Good Life Project - Elena Brower: On Yoga, Love, Addiction and Grace

Episode Date: February 1, 2016

Today’s guest, Elena Brower, dedicated her life to the practice and teaching of yoga nearly 20 years ago. She rose to acclaim, becoming known first as a wonderful teacher on the New York yoga scene, and then a teacher of teachers on a larger stage.But she also had a secret. Actually, not so much a secret as an addiction. And there came a time where she felt she not only had to get sober, but also share the journey in a very public way. With her students, her community of teachers, and her son.It became one of the most empowering journeys of her life. This is just one of the many paths our conversation takes in today's episode.We explore Elena's early years, her career in textile design and what led her to leave it behind and make yoga her "thing." We talk about the path to becoming a teacher, then eventually developing an authentic voice, a treasured lens and emerging as a teacher of teachers. We explore the power of awareness and mindful attention.We also dive into what it's like to run your own studio, to travel the world, speaking and teaching. And, we talk about how becoming a mom has changed her and her world in a profound way.The emergence of digital practice and online yoga classes and education, something Elena has embraced, finds it way into the conversation as well. And we explore Elena’s latest ventures, Teach.Yoga, a global hub of content and inspiration created by yoga teachers, for yoga teachers and her beautiful self-practice guide, The Art of Attention. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. You know, I have friends who are just so gorgeous and elegant, and they really are the same person inside and outside. And I thought, I want that. I want to know what that feels like. I want to behave in the same way that I behave with my students, with my parents, and with my man. And I didn't know how to do that.

I had a lot of fun sitting down with today's guest, Elena Brower, who's a wonderful yoga teacher and meditation teacher, writer, speaker, and a real teacher of teachers. Somebody who works with so many teachers to help them go deeper into their own practice and really understand and own and refine and share their true voices so that they can turn around and create a larger ripple in a greater number of people's lives. This conversation goes deep into her own journey. We were actually teaching yoga in New York City in very different places. We each owned our own studios at a similar point in time. So there's a little bit of inside yoga. And we also talk about the really interesting dynamic between yoga and business and how

sometimes they work really well together and how they battle with each other as well. And then we really dive into her personal journey. And Elena has been incredibly transparent with some of her very personal struggles and also why she chose not to keep them private, but really to turn around and share them with the world in the hopes that she would both receive accountability and support, but also inspire others to own their own challenges and to step into the actions needed to change things. Elena also has a really cool new book that's actually in its fourth printing now, but it's coming out through my friends at Sound True called The Art of Attention. And it's gorgeous, beautifully, I mean, total design snob, as you guys probably know by

now, really beautifully designed. We talk a little bit about that and what led to that at the end as well. So really excited to share this conversation. I'm Jonathan Fields and this is Good Life Project. It's been really fun to see sort of like your path and your journey. Taking a step even further back though for you,

you started out as a designer. Tell me a little bit about what brought you to that space. Since I was a little girl, I knew that I wanted to make clothing and design clothing and make beautiful things, make women feel beautiful. And I had a knack for it. I went to Cornell University, and I studied both textiles and apparel and art history. When I graduated, they had such a great post-graduation program. They had people coming in to recruit and interview us, even for fashion jobs. At Cornell, they were interviewing us at the end of the year.

And a company called Burlington Industries came in. Now, this was a domestic textile manufacturer. They were huge back then, right? Huge. This was before pre-NAFTA. Right? So they were huge. Yeah.

They came in and recruited, and at the time, $28,000 a year was an enormous sum to be making out of college. This was 1992. Right. I took the job right away. Especially in any sort of design field, which was notoriously, you know, like, hey, you have to start with nothing and work your way up. So I took the job right away. And three days after I graduated from Cornell, I started working on 54th and 6th at their building. So you're like in New York, in the fashion industry, straight out of school, which is

kind of the dream. Ish. Right. It wasn't, you know, it was a textile design job. So I had the great blessing of being in an office with a group of women who were all relatively my age who were fabulous. And we were all friends and we were all homies. We were all tight. And we enjoyed many years together.

I enjoyed almost six years there. And then I started working in the actual fashion business, which was clothing and PR and outreach to stores. And I learned the whole business over the course of about eight years, and then I started teaching yoga. So what started getting you interested in the yoga world? Taking class since 94. Okay.

My boyfriend's mom took me to a class at Yoga Zone, which was Alan Fink's studio on 56th Street, corner of 3rd, between 3rd and Lex. And I was smitten right away with the practice and the teacher. And I just thought, wow, this is so beautiful. I'm quitting ballet because ballet was so hard and harsh. Wait, where does ballet... I was just taking ballet as a form of exercise and elegance.

It felt really good, but the teachers were always very strict. It wasn't like a pleasant environment. It was a... I felt like I was being tasked to do it right. Well, that's sort of the reputation of that whole world also. It's like there's a militant element to it. And I just had no idea that it could be anything else until I took a yoga class.

So immediately I switched my funds and my time over to yoga. And over the course of four years, I took many, many classes and studied with a few different teachers. And in 98, I found Cindy Lee, who started OM Yoga. And she offered me a place in her first teacher training at her new studio,

which is back on 14th Street between 7th and 8th. It was not a nice area. Yeah, and I remember that street was like a little second floor hole in the wall type of thing. Yeah, I remember that space. She had a little second floor hole-in-the-wall type of thing. Yeah, I remember that space. She had a great bay window, and she had a beautiful space, but it was like a scary area. You don't want to be there at night.

