Wild Yoga Tribe Podcast Episode #21 – Transformational Yoga – Yoga in England with Jeni Louise

Welcome to Episode #21 of the Wild Yoga Tribe Podcast! This week, I welcome Jeni Louise onto the show. She is yoga teacher from England and is the co-founder of the wellness company Innerhealer 4D. 

Jeni has yoga all over the world and she expressed heartfelt gratitude for the acceptance and accessibility of yoga in England. Years ago, her friends used to tease her for “being a hippie,” as she rolled out her yoga mat. Now she celebrates how popular yoga has become and the fact that she knows doctors who are actually writing prescriptions for yoga! 

Jeni and I had a beautiful conversation about teaching yoga at charities in England, her dissertation on the embezzlement of yoga, and about transformational yoga. What’s transformational yoga? Tune in to the podcast to find out more!

Yoga in England here we go!

Tell me more about Jeni Louise… 

Jeni Louise first began her path of yoga at age 16 and began teaching yoga at her university, where she used yoga, meditation, and breath in her theatre projects to experiment with their effect and efficacy on the process and product of the shows themselves. After graduation, Jeni moved from England to Singapore, where she taught yoga whilst co-founding a performing arts school evolve-arts.com. She then traveled across Asia doing courses in Nepal with Dr. Chintamani and in India under Swami Vidyanand, the founder of Transformational Yoga. Jeni is an author and the co-founder of Inner Healer 4D and leads retreats, workshops, and teacher-trainings, online and in person. 

What to expect in the Yoga In England episode of the Wild Yoga Tribe Podcast

Curious about the Yoga in England episode of the Wild Yoga Tribe Podcast with Jeni Louise? Our conversation was both compelling and meaningful. Jeni and I delved deeper into transformational yoga and her own yoga teaching methodologies and philosophies. The pillars of which, for her, are self-inquiry and self-love. 

Transformational yoga had so many parallels in it’s technique to what she had already been designing and visiting Auroville was like walking into a dream I had been having all my life. The coincidences were unexplainable. The philosophy and message of integral yoga and integral education answered many of my questions on the evolution of man both spiritually and physically and I continue to be a curious student of this beautiful esoteric knowledge, my passion is to carry on learning, applying and integrating what I learn and as much as possible continue to practice what I preach and make these tools accessible to those who want it. I love people and like you, know that each person has a special and unique story to tell and journey they are on, my purpose has been to also reach young people with this information in a language they understand, I have worked with children since 14 years old and adore how gifted and unique children are, if we can work towards polishing and not tarnishing these special qualities each child has then the future will be very promising. 

For the skimmers – What’s in the England episode?

• What is transformational yoga?
• Dissertation, study, and findings on the embezzlement of yoga 
• Observation is the biggest tool
• Two pillars self-inquiry and self-love
• The acceptance and accessibility of yoga in England 

Favorite quote from Jen Louise

“The gift of development for each person in their own way to bring their true self out.”

Connect with Jeni Louise

Teacher Training Courses Link to the LIVE, Online, Dual Cert YTTC: https://www.littleyogiuniverse.com/200-hour-yoga-ttc

Books: Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/J-L-Ayodele/e/B07KZWCZPG%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share

For Discounts and Bulk Requests: [email protected]

Inner Healer Links and Info:

Website: www.innerhealer4D.com

Inquiries: [email protected]

@innerhealer4D

Website: littleyogiuniverse.com

Want more?

https://wildyogatribe.com/thepodcast/

Everything you need is just one click away! Check out all the resources here: https://linktr.ee/wildyogatribe

JOIN ME FOR LIVE-STREAMED YOGA CLASSES!

Wild Yoga Tribe Podcast Episode #21 – Transformational Yoga – Yoga in England with Jeni Louise 

[00:00:00] Lily Allen-Duenas: Welcome. Welcome. Welcome to the Wild Yoga Tribe podcast. I’m your host, Lily Allen-Duenas. Together we’ll talk about the world of yoga and we’ll talk to people from around the world. Join us for authentic conversations about the global yoga ecosystem and we’ll cover yoga philosophies and methodologies along the way.

[00:00:29] Inhale. Exhale. We’re about to dive in.

[00:00:36] Namaste family, and welcome back to the Wild Yoga Tribe today. I am so excited to have a wonderful guest on the show from England. Jeni Louise is a yoga teacher from England and she first began her path of yoga at age 16 and began teaching yoga at her university using yoga, [00:01:00] meditation, and breaths in her theater projects.

