November 13, 2025 • 57 mins
Healing isn’t just physical—it’s emotional, spiritual, and deeply personal. This week on The Conscious Diva, Reggie Hubbard opens up about his journey of recovery after a stroke and how yoga continues to guide him toward wholeness.
In this highly inspiring conversation, Reggie shares his story of recovery, resilience, and renewal. He reminds us that healing isn’t just about getting back to where we were—it’s about awakening to who we can become.
On the pod:
- How the music and artistry of Prince inspire Reggie in entirely new ways.
- How he founded Active Peace Yoga — He is a teacher, activist, and sound healer whose life and work bridge the worlds of spirituality and social change.
- How Reggie’s experience and recovery journey with stroke has been a lesson and a blessing.
- Reggie’s story is a reminder that even in our most challenging moments, peace is always possible—and that the path to transformation begins within.
- Reggie explains that when peace aligns with civic responsibility, it lays the foundation for meaningful and transformative change.
Before yoga, Reggie spent decades as a seasoned political strategist, working with the Bernie Sanders campaign, serving as congressional liaison for MoveOn, and holding a variety of high-profile positions in Washington. His journey from political activism to peace activism is a powerful testament to transformation—proof that awareness and compassion can exist at the intersection of inner and outer change.
Listen, share, and help raise awareness for stroke recovery and the power of mindful movement.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:07):
Hello and thanks for listening to the contestable podcast.
I'm Tatiana. In this episode, Reggie Hubbard,
founder of Active Peace Yoga, shares his journey of healing
and self discovery after surviving a stroke.
Reggie Story is a reminder of yoga's power to restore balance
and rebuild from within in this highly entertaining and
(00:28):
inspiring conversation. Yes, entertaining.
Reggie shares his story of recovery, resilience, and
renewal. He reminds us that healing isn't
just about getting back to wherewe were, it's about awakening to
who we can become. In this episode, we discuss how
the music and artistry of Princeinspires Reggie in entirely new
ways, how he founded Active Peace Yoga, and how Reggie's
(00:51):
experience and recovery journey with stroke has been a lesson
and a blessing. His story is a reminder that
even in our most challenging moments, peace is always
possible and that the path to transformation begins within.
Bridgie also explains that when peace aligns with civic
responsibility, it lays the foundation for meaningful and
transformative change. And before yoga, Reggie spent
(01:13):
decades as a seasoned political strategist, working with the
Bernie Sanders campaign, servingas congressional liaison for
Move On, and holding a variety of high profile positions in
Washington. His journey from political
activism to peace activism is a powerful testament to
transformation, proof that awareness and compassion can
exist at the intersection of inner and outer change.
(01:35):
I hope you enjoyed this episode and if you loved listening to
it, please write a review and follow me on Instagram at The
Conscious Diva. You can also watch this episode
on YouTube. Thank you again, and I hope you
learned something about the importance of stroke awareness,
recovery, and mindful self-care.Well, it's so lovely to to chat
(01:57):
to you today and so that we could finally make this happen.
Absolutely a pleasure to be withyou.
I love your Prince logos that you've got there.
I know he's an influence for you.
Pretty ubiquitous, yeah. I mean, I think that's super
cool. I was going to ask you about
Prince a little bit later, but since you've got, you know, his
logos right there front and center, let's start with that.
(02:18):
Art and energy are very intertwined, and I don't know
what it was about Purple Rain when I was 10 years old.
They compelled me to want to seeand be around that.
I remember as a young youngster,parents like, what do you want
(02:39):
for your birthday? I was like, sign of the times,
you know, like, so, like 13 years old, like asking for sign
of the times and those sorts of things.
And I remember when Prince passed away in 2016, I was at
that point where I was working for Bernie Sanders.
And we were doing a conventionalwalkthrough in Philadelphia
during the Democratic primary season.
And I was like, if this shit is serious, like, I'm really not
(03:02):
going to be OK for the rest of the day, you know?
And I happened to be dating someone at the time who was from
Minneapolis, but our relationship was clearly on the
way out because she was like, I don't know how you could be so
upset about someone that you never knew.
And I was just like, I'm going to hang up this phone real quick
and I'll be back in Colorado in a couple days and we can talk
(03:25):
about this then because what yousaid there is completely
unacceptable. Whatever, Bye.
Like love you, I guess. Bye.
Whatever. And when I started teaching,
well, I'm the most accidental yoga teacher in the world.
I'm the most accidental meditation teacher in the world.
Practitioner. If you had told me I'd be
practitioner, I'd be like totally teaching the the fickle
(03:49):
nature of the human experience bores me.
You know what I mean? So I never thought I'd be a
teacher or, or those sorts of things.
However, when I started to mergemy activist practice and my
spiritual practice, like all of this artistry started to emerge
and the first class I ever taught publicly as part of my
200 hour yoga teacher training was dedicated to Prince.
(04:13):
It was on Prince's birthday and my yoga, my yoga teacher Faith
Hunter was like Reggie, you know, you're teaching on June
7th and I was like June 7th, June 7th as you want me to teach
my first class ever on Prince's birthday.
And she was just like, it's no big deal.
I'm like, whatever. Like this is like like as loving
(04:35):
as one could be. I was kind of like, that ain't
no accident, you know what I mean?
So anyway, every 200 hour personhas their like boring little oh,
we're going to do this, then this, then this.
So I had to throw that away and come up with this whole new
thing because it's Prince's birthday.
And so taught the class kick some ass.
And as my teaching practice emerged, like Prince days and
(04:59):
Prince's birthday was almost like a ritual because the first
class I ever taught was on his actual birthday.
And so when I launch active peace in April 2020, that was a
height of a pandemic, right? Like everyone in their Mama
stuck at their house. And I'm like at my, my response
(05:21):
to the pandemic was one of real calm, you know, almost like
eerie calm because, you know, that's what these the yoga
sutras and like the damapata, all these things talk about like
equanimity, right? So when the joys and sorrows
emerge, you're just kind of like, oh, this is happening as
opposed to like all that other stuff.
And when the pandemic hit, like I was super peaceful and I was
(05:45):
just like, oh, I guess I got to make this active.
So Active Peace is born and in April 4th, 2020 was my first
public class. I was like I got to do something
with respect to Prince. So April 21st is when Prince
transitioned and so I held this virtual class on April 21st,
(06:09):
2020. Somehow Princess Nephew came.
So President Nelson was in the class and there were like 110
other people in this class and it just exploded.
And I was just like, okay, clearly Prince wants me to teach
more or something. And so Prince has been a staple
(06:29):
of mocked teaching practice. For you to be wild and free and
who gives a shit what they think?
Do you? And if they don't like it,
they'll be just fine. OK, that's awesome.
I love it. I I also love Prince and I saw
him in concert in, I don't know,in Sydney in like My God, 1990,
(06:52):
1991, maybe a really long time ago.
It was actually the Diamond's Tour.
Oh gosh. Yeah, yeah.
And you know, there, that was the first time I saw him live
and I just the, his presence on stage was so incredible, so
moving. I just, I actually couldn't
believe it. I was like, Oh my God.
(07:13):
Because you, you know, back thenyou didn't really, you'd see
people on, you know, MTV music right in video.
You didn't, it wasn't like todaywhere you could go on YouTube or
Instagram and look at videos. It was like you kind of either
had to see someone live or for their year to come on MTV.
And in Australia we didn't have a 24 hour MTV channel like you
do in America. And so you know that it was
(07:34):
really rare. So it was a special experience
to and it was an experience to be in the presence of him.
He would perform and everything.So no, I can, I can totally
understand how you have a love and and deep respect.
Did you as a side note, did you see that New York Times article?
It was earlier this year or the end of last year about
(07:55):
documentary that was made for Netflix that unfortunately it
doesn't sound like it's going tocome.
Yeah, so The funny thing is thatthe guy who made that
documentary I went to college with.
OK. Have you seen it then?
Have you been? No, like he did, He did a
documentary on OJ Simpson as well, right?
So like Ezra, Ezra's a good dudeand like, it sucks that we can't
see what he saw. Yeah, yeah.
The obviously the writer of thatarticle saw the the preview of
(08:18):
it and she wrote a very good in depth description of of the
right. So but anyway, so you let's talk
about your good work Active Peace Yoga.
So you just shared a little bit about that.
But leading up to this, you weren't always practicing yoga.
You said you were a profession originally, you were a part of
(08:38):
Bernie Sanders campaign political space.
And so how did you, how were youintroduced to yoga originally?
So I had a friend or have a friend like I luckily still have
her who once and she's like Reggie, you know, you're an
angry black man, white woman, which is interesting.
I mean, I love it at Dev and like this is who she is.
(09:00):
She's like, you're an angry black man.
You should practice yoga to helpyou with that.
So at that point in my life, I responded like an angry black
man. I was like, what the fuck are
you talking about? You know what I mean?
Like mind your business, you know, and was just didn't just
just kind of dismiss. And I was like also I was like,
I ain't no skinny white chick, so why would I do that?
You know what I mean? Like I ain't no skinny white
chick and you call me angry black man.
(09:21):
So you know what I mean. Here you go.
And I never thought of it until 8 No October, September, October
2014. I was in the midst of being
considered for two really high-powered jobs in the Obama
administration. So I was up to be either deputy
(09:45):
assistant secretary for international education or
deputy chief of staff for education.
Some big ass thing. And so I basically put all my
political chips and relationships to get to the top
2 for those things, Made it to the top 2 for both, didn't get
either 1. And I was like God damn, this is
the equivalent of asking to marry someone and they're like
(10:07):
no and run away. So I'm just like oh man, I got
to leave town like this is not good.
So very heartbroken and heartbreaking.
However, a year prior I had begun to do like self discovery
work, meaning like I'm not started to interrogate about how
(10:29):
my accumulated psychological habits and my dietary habits
informed my response to externalstimuli, which was yoga.
But I didn't know that, you knowwhat I mean?
Like at least the philosophical part, you know what I mean?
I conflated and it's easy to do so because there's pimp that way
in the marketplace, right? Like the physical ain't the
(10:50):
spiritual and the metaphysical, like the metaphysical and the
spiritual, like I've been, I've been in and I, I grew up in the
church. So like to some level, like
spirituality is, is very easy for me because it's, it's been
present for me for I would say 47 of my 51 years.
But in that, in that 2014 time frame when I didn't get those
(11:12):
jobs and I felt like the heartbreak and just like the
confusion about what am I supposed to do now?
Damn, you know what I mean. I made a vow and the vow was I'm
only going to do things that I've never done before that are
creative and artsy and lower my blood pressure.
And so when my homework. You just press the balloon
(11:33):
button. No, it's funny.
So I keep forgetting that this camera I got a new computer for
and like if I do this like. Yeah, it's responding OK.
Yeah, Yeah, I know that feature.And this, you know what I mean?
I talk a lot with my hands. And so I didn't know that this
was as newfangled as it was whenI got it and I was doing
(11:55):
something I did and I was like, that just happened.
All right, cool. Whatever.
So anyone that's listening and not watching that Reggie's
talking about the emojis that just come up spontaneously from
hand gestures. So the peace sign is balloons,
right? So, you know, my friend comes up
and asks me, Reggie, you should come practice yoga with me.
