Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
Welcome to Deep in your yoga practice. I am Lauren leduc, the owner and founder of True Love Yoga in Kansas City, Missouri and today's episode is one I've been sitting with for a little bit and honestly, I was just laying in bed getting ready to sleep and I felt compelled to mobilize a bit and speak to this topic, hopefully in a way that feels nuanced, productive, that offers some perspective, and hopefully a sense of grounding both for myself and for you. As a listener, I want to name something gently without amplifying fear.
I don't think I need to list any specific headlines. They're all out there. But honestly, many of us are carrying an undercurrent right now. This low grade unease, beef, gust, confusion, the sense that something feels off, unstable or deeply misaligned with the values we thought we shared.
We're protected.
And if you've been feeling that, if it's been humming quietly beneath your day to day life, if you are taking care of children or going to work, doing your dishes, doing your mundane day to day things and you're feeling this hum of sadness, unease, I want you to know this. I don't believe you're broken or weak or overreacting. You are just paying attention. There's a term for this experience that's been used in psychology and trauma research, especially with caregivers and first responders, and it's called moral injury.
It's what happens when what we witness or feel complicit in violates our deepest sense of right action, of dignity, of humanity. And more and more, this isn't something only experienced on the front lines.
[00:02:11] Speaker B: It's something many of us ordinary, thoughtful.
[00:02:15] Speaker A: People are holding quietly while still showing up for their families, their work and their communities.
[00:02:22] Speaker B: So this episode isn't necessarily about politics in the traditional sense. I'm not here to tell you what to think, or who to vote for or how to feel. And I'm not here to bypass reality or pretend everything is fine either.
Instead, I want to explore something foundational, which is how to stay human, ethical and regulated in uncertain times without burning ourselves out or burying our heads in the sand. Yoga was never meant to be an escape from the world. It's meant to help us meet it with clarity and equanimity.
Hopefully bravery as well. So today we'll talk about discernment versus reactivity, about service versus self sacrifice, about the nervous system, attention, about joy, and why protecting our inner resources is not something that's selfish. It's something that in my opinion, is absolutely Essential. And we'll explore how yoga philosophy gives us language and structure for caring deeply without losing ourselves completely. My hope for all of us is that this episode feels grounding and that it offers some permission.
That it reminds you that tending to your own steadiness is not a failure of compassion. It is something that feeds and fortifies your ability to be of service. So let's begin. Yoga is not about burying your head in the sand or escaping reality. It's this training that helps us see clearly without being totally consumed. In yoga philosophy we speak of detachment or non attachment. And I want to speak to how I see this phrase. I certainly don't think it is an invitation to be indifferent or to numb out, or to be complacent or even to be passive. In my opinion, this is an invitation to radically accept reality as it is and then meet it with equanimity. So meeting it with an even mind, with calm, with a sense of objectivity. And when we are in denial of reality or we are numbing from reality, running from reality, we are not meeting it with equanimity. Yoga doesn't ask us to stop caring, it does ask us to stop clinging. So this asks us to be aware, although not necessarily obsessed.
Because in Yoga we're meant to master the fluctuations of the mind. And obsession is really just the mind chewing on an idea past its usefulness. Yoga also asks us to be compassionate, but it doesn't ask us to over identify. So. So in compassion we hold love and patience, we hold space, but we don't become the thing. Also, yoga asks us to be a witness, maybe a compassionate, maybe a curious witness without collapse. So as I say this, I want to distill this down, simply just saying you can be informed without flooded. Do you need to read the same headlines over and over and over again to activate your emotions and your obsession? Can we care without carrying the world on our shoulders at all times? This is really hard. I feel that weight and I feel that flooding of information and triggers. Sometimes it feels like a responsibility to constantly check in. But is it helpful?
Am I moving the needle forward in a positive way? Or am I just activating myself so that I freeze or that I'm running around angry all the time that I miss the joy in front of me and I miss the opportunities for building the world right in front of me that I want to see? Also we may ask ourselves with this obsession, with this activation, how do we really best serve? And I'll get into this again later. And I think this is going to Be different for every person because we all have different gifts and platforms, responsibility.
[00:07:03] Speaker A: But know that quiet service also counts.
