Yoga, Intuitive Movement & Changing States of Mind & Emotion with guest Kara-Leah Grant
Videocast
Audio Podcast
“I cannot speak highly enough about free movement. Because free movement will free your body, free your mind, free your soul.
And it is definitely one of the most healing things I've ever come across because of the amount of energy that it liberates.” - Kara-Leah Grant
Audio Podcast
“I mean, the beautiful thing about intuitive movement, about allowing your body to move how it wants to move
being curious and allowing movement to simply come through is that when we do that the body has this extraordinarily ability to heal itself …
There's just so many things that happen in the body when we allow life's current, the current of life, to freely move.” - Kara-Leah Grant
Short Summary
Movement Intuition, The Zone & Being in Flow
Physical and Mental Shifts in Yoga
Emotional release in movement
Styles and Types of Yoga
Other Practices from the History of India (Tantra, Kashmir Shaivism)
Transcript
Kara-Leah Grant: But aside from that, what I would notice is I'd come out of a 90 minute class. And I just felt like the world was different. And of course it was because I was different. Um, I didn't realize how much I was in probably constant stress or constant tension, controlling everything. Coming out of a class, it was like I'd softened and I'd opened up and everything was like, Oh wow, this is a, you know, damn.
Um, and that's what really kept me coming back. And then as other things started to arise in my life to do with the mental, emotional body. That was when I was like, Oh, now I really need to double down on yoga because I need that to master my mind in essence.
Nathan Schechter: Welcome to the Mind Body Literacy podcast and videocast. I'm your host, Nathan Schechter. A lot of the best sharing and learning happens in conversations, often ones that are informal and private, but what if you could be a fly on the wall and listen in? The Mind Body Literacy VPCast highlights different people with different perspectives.
It's particularly aimed at sharing insights between professional silos of knowledge that work with the mind and the body. So, for example, massage therapists can hear how psychoanalysts think, and neurologists can hear how their ideas might be used by dancers or yogis. Because the mind and the body are too complex for any one person or group of people to understand it alone.
Narrator (Disclaimer): The information and content provided by Mind Body Literacy and in the Mind Body Literacy podcast and videocast is general information, and it's intended for educational purposes only. Individual situations vary, and this content is not intended as, nor should it be used as, a substitute for professional, medical, or psychological advice, diagnosis or treatment. No guarantee or warranties are given with respect to the accuracy, applicability, fitness, or completeness of the content.
Nathan Schechter: Kara-Leah Grant is a devoted yogi, author, and teacher with decades of embodied practice. Her journey with yoga began in 1996 and she's been teaching since 2006.
She trained extensively with Shiva Rea and Christopher Tompkins, completing a thousand day practice of Ucchāra. In 2021, over the years, she's guided hundreds of students and clients, helping them identify and dissolve limiting beliefs while deepening their connection to practice a sought after speaker.
She has presented at numerous festivals, summits, and conferences, both online and in person. And she has published three books, written thousands of articles, produced hundreds of videos and led programs worldwide, passionate about self liberation and transformation. In addition, Kara-Leah continues to evolve her work, leading immersive experiences.
Her teaching is rooted in Trika Shaivism and works across the physical, mental, emotional, and energetic levels to support awakening and liberation through daily practice. Please join me in welcoming Kara-Leah Grant.
Nathan Schechter: So welcome everybody to the Mind Body Literacy podcast.
Before we started, my guest today, Kara-Leah, and I were talking about how we both enjoy a good conversation.
And, I really do. And one of the reasons we do this is because so often, you know, the conversations yield so many insights, but they only happen between two people. Uh, and so I'm really glad to have you here. Um, Caralia to talk. Um, and as I was thinking about all the things that we were gonna speak about, I, I came to think that, you know, sometimes you hear people in the movement world, they'll talk about movement as nutrition, right?
That, there are all these different things you could possibly, you know, have on the plate, and they all add something. Um, you know, and in movement you know, for folks who aren't familiar, it's an ecstatic dance, or a contact improv, or a yoga, or a weightlifting, or a martial art, or whatever.
But there's this way in which, as we, move through our lives, just as we sort of use all our, experiences to choose what we're going to have for dinner tonight, or whatever, it becomes sort of an integrated part of our life. I think there's also a way in which movement, when you've been with it for a while, that we sort of start in this place where maybe we're just exposed to one style or one thing or one way of thinking about it, but then we move into it in our lives and it does become an integrated part of our life that we're just using in a similar way.
And that's a lot harder sometimes to, to share with folks. And so I'm really glad to have you here. And that's why I wanted to start off by asking you about when you first started, because we're going to talk much more about intuition and inner guidance and instinct and all these other things, but that's not where either of us started, when you start out, you have a more limited view.
And so I just wanted to ask when you started, if I'm remembering correctly, you hadn't done any yoga until like your mid twenties. And how did you first get into yoga? And I remember there was something about an injury. So how did you start that? And what was that all about when you were first coming into it before you had gone wider in, in your experiences?
Kara-Leah Grant: Yeah, I, I first encountered yoga in 1995 and I would have been 20 then. I just did a 10 week Iyengar course, um, because randomly my boyfriend's good friend was teaching, which was, you know, a little unusual back then too, for a man to be teaching yoga. And this was in New Zealand, in Auckland, and I had had a spinal infusion four years prior.
So. I was so inflexible, hardly any movement. Iyengar was probably the best place I could have started. And I just remember being propped up and it was like they would have to find so many props to get me into the posture. By the time I got in, it was time to get out. Um, and it wasn't until about five years later that I began, which was my mid 20s, that I had a flare up of my back.
I was having intense sciatic pain. The doctors are like, you're probably going to need another spinal fusion. And I'm like, Nah, I'm gonna deal with this myself and that was when I committed to yoga. And so I started, I initially started doing Ashtanga and then Bikram and I've tried many many styles in the last 25 years since that moment.
And my understanding even then it's interesting like I knew yoga was a movement practice but I also knew it was so much more. And so when the doctors were looking at what was going on with me, I could tell they were approaching it from just a pure biomechanical perspective. And I could see that they were just looking at, yeah, as if I was a car.
