Oh, everybody, I am so excited because I have both of my friends. I feel like everybody I film with now, that's been the beautiful part of this journey, is like every single person I film with now are actually my friends. Like you're not just people I like collaborate with, like these are actually my friends. And Cindy is someone that lives right down the street. I tell you guys, I knew Cindy long before I even thought about putting myself up on YouTube. And both Emmy and Emmy and Cindy both have their YouTube channels. I will be putting their links down in the description box below because if you've been living under a rock and you haven't heard of these beautiful ladies, go and make sure you subscribe to both of their channels. They're both very, I was just laughing before we started filming about all the mystery schools and the priestess of ISIS. And I was like, maybe the band's getting back together. Maybe this life instead of edging things in stone. I think Emmy and I joked about that. Once technology is so hard because last time we were here, we were writing things on paparaces and stones. So we're like, what is the sorcery of technology? But I am, how are you ladies doing today? I always forget to ask that because we've already been chitchat today. So how are y'all doing? I'm good. I just finished teaching a class a little while ago. So I've been hanging out here at the studio getting ready for the call, doing some stuff in the front room. And yeah, but everything's going good. How's the new year treating you? Oh, fantastic. What about you, Emmy?  Oh man, yeah, there's a lot of energies that are kind of highlighting internal things. A lot of old stuff is coming up for a lot of people. And I mean, Capricorn season is a great time to take a look at your life anyway and see what needs to go and what needs to stay. So I kind of been doing that myself. And with all of the solar weather going on, I have had a lot of anxiety. It's different than anxiety from an issue that you need to work through. It feels like for me, it feels like I drink five pots of coffee in my test area. It just feels strange. Nervous energy, but you don't know why you're nervous. Yeah. So I'm just trying to get back in the groove of things with homeschooling after a break and all the things. I took on a new sponsor in my recovery program. So I'm helping out a beginner. And that's always such a blessing because it really helps to remind me of where I came from and where I was and how much my program has helped me. And I realized that not everybody resonates with 12-stop, but it saved my life. It saved my life. And I definitely wanna keep giving back in that area. So just trying to get into the groove after the holidays is plus these energies, it's been a little hard. Well, I was about to say maybe staying in the cosmos or having a party is the wrong analogy. Maybe the cosmos are just hung over right now and they're dead. Yeah, right. Well, I think some of us might be going through recalibrating too. I was having this kind of, when we go through those processes often and frequently where if you up level or you upgrade then or you're asking, and that's a big thing with this time of year too, especially in new years, people go in with their goals or their resolutions or whatever you wanna call it. In other words, they're like, okay, I'm ready. I'm ready for this, this, you know, an up leveling of myself and what does that look like? And then it starts to happen, you know, then things start to happen and move.  I didn't wanna have to do that to up level and to upgrade. Do you mean I have to look at this or I have to release that or I have to change my habits? I have to change my lifestyle.  And then the purging and things begin to happen and then your body has to recalibrate to the newer energies or the bigger energies that become available to you. And then that just becomes like a constant process.  And so we're always going through this pulsing, this expanding and contracting, spiraling process to help us, you know, on our journey of growth and awakening and, you know, becoming who we're becoming and, you know, knowing our truest self, our highest self, all that good stuff. It's like the more and that's, and that's, and I think we've, we talked about this a lot, Cindy, off-camera, you see this a lot in the yoga world and we'll get into the topic at hand soon, guys, but this does have to do with the topic at hand where people want to change. But the minute things start to happen because of the change and it's oftentimes, it's a shit show. Things start to fall apart. It's kind of like that, a colleague, you know, mother colleague who comes in, she's, you know, very forced to be reckoned with in the pantheon from the Hindu mythology and she's very, she's like Ganesh on steroids. You know, Ganesh is the remover of obstacles, but he does it in a very playful way.  Like, and so it's, you go through these seasons where it's like the more you want that spiritual change to expect your life to fall apart, but it's only falling apart because it has to, and you can't keep the same patterns and also have new patterns. And a lot of people will come into the yoga worlds and will want that change. And I think, Emmy, we were actually talking about this yesterday as well off camera on the phone. People will come into the yoga world and they'll want, but the minute that they turn around and run because sometimes the depression, the sadness that you know is more comforting than the newness, the unknown, once you get through that destruction. Right? And so people will come and clean back and it's this, this some, but you know, it's definitely, you know, there's a great meme and I'm kind of going to paraphrase it. I think maybe people have shared it in the signal support group, but it's like what I thought a spiritual transformation would look like, and it's like she raw with light coming out and beautiful flowing hair with a sword.   And guys, just so you know, I never looked this good after I finished teaching. So back then, Cindy looks like a supermodel after she's done teaching is amazing, but I never looked this good after I finished teaching. But it says, Cindy say, I like to play in the shadows. The shadow side is that side of you that's icky, you know, that it's your shadow. It's the most transformative and that's what we're doing. We did the 30 day shadow work challenge back in November and now we have this huge 60 day, which 60 days is a long time as I've been making this template, it's a long time. And I'm really excited to see what comes of it and it's interesting because I actually, without even thinking about it, I merged Amy's grief work with Cindy's work together in the template and it just so happened that Amy could hop on today. And I was like, oh my God, this is like divine because we're gonna talk a little bit about what Cindy does and how it kind of intertwines with what Amy does because they are both Reiki people and are both healers. And as you know, every healer, and I think you ladies can attest to this, every healer in every lineage is going to do things a little bit differently, right? Because you have your own autonomy, that's why it's really important. I think sometimes in our world today, we have this view that you can become a healer overnight and that's not necessarily where we all have the ability to do it, but there's a huge learning and you're constantly learning, you're constantly evolving and you're correct because you have to do you first, right? You have to heal yourself to an extent first before and learning from others and evolving and finding kind of your own autonomy in what you do. And it's that personal experience that kind of comes through with your healing as well. And so let's go ahead, let's start, Cindy, you. So the only yoga we did in the 30 day channel challenge was Ashtanga, but what we're doing in this challenge is we are going to be doing Ashtanga as well, but we're incorporating Cindy's. And what Cindy does, she studied on Yusara, which is an offshoot of Iyengard yoga, but Cindy's kind of unique as I see her as such a healer in the way that she works the modality of the body within her teaching too. And so Cindy, where do you want to start? And then we'll incorporate Emmy's grief stuff and Emmy just pipe in if you want to touch on something that's being said. Well, I know we've talked about before, Bryce, how, and it's in the lot of the philosophies and even I think in the yoga scriptures and all that, I mean, in anything that you read about to the energies and the energetic body is that your mind, or excuse me, your body is just like this reflection of what's going on on the inside of you and that your body responds to every thought that you're having, like literally your body responds to every single thought that you're having. And yoga is, and it hits both of that, both of those things, it hits your mind, it works your mind, it works your body, and of course it works the energies, the energies that play between the two. And when we begin to understand that our body is an image or reflection of that, then then you can start to see where the potentials are for healing within your body, but then how that also takes you deeper within the energetics and the mental aspects. So in other words, you can go through the body to get to the mind and your belief patterns and vice versa, you can go through the mind to get to your body and understanding that that arrow goes both ways. So if there are times where you're feeling sad or you're feeling depressed or you're feeling underwhelmed and that your body will automatically respond to that, you know that. So if you're feeling deflated or depressed or sad, your body does something like this, it will literally deflate.   And then if you know that and you're like, okay, well, this is the way I'm feeling right now, what can I do to make myself feel better?  