The Menstruality Podcast - 114. How Yoga Nidra can Support Menstrual and Menopause Rest (Tracee Stanley)

Episode Date: November 16, 2023

Today’s episode is for you if - like me - you long to feel more calm, rested, peaceful and grounded throughout your days. Both because it feels better, but also because you know the gold that lies in this state of restedness; for your health, your relationships, your worklife, and your leadership.Our guest is Tracee Stanley, the author of the bestselling book Radiant Rest, and the recently published The Luminous Self. She is a post-lineage yoga teacher, inspired by more than 20 years of study, and she’s devoted to sharing the wisdom of yoga nidra, rest, meditation, self-inquiry, nature as a teacher, and ancestor reverence.We chat about how to set up a practice that allows for rest inside a mainstream culture that says we’re not worthy unless you’re pushing through; whether that’s pushing through grief, illness, exhaustion or menstruation and menopause. Through it all, Tracee illuminates how deep rest, peace and truth are our birthright.We explore:The importance of unveiling the messages we received about the value of rest from our parents and ancestral lineage; particularly for Black, Brown and Indigenous people.How the practice of Yoga Nidra is a way to know our true self,  as well as a powerful act of rebellion in a culture that wants us to keep endlessly grindingThe story of Mataji - a female yoga teacher in her 90s, who was famous for never sleeping, and became one of the first people to teach the wisdom of yoga nidra. ---Registration is opening tonight for our 2024 Menstruality Leadership Programme. You can explore the curriculum here: https://www.menstrualityleadership.com---The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email [e-mail]---Social media:Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.schoolSophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy

Welcome to the Menstruality Podcast, where we share inspiring conversations about the power of menstrual cycle awareness and conscious menopause. This podcast is brought to you by Red School, where we're training the menstruality leaders of the future. I'm your host, Sophie Jane Hardy, and I'll be joined often by Red School's founders, Alexandra and Sharni, as well as an inspiring group of pioneers, activists, changemakers and creatives to explore how you can unashamedly claim the power of the menstrual cycle to activate your unique form of leadership for yourself, your community and the world. Welcome back. Thank you for being here today listening. Being in this conversation and exploration with you is a great gift that I never take for granted. Thank you so much for being part of the community gathered around this podcast. I want to invite you to take a breath with me as we enter into today's episode,

because it's for you if you, like me, long to feel more calm and rested and peaceful and grounded throughout your days, both because it feels better, but also because you know the gold that lies in this state of restedness for your health, for your relationships, your work life, your leadership, for all of it. And today I'm talking to someone amazing who has become an important rest teacher for me, the beautiful Tracy Stanley, who's the author of the best-selling book, Radiant Rest, Yoga Nidra for Deep Relaxation and Awakened Clarity, and the recently published The Luminous Self, which is another beautiful book. She's a post-lineage yoga teacher. She's

inspired by more than 20 years of study. She's devoted to sharing the wisdom of yoga nidra, rest, meditation, self-inquiry, nature as teacher and ancestor reverence. We chat about how to set up a practice that allows for rest inside a mainstream culture that says that we're not worthy unless we can push through, pushing through grief, pushing through illness, exhaustion, as well as the monthly pushing through of menstruation and pushing through of the great initiation of menopause. And Tracy illuminates through her inimitable, soulful, poetic way, how deep rest and peace and truth are our birthright. So let's get started with the wonderful Tracy Stanley. so welcome to the menstruality podcast tracy i've been really looking forward to this conversation i've been immersing myself in your book and just feeling really rested being in your presence so hoping that we can bring some of your rest magic to our listeners today. Yeah. Thank you so much for being here.

Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. Could we start with a check-in around where you're at cyclically? So you're living in your post-menopause life right now. And how is that for you? Yeah. So I would say cyclically we're recording this just after the new moon. And so even though I'm in my post-menopause stage of life in this season, I've just begun over the last seven years to really pay even more attention to the cycles of the moon and how those were previously connected to the cycle that I was in. And so I'm feeling very energized. I think that a lot of the work that I've done over the years around rest really came in as a beautiful tool for me, because one of the things that I first noticed when I was in perimenopause is how exhausted I would feel, right. And how much I had even a lack of clarity

and like a fuzziness or fogginess a lot of times. And I just kind of turned on the rest dial even more. And it was just such a beautiful support for me. Were you able to see a direct correlation between the amount that you, the amount of rest time you gave yourself and the clarity and the fatigue that you're experiencing? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I also shifted a lot of things around bedtime and rising, making sure that, you know, changing even lights in my room so that after sundown, it was only kind of red light, adding some adaptogens into my diet. So there were a lot of things that I did to help to support the clarity, definitely, along with rest. Sorry, my doggy's crying because he wants to come in. So let's let him in into the rest first. Okay.