Right. Now, 14th between 7th and 8th is like Disneyland. Exactly. But then it was scary, and I took her training, and I started teaching there. Then I moved on to the Movement Salon on 3rd and 17th. And then everything sort of happened from there. I met a dear, now dear friend, but then boyfriend when I lived in that area. And he offered to create a business plan for my studio, which was Vira Yoga, which was open for almost 13 years. And at the time, I was teaching at a movement salon.

I was having lines out the door, and I was making not really quite as much as I probably should have, but I was perfectly happy. And he said, you should open your own studio, and so I did. I gladly did. And, you know, I don't want to say gladly. It took a little cajoling, but I did it. And it was

the best thing I ever did. Yes. Like I said, I've been for almost 13 years and one of the best learning experiences of my life. Yeah. And it's interesting, too, because there are, I know so many yoga teachers and also just so many wellness slash fitness slash lifestyle professionals who go out in the world, start to teach, do extraordinarily well as teachers, and then start to kind of run the rough numbers in their head. They're like, wait a minute, I'm getting paid X, but I'm putting this many people in my class, and I know what they're paying per class.

Why don't I do this myself? And then turn around and do it, and it's a disaster. It's very difficult. Yeah, and I think a lot of people sometimes go into it not really owning the nature of the endeavor. When people ask me if they should own a studio, I always advise them not to. Yeah, I'm the same way. Part of it is just a challenge.

I want to see if they push back to a certain extent. Go for it. But the truth is it was a great learning curve, and to stay above water and to stay in the black is a is a big accomplishment as a yoga studio because it's very you're not selling a tangible good you know what i mean the studios do the best have retail and they have trainings and this is probably a longer conversation for another day, but the whole training idea was not down with training a lot of teachers. I was more interested in training teachers who were already teaching and helping them to refine their voice and really consider what their voice sounds like when they're teaching. just help them sort of elevate their level of study, both self-study and other kinds of study,

scriptural study, Tai Chi study, calligraphy study, whatever you want to study, but studying things so that they can inform your teaching. That interested me. And I've seen now there's a studio in New York right now that trained two teachers that went ahead and opened up a yoga studio and the studio that trained them is now suing the teachers. For competition?

Yeah, for taking students. It's like, guys, we're teaching yoga. Don't do that. It's such... Don't do that. It's like a little bit of inside yoga here, right? It is such an interesting, bizarre. But anytime I think you take a healing tradition

and you mix it in with the need to pay your rent and then the need to pay payroll and the need to pay all this other stuff, it becomes fraught, you know? And people have a lot of emotion wrapped around it. I mean, we've seen in our history, in this world there's been a lot of scandal, there's been a lot of claims of ownership

over actual physical positions, not just, you know. And you sometimes wonder what's behind that when you get the fact that we've all got to pay our rent. If you've got a family, you want to feel like you're doing right by them and providing whatever illusion of security you can. But at the same time,

you've got to keep dialing into that fundamental, like, we're here because we want to make a difference in some way on a grander scale. More people teaching more yoga means more people doing more yoga. Very good idea. Raise consciousness.

It can't be a bad thing. I think the general paradigm and perception of what yoga is and the value of teaching yoga has to shift so the teachers can start making more money. I do think that there is huge value

in the teachers who have studied for many, many years, who are willing to share with folks their interpretation of the studies that they have done and help folks in their households behave and be lovely with their families. I'm interested in that. Why are we not paying them more money? Why are we not paying school teachers more money? This is, I feel, at the core of what has to change. That's a very important echelon of society. They should be paid well. They're helping us.

They're helping us be great. Let's pay them. Yeah, I think again it's I can't argue with that but then there's all it gets so muddy when you mix in

covering your bottom line in this and we've both run studios for long windows of time in New York City which is maybe one of the hardest places in the world to run a studio. That's crazy. And successfully. But even then, there are sometimes extended moments of brutality when you're in that space. And there are windows where I had teachers who were packing the house who I ended up

inviting to move on because I knew what was actually happening with them outside of that and just couldn't support the ethos. There's so many textures and layers. The main thing is to keep the people close who are serving your community as a studio owner. Keep the people close who are serving your community. And when you see in any way some issue of integrity, it's okay to let them go.

You brought up the idea of voice, and I know that's something you're passionate about. Take me a little bit deeper into what you really mean by that. So, base level, I see a lot of teachers who are teaching as though they're teaching to kindergarten children. Their voice all of a sudden goes from this conversational, casual attitude to, now, here's where you'll take a deep, and I'm not making fun, I'm just stating facts, really. I'm smiling because I know that so well.

So, non mi piace in Italian, no liking liking that is not working for me and it's not working for the majority of students out there because it's not your real voice like just give your students your real voice walk in don't let your voice change from the voice that you were just using talking to your friend on the phone a moment ago

start to be more consistent across all the realms of your life and that's when things start to get really successful and true. So what do you think is behind the idea that somebody walks into a room and they need to take on the persona of a voice and an energy and a presence of someone or something else in order to do that job that we feel like we need to just step outside of who we really are to do it. I think it's the same thing that plagues all of us, which is a lack of self-confidence.

And the minute we can start to just own ourselves and who we are in whatever manifestation we're taking, then we can start to teach really potent, touching classes without having to change anything. What was your process of finding that for yourself? Actually, let me ask you an earlier question, which is when you stepped out onto the floor for the first time as a teacher, did you have that sort of kindergarten voice too? Because I know I was mimicking five other teachers for a long time.

