“Having a point of reference is absolutely necessary. We need somebody who can hold a mirror in front of us. Otherwise we very quickly begin to imagine that we are perfect and know it all. This personal connection cannot be replaced by books or videos. There must be a relationship, a real relationship, one that is based on trust. ”
― T.K.V. Desikachar, The Heart of Yoga: Developing a Personal Practice
Episode 2: The Myth of Going It Alone
A Conversation with Chase Bossart
In this episode, Marcel invites Chase Bossart, master teacher and founder of the YogaWell Institute, to discuss mentorship in yoga practice. Listen in as they unpack one of the biggest myths in western culture: The Myth of Going It Alone.
Why is it useful to have trustworthy guidance on this path of greater insight and self-transformation? This is a central question in the episode.
To give you a sense of the framework for this conversation, Chase has been Marcel’s mentor for 15 years. Hear them embody the qualities of mutual respect, care, emotional safety, trust and curiosity, all of the essential foundations of a healthy mentor/mentee relationship. It is through this relationship that each have something to learn and something to teach, a symbiotic relationship that enables insight that would not be possible without the influence of the other.
If you are interested in yoga or yoga therapy mentoring with Marcel, visit his Yoga for Practitioners web site.
Have you ever wrestled with any of these questions below? Listen to the episode to hear what Chase and Marcel have to contribute to these inquiries...
How can you expect a pattern that you're trying to dismantle to dismantle itself?
Why are many Westerners reluctant to seek out a teacher, guide or mentor? Why would many rather go it alone?
What are the qualities to look for in a mentor relationship? How do you “know” you’ve found your teacher?
What is “appropriate progression” and why is it so important in our transformation and healing?
“In education the first requirement is the teacher, the second is the student. What should happen between them is learning. How it should happen is through the constant teaching of that which will be relevant to the student. That is education.”
― T.K.V. Desikachar, The Heart of Yoga: Developing a Personal Practice
“Changes of mind can be observed primarily in our relationships with other people. Relationships are the real test of whether we actually understand ourselves better.”
― T.K.V. Desikachar, The Heart of Yoga: Developing a Personal Practice
Thousands of years of ancient wisdom tell us that it is impossible to survive in isolation. We humans need each other. It is through our relationships with others that we can begin to see our blind spots clearly enough to be effective in our efforts to liberate ourselves from the habitually ingrained patterns that lead to suffering.
When our vision includes more of reality, we have more choices. Seeing a greater variety of options can lead to different actions and ultimately manifest the kind of growth and transformation we may be seeking.
Doing things differently is possible only when we are experiencing ourselves differently and seeing things differently.
Chase Bossart grew up in Seattle and still considers himself a Seattleite even though he has lived away from Seattle longer than he lived there. He graduated from Colgate University in Philosophy and Religion, completed a Masters in Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara and lived and worked in Beijing for 8 years (i.e. graduated from the school of hard knocks). He speaks fluent (though slightly rusty) Mandarin and lives happily in the Bay Area with his wife Elizabeth.
Chase was introduced to Mr. TVK Desikachar in 1991 during a study abroad program in Chennai, India (Kate Holcombe was also a student in that program!) As part of the program, Mr Desikachar taught a semester-long course on the Theory of Yoga. Needless to say, it was life changing. Here was a practical philosophy that not only answered big life questions like who are we? what is the world? and what is our relationship to the world? etc. but it also gave practical instructions on what to do.
A personal student of Mr. Desikachar’s since 1991, Chase has spent more than four years in Chennai studying Yoga with Mr. Desikachar, his family and at the KYM. Chase is the Founder of the Yoga Well Institute. He currently trains yoga teachers, therapists & health practitioners in the full application of yoga in a way that is easy to integrate into daily life. In addition to training programs and workshops across the US, he has also established a series of online courses around the philosophies of yoga and meditation.
New to Yoga?
Here are some reliable resources and recommendations from Chase and Marcel:
Learn more about Yoga Therapy in the Krishnamacharya Tradition
Interested in finding a yoga mentor of your own?
