What's next? This is a question we're all happy to ask and answer more frequently. I'm Daniel Blake, your host of the KipaC app, and author of KipaC, it The Only with the Matters, is your next one. For a show notes from this episode, visit kipa.com slash podcast.
If change is the only concept, then let's get better at it. Here we go. Hi everybody, welcome back. I'm really excited to be here today with Daniel Aaron.
Our paths have crossed through the internet, not yet IRL, though we've been in the same places at countries often at the same time. Daniel Aaron is a teacher, writer, and human potential coach with half a century of joy of seeking, and within 25 years of experience in yoga and personal transformation for thousands of others. He's a creator of the world recognized Daniel Aaron Yoga Teacher Training, so she launched in 2005, and he also founded the Radiali Live Yoga Studio in Ubuad Bali in 2012, which Daniel I think I first started taking classes there when I went in 2015, and it was gorgeous. He's now back to the side, and on going to the girl wisdom, mystical and practical, and how we can apply it to radically upgrade our lives.
From enlightened gurus to the deepest therapists, cutting out nutrition, fasting and cleansing ashram, ashram centers and caves, from Maine to Bali with a few hundred users along the way, he has lived, or Vise says, probably he has lived everything from excruciating childhood, which was also full of love to help in other times every day guaranteed joy and entrepreneurial brilliance, which includes his own massively painful lessons and mistakes. Daniel, welcome to the show. Thank you, Jenny. I really appreciate you having me.
Yeah, it's great to have you. I'm wondering about the excruciating childhood that you mentioned and how you're upbringing sparked this journey of seeking ever since. Yeah, okay. Sure.
Thank you. It's when I heard you say that word, which sort of written, it sounds so dramatic. My goodness. Where baby, excruciating.
What I can say about it though is it was a very ordinary childhood, lower middle class America, and compared to so much trauma that people experienced in childhood, my was quite mild. There was a lot of pain and abuse in my family, which is fairly normal. I was probably a little more sensitive to it than some folks. One of my key memories from my childhood was what I was mostly about.
I think it three years old, four years old. I was standing in the front yard. This was in Falmouth, Maine. My family was inside the house.
It was kind of the typical scene. There was yelling and screaming and maybe an occasional object flying across the room. I learned in early age just better to step away from that stuff. That was my strategy.
That was out on the front lawn and kind of hear the yelling behind me and I looked across the street. It was just at a dinner time or end of work day because there were neighbors just arriving home from there working a whole different than in suits and they had briefcases and surrounded shoulders and they walked in their houses and they looked at me in waves. It was just a somewhat joyless picture. They felt like it appeared to me from those childhood eyes that they were just going through the motions and I remember standing there with the yelling behind me and the appearance of these guys living out of rut in front of me and I just thought there's got to be more to life than this.
It just has to be more to it. I think I forgot all about that and just about my business of surviving childhood. Somehow that always stayed with me and the way became the cornerstone of my life. What a powerful memory to be sandwiched between the chaos happening in your family and then looking across the street and seeing what would look like order men and suits with briefcases but with some control there as you described not looking any happier.
Yeah, exactly. It was a good contrast. You might have mentioned some online that you were also orphaned at one point. Did I make that up?
No, I didn't make that up. I probably have said that and now that you mentioned it, I suddenly wonder if I'm confused the term correctly. I suppose what I meant by it is from an early age I happened to experience a lot of death around me. I was born into a family, sort of young like a second generation to a family and so I was couple of my siblings, my grandparents, my parents, they all died when I was fairly young and I didn't have the orphan experience like all of her living in an orphanage or a side of house rules or any of those kind of orphanages.
Though at an early age I got the experience of hey, you know what? It's just made. There was a fallback or a connection from above or to the side. How old are you in that realization or when that came to be?
Well, I suppose it was the last of all so to speak was my mother and that was about 30 years old. Yeah, I can't even imagine what that's like where I do have a friend whose parents are not in her life and she had her grandparents who raised her and then they passed and we had any conversations about what it feels like to not have a backup. You know, it's kind of in the quote natural order of things. Ideally someone's parents living to old age and have this family structure around you and it sounds like in your case that you're very very bizarre feeling to put it mildly.
