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Rane Bowen: Hello, my name is Rane Bowen and this is the Flow Artist podcast. Together with my co host Jo Stewart, we speak with extraordinary movers, thinkers and teachers about how they find their flow and much, much more. Before we dive in, we want to take a moment to acknowledge and honour the traditional owners of the unceded land where this episode was recorded. The Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. The we pay our deepest respects to the elders, both past and present and acknowledge the emerging leaders within their community. In this upcoming episode, we're speaking with Dr. Lauren Tober a clinical psychologist, yoga teacher, author, founder and director of the Yoga Psychology Institute. We loved Lauren's latest book, Mental Health Aware Yoga and her passion for sharing wisdom from yoga philosophy alongside evidence based research to help us better understand our own mind minds and better serve our students. In this episode we talk about Lauren's personal life experiences which inform the book, along with trauma, informed teaching skills, navigating depression and anxiety, exploring yoga ethics as a teacher and comparing that approach to the ethical framework that psychologists practise within. It's a great conversation, so let's get into it.

Jo Stewart: Hello Lauren, thank you so much for joining us today. I'm really excited to dive right into talking about your book Mental Health Aware Yoga, because I loved it and I've got so many questions, maybe too many questions, but I guess we should start with two key aspects of your background, your psychology training and also your yoga practise and yoga teacher training. And it seemed like these two trainings kind of happened in parallel around the same time in your life. Would you like to give us an insight into your introduction to these two different but also complementary ways to work with the mind?

Lauren Tober: I would love to. And firstly, thank you so much for having me in your podcast. It's just a delight to be here.

Jo Stewart: Oh, such a pleasure.

Lauren Tober: Yeah, like you said. And maybe you read that in the first chapter of the book where I talk about the way that I started to integrate these. They started at the same time but very, very separately. So I was doing my undergraduate degree in psychology. I went on exchange to UBC and Canada studying psychology and. But it was there that I went to my first yoga class. It was a Kundalini yoga class. And yeah, for, you know, a long time these things happened separately. I was practising yoga and studying psychology and then I was, you know, working as a psychologist and eventually like teaching yoga as well. But there were, they were quite, they were quite separate. But I always knew that I wanted to bring them together and in the early days, I didn't know how they would fit together. I knew that yoga felt so good for my body and for my mind. And I had this, just this sense that it would be so great to integrate it into psychology. But, you know, 20 years ago, I didn't know anyone was who was doing that work. I'm sure there were people doing it, but I didn't know anyone was doing it. And then when I was doing my doctorate in Canberra, I came across this fabulous book called Yoga for Depression by Amy Weintraub. I think it's about 20 years old now. It's still a great book, it's kind of a classic. And I could see that someone else was doing this work for the first time. I wasn't the only one that was having these kind of weird ideas about bringing yoga into psychology. And that has been such an inspiration for me, that book. Yeah. So I wrote my doctoral thesis on mindfulness based cognitive therapy. I wanted to research yoga and mental health, but the university couldn't really get their heads around that. So I researched mvct, which is like a mindfulness based practise integrated with cognitive behaviour therapy to support recurrent depression and anxiety. So, like when you have multiple episodes of depression, but actually it's yoga, they just don't call it that. It's called mindfulness. That's kind of. At the time, I mean, even now, but particularly at the time, I think that was much more acceptable. This was kind of the early days of mindfulness, like integrating into psychology. Now it's everywhere. Right. But this was the kind. It felt like the early days of that. So that was a kind of much more accepted, acceptable kind of route. And so I went down that path and it actually set me up really well to. To continue to integrate it. But even still, after I finished that, I was still doing things quite separately. I was. My husband and I were teaching Ashtanga yoga in Canberra and I had, you know, I was working as a psychologist. I had a small clinical practise there, but really it wasn't until I moved to Mullumbimbi, Byron Bay, where I live now, that I really started to be able integrate them into my work. And part of that, I think, you know, there's a lot of yoga going on up here. It's like a very different place than Canberra. But also times are changing as well and there are so many psychologists and mental health professionals who are integrating yoga into their work now, which I think is so cool. So partly it was a place and partly just times are changing. Which I'm very excited about.

Jo Stewart: And so do you think that whole idea of like bottom up therapies is in general getting a lot more traction and respect these days to that whole idea of like, oh, we can work with the mind as we move our bodies or we can move our bodies in a way that, you know, help us regulate our nervous system.

Lauren Tober: Agreed. Yeah. And I think the field of somatic psychology has done a lot for that. And also people like Bessel van der Kolk for example, he wrote the book the Body Keeps the Score. And so really starting to understand how, you know, we can't just look at the mind and the thoughts and maybe in emotions that we have to take a much more integrative approach. But I think sometimes it has swung too far the other way. And so we used to take like, just like in psychopath, when I say we, I mean like the field of psychology take a top down approach. So you know, cognitive behaviour therapy is all about our cognitions, our thoughts and way they affect our emotions and our behaviours. Very kind of cognitive approach. And then we have, you know, yoga and other body based somatic practises that are more of a bottom up approach. Personally I feel like we need both, we need a top down and a bottom up approach and one without the other. For some people it will work 100% but for most of us we need to use both of those and that's going to be the most effective for us.

Jo Stewart: And I guess that is a very appropriate role as a yoga teacher because in a lot of the stuff I've read about trauma, informed teaching and practise, it's really not recommended to just be doing the movement stuff without also having a different type of therapist on the team to like work with the mind. And then sometimes the physical practises can just be like a chance to like integrate a bit more or just unwind a bit more after kind of doing that. Intensive and powerful but you know, not always relaxing. Work of working with the mind.

Lauren Tober: Not always relaxing, sometimes very intense. Yeah, that's a, that is a really great point. And I think when we're talking about using yoga for mental health, yoga, you know, if, if it's about supporting our mental health, like kind of prevention or if there's some, you know, mild subclinical mental health stuff going on, you know, we all go through that. Sure, then maybe yoga in itself is enough. But if it's something more significant, I think yoga is best used as like an adjunct to therapy or used in conjunction. So we're having, you know, we're going to psychotherapy, we might be taking pharmaceutical medication or seeing a naturopath and getting some support and lifestyle things in other ways. And yoga is part of the picture. There's no one, I don't think there's one single therapy that works for everybody and is like the only thing that we should be doing, really. If we're looking at our mental health, there's lots of different therapies, threads that we need to be looking at. And yoga is one of those, a really cool one, I reckon, but it is just. It is just one of those. One of the pieces of the puzzle.