(12:15):
And I'm like, you know, I've never done this before.
I hear it lowers blood pressure.And, you know, it's artsy.
I'll try it. And so that's how I started and.
You just say you called it artsy.
Yeah, or at least I saw it as artsy.
And I've definitely made it artsy, you know, at least in my
rendering and interpretation of this ancient wisdom.
(12:37):
And so I fell into the gym, right?
Fell into like the cadence of a free membership.
We're not free, but you know, 30days, $30 like the the thing
that many studios do to get you there.
In the process of that process, found this gig and moved to
Colorado. And I had worked with this
(12:59):
company or this nonprofit the year prior and was actually the
star of the show basically. So I had one of their highest
performing sites. It was an educational site
teaching English as a second language to Brazilian students.
And when I moved to Denver, thatjob went from awesome to awful
and in six days. So it was super quick, like
(13:22):
insecurity reared its ugly head.And the people for whom I was
their star, once I worked with them, their insecurity LED them
to basically assassinate my character and put me under a
level of psychological microaggressions that I, as a
black man, wasn't used to. Right.
So I'm used to microaggressions,but I was never, I never hazed a
(13:46):
white girl sorority, you know what I mean?
And so they were doing mean girlshit to a black dude, right?
And so I'm just like, this is. So anyway, I had AI had a choice
to make. I was just like I cannot do
anything and curse these motherfuckers out and lose this
job and be $5000 in the hole or this yoga thing that I just
(14:06):
started seems to keep me from wanting to smack the shit out of
people. So let me figure that out.
So I joined this studio in Denver, Co named Kindness Yoga
and same deal. Hey is a 30 day 30.
I had $100 in my pocket. I was like, here, take this, I'm
going to be here a lot. And so essentially was
(14:28):
practicing sadhna, right? So sunrise, sunset.
I didn't know it was Sadhna because I'm like 2 months into
this thing. And as the job got worse, my
practice got more intense and got more disciplined and got
more focused. So much so that the slings and
the arrows that they threw at mebecame like, you know, and they
(14:53):
fired me via text message 10 months later after like ruthless
psychological like bullshit. And instead of me cursing them
out, which would have been quoteUN quote well within my right to
do so, like you lured me here. It was a bait and switch.
You basically tried to levy all these accusations against my
character. I still over performed and
(15:14):
kicked ass. And you didn't say thank you
because you're white and insecure.
This is boring. I didn't say none of that.
I was just like, I want to thankyou.
And they asked me for an exit interview, which is hella tacky,
but whatever. That's what these people were
doing. And I was like, with respect,
exit interview, no, you can't beserious.
(15:36):
And I say, no thank you. I was like, but I do want to
thank you. And they're like, for what?
Because they were clueless. And then that's when the wisdom
bomb came. It was like, I want to thank you
for how poorly you treated me because you gave me access to
this wisdom practice that transformed my life.
So your horrific nature allowed me to find my divine nature.
Peace be with you. And then I called my mom and my
(15:58):
aunt afterwards and I was like this yoga shit.
Like how in the world do I want to go from choking and cursing
these people out? And 10 months later being like,
thank you for the wisdom to you know what, Like this is crazy.
So like once I had that experience, I was just like, I'm
all in on this, right? So it was the physical it I'd
(16:20):
already met. I'm an existential philosophy
major from Yale. So I'm a deep thinker and I've
been a deep thinker for most of my life, especially in this meat
suit in this country, right? So like, to be black and
intelligent is to be one step away from rage.
And so like, I had to figure outa way to like be manipulative
with my rage. And then when I found yoga and
what it did, like the disciplinepractice of compassion and
(16:44):
physical and metaphysical and shit comes up and you're like,
hi, is this true anymore? Yes, keep it.
No goodbye. Right?
Like that thing. Yeah.
Like that disciplined approach to interrogating your own
experience. I was like, I'm hooked.
And so I started practicing for real.
For real. Bernie Sanders campaign was next
(17:06):
for me. And I had worked in presidential
politics off and on since 2003, and it almost killed me.
So with yoga in hand, I joined the Bernie Sanders campaign and
was just like, let's see if we can attack some of these demons.
Now it's probably new approach. Yeah, right.
So how can I go into the thing that almost killed me with
(17:28):
discipline and commitment, son culpa?
Like, how can I take all of these things, look this thing in
the face and kind of be like, all right.
And, you know, the Bernie Sanders campaign, you know,
people used to call me Svengali because I would just walk in.
It would be swirling. And I would just be like, hey,
this goes here, this goes here. So I was so focused and clear.
(17:51):
I would be in meetings that werejust taking too long.
And I was like, with respect, you talking way too much.
I got to go meditate. So you need to make this quick.
So I would say that to folks. Yeah, like, you said the same
thing 10 times, and we wasted 10minutes.
And like, like, I got a lot of stress on my plate.
So I need to deal with that. So like either with this meeting
ends, it continues without me here, or it ends right now I.
(18:15):
Love that. I love that you just stepped
into your power and. Right.
Yeah, exactly what you're telling.
I said what I said, whatever, you know what I mean.
And like, and then people would like want to work with me
because even in that chaos, likeI was just kind of like, and
that's like a year and a half into discipline practice, right?
So you can imagine that I haven't stopped the discipline
(18:38):
and life has continued to life and.
Then I just 10 years, now more than 10 years, yeah.
It will be 11 OK. If I may, I just want to
interrupt you for one second, please, please.
The, I mean, everything you've just said very, very quickly and
a lot of it there is so true for, for the yogic experience,
right? And even just that example you
just gave, not just claiming stepping into your power, but
(18:58):
the fact that others could experience that with you and all
that shift is, is huge, right? It's like, it's amazing to be
able to from a place of still calm inner stillness, right?
Be able to just say, I need to go and do this.
This is what's happening. And then everyone else go, whoa,
what are you doing? Keeping you in the state of
(19:19):
equanimity? Like, how can you, how can you
do this? So just like if you your
experience, I want to talk aboutyour stroke experience in a
moment because that if you have your inner world has clearly
shifted right and it's only beena year or a year and a half.
So how quickly what happened, how what was going on for that
experience because and I'll talkto you about a little stroke a
(19:41):
little bit more in depth after that.
Yeah. So Tatiana, thank you for the
question. Stroke is my deepest teacher.
Like stroke has been the thing that showed me the depth of
mindfulness. Like stroke has shown me the
power of intention. Like stroke has shown me the
(20:01):
mind. The power of the mind.
So April 1st 2014 me and my girlfriend are headed to a
wedding in Georgia and we stop at a random hotel I picked on
hotels.com in South Carolina. By God's grace and the grace of
the ancestor sages and the Saints, that hospital, I mean
(20:21):
that hotel was 4 miles away fromthe second best neurological
trauma center in South Carolina.So in the American South, like
if you. Actually, when you said that,
wow. Right.
Ain't no that there's some places in the South where ain't
no hospitals, man. So like we could have stayed
like an air beat whatever, you know what I mean?
So. Divine intervening that choose
(20:44):
that place. Absolutely.
So I wake up in the middle of the night to go use the restroom
because at that point I was in my late 40s and body changes.
Sometimes you use the bathroom in the middle of the night,
right? Go to the restroom and come out
at the. Same age by the way, I'm also
51, so I know. I know.
Well, you know what? Things may change, and you're
(21:05):
like, oh, this is a feature, OK.Yeah, also not being able to
see, yeah. Right.
You know, it's like, all right, so I come out of the bathroom
and the next thing I know, I'm in the floor and I'm like, did I
get hit? OK.
And then I try and move my leg, nothing.
(21:27):
And I was like, I'm having a mother in stroke right now.
Wow. So you knew immediately.
Well, you, you just knew becauseyou'd you'd had accent, you'd
read about stroke. Read about it Family history
Grandfather had a stroke, Uncle had a stroke.
Grandfather had a stroke at 91 and passed.
Uncle had a stroke at 72 and passed had had stroke in my
(21:50):
family and I was just like God damn, I'm the it's my I'm the
one for my generation. Fuck, you know what I mean.
And so like I'm there and my girlfriends asleep and had
somehow had the presence of mindto awaken her without
distressing her, right. So I'm just like I just.
Want to ask you about that. Were you on the floor still you
(22:11):
so you were because there's varying degrees of having a
stroke. So you had collapsed on the
floor, but you were able to to get move your body enough to
wake her up. I was able to talk.
OK. Awaken her.
At this point I still couldn't move my leg.
OK. And then I was just like, I
remember saying to her, is my speech slurring?
(22:34):
And she's like, what I'm like focus, Like is my speech
slurring? I need to know, you know, And
she was just like, no, you're fine.
I was like, we got to go. And she's like, what's the
matter? I think my legs not working, you
know? And by God's grace, somehow the
trigger came back on and like, Istand up.
(22:55):
I'm huge, right? You know what I mean?
And so I'm like, this thing is working again.
We got to go. And so before I left, though,
this is also quite instructive for my life.
Before I left, I sat like with one of these sound bowls and
just like, what are you doing? I was like, I'm about to go into
a storm. I'm in some shit.
(23:17):
And so I would just be like to kind of resource for what I was
walking into and. It's actually amazing that you
had the awareness you knew what you were about to move into and
that you were able to regain movement access to right, right.
(23:41):
And that you and that she totally support believed you
didn't try and be a for sure, for sure.
That's God. And yeah, absolutely, for sure.
So we walk out of the hotel, I walk into the emergency room and
go through intake and all these other things.
Then it got bad quick, right? It got bad super quick, right?
(24:04):
So leg starts to just go and blood pressure spikes, like my
blood pressure spiked to like 265 over like 190, like some
fucking some, some huge number. And I am conscious the entire
time somehow, and I'll never forget this, the look on the
doctor's eyes, the emergency room Doctor Who sees death all
(24:27):
the time. Like he's like looking at me.
And I was, I was just kind of like, all right, Yogi, like some
shit is going down, bro, you know what I mean?
Like, and so it's time to summon, pray something, you know
what I mean? And somehow at that point the
(24:51):
clock broke and they didn't haveto use the clock busting thing.
Wow. OK, so you were having an
ischemic stroke then you had a, a blocked carotid artery in, in
your neck. And and so that's what was you
were experiencing it in real time in front of them and which
was incredible to be in that environment.
And had they believed you when you came in, when you were like,
(25:13):
I, I, I'm pretty sure I had a stroke like an hour ago.
Yeah, they were pretty good, actually pretty good, pretty
attentive at that point. Like I said, they didn't have to
bust the clod. The clod broke on its own.
However, at that point, like damage was done and the
collateral damage ended up beingI could not move my left leg, I
(25:34):
could not move my left foot. And I looked like I'd been in a
fight. And the doctor then comes in is
like, Mr. Hubbard, there is zerochance of you leaving the
hospital today, maybe until the end of the week.
And so that was the confirmationof what I already knew.
OK Right. So then the next blow, they
wheel me out of ER, take me to like, step down critical care.
(25:59):
And I pass out, right. Wake up some at some point, you
know, all the things. Yeah, all the things.