I feel that you're at the remains from that unit that you grew up with. Yeah, it does feel like it's out of the natural order and it's an interesting one because my mother died at a relatively early age and I think a lot of why she died, you know, health reasons aside that was important. But was that she, one of her children had killed herself and another had died very young from heart attack and those when children died before their parents that's also something that's so out of our expected natural order and she never really recovered from that. And those are your siblings.
That's right, yeah. Wow. So how did you, because your life could have taken one of those routes as well, you know, once in area one's sliding doors and then in this other one you kind of found seeking somehow and started your journey. I would love to hear what put you on that path and maybe you found it the hard way.
I don't know. But how did you what was the spark within you that said, okay, either on my own or there's got to be a better way or to to save yourself from feeling similarly down and hopeless. Yeah, it's a great question and one that I've considered a lot in my own experience and also with clients and students because some people experience trauma and it in the result is they shut down and their life diminishes from that time forward and others experience a trauma and it becomes a catalyst for them to bounce into a whole new way of being in their life. I'm going to do what I always make fun of my daughter and my clients for it and say, I don't know why it was that way for me and I'll proceed to make some guesses.
I think there's a certain way in a way that moment from childhood when I realized that there's got to be more to this and of course we all know that on some level the truth of who we are or the spiritual knowledge that's in all of us knows that life isn't just suffering. You know, no offense to the Buddhist precept and there's of course wisdom and truth in that and there's a part of all of us that knows there's more to it than just going downhill even if that's popular and what's sold to us a lot. Somehow I feel really lucky that I retained some little bit of that knowledge even through the door to science. Right.
It's so interesting that that came to you even at three years old. So clearly this is embedded in your path somehow or at least the seed of awareness was there at such an early age and it's funny, you know, even as you're saying, but answers, I don't know, but you can start to guess, I do feel that it is such a combination of grace. It's like it's grace that descends and says, hey, there can be a different way and then there's also the practical, you know, you can even say your bio, the secret wisdom, mystical and practical that there's that mystical piece of how do you have that inside at three years old and then the practical of, okay, and then you kind of follow that you there are steps you take listeners, you will not know this because I haven't told you yet, but when Daniel and I first started emailing almost right away we exchanged, I don't know how we got to it so quickly, but I shared love astrology and shared sign moon and rising and Daniel. So I've been studying astrology for 25 years, which I was very interesting.
So what point in your life and the reason I bring that up is maybe you have some insights as well. I remember you saying you actually had the wrong needle chart for a while, which is another interesting quirk to us debate. But just where you started when you did start to say, okay, I'm going to take that trauma in that chaos of your childhood and upbringing and feeling orphaned and kind of readerless and how you what started your search over those first steps because you seem to find a lot of stuff early on. Well, yeah, I suppose relatively early on mid 20s, I suppose, and a lot of who I have become in the last 20 something years pivots around.
I use your word. Pivot's around. Oh, good product. Thank you, Daniel.
Yes, yes. I've been planning that for weeks to say that exactly. No, it all stems in a way from this very strong period in my life in 1995 and what I experienced something that could be called in awakening, though that sounds a bit ostentatious to say it that way, or big shake up words that we have seen life differently than I ever had or even knew was possible. And one of the pre-cursors to that in fact was my discovery of astrology.
And of course, I'd grown up like a lot of people hearing the little bit of astrology of finding the newspapers and some sign astrology. And I thought that's completely bunk. How could it possibly be that one 12th of the population is going to have this experience today, that's ridiculous. And then I started reading in I was in Northampton, Massachusetts, and in a weekly paper there was a column by Rob Bresney.
And I started reading it just because it was there and interesting and probably eight weeks in a row, I noted that there was something in it that felt eerily accurate or true in my life. And I got to the last couple of weeks of it. It was so strong that I said, maybe my former belief about this is not accurate. This requires a little investigation.
And I had a friend of a friend who was into astrology. I didn't know at the time that actually she was about as amateur as you can get. She had a great love. And she charged me $25 to do a reading for me, which was simply her copying things out of books and writing them handwritten on piece of paper.
And she actually handed me this thing that was probably 30 pages of handwritten stuff. And for my later experience and understanding astrology wasn't what you call reading it, it was just a listing of these little different pieces. And still, it was so much in that it just opened my eyes wide and from that point on. I said, I want more of this and that began for me at some of the stuff that was so secret.