Jo Stewart: Yeah, totally. I love the line in your book, which is the way I saw it, yoga itself was wonderful for mental health, but the way it was taught was not always conducive to positive mental health. And I'm wondering if this was part of the inspiration for writing your book. And also, how do you think we got to this paradigm of many teachers teaching a version of yoga that's actually increasing people's stress levels?

Lauren Tober: Yeah, I mean, I think that's just a reflection of the society that we, that we live in that's quite often quite dysfunctional, let's face it, the world that we live in and, you know, yoga is part of that and so that it can reflect. Yeah. I was teaching these Yoga for Depression and Yoga for Anxiety classes in Byron Bay. And, you know, but when I was teaching, I was thinking, this actually isn't that much different than what I would be teaching in a general yoga class. And that was kind of the catalyst for me to start teaching this mental health aware yoga work. And then eventually, you know, five years later, writing this book, thinking that, you know, yoga itself, like, you read from the quote from the book and I just have to say, like, this is my first book and whenever anyone, like quotes me back from my book, I'm like, oh, my goodness, that's so cool. So I'm still getting a buzz from, from that. Thank you. You know, I went around to different yoga classes to see, like, what's yoga now? Because at that point I'd been doing a lot of my own practise teaching, I had been going to a lot of classes and the landscape at yoga had changed a lot in those kind of 10 years and, you know, really seeing some stuff being taught and the way the teachers showed up that really wasn't supportive of people's mental health. And so we're talking things like touching your students without consent, the language that we're using, you Know, focused on the body. Like we're doing things to look in a certain, to look a certain way or to lose weight or you know, encouraging people like to push through, just hold a little bit longer, you can do it like push, push. You know, you got to meet your edge and go through it as opposed to tune into what you need in this moment and listen to what your body needs and move in a way that works for you. This is not about doing a practise in the way that I'm asking you to do, but instead, you know, practising in a way that works, works for you. And I think, you know, again, things are changing, which is really cool, but still, there's still lots of room for, you know, I think yoga teaches understanding mental health more because I think, you know, yoga teachers, we come to this work with the best intentions and honestly we want to show up for our students and really deeply support them. Like no yoga teachers are coming from this place of trying to make their students feel shitty about them, about themselves self. We're all coming from a really good place. But if we don't have this understanding of mental health and the power of the way that we teach and the language that we use and the way that we show up, it can be easy to fall into some, you know, ways of teaching that aren't always healthy.

Jo Stewart: Yeah, I think especially what you touched on, the body image stuff, like if you within yourself are doing your practise as a way to change your body or I don't want to say punish yourself because, you know, sometimes it's more subconscious than that but like there is a fitness culture and a diet culture that's just so prevalent in our society and in movement, like a lot of teachers might have come to the practise for that reason. And if feeling better about yourself is entirely based on how your body is looking, then that's not always the healthiest message to be passing on to your students.

Lauren Tober: Yeah, agreed. And it can be really subtle. Like, you know, I've heard things like, like just like in the lead up to Christmas, like I remember one teacher saying, then we'll do an extra, you know, a few sun salutations so we can indulge at Christmas, you know, and it's like, just like a jokey kind of thing that on the surface doesn't really sound like much but it's communicating, you know, like it is like that underlying message about body image and being thin and you have to earn your food through more sun salutations and so.

Jo Stewart: You talk A lot in your book about scope of practise, which I think is really important when we're in this realm and how you've touched on this already. Like, yoga's not like a substitute for therapy, but also just to acknowledge, like, the prevalence of trauma within our community. And so many people come to yoga for their mental health. So the reality is that there are going to be many people in our classes who do have a trauma history or are working with their own mental health issues. And we don't always know that. Like, it's not always something that people write on their form.

Lauren Tober: No, they don't.

Jo Stewart: Yeah. Would you like to speak a bit on the importance of, like, creating, like a safe and brave and nurturing space for whoever shows up?

Lauren Tober: Yeah. And I think this is so important and I think generally as yoga teachers we do this really well. Right. Like, we're really good at creating these safe containers or brave spaces, whatever you want to call them, these spaces where people can come and feel seen and heard and met. And that in itself, I think is one of the most profound things that we can do to support somebody's mental health. Yes. There's different practises and, you know, ways of sequencing and the language that we're using, but creating a space where people can come and where they're not judged, they're met, where they are, they feel seen and heard is unfortunately really rare in our world. Like, I would like to think that that's not true, but actually many people don't have that experience. And particularly if we've been through trauma or we're feeling depressed or anxious, it can be difficult to access those spaces or we might be feeling that way because we haven't had many people in our life that made us feel like that. So I think this is, you know, apart from all the different beautiful practises that yoga offers, the relationship with the teacher and the safety that's created in the class can have a really profound effect on somebody's well being and mental health and sense of community. You know, we all want to be seen and heard. Like, there's a deep desire that all of us, all of us have within us. So that's something that I think we can do really beautifully in a yoga class.

Jo Stewart: And some of it is so simple, like it was kind of a revelation. Like it shouldn't have been. Like when I did a trauma informed training, like it can be just stuff as simple as, like, oh, if you need to go to the toilet, you can do that anytime you need to. Or if you need to, like, leave the room and have a bit of a breather outside. That's totally fine. This is the basic structure of the class. Maybe letting people know, I won't touch you. Unless that's something we've already talked about and we know that you're okay with it. And it seems really obvious and really basic, but the fact that it actually. That means that if you. Or that can mean that people don't say it because we are like, oh, I know everyone can go to the bathroom whenever they want. I'm not the kind of teacher would have a problem with that.

Lauren Tober: Yeah.

Jo Stewart: It's like some of that stuff is so simple to do and yet can really change people's experience. Just having that very basic freedom laid out and acknowledged.