He is my rest teacher. He's a big black Labrador. Oh, beautiful. I have a Labradane. Oh, do you? Oh, oh big yeah yeah he's really big I would love to hear some of your rest story because having listened to some podcast episodes with you and got quite deeply into your radiant rest book it's like there's a transmission that comes from you of restedness and I'm curious to hear where where your rest journey began and what what made you fall so in love with

rest and with yoga nidra as a practice I love that question thank you um well I love that question. Thank you. Well, I think that my rest journey really began when I was a child. My dad would have this saying, I think and he would go to bed soon after dinner. Maybe we would watch a television or we would play a game and he would be in bed. And so for him, it was almost as though there, he, he recognized, and I think both of my parents really recognized that being rested was a key to being able to be resourced. Right. And I saw that and absorbed that. So I, when I was growing up, was somebody who would always go to bed early. I didn't really stay out late, you know. And then, of course, you know, you get into your rebellious years, your teenage years. But it was also something that I kept with me. You know, if I knew that I had to go to work the next morning, I wouldn't stay out late with friends. And it was many, many years later when I discovered this practice of yoga nidra. And I was led in a class with a yoga teacher that was new to me. And that yoga teacher had asked, okay, we're just going to lay down. And I thought, well, wait, why are we laying down? Because we haven't even done any movement yet, right? We're doing Shavasana first. And they didn't really front load the practice or description of the practice. So we laid down and then I was

guided along with the other people in the class through this systematic relaxation. And I started to become very relaxed. And at some point we were kind of moving through the systematic relaxation. And I think we were maybe on like the left ankle or something. And then the next thing I know we were on the right wrist and I was like, wait, what, what happened? And then I just felt myself moving deeply into a place of stillness and spaciousness that I really hadn't remembered experiencing before. And then at some point, I think I heard, wiggle your toes and deepen your breath. And I was like, okay, what just happened? I feel like this place within me has been revealed that is like peaceful and still. And it was really clear that this wasn't something that the yoga teacher was doing, right? It wasn't like some magic sprinkles. It felt like it was something that was arising from within me that I just was not aware of that was existing inside of me. So that was the beginning of the rest journey.

Because once I had that experience, I continued to seek out that experience over and over. I didn't know what the practice was called probably until a year later. And then at some point a year later, I learned what the practice was called and I found some books about the practice and started to unravel this understanding a little bit of what the practice was and how beautiful the practice was. So that was the beginning of the journey. And it's had many iterations and many unfoldings since then. That was almost, let's see that was 24 years ago yeah you are a well rested person which is a rare thing in our world actually it's a very rare thing in our world um you you really helped me uh deepen my understanding of Yoga Nidra, because I think for a lot of us, it looks like a yoga nap or like yogic sleep. And in the beginning of your Radiant Rest book, you opened up all of these new vistas for me in terms of Yoga yoga nidra is a state of consciousness it's a pathway to learn

real surrender it's both the means to freedom and freedom itself like these are vast vast statements and could we feel into them together as sort of a way into the full depth and potential of this as a path and as a practice yes absolutely you know I think that um the understanding and the unveiling in the book also mirrors my own um unveiling of the understanding of yoga nidra my first experience as I as mentioned, and for many years after that, was really around the understanding that yoga nidra was a technique. It was a technique where you lay down, you were guided, you did some systematic relaxation, you practiced diaphragmatic breathing, maybe you did a little bit of a countdown and then suddenly you were

