Gwendolyn Kam - Living In Alignment

I remember so clear. I was logging in at 12 midnight to do something for New York or London. Or London and then waking up at 7am that very same time that day to have a call with New York, for example. And I thought, oh my gosh, I'm stuck. I'm just, I felt completely stuck. I don't like my life now. What am I doing?

Welcome to the Yoga Den. Are you a stressed out cog in the corporate wheel? Do you find yourself asking, what am I doing and why am I doing it? Then the Yoga Den is the place for you. I'm your host, Ryan Spence, AKA the big law dropout, writer, yoga teacher, and your guide on the path to well being through yoga. Yoga helped me find my purpose, change my mindset and my life. And in this podcast, I'll share how to live a life of intention. No reaction. Each week I'll be talking to a variety of guests, recovering pearls of wisdom to help you figure out where you're heading. It's where you really want to go. I'll. I won't find your purpose for you, but I'll help you plan the route. So sit back and grab a drink. I've been expecting you. The first podcast episode of 2021. Let's see what this year has in store. Right, so this week let's talk about alignment. In yoga, there's a lot of talk about alignment. Whether alignment is necessary, whether it's optional, whether we should be forcing people to move their bodies into positions that maybe they're not built for, and whether doing that puts people off, pushes people away, when in fact, yoga should be for everybody. But alignment is also something that comes into life off the mat, specifically, alignment of values, doing things that work in alignment with the things that you believe that are important to you. They're taking you where you want to go. Should we be forced to work and do things in our jobs that maybe don't align with the person who we are, with the values that we hold? Is it just something we have to accept? Or can we change our situation, change course, and go off and follow a life that will fulfill us and make us happy? Gwen is a former banker turned yoga teacher and life coach. And for a long time, Gwen realized that she wasn't living a life in alignment with her values, but wasn't quite sure upon what it was that she would do. Suffering burnout from the banking world, she headed to India to train as a yoga teacher and then came back to her native Singapore where she began to teach yoga. But for her yoga was still very much about the physical. And it wasn't until she became pregnant with her first child that she started to delve deeper, to look inside of herself and to discover the philosophical and spiritual aspects of yoga, too. I love this conversation. Gwen and I were introduced by a fellow yoga teacher. And one of the things I love about the podcast is just being able to make these connections, to speak to people who have been through similar things and who are now on a similar path, and to be able to deliver these conversations to you guys out there who may be trying to figure out what it is that you want to do. In this week's show. We talk about alignment, as I mentioned. We also talk about burnout, about the world of banking, about her time in India practicing and learning to teach yoga. And we delve deep into some philosophy, which was amazing. It's fascinating for me. We talk about Carl Jung, which is not something I ever thought would appear on this show when I first conceived it. But whatever is discussed, it always comes back to the subject of figuring out who you are, what your values are, and what you want to do. And so by listening to this episode, I hope that from this conversation, you guys can figure out if where you are is where you want to be, if where you're heading is where you want to go, and also that it gets you to start thinking about what's important to you, what lights you up, what are your values. So let's get to it. Go ahead, grab a drink, and let's do this. Okay, so today we have Gwen in the yoga den. Welcome. How are you doing?

I'm well, thank you.

Thanks for joining me here in the week of Christmas. I'm not sure when this episode will go out, but, yes, we are coming up to Christmas very quickly, so a lot going on. So I appreciate you taking the time to join me.

Yeah, no worries.

So there are lots of things I want to get into with you. Today. We were introduced by a mutual friend who. Who thought that we had some things in common, and. And they were right. And there's a whole host of things that I want to geek out on from philosophy, Carl Jung, meditation, breath work. But as I was taught in teacher training, it's not all about me. It's about the students and in this case, about the listeners. So they want to figure things out. They want to find out what they should do, what their purpose is. So I thought it'd be most interesting to start by talking about transformation. I think you've got quite an interesting transformation story. So you were Originally or previously a high flying banker, which I'd like to get into.

So I wouldn't, I wouldn't call myself high flying banker at all. I was working in a bank.

Come on. You, me, I like to think of these people in these exciting things, you.

Know, romanticize this idea of banking. Right, exactly.

Do you know, I mean, it's like all the films that we see, it sounds like you said this amazing, grand thing. So you can, you can dispel that myth for me as we go through the story. But tell us how, like, what led you to banking and then sort of tell us what that experience was like.

Well, banking is very interesting. So I studied commerce in uni at the University of Sydney and I did accounting and marketing. And it was because I wanted to stay in Australia and work there. And pretty much the only avenue there was in banking. So that's why I was like, all right, let me just jump into this and see if I can get a job here. And I started initially at BNP Paribas.

Okay.

And then after that I moved to JP Morgan. But it was more like, it was more of fulfilling a role for my parents because they wanted me, or my mom at least wanted me to be banking, be in a safe role, be, you know, financially independent in that area in that regard. So I felt it was like an obligation for me to, to do that. It wasn't. Absolutely not a passion for me at that time.

Sure. Many people can relate to the parental obligation.

Yes, yes. It was like, well, I'm not going to pay for your education if it's not either a lawyer, doctor, or banking. So I did that. So pretty much that was my entry into the working world. And, and what else was that? Yeah, and then I, I think I spent about five or six years there and started feeling very, just, yeah. Burnt out, unfulfilled. And then, and it's funny because they, I tell the story. So they wanted me to come to Singapore. They put me in a team in Singapore and I thought, okay, well, maybe I should take this or take up this opportunity because my mom wanted me to be here in Singapore also. So it's like that filial piety thing again. You see what I mean? Can you tell, can you tell the pattern of my story in my twenties? Ye. Just, I just need to make my parents happy.

The parents happy, people pleasing, right?

Yes, exactly that. So, so then, okay, so this opportunity came up and they say, okay, why don't you go into Singapore? The JP Morgan said, you go into Singapore. We put someone from London and you guys can go and set up this OTC clearing team which is over, over the counter kind of derivatives.

Yeah.

And so I thought, all right, well good, good opportunity. And I came here and little did I know that the working culture in Australia is completely different from that in Singapore. I think the latest that I stayed there in the office in Australia was about 8 o' clock at night and then the earliest that I left in Singapore was 8 o' clock at night.

Wow.

So it was different. And I was like, oh my gosh, what have I got myself into? Anyway, so that, that was how it all started.

Wow. So, yeah. So Australia to Singapore and the lifestyle was just as rough, but actually the hours were a lot longer. So even though you were unhappy in Australia and you, you mentioned that you, you were burnt out or you're coming close to burnout.

Yes. I think more so prominently in Singapore.

Okay.

Because not only I think in Australia, I had my outlets. I had, well, I wouldn't, I wouldn't consider them outlets. They were more coping mechanisms. Now, now, in hindsight, like I was running like 10, 12 kilometers about twice or three times a week. I was doing pole dancing there, which was almost quite an intense.

Yeah.

Sport, I would say.

Yeah.

And you know, going out with friends on the weekends. A very intense life to, in my mind it was balance the unfulfillment and stress at the work. So I had those things to do. And you know, Australia is quite open, you have nature, you have the beach, surfing. So I felt like, okay, I can do, I can cope. And when I came to Singapore, I moved back in to at home with my parents and there's just no outlet here really. And the work life was, I was logging in, I remember so clear, I was logging in at 12 midnight to do something for New York. Or London. Yeah, or London. And then waking up at 7am that very same time that day to have a call with New York, for example. And I thought, oh my gosh, I'm stuck. I'm just, I felt completely stuck. I don't like my life now. I. What am I doing? So. And the burnout felt more like a little bit of anxiety.

Yeah.

Just dreading the next day and having to put so much effort into a presentation at work, for example, I had to go and meet a client and explain some products.

Yeah.

And I was just, I had to put in like two days worth of effort to remember the things that I wanted to say because there was no interest or no passion, no inspiration to talk about interest rate swaps. And credit default swaps.

So it's kind of like you and I think this, a lot of people will recognize this quite well. It's you can do the job, you know, you can do the job, but actually there is no interest. So it becomes more difficult to kind of get into and do sometimes the most simplest of tasks. And, and I guess there's also that thing you're talking about sort of the anxiety and about having to go into work. One of the phrases that I heard recently, which I really like was as people refer to is the Sunday scare is where you have your weekend coming to Sunday evening, the clock's ticking down, you know, you have to work tomorrow and the anxiety is getting sort of, sort of higher and higher.

Yeah.

And the other thing that I sort of take away from what you were saying, particularly about your time in Australia, it sounds, and you tell me if this is true, would you have considered yourself sort of a type A personality in that you obviously sound like you worked really hard because you had to. But you, I mean you did sort of say extreme, but I mean like you're saying you ran a lot, you did all of these other activities and you did them to sort of like a fairly high standard, to kind of like.

Yep, exactly. I was, I was, I had to be the top. I had to be this. I had to be my. I had to be exactly. Type A. Yes, I would think so that I think what the word relates to me more was perfectionist. At that time, in fact, when I was at JP Morgan in Singapore, I went to see a therapist and I was like, I have perfectionism. I have perfectionism. Like cure it, cure it. Tell me step a solution, abc. Tell me how to cure this perfectionism. And yeah, and you know, it's, it's really ironic because you go into interviews when I was interviewing it, you know, at the banks and stuff and what are the weaknesses? Was kind of, you know, how you turn a weakness into a strength and you're like, oh, I'm a perfectionist, I'm a perfectionist. You know, I just got to get everything right. And that is just so detrimental. It's just deleterious to all the young ones out there right now, that's not a good thing. And I've learned over the years and through self introspection that perfectionism obviously stems from a place of not enoughness. Yes, it's not enough. I'm not doing enough. And yeah, so that, that was a big wake up call for me.