Lauren Tober: Yeah. And I think sometimes when we're teachers, we've been going to yoga classes for a long time, so we know how it works. We know the drill. Like, it's mostly the same. We go to different studios. Things are slightly different, but mostly we know. But when. When you're coming to yoga for the first time or you're coming to a new studio, it can be like, yoga studios can be really weird. Like, if you're not part of that, like, people are wearing these weird clothes or using all these weird words, like, there is a presumed kind of thing that happens in a yoga class that if you're not used to that, you can. You know, it can be really. It can be really confusing. And so spelling some of that stuff out for you, especially for your new students, whether that is, like, when they book in, they get it in an email or something on the wall. And then also, just like you said, communicating that at the beginning of class can really help people to orient to the space and feel safe because they know what's going on.

Jo Stewart: And I guess another layer to that as well, which happens all the time in yoga classes, is if it's not explicitly said that you don't have to do all the moves if it doesn't feel good for you and everyone around you is doing all of these moves and you're like, okay, this is what people do here. I'll just follow along. Like, is it meant to hurt? I don't know.

Lauren Tober: Yeah. Yeah. Because if you've been to a gym or Pilates or something, like it is, your teacher might say it is meant to hurt. So, yeah, those lessons, you know, we might already have that kind of dialogue or we might be presuming that we have to. We have to do it because everybody else is. But we don't.

Jo Stewart: And so one of the questions that you ask in your book, which I think is a great question, is do you know what to do if a student in your class cries or becomes anxious or is overwhelmed or has a panic attack? And I think that's one of the really great things about a book. Because even if you're not marketing yourself as a mental health focused yoga teacher, like, these things still happen in class as we're working with the body and working with the mind and like, what do we do?

Lauren Tober: I mean, I've cried in yoga classes. Like, I think most people I know have had some point when have cried at yoga classes. So it's not uncommon. And I think it's really important that yoga teachers, you know, actually I think it's just a cool thing as a human being to know what to do when somebody's struggling, because we all struggle and we all, you know, have friends and family members that struggle. So having. Knowing how to show up for somebody when they're going through something big is really important. And I think that was a really important point that you said, Jo, there as well, that, you know, this book and this work can be helpful for people who are working in specific mental health spaces, for sure, but this is for everyone. I think all yoga teachers need to know this. There was some research that was done, it was about 20 years ago now in Australia that found that nearly 80% of people are practising yoga for the mental health benefits. So even in general, yoga classes in the gym, in the studios and schools, wherever people are practising yoga for mental health reasons. And so it is really important that we understand how to support somebody if they cry in class or they get triggered or overwhelmed or, you know, they tell you they want to kill themselves or they don't want to be here anymore.

Jo Stewart: And also how to not make that about you and feel like you're a failure as a teacher and kind of make it into a much, you know, not make it all about you, really.

Lauren Tober: I mean, I think that's a good thing for life, right?

Jo Stewart: Yeah.

Lauren Tober: Nothing's personal. Wasn't that one of the four agreements?

Jo Stewart: Yeah, yeah. And the Patanjali's Yoga Sutras is a text that you draw from a lot in your book. And is that because the Yoga Sutras and the eight limbs really give us a bit more a framework and a bit more of a structure than something more esoteric than other texts like the Upanishads? Or is it because this has been like the text that's been the most helpful for you personally?

Lauren Tober: Yeah, it's definitely a text that has been helpful in my life and my teaching. I also think it's a framework that most yoga teachers are familiar with as well. Like for. Meant for most of us who have done a yoga teacher training course. I would hope that we're all pretty familiar with potentially yoga sutras. And I think those eight limbs are really kind of, especially the Yamas and the Niyamas are really clear, accessible, but also kind of deep way of approaching life. And yeah, like, I often think that as yoga teachers, like, we don't. Although things. This is changing, but we don't always have, like, guidelines about ethics and things like that as yoga teachers. Although, you know, that is changing in the last few years. Mostly people say, you know, we have to live by the yamas and the niyamas. Like, that's our code of ethics as yoga teachers. And so in the book and in the training, we look a little bit, you know, closely at how the yamas and the niyamas can inform our teaching in the context of mental health Aware mental health aware yoga.

Jo Stewart: And I think it's a really good unpacking because the Yamas and the Niyamas. Our previous guest, Dr. Shyam Ranganatham, kind of described it as like a zip file. So it's meant to be unpacked. I like that. I love it too. Yeah. And especially one like, say, Brahmacharya. Like, one interpretation is celibacy, like monk, like living, don't have sex. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so if not that, then, you know, how do we unpack it in a way that is relevant and realistic for us personally? And I mean, there are. There's a link. There's many examples of like, really terrible abuse in a lot of lineages. And I think most people know that that's really bad. But there's a lot of other ways that, like, we could be making someone feel uncomfortable in our class within that kind of Brahmacharya framework.

Lauren Tober: Yeah.

Jo Stewart: Would you like to kind of unpack some of those more subtle examples of how that ethic can be. Well, just things we should be aware of, I guess, or things to look out for.

Lauren Tober: Yeah, I mean, there's the obvious ones like don't sexually abuse anybody and also don't have sex with your students. That sounds obvious, but I don't think it necessarily always is.

Jo Stewart: That is not universally applied, unfortunately. Still.

Lauren Tober: Yeah, don't. Don't do that. But even just things like. I wanted to share an example today, actually. I had somebody come over for a photograph. Like, I'm being like, in. I'm having an, like in an article. And the photographer came over to my house this morning and he took a photo of like, me holding up my book. It was kind of dorky. And I said, oh, wow, that was quick. He just took a few photos and then he was done. And I said, oh, wow, that was quick. And he said, yeah, that's what my wife says as well.

Jo Stewart: Oh, dude.

Lauren Tober: And I mean, he wasn't a yoga teacher. Like, this wasn't a yoga teacher context. He was a journalist. He was a guy that's probably 20 years older than me. And I was like.

Jo Stewart: But also he was in your home. And like, surely part of his job is helping the people he photographed feel comfortable.

Lauren Tober: Like, I mean, he'd got the shot. I don't know. I think he thought it was funny. Like, I don't know, but like, maybe it's a generational thing. I don't know. But like, for him that was like just an off the cuff. Like, he was probably trying to connect with me a little bit and be a bit silly, but I was like, ill gross like that. I was happy when he's not listening, but I was kind of like, maybe.

Jo Stewart: He should be listening. Like, learn that lesson.