Yeah. I remember the first time I was during my teacher training and I had to teach one pose. It was like warrior one or something. I couldn't look at my fellow trainees. So I'll never forget it. I was looking out the bay window of Aum Yoga onto 14th Street, not looking at them and just going through the motions of teaching the posture. And in Cindy's crit, of course, she was like, so you need to look at your students.

I don't think I ever had a voice issue, although I did have a cursing issue for some time. I was so enamored of Brian Kess that I would go out to L.A. a couple times a year and spend all the money I had just training with all those teachers out there because I knew somehow that they were the ones who were going to rise up. And they did.

They all did. But Brian and Sean and Eric Schiffman and Max Strom, Shiva, Ray, and I would just go and take their classes as much as I could, study with them as much as I could. And during that time is when I realized that I don't, I can take on any of their voices, but it doesn't serve me too. I tried on Brian's cursing. I tried on Shiva. I tried on Sean. She was a little more, you know, she's a little more down to earth. And somewhere between Sean and Eric Schiffman,

I would say, who is so allowing and so dedicated to making sure the student feels comfortable doing what the student wishes, what the student's body intuits. Somewhere in there is where I settled in and found my own voice. Yeah. So it's kind of just a process of discovery and trying on. There's an interesting parallel, I think, in the world that you came out of, the design world, which is that, you know, and the art world. You know, I'm a writer also, and as are you,

in that, you know, we all kind of start out mimicking those whose styles and voices and language and taste we adore. We're like, let me just really be good at that. And then the next person, the next person. And I think it takes years. It was 10 years for me. Yeah. I mean, as a writer, I still think, you know, I'm finishing my third book now,

and I'm guessing it'll be another few books before I really find my voice. And this book was particularly hard for me, because I had to write it in a very different voice than I've ever had to write before. And I took it as a creative challenge, and it was fierce, but it was, I'm so happy that I did. Because for the first time, I kind of felt like my voice on the page was starting to get really close to my voice

when I'm hanging out with people that I love. That's good. And that's never happened before. Oh, that's good. And I was like, huh, interesting. Started writing the first book in 2007. Yeah. So I think you're probably right.

There's probably like a 7- to 10-year window to really… Find it. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. So I think you're probably right. There's probably like a 7- to 10-year window to really... Find it. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. And since then, I've just been studying with some of the best teachers around, and they've all influenced my voice in some way. Now I'm being influenced by Yogarupa Radstriker, who is just magical, so sensitive in his teaching,

and so caring about the subtlest energy. So that's been a big influence on me lately. You used the word issue when you talked about cursing. I'm curious, why is cursing an issue, at least for you? For me, I've discovered over the years that every manifestation of me is very important. Everything needs to reflect the highest of me. Cursing does not reflect the highest of me.

It truly doesn't. And what I can do is bring a lot of light with the words that I choose, and that's my choice. Do you still study with teachers who curse like sailors? I don't find myself doing that anymore. It just feels a little careless to me because I know when I was doing it, it was a little careless.

I think it's a bit of a space filling also. There's lots of things we can say in those 90 minutes or 60 minutes, and why don't we just fill it with the things that we want to push forward into the universe rather than the things that we want to leave behind. I'm asking in part because I was known for cursing when I was teaching. High five on that. I mean, that wasn't the only thing I was known for, at least I hope not, but I was like the guy who taught on ripped jeans and a beautiful T-shirt.

That's exactly what I was doing. You just jogged such a memory. There was a period of time where I wouldn't wear yoga pants. I would wear jeans. Right. Specifically. I remember doing, there was a magazine, there was a yoga magazine that folded, but that was really big for a while. Yogi, whatever it was.

They did this six-page spread on a thing around me, and they're like, we want you to be a model. I'm like, look at me. I'm a middle-aged New York guy. I'm not your model. And they're like, no, no, no, no. The piece is about you and this. They're like, you need to be.

I'm like, no, I really don't want to. So I decided I'd be a little diva. I'm like, okay, well then I'm going to show up in my beautiful T-shirt, my ripped jeans, and you're just going to have to take me that way. And they're like, I decided I'd be a little diva. I'm like, okay, well then I'm going to show up in my beat-up old T-shirt, my ripped jeans, and you're just going to have to take me that way. And they're like, okay. I'm like, oh, that was supposed to be like, right. So I ended up in the magazine with all this stuff. But it's interesting because that was my thing.

But I remember I would curse a lot, and I just turned 50. So I've really been thinking about the word significance and just how I carry myself in the world and how I want whatever ripple I get to send out into the pond to be received. And I'm not against dropping an F-bomb here, whether I'm speaking or writing, but I do it far less for effect and not gratuitously. I do it because there is no other word that can express the emotion or the moment. An example is I was in an elevator a couple of years ago in a hospital where two women got onto the hospital in the surgery area, and one was shaved head with a bandana on the head, and the other was her mom, and they were both in tears. And the daughter, who was probably in her mid-30s, just looked up at the mom and mouth the word fuck.

