High Vibe Living with Tara Schulenberg and Brit Deanda (EP#39)

Mason:  ... Britt and Tara, welcome. Thank you so much for coming and joining me on the Pod.

 

Britt:  Thank you, thank you for having us.

 

Tara:  We're so happy to be here.

 

Mason:  Absolute pleasure. Okay, so you are elevating the globe. First of all, where are you? Where are you coming from? I think I never established that.

 

Britt:  We're in Los Angeles and we live closer to the beach and the South Bay.

 

Mason:  In the South Bay? Okay. Is that near like Manhattan Beach?

 

Britt:  Yes.

 

Mason:  Okay, I had you around that area. I like going down there.

 

Tara:  The beach is beautiful and we're actually recording from Manhattan Beach now and Britt lives in El Segundo.

 

Britt:  Yeah, so it's a little more slower paced over here, maybe similar to ... [inaudible 00:00:37] ... I've never been, but yeah, it's just a little bit more of a slow-paced, relaxed atmosphere here.

 

Mason:  I don't think you guys had it in the States, but I was walking along, it was like three weeks ago I was there, I went for a body surf, but I was walking along the boardwalk there where everyone was roller blading and I was like my gosh, I know this scene. And we had this game, really old school game when we were like five called California Games. There'd be like hacky sack and rock climbing and surfing, just like really, really terrible.

 

Mason:  But I was like oh my gosh, I recognize this place. This is where it was on Hermosa Beach. So yeah, I feel really connected to the place. Okay, so you're in Manhattan now. I like it down there. It seems like it's a nice little ... I mean all of L.A.'s a bubble. I want to hear about what you're offering and what you're doing with Elevate the Globe, but especially in context of there in L.A. and in Manhattan Beach, is there something in that whole area, is there something in particular going on that you feel that people are yearning for or just like missing in general day-to-day life that's driven what you do?

 

Britt:  I like that question.

 

Tara:  Yeah.

 

Britt:  You know, Elevate the Globe was essentially founded on our own healing journeys and just really feeling excited and passionate and compelled to share. Basically combining all these different modalities and healing practices to create a lifestyle that really transformed our life, so that's really what it was built upon and has just grown, but it's interesting, because your question about Los Angeles was kind of a secondary piece of Elevate the Globe.

 

Britt:  It really started more because there is so much Kundalini here and there is so much wellness here and people are really focused on the mind and the body and just elevating their health and what we felt like was that we wanted it also to be accessible in the small towns in America and the different cities and the different countries that maybe didn't have as much access to it, so essentially for Kundalini yoga, where it's huge in L.A., it's huge in London, it's huge in New York, and I know parts of Australia.

 

Mason:  Yeah, it's massive. I was doing Kundalini 10 years ago, loving it back then.

 

Britt:  Okay.

 

Tara:  Yeah.

 

Britt:  You know, not as much, we were hearing, especially just from family and friends, not as much in other areas, so that's really what kind of compelled us to start doing these practices online, but now we really have been able to form a strong community here and we do find it really nice and inspiring and motivating to have a lot of people here who are really conscious and do have the same ideals and mindset that we do.

 

Tara:  Well, and I guess just to answer your question of what you think people might be yearning for or missing, it does kind of feel like people have been doing yoga for a long time, but maybe not something like Kundalini yoga and have been moving their body and really using it as a workout and definitely, they've noticed a shift in their mind, but it's getting them only so far and they're looking for something to propel them forward fast.

 

Tara:  And then, Kundalini kind of shows up in their pathway and so, they're kind of ready to go deeper into their spiritual world and that's when we kind of come in and have the Kundalini. Like this will take you to another level real fast.

 

Mason:  Yeah, nice.

 

Tara:  Because it's the mother of all yogas and it was ancient, over 5,000 years old and it was like the first yoga, so all other yogas were stemmed from the Kundalini yoga and it works on your 10 bodies and it works on every aspect of you, not just your body or just your mind. It works on all of it.

 

Mason:  I really love that the practice ... I remember reading Yogi Budgen and how much of a badass he was back in the day. He was the one that got me into cold water therapy and all that kind of stuff. He was real holistic guy. What I'm curious ... because I'm fascinated by the Kundalini community. I've kind of like ejected myself out of the yoga community, just because I wasn't able to actually give ... I just realized I was like really scraping the surface of what yoga philosophy really was and because I had other things going on, I couldn't really justify teaching, because I couldn't be in it, I couldn't be like balls deep in the yoga philosophy.

