Jivana Heyman 00:00:37
Hello, welcome to the Accessible Yoga Podcast. I'm so glad you're here. I'm Jivana. My pronouns are he and him, and I'm joining you from Chumash land, which is Santa Barbara, California, and I have such a great episode for you today. It's a really wonderful conversation with Rodrigo Souza, who is just such an amazing person and incredible yoga teacher. I love talking to him. We actually get to talk a lot, and we work together quite a bit. In fact, he leads the Accessible Yoga Ambassador and Mentorship program for us. So when people graduate from my programs, I send them to him, and he offers ongoing mentoring through our platform. And he also runs his own training the Yoga for Disabled Folks program, which maybe some of you had a chance to take with him already, he'll be offering that again sometime this year. And he's just a great guy, he's very sweet and down to earth, and I think he teaches in such a beautiful way, often sharing from his life experience, which is so powerful. Anyway, I'll let you listen to him yourself.
Jivana Heyman 00:01:57
And then after that conversation, I'm joined with Deanna, and she and I talk about some things going on the world, and hear from you. There was a great question about who my teachers are right now, and I really appreciated that. So thank you. And I just want to say, please leave your comments and questions. We have two ways for you to do that. One is you can leave a voice message so there's a link in the show notes and on our website, and I'd love to hear from you. So just let me know how you're doing, if you have any questions or comments, anything at all, I'd love to know, especially around yoga teaching, of course, but it could be really anything. And also, if you don't want to leave a voicemail, you could write, you could leave a written comment or question on our Google form, which is also linked in the show notes. So please share, I'd love to hear more from you. It's been such a fun way to feel like this podcast is more of a conversation than just, I don't know, just me talking. So I'll leave it at that. Here's an amazing conversation with Rodrigo Souza. I hope you enjoy it and thanks again for being here, it really means a lot to me.
Jivana Heyman 00:03:13
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Jivana Heyman 00:04:24
Hi everyone, welcome back. I'm so excited, today, to have our special guest, Rodrigo Souza. Hey, Rodrigo. [Hello, Jivana.] It's so nice to be with you again. [laughing]
Rodrigo Souza 00:04:39
It's always lovely to hang out, Jivana. Always lovely.
Jivana Heyman 00:04:45
And like, if people don't know, we kind of work together a lot, so I do get to talk to you quite a bit, which is amazing. So thank you. Thanks for everything that you do. How's it going? How are you doing today?
Rodrigo Souza 00:04:57
I'm doing well. I'm doing well. I just came back from Sao Paulo, I have hosted a training there where I trained twenty yoga teachers how to serve folks with disabilities through yoga. And it was amazing. I'm still, like, drunk on love, like, all the things we have talked, shared, and wow, it was truly a very transformative weekend for me, and I am feeling the bliss.
Jivana Heyman 00:05:24
And so that's amazing that, you know, and you're Brazilian, so you could do it in Portuguese too, right? Was that special for you? Because normally you have to teach in English.
Rodrigo Souza 00:05:33
In English, yeah. It is special and I even mentioned that in the training. To teach in Portuguese, I've got command, and it's my it's my mother tongue, so it's like, I can express myself a lot better. And that is something that is really, really needed here. So there is a stronger sense of purpose as well, over here, as the the yoga, not just yoga, but the wellness industry, in general, is still much around aesthetics and how people look and not as much how people feel. So there is a lot of work to be done down here.
Jivana Heyman 00:06:18
Yeah. Is there any awareness around this? Around Accessible Yoga, adaptive yoga?
Rodrigo Souza 00:06:23
Not a lot, not a lot. We are, we are like, like, trail brazing, like we are doing the work. And there are a few people here doing the work, but it is still underground. We are the underdogs is still, you know, we need to shout sometimes.
Jivana Heyman 00:06:37
Well, they're lucky to have you, though, to have a Brazilian teaching them is special, I think. I've been there. I've been to Brazil once, and it was incredible. I loved it. I led a training many years ago. And just, I don't know, I've never, I don't think I've ever met such a warm group of people that were so welcoming to me and wanted to feed me and love me. It was just like my family, you know. It was really special, but I'm sure for them to have you doing it as a Brazilian must have been really special. [It is special. It is special.] But I didn't really let you introduce yourself. I mean, I introduced you earlier, before we started, but I just wondered if you wanted to share.
Rodrigo Souza 00:07:19
Yeah. Well, my name is Rodrigo Souza. I go with the pronouns he and him. I spend my time between Brazil and Sweden. I live in Sweden between May and December, and due to the cold weather and my nerve pain, I need to come to Brazil. And I live in Brazil between December and April, when is cold in Sweden and warm in Brazil. I do that because I have suffered spinal cord injury 10 years ago, and I live in a disabled body. I'm paralyzed from the chest down, and I deal with chronic pain a lot, and muscle spasticity, so I need to to move around the sun. I teach yoga since 2017, and I love what I do, I'm passionate about it. And my work is based on two fronts. One front, I teach folks with disabilities through nonprofits and I work with my representation as well to show that yoga is accessible for folks with disabilities, you know, folks in wheelchairs. And the other front, I work educating yoga teachers, hosting trainings around the world, like online with Accessible Yoga and so on, which is a work that I am very much love to do, because it has much meaning and purpose behind it.
Jivana Heyman 00:08:38
And you also run our Ambassador program.
Rodrigo Souza 00:08:41
Yes, I also run an Ambassador program where we give support for Accessible Yoga teachers how to serve the community through yoga. You know, it's another lovely corner of the internet that I hang out like, twice a month, that it's amazing.
