153: 12 Ways I Stay Engaged In The World, Protect My Nervous System And Uplevel My Teaching
My understanding of the spiritual teachings is that my liberation doesn’t mean anything unless everyone else is free too. The teachings of Buddhism say over and over again that a huge part of our practice is about creating a world where the safety and freedom and happiness of all sentient beings is possible. So from that I take that being engaged in working for a better world is a necessary part of my spiritual practice.
This is a really dark timeline. The things the American government is doing are truly horrific. I want to stay out of the spiral of despair and overwhelm so that I can be engaged, focused, supportive and actually helpful.
Today we are taking a deep dive into the 12 things I do regularly to stay engaged without overloading my system, find ways to be helpful and let it all be part of my practice and teaching. Let’s dive in.
In this episode, you’ll hear:
4 suggestions for staying informed without mainlining the news, because no one’s nervous system is built for that
a soap box speech about social media and how I recommend you engage with it
the things I am doing to try and make both my small world and our wider community places better for everyone
4 things I do every day to keep my nervous system regulated
Resources Mentioned
Teaching yoga involves far more than the hours we spend with our yoga students. Behind every yoga class we teach there is a significant amount of planning, relationship-building, scheduling, administration, marketing, and financial management. In this episode, I share the practical systems that have helped me build a sustainable yoga teaching career over the last two decades.
Following up on our recent conversation about the hidden labor of yoga teaching, this episode focuses on solutions. While we absolutely need collective action and systemic change to better support yoga teachers (and other freelance workers), there are also concrete systems we can put in place right now to make our work feel more manageable, organized, and sustainable.