The Power of Finding and Trusting Your Inner Voice

Welcome to the Satiated Podcast, where we explore physical and emotional hunger, satiation and healing your relationship with your food and body. I'm your host, Stephanie Mara Fox, your Somatic Nutritional Counselor.

If you've been here for a while, you may know how passionate I am for my yoga practice. I was 19 years old when I went to my first class. It was in a gym on campus and only two of us signed up for a multi-week beginner class. I will never forget how much my whole body shook when holding a plank for the first time.  I was immediately hooked. For awhile I was waking up at 6:00 am to make it to a 6:30 am yoga class before school. I started taking yoga workshops, did my first all day meditation retreat, and eventually decided to become a yoga teacher and study under some pretty fantastic meditation teachers.  Every time I have felt lost since then, I always return to my mat. I found myself again working at the front desk of a yoga studio after a tumultuous year long relationship that shattered my sense of self and confidence. I found my boundaries and my voice again becoming a membership director at a 7 chain yoga studio. I built back my strength after long covid on my mat. I was reminded this past semester of my PhD that this practice is for breaking out of patterns and not perpetuating them. Every time you enter into the practice of yoga, the poses, directions, and practices may be the same, but you are not the same person every single time.  I've encountered a lot of teachers over the years and I am grateful to every single one who has taught me something about myself and living in a human body.

So when I recently re-connected with Jeanie Manchester, one of my yoga teachers during my time in graduate school in Boulder Colorado, I knew I needed to have her on the podcast. Jeanie is the founder of Anjaneya Yoga Shala in Boulder, CO and a master yoga and meditation instructor with 35 years of dedicated practice. Jeanie is a senior certified Anusara Instructor and she offers sacred Initiation into this mantra path to those seeking an authentic path of awakening. Jeanie’s devotion to the divine feminine and the awakening of Kundalini Shakti has inspired creative endeavors such as the Shakti Sisterhood, Goddess Guidance, the founder of The Planetary Awakening Summit, and The Evolutionary Women's Circle. Jeanie is deeply dedicated to empowering her students to awaken the Kundalini Shakti from within to heal and inspire creativity for each student’s highest expression. She offers teacher training, meditation guidance initiation, spiritual and business mentoring, retreats, and immersions around the globe.We chat about the impact of doubt on self perception, being guided by your inner voice, how we are shaped by our life experiences, listening to body wisdom, the connection between lineage and personal identity, embracing ourselves, and so much more. 

This holiday season, if you have felt some gratitude for the Satiated Podcast and want to give back, there are many ways to do that. I accept a few affiliate relationships for companies I like and products I use. You can find some of my favorite things like protein powders, electrolyte mixes, water filters, and books. I'll continue to add on as it fits, as I feel like this way you get something you want or need, and it is a way to help the show and support all the people who make this podcast happen. It all supports growing the podcast in new directions like actually finding the time to get the videos uploaded to YouTube so you can watch the podcast. Additionally, you can become a part of Satiated+ and be able to Ask Me Anything each month. All links here.

Now, welcome Jeanie! I am thrilled to get reconnected with you today. For anyone who doesn't know, I used to practice yoga with you, I mean, feel like it's been forever ago at this point, like you have a beautiful space in your home and in Boulder, Colorado and so like this just feels really precious to reconnect and have you on the podcast and to be able just to talk about wherever our conversation takes us today. But I would first love for individuals to get to know a little bit about you and how you got into the work that you're doing today.

Jeanie Manchester 05:03

Well, thank you. I'm so excited to be here to see what you're up to and how you're thriving with this podcast. My name is Jeannie Manchester. I am a yoga and meditation instructor. I still live in Boulder, Colorado, where I started yoga many, many moons ago, like 35 years ago, and Ashtanga community here with Richard Freeman, beautiful community. I learned so much about my body. I was a runner at that time. I was, you know, strong athlete, as you see often in Colorado, mountain towns and Ashtanga met me on the level of my athleticism I didn't know at that time how deep I was going to go into my family patterns of alcoholism, and how that was going to be confronting me in the years to come. And I would say that sometimes you, as you get older, you start to see that there's a destiny that you have. And as I've gotten older, I've just seen like, wow, I was really meant to go down this healing path of yoga, and then eventually meditation took me sort of very strongly. 15 years ago, I started to dive into a mantra practice. So, you know, I've been an Asana teacher forever, as you know, I teach trainings and retreats all over the world, and I love that. And if someone said to me, if you if there was one practice you do, what would I would just have to say meditation, because it's, it's where I feel the most inside of me. It's where I feel the most shifting and changing, even though it's the most subtle, yoga and meditation have really been almost my entire life. I was drawn to prayer as a kid, which is kind of funny. When I look back, I'm like, wow, you know, it's like, where did this come from? And now that I'm older, and I've done so much kind of diving into the texts of yoga, to think that our past lives doesn't inform today is just limited. You know, I don't think everyone has to believe in reincarnation, but I happen to believe it after many years of sort of contemplation, even dealing with patterns and habits and wanting to shift that it's it's curious to think about our past and perhaps even beyond this lifetime. So yeah, I don't know what else to say. I'm a mama. I'm a mama of two grown children who I adore, who are thriving in their lives right now. They also, they're not super deep into yoga, but they do have meditation practices here and there when they choose. I'm married, been married for over 30 years, and my husband is now kind of diving into mantra for many years, actually, and shows up on my Sunday class. So I'm a normal person in the world, and yet I'm a mystic. You know, I really think I'm here to help the ordinary, everyday person, particularly women, reclaim their bodies and to thrive and to know how to how to find that wholeness inside and to move from the wholeness inside to our activities on the outside. I love to cook, too. I was a chef for many years, and love Ayurveda. I'm Ayurveda practitioner, so that comes into a lot of my work, especially these days. Did Panchakarma in India a few years ago, and you know, this is the way I want to age. I want to age with a reverence for my body. Ayurveda really does that. If you do these practices daily, you feel that like any practice, massaging your body with oil is such a beautiful way to honor your body as a temple. So, you know, that's kind of a far cry from where I started, you know, which is strong athleticism. You know, I still am pretty athletic, but I also have really incorporated more of these subtle practices that feel like a maturation in who I am.