And neurologist comes in is likeMr. Hubbard, you've had a
stroke, like thanks, doc. And then they start throwing all
these terms, you know, ischemic and right parietal lobe and all
(26:23):
all these other things. You know, my girlfriend's there
taking notes because she's a lawyer.
But also she just, she was thereto hold me down.
And so as he's saying all this stuff yet again, I was like,
could you reach over and get that bowl?
So he's saying all this stuff tome and I'm like, OK,
hypertension, that's blood pressure, right?
Got Diabetic. Fuck.
(26:48):
OK, Neurological devastation. Cool.
You know what I mean? So I'm playing as he's saying
all this stuff because I know and knew from my spiritual
practice that I needed space, right?
Like I need the space to prop like this.
This stuff is unavoidable. Like I'm hundreds of miles away
from home, can't walk and almostdied so I need space pace to
(27:14):
process all that. So luckily for me I had sound
and would play sound and meditate in such deep ways and
adopted the frame early on. How is this happening for me as
opposed to why is this happeningto me and even the neurologist
at the end? Because like I was supposed to
(27:35):
be in critical care step down for like 9 days.
I was there for four. Like, I was supposed to be in
rehab for 11 days. I was there for four.
And like, the neurologists were just like, you know, we see a
lot of strokes and, you know, what is it about what you're
doing? I was like, Doc, I don't
understand the brain like you do, but I do understand the
mind. And I needed to rest my mind so
(27:59):
the brain could heal. And so all of these things I'm
doing are for the benefit of what I understand to be the
maintenance of my nervous system.
And I had a nervous system injury.
And so my chi is off. And so like, I've got to do all
I can to bring it back into balance.
And so in the absence of walking, which I'm paralyzed
(28:21):
now, like I have to shift the subtle energy and sound is what
I know to do that. And so for these doctors who are
super busy to take time out of their schedule to want to
interrogate me about how my recovery is different from the
hundreds of other cases they seeshowed me that was doing
something right. And or, you know, it's the
(28:44):
awareness, right? And so it's that deep presence
of yoga that I know saved my life because like I hit the
floor and I'm just like, this isa stroke.
Like this is what's happening right now.
And how can I consciously aware of this very serious situation?
How can I move from a place of peace and equanimity so that my
(29:06):
precious resource of attention and energy can be used to make
sure that I find safety and goodcare?
So even as I recount this with you now, the fact that that's
what I was thinking like as likewhat you know, like so.
It's amazing that just that's the power of your connection
(29:27):
right to, to your truth and trust, trusting this guidance
that's coming through you. It's I, I think there's actually
not a lot of, not a lot and not enough awareness around what
happens when a person experiences a stroke.
It's it's, it's a brain attack. Yeah.
Totally about heart attacks, butit's a brain attack and you
(29:49):
absolutely. And that then of course affects
the nervous system, but it also effects our speech.
You know, you can have global aphasia or varying degrees of
aphasia, which then of course, is when a person, anyone who's
been with somebody, who's had a loved one or even themselves has
had a stroke and needed to get to a hospital.
That time is really precious, iscritical.
(30:09):
How many hours you get to the hospital?
Was there the moment you have 5 minutes?
I mean, you were there already, right?
You had your second stroke. The second you're the first one,
but maybe you had a tie and didn't even realize it six
months earlier, right? And that's as you know, a trans
and immunity back, right? That's a mini stroke.
So maybe you'd have that didn't realize because of other other
(30:31):
experiences that you were havingin your body.
But to then be in this place of safety.
You were so fortunate that you could just get all of that.
But there's so many people who don't regain their speech or,
and if they do, it's not the same, not not the processing
faculties aren't there because of whatever level of aphasia
they're experiencing. Maybe they can't write, maybe
(30:52):
they can't read read letters. Maybe they can't read numbers.
You know, it's just very different people.
And my, and I know an amount about tricks because my father
had 112 years ago, He recently passed away as a result of, of
his stroke that he had so many years ago.
But he is on an airplane flying from Shanghai, China.
(31:13):
So the plane did an emergency landing in Japan.
He was in the stroke care unit. He missed that window.
It well over exceeded the hours of intervention with the
carotid, the the anti clotting meds in, in the neck and it was
crazy. So he, he was actually in the
stroke care unit in Japan and then he lost complete use of his
body. He became incredibly paralyzed
(31:34):
and that affected it or he also suffered global aphasia.
So he only regained 6, maybe 7 words.
But then a lot of other complications as a result.
But but prior to the stroke, he was this incredibly healthy
looking man picture of health, ran 5 miles every day, did 100
push ups. You know, really took pride in
the way he looked, but he was incredibly stressed.
(31:55):
He was fighting a lot of things and I feel like this is another
aspect that's not spoken about. The irony was he was a huge,
used to be a huge meditator. We, I learned TM when I was 1314
years old because he was so intoTranscendental Meditation.
We lived in Asia. I was exposed to all kinds of
Eastern philosophies and yoga ata really young age.
(32:15):
And at some point he just stopped his practices and I
don't know what happened why, but I could see and reflect back
on and, and see how his body wasso under literally fire that
that agony that builds up and makes the blood sticky in our
bodies and our and everything calcifies.
(32:38):
And so there's a huge trigger when 1 is really experiencing
that. So the fact that you have
figured all of this out for yourown experiences with just anger
and rage, but then understandingand you must be able to feel the
difference within yourself. You probably don't have that
literally that there's a reason that's sort of saying air
quartz, your blood is boiling, right?
That's a feeling legit thing, right?
(33:00):
Like when you're angry, like that is legit rage that we feel
it comes up and your skin changes color and you're like.
Yeah, your pupils dilate and. Throw it at you.
Right. Your pupils dilate like you get
flushed in the arms, like you gain like it's hot.
Like it's. Yeah, I'm about to fuck this up.
Yeah. Like it's this thing.
Yeah, totally. Yeah.
(33:22):
So how to that end? I have a quick story.
So in the States, we have an unfortunate political
circumstance yet again. And I was intimately involved in
the first resistance. I used to work.
I worked at move on. Then I was move on to DC chief
during the first resistance. So LED strategy on the 1st
impeachment, LED mass protests, all these other things.
(33:45):
I could not do anything in our presidential election last year
because I was in stroke recovery.
Oh God, You know, like I had been intimately involved in all
the presidential whatever. And so in this one, I can't do
anything but watch and pray. Holy shit.
And so that was tough. However, you know, I was
(34:07):
practicing like I'm learning howto walk again, like I'm learning
release, I'm learning all these and you know, I have all these
gongs here. It was funny because because I
was kind of pissed when I got sick.
I was just like, yo, like it's alot.
This is heavy stuff for someone who can't walk like this is this
is a lot. But once mobility started to
come back and I could get here, oh man, I just played gongs for
(34:33):
hours. Wow, wow.
And would just play and allow that connection to spaciousness
and consciousness to dissolve the shitty news that I was
getting from the doctor. You know what I mean?
Of the shitty news, of all the campaign stuff.
So, Reggie, we don't know if you'll ever walk again.
OK, Thanks, doc. Then I would hustle back here
(34:56):
safely and just be like oh man, cry blah blah blah.
And then once I would be presentwith the emotions that were
there like if if you understand sound like sound is the direct
connection to silence, which is the direct connection to source.
(35:16):
Yes, the. Sound of.
ALM yes, Yep. So once I cleared the deck of
all of the, for lack of better terminology to try this so dead
stuff that ain't helpful. Like I would be right in this
meditative spot of what would walking again look like?
(35:38):
What would walking again feel like?
And this is still with like a dead foot.
And I would imagine in my right foot moving and then imagine it
happening in the left. And I did that for months.
And one day, because of all thispractice, the left foot moved
like this after being asleep forlike 4 months.
(36:03):
And I'm convinced that it's because of this stuff.
It's like I never lost hope, number one.
But #2 I had to create a space for me to believe the impossible
was possible. So say all that to say, when the
electoral result happened, as itdid in the United States in
November, because I refused to speak certain names, my I will
(36:26):
not waste my words. I was pissed.
I was pissed. And I was, it was there and then
I was just like, OK, your neurology is five months old, so
you cannot accommodate this anger.
You can't, right? It is very real and present.
(36:48):
So it was almost like Part Koshak study, but also just the
understanding of energy. I was like, it's just energy.
So rather than channel it towards rage, can you put it
towards music? Can you put it towards
curriculum? Like can you put it towards
(37:08):
harnessing the wisdom of the merger of your impeccable
political credentials and this miraculous stroke shit that
you're going through? Like how can you harness your
wisdom and your blessing of yourexperience to be of service to
other people? And so that allowed me to create
(37:30):
like something called resiliencetraining and resistance
training. And that we did this in November
and December, January and February to get and we had like
110 people like engaged by. The part of Active Peace Yoga on
your website. So to get people engaged,
because I was just like, y'all listen, everyone in their mom is
freaking out. But I've been through this
(37:52):
before. And not only have I been through
this before, I went through it as I was training in yoga and
meditation. So here are ways that you can
take this horrific energy that'scoming, alchemize it, and still
kick ass. And so like, not in a productive
sense, but in a spiritually transformative alchemical sense.
And people didn't like, I still have the song that still
(38:16):
remains. So I convened the song Go once
1/4, and they were just like, it's like you were an Oracle or
a prophet. I was like, I'm not like, I'm
just like telling you what the wisdom tells me, right?
And so these dark times that youperceive as dark can be the
precipice of your Renaissance. Trust me, like my stroke, like
(38:39):
for four months, was nothing butbullshit.
But I held space and held hope and dug through the muck to find
the Lotus. Yeah, that is super powerful and
it's love that you're teaching this to empower people.
And because it it's not just theindividual who might be
(39:00):
experiencing it, but the the people in their lives as well.
You can do it as a collective totally.
Totally. And there's so much more power
in the healing for everybody because no claiming and pointing
fingers and taking it out on each other.
It's they're actually able to, as you said, hold space, right?
Totally. You were holding space for
yourself, but for the collective.
(39:22):
Yeah, and the one thing I'll sayquickly to that is that I'm
going to I'm going to reboot thecourse because we're now almost
a year into this and I've got anI've got it's not even about
customer success stories. Like people know this works and
you know, I've had people tell me, you know, I really am out of
practice with my resilience and I was like good.
(39:44):
Like good thing is that I'm not so and I'm a teacher.
So like, we'll I'm going to bring that course back because
it's not, it's not just about political stuff, right?
You know, because I believe to my soul that the problems that
America and the world to some extent, but the United States
has, they are spiritual problemsthat have political
(40:07):
manifestations, right? So people who cherish violence
and their way or the highway, they lack compassion.
Those who cannot look violence in the face and being like.
They lack courage, right? They're all of these different
spiritual attributes that peoplehave in deficit that are
manifesting as political problems that if we practice in
(40:29):
community again and again and again, the resilience of the
individual and the collective can make for a healing
situation. And so a lot of that philosophy,
I'm assuming you're, you're taking from yogic literature
like the 8 limbs, the yogic path.