relaxed. And when you were done with this practice, you felt relaxed and at ease and spacious. And then, and I think that's how we mostly understand yoga nidra in the West as a technique. But then I was introduced to this teaching around the Manduki Upanishads, which is a teaching around the sacred sound and the sacred syllable of Aum. And that syllable of Aum encompasses all of the states of consciousness. So the waking state, the dreaming state, the deep sleep state, and this state that is called the fourth or turiya, which is this place that is said to be peace beyond words. It's said to be this place that is the void that is both empty and full and cannot really be described with words. And when I started to realize that this Upanishad was also the Upanishad that was written, there's a book that was written by Swami Rama. And that book that he wrote was inspired by teachings that he received from who he called Mataji, which was a teacher who taught him the secrets of Aum and the secrets of Yoga Nidra. And that Yoga Nidra is really encompassed in this sound of Aum because we're moving through these states of consciousness. And so Yoga Nidra is said to be

similar, if not the same as Samadhi or this place of Turiyaidra state of consciousness, possibly for us to taste it, to know it, to remember it, whatever it is. It's like when a yoga nidra facilitator is guiding you, they can't guide you to that state. They can only prepare you to receive the grace of that state. And that's what you're doing when you practice Shavasana and when you practice Yoga Nidra and body scans, it's just the preparation. And that preparation is sweet and it's restful and it's beautiful and it's nurturing. So it's worth being in that preparation. And then not long after that, I met a teacher named Sri Devi Brinji and we were doing a class

on Lakshmi Puja. And she started to talk about the Devi Suktam, which I had chanted many times. And then she kind of offhandedly mentioned the goddess Yoganidra. And I was like, wait a second, hold on. I've been practicing this for a really long time and studying this. And not one of my teachers have ever mentioned that there is this goddess Yoganidra who has the Shakti of repose as one of my dear friends and, and teachers Uma Dinsmore Tuli talks about. And that, you know, this is the, the quality of nurturing, the quality of support, the quality of this moon, like nectar that comes to us and helps us to relax and become more spacious.

And then there are stories about yoga Nidra in the Devi Mahatmya. And so once I started to think about this idea of the goddess, that was something that also really shifted my practice because it started to shift. How am I setting up my rest nest? A lot of times it feels very perfunctory. Oh, I'm going to get my blanket and I'm just going to put it all in and I'm going to be rushing as I'm doing this and I'm not really going to be thinking about it. And it started to really shift it into this kind of feeling of devotion and ritual. And that has been just an amazing bomb. So all three of those qualities and all the many qualities that we don't even know about, right, that we haven't even experienced yet. But those three qualities

in particular are things that I keep top of heart when I'm moving into the space of either facilitating yoga nidra or practicing the yoga nidra as a goddess really awakened something in me and it made me reflect on my own practice of rest at menstruation which is a big part of what we teach and share at red school is there is this invitation from within our bodies to to practice the art of surrender when we menstruate and it made me think ah yeah how can i how can i treat this as an active devotion to the goddess you know through my body and through my being and it makes me think now about menopause too because many of the people listening are you know negotiating the menopause transition and just how supportive it could be as a resource to relate to yoga nidra and this rested state as as a goddess that can resource and support through this like big initiatory time of

of menopause yeah absolutely and i also feel like there is this knowing within us that we are also the goddess, right? Is a goddess is just a personification of all of these qualities within us. And they're there to remind us also that we possess these qualities. So for me, it's also this question of how can I nurture myself more? What is the added thing that I need in this time of menopause? And that might be something as simple as remembering the origins of yoga nidra. And some of the origins of yoga nidra are written about in the Maha Nirvana Tantra, where it talks about this idea that yoga nidra is really this idea of kind of consecrating the body and remembering the body as a divine temple. And so what I have learned and what I understand is that a lot of these practices of rotating consciousness throughout the body or systematic relaxation come from this

practice of nyasa, which means to place or to plant or to anoint or to consecoint, or to consecrate, or even to bless. And that those places in the body are places where you're anointing. So it's like, if we take this back to the origin, and we think about, oh, what would happen if I anointed my body? And when I think about anointing, I think about the practice of Abhyanga, like the warm oil massage. So how nurturing would it be for me if I were to anoint my body with warm oil and keep that oil on my body as I then go into my yoga nidra practice and into my yoga nidra nest? in a nest. And I allow that to become this nurturing nectar, this cocoon of just beauty and self-love that I can wrap myself in, in a time when I might be feeling like I'm not resourced. I might be feeling so fatigued. I might be feeling just ungrounded, right? And that I know I can bring these different types of practices and to kind of just reconstitute myself to, you know, when I feel like I'm falling apart,