Stephanie Mara 08:59

Yeah, thanks for sharing all that. Something that I hear is just the evolution of where we go to. I also started yoga with like Inyengar and Ashtanga. And for anyone who doesn't maybe know all the different lineages of yoga, like these are kind of very like precise alignment and like, the same poses every single time. And I think there was something in my early 20s that I really needed in that, and I think that it's evolved from there. And like, needing different things from my yoga practice over time because of what was happening inside of me. But there was some, like consistency. And I think maybe even some part of me that, like part of me that wanted to do it all right, that, like, loved, like, oh, there's like, the right way to get into a posture. I recently heard someone talking about learning from their practice, that they realized that they were utilizing their practice to replicate their patterns and not utilizing their practice to get out of their patterns. And I thought that was such a shift to hear, because I realized sometimes I do that too, where I'm like, I get into the pose the same every single time, rather than being like, how does my body want to take this pose today?

Jeanie Manchester 10:19

Yeah, do I need to back out of it? Do I need to do something more subtle? Do I need to hold it? Do I need to move more quickly? It's, it's all of that, I think, like Ayurveda and yoga as it's meant to be, we're meant to move with the seasons. You know, we're in the we're in the vata season right now. So it's, what does that mean? Probably we need more more rest. But you know, it doesn't mean you don't move your body, but it's listening and being honest. And, you know, there's a word in Ayurveda, and it's kind of, I'm losing the word right now, but it's a beautiful word that means, like, we know better, but we do it anyway. And I think that's, you know, Ashtanga was also a container for me, and coming from an alcoholic background, I think it holds people in a certain kind of way that feels safe, and there is some really beautiful reasons for that sequencing. It's a krama. It's an evolutionary sequence that, you know, alignment to me still allows me to find my central channel, however, you know, not to be rigid. I think, like, at some point, everyone has to kind of bust out of the container to find themselves and to find what works for for your body. And again, like the seasons, like, I've already been feeling like, oh, I'm more hungry. Or, you know, as the weather begins to shift and change, even though we're in this like tug of, what season are we in, especially in Colorado, where it tends to kind of hang on to heat. If we want to stay healthy, then we're responding to to every day, probably slightly different. You know, it's like with the time change, all of a sudden, I said to my students this morning, like, did you guys feel energy again? Like I felt this boost of energy with this time change how, you know, whereas prior, I was feeling like, oh, wow, fall, I was feeling really lethargic and needing a lot more rest. I'm sure that will come back. But right now, I'm like, Whoa. The mornings are feeling, oh, I want to get up and move. So I think it's really about listening and being honest and not shaming or feeling bad if you you need to sleep, right? Like you need to rest, rest, especially as you get older, Stephanie, really, I'm older than you. You know it's like as you go through perimenopause and menopause, if we don't listen, we're going to keep driving the body like we did in our 20s and 30s, and it's not going to work. It's going to backfire in the body, and the body is going to rebel, and you're going to end up with some sort of disease of some sort. So, you know, I think again, it's like, what is my body telling me today? Can I listen? Can I honor it? Even if I was taught that this pose comes next, right? It's like, no, my body actually says I need this right now, and I respect what I learned, and it served me, and it still served me as I as I teach, but I also have really gone way off sequencing that I learned. So it's also about creativity. For me, I feel like I want to be an artist of movement, and that doesn't always mean that this follows that.

Stephanie Mara 11:05

Yeah, I'm curious, from your perspective, in teaching yoga and meditation for as long as you have, even when you talk about like, learning to listen, I feel like that is like, the millionth dollar question of like, everyone's trying to figure out but how, you know, I think somatics is trying to create more of that container of like, here's how we do that. But I'm wondering, from your perspective, especially because I've talked about this here, I've had other people on who've talked about this here, of like, meditation can be really hard when we don't feel safe. You know, to be in a body that's feeling activated and triggered, like, sometimes meditation isn't the best piece for that, and so I'm wondering, just in your experience of, like, teaching meditation when we don't feel safe in our bodies, how do we listen? How do we slow down and, like, be with this animal body?