 

Mason:  What I'm curious about is how do you see this Kundalini practice, of course, it's been done very successfully in some areas and very unsuccessfully, I'd say, in others where we're bridging yoga into the West. How do you support a Western mind or how have you observed Western Culture adopting Kundalini in a way that you feel is really practical, really honoring the way that it was done in antiquity? Is there anything ... I don't know exactly what I'm asking, but I'm curious about that world about that crossover.

 

Britt:  Yes, that's something that was really big for us when we first started and continued to be something that we feel was really important to help people with, because I think when you're bringing in these ancient practices like the herbs that you work with or the Kundalini or whatever it is, bringing it into the modern world is just a whole different scenario and while all of these truths completely ring true it's like we also have to adapt them to what's going on right now and I think a lot of times, things that Yogi Budgen said, I wonder what he would say about that now.

 

Britt:  And I know especially he was such a visionary and he did predict and discuss so much of what's happening now long before it actually came to fruition, but I think for us, we're really just trying to share how we incorporate it into our modern lives. Like you said, in a practical way, so it's not kind of this abstract concept that's actually not going to work for somebody that has a job and has a family or whatever it is.

 

Britt:  For us, kind of the easiest way that we do it personally and a lot of what we share is to just start of small, one, and for us, kind of the one thing that is our non-negotiable and that's one of the most important things is to just have a morning practice and really just start our day with some yoga, some meditation, some breath work and mantra and just really tune our bodies and vibration up first thing, so that we can really be living in that energy and from a conscious, high-vibrational place throughout the day.

 

Britt:  And we find that when we just focus on that first, then everything else kind of flows and we're able to attract more and more of this ancient lifestyle into our modern-day lives. That's kind of our main focus, just get in that morning practice and just stick there and then, you'll be able to handle a lot more and have a lot more energy to kind of build upon that.

 

Mason:  And I'm curious, how does the morning practice go ... maybe I can get some advice, how does it go with a three year old?

 

Tara:  Oh my gosh, that's a good question for Britt.

 

Britt:  Yeah, so I have a three year old, so yeah, she has gotten pretty used to it at this point and sometimes, she does join in, but it's kind of just with an underlying understanding in my family that when we all wake up, because she wakes up very early, like literally sometimes 4, 4:30, 5 a.m.

 

Mason:  True Kundalini.

 

Britt:  Yes. She just goes in the other room. A lot of times my husband is with her and they'll be making breakfast or playing or doing whatever and she just kind of knows to give me that space now, so it wasn't always like that. When she was younger, it was harder and it still can be hard some days, but even if I just get in a little bit or a couple meditations, it's better than nothing and I feel like it's good for her to kind of see and I see her start to do some breath or incorporate it in little ways already.

 

Mason:  Yeah, beautiful. I love it. Yeah, it's a juggle having a toddler and maintaining that personal practice, right? I've really realized watching Tawney, so Tawney, my fiance, she's had two yoga studios, she's especially in that yin yoga world. I talked to her just so much about yogi philosophy and bringing it over to the West and so much about an adaptable meditation practice.

 

Mason:  One thing I kind of remember about Kundalini, I'm loving this opportunity to talk to you and I hope you can just entertain me in these questions that I'm throwing your way, because I see you having quite a nice humble and as you said practical approach to this Kundalini practice, which I don't know if it's because once something becomes cool, I have an aversion towards it whether it's just I actually saw something, but you know when something starts picking up steam like even with my own business, Adaptogens, I'm like oh, not using that word anymore when it becomes trendy. With Kundalini, because obviously it did become trendy and it seems to have been navigated fairly well, although I'm sure you see people wrapping themselves in their egoic identity within Kundalini itself like people would do with anything.

 

Mason:  I'm curious about that bridging of meditative practice. Kundalini seems to be quite adaptable in terms of which crea or which style of meditation you are using that's going to directly impact your life and where exactly you're at. It's not necessarily like a martial arts belt system where you just go higher and higher and higher. Can you talk a little bit about that and whether I'm nailing it there or whether it's a little bit different than what I'm understanding?