And just the process of doing that, opening up yourself and taking up more room, will probably make you feel just a little bit better because the chemistry within your body is feeding the thoughts in your brain. So in other words, you move your body a certain way, then that tells your mind, okay, I think we're feeling better now. And so you get better thoughts, right? So it's really understanding that connection with how your body does respond to every thought that you're having and that that arrow works both ways. When you understand that, then you can understand how like a yoga practice or movement practice is so important to our health and well-being because it will actually help you in managing your moods and starting to break through some of the conditionings that we've put on ourselves, not just mentally, but physically. It's like it all works as a unit and when we treat it as so, then the results that you will get will, it'll be longer lasting, it'll be quicker and then you'll know what to do to support yourself when you do have like a bad day. You know, when you're not feeling good, well, how can I move my body to help reflect a different mood, to allow in and invite something that feels better to me? And I think that that's a big component of understanding you understand that connection. I mean, that's how the healer, as a healer, that's how I work. I work through the body to get to the different layers of you. And the mind will lie to you. I mean, how the three of us, and actually, Cindy, Emmy just started practicing Ashtanga Yoga. She's been doing, and I know she's had a lot of revelations and breakthroughs just doing a yoga practice consistently and something too, another layer to that is like, the mind is really good at lying to you. You will lie to yourself a lot for your sense of survival, but the body doesn't. The body keeps the score. That's the big book, right? The big heavy book is the body keeps the score. And so there is this like, it's interesting because the Yoga Sutras talk about this. We have Prakriti, which is the body, which is nature of Purusha, which is the soul. Prakriti, the nature is going to die one day, but the soul is eternal. However, the soul really cannot exist without the expression of the body. And so what it does is it then goes into another incarnation. And it's always this constant, it's like the never ending tango, you know? Or what's a more dramatic dance? The Pasadobla is at a more dramatic dance, I would say. It's never just like the Jitterbug. It's like Pasadobla. It's like, don't tell, it's always this like telenovela of your life, you know? And so sometimes, and I know Emmy can also speak on, I know we all can speak on this, you'll have issues you notice if you do a mobility practice like yoga, which is yoga was designed specifically, literally for shadow work. That's not what they call it in the yoga sutras. That's more of a common modern term, but literally that's what the asana was designed for was to open up energy pathways to show you where there are blockages, right? And so, but any exercise can be used in that modality too. But there have been times I think where, at least I know for me, where I'll have an issue with like my hip and all of a sudden, I don't wanna say it opens up Pandora's box because that's not it at all because you're able to, Pandora's box was chaos, but you're able to kind of, you feel chaotic, but you're able to then kind of work through it where opportunities are presented. It's like the practice, and I'm sure you get this a lot with Reiki too, where something is presented to the person as something they might not even be consciously aware of that's creating a pattern within their life that their body is showing them.  So did you notice a difference from what Cindy is saying with the experience of using the body? Yes. I've done quite a bit of work on my own with Reiki, with Self Reiki, and then working in my Reiki groups, and also in my 12-step groups. Done a lot of work with ego, and it's amazing how sneaky it can get. Practicing yoga has brought up a lot of additional stuff. And when I say sneaky, the ego will, as it's dying, the ego will very craftily and sneakily place thoughts to get you to attach to something. And I just noticed the thought patterns. And when I realized, oh, that's ego, it'll go to an even more subtle thought pattern. And when I find myself, like, for example, this morning, I woke up and I wanted to do my practice right away because I had to be to work by six o'clock in the morning. And immediately, as soon as I woke up, my mind just was going to these really, really disturbing thoughts. And it was alarming me.  Well, I just had this anxiety well up, and I was like, oh, I don't wanna practice. Like, I just, I need to deal with these feelings.  Yeah. Well, there's the whole chemistry that goes on too. You have a thought.  And yes, your body is gonna respond. It's gonna respond, but your endocrine system responds by then shooting off like cortisol and all these stress-producing hormones because that thought is telling your body that there's some kind of danger going on here. It's not good right now. Your thought is producing the situation where it feels like there's something wrong. There's danger. And so then your body, the chemistry of your body, the chemicals, you know, the hormonal system, your endocrine system will start to spiel all those stress hormones out. And then that stress hormone, those stress hormones create that feeling of anxiety in your body. And then that anxiety in your body then goes in and feeds your mind again saying, oh, there really is something wrong. And then it creates like that looping aspiring into that. And yeah, and when you can realize that that's happening and you're like, oh, well, I'm actually not in danger, am I?   I am simply creating the situation in my head. Like I just made up this story and that's the crazy thing.  It's like, it's not even true. And then when you have that realization, you're like, okay. And yes, hopefully you can pull yourself out enough to do the work then to like, you know, then you move the body and then you can re-regulate your hormonal system, which thing can regulate your nervous system. Your nervous system can finally go, okay, I'm okay now. But yeah, like that process that like really understanding it helps me a lot to understand the actual mechanics of my body and how my body responds to the thoughts and how that anxiety feeds more. Like you understand that looping and you can feel when it's starting to happen then that you can realize, wow, you know, I'm kind of being ridiculous here with my thinking patterns. Cause, you know, I'm sitting here, I'm in my bedroom, in my pajamas, there's nothing wrong. I'm not being attacked. I'm like perfectly okay right now, I'm safe. I have plenty of food in my stomach. There's nothing like really, there's nothing going on. It's just the story in my head. Yeah. You know, and then it's like, wow, how much we are impacted by the stories that we create in our heads. And so then yoga helps to, or whatever, like the movement, whatever you chose to do helps to disrupt that, helps to disrupt those stories. We don't buy into them so much. We don't believe them so much. So as Bryce was saying, you shouldn't believe everything that you think. Yeah. Because most of the stuff that we think is not true. Most of the things we think are just elaborate stories that we make up in our minds that aren't even happening. And we stress ourselves out over it. One of my favorite things that my sponsors told me, one of the favorite things she tells me all the time is she's like, Emmy, don't go into your head alone. It's haunted. Yeah. Totally.  Like, I can't see where that's going. Totally, 100%. And it gets all of us. It gets the best of us. Even the ones who've been doing the work for a long time.  And that's something wrong, Doss. I can't remember which book he spoke about this in that when you're coming right up to a breakthrough, emotionally, mentally, that's when the ego gets the worst. Like it comes in like a lion. And so if people are wondering if you're new to this, what we're talking about. So like when you're going through the ego or the fault sense of self, there is a necessary component to the ego. Like there is a proper place for it, mostly to offer resistance. But there is a proper place for it. But that is the fault sense of self.  That because we believe what we think. And we think that who we are in our identity in this existence is who we are eternally. But because it's not permanent, it's not who we are eternally. And the more you can understand that, literally the more peaceful your life becomes, the more comical your life kind of becomes too, because it's all temporary, this too shall pass.  You know? And so for me, like I was a bad lady this morning, as my teacher would say, oh a bad lady. My David Grieg actually has a CD, he does these chantings on CD, my original teacher, and he calls it Bad Man Bhakti, because that's what they would say, bad lady or bad man, if you. I woke up early, and usually what I do before I start my practice is I'll piddle around for a little bit. You know, wake myself up, change the toilet paper. Usually me making excuses not to do my practice is usually what it is. But I'll eventually do it. But I started watching a reality show called Special Forces, and it's so crazy. I'll give you guys, because this reality show, they literally take a bunch of celebrities and they put them through marine training. So it's like shadow work on steroids. And I watched the whole hour and a half first episode and I kept thinking, this, I was like, this is shadow work I wanna do. I wanna do this shadow work. Meanwhile, I haven't even gotten on my mat. And then the next thing I realized, I had to film with Shanti. I gotta go take a shower. So do you see how artfully clever my ego was this morning?  Right, and while you're avoiding your own in the whole process, right? It's like it's much more fun watching other people do theirs. And I'm just here. I don't wanna be watching this. Well, I'm like, snack it off. But let me see them do it. I'll look at Mel B from the side. This is much better. You know, I was getting emotional watching them. I was like, this is fantastic. And I'm like, my mat's just sitting there empty. And so that, I mean, and I've been doing this. I'm coming up on my 17th year this February. Like, so you never outgrow this. Like, this is never, you never outgrow your training pants. Like, you know.  Because when you start, you know, diving into the realms of the shadows and stuff, it's not so that you can stay there.  You go in there to shine the light of consciousness. Because your consciousness, your awareness, that is the light, right? And so we just wanna bring the shadow to light to our consciousness and do the work. And then come back up, you know, come back up and live life and live in joy and live happily and, you know, do the things that bring us joy and be with the people that we love. And, you know, that's what life is about. Life isn't just about doing the shadow work because then that would be miserable and it would suck. Right? You do the work so that you could be free. You do the work, you go in, don't stay there, don't linger there. There's no need for that. Stay in there long enough. Because then we can be, you know, because that's another way the ego can wrap itself around things. So you're talking about how the ego sneaks in and it wraps itself.  And I don't know, it's just, there's something and then you get all caught up in the drama of the whole thing that you forget that that's not where you're supposed to stay.   You don't just want to stay in the okey-mucky mess. You want to realize that there's something worth it on the other side.  It's really, really hard. It's really hard being in the contraction phase.  