I know exactly what you mean. I thought that's not my first reading. My friend Jennifer Rachio, we reached out proactively. I launched my second website, Jenny Blake got me.
She's like, you seem fascinating. Can I do a reading for you? And then I got a few. And then there was, I think it was for me in 2015 that decided I have to learn everything that was to know about this.
And I started reading dozens of astrology books. I studied for six months pulled up over 100 charts of friends and family because I was that's got to blow a seal. And then I realized it's dead on. It's just a few can learn so many things.
And I would go. I was starting to play with doing career. I was calling in career cosmos sessions. And I could just shortcut directly to advice.
I would have had to talk to someone for an hour to try to understand what your strengths and what your interest and what your interest and what your life and your work. And by pulling up their chart, I could say, here's your zone of genius. So that was an eight. Yes, oh my goodness.
And it's really crazy. This stuff actually works. It's really wild. And what you described, I love that you're finding that for you.
Jen calls that commonly known as book astrology where this is why people criticize it because if you just look up. And by the way, sun science and astrology, that's one of where nine other planets are in an adult chart. So you get so much more complex once you're able to look up a full chart and I'm saying I'm not doing it. When people do get out on astrology, it's less about, oh, just what's your sign.
And it's more like where are these nine planets? What time were you born? What houses are prominent? What themes of your life are prominent?
How do these signs interact with each other? Which ones are closed holding hands and can jump? Which ones are opposing each other and green? And Jen, there's so much I learned so much even about myself through my chart in four months that I was doing this negative dive.
Yeah, so interesting. So discovering astrology, I also like your approach that this is really working. Maybe there's something to investigate here. I feel like that is the seeker's way.
I'm curious how you would define a seeker, at least right, or you're mode of seeking how it's done after your life. Yeah. Thank you. I think it comes back to that early realization for me that there's got to be more to this.
And I've always, I'm very lucky to have an innate curiosity and I love learning. And even a few years before I developed this cover of astrology, when I was just coming out of college and also feeling like, well, what am I doing with my life? I know you know something about that. And I discovered then what's it called?
The Myers-Briggs personality sorter. And that launched me into this sort of early obsession with psychology, which I had never studied formally before. And I thought, well, hey, I would understand myself and how I work. I had a couple experiences that scared me a little bit, where I wasn't sure who I was, and that led me to meditation.
And then I got obsessed with psychology and these different self-understanding tools, like the personality sorters. And then when I found astrology, it was just such a breath of pressure because, as you said, it's there's a great complexity to it. And it's still the only tool that I found that actually accounts for the complexity that we are as human beings because we've got so many different parts to ourselves and different, and so on. So I've seen to conflict that times and different desires.
And yeah, cochbook astrology is when someone hasn't synthesized all these different parts. And there's value in that for sure. And these days it's very, you can find so much online about that. And then there's the real art as an astrologer.
And the art of the seeker and the awakened to being is to integrate all these different parts and somehow find ways of optimizing them and getting them to talk to each other. Right, finding things. And Jen told me that when she looks at a chart now, it's like a 3D hologram appears to her of who the person is. That the chart no longer becomes, you know, you could do dozens of not hundreds of aspects of a chart.
And that's a cochbook. This means this means this. But then once you can, you know, she's so experienced now she can look and see this 3D hologram come to life. Yeah.
But even Myers-Rakes is partially based on astrology. And Carl Jung used astrology in a lot of his sessions with people. And a lot of modern psychology people don't realize that has roots in astrology as well. Absolutely.
Yeah. So one thing I'm curious about is your website. He is as ordinary as ordinary can be. I thought those are really interesting lines to put on your site.
Most people they're about pages how extraordinary they are. Myers listen to them and hire them. And I really love that you're waving this flag of he is as ordinary as ordinary can be. Now, I might disagree.
But I would love to hear what inspired you to put that on your site. I suppose in some way it's that I've never, I've never liked the part of teaching and coaching and business where we are advertising ourselves and saying, look at me and I'm so great and I'm the best at this. And whether it's through social media or through dating websites or any of that where we try and sell all the best parts of ourselves. And so that's one part.
I've never just really felt great about that. And then part of my work has become to help everybody know how extraordinary they are. And part of how I've come to work with people is to make myself very just real authentic. The as ordinary as the kitchen table, the kitchen table is beautiful.