The perfectionist thing is funny because I remember that clearly I remember as far back as when I was in my teens and you applying for so part time jobs and that question, I mean, strengths and weaknesses and perfectionist was always the one you went for and you felt really good for doing it. Like it was this badge of honor. And to be fair, it's only recently since I started doing my own work internally that I realized that that's actually, it's actually not for lots of different reasons. Whether it's because it stops you from actually starting or trying something you think you might not do it perfectly perfectly or. Or whether you just kind of get yourself so stressed and anxious about things which actually aren't that important.

Yes, exactly. I totally understand the anxiety that happens. So procrastination could be one of the side effects of perfectionism. And I had that too. I was just, I found myself, I don't know, scrolling on the phone just to not start anything, I think, you know, and then. So it's changed a lot ever since, especially now. It's like when I started, say my email list this year. Yeah I, I had a tinge of that perfectionism, you know, kind of float around in my head like the remnants of a DNA protein. And, and I thought, you know what, just take a step, just take one step. Doesn't have to be perfect. So I look back at my previous emails, the first few that went out, I'm like, oh my gosh, I would not even like, how is this. I would not do it the standard at that time. But I'm glad I started. So take the first step. I think that's been my mantra. Just take the first step. Take the first step.

I think you've been, I think you've been reading my mind because, particularly because of the email list, it's a similar thing, you kind of. And I found that actually for me personally, and I mean anyone who gets my emails can tell me if I'm wrong, but I feel that the ones where I've just kind of like, I have an idea and I've just rolled with it, are actually better because they're more natural. And what I found is that rather than trying to sort of sit in front of a blank piece of paper is to just, I have an idea, get my phone, record it, get it transcribed and then play around with it. And it's just, it just feels more natural. It's the same with the podcast. You know, if I scripted the podcast as I was trying to do before I launched it, it just doesn't feel like me. Whereas when you're like, okay, I'm in the moment. I've got an idea. Let's just kind of like roll with that and see how it flows. It just feels more natural and it works. And again, you've just started as you said.

Yes, exactly. Agree with it. Like nowadays we're not with the emails or the topics that I want to talk about. In fact I get it. I used to do it from a blank slate. Exactly like what you mentioned. It reminds me of my days where I'll just a four size a piece of paper and just write out something. But now I flow with what my clients themes are for the week and how, you know, so that kind of flows a little bit smoother that way. But yeah, so that's, that's now great.

I'm going to talk a bit more later about you mentioned clients and talk about what you're doing now and also talk about some of the things that you did to kind of get you out of that sort of perfectionism procrastination state. But we were obviously talking about your life as a banker. It wasn't working for you. One of the things that, as I was doing the research for this interview and going through your Instagram, one of the things that I picked out, there were many, but one that was really key in terms of what I talk about, what I'm thinking and what we've done on the show is alignment and alignment in terms of values. And I know from our chat that we share similar views there. The fact that you can't get to where you want to be in life if you don't know what your values are because your values are actually going to plot that path for you. You've talked about your values obviously being out of alignment previously. Was that something that you were aware of at the time or is it something that you're only aware of with hindsight? Because I think sometimes when we're doing jobs like what you were doing or what I was doing or some of our listeners is that you're so in that bubble, you're so head down busy that you don't necessarily have that awareness of self. You don't have the sense to sort of look at your situation, sort of figure out if it's working for you or not.

I think at that time my, I wasn't, my mind wasn't consciously aware like cerebrally but my body was definitely aware of that misalignment that's happening. It was just. Yeah, so my body was telling me things like just, just tired all the time. Fatigue. I'm like, am I supposed to be this tired at 28 years old or earlier than that, I think, and constantly tired and having to need. Having to have sugar every day. Sort of a stimulant in the morning and something to calm me down at night externally, whether it's zoning out at the TV or some sort of pill or coffee in the morning. So it was like. So that was happening. In hindsight, I was completely oblivious to it because everyone was doing it around me. Right. I need to de stress on the weekend. Let's go for a big alcohol binge or let's go out. And I thought, okay. So that's just. That's just it. That was just life. I didn't really get into this whole alignment thing and know what even my core values were until about five, four, five years ago when my marriage started to disintegrate and dissolve right in front of me. That's when I really dug deep. But I think the burnout that happened from the banking and my career was almost like the trigger and the catalyst to kind of an awakening to who I really am. So that was the start. And, yeah, so my body was aware. I wasn't aware that I was at all. And ultimately, you know, I do this with my clients also, and I did it with myself many, many times. You have a whole list of values, right? Like responsibility, respect, integrity. Like probably about 50 to 53 to 60 core values there. And when people look at it, they go, well, I was like that, too. It's like, oh, my gosh, this is daunting. There's so many lists. How many want to pick? So what I did was I. And this is what I do with my clients also now. It's. I picked everything that stood out, and it was about half the list.

Yeah.

And then I narrow it down to keep funneling and narrowing, filtering, boiling it down. And eventually I found everybody's core values can be narrowed down to about three to five. And that would be love, truth, freedom, maybe wisdom also, but love, truth, freedom.

Okay.

Because, for example, like, you value your family life, your relationships, your partner, and that's love. If you value security and stability and financial wealth, that's freedom to do what you want. And, you know, if you value courage and honesty and trust, that's. That's the truth.

Yeah.

So, like, you know, this is. This is again, very rudimentary and stuff, but I find values can be boiled down to three main things. If you walk the clients there down the steps.

Yeah.

Yeah. So truth, love, and freedom for Me.

Okay, yeah, yeah, that's a good way of looking at it. I mean the exercise in terms of having the whole list of values, I'm just narrowing down. I've kind of done that and it's something that I've given to my clients as well. But the, the, they're boiling it down to just sort of those, those three or four, four or five I haven't done. That's actually quite an interesting way of looking at it because we can get, you ask someone so their values and they'll list a load of things. And even I have seen this, that sometimes a lot of these things are really the same thing. They can be boiled down to one. So actually you're not leaving room for the other things. And I mean it's fine because you're just doing off the top of your head. But what you're trying to do is get people to kind of really think because, I mean we don't. You said that, well, everyone else is around me was doing the same and that's what a lot of us feel. It's like, well, everyone else is doing it, so therefore that must be the way that it's done. Never mind the fact that probably everyone else isn't coping either. They're just not talking about it because they feel that they can't. And the point about the body was there's a quote I read recently and I'm going to get it wrong, but it was something along the lines of that if there's a problem, your body will tell you and then if you don't listen, then you've got a bigger problem because everything is in the body. And yeah, if you can't sleep, if you're having to drink your way through the week just to get through it or binge on sugar or whatever, then obviously there's, there's got to be a deeper problem. But again, if everyone else is doing that, then that's what you do. You're a banker, you, you work hard, you get out with clients, you drink, you're a lawyer, you work hard to get out with clients, you drink. That's kind of what you do. Right.

So actually that brought to my attention also one, one more thing. I remember the team that I was in Singapore was quite, it was new and it was quite a male dominated team where if I wasn't out for beers on a Friday night or playing golf in Bintan on the weekend, I kind of, they wouldn't, it wasn't overtly, that was kind of out of the group. It was more like, oh, you didn't, you didn't get the memo or you didn't discuss that on the weekend. I'm like, oh, really? I wasn't there.

Yeah.

So I think in hindsight, had I done a little bit more research into other teams, maybe HR or something more family oriented type of female friendly teams, maybe I would have stayed a little longer. But I was just completely. I'm like, that's it, I'm done, I'm quitting.

Yeah, done. But I think also, and that's an interesting point you bring up there because I remember when I was back in London going back a few years and this was at least there was talk of there being a shift because a lot of these roles, like you say in sort of like the, the sort of, I guess, edgier edge of finance is they were very male dominated and therefore they catered to males and to male clients. So the environment wasn't conducive to women working there. And the question was, and the push was, well, why is that? Why should it be that way? It should be open to everybody. And there was a concerted effort and I don't know if that's still going ahead and how that went, whereby things that were exclusionary were no longer sort of permitted or encouraged. So it was trying to do a lot of things that weren't around drinking or weren't around going to the races or weren't around doing things which not everybody, not just, not just women, but people who don't drink for whatever reason or people who just don't want that kind of environment. And so, yeah, I think it's interesting that you say when it's a male dominated culture or culture where you don't feel you can be yourself or that you're included, that's obviously going to add to the stress that is already inherent in the job that you're doing.

I think I was quite sensitive to that. I mean there were women around in other teams also. It's just that the way I found it becoming more inclusive was that the women embrace their masculine side as opposed to the men coming down into the more feminine qualities.

Yeah.

The women achieved and do and do, do, do, do, do. So they've kind of lopsided into the masculine as we can see a lot of now. Right. That's how I found the. Became more unisex, I suppose. But I was just, I was so sensitive to that. I'm like, oh my gosh, what? I'm not included. So now I feel like I'm Not. Not only am I not included in the team, I don't even like my job and time to go.

Yeah, it's that feeling of isolation. And I think it can happen in a number of ways. I mean, there's the way that you've said, or there's the way where you just kind of feel that you have to be a certain way in order to get ahead. And, you know, I mean, neither way is good. And particularly in the latter way, you just. And I found this, you end up sort of almost losing a piece of yourself. And again, we don't have the awareness that that's what's happening. It's only really now, with hindsight, that I can see, well, actually, there's this part of me that is actually quite a big part of me, but I didn't see that part of me for however many years or whatever. And the, the point about, in terms of how some of the women that you saw in the teams, how they had to behave, again, is a key one I used to hear from, from some of my female colleagues where, you know, you know, having the target of having sort of women in certain senior roles is good, but it's like anything, people need to see themselves reflected. So just because you're a woman in a junior role looking up to a woman in a senior role doesn't mean that that woman in the senior role is somebody who reflects you or reflects where you want to be. So, again, it's diversity, not just in gender or not just in race, but it's diversity and kind of like attitude and behavior. And so you can look at them and say, actually, yeah, that person is there and maybe, maybe they've got a family and maybe they have outside interests and maybe they're a genuinely nice person. That's kind of who I want to be. I don't necessarily want to be the person who feels that they have to fall into the stereotypical male role.

