The Inner Fire of Yoga

Healing Through Yoga, Somatics, EFT & Reiki with Justine Janssen

• Liz Albanis • Season 1 • Episode 7

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Liz Albanis speaks with the inspiring Justine Janssen. A senior Australian yoga teacher.  Former owner of three yoga studios, mentor, retreat facilitator, and a lifelong student now training in holistic counselling and somatics. This heartfelt and powerful conversation is for yoga teachers, practitioners, and anyone interested in the deeper dimensions of yoga. Especially those curious about trauma-informed practice. The evolution of teaching styles, and how yoga helps us find resilience through change. Liz and Justine dive into the real and raw journey of being a teacher and student of yoga. From running packed power yoga studios. To finding grounding in personalised, somatic and one-on-one healing practices. Justine shares her path from Vinyasa to a more integrative and therapeutic approach. Reflecting on the need for nervous system awareness, authentic teaching, and deep inner listening.

Key Topics & Takeaways

  • Justine’s personal yoga journey
  • Why yoga isn’t about perfect poses, but about how we feel and relate to ourselves
  • The importance of adapting yoga for individual bodies and experiences
  • Moving from large studio classes to one-on-one and small group healing work
  • EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique), Reiki, and somatics explained in everyday terms
  • The evolution of teaching in a post-COVID world and why community still matters
  • Justine emphasises the importance of mindfulness in yoga
  • Advice for yoga teachers navigating professional or personal change and more!
  • Holistic wellbeing
  • Anchoring wisdom from the Yoga Sutras

https://www.australianreikiconnection.au/reik-in-australian-hospital-settings

https://australiantappinginstitute.com.au/

About Justine:

Justine is a highly regarded senior Australian yoga teacher. Justine has 20 years of yoga facilitation experience, inclusive of over a decade of owning and operating three of her own yoga studios. Throughout her career, Justine has developed and nurtured yoga communities, written and facilitated yoga teacher trainings, run retreats within Australia and internationally mentored yoga teachers. Worked one-on-one with clients and groups. Including corporate schools and Australian and local representative level sporting teams.

Connect with Justine:

https://www.remedydaily.org/

 https://www.lizalbaniswellness.com.au/plan

The content shared in these conversations is intended for informational and educational purposes only, and it is not suitable for listeners under the age of 18. Please use discretion and consult a qualified professional before making changes to your health or wellness routines.

If you’re interested in being a guest or know someone who might be head to my website: https://www.lizalbaniswellness.com.au/podcast

For bonus content Join the 3R Program: Regulate, Rebuild, Restore. Start your journey with a 14-day free trial and learn how to create a sustainable, personalised yoga practice that supports your mental health and nervous system.

https://www.lizalbaniswellness.com.au/plan

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 And what I became interested in was this ongoing unraveling of people's capacities and potentials and possibilities. Through their physical body that I would see and sense and be in dialogue with through my teaching to students on their maths. So I would be walking past someone in a yoga pose, and I would sense this deep physicality.

I think also through the aspects of understanding that none of us have the same physical experience going on because we are all made differently, and so there is not one way to do a yoga pose. It's fairly groundbreaking.

Welcome to The Inner Fire of Yoga, a podcast about transformation, resilience, and the power of  yoga beyond the mat. I'm Liz Albanis, senior yoga teacher and yoga therapist in training. This podcast was born in 2024 after I survived my second fire. Fire has been a recurring theme in my life, not just in the literal sense, but as a metaphor.

It has asked me to burn away what no longer serves me to transform and to rise stronger each time. This podcast is about that fire, the one that challenges us, but also fuels us to grow. The views and opinions expressed by guests on this podcast are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the host Liz Albanis.

The content shared in these conversations is intended for informational and educational purposes only, and it is not suitable for listeners under the age of 18. Please use discretion and consult a qualified professional before making changes to your health or  wellness routines. Welcome to the Inner Fire of Yoga Podcast.

Today I am joined by Justine Janssen. Justine is a highly regarded senior Australian yoga teacher. Justine has 20 years of yoga facilitation experience, inclusive of over a decade of owning and operating three of her own yoga studios. Throughout her career, Justine has developed and nurtured yoga communities, written and facilitated yoga teacher trainings, run retreats within Australia and internationally mentored yoga teachers, including myself, and worked one-on-one with clients and groups including corporate schools and Australian and local representative level sporting teams.

