah, we'll call it stress. Let's just call it stress. Stress is a great umbrella term and feeling like I needed to do more in order to counter that stress, like work harder, work faster, do more things. It's like that song.

33:25 What's that? What? Justice faster stronger? Oh, yeah, that's right. Right as I butchered over this right now, I know. Yeah, exactly. Isn't that the Daft Punk song? Yes. It's tough, but it's not Justice. Right? Right. So, yeah.

33:39 So, that's how I was feeling. I was feeling stressed and I was trying to counter it with more stress, basically, instead of trying to give myself permission to just be like, take a day and just don't, you know, I mean like chill and that's basically what I did yesterday. As I still did some work work but I wasn't aggressive with it. I was forgiving to myself to be like, you know, today's it's not a day that you're gonna be able to produce today is not a day that you're going to be able to

34:02 be effective or as effective as you would like to be. So take the pressure off. Otherwise you're just going to set yourself up for disappointment. You're going to try to live up to expectations that are just going to your fighting an uphill battle.

34:13 So giving yourself the permission to be like okay not today, right? And again, we can bring it back to the yoga class, but at the same thing it can be applied in any type of situation. Just give yourself permission to be. I cannot today or not now or it's just it's not, it's not working for me.

34:28 And isn't that what yoga is sauna is like, how, like, what we do on the mat, like translates to how we live our lives? And it's profound. It's a guy, it's a physical practice, but finding those parallels like what you just mentioned, like, that's huge.

34:46 Yeah, connecting the dot, you're right. Exactly. Because life isn't yoga as much as some people might not like to hear that, but it also is yoga or life is Yoga. It's like, it's both like you you practice yoga to be better at life.

35:00 Yeah. And you live life so that you can practice yoga or at least, that's how I see it. So they're both one in the same to some degree. So, Of you pulling, you take from yoga, you need to bring into your real world and apply it and turn it into a balance.

35:18 Right. Cool. So, where else do you want to go from here? That was pretty good stuff. Yeah, so I really like that. I like the permission piece quite a bit. I like the masculine the summit and this the masking the feminine is a bigger topic. We could probably talk about that 40. There's so many different ways to go with it like the masculine and feminine.

35:37 Like I see a lot of things like Shakti and Shiva. Like find your your Shiva like yo your other half like you know, complete it like and it's very gendered. And you know that's all fun and a lot of people are really into it but it just, you know, it hits my soul a little weird.

35:55 Like no, that's Disney like know like old-school. Disney like we're more than that lot saying like we have to do life alone but like we can be whole people like when yet not yet in when the masculine and feminine are like balanced it leads to what I believe is like that's when I feel more whole and that's when I can like, show up for the people that I Love and my life. That's when I can show up for the people that really challenged me in my life, you

36:25 know, the DMV like oh, you know, the whole thing but this this feeling of being whole already, you know, it's a belief. Yeah, it's true. And we're Christina. And I my partner, Kristi and I always talk about this a little bit and I say this very playfully, but we're all little broken. Yeah.

36:48 Right roll. We're all a little broken and some days were more broken than others. If we were to put it in simplest terms so it's like it's okay to give ourselves permission to be broken a little bit or to be unbalanced sometimes and also giving space to other people to do the same. I mean, we're talking very intrinsically right now and focusing on ourselves individually. But also just knowing this that other people require that reminder that space or the

37:16 encouragement to To do the same in for me Kristina is really good at this. She also she is sometimes I feel guilty whenever I take time for myself. Hmm. Oh and this is a great example. Getting massages here in Bali is the thing that people do, it took me a while to get comfortable with that because I didn't feel like I deserved it. Yeah, I felt guilty for having massages and like, you know, pampering myself in taking care of myself and I remember the first time I got as like a

37:46 pretty good massage here. The whole time I was just uncomfortable. Like, he did a great job. He knew what he was doing. I could tell, but I was just like, I felt guilt to the whole time, like a high, don't deserve this. I should be working at, you know, Michael. I know, right.

37:59 Right. That's an imbalance right there. But now, when I get a massage, which is like every couple weeks, it's not like aggressively like all the time. Now I'm completely surrender. I just lay there and I'd be like, I deserve this. I'm just gonna lay here and be, would you say it takes practice? Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

38:17 It took me awhile. Ow, the first time was the hardest. Then I got a little bit easier and now it's like when he shows up, I just lay there and I'm like, do your thing, man. 60 minutes. I'm just going to lay here and just not sleep quite, but I basically just focus on my breathing and not moving which is, I would say very feminine as opposed to trying to control and trying to move on to the next thing and thinking about what I need to do and all that stuff. So definitely a balance and

38:42 practicing that. Yeah and I love that you bring up the you know we're all a little bit broken. course, like, you know, I consider myself a whole person now, But does that mean I'm like a perfect? Ceramic like ball. Like, that's never been like, shattered before or continues to get shattered? No, not at all.

39:04 Like, what is that Japanese bowl? Like, where they it when it breaks, they put it back together and they seem it with like little gold. Yeah! Gold glue or something. Oh, gosh, I, you know, at all, or oh, we are not a spokesperson. Yeah, we're not.

