October 23, 2025 • 52 mins
#186 - What if the deepest calm you’ve ever felt could follow you out of the water and into everyday life? That’s the spark of our conversation with Kerry Ferguson, founder of Yoga Tree, whose path from free diving to yoga reveals how breath, mindfulness, and compassion can reshape how we move through the world.
We trace Kerry's arc from early wellness choices and Outward Bound grit to anatomy labs, massage rooms, and a turning point in the Bahamas where breath control under pressure became a doorway to peace. Back in Tennessee, she helped a community discover yoga as sanctuary, even holding space on a day of national grief. Kerry shares a clear, practical technique—sit tall, breathe through the nose, expand the belly on inhale, and extend exhale to twice the length—to quiet anxiety and teach the nervous system to trust you again. Her approach demystifies meditation, inviting you to watch thoughts like clouds until the sky clears.
Travel is a thread that binds it all together. Kerry leads mindful retreats in Greece and beyond, where mornings begin on the mat and days unfold with local food, culture, and unhurried conversations. These aren’t just vacations; they’re immersive practices in presence, from family-run kitchens to sunset meditations. We also dig into yoga’s evolution in the West—why the pendulum swung toward fitness and why many are now returning to philosophy, chanting, and stillness. Kerry’s stories, including a powerful moment from a silent retreat in Dharamshala, remind us that our quiet can steady someone else’s storm.
If you’re seeking anxiety relief, mind-body tools, or a more intentional way to travel, this conversation will meet you where you are and nudge you toward where you want to be. Listen, breathe with us, and if it resonates, share the episode, subscribe, and leave a review so more people can find their way back to calm.
To learn more about Kerry and Yoga Tree check out her website www.myyogatree.com and give her a follow on Instagram @myyogatree.
Want to be a guest on Journey with Jake? Send me a message on PodMatch, here: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/journeywithjake
Visit LandPirate.com to get your gear that has you, the adventurer, in mind. Use the code "Journey with Jake" to get an additional 15% off at check out.
Visit geneticinsights.co and use the code "DISCOVER25" to enjoy a sweet 25% off your first purchase.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Today we're slowing things down and tuning in with
(00:02):
Carrie Ferguson, owner of YogaTree.
Carrie and I dive into the powerof mindfulness, compassion, and
how yoga can truly transform theway we move through life.
This is one of thoseconversations that just feels
good for the soul.
Welcome to Journal with Chase.
This is a podcast aboutadventure and how through our
adventures we can overcome thechallenges of life that come our
(00:23):
way.
While I expect you will learnsome things about different
adventures, this show willentertain you.
Each episode will featuredifferent guests, forecasts,
feature experiences, differentstories, different adventures.
Not only will you beentertained, but you also have
to fill your face.
(01:48):
Now, take a deep breath, relax,and let's dive into this
inspiring chat with CarrieFerguson.
All right, I'm excited.
Today I have Carrie Ferguson onthe show.
Carrie, welcome to Journey withJake.
SPEAKER_01 (02:00):
Thank you so much for having me.
SPEAKER_00 (02:02):
Yeah, this is fun.
I always like it when I getsomebody like you who's just got
this energy about you.
I can just kind of tell it, justyou're feeding this energy,
which I love.
I love to talk about that.
We're going to dive into yourwhole yoga experience, your yoga
journey, so to speak.
Before we dive into that,though, give me a little
background.
You got a beautiful backgroundwhere you're sitting right now,
where you're from, where yougrew up, that sort of thing.
(02:23):
Just a little background on whoCarrie is.
SPEAKER_01 (02:25):
Right now I'm in Johnson City, Tennessee.
That's in the northeastern partof Tennessee in the Appalachian
Mountains, and it's reallybeautiful.
I moved here when I was sevenyears old.
So I'm originally from NewJersey, which sometimes I hide
and sometimes I tell.
Yeah, I've I've spent a lot ofmy life here.
I've also traveled quite a bit,but this is this has played home
(02:47):
base for me for a long, longtime.
And it's a it's a reallybeautiful place.
It's where I founded the yogaschool as well.
So I have a deep, uh richcommunity here.
SPEAKER_00 (02:58):
Family life, siblings, parents, kind of what
was your family life growing up?
SPEAKER_01 (03:03):
I'm an only child.
Yeah.
I think, and it's so funnybecause I find that through
conversations, especiallytraveling or even locally, I
resonate always with onlychildren.
Like we can pick each other out,but I'm definitely but very
independent as an only child.
Uh my whole family is from NewJersey, and then my parents
(03:25):
moved in the mid to late 70shere to Tennessee to have a
change of life, change of pace,really to raise their child,
which is me.
Then I have a son.
I'm a single, actually onlyparent, sole parent, and I have
a son who is now 20 years old,and he's out near you at Arizona
State University in Tempe.
SPEAKER_00 (03:46):
Very good.
He's in all right, SouthwestUnited States.
Very good.
20-year-old son, how do you howdo you how is it having a
20-year-old son?
And now you're you're an emptynester, I guess.
SPEAKER_01 (03:56):
Yeah, well, it's it's a good day to ask me today
because it's really great.
And we had a great, greatconversation last night, and I I
get kind of you know all filledup with goodness.
And I'll talk a little bit kindof he weaves into my journey uh
a lot, of course, being thathe's been in it for 20 years,
but it's uh it was a realchallenge.
(04:18):
About two years ago, it was areal challenge.
I was so fortunate, and he wasjust this amazing stellar kid.
We I homeschooled traveled withhim for four years all over,
really all over the globe, uhparticularly in Europe.
He was an amazing travelcompanion and student and son,
and it was it was fantastic.
(04:40):
And then he went to the publichigh school here in Johnson
City, Tennessee, and that wasfine.
And then towards the end, likehis senior year, I kind of felt
like, oh man, we skipped allthat crazy teenage acting wild
stuff.
And no, we didn't.
He just did it later when he was17, 18, into 19.
(05:02):
We sort of had a disconnect.
It was just him spreading hiswings and trying to figure out
who he was as a person.
And I thought I was prepared forthat, but I wasn't quite
prepared for that.
This last year or year and ahalf, we've really we've
reconnected and re-established anew relationship, and it's
(05:24):
really beautiful.
It's really, really cool.
SPEAKER_00 (05:26):
It's amazing how things evolve and how things
change, and you think, okay,things are gonna go one way, and
then something happens and itkind of goes a different route.
But I'm I'm glad that you'vekind of got that relationship
back with your son.
That's that's beautiful to hear.
SPEAKER_01 (05:39):
I I reached out to a lot of friends who are parents
of older kids, you know, andthey were always like, he's
gonna come back around and it'sgonna be okay, but it was really
painful for a while, you know,and we'd been so, so close for
so long.
And and and he's a very matureyoung young man.
I mean, he's you know, 20 andgoing through whatever 20.
He's able to ar articulatethings really well, and so we've
(06:03):
had some really deepconversations.
Yeah, I feel like I'm I'm veryfortunate that that it did
circle back around, you know,and not not too long of a period
where we were disconnected.
SPEAKER_00 (06:15):
So all right.
It's been over 20 years thatyou've been doing yoga, probably
pushing 30 years, maybe thatyou've been involved with yoga.
SPEAKER_01 (06:23):
Yep.
SPEAKER_00 (06:23):
Take us take us back to the beginning.
Kind of what what first drew youto yoga?
SPEAKER_01 (06:27):
The beginning, because for me, yoga it's really
my lifestyle, it's the way thatI live.
So when I was 13, uh I becamevegetarian, and pe people ask
questions about the the who,what, where, when, why for some
of these beginning things.
And I uh a couple thingsrecently have popped up to maybe
(06:50):
help me understand, but I justdon't know exactly where the the
impulse came from.
But at 13, I decided that youknow I wanted to be physically
fit and I took aerobics classesand I became vegetarian and I
decided I wasn't gonna take any,you know, pharmaceutical
medicines.
Like I didn't take aspirin forheadaches, and it this was not
(07:13):
from my family, you know, thiswas not something that any of my
friends were doing at all.
So it was really, I was kind offlying solo with that.
I used to ask my mom to drop meoff at these aerobics classes
where the women were all 20 to30 years older than me.
And there were always theselittle handouts on these special
(07:35):
diets, you know, back in the inthe 80s, everybody was doing
crazy diets like eat fruit allone day, eat, you know, only eat
cantaloupe or crazy things.
And so I started getting reallyinterested in nutrition and
wellness and healthcare.
My journey was really aboutwellness.
I went to the University ofAlabama, and the summer before I
(07:58):
graduated, I did anoutward-bound program.
I went to the San Juan Mountainsin southern Colorado and I lived
above treeline for almost amonth.
Yeah, it was with no tent, justa tarp and a sleeping bag, and
rock climbed and hiked all the14ers in that area, 14,000 foot
(08:19):
peaks.
And it was life-changing.
It was, it altered my life.
You know, it was I didn't knowuntil after, but it was a
leadership training, but therewas a little bit of that kind of
underpinning in it.
And we did like fasting and athree-day solo, like these
really incredible experiences.
So I went back to Alabama, Ispent my senior year, and the
(08:42):
day after I graduated, I packedup my dog and my Honda Accord
and drove across the country tomove back to Colorado, where I
felt like I finally found mypeople.
And I had traveled my place.
Yeah, I had traveled a littlebit.
My mom had gotten into realestate a little later in life,
and so sometimes she would takeme on these real estate
(09:03):
conventions to different cities,you know, San Francisco, New
Orleans, and I had I hadtraveled, you know, a little
bit.
So I moved to Colorado becausethere were people who thought
like me out there, you know,from that.
I lived in Boulder, Colorado fora while.
Then I lived in a little towncalled Crested Butte, Colorado,
(09:23):
little tiny ski town, and I fellin love, which many of my
stories wrap around that.
And I traveled with a guy forthree or four years, and we
would move someplace and wewould live and get jobs, and um,
then we would move to anotherplace.
And I did that, you know.
We were in Mexico, we lived inAlaska, we lived in South
(09:46):
America, kind of all over theplace.
And we were practicing ourSpanish sometimes, and
throughout that, I was learningabout different cultures and how
they use herbal medicine toheal, and you know, really food
be thy medicine for me, youknow, and so I was into wellness
and healthcare, and we wound upin Oregon, in Bend, Oregon, and
(10:08):
I worked at a little naturalfood store, and I really started
learning a more and more aboutnutrition.
I had a background in nutrition,but it was very clinical, like
dietetics, you know.
And I started learning aboutwhole foods and seasonal foods,
really learning about herbalmedicine from growing and
cultivating and making tincturesout of things.
(10:30):
We left there and I moved to SanDiego to Southern California,
and I found this little healingarts school.
I wanted to study, they had acertificate to become a whole
foods nutritional counselor.
It was a two-year program.
So I worked at a bank, I workedat a restaurant, I worked at an
animal hospital, and I went toschool all at the same time.
(10:51):
And I love I loved it.
I loved my life.
I had a little motorcycle inPacific Beach and San Diego, and
you know, it was like living thedream.
And in that school, I got reallyinterested in anatomy and
physiology.
That was that was, you know,what was being taught in our
nutrition classes, of course.