And when we, one of the lines I remember from a writing teacher when I was first studying writing years ago, I think it was Paul Marshall said, if you write in the language that you heard around the kitchen table, you will write beautifully. And for all of us, I think it's we shine and our best selves when we just accept who we are when we love all the parts of ourselves, including the things that seem like imperfections or the things that we at some point thought we should be ashamed of. Amen. So well said.
I think I'm just object of writing to, man, I forget where I heard this. Here's what those internet, great finds. But that most popular books have a three reading level. But the best writing hits a three reading level.
And that actually by writing for a higher reading level than that, people somehow don't resonate with it. Sounds. And as well as it sounds too smart or overly complicated. And so I love that advice.
I'm curious because I took classes there. It was really an incredible place. Why inspired you to create reading a live reading a live video studio in Bali and similarly on a subject of pivoting how you knew it was time to close out that chapter and come back to the States. Thanks.
That's a great question. The reason I started reading a live, well, first I started it actually not as a center. I started it as a training. And I guess you could call it a retreat and training business.
And which for me, just naturally grew out of I had been so obsessed with taking trainings and retreats and then working on them in different ways over the years. And I was just blown away by how powerful could be the experience people would have. And people would come to events that I was part of leading in five days, seven days say that their life had completely transformed. It was the most powerful time they never had in their life.
And it was true. And I really saw it. So that was super inspiring to me when I moved to Bali. I was somehow stimulated by the environment, the creativity and it coincided with the time in my life where I had been obsessively seeking.
And I was working with people for many years in teaching. And primarily though, I was just obsessed with seeking going back to what is a seeker. For me, it was I want to awaken. I want to heal.
I want to discover. I want to learn. And I had a realization in 2000 or something like that that my seeking needed to step back and needed to plant myself in one place. So that's why I moved to Bali.
After I got there, it just occurred to me, well, how can we create, how can I create these kind of experiences for people in a way, give back to them? And that happened. And I had no idea what I was doing on the business level of it, how to create it. Though immediately there was this snowball success of them in the group popular and coming out of that, the friends said to me, hey, I've got this little land here.
Do you want to build a yoga studio? And at first I said no way. I don't know. That sounds like a lot of work.
And that's not me. And then something just kept occurring to me that there's an opportunity here to create something extraordinary that will really serve a lot of people. And I can do it. And so I did.
And it was a funny thing because after we opened, people said to me, I must be so happy you're dream. And I didn't want to rain on their excitement. And still part of my response was actually not just on the dream. It was just something I felt like needed to be done and I could do it.
And that said, it was an amazing experience I learned a lot. And how did I know when it was time to move on? Well, in one way, it was the normal way that anybody has noticed, who would remind us, I got a lot of pain and difficulty and realize that this is not any more living my Dharma, that word from Sanskrit meaning my true path. And I had gotten so occupied with the running of the business.
And what I was really, what I'm really here for more is to serve people and teach and coach and work directly with people. And the business aspect of it was great and I had enough skill that I could do it. Not it's not really my zone of genius though. So eventually I realized, you know what?
I'm sort of killing myself and I'm denying the world of my greater gifts by staying in this role. I think that happens so often which is that. Well, and it's weird sometimes we expect ourselves or actually I don't want to speak for you. But there are initiators and starters and then there are really great maintainers.
And we saw this even at Google and friends who work at startups and even in individual coaching clients, some people are real great at going from zero to one getting something from nothing, creating me too. I love creating courses and things from scratch. And then maintenance mode can be kind of that's a whole different thing. It's just it's own entirely different thing.
And I think that if we can celebrate the parts that we're good at and we like that then there is no pressure that just because you serve this need and start at the studio means you now need to maintain it for the next 25 years. That actually your Dharma may be initiating or something like that. Learning not only to sound also not to stay too long to where you feel as you said just really pain and difficulty. Yeah, it's true.
We all have certain proclivities and that's one of the things that I love is the process has unfolded is the guy, the couple that I sold the studio to who worked with me for probably the year before. So they've done such a great job with it and it really suits them doing it and it's beautiful. You've been into creating at least one project at the moment is a virtual song. Can you define that for anyone who doesn't know the term and to share what you're up to now?