Yeah, exactly. And I think I used to look at. I used. I understand this whole thing where you're looking at other people and you think, oh, they, they have. They look like they're successful and they look like they've got everything, so it must be good. So it's almost like a comparison trap, maybe in a way where. Where it's always looking to another thing for your happiness, either to the future or to a future potential self that will bring me happiness. I like. I like how she looks. She's got a very svelte body. I want to be like her. I like how she's got everything. She's got three kids and a high paying job. And in this house I want to be like that. So it's almost putting your attachment, your identity and value to something outside of you.

Yeah.

And I find that's to be a lot of cases now, even, even in the yoga industry. It's almost like people are attached to an identity because that's where their value is tied to. And when they look deeper inside, it's like, well, where's the value inside? Yeah, that's, that's something you want to look for.

Yeah, no, exactly. And that's a good segue into yoga, both because you mentioned it, but also because of self inquiry. I mean, yoga is about looking inwards and sort of seeing who you really are and not looking externally for validation and for the answers. So let's talk about your yoga journey. So I think when we spoke you were introduced to yoga actually. 18. Right. So it wasn't like you, it wasn't like you were like some people, you're in this corporate drug and hates it and then you did yoga, but you actually had started yoga before.

Yeah. But you know, again, like it's an ever shifting landscape of why I get onto my mat. I think at 18 it was like my mom introduced that to me. We were in Sri Lanka, I lived there for two years. And so she's like, well, why don't we go to the hotel? And they have a yoga class there. And we just went to it. And to me at that time, at 18, it was more about like contorting my body.

Yeah.

And I was, I was very flexible, you know, at that time. And I'm like, oh yeah, you know, the teacher said to do this, I could do it. So I just felt again a boost of my ego. And so that's how I was introduced to it. Nothing about the philosophy is more like teach me a headstand because I want to be upside down.

Yeah.

And then, then I went to Sydney and I used yoga for me was a way to get more flexible because it got really tight in my hamstrings, running, pole dancing and stress in general. So it was a way for me to, to loosen up. And I remember feeling again very tired and still forcing myself to go to a hot yoga class. So that was in the mindset that I was in, that was in a mind frame. I have to do it because I have to be flexible because I'm so stiff and I'm so tired, but I still have to do it. That was me in my early twenties. And then. So. But that has always been there, right? So in. I was working in the bank here and I was still doing pole dancing here and I kind of yoga fell into the back seat maybe once or twice a week or a month actually. And then when I was completely burnt out in the, in the office, I had these thoughts in my head like, how nice would it be to just, you know, walk around and teach yoga and you know, not have any. Just a nice easy, breezy job like that. Walk around, just walking around and talking about life and philosophy. How nice would that be? So that was just what's churning in my head and how I got into a year. So I jumped out of the bank it straight into a yoga teacher training in India.

Oh, wow.

And it was like this, right. I told my parents, parents again. I was like, I'm quitting the bank. What you gonna do? I'm just gonna take a yoga course, but for what? And I guess I'm going to be a yoga instructor. Really? And yeah, what you want to do after that? I set up my own studio, I guess. And so they're like, oh, okay. I get. So, so they, they were feeling secure that I had a vision. Whereas for me, like, I think this is coming out the first time. So if my mom hears it, she's gonna be like, oh. So that was the truth. It was more about, I need to get out. I need to find myself.

Yeah.

I need to know who I am. I need to, I need to, I need to fix something inside because this doesn't feel right. I don't like this life right now. I don't even like who I am right now. It's more like a self help thing.

Yeah.

And I chose India because it was quite, I think on a very subconscious level. It was far away from everything. It was like the foothills of Himalaya and Macleod Ganch. I needed to get away. I need to go to the source. Okay, let's. Let's do it. So I spent three and a half months, almost four months there doing the 500 hour. Yeah. 500 hour teacher training. And on, you know, the sideline I did reiki and then sound healing. But so I went there to do the course and it's quite transformative again for me. Quite life changing for four months there. Then I came back immediately. I don't know how I ended up in Sydney. I think I was there with, with my ex husband at the time he was working there. So I just went there and I started. Had a friend who was teaching at amp. She was teaching Pilates. So she introduced me and I started teaching the crowds there. Yeah. And then I came to Singapore and started teaching at a studio here. Yeah, but yeah, we can get into the whole start when you start teaching and all the hiccups involved. We can do that.

Yes, we will definitely go there. But so yeah, 500 hours, three, four months in India. I mean from high powered banking to India, I mean that's, that's pretty big. But I think actually before I get there, the, the picture that you painted of sort of walking around the office thinking how nice it be to teach yoga and how easy it would be and yeah, I think that's a, that's a common one. That's a common, that people who do go on to sort of do their training maybe have and then it get quickly gets dispelled. But also people who are still in the corporate world who see ex colleague who've gone up to teach yoga, I think that that's all that they do.

And they breeze around, wait till they teach. A full time schedule.

Exactly. So yeah, there's a, there's a, there's definitely a disconnect there because it is not, it's not easy, it's not breezy and it is work. But it's like anything, if you're doing something that you're genuinely interested in and passionate about and see the benefits from it kind of changes it a little bit. So yeah, so you went to India, you did your training, you came back, you started teaching. Did you know? I mean, I know you said to your parents that you're going to have the studio, but did you have any idea where yoga would take you, what you would do that, whether you would stay in Singapore, whether you'd go elsewhere and what was the landscape like for you?

No, I think I, I didn't know what yoga. I just wanted to explore the world of teaching yoga. I didn't even think that would even open any more doors for me. And at that time I, you know, during the time after I came back from India I, I got engaged, I got married and we moved to Perth. We built a house there and then we had two kids. So during that time it was quite my yoga teaching again took the back seat.

Okay.

I didn't teach much. In fact during that time I took a pre and postnatal yoga teacher training course because I was, I was pregnant. I thought, okay, maybe I'll go into that.

Okay.

So even in the yoga world I still was trying to find my foot. Where did I want to go do I want to go to Ashtanga. I was practicing Ashtanga a lot. Quite okay actually. And then, but that just still didn't sit well with me. Is it prenatal? So maybe it's prenatal because I have kids. And then you know, recently I think like, well, no, it's not prenatal, but so I still had to feel my way around. And I quite enjoyed teaching actually, you know, and I was really focused more on the anatomy and how you get into a pose, how you get into a shape, what bandhas you engage, where your gaze is. You know, it's very on the surface, physical thing.

Yeah.

And I also at that time was kind of had the impression or was disillusioned that I had to be a few steps ahead of my students in terms of asanas, in terms of poses.

Okay.

So again I was, I brought that whole A type personality to my yoga teaching and I was doing two hour practices in the morning, teaching full time and still feeling like I got to do some more, I got to, I gotta, I gotta be able to do this and do a handstand and do a headstand. So it was still that inadequacy coming into the yoga as I was teaching.

That's interesting because obviously by that point you'd done your teacher training and not even just the two, but the 500 hour. And I know, I know for me personally, but I know from speaking to others that, that the 200 hour is kind of like where suddenly that that shift happens in terms of their own practice and their depth. But it seems like although you went through that and obviously it gave you a lot, you still had to focus on the physical. You still had necessarily taken at least your own practice sort of deeper in terms of figuring out the philosophy. And I guess one of the questions I also had is, and then you said you kind of went there to kind of find out who you are. So did that happen or were you still trying to figure that out post training?

Yeah, actually, I mean I'm still, I think I'm still trying to figure out who I am today.

Well, yeah, I mean it's a never ending process. Yeah.

But definitely during the, during the training itself, I think that know a little bit of my background also. Right. Because when I, when I entered yoga philosophy, it completely made sense to me. You know, the Vedantas and the, the Bhagavad Gita, it made complete sense to me. However, I come from a family that's quite religious in Catholic. Right, Catholic family. So I always felt like, oh my gosh, if I do this, then it will not. It will be frowned upon, actually, it was actually frowned upon. How do I unite the two? Because I can see similarities in. In the spirituality between the two. Say Christianity and, you know, Buddhism or yoga. The philosophies are the same. So I was very confused at that time.

Okay.

And during my teacher training, I did a lot of meditations, guided meditations by my teacher. And it kind of shed a bit more light into. Into letting go of the banking world.

Okay.

So it helped me let go of. Maybe I should go back. Is this the right choice? You know, I'm being, you know, where is this going to take me? So it helped me shed a lot of that. And one big, big thing I remember, maybe I'll share this also, is that during one of the deep, deep meditations, you know, he would literally take us to like a different galaxy and come back and then go back into your cells and go to like the atom level and then come back out. So it's quite. I wouldn't how to say psychedelic type of meditations without just lying there, pretty much. And there was one bit that was quite healing for me was that after about a week of that kind of meditation, I realized in my life there was one piece of puzzle missing and that was connecting back with my dad, who we have been estranged for 15 years.

Wow. Okay.

So that to me was quite, you know, one of the biggest things I took away from my four months being there on top of all the philosophy and understand. I thought, okay, so I guess, I guess if I'm finding out and repeating pieces of the puzzle of my life, I'm becoming more whole, then this is probably a good path for me to pursue. I don't know what's ahead, but let me just. Let's just see. Let's just see. So there's a little bit of trust and faith in there involved also. Yeah.