Are you willing to be miserable, temporarily? Are you willing to be uncomfortable? Are you willing to feel the really hard feelings? Are you willing to look at yourself and be honest and be humble about the things that you need to work on? That's what we need to be willing to do. You know, we're all willing to change. It's being willing to go through the muck and see it through and be consistent enough to come to the other side. It's challenging. It is challenging. I've started and ran the other way a bunch of times. It's a whole life practice too. Like that's what I want people to understand and this 60-day challenge, there are gonna be some new stuff we're doing like grief and it's interesting because talk about the heaviness. Like when you're going through the stages of grief, the anger, the depression, it literally, like if you're in a state of depression, your body literally feels heavy. There's a, it feels like you were being just completely just pulled down and so it's beautiful that I've incorporated Cindy's practices, especially with the hips and the heart while you're going to be focusing on like the depression, the anger, the grief of these emotions that we all, I don't know anybody who goes through this worlds and doesn't ever experience grief. You know, it's, as my teacher and when my teachers in high school would say, no one gets out of this world alive. Like no one gets out of this world alive. We all have our own stuff. And that's also, but speaking of the underworld, I've been studying a lot about, I covered the Elysian Mysteries, I'm building up to the priestess of ISIS, all these old mystery schools. And what got me really fascinated with this too was Trisha McCann and its book, A Return of the Divine Sophia, which I know Cindy has a copy of that now. She talks a lot about Ishtar and Tamuz. And for those who don't know who Ishtar and Tamuz were or are, that's where we get the Jesus story from to also Mithra, but the whole crucifixion resurrection, that kind of stuff came from Tamuz and Ishtar and the Lent comes from that, the 40 days. He was 40 years old when he was killed. You eat the ham at Easter because that Easter comes from Ishtar, which was his other half. She goes down to the underworld to get him. It's a whole thing. It's a whole drama, you know? And, but the whole story represents it's a metaphor of going into the underworlds of yourself only to them becoming, to be resurrected again. You know, and this, I know that the Christians will have a hard time with this, but the story was around long before the Jesus story was around. And what was interesting is what Trisha McCann and pointed out in her book, what she got from her research is that Magdalene and Yeshua, because they were of Egyptian descent of the priestess of Isis, they would reenact Tamuz and Ishtar every year. They weren't dying. They would literally go and reenact this. It's a story, same with the Ulyssian mysteries with Demeter and Persephone. They would reenact this because Persephone gets taken to the underworld. It's all these Greek or Egyptian stories of these ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient stories were understood by on such a deeper level about the aspects of you, of you going into your own hell, your own underworld, and then being able to process through it and come back out the other side. And that's what Yeshua and Magdalene were reenacting. He was never crucified. That was Tamuz. And it was a reenacted. And it wasn't about pagan worship or anything like that, please. The word pagan was the word created by the church. It doesn't really exist. It was, it was understanding. This is a necessary, necessary ritual. I don't know what you want to call it. A necessary transformation that we get to do on the human path. We get to do this.  Like there's a reason why I put it off this morning. For some reason I was thinking the Marine training was so much easier than that Ashdanga practice. But, so I just didn't do it. I watched the Marines instead. But I see that in Cindy's class a lot because you see people like I see it as a teacher where I know a student could go a little bit further in the posture but it's uncomfortable so they don't. And so I try to get them to go a little bit further and I'll say it's only five breaths and you came here on purpose. And that's something I have to tell myself when I'm struggling in my practice, like you came to your mat on purpose. You're doing this on purpose. There's power there. There's power. When you make that conscious decision to say I'm gonna face this, it's gonna suck.  But I'm doing this intentionally because it's what I came to earth to do. There's a power there. Well, you know, and this is actually part, you know, one of the philosophies of the, you're talking about Anusara now and one of the branches of the trainings of the yoga that I received, one of the reasons that I really enjoyed that beyond just the alignment of the body but their philosophy was Tantric. You know, Anusara had a Tantric philosophical base and that goes right in line with what you're talking about with the Lucidian mysteries and everything about the descending and coming into the underworld and all that is very much about really coming into an understanding the aspects of us that are very human. You know, like our humanity is what brings in all those different like characters of the other side of the spectrum, you know? Cause you can talk about the light side of the spectrum a lot and that's usually where we wanna be, right? But then you're talking about the other side of the spectrum that has like some of those darker heavier emotions or tendencies. And in the Tantric philosophy, it's originally like a Buddhist, you know, it started in the, with Buddhism, Tantric Buddhism but the end part, the end phase, the outcome is the same versus classical versus Tantra. It's like we're all going for that sense of that higher self or enlightenment or whatever you wanna call it but the more classical traditional ways of the philosophy we're often taught that the body is something that gets in the way, our humanity gets in the way. So we must transcend our body in order to know the light. Well, with Tantra, the body itself, property, you're talking about property, property herself is divine. So the body is divine.  So you go through your humanity to enlightenment instead of trying to bypass it and going straight to the light. That's why Tantra is often, it's a shock. That's why it's considered a Shakti path, a feminine path because it's the path of property. You know, property is the feminine aspect where Purusha is the male aspect, right? So property, you're going through property, another word for property is Shakti. So the property, the Shakti, the feminine aspect is seen as divine, not something that's evil or that gets in your way but we can go through the body. And so these female paths, right? These females are the, yeah, the female path is often considered the left-handed path because it is the path of going like through desire and through the things. And the left-handed path is also considered slightly more dangerous path because it is very easy then to get caught up. It's like suddenly you're going through the body and through the desires and then we get distracted and then we go, oh, well, this is interesting. So let me go here, which is why it's considered the poison path. So the left-handed path, the poison path, the tantric path, the female path, it's all the same because you are, you're going through and it's like, well, why do I, why choose that path? It's like, why not just choose the path of transcendence instead like the path of the monk or the path of the, you know, the, what you call it, like the ones who go out in the mountains and separate themselves from the world, right? And it's because most of us have to learn how to be with our emotions. Like we need to learn how to be with our humanity. We need to learn how to integrate that because most of us don't have the option of becoming a monk or a nun. And it is, some will say, well, you know, there's a difference in opinions in this and some will say that it is a quicker path. But it's a quicker because there's a poison. Like anything that's, you think of, let's say, ayahuasca or mushrooms like plant medicines, the ones that are most potent to give you change, they also have a slight chance of killing you. Like you do too much ayahuasca, you have a chance of death.   But because of the potency, and if you know the dosage, you do the right dosage, then it has the chance to awaken you. And so it's kind of like the same of what we're talking about, descending the tantric, the female path, it's like you got to know how to do it in the right dosage. It's so fun. Which is why you need a practice.  Otherwise, you can get totally, and then you see that.  Oh, I mean, our friends got all caught up because they forgot to anchor. It's like, yeah, it's like that part of the practice has to stay there to keep you focused. It is so funny you're bringing this up, Cindy, because I was just yesterday, Todd and I were talking about ayahuasca. And he has done a lot of ayahuasca in his life. I know, Cindy, you've done it. I keep being called to do it. We were supposed to go to Peru to do it right before the universe said. The pen. Yeah, right. Now they're like, nope. So, but you know, it's interesting because we were talking about that because Todd and myself, I think all three of us, I'm a huge supporter of plant medicine. I'm a huge supporter of these things, but you're right. And Todd was saying that to a student, like you can't, these like things like ayahuasca need to be taken very, in a very responsible way because it can also delude you a little bit. And he said he's seen a lot of people end up joining cults after they do multiple trips. They'll do multiple and Todd's like, you got it.  It's not like you're seeing people do an ayahuasca and it's like it is not a party. I know Cindy, it's not a party, is it? Yeah, it wasn't for me.  