Meditation Myths for Beginners, with Leah Santa Cruz

0:01 I always recommend considering that, who was it made for What was it designed to do? And is it right for me? And that's a question that I think most of us don't have that discernment when it comes to meditation because we kind of just say, oh, this Guru told me to do this.

0:23 So I'm just going to do it. Blindly, welcome to the going pro yoga podcast. If you love yoga as much as I do, then this podcast is for you. We talk all things yoga related for teachers in order to supplement and complement and even support after a 200 our yoga teacher training. Or if you've never done a training before this podcast is all about just learning more about yoga in an authentic way together with Paul t0 do in Byron de Marseille, we put together this podcast to provide

0:54 you with a free resource to learn more about yoga, whether you want to share yoga, or teach yoga or just practice yoga. This podcast is Talking all things you have are related and we try to talk from the teachers perspective and also the students perspective, to make sure we get a full 360 degree, angle on what yoga is all about and how its evolved in the modern world. Welcome to our podcast.

1:14 Welcome back to the going pro. Yoga podcasts, Michael here and today we have a guest joining us. Leo Santa Cruz, Leia. How are you? I'm great, thank you. So, Leia is someone who's probably spoken about a few times on this podcast, if you recall. Maybe you don't but Leia and Paul are a unit. Let's just say and they have a little baby boy Luca as well as a little army of dogs.

1:39 These days just had a recent litter but lays joining us on the podcast today to share some of her wisdom and knowledge and her experience. She is the co-head of meditation and meditation coach on the balance app, as well as the co-host of well-balanced podcast.

1:57 So yeah, I'm very excited to have lay here. I met me. I have several years ago, she was actually the meditation teacher, and my children, our teacher training with Paul and buyer. And also a friend who be see on a regular basis.

2:11 So yeah, we had an opportunity to get together and we're going to, we're going to talk about some interesting topics. And I think today, we're going to talk about modern meditation. But before we do that, maybe layout, you want to say a little bit about yourself, or introduce yourself in your own way.

2:25 Sure, thank you. I'm excited to be here and to share my stories with you all. I I've been living here in Bali for the last six years, and prior to that, I was in Los Angeles teaching meditation. And I wasn't always a meditation teacher. I actually worked for a number of years in the tech industry and the startup world, and I work for Microsoft for half a decade.

2:55 And those are fun times busy times, Maybe anxiety-provoking NG X to be. If I'm being honest, I had a lot of burnout, maybe several waves of burnout. I was very good at denying. The burnout that I was experiencing and just going a hundred miles an hour, but I had learned enough in my years studying psychology about The fact that I needed to make some shifts and that's this is not normal. So I really moved to yoga and meditation not as a career path more, just a healing path for

3:32 myself. I think as so many people have and as you listening might have yourself but it became a passion. It became something that I couldn't stop thinking about couldn't stop talking about and In my first yoga teacher training, I took my teacher had such an incredible way of explaining meditation.

3:56 To me, he himself is a great yoga instructor, but even better meditation teacher and formerly a Vedic Monk and a man named Steve Ross and who I respect dearly for what he's taught me and you really sort of initially pushed me on this path of being excited by the esoteric. Eric and by the energies and subtle energies and and the power that meditation has.

4:22 So here I am years later, several different mentors and teachers. And now, now, I'm really excited to be able to teach people how to guide others in meditation and leading my own teacher trainings. And it's just a, it's just been an Incredible Gift and I'm excited to share with everyone and I think it's something that yoga instructors don't often. I mean I was lucky like I Got a teacher in my yoga teacher training, who was profoundly, amazing, meditation teacher. But I do find that most yoga

4:56 instructors that I talk to don't feel they have adequate skills and this department. So I'm I think it's something that is a really great complement to yoga, of course. And actually, I mean, arguably is entwined with you about?

5:10 Yeah, the main brothers head of. So I think it behooves All of us who are on the path of yoga to, really, to really learn more. Yeah, yeah, I agree. And I also agree with what I see in a lot of teacher. Trainings as someone who works with a lot of different schools teaching, the anatomy and physiology is the element of meditation is not something that people grasp. Let's just say that easily.