Start HERE>>>https://www.yogawell.com/mentormatching/
Find out more about the current online class offerings, events and yoga therapist training
Yoga Well Institute>>>https://www.yogawell.com/
Here are students of Chase Bossart that may be able to guide you as you begin your journey with yoga:
Amanda Green (Austin, Texas, United States)
Robyn Love (New Foundland, Canada)
Whitney Farvin (Evansville, Indiana, United States)
"Follow your heart... Yoga is a way of being, it is something that we are. You know it by how it feels, when you feel called to something... answer the call! There are no substitutes for following what you know to be true in your heart."
- Chase Bossart
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
*Please excuse any typos or imperfections. This transcript was created with AI software.*
Marcel: [00:00:00] , Chase and I have worked together for a long time, and the topic today is something that's really fundamental to healing or transformation. What is, , having someone help you in the process. and guide you in the process. And we'll talk more about why that's so important and how and why it works and our experiences about that.
But what's really important about this conversation is I'm talking to someone who is very knowledgeable about this topic, but I'm also talking to the person that has been guiding me in my healing and transformation for over a decade. And also Chase is a yoga teacher of yoga teachers.
When you talk about healing and transformation, why is it useful to have somebody help you with that?
Why not just do it by yourself. And we'll unpack that from several different angles.
Chase: [00:00:54] , I think the thing that people don't appreciate is how little control we actually have over. What goes on in our bodies, our minds, and our emotions, et cetera.
We have this idea that just because I, if I decide I want to raise my hand, I can, but that. Does it mean that I have control over my system? Something like I walk up a set of stairs and my heart rate increases and my breathing rate increases. All of that happens without my knowledge.
Marcel: [00:01:30] And today when we're talking about our system, we mean our body. And this body that breeds this oddity that has a personality and that has a mind and intellect and that has emotions. So it's that, that whole system. And your, point about, we're not always aware of our, system. It made me think when you said that the first thing I thought of was in the beginning, actually we think we are really aware of our system.
Before we've had, some experiences at some structured experiences. We think we're pretty knowledgeable in tuned in and aware. And as we go through this process, we start to see that
Chase: [00:02:11] there's a big gap between
Marcel: [00:02:13] what we think we are perceiving our understanding about our system as opposed to what's really going on.
Chase: [00:02:19] some suffering is very helpful in getting us to recognize that. We don't really control much. , you bump into something like a chronic illness or you have some sort of situation that you would like to be different, but it can't be
it's true that you start off as part of the developmental process and really become identified with your mind , and your body, and you really what, what you want to do. You go out and do it or what you can't do, you just think you can't do, and that's just the way it is.
Marcel: [00:03:06] Why is it useful to have someone else help you, as opposed to doing it by yourself? I mean, why do you want to have somebody that's knowledgeable and experienced helping you in the process
Chase: [00:03:19] , if you got in your car and you were gonna drive to say Yellowstone national park, you would.
Not just getting your car and drive around until you bumped into it. You would actually go and get some references , you would go and you would get a map and you wait, ask some people and you would, you know, follow the guidance of other people. But along the way. There's a lot of things that are not contained in a map, and if you get somebody else's comments on it, they'll be able to guide you to places that you would never have gotten to on your own.
Marcel: [00:04:00] what I always think of, to me, the simple answer to this question is something you shared with me many years ago. you put your hands up, one hand on each side of your head, like the horses. When they have horses in parks , they put these blinders on them so they won't be distracted and they can, they can do their work.
So there's these blinders that don't let us see to the sides and behind us, and basically our patterns and experiences in our lifetime that we have our own stuff. The way we see the world, the way we're conditioned actually are those blinders. And it turns out that. We're actually not so good at knowing for ourselves where the best places are to do work on ourselves.
We oftentimes choose places that are a little bit more convenient or comfortable or that don't involve as much engagement
Chase: [00:04:55] what you're asking when you do work on yourself. And you have yourself guiding it is you're asking the pattern that you're trying to dismantle to dismantle itself.
And it is never going to do that.