Lauren Tober: I'm not naming names, but yeah, like small things. Small things like that. I mean, is that small? I don't know. It was small for him. It was an off the cuff things of being really, you know, really aware of our energy. I think sometimes we can be messy with our sexual energy and there we might be a little bit of flirty or like kind of. I don't know. Can I say, I don't know, just awful comment like he made. Yeah. Just be really clear and conscious with our energies sexually. So, you know, maybe you like, choose to abstain from sex and maybe that's your path with Brahmacharya. For me, it's more about being clean with that energy, being clear about it. And you know, I married, I have kids. And so it's one thing with my husband, it's another, you know, I don't bring that outside of that relationship.

Jo Stewart: Yeah. And I think even one that I find a little bit interesting and challenging is say about. You've written about like, wearing clothes that aren't too revealing because one side of me is like, well, don't sexualize my body. Like, I should be able to wear whatever I feel comfortable with. And the other side of that is, well, this is a space where we're trying to make Everyone feel comfortable and I don't wear like particularly sexy clothes to teach class, but I do remember one time I was teaching a class and like afterwards an older lady came up to me and she's like, I could see right down your top and I hadn't even been aware of that. I don't think anyone saw any nipples or anything. But yeah, I guess it's one of those interesting things of being professional, making sure you're comfortable and erring on the side of what everyone else is also going to be comfortable with as well. Even if it feels like you draw your own line somewhere differently.

Lauren Tober: I love that you brought that up and you know, I talk about that a little bit in the book and much more in depth in the Mental Health Aware yoga training. And I keep waiting for someone to call me on it and like to have this discussion, but nobody, nobody ever has. So I love that, I love that you have Jo. I think, you know, there's something to be definitely said about body positivity and, you know, being comfortable in your body and wearing whatever you want and, you know, showing your body isn't sexual. And especially sometimes when we're teaching, depending on the style of yoga we're teaching, if we have a very kind of anatomical style, maybe we want to show the body and how muscles are moving or something. That's not the way I teach. So I don't know about. That's I can imagine. But then also I think we want to be really mindful of not like sexualizing our practise and also be really conscious that them as a teacher, like I think it's different as a student, but as a teacher, the students are looking at you not just for the way that you're teaching, but they're also looking at what you're wearing and what you're saying and how you're communicating. And so the clothes that we wear, whether we like it or not, are communicating something to our students. And I don't think we have to be prudes and cover up our body, but it is just worth thinking about. And I think I included this in the book where it's definitely in the training. Like there was once a primary school teacher, a principal, said to me the rule that she has for her teachers at the school and it was this, if you can see up it, down it or through it, don't wear it. And I thought, ah, that's a good guide, that's a good guide.

Jo Stewart: And I gotta say aerial yoga, especially because it is the true test of any sports bra and sometimes you're like, things feel totally in place and covered up, but then when you're on a different angle or.

Lauren Tober: Like I said when we were emailing before, Jo, I've never tried aerial yoga, but I am going to take you up on your offer and come to one of your classes next time I'm down in Melbourne.

Jo Stewart: Yay. I would love that.

Rane Bowen: Self massage can be a wonderful addition to your yoga practise, especially since it's not focused on strength or flexibility. It's really all about getting to know your body and feeling better. We love the Makalu, which is a set of nested domes on a wooden base that you can use for self massage and developing proprioceptive awareness. It's such a great, portable and accessible tool that really opens up new movement possibilities. The Makalu is also a fantastic addition to chair yoga and since the domes all contain magnets, you can even stick them to your fridge or another metal surface like a chair frame. This is really helpful for anyone who has difficulty getting down on the floor or anyone who wants a visual reminder to take some time for movement and self care during their day. The domes have been designed to support arthritis and peripheral neuropathy and they look like a beautiful little sculpture. You can use our discount code Makflo M A K F L O W to get 10% off@markaloo.com and help support the podcast.

Jo Stewart: And so another thing that I found really interesting in your book is your mention of like a yoga teacher, therapist and teacher training. Saraswati Vasuvedan. Did I say that correctly?

Lauren Tober: Vasudevan. Yeah, from Chennai in India. From.

Jo Stewart: And so she said that the state of the yoga teacher is like 95% of the transmission. So the teacher. And the state of the teacher is 95% of the transmission and the knowledge is only 5%. So it's less about what we teach and more about how we show up when we teach yoga. Would you like to unpack this idea a bit more?

Lauren Tober: Yeah, I mean, I think this is all the stuff that we've been talking about in the episode already. You know, there's so many like, beautiful practises that we can teach as yoga teachers. But that's not the only thing, you know, that like we talk, like we've spoken about the way that we create the safe container, the way that we hold space for our students, the clothes that we wear, the language that we use, all of this communicate, communicates something and people come. If we can create a space where people can come and Feel safe and seen and heard and come together in community. These are, like, meeting really important needs that we all have as human beings. Now, I don't think Cyrus has done any kind of, like, statistical analysis on that percentage that, like, wasn't really the point, but it was more that just how important this is. And I know from being around Saras and studying with her, you know, several times over the years here in Australia and then also online from India, and she's spoken on a few, like, the mental health summits and things that I've organised. Being around her feels there's such a sweetness to her. And when I'm around her, I feel my nervous system kind of regulates with her. So, like, even. Have you. Have you guys met Saras before when she's been here? I highly recommend it. Yeah. Being around someone with a regulated nervous system also helps to regulate our nervous system as well. Like, have you ever been around someone who's super anxious and then you walk away feeling like, a little bit frazzled? Or alternatively, you've been around someone who's like, really chilled and just going in the flow and can be really present for you. Like, it feels really good in your body as well, right?

Jo Stewart: Absolutely. And something else that came to my mind when I read that is I've definitely had experiences, especially when I was a bit newer to teaching, where maybe I had a class plan and I'd, like, had a long list of poses that I wanted to teach. And then some different things happened in the class and you kind of get to the end, you're like, did I even really teach that much yoga in that session? Like, we didn't do all the things that I had planned and to let go of that idea that, like, yoga's not just getting through your list of sequences. Like, sometimes what's actually needed in that space is a lot more time to rest, or someone might ask a question and then we might all take like a detour and a diversion to kind of explore that thing that they actually had a question about versus the list of things that you think you should be teaching.