Jeanie Manchester 14:14

Such a great question. It reminds me of, I was at the Telluride yoga festival a couple years ago teaching, and I was on a panel. And there was a teacher of the vet, Vietnam vets there, and they were talking about meditation, or talking about yoga. And, you know, I was asked a question. It was, you know, I'm very deep. I do a closed eyed mantra, internal mantra, meditation practice. And she said to me, it sounds so great. I want to try it. However, my clients who have this extreme trauma, there's no way they're going to close their eyes. I think that's why we talked about how starting with movement is going to be a better place for extreme trauma. I mean, I think we all have trauma, so I'm not saying, but then there's to what degree. Right? If we can't close our eyes and feel safe, then that's going to be a hard place to start. It's a potent place to start. However, I would say that's why we have these somatic practices that work with the breath and the breath in conjunction with movement. That's the beginning of a re patterning. I did that for years before I started meditating. Now that I've been a meditation instructor for so many years, I do see how if someone is ready to close their eyes, they're going to get sort of the the biggest activation is going to come from that internal place that's where we we hear the true inner voice, and we have to work this is, you know, progressive, right? It's like, did my my innate voice show itself right away? Did I know it was there? Well, it was there. I mean, I remember in my early 30s, I was having my second child, and I was in savasana, and I had this internal voice just kind of roar through me. And it was, you know, savasana. so my eyes are closed, my body is released, my mind is softened, right? And in through that came the voice. And the voice was, you're having a girl and she's got blue eyes. And I was like, oh, you just want a girl. Like my rational mind came in, oh, you have a boy. Now you want to now you want a girl. I was like, why are you sabotaging that inner voice that was so so clear and so potent? I think it's because I was afraid of being wrong. What if I'm wrong? The inner voice is something that I think the training that I had in early those early years of a stronger actually, with a steady gaze, an internal connection to the breath of breath, bringing you back to presence. We're talking about presence. So when we're not in presence, we're usually pulled out somewhere else, and usually it's the senses, something in our past that pulls us out. Of course, sounds can pull you out. Or, you know, I think of sounds here in the studio, and I've learned how to kind of even dive under those over over years of practice. But I think that the inner voice is always there. But what happens is there's this intense, we say fragmentation or intense petrification, if you will, inside the subtle body. And of course, the physical body is part of that that gets stuck in old patterns and old beliefs. And that's what we might call trauma, right any we call them samskaras and yoga, these grooves and patterning that come over time with maybe your lifetime. Or if you do believe in past lives, then in yoga, we would say those past lives are informing these present day experiences that we have. You know, it's like we have really good memories and then we have really terrible memories, and the detrimental memories are lodged in the physical body. That's why asana and somatic practices, breath practices are helpful, because the prana of the breath practices is, if you're really focusing on your breath, it's saying, come back to breath, come back to breath, come back to breath. Well, what is breath? Breath is presence. Breath is Shakti. Breath is energy, and breath is now. So anytime we're pulled out of presence, and this is why, again, I can think of my yoga practice is just beginning to kind of heal me on that, even on the level of alignment, of standing taller, being upright in myself, rather than like, I'm like a nobody. And, you know, unworthiness is a big thing. It underlies all of our pain is a feeling of, I'm not worth it. I'm not worthy. I do not feel whole, right? And so we go seeking, and maybe, maybe that's where we go seeking with food, or we go seeking with over exercising, or we go seeking. You know, there's so many ways that we do this, the internet, the phone, we know right, that that these are strong sort of addictive qualities. Meditation really has shown me that, because when I'm in meditation and I'm like, Hmm, what time? Oh, wait, someone texted someone texted me. It's like no Jeanie, you are meditating, back back to meditation, right? It's showed me how my tendencies to come off my midline or come out of presence is so strong, so presence is wholeness. Presence is what we're seeking. But there's so many things pulling us off our center or off this present moment. So you know, back to your question of the inner voice. The inner voice is there for all of us. It's just what got overlaid, what were you told? What voice got stronger than your own? It's still there. That's why we take a practice is to uncover the the inner voice that is is so uniquely calling us each forward into destiny, into really, when I think of wholeness, it's like capacities, gifts, talents, releasing lineage pain, releasing these detrimental thoughts that are producing more of what we don't really want. You know, your inner voice, your true inner voice, is guiding you and to uncover that is why I gave that example of savasana, because it was so clear to me that the inner voice was speaking. And of course, when she was born, I was like, of course, she's got blonde hair and blue eyes and she's, you know, this is my little girl. And yet the doubt that we all have can be very, very strong. It's like, how do we how do we really understand what the inner voice is? The inner voice bubbles up. It doesn't. It's not from the head. It's not a thinking. It's not that we're in control of it. So it's a surrender. And when you're in savasana, you're if you're in a good savasana, you are surrendered. And that's true meditation, when you give yourself to consciousness, which is, to me, is just vibration, and then I have a mantra that is actually sort of helping guide me into that really deep well of vibration. Because the mantra is just it's just wholeness, it's just vibration, those then that bubbling up of that inner voice of truth will begin to arise and more and more, and I'm still working on this. It's not like I've mastered it. I know that. I know what it is, and do I struggle with it still? Of course, I'm human, and some scars are strong. Patterns are strong. That's what we call practice.

Stephanie Mara 21:40

Yep, I always say, just like, we don't call yoga a perfection. It's a practice, and it's a lifelong practice. And something that came up for me while you were speaking was a different perspective, of like, there's all this talk of that we have to get more embodied and we have to figure out ways to get more embodied. But something in the way that you described that was like we are embodiment, but it's everything that gets in the way of that, that it's not actually that we have to get more embodied. We have to address what pulls us out of our body, and why has it not felt safe to be in our body, or what has disconnected us from our body. And that actually, when we start to attend to that embodiment actually is a fairly simple, easy thing to do, but it's everything that gets in the way of doing that.