It was like a trip to talk about a trip to the underworld. Man, that was rushed. Yeah, and that's what a lot of people will tell you that it was like one of the most harrowing experiences of their life, but they learned so much and they're not rushing to go back and do it again. But sometimes the medicine can, and that's what it's called, it's called a medicine. Sometimes it will kind of trick you and think and then you'll be depending on where your mind is and so it is super important because, and that's what's the best, in my opinion, that's kind of the beauty of it too, is that it is so dangerous that it's really, you have to take personal responsibility. Like you have no choice, but to take personal responsibility and use discernment and critical thinking skills on yourself, you know? And I think that's a lot of what a lot of this work is too, is not being swept away with the emotions, but being able to experience the emotion, observe the emotion, but understand, again, don't believe everything you think. And sometimes what you're thinking is expressed in emotion. Well, in my opinion, all of the stuff, the yoga, the whatever path you take, you know, the plant medicines, what it's all doing at its essence is just simply saving you time. Yeah. So like, and I've found that when you try to speed things up, which sometimes you can, like ayahuasca is one of those things, it will just speed up the process, that with speed, there's a little price to pay. Like you wanna go through this faster? Okay, I'll get you there faster, but there's a cost and that cost is gonna be, you're gonna, you know, you're gonna travel to those deep, dark places, but that's the price that you pay for the time. And I think that's something that you need to consider with your own self and with your own ability, like knowing your body and knowing your mind and knowing your nervous system, speed might not be what you need. Like, you know, just a nice, steady, consistent, slower path is always good, you know? Then there's the ones that wanna speed it up a little bit and that's when, and it's fine. Like, if that's what you feel called to do, but just know that when you'll be tested more with the things like, you know, or the very potent things, the very potent practices, just like, you know, you have certain yoga practices like I consider Ashtanga a potent medicine, which will speed things up, right? It'll speed your karma. It'll speed the process up. That's what, and that's what a harmony, my friend Harmony of Canada, who's one of the 17 women who are actually certified, meaning she's a badass, she says that, that the practice of Ashtanga is you're asking. You're asking for it. You're asking for your karma to be sped up. Ashtanga yoga, it's not very forgiving. I mean, there is place you can work it. I'm not saying that you have to go, I mean, that's one of my biggest issues that people take with Ashtanga is they think it's like has to be done. No, there's all sorts of modifications. There's all sorts of, the amount of postures you do in your practice is dependent upon the person and where they are, but it is very, you're right. It's the way it's designed. It is like hitting you in all the right places and they feel so wrong. Which is why some of this stuff will come up, which is why you might start to feel all the stuff is because the potency of the practices, whether it's Ashtanga, whether it's plant medicine, well, whatever it is that you do, anything that has that potency is gonna bring your stuff up more quickly. But with that quickness comes in intensity and you just have to be ready to process it. But you're designed to, like most of us are designed to process, we're built to process difficult things. And I think the millennia- We're stronger, we're stronger than we think we are. We think that we can't handle it. But then in the end, it's like, oh, you know, well, I handled it. I didn't think I could and it hurt, but I did it. Okay, I handled it, I'm still alive.  Knock on what? You know, I've seen a lot of tears. I've heard a lot of F-bombs. I always laugh. You know, at any granite we practice Ashtanga typically super early in the morning, like for Brava Mortho and it's the dead of night, dark 30 as we say. And you go to these regular yoga classes where people look really cute. They've got their cute little Lululemon's on, their hair is done nicely. You go to a mice room, half the people have their clothes on backwards. They have Albert Einstein hair because it's so hot in there. They all have, I love the Ashtanga face.   Ashtanga is definitely, I think people are kind of called to the lineage that they need the most. And it's funny to say that the last, I was actually just talking to Emmy about this. Todd and I, Todd had mentioned this to me today. You know, it's, you talk about the, when you go to study at KPJ where I and India, you're kind of thrown into a circus of property. You're thrown into Mother India. And people told me that before I started going to India, they were like, you're going to find that your biggest teacher is Mother India. And I didn't understand what they were talking about until I got there and having to deal with, I knew the practice is the same practice. I was doing a home, but all of the stimulants from India is a very loud country. It's a very colorful country. It really stimulates your nervous system and your senses, especially if you're not used to it. And the funny thing is, is when I came, after my first trip, when I came back to America, I was re-stimulated because I was so used to India. Coming back to America became another stimulant. But my last, the last time I was in India before lockdown, I got very, very, very sick. I ended up, I was on the side, because I have a Mysore Foundation, I work with plum kids, but I was also rescuing these dogs. My friend Mark up in Ohio, hi Mark if you're listening, we were rescuing these dogs, a mother and her four puppies. And so I was going in and out of these gutters every day. Well, in India, it's customary, men sometimes will go to the bathroom, human men, will go to the bathroom outside, like poop outside. And I have gotten human feces inside of my body. And I think it was from like going in and out of the gutters and petting the dogs and maybe they had some dry, somehow it got in my system. I was telling, I mean, my temperature got up to about 108. I was in the hospital, I have never been in that much pain. I will never forget that. I was in so much pain. And my friend Mark would come in and check on me. And I was like, my stomach was swollen, but I was coming out both ends, it was bad. And at that point- Do you want to figure out what you got? I'm just curious, did you get that time point? I can't, I'll tell you a funny story about how I knew what had happened to me. But in that moment, I was like talking to Todd and I didn't know this until I got back to the United States that Todd actually thought I was gonna die. And so he was talking to our assistant to take over the Charlotte cause he was frantically looking to book a ticket to India cause he literally, that's how scared he was.  I'm bought to, I get sick. But so for him to be that scared but looking back on that experience, I think it was an upgrade. I think I had, karmically had to take that in because I feel like I went through an upgrade at that moment. I got, after I worked, it took me about a year actually to really work through it. So I'll tell you, so when I got back home, when I flew back from India that trip, I was still a little sick.  And so I upgraded my ticket. I just pulled my credit card out and I upgraded my ticket to business class cause I thought there is no way that I can fly halfway across the planet in coach because I don't know if I'm gonna have diarrhea. I don't know if I'm gonna throw up. And so I literally laid down the whole way from a bingalore to Dubai, Dubai to Boston and Boston back down to Atlanta. And so I get back to Atlanta and my mother, I wasn't quite sure what had happened to me because in India, they don't really tell you especially if you're a female. So my mother was like, I need to make sure that you are okay. So she forced me to go to the doctor and they actually took a stool sample. I know that sounds gross. And like a few weeks passed and I was down in Florida and my mom calls me and she says, for some reason the health department has sent you a letter to our address. I don't know why they had our address but it's from the public health department. It seems it says urgent. Do you want me to open it? And I said, yeah, she opened it. They wanted me to call them right away because of my test results.  They're gonna send me back to India. They're gonna deport me back to India. And so I quarantine you. I know, this was before the lockdown guys. This was long before it. I called them a surface wreck. And basically it was a, and that's what I learned that I had gotten some sickness from and I can't remember the Latin name the doctor used. It wasn't E. Coli. It wasn't anything I'd ever heard before but it came from a human feces. And the reason why they were calling me is because they needed to make sure this wasn't an outbreak in the United States. That was only reason I had to check my travel records and I was like, oh no, no, it's from India. Like I was like, no, no, no. You got some kind of rare bacterial disease from human feces. Yeah. That's my thing is like both Mark and I were jumping in and out of that gutter. How come I'm the one that got that in my system and not him? I think it was because I asked for my karma to be sped up. I mean, literally when you are burning through your karma it turns very physical. It turns very physical. The pain, the body goes through pain.  David Grieg asked Patabi Joyce once, Guruji, is the pain in this practice necessary? And Guruji said, yes, because pain is real. It's real. So when you're having that visceral reaction, that physical reaction to what you're experienced, you can't spiritually bypass it. You can't, you have to experience it. You can't do anything to ignore it, right? There's no getting away from it. I mean, even with my situation in India, I was asking for all the drugs. I was like, give me everything. Shoot me up. Like do what you got to do. And I still, even with the painkillers, I still was not, I was like, I laid there in that hospital bed and I was crying at one point. I was, my body hurt so bad. And I've never experienced that to the point where I was actually, usually I'm pretty good with sickness, but it was intense. And looking back at that, it was very darmic. It was very much karmic and darmic at the same time. And you're right. You are literally asking for that to happen when you pick these really, really potent paths. It's, well, the Ulyssian Mysteries, right? They would fast them for days and then they would send them in an underground temple that was sensory deprived. They didn't have, they had sensory deprivation and give them ayahuasca for like three days with no food. I can't imagine that, that underground temple probably smelled. Mm-hmm. Well, you know, they say with the Ulyssian Mysteries, because you know, that was like a, yeah, I'm sure you already know this, you did a show, but you know, it was like considered a cult at the time. And they were very, I mean, you took what happened to your death. You were not allowed to talk about what was happening, but you know, what they noticed for the people who participated in that is that almost all of them, they no longer had a fear of death. That was like one of the big things of the Ulyssian Mysteries and going through that is it helped them get over like the fear of death and the fear of your own mortality. And that's, and some of the greatest philosophers that we've heard of people watching Plato, Socrates, all went through this. The list, you're right, they were sworn to secrecy and it was women who ran it. And they would have to walk from Athens to Ulysses, the pathway and the people, the community would stand on the side of the road and scream insults at them before they got to the well where they believed a meter waited for Persephone, where they started fasting before they went underground. So they went through this total humiliation of having their ego tested by walking that whole way. It was like 12 miles or something to the well, having people, and then you didn't just sign up where you had to do phase one first in the springtime.  