[00:07:07] Speaker B: I know it feels like we need.
[00:07:08] Speaker A: To shout from the rooftops, and it takes people who are doing that, who are reporting the news and sharing it bravely. But when do we add to the noise? When do we find quiet service? So yoga honors inner alignment as much as outer action. And not all resistance is visible and not all service is public, although it certainly can be both of those things. So how do we align ourselves in a way that is resistance and that is service? I want to shift gears and get into a little bit of nervous system truth and talk about, you know, why we're all so tired. I feel it. I feel it in my bones. It's again this undercurrent that hums along everything else. So this constant threat exposure, meaning the flooding that we're receiving. So I'll just name it like there is something new and horrible happening. Not even daily, but it feels like hourly. This leads us to sympathetic overdrive. And our sympathetic nervous system is our activating part of the autonomic nervous system. It's important.
It mobilizes us. It also brings us into the state of fight or flight. It feels stressful, it floods us with cortisol, which is really important when we are in danger. But know that things like doom scrolling mimic these danger signals. Our body cannot distinguish between an immediate physical threat and this continuous symbolic threat. So what happens? We might fight, we might argue.
Or for many of us, especially those I think who are quite sensitive, we freeze, we feel hopeless, we numb, we feel irritable, we dissociate. A dysregulated nervous system cannot hold and sustain ethical action.
So while it feels like this constant doom scrolling is somehow being tuned in and being of service, it's actually immobilizing us. We might think if I stop scrolling or if I stop watching, if I commenting, then I don't care. But know that being effective is not exactly the same thing as being constantly bombarded with information that over consumption reduces discernment. And that frankly exhaustion that happens due to this benefits oppressive systems. They want us tired. And frankly, this has been, it feels, I think ramped up right now. And it is. But this has been going on for years.
How do we sustain activism over years if we are immobilized?
Looking at this from a yogic standpoint, we can talk about the Gunas, and particularly as they're presented in the Bhagavad Gita, these different energies that we carry, we have Rajas. And this is this agitated and urgent reactive energy. You know, many of us feel that or we might be, you know, oscillating between these different states I'm about to name. And there's tamas, which is collapse. It's despair, it's disengagement. And we have sattva, which is clarity and steadiness and right action, which is really interesting. They knew so long ago, writing this and exploring these energies, that this is how our nervous system works. Rajas, this agitation, this urgency, this reactivity.
[00:11:03] Speaker B: This is us in our sympathetic nervous system.
[00:11:06] Speaker A: Is it needed sometimes?
[00:11:07] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:11:08] Speaker A: Is it needed all the time? No. And tamas, this is collapse. This is despair. This is disengagement. This is us in our dorsal vagal state. This is collapse.
This is being in a frozen, energyless state. This is depression. And we have sattva, which is being in our ventral vagal state, the part of the parasympathetic nervous system where we feel connected and we feel calm and present. This is clarity, this is steadiness. This is the right action. Can we be in that state all the time? No, we can't. We need to be able to oscillate between these different gunas, between these different nervous system states. But if we never in that sattvic state, how are we supposed to see clearly? How are we supposed to steadily sustain right action for years? How are we supposed to show up in our communities and our families and our businesses and for others? If we are so angry, we act without thoughtfulness. And if we are so tired that we can't act at all. So I talked about non attachment. Yoga has this concept of vairagya.
It's not disengagement, but it is non clinging. It is allowing. It's this deep acceptance really of reality.
And then in that state, we get to choose where our attention is placed. We get to choose our abias, our practice that is consistent, that is devoted, that is enthusiastic and earnest. So let's talk about being of service. We can talk about being of service in kind of three different archetypes. One is the witness. So we are being in the seat of the observer. We are seeing, we are naming truth. We are holding our values. We are not in denial. And this can be quiet, it can be reflective. Maybe we are educators. This might mean you are teaching ethics, that you are raising children with discernment, that you are having honest conversations with the people in your life. We have another archetype of the protector. This person focuses on safety and stability, especially for children, for Elders for immigrants, for the disabled, for other vulnerable communities. This person helps create predictable rhythms. They might maintain household calm. They are supporting local community, and they're active in local organizations. They are preserving nervous system safety, especially for themselves. Because how do you sustain community activism without feeling safe in your body or having some kind of practice that anchors you? And then the third archetype is the builder. This is the person who creates what does not yet exist. That could be systems, that could be culture, art, spaces of care.