There's no other, like if I tell that story, and I then did tell that story, I can't write another word to express what just happened. That was the truth of what happened. But I agree with you. I used language like that far more gratuitously for a long time. Gratuitous is the right word. Yeah, and now there are moments where I still feel if that's the word that needs to be used,

it's the word that I'll offer, but it's far less often. Yeah, fair enough. My family now, we have a no cursing plan. My boyfriend and I, it's very nice. Yeah. Whether you're in your running era, Pilates era, or yoga era, dive into Peloton workouts that work with you. From meditating at your kid's game to mastering a strength program,

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We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were gonna be fun. January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're gonna die. Don't shoot him him we need him y'all need a pilot flight risk and you have a son i have a nine-year-old son yes

right and so you know but it doesn't matter what you say it's all about what you do right i'm very very honest with him and he knows exactly when i'm working on certain things. He knows that I'm working on not cursing. He knows that I'm working on not yelling. There's things that I'm always working on, and he's helping. You've also, I mean, through the years, you've risen to become a beautiful teacher, a strong voice in the world. You've also been really transparent about some of your struggles, which is kind of a segue from the conversation about how transparent you are within your family and with your son.

Somewhere you wrote or shared or offered that you came to a moment where you realized that you were presenting as one person when you stepped into a room to teach. Yes. And knowing that you lived as a very different person privately. Talk to me a little bit about that. It was a while back when I just realized that I was putting forth this persona as a teacher that was perfectly great and fun and confident and competent.

And I would spend a lot of time in my home life and my private life not feeling quite the same. And it started to feel, I started doing some fourth way work, working with a teacher, and who saw right through me and made me feel really exposed. And that was the beginning. It took about five years for me to really see, okay, this is one person, and now there's another person here, and can we please keep it to one consistent emanation? How do we do that? And so I started really doing some observation of myself, and when I was teaching, what was there? And when I wasn't teaching, what was there? And I started to see that there was a quality of attention and like a presence in my body and in the middle of my brain when I was teaching that was not present in my home.

This was even before Jonah. And I wanted that. I wanted to take the teacher, the confidence, the clarity, the calm, and make that who I was. And I realized that I could. It just took some practice. It took a number of years. It took some real modification of who I thought I was and who I imagined I could be. There were limitations that I thought were in place that weren't. And by the same token, on the other side, there were things that I thought weren't possible, or there were things that I thought were necessities that weren't.

So can you take me into any of this in sort of more detail? Sure. You know, I didn't realize that I could be a centered and calm woman. I didn't realize that I could be a centered and calm woman I didn't realize that I could be a non-smoker I didn't realize that I could be a person who was sober and clean none of these things, I thought that was just going to be a part of my life forever that was a part of everyone's life, wasn't it? and then I started to see that I can most definitely be a calm person. I can be, you know, I have friends who are just so

gorgeous and elegant and they really are the same person inside and outside. And I thought, I want that. I want to know what that feels like. I want to behave in the same way that I behave with my students, with my parents, and with my man. And I didn't know how to do that. It took a long time of practicing, getting feedback from people, asking my friends for feedback, hard things to hear. Having real honest dialogues with my parents that I never wanted to have. I never thought were even possible. Apologizing to my sister for being such a jerk for so many years and blaming her.

You know? And I'm not saying that other people didn't have their part to play in the story, but it's much more about a cleaning up and a moving on from behaviors and tendencies that are not only not yogic, but they're not really fit for humanity on the whole. And now I'm proud to say that I, with very few exceptions, go to sleep every night proud of my day and proud of my behavior. You know, when I ask my kid at the end of the day if there's anything that I could have done better today, because he's the best barometer for me, It's rare now that he says, well, you know, you could have been a little nicer when I didn't listen to you the fourth time. So it's a series of things over time and it's layers

being peeled off. And I like to be transparent about it because I see around me the struggle of all these moms and lovers and daughters and sisters who are just, you know, trying to get by and make things good with their relations, friends even, and having a hard time. And I like to be honest because it helps. Yeah, I think there's a tendency to place someone like you, a teacher, on a pedestal. Yeah. And say, well, especially when you represent yourself sort of in this certain level of energy and luminosity in the room when you're teaching,

and just automatically assume that that's how we thread through life. And very often it's not. You know, those are like, that may be for many the one moment where they tap back into that space. Yeah. In an odd way, I wonder if those who are drawn to sort of take their seat as a teacher end up very often, and I don't know why this happens, but I've seen it happen so many times. I'm wondering if you have seen also end up walking away from the practice

that brought them to actually wanting to take their seat as a teacher in the first place and then showing up in the room and teaching and offering all these ideas and philosophies. But the more they teach, the less they practice themselves, maybe because they feel like they've practiced when they're in the room with their students

or they've done the work during that time together, or they just feel like it's an emptying experience for them and they just drain and they don't want to go home and do the work. But it's been a really interesting experience for me to see so many teachers lose their practice and lose what brought them to the entire pursuit of whatever, whether it's yoga or meditation or movement, whatever your thing is, your daily practices, deepen their teaching and lose their practice. Yeah.

No, that is a non-negotiable for me. No. I wake up early, early bird before anybody else, right before the sun rises every day. And I sit when the sky is like that super inky blue. And then I start my practice there. And sometimes it goes for half an hour, sometimes it goes for an hour, sometimes it goes for 20 minutes,

and then I'm sort of done and ready to write something. I got inspired. But I sit with myself every day because if I don't do that, I have nothing to say. And teaching feels terribly draining. But if I do that, it's like going to the gas station. Agreed. I start my day pretty similar way.

Yeah. You mentioned that you ask your son at night, how did I do today? Is that a sort of a... I ask him if there was anything I could have done better. Why that language? A dear friend of mine who's a great mother and has a great kid taught me that that's a really good practice.

I was in a place of really being frustrated with my own behavior and not knowing how to stop it. And she gave me a few practices to alter the way I was showing up for my kid. And that was one of them. And immediately it opens up an entire realm of free speech for the child that most children don't feel, you know? And most parents, you know, my parents did not like the sound of that at all. You know, when I told them, it was like very weird.