And the one of our anatomyteachers was a chiropractor, and
(11:13):
he came to me and he said, youknow, you really you just seem
to have a knack for this.
You should do the massagetherapy module that they had at
the school.
And I was like, Ew, I'm not evenreally a big hugger.
No, I think I'm fine.
Well, he he persuaded me, and Ibecame a massage therapist.
One of my mentors in theprogram, her husband was a yoga
(11:34):
teacher.
And so I was around him a lot,and I was in Southern California
practicing yoga.
That was just, it was, you know,just a part of what was going
on.
And then when I startedstudying, I started realizing
how much yoga I had kind ofalready been practicing without
it being called yoga.
You know, the movements, thelifestyle, not not just being
(11:57):
vegetarian, but some of thephilosophies and principles that
I learned later, looking back,and I had already really been
living that lifestyle, you know,and and the way that just living
your life in a way, with truth,with honesty, with integrity,
with caring for others, andthose sorts of things.
I then went to New Zealand.
(12:17):
This was with a differentboyfriend, and he was a rugby
player.
He was playing for the allblacks in New Zealand, and I
went to a special school tobecome a naturopath in New
Zealand.
And so you can do like athree-year program.
So we only lived there for ayear, but I studied herbal
medicine, yoga, massage therapy,just all the healing arts, just
(12:40):
living, and especially there inNew Zealand, people just they
they live life, you know, justthe lifestyle is being outside
and fresh foods and communityand just a very healthy way of
living.
I that's what I found.
Then I came back to the UnitedStates, decided that I was gonna
go to school in Arizona actuallyto study naturopathic medicine.
(13:04):
Well, I fell in love again.
This maybe the maybe thispodcast isn't about yoga, it's
about my love life.
Okay, no, that was it.
Just those those three.
Those three?
SPEAKER_00 (13:15):
Okay, I'll say I'm counting three.
SPEAKER_01 (13:16):
All right, maybe three, maybe one more.
My parents had just gottendivorced.
My mom will love that I tellthis part of it.
My parents had just gottendivorced, and I was in my late
20s.
My mom called and she said thatshe had these friends who were
gonna be in the Bahamas livingon a sailboat for a little bit.
She wanted to fly me there forthe weekend.
Said okay, so I I went for theweekend.
(13:38):
Well, I fell in love with thescuba dive instructor on the
island.
And this this is where theactual story comes to be.
So I met him, he's living on anisland.
I was living in the desert.
My mom went back home toTennessee where she was, and we
built this long-distancerelationship.
And so eventually I left theschool and I moved to the
(14:01):
Bahamas.
Why not?
When I was there, he taught mehow to free dive.
So free diving is you know goingunder the water without scuba
equipment.
I'd only I'd probably been 10 to15 feet under the surface of the
water prior to that in my late20s.
I'd always been around the oceanand the water and stuff, but not
not diving or or snorkelingreally.
(14:23):
And so after, you know, sometime, weeks maybe, I was diving
down to 25, 35 feet, 45 feet,get, you know, deeper and
deeper.
And really, what happened was,you know, and I haven't talked
about like, oh, there were somestressful traumatic periods in
my upbringing.
I just, but I'm, as you cantell, like, okay, let's just go.
(14:47):
Let's just, we gotta, we gottashake it off and keep moving
forward.
And this is how things are gonnabe.
And under the water, I felt thisreally deep sense of peace.
Like when I was under there, itwas I loved how quiet it was
just to be under the waterwithout the you know, this all
the gear.
SPEAKER_00 (15:06):
You don't have the oxygen sound, and yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (15:09):
Right there, which is cool anyway.
That sound is kind of a cool,relaxing sound.
But so we would and we would goin caves and you know, in the
Bahamas, this is in the Abacos,the marine life is just
stunning.
So the coral, you know, is sobright and vibrant, and all the
the grouper and the turtles andthe dolphins and the spotted
(15:29):
eagle rays, there's so much, youknow, to take in, but it was so
peaceful.
That relationship wound upending.
We um Hurricane Floyd hit whileI was living there and it
devastated our island.
It was it was really it wasincredible what what happened.
And I was on the volunteer firedepartment, which was pretty
funny, but but we it was verytraumatic what we went through.
(15:51):
But I wound up leaving theisland.
I still loved you know thatconnection that I had made, and
it was really because of him.
You know, he just helped to showme this love for being
underwater.
So I I wanted to continue that,and I found a free free dive
course where we I went to thekeys, like a key largo for 10
(16:12):
days, and the teacher, myteacher, his name is JJ Mayo,
and he's French, and his father,his name is Jacques Mayol, and
he was also French, he's passedaway, was a very famous free
diver.
And there's even a movie calledLe Grand Blue, a a French movie,
is is a great, like a greatmovie, just a special movie to
(16:34):
me.
So I trained with his son.
We were just barely in thewater, like we were never in the
water.
We were always sitting on thebeach or by the side of the pool
doing breath work practice,meditation, yoga.
It was all yoga.
And I started to realize oh, Ican feel the same way that I
felt underwater.
(16:55):
I can access that on land.
And I was just that was it.
I was hooked.
You know, at first I was soirritated, like, why aren't we
getting in the water all thetime?
Oh my gosh, oh my gosh.
And then realizing that this iswhat it was all about.
It was controlling your centralnervous system, relaxing, you
know, the central nervoussystem, then accessing this
(17:18):
place of peace that was that wasalways in there, you know.
And it, I mean, it soundscliche, but it's so it's really,
really true.
And things happen, and I I talkabout this a lot in the class,
the yoga classes that I teach.
It's like when your heart isopen, when your mind is open
with a positive attitude, reallynot it's not it's not likes and
(17:39):
dislikes or desire necessarily.
We we try to kind of set thoseaside in the in the real
philosophy, the practice ofyoga, but what's meant to be to
help you to learn and and yogatruly is about getting to know
yourself.
And so if you're really on thatjourney to get to know yourself,
then the things that aresupposed to happen in your life,
(18:00):
I believe they happen.
And the people who are meant tobe in your life, they appear.
And it's like, how did thishappen?
You don't even have tonecessarily question it, you
know, if if we can just be opento that, and so that that's what
happened.
And I came back to to JohnsonCity, to Tennessee, and I got
(18:20):
connected with a doctor who wasa doctor of internal medicine
who had you know reputation, 30years in his practice, and he
suddenly was ready to jump offinto alternative medicine.
You know, this was 1999, 2000,and we still were calling it
alternative medicine.
(18:41):
Integrative is really where Itry to live, but I lived in
Southern California and we werewe were learning that it was
these were alternatives.
This was different thanconventional medicine.
I worked with him, I did massageand personal training, and uh
you name it, I did cookingclasses with people, I took them
to the grocery store.
It was I worked with him, it wasjust amazing for for a couple
(19:05):
years I worked with him.
But so after the first littlebit, I'd been teaching aerobics
classes and stretching classesand things all all this time all
along.
And but usually the class wasyou know, movement, like some
fun movement for about 30minutes, Jane Fonda style, and
then the last 30 minutes wasjust stretching, and I would not
(19:26):
knowing what I was doing, I wasguiding meditations and I was
teaching yoga essentially.
Well, at that time in our city,there were three yoga teachers,
uh, older ladies, two of themwere older ladies, and they were
just like one lady was teachingin a hotel, and one leach lady
was teaching at the fittestcenter, but there was no yoga
school.
People kept asking, well, wewant we're hearing about yoga,
(19:49):
you know.
We live in this valley, andpeople were hearing like what's
going on.
And I talked to the doctor andhe said, Well, go do a a formal
training, you know, let's reallylet's do this.
So he paid for half, and I paidhim back at with you know, when
I came back, and I went and Ilived in really it was a convent
(20:09):
in Connecticut for a month andwith a group of students, there
were 30 of us and two yogateachers.
It was a ma it was amazing.
It was, you know, we the thetraining that I went through, I
think was so it was just sospecial.
You know, we had silence fromprobably four or five o'clock in
the afternoon until 10 o'clockin the morning.
(20:32):
We still had meditation, we ateour meals, we would attend
lectures, but we didn't talk, wewould listen.
And then we were sharing a roomwith someone that we didn't
know, and then you could go andtake walks, and we would walk
through the halls, but you know,eating your meals without and
you're not angry at the otherperson, you know.
You can eat a meal in silenceand not be getting away.
SPEAKER_00 (20:54):
Usually it's because you're mad at somebody, yeah,
exactly.
unknown (20:56):
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (20:57):
But this is intentional.
Again, it was justlife-changing.
And I came back to Johnson Cityand you know, offered a few
classes.
In fact, I did a big workshop onsub the September 11th.
We set it for that evening, andin the morning when you know we
everybody was watching what washappening, you know, the whole
(21:17):
our whole city was shuttingdown.
And so everybody said, You haveto cancel, you have to cancel
your class, you have to cancelyour class.
And I really like I meditatedabout it, meditated about, and I
said, We have to have thisclass.
We have to have this place forpeople to come and sit together.
And it there must have been 50people that showed up for the
class last last night.
(21:38):
And that really was like thebeginning of the classes
growing.
And I was just teaching, youknow, three or four mornings a
week, two or three evenings aweek, and it just kept expanding
and it was it was justbeautiful.
Then a uh the father of a a akid that I grew up with, he came
to me and he said, I have thisspace that's been sitting empty,
(22:01):
and I think it's just calling toyou, and I want and you know, I
want you to, I've heard aboutwhat you're doing.
Come and open a yoga school.
And I said, There's just no, Ican't afford this.
I don't I barely know what I'mdoing, you know.
And he's like, Let's just, youknow, I'll I'll charge you$500
or something, like a third ofwhat it would cost.
(22:21):
And if it works in six months,you pay me what you're supposed
to pay me.
And if it doesn't, we shakehands and that's that.
So that started, and I opened ayoga school, and it just, you
know, that's where I got toreally connect with the
community.
I I would go and teach atschools and I would teach at
business meetings, you know,people are in suits, and I'm
(22:42):
asking them to stand up fromtheir rolling chair and do some
stretching and breathing, andyou know, the and the people
that were coming to classes,they were people who were
helping other people in thecommunity.
They were social workers, theywere teachers, they were moms,
they were, you know, uh and atthat time, even like some guy,
we have we have a lot of riversand lakes around.
(23:04):
So it was also fitnessenthusiasts, but not just coming
to stretch, but also they neededto be chilled out when they're
going down these waterfalls intheir kayaks.
So it was, you know, mentalhealth awareness and and
meditation as well.
So it was really, it was reallybeautiful, really, really
beautiful.
SPEAKER_00 (23:22):
So that was kind of the yeah, that was like the the
the quick journey, but I mean itit's it's amazing and it's
amazing what you're doing now.
And I know your my yoga tree, isthat the name of your your
school, your yoga school?
SPEAKER_01 (23:34):
Yoga tree is the name of the school, yeah.
Yoga tree.
My myyoga tree.com is the okay.
That's the website.
That's what I was thinking.
SPEAKER_00 (23:41):
Yoga tree.
My yoga tree is the website.
SPEAKER_01 (23:43):
Yep.
