The Other Way

089: [SPIRITUALITY] Transforming Tragedy, Yoga, & Living with Intentionality with Stephanie Phelan

• Kasia Stiggelbout • Season 3 • Episode 89

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In this episode, we’re thrilled to welcome Stephanie Phelan, whose journey takes her from the high-energy world of the Today Show to the calming, intentional practice of yoga. After the tragic loss of her brother, Stephanie found a path to healing and transformation through mindfulness, meditation, and Ashtanga yoga. She opens up about turning moments of anxiety into empowering energy and how yoga taught her to find strength in stillness. Stephanie’s story reminds us that even through life’s hardest moments, there’s a way to live with heart and purpose. Grab your headphones and let’s dive into this inspiring, soulful conversation! 

Here’s a little look at what we’ll be covering today:

  • Transition: the practical and spiritual aspects of a massive life change
  • Stephanie’s journey with a powerful career shift
  • The power of loss and grief into transformation; how Stephanie’s experience losing her brother propelled a deeper awakening
  • The power of meditation and mindfulness to bring awareness to our experiences (the benefits + the tangible “how” behind this practice)
  • The power of finding the “Dharma” or spiritual wisdom in everyday life; bringing your movement routine or even a traffic jam into part of your practice
  • Navigating life as both a business owner and spiritual teacher

 + SO MUCH MORE!

 About Stephanie:

Stephanie Phelan M. A. is founder of Inner Light Shine, an integrative approach to mind/body healing. Stephanie is also a published author and a former producer for The Today Show.
Following a distinguished career with NBC Network News, Stephanie’s personal yoga practice evolved into a pathway of service and teaching following life-altering events.
Sincere devotion led her to earn a Master’s Degree in Counseling Psychology, to complete 1000 hours of Yoga Alliance Teacher Trainings, and on-going study with renowned psychologists and yoga scholars.
After decades of study and practice, Stephanie ultimately calls LIFE her greatest teacher.
Her Ashtanga-inspired Vinyasa Flow classes are a fusion of seamless sequencing, carefully curated soulful playlists, humor, and alignment instruction. She weaves wisdom from yogic scriptures into a dynamic and sometimes sweaty class that focuses on the breath as a pathway to steady the mind, open the heart and allow for an experience of clarity and inner calm. She radiates love and joy. You will leave class smiling with your inner light shining.

Connect with Stephanie:

 IG: stephanieingridphelan

www.stephaniephelaninnerlight.com

Serenity in Sardinia, Yoga Retreat

Metta Yoga Studio

The Studio Mill Valley

Soulful Flow, Haramara Yoga Retreat

To connect with Kasia

Kasia:

Hello and welcome to the Other Way, a lifestyle podcast exploring uncommon, unconventional or otherwise alternative approaches to life, business and health. I'm your host, kasia. I'm the founder of InFlow, a women's wellness brand that designs intentional products to help women reconnect to their unique cyclical rhythm and find a balance between being and doing. This podcast is an extension of my mission within Flow. Here we provide intentional interviews with inspiring humans trailblazers, researchers, spiritual teachers and more on the journey of doing things the other way. On the journey of doing things the other way. Hi everyone and welcome back to the Other Way.

Kasia:

Today I have such a special episode for you. I am speaking with my yoga and my Dharma teacher, Stephanie Phelan. Stephanie has a master's in psychology and is the founder of Inner Light Shine, which is an integrative approach to mind-body healing, and today we're having a very conversational episode. I would almost describe this as a friend-to-friend, sister-to-sister Dharma Talk meets feminine story on Stephanie's journey from segment producer for the Today Show to working as a yoga and meditation teacher, and this conversation is one that spans many important topics. I want to call out that Stephanie and I I feel like we have such a sweet kinship and there is a multi-generational aspect to this, I'm 35. She has shared that she is in her 60s and there's just something so special about exploring women's stories who aren't necessarily of the same age that we are. There's so much to be learned from that, and especially Stephanie's story. So today we talk about some of those really raw human topics, such as the topic of transition, the practical and spiritual aspects of a massive life change. Stephanie went from segment producer in New York City to living life and teaching as a yoga teacher, and this was a career switch that happened quite a bit later in her life. We talk about the power of loss and grief as a catalyst for transformation, how Stephanie's experience with losing her brother helped propel this change into a deeper awakening as a collective. There is a lot of grief and suffering and loss that happens every single day. It is one of the most human experiences and one that can be quite a powerful change maker if we allow it to be.