And that they didn't really understand what was causing the discs to behave, my back to behave in the way that it was behaving. And I'm like, you guys are just treating the, the symptom. And if you just keep doing that, we're never going to get to the root of things. So even as a young woman in my early 20s, I could sense that that's what was going on and I just knew that there was something in yoga that would give me the holistic approach to address what was happening at the root.
Nathan Schechter: Yeah. So it sounds like you came in a similar doorway that I did. Iyengar was my first practice too. And it sounds like you had sort of this early experience. You started finding out, Oh, gee, there are different styles. Like there's Bikram, like there's Ashtanga. And you started dipping a toe in the waters of the many multitudes of styles.
And that also alongside that there was the physical injury and the issue that you were dealing with. It sounds like you had early on a sense that you wanted a holistic approach, and that you, you had the sense, even though maybe, I don't know, at that point, if you had been exposed to the idea of the eight limb system of yoga, but, you know, you were encountering it as a physical practice, but you had this intuition or you knew that it had much more.
Many people don't know, you know, even some folks watching may not know that it. You know, the physical practice, the asana, the poses is one limb of a larger system, and many of us come into it in that way. But then if you want to be a teacher or you study more deeply, you find out it's part of a much bigger practice.
So did you know at that point that was a part of a bigger practice, or were you just intuitively like, I feel like holistic approach is right for me, and yoga seems to be a doorway that I want to explore more. Was that, was that?
Kara-Leah Grant: Yeah, I, like, it's curious, because you're asking that question, like, I don't remember specifically, but my sense is, maybe it was the way that the class was taught, the Iyengar, the 10 week class was taught.
I did have a sense of, this is, this is a thing, you know.
Kara-Leah Grant: And in essence, it's a path to awakening and liberation and the practice of asana is just one little practice within the smorgasbord of whatever is required in order to awaken and liberate. Um, so that, and, and right from the get go, as soon as I started practicing, what I noticed was, yes, it relieved my, my physical symptoms, like within, I mean, I was in chronic daily pain and within maybe three months it had lessened and I wasn't in chronic daily pain anymore.
And I was walking with a limp, that started to lessen as well, the constant sciatic pain disappeared, like it was amazing. But aside from that, what I would notice is I'd come out of a 90 minute class and I just felt like The world was different. And of course it was because I was different. Um, I didn't realize how much I was in probably constant stress or constant tension, controlling everything coming out of a class.
It was like I'd softened and I'd opened up and everything was like, Oh wow, this is a, you know, damn. And that's what really kept me coming back. And then as other things started to arise in my life to do with the mental, emotional body, that was when I was like, Oh, now I really need to double down on yoga because I need that.
To master my mind in essence,
Nathan Schechter: right. It sounds like, you know that experience, which is hard to capture, but that you go in, in one state of feeling or low energy or pain, or just whatever is in your daily life, that's focused your mind. And then you come out and you feel like, wow, like you see differently the world.
And maybe it's because something in me has shifted that that that is a very big part of an experience that people have when they go to yoga on whatever level, um, and it is also, I think, a beautiful doorway for what then next happened in your journey. It sounds like because it opened into it sounds like, study with folks like Christopher Tompkins and other folks who began to, Shiva Ray, I think deepen your perspective in terms of saying, look at all the rest of the ways in which not just yoga, but the traditions of India, you know, uh, tools through many generations and thousands of years for creating these internal states of shift, and as you started to explore that, can you tell us a little bit about that and how it unfolded for you?
Kara-Leah Grant: Yeah, I think the next sort of big landmark in the journey, so I started, it was 2000 I was now regularly practicing yoga for the physical side. Um, and I also started to do a lot of meditation by myself. I was working with consciousness expanding drugs in my own way, like mushrooms, cannabis, and I would just take these things and go, I was a psychonaut.
I didn't even know what a psychonaut was, but that's what was going on. And all of that plus life circumstances and challenges eventually led to what I later found, you know, recognized as a Kundalini awakening slash psychosis. So I ended up at Lionsgate Hospital Acute Psych Ward here in Vancouver twice.
First time for three days, second time for nine days, came out and I knew that what had gone on wasn't just mental illness and It was just a sense of like, oh, I have to go really deep into this spiritual thing now. And so that was a major turning point. Um, that was 2004. In 2006, I got invited to start teaching yoga and I had a home practice.
So I started teaching from my home practice and then discovered Shiva Rea and Christopher Tompkins in 2010. And when I started teaching, I was like, well, I'm not certified. I'm not trained. Who am I to teach? But I did have a daily practice and I simply taught from my practice and I was looking for someone to study with, right?
I'm in New Zealand and back then, this is like 2006, there weren't a huge, there were some yoga teacher trainings, but not like now, where they're on every street corner. And it took me a good two or three years before I found Shiva's body of work, Prana Flow, through one of her master teachers, Twee Merrigan.
And Shiva's approach was, so she had started out in Ashtanga, and which is very regimented. It's like you do these postures in this order no matter what. And then she started to see like the feet of the goddess when she was doing Sun Salutation. She started to have quite mystical experiences, and her body started to want to move in different ways.
And of course, you know, she hadn't received teachings on that at this stage, and that led her to recognize she had to follow the flow that was unfolding, which led her to, um, you know, come up with, it's not even like she came up with it. It's like it just, it birthed through her prana of flow. And when I discovered that, something dropped in, because she was the first teacher that I came across that was deeply embodying the feminine within the yoga, the goddess within the yoga.
And there was a lot of flow. And I'd come from a background of being passionate about dancing. Like I love dancing. I was a go-go dancer in nightclubs in my twenties as well. And so I would often, I would dance at home all the time. So I would dance to Madonna and then that would lead into doing yoga postures.
And then I'd feel a little bit guilty cause I'm doing yoga to Madonna. Right. And I didn't know, and I was still moving. So I was finding my way into this blend of the static asana with the dance. So finding Shiva was like, Oh, I have permission to do this. This is okay. This is me following my intuition, following sahaja, the spontaneous arising of movement.
Like when prana just begins to move, it will move us according to the needs of the body. So that was, it was happening. And then I found recognition or validation or mirroring with Shiva. It was like, okay, now I know which direction to move in. Now I know who I want to train with.
Nathan Schechter: Let me just define some of our terms and then swing back around to ask you a question about all that.