Jivana Heyman 00:09:02
I've been hearing about that actually more. I haven't been with you in that group for a while, but I just hear about how sweet it is and how that group is really bonding. And I just, I also want to invite anyone listening to join. It's a membership program that people can join for a monthly fee, and they get access to that time with you. And then you bring in a special guest each month. And I think it's such a really special offering for people who are teaching yoga, or starting to teach, or have experienced and they're trying to make their work accessible, and they really want that community around them of other yoga teachers that peer support, which I think is essential and quite hard to find actually in the world. So thanks for doing that. [It's a pleasure.] You know, can I just ask you something you said, you mentioned spasticity, and I just want to ask if you don't mind explaining more, because I think some people don't understand what that is, this idea of like muscle tightness that comes from...?
Rodrigo Souza 00:09:57
Yeah, of course. Yeah, as I live in the disabled body, I am paralyzed from the chest down. I'm in a wheelchair, right? So I don't move. I don't have any muscular activation from the chest below, so I don't move. And as I'm sitting all the time, my body is flexed, you know, my hip is flexed, my knees are flexed. So I get this rigidity, you know, my muscles get really tight after a few hours sitting in a wheelchair. So I need to extend. So I need to go back to bed. And I generally do like, you know, extension, back bends pose to extend my body, like Cobra or like variations of Cat / Cows and so on. And because of the cold weather, my muscles get tighter and tighter very easily. And you know, one of the tools that I use to naturally relax my muscles are sunshine. You know, the sun naturally decrease spasticity, the warm weather doesn't make my muscles so rigid, so tight.
Jivana Heyman 00:11:08
And yoga, I guess, too, though.
Rodrigo Souza 00:11:12
Yeah, yoga is the main one. I practice all the time. Seated, lying down, anytime I feel a little bit of tightness, I breathe into it and I add some movement. It's my go to thing to do.
Jivana Heyman 00:11:28
I mentioned it because for many years I worked with the National MS Society and taught many, many classes for people with MS and other disabilities. But that was a community I worked with the most for, well, not the most after other groups, that was one group I worked with for a long time, and I found they had that same challenge, there was a lot of spasticity, and their muscles would tighten up, and that asana practice, sometimes it was too challenging, but eventually, I think people really loved it, that there was a release. And I just, I don't know, to me, it feels like it becomes an essential part of people's self care. People don't think of yoga as just, like an extra thing, you know, like, oh, how nice you get to do yoga. But it's like, actually becomes this, like, core element.
Rodrigo Souza 00:12:17
Yes, yes. It's embodied in my day to day life, I wake up in the morning. I sleep, you know, because, because of pressure sores, I need to move, like, every two hours, and so in bed. So I sleep in, you know, on my side most of the time. So I wake up really, really stiff. So before I even get out of the bed, I do a sequence in the bed, like a 10-15, minutes yoga practice in the bed, and then I moved to my chair. Every three hours or so, I open my spine, you know, I do some movement, some asanas in the chair. And after lunch, before going to bed again, before going to sleep. It's an integral part of my day. I always going back to asanas, and always, always stretching, always being in the body.
Jivana Heyman 00:13:05
Thank you for sharing that. I just, I don't know if people, many people, don't realize that. I know how you use it and I just think it's really beautiful. Yeah. I was wondering, you know, everyone I'm interview, I'm asking the same question, to kind of share a story from your past, maybe some moment or experience you had in yoga that stays with you. And I wondered if you had any stories to share with us? I know many of your stories, and they're all really good, so I'm excited.
Rodrigo Souza 00:13:40
I have so many, but I chose one that was, like the pivotal point. I broke my back in 2014. I lived in a rehabilitation center, basically, for three and a half months. [And that was an accident, right?] Yeah, I fell. It was a fall accident. And in this rehabilitation center I somehow incorporated, like adaptive yoga into my rehabilitation process and I came back to life really fast. And I started working in this rehabilitation center and one day, out of the blue, I taught them one yoga class, because, you know, one of my peers, they complain about spasticity. And I told them, like, listen, I will show you some stretch that you can do on the floor, in beds, on your wheelchair, that will decrease your spasticity. I didn't thought about becoming a yoga teacher or anything, it was just a work I was doing, and I knew from an embodied experience that it did work, so I was like, well, I'm going to show them. And Matthias was this friend of mine, and he went around during the lunch time, and he told everyone that I would show him some stretch to decrease the spasticity that he was feeling and in the afternoon, I have about 15 people coming to me, and I was like, what is this?
Jivana Heyman 00:15:15
But you weren't a teacher, right? You had never taught yoga, you were a patient.
Rodrigo Souza 00:15:17
No I wasn't a teacher, I was a rehab instructor [Ah, ok.] teaching them to do cardio and how to have a better stamina, how to do wheelchair tricks, you know. And some because I was practicing yoga, you know, I was a yoga practitioner, a mindfulness practitioner, I was using these tools to help them as well. But like, you know, I was just like, okay, you can use that too, try this. I never thought about doing yoga professionally or anything anyway. But I have been studying with Matthew Sanford, you know, taking class. I was a yoga practitioner since, like to when I was 25, I was practicing hot yoga, Bikram yoga, so I like nine years pre on my accident, I was into it, so I knew a few things. But then this afternoon came and we had some physiotherapy students, and I asked them to put some futons on the floor, that we will take paraplegics, folks with like cervical injuries, and move them to the floor. And we will take the paraplegics and put in the circle around me, and I will teach them yoga. I remember that they laughed at me. They they're like, what do you want to do? Yeah, I'm going to show them how to stretch and how to be in the body and teach them yoga. We did that. You know, it took, like, a time to set up everything. We did, we move everyone slowly, very gently, to the floor, we had an assistant. We teach the students to do passive movements. Four of them were quadriplegics and about 12 or 11 paraplegics. And then I taught my first ever yoga class, Jivana, without being certified without being anything. It's was just like, you know, an embodied experience.