Jeanie Manchester 22:29

Yes, that's so beautifully said grasshopper. I do think that we are embodiment and we are consciousness. We are more than this body, and we are this body is made of all of that consciousness, and so even the detrimental memories, the pain body, if you will, is still consciousness. And I was just talking about it this morning in my class. It's like when we honor our ancestors. I know it's rocked with pain. Some people don't are like, I don't want to honor my ancestors. There's too much pain, but at the same time it's like, well, yeah, those people struggled as you struggled, maybe you got passed something you don't really want, but really it's the pain, it's the fragmentation that causes the longing. Your pain caused the longing to heal and then to help others heal in this particular way. And so too for me, the challenge of watching my father drink and not be able to harness himself to so much potential was devastating as a child, devastating, and alcoholism, as you probably know, in addiction, you can be of a lineage and not drink and still have lineage pain and have lineage patterns. It's through these somatic practices that we begin to see and recognize the shadow for what it is. And then when we're able to have a calm nervous system, which is what you know, a good asana practice will give you, and then, especially a good meditation practice will give you, it will bring the nervous system into such a calm, we call it sattvic state, calm and peaceful state that we're able to kind of stand before our actions, stand before the pain, and then it's like, well, do I really want to go get whatever? Do I really want to push my body? Do I really want to get up this morning and go work out? Do I really need to sleep? Do I really need the extra rest? In Ayurveda, we would say that's like strong Pitta dosha, which is, you know, fire, it's passion, it's beautiful. I love that part of me. It's creative. And the downside of it, as I age is my body is becoming less of that. It's becoming what we call more Vata, and the Vata dosha is more of dry and sensitive. Coffee. You know, it's like, my body is just like on fire, but when I drink coffee, I cannot drink too much coffee. So it's like, why? Because it throws me out of my midline, and I seek more of the midline than ever before in my life. So it's like that. We call it the standing on the ledge of freedom is the choice we get when the nervous system is rendered sattvic or calm or peaceful. Means that you get to go, huh? Well, I could go work out this morning, and I could see how I feel. And I've done that for sure. I did that with yoga. I did it with running. I do it with, you know, lots of things in my life, even, you know, business, and it's like, oh, actually, fall is coming on. I could use another hour to rest, and then seeing how that serves you. To me, that's really thrilling to make different choices that aid my healing, you know, and then maybe the next day, it's like, oh, I feel recharged. Yeah, I'm gonna get up and go.

Stephanie Mara 26:04

Yeah, I think what you're bringing in, and I talk a lot here also about the power of choice and how important that is in healing. And I love the extra layer that you're bringing in of also that choice can sometimes feel hard to make when we are in kind of our preconditioning, because it feels like our choice has already been made for us. Like I am a person who has to get up in the morning and has to do the yoga or has to do the run or has to eat in this particular way. And sometimes it is a matter of that pause first to kind of question, like, and I've been trying to practice this more recently, of what is showing up. Is this my preconditioning, or is this how I actually want to be responding right now? And my gosh, like, when you start tracking that, it's like, wow, my preconditioning is showing up so much, it's just like, I have to pause, and I have to be with it. I have to get curious about it. I'm like, where did I learn this? And what is driving the bus right now? And, you know, I get that like, awareness can be both exhilarating because it leads towards change, but it can also be really exhausting with everything that you're becoming aware of, because you are taking yourself out of that automatic pilot mode to be like, no, I need to actually kind of do the work to shift something here, because if I keep living in what I've been conditioned and how to respond and eat and be in the world like, that's not going to serve me long term, because I'm not here. I'm not here with what's actually needed in this moment. I'm in what I think I need to be doing.