Why would you let your kid tell you what you're doing wrong? Who are they? They're only alive eight years or seven years, whatever it was. I started this when he was three and a half. He didn't even understand it at first. But, you know, the first time he really came through, we were in a store, and he said, well, Mom, you know, first time he really came through it was we were in a in a store and he said well mom you know it was he i i'm afraid to do this because now he's nine years old so he's old enough to be sad that i would talk about it but suffice to say he he did something totally

by accident and i was really extra hard on him which which I should not have been. And at the end of the day, he said, you know, you could have been a little easier on me. He was like four, four and a half. You could have been nicer. And that was the beginning of the shift. You know, took a couple of years. And even now, sometimes I have this real volatile streak in me that comes out when I'm, you know, four or five times down asking for something that he doesn't deliver on, you know, things like brushing your teeth and getting dressed and being on time. And I'm learning how to even just stay super balanced even then. And that was started off in that question. And why that question? The gal who gave it to me

is a coach, one of the founding coaches of the Handel Group, which has been a pivotal body of work for me, along with the yoga and meditation. You could call it behavior modification if you like, you could call it any number of things. But the truth is, it has helped me to stand in integrity and be able to look anyone in the eyes and know that I am here telling the truth. And she was one of those women who taught me that, and I'll never be able to thank her enough for it. Jonah feels like he has a voice.

Do you do that with anyone else in your life? My man. We do it with each other, yeah. It's very good. He's going through a bit of a hard time right now, and to have the capacity to look at me at the end of the day and feel safe saying, you could have been a little warmer or more present. I'd love for you to stop.

The other day we had a long conversation about work curfews. I love my job. I love it so much, and I could work all night. I could keep going and going and going. So now we've given ourselves a 9.30 computer cutoff, 10.30 bedtime, talking, pillow talk, chilling. And he's able to say that without feeling like there's going to be some retribution.

I'm going to be cool. I don't know what. Because I'm sure some people listening are going to be some retribution. I'm going to be cool. I don't know what. I'm sure some people listening are going to think to themselves, well, I'm going to be opening the floodgates here. It's like, well, so this is like a daily opportunity for somebody to bash me. If that's how you feel, truly, if you're listening and that's how you feel, know that to open the floodgates, quote-unquote, is actually a great idea because you'll

learn all the things that have been pissing off your partner instead of letting all that resentment build up and build up and and in five or ten years from now being divorced scathingly divorced why not just talk about all the stuff that bothers you that bugs you in a way that's safe in a way that you're not taking it personally you're're just hearing somebody's, you know, opinion of something at that time and talking about it rationally. There's actually a whole sort of structure that makes it very safe. It's called getting resolved. And it's something I teach about every, I don't know, a few months or so, but it's awesome. So perfect for having a good, constructive, positive, beneficial conversation with somebody you love when it's feeling like it might be hard. What about the flip side?

What about the opposite question? What went well? What are you grateful for? Things like that. We do that at the end of the day, too. That's the last thing. Today I'm thanking you for doing the dishes and being so sweet and squeezing my ass. You know?

Because that's important. Those little moments are important. Absolutely, yeah. And he gets to thank me for whatever it is that I did. I helped him, I don't know, sort some paperwork out or whatever. And it's a nice way to end the day, you know, to look at each other and say what you're thankful for. It's beautiful.

That came from yet another one of my coaches at the Handel Group, and she and her husband have this practice for years. What can you be grateful for today in me? You know, it's so nice no it's interesting because i think you know gratitude has become really a buzzword these days and gratitude journaling which is wonderful but this is an interesting application of it because rather than sitting and saying this is what i'm grateful for that happened to me today that i had some level of control over it's you know you're externalizing it, offering to

someone else, which deepens, you know, the connection between you and another person, which is a pretty awesome thing. It's a good technology, that work. Yeah. So you owned a studio for 13 years. Almost 13. Almost 13. Which is an interesting business, too, because it's weird to call it a business, but years. Almost 13. Almost 13. Which is an interesting business too because

it's weird to call it a business, but it is a business. But it's also a place of healing and it's a community. Yes. So I'm really curious about something. I left my studio. I sold it at the end of 2008. You actually sold it? I did. Bless you.

And I remember the last day, nobody knew that it had already been sold when I taught my last class. Oh, wow. Weird. And I had all of my regular students come up at lunchtime and, you know, like out of shavasana, just sitting there with eyes closed in meditation. And I got teary and I said, this is, you guys, I have to share something with you. You just took my last class. But then what was really fascinating to me is I literally, it was emotional. But then at the end of the day, when I handed over the keys, I walked out and I was complete.

Totally. So I'm really curious about your experience of that moment of transitioning from something that was such a fierce part of your life, not just a business, but like a big, profound community. Talk me through sort of that. I'm curious. I've been asked this question a couple times this year, and I'll say that it was a huge relief. That's the truth of the truth. Walking out the last time was a huge relief and I didn't walk back into that building for several months if not over a year actually after I left for the last

time and I did not sell my studio we just closed it two of the senior teachers ended up taking it over a few months later and making it into another studio, which is great. The community, you know, while I was running that studio, I was also, and I've copped to this before and I will own it again, I was very much about building my own life while I owned that studio. And I didn't do the best job of building the community. The community happened by itself, and it happened because of those teachers that were teaching there. They cared a great deal. That was not my intent, really, you know, consciously. I loved it. And I loved that I had, you know, really big

classes and that community kind of happened in and of itself. But at the same time, I was traveling several times a year. I was building other things. I was, you know, creating what would eventually be a really beautiful foray into a book, meditation courses. I always knew that I'd be teaching meditation someday. I just didn't know when or how. And the whole time I was really much more concerned, I'm being honest, with myself rather than the community. I don't mean that I wasn't as selfish as it may sound here, but I was just enjoying my life. I was enjoying being a mom. I was enjoying going home and cooking my meals.