SPEAKER_00 (23:44):
Beautiful.
I love it.
I want to go back to the wholediving, free diving thing.
And you you talked about animportant part of meditation in
general, but yoga in general isthe breathing.
Because I think someone like mewho's on the outside looking in,
when you think of yoga, youknow, I think of you know, the
downward dog and all theseposes.
But there's a lot involved withthe breathing as well.
(24:06):
And I, you know, I do a littlemeditation in the morning as
well.
It's something I like to do.
So can you give me just alittle, you know, while I got
you here, I would take advantageof your expertise, just like a
little uh a breathing practiceor something someone could do
real quick at home if maybethere's some anxiety building up
or something like what's awhat's a good little uh
breathing practice we can do?
SPEAKER_01 (24:25):
Yeah, yeah.
I mean super simple.
And I always use these twowords, not easy, but simple.
So simplistic.
So because you know, to somepeople it's not gonna be
something easy, right?
We're we're we're out ofpractice.
We were if we watch babies oranimals when they're sleeping or
(24:46):
when they're just resting,they're when they inhale,
they're filling up.
And then when they exhale,there's a contract.
And what we've gotten into doingin society is we breathe from
the chest very shallow, and alot of times the opposite.
And so just a couple reallysimple techniques.
You know, you would you woulddefinitely want to lengthen your
(25:07):
spine, like sit on the edge ofyour chair and just have a nice
long spine, and partially that'sjust so the diaphragm can
expand, right?
We have more space in there.
So we sit up really tall andthen just start to pay attention
to how you're breathing.
And it is nice if you canbreathe in through the nose and
out through the nose.
Sometimes people have troublewith that, so it's okay, you
(25:29):
could use the mouth, but itthat's gonna take it another
step to calm down the centralnervous system.
So breathing in through the noseand breathing out through the
nose.
And then you could put yourhands on on your abdomen, on
your belly, you don't have to,but if we start to notice as I
breathe in, I'm gonna fill uplike you're filling a balloon,
(25:50):
and then on the exhale, yousqueeze out the old air.
So you're just sitting upright,maybe breathing through the
nostrils, inhale, expanding thebelly, exhale and squeezing.
And then that last little partis counting the breath because
really it gives it gives themind something else to do.
(26:10):
And that's a lot of times why weask students to close your eyes
because when the eyes areopening, they're just
processing, right?
Constantly, they that's for oursafety.
I mean, there's some things thatare just for our well-being,
like, okay, wait, what you know,is there a tiger?
But that kind of thing.
SPEAKER_00 (26:26):
Who knows?
SPEAKER_01 (26:27):
So, yeah, if we if we close the eyes, then we're
just it's it's one more layer oflike, okay, wait, you know, less
things are going on inside mymind.
So sit up tall, breathe throughthe nose, inhale, expand,
exhale, contract, and try tolengthen the amount of the
exhale.
So if you breathe in, see howhigh you can count.
(26:48):
Like for me, I could easilycount to five.
So I would breathe in one, two,three, four, five, and then
exhale ten, nine, eight, seven,six, five, four, three, two,
one.
So you have that one to tworatio.
So even if you breathe in fortwo, you know, breathe out for
four, or breathe in for one,breathe out for two.
(27:09):
You know what I mean?
So you and it doesn't have tobe, but it it's just a little
bit of an anchor that gives youryour mind something.
So you're working on just thebreathing and just the technique
or just those numbers.
And then you're you're notthinking about some of the other
just chatter, we call it, inyour mind, just the the riti
(27:31):
that's in in the mind.
SPEAKER_00 (27:32):
So I feel like I feel like that's the difficulty
I have when I'm kind of tryingto to practice, is I still feel
like my mind's like, you know,with other things.
I'm like trying to, how do I,but I think the breathing helps
when you, yeah, let me justcount to four and then count to
eight, or I think that's agreat, great practice.
SPEAKER_01 (27:48):
Just gives that that focal.
I um I was very fortunate lastyear.
I went to India twice and I didtwo silent retreats.
One was 10 days and one was ninedays.
The first one was was reallyalmost like a it was supposed to
be sort of an introduction tomeditation.
I mean, we meditated for hours,hours.
(28:10):
You know, we started at 6 a.m.
and we finished at nine, and wedid eat.
We did have some lecture also,where again, we weren't talking,
but we're still sittingpeacefully, you know.
That style of meditation isreally just sort of observing
your thoughts, which for somepeople is very challenging and
they need something more guided.
(28:31):
You know, but it's said thatreally that that higher when
we're trying to reach that placewhere we really can't observe
the thoughts.
And so one of one last thingI'll say about is, you know, I
would explain to students tojust kind of relax with their
eyes closed, sit up tall orrecline, and then imagine that
the thoughts are like clouds,and that as you breathe, you're
(28:54):
just gonna move those thoughtsso that eventually you're just
looking at a blue sky.
And one thing we talk about inyoga is attachment, and that's
being attached to myrelationship with my son, or how
much I love zucchini, or youknow, what what whatever it is
that we have these attachments.
So we're we get attached tothose thoughts and what's inside
(29:20):
of the thoughts, but also theemotions that are kind of
attached to those thoughts.
That's really what it causes thesuffering, right?
It's not usually the experience,but the oh, like the angst that
we feel around it.
SPEAKER_00 (30:06):
Absolutely.
No, I appreciate you sharingthat because yeah, that's I
mean, that's something Istruggle with, so it's nice to
kind of that's why I was like,hey, I got a professional here.
I might as well uh takeadvantage of this.
SPEAKER_01 (30:15):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (30:16):
You you talked about India.
I know you've been to NewZealand.
You've been you've done a lot oftraveling, and I noticed I
looked on your website earlier,and I think there's a you got
there's a something in Greececoming up for an excursion, you
know, for yoga.
Talk about yeah, yoga and otherplaces.
It just going and doing yoga inthese other places?
Does it vary with where you'reat?
Like do the cultures play intoanything?
(30:36):
Kind of talk about the wholetravel side of it a little bit.
SPEAKER_01 (30:39):
Okay, I I would love to.
So I mentioned that it Ihomeschooled my son for four
years, so fifth, sixth, seventh,and eighth grades.
And off the off the yoga track,which it really isn't, is I'm
also a a Waldorf teacher, acertified Waldorf teacher.
It I studied Waldorf educationreally just for a parenting
(30:59):
style, just to really learn, youknow, some of the the aspects of
parenting.
And that kind of I actually eventaught at a Waldorf school for a
year.
And you know, it there have beena there are a lot of different
avenues that go with that.
When we homeschooled, well, I Iput my son he went to the school
where I taught in Arizona inkindergarten.
(31:20):
And then we moved back toTennessee and he went into the
public school system for acouple years, and he thrived,
and he he just did great.
He loved it, everything wentgreat.
I was really happy with it.
I I was wor you know, that gotto kind of reopen.
I'd closed my studio for a year,and I reopened the studio in a
different way, and then I wasreaching to the addiction
(31:43):
recovery uh population as welland doing all sorts of different
things.
And then the his fourth gradeyear of school, I became just
really disappointed in theeducational system.
It basically was aboutcreativity and expression that I
I wasn't seeing he was able todo those things.
It was just making me sad.
And so I said, Okay, I think Ihave enough skills to do some
(32:06):
homeschooling.
I think.
And so we decided, and I said,What if, you know, what if we I
just saved money and then wetook a big trip in the fall
semester, and then we'll takeanother big trip in the spring
semester, and then we'll allkind of weave all the curriculum
around that.
And he was like, Yeah.
And at the time he was onlyreading Percy Jackson and like
(32:29):
Greek mythology.
And so he said, Could we go toGreece, mommy?
And I was like, What?
I was thinking like Acapulco orsomething, you know, someplace
easier.
I said, Yeah, let's do it.
I'd never been to Greece.
I'd been to Ireland once for awedding, but otherwise never
been to Europe.
I didn't have any credit cards,so we had just cash.
(32:51):
I had$5,000 in my pocket in cashin euros that I got from the
bank with my nine-year-old son.
And we hopped on a flight and wereserved two nights, the first
two nights in Athens at a hotel,and then we had a 30-day ticket.
So we had a month, and we had noitinerary, and when we got
there, he decided from what hehad learned and studied about
(33:14):
the history and the mythologywhere he wanted to go and what
he wanted to see.
And then we would just hop aferry and find a hotel.
And and so we did that, and wemet amazing people, and I'm
still, you know, I've this willbe the 11th year that I've been
to Greece.
And it was it was just amazing.
(33:34):
We would come back from thesetrips, and your face and your
wow was what everybody wassaying around here.
And I said, Well, just come withme.
Like, come on, you know, you wejust come, but I can show you
how to do it.
And so, really, in a simple way,that's sort of how it evolved.
And I had the opportunity to doa couple other retreats, and
(33:56):
I've now offered some yogateacher training, you know, like
a year-long yoga teachertraining program, and do you
know, do little workshops withthat.
But so people just said, Hey, wewant to go, we want to go with
you.
So I organized the trip.
Usually I go first, and thenthey come and meet me, and we
practice yoga in the morning,meditation, and then a yoga
(34:18):
class, and then we go do somefun excursions and explore, and
it's all usually local peoplethat I've met over the years.
I mean, going to little tinyrestaurants where the family has
owned the restaurant forgenerations, and and I'm
plant-based, so you know,they're always accommodating for
like being vegan and for ourgroup with all sorts of
(34:40):
different needs, and and theyloved like the everyone always
loves the connections, you know,that we have.
Yeah, and then in the evening,we usually have some kind of a
like a gentle yoga class andthen a nighttime meditation, and
you know, it's meant to be eatgood, healthy foods, and we have
really rich conversations.
There's something beautifulabout being in retreat, but also
(35:04):
the the ancient land of Greeceis pretty spectacular.
And the people and and theculture, and always we try to do
a project where we're we'regiving back, you know, we're not
just coming and and taking, butin some way, shape, or form,
other than buying tourist, youknow, materials that that they
(35:24):
love to sell to us anyway, andthat's nice, you know, really
trying to uniquely give back andhonor the place where we are.
So yeah.
So I get to combine my love andI was just talking to um a
friend earlier.
You know, I have a lot offriends who've been on retreats
for maybe it's just travel ormaybe like a painting retreat.
(35:46):
Some of the students that I knowwent on last year, and they
loved it, but they said it wasjust missing like that take care
of yourself aspect, getting upin the morning, get your body
ready for whether you're gonnahike or swim or go look at some
tourist things, and then just tobe more aware and paying
attention.
You know, sometimes traveling,like the you see tour the
(36:10):
tourist mindset, right?
You're not even paying attentionto what's going on.
So it's to help really find likeconnection and depth when we're
having these deep experiencesthat I think impact us so much
to see and be with other peopleand other cultures and other
other countries.
So yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (36:29):
I like it when you look at it like that because you
know a lot of times you think,oh, I'm gonna travel, and then
you think, oh, that means thatgives me the excuse to eat
poorly and kind of lounge arounda little bit more and do those
things, but then you don't feelas good while you're on that
vacation.
SPEAKER_01 (36:42):
You don't, and then you come home and then you've
got like this hangover vacationsituation.