Jeanie Manchester 27:49

Yes, and then we're not really evolving. That's what I've been kind of confronting in myself. I mentioned a couple of years ago, I did a big, what they call an Ayurveda Panchakarma, and I went for three weeks for this major detox. And what I didn't realize was that my and I know this could be confusing to listeners, but the Pitta side of me, unless you study Ayurveda, of course, which is kind of that creative, passionate, fiery woman that wants to get up and go work out and come back and do my work and have my coffee, and it's the go, go, go. Well, when I got to India, I had been teaching a retreat, and then I went down to do this Panchakarma for myself. First weekend, they do this beautiful clearing of the channels they call it. This warm, herbal, beautiful concoction. I remember that it was amazing, because I had two doctors, and female doctors too, which is extraordinary. And they would come in every day and they, you know, check in and check your tongue, check your pulse, and your body doesn't lie. And that's the thing that I've had to really confront so and I think this is really revealing. They said, How are you feeling? I said, Well, gosh, I have sciatic pain, I guess because I haven't been moving, the Pitta girl has not been moving. I mean, I've been traveling right like and so they laughed at me. They're really sweet, but they were like, Jeanie, my dear, you know you have sciatic pain, not because you haven't been moving. That's hidden in your tissues. So that pattern is the pattern of the Pitta pushing the Vata right out of whack, and then your tissues are dehydrated, they're really dry, and it causes that sciatic pain. Well, I was, oh, my piriformis is tight. I haven't been moving. Super humbling. I have to say, the awakening process of recognizing your patterns isn't always sweet. It's actually very, very humbling and very difficult. But, you know, I was in this place for three weeks, I was like, okay, I surrender. I'm going to just see how my body responds to the rest of these treatments. The sciatic pain did go away, but it revealed something to me that I wasn't able to see even in meditation. It was, I mean, I could sense it. I could sense this about myself, but I wasn't really. It was like the body showing me, you know, it's like, I have sciatic pain now, well, this is bigger than just sciatic pain, right? Stephanie, this is like dis ease comes from this place. And Ayurveda and yoga, we would say, Well, what causes disease? Primarily, it's a split from consciousness. So where are we not respecting the body? And for me, with menopause, that's been a confrontation, a confrontation with aging, a confrontation with your body isn't the same. It can't handle what it could handle before, and that's a humbling process of surrender, of like, how do I tend to this body? So, you know, part of that process drew me back to getting, you know, my coaching degree in Ayurveda, and also to literally bathing my body in oil every day my knees are better. You know, everything is is happier when it has a little bit of unctuousness to it, a little Kapha, right? Which the Kapha dosha. And Ayurveda isn't always popular, because it's like, Oh, you got extra weight on the body. You move slower. You know, there are some downsides to the Kapha dosha. However, I think about when I was pregnant with my babies and how healthy I was like I had extra weight on the body. I was moving slower. It was actually really healthy time. Got all these hormones flowing through you. So, you know, standing on the ledge of freedom has come in a lot of different ways, some through the spontaneous inner voice coming to the forefront in meditation, and then me journaling about it, and another way was through the gates of Ayurveda, where it was like, I couldn't deny what my body was experiencing. So someday I'm gonna write a book. Your body doesn't lie, you know, if it hasn't already been written, but it really is like, are we really listening and are we responding, or are we just driving forward? Or, you know, hanging back. Some people are hanging back. My tendency is to kind of push forward, so, you know, and I can see that in my lineage. I just have to say this, because it's really coming up for me. What is at the core of that experience is a sense of not being whole, not feeling adequate. And I know it like I studied. I know it in meditation. We would call that the little one, the Ana, Ana Bamala, the Mala that cloaks us, makes us feel like we're not part of the ocean. We feel separate. We feel like the wave is not part of the ocean, but it's never not been part of the ocean. How do we find that wholeness, that satiation? That's what meditation is giving me. And it's not overnight. It's, I've been at it for a long time, and it's, I would say, like every day, I get a drop more realization, you know, drop more feeling of wholeness, worthiness, even in the aging process, which I think is why, in this, at least in the West, probably all over the world, to some extent, we're we're defying our aging process. It's like, you know, I'm not worthy. If I have wrinkles, I'm not worthy. If I have extra weight on the body. I'm not worthy if I am not out there in the world doing so, you know, twice a day I meditate, and I meditate now long, longer periods of time. I don't start people out with these long periods, but it's what saved me in my perimenopausal years. And of course, now menopausal years, in this process of my body shifting is I would dive into this inner silence so that I could resurface with, you know, sattva, with, with, oh yeah, now I'm ready for the next activity. So it's like diving and softening and surrendering and then going back into activity. It's, it's, it's been really beautiful. Meditation has saved me.

Stephanie Mara 34:02

Yeah, I mean, I hear just the power of stillness, you know? How do we be in the stillness to hear everything that can come up within, just putting everything aside, the phone, the social media, the external voices, the family lessons and beliefs and internalized messages, and how do we sit in stillness to actually hear what is our voice? I'm wondering if that's kind of what started to help you move through some of the self doubt, because I find that that is something that a lot of individuals, that even I work with are working through is how to start to step back into trust within themselves again, especially when you've maybe been in patterns of food behaviors or anything that it feels like it has broken your trust within yourself and your body. Like, how can I trust myself and my body when I've done these behaviors for so many years and so I'm wondering if that meditation and that stillness and being able to actually identify, no, this is who I actually am, kind of start to help you work through some of the doubt that you are experiencing.