39:19 We're butchering, this really bad. Maybe, you know what we're talking about. But It ultimately I think the premise behind the whole thing is that when the piece of the ceramic piece breaks and it gets stitched back together with these gold lines or whatever it looks, it's even better afterwards.

39:35 It's beautiful stronger. It's more beautiful afterwards. So even though it was broken at one time, it's still, it's be gotten stronger because of it. I mean, it kind of goes back to that simple saying, or like whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger to some degree. But ultimately that's kind of kind of the idea is that everything that we go through everything that makes us feel broken.

39:52 That makes us this challenging is just doing something to kind of build this back up. Oh yes, being a whole person does not mean being a perfect person. That's right. There's a huge difference, perfection. Perfection. Yeah, it's so boring. It's and I unattainable.

40:16 It's just like that is the rat race? Yeah. Yeah and that's that's the disappointment that's trying to not make mistakes. I mean oh my God. We could talk about chasing the Magic Dragon. You can't catch it. Yeah, there's so many things, so many things that come from that allowing yourself to make mistakes and wreck it.

40:34 Actually, you know what, this is basically what we're summarizing is giving ourselves permission. If be broken. Yeah, yeah, give herself the permissions to not be perfect. Giving ourselves permission to be like worst that we're all a work in progress where all the broken vase just trying to fill in the lines with some gold glue or whatever.

40:51 Yeah. With some other broken vases are also trying to fill, you know that golden glue, right? You might even get a piece of someone else's face and you know, like that that child's book with the fish and I know we're going, I'm like being an add student right now.

41:05 Frankenstein, basically of these Frankenstein had a situation. Yeah, so that's I think I'm hoping this is landing really well for you. We're kind of going all over the place to some degree but it's all kind of intertwining to be the same thing which is ultimately just we're all were all forever students and we all need to give ourselves permission to be students. Regardless, if you're a teacher or not a teacher, or yoga. I mean, you're probably a yoga

41:29 person, but ultimately every single person needs to be constantly, open-minded, to learning and constantly open minded to recognizing that there's room for improvement change. Adjustments, regardless of what's happened in the past, what you might have been able to do before what you've been able to accomplish.

41:48 You know it changes from day to day from hour to hour from moment to moment. Sometimes giving yourself permission to say yes or no, giving yourself more awareness around the balance that you require and making those adjustments in those shifts. So yeah, we're all a little bit broken and that's okay. And I'm going to give myself permission to be messy, you know this.

42:09 This put this podcast might be a little bit messy, that's absurd. But you know what? It's nice. That's actually a perfect perfect example of it's actually, I don't think it was messy at all. I think it was perfect and exactly how you make my head right now, right. So we need to, we need to allow that and be okay with it. So I think that's actually perfect. Yeah.

42:27 Okay cool. So that's about about 40 minutes. I like that. I Feel Complete. Yeah. I feel good about that. Cool. Alright well thank you. Is there actually before we do that, is there anything else that you want to add something that might we might have like, kind of Of skimmed over.

42:42 Nothing pressing, I'm seeing you think aren't being the only thing was, like, the spaces. I love the spaces that you've mentioned earlier like when you're breathing space but you know what? We don't even say anything else.

42:53 Like I'm feeling pretty good. Well I can kiss now. I'm curious. Oh maybe in another episode events out of this land and we can talk about the spaces because that is where the real magic happens. Okay, well let's tease it then what do we mean by the spaces?

43:07 Oh so you know, Maybe you don't know. Anyways, I hate saying, you know. When were meditating focus on that inhale and the exhale, it's like the space, the pauses the space between the words, that's the most powerful. Space between the breath space between the words. Yeah, I see what you're saying now. Okay, that's a good teas right there. Yeah, that's all I'm gonna say.

43:34 I gotta keep it at that a lot, so I can we can pull out of that. Wow. The space, all the space. We create between people. Yeah, the space that we create for people. Yeah. Containers space, we create within our body. Dang, this isn't go.

43:49 A lot of ways, I mean, our chest, like, you know, the lugs are great, but they're container its space right expansiveness. Yeah, cool. Alright, I like that will bring that into something at some point. Cool, if you're interested, we want to know.

44:03 So you got to reach out to us and let us know if you want to know more about this space business that we're just kind of making up as we go. Yeah, exactly. Cool. Awesome. Thanks so much Callen. This is really fun sloppy messy.

44:15 Perfect. Imperfect broken, whatever it is. I loved it. It was great conversation. Thanks for having me. Yeah, thank you so much for joining in. Thank you to all of you for joining and listening in and allowing us to do. Speak into your ear for the last 40 minutes. Hope you enjoyed it.

44:30 You can also connect with Kalyn through. What's the best way to connect with you? Instagram is Instagram and grow, pixie Acro pixie a few, want to see a lot of cool super fun, poses and tutorials and or just random acrobatic dancing type stuff, right?

44:47 Ultimately, yeah. Acroyoga acro dance yoga like it, it's fun. Yeah. Fine, creative. Callen is fun. If I were to put it in one word, she's fun. So if you Some fun in your life. Go follow her and you'll get lots of it. Cool.

45:00 And if you have any questions as always, you can reach out to me or Paul Instagram, which all this information will be in the show notes. So again, thank you so much for listening. Hope you have a beautiful beautiful day and we'll see you next time.