[00:01:02] To experiment with their effect and efficacy, the process and the product of the shows themselves. After graduation, she moved to Singapore where she taught yoga while co-founding a performing arts school. How cool is that? It was called evolve-arts.com. If you want to check that out, I’ll link it here below. She then after.

[00:01:27] Founding that performing art school, she then traveled across Asia doing courses in Nepal with Dr. Chintamani in India and under Swami Vidyanand the founder of transformational yoga. Jeni is an author and the co-founder of Inner Healer for 4D and she leads retreats workshops, and teacher trainings online and in-person. So I hope you’re as excited to hear from Jeni Louise today as I am.

[00:01:59] So thank you [00:02:00] so much, Jeni, for being here. 

[00:02:02] Jeni Louise: Thank you so much Lily. It’s a pleasure. 

[00:02:04] Lily Allen-Duenas: Yeah. So let’s just start from the top. How did yoga come into your life?

How did yoga come into your life?

[00:02:08] Jeni Louise: I started to practice yoga. Probably in my college years, about 15 or 16. So when I moved from high school to college, just as a way of keeping flexible in the low impact way, because before then I’d done a lot of sports and had a lot of injuries.

[00:02:28] So, especially for my knees, it was a really great rehabilitation practice. And so I was just practicing the physical aspect of yoga, that gateway of us and the practice and the gym. And yeah, so that’s how it first started a really normal story of how I came across yoga. 

[00:02:48] Lily Allen-Duenas: Awesome. And it seems like though you quickly got more and more interested in it and studying it, in intellectualizing and delving and having questions and curiosities about it as you started.

[00:02:59] [00:03:00] Working with the, in the theater and you were doing these projects, would you want to tell us more about what you were actually learning or studying? 

Jeni shares what she was learning and studying

[00:03:09] Jeni Louise: Yeah, I was actually really fortunate. The university that I went to was just incredible. And we had lectures that were really encouraging of us to be entrepreneurial and to try new things and start projects outside of the university.

[00:03:24] At that time in with the. With the modules that we were doing inside of our university as well. So I had started to actually teach some classes for children in yoga, again, still just using the postures because they were really beneficial and low impact. And then I started to be more interested in the philosophy and the history and the origins of it.

[00:03:46] And India and Buddhism was something that I’d actually been really involved in. Thinking about and reading about as a child as well. So as I grew up, I found all of these old letters and [00:04:00] studying mudras and writing letters to Buddha and drawing Indian Mondalez. And I’d been obsessed with Ganesha as well when I was younger.

[00:04:09] And then I started Kundalini yoga. It’s really thrown into the. The personal aspect of yoga rather than the physical aspect of yoga and what it did as a transformational process for the inside world of myself. And I wanted to also experiment with how that fit into theater and did it fit into this.

[00:04:30] Because there had been my profession and my life in that moment and up to that point. So I wondered maybe there’s something to do here with wellbeing and with creativity, to me, it all was the same thing. And it was heading to the same place of better wellness, mentally, physically, spiritually, connecting with others, connecting with ourselves to deliver joy to people.

[00:04:53] To feel more peaceful. So I took three groups and one of them was adults. One of them was teenagers and [00:05:00] one of them was children and worked yoga and meditation into that rehearsal period. Enter the performances and. It was the foundation of building the performance, the art, the devising, the theater for the little children.

[00:05:18] They absolutely loved building their own scenes, using the animals in yoga and the animal postures. And we created this lovely play about all these different animals and they knew all the postures by the end of this year that I was working with them. And then we put on a huge show at the end.

[00:05:35] Which looked at meditation yoga and the arts altogether. And then my final paper was on whether that was actually a festive culture or not. Yeah. So the final favor was in, looking at the work that I’d done in the practical and performance aspects. And whether you use yoga and meditation and the Eastern [00:06:00] philosophies and the Eastern wellbeing techniques.

[00:06:02] It was an embezzlement of that culture, whether it was the theft of culture. So my final paper was about the theft of cultures, particularly with yoga and how it was coming over to the west and whether we were treating it with the respect that it deserved. 

[00:06:17] Lily Allen-Duenas: And what were your findings? 

[00:06:18] Jeni Louise: Yeah, it was interesting.

[00:06:19] My findings from the personal project that I did was actually, it was so beneficial for, especially the younger age group. That they had come from Bernardo’s children’s charity. So they were a group of young carers and they had, it was a respite program for them to come and do drama and yoga. And the progress that they made was just amazing.