Kasia:

We talk about the power of meditation and mindfulness not just the benefits but the tangible how behind this practice, the power of finding the dharma or spiritual wisdom in everyday life, how bringing it into your movement routine or even a traffic jam can be part of your practice.

Kasia:

I think for those of us who aren't particularly associated with any one single religion, and even those of us who have a very deep faith, can find it difficult to translate the wisdom into our day-to-day life. I think that there is also a very deep hunger for a lot of us for spiritual wisdom, and how can we cultivate that for ourselves on a deeply personal level in everyday life? We're going to be diving into that today. We're going to cover how Stephanie navigates life as both a business owner and a spiritual teacher, especially when her business and her livelihood is linked to something so deeply personal in her life and so much more. This was such a beautiful conversation and episode that I know will be inspirational for anyone those looking to go deeper into a spiritual practice, those wanting to make a life change or those who are looking to cultivate an experience of interconnection in everyday life. This is a must listen and, without further ado, let's jump on in Stephanie in the flesh almost.

Stephanie Phelan:

I almost got to see you today in the studio.

Kasia:

I know, I know I'm so bummed and I was so sad to hear that I missed a special Dharma talk and playlist.

Stephanie Phelan:

I love your playlist already, so I can't even imagine what could be even more special about it, but I'm so bummed, well, I think because I was listening to your podcasts and I was listening to the podcast you were doing with the Zen person, leo Leo, and there was something in that conversation that inspired the Dharma talk and the playlist, so, and then I think you were also sharing with him about like going more inward and not doing such vigorous practice, and so when you told me you were coming, I was like okay, well, I'm not going to do like a hundred vinyas today.

Kasia:

Oh, my God. Well, considering the fact that I am like on my moon time, that would have been perfect if I could even get there physically to do that, but that would have been so perfect.

Stephanie Phelan:

Yeah, if you have a block at home, block under sacrum, legs to sky or legs up the wall.

Kasia:

I will do that right after this. I will do that right after this. Okay, Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, I would love for you to start by sharing with the audience what are three words that you would use to describe yourself.

Stephanie Phelan:

I love that inquiry, I love that empathic, transparent, curious.

Kasia:

I love that. Oh, you know, they all resonate with my perception of you, which is great. I love that, since it can be. It's so common I was just speaking with my husband about this that we meet people, and especially people that we don't hang out with every single day. Right, I come to your classes and we create this like projection of who people are, but those words definitely align with my projection of you, so I feel like it gives the audience a flavor too. Yay, good, yes. Well, I am so excited to talk a bit about your story because I, as I mentioned, have been going to your classes for a while.

Kasia:

I absolutely love your teaching style.

Kasia:

It feels like the perfect blend between dharma and kind of insight and self-reflection, and then mindful, intentional movement that goes along with that, and it's very rare, I feel, to meet a teacher that combines both so well, where I feel like I'm pushing myself physically but at the same time, by the end of the class, in most of your classes, I feel connected to my breath.

Kasia:

I feel connected to my body. I don't feel like I'm tapping into that extremely goal like push through its side, which is kind of my Achilles heel, even though I do work hard, the energy is different, right Like the way the journey of the class feels so different. It's not just purely about how hard can I push myself and can I push myself past certain limits. As much as it is like how connected can I feel myself and can I push myself past certain limits as much as it is like how connected can I feel? And that is just such a rare gift. And, as I've gotten to know you, and I've also kind of read your blog, went onto your website, you have such an incredible story and it is actually surprising to me that you haven't been teaching yoga your entire life, because that's what I kind of imagined that you do.

Stephanie Phelan:

Well, I love what you say about my classes because recently I would say, since I moved to the North Bay and have been teaching here I realized that if the class is just physical, if it's just exercise right, if we're just getting a good sweat, then it's not really transforming and shifting how we live in the world. And then I don't feel like what I do is transcendent enough. And I started to think about like well, I love the physical movement, right, and we only have so much time in the day, so you want to go and you want to feel like you're working your body and you're bringing benefit physically, right, but then if you're not adding in the breath, you're missing the piece that you're going to take off the mat with you, because when you're stressed out, you're not going to be able to do a vinyasa. You, because when you're stressed out, you're not going to be able to do a vinyasa, you're not going to say just a second.