But you don't have to necessarily be speaking or
understand. You don't have to be using yogic
terminology. No, no.
(40:50):
Right. Yeah, right.
Like, like, are you familiar with Lama Rod Owens?
He's amazing. Yeah.
He's my buddy. Oh, amazing.
He's such a great spiritual teacher.
We had him on with my podcast aswell.
We're good friends. And we really talked about how,
you know, the struggle is real. Like this is actually people
choose the struggle and they don't even realize that they're
choosing the struggle, you know,and then they are acting out
(41:10):
because of that struggle making it OK.
Like it's not a meme people, it's right.
But so just talk about a little bit how you're applying the the
yogic philosophy and sharing that with your community and,
and that people really don't even have to know these names or
terms or even who Patanjali is or any of this.
(41:33):
Right, right. So one of my favorite yogic
concepts is Pradipaksha Babanam,right?
So to the second something negative is happening like like
think of something positive and or create the space to welcome
(41:53):
the positive in addition to the negative, right?
So we tend to have binary thinking when the capacity of
the enlightened mind is the whole space for all.
So when I talk about the the layman's terminology of party
Paksa Bhavana, I was just like. So the next time you are
triggered by a newscast, rather than think about the fear that
(42:14):
it incites in you, think about how you can use that awakening
to build your community, right? Or create community.
Or you say, hi, fear, how are you doing?
I'm going to also welcome encourage in speaking truth to
fear, right. So like I talk about it like
that. They don't need to know that
that's like 2.33. They don't they don't need to
(42:37):
know all of that. And you know, because you know
how yoga land can be, they can be like, well, in the citrus of
putt, no like. I know it just gets too much.
I know I'm like really? I do know.
I'm like, Oh no, OK, don't. Also, don't come and adjust my
body, you know? Seriously.
(42:59):
Just like so I and, you know, I was taught that the deep study
is my job. And if I can take the deep study
and make it applicable, that's the teacher.
Yeah, yeah. For sure.
You know, wisdom is, is a thread, right?
Yeah. And you can absolutely weave,
(43:20):
you can weave beautiful stories.You can share experiences and
and bringing your own, your own health experience into all of
this. And comparing that analogy, like
incredible, right? Like that, like, you know, it
sounds trying to say, oh, what agift, because, you know, it
makes a powerful person to to recognize those gifts and A and
(43:40):
a person who can really step into that and and instead of
going all, as you said earlier, why me like being the victim,
using that as power and and making critical changes.
So what I. Had to be honest, you know what
I mean? Like I had terrible eating
habits. Like I had allowed grief to
subsume the capacity I had for taking care of myself.
(44:03):
You know, I'd, I'd lost the equivalent of my brother in a
very sudden fashion in 2021. And so I worked too much and
kind of let things slide. And in addition to family
history and poor choices, yeah, I mean, it happened, right?
So the thing I've done and we Llama Rod and actually, and I
(44:25):
think we had a beautiful conversation at Kapalu this
spring because he was like, Reggie, you don't know that.
You saved my life. And I was just like, OK, so
we're in front of like 200 people.
So before you make me cry, you got to give me some notice, man.
But he he was like you being so raw and honest about your stroke
(44:46):
forced me to go get my blood pressure taken.
So the delusion of I'll get to it.
I'll get to it because you got on Instagram with your crutches
talking about take your ass to the doctor.
This is not a fucking game, right?
Because he and I are about the same size.
(45:06):
He was like, we're the same size.
We're the same age. And like I was again, you don't
want none of this baby. You don't, right?
So I'm glad. And so I was like, thank it.
To know that my suffering created an opportunity for your
liberation is like the biggest gift.
Wow. Well, and that's beautiful,
(45:27):
yeah, that he can share that andalso do it together, you know,
because that's creating awareness.
Like, listen to the stories we're telling you.
Right. What can people do?
I mean, you have your website, you have a lot of advocacy work
that you're that you're involvedwith.
How can listeners or just the general public get involved?
What can people do that can signup for classes with you, follow
(45:48):
you on Instagram, and what are all the things that you've got
going on? Yeah, so I'm O Reggie Global
OREDGI e.g. LOBAL on Instagram.
I hate social media, but I'm awesome at it and I'm.
Not. I'm awesome at it.
And I, I have taken vows of inspiration, truth telling and
(46:12):
information sharing. Like, so I talk a lot.
I'll talk about the stroke. I talk about these things.
And one of the blessings that I've heard recently is someone
just like your ability to talk honestly about the things that
people hide from is that you're the ambassador of sorrow.
Like you hold these truths that people avoid here.
(46:36):
And I was like, listen, here's the thing.
And I'm grateful for the stroke for this.
Like I'm not afraid of the dark.You can't talk love and light if
you're scared of the dark. Oh yeah, 100% yeah, totally you.
Can't. And so, oh, Reggie Global's a
good place to find me. Active peace yoga.
If you look up active peace yogaanywhere like I'm, I'm easy to
(46:56):
find and I'm starting to teach more.
Meaning communities of practice are the only thing that allow
for endurable social change. So whether they be virtual or in
person, I'm starting to convene area, convene, practice groups
for Dharma, but also for sound because like resting your
(47:18):
nervous system and community is spiritual and alchemical.
So creating these various groupsso that we can come together,
rest together, lift together, rise together.
Actually, quickly on that point of rest, just talk about the
importance of Shavasana. Yeah, so here's what I know
about my spiritual practice. Like I guess I wasn't doing
(47:39):
enough Shavasana. So the sages and the Saints and
the ancestors, like sit your ass.
Down. They were like, OK, here we go,
we're going to make you stop. Yeah, and you won't be able to
walk. Interesting.
So for people that Shavasana is corpse pose, right?
The what you do at the end of itof a traditional Arsenal
practice, right, which most people lay there on the mat
going in their heads. I need to get back to work.
(48:01):
I need to go quickly get up. No, I can't lay here for 10 or
15 minutes. I got to relief.
The integration, and I'm grateful for the life, Shavasana
that I had because it allowed meto integrate the wisdom of the
experience to shed. I had to shed old habits, old
mental habits and mental patterns.
And from that corpse pose, from that corpse season, I've been
(48:24):
able to emerge magical and mystical and beautiful.
But it didn't happen until I rested.
Yeah, I love that. Is that when you're doing your,
your sounds, are they, are they sound bots that you're doing?
Are they live? Are they over online?
Both right. So The thing is, and I'll should
I'll even, I mean, I got this stuff here.
I'll play it for you a little bit because it'll definitely
(48:45):
translate. So I had a jazz icon come to one
of my retreats. This gentleman, Jack D Jeanette,
he played on Bitches Brew with Miles Davis.
So like, he came to one of my retreats and was just like,
brother, I saw a picture of you in front of your gongs and I was
like, this motherfucker's on some shit.
So to be called motherfucker by someone who who played with
(49:09):
Miles Davis and John Coltrane. And whenever I was just like, oh
shit. So I have a jazz background, but
also I understand spiritual stuff.
And so like when I play, it's the essence of being present and
free. So sound is not music.
(49:30):
Sound is meant to unlock what you have in your mind, but also
in your body. Like there is a Sonic
intelligence that the body has that we know nothing about.
And we typically condition ourselves with noise.
And noise begets cortisol, begets like a shrinking of the
body begets like a unintentionalsuffocation of the human
(49:54):
apparatus. However, you know when I play,
this bowl goes directly to the center of your head and clears
all of it. And if one wasn't enough, try
another. So my online stuff sounds this
(50:18):
good because I've invested in these microphones.
Right. Yeah, I know you have to go that
night. I used to be a sound roadie, you
know, So like, I can't like havecrap microphones.
Like I'm gonna have a crap setup.
So live and in person, I'll playsound bowls or chimes or let me.
Yeah, I'd love to hear you do it.
(50:39):
Well, look at your setup. That's amazing.
If that actually looks like a store that like in Nepal with
all your dongle, your all your singing bowls on the floor
sizes. Yeah, it.
Is kind of this in the middle ofnowhere in Maryland?
So what I'll do? I actually have the setup for
happy birthday because my birthday was on Sunday.
Happy. Birthday.
(51:00):
Thank you and I'll do a little happy birthday riff I played on
Sunday, which is my actual birthday.
A hour and a half long set with This is the hook so.
(52:22):
Beautiful. Yeah, so I play with those vibes
a lot. Beautiful.
And I now know, like I said through my stroke recovery, that
when I sit in low light with that and play and pray, I had an
Indigenous elder tell me one time they were like, you know,
when I hear you play, it's like you're praying to all the
(52:44):
deities and the dimensions. So please incorporate that.
And you're playing. I'm like, what?
But like once they said that I was like, well, if you hear
that, you're in tune with some stuff.
And so all right. You know what's beautiful for me
just now? I can, I can receive that within
(53:05):
my entire being in my body, my nervous system, and I feel it in
my, my chest, you know, like it comes and enters my body that
way and it's such a a peaceful harmonizing experience.
You know, it's, it's beautiful. It's like, it's like sitting in
the last night. I it was the full moon, the
Aries, the harvest and I have a bathroom.
(53:27):
The moon comes around that side and the bathtub there and it's a
copper tub. So I laid in the dark last night
with the moon coming in and justit's like that the same, it's
the same experience for me because it's like I'm receiving
that healing light with an intention built into I did a
fire ceremony before that first awesome things and then did
(53:50):
that. But yeah, it's really, it's
profound. These are profound healing
tools. And we had them for a reason,
you know, and they're ancient and they've been around for such
a long time, right? You know, and and it's wonderful
that they're that we in the Westhave access to them and are
learning and are being led to touse them because they just to
share these and to be able to use them on ourselves.
(54:11):
It's such a gift. So I love that you found that
they found you, that they came. That they found me and it's like
ancient wisdom meets, like jazzyPrince.
Like, I mean, yeah, it's fun. Yeah, super cool.
OK, So anything else you want toshare?
Because that was really amazing.Thank you very much.
I'd love to go like sign online and come do one of your sound
(54:33):
bots online. Yeah, more than welcome.
I mean, now I'm just grateful for the chance to talk to you
and your crew and just blessing on your day.
Cool. And OK, stroke awareness, is
there something quickly that you're associated with that
people can go to? Yeah, Stroke Onward is a group I
do a lot of work with. Stroke Onward is building
communities of support for stroke survivors.
(54:57):
But also shout out to all caregivers because no stroke,
the stroke community is bigger than the person that have the
stroke, like people who dependedupon or were connected to the
individual who is experiencing something they never thought
they would deal with, right? The family also never thought
(55:17):
they would deal with any of thisstuff, right?
So Stroke Onward is creating communities of care where there
are the amplification of successstories like mine.
I mean, the one thing that I I don't feel guilty about it, but
my recovery is miraculous. Yeah, you wouldn't even know.
(55:38):
No, right. It was bad, right?
But not everybody has this recovery, right.
And so I'm careful when I talk about it to say, hey, I happen
to be in the I happen to have the awareness and the proximity,
but also the agency and divine favor, right.
(56:00):
So like those four things took ait could have been disastrous,
right? And it was it has become
something that was just like mildly harmful, right?