[00:06:42] And to see them from the beginning to the end was a really beautiful journey of them coming out of their shells and becoming more confident and then taking that, what they’d learned back to. The house and that parents would feed back and say, they’ve been so much more calm and they’ve been doing the breath work with us, and [00:07:00] they’ve been meditating and showing us how to do these yoga postures.

[00:07:03] So for me, the outcome for that specific group was just that yes it’s not being inauthentic to what I feel yoga should be in, which is to. The gift of development for each person in their own way to bring their true self out. And so that they’re not covered by tension or stress, that they can really be free because their children as well, and children just absorb everything.

[00:07:32] But it was such a magnificent change that you saw from the beginning to the end. And the other groups really benefited as well. The adults were a group that had suffered from mental health problems either currently with suffering or have suffered in the past. And their meditation techniques were really useful for them.

[00:07:50] And of course at this time I was only 20, 20, 21, we’re all the time learning. So when I look back to that time, I even feel like I wasn’t qualified enough to be doing this [00:08:00] kind of work with people. But I think overall the conclusion was that if we can try to keep it as authentic as possible and really it’s what I live as well, that I really try to.

[00:08:12] Keep learning and keep coming back to myself and making sure that I’m trying to stay as authentic to the purpose and the practice of yoga and the different styles of yoga. And yeah. So the conclusion was that, yes, although we’re taking someone else’s culture, that’s the way that we evolve as human beings, as long as we maintain the respect for that culture and where that’s come from, where the practice has come from, or that aspect of the culture has come from.

[00:08:40] And we keep trying to learn and don’t feel like we did a course in India. And now I can tell everybody about what yoga is. So it’s what I try to also be really aware of myself that I’m, I don’t feel like I’ve learned everything at all, or the more that I learn about it, the less that I know about it, but [00:09:00] that from our hearts, we just pass on the gifts that we’ve been given from our own studies.

[00:09:05] And try to give that to others. 

[00:09:08] Lily Allen-Duenas: Absolutely. I definitely agree with that, that we are com, we’ll be students of yoga for the rest of our life. And it’s not something that we’re ever done learning, and it is just immense and there’s so many different elements and paths you can spiral into. And I love that about yoga and it’s not cut and dry.

[00:09:27] It’s not memorizing one sequence or memorizing X amount of asanas and you have it down. There’s just so much to unpack and however deep you want to go, you get to go. That’s also your own personal journey. So it seems like you started mentioning it without actually mentioning it, Jeni. I know you studied transformational yoga in India under Swami Vivekananda.

[00:09:52] So what is transformational yoga? Could you tell us more about it?

What is transformational yoga? 

[00:09:56] Jeni Louise: Yeah, so transformational yoga in its simplest form, [00:10:00] because I think as much as possible, I would always try to direct people to Swami Vivekananda and for this like his wealth of knowledge, because he’s really a living teacher on this earth.

[00:10:13] And it’s something quite rare at the moment because we’ve all been in the lineage when we’ve done teacher training. So we’ve learned from somebody who’s learned from somebody who’s learned from somebody. But to have somebody that you learned from still on this planet and people can, you can recommend people still go and learn from them.

[00:10:30] It’s really powerful. Transformational yoga is a system that’s based on the integral yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the integral yoga system of Sri Aurobindo is huge. It’s maybe the most complex system that I’ve ever found in my life so far. Sri Aurobindo, his life’s work was to show people that we’re not at the end of the evolutionary line as a species, and that we can elevate our [00:11:00] evolution and move, move at faster than we’re going.

[00:11:04] So he was looking at, okay, so there’s Johnny yoga back to yoga and karma yoga, other the main ones that he was looking up and he also synthesized a lot of different yoga styles as well. So rather than just doing one and trying to reach a goal or a team, something from about one style, once you’ve reached the goal, that’s not the end and the end is not there because we’re still evolving.

[00:11:27] But what we can try to do once we’ve reached what you can call it, samadhi or Nirvana, or the end goals of this enlightenment or realization or higher true connection yourself and all in the universe and the divine, instead of just resting there, like the aesthetics that in India it’s to bring that truth and the power and the wisdom and the Nanda and the consciousness back down into ourselves to change ourselves at the cellular level.