yoga nidra is the practice that can bring me back together and let me know that it's okay to dissolve and surrender. And then when I come back, I can bring it back in the way that feels more supportive for me. It's like there's fireworks going off in my body as you're talking. There's so much recognition in what you're saying, or it's hard to express in words, but I'm really feeling now how the world doesn't understand menopause it doesn't understand cyclicity at most of our dominant culture and so when we're entering menopause the world just wants us to keep going and being the same and showing up as summertime maiden mother self and so often in our community it seems like that's a big part of the dissolution

like there's there's a natural change happening but the world says no to it but this practice can be like a remembering as in bringing us yeah bringing all of ourselves back together to our true selves and there's an act of rebellion against the the world that wants us to stay the same when nothing in life actually stays the same. Yeah. I mean, there's so much to say about that because, I mean, that's just in my mind, it's a reflection of our absolute denial of the cycle of nature. Right. And the reality of impermanence and the beauty of impermanence as well and so you know as we move towards these these seasons in life that we don't celebrate we haven't been taught to celebrate these seasons and you know i've lived in for the last 28 years or so. I've moved now, but I used to live in Los Angeles.

And it's really interesting that in a place like Los Angeles, everything is perpetually green. Everything is perpetually blooming. looming every person that you see for the most part in certain parts of LA you know it's like the the goal is to stay perpetually young and so you're constantly in denial of what is and the beauty that comes with every season and so it's like you like this idea of the crone being disposable, being someone that is an outcast or that is marginalized or is invisible, made to be invisible on the outskirts of society is definitely the thing that needs to be rebelled against. And I definitely feel like yoga nidra is that practice that is part of the rebellion because for many different reasons, it's part of the rebellion. But as we're talking

about menopause and the crone, the crone's magic is being able to partner with the unknown. And yoga nidra is that space of the unknown, because as you're moving towards that fourth state, towards Surya, that is the place of the unknown. And when we can settle into being curious about the unknown, being an explorer of the unknown, and maybe even being devoted to the unknown, that's power. Because that's a place that most people are very afraid of and people run away. And we saw that during the pandemic. People will run away from what, or try to, from what's unknown. But we're in these spaces of void many times a day.

And we try to fill them with distraction. And that's what the overculture wants us to do, is that when there's silence, when there's spaciousness, they want to fill it with the distraction of whatever app or whatever thing or whatever tv show fill it with distraction because it's the wisdom that arises from this place of of spaciousness and and void i'm thinking back to mataji from the beginning of the conversation, you know, talk about crone wisdom. She was there bringing that hugely to Swami Rama, I think you said. Yeah. Yeah. And it's interesting because she literally was, I think in one of his books, he talks about her being like 90 something years old. And the rumor in the town was that she never slept. And so he started to follow her and look to see where she was going. And she was in the Kamakya temple and he was

spying on her. And she, at some point after a few days, got tired of him spying and said, what is it that you want? And he said, I want to know your secrets. How is it that you're so full of Shakti, but you never seem to sleep? And then she said, well, have you ever heard of this practice, Yoga Nidra? And then she taught him Yoga Nidra. So in many ways, it's very interesting. And I'm glad you brought that back around, is that this practice because he popularized he was one of the main teachers that brought this practice to the west that we have her Mataji whose name we'll really never know because he called her Mataji so she's an really kind of an unnamed teacher but this crone wisdom that then was popularized by Swami Rama and other teachers from India.

And then another wave of teachers, of male teachers, white male teachers who brought this in and kind of forgot that the origins and this idea of the goddess as well and we don't have to spend too long here but it just does always feel important to speak to it mainly because of my own personal experiences of yoga but along with the way yoga has been taken by many and much has been forgotten there just I just remember in the book you spoke beautifully about the abuse that has happened in yoga spaces and you referenced Uma's the second edition of Uma's book, Yoni Shakti, and the incredibly brave and powerful work she's doing to both name the abuse that happens in the yoga world and also provide a platform for people to heal. And you, you know, you beautifully say there's no dogma in these pages. This is a, like, there are many ways to practice this and it all leads to the same place

and you said I invite you to be open curious and available for the magic to happen in your practice which sort of my body just went ah with so much relief to hear that and you also mentioned that yoga nidra can be healing perhaps even for this specific piece and I've been feeling healed by being guided by you in Yoga Nidra, like healing of my own personal experiences of abuse in the yoga world. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think it's very important for any practice that anyone endeavors