 

Tara:  That's correct, just in general, to kind of step back, Kundalini yoga was meant to be like Yogi Budgen called it the householder's yoga, so it is kind of meant to be a mainstream yoga, even though it's a really ancient practice. We have to think of it as how blessed we are that we have this practice that was only literally given to like the kings back in ancient times, because it was so powerful that we know what they are and can sit down for three minutes and do a Kundalini meditation that may have taken 10-20 years for a yogi to download. We can do it in three minutes and press play on a video and go okay, I have the ability to be able to do that right now.

 

Tara:  I look at it that way instead of it being so trendy and I love that it's trendy, because of the day and age that we're in right now where it's the age of Aquarius, it's the age of information and experience and we're thrown so much stuff our way every day and bombarded with so much information and thoughts that we have and everything changes so fast. Everything changes faster in a day than something like 10 years or something back in the day, you know? It's like we can just have information at our fingertips and there's just so much more available, so it helps us to be able to cope.

 

Tara:  It's like a tool for us to be able to deal with the amount of energy that's here on our planet and tune the body up to be able to handle it just like how you are toning your internal organs with the tonic herbs, it's toning up and tuning up your body and your energetic field to be able to handle everything that we're dealing with on the planet, so I want it to be trendy, I want it to be trendy with people understanding that there is depth and breadth to the Kundalini, it's like there is the depth that you can go with it within yourself.

 

Tara:  It's also that there's thousands of creas, which is just sets of exercises, creas, and they are for different things, so if you have anger, there's a meditation or crea for that. If you want to move the lymph system in the body, you want to move your lymph out, it's like there's a crea for that. If you want to balance out your ridge chakra or all of your chakra, there's meditations for that. There's full-on liver and digestion creas that literally move so much energy that you have stomach pains. It's just a really special thing that we are able to access and we've never been able to do that until the last 50-60 years, it's just not been available.

 

Tara:  And so, it's surfaced and resurfaced, because tools like this that are ancient, resurface when there's a need for us to kind of get back to our roots, because there's so much information, we need to be grounded in the earth and in our roots and so, things like tonic herbalism, things like Kundalini yoga and just yoga in general used to be a way of life that people lived. It wasn't like a lifestyle that we can choose now, it was just how people lived.

 

Tara:  And so, it's coming back up so that we can start syncing with the planet again and being able to handle all of this information in this day and age of moving from the 3D to the 4D to the 5D, but being able to literally just keep up and handle it, you know?

 

Britt:  Yeah, to kind of add on what you were saying, Mason about just the egoic part of it and kind of like the trendy part of it that can hold that kind of energy, I think that's also really important to us to try as much as possible to not have that be present personally and just through our teachings, because I think that's kind of the key that you hit on there is like if we can help these kinds of practices to the masses without the ego and without doing it just because it's on trend or for some other motive, then I truly believe that these are the things that will heal the planet and we're in a time right now where Mother Earth is crying and we want to really be a part of the solution and we really do believe that it starts with all of the individuals, each of us and just spreading these kinds of practices as far as we can.

 

Mason:  I appreciate both those responses. And something that just came up there was the depth and breadth of the practice. One thing I always did like about Kundalini is you couldn't escape the physical arsenal, but generally had real strong intent, which I like when you just went through several creas and the intention behind them. It's just like that's rad. I really always did appreciate that, but you couldn't really bypass the breath work and the meditative work, which of course, happens a lot in the yogi scene, which is fine. A lot of people just want to move their bodies and exercise, but it's something you have mentioned, philosophy like Kundalini, I did always appreciate.

 

Mason:  Is there something that you're particularly passionate about within the seemingly endless depth of this system? And it's somewhat I'd call it a system and you can retort on that if you have a different opinion, but is there anything in particular within that system, within its depths and its broad nature that you're particularly wanting to see people get access to that maybe haven't so much in the last couple of decades in the West?

 

Tara:  Yeah, I think my answer and Britt, you might have a different one and I think we both agree that it is a system.

 

Britt:  Yeah, like a technology, a system, absolutely.