She brings a wealth of experience from her own yoga training, including training with Sarah Powers from Insight Yoga Jo Fee Power,  living Australia Yoga and Baptist Yoga, as well as clear-minded for life children's mindfulness teaching. A lifelong student. Justine is also a breath work teacher and is currently studying to be a holistic counselor and psychotherapist.

Recently, she has expanded her offerings to include one-on-one Reiki sessions as a pathway for personal and ancestral healing. Welcome, Justine. Hi, Liz. Thank you. Pleasure to have you today. It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you. I just would like to start Justine with sharing how you first discovered yoga and how it supported you through life's changes.

What a great question, Liz. I first discovered yoga kind of by accident. A friend dragged me along to a pregnancy class and that was how I first discovered it was in a little, uh, community college. We were put in a packed room of 20 odd pregnant women, and this beautiful friend of mine who was also pregnant at the time said, look, let's go.

It's gonna be so relaxing. It's gonna be great for us. She had three boys at the time, so I'm thinking she probably needed some time out. And it's there that I, it's there that I discovered yoga. Would you believe in a pregnancy aspect? Mm. Wow. And was that in Canberra or somewhere else? It was in South Canberra, in Ong area.

And yeah, a beautiful friend took me along. So that's how I first discovered it. And then from there, the way that it has really affected me and changed my life and what it's brought to my life, it's really profound. I, I think for me, the best way I can describe it is that yoga is like my ground. It's a real way for me to feel stability and to feel gravity, and it has been that important because in times where life has been on fast forward and might not have been consistent in its pace, yoga's really helped me physically, emotionally, mentally, in all of the ways for myself, just being a person in the world.

It's not. All roses. There's lots of different challenges and adversities that we all face day to day, and I think yoga has been, uh, such a beautiful ground to hold me when times have been tough as I've moved through a practice that had started in very hot classes, Vinyasa, uh, and I grew and learned to teach and.

Move my body and open myself up and explore all of the different ways that yoga adds to health in my body. I was also experiencing on levels that I would never have been able to grasp before starting just how much that affected my mental and emotional state and capacity. So I think yoga has been something that has held me in good mental health.

It has supported me in my body when I have been under stress or duress, and even in terms of just my day-to-day health. I've noticed over the years that there's been such a supportive aspect of yoga, just being in my life, uh, not getting sick as often, being more resilient in my body, within my organ systems, within my circulation, my lymphatic system.

Just all of the ways that I think sometimes we. Forget about and we just think that yoga's going to help us become more bendy. I think that, you know, me staying in it for so long has enabled me to see that that full blossoming of how much it can affect body and mind connection. A lot of us don't realize about that mind body connection until  we start practicing things like yoga.

Yeah. And the different responses. It gives us choices to. The way that even, uh, the physiological aspects of being able to breathe deeper to being able to breathe in different techniques, in different ways assists you with not only this physicality in health and wellbeing, but also. Really comes in through the way that we're able to breathe more deeply to the places within us that might not have been recognized.

So our emotional state, our mental state, the way we might do things in the world, we just start to be able to breathe better. Yeah. And that affects our whole health, the way we breathe, let's face it. And yoga helps us realize that one, that's what we want, isn't it? From our yoga practice. Helping us off the mat  in simple terms, someone comes up to you in the street and says, what is yoga?

Especially for those who feel it's not accessible and it's very misunderstood, I believe. Yeah, it's such a good question again, because we know yoga, being yoga teachers and from that kind of lens is quite a complex and deep practice. And I think it's kind of hard in some ways to actually define it simply because we come from that lens of knowing how deeply layered and complex it can be.

But when I think about it in terms of just meeting someone on the street and them asking me, I would simply turn to that definition of yoga. That is one of many definitions, but one that I really love, which is around that word union and at the deepest. Spiritual aspect and that level of yoga that allows us to reveal the self and the true essence of our being.

Ultimately, it's a process and a practice by which we come to realize there's no separation between anyone or anything. So yoga is union, yoga is relationship yoga. Is that oneness? That's a beautiful way of putting it. Amy Weintraub emphasizes that with anxiety and depression, that it's that separation that causes the suffering and we wanna reduce suffering with our yoga practice.

Yeah. And that's so known in our culture, in our society, in our world collective. That is the reality of the waters that we swim in these days. That there is quite a lot of that. Suffering that we are touched by. So what a beautiful thing to know that yoga can be a practice for us all. I met you, oh gosh, over 11 years ago or 12.