Yeah, thank you. The word sangha means the easiest translation is community and it's a term that I understand coming from Buddhism. And it's also a word of interest. You know, Jesus put it to when two or more doubt or in my name, I will be there.
And when people are come together with a specific purpose then their individual powers are amplified. And when the purpose is in my language creating a vibrant life then it creates an energy unto itself. There's an entrainment. There's a power to it.
So sangha is one of the precepts and Buddhism that says it's really hard to awaken on our own or as one of my teachers to in Rome. So you become the seven people you hang out with most. And as I've been in this transition, I was saying, okay, well, I don't have a center anymore. I don't live in Bali and how what's one of the best ways for me to serve and to have an living.
One of the things that came to me is the technology is so phenomenal now that I can share teachings and things that I've learned in the last three decades through a medium of creating videos and sharing them with people through un-portal. And then we can get together which in ways that might be called a conference call. Though I think of it more in the spiritual context, satsang, which that means a gathering of people in the name of truth. And better word than conference call.
Right? Yeah. And it's, you know, it really is the same thing. Is it a meeting of a gang?
Is it a religious ceremony? Is it a satsang? Is it a conference? It's just about our intention when we come together and finding that people from all walks of life and all over the world, you know, people in our community from Australia, from the UK, from Washington, DC, you know, all over the world.
And coming together with a common desire to thrive in the world, not just survive and to live a spiritual life in a way that is fulfilling to them and also contributing to the world. It's just to me, it's still amazing that it's so easy for us to come together in ways that while it's virtual on the level that we're not necessarily in physical proximity of each other, it's very real and it's really powerful. It really is. And we have so many incredible tools available to us now.
And I think that is one of the beautiful things of where technology is going, of course, so much of social media that it's not to like, but there's a lot to like. And this we can't even, this is almost like the proper version of social media, like meaningful through thinking, I'm hearing myself being sort of judgey as I'm saying this, but I'll say for me personally, this is the social part of media and internet where I find meaning to is in very specific communities. Like I have momentum, which is the song that I've gathered, then I'm part of a writer's group on Facebook and part of a speaker group. And those actually bring me tremendous joy versus the more broad sort of dispersed words.
I think it just, I feel more sense of distraction. You've said, you know, you brought up this idea of living a spiritual life, maybe that it's a feeling and also contributing to the world. And also on your side, you say your religion is your life. And also your passionate about the real yoga of life beyond the physical fitness practices.
I would love for you to speak to how you see your what you mean by your religion is your life and the real yoga of life. Oh, thank you. Those are juicy questions. And by the way, kudos to you.
I appreciate that you're hearing yourself sound a little bit of judgey about what you're saying and to have the presence to note that and the honesty and vulnerability to say that's beautiful. And well, and actually I guess that's in a way that's what I mean by, I forget what language we're just using is the living a spiritual life is my religion. It's living in a way that we are constantly or as often as possible looking within to say what are the effects of my thoughts and my actions now and what are the effects on the rest of the world, the other beings around us. And I think almost all of the religions started with a very noble loving aim to increase the vibrancy and love of the world that we live in.
And part of what I mean by that is yoga done on the map. One of my teachers used to say this lines of being a yogi at least when you're doing your yoga practice and it's kind of a funny thing. And he meant it as in really be yourself and focus here. And I've seen it in religion and in the yoga world where we have these isolated practices that we are very spiritual and altruistic and loving during those moments and then it's challenging to carry that out through the rest of our life and day.
And so in the yoga language, it's interesting in from the yoga scripture, one of the things that you don't hear about much is this physical practice, which has become what everybody thinks of as yoga. This is stretching and moving and breathing and wearing tights in the little rubber rectangle on the ground. And what you do hear a lot of though in the older spiritual text on yoga is it's about how we treat each other and it's about the presence that we create through these practices. And the two pieces that I find to be the most powerful of all of that are some of the basic instructions from the tundality author of the yoga super the Bible of yoga.
And one is a hymnsa which means doing as little harm as possible sometimes translated as non-violence. And the other is Satya translated as honesty or authenticity. And what the tundality didn't say a whole lot about and hard to say actually because this was Sanskrit and very brief. And even the origins are somewhat controversial.