But it sounds like you're in this period of time, you're having many, understatement, but many different emotional, mental, embodied experiences that are unfolding.
You've been practicing yoga. You start to go looking for some mentorship, and you find that in Shiva Rea.
So, uh, for folks who don't know, Ashtanga Yoga, a very contortionistic, acrobatic style of yoga, 70 poses, several different layers of complexity, in a certain part of India that came over to the States in the seventies.
So she's begun her practice in this style of yoga and then eventually starts to see. visual images while she's doing that. And that leads her to going into a very different type of style. She begins to incorporate dance, intuitive movement, all these sorts of things. And this is who you wind up.
She's in California for folks who don't know in the United States. So you're connecting now with somebody who's in the United States from New Zealand. And so, um, this is sort of your trajectory.
And that you had also been, it sounds like, a go to a dancer, and that dance had been a really big part of your experience and that you'd be dancing and moving and then taking that into the yoga.
And that's something that I do want to ask you about because you also had mentioned there was a period of time where what you were sort of doing in your home practice yourself and what you were teaching sort of, they were getting further apart.
And I wanted to ask you about that because I know that with my own practice. And one of the things that I'm excited to talk to you about is it is hard to explain to folks this other stage of like where movement becomes very integrated into your life and in its exploration. And, and so like I've practiced for a long time like that and people stop me all over the world when I'm doing it in the gym and like: “What are you doing?”
And it's very, I'll say, well, it's a mixed movement art. That's kind of the language that I'll put into it, but as you're explaining, there's a lot that's mental, there's a lot that's emotional, there's a lot about following instincts and choices in the way that a performing artist might in the moment, there's a lot about release, there's a lot about what even might be considered like in the performing arts, you know, so there's a lot of things happening and it's very hard to put language around.
So I'm curious as you got into this phase where you're now starting to move more intuitively, it's coming from - because when we go to yoga classes, often to learn, we do have to have a structure -
Bikram has a structure. Ashtanga has a structure. Primary series has a structure. Second series has a structure. A vinyasa class, as loose as it may be, still usually has a structure and even in an Iyengar class, which for folks who don't know, uses a lot of props and is more, you know, step by step and takes longer on the poses, it still usually has a structure.
And so we get into these very structured experiences, even in the martial arts or whatever, the class starts like, it's like going to the restaurant, you see the hostess, then you sit down, then you get the menu and you get used to that structure.
And when you say to people, okay, now throw the structure away.
Well, it's like what? How do you even start with that? What's that about?
So what was happening for you in this period?
We're you’re like well on the one hand I'm teaching but on the other hand I'm having this experience and how did you - what is the value of intuitive movement?
Why were you involved with it?
And what were the first steps that you made to bring this in to your more formal teaching? Could you talk a little bit about that?
Kara-Leah Grant: I think one of the beautiful things about training with Shiva is that she has a very clear structure that allows for the spontaneity and the movement. And so both are required.
So you think about in order to drink a glass of water, the water is a fluidity, right? And the movement, but you have to have a container, the structure in order to do the thing, you know, otherwise the water just dissipates.
So even when you're working with intuitive movement, there is still some kind of - and so if I'm coming to the mat to do my own practice, you know, I'll generally start with prayer with invocation, with intention and just dropping down into the breath and allowing connection.
And that intention will often guide me.
So if I'm coming in with an achy hip, for example, my intention might be simply to pull love into my hip. And so then I allow myself to begin to move according to that. But you know, I've got decades now of yoga practice. And so. There is, there is a flow of class that might still unfold, even in my own practice.
You know, I might start with more standing postures and, and sort of, you know, flowy stuff that's a bit more like sun salutations, for example, before eventually coming down onto the floor and doing stuff that's more settled on the floor before coming down into a Savasana type thing.
So there's still a sense of working with the nervous system, with container, right?
If we, if we swap out the word structure for container, because if you look at, for example, a Bikram sequence, it's not just the sequence that makes a Bikram class what it is. It's also the, the heat, the way it's delivered, the script, all of these things. So you have a rigid container that allows whatever is fluctuating in the body, in the mind to be seen really clearly, because all of that's the same every single time.
So the container of our practice allows us to let whatever wants to come through, come through, you see? Yeah, and then in terms of like teaching it, so, um, you know, I started teaching obviously in 2006, and then around 2016 I stopped teaching in studios because that gap was getting so big. I just didn't, my home practice, I'd always taught from my practice.
I'm like, I don't know how to bridge this. And my work as a teacher of yoga started to move more from into Shakta Upaya, which is the empowered means working directly with the mental, emotional and energetic body, uh, rather than primarily with the physical form. So I've been doing that for the last decade, but recently I stepped back into a studio and it's been really interesting to explore and play with you know, I have to meet the expectations of the students coming into the studio, but then how do I create a structure, a container, where they feel safe to begin to explore intuitive movement within the form of what they know?
Nathan Schechter: Yeah, I think it's such a beautiful way of calling it, you know, like saying there's a container and within a structured container there's freedom, and I think also you made the point though subtly that with a lot of experience and movement, you have a vocabulary to draw on.
You're not, it's like being a cook. Like if you can only make toast, you don't have a lot of things to draw on. But if you've been cooking a long time and you have all kinds of recipes, getting into the, so it's, it's very similar. You get into the kitchen, you say, well, how'd you do that, grandma?
I don't know. I just throw in a pinch of this. Well, grandma didn't just throw in a pinch of this or whatever. She's been doing it a long time. And so now she can just throw in a pinch. So she has a cooking vocabulary that she's drawing upon to make it look that easy and free. But there is a lot of experience and structure behind that.
Nathan Schechter: so it is a different thing to ask somebody who's a beginner and somebody who has a lot of experience to, to do that. And the container is helpful and it's a growing process.
It also sounds like you do have a structure. You're starting with intention. I'm gonna breathe into my hip that I'm gonna have, maybe I'm standing, then I'm moving, then I'm, you know, going maybe, and then I'm ending in savasana.
So, there is a, a structure, although maybe a looser structure, but I also want to pick up on what you said because I think it is so, um, helpful when we think about these experiences as ways of shifting states of mind, which they so often have been throughout history in many traditions.
We're just exploring one today, but I know that you in like 2010, I think, correct me if I'm getting it wrong, you started studying this. And then in 2021, you did a thousand day practice of Ucchāra, right?