to practice with a teacher is to research, right? A lot of times we look at the pretty pictures of somebody sitting on top of a mountain meditating, and we don't delve any deeper to see like, what is the history here? And how do I feel about that history? Because I don't believe myself, I don't believe that enlightenment is a static condition. I think it's something that ebbs and flows and people's practices ebb and flow. And I think that we need to just be aware of that when we study with any teacher. So be aware, do some research. I've taught classes before where I've named the harm, which I always do, any harm. And the lineage that I have had as my foundational teachings, the Himalayan tradition has harm that has been done, that has been documented. And no one told me about that. I found it on the internet. And I think that it's

very shocking. Sometimes people will have a list of books that people should read for yoga nidra training, and then they'll get really into, oh, I'm going to order this other book or these other two books. And they'll read those books and then they'll do research and it'll come up about the abuse. And it's very triggering and traumatizing. So I think as a teacher of Yoga Nidra, we have to let people know that there has been abuse that has happened within different lineages. And I'm not sure, to be honest, at this point, that there's any lineage that has shared yoga nidra that has not had some sort of abuse happening. And I definitely could be wrong about that. But the

main lineages that I know of, I think that there's been something happening. And so I think that as a teacher, it's something that we need to name. And it also is something that is a teacher for us to make sure that we do our best to have spaces that are nurturing and sacred, because we know that there's no such thing as a safe space. Even though our intentions may be to hold a safe space, there's no such thing as a safe space. But we can try to create a sacred and a nurturing space and a space that is open open so that if people do feel harmed that they also feel open and and resourced to be able to speak up. I'm going to pause my conversation with Tracy for a moment it's an exciting day here at Red School because we're opening the doors for our 2024 Menstruality Leadership Program tonight

just before our live webinar which is happening at 5pm London time. Join us if you can, you can register for the webinar at menstrualityleadership.com. So the Menstruality Leadership Program is the world's first leadership programme designed for trailblazers, changemakers, nurturers and creatives to embody your full authority and leadership through the power of menstruality. We start in March 2024 and we have a special super early bird offer until the end of November if you're feeling the call to step in. You can save £495 if you register before the end of the day on November the 30th, and that's at menstrualityleadership.com. The program includes an immersive exploration of the five chambers of menstruation as a gateway for more rest in your life, as well as more purpose and fulfillment. We also explore

how to embody 12 menstruality leadership skills including Alexandra's personal favorite which is restedness. You can find out all about the program at menstrualityleadership.com. I want to ask you about the obstacles to rest and relaxation and the obstacles to practicing yoga nidra. You know, you speak about them really beautifully. Just before we do that, just to like nestle back into the goddess. I would love to read this piece from the first chapter is that okay can i read yeah yeah so it's about the mystery of yoga nidra as the goddess she is the great mother the one who holds and nurtures and supports unconditionally her body is the fertile soil of the earth, her spine a flowing river, her heart filled with a sea of liquid diamonds, her eyes deep pools into an endless void, her breath is rose-coloured light filling you with love, her face radiant like the full moon, she is waiting for you to surrender

into her arms so you might sleep while you're awake like the divine child whose birthright is deep rest peace and truth and I really wanted to share that before we talk about the obstacles just so we can all remember just how very important it is to like move through these obstacles in whatever way we possibly can um but yeah I'd love to hear you speak to say you know like single mamas or like people who are dealing with them at this menopause transition and are um trying to work whilst also navigating symptoms like how how actually let's start by just naming naming some of the obstacles to the practice yeah there's so many um different answers to this i think the first one that we can start with is how mainstream culture just says you're not really worthy unless you can push through. Yeah. Right. So push through. Someone has in your family has

passed away. Well, in America, at least you get three days of bereavement and then push through, keep going. There is no space for any kind of rest. And in a way, I think that there is grief and there is a death that is happening in menopause. And so we have to acknowledge that and we should treat it with the same kind of care as we would if a beloved was leaving us because a beloved is leaving us. And yes, I can, I also recognize that we all have different relationships, right? With menstruation, but there is something,

a part of us that is leaving that deserves some space. So this idea for mainstream culture of pushing through of you're not worthy unless you're always doing. That's the first thing, I think. And then I think that we have to look at the messages that we received from our parents and also looking at our ancestral lineage, right? And so if I think about my ancestral lineage, being a Black American with Caribbean ancestry, is that enslavement was part of my story. Enslavement is in my DNA. And enslavement means that your life was in jeopardy if you rested because you were seen not as human. You were seen as a commodity. You were seen as something that was just there to produce.