Marcel: [00:05:08] You know, in fact, I remember a conversation we had a couple of times talking about how for a lot of us, these patterns inside of ourselves, one of their main jobs is , to survive. So they're trying to keep themselves intact. Whatever that pattern of seeing the world is a way of seeing the world or perspective.
So they're often trying to sabotage things so they can stay part of the plane, I guess you could say. . You're asking the pattern itself. To help you work with it's own self. So you're almost asking the, the employee help you phase out employee
Chase: [00:05:51] as far as self-discovery goes, our patterns also are often invisible. And even when we're aware of our patterns, we're 99% of the time only partially aware of the pattern. So we think we see it, but we can't possibly see all the different aspects of it, et cetera. it's just really important to have an, a reliable outside reference who.
Knows us, who cares about us, who we like, to guide us on our way. Cause otherwise it just, it won't work.
Marcel: [00:06:28] there's kind of two ways , , of listening to what we're talking about today, because one way is we're talking about . How important it is to find someone to help you in your transformation and healing. And we're really talking about somebody that has some experience and some expertise in that that can guide you.
one way to also kind of think about it is just in everyday life, how much easier it is for us to . Give advice to other people than it is to give it to ourselves. I'm skilled at giving people feedback about writing and how to write really well, but for some reason when I'm writing for myself, that brilliant insight doesn't come into my writing.
So part of this conversation, aside from it's important that somebody is experienced and knowledgeable to help you is simply that, like you said, an outside reference.
Chase: [00:07:27] It's just easier
Marcel: [00:07:28] for them to see more than it is for you to see.
Chase: [00:07:32] And you know, in, at least in yoga, the way the model works is that, . We're attempting to bring about a certain state and, that state, is not, is not random. So it's important that, what you do moves you in that direction. Now, if you've never been there, then how do you know how to get there? So, in yoga model, you have somebody who is at least farther along the path than you, and who has, also has their own direc director, et cetera, directing you and guiding you in the path.
Marcel: [00:08:15] , I just wanted to point out here about, When we talk about this, we're not talking about a guru are, are some kind of spiritually gifted teacher. , we're talking about somebody that simply has a bit more experience than you and has, themselves, been taken.
Through a structured set of experiences that helped them to better understand themselves and and see and know themselves. So when they're helping you, it's not just that , they're seeing you without your patterning. There also have been taken through a process which helps them keep in check their own patterning.
Chase: [00:08:57] This is an experiential game and experience and information are of the two different. Thanks.
You know, the information is, is about the experience, but it is not the experience itself. So you can learn about it and we can teach about it and we can describe it and talk about it, et cetera, . But if you haven't actually gone through it, then all of that information is not very really applicable.
Marcel: [00:09:30] . I knew that at some point, in our conversation, we were going to start talking about experiences as opposed to information . when you talk about healing and transformation, it's not about the information and the theories.
It's about the process and the experiences. when we work with somebody and you're supporting them in their healing or transformation. You're helping them to have experiences that take them in the direction of their authentic self.
I know I'm using a vague concept there, but it's really the self that they start to understand and learn more clearly about. they start to see more of their own patterns, their own ways in which they're identifying. we started with that comment that one of the main reasons you need somebody to help you is because, you, don't really know where you can get to without, you know, somebody outside of yourself
Chase: [00:10:31] when you, the other, another aspect of this is that, .
We're really not able to control our system at best. We're only able to influence it. So for instance, if you cut your finger, what you do is you, you keep it clean and you put a bandage on it. You, you don't actually. Heal it. The healing process itself is not under your control, but you can influence it by, you maybe put some ointment on it or you, you know, you keep it clean,
if you don't do that, then he gets infected and whatnot. It will be a much bigger issue. So, you know, when we're talking about. Healing. We're talking about a process that we can influence but not control
Marcel: [00:11:22] even from the beginning when you're, asking the question, why should I work with someone I can, can I just do this by myself? that's an assumption there that actually the process is just about you and your own, your own stuff,
Chase: [00:11:37] it's almost like we treat that voice in our head as we would our neighbor. And you develop a. Relationship with it. Because if anybody who's, who has tried to change like, Oh, I wish I had this different self image, or I wish that I could shut off that critical voice in my head,
why don't you, it's just your head. Why don't you stop all those things about yourself? If only it was so easy. Huh? I would have a long time ago. Right. So, so, what we end up having to do is actually to be in relationship with it and treat it like an other, not ourselves. So then, you know, when we're, when that's the case, the best that we can do is influence it, which I would say is why, if you look at.