Jeanie Manchester 35:10

Yeah. I mean, I think all yoga practice, all the Ayurveda practices, they all have a place. And then the kicker has been meditation, because it's not all nectar. You go in to yourself, and even energetically, you're releasing patterns. You're releasing energetic patterns that you've been holding inside your subtle body. The thing about the pranayama, the breathing practices and the asana practices, they are incredible, and they don't go deep enough. So when I started taking up mantra practice with an incredible teacher who I'm still studying with, and I started to understand how, how mantras when they're alive, and this is fairly esoteric, but it's not going to be in 50, 7500, years from now, it's going to be normal. But the mantras that that are initiated have this sort of empowerment to them. They have a viria, we call it, and the mantras, because they're alive, and we just think of like, you know, everything, like the tree outside my window, it's alive, like consciousness vibrates, but again, the patterning inside of us causes a petrification of that energy. So we don't have energy for life, we don't have energy for creativity, we don't feel worthy because it's all wrapped up in the pain. So what mantras do is, when they're enlivened, they go in, I always say, like a vibratory toothbrush, you know, kind of goes in and starts picking out the energetic patterns. And when we do that, we are going to confront very full on our pain and our shadow and our experiences of unworthiness and our family patterns we experience, we confront it all. And I'm not saying like, I get images of my family or things like that. I just can feel it. I'm like, oh, wow, look at that. You have to be willing to look and in meditation that's just what's going to happen. You're going to have things start to surface. And we say it's nectar and it's fire. So the fire is that the confrontation of that. So when you go into stillness, it's vibration and it's confrontation. So you know, it's not like I sit there and figure out, like all these things that happened to me when I was a kid, or anything like that. It's more that the vibratory energy of whatever that fragmentation is is being kicked out. That's what is hard to explain. It's energy. It's energy that's gotten fragmented or thickened or like an iceberg inside and mantras, which this is pretty crazy, right? It's like, when I met this practice, I was like, Oh my gosh, really, you know? And then over many years, I'm like, Oh my gosh, this stuff works so, you know, it goes in, you get kicked to the surface, you dive back in, and you're kind of doing this. But what's happening is we have a really beautiful teaching that I think just gives this like it will come to life for people. And that is, it's called the dying of the cloth. And so if I had this brown scarf, but it was white, and I dipped it into a brown dye, I'm going to tell you why in a minute, and then any artist knows that she bring it to the surface, and what happens to this white cloth that's been dipped in brown you put it in the sun, it begins to dry and it fades. This is the analogy, right? We're going into 20 minute period of meditation. We have a mantra. It's going in, it's starting to kick out, it's vibrating, vibrating, kicking us to the surface. We're diving again, diving in and out, in and out, we come to the surface. We go about our lives. What happens to that dye? It fades. But this is slightly, you know, if this was a white cloth, it's slightly brown. Now it never goes back to its original white. So then I go back in the afternoon and I dip again. Well, now this white cloth is a little bit more brown, right? That never fades again. If you think about the relative that's us walking about the world in separation, because that's what we do as human beings. That's why we have wars all over the planet. That's why we struggle with each other. It's why we have pain, dis ease, is we feel separate, but as we dip into this dye, which is consciousness, in this metaphor, we do this consistently, you can see that eventually the brown doesn't fade. It's permanent. So what does that mean for each of us? It means that we are not identifying with our pain anymore. I'm not the child of the alcoholic. I'm just Jeanie, right? And Jeanie has her unique expression for this lifetime. Did the pain inform me? Absolutely. And not only that pain, but other pain. So the dying of the cloth is really how we feel separate, but we really have never been separate from consciousness. We are consciousness. But how do we come to realize that? And I know that word is kind of big and sort of elusive. It really is, we're energy. We have so much energy and so much creativity and so much healing to do, and if that energy is blocked by our memories, we won't feel whole. We'll die feeling fragmented. And to some extent, as a human being, we probably will have some fragmentation just because we're in separate bodies, but we can really come to a place of wholeness. And so I do feel like, over the years, it's not that I don't have doubt, but I see the doubt. So I'm like, oh no, no, you don't get the best of me. No, no, no, no, no. So you know simple opportunities, but wonderful opportunities I've had. I've had to kind of step on my saboteur, like, Oh, I know you. I know you. Doubt. No place for you. You can stand below my foot, because I'm not going to eradicate you, because doubt is doubt. We're human beings. We have doubt, but we want to have less doubt, more clarity, more confidence, not arrogance, but confidence. And so definitely by diving into stillness, stillness that vibrates confronting my shadow, dancing with that shadow, and then, literally, I don't really have to do anything, because dirty water goes down the drain in this meditation practice. It is balm, it heals. And I know that's why I had, I would say they were perimenopausal headaches, and part of that was my drive in the world during a time when my body was saying, don't drive. But I started to meditate at that time, and within three months of a daily regular practice, I was not getting those headaches, and I still don't get them today. I can get other kinds of headaches. These were hormonal headaches, but by just being in a softened interior space twice a day, to me, that is everything, because I want to live more fulfilled. So that's how I heal my body is I dive into that oceanic self, and I confront the demons. Sometimes I don't even have to think about what those are. They're just being released. So yes, it's stillness, definitely going into silence, to a place where you can feel and hear and see, confront release, and that can happen all on its own, where I'm not thinking about anything, something might arise and I'll be like, oh, yeah, look at that, huh? Yeah, I'm releasing that other times, many times, I don't know what I'm releasing. It's just I feel lighter, I feel brighter. I'm like, Oh, I don't have as much doubt. Wow, I did that lecture, and I didn't doubt myself, right? Or more, what's really thrilling is to like, see people like you or see my friends, and just like be so elated for other people's success, not feel jealous or constricted because I don't feel worthy. So those are the signs that I have seen in myself of like, wow, I really, truly am so happy for other people because I don't have to sit in my sense of lack.

Stephanie Mara 43:12

I love everything that you just explained. So the first thing I want to mention is one thing that it made me think of was just your first example of like the scarf and like dipping it and then turning more and more brown is I see that also as the process for food recovery is so often because food behaviors have been happening for so long that it feels like it becomes a part of one's identity. Like, I don't even know who I would be without fill in the blank food behavior. Like, what would I even do with that time? Who is even the person that is on the other side? I know that for myself, that was one of the scariest things, was I know who this person is, this person who over exercises and is struggling with food and is in the binge restrict cycle like I know who this person is, but a person that doesn't do that, I don't know who she is, I haven't experienced her yet, and that can feel exciting, but I find for most people, and it was for myself at that time as well, it's really scary, because what is connected with safety is what is known. I know this person, I don't know that person, and I don't know what they are going to be like if they're going to still connect with the same people in the world, if they're still going to interact and be in the world in the same way, and I find that, yeah, like, I loved that you made it more of a bite sized experience of it's not like, well, I'm just not going to be that person anymore. It's like, you go back and you dip it again and again and again. Well, what would it be like if I didn't do that right now? What would it be like if I responded differently? What would it be like if I engaged in a different behavior or a different reaction, and it's so slow and it's so incremental, and that's why you look behind and like you were saying, you don't even know what's happening. Sometimes you're just like, oh, I haven't done that in a while. Like, sometimes I couldn't tell you a day where some of the old coping mechanisms that I had with food and otherwise, I couldn't tell you the day that it stopped. It just was all of a sudden, I looked behind and it had been years, and I was like, oh, I don't do that anymore. That's not a part of my story in this timeline, in this chapter. And there is, I think, an important part of marking that, of like, when you get to that point and you're saying, oh, I'm not that person anymore, like you've been saying, like, I am not the Jeanie that is informed by my past. I am not the Stephanie that is informed by, you know what I grew up around. I am the Stephanie that is who is here today.