It's been a while. And at the time you were running at the first, when I met you, you had two yoga studios here in Canberra where I'm now living. And you went on to have three yoga studios, power Yoga Canberra. You taught large classes. Probably the largest classes I've ever been into actually. What was that chapter of your life like?

Well, that chapter of my life was amazing and really, I look back on it now and it's like a highlight reel. There was so many vibrant dynamic moments, so many moments of firsts for me, so much learning, so much growth. And so many beautiful moments of being in community and building friendships and beautiful professional relationships as well with peers.

So that time in my life, I was traversing new ground. I had been teaching for quite a while, but it was mostly in smaller opportunities. Uh, I'd been teaching in different. Little places where I would run a class and have that class and build consistency with the people that came along and consistency with turning up for teaching every week.

And that kind of gave me a really good solid stepping stone to open a studio. And from there on things just expanded quite quickly and it was that time before Yoga studios were the norm. There were places in Canberra that were open and were available per term or attend like I did at a college community space.

But because we had one of the first studios in Canberra, it kind of took off from there and became something that was really loved and embraced and welcomed by people that were looking forcommunity and looking for holistic practice. It really started to become something that grew in popularity. And we had heaters in the room how a yoga was probably the biggest draw card back then, and on a cold Canberra day, it was nothing nicer than coming in under a heater and being on your mat.

So that time in my life was a highlight reel. I look back, I still have friendships and peer relationships. That have grown and become deepened through that time. And it gave me so much experience in deepening myself, deepening my own practice, and I guess letting me find a deeper part of myself. And that's kind of where I am now, moving into practices that allow me to explore those deepening aspects of self.

It was a, would've been crazy busy running those studios. A lot of us don't realize the work that goes behind it. It was a very different time when you started. There was more yoga studios around. People were opening up studios rather than closing them. It sure was, and that made it really deeply satisfying work, Liz, for which I'm, I will be always profoundly grateful because to have deeply satisfying work is, is so beautiful.

And to be in work that fills people's cups and not just people's cups. My own cup was filled by such a glorious time is spent with this growth period for yoga in Canberra. And it was hard work and at the same time I was in my mid to late thirties and was well up for it. It was the right time, right place for me.

Yeah. I'm grateful you opened those studios. It was a great opportunity for me to come as a student and discover Vinyasa yoga, 'cause I'd been in the Bikram bubble. And more about yin and that gave me one of my first teaching opportunities to teach yin yoga. So it was fantastic. You've been a great mentor for me, so thank you for that.

Thank you. It was wonderful having you and many others as part of our community. You as a beautiful community you created too. So you've been teaching for a long time. I'd be surprised if your teaching style hasn't changed due to experience and training. So could you just talk about how your style has changed?

Especially because there's more research that's come out. When I did my first teacher training, there wasn't as much trauma awareness with adjustments. Not that adjustments just a small part of it. And your teaching may have changed in other ways. I know For me with after studying with Joe Phee. I learned about skeletal variation as she's a student and assistant to Paul Grilley, and my teaching changed a lot in 2017 because of it.

I just wondered how your teaching style has evolved over the years. I think that my teaching style has really expanded because of the factors that you just spoke about. The way there has been an ongoing and upgrading of information and the sharing of information has become more fluid through our online systems and through, uh, beautiful teachers that travel internationally to come and see us in teach in person, and we gain so much beautiful experience from them.

I think for me there's been big changes as far as the trauma-informed aspects. More invitational rather than mandated. It's definitely a good thing. I think also through the aspects of understanding that none of us have the same physical experience  going on because we are all made differently, and so there is not one way to do a yoga pose.

It's fairly groundbreaking and to be able to really see, rather than just look. To be able to see past textbook ways of doing things and to be able to bring to life the aspect of being human on the map. So being able to teach to deeper philosophy, to be able to understand that within our experience. Not everyone knows stuff about Vedic history or.

History of yoga, but we can certainly bring in the modern day things that we're all aware of and working with, and to be able to give people valuable tools through the teaching of philosophy that's still really, really apparent and really relevant in this day and age. So I think  through the understanding of anatomy and how anatomy and teaching anatomy in classes has changed, I think through the trauma informed piece I.

And being very aware and present as a yoga teacher to the spaces that we teach in and whom we might have in our classes, and thus being invitational, uh, and as well as the philosophy piece and just bringing it through in irrelevance that we all need to hear when we're on the map. It certainly makes classes a lot more meaningful and powerful.