[00:11:58] And then that [00:12:00] would hasten that evolutionary process of moving towards a manifesting heaven on earth, basically in a simple way. So what transformational yoga did was look at all of this system and see the ways to simply explain the transformation. So rather than ascending through the chakras, there’s a connection between the lower or untransformed chakras and the higher transformed chakras and through the cycle.

[00:12:31] Awakening, which is from the heart. So it focuses a lot on the heart chakra and a lot of mantras to open the heart. It transmutes the lower energies and connects them with the higher energy so that you’re constantly ascending and descending. And when you ascend you, you descend with more information from your true self with more true knowledge, light, love, harmony balance.

[00:12:54] And the process continues. So it’s just a continual lifelong process that’s [00:13:00] created for physical, emotional, or vital mental and spiritual wellbeing and living like truly living yoga. So it’s not just about being, of course all yoga is about truly living yoga, but this one is looking at the system of Sri Aurobindo and saying, there’s a way that every single person can practice.

[00:13:20] The essence of this teaching of Sri Aurobindo and the mudra  through synthesizing different styles of yoga together to bring the knowledge back down into our bodies. So it’s also about uniting the Eastern ideas and the Western ideas that Aurobindo is looking at. Okay. There’s this Eastern philosophy that they’re going to sit in the mountains or lock themselves in the monasteries and try to reach the divine in that way.

[00:13:48] And then the Western. There’s trying deeply in technology and us astrology and science to find the answers to the universe and the answers to the atom, [00:14:00] but he was bringing it to the middle way and saying, you don’t need to necessarily, if you want to be an ascetic, then that’s amazing. You can go and do that.

[00:14:06] And if you want to be a scientist and also this there’s a place for everybody, and everyone has their different paths in this world. But if you are looking to do this type of yoga, Then you come into the middle way and you bring the science and you bring the spirituality and you go forward in your way. 

[00:14:24] Lily Allen-Duenas: Sounds really powerful teachings.

[00:14:26] And I love the idea of synthesizing taking all the elements, perhaps that resonate with you the most as well, like self inquiry and self investigation, like what really resonates, what elements of east and west of science and a psychology and spirituality, and then blending it into this crystallized form to, to assist on your journey as a, as that’s your path.

[00:14:48] And is it very individualized? Like I’m imagining it or is it really like a well-worn synthesis that’s already been laid out by Swami Vivekananda, 

[00:14:57] Jeni Louise: It’s both actually [00:15:00] between the teacher training that I’ve done. The part that I really appreciated about the transformational teacher training with Swami was.

[00:15:07] That he really spent time with you to go through each of your coaches almost every day. So you were constantly checking in with how your physical body is doing in the asana practice in general life? How has your vital body doing, how are your meditations, how’s your desire? How is your craving, how are you feeling?

[00:15:29] Your emotions and your vital energy. How’s your mentality, how was your self-inquiry going? What’s going on with your mind? Is it wandering? Is it still, is it difficult? Are you frustrated and how does your spiritual psychic body like what’s happening in terms of your heart and your spiritual experiences and your connection with more truth and more wisdom?

[00:15:51] So it, in that way you were, it was individual because you’re constantly self-assessing. So it mixes a lot of observations. A lot of observations. It’s one of the [00:16:00] biggest tools that we use in transformational yoga is to observe or observe the body, observe the spine, observe the mind, observe, observe, and inquiring and feeding back to yourself all the time.

[00:16:10] And he just served as a reflection for your own learning in a loop with yourself.

[00:16:18] Lily Allen-Duenas: Your own learning in a loop with yourself. Wow. That’s really beautiful. And I can’t believe how much one-on-one time. It sounds like every day you would get with him. That’s really special. 

[00:16:29] Jeni Louise: Yeah it was.

[00:16:31] Lily Allen-Duenas: So I’m guessing Jeni, that is something that you bring into, in your Healer 4D your wellness company, this self inquiry. This focuses on that. I know that your mission is to guide people on their own. To guide people to find their own inner healer or more of a lasting transformation through movement meditation, self-love, connection, self study.

[00:16:56] Would you like to tell our listeners more about Inner Healer? 

About Inner Healer

[00:16:59] Jeni Louise: So [00:17:00] we have taken a lot of inspiration from transformational yoga, of course, because it’s something that I’m deeply interested and passionate about sharing with people and who is the other co-founder of Inner Healer, works a lot with sacred femininity and women’s circles and ceremony and ritual and self love is something that we were both working a lot on in our own personal journeys and also we’re sharing with others.