You know, people are just like,ah, like they feel exhausted,
they don't feel good, you know,then everybody's gonna eat clean
then and that kind of thing.
So what if you're if you'rereally building up, you know,
while you're there and takingreally good care of yourself,
(37:03):
and you can still enjoyyourself, you know?
You can definitely still enjoyyourself, but and I think the
added, you know, with movementand with meditation, it it does,
it just it it connectseverything in a really special
way.
SPEAKER_00 (37:17):
So you love Greece.
Do you have any other particularplace that you really love with
all your travels?
SPEAKER_01 (37:22):
Well, I do I loved being in New Zealand.
I really loved being there.
It's just very far, you know,it's it's far away.
It's far, but I I love NewZealand.
And I do have a a special placein my heart for Costa Rica, you
know, Central America.
Costa Rica is a special I thinkwhat I loved so much about Costa
Rica is so much of the land isnot covered with asphalt.
(37:45):
You know, it's so a lot of timesin the different seasons, you
can't get from A to B unless youhave like big mud or tires, you
know, on a four-wheeler kind ofthing.
It you just I just feel like theearth breathes there.
And and that's the feeling I getin Greece too, is there's so
much I mean, it's a lot drier inGreece, of course, but where
(38:07):
where the earth seems to bebreathing and and has this space
unencumbered, um, that feelsthat feels really nice.
You know, you you said somethingbefore, it was always my dream
to go every season, so fall,spring, winter, fall, but
summer, spring, winter, fall, toa place that it's ideal.
(38:28):
You know, I'm also a skier, so Ilove skiing in the Italian Alps
because we my son and I metsomeone from Italy and we we
lived on a sailboat for fivemonths in the Mediterranean and
traveled all, you know, Croatiadown into Greece, Montenegro,
Albania, and then we we wouldspend a month or so in the Alps
in Italy.
(38:50):
So I love, I love, you know, I Ithink there's really this
there's so many special parts ofdifferent places.
And again, like that push foryoga of getting to know who you
are, really understandingyourself.
It's it's that's really what thejourney is about.
Like you said, about you know,downward-facing dog and and
(39:13):
warrior poses, those are sogreat.
And I mean, I think I feel sogood and healthy, and I'm so
grateful every morning that Iget up and I I have these
physical practices and move, butyou know, the the philosophy and
feeling calm, and I'm not alwayscalm.
I mean, you can't be calm andtravel all over the world.
You gotta you have to have alittle go in your step, right?
(39:35):
In a peaceful way, in uh, youknow, and knowing who I am, just
like what I went through with myson, or you know, you had asked
something about challenges.
I mean, I've had a lot, a lot ofchallenges, relationship
challenges, challenges withmyself, challenges with, you
know, business.
Uh unfortunately, part of what Ido, there's a business aspect to
(39:58):
that.
And it's a really hard bridge togap.
And now yoga has become it'sflipped back into the fitness
industry again, and that's notwhere I live with it, you know.
To me, it's very sacred, it'svery ritualistic, and you know,
the practice is so deep.
And and I love hot yoga and andthe movement aspects of it, but
(40:20):
there's also this greatopportunity for it to be broader
than that as well.
SPEAKER_00 (40:26):
How do you deal with those challenges when, you know,
like you said, it's kind offlipped back into that arena of
fitness?
You're more, you know, you'remore the wellness, you know,
mental health, that kind ofthing.
How do you deal with thosechallenges?
What kind of things do you do toovercome those?
SPEAKER_01 (40:40):
Yeah, that that's I just try to be just kill them
with kindness, is what I say.
You know, I just try to reallybe peaceful with it all because
I hear, I hear lots of things,and what what has actually
started to happen now is there'sa swing back around.
It's taken quite a while, butnow I'm starting to see people
(41:01):
show up.
We we call instead of sayingstudio, I was taught long ago to
call the space the shala, whichis means home.
So the the yoga shalla, becauseit's a really sacred practice
space.
And so now I'm seeing yogateachers who have graduated from
a 200-hour certified yogateacher training program with
(41:24):
some more, maybe with more ofthe fitness aspect, they're
coming back and they're showingup at the shala.
I'm seeing them there, and theysay, We love what we do, we love
practicing and the communitythat's been built, but we want
to practice and maybe learn toteach meditation.
And I play the harmonium and Ising in my classes, and I teach
(41:45):
from the you know, the BhagavadGita and from the Yoga Sutra
from these texts, and that nowpeople are really interested in
in learning that again.
And it's so exciting.
So I think patience, you know,and just being kind and and
really it's just leading byimitation.
Like I'm just trying to live mylife in the way that I'm
(42:07):
actually teaching it becauseI've always had respect for
those people who lived withintegrity, so it's hard, I don't
do it every day, but I get upevery morning and I try again
just to say, okay, we can all dokind of our own thing, and let's
not say that your thing isbetter or whatever.
Just maybe you need these toolsat this time and these tools at
(42:31):
this time, and I'm here if youwant those.
SPEAKER_00 (42:34):
When people leave your class, what are you hoping
that they take away?
What's kind of the lesson youhope that they take away from
being part of your classes?
SPEAKER_01 (42:43):
Well, I want to tell you like a quick little story.
I'll I'll try not to make it toolong, but because my answer that
what what comes just likebubbling up is I hope they leave
a little bit more compassionateand a little bit more gentle on
themselves.
Because I think we're really,really, really hard on ourselves
right now.
That we also know that I try tosay this frequently, you know,
(43:08):
looking around in the class thathas 10 or 15 people, and there's
a student, and usually I haveconfidentiality is very
important to me.
Doing massage for 25 years,teaching yoga classes, I know a
lot of things about people thattheir own families don't know.
So I know things aboutindividual students that maybe
they haven't told other people.
(43:29):
And so I know that when twopeople are side by side and they
think this person can't possiblyknow what they're going through,
I know that they do.
And so I try to, you know, teacha class in a way where I'll
bring in a teaching, a reading,a philosophical thought so
people can understand they'renot alone going through some
(43:50):
things.
And so I think that that'ssomething important.
And the story I want to tell youis the first 10-day course I did
in Dharamshala, which is wherethe photo where I met the Dalai
Lama, that's where he lives.
The first course I did, it'sthis tiny little beautiful
meditation center with monkeyseverywhere.
(44:11):
Like monkeys steal your bread ifit's on your plate, if you're
not what you're like, you gottabe like this, watch out, they're
coming for your bread.
There were 138 in our group.
Luckily, because I'm just a tinybit older than many people, I
had my own room, but a lot ofpeople are in rooms with bunk
beds.
We're all sharing bathrooms,we're eating in silence, you
know, we're we're having soupfor dinner and rice and
(44:34):
vegetables for lunch, veryeverything's very basic.
There were people from all overthe world.
I was actually, well, there weretwo other Americans, 138 people
that were in these little seats,these little desks, because we
could take notes, side by side,138 people meditating for hours
all day.
And I'm sitting, and there was agirl, maybe three or four people
(44:56):
over to my right, and she wasleaned against a wall because
some people were having a hardtime just sitting still.
And I've been meditating for along time.
So, you know, I was I was finesitting.
I kept noticing her.
She had like a like a downjacket on and it was puffy and
loud.
And every time she would move,it would go, you know, or she'd
(45:17):
mess with her pen and likeclicker pen back and forth.
Being the compassionate beingthat I am, I would give her
these dirty looks.
You know, I'm just like, howdare she interrupt my stillness
and my silence?
And, you know, and I'm justthinking, my gosh, can she not
(45:37):
be still?
Can she not be still?
So after a couple days, ofcourse, through some of the
teachings and just relaxing andbeing with myself, I'm I'm
thinking, okay, just everybody'sat their own kind of place and
has their own pace and speed andwith this and just be kind and
you know, send out compassion.
(45:57):
And so after the 10 days, we hadthis big feast.
You know, we I mean it'svegetarian, but it's like this
huge feast of food, and it's sofun, and we all get to to chat
and say hello, and it's a littleoverwhelming because we've been
in silence for 10 days.
And this girl comes up to me andshe says, the girl, the crunchy
(46:17):
girl, loud girl, and she comesup to me and she says, Could I
give you a hug?
And I said, Of course,absolutely.
And so she hugged me, and Imight I might cry a little bit,
but she hugged me and uh shesaid, the day that the retreat
started, my brother got sent toGaza.
She's Israeli.
(46:38):
Every day I was afraid that Iwas gonna get a call that he had
died.
And she said, so I put myself ina position so that I could look
at you because you were sostill.
And she said, it helped me torelax and just stay still and
peaceful.
(47:00):
And yeah, I I just lost it.
And so we hugged and then Iwound up seeing her like over
the course of the next two daysin the little village where we
stayed.
And it was just, you know, youjust never know what you're what
you're how you're impactinganother person with with what
you do.
SPEAKER_00 (47:18):
Well, and and especially because you know,
your thoughts, you're like, whatis she doing?
You know, those ah, I wasgetting I'm getting choked up
thinking about that, like, ohman, wow, you know, uh, I love
that.
So having the compassion, that'swow, that's huge.
And I I appreciate you sharingthis.
We've been chatting for quite awhile.
This has been awesome for me.
Usually I ask the question, Iusually like to ask, you know,
(47:40):
what adventure means to you.
I want to ask it in relation toto yoga, because sometimes you
think, oh, yoga, it's notadventurous, but I feel like it
is.
I mean, what is how why is yogaadventurous to you?
SPEAKER_01 (47:50):
Well, I think it's adventurous because you have to
have courage to be able toreally explore parts of our
parts of yourself that you mighthide away from other people, you
know, to be really, reallyvulnerable and really expose
like this is really who I am, mytruth.
(48:10):
And and it's hard.
And to because sometimes itmeans you you step out of the
the stream of of what we feel tobe the norm.
And and I think that's changing.
You know, I think be beingdifferent, being unique is is
not a negative, but I stillthink people have a hard time
(48:31):
really expressing theirindividual truth of who they
really, really are.
I think that it just it takes ittakes courage.
And I I, you know, I'm notperfect.
I try to work on it all thetime.
And I think it's that if we canreally, really, I mean, it's
just it's this old, old schoolstuff, like really learn from
(48:54):
our experiences and try not torepeat patterns and habits that
haven't worked or they'veexpired, and now it's time to
try something new, but to bereally honest with ourselves,
it's pretty hard.
That I think that takes courage,and that's my my definition
there under adventure.
SPEAKER_00 (49:12):
This has been fascinating for me.
It's been so fun getting to knowyou.
Thank you for bringing thislight and this energy to the
show.
I I love it.
I feel like all of my guests dothat, but you just got a little
extra going on right now.
So so thank you for that.
And thank you so much for comingon Journey with Jake.
SPEAKER_01 (49:28):
Thank you, Jake.
I'm so honored.
I feel like you I feel so great.
So thank you for giving me thevenue, but being open and you're
just a beautiful person.
Thank you for what you're doing.
I'm I'm yeah, I'm just reallyhonored.
Thanks so much.
SPEAKER_00 (49:41):
Thank you so much.
Wow, I could give you a hugthrough the computer here.
unknown (49:44):
I know.