When we can theme it and weave that in. And that was one of the wonderful things I loved when I came to your studio was your teachers weaved that in. And that was different for me, weaving that philosophy. And I thought it makes the class so much more powerful. And that was the reason I did a 200 hour training with Power Living because I admired it.

The way your  teachers and yourself taught. A lot of Vinyasa teachers worry about boring students and feeling the need to make up all these fancy dance routines on the mat. But as Duncan Peak has said, it's often the teachers that get bored and it's nice to keep it simple and not get carried away. 'cause we can lose that mindfulness and philosophy when we spend so much time trying to memorize the sequence.

So that was a mistake I've made in the past. Yeah, and look, I think it comes out of it being a dynamic practice. There's often a lot of enthusiasm in this space. There can be an aspect of needing to give more or feeling like there has to be some kind of performance value that's added in if you're a teacher.

And harking back to days at Power Living. Yeah. That's where I really learned to be able to teach in a soulful way, in a way where philosophy. Was distilled into ] a modern day relevance where I was able to understand how these beautiful, ancient historical teachings were still relevant in my own life. And so having the experience of teaching with teachers like Duncan Peak and Keenan Crisp and many wonderful other teachers that were there right at the beginning of Power Living's journey, and I believe still are.

It was imperative to me just learning how do weave philosophy, uh, and how to bring things forward that were gonna be of value to the students that I had on the map. Yeah, that's great. So with decades of experience, what's your advice for yoga teachers navigating change personally or professionally? My advice would be to set aside integration time weekly.

Because life is full. There's a lot going on.Most of the time. Life has a way of moving us forwards. That's what life's about. And I think sometimes if we are navigating our own practice, our careers, our teaching lives, our families, our living situations, our financial situations, all of those things. To be able to honestly turn up as a teacher, the integration time is invaluable.

Time for your own practice. Time to sit in practices that allow you room, space, and stillness, and a chance to get off that conveyor belt to actually feel in and be able to sense. Alignment for yourself. If I'm moving in professional realms, am I aligned here? Is this, is this space for me? Does it speak to the truest aspects of the essence of me as a teacher?

And that's just one little tidbit of information. There's so many different things I could say, but I think that if there's time for integration, then there's time to be able to come from your most authentic and aligned space, and that's really important. So you can hold space for your students. Yeah. And take care of yourself while you're doing it.

Yeah, because you can't pour from an empty cup. That's the one. Yeah. That's why I took some time off last year. I couldn't hold space and I needed to prioritize myself and my family, so that's important. So we've touched on changes in the yoga industry already. You may have some other ones, but are there some other changes you'd like to see in the future or things that you're concerned about in the industry?

Look, things have grown and expanded and become  in lots of ways, lots more accessible, a lot more accessible. So in doing that. Having a yoga practice that's a lot more accessible, it means that we can be anywhere in the world and access a yoga practice. And for people that are starting out on the journey, you know, it's great, right?

Because it's right at our fingertips. But I wonder sometimes about how much value is actually being taken from a practice that. Is just over the screen. And is there a way that if it is just over the screen, that there can also be an added benefit of being able to touch in with a teacher that's really present to you, even if it is over the screen?

So it's about the quality, I think, of what we're receiving that really needs to be  addressed. And because there's so much. To choose from so many different pathways of yoga that we might like to investigate and explore at some stage. Having a teacher that is present in the flesh, one-on-one or small group interaction is really crucial for that kind of immersion.

That yoga needs to be able to plant deep roots in us from the seed that is sown. The roots need to grow and they need to be nourished. And I feel that if we can get in touch with a teacher that's present, whether it's over the screen or face-to-face and face-to-face, that's the best case scenario. I'd love to see more of that on offer.

Yeah, it can be nice to have one-on-one time or small groups because they can attend to your needs better and help you out more. Whereas if you're in a huge class, it's harder. Or if you're just turning on YouTube, you don't  know which classes might be suitable for you and you don't get any feedback. So I can see where you're coming from there.

Yes. And traditionally yoga is a practice that was passed down and there's so much that goes into that. It's not just the fact that it was individualized, but it, it was also passed down with such care. Like a loving recipe that your grandmother might pass down to you, like her favorite, uh, apple pie, which becomes your favorite apple pie because it's got all the right ingredients.

It's imperative that when we are seeking to know ourselves better and discover a deeper inner world connection through mind and body, that there is some kind of touchstone there. The teacher is mostly what we would call the touchstone there because that is what our teaching and learning pivots around that that is really tangible and accessible in a way that isn't just flatpack on on a screen.