Jeanie Manchester 46:03

Yeah, I think for me, it's, it's still an ongoing process of, oh, yeah, recognizing like, like, for example, I love mushroom coffee, and especially when I am teaching or when something's really important to me. I'm giving a lecture for my Kula, you know, my my meditation group, or my teacher, or the risk is too big now for the jitters, for that feeling of instability, the Vata, the energy is going up and out, up and out. It's like, No, this is too important to me. I am not going to sabotage by having that cup of coffee. I mean, maybe later with some food, you know, like, it's not like, I mean deprivation, but it's also seeing how the impact of certain foods, for example, coffee, for me, impacts me when I and I get really, like, jittery and ungrounded and and so I think it's whether it's a food or it's a patterning of, you know, sleeping in or getting up, or, you know, whatever that is. It's like, allowing for, you know, I love the seasonal changes, because it's like, if I really listen, I'm like, I don't want salad anymore. I want cooked greens. You know, am I listening to that? Am I, we're back to listening. But also just, I think I am so invested in feeling better that, you know? It's like, oh, oh, that I don't feel as good, you know? And so, you know, when I, when I delight in my friends success, it's like, wow, I really, truly love them, right? Like, that's such a beautiful feeling. It's like, I'm like, high from that feeling of just joy so and when we say in yoga that the Ananda Maya Kosha, which I used to think was sort of like this lofty thing, like, oh, the joy center, the bliss body, where is that? We all want some bliss, you know, like, Well, how do I get that? And now with meditation, I'm starting to get that, you know, we say, like hummingbird to nectar, right? Like, how does the hummingbird know to go to the bliss, the nectar of the flower? It just knows. It's its nature. Our nature is to be joy. And we might not think of like joy as like all this laughter and, you know, jubilance, and it can look like that, but it's sort of just this feeling of goodness that I've experienced. Like, walk out the in the morning and it's just like, I feel good. My mother, I helped my mother yesterday, who's 91 and she she called me this morning. She's like, thank you so much for all your tender care. I was like, it just brought me so much joy to help you, mom. You know, it's like, not a drudgery. You know, it's like we start to feel like we're getting a little bit of that bliss coming back, you know? And so when we do something like for me, it's coffee, one of those things I've identified. I realize I sabotage myself by doing that. You know, it's like you don't have to deprive yourself, but at the same time, knowing how foods impact us in certain ways, and then asking ourselves, what do you really want? You know? And for me, it's like, no, I want to be I want to be on when I give that lecture. I want to be here with you right now. I want to be on for my students. So to me, it's like this responsibility. It feels like, Oh, I know how I feel when I drink coffee before I teach, I get really jittery a little like, you know, everyone's like, Whoa, did you have coffee today? I think coffee has its place. So that's just an example, though. And that hummingbird to nectar thing is really a cool analogy, because there is this thing called the Ananda Maya Kosha. It is in the deepest core of the core of the body. And again, what gets in the way? Memories. It seems so simple, like we just have to clear the house of these feelings of I'm not I'm not enough. It comes down to that I'm not enough, I'm not worthy. Because I don't feel worthy, I don't feel whole, then I'm going to be jealous of you. Because you have what I want, we perceive that someone has what we want when actually we have what we need inside, right? And then that leads to feelings of, you know, thinking we're the doer in life. So, you know, part of what we're disclosing through, again, I'm going to say particularly meditation, but I think at all practices, including food practices, is we're accessing a part of ourselves that is really goodness. It's joy, it's freedom. And again, I don't mean that as sort of like, Oh, I'm happy all the time. That's kind of superficial. It's more that this sort of goodness, of wholeness, satiation, I am enough, starts to begin to flow through our senses into the world, because we've been diving deep into and disclosing and releasing daily releasing these patterns that are so strong that, literally, one day, you wake up and you're like, I don't need the coffee in the morning. I don't need that, you know? I don't need this to fuel me. I don't need whatever it is, you know this. I don't need to get up to feel worthy, to go do weights, now I think weights are great, especially as you enter menopause. However, it's not like a rigid thing. It's like, how do we flow with the ebb and flow of our energy body? So the bliss body is is a really beautiful, actual thing that we can start to feel we can start to feel more whole. For me, it's definitely been through meditation. It has been through stilling the body and the mind, bringing the body and the mind into unity, releasing my sense of being in control, trusting in that vibration that I'm made of, right? That took a while to let go, to surrender into because we don't trust it. We're like, I'm in charge. I'm going to drive everything. When you start to release your control, when you're in those deeper inner states, you realize how much energy you're made of, and that energy really is benevolent. It wants the sequences that were made for to come through.