Kasia:

A hundred percent. A hundred percent, and that's really special. I I was going down um a Reddit thread not too long ago reading about Ashtanga yoga which feels to me like it has that kind of almost like spiritual element to it, like inherently, and I read a lot of people writing on that Reddit thread that their Ashtanga practice is not their workout routine. They actually do something outside of that and I think you make such a good point that why can't the movement and the breath, like, and that sense of connection, be part of both in a way, right, like because we don't have that much time?

Stephanie Phelan:

It amplifies the benefit and you can get it there. And it's interesting because Ashtanga is my root, right. So I love the Ashtanga practice and it is very deeply rooted in the tradition. It has a very powerful lineage. So it's not made up and it's not gentrified, right. It's not part of the derivative, of the derivative, of the derivative. It has very strong roots to it and so if you are in a class, it does have that underlying groundedness because of where it's generational, the lineage of it, right and so but not everybody it's no longer part of, like daily practice.

Stephanie Phelan:

Ashtanga is not really offered everywhere, that six day a week practice. So I like to take that physical practice and without giving you scripture and without needing the students in the class to be dependent upon having that vocabulary, that understanding, like can I offer that from just my presence and how I'm teaching and the intentionality of what I'm offering, that it's fused with that without saying that, that it's fused with that without saying that. And then I really shifted from. I still do a lot of like referring to the yoga sutras or the philosophical foundations. But I also found for myself, if I'm talking about something that's so esoteric, it's the immediacy of it and we only have so much time in the class.

Stephanie Phelan:

We're not doing a workshop, we're not on retreat, so my Dharma talks started to shift more to like fundamental, real, everyday. What's on your mind? How are you responding to this? What's the anxiety that you're experiencing? Can I shift you from saying anxiety to energy, how you're relating to what's happening in your life, in this short little dharma before we practice? And will that go with you off the mat? And when you start to have that ruffling of your feathers, those feelings that come up, will you then recognize that and use the tools that we've talked about in the practice, in the moment that?

Kasia:

is huge, that is so huge, and I even I especially love that one example that you shared around, kind of almost like transmuting or shifting the labeling from anxiety to energy. Energy, because it does take on such a different experience when we see it that way. Anxiety feels like something that is wrong, that we want to resist, and the paradox there is that, at least in my experience, the resisting of anxiety makes it worse. And so I love, love, love that you mentioned that and you mentioned that here for everyone to hear as well, because that is just such a powerful takeaway it's huge.

Stephanie Phelan:

It's like you start to reframe things. It's like energy is moving through you. It's not static, it's not constant, it's not immutable, right, so energy moves. And then when you have anxiety, you're like I am anxious. So it's like you concretize the experience, rather than you could even just reframe that and said there's anxiety moving through me, but it's just energy, right, it's just shifting.

Stephanie Phelan:

And then you have that moment where you can take a breath or you can kind of what I, my dharma today was like it's always something that I'm experiencing and then I'm like, oh, I bet if I'm experiencing it, you know we're all in this collective, right, it's not like we're all the students. So I was thinking like, wow, when you think about the past, because of this conversation I kind of went back into my past and thought about like, wow, this happened and that happened. And sometimes you're like, oh my God, like yikes. Then you're like wait, yeah, like when I think about that, I get the stirring that we might call anxiety, but it's just energy. And what is that? It's like the lesson that was learned that was kind of like at the time, or even in reflection, kind of challenging. Right, like the lessons can sometimes feel pretty emotional and you can feel throttled by them or like aghast, like oh my God, what?

Stephanie Phelan:

was I thinking or what was that? But then you're like no, what was the lesson in that? It was a beautiful moment. It cracked you wide open. It led to this moment. Right, you're not born in a state of consciousness. Purpose is presence, and presence and purpose comes out of living your life. It's not like you're born with that awakening, or maybe we have that in us and we're just peeling away the layers to get to that. So I was thinking about that. We're in the past that creates anxiety. We're in the future that creates anxiety. Rename it to energy. Reframe it to like if I'm in the past. It to energy, reframe it to like if I'm in the past. How did that serve me? How was that experience? Something that didn't happen to me, but for me, something in the future. We're catastrophizing it. What if, in the future, we just imagined what it is we want to have happen. So that was my Dharma today.