Lauren Tober: Agreed. Yeah. I mean, when I teach, I love to have a plan. Like when I podcast, I like, I love to have a plan, probably like you're doing now with your questions. But I also think it's so important, and this is what we teach in mental health or yoga, and I think it's important for all yoga teachers that we meet our students where they are, and maybe the sequence that we've designed is where they are and what they need but maybe it isn't. Maybe we need to detour. Maybe we want something stronger, maybe we want to do something softer. Maybe we go in a totally different direction. And I think as a new yoga teacher, probably we want to write a plan and stick to it because we're still kind of getting our head around how it. How it all works. But as we become more experienced, we can really show up and meet our students who are there and take the. Take the practise in the ways that the moment is calling us to.

Jo Stewart: And I've definitely had the experience as well where I've been really excited about my plan and I really want to teach it. All the people who showed up, it doesn't work for them for some different reason. It's like, oh, this person's pregnant, this person's got a wrist issue, this person's got a knee problem. Oh, it's like, I think we're just gonna do something completely different.

Lauren Tober: No twists, no sun salutations yet.

Jo Stewart: Yeah.

Lauren Tober: Yeah. But you've got that plan there for another day.

Rane Bowen: Absolutely. I'm kind of curious. Do you think there's like a role for a little bit of humour in a class? And I'm not suggesting anything like that photographer.

Lauren Tober: Oh, no, don't do that.

Rane Bowen: But sometimes things can get rather, I guess, heavy. So I feel like occasionally it's good to just sort of lighten things up a little bit. How do you feel about that?

Lauren Tober: Look, I really think that you need to be yourself when you're teaching and if you're funny, be funny. If you're serious, be serious. You know, we don't want to make fun of everything and not take it too seriously. I think we want to bring a kind of a sincerity to the practise, but I don't think it has to be really serious. Serious.

Jo Stewart: That's good because I don't think me or Ron are that really serious teacher. So thank you for that permission.

Lauren Tober: Permission granted. No, you don't need my permission.

Jo Stewart: Let the cheesy yoga jokes continue.

Lauren Tober: No, but I think that's why your students keep coming back to your classes, because they want to come. I mean, they. I'm sure they like your practises too, but they're coming for you, right? That's a big part of it. And we know. So in, like, there's been research done in the therapy world, in the psychology world, that shows the relationship between the therapist and the client is the most important ingredient, like that predicts successful outcomes more so than the type of treatment then you use even More so than the length of experience of the therapist, which is quite amazing. And I'm sure that that's true of yoga as well. I haven't seen any research about it, but I. But I imagine that that's true as well. The relationship that you have with your teacher and the. Or don't feel with them is like, is just as important as a style that you're teaching.

Jo Stewart: That's so interesting. Yeah.

Rane Bowen: I actually feel a little bit bad for some of our regulars because I've heard some of my jokes many, many times. So.

Lauren Tober: Feel like pulling out the dad jokes?

Jo Stewart: Yeah, yeah. Oh, they're notorious. One time I filled in for Ran on his Saturday morning class and I arrived and someone was like, are you gonna do the jokes?

Lauren Tober: Did you have to bring some new ones?

Jo Stewart: Yeah, I had to find out what they were. I learned things.

Lauren Tober: Maybe people are coming for your jokes.

Rane Bowen: Maybe. Yeah.

Lauren Tober: Might be time to invest in a new joke book so you can. Yeah, maybe rich it up a bit.

Jo Stewart: And so another potential personality based problem or challenge or just pitfall that you mention is when the teacher takes the role of the rescuer. And I know that this is often unintentional. So what are some of the signs to watch out for?

Lauren Tober: Yeah, I think this is a really easy trap to fall into and I think most of us fall into it and then learn the hard way. I wish we could just learn this by, you know, reading this book and listening to this episode. But it, for many of us, it feels like we need to mess this up before we get it. Before we get it. Right. But perhaps I'm wrong. Perhaps you can listen in and not fall into this, into this trap. But I think many of us get into yoga and any kind of healing professions because we want to help people. Right? Like we want to be of service. We want to, we want to help people. But the shadow side of that is thinking we can fix somebody or rescue them from their lives. And that is one, not possible. But two, not our job, that's not in our scope of practise. It's not our job as yoga teachers to do that. So yeah, if you're feeling responsible for somebody else's problems, that's a sign. If you feel like I need to fix this, that's a sign. I remember years ago teaching on a yoga teacher training course, teaching a segment about mental health. This is probably 10 years ago. And one of the assignments that I gave the students was something like, your student is going through a really difficult time. And there were some more details there what would you do? And it really surprised me that so many of the responses for their assignments were things like I'd call their mum and talk to their mum and I'd book them into a psychologist. I might even go to their first drive them and go to their first session with them and like kind of taking an over responsibility. And I think it comes from a really good place, but it is a surefire way to burn yourself out. It's completely unsustainable. It usually doesn't even help. And what we're doing when we're going into fix it rescuer mode is what we're really saying is, I know your life better than you do, I've got better solutions than you do. I don't trust that you can figure this out for yourself. You need me to do this.

Jo Stewart: And so for the rescuers at heart who are maybe hearing themselves in this description, what do we do instead?

Lauren Tober: Stop it.

Rane Bowen: Nice.

Lauren Tober: I start to notice that it's happening and I would really suggest having some kind of peer support or mentoring and bringing this up with, you know, maybe you have some other yoga teachers and you could bring this up, this topic up and talk about it together with some trusted peers. Like, it's really vulnerable to talk about this stuff. So you want to have a group around you who you really trust and you can be yourself around and maybe, you know, explore that together. Like ways that you've done this in the past, maybe thinking about ways that people have done that to you as well, because it can be really feel really kind of undermining when people do it to you. And yeah, come up for some, some alternatives. If, if this is really prevalent in your life, maybe a psychologist or a counsellor would be helpful to work through some of this. Because if it's happening in your yoga teaching, it's probably happening in other parts of your life as well. And yeah, it's a great thing to work through and let go of. It's not always easy, but it's really liberating.

Jo Stewart: And that leads us to another beautiful line from your book, which I love, which is, as humans and particularly as yoga teachers, I believe that we need to be able to hold the paradox of being perfect just as we are with the somewhat conflicting desire for growth and ongoing development. Both can be true. We can be inherently whole and perfect and at the same time seek growth and change. And when we do this, we grow and change from a place of wholeness, not from a place of brokenness. And there's a world of difference. So how does this unfold in practise and in life. It sounds wonderful.

