Episode Transcript
[00:00:11] Speaker A: Hi, welcome back to another episode of Deepen your yoga practice. I am Lauren Leduc, the founder and owner of True Love Yoga in Kansas City, Missouri, and I have a special guest with me today, Raven Dawn. And Raven is one of the. Is the newest teacher at True Love Yoga and also just went through our yoga teacher training program in 2024. So we're gonna get to know Raven today and also chat a little bit about her experience in the program. Welcome, Raven, to the podcast.
[00:00:42] Speaker B: Thank you. I'm so excited. I love podcasts. I listen to this one every time it comes out. And the spiritual besties podcast. So I'm here. Yeah.
[00:00:51] Speaker A: Thank you. I love podcasts too. Like, I don't know what I did in my life without them beforehand. So, Raven, let's get right into it. I'd love to start with the question, how did you fall in love with yoga?
[00:01:03] Speaker B: Okay, deep question right off the bat.
I fell in love with yoga in during a time that was a deep time of grief for me. I had lost my uncle, who had pretty much raised me as a father figure. I lost him in April of 2023, and I was. I actually live a few blocks away from the studio, and I was on his celebration of life, driven by the studio. And I saw the window. I'm like, oh, I guess that. I don't know. I guess I'll try that out. What intrigued me was the donation. Pay what you can. And I had never really done yoga before then, except for a few DVDs, like, 10 years ago.
So, yeah, then I came to the studio. August of 2023, I took a yin class. And that wasn't at first really what I was looking for. It was a little too passive, a little too in my emotions. And then I took a vinyasa class with Sydney Donut. And right off the bat, I was like, this is what I've been needing for forever. It was enough movement to keep my body engaged, but I was able to process really heavy emotion in a space where it felt okay to do so. And I'd never really felt that besides with my uncle. And he was gone now, so I didn't know how to process any of that. And, yeah, since then, I think I've been in the studio here at least twice, if not three times a week since then.
Cried in Shavasana. I've laughed in Shavasana. It's really been a practice that has brought me back to not brought me back, but helped me facilitate this new chapter of life without him. Right. So, yeah, short and sweet. Version that is how I fell in love with yoga.
[00:02:43] Speaker A: Wow.
You know, it's. It's unusual that I talked to a yoga teacher and there's, you know, you're literally talking about last year, right. Like almost just a year ago, and you had this major life event happen, this huge change, this huge loss, and dove into the yoga practice headfirst. Right. And I'm so glad that you found a space and that it's our space that was so healing for you. And yeah, I want to know, like, what really hooked you? Like, what, what are your favorite parts of the practice? Because it's clear, like something just clicked in for you in a way to not only dive into the practice, but to really do it skillfully and then become a teacher so quickly, and you're already super skilled at it. It's very impressive.
Yeah. So what, like, what are the few things that helped fulfill a need in your life? I suppose so.
[00:03:39] Speaker B: Right off the bat, I feel that yoga was the first thing where I did not have to be perfect at it. Perfection was never the goal. Right.
And it was never to aspire to be the best in eagle pose or the best in, you know, wheel or whatever, insert pose here. That. That's not the goal. There is no goal besides meeting yourself. For me, meeting myself where I'm at today and just feeling, feeling my emotions and being okay with where I am today and being present, I spent most of my life in an anxious mindset. Anxious about this deadline or that deadline or what if I don't do this, like what ifs or decision making, all of that kinds of things. And in. In the space of a yoga practice, however long, an hour, 30 minutes, nothing really matters besides the next breath, the next inhale, the next exhale. So that, I think was the first thing that really hooked me was I don't have to be anything or do anything but breathe right now. And that's all I really can do right now. And then the sense of community, meeting so many different people in this community from all different walks of so diverse and just automatically being accepting of who I am and what I bring to the table and holding space for each other. I met so many people this last six to eight months who immediately I felt like, yes, I can tell you exactly how I'm feeling today. And you're not going to judge me or hold that against me. You're just going to hold space for me and I can do that for you too. And that doesn't happen a lot in this society. You don't meet People who are genuine when they say that they care or that they want to know how you're feeling or how you're doing and they want to help you. So, yeah, I would say the acts of service that come with practicing yoga from a place of authenticity and genuine care and concern and the freedom to just exist without any expectations from day to day.