Across all these, different mystic traditions. You have a, gardening is the metaphor. Cause when you work with a plant, you can't control how fast it grows or how many tomatoes are on a particular, branch or anything like that. But you can influence it by. When did you plant? What kind of soil did you planted in?
What have you put in the soil? How much water, these, these kinds of things.
Marcel: [00:13:01] From what you've been sharing. There's a second part to this , that I think when people listen to this podcast, they'll, they'll start to be aware of. And, and that is that, when you talk about healing and transformation, it's not just a personal interest Harpic it's, it's a field of, of practice and study.
Just like psychiatry. Or architecture. There's, there's a whole body of knowledge around it that takes a long time to understand and internalize
Chase: [00:13:34] , if you're gonna work with something that you don't have control over, but all you can do is influence.
It's so helpful to have access to the experience of really experienced people, right? So, you know, if you, if you, because if you get interested in gardening, that's lifelong learning and you may get very good at it, but there is always. Micro climates and there's always like different variations of seeds and there's somebody else who has more experience of it in it.
And if that particular seed or in this particular area and and , to have the access to that and to really be guided by those people means that, you can, have a much better outcome.
Marcel: [00:14:21] I think just like in gardening, the point we're making is. It's actually not you doing it. You are a participant in the process and you're influencing it. So in fact, usually if you try to project management it, it messes it all up.
The perspective is to come from this model that you're sharing of influence, not a model of control.
so why are so many people in the West. Why does it seem so weird for them to trust another person to help them with their own transformation?
Chase: [00:15:00] we have to, what's your knowledge that it's tricky to trust another person with , , something so precious as yourself, right.
So I think people in the West, \ it is a powerful relationship and , it can be, it can be used in the wrong ways. so I think that's one aspect.
There's a mythology of independence and, you know, the mythology is that, yeah, I can, or I should be able to do it by myself. And that if I, if I go and get help that I'm weak or that something is wrong with me or that insufficient in some way.
And you know, this is, this is, a cultural bias. I think that's really detrimental.
Marcel: [00:15:52] . It's a cultural bias. It's deeply ingrained. I mean, we're taught it. a lot of us get it conditioned from our familial environment and our friends, and then we're, , there's a tone of this in the way we're educated too.
Yeah. If you're doing okay, you're supposed to be strong enough to yourself, so it's a process you're not in control of, and you're asking, can you say again what you do ask? You're asking something, .
Chase: [00:16:20] The pattern which you don't have control over to limiting itself. Right? I pick up a book and I read it. It's never just the book.
It's always the book plus the entire history of my life, how I self identify what I think is important, how you know, et cetera. And that is projected onto the book as well. So I'm reading this self help book through the lens of a pattern, which I'm maybe. Vaguely aware of, or I might even be actually pretty familiar with, but I will not be possible to see all the different aspects of it.
And I'm reading the book for how to get rid of this pattern, which I'm reading it with. It won't happen.
Marcel: [00:17:17] . I once had a friend and she would meditate twice a day. And she was a friend for more than 10 years and not much changed.
Even though she was spending half an hour in the morning meditating and half an hour in the evening, meditating over the that time period, she didn't really change that much or transform. And you know, from my perspective it was because she was directing. No meditation,
Chase: [00:17:49] another aspect here with why, Westerners are, I think a little bit, reluctant to go, to participate in this kind of, process is that, our educational system is skewed towards, I mean, it's wonderful the way it's put together, but it's skewed towards you decide and your creativity is important. And, what I saw in graduate school is that, the creativity part screws everything up unless there is a very strong foundation of information and whatnot.
what we need to be able to do is we need that really have strong foundational information for quite awhile. And then once something has been established in the foundation, is there, then a creativity can go and really fly and awesome stuff is happening. But what happens for a lot of people is that they put a little bit of information in and then they start their creativity piece.