The key to it is to live both of those at the same time. Because in some ways, I would say it's easy to do as little harm as possible. One extreme might be that the janes, the religion in its extreme when they step outside will sweep the ground in front of them. So as not to step on any preachers and ants.
And so if we make our soul orientation, I'm going to do as little harm as possible. One of the results is we don't do a whole lot in our lives because we're all going to make mistakes. And so one is to do as little harm as possible. That's a challenge.
The other is to be authentic and honest at the same time. And to balance the two of those is a razor's edge of awareness and awakening. And so beautifully challenging and valuable. It's I love how you put it and your emphasis on the new normal, like your vision that the new normal is love and truth.
Kindness authenticity and radiance for all beings of every species. And I can resonate with that so much. I feel like my religion is kindness and I'm waiting for someone to give me a reason to have otherwise like an otherwise orientation other than kindness toward the world. And like you said, it's not easy.
I find one thing that I get curious about is like, you know, my comments about social media. It's my opinion. My experience of it. And that's just my view.
And I just finished reading a book called The Righteous Mind, why good people are divided on politics and religion. And it's a really fascinating read to kind of help understand what are some of the shoes of other people and understand how the mind works, especially when it comes to morals and beliefs. And yet it is. Because you can take this right down to the level of thought, you know, and as little harm is possible, even interjudgment, even in our mind.
You know, it's like, and that's, that's why it starts to be that finding for myself. And then you strongly held opinions can be debunked or seen from another light and see from another perspective and that there's always room for seeing another side or more empathy or more kindness or more less as you are advocating for. Yeah, that's beautiful that your religion is kindness. And if we all orient ourselves that way, it becomes a different world for sure.
And it sounds like a great book. I'll grab that one up. And it's an interesting comment when what was the most smart people are divided. So how do you think people are going to be politics and religion because it's very easy to find a point of things that the other side and say, they don't know what they're talking about.
They're so wrong. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Or I think that's the, that is the imperative that we are inheriting right now. Let me translate that to the three level. What I mean is that we are all needing to learn as a culture and what the gifts of all the darkness that's emerging right now. What those gifts are in some way is saying to us that we can't afford to have division, even though it's so understandable and good people are divided about things.
What we need is inclusion and finding ways to come together and understand the apparently opposing viewpoints. Another line of years that I love you say you hope to create a world where an aberrant act of meanness creates a real level of alarm that immediately engenders response of love and understanding so powerful that melts the pain and meanness and harmony is restored. What a beautiful vision. Well, thank you.
It's very sweet. These different pieces and most of which I remember. But yeah, that's a picture that I have. It's, and I believe it's possible.
And I'm going to keep believing that whether we reach it in my lifetime or not. At least we're moving in right direction. Well, tell me more about that. As we start to wrap up because you mentioned, you know, we are all needing to learn the physical turn and there can.
There's nothing to be so much darkness and so much going wrong. How two questions? How do you maintain that hope and that positive outlook and do you when you feel overwhelmed about where to start who to help and how? What do you do?
I mean, that's going to be I always like to end with a little call to action for listeners. So bonus points if you didn't work that in. Awesome. Well, it's it's a practice for me.
And certainly there are days when I wake up and I don't feel thrilled in autistic enlightened. Whether it's something I've experienced in my own life or clients or in the world or sometimes I don't even know why. And what is extremely helpful to me is having a practice. And what I mean by that is the daily kind of ritual that helps me to remember what I believe.
Remember what I have experienced when I know to be possible. Remember the where I've set my compass coordinates in life. And that to me is such an essential thing for anyone who wants to live a great life to live a, you know, I even hesitate to say spiritual life because it sounds a little airy, very obvious. No, just to live a life that they love that's meaningful is to have a part of the day be dedicated to creating our lives in our days intentionally.
And well, maybe I was a more key question than I miss or was that it doing? That's great. Tell us what are one or two of your must have daily practices or rituals that keep you grounded. Yeah, sure.
Well, I'll just I'll tell you real quick. What I call the fantastic four is first thing in the morning doing a little bit of free writing and so valuable. I could speak for hours on that and beyond that some physical movement. It's just so useful and necessary to move our bodies in ways that are helpful.
And that could be days of discussion too. And then breathing is conscious breathing is by far the most powerful tool I've discovered in all these years and just some simple breath practices. And I have actually have one called the sun breath that's totally free on YouTube. People can see it there.