And so let's set aside the physical body doing stuff and come to like vocalization and making sound.
It's still the body and there's still muscles in there and there's still physiological things happening. But now, and even I tell people sometimes when I've practiced singing, you learn and you change how you're using your body, even though you're just singing.
Yeah.
That there is this whole other vibrational, shifting consciousness experience, which is happening.
So can you tell us, first of all, for people who don't know, what is that practice?
How you got involved with it?
What all that's about, the tradition that it comes from?
Could you talk a little bit about that?
Kara-Leah Grant: For sure. So, Shiva Ray's teaching is grounded in Tantra.
And briefly explain Tantra. Tantra is a way of approaching practice. It's a way of approaching awakening and liberation, right?
When I started, uh, did my training with her, she had Christopher Tompkins, who's a scholar practitioner, come in and lead the tantric portion of the class, right? So we got philosophy from him.
He's a beautiful storyteller. He's amazing. So he gave us the tantric philosophy which is different from classical yoga philosophy, for example. And part of that was he taught us a particular tantric practice from around the 12th or 13th century that's called Ucchāra or Raising the Aum. Right.
And that practice just spoke to me. So after the training, I did it every day for six months and then I did it fairly regularly until about 2015 and something in me just went, I'd done a lot of 40 day practices, 90 day practices. I'd written a book on how to do 40 day practices. And I was like, you know what?
I'm going to do the thousand days. So in March, 2015, I committed to doing a thousand days like that one practice every single day for a thousand days in a row.
And I dropped the ball twice. So I'd start again. So that's why it took me six years to complete a three and a half years.
Nathan Schechter: You're clearly a slacker then.
Kara-Leah Grant: Oh my God. Such a slacker.
Kara-Leah Grant: and that was an extraordinary experience because Ucchara, um, there's a whole bunch of preparatory practices, some of which are physical, cause you want to warm up the spine and the hip so that we can sit comfortably for the practice, clearing the channels.
But the essence of the practice is working with chant, moving up the seven chakra system.
Right. And. It is designed to devour, digest, and dissolve our emotional and energetic samskaras, like the, the patterns in the body that are in there.
And it is so potent and so powerful. Um, it just, yeah, it just, it changed my life, like working with that practice and seeing the impact in students now. Like I've got a number of students that actually, there's about three or four of them, they're about to hit a thousand days next March, which is incredible and wonderful to see.
Watching the, the shift and how they show up for life as a result of that practice, it's just, it's such delight.
Nathan Schechter: Yeah, I want to ask you more about the experience, but I, you know, just to define some of our terms for folks, you know, so Tantra, this sort of text based way of approaching things that, you know, a scholar, a PhD like Christopher Tompkins has studied in depth, you know, that informs also, I think, and if I'm getting this right, which I hope I am, but in many of these traditions, there have been times where there's sort of been a taking back of things to the people.
So like you had the, the Vedas, which are like very scholarly and text based, and then it's like, but we can experience this ourselves. Anybody can experience it. It's available to us, you know, and we can experience it right here, right now in our life.
And so this tradition of India, which comes from a certain period, informs the work of this yoga teacher who's in California named Shiva Rea, right?
And she brought in this teacher, Christopher Tompkins. And he taught youthen a particular practice out of this, you know, wide range of periods of history and practices called Uchara, which is a vocalization practice and kind of chanting, which I think he's shared in other places is, one of the things perhaps people were doing in early times in their practices and had a lot of power.
I want to ask you about it though. In terms of the experience of it, because you say it's very powerful. You also mentioned samskaras, which are like pattern conditioned behaviors, which there's the Indian way of thinking about in certain, you know, ways of our habitual behaviors, but talk a little bit about the experience what you experience when you do that practice, like that's sort of like the background for people who don't know these terms.
But can you talk about: how does one do it?
Like, what is it?
I know what it's like to go to an Italian restaurant.
What's it like to play baseball?
What is this? And what's it about?
What do you get out of it? And what's the experience? What's it like? What's a lemon taste like? You know?
Kara-Leah Grant: Okay, so one quick thing on samskaras. So, yes, they’re patterned behaviors and also unresolved trauma, like unresolved emotions or nervous system responses that are like she's stuck in the body.
Right? So when we act like if you get triggered, it's usually because you're having an out of context reaction because one of those little parcels of unresolved emotions has been poked. And so the yoga practice is to devour it, to fully feel it, embrace it with loving awareness so you can digest it so it can dissolve.
So those circumstances no longer trigger you. And so Ucchāra practice, it will eat up those things without you even necessarily feeling the emotion. So what it's like is you're literally just sitting there, you know, chanting with your focus on a particular, um, area of the body, and you're just chanting, chanting, chanting.
You know, you're moving the arms in a particular way. There's a visualization. And so entrainment, Entrainment is a key aspect of tantric yoga practice. Entrainment is when you give the mind three or more things to focus on in a practice. So you literally, there's no space, there's no room to think. Right?
Because if I'm focusing on, my attention needs to be on the root chakra, and I am making this particular sound as I do that, I'm moving my hands in this particular way, I'm breathing in a particular pattern, I'm visualizing a particular thing, right, the mind can't think. There's nowhere to go. And so it really trains us into one pointed focus and concentration.
And so what I've found is that, you know, when we, when we do a practice, when we devote to a particular practice and give ourselves to it day after day, after month, after month, after year, after year, at a certain point, we unlock the Shakti or the power of the practice. And then the practice is enlivened, it's empowered and it begins to do us.
So it's no longer we're doing the practice, we're being done by the practice. And that, it's like, I don't want to say it's like possession, because it's not like that, but it's just like such a deep immersion surrendering into the unfolding that there is no sense of the story of me, the personal identity left, there's just the practice happening.
Um, and so I, you know, now I don't do it that often, at least I've got deep, I can feel deep stuff that's starting to get stirred up. So what it's like? It's like, I'm like, Ooh, there's some icky stuff I'm ready to deliberate. I'll start doing the practice and it's like the practice is scooping down into the depths of my unconscious and hooking up the sludge.
And bringing it up and it's like the chant, the sound just eats that up, incinerates it in the fire of the practice and it just dissolves. And then on the other side of practice, I'm like, Oh yeah, I feel way better now.