And because of the limitedness of , the information, they don't fly.
Marcel: [00:19:15] it makes me think of, fundamentally understanding yourself on some level too. Like how you, you work, how you operate.
And if you don't actually have that kind of foundational knowledge about how that works and how it's kind of set up, how you confuse yourself, you'll just work more deeply. in your own path, but without much effectiveness,
so here we've, we've shared some things with them about why it's useful and important to have somebody support you. So, so what do you do from that point on?
Chase: [00:19:51] do you know mr Dasia gets
Marcel: [00:19:53] showered or you find somebody?
Chase: [00:19:54] Well, when you go looking for your teacher, you keep both eyes open, right? And when you find that teacher closing one eye.
You know, if, if, if one of us sits down with a friend at a cafe, and we started telling them about a thing going on in our life. And then we see, you know, you got any suggestions, you know, basically what we're doing there is it's horizontal and it's, you give me some information or some ideas and then I will go and think about it and, and figure out how I want to apply it and I'll play it the way that I want to apply it.
When you enter into a vertical relationship, you know there's a power structure and the power structure is set up because you're looking at something from the perspective of a knowledgeable versus, or expert versus beginner
So the teacher has, by, virtue of the healing process, somebody is showing up in the relationship saying, I need your help. Other person then
Marcel: [00:21:07] is
Chase: [00:21:09] the position of power, actually the one who is giving help. So the receiver of help, you have to close one eye because if you evaluate everything that's given to you and you try to figure out what's happening, it will never work.
Marcel: [00:21:30] You have to.
Chase: [00:21:31] You have to be able to trust and go forward in it. However, we shouldn't be a fool because you know, if you close both eyes and you give the keys to your house and your wallet and say,
Marcel: [00:21:47] and especially with people that have developed certainly abilities. In terms of being charismatic, being persuasive, so you, have to be vigilant. Is that yes. What we're saying and attentive, but on the same token, we're saying that there has to be an element of commitment or trust.
Chase: [00:22:08] from the yoga model, the single most important part is the trust. If I have conviction that this relationship is going to help me, then it will, and if I even even to the point where the technical aspects of the practice can be wrong.
But my connection with the teacher and my belief in the feeling that for the stuff that the teacher has given me, that if it's very strong, it will carry me in the direction that I want to go.
Marcel: [00:22:50] This is going back to how important it is that you feel comfortable with the person and that you feel that you can relate to them and they can relate to you. of course you don't want to place your development in the hands of somebody that's not experienced and knowledgeable. In my work with people in supporting healing and transformation, I've observed a lot that people want reassurance before they take steps, which is not how healing and transformation happens.
Chase: [00:23:22] you have to be, you have to be willing to allow the process to, to move beyond your control. And if you don't, then, then it won't ever get anywhere.
Marcel: [00:23:35] Which kind of brings it back to the whole idea of why it's important to have someone helping you, because it's not that you're controlling the process, you're engaging in it and someone who's helping you. With that engagement. And as we said, it's like the gardening analogy.
Chase: [00:23:56] The leader or the teacher or the caregiver, or whatever word you want to use, is that that person has undergone the process themselves.
The second thing is, is I think it's imperative that the, the teacher or the leader, , the one in the power position has integrity
Marcel: [00:24:20] it's not just that the teacher has had. These experiences so that they understand how the experiences work so they can help you. It's also that the teacher has been taken through experiences that have shaped them in a certain way that give them that integrity you were talking about.
They have been shaped by their teacher. and the work they've done and the experiences they've had, it instills in them a sense of responsibility, a sense of integrity. it's been cultivated in them. So it's not just that they're knowledgeable and experienced, it's that they're capable of holding for the person in a way.
That is respectful and supportive.