[00:05:32] Speaker A: Yeah, I love that. And I love that you really gotta feel for the purpose of the practice right off the bat. Everyone enters yoga for different reasons and seeking different benefits, I think. But oftentimes for those of us who've come to yoga from a place of pain, looking for healing, looking for relief, we notice that immediate difference. And it's, I don't want to say it's easier to get to the heart of what yoga is, but maybe we're like in a raw enough space to feel that immediate effect. And, you know, the chitta vritti, or the whirling of the mind is so strong that when that ceases, we notice. Right.
So thank you for sharing that. I'd love for our listeners to get a more well rounded picture of you too. What do you do outside of yoga? How do you spend your time?
[00:06:24] Speaker B: Yeah, so outside of yoga, I spend most of my time with my two cats. I think if you talk to me for any length of time, I will show you photos of whatever they have done that day, which is usually just sleep. But I'm a big animal lover, so I spend a lot of time with them. And then I'm also a member of a choir here in Kansas City. It's called Coral Spectrum. They're an LGBTQIA and allied choir. And that's been really. I've been a singer my entire life. I would say that organization has done wonders for my mental health too. I'm just getting together. It's another sense of community. So I sing with them, we meet once a week and then we do concerts throughout the year as well. And then I do like to do some creative things, mainly in the scope of which is, I think, kind of interesting for a yoga teacher. I do enjoy video games, which you typically don't see those two things kind of come together. But I do love any kind of role playing game like Dungeons and Dragons or anything fantasy like that. I'm all in for.
[00:07:20] Speaker A: No, I think there were a few people from training this year, I was.
[00:07:24] Speaker B: Like, but you typically don't see those two worlds intermingle. A lot of my friends who aren't really into yoga but are curious, I'm like, yes, please Come. Because we can coexist, I promise.
[00:07:38] Speaker A: Yeah. There might be, like, a niche there of yoga for gamers or something like that that you could tap into at some point.
And that's so great that organization has made such a difference to you. Acquire, I think, in in tandem with yoga. Unfortunately, not, like, at the same time in my life, but those have both been things that have been total lifesavers for me as far as community goes, as far as, like, breathing together with others and working together to find harmony and rhythm. There are so many parallels, I think, between the two that we might not automatically identify, but they've both given me the same feeling of peace and belonging that I'm really grateful for. I'm so, so glad you have that.
[00:08:25] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:08:27] Speaker A: Raven, I'd like to go a little bit into your experience with our yoga teacher training program over the past years, maybe going into some of your biggest takeaways. So I'd love to know, first, how has the yoga teacher training experience deepened your understanding of the practice? And I'm really interested in knowing this too, because you are so new to the practice. Um, so you kind of started the practice and then, boom, went deep right away.
[00:08:52] Speaker B: Yeah, it was very much, I have found this thing. I'm very interested in it. How can I totally immerse myself into that? Which was not the goal. When they announced yoga teacher training in March, something kind of like in the back of my spine was like, twinge, like, you should do that. And I was like, I have been doing yoga for three months. That's crazy. And then my teacher was like, you should sign up. You should apply. And I was like, oh, okay. So here we are. And I think for me, deepening the practice in a way, totally immersing myself in it, because that was all I did for the six months I took a break from choir. I mean, I worked my day job, but it was just yoga. And it was the first thing that really I connected with besides music, in a way like that. So how did it deepen my practice? I almost don't even have words for it because it became so intricate, integrated into my life. I don't. I think the best way to kind of relate it to is how when we talk through teacher training, yoga is not just asana. Right? It is pranayama. It is meditation. It is all of these other things. It's a way of life. It's on and off the mat. And I think that is the biggest way that it is deep in my practice, because it's no longer something that I just do here at the studio. It's something that I do before I go to bed. It's something that I do while I'm at work. I do a lot of deep breathing at work, so really showing me how and on top. And besides that, I did have a spiritual practice before yoga, but I had really lost connection with it for quite a while, probably three or four years, and I still really felt like I needed that, but I just couldn't connect to it anymore. And then deepening my yoga practice also deepened that connection, because there are so many parallels to what we study in yoga teacher training that you can apply to any other spiritual practice. So it was like the missing link of what I needed at this time of my life to kind of zipper everything back together. Does that answer the question? I feel like I went all over the place.
[00:10:47] Speaker A: It does. Well, it's a. It's a very comprehensive training, so there are so many different points to touch on. Were there any particular sections of it or parts of the training that really resonated with you that you loved the most?