5:36 It's not maybe, as relatable, or maybe it's just not taught in a way. That's seems accessible. Which is kind of why we're here. Today is talk a little bit about that and You know, what is modern meditation? How its evolved from thousands of years ago in the ways that was used? And in how it can be probably better used now especially for people like who are listening to this podcast who are probably over teachers and maybe meditate maybe don't meditate, maybe they're like, I tried to but it

6:08 doesn't work for me, stuff like that. Yeah, so I think that's kind of where we might just kind of move into that. Yeah, you know I appreciate that. You said Ed meditation for people, thousands of years ago versus today because that's Something I don't think most of us think about, I certainly didn't think about it. When I first started meditating, I I mean, I discovered meditation through, when I discovered meditation through the lens of yoga, I really

6:37 perceived it to be as something very austere. And something that perhaps I had to jump through, you know, very particular set of Hoops to get to the outcome and there is the proper techniques. And then there's in proper ways and I had a sit-in particular way with my fingers in a particular way and back stiff as a board.

6:56 And I had budgeted. Yeah. There was a lot of rigidity. Around it. There was a lot of seriousness around it and there was always this feeling of, am I doing this right? How do I know when I've meditating in my doing this wrong? And a bit of a mentality, that was very, I want to see like policing against myself.

7:20 Because I wanted to do it right. But that's kind of the moat The Motto that I have in my life. And I'm sort of a, I talk about a lot that I have control issues. So many of us do, I'm recovering from them, but I wouldn't say that they're gone completely, but I, I was just bringing all those same control mechanisms that I was using in my regular life right into my meditation. Practice thinking that, that would be like, you know, like you do one, things like you do,

7:49 everything they say, I'm thinking that if I can just control this experience, somehow, then I will be able to touch the unknown and, you know, have that atonement that, that Oneness But it seemed impossible to get through through through the means that I was doing it. And that's where the frustration comes. And that's when it wasn't until My teacher one of my beloved teachers, dr.

8:18 Lauren Roche and and his lovely wife Camille marine, or to buy my mentors. And this field opened my eyes to a different way of perceiving meditation. That was not designed just for the monk or the yogi living in a cave 2000 years ago. Because think about it like There's a very particular pathway in life that people.

8:47 Live by when they go down the route of the call the renunciate pass that is the monk, the none the yogi there were none. See, a Ting things, they're saying, I'm No longer going to make money in the world and have ambition to build a company or to make an Empire, do anything like I'll take donations and all of the Panache from somewhere or some religious order typically and they renunciate, their names.

9:23 Usually usually they create a whole new identity of their former selves is Left Behind Ava. Funeral for them are no longer part of that family, the renunciate, their past, they were done C8. Their sexuality, take vows of poverty and celibacy and that's it. I mean, it's, it's a very particular path, right? Yeah.

9:53 I think what? Like intense. It's not like, oh, that's that. I try to find imitating. I think is the word of very intimidating, but I think many people are drawn to To it, especially men. Especially particular types of men.

10:06 I said, I find her more drawn to it, but very few people actually go on to do that. I think it's something like less than 1% right population. I think it's very small. So then you got 99. Point, something percent of the population who are living out in the world.

10:22 And, you know, and they in the yoga and meditation worlds, and in India, they kind of coined at the householder, it's like the sadhu and the householder. And the householder is like all of us busy and me, we have a house, we have a rent in a mortgage or careers bills to pay.

10:46 We have communities social, you know, complex social networks, and relationships, and partners, and children. Even and, you know, we're not living in a hut somewhere in the forest. Yes, we have all working out of. We were a lot of things to think about responsibilities.

11:04 It's like this. Yeah. So going back to what my teacher taught me. He dropped his bomb enemies said. Yeah, you know, you could, you could definitely have meditations that are completely Thoughtless and enter that and and go into a space of pure thoughtlessness in meditation.

11:25 If you made the certain sacrifices that you need to make and you know, for the average person listening to this and myself that would mean writing out a little Of every single possible thing that I have to do and delegating it to other people paying off my rent or mortgage for the next five.

11:46 Or so, ten years say every possible thing that's left unsaid to everyone. I know, right? So, that's not swarming around inside it. I like closure with a closure with everything. I mean, all the things haven't said your parents, the all the things that you had said to your ex's to Worker partner ever and then and then basically, like bring like 60 sayonara to everyone and like leaving, you know, if you have children finding someone to care for your children, and then, basically

12:15 cutting off yourself from the world in some way, and then having literally zero responsibilities and things that have to get done and then you would probably be able to find at some point thoughtless. This, but because we are living in the world and we're not, we didn't take the path of the saw do. We have thousands if not millions of things that have we've encountered that are, you know, potentially stored within us.

