August 4, 2022 | 60 minutes, 24 seconds
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Podcast Show Notes
In this episode of the Ayurveda Meets Modern Science podcast, host John Douillard, DC, CAP, interviews Swami Jaya Devi, on her new book Embodied: An Urban Yogi’s Memoir + Manifesto for Modern Living. Devi has been the spiritual director of Kashi Atlanta, an urban yoga ashram, for the past 25 years.
How to Mind the Gap
John and Swami Jaya Devi discuss why you should pay attention to what is happening in the between moments of your life, such as your drive to the store or the end of your yoga session. How do these in-between moments make you feel? Calm, clear, stressed, fearful, quick to react? These moments are known as gaps in Ayurveda. Gaps are the spaces from which we are able to access healing, change, and our full potential.
Devi guides us on how to overcome negative feelings you might experience in the gaps by being more mindful, as well as kind and loving toward yourself and those around you.
See also The Key to Human Resilience: An Interview with Scott Carney
How to Link Breath and Awareness
When experiencing a gap, it is common to react quickly to situations around you, explains Devi. Instead, practice taking a deep breath and ask yourself why you are reacting and why the other person you are with is reacting, she suggests.
Using breathing techniques to stop and slow down helps you assess and become more aware of what is happening around you, says Devi.
See also Ayurvedic Nose Breathing for Stress and Immunity
Most people want an instant fix to heal their pain. The problem is that if you are leaning on medicine without a proper evaluation of the root cause, then you are just putting a band-aid on a problem instead of actually fixing it, says Devi.
She recommends that the best way to understand your pain is to become aware of what you are feeling and why you are feeling it. Then you can treat it right.