Lauren Tober: Well, I often think we do things because we don't think we're good enough. Like, we're too. We're inflexible, we're too fat, we're too stressed, whatever it is, we're not strong enough. Like, we do things from a place of there's something wrong with me as opposed to, I would like to be strong. I want to connect with my community, I want to connect with God, I want to move my body. I think there's a switch that we make or there's like a difference in the. The stories that we tell ourselves and the language that we use, if we're doing it from growth rather than from fear or that there's something wrong with me. And I think this is, you know, one of the things that yoga teaches us, right, that we're perfect as we are. There's nothing we need to do to pick, you know, to make ourselves any more perfect than we already are. And, you know, there's possibility for growth and change as well. And perhaps you're listening to this and it's just dropping in and you're like, ah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so maybe, like, write about it, journal about it, because you get it in this moment and then you lose it. And you'll need to remind yourself about it again and again. Like, we tend to, like, remember, forget, remember, forget. Like, this is part of the journey. If you're listening to this and you think, wow, that's really nice for you to say, but I've got no idea how that is even possible. Then again, maybe you want to get some support around that. It could be an idea to reach out to a therapist and work and work through that.

Jo Stewart: And I think it's such a seismic shift to, like, move your body because it's enjoyable and because it feels good and because you love it, rather than feeling like you should be exercising more or even like you should be meditating more and you should be less stressed and, like, you really should go to yoga, even if you feel like lying on the couch.

Lauren Tober: So what I'm hearing, Jo, is you saying the word should over and over again. And I think that word is a really good indication that you're coming from that there's something wrong with me mindset, definitely. And one way to switch that is I get to. I get to meditate, I get to move my body as opposed to I should meditate, I should move my body.

Jo Stewart: And that really leads into this other interesting thing that you Wrote about, which is working with intrapersonal and interpersonal rhythms. Would you like to explain that a bit more?

Lauren Tober: I would. Why? Thank you. You're asking such good questions. I'm enjoying.

Jo Stewart: Thank you.

Lauren Tober: So I think often when we go to a yoga class, and at least this is how I taught, like, years ago when I was teaching Ashtanga Yoga, like, we guide people to breathe in a certain way, and we'd move all together and it would look very lovely. You know, everyone's, like, moving and, like, sun salutating and virubhadrasana ing, just making up words together and. Yeah, so that's kind of moving together. And then what we're kind of doing more and more now, especially in the mental health space, is tuning into our own internal rhythm. So the first one is kind of the rhythm of the yoga teacher, the rhythm of their breath, or the way that they're guiding the practise. And then we can also tune in into our own internal rhythm. So it might be listening to the rhythm of our own breath rather than the breath of the teacher, and moving in a way that works for us. So, for example, we might be just sitting or standing and wait for the inhalation to come and just pause and kind of wait for it to come. And when it comes, then we might lift our arms above our head or whatever movement we're doing, feeling the full length of the breath with the movement. And then when we get our arms to the top, we might just wait for that exhalation to come. And when it comes, moving our arms down, back by our sides or whatever the posture is, whatever the movement is, moving with the length of our own breath, rather than saying, inhale, breathe in, exhale, breathe. I actually think there's a time and a place for both. I think it's really important that we tune into our own internal. Own internal rhythms, whether it's the breath or just the way that we. The pace that we want to be moving at and the way that we want to be moving. But it can also be really profound to move in tune with other people. And this is something that I learned. I've mentioned Bessel van der Kolk before when I. When I studied with him, and he talked about this idea of rhythms and moving together. So he used the example of, you know, in therapy, if you're, you know, working with someone who's experienced trauma. When we've. When we've experienced trauma, but also depression and anxiety, we can feel very disconnected from people around us. And so he would use the example of Throwing a ball backwards and forwards. And so then we're kind of moving, you know, we're kind of relying on each other to move that's not quite in sync with a ball. But in yoga class, we might move and breathe together. And if you've ever done some, like, chanting in kirtan or you've been to a football match and people are, you know, screaming or, you know, chanting something together or doing some kind of like. Like the nut bush dance or something like that, when you're all kind of being together at the same time, there's something really connecting that can be. Not always can be really connecting about that. And so when I teach yoga, what I really like to do is to do a combination of the two. So often if we're doing a bit of a sequence, we'll start by moving together. And then that one helps people to learn the sequence or get an idea about what you're teaching because you're doing it together. And also get that quality of moving together as a group, which can be really connecting. But then the invitation after that is to let go of moving with my breath and tune into the rhythm of their own breath. And so then we get the experience of moving, practising, chanting, whatever it is together, and then we get the experience of moving, chanting whatever it is with our own internal rhythms. And I also think that when we can move between the two, this is also what we need to do in life as well. Like, we need to, I think, tune into our own needs and our own rhythms. But then we live in society and we want to tune into other people and we want to show up for the people that we love and that we care about. And that may not be necessarily in our own personal rhythm, but we can do things for them or show up for other people, whether it's in our families or on a bigger kind of global social justice scale. But to be able to move between those two, not just one or the other, is really important. And I think. And you know, what we do on the mat in all the different things that we do, is kind of practise for what we do in our life.

Jo Stewart: Absolutely.

Lauren Tober: Or in the. Like, you may be not on a mat in aerial yoga, like I said, I've never tried it, but like in the. What do you call it? The silks, the parachute.

Jo Stewart: I call it a hammock. An aerial hammock. Yeah.

Lauren Tober: Nice, nice. I'm really curious to try it now.

Rane Bowen: That's great. So, speaking of the breath, pranayama is one aspect of yoga. Practise that can have a profound mental health benefits, but it can also be really triggering for people. Could you maybe take us through some of your strategies for teaching pranayama?