So, but stroke Onward is creating a stroke community care
groups for caregivers and survivors to because, and you
(56:22):
know this from your experience, likely everyone pays attention
for the first year but or so, but after that you still got the
stroke and no one gives a shit. And so like creating communities
who are going through that silent wait because no one needs
to bear that burden alone. The stroke Onward is the stroke
(56:44):
advocacy group that I do a lot of work with.
I. Love that.
I love that. Amazing.
Thank you so much. Well, it was great to chat to
you. Thank you so much for sharing
your beautiful wisdom. I love it so how it felt.
Thank you. And thank you for your
resilience, for this opportunity, and I hope you have
the best day ever. Thank you.
You too. Peace.
Hello and thanks for listening to the contestable podcast.
I'm Tatiana. In this episode, Reggie Hubbard,
founder of Active Peace Yoga, shares his journey of healing
and self discovery after surviving a stroke.
Reggie Story is a reminder of yoga's power to restore balance
and rebuild from within in this highly entertaining and
(00:28):
inspiring conversation. Yes, entertaining.
Reggie shares his story of recovery, resilience, and
renewal. He reminds us that healing isn't
just about getting back to wherewe were, it's about awakening to
who we can become. In this episode, we discuss how
the music and artistry of Princeinspires Reggie in entirely new
ways, how he founded Active Peace Yoga, and how Reggie's
(00:51):
experience and recovery journey with stroke has been a lesson
and a blessing. His story is a reminder that
even in our most challenging moments, peace is always
possible and that the path to transformation begins within.
Bridgie also explains that when peace aligns with civic
responsibility, it lays the foundation for meaningful and
transformative change. And before yoga, Reggie spent
(01:13):
decades as a seasoned political strategist, working with the
Bernie Sanders campaign, servingas congressional liaison for
Move On, and holding a variety of high profile positions in
Washington. His journey from political
activism to peace activism is a powerful testament to
transformation, proof that awareness and compassion can
exist at the intersection of inner and outer change.
(01:35):
I hope you enjoyed this episode and if you loved listening to
it, please write a review and follow me on Instagram at The
Conscious Diva. You can also watch this episode
on YouTube. Thank you again, and I hope you
learned something about the importance of stroke awareness,
recovery, and mindful self-care.Well, it's so lovely to to chat
(01:57):
to you today and so that we could finally make this happen.
Absolutely a pleasure to be withyou.
I love your Prince logos that you've got there.
I know he's an influence for you.
Pretty ubiquitous, yeah. I mean, I think that's super
cool. I was going to ask you about
Prince a little bit later, but since you've got, you know, his
logos right there front and center, let's start with that.
(02:18):
Art and energy are very intertwined, and I don't know
what it was about Purple Rain when I was 10 years old.
They compelled me to want to seeand be around that.
I remember as a young youngster,parents like, what do you want
(02:39):
for your birthday? I was like, sign of the times,
you know, like, so, like 13 years old, like asking for sign
of the times and those sorts of things.
And I remember when Prince passed away in 2016, I was at
that point where I was working for Bernie Sanders.
And we were doing a conventionalwalkthrough in Philadelphia
during the Democratic primary season.
And I was like, if this shit is serious, like, I'm really not
(03:02):
going to be OK for the rest of the day, you know?
And I happened to be dating someone at the time who was from
Minneapolis, but our relationship was clearly on the
way out because she was like, I don't know how you could be so
upset about someone that you never knew.
And I was just like, I'm going to hang up this phone real quick
and I'll be back in Colorado in a couple days and we can talk
(03:25):
about this then because what yousaid there is completely
unacceptable. Whatever, Bye.
Like love you, I guess. Bye.
Whatever. And when I started teaching,
well, I'm the most accidental yoga teacher in the world.
I'm the most accidental meditation teacher in the world.
Practitioner. If you had told me I'd be
practitioner, I'd be like totally teaching the the fickle
(03:49):
nature of the human experience bores me.
You know what I mean? So I never thought I'd be a
teacher or, or those sorts of things.
However, when I started to mergemy activist practice and my
spiritual practice, like all of this artistry started to emerge
and the first class I ever taught publicly as part of my
200 hour yoga teacher training was dedicated to Prince.
(04:13):
It was on Prince's birthday and my yoga, my yoga teacher Faith
Hunter was like Reggie, you know, you're teaching on June
7th and I was like June 7th, June 7th as you want me to teach
my first class ever on Prince's birthday.
And she was just like, it's no big deal.
I'm like, whatever. Like this is like like as loving
(04:35):
as one could be. I was kind of like, that ain't
no accident, you know what I mean?
So anyway, every 200 hour personhas their like boring little oh,
we're going to do this, then this, then this.
So I had to throw that away and come up with this whole new
thing because it's Prince's birthday.
And so taught the class kick some ass.
And as my teaching practice emerged, like Prince days and
(04:59):
Prince's birthday was almost like a ritual because the first
class I ever taught was on his actual birthday.
And so when I launch active peace in April 2020, that was a
height of a pandemic, right? Like everyone in their Mama
stuck at their house. And I'm like at my, my response
(05:21):
to the pandemic was one of real calm, you know, almost like
eerie calm because, you know, that's what these the yoga
sutras and like the damapata, all these things talk about like
equanimity, right? So when the joys and sorrows
emerge, you're just kind of like, oh, this is happening as
opposed to like all that other stuff.
And when the pandemic hit, like I was super peaceful and I was
(05:45):
just like, oh, I guess I got to make this active.
So Active Peace is born and in April 4th, 2020 was my first
public class. I was like I got to do something
with respect to Prince. So April 21st is when Prince
transitioned and so I held this virtual class on April 21st,
(06:09):
2020. Somehow Princess Nephew came.
So President Nelson was in the class and there were like 110
other people in this class and it just exploded.
And I was just like, okay, clearly Prince wants me to teach
more or something. And so Prince has been a staple
(06:29):
of mocked teaching practice. For you to be wild and free and
who gives a shit what they think?
Do you? And if they don't like it,
they'll be just fine. OK, that's awesome.
I love it. I I also love Prince and I saw
him in concert in, I don't know,in Sydney in like My God, 1990,
(06:52):
1991, maybe a really long time ago.
It was actually the Diamond's Tour.
Oh gosh. Yeah, yeah.
And you know, there, that was the first time I saw him live
and I just the, his presence on stage was so incredible, so
moving. I just, I actually couldn't
believe it. I was like, Oh my God.
(07:13):
Because you, you know, back thenyou didn't really, you'd see
people on, you know, MTV music right in video.
You didn't, it wasn't like todaywhere you could go on YouTube or
Instagram and look at videos. It was like you kind of either
had to see someone live or for their year to come on MTV.
And in Australia we didn't have a 24 hour MTV channel like you
do in America. And so you know that it was
(07:34):
really rare. So it was a special experience
to and it was an experience to be in the presence of him.
He would perform and everything.So no, I can, I can totally
understand how you have a love and and deep respect.
Did you as a side note, did you see that New York Times article?
It was earlier this year or the end of last year about
(07:55):
documentary that was made for Netflix that unfortunately it
doesn't sound like it's going tocome.
Yeah, so The funny thing is thatthe guy who made that
documentary I went to college with.
OK. Have you seen it then?
Have you been? No, like he did, He did a
documentary on OJ Simpson as well, right?
So like Ezra, Ezra's a good dudeand like, it sucks that we can't
see what he saw. Yeah, yeah.
The obviously the writer of thatarticle saw the the preview of
(08:18):
it and she wrote a very good in depth description of of the
right. So but anyway, so you let's talk
about your good work Active Peace Yoga.
So you just shared a little bit about that.
But leading up to this, you weren't always practicing yoga.
You said you were a profession originally, you were a part of
(08:38):
Bernie Sanders campaign political space.
And so how did you, how were youintroduced to yoga originally?
So I had a friend or have a friend like I luckily still have
her who once and she's like Reggie, you know, you're an
angry black man, white woman, which is interesting.
I mean, I love it at Dev and like this is who she is.
(09:00):
She's like, you're an angry black man.
You should practice yoga to helpyou with that.
So at that point in my life, I responded like an angry black
man. I was like, what the fuck are
you talking about? You know what I mean?
Like mind your business, you know, and was just didn't just
just kind of dismiss. And I was like also I was like,
I ain't no skinny white chick, so why would I do that?
You know what I mean? Like I ain't no skinny white
chick and you call me angry black man.
(09:21):
So you know what I mean. Here you go.
And I never thought of it until 8 No October, September, October
2014. I was in the midst of being
considered for two really high-powered jobs in the Obama
administration. So I was up to be either deputy
(09:45):
assistant secretary for international education or
deputy chief of staff for education.
Some big ass thing. And so I basically put all my
political chips and relationships to get to the top
2 for those things, Made it to the top 2 for both, didn't get
either 1. And I was like God damn, this is
the equivalent of asking to marry someone and they're like
(10:07):
no and run away. So I'm just like oh man, I got
to leave town like this is not good.
So very heartbroken and heartbreaking.
However, a year prior I had begun to do like self discovery
work, meaning like I'm not started to interrogate about how
(10:29):
my accumulated psychological habits and my dietary habits
informed my response to externalstimuli, which was yoga.
But I didn't know that, you knowwhat I mean?
Like at least the philosophical part, you know what I mean?
I conflated and it's easy to do so because there's pimp that way
in the marketplace, right? Like the physical ain't the
(10:50):
spiritual and the metaphysical, like the metaphysical and the
spiritual, like I've been, I've been in and I, I grew up in the
church. So like to some level, like
spirituality is, is very easy for me because it's, it's been
present for me for I would say 47 of my 51 years.
But in that, in that 2014 time frame when I didn't get those
(11:12):
jobs and I felt like the heartbreak and just like the
confusion about what am I supposed to do now?
Damn, you know what I mean. I made a vow and the vow was I'm
only going to do things that I've never done before that are
creative and artsy and lower my blood pressure.
And so when my homework. You just press the balloon
(11:33):
button. No, it's funny.
So I keep forgetting that this camera I got a new computer for
and like if I do this like. Yeah, it's responding OK.
Yeah, Yeah, I know that feature.And this, you know what I mean?
I talk a lot with my hands. And so I didn't know that this
was as newfangled as it was whenI got it and I was doing
(11:55):
something I did and I was like, that just happened.
All right, cool. Whatever.
So anyone that's listening and not watching that Reggie's
talking about the emojis that just come up spontaneously from
hand gestures. So the peace sign is balloons,
right? So, you know, my friend comes up
and asks me, Reggie, you should come practice yoga with me.
(12:15):
And I'm like, you know, I've never done this before.
I hear it lowers blood pressure.And, you know, it's artsy.
I'll try it. And so that's how I started and.
You just say you called it artsy.
Yeah, or at least I saw it as artsy.
And I've definitely made it artsy, you know, at least in my
rendering and interpretation of this ancient wisdom.
(12:37):
And so I fell into the gym, right?
Fell into like the cadence of a free membership.
We're not free, but you know, 30days, $30 like the the thing
that many studios do to get you there.