Nathan Schechter: Are you seeing that in images? Are you hearing it in the sound?
Kara-Leah Grant: It's more of an energy for me.
It's more of an energetic sense. I mean, occasionally, sometimes, you know, my tears, I might feel emotion, but what I find with the practice the way that it eats stuff up is that it just eats it up. There's just, and sometimes there are burps, you know, when you eat a good meal and you have a really good burp afterwards?
Yeah, it's, it literally is like that. Well, we do, I'll be leading practice on a retreat and people are burping because they're digesting the sludge of their unconscious, the old shit, you know?
Nathan Schechter: Yeah, you see that in regular practice, too. And I think the point that you were making is a point about the focusing technique.
You know, people often say that even just about yoga itself. I like it because I don't have to think, you know, and my mind just turns off, but it sounds like this, the chanting and - Is there a movement that you're doing with your hands, or is it just …?
Kara-Leah Grant: You're moving, you're moving the hands and mirroring the way that the energy is flowing.
Nathan Schechter: Right. So it's not a mudra or something. It's just the movement or is it
Kara-Leah Grant: There's a mudra as well. Yeah. So a mudra, so the hands
Nathan Schechter: specific Hand position, yeah. Specific.
Kara-Leah Grant: Yeah. And I mean, all of these things are really important because of the way that they direct the energy and direct the attention.
And the sound itself, like Christopher Tompkins always says that the sound is like a sonic needle that is piercing through the psychic gunk that's accumulated in the depths of each chakra,
you know, so it pierces it and I love that, you know, it's like it loosens it all up so it can then just, you know, dissolve as such.
Nathan Schechter: Now as you talk about it, it reminds me a lot of like Ashtanga with the specific positions where you gaze, you know, with your eyes.
Kara-Leah Grant: The drishtis, yeah.
Nathan Schechter: The drishtis, you know, for people who haven't done that practice - So in this practice, Ashtanga, which is this, it's about 70 poses, every position has a place where you gaze and if you focus on five breaths in every position for an hour and a half, and your gaze is always on a spot, your mind shuts down after a while because of the very specific focusing techniques and these techniques, there are thousands of them in India, but this sounds like another specific one.
I just also want to ask do you think that this is an experience that is mostly you said energetic or do you think it is one because you've talked, I guess what I should ask you is …
It sounds like underlying a lot of this, you have a real interest in healing and a real interest in, in transformation and transforming things that have been difficult.
I mean, we're talking about a practice that comes from, like, I don't know if I get it wrong, but like the 9th to 12th century or something like that, you know, like, these are long time ago practices and but the ideas that were in that period of time about, you know, Shiva, which I think a lot of people also may not know what that's about, but, you know, this idea about, sort of feeling and perceiving your interconnection and your oneness with everything, you know, kind of going from, and you talk about holding it in loving awareness, you know, which is often associated, you know, with some of these experiences.
So what I'm asking is:
(A) I guess a few things.
What is your interest in the, in the, sort of tradition of healing that came from this tradition that comes out of this period of history and then informs what we hear about today? You know, personally, what's your interest?
And then (B) do you associate it with like larger themes of feeling like an isolated being versus an Atman or a consciousness that are sort of writ large in a sort of spiritual tradition?
Or is it just like, nah, it's another thing that I do and I feel a certain kind of energy and then I go on with my day?
So I'm just curious about your thoughts about it and your experience with it.
Kara-Leah Grant: Yeah. Let me feel into how to, I mean, in essence, the path is one like the tantric path is awakening, liberation, and enjoyment of life, right?
And that, that liberation is liberation from suffering.
So when we talk about healing, a lot of us come to yoga to heal, whether it's physically, mentally, or emotionally, we come to heal.
And, you know, that was my journey.
I came to heal physically, and then I came to heal mentally and emotionally.
And so I'm on it, and I'm living it, and it's happening, and these things are unfolding. And, I discovered the, I dove deeper into the philosophy of Tantra around 2017, 2018. I discovered Christopher Wallace.
So he's the other really important Christopher in the Tantric world. Um, yeah, Christopher Wallace
Nathan Schechter: You can’t teach about this, by the way, if your name's not Christopher.
Kara-Leah Grant: Totally. It's not a thing then. Um, he wrote Tantra Illuminated, which is like the Bible for Tantric philosophy. And when I found that book, I was like, Oh my God, because it just described to me the landscape I was already living through.
And it gave me frameworks to work with. I was like, oh, now I know where I am. Now I know the territory. It's like, you're walking across Turtle Island as such, and then someone gives you a map and you're like, oh, wow, that's where all the things are, you know, um, it was a bit like that. And so in terms of, yeah, I mean, I've been hardcore orientated to awakening and liberation.
So, I mean, 2004, there was that, that's had, there was a paradigm shift in how I perceive reality. So that paradigm shift had happened and then going into the psych ward and waking up, it was like I was right back in conditioned mind and I was right back in hell and the suffering, but I knew what life could be like when there was the shift into knowing oneself as awareness.
Right? So I had a landmark. I had a sense. And I was like, I am going to do whatever is required to open into that again. Right, recognizing, and like I, it's always here, right? It's always here, right here, right now. It's not like we have to do anything to get there, and at the same time, when we are trapped in the mind things have to happen.
So I was always on the, always in that context of knowing myself as the ______.
And, and so through the different physical practices and then through working with Uchara in particular, the sense of identity, it really began to soften and to weaken and to, you know, and there's just more and more sense of things arise and subside.
The thoughts in the mind, they rise and subside. They come, they go. The feelings, they come, they go. The sensations, they come, they go. The physical body, you know, like, it comes and it goes.
And a real palpable sense of none of this is what I am. It can't be, because I am that which is always here. And it's one thing to know that intellectually.
But to, to, to step sideways to have the paradigm shift where it's just apparent, it's just like, oh, oh, and then there's a feeling and there's a sense, there's continuity because the awareness that I am is immersed in part of the whole ocean of awareness that everything is.
And so, yeah, continuity is a good way to describe it.
There's just a sense of being touched and touching everything.