SPEAKER_00 (49:46):
What a refreshing and inspiring conversation with
Carrie Ferguson.
I love the energy she broughtand the lessons she shared about
mindfulness, compassion, andtruly being present.
Thank you so much, Carrie.
If you'd like to learn moreabout Carrie and Yoga Tree, be
sure to visit myyogatree.com andfollow her on Instagram at my
yoga tree.
As always, thank you so much forlistening to Journey with Jake.
(50:09):
I'm grateful for each of you whotunes in week after week.
Don't forget to follow me onInstagram at Journey with Jake
Podcast and check out the showon YouTube.
Just search Journey with JakePodcast.
And of course, if you'reenjoying these episodes, it
means the world when you sharethe show with friends or leave a
rating and review.
Next time on the podcast, I'mjoined by Ken Webb, whose story
(50:30):
of military service, resilience,and rediscovery after combat is
truly powerful.
You won't want to miss it.
Thanks again for being part ofthe journey.
Just remember, it's not alwaysabout the destination, as it is
about the journey.
Take care, everybody.
Today we're slowing things down and tuning in with
(00:02):
Carrie Ferguson, owner of YogaTree.
Carrie and I dive into the powerof mindfulness, compassion, and
how yoga can truly transform theway we move through life.
This is one of thoseconversations that just feels
good for the soul.
Welcome to Journal with Chase.
This is a podcast aboutadventure and how through our
adventures we can overcome thechallenges of life that come our
(00:23):
way.
While I expect you will learnsome things about different
adventures, this show willentertain you.
Each episode will featuredifferent guests, forecasts,
feature experiences, differentstories, different adventures.
Not only will you beentertained, but you also have
to fill your face.
(01:48):
Now, take a deep breath, relax,and let's dive into this
inspiring chat with CarrieFerguson.
All right, I'm excited.
Today I have Carrie Ferguson onthe show.
Carrie, welcome to Journey withJake.
SPEAKER_01 (02:00):
Thank you so much for having me.
SPEAKER_00 (02:02):
Yeah, this is fun.
I always like it when I getsomebody like you who's just got
this energy about you.
I can just kind of tell it, justyou're feeding this energy,
which I love.
I love to talk about that.
We're going to dive into yourwhole yoga experience, your yoga
journey, so to speak.
Before we dive into that,though, give me a little
background.
You got a beautiful backgroundwhere you're sitting right now,
where you're from, where yougrew up, that sort of thing.
(02:23):
Just a little background on whoCarrie is.
SPEAKER_01 (02:25):
Right now I'm in Johnson City, Tennessee.
That's in the northeastern partof Tennessee in the Appalachian
Mountains, and it's reallybeautiful.
I moved here when I was sevenyears old.
So I'm originally from NewJersey, which sometimes I hide
and sometimes I tell.
Yeah, I've I've spent a lot ofmy life here.
I've also traveled quite a bit,but this is this has played home
(02:47):
base for me for a long, longtime.
And it's a it's a reallybeautiful place.
It's where I founded the yogaschool as well.
So I have a deep, uh richcommunity here.
SPEAKER_00 (02:58):
Family life, siblings, parents, kind of what
was your family life growing up?
SPEAKER_01 (03:03):
I'm an only child.
Yeah.
I think, and it's so funnybecause I find that through
conversations, especiallytraveling or even locally, I
resonate always with onlychildren.
Like we can pick each other out,but I'm definitely but very
independent as an only child.
Uh my whole family is from NewJersey, and then my parents
(03:25):
moved in the mid to late 70shere to Tennessee to have a
change of life, change of pace,really to raise their child,
which is me.
Then I have a son.
I'm a single, actually onlyparent, sole parent, and I have
a son who is now 20 years old,and he's out near you at Arizona
State University in Tempe.
SPEAKER_00 (03:46):
Very good.
He's in all right, SouthwestUnited States.
Very good.
20-year-old son, how do you howdo you how is it having a
20-year-old son?
And now you're you're an emptynester, I guess.
SPEAKER_01 (03:56):
Yeah, well, it's it's a good day to ask me today
because it's really great.
And we had a great, greatconversation last night, and I I
get kind of you know all filledup with goodness.
And I'll talk a little bit kindof he weaves into my journey uh
a lot, of course, being thathe's been in it for 20 years,
but it's uh it was a realchallenge.
(04:18):
About two years ago, it was areal challenge.
I was so fortunate, and he wasjust this amazing stellar kid.
We I homeschooled traveled withhim for four years all over,
really all over the globe, uhparticularly in Europe.
He was an amazing travelcompanion and student and son,
and it was it was fantastic.
(04:40):
And then he went to the publichigh school here in Johnson
City, Tennessee, and that wasfine.
And then towards the end, likehis senior year, I kind of felt
like, oh man, we skipped allthat crazy teenage acting wild
stuff.
And no, we didn't.
He just did it later when he was17, 18, into 19.
(05:02):
We sort of had a disconnect.
It was just him spreading hiswings and trying to figure out
who he was as a person.
And I thought I was prepared forthat, but I wasn't quite
prepared for that.
This last year or year and ahalf, we've really we've
reconnected and re-established anew relationship, and it's
(05:24):
really beautiful.
It's really, really cool.
SPEAKER_00 (05:26):
It's amazing how things evolve and how things
change, and you think, okay,things are gonna go one way, and
then something happens and itkind of goes a different route.
But I'm I'm glad that you'vekind of got that relationship
back with your son.
That's that's beautiful to hear.
SPEAKER_01 (05:39):
I I reached out to a lot of friends who are parents
of older kids, you know, andthey were always like, he's
gonna come back around and it'sgonna be okay, but it was really
painful for a while, you know,and we'd been so, so close for
so long.
And and and he's a very matureyoung young man.
I mean, he's you know, 20 andgoing through whatever 20.
He's able to ar articulatethings really well, and so we've
(06:03):
had some really deepconversations.
Yeah, I feel like I'm I'm veryfortunate that that it did
circle back around, you know,and not not too long of a period
where we were disconnected.
SPEAKER_00 (06:15):
So all right.
It's been over 20 years thatyou've been doing yoga, probably
pushing 30 years, maybe thatyou've been involved with yoga.
SPEAKER_01 (06:23):
Yep.
SPEAKER_00 (06:23):
Take us take us back to the beginning.
Kind of what what first drew youto yoga?
SPEAKER_01 (06:27):
The beginning, because for me, yoga it's really
my lifestyle, it's the way thatI live.
So when I was 13, uh I becamevegetarian, and pe people ask
questions about the the who,what, where, when, why for some
of these beginning things.
And I uh a couple thingsrecently have popped up to maybe
(06:50):
help me understand, but I justdon't know exactly where the the
impulse came from.
But at 13, I decided that youknow I wanted to be physically
fit and I took aerobics classesand I became vegetarian and I
decided I wasn't gonna take any,you know, pharmaceutical
medicines.
Like I didn't take aspirin forheadaches, and it this was not
(07:13):
from my family, you know, thiswas not something that any of my
friends were doing at all.
So it was really, I was kind offlying solo with that.
I used to ask my mom to drop meoff at these aerobics classes
where the women were all 20 to30 years older than me.
And there were always theselittle handouts on these special
(07:35):
diets, you know, back in the inthe 80s, everybody was doing
crazy diets like eat fruit allone day, eat, you know, only eat
cantaloupe or crazy things.
And so I started getting reallyinterested in nutrition and
wellness and healthcare.
My journey was really aboutwellness.
I went to the University ofAlabama, and the summer before I
(07:58):
graduated, I did anoutward-bound program.
I went to the San Juan Mountainsin southern Colorado and I lived
above treeline for almost amonth.
Yeah, it was with no tent, justa tarp and a sleeping bag, and
rock climbed and hiked all the14ers in that area, 14,000 foot
(08:19):
peaks.
And it was life-changing.
It was, it altered my life.
You know, it was I didn't knowuntil after, but it was a
leadership training, but therewas a little bit of that kind of
underpinning in it.
And we did like fasting and athree-day solo, like these
really incredible experiences.
So I went back to Alabama, Ispent my senior year, and the
(08:42):
day after I graduated, I packedup my dog and my Honda Accord
and drove across the country tomove back to Colorado, where I
felt like I finally found mypeople.
And I had traveled my place.
Yeah, I had traveled a littlebit.
My mom had gotten into realestate a little later in life,
and so sometimes she would takeme on these real estate
(09:03):
conventions to different cities,you know, San Francisco, New
Orleans, and I had I hadtraveled, you know, a little
bit.
So I moved to Colorado becausethere were people who thought
like me out there, you know,from that.
I lived in Boulder, Colorado fora while.
Then I lived in a little towncalled Crested Butte, Colorado,
(09:23):
little tiny ski town, and I fellin love, which many of my
stories wrap around that.
And I traveled with a guy forthree or four years, and we
would move someplace and wewould live and get jobs, and um,
then we would move to anotherplace.
And I did that, you know.
We were in Mexico, we lived inAlaska, we lived in South
(09:46):
America, kind of all over theplace.
And we were practicing ourSpanish sometimes, and
throughout that, I was learningabout different cultures and how
they use herbal medicine toheal, and you know, really food
be thy medicine for me, youknow, and so I was into wellness
and healthcare, and we wound upin Oregon, in Bend, Oregon, and
(10:08):
I worked at a little naturalfood store, and I really started
learning a more and more aboutnutrition.
I had a background in nutrition,but it was very clinical, like
dietetics, you know.
And I started learning aboutwhole foods and seasonal foods,
really learning about herbalmedicine from growing and
cultivating and making tincturesout of things.
(10:30):
We left there and I moved to SanDiego to Southern California,
and I found this little healingarts school.
I wanted to study, they had acertificate to become a whole
foods nutritional counselor.
It was a two-year program.
So I worked at a bank, I workedat a restaurant, I worked at an
animal hospital, and I went toschool all at the same time.
(10:51):
And I love I loved it.
I loved my life.
I had a little motorcycle inPacific Beach and San Diego, and
you know, it was like living thedream.
And in that school, I got reallyinterested in anatomy and
physiology.
That was that was, you know,what was being taught in our
nutrition classes, of course.
And the one of our anatomyteachers was a chiropractor, and
(11:13):
he came to me and he said, youknow, you really you just seem
to have a knack for this.
You should do the massagetherapy module that they had at
the school.
And I was like, Ew, I'm not evenreally a big hugger.
No, I think I'm fine.
Well, he he persuaded me, and Ibecame a massage therapist.
One of my mentors in theprogram, her husband was a yoga
(11:34):
teacher.
And so I was around him a lot,and I was in Southern California
practicing yoga.
That was just, it was, you know,just a part of what was going
on.
And then when I startedstudying, I started realizing
how much yoga I had kind ofalready been practicing without
it being called yoga.
You know, the movements, thelifestyle, not not just being
(11:57):
vegetarian, but some of thephilosophies and principles that
I learned later, looking back,and I had already really been
living that lifestyle, you know,and and the way that just living
your life in a way, with truth,with honesty, with integrity,
with caring for others, andthose sorts of things.
I then went to New Zealand.
(12:17):
This was with a differentboyfriend, and he was a rugby
player.