This is someone who zooms out and plays the long game. Maybe this is through mutual aid and education.
Maybe through studios or healing spaces and community rituals.
So these three archetypes, the witness, the protector, the builder, they're all needed. But you, friend, are not meant to.
[00:14:39] Speaker B: Embody all three at once.
[00:14:41] Speaker A: We cannot perhaps, be on the front lines at all times. And we have to know, I think, where we are best placed, what we are best suited for, what allows us to be in our dharmas, our gifts, and what helps resist the world we do not want to see and build the world that we do. When we try to be everything simultaneously, we burn out. I know I constantly have this feeling of not doing enough, not saying enough, or not saying the right things. And then I hold this tension between that and wanting to protect my family and protect my community and to really focus on the micro a lot of times of what kind of world are we building? What kind of teachers am I helping to form through my teacher training programs? What environment are we creating through the studio? What forms of service are we organizing? I don't know if I can hold that and hold raising my daughter the way that I believe needs to happen, to prepare her, you know, for this world and for her to also have joy and be in her. Her dharma, her service.
[00:16:05] Speaker B: I can't be all those things at once.
[00:16:07] Speaker A: I long to be at times, or I feel like I should be, but I can't.
[00:16:13] Speaker B: And I want you to know that.
[00:16:14] Speaker A: You know, you can look at these different archetypes or these different roles and really dig in to where you are.
[00:16:23] Speaker B: Able to shine right now, where you are able to sustain your nervous system and your health while being of service to the collective. And know that if we all do that together, it makes such a tremendous difference. So please don't feel like you are not enough. I want to talk now about protecting energy and joy as a radical practice. Know that despair is contagious. We all feel it, and it is useful to authoritarian systems. They want us this way. People who are exhausted and overwhelmed are Easier to control. They are more easily influenced by propaganda. They're easily influenced by fear. When we are hopeless, it narrows our imagination. We stop. We cease picturing the world that we want to live in. And when we cannot picture that, how and how do we create it? How do we create it? Joy. Practicing joy. Embodying joy. Carving out moments of joy. Creating joy for yourself and others is not denial. It is fuel. It is what allows us to keep showing up. Joy is a renewable resource. It is a stabilizing force. It's a form of resistance. And it is a nervous system strategy. Joy is playing the long game. I don't mean the kind of joy that ignores suffering. I don't mean the kind of joy that is numbing, that is detaching from reality. But finding things to be joyful for all around you and people, people have done it in impossible situations is a miracle. It's something to be in awe of.
It's something that we need more and more and more of.
It's something we need to organize around. Where you place your attention is an ethical decision.
It is a vote for the world that you want to see. Are you going to be in constant trigger mode and constant doom?
Or are you finding the glimmers amongst the rubble? Are you being an embodiment of the values that you would like to see in the world? If not, it's time for some inner alignment. I have some reflections for you. I feel like I've offered some insight and some of my opinions, but I think that I can't tell you what to do or how to think or convince you that you're not doing enough or that you're doing too much.
So I do have a few questions to leave you with for your own swadia, for your own self study. The first is what is mine to carry and then what is not. What kind of service feels sustainable for me right now and what helps me stay human. I'll invite you before we close, just to take a couple moments you're feeling your feet on the floor or taking a look around you, maybe placing your.
[00:19:38] Speaker A: Hand on your heart or on your.
[00:19:40] Speaker B: Belly and take a slow breath in through your nose, out of your mouth. You might even say to yourself, I am allowed to rest. I am allowed to choose clarity. I am allowed joy. And I am allowed to be in service without urgency, with regulation, strength and with sustainability.
So I want to thank you so much for tuning in today and listening. I am sending you so much love and care and joy and gratitude for what you are doing right now. For the service that you are bringing into this world. I'm so grateful for this community and for everyone's part in this resistance. So much love to you. Until next time. Om Shanti Om. Peace.