Wow. And I think that that's a common story, not necessarily in those words, but in terms of flowing through that journey and the transformation. Because as you say, to kind of, we. We stumble a lot through life doing what we think we should do or what we're conditioned to do, thinking that we have the free will to do it. But in reality we're being guided by whether it's parents, whether it's advertising, whether it's peers, whether it's whatever. But when you actually take the time to go inside and you say, start to sort of piece yourself together and figure out who you are, then you start to question things a lot more. And I found that I question so much now, but actually it's not that unique because, I mean, I have two young boys, as you do, too. They question things all the time. They question things that are even fact, and they think nothing of it. They're always asking questions. So at some point we must obviously lose that, that need or that want to. To just question everything and just sort of start to accept what we're told.

Yes, yes. I think coming up from my. I can speak. Let's just give for me, myself, my example, coming up from my childhood, it was more. The sense that I got as a child was more like, well, we know better than you because we're the adults and you don't know. You don't know what you want. We know we've done it before, you know, just, just, just, just accept it. Just accept it. We know better than you. You know, I'm doing it for the best of you is the best intention at heart, and I know what's good for you. So that voice of that connecting to your deep self to know what your truth is has almost been, you know, every time it's a fire inside, and then someone just pours water over it. Over time and over, like 10 years, your adulthood, it's kind of fizzled out somewhere.

Yeah.

And I think everyone goes through that. I think we are born in this dimension here on Earth to, To go through that. And in adulthood, Normally about like 25, maybe 30, 30s to 40s, is when you kind of reignite that fire where like, who am I? What do I want? What's my purpose? So that has been the journey for me in the last few years, actually. Last five, six years.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Wow. I think you do a lot now. I mean, you teach yoga, as you said, but you've also made a little bit of a shift into helping clients, I, I guess, who were in similar position to what you were in, who may be going through burnout or maybe going through a point where they're. Where they're stuck. I mean, people that listen to this show, you talk a little bit about how, how you decided to kind of make that. That. I guess it's a slight pivot, although there's, there is a connection. There's a slight pivot between teaching somebody on the mat and then sort of helping them work through things off the mat.

Yeah. So this has been one of the biggest things for me because I thought, well, yoga helps to a certain extent because I think the conditioning that we have in society is that you get to yoga, you do some poses on the mat and you feel good and then you come back again, you do it again. So it's. For me, I felt like, okay, my clients are seeing me for months and months, but they still have that deep seated issues of not feeling good enough and burnout kept at bay. So I thought, well, there must be something deeper than this. And because I had been going deeper myself, I thought, okay, coming to yoga on the mat as a coping mechanism to your stresses. Yes. We're doing meditations. Yes. We're bringing down your kind of anxiety. Yes. But I had always been very, very interested in the truth. Right. Truth being one of my. Because values that I, I hold by. Let's get down to the root cause for that.

Okay.

And so I, So, so that was it. That was kind of like the segue, the entry point. Yoga would be an entry point for me. For my clients, for example, they come to me and they said, I want to lose weight or I just want to get. I want to sort my burnout, I want to sleep better. So it's an entry point. And for me, I use yoga usually for the first few months because they are so stressed and burnt out that there's no way I can dig deep the moment I start. What's your purpose? What's your values? Freaking out? I don't know. So, yes, we'll use yoga. I use yoga to calm, to quell the nervous system, the vagus nerve and long exhales. Do the breathing techniques two or three months, they feel they can, you know, they can go through their day, they can sleep a little better, then they kind of like a ripe mango, you know, so then I can really sink my teeth into the. So what's really causing your burnout? Why are you triggered all the time? Yeah, so yeah, I do use yoga. Like I told you, like 20% of the time. The rest of it, I'm diving deep.

I'm diving deep.

Diving deep. Yeah.

Yeah. I think it's interesting because as someone who's in the early stage of making the pivot myself, I had a similar thing is that yoga can do so much. And I was always sort of clear that yoga isn't a magic pill. It's not going to solve all your issues, but it can start you to have those conversations with yourself. It start to sort of develop that awareness and then by doing that, you then start to sort of go on this journey. But as you said, I can see what you're saying is that sometimes people need, just need to have that for a period before you then start to get to the. Okay, let's delve deeper so they can kind of at least get used to. Oh, okay, I'm on the mat. I mean like you used to being alone almost really, I guess as well, like on the mat themselves. A lot of us aren't used to being, being alone or being in silence. There's always got to be some sort of distraction. So quelling that nervous system, as you said, and sort of just quelling those thoughts.

Yeah. Because some of my clients also, you know, they come and there's this, well, I can totally relate, you know, where they come onto the mat and they go, okay, I got to do this every single day. And I just gotta like do all the time, every day, even when I'm tired, I gotta do it. And if I don't do it, then I'm gonna beat myself up and why am I so. Ugh, that self low thing comes in.

So.

So while we're doing the yoga for the first couple of months, first couple of sessions, I can then get a feel of how open they are to go deeper. And you know, with the kind of plant the seeds through their Shavasana, like, yeah, you know, so what, what do you want in life? What's your purpose here? What makes you happy? What brings you. So planting the seeds into their subconscious also helps them to have a think. Maybe sometimes pop up during the week or when you quell. I find like when they quell their nervous system down to a more relaxed state, then they are more in touch with their bodies. Right. Okay. I still feel churning in my stomach. Yeah. I don't know why, but I feel like just tense in my shoulders. So just getting them in touch with the body, I find that it's quite helpful. And I think one of my philosophies that I. I don't say it overtly out all the time, but it's always that the subconscious has a part to play in your conscious reality. Right. And I'm beginning to think, I used to think that physical vitality is tied to your mental peace and your mental state. State. Now I think it's completely dependent on that, your mental state and how, how you relate. So body mind integration has been a big thing for me. And if you want to go deeper than that and look deeper into that body, mind, soul, which I think you mentioned earlier. So Carl Jung has been a big influence for me on that, where he recognizes the eastern kind of the eastern philosophies about the soul and transcending Your body. And he brings it to the west, where you embody the body.

Yeah.

And he kind of. He explains it in such a not so esoteric way, but it can get quite a bit scientific, I suppose. So I like the bridge.

Yeah.

So I think a lot of my. My dharma, my purpose is to. Is to bridge and to connect, which is ironic. Right. Because yoga is about union.

Exactly. It is. It is.

I didn't know about the whole. What yoga really meant until I went to India to do my course. Teacher was like, yoga is about to unite, to yoke. I'm like, aha. That's why I'm here. And. And the philosophies also because I grew up in a. So that my exposure to philosophies, for example, I grew up. My dad at that time was in. Into his Hinduism. And I remember he made us. I was like seven. He made us, remember, memorize the Gayatri Mantra.

Okay.

And, you know, we were involved in bhajan singing. And I did some Indian dance. And I was, you know, at the coffee table kind of flipping through Ganesh and Krishna, like, who's that blue person? Okay. So that was growing up, I remember. And then when my mom and dad split, mom put us into catechism and Catholicism, so we went to church every Saturday. And then my mom remarried a Sri Lanka, a Muslim.

Okay.

So I went there to do my A levels. And I was quite immersed in that whole. The. The. The culture and the traditions and going to mosque. I didn't go to mosque, but I just knew what was going on with that. So. And then when I went to India was all about. And I went to McLeod Ganj, which is Tibetan.

Okay.

And I attended the Dalai Lama's talks three times. So he was all about Buddhism. So put all that together. And I was also quite interested in spirituality anyway, so I was like, well, am I supposed to choose one? No. Right. Because I always had this in mind. I think my mom did mention, like, just stick. Pick one and stick to it type of thing. And I'm like, really? No, I. It didn't sit well with me. I think they all have a common truth to them.

Yeah.

Not to the exclusion of the other.

Yes.

So I think now as I'm speaking to you, I'm thinking, oh, yeah. So union, joining, bridging, integrating. That's a big. Which is part of your alignment.

Yeah. Bringing everything together and living your. Your own truth. And I think that's what you said was. Was interesting because there is. Particularly if you've had parents who are Religious or grandparents, whatever, this kind of dogmatic view that this is the path and this is what you do and this is the only thing to believe.

Yes.

And then actually if you, if you open your mind and get out there and you see that there are all these sort of different ways of thinking and ways of being, and there's actually a lot of similarities between them as well. And also that you don't have to choose, as you say, you can bring them together.

And it's funny because the only way that I could have found my own true purpose was by the very virtue that I was not able to speak my truth as a child. So it's almost like ironic the way I found my deeper self and the purpose was through pain and trauma, really. I hate to say that I don't want to sugarcoat it, but I think that's the fastest route to your dharma.

It's what they say in yoga, isn't it? It's like you have to go through some pain to kind of get to enlightenment, so.

Ah, yes, exactly. And it's not the pain where you self flagellate with a whip or any. That kind of pain of the uncomfortable feelings and coming to terms and understanding the. What you didn't. What was not met as a child. And, and that's where again, Carl Jung, going into the shadow work, he coined the term shadow work where you have your conscious self and you have the shadows, but within the shadows is not only darkness and bad negative things. Within the shadows are gifts.

Yeah.

So for example, when I, I give you an example for me. So when I was young and I cried and showed a tantrum, I would always hear this thing. Why are you so sensitive?

Okay.

But that in itself is the gift because then I'm quite intuitive, whereas it's been squashed. And I'd always had that shadow. I'm just, I'm not good enough. There's something wrong with me. Just something wrong with me. That's a shadow.

Yeah.

But within the shadow there's a gift. So that's what I, I try to kind of coax my clients into. Like, the shadow is not always bad. It's. It's bad. But your gifts are there.