Jivana Heyman 00:17:24
Were you any good?
Rodrigo Souza 00:17:25
I was very nervous, but something magical happened, you know, really, really, really, really magical. And I started with a mindfulness practice based on gratitude. I listened to this mindfulness practice on side time so often, that I recreated it. And then I was like, okay, maybe I can put some music in the background really slowly and then just tell them that. And there, I started, right? I started there, and then as soon as I started talking, something magical happened, Jivana. I felt the room, like, the room went quiet, and I felt this sense of shared grief, you know, because the people that I was teaching, they were all newly injured folks. This was in a rehabilitation center for folks who has recently injured themselves, you know, broke their backs or their necks. And it was so beautiful, at the same time, you know, because it's hard to explain, because, like, there was grief, everyone was like, feeling sad, but there was this sense of plenitude, you know, everything went quiet. We moved for about half an hour. You know, we didn't move much, but I made sure that we moved consciously, you know, I was very, very caring about it, like, if we're going to move, we're going to move in our body. I told them that. And then we had this long Shavasana, about 15 minutes of Shavasana. It was a beautiful class, Jivana, it was a beautiful class. We put the quadriplegics back in the chairs, everyone was like chatting after the class, but this woman, this woman called Biban, she, she's a friend of mine today, she was a primary school teacher, like around 52 years old, he had fell from a horse and broke her neck like six months prior this class happened, and she came to me and she looked me in the eye, I'm never going to forget this, and then she said to me, "Rodrigo, this was the first time I felt safe in my body since my accident."
Jivana Heyman 00:17:27
Wow.
Rodrigo Souza 00:17:34
A little background here, Rodrigo, prior accident, I used to live in London, I moved to Sweden, I used to be a bartender. I have a background in arts, I used to DJ. So basically, I used to entertain. I used to get people drunk, people dancing. But there I was, 38 years old, never had felt like, you know, the sense of purpose that I had before, and wow, I can actually make someone feel safe in the body, that is huge, that is huge. And from that time, I decided to become a yoga teacher, because I realized that there's so much to be done because, like my peers till that time, they were relying on the medical model, you know, on pharmaceuticals, on medication, on antidepressants. And you know, from my experience of 10 years living with trauma, I know that if you want to heal trauma, if there anything there to be healed, you heal it by embracing whatever is there, by experiencing it, by being in the body, you know. And yoga is one of the greatest tool to do that, to make you conscious of your existence. And I realized that not everyone, especially in that class, they didn't know that yoga was for them, folks with disabilities, they don't know that yoga is for them.
Jivana Heyman 00:21:55
Yeah, I've heard that criticism of contemporary yoga practice, that we don't need to make yoga trauma informed, because it is already. Like, if you go back to the basics in yoga, that is essentially processing trauma and being safe body, the things you described just so beautifully in that story. So you just gave such a beautiful example of, like, the power of trauma informed teaching. But I would, I sometimes think, you know, do we have to make it trauma informed, or do we just go back to that part of yoga that's so connected already?
Rodrigo Souza 00:22:36
I think all teaching should be trauma informed. You know, we need to learn how to serve whoever is in front of ourselves and folks with disabilities, they 100% have experienced trauma. So we need to speak with the right language, we need to meet them where they are. And we need, most of all, to learn about our students and find out what their abilities are, you know, and entail a practice that is especially for them, so they don't feel excluded, so they they have access to the right tools to be in the body. And because, like, that is what is the most powerful thing about yoga, is that connection that you have with mind, body, spirit, is coming back to the body shared experience. What is their shared experience? And when someone has been through trauma, Jivana, especially like something big, like spinal cord injury, being in the body is not very comfortable, you know, it's actually very challenging, because the body reminds you of things of that you can no longer do, you are always distracting yourself, you know, you get desensitized, disassociated from it. So this yoga practice that you incorporate in your day to day life, somehow, you know, can be through breath or through movement or through anything, it's a way to slowly and gently bring yourself back to your body and make you live on it. You experience the grief that is there to experience, and through experiencing it, you will start to enhance your self compassion. And with self compassion, comes self acceptance. So it's like, it's all one after the other and, you know, yoga is a great tool to do that, you know, to go there.
Jivana Heyman 00:24:34
That was so beautiful. I mean, you just described, like to me, like, Accessible Yoga, like you just basically, like, the last little explanation that you gave kind of sums everything up for me. I have to say what I what I think is so interesting that you just described, and I don't know if you even realize that, is the tension, I think that exists between of us that have had trauma or feel disconnected, which, even if we don't even recognize the trauma that we've had, you know, I think it just we're disconnected from our bodies, and yet, yoga is asking us to be in the body and experience it. And so sometimes it can be so hard, I think, for newer yoga students or even more experienced ones, to make that shift to like slow down and listen, you know, and you do it so beautifully. I just want to say, having taken many classes with you, and I don't take classes with many people, but I love your classes because I feel like you're there's a sweetness that you have, [thank you] that's in your voice and and also, I think you, you have a way of being gentle, not just with your instruction, but I think with this very issue, which is you, I think you recognize, maybe because of your experience, that how hard it is to be in the body. You know what I mean? Like, we take it for granted.