Kasia:

Oh, I can't. Well, I'm glad I got a taste. I'm glad I got a taste. That is beautiful, that is so beautiful. And I also just want to call out that I appreciate that there's that element of not just even reframing anxiety and energy into energy right, but also the ability to choose our relationship to those thoughts that you kind of and you're naming that right now that right like past thoughts can cause anxiety, future thoughts can cause anxiety, and we have a choice in the moment of do we want to focus on that anxiety or energy, or do we want to reframe that, and I think that is just such a powerful, powerful skill.

Kasia:

But before we go down that whole rabbit hole, I want to have you share with the audience a bit of your backstory, because I think your career and your life and this evolution that you're on is just so deeply fascinating to me Because, as I mentioned, I thought that you just taught yoga like your entire life, like you were just like born from the womb teaching yoga. I'm just kidding, I know, I know that wasn't true, but when I read on your blog that you went from segment producer for the Today Show to a new career as a yoga teacher, and I think that this was like a bit later in your life as well. I mean, this transition in and of itself is wild. Can you share a bit of the backstory, like how did you get to doing what it is that you do today?

Stephanie Phelan:

So I was I. When I got to NBC news, my first job was typing up timesheets in the payroll department and I was catacorner to the HR person. So I heard that they need someone on the political desk to answer phones and I was like she goes, you already have a job, I'm like, but it's temporary. So, literally, having absolutely no experience in network news or anything, I got this assignment on the political desk during I think it was the 19,. I can't remember the election campaign anymore, thinking about that. It was before cable, I mean.

Stephanie Phelan:

So there I was, I was answering phones and Tom Brokaw which I don't know if your audience even knows who Tom Brokaw is, but he was the anchor for him. He's like the Lester Holt, right? He was the network news anchor and I was asked answering phones on the political desk. And the short version of the story is that I just worked my way up the ladder and 15 years later, or like 10 years later, I was at the Today Show and then I was at the Today Show for six years. So that story is a whole other amazing like.

Kasia:

I don't know how that happened, you know, I mean well, I mean that's like a crazy once in a lifetime not once in a lifetime, but very unique life path to go down. But I think what's even wilder to me is to then be like, oh my gosh, so you invested all that time kind of moving up that path and now you pivoted. I mean, everyone is even almost better, everyone's listening to like the intro of this conversation and then they're like you went from that to this and I think that's that's just so. How did that happen? Was it a spiritual awakening? Was it like one of the Silicon Valley mushroom trips that everyone's talking about? That's so funny.

Stephanie Phelan:

Well, you know, it's funny. Like even that word pivot it wouldn't have even been in our consciousness at that time, Like it wasn't the way, it wasn't the the frame around the world that I lived in. So, as a network news producer, what I was doing was freaking fascinating and I loved my job. You had a front row seat on world events. I mean I covered everything. The last story was nine 11. Um, so I was there on the ground and I mean I covered everything. The last story was 9-11. So I was there on the ground and I was there covering, you know, princess Diana and John F Kennedy Jr and the Berlin Wall coming down and Waco, texas, and you know. And then Tom Cruise coming in for an interview or Paul Simon playing concert in the, you know, outside the studio. So it was fascinating and I loved my job. It was I never had a moment of like I'm burning out, I don't like it. You know, it was just so amazing.

Stephanie Phelan:

And then I'm sure you can relate to this my ex-husband and I moved to Los Angeles for just for a variety of reasons, but just wanting to. It was after September 11th and everything really shifted in New York city and we just thought we would have a different lifestyle on the West coast. So we went to the West coast and my younger brother took his life. Just before that. I had done a story on the today show about yoga and Christy Turlington was the guest correspondent for that and I was interviewing my root teachers the teacher that changed my trajectory. So I had a yoga practice, but it was over here and there were many months where I wasn't practicing because I was on the road, traveling, doing whatever, and so I wasn't serious.

Stephanie Phelan:

I was serious about yoga, but not like I was. It was just occasional, it wasn't everyday practice. I don't know. I don't want to say I wasn't serious because I was my whole, I was fully engaged, like my whole heart was in it. But when I was traveling, I was traveling and I wasn't looking for where a yoga studio was to do yoga and it was way before it became central to our lives. I was sneaking out of the you know NBC news with my mat. You know, like it was way, way long ago, like when you know it was not a celebrity driven and every corner was a yoga studio and every rock hit a yoga teacher. Anyway, I did this story and when you do a story, you get deep into the research, and so that was like a revelation to me.