And so you are literally, I mean, yeah, that's a, there are people I know who've done a ayahuasca who kind of go through that experience too, where all of a sudden they like, I remember one of our students that AYA did it and he came back and he said the most profound thing he realized is that happy or sad, it's all coming from the same place and it's your perception of reality. And he said that was the most profound thing to him and in this journey was that, oh my God, my happy times and my sad times are all coming from the same place and that's me and my perception. I have to change my perception because it's within my power. And we know that, like I think we know that when we study yoga and we study healing, but do we really know that? You know, do we really know that? There's a difference between knowing something and knowing something. It's like an integrative, an integrative now. You can know it on a mental philosophical level, but do you actually know it viscerally? And I think that's what the yoga practice helps us. It takes your theory and that's part of the, I think about it and I'm now just thinking of like teacher training and samkhya, you know, which is, that's the word they used to with Ayurveda is that the practice of yoga itself, you know, like with the eight lambs and everything like that, it's designed to take theory and put it into practice. Because without the practice, I mean, what's the point of just knowing the stuff and you're not gonna do anything with it? It's like you have to like integrate it within your body.   You know what I mean? It's like, oh no, this person like actually, they know it. Like you can tell there's a different feeling within them when they got it, you know what I mean? Whatever that is, whatever that piece of knowledge is when it clicks and you get it, you show up different. That's why Guruji used to say 99% practice, 1% theory. And apparently before the white people used to start to come over to India, apparently it was 70% practice, 30% theory but all the white hippies that came over in like the 60s, all they wanted to do was smoke pot, drink coffee and talk to Guruji about philosophy. And so he got so fed up. He changed it to 99% practice. It's because of his white people. It's because of his white people that he changed. He was like, no, you practice. Like, what to go down, get on your bed. You know? And that's what the yoga does really is like any tradition where Sashatang or anything it's about like internalizing, internalizing those teachings and bringing them into your visceral body into that full understanding, coming down into the body. And that was something that we were talking about in class today too, like the importance of coming into your body, which is where, you know I think all the yoga traditions help us with in how we all have our own coping mechanisms and a lot of those coping mechanisms have to do with escapism and I know you probably know all about the coping mesons of like the addictions and everything that we go through to numb and to escape because like our body just doesn't feel like this safe space to inhabit or this world doesn't feel like a safe space to inhabit. Like if I was to go into my body, it's like, no, I don't wanna feel those things. I want to numb, I want to prevent. I'm trying to actually prevent that from happening so we establish those coping mechanisms to get us out of our body so that we don't have to actually internalize or look at the things.  And I think too with addictions is we create this environment within our bodies that is toxic and our souls can't come down. And so we spend a lot of time hanging out up here and I know for me with food, what's so difficult with the food is because I used it as escapism and I also used it to ground. So it's like here I was creating this toxic environment in my body with food, turning to food, to cope and to manage and to escape. And I would create this toxic environment in my body and I would leave, I would leave but you know what I'm talking about. And then later on at night before bed I just felt so far away. And the food would make me feel grounded so that I could fall asleep. And it was just this vicious, vicious process. So yeah, it's just, it's so eye-opening and with yoga I'm learning that I just have to show up. I just have to show up just like in my recovery program I just show up. I bring my body and my mind will follow. And it's really hard because my ego keeps telling me that I should be farther along. I should be farther along. I should be farther along. No, I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be. I'm just showing up. And it, what I love about yoga is that it's a new practice every day. It's a new practice. Now we begin the practice of yoga. Now we begin the practice of yoga but my ego is constantly trying to put me in this frame of mind that I need to build on the practice I did before. And it's like, no, I can progress but it's not successive. It's new every day. It's new. Now I begin my practice. And that's really taking quite a bit of time to integrate and embody. Like Bryce was saying earlier you can understand these things intellectually and philosophically but until they really embody and integrate on a cellular level that ego is really gonna have the upper hand. And even with Bryce, like I got Bryce today she's been doing this for 17 years and I got her. The whole time I was like making my list of people to go with Beach the military training. Oh, you know, but- And I was just gonna say, now I practice yoga. You know, that is in essence the very first yoga sutra. This yoga sutra 1.1, the first thing he says is now, here now, the yoga begins. And there's something to that, you know? It's like that understanding of now, right? Here it is now, now it begins. And the second sutra, Trishwami Sattitanada's commentary, he's like, if you understand the second sutra you don't need the rest of them. But then we study the rest of them because even though the second sutra is like understanding the fluctuations of the mind we obviously don't totally understand that. So we have to go for it. You're making the rest of them. I love that. It's very simple, just very simple. I will tell this story, you know, and I'll about the response. I don't know, I feel like they need to tell the story. Todd tells the story all the time, you know? And in Ashtanga, we are big on back bending and I'm not talking about just a basic back bend.  It's an intense back bend. And Todd always tells the story the first time he had to catch, we call it catching. He was in the Lakshmi Puram before it was moved to Gokulam, the Shala was in Lakshmi Puram. It was a smaller, much smaller Shala. And he heard Guruji speaking to Sharath in Kannada and pointing to Todd. And so Todd knew that he was that giving Sharath some instruction. And so Todd's doing his back bend and Sharath comes up to help him. And he felt Sharath grab Todd's arms and he knew just at that moment what was about to happen that Sharath was going to pull him in to catch his legs. And hanging backwards, Todd said just instinctually he just screamed this loud like really loud and Sharath, because you know, the head's right beside you. Sharath whispered in Todd's ear. Yes. And then pull. Yes. But and that's the thing too when you get into these deep poten lineages that I think oftentimes is bypassed in our modern culture. You know, for Sharath to be able to maintain that calmness when his student is having a panic attack, he can do that because he's been through it many times himself before.   I like to make jokes. But in a mice room, especially in a mice room you have to be very tough and you have to like be that anchor to keep the student that yes, keep the student when they're having their, you know, come to Jesus moment, you know, on the mat. And the only reason you're able to do that is because you know the path they're on right now. You know what's happening. You know that the, and you know that there is a light at the end of the tunnel and you have to be that anchor to help them keep moving, even if you have to crawl, keep moving forward. What's the Winston Churchill quote? When you're going through hell, keep going, you know? And so in that, and I think that a lot of that is lost in our society. And that's the one thing I love about traditional yoga is that it forces you to be a student for a very long time. And one thing I've said this before, I know Cindy, you can probably speak to this, you know, Emmy talking about like the ego wanting to progress, progress. Well, first of all, you're always taking three steps forward and two steps back. So every person is constantly yo-yoling.  But another thing too, with the whole progression thing, just so people understand and feel better about this, we often say the easiest people to teach are the beginner students and the advanced students because both the beginner student and the advanced student know that they know nothing. The advanced student knows that they know nothing too, you know, and so it becomes, it's a more humbling process.  Oh, I think they know everything, but no. You know, and so, and so, you know, when that ego creeps up, just be like, no, you know, even in the most advanced of people, well, and I find that with athletes too, you have these athletes that made it super far in their athletic careers and a lot of them walk away pretty humbled, you know, by their, the friction through their body and the resistance. We have a lot of athletes at AYA, like big-time athletes and they're some of the most banked up people we work with and there's a humility there. Yeah, and there's a, speaking of the ego, so I'm just gonna say this a few times, there's a book that I'm, that I've been reading, I can't remember, but it's talking about higher consciousness, it was like one that was written maybe like in the 1970s, but it has one of my favorite things about the ego and it's like, it's not that you're trying to kill the ego, you're just trying to unemployed the ego. I love that. But that it doesn't have anything else to do. That's what you're trying to do, you're trying to just kind of unemployed it and so it can sit back and not feel like it has to grab on to things and create things and create situations and create drama and create protective mechanisms to, you know, to do your internal work so that you're basically just trying to make the ego jobless, giving it less of a job to do. What am I? I don't know, that just really, I don't know, that interpretation just felt good to me, you know? When I notice my ego oftentimes I'll say, okay, thanks for the resistance, thanks for this resistance.  So, you know, days when your ego is trying, I mean, my ego is trying to convince me that my body was too sore, too tired when I was perfectly fine. And so when that happens, it's like, okay, thanks for giving me the resistance to now get up and have a practice, you know? And that's the point of living this human life, to have that, those opposing forces, to have the, and what more of a, we talk about opposing forces a lot, especially in Ashutana Yoga, and what more of an opposing force is there? You're an eternal soul living in a mortal body.  