[00:11:01] Speaker B: Yes, definitely. I would say so. The way that the training is blocked out, I was struggling a little bit. The first kind of three modules I was keeping up, but it was very separate. Right. It was very like, this is anatomy, and then this is. It was almost like, this is physical practice and this is more of the spiritual side. And I was having a hard time connecting them. But then when we get to the section where we talk about the fascia of the body and how we don't really know much about it and how maybe an injury in the knee is also affecting something on the right side of the hip because of this fascia and all of, like, this, I call it spiritual goo. Right. That really, for me, connected the mind, body, and the spiritual side of it all together. So that is, I think, when everything clicked and I was like, oh, I understand big picture now. Like, I get goosebumps thinking about it. And it's like this weird, like, where, like, every light kind of flipped on in my brain and things started connecting. And then I could see the connection between myself in nature more. And, like, the world got a little brighter for a second. And it was after that, everything was smooth sailing. Everything else kind of made sense. I still had some hiccups here and there, of course, because it is a comprehensive training is a lot to learn. And what's crazy is it's just the very beginning. There's so much to know and so much to learn, which is also very exciting. But I would say that section of the training and this, the different breath, the pranayama techniques, I find myself doing nadi shodhana a lot. I find that very calming for me. And then also being the freedom to experiment with those in different ways and with different movement because I didn't really have a breath practice before that. And as desperately what I needed, I now know. So those two particular portions of the training I think really set it apart for me and really brought it together.
[00:12:51] Speaker A: I really love that for me. And I had this experience when I did my 200 hour teacher training and kind of laid it, our teacher training out intentionally in such a way that at first it's like you're receiving one brick at a time and you're building something, but you're not quite sure what it is yet. Right. Because it's kind of hard to present it any other way. There are so many facets to the practice and it's hard to interconnect them until you get a deeper understanding of each one. Right. But I think there's a certain point of the training where we layer enough bricks on, where all of a sudden you step back and you're like, oh, I've just built, I was going to say a wall, but let's say like an igloo or a castle or something like that.
I don't know. And because it's laid out like that, I know as a teacher that I'm asking my trainees or my students for this tremendous amount of trust as I'm handing them brick by brick.
But I found, yeah, in my training that there are a couple of those lessons specifically like sequencing, where all of a sudden I'm like, oh, now I know all these things. It's just a matter of putting them together now and really do it until you're ready. Right. So it does kind of feel like fumbling through the dark for a little while.
And I'm glad that you stuck through it. I'd love to know what was your favorite part of, I guess the communal aspect of yoga teacher training.
[00:14:21] Speaker B: The vulnerability that everybody. Day one, it felt like a very safe bubble. It was all very much, you are safe here. You are safe to express yourself in any way that you need to. And people did do that. It wasn't like. Because a lot of times I feel that you can say, yes, you're safe here, feel free to express your emotions however you want. And some people may still be a little reserved and they don't feel comfortable here. It was like I said, day one we all were like, well, we are going to be a family now for the next six months and we are going to create long lasting relationships and connections and really support each other through this. I don't want to say crazy, it's not crazy, but this very interesting, intricate thing that we're doing, you know, and to have so many people be on board with that. I think we had 18 people at the start of training a lot. It was a really cool feeling and I felt like I had found a group of people that I didn't realize that I needed, but I'm so grateful to have found. And yeah, just the diversity of it. I, I can't. I.
I got one of the true love yoga crewnecks and I was telling my best friend, I said, I didn't go to college. I know people wear like their alma mater sweatshirts all the time and it's kind of like I look at it as my alma mater sweatshirt, like, and I'm just like really ecstatic and grateful to be a part of something like that. I'm rambling now, but it is something that I'll always hold very dear to me. And it's something very special almost in a way that you almost can't explain it until you go through it. Because I'm sure my experience in this teacher training is completely different than the year previous and will be completely different than the incoming students. And that's what makes it so, so special, is that it is unique to us.
[00:16:03] Speaker A: So first of all, you're definitely not rambling. I love to hear all of this. I love listening to you. And I think that sense of community is usually one of the biggest benefits of training that people might not know that they were looking for or that they're going to receive. But there is something really special about going into a space and being able to like, fully take off the mask, whatever that means. Be vulnerable. Because you have to be vulnerable to like be practicing teaching with people. But also we go into deep discussions and things like that that are all about personal growth and development and how we feel about the world and how we want to serve the world.