Nathan Schechter: I don't know if it fits all that you've shared, but, you know, Gerald May once, he was a writer, used the word “unitive experience”. You know, that their experience of being united to everything that people would talk about, whether it was in nature or whether it was through a particular practice, but that this was a experience that would catch people and they would speak to, and that would really change them often.
And it sounds like you found both the, the map in, you know, the map of Tantra and this sort of talking about here's the territory, but you also very much found that experience. Many of the people Gerald May speaks to, you know, found it very helpful as well. Am I hearing that right?
Kara-Leah Grant: Yeah. I mean, it's intertwined.
I love how Tantra names things. Like there's the three phases of awakening, right? There's immersion and awareness, knowing oneself as awareness. There's immersion and energy, knowing oneself as energy. And then there's immersion and the divine absolute of all that is. sometimes called the void, right?
And then those three aren't really separate. And so Kundalini awakening is often when there's an immersion in energy, there's an awakening to energy and a sense of like, whoa, you know, but we haven't necessarily awoken to or immersed in awareness itself. So there's still a real strong identification with the limited sense of self, even though there's awakening to energy, which generates a lot of challenge and suffering.
You see, so that's why the maps become important because it's like, oh, that's what's going on. That's right. Now I know what's needed, right? So for example with people experiencing Kundalini awakening, what's often needed is to focus on orientation to awareness. Right? Awakening to knowing oneself as awareness.
And this is what the practices are for. If they start, because this isn't stuff we learn or achieve or attain. This is a shift in our perception of reality itself. And so that shift in perception of reality occurs because we do the practices. And at a certain point, grace just opens us. And we're like, oh wow, I'm perceiving this myself differently.
I'm perceiving reality different, like, you know, nothing's achieved.
Nathan Schechter: Do you think it's at all similar to, you know, sometimes people will talk about the use of psychedelics, you know, that's coming back in some clinical settings and other places, but they'll talk about the healing effect of it, that people will again have this experience.
Like what Gerald May was talking about, you know, that they'll see something, they'll experience something and they'll come back with a much different perspective of feeling integrated and whole and connected to everything. Do you, do you feel it's all similar or different to something like that?
Kara-Leah Grant: Yeah. I mean, I mean, I've definitely journeyed with all different kinds of substances, um, plant medicines.
And, you know, my sense is that they are very much door openers. Right? They open the door to what we can actually already open the door to within us without them. But sometimes we, we need to know what it's like to have that experience, right? The trick is to not attribute that experience to the drug, to the medicine.
Because when we do that, we create a separation. It's like, oh, yeah, it's tripping. It was the asset. It's like, no, it wasn't the asset. That's there all the time. It just opened the door. Now, can you actually open to that without the tool, you see?
Nathan Schechter: And for folks who may not be familiar with all this, I'll just say that, I mean, even setting all this aside, the world that India has around it in its history talks about the human mind in very different ways.
I mean, they just don't think about the mind in the western concept when you read what they've said, you know, they talk about buddhi and they talk about many levels and layers and koshas.
So they have a different ,already in that history, in that literature, view of how they are.
It's like we all describe the elephant differently, right?
And so when they describe this mental, physical, emotional experience, they're not talking about psyche, Id, ego. That's not their model per se.
They have another way of talking about it.
And here we're also talking about it in a very different way.
So I just want to set that frame for people who may not be familiar, but going to your point, what you're talking about is a reality transcending or maybe a better way to say it is a day-to-day mind state transcending experience of realizing what is thought of in the in this world as a reality of how everything is interconnected and we are part of that and that one might get little glimpses into it.
One might be like intellectual and reading about and studying it.
One might be having what you call the Kundalini awakening, which is sort of an energetic experience of a lot of energy. You know, which may not yet be that unitive experience, but it's like, Oh, something's happening and I can't totally make sense of what's happening and I don't know what's happening and it's a little scary.
And then like, Oh, people who have gone on this journey with this cultural view have said it's like you see the mall before you get to the highway - it's something sometimes that you see before you get to this other stage. Okay. Now I know where I am.
And this is some of the territory that you're exploring and you're saying, Yeah, you know, you can use a substance that can also kind of peel back theshades and show you this, but ultimately what we're talking about and ultimately what in India, in some ways it's being talked about is this ultimate reality that -
You know, somebody once said, it's a funny story, about a scientist who went and was talking to three spiritual adepts in India and said, was talking to them about things and trying to explain something.
They were having this whole conversation and they were talking about molecules and finally one of them said, “Oh, I see. She thinks these molecules are real!”
You know, that it was this worldview that everything is part of this greater oneness and reality. And that is what we're kind of talking about here.
Am I getting any of that right?
Kara-Leah Grant: Mm. I mean,
Nathan Schechter: How would you rephrase it? Feel free to jump in.
Kara-Leah Grant: Yeah. I love your distinction there. The frame with which we see reality determines our experience of reality.
Nathan Schechter: Yes.
Kara-Leah Grant: Right. So it's really helpful for us to start to become aware of the frames. Right? And then, I say this at first, what frame are you perceiving reality through?
And then to be like, what's going to be the most beneficial frame? If I want to decrease my suffering, you know, if I want to be able to expand and liberate, what's the most beneficial frame? And that's, this is what Tantra is. The beautiful thing with Tantra, it doesn't say this is reality. It says this is a frame that will liberate you from suffering.
Right, and then at a certain point Tantra also says at a certain point you don't need Tantra anymore because you are directly perceiving reality as it is and the frames themselves just all go. They just go, they're not needed. And so, most people are perceiving reality through conditioned mind. They're not in direct contact with what is actually unfolding.
They're projecting, imagining, thinking about, and they have very fixed ideas of what is going on. I like this. I don't like that. That guy's a fucking asshole. What a dick. Righty right. Blighty blah. Oh my God. Do do do. And it's all mind generated. It's all mind generated.
Nathan Schechter: Do you think that it's a, I mean, I've heard people talk about other systems like Gnostic systems, or even you can talk about things like Nonviolent Communication or whatever, where the people talk about different ways of shifting mind states from seeing things as very static to a much more loving awareness or much, or in some systems, you know, there was the idea that through prayer, you know, through movement, through prayer, through meditation, that you would -basically what you were doing was - you were clearing the way that you see the world.
That you were, you were getting past conditioned experience and being able to see things more clearly.