In the process of that process, found this gig and moved to
Colorado. And I had worked with this
(12:59):
company or this nonprofit the year prior and was actually the
star of the show basically. So I had one of their highest
performing sites. It was an educational site
teaching English as a second language to Brazilian students.
And when I moved to Denver, thatjob went from awesome to awful
and in six days. So it was super quick, like
(13:22):
insecurity reared its ugly head.And the people for whom I was
their star, once I worked with them, their insecurity LED them
to basically assassinate my character and put me under a
level of psychological microaggressions that I, as a
black man, wasn't used to. Right.
So I'm used to microaggressions,but I was never, I never hazed a
(13:46):
white girl sorority, you know what I mean?
And so they were doing mean girlshit to a black dude, right?
And so I'm just like, this is. So anyway, I had AI had a choice
to make. I was just like I cannot do
anything and curse these motherfuckers out and lose this
job and be $5000 in the hole or this yoga thing that I just
(14:06):
started seems to keep me from wanting to smack the shit out of
people. So let me figure that out.
So I joined this studio in Denver, Co named Kindness Yoga
and same deal. Hey is a 30 day 30.
I had $100 in my pocket. I was like, here, take this, I'm
going to be here a lot. And so essentially was
(14:28):
practicing sadhna, right? So sunrise, sunset.
I didn't know it was Sadhna because I'm like 2 months into
this thing. And as the job got worse, my
practice got more intense and got more disciplined and got
more focused. So much so that the slings and
the arrows that they threw at mebecame like, you know, and they
(14:53):
fired me via text message 10 months later after like ruthless
psychological like bullshit. And instead of me cursing them
out, which would have been quoteUN quote well within my right to
do so, like you lured me here. It was a bait and switch.
You basically tried to levy all these accusations against my
character. I still over performed and
(15:14):
kicked ass. And you didn't say thank you
because you're white and insecure.
This is boring. I didn't say none of that.
I was just like, I want to thankyou.
And they asked me for an exit interview, which is hella tacky,
but whatever. That's what these people were
doing. And I was like, with respect,
exit interview, no, you can't beserious.
(15:36):
And I say, no thank you. I was like, but I do want to
thank you. And they're like, for what?
Because they were clueless. And then that's when the wisdom
bomb came. It was like, I want to thank you
for how poorly you treated me because you gave me access to
this wisdom practice that transformed my life.
So your horrific nature allowed me to find my divine nature.
Peace be with you. And then I called my mom and my
(15:58):
aunt afterwards and I was like this yoga shit.
Like how in the world do I want to go from choking and cursing
these people out? And 10 months later being like,
thank you for the wisdom to you know what, Like this is crazy.
So like once I had that experience, I was just like, I'm
all in on this, right? So it was the physical it I'd
(16:20):
already met. I'm an existential philosophy
major from Yale. So I'm a deep thinker and I've
been a deep thinker for most of my life, especially in this meat
suit in this country, right? So like, to be black and
intelligent is to be one step away from rage.
And so like, I had to figure outa way to like be manipulative
with my rage. And then when I found yoga and
what it did, like the disciplinepractice of compassion and
(16:44):
physical and metaphysical and shit comes up and you're like,
hi, is this true anymore? Yes, keep it.
No goodbye. Right?
Like that thing. Yeah.
Like that disciplined approach to interrogating your own
experience. I was like, I'm hooked.
And so I started practicing for real.
For real. Bernie Sanders campaign was next
(17:06):
for me. And I had worked in presidential
politics off and on since 2003, and it almost killed me.
So with yoga in hand, I joined the Bernie Sanders campaign and
was just like, let's see if we can attack some of these demons.
Now it's probably new approach. Yeah, right.
So how can I go into the thing that almost killed me with
(17:28):
discipline and commitment, son culpa?
Like, how can I take all of these things, look this thing in
the face and kind of be like, all right.
And, you know, the Bernie Sanders campaign, you know,
people used to call me Svengali because I would just walk in.
It would be swirling. And I would just be like, hey,
this goes here, this goes here. So I was so focused and clear.
(17:51):
I would be in meetings that werejust taking too long.
And I was like, with respect, you talking way too much.
I got to go meditate. So you need to make this quick.
So I would say that to folks. Yeah, like, you said the same
thing 10 times, and we wasted 10minutes.
And like, like, I got a lot of stress on my plate.
So I need to deal with that. So like either with this meeting
ends, it continues without me here, or it ends right now I.
(18:15):
Love that. I love that you just stepped
into your power and. Right.
Yeah, exactly what you're telling.
I said what I said, whatever, you know what I mean.
And like, and then people would like want to work with me
because even in that chaos, likeI was just kind of like, and
that's like a year and a half into discipline practice, right?
So you can imagine that I haven't stopped the discipline
(18:38):
and life has continued to life and.
Then I just 10 years, now more than 10 years, yeah.
It will be 11 OK. If I may, I just want to
interrupt you for one second, please, please.
The, I mean, everything you've just said very, very quickly and
a lot of it there is so true for, for the yogic experience,
right? And even just that example you
just gave, not just claiming stepping into your power, but
(18:58):
the fact that others could experience that with you and all
that shift is, is huge, right? It's like, it's amazing to be
able to from a place of still calm inner stillness, right?
Be able to just say, I need to go and do this.
This is what's happening. And then everyone else go, whoa,
what are you doing? Keeping you in the state of
(19:19):
equanimity? Like, how can you, how can you
do this? So just like if you your
experience, I want to talk aboutyour stroke experience in a
moment because that if you have your inner world has clearly
shifted right and it's only beena year or a year and a half.
So how quickly what happened, how what was going on for that
experience because and I'll talkto you about a little stroke a
(19:41):
little bit more in depth after that.
Yeah. So Tatiana, thank you for the
question. Stroke is my deepest teacher.
Like stroke has been the thing that showed me the depth of
mindfulness. Like stroke has shown me the
power of intention. Like stroke has shown me the
(20:01):
mind. The power of the mind.
So April 1st 2014 me and my girlfriend are headed to a
wedding in Georgia and we stop at a random hotel I picked on
hotels.com in South Carolina. By God's grace and the grace of
the ancestor sages and the Saints, that hospital, I mean
(20:21):
that hotel was 4 miles away fromthe second best neurological
trauma center in South Carolina.So in the American South, like
if you. Actually, when you said that,
wow. Right.
Ain't no that there's some places in the South where ain't
no hospitals, man. So like we could have stayed
like an air beat whatever, you know what I mean?
So. Divine intervening that choose
(20:44):
that place. Absolutely.
So I wake up in the middle of the night to go use the restroom
because at that point I was in my late 40s and body changes.
Sometimes you use the bathroom in the middle of the night,
right? Go to the restroom and come out
at the. Same age by the way, I'm also
51, so I know. I know.
Well, you know what? Things may change, and you're
(21:05):
like, oh, this is a feature, OK.Yeah, also not being able to
see, yeah. Right.
You know, it's like, all right, so I come out of the bathroom
and the next thing I know, I'm in the floor and I'm like, did I
get hit? OK.
And then I try and move my leg, nothing.
(21:27):
And I was like, I'm having a mother in stroke right now.
Wow. So you knew immediately.
Well, you, you just knew becauseyou'd you'd had accent, you'd
read about stroke. Read about it Family history
Grandfather had a stroke, Uncle had a stroke.
Grandfather had a stroke at 91 and passed.
Uncle had a stroke at 72 and passed had had stroke in my
(21:50):
family and I was just like God damn, I'm the it's my I'm the
one for my generation. Fuck, you know what I mean.
And so like I'm there and my girlfriends asleep and had
somehow had the presence of mindto awaken her without
distressing her, right. So I'm just like I just.
Want to ask you about that. Were you on the floor still you
(22:11):
so you were because there's varying degrees of having a
stroke. So you had collapsed on the
floor, but you were able to to get move your body enough to
wake her up. I was able to talk.
OK. Awaken her.
At this point I still couldn't move my leg.
OK. And then I was just like, I
remember saying to her, is my speech slurring?
(22:34):
And she's like, what I'm like focus, Like is my speech
slurring? I need to know, you know, And
she was just like, no, you're fine.
I was like, we got to go. And she's like, what's the
matter? I think my legs not working, you
know? And by God's grace, somehow the
trigger came back on and like, Istand up.
(22:55):
I'm huge, right? You know what I mean?
And so I'm like, this thing is working again.
We got to go. And so before I left, though,
this is also quite instructive for my life.
Before I left, I sat like with one of these sound bowls and
just like, what are you doing? I was like, I'm about to go into
a storm. I'm in some shit.
(23:17):
And so I would just be like to kind of resource for what I was
walking into and. It's actually amazing that you
had the awareness you knew what you were about to move into and
that you were able to regain movement access to right, right.
(23:41):
And that you and that she totally support believed you
didn't try and be a for sure, for sure.
That's God. And yeah, absolutely, for sure.
So we walk out of the hotel, I walk into the emergency room and
go through intake and all these other things.
Then it got bad quick, right? It got bad super quick, right?
(24:04):
So leg starts to just go and blood pressure spikes, like my
blood pressure spiked to like 265 over like 190, like some
fucking some, some huge number. And I am conscious the entire
time somehow, and I'll never forget this, the look on the
doctor's eyes, the emergency room Doctor Who sees death all
(24:27):
the time. Like he's like looking at me.
And I was, I was just kind of like, all right, Yogi, like some
shit is going down, bro, you know what I mean?
Like, and so it's time to summon, pray something, you know
what I mean? And somehow at that point the
(24:51):
clock broke and they didn't haveto use the clock busting thing.
Wow. OK, so you were having an
ischemic stroke then you had a, a blocked carotid artery in, in
your neck. And and so that's what was you
were experiencing it in real time in front of them and which
was incredible to be in that environment.
And had they believed you when you came in, when you were like,
(25:13):
I, I, I'm pretty sure I had a stroke like an hour ago.
Yeah, they were pretty good, actually pretty good, pretty
attentive at that point. Like I said, they didn't have to
bust the clod. The clod broke on its own.
However, at that point, like damage was done and the
collateral damage ended up beingI could not move my left leg, I
(25:34):
could not move my left foot. And I looked like I'd been in a
fight. And the doctor then comes in is
like, Mr. Hubbard, there is zerochance of you leaving the
hospital today, maybe until the end of the week.
And so that was the confirmationof what I already knew.
OK Right. So then the next blow, they
wheel me out of ER, take me to like, step down critical care.
(25:59):
And I pass out, right. Wake up some at some point, you
know, all the things. Yeah, all the things.
And neurologist comes in is likeMr. Hubbard, you've had a
stroke, like thanks, doc. And then they start throwing all
these terms, you know, ischemic and right parietal lobe and all
(26:23):
all these other things. You know, my girlfriend's there
taking notes because she's a lawyer.
But also she just, she was thereto hold me down.
And so as he's saying all this stuff yet again, I was like,
could you reach over and get that bowl?
So he's saying all this stuff tome and I'm like, OK,
hypertension, that's blood pressure, right?
Got Diabetic. Fuck.
(26:48):
OK, Neurological devastation. Cool.
