Yes, I know what you think of me. Never shut up. Never shut up. Never shut up.
I thought this witches brew was more than bulletproof. Welcome to Never Shut Up. I'm your host Rose Crass. Today is April 2nd, 2026.
And we are talking about witness also from the beekeeper. Speaking of witness, how amazing would this song be? Like I do think it really fits the theme of In Times of Dragons and she's got the angels. This song would be masterful.
This chore. So Tory, I know you listen every day. Play this song. Please.
It would be so good. And play it on the West Coast because I'll be at West Coast shows. I mean you played elsewhere too, but girl, this song would be amazing. Anyway, well we thought there was a witness.
Someone who would stand up, but you know, words are like weapons when you shoot the moon. Like it was just words. It didn't mean anything. So the person that we thought was going to stand up, the person we thought that was going to bear witness who was going to have our back, they just kind of, well they finked out.
And they didn't show up when we needed them most. And I know we all have been in that situation where you really need somebody to, you know, stand up to kind of take your side with something. And then when it comes down to it, they just don't show up. It totally sucks.
What about the ways in which we are not like witnesses for ourselves? In yoga, there is a concept called the witness consciousness or the inner witness. It's sakshi is the word sakshi, S-A-K-S-H-I. And it means witness.
And this is the development of the witness consciousness, which is the ability of your awareness, our awareness, to disengage from identification with our thoughts and at the same time to observe them. This is all about the space between. We don't really see it happen at concerts anymore, but there's that space when a song is complete. That silence, the silence after the song is still part of the song.
And it still bears sitting in that silence, but everyone gets really ramped up and so they trample that silence after the song. If you've ever been to a kirtan concert, which is kind of yogic music, there's the song, it's called in response, and it gets like in ramp up. And then the song finishes, and everyone's just really quiet. There's no sound.
Everybody just sits for a little bit. And then everybody will like clap and make noise. It's kind of how music is meant to be listened to. So how do we disengage from our thoughts?
One practice, one way to do it is if you live in a cloudy space, or cloudy place, is to go outside and look up at the sky and watch the clouds go by. And as you watch the clouds go by, you can't grab a cloud. You can't, you know, you can't tame a cloud. You can't pull it down.
You have to watch it. So it's the sense of watching clouds go by or the other concept I use for meditation is imagine you're on a really busy street, lots of pedestrians, tons of pedestrians. Maybe you're in Times Square, it's lunchtime, or the financial district. Maybe you're in like Tokyo, you know, any place is really crowded and you're walking against the flow, like maybe getting in a subway or getting off of a subway and you're walking against the flow.
Imagine if you tried to stop and interact with every person. What a cluster that would turn into. That is our awareness with our thoughts. The thought comes and we're trying to interact with it.
What if instead we took a breath and we walked against the grain of our thoughts, like walking into the forest, like walking into a busy crowded place and then that moment, you know, you're in the zone and you're just weaving in and out between people and you're not hitting anybody and it's just, it's just perfection. And the moment you overthink something, you do that dance stutter step with somebody, it's exactly like that. The witness consciousness just watches the thoughts go by completely disengaged and completely absorbed in the space between those thoughts. And this is the development of witness consciousness.
So maybe you were able to do that while I was talking. If not, try practicing that for five minutes today. Observing thoughts, trying not to engage with them. It's really challenging.
Give yourself a break and keep coming back to it. So thank you for joining me and Tori for Little Mental Yoga today. And remember, five minutes a day is so much better than 60 minutes once a week. Thank you.
That is a production of The Sideways Society. For more information and links and things mentioned on the show, please visit us online at songletoryamis.com. Yes, I know what you think of me. You never shut up.