 

Tara:  That we would utilize and what I feel is that it really helps people and it helps me and I can just say it from my own perspective, it really helps me to pull away and peel away a lot of the emotional energy that I have kind of like constricted in my body as growing up and not being able to fully express myself, not necessarily from my parents, but just society, we were kind of taught you've got to watch what other people think and just a lot of suppression of emotion and so, it helps me to clear that out and become a really clear channel.

 

Tara:  And it helps me really get further into the depth of my own soul constantly, like every day I can go further into the experience I'm having with myself, because I think as a society and as a human race, right now you really can see how a really focused outwardly and not so much inward and this is a very inward practice. It's like when you're doing any of the movements, your eyes are closed. I think people are so starved for it and they really are seeking it out like I need to have a relationship with myself and I even talked to one of my guy friends today.

 

Tara:  I saw him on my morning walk this morning and he's lik 50 years old and he's one of my neighbors and he was just telling me as a man how he came in contact with all this emotional therapy and he's super interested in trying Kundalini yoga and how he got to cry like blubberingly cry the other day and how amazing it was and how he felt so elated and a rush and a high for two days from being able to clear out all of that stagnant emotion, because it was a major gift. I'm like well, that's what Kundalini yoga does for me constantly.

 

Tara:  It helps me really have this cleansing practice, but then also helps me charge up my energy field and then give me an experience of myself at higher frequencies, because I can run them through the body now. So, I think people are just kind of searching and wanting to be able to cleanse their body and expand right now.

 

Mason:  I love it. It's an interesting thing, you mentioning your neighbor there. It's very beautiful hearing. I'm not sure about his background, but maybe he wasn't a guy that was traditionally able to let himself cry and blubber and I definitely know how liberating that's been for me in past times. Is it kind of similar like in herbalism, whether it's Chigong practice, I can imagine it's the same with crea, in the beginning of course, you've been doing the practice, there might be some blockages and some deficiencies and whatever it is that you might go to a practice and get a really intense rush of energy or get an intense emotional outburst, which is of course, incredible, it's like sometimes people take medicinal mushrooms and they're like pinging. They're like what are these things? They're not stimulants.

 

Mason:  And then, after a while you return to center a little bit more and the herbs throw you ... you don't necessarily get that huge hit of emotion that you used to have. That's because it goes from being a little bit more of an extreme surface level when you can go into more subtleties and feel that slow building. Is that kind of similar in Kundalini or does it continue to be those big hits and bit outward transformations ongoingly?

 

Britt:  For me, I would say I had that experience and I have that experience similar to what you described. When I first started, I definitely felt that really intense, very strong clearing and cleansing and just so much energy. I mean, I had a lot of emotional release as well for probably the first year, I would cry in almost every class and just a lot was releasing, so I was able to get that high feeling much more and much easier.

 

Britt:  And then, I feel like how you described it is correct as far as now I'm able to go deeper. It almost feels like Pilates kind of energy where I'm able to kind of take it into little subtleties of my energy and my body and my organs and my mind and I still do feel a lot of the sensations a lot of times throughout my practice, but it's just different, I guess.

 

Britt:  I feel like it is more balanced and grounded and just integrated more, but yeah, I feel like sometimes I'll be surprised for sure, because the creas and the meditations are so different, so sometimes, I can get into a new practice and experience something that felt similar to when I first started or maybe entirely different, but equally kind of as intense or strong. So, it's just kind of been a whole journey for me with it all.

 

Mason:  I'm just fascinated and I really am grateful to you both for indulging me in all these questions I have about Kundalini. I'm really appreciating your answers. I guess, because I'd love for everyone listening as well as myself to just get a real strong footing on where, looking kind of from the outside in, where Kundalini is going and I guess it's been really nice to me feeling the approachability again and having it be less about the name and the shiny thing, which I've spoken to you both about. Everyone on the podcast generally knows I talk a lot about not chasing the shiny thing, but the space between the stars. Again, what's the space between the stars that is the fabric of Kundalini that is the same space that we're all inhabiting?

 

Mason:  I think what happens so much just in every world, in every clique, in Taoism, in all the yogas that I've been involved in, I used to teach yoga as well, is that experience that you have in the beginning that's like blow-your-head-off transformation. I know it happens in the plant medicine world as well. Quite often, it's like an initiation for you to go beyond the seeking and the identifying and even like when you're holding a space and teaching that that's what it's all about and be very comfortable with the subtle, the sinew that you move into through your energy body and your emotion.