Yeah. And they, the gifts translate to the environment that you're in. Because as you say, if you're in like a role that you were in in banking, being sensitive is probably not looked upon as a good trait for a banker. But actually, you know, as you said, it makes you intuitive, it gives you other things. So rather than looking at things as good and bad. You kind of look at what they are and you kind of take them as a whole and. Because that's, that's what makes you you. And if we're continuously trying to fit ourselves into a particular type or box that we think we should be in, then you're not you and you never will be. You'll never be happy or fulfilled.

That. Yeah, exactly. And that's a very good reason why people try to fit into a particular box. Like, I know for sure, I try to fit into the banking world not so much to be in my team, but more on the outside. Like, okay, so I am, you know, I've done commerce, I'm in this whole finance industry. So I'm in the finance world and these are my friends there and fitting in that area. And, you know, I, I understand the basic human need really is for belonging. I want to be accepted because as a child, like, you know, we have children, if they so much as feel not really accepted by their parents, it's like death to them because they're going to be eaten by their hyenas. Right. It's like a visceral type of. Although it doesn't apply in the modern world, they can, you know. Yeah, they'll survive. But it's that, that visceral feeling that we have that we still carry around in our DNA from just by being humans.

Yes.

So we always want belonging and acceptance from our family. And if we didn't get that as a child, we then seek it outside of us. And the irony of that, as a human beings is like, we want belonging and acceptance at the same time. We want to be recognized for our unique gifts. So there's that little paradox, Right, of being a human being. We come into this duality world. So I'm very, I'm very aware of that. And with my children also, I, I hold space for them to nurture them at the same time celebrating them for their uniqueness.

Yeah.

And I think that you can see that in adults. Adults need that also.

Yes.

And most of us never got it as a child. And then we seek it through perhaps accolades. We seek the belonging and this recognition through accolades. Status, wealth. And very, very big, I find, is relationships, romantic relationships. Like, I didn't get what I want from my parents, so you give it to me. And I was, I, I can speak from experience. I was that person.

Okay.

I was the person who, Yeah, I didn't. Not, not that my parents didn't give it because they didn't want to or they were bad or anything. It's just as a child, I was more sensitive to that and I didn't receive what I needed. And so I went on looking at it from outside like, oh, I want to do pole dancing so I can perform and be, you know, look at me. Or I want this kind of romantic relationship because I can fit into that group and be accepted in that group or feel love and acceptance. So again, I like to boil things down to the fundamental, keep it simplistic. People want belonging and acceptance, and they want to be recognized and seen as special. And the absence of those would mean death would feel like death. It wouldn't mean death, but it would feel like, oh, my gosh. Because in reality, if you're kind of not accepted in your sports group, for example, the community, you can go to another one. But that feeling of just, oh, my gosh, I'm just not. They don't like me. And it just triggers this. Triggers like primitive fight or flight thing. So that's how I. That's how I operate my life, actually. Now, again, coming here through all the pain that I've been through before. Pain, yes.

Yeah. And that whole segment is. Is quite good to sort of go on to what I want to talk about next, because obviously some of you're saying some clients come to you for the yoga and then you kind of give them space and then you kind of get. Get to the deep stuff. I guess my first question is, do people come to you without going through the yoga or kind of just want to. Just like, no, I want to figure this out. And let's just go.

Yep, okay.

And when they do that, because one of the things which I've been thinking a lot about in, in terms of putting my own program together and coaching is. And then I. That I hear a lot is it's about giving. It's about you want to give people what they want. They come to a particular thing, you want to sort of show that you can give them that, but it's also about giving them what they need because they don't get what they need. They won't get the transformation they're looking for if they don't like their current job. And they say that you. They come to you and say, I want you to kind of help me to get a new job. Getting a new job won't help them if they haven't gone through some of the things we just talked about, the shadow work, the duality, and also done some of the other sort of techniques, like maybe the yoga, but also the breath Work. So how do you. How do you get them there if they're not already into that?

I just be really upfront with them, like, you know, you're wasting your money, you're wasting my time. That's really it. Because you're coming very blunt and short to the point.

I like it.

I mean, okay. I kind of. Yeah, well, I keep it soft. I do explain after that. I don't. You know, I say, like, you know, you're gonna come to me all the time. Yeah, I. I think a few. I've encountered a few of my clients going, yeah, just. Just give me a good workout. I want to feel. I want to feel good. You know, I feel so good after doing, like, a nice vinyasa and a plow pose. And then I say, okay, we can do that today. At the same time, our next session, we want to go deep. We're not gonna do any. We might do a meditation, but we want to go. And we want to find out what really is causing how you feel right now. So I give them the option, but I say, like, you know, we can do it now, but later on, we're gonna have to talk. We're gonna have to dig. We're gonna have to do that. And I do explain to them, like, you. Yeah, you. You want to lose weight? Yes. And then I go, why. You know, why do you want to lose weight? Then we take a little further, which I can. I can explain to you, but ultimately, it's. You're carrying on. You're holding on to weight, and you're holding on to. If you speak from it, from an energetic point, you're holding on to something.

Yes.

Whether it's, you know, water weight or you're holding on to something, burdens or what? We can go down that route and find out. Because once you lift off and shed all these burdens, you will. Then, you know, your body will naturally lose the. The stress. You're holding on to something. Or you can go the other route, which I go with them more so now is that, why do you want to lose weight? They said, well, I don't want to be fat. Why? Again, why. Why don't you want to be fat? Because then. So this can get quite uncomfortable with the clients because they think that I'm trying to dig up their negative parts. But I said, no, we're just getting clear on your whys. We're not digging up any negative part. We're not judging it to be negative. So drop the judgment. Let's be clear. Then we go, okay. Why? Ultimately, you can boil it down again, like the boiling method is that if I am slim, I will then be again either good enough or lovable or wanted. One of the core values, one of the core beliefs there. So we can boil it down to that. I said, okay, well, at least we got to the root of it.

Yeah. Because if the why isn't strong enough, you'll. You'll never continue whatever it is. So whether it's that you're trying to train for particular sporting event, you're trying to lose weight, you want to change jobs, if you don't know why, then there's nothing. There's nothing that's kind of pulling you along.

It can get very uncomfortable, though, with them. With people, because they go up to the point where, say, I want to fit into this dress. We were talking about, Wayne, everything. Right. I want to fit. And then they stop there because to go any deeper is so uncomfortable because it would reveal the pain of unwantedness that was already sitting in there since childhood.

Yeah.

So. So in order not to feel that, they would, you know, go to F45 twice. Like, twice a day.

Yeah.

And I don't want to feel that. So I will do everything in my power not to feel that by. By having this again, like success, material success and what we call success in the real world nowadays, in order not to feel that. And I find it's my. My job, I suppose, to. To open up that can of worms for them in a safe space. Yeah, of course, you know, you feel bad about yourself. We're all. Because you're human. If you don't feel bad about yourself, then you're either a robot or you're dead.

Yeah.

So let's just. Let's just put that out there and normalize this feeling now. It's okay. Hold space for you. It's fine. And. And let them wallow. Kind of not wallow. Dwell in that. Dwell in that uncomfortable feeling. So the more you. I find, like, the more that I've done that before, I've just dwelled in it. And the more you go into that part, the less it. The less hold it has on you.

Yeah. And you've got to. I think there's a tendency in the world to have everything about comfort and about convenience. And we're not pushed to necessarily do things that are difficult or that are uncomfortable. And actually, that's where the growth happens. That's where you find these things out about yourself. So if you're willing, whatever it is that you're talking about, if you're willing to do the work and to do the work past the point of getting comfortable. Because, for example, I mean, I probably read tons of personal development books in my time, sort of going back years from when I first started in Law and Beyond. And I'd read them and be like, yeah, they're fine. And they'd be like things that you could do or sort of test that you could. But yeah, I don't do. That's too hard. It's too out of my comfort zone. It's not in fitting with what I want to do. Whether it's, you know, I mean, get up early and sort of have a morning routine. Yeah. But I want to kind of go out and drink at night. I mean, it's my heart at the office, whatever it is. But it's only when you're willing to actually sit down and say, okay, no, I am going to do the work because this is important to me and I kind of need to kind of move, move ahead that you can then get to where you need to get to. And you will get through it, but it won't necessarily be pleasant.

Yes, exactly. So. Exactly. So when you mentioned that, it reminded me this is how really I got down into my own inner work where I just. It's not like I woke up one day, but it was a series of days when I woke up. I just cannot live like this. I cannot live like feeling just so low about myself and relying on the. The recognition of fluctuating human beings with their fluctuating minds because it's not constant. One day they like you, one day they don't like you. One day you're good, one day you're bad. Depending on their mood. And who's to say they haven't wounds anyway? Themselves. Yeah, so I kind of. Yeah, so it was one of those moments where I woke up, like, I just cannot, like, that's it. I can't. I'm going to go deep and that's it. I got nothing to lose anymore. And again, to something that you mentioned about life. And to me, I think life is not about circumstantial comfort. It's more about spiritual evolution. Yeah, that's again, that can be quite uncomfortable for people because when they will hear the word spirituality, it's like, oh my gosh, I just got to get out of my body. I gotta like wear a robe and mala beads every day and go up to mountain and meditate. So they have that connotation again. So there are certain words that I refrain from using, like spirituality like trauma or healing. Because the very act of healing is that you got something wrong with you and just calm down. And that's another thing I wanted to mention. Yeah. And you mentioned something about a purpose and meaningfulness. Right. So for me, inspiration is also when you inspire to do something in the pursuit of something meaningful, which is kind of like your real purpose. You would then be able to embrace the pleasures and pain that comes with it, the positives and negatives that come with it. Only if that pursuit thing is meaningful to you.

Yes.

If it's not, it's like, well, why am I doing this?