You know what I mean? So I'm playing as he's saying
all this stuff because I know and knew from my spiritual
practice that I needed space, right?
Like I need the space to prop like this.
This stuff is unavoidable. Like I'm hundreds of miles away
from home, can't walk and almostdied so I need space pace to
(27:14):
process all that. So luckily for me I had sound
and would play sound and meditate in such deep ways and
adopted the frame early on. How is this happening for me as
opposed to why is this happeningto me and even the neurologist
at the end? Because like I was supposed to
(27:35):
be in critical care step down for like 9 days.
I was there for four. Like, I was supposed to be in
rehab for 11 days. I was there for four.
And like, the neurologists were just like, you know, we see a
lot of strokes and, you know, what is it about what you're
doing? I was like, Doc, I don't
understand the brain like you do, but I do understand the
mind. And I needed to rest my mind so
(27:59):
the brain could heal. And so all of these things I'm
doing are for the benefit of what I understand to be the
maintenance of my nervous system.
And I had a nervous system injury.
And so my chi is off. And so like, I've got to do all
I can to bring it back into balance.
And so in the absence of walking, which I'm paralyzed
(28:21):
now, like I have to shift the subtle energy and sound is what
I know to do that. And so for these doctors who are
super busy to take time out of their schedule to want to
interrogate me about how my recovery is different from the
hundreds of other cases they seeshowed me that was doing
something right. And or, you know, it's the
(28:44):
awareness, right? And so it's that deep presence
of yoga that I know saved my life because like I hit the
floor and I'm just like, this isa stroke.
Like this is what's happening right now.
And how can I consciously aware of this very serious situation?
How can I move from a place of peace and equanimity so that my
(29:06):
precious resource of attention and energy can be used to make
sure that I find safety and goodcare?
So even as I recount this with you now, the fact that that's
what I was thinking like as likewhat you know, like so.
It's amazing that just that's the power of your connection
(29:27):
right to, to your truth and trust, trusting this guidance
that's coming through you. It's I, I think there's actually
not a lot of, not a lot and not enough awareness around what
happens when a person experiences a stroke.
It's it's, it's a brain attack. Yeah.
Totally about heart attacks, butit's a brain attack and you
(29:49):
absolutely. And that then of course affects
the nervous system, but it also effects our speech.
You know, you can have global aphasia or varying degrees of
aphasia, which then of course, is when a person, anyone who's
been with somebody, who's had a loved one or even themselves has
had a stroke and needed to get to a hospital.
That time is really precious, iscritical.
(30:09):
How many hours you get to the hospital?
Was there the moment you have 5 minutes?
I mean, you were there already, right?
You had your second stroke. The second you're the first one,
but maybe you had a tie and didn't even realize it six
months earlier, right? And that's as you know, a trans
and immunity back, right? That's a mini stroke.
So maybe you'd have that didn't realize because of other other
(30:31):
experiences that you were havingin your body.
But to then be in this place of safety.
You were so fortunate that you could just get all of that.
But there's so many people who don't regain their speech or,
and if they do, it's not the same, not not the processing
faculties aren't there because of whatever level of aphasia
they're experiencing. Maybe they can't write, maybe
(30:52):
they can't read read letters. Maybe they can't read numbers.
You know, it's just very different people.
And my, and I know an amount about tricks because my father
had 112 years ago, He recently passed away as a result of, of
his stroke that he had so many years ago.
But he is on an airplane flying from Shanghai, China.
(31:13):
So the plane did an emergency landing in Japan.
He was in the stroke care unit. He missed that window.
It well over exceeded the hours of intervention with the
carotid, the the anti clotting meds in, in the neck and it was
crazy. So he, he was actually in the
stroke care unit in Japan and then he lost complete use of his
body. He became incredibly paralyzed
(31:34):
and that affected it or he also suffered global aphasia.
So he only regained 6, maybe 7 words.
But then a lot of other complications as a result.
But but prior to the stroke, he was this incredibly healthy
looking man picture of health, ran 5 miles every day, did 100
push ups. You know, really took pride in
the way he looked, but he was incredibly stressed.
(31:55):
He was fighting a lot of things and I feel like this is another
aspect that's not spoken about. The irony was he was a huge,
used to be a huge meditator. We, I learned TM when I was 1314
years old because he was so intoTranscendental Meditation.
We lived in Asia. I was exposed to all kinds of
Eastern philosophies and yoga ata really young age.
(32:15):
And at some point he just stopped his practices and I
don't know what happened why, but I could see and reflect back
on and, and see how his body wasso under literally fire that
that agony that builds up and makes the blood sticky in our
bodies and our and everything calcifies.
(32:38):
And so there's a huge trigger when 1 is really experiencing
that. So the fact that you have
figured all of this out for yourown experiences with just anger
and rage, but then understandingand you must be able to feel the
difference within yourself. You probably don't have that
literally that there's a reason that's sort of saying air
quartz, your blood is boiling, right?
That's a feeling legit thing, right?
(33:00):
Like when you're angry, like that is legit rage that we feel
it comes up and your skin changes color and you're like.
Yeah, your pupils dilate and. Throw it at you.
Right. Your pupils dilate like you get
flushed in the arms, like you gain like it's hot.
Like it's. Yeah, I'm about to fuck this up.
Yeah. Like it's this thing.
Yeah, totally. Yeah.
(33:22):
So how to that end? I have a quick story.
So in the States, we have an unfortunate political
circumstance yet again. And I was intimately involved in
the first resistance. I used to work.
I worked at move on. Then I was move on to DC chief
during the first resistance. So LED strategy on the 1st
impeachment, LED mass protests, all these other things.
(33:45):
I could not do anything in our presidential election last year
because I was in stroke recovery.
Oh God, You know, like I had been intimately involved in all
the presidential whatever. And so in this one, I can't do
anything but watch and pray. Holy shit.
And so that was tough. However, you know, I was
(34:07):
practicing like I'm learning howto walk again, like I'm learning
release, I'm learning all these and you know, I have all these
gongs here. It was funny because because I
was kind of pissed when I got sick.
I was just like, yo, like it's alot.
This is heavy stuff for someone who can't walk like this is this
is a lot. But once mobility started to
come back and I could get here, oh man, I just played gongs for
(34:33):
hours. Wow, wow.
And would just play and allow that connection to spaciousness
and consciousness to dissolve the shitty news that I was
getting from the doctor. You know what I mean?
Of the shitty news, of all the campaign stuff.
So, Reggie, we don't know if you'll ever walk again.
OK, Thanks, doc. Then I would hustle back here
(34:56):
safely and just be like oh man, cry blah blah blah.
And then once I would be presentwith the emotions that were
there like if if you understand sound like sound is the direct
connection to silence, which is the direct connection to source.
(35:16):
Yes, the. Sound of.
ALM yes, Yep. So once I cleared the deck of
all of the, for lack of better terminology to try this so dead
stuff that ain't helpful. Like I would be right in this
meditative spot of what would walking again look like?
(35:38):
What would walking again feel like?
And this is still with like a dead foot.
And I would imagine in my right foot moving and then imagine it
happening in the left. And I did that for months.
And one day, because of all thispractice, the left foot moved
like this after being asleep forlike 4 months.
(36:03):
And I'm convinced that it's because of this stuff.
It's like I never lost hope, number one.
But #2 I had to create a space for me to believe the impossible
was possible. So say all that to say, when the
electoral result happened, as itdid in the United States in
November, because I refused to speak certain names, my I will
(36:26):
not waste my words. I was pissed.
I was pissed. And I was, it was there and then
I was just like, OK, your neurology is five months old, so
you cannot accommodate this anger.
You can't, right? It is very real and present.
(36:48):
So it was almost like Part Koshak study, but also just the
understanding of energy. I was like, it's just energy.
So rather than channel it towards rage, can you put it
towards music? Can you put it towards
curriculum? Like can you put it towards
(37:08):
harnessing the wisdom of the merger of your impeccable
political credentials and this miraculous stroke shit that
you're going through? Like how can you harness your
wisdom and your blessing of yourexperience to be of service to
other people? And so that allowed me to create
(37:30):
like something called resiliencetraining and resistance
training. And that we did this in November
and December, January and February to get and we had like
110 people like engaged by. The part of Active Peace Yoga on
your website. So to get people engaged,
because I was just like, y'all listen, everyone in their mom is
freaking out. But I've been through this
(37:52):
before. And not only have I been through
this before, I went through it as I was training in yoga and
meditation. So here are ways that you can
take this horrific energy that'scoming, alchemize it, and still
kick ass. And so like, not in a productive
sense, but in a spiritually transformative alchemical sense.
And people didn't like, I still have the song that still
(38:16):
remains. So I convened the song Go once
1/4, and they were just like, it's like you were an Oracle or
a prophet. I was like, I'm not like, I'm
just like telling you what the wisdom tells me, right?
And so these dark times that youperceive as dark can be the
precipice of your Renaissance. Trust me, like my stroke, like
(38:39):
for four months, was nothing butbullshit.
But I held space and held hope and dug through the muck to find
the Lotus. Yeah, that is super powerful and
it's love that you're teaching this to empower people.
And because it it's not just theindividual who might be
(39:00):
experiencing it, but the the people in their lives as well.
You can do it as a collective totally.
Totally. And there's so much more power
in the healing for everybody because no claiming and pointing
fingers and taking it out on each other.
It's they're actually able to, as you said, hold space, right?
Totally. You were holding space for
yourself, but for the collective.
(39:22):
Yeah, and the one thing I'll sayquickly to that is that I'm
going to I'm going to reboot thecourse because we're now almost
a year into this and I've got anI've got it's not even about
customer success stories. Like people know this works and
you know, I've had people tell me, you know, I really am out of
practice with my resilience and I was like good.
(39:44):
Like good thing is that I'm not so and I'm a teacher.
So like, we'll I'm going to bring that course back because
it's not, it's not just about political stuff, right?
You know, because I believe to my soul that the problems that
America and the world to some extent, but the United States
has, they are spiritual problemsthat have political
(40:07):
manifestations, right? So people who cherish violence
and their way or the highway, they lack compassion.
Those who cannot look violence in the face and being like.
They lack courage, right? They're all of these different
spiritual attributes that peoplehave in deficit that are
manifesting as political problems that if we practice in
(40:29):
community again and again and again, the resilience of the
individual and the collective can make for a healing
situation. And so a lot of that philosophy,
I'm assuming you're, you're taking from yogic literature
like the 8 limbs, the yogic path.
But you don't have to necessarily be speaking or
understand. You don't have to be using yogic
terminology. No, no.
(40:50):
Right. Yeah, right.
Like, like, are you familiar with Lama Rod Owens?
He's amazing. Yeah.
He's my buddy. Oh, amazing.
He's such a great spiritual teacher.
We had him on with my podcast aswell.
We're good friends. And we really talked about how,
you know, the struggle is real. Like this is actually people
choose the struggle and they don't even realize that they're
choosing the struggle, you know,and then they are acting out
(41:10):
because of that struggle making it OK.
Like it's not a meme people, it's right.
But so just talk about a little bit how you're applying the the
yogic philosophy and sharing that with your community and,
and that people really don't even have to know these names or
terms or even who Patanjali is or any of this.