That we're able to actually spend time that is explorative where we're able to discover, feel. And connect. Yeah. Many of us forget that or don't realize that it was handed down one-on-one. There was no such thing as going to a yoga class. I just remember listening to a podcast with Paul Grilley the other day and him emphasizing that when he started practicing yoga in the 1970s, it wasn't such a thing as going to a yoga class.

He read a book. He started practicing. And people just forget this or don't realize it. And yoga classes are very much a modern thing, just like downward facing dog is. People grapple with that. I. Even people like me who started off with classes, like most of us ready to release stress, relax your mind and restore your energy.

What brought you to studying somatics and exactly what you mean by somatics? For those listeners who don't know what that means. Sure. Yeah, it's, it's one of those words that's becoming more common, but not everyone would be familiar. Somatic is just a way of describing physical. It's just a way of us entering into a discussion that can start to open us up to all of the definitions of what the physical is.

Because we have this wonderful body, we have these amazing inner intelligences that live within us. So I guess it's this. Ever expanding, uh, definition that can open us up to all of the ways that we experience the physical. And, and that's my understanding, at least through the experience that I've had of the word somatic.

And I discovered somatic work really through yoga. Of course. Before yoga, I was a pt, so I was always working in that  somatic realm without realising that that word was in fact a definition. And what I became interested in was this ongoing unraveling of people's capacities and potentials and possibilities through their physical body that I would see and sense and be in dialogue with through my teaching to students on their maths.

So I would be walking past someone in a yoga pose. And I would sense this deep physicality. It could have been a ana, something that, you know, really challenges a student and asks for that deep grounding and strong sense of body connection through the feet into the earth. And I would sense that there was this physical body here on the mat.

There was this amazing human here with their willpower and their vision, their connection to their  body and their connection to their breath. I realized that there was much more in, in play than just skin and bones in a heartbeat, and it made me really want to delve into more deeply this somatic way of teaching and experiencing and being able to bring dialogue to that so that that people, uh, students perhaps on their mat would be able to have an experience that they might not have had words to previously.

But through my own connection to somatic teaching and work, I could bring forward as a possibility for them to understand themselves. And there's so many therapists out there today that won't treat patients unless they're doing somatic work. Like Bessel VanDerKolk who wrote a book on how our body holds trauma.

Did that lead you to pursuing holistic counseling? Was it something else?  Yeah. You know, Liz, I think that is the pathway for me. The experience through yoga really made me hunger for more of that experiential knowledge. And so, uh, in times of lockdown and COVID and really kind of screen oriented learning, I started to go towards courses that were taking me down that somatic path.

And from there on in, I started working with things like breath work and learning to become a facilitator and a teacher of breath work. Also, working with practices where you sit in ceremonial circles and you're able to have experiences with, for example, the medicine of cacao. And then, yeah, as part of my journey of deepening into my own inner world and really desiring to be able to offer those things to students, I discovered holistic counseling and psychotherapy.

And that's kind of where I'm at now, along with my Reiki, which I also do.  So you are working one-on-one a lot with clients now incorporating Reiki, somatics, EFT, Chinese Medicine. More. Can you just explain what EFT is for those who don't know what it is? Yeah. EFT is emotional freedom technique. I've been using that with students really successfully to be able to, uh, work with their beliefs, their emotions, and the connections, uh, with different meridian points within the body and tapping so.

When we tap on certain points in our body, as per Chinese medicine also supports with their theory, there's stimulation at these certain points that are linked through our body, uh, with our inner health. And these inner health pathways might relate to different organs and their qualities might relate to different pressure points that  affect us in physical, mental, emotional ways.

And by tapping on them, we've got suddenly. This, uh, beautiful interaction that we're able to self instigate to be able to bring forwards, perhaps a challenging, uh, situation for ourselves. And we might speak that out loud and we might then voice in that moment as we're tapping. What exactly we desire to have happened with it.

Perhaps it's just this is how it is at the moment. And at the moment I'm okay, you know, this is how it is at the moment. And at the moment I desire this to be different. And so in doing this, it's, you know, this, this beautiful, uh, interweaving of our own inner connection coming to life and for us to be able to.

Participate in steering that ship in a way that feels most aligned for us. That's beautiful. Are you able to give listeners an example of how it has helped someone, this technique of EFT? Mm. Look, sure. I mean, I could probably just use myself as an example, to be honest. I was working recently with, uh, something that had come up in meditation for me.