It's a really simple process. And the other one is meditation and our lives are so active and young and energetic and doing that to have even a few moments. And I would people that work with I say, you know, make three minutes. And set a timer and do three minutes of just sitting there and noticing your thoughts and as soon as you can coming back to focusing on your breath so powerful.
That's great. It's so much. So well for me once with breath work that I mean, it was in a yoga class that the breath is the only involuntary and voluntary function that our body has. So it's both we can control it and it's automatic.
Yeah, it's tremendous in that way. It's it's such a miracle that it's so simple. It can be completely automatic or at any point we can choose to utilize it and within a few breaths within a few seconds completely changed the way we're experiencing reality. So true.
I will point everyone to the sun breath on YouTube in the show notes is there a small breath practice that you can recommend. For listeners now, you know, I wouldn't want to explain the gist of that one. Yeah, I mean, in simplest terms, it's using your full respiratory system which will look like breathing in the belly and it's not quite breathing into the belly. The belly against taking as big of breath as you can in and out of the mouth and then making it continuous so there are no pauses and well, it's where the audio medium but I think I can probably give you a sense.
It's kind of like. And I'm making it sound more than it needs to be. You don't really need any sound. But it's that kind of active somewhat strong breathing, especially the inhale is this this there's some effort involved in the exhale is very relaxed doing that for say 108 times like that number and doing that when you're sitting down or laying down to make sure it's totally safe and then at the end of the hundred eight breaths just pausing and suspending with no breath staying with that as long as you can and it's great to time it and then when you inhale do it through the nose and take a big breath up imagining energy moving from your base up through your spine up to the crown area and holding that breath in as long as feels comfortable for you actually imagining and sometimes you can more than imagine experience that there's this energy or vitality this life force coming from the base of the spine of pelvis and just travels right up through that center channel of us and energizes our brain or higher spiritual centers or whichever way you want to look at it and that's it in simplest terms that's that would be like one round of the sun breath and then you take a few simple relaxed breaths after that and notice the change that happens from that and I'll say one more thing about it which is I think part of why it's so powerful and why positive virtual intentional ritual practice is so powerful is because what we are doing through those is raising our vibration or frequency and this is not even new age or spiritual talking where everybody knows that life and all things are made of frequency vibration.
And when we do these little simple things that raise our frequency it changes what we experience throughout life it changes our perception and also changes what we attract into our lives. And why is it called the sun breath? Well I need a name and I've studied lots of different types of breath from therapeutic sort of emotional ones the spiritual ones to yoga ones and I call it sun breath because it's great to do when the sun rises it's great to do in the first part of the day because it sets us on a great vibrational path and it's really energizing. And so for some people I'd not great to do it later in the day because it is so energizing and there's a little bit breath you can do in the evening.
Love it. It's a great name. I love the idea of starting with the sun breath exercise with the start of the day. Daniel thank you so much for sharing your insights or story with them and your extraordinaryness with everyone today.
Can you let us know where they can find you if they want to get in touch. Absolutely and thank you Jenny it's really an honor to be able to share with your people and to get some more time together talking it's you know I love what you're doing on so many different levels and the kindness that you bring to it and your curiosity is super inspiring to be able to give that you bring to so many people. And how people can reach me easiest is my website Daniel Aaron dot com it's a Daniel D a and I yell a are in and then you know Facebook I'm there to you can find me there and you to all the usual places while some of the usual places. Awesome thank you for the kind words Daniel and I'm grateful for the internet and social media for connecting me to something like you and that I'm going to keep in touch and thank you again thank you for being here for the kind words and everybody for listening.
Yeah I know thanks to all the listeners because people that are interested in you know cultural stuff like this are that you know that's our tribe those are the people that are making a difference in the world so I'm so appreciative that people are listening it's awesome. Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the pivot podcast make sure you don't miss an episode or my insider tips and templates by signing up for pivot. I curated twice monthly newsletter where I share the insights you I'm reading watching listening to and the latest tools I'm getting out on signing up at pivot method.com slash pivot list. Get your notes from this episode at pivot method.com slash podcast and connecting on Twitter at Jenny underscore quick.
Remember, bill first then your courage will follow. Have a nice day.