Yeah, yeah, you give up. Because there isn't a strong enough. Why Strong enough reasons to get there. And I think, again, one of the reasons why this. This show is kind of talks about yoga, but is obviously going on to these sort of deeper things is because it's all necessary in order to kind of make those shifts that people think that they want to make. And in Jagger, you're told to trust the process. I mean, you get on your mat, every time will be different.

Yeah.

Sometimes you'll feel like you're making progress, sometimes you won't. But if you keep focusing on that, then you mean nothing will happen. You've got to trust the process.

Yes. And it's so hard to trust. You know, I've been a lot of my clients. Well, me too, actually. I feel like we attract who we can help or who we can learn from. Right.

Yeah.

So earlier, I feel sometimes when I coach my clients, I'm like, am I coaching myself here? Trust. So trusting. Trusting that life works for you and life is nourishing you. It's very, very hard because then where's the control? I'm going into a place of uncharted territory. I don't know. I don't know what will happen. And it's similar on a micro level. When you drop from the head into your heart, it's again, uncharted territory. I don't know what I'm supposed to feel. What am I. What are you telling me to feel like? A what? I don't know. So. So this trusting is a big. A big kind of like, big part of my work to get people to shift the construct that, you know, what life. Life is working for you. Yeah, Working for you. Whether, you know, you. You don't know. We're stuck in this paradigm of this, like, brain. You cannot possibly see the frequencies and the orchestrating of the universe. So, yeah, I'm getting a bit esoteric now.

I knew. I knew. I Knew we would. I'll try. I'll try and put it back, but I knew we would. But. But again, I think that.

Yeah.

And I know from conversations that I've had, it goes back to what I said is that a lot of people think I'll just change my external and everything will be fine. So actually hearing this, in. Hearing that it's deeper than that will hopefully start to get. So people to sort of start thinking, okay, well, I need to start looking at other things. And whether it's that I do yoga or practice meditation or whatever it is to kind of start doing that work or I go see a coach or whatever, I need to do these, because otherwise I'll never feel like I'm fulfilled. I never feel like I have a purpose. I never feel like I'm doing anything meaningful because I actually don't know what meaningful is to me. It's not about what's meaningful to you or to us. What's meaningful to that individual at that time.

Yes. And you can't really change what you're oblivious to. Like, a lot of them say, oh, well, I don't have a. I don't have a deep issue. I just have a backache for like 10 years. That's it. I don't. There's nothing else going on. So you. You can't really change any. Something you don't. You're unaware of. And that brings me, like, a lot of compassion for my clients because I've been there. I didn't know I had my issues until. Until I knew I had them. And you can't look at them and go, oh, well, you don't know. And then there's an element of judgment coming in. I know better than you. Because ultimately the client knows best. Right. And people know best. And, you know, bringing it back again to this corporate thing, there's a type A personality, like in. In the corporate world, I. I'm achieving. And I like the idea of overachieving because I like that about myself. And this is who I am.

Yeah.

So it ties back again to the. To the attachment to that identity because I'm attached to this identity. It's where I get my value from, self value from. Without that identity, I don't know my value.

Yes.

So I really get down to do, you know, really your value? And so this is what I also like to tell people that you are. You are inherently good. That's the baseline you're going to operate from. You're not going to operate from. I'm bad, therefore, I want to achieve that in order to feel good, you are inherently good.

Yeah.

Doesn't mean you stop again, again extremism. Right. There's a lot of extremism here nowadays. Doesn't mean you stop and start meditating in your room for eight hours a day because that's again escapism. Right. You, you get down deep in order so you can live this life more fully as opposed to get down deep so you can escape something. So yeah, there's a lot of extremes happening now I suppose in this when we're operating from the mind.

Yeah, there is. And it comes down to fundamentally finding out who you are and doing that work because without that you can't go anywhere.

I can tell you do A, B, C every day, write down your gratitude and what your abundant what your journal strategy and this and that. But it wouldn't. It's on again cognitive level. Yeah, you like willing the cognitive to go down to my heart space and it just doesn't work that way. No, you can't strong will yourself down.

Stop being at school and told to do math and know why you need to do it. It's like I don't need to do that. Everyone has calculators and phones these days, you know. So yeah, you know, you've got to get down to the essence as to why and then someone will carry it through.

Yeah.

And then start to sort of do. Because I'll see the benefits as well. I think that's the thing. They'll understand and see the benefits in doing it and then therefore they'll continue. Which is why it's helpful to see someone like a coach or anybody who can kind of help them to sort of go down that path and yeah, that's important.

Yeah. So it's a little bit of both. I suppose there's a nuance to it. Yes, you can do the yoga. Yes, you can write your journals every day and yes, and then on. There's two ways to look at it also which is quite deleterious. One way is that this is the magic elixir to make me feel happy. If I, if I just do this Ashtanga practice every single day at 6:30am I'll feel good. And then two years down the road like you know, backache from upward facing dogs and all that and why am I still not happy? And on the other hand it's like you look at the. Yeah, I'll do all these strategies and this and that. I do it. But it's not working. Yeah, it's not working and it's not working because you're not aware of what's underneath. So once you're aware, then you do the strategies, maybe then it might be a bit more. More results that way, I suppose.

Yeah, no doubt about a doubt. I want to go deeper in this, but I should try. Put it back and maybe. Maybe we'll continue. We'll continue. First interview. Okay. But as we sort of start to sort of see, so where you are now, it sounds very much like you are now. You've gone from that period of misalignment to a period of. Of alignment. Um, and that doesn't mean that everything's perfect. It means that you're now pursuing a path that is in alignment with your values, because you know what your values are and you. You've got a sense of who you are. I mean, obviously, as we said, that always changes, always evolves, but so it sounds like that's where you are. Was that correct assessment?

Yeah, I think right now I. I mean, I can't set everything in stone, but right now I feel the most I've ever felt that I know what my core values are. I know what my purpose is. And whatever I do, it's superfluous. It's on the outside. I could be a yoga instructor and maybe could be a coach. Maybe I go back to yoga next time. But these are all moving parts. But ultimately the eye of the storm is that, okay, I'm going to live true to my deepest self and that's it. There's no other way to live for me. And doing the daily practice for that, connecting my heart and my head with journaling, connecting my body with my mind with breathing techniques, collecting, connecting my heart with my soul through meditation and all the different shadow works. So always, always connecting, keeping myself in alignment. Body, mind, soul. Body, mind, soul. Body, mind, soul. And I'll find that I'm in awe and deep reverence now that I find synchronicities happen. I suppose the podcast is one of them. That you reached out and I said, oh, my gosh, I get a chance to talk. Talk about what I do. And other little synchronicities happen with my relationships with my ex husband or. Or really small little events that you go, oh, I'm on the right path. Oh, I am doing something. Oh, and that, that to me is taking the next step. Taking the next step with trust. With trust.

Yes. Beautiful. When that happens. Because I think that when you do. When you do sort of start to do that work and you do kind of feel that you have a purpose and that can always change or have a vision or whatever it is you want to call it, and you start to take steps to achieve that or to obtain that.

That.

One, it's hard work. Two, there's a lot of. You do a lot without necessarily getting anything back in terms of externally.

Yes.

And it goes back to what we're saying before about being uncomfortable for a while or doing hard things. You have to keep pushing through. And then those little things do happen. And as you said, whether it's like an email here or a text message there or someone you bump into in the street who really likes what you've done, or it's had a real impact on them. And it's just. I think it is, like you said, it's the. It's the universe sort of telling you that, yeah, you're. This is your path. You know, I mean, you might be questioning it, but when you are questioning it, there's that thing happens at the time to kind of make you think this is right. I've just got to keep going and keep going.

Yes. So. So me being. When I'm very connected to these little clues would give me what kind of. What's the word? Like, redirect you in your path if you're straight kind of nudges you back. Whereas I was so out of alignment before that I needed a ton of bricks to fall on my head. For me to realize that I am not aligned, like, you know, with divorce for me, in the last few years has been almost like the. Again, a catalyst to my spiritual awakening, where it's like, you are not on the right path right now, or, you know, a burnout could be one of them. And it has taken me those few years to actually, actually, like, agree to that. All right. I'm not. I shall not plow through this. Yeah. And that's. And that's why I feel I like to help people through my own healing. It's. Well, what. What on earth can I do? The fact that I've healed to help others.

Yeah.

And it comes from a place of. Of. Of kind of love and compassion. I can see deeply into myself, so I can see deeply into them and hold that space for them.

Yeah.

Whereas if they go to, say, their friends and family, they, you know, I feel like this. And they. The friends and family, really, what can they say? Out of good intentions or lack of skills? They say, yeah, I know. Just get over it. Just let it go and you can do better. Or, you know, come, come here. Let me feel sorry for you then it's not really holding space for what they feel. It's just trying to make you feel better.

Yeah.

Yeah. So it's different, right?

It is. Because holding space is, means that you're in service. So you have no, you have no sort of. I guess we used to say in finance skin in the game, you're not invested in the outcome. Your only investment is that you want to help people achieve what it is that they want to achieve. But inevitably people around you are invested, whether it's, you know, I mean, they want to be, they want to feel safe and secure. So they want you to kind of stay in your well paid way, paid job regardless of what happens. Whether it's that they, I mean, whatever it might be, they're invested in you, so they project their own fears onto you. And I found that a lot more as sort of shifting from the corporate space and shifting more into, I guess you could say it's a more entrepreneurial mindset, is that it is a, it is a real shifting mindset. And there are people who understand it and support it and there are people who don't understand it and want to support it, but their way of supporting it is to protect you.

Yeah.

And it's not wrong. It's just a different way. And that's why if you can have somebody, whether it's a coach or somebody else who again is holding space and isn't invested, that can help you to kind of work those things out and get through it.

Yeah, a lot of, A lot of like, you know, this is quote. What's that? Oh my gosh. Nines. Good intentions pave the way to bad roads. Yes, something like that. Right. I must have pretty bastardized that quote.