The other side of your existence has an expiration date. So you're looking at a complete opposing force just in the expression of being you, you know? And that's the beauty that we get to experience. And as you probably hear my dog shaking off over there, but even the animals have this. Even, you know, all beings, things of life experience the fragility of life, even when life actually isn't that fragile because we are eternal souls. So I know we're getting a little over an hour now. Is there anything you guys like want to close out with for our awesome viewers who are going to be doing this awesome 60 day challenge with us coming up very soon? Take a lot of time to do self-care and pampering.  Go to a salt room. I don't know if you guys have salt rooms in your area, but a friend of mine was telling me that she just went in and had this salt float. And that sounds amazing, amazing. But just do a lot of just lighthearted fun things. Cause, you know, like Cindy was saying earlier, we can't constantly stay in the shadow work. Like we have to come up for air. We have to come up to breathe. And so, you know, between now and then, especially since the energies of the last few weeks have been pretty intense, I think that doing something lighthearted and taking a lot of time to do self-care and pampering would be good. Yeah, celebrate your successes too. Along the lines of that, don't forget to celebrate yourself with showing up and the little steps that you take. Cause then that's what helps to build the momentum to keep you going. Cause if, yeah, if you focus so much, oh, I'm not getting far. I'm not doing this. Well, you show it up and that's something. And my teachers always told me that no effort ever goes unnoticed, ever. Like any effort that you make toward your path and on your mat, it's gonna take you somewhere, even if it feels like it doesn't.  So just don't forget to celebrate your successes. That's an excellent point. And another thing to, with the shadow work challenge, there is quite a bit to do, quite a bit to select from. You don't have to answer every question. You don't have to do every activity. You don't have to complete it all to have gotten something done. A long time ago, I changed my to-do list to a to-da list. So that even if I check off just one thing, it's worthy of celebration. And I love that. I never write to-do anymore. I always write to-da. So maybe you could apply that to your shadow work too. Like maybe one day you're just feeling exceptionally heavy and emotional and things are just really difficult and you only answer one question in the journaling prompts. Check that off as a to-da. You showed up for yourself. You answered a question when things are really, really tough for you, you know? Like Cindy says, celebrate. Celebrate your successes, however small. It's so important. I'm glad you said that, Emmy, because the journaling prompts, that's all they are is prompts.  They feel lost and overwhelmed with their emotions or what they're experiencing.  And then you take it from there. You don't have to answer every single question. And as I said with Aquarius Rising Africa this morning, we were talking about it. If you are someone that feels like you have to do every single thing on the list to be worthy, well, there's your shadow work right there. Ta-da, singing of ta-da, there it is. There's your shadow work right there. You know, it's not, and that's why I give. And this 60 days is gonna be way more selections than a 30 days. I mean, multiple different exercises to pick from. You know, multiple different things to figure out what works for you. And you know, for us, for Sydney, myself, and Emmy, we have the way we work, our shadow work because we've been doing it for a very long time. But I selected a bunch of different modalities because it's a chance for you to experiment so that you can feel be in your body, right? As we've been saying, be in your property and figure out what works for you right now. And saying that what works for you right now might not be the same thing that works for you a year from now, you know? So- I really like that you incorporated different choices. I would like to say something about your astrological makeup. So there are fixed signs, there are mutable signs, and there are cardinal signs. People with fixed signs will do really, with a predominantly fixed chart, will do really well with the same thing in a repeated routine. People who have predominantly cardinal signs in their chart would do well with frequently setting a new goal, frequently re-looking at something so that it's fresh. And people with mutable signs in their chart will do well with changing things up because they really get bored. Doing the same thing over and over can be draining for someone with mutable energy in their chart. So, you know, take into consideration your own energetic makeup when you're looking at your shadow work and the exercises that you're gonna choose. You know, if you can take your chart and look at the different signs that all of your planets are in and figure out what your quality of energy is that's predominant for you, you'll know better how to address setting up a plan going forward. That's awesome, yeah, for sure. I was like, ooh, I've bet a lot of my Shonga people have fixed signs. I was like, ding, ding, ding, ding, now. So, and I will say too, you know, on that note, like I've incorporated a lot of bar into my practice every week and Cindy helped me with that. So did Chris and it really like changed my practice because I needed a different perspective, a different for myself. I'm not saying that's the same for everybody, but for me, because I've been doing the same practice for over a decade, bringing that bar into it changed my body and changed the way my body responded to. I became even more connected to Mollabunda, even more connected to Uriana Bunda and understanding it from a different perspective. And that will happen too.  There's no one size fits all. Don't feel like you have to fit the mold. We're all special little butterflies that have our own special way of doing things. So as long as you're working on yourself in there, things to learn. Yeah, and yeah, and I just turned 50 and body's always changing when you get older. So if you are a little bit more on the older, then the last half of your life know that you may have to move your body differently, weights, help light weights, because you need muscle. You need to muscle tone. So yeah, just keep that in mind that as your body ages, you'll need the different things. Your body will respond to things differently with the food and all that stuff too. So give yourself some of the grace and space to figure those things out. I work with two pound weights myself and it's really helped my practice because what was happening for me is teaching as well. The worst thing you can ever do for your yoga practice is become a teacher. I think Cindy can, when you're adjusting people all day. And so I incorporated the two pound weights in with my bar and that's helped me be a better teacher. It's helped my body and my practice because I'm almost 40 and so that's given. And I was saying to Helen, I feel like I'm better at shape at 40 than I was at 25. And there is gonna be a link I've shared to another bar and another bar teacher besides Marnie Alton. Marnie Alton's my favorite, but there's another bar I'm putting up that she uses like two pound weights. Now put that optional. Now, if you don't have weights, you can grab like soup cans, water bottles. So I know Marnie Alton laughs and says you can even use wine bottles and you don't wanna drop those suckers. Like that'll really make you like use the resistance. So, hey, and bring back those ankle weights, man. Oh, I know. Your ankle weights from the 1980s and the 1990s, bring them back. They're great for your butt. Marnie Alton uses them and she has a wrist weight. She has videos where she has a cup. So absolutely.  Because Richard Simmons is coming back too, because Sunday, a lot of the Sundays are really, you trying to have fun. It's okay to do a Richard Simmons sweat into the oldies and have fun. It's okay to do a Jane Fonda and laugh at the 80s hair because it's still a great workout, right? And being human is hard, but being human is really funny too. So, and you have to, and that's one thing I will say before we close out with the humor. Yes, this stuff is hard. Yes, it can be emotional. Yes, crying is really good. We're gonna talk about a lot about crying and allowing yourself to cry, but Guruji Patabi Joyce, if somebody came to his shala, that seemed to be extremely serious. Too serious. Even if there were spaces available in the mice room, he would say, oh, too busy, come back later. Because he would- There'd be like two people in the room and he'd be like, oh, they're not too busy, come back to the room. There's no room, there's no room, no space. And I will say my bestie, my ashtanga bestie, Chris, who lives up in Canada, who also helped me with the bar as well. He is one of Sharad's most favorite students. Why? Because he's really funny and he jokes around a lot. I will tell you, we were sitting outside of that shala one morning, dark 30. A lot of people have their headphones on. Chris had his headphones on. Someone beside him asked Chris what he was listening to and Chris said top 40 because he likes the Selena Gomez's and that kind of stuff. And the guy beside him goes, oh, I'm listening to Channing Movement and Chris goes, good for you. And put his headphones back on. Thank you. Good for you. Thank you. So, you know, I just love it. I love it. So yeah, so it's, you know, and he makes sure I laugh. Like he makes sure I laugh in the shala just the way he reacts to the practice makes, there's humor there, you know? And I'm telling him now, his first trip to India in primary series, he only did one Navasana because he said if Shirat found out, he could just play dumb. And you're supposed to do like five. And I was like, he would go into the closing room where we're supposed to do full closing and he would just kind of take rest and leave. And Laruga, who's a pretty famous teacher was outside. And she's like, Chris, that was fast. He goes, oh yeah, I don't do full closing during my store. I just take rest and leave. And she goes, Chris. And he goes, it's fine. It's fine. It's fine. I do it like that. It's fine. And just having that sense of humor will get you a long way and it is funny. Life, life is really, really funny.   Laugh at yourself on the bar stuff. Laugh at yourself doing Richard Simmons because that's part of being human. But all right, you guys. So this is gonna be aired on Thursday morning. I'm hoping I'll have the template complete by Saturday. I know Emma and I are gonna be filming on Friday together. So hopefully we'll have it all ready to go for Saturday a week before the challenge starts. And I will let, don't email me for it yet. I've got to get everything set up so I can make sure to get everybody's template. Cindy, last time we had over 600 people globally doing this. So, so. Great. Amazing. Good for you. Good for everybody.  So you guys are not just hearing from me.  We're getting their perspective on the audience. So you get to experiment with different ideas and see how different people see this and work with, you know, which modality works best for you. And so what works for you is what works for you. So all right, you guys. We'll talk to you soon. Bye everybody. Bye.