Rodrigo Souza 00:26:05
No, it is challenging, Jivana, it's very challenging. I actually use an analogy that it's like hugging a cactus. You do it and you do it slowly. You know otherwise you're going to hurt yourself. So you do it very gentle, you know, with tenderness. I like to use these words, gentleness, you know, loving kindness towards yourself, like, you know, very gentle. Be in the body, experience a little bit. You're going to get overwhelmed. You're going to cry. Grief is like, you know, it comes back all the time. So like, you know, to heal, to be safe, you know, you need to be gentle with yourself. Otherwise, you find it too challenging to come back. Otherwise, you will find ways and ways to keep on being distracted.
Jivana Heyman 00:26:58
Yeah, and I actually think there's a misunderstanding in the way the world perceives this work, that when we talk about gentleness, people assume we're talking about asana in terms of the level of practice. You know, they think that we're talking about a less physically intense asana practice. And I don't think that's it at all, [No] that's exactly what you're describing.
Rodrigo Souza 00:27:20
Yeah, it's being gentle with yourself. It's self compassion basically, you know, it's know that, like, there is suffering here, I will approach with kindness, and when is overwhelming for me, I stop, I will find something that I like to do. You know, I can be distracted by, will distract with something that will be life affirming for myself, you know. But you always come back to it, you always like, you know, I'm going to have a practice here, you know. So like some, somehow, grief shows up and it doesn't, it doesn't get overwhelming anymore. You know, you're like, okay, you're here. It is like, you are welcome, I will be with you. You change your relationship with it, but you change your relationship with it because you was in your body long enough to familiarize yourself with it, you know, it doesn't overwhelm you, it doesn't scare you anymore. It's part of you. You suffer traumas, like, you know it's there, instead of like you know, pushing it, or suppressing it, or disassociating from it. You befriend it, you embrace it, you live with it. It might never heal, but, you know, you can live with it, like you're not afraid of it anymore. You can still like, you know, have a purpose for life with it.
Jivana Heyman 00:28:48
I mean, this is such a powerful teaching, I think, for all of us. You know, I don't mean to take your story and make it universal, but I feel like this idea of self compassion and, like, loving the part of ourselves that we find most prickly and most painful, I mean, that's like, life lessons for all of us, because I feel the same, you know, like, that's my practice. It's like, you know, what is it that I don't like about myself? What is it that I push away, that I avoid and or that I'm embarrassed by? What is the part, the ugliest parts of myself, the most painful parts? So my question is, how do people do it? How do people build that ability to be compassionate to themselves, you know, that self compassion? Do you have any advice for us
Rodrigo Souza 00:29:39
Yes, I have an advice, Jivana, is being in the body. You know, you do that by being in the body with yourself. Because compassion, you recognize that there is suffering, you know, there is struggle, there is like parts of us that we're not comfortable with, there is grief, there is sadness, there's so many things, but you somehow, being with it, you know, you are experiencing it, you accept it. And not accept it, like a fate, but you accepted that there is suffering there. And you know, you create a way to deal with it. You know, to improve it as well. We don't get to experience it by being outside the body, by being the mind, for example. You don't intellectualize self compassion. Self compassion is felt, you know, it's acknowledging something that it's part of you. And how do you do that? You do that practicing yoga, practicing mindfulness. You do that by, you know, through asana, you do that through meditation, you do that through listening actively, you know, a song that you like. You do that by walking, you know, in nature, by watching the clouds, basically by being present. Everything that makes you be in your body, be present in your body, you know, it's a tool to enhance self compassion. Because the fact that you are with yourself, you're not just with the part of yourself that you like, you embrace it whole, you know, and when you embrace it whole, you accept it whole. You are in yoga.
Jivana Heyman 00:31:43
You're in yoga. Oh, wow, thank you. Thanks so much. That was incredible. And I just I'm so grateful that you shared that with us, with me, and I'm sure people really benefit from that teaching. I know I do. So yeah, anything else you want to share?
Rodrigo Souza 00:32:01
Yeah, I would like to share that, you know, everyone should have access to these tools, right? Everyone should be able to be safely, you know, to inhabit safely the body they live in. And I believe that we have somehow distorted the idea of what yoga is in the West. You know, for me, in my experience, yoga is a tool to be in the body, yoga is a tool to regulate my nervous system, yoga is a tool to to make me feel in love with the person that I am, and accept everything that it is, and everybody should have access to this, you know, folks with marginalized groups of society, especially folks with disabilities, you know, because for me, they are the ones that need yoga the most, and they're the ones that have access the least. So I encourage you to educate yourself. We have some trainings, on demand trainings, we have live trainings coming up with Accessible Yoga. I invite you to come and start with me. And you know, if it's possible to help me to make this practice accessible to the folks that really need, you know, to the population I represent, I will be really, really grateful for that.
Jivana Heyman 00:33:25
Thank you. Thanks for sharing that. I completely agree and we have the Accessible Yoga Training Online starting, and you're one of our guest teachers, which is really amazing, so people can come and study with you there. Also, you'll be sharing your training again through Accessible Yoga, for disabled folks, and also, of course, the Ambassador program, so we can link to all that and all of your work. I hope people will follow you on social media because you share such beautiful things there too. [Yeah, that would be lovely.] And I am just grateful for you, in genera, and I always, you know, I'm here, if you did anything, just let me know.
Rodrigo Souza 00:34:04
Yeah. Thank you so much, Jivana. You always, you've always encouraging me to do things. It's such a lovely friendship we've being building like, you know. You're always helping me somehow, you know, to go further and truly spread the message I'm doing. I appreciate your support. Thank you so much.