And so that fear of resting can be in our DNA. We come from peoples who were were indigenous removed from their lands. If we come from people who were indentured servants, I mean, there's so much history. And I think that there's probably some sort of trauma around resting and enslavement and and indentured servitude in all of our DNA, right? And so getting closer to where we are today is what were the messages that we received from our parents about the value of rest? And so that's a question that we can just like sit with is like, who taught you about the value of rest?

Who modeled the value of rest for you? What messages did you you about the value of rest? Who modeled the value of rest for you? What messages did you receive about the value of rest? And right there, you then have a list of all of your personal obstacles to resting. And then the thing we need to do really is to start to find the antidotes to those obstacles. And when we find the antidotes, then we can start to weave those into our life. And I think yoga culture gives us also another

obstacle is that because when yoga culture came to the West or was created in the West, whatever happened is that there was all of a sudden this idea that, oh, we had a 90 minute class, right? Or we had an hour long class. And that to me was really a way of commercializing yoga to say, well, how long do we need to make the class to actually make someone pay $18 for a class. Right. And so instead we started to kind of feel that, oh, first of all, yoga only happens on my yoga mat or it only happens in the studio or it only happens when I'm being led. And if I'm not practicing yoga for, you know, a half an hour, an hour or 90 minutes, I'm not really doing a practice. Right. And, you know, that really isn't true. And so for me, I was really inspired by the Hindu philosophy around the stages of life and the stages of life, the seasons of life, being a student, being a

householder, being a forest dweller, and then maybe even going into this place of being a renunciate. And those stages of life, I think are very accurate. And most of the people that I know are not living on top of a mountain practicing and having somebody bringing them food and chai a couple of times a day. We're householders, right? We have children, we have businesses, we have partners, we're caretaking for parents. We have all of these things that don't allow for a lot of space and consistent daily two hour long practices like we might really want to do. And so in the book, Radiant Rest, I talk about this idea of the

householder flow is that what would happen if we could weave our practice throughout our day. And if we could look for these places of spaciousness and knowing that spaciousness doesn't mean having three hours of time where there's nothing to do, but spaciousness can be that five minutes between the time that you are in between calls for your business or that 10 minutes that you're sitting in line at school waiting for your child to come out for pickup or while you're waiting for soccer practice or whatever it is, is that you can start to reclaim that time. And that all you really need is one to two to three minutes to reclaim and come back

to your breath or to close your eyes and start to move your awareness through your body or to do a body scan. And if we can start to weave things through and think about our practice and our life really as a practice and start to weave through 24 hours from the moment we wake up with a gentle mantra or a gentle sankalpa, and then we weave that through our day. And then the next time we have a few moments, we close our eyes and repeat that and just feel our breath and move awareness through the body. And then the next time, and then what starts to happen when you start to live like that for, I'd say seven days to begin with, is that then you start to realize all the ways

in which you're being distracted, all the ways in which you're being distracted, all the ways in which you waste time, because you start to notice that if I just pause for the three minutes and I do a practice in that three minutes, now I'm starting to look for the moments. And when I start to look for the moments, I start to realize, oh, every time I have space, I pick up my phone or I go to look for my emails or I go to do something that is taking me outside of myself. And then I start to, once I'm aware of that,

and if I really am feeling nurtured and supported by these little three minute, five minute practices, then I start to really say, oh, you know what? Instead of looking at my phone, I'm going to reclaim this time. I'm going to use this time to rest. And before you know it, you have way more time to bring in these practices. And it really starts to shift. I feel at least that's been my experience and the feedback that I've gotten from other people that it really starts to shift the quality of the day and then the quality of life when you start to shift in these ways yeah I've been noticing that over the

past few weeks as I've been making it more of a priority uh yeah there's a more delicious quality to my day it's like oh there is there's more pleasure I experience more pleasure in in the in just the day-to-day doings um I'm also noticing because I've had a long yoga practice and then left it for lots of reasons and then had a child and I've just been very aware of my nervous system settling the more I've been practicing yoga nidra again and it feels like there's something there's an important piece here where yoga nidra helps to complete the loop where the reason I know the reason why I often reach out for my phone is because I don't feel safe to be still something in my nervous system is moving fast and as I've been practicing more you know like while while Artie's having a nap in the car behind me I was just doing one of your yoga