Ladies and gentlemen, here it is Christmas Eve and like so many others throughout the country, Jack Benny is preparing a dinner party for his many friends. At the moment, he's setting the table in his living room. Rochester's helping. There. Gee, the table sure looks nice, doesn't it, Rochester? Uh-huh. And I like the way the house is picked up, too. Especially the trees.  Yeah, it must have grown a foot since last year. Oh, more than that. You sure went through a lot of trouble decorating the house this year. Yeah, but it's worth it, Rochester. If everything looks so, you know, so Christmas-y, you know. Especially the service porch. You've got to read the poly in the window of each bend. I think it's nice, and during the holidays, the soap is on the house, you know. Boys, you haven't missed a thing. You even got a little frig of poly in Polly's case. Hello, Polly. Come on, Polly. What does Daddy teach you to say tonight when the people come in? Come on, come on, the rest of it. Mary what? No, no, no. Come on, try it again. Come on, Polly. Mary? Mary? Mary? Been acting awfully independent since the price of eggs went up. Now, come on, Polly. You can say it. Mary? Mary? That settles it. Rochester, this year, Polly will get no eggnog during the party. Merry Christmas. Happy New Year. She's included. Works every time.  Well, she said she'd come over and help us. She'll probably be here pretty soon. Please step away from the mirror so I can see how I look. Yes, ma'am. Now, let's see. Oh, Miss Livingston, you look simply beautiful in that evening gown. Oh, thank you, Polly. But don't you think it may be a little daring for a Christmas Eve party? Well, all I can say is that if Santa Claus comes down the chimney, he'll hang around for a while. Well, it is sort of low cut. Now, Polly, when you put away my Christmas presents, I want you to be especially careful with that glass boot bowl my sister, Babe, sent me. Why? Is it very valuable? No, it's not expensive, but she blew it herself. Well, I better hurry over to Jack's house. He'll be expecting me. Thanks. Do you think Phil Harris will be there tonight? Yes, Polly. You've still got that crush on him, haven't you? Uh-huh. Gee, Miss Livingston, how I envy you, sitting at the same table that he'll be under. Well, if he looks up, I'll give him your regard. Well, I better leave now. Yes, ma'am. And Miss Livingston, will you wear your mink, sable, or ermine coat? You can lower your voice, Polly, and the neighbors are out. So just give me my mackin' on, I'll go. Here you are, and enjoy yourselves.  Merry Christmas. Now, Rochester, I think you can put all the place cards on the plate. Yes, sir, but I don't see how you're going to get all your cast and Mr. Harris' musicians around that table. All the musicians I'm going to eat in here with us, they're going to eat in the kitchen. Why in the kitchen? Because there are no rugs in there, and after they're through, you can hose it down. And use a little sweet air, too. Well, will Mr. Harris eat with his musicians? No, no, he'll eat in here. And I think we better have Remly in here, too. If I put him in the kitchen, it might hurt his feelings.  Mr. Remly sensitive? Oh, he is, Rochester. Once during our program, I made a crack about him, and it got him so upset that he dealt the piano player six cards. Anyway, I hope they come early. I told Phil not to be late. Hey, Curly, take it easy. You're driving too fast. We got lots of time. No, we ain't. I promised Jackson none of us would be late. Well, what time does Benny want us to get over to his house anyway? 6.30. 6.30? Ain't that kind of early for a party? Not if you want to see him, he goes to bed at 9. Well, I don't understand what... Hey, Curly. Curly, stop the car.  Look, Remly, we're late. I can't... Don't worry. Stop the car. Okay. Hey, honey, how would you like a lift and... Uh-oh, drive on, Curly. What's the matter? Don't ask questions. Just drive on. Well, why? What's the matter? She's my aunt. You know, Curly, I'm pretty tired out from all the Christmas shopping I've been doing. Yeah, me too, Frankie. Hey, look, I've been meaning to ask you. What'd you get your father? Well, I thought that instead of getting him the usual type of gift, it might be better if I just called dad up and talked to him. Wait a minute. You can't call him up. Yes, I can. He's a trustee now. Gee, you must be proud of him. Yeah. Now, look, Remly, when we get to Jackson's house, I want you and the other guys to behave. Jackson's still mad because of the way you carried on these party last New Year's Eve. Is he still upset just because we threw the trumpet player into his swimming pool? Yeah, and tonight if we can find him, let's fish him out.  Oh, Sammy won't be there. He had a tough day at the dentist today. He broke his tooth front teeth. Again, Remly, I've been telling you guys for years, get a bottle opener. Get a bottle. One little bottle opener. Look, I think I'll turn here. This is a shortcut to Jackson's house. Well, everything is ready. I hope they get here soon. Say, bosses, is it all right if I leave tonight as soon as I finish serving dinner? I've got a date. Oh, for heaven's sake, Rochester, why'd you make it tonight? You knew I was having a party. I couldn't help it, boys. Couldn't you make it some other night? I can't take that chance. What do you mean, chance? Her boyfriend is a porter on a super cheap and I lost the schedule. Well, all right. Only I thought you told me you were through with women since your last girl ran off and married another man. Well, she really loved me, but she married him on account of money. Oh, was he rich? No, but he had some. Well, Rochester, I think that I'll answer the door. I just see that there are plenty of ass-phrase and luckies around the room. Jingle bells, jingle bells, how the snowflakes drift. I don't know who that is, but I hope they brought a gift. Oh, hello, Mary. Hello, Jack. I hope I'm not late. No, come on in. Rochester, now would you say, hey, that sure is a sensational dress you're wearing. Wow. I know, Jack. I really couldn't afford it, but it was so beautiful. I bought it on the installment plan. Really? How many more payments do you have to make before they give you the rest of it? Oh, Jack. Come on, Mary. Let's go in the living room. Hold her, Mary. What's the matter? I got you under the mistletoe. Buck it up. Okay, Jack.  Hey, that was a good one.  I like those kisses when you take someone in your arm and bend them all the way back. Yeah, only next time. You bend me. I'll cry. I'll cry. So how do you like the way I got everything decorated? Oh, Jack, it looks wonderful on the table. Place cards and everything. Yeah, look over at Don Wilson's plate. I'm trying to hint that he shouldn't eat so much. Do you think he'll get it? Well, that's obvious enough.  Now, let's see. Next to Don and his wife. Yeah, that does it, honey. What do you think? Oh, darling, you look so cute. Yeah. Oh, won't Jack be surprised when I come in dressed as Santa Claus? I really look the parts, don't I? Yes, Don. Gosh, when I look at you, I feel sorry for all the girls' married to skinny fellows. Ah, you really love me the way I am, don't you? I'll never forget our honeymoon in Hawaii. Oh, it was so divine. Lying there on the beach at Waikiki. Watching the moon come up over your stomach. They must be the sportsmen. Quartet, they're picking us up. I'll tell them we'll be right out. We'll be out in a minute. Merry Christmas to you both and what a happy day.  Mr. Fanny's dinner parties are a thing to see. His tables fair, but you won't care.  Jack is such a perfect host and he'll play love in bloom. And Phil will sing about that thing and drive us from the room.  You know, Jack, I've never seen you prepare for a party like you have for this one. Well, Mary, I feel if a thing's worth doing, it's worth doing well. Now, how do you like the way the table is set? Oh, it's beautiful, Jack. Simply beautiful. Only hope that bottle of ketchup isn't in front of Dennis Day's place. Wow, what's wrong with that? Remember last time he put the ketchup in front of him?  Come on, Jack, company. Well, all right. Come on, Mary. Follow me, Mary. He is dark in here. Watch your step, Mary. Don't step down and stare. Watch out. Don't tear your dress on the barbed wire. I'll watch it. Careful, coffee is good. Don't fall in the most. Careful. Yeah, I'm going to have to get a new one. This one's losing its teeth. Down, gummo. Here we are. All right, come on, Mary. Mr. Benny, Mr. Benny, who's that with you? Oh, oh, this is Miss Livington. Miss? Yeah. Yeah, she's a girl. Girl? Yes, that's the opposite sex. Sex? I'll explain it to you some other time. How have you been, Ed? Fine, fine. But I haven't seen you for a long time. Oh, well, I've been busy. I've been traveling a lot, you know. Travelling? Yes. As a matter of fact, last month I went to Europe. Oh, well, be careful that you don't travel too far, Mr. Benny.  No, no, no, Ed, they prove that it's round. Well, Ed, I came down here to give you this little present. Oh, is it my birthday? No, no, no, no, Ed, it's Christmas. Oh, Merry Christmas. Well, I'll open it and see what it is. Gee, just what I always want. A pair of sunglasses. No, no, Ed, they're reading glasses. Thanks a lot. Well, goodbye, Ed. See you again soon. Bye, Mr. Benny.  Okay. By the way, who else is going to be at the party besides the cab? I invited the members of the Beverly Hills Beavers Club. Gee, I bet those kids are plenty excited. We all hear fellas camp all of them. Now, don't forget Mr. Benny's present, please. No more toys. Now, after all the trouble I went to getting a violin record of of course, the cotta played by Yasha Hyphid. Well, why are we giving him a record by Hyphid? For sentimental reasons, but after all, Mr. Benny was his teacher and taught him all he knows. Mr. Benny, you'd better get some sleep.  Do you guys ever hear Mr. Benny play the violin? Sure. I didn't play, oh, promise me at my uncle's wedding. He plays at a lot of weddings. Yeah. Mr. Benny and the minister have a package deal. Oh, my God. Now, Joy, you're going to give the record to Mr. Benny. I hope you remember the speech you wrote. Oh, sure, I know it by heart. Listen, to Jack Benny. Do not open this cotta. I'm not going to open it. Listen, to Jack Benny, do not open this till Christmas. It will keep you in suspense. If you haven't bought our gift yet, this one cost us 90 cents. Why, Betty, don't take the hand. I'll do it, fellas, let's go. And I want to remind you of the special rule contrast to the party. There'll be a two-cent fine for anyone who asks for a second to dinner and a three-cent fine for anyone and a nickel fine for anyone who tells about the time Mr. Benny tried to show us how to do a cartwheel and his hair fell off. Right.  Dennis, you better hurry or you'll be late. Oh, I'll be ready soon, mother. I'm saving with that new electric razor you gave me for Christmas. What's taking you so long? The lather keeps clogging it up. I'm almost done, though. Oh, for heaven's sake, Dennis, you're not supposed to lather up when you use an electric razor. I'm not? No.  Yes, mother. Now, son, I want to remind you of a few things to do at the party. Remember, it will be Christmas Eve. Mr. Benny will be in a good mood and maybe you can get him to drink a glass of wine and then ask him for a raise. No, mother. Last Christmas I tried that, but he beat me to it. What do you mean? He made me drink the wine and I took a cut. Anyway, I'm going to keep away from him. I'm going to spend all my time trying to get Mary Livingston under the mistletoe. Dennis, don't annoy Mary too much. Well, what do you mean annoy? She's nuts about me. She is not. She is too. On her birthday, she kissed me. Did she kiss you on the forehead or on the lips? Both. I was on a pogo stick. Dennis, son, look at me. Yes, mother?  Your fault? Yes, Dennis.  Well, that's nothing.  From the third floor? Oh, I should have known there was something wrong when you bounced back up again. Yeah, well, mother, I'm all dressed. I wish you'd change your mind and come to the party with me. Oh, I'd rather not, son. I don't think it would be right. Mr. Benny isn't expecting me. Oh, yes, he is. I told him I was bringing you when I bought the tickets. In that case, I'll go. Well, shall I answer the door? No, I'll get it. Come on, Mary, that must be the gang. Well, it looks like everybody arrived at once. Everybody, merry Christmas. Come on in, kid. Hey, Curly, get a lot of the dress Mary's wearing. Yeah. Hi, Phil. Well, if it ain't Radio's answer to say, Emerson, you're done. Hey, Phil, where are your musicians? They've been here a few minutes. They've got a present for you. A present for me? Yeah, the boys all chipped in and badly went to get it. He should be driving up any minute now. No kidding. A present for me? What is it? You'll find out. Hey, I'll give you a hint, Jackson. It's, uh, it's something you stepped down into. Phil! A new Hudson. No apparent shorts. Well, they're nice, too. Now, come on, kids. Oh, Mrs. Dane, now, please stop pushing.  Now, please, Mrs. Dane. We've been acting out that mommy's getting away. Oh, go on, Jack. Give Mrs. Dane. Mrs. Dane. Oh, please, Mrs. Dane, please. Look, look, his face is turning blue. All right, Mrs. Dane, all right, close your eyes. There, how is that for a kiss? Kiss? I thought I chipped and fell on a wet mop. Well, gee. Dane, put down that cat. Now, behave yourself. Thank you. Now, look, kids, what's the matter with Don? He's sucking a chimney again. Oh. Well, we'll get him out later. Hey, Jack, now about surfing the truck. Now, what's the matter with Don? Hold it just a minute. Now, look, everybody, quiet. Quiet, please. I want to say something. Now, kids, this is Christmas Eve. Before we sit down to eat, I think we should all gather around the piano while Dennis sings a medley of Christmas songs. On behalf of my sponsor and my entire staff, I want to wish each and every one of you a very, very Merry Christmas. That's the Columbia Broadcasting System.