 

Mason:  I talk about this, because I feel like this is where I got egoically trapped with many things. Subconsciously I was like I wanted to go there, but I was attached to the identity and the extravertedness of a particular practice, so I just appreciate you talking to me about that. It's really supporting me. I don't know if there's anything else you want to say on that.

 

Britt:  I think there may have ... it was like really a necessity at the time. I was going through a lot of addiction and since then, I've dealt with my mom getting cancer and passing away and a lot of trauma and turmoil that I kind of carried and I feel like it was just a necessity, so that's kind of what I came into it through and for and so yeah, I totally get what you're saying. I think everybody just comes onto these different paths for different reasons, but for me, it really was like okay, you're either going to die or go a different direction and so ...

 

Mason:  What were your addictions?

 

Britt:  Alcohol and drugs, like a lot of the uppers like cocaine and ecstasy, so yeah, I just always had a lot of energy and I was almost just like addicted to high-energy things, because that's always what my experience was a human, like so much energy and so, Kundalini has really helped me to balance the energy and it's funny, because for Tara, she felt the opposite, like Kundalini helped her to get more energy in her body, because she felt low energy, so we were like on opposite sides of it.

 

Britt:  But yeah, I think just kind of interesting to hear people's experiences with their different paths of yoga.

 

Tara:  Yeah, there's this initial like new beginner's high, you know? It's like a new relationship, right? It's like when you have a relationship, it's like a honeymoon phase and then, you enter in at some point, a long-term relationship and it doesn't always look as shiny and fun and that's kind of when your commitment to it is tested, because mine has been completely tested. I went through about a year of I don't even know why I'm doing this. This doesn't even really work, but it does work, that's the thing.

 

Tara:  My mind was just trying to tell me I didn't need it or this is hard, I have to do this every day and not that I get to do it every day, not that I want to do it every day, because it changes my energy, you enter in hard phases, but really when you're committed to a practice and doing something consistently, it's like the gifts on the other side of all of that turmoil where your ego wants to kind of throw you off the path are immense. I have now since moved through that and it's incredible like the amount of expansiveness I have on the body and my mind.

 

Tara:  I don't feel as like I'm trudging through life anymore, it's just I want to do something and I can do it. I want to do that thing and I can do it. There's no lag time, but that was something I had to go through and it's a relationship like I fell in love with it again and I think a lot of times, people can go well, it's not getting me really high anymore, so I'm not going to do this, well it's like that's when all the work really begins, though. That's when all the transformation can really happen and you know, I used to test it.

 

Tara:  I would do okay, I'm not going to meditate for today and I wouldn't and I'd watch my day and I'd be like oh god, this isn't as fun of a day and I would maybe not meditate the next day and I'd be like in a crappy energy and I'd be angry and I'd be reacting to people badly and I'm like oh my god and I would meditate and I would clear out my energy and cleanse the body and I would be high right where I wanted to be again. There's just not an option for me personally to not do it, because of how much it's transformed and how much of a tool it is for me to really keep my compass in the direction that I want to go. It helps me keep my focus, you know?

 

Britt:  Yeah, kind of like a marriage.

 

Tara:  It's like a marriage.

 

Britt:  There's just gifts as you go deeper, but some people opt to get a divorce, because it's not as fun as the honeymoon phase.

 

Tara:  Yeah.

 

Mason:  Yeah, yeah. It's hard when you get to that plateau. I kind of empathize, I've been on that plateau so many times and I'm sure you've been there as well and watched so many students get to that point and it's like you know what, I actually can't motivate, well I can't motivate myself. I can't motivate you as student either, just keep on going, just be consistent, because on the other side of this, there's something, there can't be anything external at that point, it seems, to get you over the line.

 

Mason:  Because you nailed it. With that consistency, when there's seemingly nothing there and there's no oxytocin anymore and you're not having your honeymoon period anymore, there needs to be some deep primordial yearning that just emerges through your consistency and far out, yeah, once you get to the other side, I'm watching Tawney kind of get back there at the moment with her daily meditative practice, which is just like no negotiation on it. Like, I've had a period where kind of like gotten moved out of my daily movement practice just not that I'm ragging on myself.