And yeah, you can't really come in with bs. You have to just lay it all out there. And that experience allows people to grow close very quickly. And as a teacher, it's always really fun and beautiful to watch as that happens and to see the relationships continue long after the training is over. Being able to have friends and colleagues to lean on and to chat with is so valuable because yoga teaching is sort of an isolating experience. Yes, we are front facing with our students, but also we're by ourselves. Typically we show up, we teach, we leave. And it's nice to have people that you can bounce ideas off of or commiserate with or brainstorm.
So it's such a beautiful benefit of it. I'd love to get into your approach to teaching yoga. So how do you approach teaching or teaching Vinyasa yoga and how do you create an authentic and welcoming experience for people?
[00:17:43] Speaker B: Yeah, my process has definitely shifted this because I'm now a full month into teaching, full on teaching after graduation and when we did our practicum, that came from a very authentic and vulnerable place. Right. The theme was very close to me, but it was still in a place where it was like only you and a few other people were going to see it. And then when I started teaching classes, I was like, okay, I don't want to make this too much about me and my themes and how I'm feeling and what I'm going through. So I'm just going to create something that is easy that you can kind of apply your own intention attention to. Right. Very easy transitions, not easy, but you know, things that flow together that you would kind of expect in a flow. And that was fine for the first two weeks. And then I just started tapping into how I was really feeling and I'm like, you know what I'm really needing a lot of like the last few weeks I've done a lot of heart opening and hip opening, especially with Maggie and our Hurricane Aline. I'm like, I'm feeling this way. If I am tapped into this energy, then I know my students are too. So if I'm needing this, maybe they are too. And I don't necessarily have to explain all of that to them and I don't. But tapping into how I'm feeling and how the world may be feeling and then putting that how can we express that or how can we move through that? And it might not necessarily be a super dynamic and fiery heat building flow. It's still, you're going to build some heat. It's Vinyasa. But coming from a place of what do I need to heal and how can I turn that into something that other people can then use however they want? So that's what I've been doing and it's worked out well. I think it's been very healing for me to teach and my students are enjoying it. So they say I There are of course the few students who just come in and then they leave and you never know what they're thinking and that's okay too.
They keep coming back. So that's fine.
So yeah, that is, my approach is just gauging how I'm feeling and what feels good or what would feel good in, in my body and then how can I give, how can that, how can that serve other people and other bodies? Because what feels good in my body may not necessarily feel good in everyone else's body. So always being mindful of that and that's been the fun, I don't want to say challenge. It's not a challenge. It's not. But the more fun aspect of sequencing is like, okay, if this is the pose that I want to put here, how can I make this as accessible as possible? So my notebook is just scribble, scribble, scribble, folded pages, dog eared. But it really taps into like the creative process for me. So I'm all for it.
[00:20:15] Speaker A: I love that approach really. Through yoga teacher training, so much of what we're doing is building our own foundation of our own practice so that we can share it with others. It's all about sharing the practice. It's about being devoted, a devoted student, a devoted practitioner, and then serving others through that, I guess, well honed instrument that you're working on. And I think that's often just the most authentic way to go, of course, like you said, while considering other people's bodies and experiences and giving them space to explore that on their own. But I think if you're coming from that place, your teaching always is going to be authentic. It will continually be interesting and different. It will continually evolve because you were evolving.
And there's so much to be said about following your intuition and following like the breadcrumbs of your own curiosity and desire and then being able to share that as it comes. And for me, you know, 11 years into it, it's still such a satisfying practice because it asks me to keep growing and it's this rhythm. I'm going back to it now. I feel like I'm rambling. But you know, there's this, the concept of swadhyaya, which is one of the niyamas and it's all about self study and to teach we really need to be able to continuously do that. So I feel really grateful for the opportunity to be able to share that with others and then obviously to pass that on to you all who are then sharing it with others as well. It's super satisfying and really cool. So thank you for sharing that. I'D love to ask you what you'd say to somebody who is considering yoga teacher training.
[00:22:03] Speaker B: I would say, if you're considering it, do it. Just do it. Don't just, just do it. Like, the back and forth and the. Well, do I even want to teach? Because I went into yoga teacher training thinking, I'm not going to teach. Like, I'm just. I just want to. Like, what is this? That's coming from the perspective of being fairly new to yoga, but just the amount of knowledge that you'll gain in deepening your own practice and maybe even, like a fellow student, like, the alignment, they didn't even realize their downward dog had been so misaligned and they'd been practicing for five years. Like, those benefits are wonderful. And then elevating your practice, whether or not you teach a class ever, I can't stress it enough. I don't mean I am a dramatic person, so this may sound dramatic, but it did change my life in the best way possible. It opened my eyes to a new way of thinking and a new way of living my life. That even if I stop practicing yoga, which I don't think I ever will, but even if I no longer have, like, an asana practice, I will always have these other tools and other practices to help support me through my life. And that I'm eternally grateful for. Even if you don't want to teach or don't think you'll teach, you could be surprised because you may teach like I am. So I. If you feel the spark or the connection, explore it. Because so often we don't let ourselves explore those things, and then you don't. You don't want to regret it.