[00:17:28] So the two, the biggest pillars are the self love and the self-inquiry and that links to transformational yoga because the self love part is. About opening up our heart for ourselves and then for whatever comes after that. But it’s really about the heart in integral yoga and in transformational yoga is, and also back to yoga for example, is that’s the, really the seat as a psychic self and the seat of the true self and our inner wisdom and our inner guide and everything starts from [00:18:00] here and the how I feel.

[00:18:04] And also from what I read and what I resonate with, where we’re moving as a species, as human beings, it’s really towards that living in more love, living in more compassion, living more in self love as well, and learning that we, it’s not selfish to, to feel peaceful and to love ourselves and to be more mindful and present with who we are and connect more with our bodies and.

[00:18:31] Minds and emotions, and just really accept those and love them and transform in love rather than transforming because of an aversion or something that we want to reject. So we base everything on love because when we make that transformation through love, through self-inquiry and through all of the things that you also mentioned, all of these tools and techniques that we’re really changing ourselves because we love and not because of anything else.

[00:18:59] So when [00:19:00] we’re. Moving when we’re breathing, when we’re crying, when we’re dancing, when we’re doing that deep meditation and self-inquiry, it’s coming from a place of self love, because we deserve to, to feel good. We all deserve every single person deserves to feel good and live the life that they feel they deserve and that they feel balanced and they feel happy.

[00:19:25] And that comes from a place of love and when we’re changing ourselves and when we’re transforming, even if you think on a cellular level, if we’re vibrating in love, then we’re creating new cells in that vibration that will remember that and ourselves have a memory. So that’s where the science was.

[00:19:44] There comes in and we talk a lot about biological science and also neuroscience, and this idea of using. Our conscious awareness to really change our vibration and peel into that new vibration. 

[00:19:57] Lily Allen-Duenas: Yeah, I feel like there’s so much about [00:20:00] biology or about our human biology and that the more that, the more self-efficacy or agency you have, because you start to look at yourself a little bit more compassionately when you realize, oh, that was my reptilian brain or that’s, think about the hormones that come up, the more you learn.

[00:20:17] I feel like the more compassion I’m able to extend towards myself as well. 

[00:20:21] Jeni Louise: Absolutely. And I think when you were a child. When I learned about all of the biology and my body, which I can’t really remember much of it. I think that because it was so physical, like this is a lung and this is what it does.

[00:20:34] This is a stomach and this is what it does. This is a brain and it does this. And then the more that you learn about not just in the yoga, spiritual science, but also in the real science and the exponential discoveries that we’re making in Western science, or that, that is called Western science. Tangible science.

[00:20:54] That’s looking at biology and the chemistry and the universe that you see. [00:21:00] Oh my goodness. This is not just a stomach. This is like an entire universe on its own. That’s doing its own thing. I have no conscious control over that. It’s just got its own consciousness. That’s working. Oh, while we’ve been talking about billions of new blood cells, which are created in my body.

[00:21:14] And I didn’t think about it at all. So when you have that knowledge, like little by little, you learn these small things through listening more to your body and also through reading and practicing and speaking with others and so much amazing communication and podcasts and listening to scientists and listening to spiritual teachers who have also got platforms, which are just amazing to share.

[00:21:39] Wisdom and knowledge with people that we really are at this pinnacle, like an apex and humanity now, where we have so much access to all this information and so much accessible ways to find out about this miracle that we’re living in this body and how amazing it is. And it’s a, yeah, it’s a really [00:22:00] interesting turning point for how we will use this information as a species.

[00:22:05] Because as an individual it’s something that can really change your whole perception of who you are and what you are and what you’re made of when you learn all these things. 

[00:22:13] Lily Allen-Duenas: Yeah. It circles around Buddhism so much for me that we’re all empty, but we’re empty of what we’re empty of the elements, that of self, there’s no self identifying elements in me.

[00:22:24] I’m made up of everything else. So I’m empty of Lily parts that I have parts of the whole universe. I think it’s amazing to reflect on. It just feels like it could be an endless reflection on these things that we’re talking about too. It never stops. 

[00:22:42] Jeni Louise: Yeah you’re absolutely right. That’s so beautiful to compare it to that. 

[00:22:44] Lily Allen-Duenas: So Jeni, I would love to ask a little bit about yoga in England.

[00:22:48] I know you’ve taught you about all over the world, but since you’re from England, I do want to speak a little about it. So in England, where are you from? Where have you taught before? And what do you think yoga is like there? Is it [00:23:00] really popular with young people or older people? Is there a yoga studio on every corner? Just walk us through it a little bit.