 

Mason:  I've really learned not to do that and I've learned other ways that I'm like, I don't become super dysfunctional, but it's been interesting for the first time to watch my body kind of not gummy up necessarily, but I'm just like all right, all right, all right, I kind of notice the lack of freedom here, kind of looking down the barrel myself at the moment of hitting back, I start next week back up with my mentor and back with my daily practice and I'm kind of like looking down the barrel of a plateau myself and looking down the barrel of that requiring to pull on that consistency in order to really go through those depths and really discover a new level of moving beyond the shiny thing and just the shit that is mentally motivating to go there.

 

Mason:  So, I appreciate you talking about it and I'm looking down the barrel of it and I'm really looking forward to being there again and I'm sure you guys arrived there in your advanced practice. I'm sure you're arriving there all the time as well, right?

 

Britt:  Yeah.

 

Tara:  It's interesting, because I feel like this discussion is really the answer to the question of what's the space in between the shiny things and the Kundalini? It's like when the high is over and when you're not super into doing it everyday, but you still do it, because you know you're in the void if you will, it's going to create a deeper yearning within yourself. It's going to create transformation at a deeper level. You're going to have a deep understanding of yourself and the universe and how things are working and a better awareness of what's going on even when you don't want to do it. That's where the work happens and that's where the growth happens.

 

Tara:  You can grow really fast when you're realizing the high and the relationship of the newlywed, but it's like the depth and the wisdom comes in when you don't want to do the thing and you do it anyway.

 

Mason:  Absolutely. Always just having these conversations, I go right, take away the terminology, even if you take away the Kundalini terminology, it's just this being there with yourself. It's always so simple, because I ask these questions, I have the diversions as I said earlier. It's my baggage, you know, my version when things get trendy, because of my own susceptibility in the path to fall into a clique and then get into the label.

 

Mason:  So, I'm always super precious about that and I have that little thing, not as overtly as I maybe used to, but I'm like right, you know, I'm going to make sure I have a little bit of cynicism with me to protect other people that are susceptible, so not falling into the label.

 

Tara:  Well, are you an Aquarius? You sound like an Aquarius to me.

 

Mason:  No, I'm a Gemini.

 

Tara:  A Gemini, okay. I knew there was some [AR 00:29:31] in you, okay.

 

Mason:  Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I can never remember my rising or ... but I really appreciate these conversations. It just helps me get rid a little bit more of the chip I have on my shoulder, because no matter what, there's going to be people externally identified with a particular clique or a label, but it's almost like the plateau in the beginning when you consistently go and you emerge on the other side can be a merging beyond your need to identify mentally with a label and realize you're just doing something innately human that's innately beneficial to humans and always has been.

 

Mason:  Which I really like, that's sort of what I'm getting out of this conversation. I don't know if that makes sense.

 

Britt:  Yeah, no, I like that. I kind of struggled with that too and I think for me, I came to the conclusion that I'm not going to not label myself if a label describes what I believe in, because I can also create what I want within the confines of some type of label, it to look however I want it to look if that makes sense. But I feel like to not have a label, when I'm doing something that actually has a label that people can identify, it feels like I'm almost not standing for anything.

 

Mason:  Absolutely makes sense. There's a beautiful middle ground and as always, it is balancing and it's just walking that middle path, which treats you to be balanced, because it's not great to be overly ... well, it's not functional for me anyway and from what you're saying, to be overly identified in any way and leaning too far on any side of the fence.

 

Mason:  So, with what you're putting out there into the world, would you say it's purely Kundalini? Are you bringing in other practices? Because I see it's a theme on your website and in talking to you before that you're bringing in a collective of practices and ways of being and as you said, in order to transform yourselves. Like, what else do you feel you're bringing into the fold that you feel has really helped you out and helped your students out?

 

Britt:  Yeah, so it kind of has really developed into this trifecta. All good things come in threes, right? So, for us, it's really the energy work, which is primarily the Kundalini yoga and the meditation and then, we've found that we're just really also needing a lot of the mindset work, so just practical, mindset tools to really be using day-to-day, moment-to-moment to integrate and really apply the energy work that's happening and then, on the third side of things, we've really seen a lot of benefits from what we now have kind of received as a message to call cosmic sinking.