Jivana Heyman 00:34:27
Thanks for being here today.
Rodrigo Souza 00:34:29
Okay, thanks.
Jivana Heyman 00:34:42
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Jivana Heyman 00:35:33
Hi again. Welcome back to our Q&A portion of the podcast with Deanna. Hi, Deanna.
Deanna Michalopoulos 00:35:41
Hey, Jivana, hi everyone.
Jivana Heyman 00:35:43
How are you?
Deanna Michalopoulos 00:35:45
I'm doing well. It was so good to see you and the team in person last week.
Jivana Heyman 00:35:49
That was fun. We were in New York together. I really enjoyed it, and it was such a great group. I love leading trainings in person, and online actually, but it was just fun to be with the trainees and then with you and the other staff. And, yeah, I know I'm still kind of adjusting back to being home.
Deanna Michalopoulos 00:36:11
It's a different world on Zoom, for sure.
Jivana Heyman 00:36:14
Yeah, it is speaking of a world. It's been just, I don't know, I feel like it's just a challenging time again. Yeah.
Deanna Michalopoulos 00:36:23
Challenging time. I was just rereading your Instagram post, and by the time this airs, I'm sure there will have been, like, approximately 250 news cycles. But um, with everything else being under attack these days, it also turns out that empathy is under attack. Can you tell us more about that?
Jivana Heyman 00:36:41
Yeah, you know, I was shocked, because yesterday I was reading this, some of the interview that Elon Musk did on the podcast, and he said that, you know, empathy is the problem with Western civilization, and there's like an empathy issue. I don't know he went into detail about it, but just what I came away with this just like this basic criticism of empathy and it really it scares me, to be honest. And then I saw a follow up article about it and how some religious, I don't know what you call them religious, like, kind of right wing religious people are using empathy, or, like, criticizing empathy, even in spiritual traditions, and that's what made me want to speak up, because I just feel like, from my understanding of spirituality, it's really based on empathy. It's based on connection and feeling like I can use spiritual practice to kind of get out of my own head, to like, address my own ego's limitations, and begin to see the ways that I am the same as other people, to see myself in others. And to me, that's the heart of yoga and I think really, all spirituality has that in common. And so it just, it just worries me and scares me, and I think it can lead us to a really dark place, you know, where we lose, I don't know, respect, just for humanity, and it allows for abuse. You know, I think it allows for, I don't know, oppression and abuse of marginalized people. It creates a separation that scares me, which I think we're already seeing, between kind of like a billionaire class and like the rest of us, and it feels like we're just, like the worker bees, and they're the kings or the queen bees, you could say. And yeah, I'm just afraid to see us go down that path. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Does that make sense?
Deanna Michalopoulos 00:38:56
It does make sense. And, you know, I think that's what makes yoga and these teachings so important to reach everyone. Because I think that a culture, you know, any sort of culture without empathy is a signal that healing needs to take place. And so I think this actually directly relates to Rodrigo's episode, in some sense. And bear with me, there'll be a connection. But he did say, if you want to heal trauma and if there's anything to be healed, you heal it by embracing what's there, experiencing it by being in the body and yoga is one of the greatest tools to do that. And I don't mean that, you know, if you're experiencing oppression, that you have to embrace what's there. It's more about this sense of, like, you know, people doing oppression, are they able to sit with themselves? If they're advocating for this world, or, like, running companies without empathy, like, are they able to connect with themselves, let alone the land or community?
Jivana Heyman 00:40:00
Yeah, I don't, that's such a good question. I mean, I kind of, I used to think a lot about that, like, how do those people think, and act, and feel? But I realized I can't, you know, I'm trying to be empathetic to them. It's like, well, I think they have a different mindset, you know. I still do feel empathy for them, but I'm not sure I can conceive of the way they perceive the world. But I appreciate the connection back to Rodrigo and I want to make that connection too, because he's so, I don't know, just so sweet and clear in his teaching. And I felt like that interview is so, just so moving in the way he expresses himself and, first of all, I just want to say, like, you know, I tell him, he's such a great teacher, and I really mean that, like, I just feel like he's like, the future of yoga to me. He's like someone who just has such a really deep connection with the practice themselves, and then is really therefore motivated to share it with others. I just think it's such a great motivation for teaching, to feel like, you know, it touched him, like, that's what I see in him, is like, it really touched him. Yoga really helped him deal with challenges, and continues to deal with challenges that he's facing, and he's giving back from that place. And I just find that to be really compelling. And around the trauma, I loved that phrase he used about hugging a cactus, right?
Deanna Michalopoulos 00:41:37
I loved that. Like, I really viscerally felt that too, like you can maybe hug a cactus if you do it slowly!
Jivana Heyman 00:41:40
So maybe that's what I'm saying too, is like I need to have empathy for even those that are oppressing, the oppressors. That's like hugging a cactus. I think we're talking about hugging a cactus in terms of embracing our own pain and trauma, embracing the parts of ourselves that we don't really like or want. And then I think it's a great image, because it's dangerous and hard and it can hurt, and you need to be slow and careful. We're talking about, what does gentle mean? You know, how can you teach in a gentle way? It's like, you know, sometimes it's like gentle yoga, or even accessible or adaptive yoga is all about the asana practice, but there's something else, you know, that he's getting to about, like being gentle. And I think for yoga teachers, how can you be gentle with your students and hold them in a strong way, but in a way that supports them in being gentle with themselves?