I know the one you mean. It may be right, but. Yeah.

So I felt this a lot, say with my parents, you know, I want the best for you. I don't want you to be like, you know, end up on the streets and like a beggar. That's extreme. So I, you know, I want you to be in a safe job and, you know, marry safe and everything's safe.

Yes.

As a, as a parent, everything's just safe.

Right.

About safety and protection at the same time. It also almost comes from their own fear of, of, of losing a loved one.

Yeah.

I might lose them to, you know, like a, like a lower life that I, maybe I don't, I grew up with that and I don't want them to have that. So either way, even good intentions. But it's still them. Yes, still about, still about Me and what I want to, what I feel safe with. And quite a big one also with religion. Right. I, I feel like you might be burning in hell if you don't follow this path of salvation. And I say, wow, you really care for me in the afterlife too. You want to see me in heaven. So I thought, like, okay, you know, it's coming from a place of, I suppose the capacity to love is here.

Yeah.

Whereas to me, love really is unconditional. Like accept acceptance in all your totality. So maybe everyone has a different view of what love really is. Love means protection, love means feeding my family and love means putting my children to this school. And yeah, so everyone has that. And some people in the corporate world also might feel like, yeah, I want to put my kids to this kind of school and set them up for a bright future, therefore I'm in this job. So then, so that could be a purpose also. That could be quite a meaningful purpose, in fact. And yeah, so then, then go for it and stay, stay in that. And at the same time, if you are burning out, if your body's having some sort of rash and like prostate tumor and stuff, then maybe have a look and see whether this really is sustainable for you.

Yeah.

And are you being that kind of martyr? Have you adopted that martyr personality or identity? And back to the point about holding space, I, with the kids, know, we have kids and I learned so much from the children because when, when they, when they cry, when they have a tantrum, there's this instinct to go, to go, oh, you know, let me help you feel better. Like, you know, let me get you this. And like a tantrum. And I can't, I can't handle it. It's too true because again, it's me and I can't handle it. I can't hold space. But now, you know, the kids have taught me that all they want is for me to, to be there as a empathetic witness in with my clients. Right. That they can vent and shout and calm themselves down. Self regulate, as opposed to having someone always step in and negating their feelings.

Yeah, yeah. Because if you, if you don't let those feelings out, then they will come out at some point when you don't want them to. Yeah, it's that whole thing about, I mean, people who sort of always push. Yeah. You always have a positive outlook and positive vibes only it's kind of like, well, that's not what being. Well, practicing yoga is about. Practicing yoga gives you the awareness and it gives you the tools to Work through those things. But it doesn't mean that you don't acknowledge the negative, because there are negative things around. But it's all about your reaction to it and what you do when that happens. That's what you have to look at. So you let the feelings out. And you. Because you're aware, you're aware that something isn't working for you. You're aware that there's something inside of you that needs to escape. So that's what you need to do.

Is going to bleed out one way or another. You can. You can deal with it here in a safe space in the room, or you can deal with it in the doctor's office.

Exactly. When you're. When you're storming out of your job on a whim, because, yes, you haven't thought about it. You've just decided to quit there and then impulsively. So it's gonna come out.

It's gonna come out, yeah.

So it's all intense, it's all intention. It all comes down to intention. And what you were saying about somebody who is maybe working in the corporate world because they want to put their kiss through school. It all comes down to intention. But the thing is, a lot of us aren't doing things with intention. We're doing them because we've fallen into them. Because we think that we should do them. Because we can't think what else to do. Because. Because, because, because. So if you're making that intentional decision again, it comes back to your why. You can then say, okay, but this isn't great, but I'm putting up with this because. And this is the end goal, or this is the position, or this is where I'm trying to get to.

It's like I always ask my clients, now, I've asked this myself many, many times also. It's like it's what you want, a reaction to what you don't want as opposed to what you want. Really what you want. Yeah. So it's what I want to achieve all these material successes because I don't want to feel small or unworthy, insignificant, not good enough. Or is what I. Or is it because I want all that material success? Because I know I deserve. I deserve it. I know I can. This is where my gifts are. You can achieve. The outcome is the same. But what's the driving force? You know, like, we talk about outcome driven, right? The driving force, Is it from a place of inadequacy or is it from a place of, you know, your inherent worth? Outcome can be whatever. So that's why I'm very big on not. Not judging.

Yes.

The surface, what it looks like, what it looks like. There's always something in the subterrane. Yeah. And judgment has been a big one also for me like judging where I was in the past that I waste my twenties in the corporate world. You know, I look back at was it a waste, what really did I get out of it? And I think I'm not, I'm not 100% sure what really I got out of it at the moment. But I trust that it's, it has led me to. Everything in my past has led me to where I'm sitting now today.

That's what I was going to say is that without it you wouldn't be here. Right.

And I'm still maybe I've been looking more into my childhood where a lot of you know, we had a. Quite a. My parents marriage was quite dysfunctional and my dad was quite, to put it lightly, harsh and, and you know, and, and growing up with you know, another dysfunctional step father. And I look back and I, as I had done the healing work. It's so funny. It didn't consciously come to me but it was almost like this sense of compassion. I have what you call like from the perpetrators. Right. Compassion. Not that compassion that. Oh my gosh, they, they probably did not get what I needed and they didn't get what they need. So it's just like a generational curse thing.

Yeah.

And, and I look back and I am almost quite grateful because I, I have generated that feeling of say wantedness by the very virtue of having a lack of it.

Okay.

So I know it gets a little bit deeper. That's what I'm trying to say. Yeah, yeah. I, I digressed.

It's fine. We, we always digress on this show. There's a. Like I say, when you start talking about yoga and things related to it, you can go off in very, very different tangents. So as we sort of move to our wrap up session. Do you have a morning routine and if so, what is it?

Yeah, my morning routine is trying to get the kids off me in the morning at 5:30 because it's not time to wake up yet.

So it's every parent everywhere.

No, I tried to have a morning routine before but now I just. With the, with the kids it's just a little bit more difficult. But I have an afternoon routine because when the kids are in school or when they're at their dad's on the weekends I then have the afternoon to Myself. And after most of my client meetings are in the morning and the classes I teach are in the mornings.

Okay.

So in the afternoon, I come back and my routine is to do probably about half an hour of asanas on the mat sequence and maybe spend about the next hour in meditation. So that's a daily practice, I would say, not a morning practice.

Wow.

Daily routines. Yeah, an hour at least. And if I have the kids off in the weekend, I can spend like an hour and a half, two hours in meditation.

Wow.

And I can even get you down into the meditation routine because not all the time you're. It's not. Not all the time on a different planet. No, it's. I usually start off with thinking about the clients, like daydreaming about them. And see from the, from the interaction that we had, what else can surface? That's probably about 45 minutes. And then. And then if I'm really, really in my mind, I do some chanting, like, okay, just om. And maybe humming nothing to. To not like a prayer or anything.

No.

And then again, to calm my mind if I haven't really. If I'm still up in my head, I do the breathing techniques, usually diaphragmatic breaths and usually breath holds. And then after which, what I do after that. After that, what happens? Oh, yes, and then I. I be present. I kind of pose this inquiry, like, what does this moment ask of me right now? What wants to be felt right now? What needs to be healed right now? And I just. I just drop the pebble in the pond and wait. That. That's my. That's what I do.

I want. I want that routine.

Yeah, I can write it down, actually. I can write it down and share.

I actually want the time to do the routine as well. Yeah. But, yeah, that's one of the things. What's interesting about. About this question is, I mean, I have an interesting routines, as listeners will know, but seeing how different people sort of plan their life or structure their life or structure their days, because most people who have sort of made some sort of shift or some sort of transformation, they do have something that anchors them.

Yes.

And routine is one of them. And so. Yeah. And so the fact that you. You do it in the afternoon, also that your, Your meditation is longer than your. Than your asana, I think is a really interesting thing for listeners to. To hear.

Yes. Yes. It never used to be that way. Used to be the, the opposite way. And now I find maybe I'm at the stage of my life where that's what I need.

Yes.

Notice that's what I need. And very. Yeah, I like what you mentioned. Grounding. It is so grounding for me to. To sit with myself and to connect, I suppose, with the heart, which is quite difficult for a lot of people to. To drop down into the heart space. But that's. That's my grounding. And I literally feel like. Like roots are growing out from underneath to the core of the earth type thing. And so the more grounded I am, the more that I can hold space for other people because then I don't get so drowned into their. Their issues and absorb their. Their judgments and stuff. Only because I am more grounded in myself.

Yeah.

I notice when I'm not grounded, then I get more triggered and, you know, and I work with this. A lot of my clients also in the corporate world, they're triggered a lot. I talk it. I talk through them with that also. Yeah, yeah.

And I think that was a key point that you said is when you're grounded, you can hold space for your clients. Because I definitely find. Find that as well. Is that because when you're. When you're dealing with clients, I mean, it can get quite intense for them and for you. And you're in. You're obviously being constantly present and you're kind of like helping them through or guiding them through or kind of like pushing them to kind of go deeper. But if you're. If you're not present within yourself, you can't do that. So I've actually. I've actually found that I have leaned a lot more deeply into my meditation practice for doing that. I sort of approach it in a slightly different way now for that reason. Because you're trying to get yourself sort of ready really, to hold that space for others.

Yes, yes, exactly. From that heart. From. From the heart space, I think they call it. You know, so if I'm not grounded in the heart space, it's like, well, the nurturing aspect. Right. The feminine aspect, then I'll be all in my head. I'm trying to get them into a masculine up here. I'm trying to get them to this outcome, and I'm trying to get the most out of this one session. And. But then. Yeah. So staying grounded. Very important.