 

Britt:  And essentially, what we're doing it we're just using the astrology and we're using the phases and the cycles of the moons and we're syncing up seasonally with our practices, so with the energy work and with the mindset work, we're curating our practices around Mother Earth, around the moons, around the planets and for us, that's just really added a whole other layer to everything we're doing and we really just feel more in sync with ourselves, more grounded and we're just able to understand this human existence a lot more deeply and experience it in a lot more harmony than we were without that kind of piece.

 

Britt:  So, that was kind of like our missing piece that we've kind of combined those three things together and has really just changed everything for us.

 

Mason:  I really, really love that you bring the seasonality into it. It quite often is something I've found in myself that I've needed to remedy on my own when I'm doing my energy practices and seemingly what becomes very quickly a cosmic practice, especially when you're meditating and you can just fly off without that gritty connection to the earth and the sea and the seasons. It can somewhat be unhinged and unanchored.

 

Mason:  So, two questions. Feel free for them to be like snappy answers and understanding that everyone realizes you're talking about huge concepts that you're having to like put down into a couple of sentences, so they'll be understanding of you. In terms of your mindset practices, as that's been an entire pillar, what does that look like and what would you say if you had to describe the fundamentals of that practice or how that comes about for you and your students, and then also I'm curious as to how the summertime there that you're in at the moment is helping to shape the intention of your practices.

 

Britt:  Yeah, so the mindset work is, there's a lot of different tools that we bring in, but basically, it's just allowing our mind to get behind the energy work and really just consciously shifting our mind to basically change our habits and our ways of thinking, so it's simple things like pivoting where when you may have a natural, habitual thought come in about something, you are conscious enough and you've done the energy work enough so that you're aware of it and you can change that thought and you can do it again and again and again and again until you create a new habit with a specific thing.

 

Britt:  And just doing that with anything that you need to in your life and just other simple things like gratitude practice and kindness practices, giving back practices. It's really just this conscious mindset and way of thinking and way of crafting your thoughts and your mindset to then create a different reality for yourself essentially.

 

Mason:  One thing I'll throw my weight behind and I'm really loving you talk about is just that catch it again and again and again and again and again and then, you can maybe make some change. I always appreciate hearing that and it's always a great reminder for me.

 

Britt:  Yeah, and we've found quickly that if you try to do that without the energy work, it's very, very, very difficult. And it comes with a lot of effort, but when you have the energy work and you're moving the energy in your body and in your mind and then, you pair it with just working on it day to day and kind of fine tuning your mindset, then it's much easier and you're able to kind of move faster and shift quicker and get results that you want with the competition of those two.

 

Mason:  I love it. And coming into summer, what's the energy looking like? What's coming through for you?

 

Britt:  Well, we're recording this in Leo season, so within our 528 Academy, we always like syncing up seasonally with the sun energy, but also just like a theme that comes through and by now, what we're feeling like is really coming through is throughout these eclipses that are happening now or they just happened and we kind of have portals opening, a lot of change happen, and with a lot of outer planets that are retrograde, even right now Mercury is retrograde, so there's a lot of introspection really.

 

Britt:  And so, you have a lot of internal work and it's like pulling us inward even though it's summer time, it's still a very inward time of working on who are you, what do you stand for, why are you here on the planet, and how can you live a higher-caliber existence here on the planet? And so, we're kind of syncing up around that and sort of meditation that we're doing right now as a whole community is around the caliber and increasing caliber and just in terms of outwardly, in the summer time I kind of like to personally just split up my meditation.

 

Britt:  So, do a little less in the morning and then do some in the morning and I like to do it outside instead of taking a cold shower, running into the ocean, because we live by the beach here, so just switching it up, because summertime feels much more like a free energy and you want to be moving outside and just flowing a little bit more and so, not necessarily being super strict with when things have to be done, but that you can just kind of flow through the day.

 

Britt:  But yeah, we're excited right now to be working with this caliber energy and really creating a higher-caliber existence here and really getting to know who we are, getting to know who we are and what we're doing here on the planet and through the Kundalini, we're able to really hack into that in a bigger way.

 

Tara:  Yes.