Deanna Michalopoulos 00:42:51
I appreciated his point about how being in the body isn't very comfortable for some people, like, you can't necessarily, as a teacher start from that assumption. I was leading a friend through meditation this weekend, and, you know, before I started it occurred to me, I don't think this person is actually very comfortable. I don't know if she feels at home in herself physically. And I think that's quite common for a variety of reasons. And so, you know, I had shifted my languaging, and even just like the imagery of what I was doing, because I think not everyone experiences a meditation or a physical practice clearly in the way you do. So that's why I appreciate Rodrigo's perspective as well, he is such a gift to the yoga community and the world.
Jivana Heyman 00:43:35
That's beautiful. I love that. I love that recognition that not everyone feels safe coming home to their body. I remember in the series that we ran last year, Neurodiversity Series, Zel Amanzi, one of our presenters, and there's something that they shared, they basically shared that concept in a beautiful, powerful way that really stayed with me about that, that you know so often yoga teachers are talking about, come back to yourself, close your eyes, turn within and assuming that is safe and comfortable. And I just don't think it is, like you said, you just said it so clearly. So, wow, that's a great thing that you were able to see that and recognize it in your student right away. I feel like that's just something, it's something that's hard, I think, for yoga teachers who do feel comfortable or safe, it's hard for us to recognize that other people may not. Kind of like, you know, like sometimes I talk about using the breath as a practice, like focusing on the breath. Some yoga teachers say that that's yoga, like you have to bring in the breath all the time. But I think for a lot of people, focusing on the breath is not comfortable, it can actually be a source of anxiety or just discomfort. So it's like, same thing. It's like, we just need to give people space to have their own experience.
Deanna Michalopoulos 00:44:54
And yeah, it doesn't mean that one set of practices is good and one set of practices is bad. It's just like, how can you offer a practice so that a person has the space to experience what feels good for them, where they're at?
Jivana Heyman 00:45:09
And sometimes it's in the language that we use, in the word choice, I feel like it's okay to teach a breath practice, it's okay to teach a meditation, it's okay, but to use language that gives people the freedom to have their own experience of it, so like to avoid things like this feels this way or this, you know, this practice does this thing. I think those are dangerous things to do, to like, assume, you know, instead of just saying this might be this, or my experience has been this, I was talking about that in my trainings. It's like, you know my experience, like you can say that, like, I find this practice is like this, or some people find, or the research on this practice shows that it does this, but that leaves people a space to have different experiences. Like, sometimes, I might say, like, you could relax your arm or not. I just like to get people to join.
Deanna Michalopoulos 00:46:11
There are some people who are, for some reason programmed, like myself, to want permission to do things, and so just to have the permission, in a practice, makes a big difference.
Jivana Heyman 00:46:19
Permission, or is it permission to not do it, right? Permission. [Exactly.] Yeah, yeah. I've been thinking about that myself, because I took a yoga class when I was in New York, and kind of strained my back, it was a very intense class. And I thought, wow, here I have been doing this more than 30 years and I'm still hurting myself in yoga, and I was like, you know, I realize I've been injured in yoga many times. I mean, these are my own choices. I think this is definitely me wanting to just do what the teacher said, and not really...and it wasn't that I wasn't listening to my body, I think that's part of the problem is it's like I didn't know, like I didn't know, in a sense, that I was going too far. I got excited. I was enjoying it, and also it was like the group energy was moving, you know, so I just stuck with that. And I think that's the challenge.
Jivana Heyman 00:47:10
I was thinking about, we often say to people like, use pain as a guide, like, oh, if something doesn't feel right, just stop. Or, you know, if you have pain or discomfort, stop. But I feel like sometimes it's more complicated than that. That's not even really enough, you know, like, watch yourself. Are you going too far? Are you being competitive? And also, even if pain, pain even sometimes is okay, like, there's a little bit of pain that might be useful. I don't even, you know, I'm saying? It could go either way. Sometimes pain is a signal that you should stop, and sometimes maybe it's not. Sometimes pain doesn't appear and you should stop, like my experience, there was no pain until a couple hours later, and I was like, oh wow, my muscles tightened up, I had a pre existing injury, and it got exacerbated. So it's like, I don't know, so complicated, this journey of being human in a body.
Deanna Michalopoulos 00:48:09
In our meat suits. [Yeah, exactly.] Well, I hope you feel better soon, and I'm sorry that you were injured in a non Accessible Yoga class in New York City, but I guess that's where, like, the reflection comes into, you know, like, what were the conditions of that day, of carrying your luggage, of like, being in a cramped airplane seat right before? So it's like, you know, that's my reflection, and insight is a big part of the practice as well.
Jivana Heyman 00:48:41
Right, and also knowing that pain and suffering is kind of unavoidable. I mean, I wish I had avoided it, in that case, but sometimes I beat myself up, like I have this ongoing back issue since I was younger. And, you know, I beat myself up, oh, I shouldn't have lifted that, or I shouldn't have done this, and then I think, you know, it's just, it's okay, like that's just part of my experience is to have this and do the best I can. And it's almost like an internalized ableism, I think, that it doesn't help to criticize myself on top of whatever physical experience I'm having. And so it's okay if I have to take it easy, it's okay if there's an injury or illness or disability, it's okay.
Deanna Michalopoulos 00:49:34
Yeah, remember the teaching of nurturing yourself, I guess.
Jivana Heyman 00:49:38
Right and kind of allowing, like, I'm into that word right now. Like, how can I allow whatever's happening just to be, without making it worse? Like is my reaction to this experience that I'm having actually making the experience harder for me? You know what I mean? Like, life's hard sometimes. Life is also joyful, but it's like, is your reaction to it part of the problem? Yeah. Allow, that's my that's my new mantra. Allow.