practices just with my face in the sun it was delightful I just noticed that I can breathe more like when a space opens up I can go okay here's a space rather than oh you know and that kind of like urge to to fill you know like you said like that toxicity of the over culture can just it's kind of the air we're breathing sometimes and it's in us even though we don't want it to be. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. I mean, I think that when you start to practice and become more aware of these spaces that are around us all the time, the spaciousness to practice is that you get to realize or feel, and this is what I kind of hear you saying, is that there is this vibration of urgency that is running through our veins. We can say it's the air we're breathing. We can say it's the water we're swimming in. And it is there because it's part of,

but it doesn't have to be. Because once we notice it, then we can lean back instead of leaning into the urgency, especially when there's no reason for urgency. Yeah. Right. That's, that's the main thing. It's like, yes, sometimes we need that nervous system to be like, okay, fight or flight. We need to, we need that. There's a reason why it's there, but when there's no reason for urgency and we're seeing like, oh, I have this, this kind of recording in my mind that is saying, I don't have space, I don't have time. I don't have space, I don't have time. We really have to start to explore where does that come from? But the moment that we hear it,

we have a moment to start to change it. We have a moment to start to shift it, right? And if we do that often enough, then we start to shift those neural pathways in the brain and we create a new groove, which brings us more into the groove of being expansive and being restful means that you can't still do things and you can't still achieve things and you can't still be successful. It's the way in which you do them. It's the way in which they're expressed through you. They're not expressed in this kind of way. And, and, and to me, when, when I'm restful and still, you know, doing it, the, the, the result of whatever it is that I'm doing and working on or producing has a different quality. It has a spacious quality. It has a restful quality, has a nurturing quality. and so I think that it's really important for us to know that we can still be rested because that rested quality is powerful it's clear it's abundant it's able to manifest it's able to see and vision so far into the future so generative that's right and life affirming yeah yeah naturally so um i'd love to hear about your new book because that's going to be coming out um probably just

after this this episode gets released so it'll be out soon if you're listening, The Luminous Self, Sacred Yogic Practices and Rituals to Remember Who You Are. Can you tell us a bit about this and what inspired you to write it and how you're feeling about it at the moment? Thank you for asking. So I really consider this work to be a sister book to Radiant Rest. This was actually the first book that I had planned on writing. And then I was asked to write a book on Yoga Nidra and Radiant Rest came forward. And what I realized as I was starting to work on this project again, was that this book really was kind of born from the knowing that arised from practicing deep rest, right? Is that I've been lucky enough to have received so many beautiful teachings from the lineage that I learned in,

and then other lineages and other indigenous practices and wisdom. And what I really thought about, especially after the pandemic, was if I were to drop off the planet, what would be the practices that I would want people to have? If I was to create a time capsule, what would be the practices that I would want to put in that time capsule? profound and so powerful that have led to this knowing of just a taste of my true self. And that search for the true self was really sparked by a teacher who said to me at one point in a private session, I'm not sure you've ever tasted your true self. And that just sent off this question of, well, what does that mean? And how would you even know? And how will I know when I realize it or taste it? What is all of this? And so, you know, the luminous self is really anchored in some personal stories from my life with sharings of teachings that help us to just unveil and

kind of take off all of the coverings and all of the layers that cover who we really are. And if we think about, you know, we've been talking a lot about dominant culture is that all of this distraction that we have that creates this fear, right? And many other things, fear and avoidance, they're all covering up who we really are. Because when we touch into who we really are, we are powerful. And I really see that as something that is ailing us right now, is that there is this deep desire. I feel like we all have innately this deep desire to know who we are, to express who we are in the world and to be safe to do so. And it is our birthright to be able to be safe, to express our true self. And so these practices in here, they're practices that have been very powerful for my journey. And I've taught them for many years to other people, whether coaching or, you know, in training.