[00:23:28] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, that's really good advice. And it's an investment, but it's such an investment in the self. And maybe you can get it through a trip, maybe you can get it through some sort of educational opportunity, but to really devote, like, six months of intense learning to your body, mind and spirit is so rewarding. It's hard. It's really hard. I think we should mention about the training, but it's like, it's the good kind of hard. It's the worthwhile kind of hard. It's like, you know, hiking to the top of a mountain and being able to see the beautiful view at the top. Not that it's the end of anything, but that's the one thing I could compare it to, I think.
And I don't think it's dramatic at all. I see. You know, there are probably five things in My life, if that. That I kind of think of as like a before and after type of thing. Like before teacher training, after teacher training. It's been. Yeah, top. One of the top five best decisions of my life. I can't imagine. I don't know. I have no idea what I would be doing with myself without it. And I can't wait to see what you do over the years because it's still so fresh and new. I think you'll continue probably to look back at this time. I'm so glad we're recording this today too, so that you can go back and listen to this someday because it is this like special potent time and often just like the seeds that we've planted that are just the beginning of. Of what's to. What's to grow. So thank you for sharing that advice. I'd like to ask one last piece of advice or for your piece of advice, which is how can our listeners deepen their yoga practice?
[00:25:04] Speaker B: Oh, wow.
I. What I am doing all this. Yeah. I'll just take from what I am experiencing this week into deepening my practice or what I'm experimenting with. I think lingering in not pain, but a little bit of discomfort. Right. We talk about that moment of. Or that space between effort and ease and what is that? And maybe sometimes we back off the effort and just kind of linger in the ease. But when you linger in that space, that kind of makes you twinge a little bit or you feel that discomfort. That I think is also very beneficial to deepening and growing into your practice and breathing because that translates to lingering in feelings of discomfort off the mat too. I feel so often when we feel anxiety or depression or sadness or anger or whatever quote unquote, negative emotion, we very quickly want to move from that emotion, change it, and we don't want to feel that way. We don't want to. And of course you don't want to put negative things into the world. But I think you do yourself a disservice by not lingering and really feeling what that feels like in the body and in the mind. Because then you. You can understand it a little better. Right. And when you linger in maybe an asana or a pranayama practice, that is a little more challenging for you. Then I think you can learn a little more in that too. Again, not in pain or discomfort. That is unbearable.
[00:26:35] Speaker A: I love that answer. And what I think what you're saying is to gently and over time widen our window of tolerance. Right. Which we talk about in the. In the trauma part of the training. But what we're able to regularly endure gives us more strength. It allows us to move through this world more boldly with a growth mindset, with a strong center so that we can be of service. And we can't do that by being comfortable all the time. It's. That's not the way, unfortunately.
It'd be great. Like nap your way to success. I would love that.
Maybe someday. So, Raven, thank you so much for sharing that, for sharing yourself. Of course. Yeah. And for sharing your experience with yoga teacher training. You can find Raven if you're in Kansas City Wednesdays at noon at True Love Yoga for Vinyasa Flow. Where else can they find you?
[00:27:35] Speaker B: I do have an Instagram. It is Granola Glamour. You can, we can chat on Instagram. I welcome new friends. I'm still, I've got some things in the works. I don't know, I'm just really settling in and integrating teaching Wednesdays at noon. That's my, it's my go to spot right now, so. But if you want to be Instagram friends. Yeah.
[00:27:55] Speaker A: Thanks, Raven. And I'll remind our listeners if you are interested in our yoga teacher training for 2025, it is ready for applications on our website so you can go to trueloveyogacc.com to apply. It's available online and in person. It's a hybrid training so you can be in Kansas City or you can be fully remote if need. We also have an early bird discount, so if you sign up by January 31st of 2025, you get $500 off.
Definitely reach out if you're interested. We'd love to have you and we'd love to help guide you on this truly life changing journey. So thank you again, Raven. Thank you everyone for listening. Om Shanti Om. Peace.