Around a way of dealing with certain challenges and a pattern, a samskara, a samskara, a pat, a pattern that I've had for quite some time as patterns go, you know, they, they normally initiated way back, who even knows? And a certain pattern that I had was really limiting my ability to, to be able to kind of be in life in my most vital, dynamic way.

And so. In being able to kind of identify this through the, the beauty of meditation, of just noticing, basically integrating, having time and space and some stillness that I talked about earlier, and then working with a technique that was so of the body, I'm tapping on my own body and then I'm calling this pattern out and it was around my fear.

This particular pattern was a way I would react in fear. I would, within the patterning of the EFT practice, there's an announcing of what's happening. So at the moment, I'm feeling fearful. I recognize this as a pattern when I'm dealing with X, and so I would put that in there. And once I had moved through the whole cycle three times, tapping on various points around the head, neck, upper body.

I took a breath as I came to the end and realized that I could no longer contact the original fear and feeling that I had come into the practice with. And then what that has meant since is that that particular challenge for me is no longer charged up. I no longer have that same charge. To the situation that is the trigger, and sometimes it takes more than one go.

I can tell you that it took definitely more than one go with this. This is, I've been working on this for a little while, but it kind of comes to an accumulation and a tipping point with these practices. Where if you do the work for a little while, you will see the results. And for me that means a better quality of life.

It means that I'm able to engage more fully, and it means that I'm not going through mental anguish or emotional upset in the way that was prior, interwoven and enmeshed with this particular pattern. Samskara, as you said, Liz. So you're getting it out of the body because we store issues in our tissues and that's why it's important to work physically with the body, not just talk therapy and things like that.

Uh, and so that's just another modality the way EMDR is and, uh, trauma release exercises from David Belli and yeah. That's lovely. Yeah. So much wisdom from all of those practices and yeah, it comes down to how we process it through the body. Yeah. That's beautiful. Do you have any heartwarming stories to tell of overcoming a difficult experience when teaching yoga?

Because a lot of yoga teachers think when they've had a student walk out on them or something that it only happens to them or there's something wrong with them, but. We're not everyone's cup of tea. And, uh, I don't believe there's any teachers here in the world who are loved by everyone. I've known some world renowned teachers where people have walked out on them.

I'm just wondering if you had any encouraging stories of growth there. Look, there's certainly stories that I could share with you that, uh, have the certain flavor of, of what you're alluding to. I know that I have been teaching in classes and there may have been a situation, uh, where there's been something that's being processed on the mat or, and walking out of the room processing emotional content or something that has arisen for someone.

Coming out of their life and the busyness and everything else that goes on for us and arriving in a yoga room to suddenly have a very self-reflective experience and need to let that go. And so within that space. I know as I've been holding the space, being the teacher and having a big class, as you spoke of in the back in the day in the studios in Canberra, we  had two studios that would hold 60 and 50, and then another one that would hold 40.

And there were these moments where you could say there was a real potential of being rattled as a teacher. Mm. And. You know, yoga in itself has the medicine. So us as yoga teaches, as we come in to teach and step into the space and stand up the front and use our words, and use our rapport and our connection and our ability to challenge, we are going to see it all.

And so as yoga teaches, we've got the perfect way of being able to work with it because we've got this practice of yoga that grounds us and gives us stability. For me, I think one of the biggest practices in yoga that helped me with most things was the ability to be able to witness and to be able to watch, be Shakshi, be the witness.

Yes.  Sakshi be the witness. And to be in that place of noticing even midstream as I'm teaching, that someone's having an emotional release, someone is walking out of the space. To be able to hold the space for everyone else yet make an individual connection is a skill not always possible either because we've got this mouth that's teaching and then we're needing to check in with someone else verbally, and sometimes it's more of a look or more of a connection through touch if that relationship's appropriate for that.

So I think the ability to witness as a yoga teacher and to stay present. To what's needed. Another teaching in meditation and mindfulness is to be present in yoga Drishti. Mm. Keep your gaze at a, at a place has been really imperative. So I've had those circumstances where there might have been something that could have been a disturbance.

Maybe even it has been a disturbance. But if we in ourselves as teachers are not disturbed and are able to hold the group dynamic and or also attend to whoever's needing it or, and trust. Whomever is in the space knows that there is enough stability that they can go out and come back and resume if possible, when possible it can happen in a class.