12:44 Unfinished business things. You need to think about things that need to get done. We are constantly in this mode of needing to take action in our lives and we don't really most of us don't really want to be disconnected from our sexuality and have no libido and no desire.

13:03 You know most of us do want a healthy balance of that and most of us do want to have a healthy amount of ambition. So we're not, you know, Living in the basement of our mother's house when we're 40 50, most of us want to have connection and maybe even families. And so we have to embrace the fact that the meditation attitudes its nest the techniques as more that attitudes.

13:35 Because attitude is a technique if you really think about it, it's more that attitudes that we've adopted when we learned, we go down the path of yoga, or maybe some more traditional forms of meditation. And we kind of adopted this attitude, that was designed for the saw do 2,000 years ago in India, Thinking if I just fit into that mold, I will then experience my Enlightenment in my one moment, but but we're, we're not practicing in a way. That's right.

14:06 For us, there's no way they could have known. What for instance, a woman like myself, living today in the world that has a two year old and a busy career and travels all the time could want or need or, or what meditation would be right for me. So, I always.

14:26 Recommend considering that, who was it made for? What was it designed to do? And is it right for me? And that's a question that I think most of us don't have that discernment when it comes to meditation because we kind of just say, oh, this Guru told me to do this.

14:46 So I'm just going to do it blindly You know our everyone said, this is the technique that works. So I'm going to do it because it's supposed to work and if it's not working for me, there must be something wrong with me. Actually, it's not true then. So it's kind of a breath of fresh air. Most people find when they think about that. Yeah, that was a big thing that I took from our teacher training that I remember that being like, yeah, meditation. It needs to be this way.

15:14 I need to be sitting like this. I need to be, you know, there's certain elements that are helpful but It for me, sitting cross-legged is like the worst. It's so uncomfortable because of my hips and back and I'm sure there's a bunch of stuff there.

15:28 So I remember you saying like, it's okay if you sit in a chair or, you know, it's okay if you even lay down, you know, having you know, if you fall asleep at the different thing, I didn't make that up, right? But it gave me permission to be like Hollow. Yeah, I can still use this tool and actually, like, get some of the benefits of meditation and I don't have to be like, you know, Don't even have to go to the extreme of locking myself in a cave, but I don't have to sit in

15:53 this way. I don't have to have my hands this way. I just, you know, I can basically sit comfortably mean some of us really like to jump through lots of Hoops and we feel like okay I'll once I jump through all these hoops and I go through all these rules and orderly thing that I can like get the finished like when the you know the award the ribbon but even promo Hanson Yogananda and from Hunger NADA he said It's better for people living in the Western World to sit in a chair with her feet on the floor

16:23 and their hands resting in their lap with back support. That would be the better way for them to practice meditation. And he was like, you know, the OGE brought yoga over way back in the day to, to Los Angeles and the and the United States and then it kind of had this explosion around the world.

16:42 That's what my best meditation. Sub happened is sitting on a chair or a couch, or something. Where I've You'll like I have like ergonomic perfect. Yeah, like that to basically ideal support it. You didn't grow up in like a Yogi's doing Yogi squat. So those are the way you sit which you know living here in Bali like we do.

17:00 I don't know if you've seen plenty of men sitting like that I have and I think there's just a difference in culture our culture we sit and dads who sit in chairs who sit in cars we growing up in school we sat in chairs and desks.

17:15 So are you probably talk about this Alzheimer flashes? Designed for sitting in that way and dominates for lifestyle, and yeah. But, you know, hey, if you like sitting cross-legged and you're like, you're flexible and you have been practicing yoga for a long time, and your hips are really open have at it, you know.

17:35 But if you're, if you are not that way, like the majority of people notice when you're feeling that sensation of pain in your knees and some would say, in more traditional path, as we'll just push through the pain and then it will eventually dissolve. And yes, there's some truth to that but is not accessible for most people.

17:55 And in fact, there's a lot of injuries that happen. Yeah, I was going to say, I wouldn't recommend it. Yeah, people over stretch their leg. Immense people have to get knee surgery, halfway through the live, because they've met as any of cross-legged for so long.