Yoga in England

[00:23:07] Jeni Louise: So England is really amazing. Yoga has taken off there since I was doing my dissertation and looking at is this flooding the west really quickly. And in the right way, it did flood England, especially in a really amazing way. And I think that is similar to being a vegan as well, because before I left university, I’ve been vegetarian and vegan for a really long time.

[00:23:33] And at that point, when I decided to do that, there were really no vegan options and the restaurants were the same. There were only a few yoga classes here and there. And then every year that I would come back from being away. I would see, okay, wow, there’s this new yoga studio or there’s this new vegan restaurant or there’s this new vegetarian concept or there’s this new festival for wellbeing.

[00:23:53] And it’s just really amazing that they’ve taken this idea of [00:24:00] wellness and deepened our connection with ourselves. And it flourished there. There’s a lot of chains, but there’s also a lot of tiny, amazing little nooks and crannies of yoga studios and especially in London, because I was also just in London, the communities are very strong.

[00:24:18] The communities of yoga studios have all got there. The people that go and practice there and they don’t just go and practice. They also have a social aspect as well, where you can really connect with like-minded people and go for a nice coffee afterwards, or tell each other about the things that are going on that are interesting around London, London stuff.

[00:24:43] Yeah, it’s really nice. England’s done a really good job with, when, at the beginning, when I first started doing yoga, everyone was like, you’re an absolute hippie. And the same when I was a vegetarian or, and then moved to veganism, they were like, oh, Jeni is such a hippie. It’s such a.

[00:24:58] Such a weird hippie, [00:25:00] but now 10 years later or a bit longer than that, everybody is, it’s not weird to do that anymore. It’s something that’s really accepted. Yeah. London and England have done an amazing job of making yoga and wellbeing accessible and accepted that it’s not something that is a niche anymore.

[00:25:19] It’s something that’s really normal to go to a yoga class and to go to a retreat or to go to workshop and there’s plenty for everybody from beginners to advanced. Yeah. I think it’s done. It’s done a good job in terms of yoga. 

[00:25:35] Lily Allen-Duenas: It’s interesting. We’ve been talking quite a bit about how much yoga has flooded the west or that you did your dissertation on the embezzlement of yoga and making sure we’re treating them with respect and not culturally appropriating it.

[00:25:49] I feel like this has become such a war in yoga. I actually talked with the yoga teacher that I interviewed from Mexico and Apollo Hernandez. She believes so firmly that she does not bring this [00:26:00] war into yoga like this Instagram battles, the trolling, the people saying, don’t say, Namaste in your class.

[00:26:07] It’s so disrespectful. It’s just that duality to have this dualism of right,wrong. That’s not really at the core of what yoga is, yoga’s all about not dividing about bringing things together. So how do you feel about that element? The cultural appropriation, the social justice warriors for yoga, like all of that.

[00:26:29] What does that rise up for? What side or not? What side are you on, but what are your thoughts on it?

Cultural appropriation and social justice warriors for yoga

[00:26:33] Jeni Louise: Yeah, it’s a big, it’s a big issue at the moment, I think because there’s been so many, there’s been such a boom in yoga, not just in England, but all over the world. And especially I think through the last couple of years, going to the online space has also allowed for in a really positive way, has allowed a door opening [00:27:00] for a lot of people who may be.

[00:27:01] Weren’t comfortable to go and put themselves out there to go into a yoga studio without ever having done yoga before, and maybe seeing all of the Instagram, all of these Insta yoga pages and feeling like they weren’t able to do that. And then being able to do a class online with a teacher that showed them that it’s not about being in this cholesterol, this bolster, it can be about that, but it’s about all this other stuff.

[00:27:28] And that may have then given people the confidence to go into a real yoga class after these last few years. So that’s on one side, I think it’s been really amazing that it’s become so popular and so accepted and so encouraged actually in a lot of places. I know I heard the other day that they’d started doing prescription some doctor’s surgeries and started doing prescriptions.

[00:27:51] For meditation and yoga classes or helping with wellbeing and rehabilitation. And this is something [00:28:00] that I think maybe also you like, it was a dream to, to know that this was an option for people that it wasn’t just, you can have this, tell this pill, this pill that there’s other supplements or other options that you can take if you want to improve your health and improve your wellbeing.