 

Mason:  Yeah, so good. Yeah, summertime like ... [inaudible 00:37:52] ... in his hand like ultimate yang, hot energy, energy's just going up. It's like time to ask those big questions, so I really like it. We're in our cuddly little winter right now, getting more introspective and so, that's nice as well. Hey, I'm curious. The cold showers, is that something that's integrated into the Kundalini practice or is that something you're doing on the side?

 

Britt:  Yeah, it is integrated. Yeah, it's a big part of the lifestyle, the hydrotherapy and ...

 

Mason:  The hydrotherapy? That's right. I remember stumbling across Yogi Bundgen's hydrotherapy document back in the day and being like god, this dude was bad ass, so I go on.

 

Britt:  I love that. Yeah, so you know, you're seeing the whim hof and the ice bath and a lot more people doing the cold showers and stuff, but yeah, it's definitely a part of our practice and something that we try to do as much as possible and ...

 

Tara:  Part of the Kundalini philosophy.

 

Britt:  Yeah.

 

Mason:  Yeah, to this day, I've never really checked with my Kundalini mates as to whether the cold showers still is seen as an integration. The one thing I really took away from Kundalini besides consistent breath practice and I took a different style of practice for movement and breath, but I always arrive at the same place. But the cold showers is like ah, you're doing whim hof, no, in whim hof and stuff it's amazing and it's a part of most longevity practices, but I was like yeah, you know what, I got inspired by Yogi Budgen.

 

Mason:  That's why ... that was my catalyst for going out and seeking out freezing wild waters wherever I went and as well, I think he's got a little bit more of a direct approach in terms of you're working on particular organ systems, correct me if I'm wrong, to what I took away, if it's like winter, my kidneys are cold, I can get hot water really rocking on the kidneys and then, bang get the cold water in there. Then, flood them with blood and then bang, get the hot water straight back on that one side. I found that really useful. Is that kind of the way you would still practice?

 

Tara:  A little bit, but we would do just full cold.

 

Britt:  Yeah, but I like that.

 

Tara:  Yeah.

 

Britt:  But with the oils, so you can like ... and almond oil or an oil that kind of meshes well with your dosha just using that actually in the shower with the cold water.

 

Mason:  Like on your skin when you have the cold shower?

 

Britt:  Yeah, so specifically like you're supposed to cover the genital areas and then it's kind of like the arms and the legs you use the oil with to just kind of like nourish the skin as you're doing the cold shower.

 

Mason:  That makes sense, that's nice, okay, I'll incorporate that. I'm an oil guy myself. My hair, my skin loves it.

 

Tara:  If you think about it, it's just another thing back in the day, though, we didn't have cold showers, we'd probably float in rivers and stuff, so just going back, thinking back with the earth and how if we were living outside, what we would be doing.

 

Mason:  I'm with you. I've still resisted buying a chest freezer and having a cold bath like here at my house and I don't really have cold showers very much. As you said, I prefer if I can find it in nature, that's always when I kind of like the relevance starts coming back. I get the cold shower thing as well, because we are living indoors and all that, but I appreciate you saying that, because next time I go and do like a whim hoffy thing, there's a woman here that does them in our snowy mountains, the good old get out there into the icy river and do the plunging in there.

 

Mason:  I think that's where I'm feeling the call to get to next to do my ice plunging upgrade.

 

Britt:  That sounds amazing.

 

Mason:  Hey, I think we should fly this Kundalini spacecraft and let you get on with your day. I really appreciate you, especially like I flew in from a lot of directions. It was like a personal therapy session for me with Kundalini and so, I really appreciate you taking the time and answering with such efficacy as well.

 

Tara:  Yeah, of course.

 

Britt:  Of course. I loved your questions and that was awesome. Thank you so much for having us.

 

Mason:  Absolute pleasure, so would elevatetheglobe.com be the best place for people to start out?

 

Britt:  Yeah. Elevatetheglobe.com and we're elevatetheglobe on Instagram. We have a five-day fun challenge where we share a lot about our lifestyle and yeah, everything's over there.

 

Mason:  Programs, retreats, your podcast The Elevator, like on iTunes as well. Awesome, okay, big love to both of you. Appreciate you.

 

Britt:  Yes, so much love.

 

Tara:  Thank you, Mason.

 

Britt:  Thank you.

 

Mason:  Catch you next time.

 

Britt:  Okay, bye, bye.