And I've really seen the effects of them. So that's what the luminous self is carrying these practices and stories. I'm so excited hear how if you noticed and tracked your process of being with your true self or tasting your true self through the menopause transition it's one of the things that um Alexandra the co-founder of Red School and Shani sorry I'll say that again because I'm going to edit this the the co-founders of Red School have been tracking menopause as a spiritual awakening process or a process of homecoming to to ourselves or like a great big um pulling back of the layers that are covering it, or sometimes I kind of burn the house down moment to burn away all the layers that are covering it. And yeah, I'm just curious to hear how your

process was with that. I'm kind of wondering if you were writing this at the same time or, and how it impacted your creative process. Yeah. That's a wonderful question. You know, I had been doing these practices prior to menopause. And I think that this being able to touch in and have an experience of who I really was anchored me in not having the tremendous grief that can come when you feel like you're losing yourself. Because I did realize that who I was was way beyond what other people saw and what I felt was moving away. It was just like, oh, here's just, here's another shedding. Here's another releasing of something that is allowing me to even shine brighter.

You know, I started to look at the hot flashes. Oh, this is Shakti rising. This is, this is just more Shakti coming in. Let me be in the experience of receiving this wave as opposed to resisting it. Because I started to notice that when I would resist it and almost want to negate it, like, why is this happening? That it created a constriction that almost made it worse. Right. And then it was like, oh, if I, if let me see what happens when I receive this as something else, I receive this as a burning away of layers that I don't need any longer. I I'm receiving this as Shakti. I'm receiving this as a shining, right it completely shifted um and so i think that this work from the luminous self is is wonderful work to do whilst in this journey because it's just a mirror of all that is being

burned away that we might not be conscious of, right? We're literally feeling the burning, but we might not be conscious of, oh, what can I use this fire for? What else can I burn consciously? Can I burn all these limiting beliefs that I have? Can I burn through the ideas of who I think I am? Can I really sit with this idea and ask my questions of who am I and also who am I not? Can I look at all of the kleshas, the seeds of suffering that are the literal seeds that are kind of growing within me, can I start to burn those seeds and make them inert with this power that's arising during menopause? And so all of these concepts are in the book and we're literally burning those seeds

to make them inert. So it is the perfect kind of guide that you can work with through menopause for sure. Wow. So many doors of possibility there. Thank you so much, Tracy. Just in closing, could you let us know how our listeners can connect with you if they're loving this? Like I know, for example, on your Instagram, you do little householder practices right that people continue to yeah yeah I do

little householder practices on Instagram so people can just drop in and feel like oh this is what it feels like to just pause for three to eight minutes and reclaim some time and look at what the difference is from before and after. So you can find me on Instagram, Tracy with two E's underscore Stanley. You can find me on my website, tracystanley.com. If you are interested in learning more about rest i have a podcast called radiant rest and there's lots of information and wisdom there with different teachers that i interview the book radiant rest comes with six downloadable practices so you can get those practices right away luminous self um is out october 10th it also comes with eight downloadable practices um so all the things you could basically find them on my website thank you so much love i've really really enjoyed this conversation and i feel so delightfully

relaxed and in touch with myself after spending this time with you thank you oh thank you so much sophie i really appreciate being here and thank you for having me thank you for listening all the way to the end here i feel so calm having just well i felt so calm after the conversation having edited it now and I hope you feel a little more rested too in yourself as well as inspired to find your way to bring in more pockets moments of rest into your days so as I mentioned earlier the doors for our 2024 menstruality leadership program will be opening tonight just before our live webinar which is happening at 5 p.m london time that's 12 p.m in new york so join us if you can be great to have you with us live you can register at menstrualityleadership.com and a reminder that if

you're feeling curious or feeling feeling a yes for MLP, then we're offering a super early bird special price for the MLP when you join before November the 30th, which would save you £495. So you can find out more and take your seat in the circle of amazing people that always gathers for this program at menstrualityleadership.com. That's menstrualityleadership.com. One of the great things about the program is that once you've graduated, you can come and join the graduate community at Red School, which I'm part of. It's a really wonderful community of like-minded cycle aware people who have very similar passions and interests and desires. And we're having so much fun and it'd be great to have you with us. It's called the hive, but anyway, for now, if you can come to the webinar, that would be great.

It's at 5.00 PM London time today, Thursday, the 16th of November. And if you're, if you're curious about the MLP, you can find out more about it at menstrualityleadership.com. Okay, wishing you deep rest in your life and I look forward to being with you again next week. And until then, keep living life according to your own brilliant rhythm.