He was playing for the allblacks in New Zealand, and I
went to a special school tobecome a naturopath in New
Zealand.
And so you can do like athree-year program.
So we only lived there for ayear, but I studied herbal
medicine, yoga, massage therapy,just all the healing arts, just
(12:40):
living, and especially there inNew Zealand, people just they
they live life, you know, justthe lifestyle is being outside
and fresh foods and communityand just a very healthy way of
living.
I that's what I found.
Then I came back to the UnitedStates, decided that I was gonna
go to school in Arizona actuallyto study naturopathic medicine.
(13:04):
Well, I fell in love again.
This maybe the maybe thispodcast isn't about yoga, it's
about my love life.
Okay, no, that was it.
Just those those three.
Those three?
SPEAKER_00 (13:15):
Okay, I'll say I'm counting three.
SPEAKER_01 (13:16):
All right, maybe three, maybe one more.
My parents had just gottendivorced.
My mom will love that I tellthis part of it.
My parents had just gottendivorced, and I was in my late
20s.
My mom called and she said thatshe had these friends who were
gonna be in the Bahamas livingon a sailboat for a little bit.
She wanted to fly me there forthe weekend.
Said okay, so I I went for theweekend.
(13:38):
Well, I fell in love with thescuba dive instructor on the
island.
And this this is where theactual story comes to be.
So I met him, he's living on anisland.
I was living in the desert.
My mom went back home toTennessee where she was, and we
built this long-distancerelationship.
And so eventually I left theschool and I moved to the
(14:01):
Bahamas.
Why not?
When I was there, he taught mehow to free dive.
So free diving is you know goingunder the water without scuba
equipment.
I'd only I'd probably been 10 to15 feet under the surface of the
water prior to that in my late20s.
I'd always been around the oceanand the water and stuff, but not
not diving or or snorkelingreally.
(14:23):
And so after, you know, sometime, weeks maybe, I was diving
down to 25, 35 feet, 45 feet,get, you know, deeper and
deeper.
And really, what happened was,you know, and I haven't talked
about like, oh, there were somestressful traumatic periods in
my upbringing.
I just, but I'm, as you cantell, like, okay, let's just go.
(14:47):
Let's just, we gotta, we gottashake it off and keep moving
forward.
And this is how things are gonnabe.
And under the water, I felt thisreally deep sense of peace.
Like when I was under there, itwas I loved how quiet it was
just to be under the waterwithout the you know, this all
the gear.
SPEAKER_00 (15:06):
You don't have the oxygen sound, and yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (15:09):
Right there, which is cool anyway.
That sound is kind of a cool,relaxing sound.
But so we would and we would goin caves and you know, in the
Bahamas, this is in the Abacos,the marine life is just
stunning.
So the coral, you know, is sobright and vibrant, and all the
the grouper and the turtles andthe dolphins and the spotted
(15:29):
eagle rays, there's so much, youknow, to take in, but it was so
peaceful.
That relationship wound upending.
We um Hurricane Floyd hit whileI was living there and it
devastated our island.
It was it was really it wasincredible what what happened.
And I was on the volunteer firedepartment, which was pretty
funny, but but we it was verytraumatic what we went through.
(15:51):
But I wound up leaving theisland.
I still loved you know thatconnection that I had made, and
it was really because of him.
You know, he just helped to showme this love for being
underwater.
So I I wanted to continue that,and I found a free free dive
course where we I went to thekeys, like a key largo for 10
(16:12):
days, and the teacher, myteacher, his name is JJ Mayo,
and he's French, and his father,his name is Jacques Mayol, and
he was also French, he's passedaway, was a very famous free
diver.
And there's even a movie calledLe Grand Blue, a a French movie,
is is a great, like a greatmovie, just a special movie to
(16:34):
me.
So I trained with his son.
We were just barely in thewater, like we were never in the
water.
We were always sitting on thebeach or by the side of the pool
doing breath work practice,meditation, yoga.
It was all yoga.
And I started to realize oh, Ican feel the same way that I
felt underwater.
(16:55):
I can access that on land.
And I was just that was it.
I was hooked.
You know, at first I was soirritated, like, why aren't we
getting in the water all thetime?
Oh my gosh, oh my gosh.
And then realizing that this iswhat it was all about.
It was controlling your centralnervous system, relaxing, you
know, the central nervoussystem, then accessing this
(17:18):
place of peace that was that wasalways in there, you know.
And it, I mean, it soundscliche, but it's so it's really,
really true.
And things happen, and I I talkabout this a lot in the class,
the yoga classes that I teach.
It's like when your heart isopen, when your mind is open
with a positive attitude, reallynot it's not it's not likes and
(17:39):
dislikes or desire necessarily.
We we try to kind of set thoseaside in the in the real
philosophy, the practice ofyoga, but what's meant to be to
help you to learn and and yogatruly is about getting to know
yourself.
And so if you're really on thatjourney to get to know yourself,
then the things that aresupposed to happen in your life,
(18:00):
I believe they happen.
And the people who are meant tobe in your life, they appear.
And it's like, how did thishappen?
You don't even have tonecessarily question it, you
know, if if we can just be opento that, and so that that's what
happened.
And I came back to to JohnsonCity, to Tennessee, and I got
(18:20):
connected with a doctor who wasa doctor of internal medicine
who had you know reputation, 30years in his practice, and he
suddenly was ready to jump offinto alternative medicine.
You know, this was 1999, 2000,and we still were calling it
alternative medicine.
(18:41):
Integrative is really where Itry to live, but I lived in
Southern California and we werewe were learning that it was
these were alternatives.
This was different thanconventional medicine.
I worked with him, I did massageand personal training, and uh
you name it, I did cookingclasses with people, I took them
to the grocery store.
It was I worked with him, it wasjust amazing for for a couple
(19:05):
years I worked with him.
But so after the first littlebit, I'd been teaching aerobics
classes and stretching classesand things all all this time all
along.
And but usually the class wasyou know, movement, like some
fun movement for about 30minutes, Jane Fonda style, and
then the last 30 minutes wasjust stretching, and I would not
(19:26):
knowing what I was doing, I wasguiding meditations and I was
teaching yoga essentially.
Well, at that time in our city,there were three yoga teachers,
uh, older ladies, two of themwere older ladies, and they were
just like one lady was teachingin a hotel, and one leach lady
was teaching at the fittestcenter, but there was no yoga
school.
People kept asking, well, wewant we're hearing about yoga,
(19:49):
you know.
We live in this valley, andpeople were hearing like what's
going on.
And I talked to the doctor andhe said, Well, go do a a formal
training, you know, let's reallylet's do this.
So he paid for half, and I paidhim back at with you know, when
I came back, and I went and Ilived in really it was a convent
(20:09):
in Connecticut for a month andwith a group of students, there
were 30 of us and two yogateachers.
It was a ma it was amazing.
It was, you know, we the thetraining that I went through, I
think was so it was just sospecial.
You know, we had silence fromprobably four or five o'clock in
the afternoon until 10 o'clockin the morning.
(20:32):
We still had meditation, we ateour meals, we would attend
lectures, but we didn't talk, wewould listen.
And then we were sharing a roomwith someone that we didn't
know, and then you could go andtake walks, and we would walk
through the halls, but you know,eating your meals without and
you're not angry at the otherperson, you know.
You can eat a meal in silenceand not be getting away.
SPEAKER_00 (20:54):
Usually it's because you're mad at somebody, yeah,
exactly.
unknown (20:56):
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (20:57):
But this is intentional.
Again, it was justlife-changing.
And I came back to Johnson Cityand you know, offered a few
classes.
In fact, I did a big workshop onsub the September 11th.
We set it for that evening, andin the morning when you know we
everybody was watching what washappening, you know, the whole
(21:17):
our whole city was shuttingdown.
And so everybody said, You haveto cancel, you have to cancel
your class, you have to cancelyour class.
And I really like I meditatedabout it, meditated about, and I
said, We have to have thisclass.
We have to have this place forpeople to come and sit together.
And it there must have been 50people that showed up for the
class last last night.
(21:38):
And that really was like thebeginning of the classes
growing.
And I was just teaching, youknow, three or four mornings a
week, two or three evenings aweek, and it just kept expanding
and it was it was justbeautiful.
Then a uh the father of a a akid that I grew up with, he came
to me and he said, I have thisspace that's been sitting empty,
(22:01):
and I think it's just calling toyou, and I want and you know, I
want you to, I've heard aboutwhat you're doing.
Come and open a yoga school.
And I said, There's just no, Ican't afford this.
I don't I barely know what I'mdoing, you know.
And he's like, Let's just, youknow, I'll I'll charge you$500
or something, like a third ofwhat it would cost.
(22:21):
And if it works in six months,you pay me what you're supposed
to pay me.
And if it doesn't, we shakehands and that's that.
So that started, and I opened ayoga school, and it just, you
know, that's where I got toreally connect with the
community.
I I would go and teach atschools and I would teach at
business meetings, you know,people are in suits, and I'm
(22:42):
asking them to stand up fromtheir rolling chair and do some
stretching and breathing, andyou know, the and the people
that were coming to classes,they were people who were
helping other people in thecommunity.
They were social workers, theywere teachers, they were moms,
they were, you know, uh and atthat time, even like some guy,
we have we have a lot of riversand lakes around.
(23:04):
So it was also fitnessenthusiasts, but not just coming
to stretch, but also they neededto be chilled out when they're
going down these waterfalls intheir kayaks.
So it was, you know, mentalhealth awareness and and
meditation as well.
So it was really, it was reallybeautiful, really, really
beautiful.
SPEAKER_00 (23:22):
So that was kind of the yeah, that was like the the
the quick journey, but I mean itit's it's amazing and it's
amazing what you're doing now.
And I know your my yoga tree, isthat the name of your your
school, your yoga school?
SPEAKER_01 (23:34):
Yoga tree is the name of the school, yeah.
Yoga tree.
My myyoga tree.com is the okay.
That's the website.
That's what I was thinking.
SPEAKER_00 (23:41):
Yoga tree.
My yoga tree is the website.
SPEAKER_01 (23:43):
Yep.
SPEAKER_00 (23:44):
Beautiful.
I love it.
I want to go back to the wholediving, free diving thing.
And you you talked about animportant part of meditation in
general, but yoga in general isthe breathing.
Because I think someone like mewho's on the outside looking in,
when you think of yoga, youknow, I think of you know, the
downward dog and all theseposes.
But there's a lot involved withthe breathing as well.
(24:06):
And I, you know, I do a littlemeditation in the morning as
well.
It's something I like to do.
So can you give me just alittle, you know, while I got
you here, I would take advantageof your expertise, just like a
little uh a breathing practiceor something someone could do
real quick at home if maybethere's some anxiety building up
or something like what's awhat's a good little uh
breathing practice we can do?
SPEAKER_01 (24:25):
Yeah, yeah.
I mean super simple.
And I always use these twowords, not easy, but simple.
So simplistic.
So because you know, to somepeople it's not gonna be
something easy, right?
We're we're we're out ofpractice.
We were if we watch babies oranimals when they're sleeping or
(24:46):
when they're just resting,they're when they inhale,
they're filling up.