I've known of students to cry in class. I think that's more common than a lot of people realize, and it's normal, but it can be challenging for new teachers or just teachers to deal with that appropriately. So it's something to try to prepare for because it could easily happen in a class and we're going to have classes that we find more challenging than others.

It can be something to marinate on and to take time to digest and reflect on sometimes. Yeah, it's a big subject,  isn't it, Liz? And there's so many different scenarios and you know, even just describing this one, we don't quite even touch on the level of. Complexity that could come through, but what I think I'm touched by when I'm with a teacher and I'm the student, and if there is something going on, whether it's for the teacher or someone else in the space, is just the sincere intention that that teacher would hold in the space.

That's often enough for an awkwardness or for a a disturbance or something that's challenging. To be able to be gently held is the teacher's sincere intention for whatever is happening to be held in a space of care. Yeah, that's true. If they're sincere. Yeah. If you could give your 20-year-old self advice now, is there anything you'd, any one thing you'd say that you'd like to share with the audience today that you  would tell yourself?

Start yoga now. Yeah, I would do the same. I didn't start until my thirties really, so as soon as I realized just what I was missing out on, I, I really jumped in both feet and totally immersed in my yoga, in my yoga life. But I really wish I had have discovered it earlier. And I would also say to that 20-year-old, don't rush it.

I would say take the time to integrate your experiences. Be loving and caring with yourself because the experiences are not for the faint-hearted. We're in this life where in different societies, there's so much of our culture that really needs to be, uh, nurtured. You could say and looked after and really held with all of the many changes that are happening on the planet.

And it's not an easy life, but it is a rich life. And so integrate your experiences as much as you can so that the forward movement of life doesn't always have you on the back foot and you trying and trying to get somewhere. Take a moment. Take take in the view. Take a breath. That sounds similar to what I tell myself.

Can you just share with me and the listeners what you're currently offering and why it's exciting to you? Well, thank you for that opportunity to share. I'm now living on the South coast, so I'm uh, two hours south of Sydney in the Berry area. And I, as well as doing my holistic counseling and psychotherapy study, I am offering some reiki one-on-one.

I'm offering some mentoring for yoga teachers, one-on-one. And I'm also working with somatic, uh, experiencing or somatic movement, uh, through. Having moments of connection with people. So people might come in and book an appointment with me, and that might be a Reiki appointment, and then there might be some things that kind of come out through that dialogue and through that one-on-one appointment that allow me to work with people in that somatic uh, and mentoring way.

It just depends on what's needed really. But at the moment it's a lot of reiki. So working with people's body, mind, connection and also allowing there to be this beautiful flow of, of energy that is instigated through, through reiki, the reiki energy and just being able to hold people in their highest potentials.

So a bit of talk therapy here and there as I'm working, uh, in my student capacity with people. But also this beautiful backdrop of some somatics, reiki and a little bit of yoga and mentoring. That's lovely. And can you just elaborate on what Reiki energy is for those who are not familiar? So reiki is an energy of its own, it's a universal life force energy.

And its tradition, or its its background, is Japanese. Uh, and I have been, uh, working with a wonderful teacher up in, uh, neutral Bay called Samantha Avery, who teaches the Yui, uh, tradition. Macau Yui was one of the, or, well, the original man who was able to access this, uh, particular experience that he had on a mountaintop in regards to receiving energy.

And it was called Reiki. And he opened many schools and uh, started to be able to offer reiki as a treatment to people in Japan. And from there, the ability to increase one's energy and then experience different benefits to that like healing, that became really well known. And many people have trained under Yui system.

To learn about reiki. So reiki can be hands on. It can be hands off, but it is basically someone who has been trained and you've gotta move through the system of Reiki one and Reiki two to actually be able to be, uh, working with people. And from there on in, you're able to assist people with their energy and their potential to, to heal.

And what sort of benefits have you seen? I've had a client who has had knee issues for quite some time. There was a particular issue that she'd been diagnosed with, particularly one of her knees, and with one session on working with that, it started to really relieve her symptoms, and I've seen her a few times since, just for  top-ups as we call them.

And with that particular issue, if we just kind of zero in on that particular client, it's helped her just regain her mobility to a level where she's able to walk around and not be in discomfort 24 7. So that's been quite amazing for her. I've experienced and seen and heard from clients, just I guess their own happiness at being able to feel as if their body has more aliveness within it.