[00:28:14] Because it has become such a recognized practice. I think that’s been a huge benefit of it, but of course there is this other side where there’s so many people now involved in yoga and there’s a lot of people who have been doing it for a long time. And there’s a lot of people who just started and yeah, I don’t really know to be honest, it’s to have done this study so long ago and then to see this, the minefield that it now is I think that.

[00:28:43] Everybody’s on their own at their own point in their journey of life and the journey of yoga. And it’s something that I also, when I saw it, I think it was a couple of years ago, at the beginning of the lockdown. And I’d seen, it was an odd suggestion to me of a 200 hour [00:29:00] course for $40. And that was all, of course it was recorded.

[00:29:03] So it was smart. The smart thing to do is to record the whole yoga course. And obviously it takes a lot of work as well. And a lot of knowledge, it’s not putting that down. It makes it accessible, but then what’s not standard in terms of you’re good or you’re not good, but standards in terms of making sure that you’re guiding people in this journey, because it’s not just about teaching in a gym, it’s the depth of yoga.

[00:29:26] Like you said, at the beginning, each person goes as deep as they need to go. But in terms of passing on this knowledge to people, I think as yoga teachers, we need to have that accountability and responsibility. To know that we’re also trying our best to practice what we preach and not just doing a course because we want to teach because this reason and this reason, but that we’re doing a course because we are on a journey to learn about this for ourself and our life and our own development, whatever stage that is.

[00:30:00] And in terms of the appropriation of culture, I think so we had this Namaste topic come up in, in a group that I’m part of online teachers. And there was a woman from India who was just an amazing teacher, a beautiful woman. And we were talking about whether we should say Namaste at the end of the practice.

[00:30:24] And she said, if it means hello, and I honor you, and if it doesn’t offend me. If you say that at the end of your practice, I understand your intention of why people are saying it. And that’s all she had to say about that. And as long as you have the right intention and luck, we’re talking about at the beginning of this question, when we have the intention of first for ourselves, that we want to try to be on this path of learning about ourselves and inquiring and loving and extending that to others.

[00:30:56] But then. When we do [00:31:00] teach, or we do learn, then we’re doing it with that intention of I’m doing this because I’m on a journey and I’m doing this because humans are on a journey. And if my intention is pure and I really put my hands together at the end of the class and I bow to you and the light in me honors the light in you.

[00:31:16] And that’s my true intention. Then that’s the, it’s more of the, are we practicing with this intention or are we just doing it? Without having an intention.

[00:31:27] Lily Allen-Duenas: Intention is everything. I really believe that as well. And I think it is even conscious of that intention to really spend some time reflecting on it and to not just toss things out without any thought or without any.

[00:31:43] Reflection. I think that’s perhaps, perhaps a little bit more dangerous, but with an intentional and shedding attention and intention on things. I think that’s key. So Jeni, I always like to ask every guest this one question, it’s a big one. So what is [00:32:00] your definition of yoga? 

What is your definition of yoga?

[00:32:02] Jeni Louise: For me and my journey, my personal journey of studying and practicing. Yoga is.

[00:32:10] There’s a really nice quote that I use all the time, which is from Sri Aurobindo and it’s one of my favorites. And he just simply says, all life is yoga. What he means by that is something that you could read, like a 700 page book about what that actually means in his philosophy. But the simplest thing that I took from that is that we’re all the time in yoga, we’re all the time United, we’ve all come from the same thing.

[00:32:34] And we’re all going to the same place. As spirits and also as physical forms as well, it’s all connected. There’s no, there’s a lot of empty space, but there’s no empty space. So yoga as in the union is all life as union it’s United. We don’t know necessarily what our part in that is. And sometimes it feels like everything’s completely divided and we are completely separate from everything else [00:33:00] or that the situation that we’re in.

[00:33:01] Is not the right thing that should be happening right now. There’s this catastrophe that’s happened or there’s suffering, that’s going on and it’s not right. It’s not, we’re distorting this thing or there’s this atmospheric collapse and all of these things, but actually the intelligence of the universe is more smart than we’ll ever understand.

[00:33:19] I think as human beings. And that’s the unifying field that we’re part of and whatever we do, we can never not be part of that. So whatever action we make, there’s always going to be a balancing reaction from someone else or somewhere else or something else in the universe. So it’s all yoga, it’s all United.