18:08 Yeah, I don't recommend it either, unless you absolutely feel comfortable with that. But, you know, even outside of the position we hold our body and because that's kind of, that's kind of not as important. How we hold our bodies and meditation because there's so many different ways we can do it. We can do dancing standing walking lying down everything. Plenty of people practice meditation while making love while running while, you know, cooking or drinking a cup of coffee or tea.

18:43 Is so there's just literally countless ways we can practice meditation and I think that's what the excitement of modernizing it. And what does it mean to meditate then? So what does it mean to meditate then? Yeah, alright.

19:00 So I like to think of meditation as a deep dive into aliveness. Which is a little bit different than the traditional even when we hear the yoga sutras talk about the chili, you know, the talking about the cessation of thoughts.

19:19 The cessation thought. Yeah, it's topping of it. How does it go narrower? The I'm blanking on the suture right now. I know it, but I forgot it right now. But essentially, it translates into the cessation of thoughts. Calming the Mind from all fought. And many many people.

19:39 Like I said, would argue that traditionally speaking. Yes, that is the point of the meditation. However, when we think about who is designed for, is typically that person on the saw do pathway, so, it might behoove them to make all the sacrifices to do that, because it doesn't just come on its own. However, if you're living in the modern world, you have lots of things to think about, you are going to have to learn how to be in a relationship with your

20:05 thoughts, instead of the whole point of the meditation. Of getting rid of them. So it's more about embracing, your aliveness, and aliveness shows up in many ways, aliveness shows up in the sensations that we feel in our body.

20:20 All of our senses, not even just limited to the five senses. But many more senses that we have that. We don't often think of, like our sense of gravity, or our sense of balance, a sense of knowing when were full of them, were hungry year and we need to take a deeper breath or not.

20:38 There's Many senses that we have that we can learn to savor and enjoy in meditation. And then beyond that, our instincts is one way that I live in is shows up for us the instincts that we have to do nesting, instincts, homing and things meeting instincts, feeding and stings nurturing instincts. I have a like you said, it's on and so many animals right now, and I have a strong, nurturing Instinct. And that's the part Of my aliveness. It's what drives me.

21:10 It's a motivator for the things that I do and we can we can really take time in our meditations to honor that and notice it when it comes up and to appreciate it and to savor it. What else? aliveness shows up like, emotion moods It's such a fun thing to check in with our moods. Yeah.

21:36 And like, what mood am I in right now? I don't know what mood are you in right now? Curious curious. Yes, I do. Mood weird after yesterday. Yeah. Absolutely. It's like a mood is more than just an emotion, right? Yeah. That's good. But um but it can include emotions but it's a mood Like A vibe.

21:56 Yeah Curious by and we can have more than one mood at the same time, you know? Muda, positivity mood, of Courage, mood of angst. So would you say that? Like because I'm thinking about meditation and, you know, not this would you call it's a do the sadhu sadhu pathway or the renunciate. Renunciant pathway meditation, not to like simplify, but try to make it a little bit more digestible. And just another way of like narrowing Focus to something that's important to you right

22:34 now. Mmm, or something that's present for you right now, which could be an emotion or a mood. Yeah. Well What I was about to say, is part of the way that we experience aliveness is through our thoughts to. So when we're comparing okay with them, what is the Minish? Thousands of ways to meditate, right? So it's, I couldn't possibly cover all of them, but traditionally you think of present moment, awareness or mantra, Loving-kindness, there's, there's many different types of meditations that are

23:09 more traditional and nature and then you have things. Such as instinctive meditation, guided visualizations, things that are a little bit more little newer, right? The perhaps originated later on and One of the ways that we can approach meditation as a modern-day person living in the world that differs from the saw do monk, or the yogi in the cave is to welcome our thoughts. if there is other more I could say, would be that Welcome your thoughts because it is a part of

23:52 the way that aliveness is showing up in you and more importantly, it just part of the way that your mind body system is releasing stress. Or communicating to you baby. Yeah, releasing stress. Communicating with you and and choreographing a more effective future for you, where you can go out into the world and be more effective have better relationships. Say the proper thing, you know, like, like basketball players, or F, professional athletes, who

24:24 are using meditation. And in ways that were there, Visualizing the moves at the degree to make and they're shooting the hoops and they're scoring goals and their there watching the whole play happen in their minds. They call it pre-visualization. Ansel Adams came up with that term and That is a form of meditation.