It was less about that. That said, I never really saved money from the studio. We were always in the black but it was never really a hugely profitable endeavor we didn't have retail we didn't do trainings and there was a level of it being central hq for me but that was kind of where where i left it the other teachers have created a beautiful community. It's now called Twisted Trunk Yoga. And it's right there in the same spot that Viera Yoga was. And, you know, that's their intent, which I think is incredible. And while Viera was a family, I can't own

that it was my intention to make it so. So, I just have to be honest about that. And when I left, I was happy because it was more, you know, there was less on my plate and there was more time for me. I cook all the time now. That feels really good. I'm much more close to home than I ever was. And I have a savings account finally at 45 years old, which was a long time coming. And I'm able to give money, not just time. I used to give a lot of time as my sort of charitable, but now I can give money and that feels so good. Yeah. So where did you move once you sort of left that phase behind? Like what was the next

adventure that you've been building really over the last number of years? It was more travel and it was more of a virtual community online that's what i've ended up building after all that it's a robust and engaged community of um you know seekers and seers and teachers and from the meditation courses to a website called teach.yoga that I started, which is my gift to all the teachers of the fine world that we live in, wherein our emails are being opened in 70 countries. It's just myself and my collaborator, Michelle Martello, who is just a genius. She's a company called Minima Designs. She works out of Richmond, Virginia.

And she and I have created this really beautiful platform for teachers that teachers write for and teachers read. And I send one email a week every Wednesday morning. And I limit myself and the teachers writing for the site to 300 words. Four or five five max. And in that space, I'm learning how to speak with a good, clear voice, good, potent, precise, concise message and help the teachers all around the world feel like they have a connection to something, you know, that, that belongs to all of us. Whether you're in your running era, Pilates era, or yoga era, dive into Peloton workouts that work with you. From meditating at your kid's game to mastering a strength program, they've got everything you need to keep knocking down your goals.

No pressure to be who you're not, just workouts and classes to strengthen who you are. So no matter your era, make it your best with Peloton. Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what's the difference between me and you? You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot.

The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes the apple watch series 10 available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum

compared to previous generations iphone 10s are later required charge time and actual results will vary how do you experience the transition from spending time face-to-face in a room with a group of teachers versus building that community in the digital space? I have the best time. First of all, I still teach weekly classes in New York. Right, so you get that. Yeah. You're nourished on that level. I'm nourished and so are they, and I can't not do that. I have a lot of teachers that come to my class, and I really feel very connected to my weekly classes

and in a way responsible for keeping up with my own practice because that's where I get the best ideas for my teaching. Every morning I'm coming up with something else, and it's not something that's never been done. I'm not saying I'm some kind of, you know, renegade innovator. I'm saying that because of my own practice, I can speak to details and clues in the body that other teachers will find interesting. And then they can take one aspect of one minute detail and spin that into their own teaching for months. So I feel more than ever very connected. Now on top of that, the second part of the answer to that would be in the virtual world, I've made so many wonderful friends that I've always wanted to make, and then we meet in real time, you know, live,

and the connections are so fortified and so real. We've been communicating electronically for a long time, whether it's, you know, on some social media platform or an email. And now I have these friends that, you know, I dreamed of knowing. And we're buds. We're buds. And we can elevate consciousness together through the work that we do. And one of them in particular that I'm thinking about right now, her name is Carrie Ann Moss. And she and I were just about the same age. And we were being told on two coasts, she's in LA and I'm here for years that we look alike.

Everybody was telling me, you know, you look like Trinity. I just want to say she was in Trinity in the matrix. Everybody would say this all the time. Especially when I would have my hair back or it was really short for a while. And then she started teaching Kundalini Yoga and people

started coming up to her and going, you know, are you Elena? You look just like Elena. That's funny. Really funny. We finally met after all that. And it was over Instagram as most of these very fun, cute, of just hilarious meetings happen lately. And we're best friends.

Oh, that's awesome. We have kids in similar schools on the two coasts. She has helped me so much. I've helped her in ways that she would never have expected. And that, to me, is a hallmark of the virtual reality that we live in, that we get to build friendships electronically and then, if you will, consummate them in real time. And I have a sister. You know, she's one of my soul sisters. All because of Instagram.

It's just so silly. And she talks about Instagram as all of us sitting around the fire, by the way. That was my point. And it's funny because a couple of years ago, I was pretty down on the notion of what you were just talking about. But now I see that as a beautiful progression. Totally. I think it's such a great way to find and then begin the conversation. And then what's funny is you can have – we literally at one point rerouted a trip from Bali through Australia because of a relationship that I had started on Twitter to spend a week with a friend and family who we'd never met before.