And then when they exhale,there's a contract.
And what we've gotten into doingin society is we breathe from
the chest very shallow, and alot of times the opposite.
And so just a couple reallysimple techniques.
You know, you would you woulddefinitely want to lengthen your
(25:07):
spine, like sit on the edge ofyour chair and just have a nice
long spine, and partially that'sjust so the diaphragm can
expand, right?
We have more space in there.
So we sit up really tall andthen just start to pay attention
to how you're breathing.
And it is nice if you canbreathe in through the nose and
out through the nose.
Sometimes people have troublewith that, so it's okay, you
(25:29):
could use the mouth, but itthat's gonna take it another
step to calm down the centralnervous system.
So breathing in through the noseand breathing out through the
nose.
And then you could put yourhands on on your abdomen, on
your belly, you don't have to,but if we start to notice as I
breathe in, I'm gonna fill uplike you're filling a balloon,
(25:50):
and then on the exhale, yousqueeze out the old air.
So you're just sitting upright,maybe breathing through the
nostrils, inhale, expanding thebelly, exhale and squeezing.
And then that last little partis counting the breath because
really it gives it gives themind something else to do.
(26:10):
And that's a lot of times why weask students to close your eyes
because when the eyes areopening, they're just
processing, right?
Constantly, they that's for oursafety.
I mean, there's some things thatare just for our well-being,
like, okay, wait, what you know,is there a tiger?
But that kind of thing.
SPEAKER_00 (26:26):
Who knows?
SPEAKER_01 (26:27):
So, yeah, if we if we close the eyes, then we're
just it's it's one more layer oflike, okay, wait, you know, less
things are going on inside mymind.
So sit up tall, breathe throughthe nose, inhale, expand,
exhale, contract, and try tolengthen the amount of the
exhale.
So if you breathe in, see howhigh you can count.
(26:48):
Like for me, I could easilycount to five.
So I would breathe in one, two,three, four, five, and then
exhale ten, nine, eight, seven,six, five, four, three, two,
one.
So you have that one to tworatio.
So even if you breathe in fortwo, you know, breathe out for
four, or breathe in for one,breathe out for two.
(27:09):
You know what I mean?
So you and it doesn't have tobe, but it it's just a little
bit of an anchor that gives youryour mind something.
So you're working on just thebreathing and just the technique
or just those numbers.
And then you're you're notthinking about some of the other
just chatter, we call it, inyour mind, just the the riti
(27:31):
that's in in the mind.
SPEAKER_00 (27:32):
So I feel like I feel like that's the difficulty
I have when I'm kind of tryingto to practice, is I still feel
like my mind's like, you know,with other things.
I'm like trying to, how do I,but I think the breathing helps
when you, yeah, let me justcount to four and then count to
eight, or I think that's agreat, great practice.
SPEAKER_01 (27:48):
Just gives that that focal.
I um I was very fortunate lastyear.
I went to India twice and I didtwo silent retreats.
One was 10 days and one was ninedays.
The first one was was reallyalmost like a it was supposed to
be sort of an introduction tomeditation.
I mean, we meditated for hours,hours.
(28:10):
You know, we started at 6 a.m.
and we finished at nine, and wedid eat.
We did have some lecture also,where again, we weren't talking,
but we're still sittingpeacefully, you know.
That style of meditation isreally just sort of observing
your thoughts, which for somepeople is very challenging and
they need something more guided.
(28:31):
You know, but it's said thatreally that that higher when
we're trying to reach that placewhere we really can't observe
the thoughts.
And so one of one last thingI'll say about is, you know, I
would explain to students tojust kind of relax with their
eyes closed, sit up tall orrecline, and then imagine that
the thoughts are like clouds,and that as you breathe, you're
(28:54):
just gonna move those thoughtsso that eventually you're just
looking at a blue sky.
And one thing we talk about inyoga is attachment, and that's
being attached to myrelationship with my son, or how
much I love zucchini, or youknow, what what whatever it is
that we have these attachments.
So we're we get attached tothose thoughts and what's inside
(29:20):
of the thoughts, but also theemotions that are kind of
attached to those thoughts.
That's really what it causes thesuffering, right?
It's not usually the experience,but the oh, like the angst that
we feel around it.
SPEAKER_00 (30:06):
Absolutely.
No, I appreciate you sharingthat because yeah, that's I
mean, that's something Istruggle with, so it's nice to
kind of that's why I was like,hey, I got a professional here.
I might as well uh takeadvantage of this.
SPEAKER_01 (30:15):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (30:16):
You you talked about India.
I know you've been to NewZealand.
You've been you've done a lot oftraveling, and I noticed I
looked on your website earlier,and I think there's a you got
there's a something in Greececoming up for an excursion, you
know, for yoga.
Talk about yeah, yoga and otherplaces.
It just going and doing yoga inthese other places?
Does it vary with where you'reat?
Like do the cultures play intoanything?
(30:36):
Kind of talk about the wholetravel side of it a little bit.
SPEAKER_01 (30:39):
Okay, I I would love to.
So I mentioned that it Ihomeschooled my son for four
years, so fifth, sixth, seventh,and eighth grades.
And off the off the yoga track,which it really isn't, is I'm
also a a Waldorf teacher, acertified Waldorf teacher.
It I studied Waldorf educationreally just for a parenting
(30:59):
style, just to really learn, youknow, some of the the aspects of
parenting.
And that kind of I actually eventaught at a Waldorf school for a
year.
And you know, it there have beena there are a lot of different
avenues that go with that.
When we homeschooled, well, I Iput my son he went to the school
where I taught in Arizona inkindergarten.
(31:20):
And then we moved back toTennessee and he went into the
public school system for acouple years, and he thrived,
and he he just did great.
He loved it, everything wentgreat.
I was really happy with it.
I I was wor you know, that gotto kind of reopen.
I'd closed my studio for a year,and I reopened the studio in a
different way, and then I wasreaching to the addiction
(31:43):
recovery uh population as welland doing all sorts of different
things.
And then the his fourth gradeyear of school, I became just
really disappointed in theeducational system.
It basically was aboutcreativity and expression that I
I wasn't seeing he was able todo those things.
It was just making me sad.
And so I said, Okay, I think Ihave enough skills to do some
(32:06):
homeschooling.
I think.
And so we decided, and I said,What if, you know, what if we I
just saved money and then wetook a big trip in the fall
semester, and then we'll takeanother big trip in the spring
semester, and then we'll allkind of weave all the curriculum
around that.
And he was like, Yeah.
And at the time he was onlyreading Percy Jackson and like
(32:29):
Greek mythology.
And so he said, Could we go toGreece, mommy?
And I was like, What?
I was thinking like Acapulco orsomething, you know, someplace
easier.
I said, Yeah, let's do it.
I'd never been to Greece.
I'd been to Ireland once for awedding, but otherwise never
been to Europe.
I didn't have any credit cards,so we had just cash.
(32:51):
I had$5,000 in my pocket in cashin euros that I got from the
bank with my nine-year-old son.
And we hopped on a flight and wereserved two nights, the first
two nights in Athens at a hotel,and then we had a 30-day ticket.
So we had a month, and we had noitinerary, and when we got
there, he decided from what hehad learned and studied about
(33:14):
the history and the mythologywhere he wanted to go and what
he wanted to see.
And then we would just hop aferry and find a hotel.
And and so we did that, and wemet amazing people, and I'm
still, you know, I've this willbe the 11th year that I've been
to Greece.
And it was it was just amazing.
(33:34):
We would come back from thesetrips, and your face and your
wow was what everybody wassaying around here.
And I said, Well, just come withme.
Like, come on, you know, you wejust come, but I can show you
how to do it.
And so, really, in a simple way,that's sort of how it evolved.
And I had the opportunity to doa couple other retreats, and
(33:56):
I've now offered some yogateacher training, you know, like
a year-long yoga teachertraining program, and do you
know, do little workshops withthat.
But so people just said, Hey, wewant to go, we want to go with
you.
So I organized the trip.
Usually I go first, and thenthey come and meet me, and we
practice yoga in the morning,meditation, and then a yoga
(34:18):
class, and then we go do somefun excursions and explore, and
it's all usually local peoplethat I've met over the years.
I mean, going to little tinyrestaurants where the family has
owned the restaurant forgenerations, and and I'm
plant-based, so you know,they're always accommodating for
like being vegan and for ourgroup with all sorts of
(34:40):
different needs, and and theyloved like the everyone always
loves the connections, you know,that we have.
Yeah, and then in the evening,we usually have some kind of a
like a gentle yoga class andthen a nighttime meditation, and
you know, it's meant to be eatgood, healthy foods, and we have
really rich conversations.
There's something beautifulabout being in retreat, but also
(35:04):
the the ancient land of Greeceis pretty spectacular.
And the people and and theculture, and always we try to do
a project where we're we'regiving back, you know, we're not
just coming and and taking, butin some way, shape, or form,
other than buying tourist, youknow, materials that that they
(35:24):
love to sell to us anyway, andthat's nice, you know, really
trying to uniquely give back andhonor the place where we are.
So yeah.
So I get to combine my love andI was just talking to um a
friend earlier.
You know, I have a lot offriends who've been on retreats
for maybe it's just travel ormaybe like a painting retreat.
(35:46):
Some of the students that I knowwent on last year, and they
loved it, but they said it wasjust missing like that take care
of yourself aspect, getting upin the morning, get your body
ready for whether you're gonnahike or swim or go look at some
tourist things, and then just tobe more aware and paying
attention.
You know, sometimes traveling,like the you see tour the
(36:10):
tourist mindset, right?
You're not even paying attentionto what's going on.
So it's to help really find likeconnection and depth when we're
having these deep experiencesthat I think impact us so much
to see and be with other peopleand other cultures and other
other countries.
So yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (36:29):
I like it when you look at it like that because you
know a lot of times you think,oh, I'm gonna travel, and then
you think, oh, that means thatgives me the excuse to eat
poorly and kind of lounge arounda little bit more and do those
things, but then you don't feelas good while you're on that
vacation.
SPEAKER_01 (36:42):
You don't, and then you come home and then you've
got like this hangover vacationsituation.
You know, people are just like,ah, like they feel exhausted,
they don't feel good, you know,then everybody's gonna eat clean
then and that kind of thing.
So what if you're if you'rereally building up, you know,
while you're there and takingreally good care of yourself,
(37:03):
and you can still enjoyyourself, you know?
You can definitely still enjoyyourself, but and I think the
added, you know, with movementand with meditation, it it does,
it just it it connectseverything in a really special
way.
SPEAKER_00 (37:17):
So you love Greece.
Do you have any other particularplace that you really love with
all your travels?
SPEAKER_01 (37:22):
Well, I do I loved being in New Zealand.
I really loved being there.
It's just very far, you know,it's it's far away.
It's far, but I I love NewZealand.
And I do have a a special placein my heart for Costa Rica, you
know, Central America.
Costa Rica is a special I thinkwhat I loved so much about Costa
Rica is so much of the land isnot covered with asphalt.
(37:45):
You know, it's so a lot of timesin the different seasons, you
can't get from A to B unless youhave like big mud or tires, you
know, on a four-wheeler kind ofthing.