24:47 And that's what we're often doing in our meditations. Even if that's not the technique, that we think we're doing, it happens when we start thinking about future moves, So here the whole cycle of meditation is really fascinating and it's good for us to know it's we go to rest and relax and then we start to release tension.

25:04 And as we release tension in our bodies, we start to review. What we were tense to begin with the past business, unfinished business, even sometimes Old Wounds come up, And if we stop there, we kind of block ourselves from the benefits that come afterwards which is we start to restore blood flow and Prana oxygen to all the tissues and places that were the head that tension in before because our issues live in our tissues and they stay the tension and and will be release the tension.

25:40 Then suddenly, we can restore all that life back and that's when the body starts to heal itself and that's where we start to hear about all those benefits. It's like, you know, anti-aging and the cellular repair and balancing hormones, and it just all the goodness that comes physically. And that's kind of around the time that we tend to feel this restoration of like this real release feeling, or we might even have that moment of bliss or second of it. And then suddenly the mind-body

26:14 system is just all this activity has been taking place all this healing and it's going. Wow, I'm like excited and rejuvenated and I'm ready to go. I'm ready to go into the world and be more effective. Now, I've got all this energy now. Got a boost What am I going to do with it? And that's when we start to rehearse the future. I'm thinking about tomorrow and that vacation we want to take and of things.

26:36 And then we remember at some point that we were we are meditating. And we have a choice. I can be mad at myself and think and judge my experience and say, oh I would just wasted that time. Now, I have to start from scratch.

26:47 Again, I have to go back to the beginning. I have to bring my mind back from these crazy monkey mind thoughts, that's one approach but I don't recommend that the other approaches. Oh, wow. I was just going through the whole cycle of meditation.

27:01 This was all supposed to happen. Isn't that fascinating? Isn't that interesting? My mind would on this journey of thought and that's all part of the process of stress release and choreographing the future cool. Where do I want to bring my attention now?

27:16 Because I'm meditating, and then we bring our attention to where we wanted to go the quote technique, whether that's a sound the Mantra where that's a sensation in our body, a sense of visualization or something else. then it doesn't really matter what the technique is, the modern approach to meditation has more to do with the attitude, then it does the thing that we're bringing our attention to, but we can also learn that. There's so many ways that we can

27:48 bring our attention to something. Like we can bring a cold scrutiny to something and just be a cold clinical Observer. Like there's a thought, there's a thought, there's a sound, There's A tingle in my knee and it just like flat, you know. And that's a bit boring, I think and dull like I feel like it's almost like you're trying to dull your life of but I think a more interesting way to approach meditation, again it's about it. Your attitude is like, finding

28:18 being curious. That's what I was thinkin. And Having a sense of wonder and awe about what you're experiencing, like, holy cow. I'm hearing sound from behind me and in front of me and around me. And instead of thinking of them as distractions and judging everything is wrong. I'm suddenly going, I'm like bathing in this ocean of sound. Wow, that is fascinating and my body can hear sound from all around me.

28:44 That I could even I can even sense where the direction of the sounds coming from in the distance of the sound like that's how that's how great my son cesare. and, There's so much more you know, we can we can just learn how to have a more welcoming approach to all the things that were experiencing in meditation and that is easier said than done, because we've been brainwashed a bit to follow the path of the saw do.

29:15 And there's so many good things in it and yet there's some things that just weren't are not totally possible for us. Given our lifestyle Choice. Yeah, difficult. Yeah. Very More challenges, more things to. Yeah. And there's a consequences that come with taking on that attitude of like, my mind's, a monkey mind.

29:36 I need to stop my thoughts and I need to suppress things because if we start to suppress, then we just start to suppress. And then we learn how to be really good at fighting ourselves and really good at suppressing emotion and less good about Being in connection with life around us and being able to save her life because I don't we want to just enjoy this life to the maximum to like see a flower and like, wow, I'm just really appreciate it or to be walking and and and just see the

30:10 reflection of the sun off of, you know, some water then and go. Wow, that's beautiful. And take a moment to appreciate it versus like kind of going through life dull. Yeah, and flat and just being really good at pushing everything out.