Chase: [00:25:14] Yeah, true. Really true. So it's, it's also saying to the teacher, , your responsibility here is not to heal, is not to take on the problems or the history of the other person. Your job here is to help them to see it and till let it be separate from them into like, hold some space so that it can be, let arise. But, , don't take it on as your own project.
Marcel: [00:25:48] It's also essential because they have to have their own experiences, but otherwise the transformation doesn't take place.= , one of my favorite quotes from, TKV Jessica char is you had shared with me that he said, the worst thing you can do for a student is taking him by the hand and lead them out of the forest.
Chase: [00:26:07] As they come and they ask , you give guidance and you show the path, et cetera, but they have to do it,
Marcel: [00:26:15] we talked about, we have our own blinders, how we were not in control, but we can influence how we don't see our own patterns.
And we talked about what was important with the person helping somebody that they have had the experience.
Chase: [00:26:33] . They've done their own work. They've actually gone through the process themselves. .
Marcel: [00:26:35] they're in the same process that they're helping other people with,
Chase: [00:26:39] and an ongoing manner
Marcel: [00:26:40] as you have more experience with helping somebody, you learn quite a bit more about how to do it well. You're paying attention. Absolutely. There is also the notion of not just that the person is seeing clearly and they have experience. It's that they have some level of experience with helping others and they have, learned a bit in working with different people
there's this emphasis on being able to help the person by seeing them clearly. So you're basically coming from supporting them. And that is really such a. Primary focus, not what you think would be good for them, but what your discernment is helping you to see would be useful
Chase: [00:27:30] . It's so important
Marcel: [00:27:31] did you have more about that, that you would share this notion that the focus is really on our ability. To set ourselves aside and focus on how we can best help the person we're supporting.
Chase: [00:27:46] , the piece that we often quote is this line, attributed to Krishnamacharya, teach what is inside you. But as it applies to the other person.
Marcel: [00:27:57] . I was thinking about the notion of appropriate progression. So if we go back to why is it important to have someone else help us with our own healing or transformation? , we talked about things, how you don't see your own patterns and like you are really not in control, but one of the other big parts of this is that for healing or transformation to work, it's essential that the progression is appropriate.
To the individual, to the circumstances and it's often easier for an outside reference to help you with that appropriate progression than for you to discern it for yourself.
Chase: [00:28:39] Westerners come to yoga and they're like, I just want to be liberated.
, take me to enlightenment. And, it's like, no. Actually. See what has to happen from a yoga perspective is you've been operating with this set of patterns in this side of ways , that's not been helpful. There's been suffering. Now you have to.
Replace those patterns with patterns that are helpful and supportive of the way that you want to feel. And that's a whole journey that takes time. And after you like have set that up, then and that gets established, then we can talk about that final step . So there's, you can't just go from bad patterns, deliberation.
You have to go bad patterns to good patterns to less. involvement in those patterns to liberation. And people are like, no, just give me the liberation.
Marcel: [00:29:29] this gets to the point of the difference between, Wanting to be free from something as opposed to working through it. Right. You know, and a lot times we were on this track where, how do I get this out of my life when really it's about, okay, how do you work with it?
How do you make peace with it? Or how do you transmute it? Or you, how do you integrate it? Right?
Chase: [00:29:50] so often the only way. Oh, it's through,
, and that is a concept that, people have to be willing to feel, they have to be willing to allow this discomfort and, to be present to that and actually honor it and, and learn from it.
And then some sort of shift can happen . But most people want to just, , turn a blind eye and get me out of here. Don't wanna feel like that anymore,
Marcel: [00:30:18] one way of saying it is that we want the change or the transformation to, unfold on our terms.
Chase: [00:30:24] That's right.
Marcel: [00:30:25] So if we think about this question about why it's so useful to work with someone else that's experienced to support our own transformation and healing,
Chase: [00:30:36] what
Marcel: [00:30:37] ties it together? ,
Chase: [00:30:38] there is a popular Indian mantra I don't want to go into whole technical things to take awhile, but basically , the arrangements of its sounds are, earth, earth, space, wind, wind, wind. So this mantra is considered to be very powerful in removing obstacles. , earth, earth is like getting you to nail down and be really secure with the things that are most important. And then some space is, is can, is created between you and all the other stuff.