Deanna Michalopoulos 00:50:13
Well, switching gears, because we have a few submissions that came in, Jivana. [Yay, I'm so happy] So we have a question from Andrea Cameron, and Andrea is a yoga teacher. Andrea asks, "I heard you talk about your grandmother as your first teacher, and the teacher you've studied with as a young AIDS activist. Who are the teachers and or peers you're learning from today?"
Jivana Heyman 00:50:39
Well, I learned a lot from the teacher that I got, whose class I got injured in last week in New York. I actually did. What a great question! Oh my gosh, thank you, is it Andrea? Thank you, Andrea. It's funny, I feel like I'm learning in a few different ways. I think I learn through positive reinforcement and I also learn through challenges and suffering. So I find it goes both ways. Like I feel like I have a group of yoga teacher peers and friends who I kind of talk to all the time and, you know, they help me. I can name a few of them, many of them have been on this podcast, or will be, like, basically people I just kind of like talk to all the time, including people like Anjali Rao and Shannon Crow, people like that. And I think just being in friendship with other yoga teachers is really, really important and helps me learn, because I often bring up issues I'm facing or questions I have, and I get to explore those with them.
Jivana Heyman 00:51:57
I also see a yoga therapist myself, Cheri Clampett, and right now I only see her every few weeks, but for a while, I was seeing her all the time, and she really helped me. When I'm going through a challenging time, I find that support of kind of a intimate, I like that intimate, one on one setting, personally to practice yoga with a teacher, and she actually teaches me mostly restorative yoga. So like most of the time we're together, it's a very gentle, I don't know that it's gentle, maybe that's not the word. It's a very restful practice, which is challenging in some ways, like and she usually puts me into these restorative poses, and then sometimes she'll start asking me questions about what I'm experiencing, but really like drilling down, like, it's not just like, where do you feel this? But it's like, okay, do you feel that? Okay, you feel it there. What is that telling you? Like, what is the message from that sensation or that emotion you're having? And she'll keep asking, and that's really intense, so it's kind of a little bit like, that's why it's basically yoga therapy, because of that, like, personal and intense interaction. She also uses a little bit of touch, which I really appreciate, to be honest. So even though I know touch is, like, really on the outs in yoga, it's so powerful when you trust someone. Like, I've been working with her for so long, it works really well. Like, she'll put a hand somewhere in my body, and like, somewhere if I'm feeling tight, or, like, if I'm having pain, and she'll, like, bring my awareness there, that way, that really helps.
Jivana Heyman 00:53:49
Yeah, I don't know, does that answer it? Oh, I know I was saying I also learned from challenges. And I was saying, I think sometimes I learn a lot from my students, and I feel like the way they challenge me in particular. I mean, I learn a lot just from their questions and comments when we're teaching, but also like when they ask me something that I don't know, or they challenge something I say, I find that it really, sometimes it kind of triggers me, and I get upset and, like, have an emotional reaction because I'm still, like, egotistical, and I don't want people to say these bad things. But if I can get over that, like, I find that's a really great learning place as a teacher is to, like, recognize my limitations and to see other perspectives. Yeah, what do you think?
Deanna Michalopoulos 00:54:46
Thank you. That's a brilliantly honest answer. And I also, I feel like, Cheri, get ready for a slew of appointments!
Jivana Heyman 00:54:53
Oh yeah! I know, I hope Cheri's ready. She's so great. And it's so funny because I just remembered, you know, we have a Restorative Series coming up, and it's, you know, what's funny about it is that, I don't actually teach restorative yoga, you know. And for all these years I've been teaching, I mean, I sometimes do, like, one restorative pose in a class, but I don't know, somehow I haven't gone down that road, and yet, for me as like a personal practice, it's just been so powerful and transformational. So anyway, that's why I love that series we do. We did it once before, and we're doing it again. And it's like, basically, you know, a workshop series that aren't me leading a training, it's more me hosting a series of guest teachers doing workshops. And I love that one because we take the topic of restorative yoga, and we have, I don't even know how many guests, something like 10 people who each share a very different perspective on the same practice. So it's, it's almost like the opposite of a teacher training, where, you know a teacher training, you go and you get, like, this really clear, concise, packaged information about how to practice. This is like a bunch of really diverse perspectives on on a really, I don't know, kind of a deep subject that I think people walk away, I mean, maybe, maybe a little bit with like, more questions than they had, but also with an more open, more expansive awareness of it. What do you think of our series?
Jivana Heyman 00:56:35
I feel like, I mean, it's, it's like a 2025, version of a conference, yoga conference, where you go and have all of these amazing insights that come, and I was going to say the same thing you just said, where it's like, maybe you receive a teaching that's a little different in one session than the other, and then, like, where those two moments meet, maybe they're a little contradictory, but it's like the moments for expansion. So I really appreciate our series and I love all the instructors that are coming on. And like you said, I think earlier, restorative yoga can be a challenging practice. So it's great to get perspective.