30:24 So it's like, what are you practicing? And meditation and why are you practicing? It was the outcome for you. Do you really want to have? No thoughts. Do you even know what that looks like? Someone that's bring dead typically well or someone that is really stoned and you know like not coherent do we want to not be as sharp and is fast and is brilliant. Do we really want to slow down our mind or do we want to celebrate the speed and which that we are able to think about things and get things done and

30:59 be efficient in the world? And I think that's for most people. If you really ask that question, we're not really looking for Stillness and slowing ourselves down. We're looking for is peace. For rest. And it is so restful and peaceful to be in a state of welcoming everything and be curious and Ava everything that it brings us the exact outcome that we want. Not what we think someone told us, we should have As we think faultless as will bring us peace

31:35 but it actually will in some cases make our lives harder because imagine you go through your life really Thoughtless and you forgot to pay all your bills and inactive people and suddenly you're like why why don't I have any relationships?

31:49 Why is my sexual desire? All dried up. Why am I trouble? Keeping a job. I just want to like retreat into the woods somewhere because I can't deal with the world. And that is a report that many people have who have been meditating for 20, 30, 40 years, kind of been this more traditional attitude.

32:12 Yeah, the difficulty of trying to stop your thoughts and I'm trying to think of like a metaphor in my head because I like metaphors of trying to stop a water faucet from pouring water and realizing that you can't control the amount of water that's coming through it. You know, you don't have access to the faucet on off button. Yeah but instead you could just look at the water to appreciate the water and be like, oh, maybe the water slows down and it speeds up.

32:42 Up. Yeah, but you can just be like, this water is awesome. I love the you know, I think things for me as opposed to being like fuck this water won't shut off. What's wrong? I'm gonna like roll with K. Here's your beer hander fought.

32:53 Yeah he has a sari is everywhere and her like Ona letting go and just like accepting and appreciating. Yeah, I mean, I don't know if that's helpful but my brain, I was like, oh, that's kind of related, well to me, so maybe someone else. Yeah.

33:08 Yeah, so, you know what? I design meditations nowadays. I might use a quote, like, more traditional technique, but the way that I'm delivering it, and the words that I choose to use and the instructions that I offer people of what to do when their thoughts arise and emotions, and Sensations is different. And so, the techniques might remain the same, but the attitude is very different, and That's how we can adjust for living in this world and thriving in it. Yeah.

33:49 So that's basically modern meditation. Yeah, it's basically giving you permission to not have to go lock yourself. Enough tape somewhere and try to achieve thoughtlessness by sticking your hand on a faucet and stopping the water from flowing.

34:03 So yeah, that's it's very permissive, it's very assuring. It was for me I hope for others. And if this is the first time you're hearing that hopefully for you. So yeah I mean if we were to you know, more about Even at Center.

34:19 So which is all good. But if we were to like summarize, what is modern meditation? Like how would you kind of Encompass that for for someone modern meditation is about welcoming your entire experience and having an attitude of curiosity and awe and wonder at is you just learn to enjoy. And Savor the, the thrill of being alive in all the ways that it's showing up for you emotion, sensation sound thought in a and mood. it's less about trying to change your experience and trying to control, or manipulate

35:01 it through like course of strain and more about Delighting and what's here? and still becoming that Observer and still being that awareness but just taking that approach of compassion and love and on wonder, Inevitably people always are going to ask the question. What about those intrusive thoughts? You know what about all those really bad? Critical thoughts.

35:34 I have this can't be right. I'm supposed to just welcome those. And you answer is, yeah, because you can't fight fire with fire. You can't stop intrusive thoughts by force by saying, you know? Maybe it works with suppose, I got her temporarily to say like stopped but but truly it's sometimes about just recognizing like, these are just thoughts, it's just It's just a sensation like anything else happening? I don't have to believe in the story. but upon further reflection, or Curiosity we

36:21 might discover, huh? No what what do I need? What does in start to have a is through that Curiosity in the wonder that we start to have a conversation with the part of our self that's having that negative thought and we can go What do you need? And there's always going to be a need and it's a bit of a skill that we have to learn as a meditator to have that conversation to ask, what is the need and to listen for it because it might not have it might not come out like a word like me, talking to you right

36:59 now. It might just be A knowing of some sort or sensation or feeling that you get that. I just really need a hug right now. I really need to feel safe. I really need to be grounded, you know, just in one place. and, And that will show up for you and so that in ways we learn in meditation that that critical thought was actually a gift. Because it was actually pointing in the direction that there was something, there was a need that was unmet And like, any anger is the same way, you know, all

37:34 these, like things that I for so many years was trying to suppress and deny and fight against in meditation, I learned were actually allies because they were just Messengers pointing to something that was neglected. Yeah, yeah. And I'm glad that you said that because I was thinking when those things happen, I try to bring myself to the Curiosity place.