There you go. But I do think there's still – the real magic still doesn't truly happen until, you know, like you get to just wrap your arms around somebody. Super true. Yeah. This morning I spent, before coming here, I spent an hour at school chilling with all the moms down in the cafeteria having tea, going over our highlight reels from the break. Uh-huh. think ultimately this virtual reality is so sweet and so easy to support each other and help build each other's communities and grow both literally and figuratively but ultimately it's all turning back on itself and we're all tasked to spend more time in person with each other as much as we can

in community together yeah and so to that end, like I said, I love to cook. I love to have friends over. We have people sleeping over our house all the time. And there are limits to how much you can do virtually. So I think there's a fine balance, and I think to strike that as a daily practice. No, I totally agree. It's easy to get lost down that rabbit hole.

And it's also easy to start to lean on the digital space as less about connection and more about false validation. That's always been the conversation, though. Yeah, no, no doubt. It's just another, you know, it's yet another way to do that. Yeah, it's perilous. It's a very slippery, perilous slope. Yeah. You brought up one other thing, too, that you've also been really public about that I wanted to explore a little bit with you. And it's when you said there are a lot of things you want to change about yourself. You're now two years into a, quote, recovery.

Year and a half. Year and a half. Year and a half. Is it really important that you're very precise with that? It sounds like it is. No, I think it's to be respectful to the recovery community. I don't take it lightly. So take me more into what you're in recovery from and how it was woven through your life from what I understand decades before. With the exception of several years around my pregnancy and giving birth to Jonah, I've had a pot addiction for a really long time.

For the last leg of the worst part of it, I was just smoking every morning when I would drop Jonah off at school and I would drop my man off at the subway and go home and smoke. It was my time, quote unquote. And I thought I deserved it. And it was delicious and, you know, all these things that I was telling myself when really all it was was some form of prayer to the highest part of myself to come forward. And when I finally realized that I had a problem, it was because Gabrielle Bernstein came through and we were having a conversation in person and she said you know Elena if you really want to do your highest work you can't be smoking pot like it was just so obvious to her I was pissed I was like that can't be true you know of course you can just everything in moderation

except that I didn't know from moderation by the end. And so I was lying to myself, I was lying to everyone around me. But when she said that, some little light clicked on, and I got ready. And it was within a few weeks of that that I said, Gab, I'm done, and I need you. And she was there. She was calling me and texting me,

and for the first 40 days i actually went through her book may cause miracles and did sort of a little piece of art or a still life or writing or some practice to go with all the practices in that book and that's how i got through the first 40 days and it's pretty known that neurologically and biologically, if you can get through 40 days of changing a habit, you can pretty much count on your body looking toward the new path rather than down the old road. And so once I got through those 40 days, I was good. I was really good. And I still have support. And now I have a list of about a dozen women that are sprinkled all over the planet who are also joining me consciously in recovery

because of my public sort of outing of myself on this path. And it feels really good. Why did you feel it was necessary to do it publicly? It was a great way for me to stay accountable. And I could see around me, even in my super close circle of friends, people are struggling with addiction all over the place. Not just drugs or alcohol, but even technology, sex. You know, negative thinking is an addiction.

And I wanted to help demystify the process of releasing addiction and moving more toward our highest, you know. There's even a technology in that, you know, of getting support, of staying positive, of asking for help. There are not just the 12 steps, although I'm fully supportive of that. There are steps that we can all take, depending on what we're addicted to, to really help us move past that and grow. And that's what I was interested in. I wanted to share it because I really felt that there was a need to share it and I ended up over the course of the first nine months of my freedom writing a spoken word piece that's about 12 minutes long and Wanderlust is going to have it up soon. I did it

as a speakeasy fully from memory last summer in Aspen. It should be up soon, I'm sure. And it was a proud moment. It felt really good to tell everybody about it and get through it. Yeah. Is this something that you're also transparent on? And if this is going too far, but I'm just really curious, is this something that you're also transparent

with your son about? Yeah. Oh, he's been there every step of the way. He was the one that I practiced my speakeasy Oh, he's been there every step of the way. He was the one that I practiced my speakeasy on, my poem on, every step of the way. He knows it backwards and forwards. He knows what addiction is to the extent that he can. He's nine years old.

I've explained it to him many, many times since he was about eight, seven and a half. Seven, seven and a half is when I started talking to him about it. But he's well aware and i've been very very open with him we talk all the time he has questions about it so what's this drug and what's that drug and i talked to him about it all the time because eventually he's going to come up against it sure it's going to be in his face especially in new york city especially in new york city and he's going to have a real freedom and a knowledge

of what everything is and how it impacts people. And then he gets to make his own choices as ever. You know, I think I've given him a good gift in exposing him to my path and he's very proud of me.

You know, that's the one thing that he can, I have that little counter on my phone. It's an app called Synths. And it's like 400 and some crazy amount of days. And he's just so happy whenever he opens it. He's like, look, mama, you did it. You did it. So beautiful. You know, if he ever comes across somebody who's

addicted or he ever sees himself falling into that rabbit hole, he probably will have a little more adaptability, which is a good gift to give to my kid. And maybe compassion, too. For sure, compassion. He knows, you know, it's not so hard for me anymore. I did. I also did hypnotism. And I did.