There's another funny story about a guy who travels to India and he goes to find the most wise person. He says, tell me in one word, you know, he's an American, of course. So he goes, tell me in one sentence, one sentence, all the wisdom you've learned.
And the guy turns to him and says: “Know what is happening.”
And so this idea that we can clarify our states of mind so we can look out in the world in a less conditioned way and just see what's happening without a lot of layers.
Would you say that that's what you're speaking to?
Kara-Leah Grant: Yeah, for sure. I had an experience a couple of days ago when I was reflecting on some interactions with a friend of mine.
And I was like, Oh, that was the story I was telling myself about what was happening. And as I acknowledged the story that I was telling about what I thought was happening, the story fell away. And then I'm like, Oh, now I could see him as he was. And it was just such a beautiful example of how, you know, this is a process.
This is an ongoing thing. Right. And. You know, it happens all the time, like, events in the past are a good litmus test, right? If we are still telling the same story about that boyfriend or girlfriend or whatever 10 years ago, and we're still telling the same fucking story, we ain't done no work. Because what begins to happen is that we begin to see it differently and and the seeing it differently continues to evolve and it continues to change And then it's just like oh, wow you see, so nothing is fixed in that respect.
You see it's like oh, this is interesting.
Nathan Schechter: I want to ask you now, to bring it back, because we've had this beautiful exploration and many different ways and roadsfor doing different kinds of exploration and, and work.
You talked about, movement or Uchara's way to digest emotions or, you know, all these, I mean, I can't recap everything that you said, but how do you guide people who might be at the beginning of their journey?
I first started, stepped into my first Iyengar class and I had no idea what Ashtanga was, I had no idea what Bikram Yoga was, I had no ide about any of these people that we've mentioned.
I think like in the first three years of practice, somebody mentioned to me, Shiva Rea, and I went to one class this is where a lot of people are coming at it from, and these seem like very advanced concepts - and maybe even a little scary.
So how do you guide people who are afraid, you know?
I ran away from my first yoga class. I was in Iyengar, Patricia Walden’s studio. I watched 20 minutes and left and went home and said, I have no idea what these people are doing. I'm leaving.
So, often people are coming from not being familiar with these practices.
How do you guide people in a gentle way, in a beginning way to do some early explorations?
What would you say to that?
Kara-Leah Grant: Yeah, I'm a big fan of inviting curiosity, right? Just inviting people to start to be really curious about what's unfolding and to simply become aware of. The feeling of breath in the nostrils and just notice that what does it feel like, you know, is it even is it jagged and just getting them to directly feel reality rather than think about direct feel the breath in your nostrils and be aware of the breath and the nostrils.
And I just keep cueing that like so in a class, a brand new person, I'm just cueing them to be aware of what you are sensing. And just notice. Notice what it feels like. Notice what comes up. Notice the mind's moving through. Just notice. Just notice. And that starts to, because, you know, yoga's often translated as union.
But before we can come into union, which is immersion into all that is, first we have to separate. Most of us are identifying with the mind. We think we are our thoughts. And so the practice of yoga is inviting us to become aware of our thoughts. That's the separation. Right. And as we start to become aware of the thoughts moving through the mind, then we can become less reactive.
The thought can come and we can be aware of it and it can be a little gap. We don't act on it because we don't want to. Right. So. The way to start is to be curious about this body mind interface that allows you to be in this world. Because it's extraordinary, like, the body is this incredible miracle, like, like, holy shit, you know, what it can do is extraordinary.
Nathan Schechter: Yes.
Kara-Leah Grant: Yeah, so be curious and do movement that lights you up, that turns you on, that excites you, and just follow that, you know, follow that.
Nathan Schechter: And in that spirit of following one's intuition, you know, Something you often hear folks talk about, and certainly in like a movement practice alone, you're bringing us back now to movement.
Like, whether you're in a boxing match, or whether you're doing free movement in, ecstatic dance, or like, whatever your form, there is this way in which some of what could be practiced, or can be practiced, is how do I listen to the moment-to-moment, instincts that are unfolding inside me, and maybe now it's not my breathing or my nostrils or that style of meditative practice, but now I'm in motion, now I'm in action now I'm moving quickly and we often see this in great performances - like now people are doing their craft at a high level.
And so the question is: how do I get to that place where I can listen to my instincts and not be caught in my mind?
Because often people at high performance, whether they're a fighter, whether they're a singer, whether they're an actor, whether they're a healing artist, they want to be in that zone, whether they're a basketball player, they want to be in that, we call it the zone, we call it flow.
But this is a lot of the territory why people explore this because they think, wow, beautiful things happen in this place. A
And then how do we apply that to our lives?
Because there is in both those places, like, Oh, I'm about to perform. I'm about to do this thing. I'm about to take the three point shot, whatever.
You know, but then there's also our lives.
Like, what should I do in this situation?
What should, so how do you, how do you view all of that?
Because it happens inside the performer, inside the healing artist. And it's not viewable to people outside. They just see the result. They don't see all that's going on.
And there's a lot going on. Um, so can you talk a little bit about that?
Kara-Leah Grant: Yeah. I'll see if I can like kind of summarize the journey. So if when we become aware of breath, we start to immerse in breath and breath brings in prana or life force. So we're attuning to breath as a way to attune to prana because breath is more gross.
It's more accessible than saying to someone, Oh, attune to prana. It's like - crazy lady. Um, right.
So you were attuning to breath as a way to start to bring people into that. And then we move, we're letting the breath move the body. So if we're inhaling to expand, And then exhaling to contract, we're starting to get a sense of the breath with the movement with prana.
And there's five movements of prana, right? So when we're inhaling and we're starting to radiate out from the core, we're starting to work with vyana vayu. And then when we're contracting, we're starting to contract into the core, we're starting to work with samana vayu. And if, if you, if I teach someone those five movements of prana and they work with the breath and the body, then it can just be, just explore that.
Explore the downward flow as you're walking. Explore the downward flow as you're standing here. Explore the downward flow. You know, so it's a very simple way to get people to start to attune. Because ultimately, moving from intuition, right, is moving from, from energy. It's moving, Pratibha is the, is the goddess, you could say in Tantra, of the deepest wisdom and intuition.