So that. Energetic, uh, feeling of being able to meet your day in all of the ways coming through by regularly coming to Reiki and just living life with more energy. Like if they've had particular things go on that have created a block for them somewhere in their bodies, maybe it's even a thought pattern.

Reiki just works on all of the different ways that the body. Uh, it gets a little bit cluttered up, let's say, with the content of life and what we tend to hold onto. I never knew it could help with physical pain, but that's amazing. Yeah. There is such a thing as medical reiki now, so there's a lot of research on reiki.

I would urge anyone who's interested to have a look at the Australian Reiki connection site, they have some amazing research that's being done on reiki and there are probably about. Half a dozen hospitals in Australia that are using Reiki practitioners in their operation rooms. So medical reiki is something that is, is happening.

That's incredible. I had no idea about that. You've also done some collaborations with Embodied Wellbeing. Yes, I have. That's my dear friend, Rebecca Passey and myself. The inception for Embodied Wellbeing started in 2018. And we ran a couple of teacher trainings and a couple of retreats, and then with COVID decided to offer what we could in a really heartfelt, beautiful way online.

And so we have amazing programs that can be, uh, clicked on and read through and purchased with live recordings, both video and audio. Just to be able to enhance your experience, whether it is as a student teacher or an established teacher. Embody Wellbeing was a business that we put together, uh, to be able to really assist people in their own personal growth.

And you did some 200 hour teacher trainings with Rebecca as well? Yes, I did. Yeah. When we first started in body Wellbeing and what was really important to us was. Opening up an opportunity for people who wanted to become yoga teachers to do so in a way that was more than just book knowledge and book read, but really being able to embody the teaching,  embody the philosophy, embody the deeper knowings.

And so we rolled out a 200 hour teacher training and also an 85 hour yin yoga teacher training. So those programs are still alive and well, and Rebecca's just delivered one up in the New England area of Australia, so I'm looking forward to working with her again soon. And you might well see some Embodied Wellbeing programs being offered live in Australia.

Oh, that's fantastic. That's good to know. What does success feel like to you now compared to earlier in your journey? Well, for me, success. Feels so much more calm, peaceful, yet dynamic and vibrant in a way that I think was different when I was running three studios in Canberra because of that forward movement of life and really finding it difficult to touch in for any period of time.

Now I'm able to integrate a lot of my past experiences and also really be moved with the flow of life in a way that I feel aligned. The deepening of my own practices has resulted in me bringing more practices in which I can facilitate, which really just feels more holistic for me. So. Success feels holistic.

It feels like I can feel it in my own body through my own sense of health and wellness. In my mind, body connection. It makes sense too. So lastly, is there a bit of yoga philosophy, like a sutra quote, a mantra or insight that continues to anchor you in your your life?  Well, I've got two for you, Liz. Mm-hmm.

And for your listeners. The first one is sutra, one of the sutures from the yoga sutures of Patanjali. Bless her soul. I'd like to think she was a woman and the transliteration of Sutra 1 33, which is by cultivating attitudes of friendliness towards the happy compassion for the unhappy. The light in the virtuous and disregard towards the wicked The mind stuff retains its undisturbed calmness.

So that was the first one that I had on offer for you. More of a traditional way of looking at things. Hmm. And then the other was a quote that I saw once in a photography book that I really loved. And, uh, it's been in a couple of my teacher training manuals over the years. And it's by David De and it's very simple.

It's very short.  It's it. It is. Don't just look truly. See. Oh yeah, I haven't heard of that one. That's great. It comes from his book called Within the Frame, the Journey of Photo Photographic Vision. Yeah. You'd have to really see to be a good photographer, wouldn't you? Yeah. Good photographer notices, stuff that your average person doesn't to have that gift.

I think. Thank you so much for coming on my new podcast, Jote. So it's been wonderful to have you on here today. Thanks so much, Liz. It's been a pleasure. Thank you for joining me on podcast. I hope today's episode has left you feeling inspired and informed and empowered to take meaningful steps towards your wellbeing.

If there's a topic you'd like me to cover, or if you'd like to share your story, I'd love to hear from you. Just fill in the form on the podcast page of my website. Your voice is an important part of this journey. I want this podcast to reflect. The conversations that matter most to my listeners. If today's episode resonated with you, please share it with someone who might benefit from these conversations.

Don't forget to subscribe. It helps grow this incredible community of resilience and support. Until next time, take care of yourself and never forget the power, th

People on this episode

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Liz Albanis

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Justine Janssen

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