[00:33:39] It just depends on whether your yoga is conscious or unconscious in a way. So all life is this yoga that’s happening. Unconsciously it’s United, where we’re all part of this one organism in the universe, on the planet as a species, it’s one [00:34:00] organism. And then we have this gift of what we think is freewill and I’ll call it free will or choice that we can start to practice being more conscious of our choices and more conscious of our actions and our action in terms of karma.

[00:34:18] What intentions are we placing? What visions do we have for ourselves and for others in the future? Are we living in love? Are we consciously choosing love? Are we consciously choosing to be kind to each other or have compassion for our fellow human beings and all those things? When we are given these keys that open the doors to us, realizing little by little, these things, then we also have a choice whether we use them or not.

[00:34:43] And so in that way, all life is yoga. You’re always practicing yoga in a way, either being a part of the flow of the yoga or being part of the choice of the yoga. 

[00:34:57] Lily Allen-Duenas: So this has been so much fun. Jeni I’ve [00:35:00] loved every minute of it. I would love for our listeners to know how they can get in touch with you and what kind of offerings you have coming up.

Getting in touch with Jeni and her kinds of offerings 

[00:35:08] Jeni Louise: Okay. Lovely. Thank you so much, Lily. It’s been really a pleasure to listen to all your questions. So beautiful. And also a really nice reflection for me to talk about all of this that’s been contained inside of me. I don’t often talk that much about my own journey through yoga and understanding and learning.

[00:35:26] So it’s been just great. People can find Inner Healer 4D with the four and the D so basically that’s the defining feature of that. If you type it into Google with the 4D everything comes up the Instagram, the Facebook, YouTube and our website as well, which has got all of our courses, programs, trainings, and there’s a lot of free content on there as well, where people can practice and do challenges and meditations and all sorts of.

[00:35:56] Books and workbooks. And we’re also constantly putting new things on [00:36:00] there for people to keep the tools as accessible as possible. And for any kids yoga, my personal website is littleyogiuniverse.com and there’s a lot of books for children and resources and classes and workshops, depending if they can be online or they can be in real life.

[00:36:23] And the teacher training courses are also listed there as well. So the next one’s coming up in January and that will be starting on the eighth and will be for already qualified teachers or people who’ve got an established yoga practice for that teacher training to go deeper into flow and meditation philosophy and transformational yoga.

[00:36:49] Lily Allen-Duenas: Amazing. I will link to everything here in the show notes as well as on my website, wildyogatribe.com. So wherever you’re listening, just open the show notes and click away. Thank you so [00:37:00] much, Jeni, for joining me today for this conversation. I’ve so appreciated being with you. 

[00:37:05] Jeni Louise: Thank you so much, Lily. So grateful.

Wild Yoga Tribe Podcast Outro

[00:37:12] Lily Allen-Duenas: Thank you for tuning into this beautiful conversation with Jeni Louise, a yoga teacher from England who wrote a dissertation on the embezzlement of yoga. She’s taught yoga all over the world, and we shared a beautiful conversation about the acceptance and accessibility of yoga in England about her wellness business, Inner Healer 4D.

[00:37:35] And how she uses movement meditation, self inquiry, and self love to guide people to find their own inner healer for true lasting transformation. We talked about how observation is the biggest tool to use. And we talked a lot about her journey, her thoughts, her methodologies, and I felt so grateful to have this conversation.

[00:37:58] So thank you so much for tuning in to [00:38:00] the Wild Yoga Tribe podcast. Be well.

[00:38:08] Thank you for being on this journey with me, it has been a privilege to be with you. I know that your time is precious and I am both humbled and honored that you chose to spend your time with me here on the Wild Yoga Tribe podcast. As you’re on your own inner journey. Remember that you are not alone. There are so many of us on this path to awakening this path of self discovery and expansion.

[00:38:34] And we are right here alongside you. Remember to hit subscribe so that you never miss an episode. And if you feel called, please share this episode with someone that you think could benefit from it. Leaving a review would also be so appreciated. If you’re on social media, I am there too. At the Wild Yoga Tribe, you can tap into all the amazing [00:39:00] resources on my website the wildyogatribe.com.

[00:39:03] And you can meditate with me on Insight Timer and get your flow on with me on my YouTube channel, where I’ve recorded free yoga classes. If you would like to schedule a private yoga or meditation class with me or a coaching session, you can find the link to do so to book in the show notes or on my website.

[00:39:21] Again, the wildyogatribe.com. Thank you once again, dear listener for being with me, may your day be light and bright. May you be peaceful and happy and led on the right path, free of suffering and free of sorrow. Be well, dear one. Be well.

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