Jivana Heyman 00:57:14
Yeah, definitely. So I'm excited about it too. And actually, I don't know, by the time this podcast is released, I think we'll have it publicly out there, people can find the information. We can we can link to it in the show notes, I hope, to the Restorative Series, and people can read more about it, because I'd love for people to join us. And I love that series, like I said, because it's part of my personal practice, it's not all I do, but it's a big part. So I love learning from those special guests. Anyway, thanks Andrea for such a great question, and I hope I answered it well. I mean, also, I guess I could just talk about a little more, which is, I also like to read, and I and I read a lot of yoga books. I'm lucky, because, like, a lot of people ask me to write blurbs, like, what do you call it? You know, like, what is that called? [Well, they're called blurbs.] Blurbs, everyone knows what that is? Like a quote, they want me to give, like, a quote for publicity. And it's great, because then they just send me free books. So I get all of these yoga books, like piles of them, and I read them. And I learn a lot actually, from like, I mean, I probably read five yoga books since January, to be honest, and it's been really, yeah, really interesting stuff out there that's happening. And I just like to read articles too. So, you know, just like when I'm on social media and stuff, I have tend to click through. I have a particular interest in, oddly, in science and nature, like stuff, you know what I mean, like natural phenomena. I don't know what it is, but I like to read about things like that. I don't know if that was part of the question. I'm forgetting the way she phrased it.
Deanna Michalopoulos 00:59:07
Yeah. I think that's a good point, though. Like the teachers and peers you learned from today. Just the idea of learning. And I think Tamika kind of honed in on this last episode, [Yes!] where it's just like learning as a practice.
Jivana Heyman 00:59:20
Yes, that was so good. I know Tamika said that she does like 100 hours of training a year. And I was like, oh, geez, I don't do that. I think part of it is that, like, I just raised two kids, you know, my kids are just now adults, but it's been a long, you know, time. Like my son's 23 my daughter's 19, and I feel like I just got through, like, you know, the teenage years, well, almost not even through, but my life is so absorbed with taking care of them. I was the primary parent, like I was a stay at home dad, and, you know, I I didn't have time to go to 100 hours of training. I could barely fit in the programs that I was teaching into our lives, like just around their lives, you know, to teach when they were busy. But anyway, so parenting is just such a huge piece of my life that, you know now, it's like I feel so much space and opportunity again, so maybe I can go take trainings now.
Deanna Michalopoulos 01:00:28
This is a big realization, Jivana, happening right now live on the Accessible Yoga Podcast.
Jivana Heyman 01:00:33
I't like I'm growing up, you know, well it's my kids who are growing up. Anyway, anyone who's a parent out there, I think you probably know what I mean. It's just like, I remember when my daughter turned 18, and I was like, I just have this like, relief, and I come over me and it's like, wow, they're both adults now. It's like, just, I don't have to think about that. Well, I still think about them all the time, but I don't have to. It's like, when you're parenting teenagers in particular, it's like, where are they, what are they doing, are they safe? You know, did they eat anything today? Did they get to school on time? Of course, I'm probably driving them, you know, whatever. It's just, like, it's just a lot anyway, Okay, I'll stop talking about that. Do we have any other questions or comments?
Deanna Michalopoulos 01:01:20
Actually, it'd be great to conclude with this, this inspirational story from Rob Fowler, so I'm going to read what Rob submitted to us. "I'm a trustee of Cumbria Yoga Foundation, a charity whose aim is to bring the benefits and joy of yoga to every community, with as broad a definition of that term as possible. One of our projects over the past year or so has been to deliver chair yoga to older adults and people with mobility issues. The feedback has been lovely. Tara, one of our teachers, received feedback from one of the participants that practicing yoga has meant that she can now read. It transpires that Tara has been doing some fine motor movements with the students. This woman took this away and practiced every day finding it helped soothe her arthritis which means she could now turn a page. She finished a book that week and joined a book club. We were all moved to tears by this beautiful story."
Jivana Heyman 01:02:17
Wow. Thanks, Rob, that's such a great story. And what beautiful work. I think Rob is actually in our current, Accessible Yoga Training Online, which I was so happy to see. So thanks for joining us there too, Rob, and and for doing all that great work. I mean, I love that you run a, is that what he said that he runs a charity?
Deanna Michalopoulos 01:02:39
A trustee of, yeah, Cumbria Yoga Foundation. So it's incredible.
Jivana Heyman 01:02:44
That sounds like a UK thing that we're talking about. I think he's in the UK. You know, it's interesting because that student talking about being able to read, being able to turn the page, I think what's so powerful about that is that so often, as yoga teachers, we maybe don't see the impact that we make, and it can be something that seems like so little to us, and can have such a huge change or impact on someone's life, allowing them to read and to then join a book club and so maybe have more community. It's incredible.
Deanna Michalopoulos 01:03:20
That's really touching.
Jivana Heyman 01:03:22
Yeah. So keep it up, Rob, keep up the good work. And everyone, all the yoga teachers out there. I just want to say, like that message, and just like, going back to, like, this whole thing about compassion or empathy, we were talking about empathy. And so like, we need yoga more than ever. And like yoga teachers, like, keep up the good work. Like, keep doing it, keep sharing. Like, we need you. We need more connection and more empathy and more love in the world. And I feel like it happens so often through yoga and spiritual practice. You know, if we give people tools to connect with themselves and feel their feelings and maybe even touch to some deep place of love or peace within themselves, then it just shifts the way they are in the world and how they relate to everyone else and I think that's transformational. So I feel like I always say yoga teachers are on the front lines of this potential transformation in the world, millions of people practicing, and we can touch them, you know, with yoga. So it's just beautiful.
Deanna Michalopoulos 01:04:36
Thanks. Jivana, it's a good place to leave it this week.
Jivana Heyman 01:04:40
Okay, thanks. Deanna, thanks everyone. Thanks for listening.
Deanna Michalopoulos 01:04:43
See you next time.
Jivana Heyman 01:04:44
Okay, bye.