I took some real steps toward eradicating the, you know, the tendency and the sort of quote-unquote love of the hug of the drug. And now I can laugh about it because I know what it felt like intellectually, but intuitively it doesn't have a hold on me anymore. But knowing that, I think he would see addiction with a lot of compassion now, which is good for humanity to have a person who sees that. You never want somebody to actually have to move through addiction and then recover for a minute to say, well, that's a prerequisite to learn compassion. But any lesson that I think any time, any moment in time that we can increase compassion, it's a good thing. Your focus these days seems like it's really come full circle back to where you really started out, which is really helping teachers deepen into finding their ability to express themselves fully and then make a difference

in other people's lives and also really focusing on the deeply meditative side of the practice and where you focus your attention and then how that affects both you and the world around you can you take me there a little bit that's well said um that is what i'm here for. I realize now that's my mission. I want to give folks the gift of their own attention and their own compassion through meditation. My teacher Rod calls it the technology of unsurpassed calm. I like that. It's pretty great. And I feel strongly that to help teachers who are already trained, who are already out there teaching, to get more clear on what they're offering is a great gift to the world, because those are the people who are really committed to going out and serving and giving

it away. So why don't I help them? Because helping them helps more people more efficiently. I'm really just interested in making sure that I can reach as many millions of people as possible with this calm. And that feels important to me right now. Why? We need it. We're really hooked into the tech, you know, and the technology. I'm saying the technology, the electronic technology is, it's just having an impact in ways that we couldn't have possibly imagined.

Great. And on one hand, we get to have this wonderful conversation. We get to share it with a lot of people who will be hopefully positively affected. And on the other hand, may those people then go and get the groceries or go to the garden and pick the food and make some dinner and sit down with their family and turn it all off. That would be a great result. So that's why I think this is all very important. I think it's all just making people aware that there is within them a central headquarters of utter relaxation available all the time.

No matter what is sitting in front of you, that's a good legacy. That is. I want to make sure that I ask you about one last thing before we come full circle, which is this gorgeous book that you handed me when you walked in the door. I'm so excited to hand it to you. It's funny because I'm like a design snob.

Yes, same. I'm like, you know what? If you're going to do it, well, especially with your background, right? You come out of this world of design and I see bad kerning and I lose my mind. Oh, God. I have to high-five you again on kerning. And nobody can understand. Nobody can see it.

And I'm like, well, how can you not see that there's that? For those who don't know, kerning is the micro spaces between letters. So this is a beautiful, beautiful book called The Art of Attention. But it's not just a book. Just spend a few minutes sharing with me what this really is. So it's the effort and labor of both myself and my co-author, Erica Jago, who's a very gifted designer and also teacher. She and I created what is essentially a workbook for yoga and meditation for teachers and practitioners. It gives you five practices.

One is a meditation practice. The rest are yoga practices of varying different levels and intensities. And each one has, at the end of it, workbook pages. And those pages are scattered with quotes and really faded images so you can work on those pages and take your own notes and use this literally as a workbook to design your own practices we've also got in the book templates for using what erica calls asana glyphs these tiny little stick figures stick yogis she put together, for all the sequences, the asana glyph sequences in waves, three-wave sequence.

So each class has essentially three waves, as we all know, or maybe we don't. And you get to put together your own three-wave sequences based on what you liked and found efficient in the book. What's fun about it is that this is the fourth edition of the book. We self-published the first three. This was an Indiegogo campaign, right? It was. It was one of the first ones. 2012 or something like that, right?

Indiegogo was like in their first two, three months. We did great. Mostly because the yoga community hadn't really helped another yogi kind of make something really incredible happen for the community. So it was very successful. We gave a book.

For every book that we got paid for, we gave over 1,000 books to various charities all over the world. It was just one of the greatest experiences of my life to give those away. And then the subsequent two editions we self-published and this is the fourth edition and sounds true took over and made it uh their property and i could not be happier sounds true such an incredible company and i'm in such i feel so honored to be in the company that i'm in now amongst the authors of that tribe so that's really good and you, you know, ultimately I think it changed. If I may be so bold, I think it did change the way yoga is delivered via books. From that point on, there's been a shift in the sort of aesthetic of yoga.

It's not just like a photograph and then some explanation. Now it's a real, it's an art form. It's an art form. It's an art form and I think it has changed the way we see the practice and the way we see our own capacities, both as teachers and practitioners, to have a book like this out there. So the name of this is Good Life Project. Yeah. So if I offer that term out to you, to live a good life, what comes up?

To pick my kid up at school and to remember the soccer ball and take it over to the park and kick it around with him. To engage him in cooking the meal with me. To sit with him while he takes a bath, talk to him about his day, talk to him about mine. To read with him or play hockey with him or play rummikub with him. And then to put him to sleep and fall asleep with him for a half an hour

with my hand on his head or his belly, depending on where he needs it. And then to get up really sort of naturally and do a little bit of the work that I love for an hour, hour and a half. And then sit or roll over and do a little practice, yoga nidra, little something restorative, take a bath, get in bed. That's a good life. Indeed. Yeah. Thank you.

You're welcome. Hey, thanks so much for listening to today's episode. If you found something valuable, entertaining, engaging, or just plain fun, I'd be so appreciative if you take a couple extra seconds and share it. Maybe you want to email it to a friend. Maybe you want to share it around social media. Or even be awesome if you'd head over to iTunes and just give us a rating. Every little bit helps get the word out, and it helps more people get in touch with the message.

I'm Jonathan Fields, signing off for Good Life Project. If you're looking for flexible workouts, Peloton's got you covered. Summer runs or playoff season meditations, whatever your vibe, Peloton has thousands of classes built to push you. We know how life goes. New father, new routines, new locations. What matters is that you have something there to adapt with you, whether you need a challenge or rest.

And Peloton has everything you need, whenever you need it. Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch,

getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised.

The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were gonna be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're gonna die. Don't shoot him, we need him!

Y'all need a pilot? Flight Risk.