Lauren Tober: Sure. Firstly, don't presume that if everyone is going to want to do it or it's going to be good, you know, it's going to be helpful for people. People. There's a lot of people actually who breath work doesn't work for them and that might be because they have like asthma or, you know, something, something like that, or a heart condition. And breathing in a certain way can affect their heart. It also might be, you know, they've lived with anxiety for a long time and they've seen 10 different therapists who always told them to breathe deeply. Deeply. Or, you know, they're someone, their partner or their dad or someone said to them, just breathe when they're feeling really anxious. And we all know how unhelpful that' that is when someone says that to you. So we could have experience where breathing wasn't helpful, somebody's told us it should be helpful, but actually it wasn't. Or somebody's kind of made us feel bad. Like it's very nice when you're feeling like overwhelmed or anxious, having a pan attack and someone says, just breathe. Like, if I could breathe, I would be breathing. Like, this is not something that you can just tell me to do. So if someone has had those experiences, it can be particularly unhelpful. And so if you're teaching one on one with someone, then you might cheque in with them and just ask them, are you interested in trying this? If I say no, don't teach them, teach something else. If you're teaching in a group class, you won't necessarily do that, but the invitation can be there to try it or not, or try it out and see how it feels. Keep going if it feels good, stop it if it doesn't. So we want to keep using this really invitational language and offering things as, you know, if you'd like to try this out and if it feels good, continue. If it doesn't, you know, there's so many amazing tools in our yogic tool. Ket Pranama is just one of them. There's many, many other ones. And when we do teach Pranayama, I really recommend starting very simple, as much as possible. And, you know, the way that I was taught was to start, you know, first of all, we want to start to note, we want to start by noticing the breath, you know, before we even do any kind of pranayama we want to notice the breath. We want to be able to sense it in the body. And if we can't sense the breath in the body, you know, maybe we listen to the breath instead and then the next step might be to gently extend the exhalation or gently notice the rise and fall of the breath in the abdomen. Or, you know, we. Yeah. One thing that I see a lot in yoga classes, like kind of public yoga classes, is going kind of too hard too soon. Like giving people who you've never met before, Kapalabhati, for example, or long breath retentions. And, you know, there's definitely a time and a place for all of that stuff. But in. But in a group where you don't even know necessarily know people's names, let alone if they have a history of anxiety, teaching Kapalabadi or like a more intense. It's not even advanced, it's just intense practise, I don't think is a good idea. I really feel like we need to be able to sense our breath and to have, you know, an easeful inhalation and an exhalation before we move on.

Jo Stewart: And do you, like, when you're offering this in invitational way, do you tend to give suggestions of alternatives? Like maybe you could just listen to the sounds or. Sometimes when I'm doing, I quite like to do a breath practise that also has a bit of body movement to it. Like maybe it's just gently unfolding your fingers and then closing them back in, or maybe like a bigger movement with the arms. Because sometimes I'll kind of just let people know that they could also just do the movement and just let the breath take care of itself if it doesn't feel comfortable to focus on the breath. I'm wondering if you have any kind of alternative options that you tend to give, or if you just kind of leave it open for people.

Lauren Tober: I love that. That sounds like a beautiful way way to do it. I will often teach pranayama, like. What's the word? Sequentially, like build. So we'll start with one practise and then. So it might be sensing the breath. And if that feels okay for you and you'd like to try something else, then we'll add the abdominal breathing. But if that doesn't feel good with you, you might like to stay with the sensing the breath or, you know, if we've got music on, it might be listening to the music or, you know, doing whatever feels good in your body in this moment. And so when we're kind of Teaching in a sequential way. We're kind of building, building in the practise. And then people can continue to put, you know, at the next one, if the previous one felt. Felt good for them, so they can stay with the previous practise before them. And I think it can be great to give an option and also to give the option of, you know, do whatever feels good for you in this moment. And some people that will be too open and they won't know what to do, which. So that's why it's great to offer another option. But for other people, it will give them, you know, permission, like we talked about before, not that anyone needs permission, but give them permission to do what feels right for them.

Jo Stewart: And this is such a natural flow on from the benefits and also some of the challenges of teaching pranayama, which is meditation. And I loved your section on meditation and especially the ways that you work to make meditation more accessible. And one really simple thing that stood out for me was even just not instructing whether people need to have their eyes open, open or closed, and just letting them take care of that for themselves.

Lauren Tober: Yeah.

Jo Stewart: Like, what are some of the other ways that you find really helpful to create that safe and supportive space and container for meditation?

Lauren Tober: Yeah. So some people love and really benefit from meditation and some people don't love it and find it really triggering and really difficult. And I think, you know, like, I know myself when I've got a lot going on and things are feeling too, too hard, I will sit down to meditate and then after a couple of minutes, I'll pop out of bed. Morning. Like, I'm kind of standing up before I realise what I'm doing. Like, it's not very fun to sit with yourself when you've got a lot of ruminative thoughts going on or there's hard stuff that's going on in your life. Because we be really good at keeping ourselves really busy and then when we come into the silence, it can be very, very confronting. So I would never insist anybody do meditation and be very invitational, including Schwarzenegger about it. And so some things that we can do, firstly is to do a guided practise, because a guided practise gives a busy, ruminative mind something to focus on. Amy Weintraub, I mentioned her at the beginning, has this little phrase in her book, Yoga for Depression, and she calls it throwing the mind a bone. And, like, so it's. Maybe it's a guided yoga ninja practise, or it's counting the breath, or maybe it's playing some music that people listening to, or maybe it's reading poetry or doing a body scan or I don't know, there's like a million different things that you can do. Maybe it's a chant, but it doesn't really matter what it is. It needs to be appropriate to the needs of the students in front of you. But it's this. Okay, if we have a busy mind, we know that it's often helpful to give that mind, give the mind something to hook into so it's not ruminating. So having a guided practise or something to something for the mind can be helpful. Keeping the practises short can be really helpful as well. That's why, you know, a lot of people give short savasanas a bad rap in this contemporary yoga world that we're in now. But actually for many people, it makes it more accessible. So having a short savasana, especially if you teach, if you know the students that you're teaching, if you're teaching in a mental health setting or there's a fair likelihood that the stuff's going on, then, yeah, keep having a short shavasana can be really helpful.

Jo Stewart: And I guess if you know that, that that's, you know, how you're going to structure your class, you could be leading towards that briefer relaxation with a lot more kind of winding down postures so that you're still giving people that time to down regulate and to settle in. But maybe if it's in a different position, it doesn't like register as meditation. We're just sitting quietly in baddha konasana or another shape that feels kind of relaxing.

Lauren Tober: Yeah. And I mean, asana can be meditative. Well, we can. It's a moving meditation. Right. Pranayama is like a breathing meditation. We can do a walking meditation sometimes, depending on who you're teaching. If you're teaching like people coming for a yoga class, you know, it's probably okay to say the M word, but in some contexts the word meditation puts people off. And so just leaving out the M word and, you know, it could be focusing the mind or sitting with a breath or doing a visualisation instead.