Exactly. What. What tips or piece of advice would you give to anybody listening who is maybe feeling stuck or feeling a little bit lost or thinking that they're. They're not where. Where they want to be and want to know what the next step is?

It's a very good question I have, I think just only one thing comes to mind. I don't know how workable this is really, but it's just that you are inherently good. That's all you need to know from that space of experiencing your innate worthiness is where then you can. Is your platform for your next step. I think that that would be, that would be it really. Actually you can ask me more about.

It, but no, no, that's good. No, I like the, I like the simplicity of that because it ties to some of what we've talked about before is a lot of what we do is maybe even though we don't know it because we haven't done the work, maybe tied into that feeling of not good enough or not feeling worthy. I mean, I know, I know people who are very accomplished at what they do who will maybe privately say that I just don't feel that I'm good enough or that I'm as good as that person or as good as that person. You're like, wow, but you're amazing. But they don't see it in themselves. So I think, yeah, reminding ourselves that we are good enough, we are worthy and we can, yeah. Do whatever we put our mind to.

This can also go a little like I always see the. Yeah, so I say that. But then I can see how some people, the listeners might take it like just write 10,000 times, 10,000 times on my journal that I am inherently good, I'm good enough, I deserve this, I deserve, I'm significant. And then willing it into the subconscious, which doesn't work. Right. It's more like a bottoms up approach.

Yeah, you have to embody it. It's like daily affirmations. You have to embody the affirmation. Just saying it or isn't enough. You have to embody and you have to feel, you have to step into it and then it become. Then it's a self fulfilling prophecy.

Yes. And I find funny enough, again, this goes a little bit deep. I think you can cut it out if you want. But the best way I find to get to embody that which you want to believe in is to feel into that which you're not. So it's easier to, you know what I mean? Like get down to the pain of feeling not good enough and realize that there's another way and feel it. Because when it's so painful, you're like, I can't stand it.

Yeah.

What, what do I want to feel now? This. Ah, okay. Remember that feeling? Where do you feel it? Wait, I'm embodied that. So I know it's sounds Dark, right? This is just dark.

I love it. I love Dark podcast. I love all this stuff.

Okay.

Yeah, maybe we'll pull some people over to the. To the Dark side. What, what are you most excited about at this moment?

My clients, actually, I'm really, I feel, you know, I went through a stage actually this year. I need to niche. I need to niche with my client. Niche. And, and then, and then as I got deeper, I realized, so everyone's my client because everyone has issues and everyone can go deeper. So now I, I feel. Yeah. Really passionate about them and excited on their journey and to support them. Yeah. So work related. Yeah, that, that. And the more I go deeper, the more I can help them because I'm a kind of a few steps deeper than them, a few steps ahead of them. At least. Least that's what I'm excited about.

Okay. And you can't have the same answer for this one. What are you most grateful for at this moment?

What am I grateful for? So many things. Well, yeah, good question. That's a very good question. I have so many at this moment. Well, I'm so grateful for this podcast right now. I get to. I get to be here. I get to be here and just talk and shoot the breeze and, and learn from you. I'm learning so much, actually, about you, how you're holding space for me to talk right now. And I'm really, really learning a lot. That, like I mentioned earlier, I think, how do you have this listening power, and that's almost like a pillar of any coaching work, is the power of listening and not listening. Listening to understand.

Yeah.

As opposed to listening to fix. Yeah. So you have that. Yeah.

Thank you.

You have a gift.

Thank you.

And that's what I'm grateful for. Oh, wow.

I think, I think that might be the best answer we've had yet. Well, we'll be keeping that one. Be dining off that one for months to come, I'm sure. So we're coming towards the end. We're going to throw through a little quick fire here. Questions that I asked most of my guests, they sometimes change, but you may have heard some of them before, but if not, it doesn't matter. They should be relatively straightforward. So let's kick off with the first one. Is there a particular quote or words of wisdom that you live by that you refer to often?

Yes, it's. I think I have two, which I try to. So true happiness. I find I live by that. True happiness is the absence of the search for happiness.

True happiness is the search is the is the absence of the search for happiness.

Yeah. So that means how you know you're truly happy is that when you're not actually just seeking it all the time. And I think I got one more actually. Success. Like, you know, we talk about success, success in this world and what does it mean to be successful? And successful, it's a big thing, right. In this corporate environment and stuff. So to me, I find really true success is being able to be at peace.

Okay.

And that you can, you can, you can realize that regardless the circumstance, being at peace with all your 200 personalities in there. That's what I mean. Right. And that, that really is the success of being a human being, I think. Okay. Those two actually, I don't know where they came from. I think I must have been listening to something.

We all seem to pick up the. These quotes and it's not always clear where they came from, but obviously they meant something to us and they stuck with us. They resonate even if we do butcher them from time to time, which I do often. But the essence is there. That's all that matters.

Exactly.

Okay, what's the most impactful book you've read in the last 12 months?

Oh, so many. The Untethered Soul by Michael A. Singer.

Okay.

He's, he, I think he's a businessman, an American, a Canadian. And he talks about the soul and this voice in our head that just keeps going and going and going and where really, what really is again, the purpose of your soul? That. That's one.

Okay.

And. Oh, he talks about death also in there and the fear of death and how we, we all have this fundamental fear of death and you shouldn't have fear of death. It goes deeper into that. Okay, but what was another one the last 12 months? Recently I read a book from Anodea Judith, and she does such a phenomenal job at combining the eastern kind of the chakra system with a Western. Carl Jung.

Right.

The moment I picked it, I'm like, Carl Jung and chakra. The book is mine. And yeah, so, so that's another one. So two books.

Okay, cool. Yeah. I think she's been mentioned by another one of our guests, particularly in relation to chakras, actually. So, yeah, it's. She's on my, my Kindle list, which is. We'll get started soon.

I know. Yeah.

Favorite yoga pose and why.

Oh, again, like so many. Right. I have been doing a lot of heart opening ones.

Okay.

Because of me personally, actually. I just go into class, I'm like, I like this. So you guys are Gonna do it. So heart opening ones like, like puppy dog or they call the heart opening love puppy pies. Yeah. Oh, I love it so much and I think personally for me, I think my heart has been, I don't know, imbalanced or blocked growing up and stuff. So I think this is quite liberating for me and that the more that I unclear the heart area, the more, the more I stand up taller and straighter. So that has been helpful. Or can I mention another one since I really love this. This is the threading the needle. Ah, I love that.

I did that one in class this morning actually.

Yeah, yeah, I love it so much. It's just, it frees up my spine, my back. Ah, okay, cool.

Yeah, I think we've had puppy before but not thread the needle. So yeah, it's good. We're getting a nicer, a nicer range of poses here. Practice of yoga. Do you prefer music or without music?

Without music. Yeah, absolutely. Without using. Yeah, so I can, I can feel into my body and yeah, I can feel more without music.

Okay. Yeah, good answer. And finally dream yoga retreat destination.

You know, I like to mention somewhere beautiful and nice like New Zealand or Canada. But I would go back to where I did my 500 hours.

Okay.

It's in the foothills of the Himalayas. It's right into the essence of India and in a Tibetan town in fact. So there's a blend of cultures and I feel that's quite conducive the environment, the energy there. Everyone there is quite meditative and so I think that would be quite a conducive place to, to go in.

Cool. Yeah, that's a new one as well. I think so. Yeah. Thank you for broadening our horizons here. So we are coming to the end of today's interview which has been fascinating and I definitely of far more to, to talk to you about at some point. Do you have anything that's coming up soon in the future or what you're going to be up to that you'd like to share with anyone listening.

You're not coming up soon. Well, I can share where they can find me.

That was my next question. So why don't you do that?

Or they can find me on Instagram and you can sign up for my weekly newsletters. You can look for me on my website at yoga therapy sg.com and yeah, that's, that's, that's where, that's where you can find me.

Excellent. So we'll stick those in the show notes and you should go and yeah, definitely go and check out Glenn's Instagram. As I said, it's a, it's deep.

Yeah, I didn't want to add something in there. Like if people have any questions or, you know, anything that they want to re. Clarify from this, just, you know, I'm open to talk and anyone wants to know about my story even more, then I'm really open to that.

Cool. Very. Yeah, I urge you to take, take one up on that. As I said, going through the Instagram, there was literally so much that we, we could have talked about in today's show. And yeah, I think we'll need another one for that. But for today, all I have to say is thank you very much for, again, for your time. It's been, it's been great. And yeah, I'm sure we'll, we'll pick up on a couple of the points off air, but, but for now, thank you for coming to the yoga den and wishing you all the best in the future.

Thank you so much. This has been fun and I really appreciate it. You're such a good listener. Like, wow, I could go on for hours. Like, excellent.

I'm going to keep going to keep you sat in the corner of the studio every time to keep telling me how good I am.

No, it's true. Like, it's amazing. I feel so comfortable. You know, initially I'm like, I'm going on a podcast and oh my gosh, I'm going to sound like a. But this is just amazing. Thank you. Phenomenal.

Thanks a lot.

Thanks.

Once you know your values, start living a life in alignment with those values, life just becomes more fulfilling. You know where you're going, you know what you're trying to do, and it just makes it easier to push through those hard times because you have a meaning, a cause to what it is that you're doing. I really hope you enjoyed listening to that conversation with Gwen as much as I enjoyed recording it. And go ahead, drop me a line. Let me know what you'll take away. Maybe let me know what your values are or what you'll start doing each day to start living in alignment with them. You can catch me at Ryan Spence Yoga and also heogenpodcast, both on Instagram. And while you're doing that, go ahead, leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Really helps to get the show out to others and lets me know what it is that you guys like, what works for you, so I can create the content that you need and want to listen to. But now, as always, all left to say is go ahead eat plants, give thanks, do yoga, peace.