In other words, all the non-essential and then you got wind, wind, wind, what happens? Get rid of that stuff. So, you know, when I think of this mantra, a lot of the times what I think of is that people are tached to a certain form. They want a relationship as long as it looks like X, or , , , they are open to a new job provided that it has, , some form that they want.
And what this mantra really does is it has people get in touch with what is most essential to them. And then let the forms of whatever it is go away. So I think that the important part of having an external guide is that they can help you connect to what is truly the essence of what you're interested in or what, where you want to go or what's happening.
so often the reason we're stuck somewhere is because we're trying to get a particular form in a certain way, and that form will give me what I want. And it's like, no, no, come back. Let's stay with what is essential.
The qualities of that. And then when you operate from there, there's actually many different forms
Marcel: [00:32:37] , which. Makes the whole thing much more flexible because there's lots of different solutions as opposed to just the one or two that you had identified with. , we were talking about how when you work with someone, they're helping , you with your patterning, but they're also helping you with your identification, which can be a big part of the patterning, but it's like you become identified with what,
Success looks like, success in a relationship, success in a job, . , , you have these ideas and a lot of times those ideas, what's you're using to track your progress you may be not disowning very clearly, how accurate it is or how useful it is. , on your own, you might get to your point where you were trying to go, and it's actually. more of a nother version of circumstances where you were stuck.
Chase: [00:33:33] That's right. why are we stuck most of the time because of us? So it's, I was going to say it's so helpful, but really it's necessary to have some.
External mirror reflecting back and helping us to get clear about what it is that really is essential to us. And, you know, this goes on. I was a student of mr Neisha guitars for 20 plus years and. Then he got ill and was really no longer available and then passed.
And I tried for three or four years in that process to guide my own practice . And finally I decided, well, I have all the technical skill to do it. But what's valuable is the outsider perspective feeding back to me , well, what I hear you saying is,
Marcel: [00:34:29] this is also the way Western therapy works. You go to see a therapist and it's an outsider perspective.
Chase: [00:34:36] That's right.
Marcel: [00:34:37] they're able to see things more clearly than you are because they don't have that identification.
, so chase, , thank you so much for , this conversation that we've had. and I would love if you would share just a little bit more about.
What you've created with yoga well Institute and the work that you all do there.
Chase: [00:34:59] Well, first and foremost, Marcel, you know, you have helped me immensely in getting clear about this because you took me through, your core resonance process,
and it's through that, that I have, a lot of clarity
we envision a safe and supportive and caring community in yoga where people come out of physical and emotional suffering, experienced sustainable transformation and learn how to help others do the same thing.
we. Are centered around the Vinny yoga teachings of, mr TKV, Jessica char, which he received from Christian Macharia.
. So the foundational piece of what we are is this experiential chain of yoga student teacher relationship. At the same time, it is very helpful in the experiential realm to have information about what the process is and how to think about it,
so we also provide in depth. Trainings. we do these four year long yoga therapists trainings. We do, a year and a half long yoga teacher trainings. And we have ongoing, classes in the tangelos yoga Sutra and various other texts like Bhagavad, Gita, haka, yoga, Pradipika, and, ongoing.
Classes in meditation and meditation theory.
we have a meditation class every Wednesday morning. It's 30 minutes. we have periodically what we call semesters, which have introductory courses where, people are explaining like, what, what is yoga and what is, what does it mean to have a personal practice of yoga.
or what is meditation?
, there's a lot of different ways that people can just plug in and start to find out like, Oh. What is yoga or what is Viniyoga . Then as they get more interested, we have classes that really can go to incredible depth in all of the teaching.
Marcel: [00:37:04] Useful. Great. Super. Yeah.
All right. Thank you, Chase.
Chase: [00:37:11] Thank you very much, Marcel. It's a pleasure to talk with you. I'm happy to talk with you anytime.
Thanks for having me on.
Marcel: [00:37:17] Thank you. Take care.