(41:33):
Right, right. So one of my favorite yogic
concepts is Pradipaksha Babanam,right?
So to the second something negative is happening like like
think of something positive and or create the space to welcome
(41:53):
the positive in addition to the negative, right?
So we tend to have binary thinking when the capacity of
the enlightened mind is the whole space for all.
So when I talk about the the layman's terminology of party
Paksa Bhavana, I was just like. So the next time you are
triggered by a newscast, rather than think about the fear that
(42:14):
it incites in you, think about how you can use that awakening
to build your community, right? Or create community.
Or you say, hi, fear, how are you doing?
I'm going to also welcome encourage in speaking truth to
fear, right. So like I talk about it like
that. They don't need to know that
that's like 2.33. They don't they don't need to
(42:37):
know all of that. And you know, because you know
how yoga land can be, they can be like, well, in the citrus of
putt, no like. I know it just gets too much.
I know I'm like really? I do know.
I'm like, Oh no, OK, don't. Also, don't come and adjust my
body, you know? Seriously.
(42:59):
Just like so I and, you know, I was taught that the deep study
is my job. And if I can take the deep study
and make it applicable, that's the teacher.
Yeah, yeah. For sure.
You know, wisdom is, is a thread, right?
Yeah. And you can absolutely weave,
(43:20):
you can weave beautiful stories.You can share experiences and
and bringing your own, your own health experience into all of
this. And comparing that analogy, like
incredible, right? Like that, like, you know, it
sounds trying to say, oh, what agift, because, you know, it
makes a powerful person to to recognize those gifts and A and
(43:40):
a person who can really step into that and and instead of
going all, as you said earlier, why me like being the victim,
using that as power and and making critical changes.
So what I. Had to be honest, you know what
I mean? Like I had terrible eating
habits. Like I had allowed grief to
subsume the capacity I had for taking care of myself.
(44:03):
You know, I'd, I'd lost the equivalent of my brother in a
very sudden fashion in 2021. And so I worked too much and
kind of let things slide. And in addition to family
history and poor choices, yeah, I mean, it happened, right?
So the thing I've done and we Llama Rod and actually, and I
(44:25):
think we had a beautiful conversation at Kapalu this
spring because he was like, Reggie, you don't know that.
You saved my life. And I was just like, OK, so
we're in front of like 200 people.
So before you make me cry, you got to give me some notice, man.
But he he was like you being so raw and honest about your stroke
(44:46):
forced me to go get my blood pressure taken.
So the delusion of I'll get to it.
I'll get to it because you got on Instagram with your crutches
talking about take your ass to the doctor.
This is not a fucking game, right?
Because he and I are about the same size.
(45:06):
He was like, we're the same size.
We're the same age. And like I was again, you don't
want none of this baby. You don't, right?
So I'm glad. And so I was like, thank it.
To know that my suffering created an opportunity for your
liberation is like the biggest gift.
Wow. Well, and that's beautiful,
(45:27):
yeah, that he can share that andalso do it together, you know,
because that's creating awareness.
Like, listen to the stories we're telling you.
Right. What can people do?
I mean, you have your website, you have a lot of advocacy work
that you're that you're involvedwith.
How can listeners or just the general public get involved?
What can people do that can signup for classes with you, follow
(45:48):
you on Instagram, and what are all the things that you've got
going on? Yeah, so I'm O Reggie Global
OREDGI e.g. LOBAL on Instagram.
I hate social media, but I'm awesome at it and I'm.
Not. I'm awesome at it.
And I, I have taken vows of inspiration, truth telling and
(46:12):
information sharing. Like, so I talk a lot.
I'll talk about the stroke. I talk about these things.
And one of the blessings that I've heard recently is someone
just like your ability to talk honestly about the things that
people hide from is that you're the ambassador of sorrow.
Like you hold these truths that people avoid here.
(46:36):
And I was like, listen, here's the thing.
And I'm grateful for the stroke for this.
Like I'm not afraid of the dark.You can't talk love and light if
you're scared of the dark. Oh yeah, 100% yeah, totally you.
Can't. And so, oh, Reggie Global's a
good place to find me. Active peace yoga.
If you look up active peace yogaanywhere like I'm, I'm easy to
(46:56):
find and I'm starting to teach more.
Meaning communities of practice are the only thing that allow
for endurable social change. So whether they be virtual or in
person, I'm starting to convene area, convene, practice groups
for Dharma, but also for sound because like resting your
(47:18):
nervous system and community is spiritual and alchemical.
So creating these various groupsso that we can come together,
rest together, lift together, rise together.
Actually, quickly on that point of rest, just talk about the
importance of Shavasana. Yeah, so here's what I know
about my spiritual practice. Like I guess I wasn't doing
(47:39):
enough Shavasana. So the sages and the Saints and
the ancestors, like sit your ass.
Down. They were like, OK, here we go,
we're going to make you stop. Yeah, and you won't be able to
walk. Interesting.
So for people that Shavasana is corpse pose, right?
The what you do at the end of itof a traditional Arsenal
practice, right, which most people lay there on the mat
going in their heads. I need to get back to work.
(48:01):
I need to go quickly get up. No, I can't lay here for 10 or
15 minutes. I got to relief.
The integration, and I'm grateful for the life, Shavasana
that I had because it allowed meto integrate the wisdom of the
experience to shed. I had to shed old habits, old
mental habits and mental patterns.
And from that corpse pose, from that corpse season, I've been
(48:24):
able to emerge magical and mystical and beautiful.
But it didn't happen until I rested.
Yeah, I love that. Is that when you're doing your,
your sounds, are they, are they sound bots that you're doing?
Are they live? Are they over online?
Both right. So The thing is, and I'll should
I'll even, I mean, I got this stuff here.
I'll play it for you a little bit because it'll definitely
(48:45):
translate. So I had a jazz icon come to one
of my retreats. This gentleman, Jack D Jeanette,
he played on Bitches Brew with Miles Davis.
So like, he came to one of my retreats and was just like,
brother, I saw a picture of you in front of your gongs and I was
like, this motherfucker's on some shit.
So to be called motherfucker by someone who who played with
(49:09):
Miles Davis and John Coltrane. And whenever I was just like, oh
shit. So I have a jazz background, but
also I understand spiritual stuff.
And so like when I play, it's the essence of being present and
free. So sound is not music.
(49:30):
Sound is meant to unlock what you have in your mind, but also
in your body. Like there is a Sonic
intelligence that the body has that we know nothing about.
And we typically condition ourselves with noise.
And noise begets cortisol, begets like a shrinking of the
body begets like a unintentionalsuffocation of the human
(49:54):
apparatus. However, you know when I play,
this bowl goes directly to the center of your head and clears
all of it. And if one wasn't enough, try
another. So my online stuff sounds this
(50:18):
good because I've invested in these microphones.
Right. Yeah, I know you have to go that
night. I used to be a sound roadie, you
know, So like, I can't like havecrap microphones.
Like I'm gonna have a crap setup.
So live and in person, I'll playsound bowls or chimes or let me.
Yeah, I'd love to hear you do it.
(50:39):
Well, look at your setup. That's amazing.
If that actually looks like a store that like in Nepal with
all your dongle, your all your singing bowls on the floor
sizes. Yeah, it.
Is kind of this in the middle ofnowhere in Maryland?
So what I'll do? I actually have the setup for
happy birthday because my birthday was on Sunday.
Happy. Birthday.
(51:00):
Thank you and I'll do a little happy birthday riff I played on
Sunday, which is my actual birthday.
A hour and a half long set with This is the hook so.
(52:22):
Beautiful. Yeah, so I play with those vibes
a lot. Beautiful.
And I now know, like I said through my stroke recovery, that
when I sit in low light with that and play and pray, I had an
Indigenous elder tell me one time they were like, you know,
when I hear you play, it's like you're praying to all the
(52:44):
deities and the dimensions. So please incorporate that.
And you're playing. I'm like, what?
But like once they said that I was like, well, if you hear
that, you're in tune with some stuff.
And so all right. You know what's beautiful for me
just now? I can, I can receive that within
(53:05):
my entire being in my body, my nervous system, and I feel it in
my, my chest, you know, like it comes and enters my body that
way and it's such a a peaceful harmonizing experience.
You know, it's, it's beautiful. It's like, it's like sitting in
the last night. I it was the full moon, the
Aries, the harvest and I have a bathroom.
(53:27):
The moon comes around that side and the bathtub there and it's a
copper tub. So I laid in the dark last night
with the moon coming in and justit's like that the same, it's
the same experience for me because it's like I'm receiving
that healing light with an intention built into I did a
fire ceremony before that first awesome things and then did
(53:50):
that. But yeah, it's really, it's
profound. These are profound healing
tools. And we had them for a reason,
you know, and they're ancient and they've been around for such
a long time, right? You know, and and it's wonderful
that they're that we in the Westhave access to them and are
learning and are being led to touse them because they just to
share these and to be able to use them on ourselves.
(54:11):
It's such a gift. So I love that you found that
they found you, that they came. That they found me and it's like
ancient wisdom meets, like jazzyPrince.
Like, I mean, yeah, it's fun. Yeah, super cool.
OK, So anything else you want toshare?
Because that was really amazing.Thank you very much.
I'd love to go like sign online and come do one of your sound
(54:33):
bots online. Yeah, more than welcome.
I mean, now I'm just grateful for the chance to talk to you
and your crew and just blessing on your day.
Cool. And OK, stroke awareness, is
there something quickly that you're associated with that
people can go to? Yeah, Stroke Onward is a group I
do a lot of work with. Stroke Onward is building
communities of support for stroke survivors.
(54:57):
But also shout out to all caregivers because no stroke,
the stroke community is bigger than the person that have the
stroke, like people who dependedupon or were connected to the
individual who is experiencing something they never thought
they would deal with, right? The family also never thought
(55:17):
they would deal with any of thisstuff, right?
So Stroke Onward is creating communities of care where there
are the amplification of successstories like mine.
I mean, the one thing that I I don't feel guilty about it, but
my recovery is miraculous. Yeah, you wouldn't even know.
(55:38):
No, right. It was bad, right?
But not everybody has this recovery, right.
And so I'm careful when I talk about it to say, hey, I happen
to be in the I happen to have the awareness and the proximity,
but also the agency and divine favor, right.
(56:00):
So like those four things took ait could have been disastrous,
right? And it was it has become
something that was just like mildly harmful, right?
So, but stroke Onward is creating a stroke community care
groups for caregivers and survivors to because, and you
(56:22):
know this from your experience, likely everyone pays attention
for the first year but or so, but after that you still got the
stroke and no one gives a shit. And so like creating communities
who are going through that silent wait because no one needs
to bear that burden alone. The stroke Onward is the stroke
(56:44):
advocacy group that I do a lot of work with.
I. Love that.
I love that. Amazing.
Thank you so much. Well, it was great to chat to
you. Thank you so much for sharing
your beautiful wisdom. I love it so how it felt.
Thank you. And thank you for your
resilience, for this opportunity, and I hope you have
the best day ever. Thank you.
You too. Peace.
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