We say that a sequence is called geometric if successive terms have a common ratio. So this right here is actually a recursive definition of what we refer to as a geometric sequence. And so let's kind of unwrap what that recursive definition means. We say that a sequence is geometric. Well, you're gonna have some initial term, right? Recursive sequences start with something. So we're gonna call the first term of the sequence which of the sequences can be a sub n here. We'll just call the first term a, a is just some initial values, the seed of a recursive sequence. But if we want successive terms to have a constant ratio, what that means is this idea right here. If we take a n over a n minus one, so those would be successive terms in the sequence, right? You have the term a n minus one and it's successor a n. If we take the ratio, we should get a constant value which we're gonna call r for this, a constant ratio in this situation. So successive terms have a constant ratio if their quotient is equal to some constant number r. Now, if you take this equation and clear the denominators, well, then you'll end up with a n equals r times a n minus one. So if you know a term in the sequence, the next term in the sequence a sub n will just equal the previous term times it by this constant ratio r. And this is what we mean by geometric sequence. So some examples of that. Take the sequence two, six, 18, 54, 162. And what you're gonna see here is your first term a is two. That's just the first term in the list. That should be easy to identify here. But if you look at consecutive terms here, take six divided by two, that's equal to three. So that's gonna be our candidate for our constant ratio r. And if we look at other ratios, right? 18 divided by six, that's likewise three. If we take 54 divided by 18, that's also three. If we take 54 times 162, that likewise is gonna equal three. And so all consecutive terms in this sequence, if we divide them, will always give us three. This is evidence that our sequence is in fact geometric right here. And in fact, using this information, knowing that the common ratio is three, we can actually find the next term of the sequence. The next term of the sequence will be 162 times three, which is equal to 486. The next term of the sequence will be 486 times three, which is 1,458. The next term of the sequence will be that number times three, which is 4,374. And you can see we can keep on going, going, going. We can always find the next term of the sequence by multiple by three, times by three, times by three, times by three. Take another example. Let's consider the sequence S of N equals two to the negative, to the two to the negative N power here. So this sequence we mean would be this sequence right here. S one equals one-half, S two equals one-fourth, S three equals one-eighth, S four equals one-sixteenth, S five is one over 32, S six is equal to one over 64. So we're just taking powers of one-half. That's our sequence right here. I claim that this sequence is in fact geometric. And to show that it's geometric, we have to show that consecutive terms, their ratio is constant. So it doesn't matter what N is, you should always get a constant right here. So if you take SN over SN minus one, well SN is two to the negative N right here. SN minus one would be two to the negative N minus one power. Now because we have negative exponents, we can actually take reciprocals right here, and this will look like two to the N minus one on top, two to the N on the bottom. And then by exponent rules, because we have two N minus one on top, two N on the bottom, we can subtract the exponents like we do here. We'll get two to the N minus one minus N, in which case here the N's cancel out, we're left with two to the negative one, which is just one-half. And you'll see that this number doesn't depend on N whatsoever. It doesn't depend where we are in the sequence. This number one-half is independent of the number N. And so this is our constant ratio of one-half. This shows that this sequence is a geometric sequence whose constant ratio is one-half. Another example here, let's show that the sequence T sub N given by powers of four is likewise geometric. You're gonna see a very similar calculation here. If we look at the ratio of consecutive terms, you're gonna take TN on top, TN minus one on the bottom. So for TN, you're just gonna record the formula just straight from above four to the N. For TN minus one, you're gonna replace in the formula the N with an N minus one, like we see right here. And that's your ratio. Simplifying that, you can subtract the powers. You get four to the N minus N minus one. And then the N's will cancel because you get N minus N.  So you end up with four to the first, that is four. And that's again our constant ratio. This sequence would look like four, 16, two, sorry, 256. We're just looking at powers of four right here. And so these last two examples you'll notice, right? We had powers of one half, powers of four. And then on the first example, right? We were increasing by powers of three. It turns out that geometric sequences, in some ways, behave like exponentials. And we actually see this in general. So for a general geometric sequence right here, let's say the initial term is A and its constant ratio is R. So therefore, the first term will just be A. It's the initial term. To find the second term, A2, we're gonna multiply the first term A1 by R. But as A1 is just an A, A2 will just look like R times A. For A3, we have to times R, or A2 by R to get A3. But since A2 was just equal to R times A, we could insert that here. We get R times RA, which is R squared A. So we do this for A4. A4 will be R times A3. A3 is R squared times A. Therefore, A to the fourth, sorry, A4 will be R cubed A. If we do this for the fifth one, right? A5 will be R times A4. A4 we saw was R cubed A. And so you get another R. You get R squared to the A. And so by mathematical induction, we can follow this pattern and see the following.  It's predecessor. But by induction, A to the N minus one will be R in minus two power times A. And so you increase the power by one, you're going to get R to the N minus one times A. In which case, we then see in general that a geometric sequence is very much like an exponential expression. You're going to have some initial value, A. And then that's going to be multiplied by some power of R. But our power of R is going to be one less than our current position. So the Nth spot will have the N minus one power of R. And that defines a general geometric sequence.


8,500 Russian airborne troops wounded in Ukraine. At least 8,500 members of the Russian airborne forces have been wounded in the year and a half since Russia invaded Ukraine, the elite troops commander said. Airborne forces commander of Russia Mikhail Teplinsky disclosed the figures in a video message congratulating comrades on paratroopers day, which marked 93 years since the founding of the corps. More than 5,000 wounded paratroopers returned to the front after treatment and more than 3,500 of our wounded refused to leave the front line. Teplinsky said. His video address was published by the Defence Ministry run broadcaster Zvezda. Hours later the footage was taken down from both Zvezda's website and its channel on the Telegram messaging app for unexplained reasons according to the Moscow Times' media outlet. The independent investigative news outlet, Agents Voh, which spotted the video's removal speculated that the footage was removed because it disclosed information the Defence Ministry did not want to be made public. Teplinsky did not say how many airborne forces troops had been killed in the war. The Defence Ministry last disclosed its overall casualty members in Ukraine in September 2022, saying 5,937 soldiers had been killed in combat, a figure believed to be much higher. Open source intelligence analyst Kirill Mikhailov told Agents Voh that Teplinsky's figures suggest that several thousand Russian paratroopers may have been killed in Ukraine. An independent Tally based on open source data by the BBC's Russian service and the news website Media Zona estimates that at least 1,832 paratroopers died in Ukraine as of July 30th.