37:59 Like why, why is this not coming through? Or you know, it's time. There's there's a reason probably which I'm not going to figure out, but thank you. Thank you for that. And you know, maybe I'll figure out what that message is or why that thoughts coming through or maybe there's something that my subconscious is trying to communicate to me. So the non judgement of the thought or the feeling And being more Curious and thankful and appreciative of it. Yeah, it's definitely lighter.

38:27 Yeah. Then being angry and try to forcefully. You do get upset and judge yourself for those things. That's just the double-edged sword, right? Yeah. Or the, the Double Arrow. It you have on the one hand, you're like being critical, but then you're also being angry at yourself for being critical. It's like this is the worst kind of thought is to Self-fulfilling prophecy.

38:48 It's like a loop. Yeah, it is that's just gets bigger and bigger. Beautiful. Well, thank you, Lea. That was very helpful to even though, you know, I'm familiar with this, modern meditation, even just talking about it again.

39:01 Again, it's just it again, this permissive and it allows me to like reconnect with like the Simplicity of it almost even though it seems complicated and it seems intense and intimidating. It's really comes down to that. Simplicity of just allowing yourself to be present with what's important to you and not judging yourself of it.

39:22 Yeah, being aware and mindful of it and maybe even giving it a thank you. And then yeah, allowing yourself to enjoy life, like you said, I really like that. Like it's all about the we're just trying to enjoy life. Yeah. Right ayy beat ourselves up when we're trying to meditate and it's not quote unquote working, it's like maybe it is working. And what's coming up for you in this away is exactly what Stella's your unless you're like, not on a mission. And to enjoy life for like I

39:47 want misery, it's like you said at the beginning, I don't think anyone else. Some of us do what visiray? We just have been in denial right now but I'd be glad if yeah, is your ask yourself, do I really want Missouri or do I want to enjoy life? Yeah, I guess.

40:05 That's the first question I'm going to say I want to enjoy life. Yeah I enjoyed this podcast I enjoyed chatting with you. This is really fun. Yeah. Would you like to do another one? Yeah, cool. So is I mean I guess the place that we can go here is if anyone wants to connect with you or reach out to you, what would be the best way to do that? I know that you here in Bali, teaching yoga barn and you offer some classes and stuff there and you also have a meditation teacher training once a year.

40:37 Yeah, what's this year 2023 is an August. Um, so yeah, maybe just give people a little bit of a lure on how they can reach out to you if they want to. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, if your, if your yoga instructor or you're interested in meditation as a career option, or something that you think is going to be beneficial to help whatever coaching or practice that you offer to the world. Highly recommend coming to the meditation teacher training. It's August 1st to 19th this

41:04 year and I do it once a year here at the Yellow Barn. In Bali, you can find the details on both my Instagram and on my on my website. Leo Santa Cruz.com. Ellie aah. Each Santa Cruz.com and then my Instagram is less silent L. EA sa NT.

41:23 Yeah we'll put that all in the described as well to make it easy and there's things to the valance app and there and to the well-balanced podcast as well. And lots of fun listening for you. Beautiful amazing. Thank you for that. And thank you everyone.

41:37 For listening and sharing your time with us here, and we'll see you next time. Yep. Thank you Leah. Bye. Take care. All right, before you go let me just tell you about the going pro, yoga.com platform. So right now you can go to going pro yoga.com and check it out for free for seven days where you can actually learn more about yoga in the ways of alignment queuing sequencing yoga Anatomy. So that if you've done a 200, our teacher training, and you want to continue to learn

42:05 practice and grow. This platform is definitely for you, so I definitely suggest checking it out going pro yoga.com right now. You can try it out for free for seven days.