And it's this felt sense. It's, it's, it's an urge that arises. And so when we're practicing, we start to listen. We start to listen to and feel that felt sense, that urge. And then the practice in daily life is about noticing when you get an urge. To call a friend and doing it when you get an urge to buy that thing and doing it, even though you don't need it.
And then discover three days later, you did need it after all. And if you bought it, then you'd have it now. So it's very much a practice of bringing your awareness down in and listening. Listening to her, listening to that urge that arises to create, to reach out, to connect, to live, right? And then life literally begins to live you.
We don't have to think about life to do life. There's no need to think about anything. Life will just happen if you surrender and allow it to come through you.
Nathan Schechter: Can you say the word again for deepest wisdom? What was the word? Pratibha.
Kara-Leah Grant: Pratibha.
Nathan Schechter: And, and translating as deepest wisdom or?
Kara-Leah Grant: Yeah. She, yeah.
Yeah. The deepest, like the deepest intuitive wisdom, she's, uh, she's personified as a goddess in Tantra, like a lot of things are personified as goddesses or gods as a way to give our minds something to visualize or something to focus on because we're talking about something that's so invisible and difficult to conceive of. And, you know, it's like, whoa, so we, so Tantra will give it something that's easier, give it a name, give it a persona, give it a costume, and now we can see it. We can connect with it.
Nathan Schechter: I want to, before we close, I want to give you an opportunity to talk about anything that you'd like to mention that I've left out, but I do want to ask if I can fit in two last quick, quick questions.
Um, one, I'm just curious about the thought of, uh, intuition as a guide. Certainly, I know for myself, I've seen it in performance. It's incredibly powerful and very much what we could try to get in touch with. It's also can be very powerful in life. However, I've also seen the immense utility of thinking and analytical processes.
So I'm just curious how those two things, side by side, since we as humans have both, experiences and both capacities, and I often am in conversations with people on both sides of the fence, so I'm often in conversation with people on a very analytical, logical side of the fence, and I'm often in, in, in a conversation with people in a deep wisdom, feeling state, energetic side of the fence.
So I go between both worlds. And I see utility in both because I see great things happen in both, but I'm just curious if you have any thoughts or perhaps not, but just about that topic.
Kara-Leah Grant: Yeah, I mean, I don't see it as an either or, I see it as a both and, you know, right? Like if I, if I want to do math, if I want to start to calculate my taxes or something, I'm going to be using that logical part to do that thing.
But I also might have an intuitive sense simply because I've done enough math to get a hit and get a sense of what it should be, which helps me check my calculations to make sure my logical mind is actually accurate. You know, so. But yeah, there isn't a
Nathan Schechter: So use a calculator when you do your taxes, right?
Kara-Leah Grant: they don't feel different to me at all.
They don't feel like different things. Um, you know, like most of us, we are thinking about life trying to figure out, trying to analyze because we want to get or avoid,
right? And that's
Kara-Leah Grant: not using. Our pure mind, our logical mind in the best possible way that's attempting to control, manage, manipulate reality so you feel the way we want to feel,
Nathan Schechter: We're trying to come from a deeper sense and a deeper wisdom and not just be distracted by mind fluctuations or citta vritti of whatever, you know, that we're trying to
Kara-Leah Grant: totally
Nathan Schechter: something deeper than that. Is that what, yeah. And that
Kara-Leah Grant: requires trust. And so we have to surrender, we have to let go of trying to control everything.
We have to trust that we might not get what we want. But it's not about that. It's just not about that. You know, it's not about controlling things so we can feel a particular way, you know,
Nathan Schechter: A certain amount of faith.
I had spoken to somebody who had shared this experience with me.
And then I had actually read an article in all places in Medscape where they were talking about people who had gone through cancer and reaching out for things to help them deal with that experience. And what they turned to was dance.
That many of the people who are providing the care, many of the people who are going through the experiences said, and this, this idea that, you know, I need something physical, whatever else is out there that's supporting me, that's great, but I need something physical just to make it through this experience.
I'm just curious about your thoughts about that, since we have talked,
Kara-Leah Grant: you
Nathan Schechter: know, we've gone through many things, but also we started with movement and this, this. This movement into intuitive movement and what can be expressed through movement and come out of us in movement. So people now are saying now in a very western context now, this is in Medscape, right?
So yeah, we're talking about very western views and people saying, gosh, you know, movement was super helpful. So what's your thought about that, about the helpfulness of movement to people, whatever their situation, whatever their outlook, whatever their culture, you know.
Kara-Leah Grant: I mean the beautiful thing about intuitive movement about allowing your body to move how it wants to move being curious and allowing movement to simply come through is that when we do that the body has this extraordinarily extraordinary ability to heal itself
and on a very practical level it's because we'll shift a nervous system out of the sympathetic into the parasympathetic you know and we will also um dissolve a lot of the tension in the fascia which has a big impact
there's just so many things that happen in the body when we allow life's current the current of life to freely move and in terms of healing
I am part of an ecstatic dance community here and going to something like ecstatic dance where the invitation is dance any old way you like it's not a performance, nobody gives a shit. You do you. People do the weirdest things it's off and and it's just like Epic because we get so rigid and stuck in our psychological and physical patterns, etc. And so just to start to like let it all flow and it's it's incredibly healing
You know, I turned 50 this year, and when I look at what the doctors, you know, spinal fusion when I was 16, and the doctors, what they told me when I was in my 20s, and I look at my range of movement now, and how fluid my body is, yes, I do have some residual stuff that is happening, and I moved last night spontaneously for about half an hour and I woke up this morning and go, Oh, it feels so good.
Like everything is just eased and the hip is eased and it all feels so amazing. And my body's incredible. It's so good to heal.
I cannot speak highly enough about free movement, because free movement will free your body, free your mind, free your soul.
And it is definitely one of the most healing things I've ever come across because of the amount of energy that it liberates.
Nathan Schechter: Well, that's terrific. That's a great close. I think we can end there, but I do want to ask before we do, if there is anything that I've not shared, anything that you'd like to share, anything that you'd like to say or explorebefore we close.
Kara-Leah Grant: I feel that's a really good place to close.
I think we just nailed it. We nailed it.
Nathan Schechter: Thank you so very much for coming.
Kara-Leah Grant: Yeah, my pleasure. My pleasure.