It you just I just feel like theearth breathes there.
And and that's the feeling I getin Greece too, is there's so
much I mean, it's a lot drier inGreece, of course, but where
(38:07):
where the earth seems to bebreathing and and has this space
unencumbered, um, that feelsthat feels really nice.
You know, you you said somethingbefore, it was always my dream
to go every season, so fall,spring, winter, fall, but
summer, spring, winter, fall, toa place that it's ideal.
(38:28):
You know, I'm also a skier, so Ilove skiing in the Italian Alps
because we my son and I metsomeone from Italy and we we
lived on a sailboat for fivemonths in the Mediterranean and
traveled all, you know, Croatiadown into Greece, Montenegro,
Albania, and then we we wouldspend a month or so in the Alps
in Italy.
(38:50):
So I love, I love, you know, I Ithink there's really this
there's so many special parts ofdifferent places.
And again, like that push foryoga of getting to know who you
are, really understandingyourself.
It's it's that's really what thejourney is about.
Like you said, about you know,downward-facing dog and and
(39:13):
warrior poses, those are sogreat.
And I mean, I think I feel sogood and healthy, and I'm so
grateful every morning that Iget up and I I have these
physical practices and move, butyou know, the the philosophy and
feeling calm, and I'm not alwayscalm.
I mean, you can't be calm andtravel all over the world.
You gotta you have to have alittle go in your step, right?
(39:35):
In a peaceful way, in uh, youknow, and knowing who I am, just
like what I went through with myson, or you know, you had asked
something about challenges.
I mean, I've had a lot, a lot ofchallenges, relationship
challenges, challenges withmyself, challenges with, you
know, business.
Uh unfortunately, part of what Ido, there's a business aspect to
(39:58):
that.
And it's a really hard bridge togap.
And now yoga has become it'sflipped back into the fitness
industry again, and that's notwhere I live with it, you know.
To me, it's very sacred, it'svery ritualistic, and you know,
the practice is so deep.
And and I love hot yoga and andthe movement aspects of it, but
(40:20):
there's also this greatopportunity for it to be broader
than that as well.
SPEAKER_00 (40:26):
How do you deal with those challenges when, you know,
like you said, it's kind offlipped back into that arena of
fitness?
You're more, you know, you'remore the wellness, you know,
mental health, that kind ofthing.
How do you deal with thosechallenges?
What kind of things do you do toovercome those?
SPEAKER_01 (40:40):
Yeah, that that's I just try to be just kill them
with kindness, is what I say.
You know, I just try to reallybe peaceful with it all because
I hear, I hear lots of things,and what what has actually
started to happen now is there'sa swing back around.
It's taken quite a while, butnow I'm starting to see people
(41:01):
show up.
We we call instead of sayingstudio, I was taught long ago to
call the space the shala, whichis means home.
So the the yoga shalla, becauseit's a really sacred practice
space.
And so now I'm seeing yogateachers who have graduated from
a 200-hour certified yogateacher training program with
(41:24):
some more, maybe with more ofthe fitness aspect, they're
coming back and they're showingup at the shala.
I'm seeing them there, and theysay, We love what we do, we love
practicing and the communitythat's been built, but we want
to practice and maybe learn toteach meditation.
And I play the harmonium and Ising in my classes, and I teach
(41:45):
from the you know, the BhagavadGita and from the Yoga Sutra
from these texts, and that nowpeople are really interested in
in learning that again.
And it's so exciting.
So I think patience, you know,and just being kind and and
really it's just leading byimitation.
Like I'm just trying to live mylife in the way that I'm
(42:07):
actually teaching it becauseI've always had respect for
those people who lived withintegrity, so it's hard, I don't
do it every day, but I get upevery morning and I try again
just to say, okay, we can all dokind of our own thing, and let's
not say that your thing isbetter or whatever.
Just maybe you need these toolsat this time and these tools at
(42:31):
this time, and I'm here if youwant those.
SPEAKER_00 (42:34):
When people leave your class, what are you hoping
that they take away?
What's kind of the lesson youhope that they take away from
being part of your classes?
SPEAKER_01 (42:43):
Well, I want to tell you like a quick little story.
I'll I'll try not to make it toolong, but because my answer that
what what comes just likebubbling up is I hope they leave
a little bit more compassionateand a little bit more gentle on
themselves.
Because I think we're really,really, really hard on ourselves
right now.
That we also know that I try tosay this frequently, you know,
(43:08):
looking around in the class thathas 10 or 15 people, and there's
a student, and usually I haveconfidentiality is very
important to me.
Doing massage for 25 years,teaching yoga classes, I know a
lot of things about people thattheir own families don't know.
So I know things aboutindividual students that maybe
they haven't told other people.
(43:29):
And so I know that when twopeople are side by side and they
think this person can't possiblyknow what they're going through,
I know that they do.
And so I try to, you know, teacha class in a way where I'll
bring in a teaching, a reading,a philosophical thought so
people can understand they'renot alone going through some
(43:50):
things.
And so I think that that'ssomething important.
And the story I want to tell youis the first 10-day course I did
in Dharamshala, which is wherethe photo where I met the Dalai
Lama, that's where he lives.
The first course I did, it'sthis tiny little beautiful
meditation center with monkeyseverywhere.
(44:11):
Like monkeys steal your bread ifit's on your plate, if you're
not what you're like, you gottabe like this, watch out, they're
coming for your bread.
There were 138 in our group.
Luckily, because I'm just a tinybit older than many people, I
had my own room, but a lot ofpeople are in rooms with bunk
beds.
We're all sharing bathrooms,we're eating in silence, you
know, we're we're having soupfor dinner and rice and
(44:34):
vegetables for lunch, veryeverything's very basic.
There were people from all overthe world.
I was actually, well, there weretwo other Americans, 138 people
that were in these little seats,these little desks, because we
could take notes, side by side,138 people meditating for hours
all day.
And I'm sitting, and there was agirl, maybe three or four people
(44:56):
over to my right, and she wasleaned against a wall because
some people were having a hardtime just sitting still.
And I've been meditating for along time.
So, you know, I was I was finesitting.
I kept noticing her.
She had like a like a downjacket on and it was puffy and
loud.
And every time she would move,it would go, you know, or she'd
(45:17):
mess with her pen and likeclicker pen back and forth.
Being the compassionate beingthat I am, I would give her
these dirty looks.
You know, I'm just like, howdare she interrupt my stillness
and my silence?
And, you know, and I'm justthinking, my gosh, can she not
(45:37):
be still?
Can she not be still?
So after a couple days, ofcourse, through some of the
teachings and just relaxing andbeing with myself, I'm I'm
thinking, okay, just everybody'sat their own kind of place and
has their own pace and speed andwith this and just be kind and
you know, send out compassion.
(45:57):
And so after the 10 days, we hadthis big feast.
You know, we I mean it'svegetarian, but it's like this
huge feast of food, and it's sofun, and we all get to to chat
and say hello, and it's a littleoverwhelming because we've been
in silence for 10 days.
And this girl comes up to me andshe says, the girl, the crunchy
(46:17):
girl, loud girl, and she comesup to me and she says, Could I
give you a hug?
And I said, Of course,absolutely.
And so she hugged me, and Imight I might cry a little bit,
but she hugged me and uh shesaid, the day that the retreat
started, my brother got sent toGaza.
She's Israeli.
(46:38):
Every day I was afraid that Iwas gonna get a call that he had
died.
And she said, so I put myself ina position so that I could look
at you because you were sostill.
And she said, it helped me torelax and just stay still and
peaceful.
(47:00):
And yeah, I I just lost it.
And so we hugged and then Iwound up seeing her like over
the course of the next two daysin the little village where we
stayed.
And it was just, you know, youjust never know what you're what
you're how you're impactinganother person with with what
you do.
SPEAKER_00 (47:18):
Well, and and especially because you know,
your thoughts, you're like, whatis she doing?
You know, those ah, I wasgetting I'm getting choked up
thinking about that, like, ohman, wow, you know, uh, I love
that.
So having the compassion, that'swow, that's huge.
And I I appreciate you sharingthis.
We've been chatting for quite awhile.
This has been awesome for me.
Usually I ask the question, Iusually like to ask, you know,
(47:40):
what adventure means to you.
I want to ask it in relation toto yoga, because sometimes you
think, oh, yoga, it's notadventurous, but I feel like it
is.
I mean, what is how why is yogaadventurous to you?
SPEAKER_01 (47:50):
Well, I think it's adventurous because you have to
have courage to be able toreally explore parts of our
parts of yourself that you mighthide away from other people, you
know, to be really, reallyvulnerable and really expose
like this is really who I am, mytruth.
(48:10):
And and it's hard.
And to because sometimes itmeans you you step out of the
the stream of of what we feel tobe the norm.
And and I think that's changing.
You know, I think be beingdifferent, being unique is is
not a negative, but I stillthink people have a hard time
(48:31):
really expressing theirindividual truth of who they
really, really are.
I think that it just it takes ittakes courage.
And I I, you know, I'm notperfect.
I try to work on it all thetime.
And I think it's that if we canreally, really, I mean, it's
just it's this old, old schoolstuff, like really learn from
(48:54):
our experiences and try not torepeat patterns and habits that
haven't worked or they'veexpired, and now it's time to
try something new, but to bereally honest with ourselves,
it's pretty hard.
That I think that takes courage,and that's my my definition
there under adventure.
SPEAKER_00 (49:12):
This has been fascinating for me.
It's been so fun getting to knowyou.
Thank you for bringing thislight and this energy to the
show.
I I love it.
I feel like all of my guests dothat, but you just got a little
extra going on right now.
So so thank you for that.
And thank you so much for comingon Journey with Jake.
SPEAKER_01 (49:28):
Thank you, Jake.
I'm so honored.
I feel like you I feel so great.
So thank you for giving me thevenue, but being open and you're
just a beautiful person.
Thank you for what you're doing.
I'm I'm yeah, I'm just reallyhonored.
Thanks so much.
SPEAKER_00 (49:41):
Thank you so much.
Wow, I could give you a hugthrough the computer here.
unknown (49:44):
I know.
SPEAKER_00 (49:46):
What a refreshing and inspiring conversation with
Carrie Ferguson.
I love the energy she broughtand the lessons she shared about
mindfulness, compassion, andtruly being present.
Thank you so much, Carrie.
If you'd like to learn moreabout Carrie and Yoga Tree, be
sure to visit myyogatree.com andfollow her on Instagram at my
yoga tree.
As always, thank you so much forlistening to Journey with Jake.
(50:09):
I'm grateful for each of you whotunes in week after week.
Don't forget to follow me onInstagram at Journey with Jake
Podcast and check out the showon YouTube.
Just search Journey with JakePodcast.
And of course, if you'reenjoying these episodes, it
means the world when you sharethe show with friends or leave a
rating and review.
Next time on the podcast, I'mjoined by Ken Webb, whose story
(50:30):
of military service, resilience,and rediscovery after combat is
truly powerful.
You won't want to miss it.
Thanks again for being part ofthe journey.
Just remember, it's not alwaysabout the destination, as it is
about the journey.
Take care, everybody.
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