Stephanie Mara 51:58

So beautifully said. I'm curious, I always like to wrap up with offering listeners a baby step, and with everything that we've kind of explored today through yoga, meditation, embodiment and presence, I'm curious if any kind of baby step comes forth for you, of what you would suggest to those who are listening in a baby step in these directions.

Jeanie Manchester 52:21

So good. Oh my gosh, there's so much here. I think, you know, I always say to my students, because I support people in a daily regularity of meditation, but it's not rigid to me anymore. It's more like I have devotion to lining up and devotion to feeling better. So I think the first question I would ask your listeners is, what do you really want? Do you really really want in your life? Do you want to feel more whole? Do you want to feel, are you frustrated that you're not accomplishing what you want to in life? And I don't mean in sort of like, I mean like you're flowing with your gifts, if you really long for that. I think getting in touch with what we call the iccha shakti. Is so important. It's like, what do you really want with this life? What do you really want in the span, if you were to do that eulogy for yourself, right? Like, would you look back and say I had a regret for this or that? Because we don't have, we don't have a long time here on this planet. So what do you really want? Do you want, like, for me, it's like, I really want this healing to continue, and I really want to help people. I really want to help people understand how to go inside, and those patterns and habits and samskaras, and yeah, their patterns and habits, they will stop over time. When you're doing these, these practices, they will stop on their own. It's like, white sugar I couldn't do after a while of Asana. I was like, I just, I just don't want. It doesn't taste good. You know? It was just like, I didn't have it. It wasn't any anything rigid. I don't always go back to that with my students. Like, what do you really want? What are you willing to line up with every day? Not rigid, not a rigid like have to because, you know, that's what, you know. I think for me, it's like, well, no, that's not I line up with meditation because it feels really good. I feel like it's changing. I'm changing. So, you know, without being rigid, how do you line up the best you can? And any given day is going to be different, allowing for that, you know, but, you know, connecting into what we call the Iccha Shakti, I think, is probably the most important thing of all to me, because it sets the tone for the day. So if it's like, okay, my Iccha Shakti is to truly listen to what I need every single day, then I'm willing to look at like every day is not going to be the same, right? And and yet, you know, for me, it is this daily regularity of meditation because of its impact on my on my central nervous system. So I don't know if that helps. I mean, it's...

Stephanie Mara 54:58

It's fantastic. I love that suggestion. And because it is based off of how you want to feel in your body, and what I hear in what you're describing around rigidness is that it's not about rules, it's not about control, it's not about external guidance. It is about you coming into connection with your body and receiving its feedback of how do I want to feel, and what do I know supports my body in feeling that way? And also that does take time and experimentation and exploration to discover that, so that you can be like, well, I know that I want to feel this vibrancy, this joy, this aliveness, this satiation, so let me just keep tracking what provides me with that. So it is a process, but I find that, like you're suggesting, it is first a practice of asking, what do I want, and making that okay to ask the question that you are allowed to have wants and needs in this world and to discover how to meet them. So I love that suggestion.

Jeanie Manchester 55:58

Yeah, and of course, there's so many other things, but I think also just allowing something to become more devotion than it is, like I have to, like, that's what meditation has become for me. It's like, wow, I just, of course, I skip practices here and there, right? Like, that's life, and when I can harness myself to it, it's like I feel better. I feel like I'm going to be a better person. I'm going to serve at a higher level when I give myself, especially meditation, because it's so not about doing, for me, it's about receiving, so receiving the energy of consciousness, stepping out of my doing role and receiving. And when you receive from all this vibration that we are made of. You're bathed in so much energy. So, you know, I think that that has been the biggest healing tool of my entire life is just it's given me feedback. It's not always easy, but it is necessary to grow and evolve. And that's what I want more than anything, is to grow and evolve.

Stephanie Mara 57:00

Yeah. Well, thank you so much for sharing all of your wisdom today. And I'm wondering how individuals can keep in touch with you and what you're doing in the world.

Jeanie Manchester 57:10

Oh, that's so sweet. I have a website, jeaniemanchester.com. It's just one N. People like to put two ends in there. J, e, a n, i, e, manchester.com and I have lots of things, you know, I do retreats. I teach people how to meditate, you know, if you're interested in and having a tool that will really, you know, take you to the nectar and bring you back to the surface, and then, you know, make you tussle with your shadows. It's really, really profound. So, I teach yoga, teach Asana, I teach Ayurveda. I help women, you know, primarily I'm feeling that's been a call for me to help women reclaim their bodies at this time and to recognize our inherent connection. It's always been there. Every human being has it, and then women have something in particular.

Stephanie Mara 57:57

Beautiful. Well, I will leave all of those links in the show notes and just thank you so much again for being here.

Jeanie Manchester 58:02

So so delighted. I can't wait to have you on my podcast coming up, maybe in the new year.

Stephanie Mara 58:08

Yeah, absolutely. I will share that with everyone here, once we do that on your podcast and to everyone who's been listening, if you have any insights, email me them at support@stephaniemara.com, would love to hear and I hope you all have a satiating and safety producing rest of the day. Bye!

Keep in touch with Jeanie:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jeanie.manchester/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yoginijeanie/

Website: https://www.jeaniemanchester.com/