Jo Stewart: To come back to your beautiful Amy Weintraub quote about throwing the mind a bone, I have another really, like, adorable meditation metaphor that I like, which is the idea of training the mind like a puppy. And so like, the puppy's gonna be still for a little while, but it's gonna get distracted, it's gonna get playful.

Lauren Tober: That's what puppies do. I have A puppy, like, all over the shop.

Jo Stewart: Yeah, yeah. Kind but consistent. Just getting it to settle back again. And I have another mind.

Lauren Tober: I was just thinking about myself this morning when I was yelling at my puppy and made him go outside for biting me. You probably need to be nicer to my mind than I was to him. Get out.

Jo Stewart: I mean, we all need a timeout sometimes. And I have another mind dog metaphor. This one's from Elizabeth Gilbert and it's about a creative mind. And it's like. I can't remember. Dog analogy. It was. Maybe it was a Jack Russell. It was. Or a Blue Heeler or some kind of dog that, like, it needs a job. And it's like, if you don't give your mind something to do, if you don't give it a project, it's gonna find something and, like, you're not gonna like it.

Lauren Tober: Yeah, yeah. My puppy is stealing socks and chewing them. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. I mean, this. It's a nature of the mind to think. Right. That's what the mind. Mind is built to do. And. Yeah. So, yeah, let's give it something to do. Let's throw it a bone. Yeah.

Jo Stewart: Then it won't find a sock and chew on that instead.

Lauren Tober: Then it won't find a sock to chew on. It can chew on a pranayama practise instead. Or a mantra. Maybe I should try giving my puppy a mantra instead of a sock. Sorry, just trying to, like, join in with the bad jokes here.

Jo Stewart: Oh, save space for that. And so I really love the way that you very much acknowledge this, like, as we're teaching these mixed groups of people and, like, really exploring the diversity of human experience, all of our different bodies, all of our different minds, all of our different needs, and especially when we bring the energetic, subtle body into the equation as well. One question does tend to come up. It's like, how do we cater to everyone if, like, some people need upregulating and some people need down regulating and some people need silence and space and some people need a bone to chew on.

Lauren Tober: Literally a metaphorically. Yeah. I mean, this is. This is the art of being a yoga teacher, isn't it? You know, often I find there. There is a similar theme in classes. And so people are attracted to certain classes for certain reasons, or it is the time of the day, or perhaps you're living in an area that's, you know, that, you know, like you guys in Melbourne through Covid, like, there's a similar kind of experience that we've been through up here. When we had the Floods up in Malabimbi, like. And so often there is, you know, similar things that are going on for your students. So it isn't always as varied as you might fear it would be, but there definitely is times where people, where people have different. Where people have different needs. And part of that might be offering different classes. So you might have a dynamic class and you might have a. Like a restful class and people can choose those classes. So they're opting into the style of yoga, hopefully, that they're needing. People don't always do that, but that would be the idea. So that's one way to do it. Have a range of classes so people can choose the classes that they need. And I also think as we're teaching, we can offer different options, so we might teach a kind of a balanced class. So in the book you read about how if somebody is more rajasic or anxious, you meet your students where they are with some more kind of dynamic practises and then downregulate to become more sattvic. If someone is more tamasic or depressed or heavy, then you might start really slow and then build up, you know, and become more energised to cultivate more Sattva. But if there's a mix of Tamas and rajas and Sattva in your class, what you might do is teach kind of a more balanced class and then offer different options for different people depending on what their needs are. So it might be an extra sun salutation or it might be Virabhadrasana knee on the floor or a straight leg, or it might be, you know, like it, you know, extra vinyasas or sun salutations or, you know, there's different ways of practising flexing the feet versus relaxing the feet in generosity. Offering options not based on ability, like if you can do this, do this, but more about, like, your intention for the practise. So choosing different options based on what your body is calling for in that moment and what your intention is for the practise.

Rane Bowen: Beautiful. So we do have one more question which we ask everyone that we speak with. And I guess this may not be the easiest question to answer, but if you could distil everything that you've learned and everything that you teach down to one core essence, what do you think that one thing would be? What would be that one lesson you'd like to teach the world?

Lauren Tober: Wow, that's huge. I'm not sure how I'm with how to answer that one in terms of more generally, not just related to yoga teachers and mental health aware yoga. But more generally, what I think we I try to do and what we I think we would all really benefit from is tuning in to our intuition, tuning into our own internal needs and tending to ourself and showing up in the world to support other people and the land and our environment from this kind of natural impetus within us, or this intuition or this inner knowing. And if I think yoga really helps us to get quiet enough to hear that all the practises of yoga really help us to regulate the nervous system, to calm the mind, to calm the body, so we can tune into that, that intuition, that natural impulse or impetus within us. And I think that our lives would be so much better and the world would be such an amazing place if we all did that.

Jo Stewart: Beautiful. Thank you so much for that wonderful sentiment and for your wonderful book and for speaking to us today. Such a pleasure.

Lauren Tober: Oh I had so much fun. Thank you.

Rane Bowen: We really hope you enjoyed our conversation with Dr. Lauren Tober. We've put all of her links in our show notes on our website podcast.flowartist.com if you'd like to learn more. And again, a quick reminder that we'd love it if you could write us a quick review on Apple Podcasts or leave us some stars on Spotify. This is a great way to help others find the podcast and show your support. We also love hearing from our listeners and finding out what you enjoy about the podcast. We also really appreciate it when you share our posts about each episode or leave us a comment online. You can find us at the Flow Artist Podcast Facebook page or look for Rane Loves Yoga or Garden of Yoga on Instagram. We're a DIY operation and you'll community support really helps. Special thanks to our Patreon supporters. Your donations help us cover editing and hosting costs and we appreciate you so, so much. You can even join our Patreon for free now. To get the latest updates just go to patreon.com flowartists podcast. Lauren has generously shared a short and longer version of her deep mindful yogic relaxation practise with our Patreon supporters. Thank you Lauren. We'd also like to express our gratitude to Ghost Soul for granting us permission to use their track Baby Robots as our theme song. Be sure to check out ghostsoul.bandcamp.com to discover more of their incredible music. Once again, thank you so much for spending your precious time with us. We appreciate you more than words can express. He Aroha Nui Maua Kia Koutou Katoa, sending you big, big love.