Stephanie Phelan:

And I just became fascinated and I got to know my teachers kind of like this, and they were. It was so compelling that I started to have like just, it was really something started to shift inside of me in doing this story, but it was just kind of like something shifts and it's there, not unpacked, just kind of living inside of you. Then my brother took his life. Then I moved to Los Angeles and I'm on the plane and I'm reading about a studio in LA and when I did my studio I did it about my teachers from Jiva Mukti Yoga, sharon Gannon and David Life, super powerful, like very dynamic, deep, deep rooted yoga teachers. Just, I don't know if they would necessarily be who other people would have interviewed, right, it would be more like mainstream yoga teachers that you've heard of, like Rodney Yee. So Sharon was like black hair, they were tattoo clad, which was not typical in that time, right, you know, it's the Today Show morning crowd, right. So I was able to do that story with them. And then there was a teacher who heard that I was doing the story that wanted to be featured and I said, well, no, I'm already doing it about these teachers. But I saw that she was at this teaching at the studio in LA and I was going to be there and so I went to. It was before the website. So I went to the studio to take class and I got there and she was. Her class was being subbed out. Now my brother had died. So I was super raw, you know, I was in a very like tender place and I planned my whole day around going to this class and like I said, there's no website, right, there's like so you don't check the schedule, you know. And so I was like, so I started to cry, I burst into tears, and this is Stephanie. This is, like, so typical of me. There was a woman there and she said, oh well, she's not here today, but she's doing a teacher training. And I was like, oh, I've always wanted to do a teacher training and I have this time off to move out to the West Coast, from the East Coast, like I took a chunk of time off, and some of it to mourn my brother and some of it to move out West. And I was like, oh, that'll fit in, perfectly Good, I'll do that. And I was like, oh, that'll fit in perfectly Good, I'll do that. And then I did.

Stephanie Phelan:

And at the end of the teacher training, I'm lying on the floor in Shabbos and I'm looking up at this cavernous ceiling and this just came to me inner light shine and I thought in my mind it was like he just he didn't, he wasn't able to connect with his value Like we all saw. The world sees it, but that person who's in that suffering doesn't feel their illumination, they don't feel their light, and I was like I don't want anyone else to feel this way. I'm going to become a yoga teacher and ensure that everybody that that was my mission. And really, what happens when? What really happens is that it ignites your own path of awakening Like you. Really, you know, first and foremost, you have to find the light within yourself. So really, what that journey, my journey, has revealed to me is all of the shadows within me, all of the unhealed parts in me, and then, through that process, then you can truly be in service to other people and we can be on this journey together.

Kasia:

So that was the oh my gosh, stephanie, I mean, first of all, thank you so much for for sharing all of that. I wasn't at all expecting any of that, and I'm so sorry to hear about your brother. I mean, you know this, but I have two younger brothers and I just like I can't, I can't even imagine that, I can't fathom what that must be like, and it's, I mean, what a wild turn of events to kind of have that be this introduction to such a powerful shift or turn or maybe it was never a turn, it was just the straight path to really a huge catalyst in your life and for so many other lives too, because every single person that you are a teacher for or who take class with you, like they get to experience some of that and that is just so, so, so powerful, I mean. But that doesn't take away from the kind of spark that had brought you to this place so unexpectedly.

Stephanie Phelan:

I mean, that is just such a wild story, oh my gosh it becomes very foundational and really like very powerful, because that flame is always burning. So that's my resource. You know, that's my lineage, that intentionality of my teaching is always tethered to that initial original mission.

Kasia:

Wow, I am curious because yoga as an industry has really, I feel, transformed over the decades. I mean, I've been practicing yoga since I was about 18, 19, more casually but pretty consistently over the years and it's just turned into like such a different industry, right, and a practice that has, as we were talking about, deep spiritual meaning. Also has been transformed into more of like a fitness fad and all the different trends associated with it and there's like this weird like commercialization that has taken place around a practice that also has such spiritual depth. And I'm curious, how has your relationship to yoga, like how has that transformed?

Kasia:

Has it at the beginning, where you kind of went through this teacher training and you had this very clear light and purpose lit in within you around how you wanted to serve as a yoga teacher, how have you navigated some of these changes that have happened in the industry? Like how have you not become disenchanted? Or perhaps you have and then had to like kind of change your relationship to it, like what is it that keeps you going? And I want to add on before I pause, which is that like one of the things that I have personally struggled with with yoga at many and many points is that it has such spiritual depth, but it can also lack it entirely, right, and so I feel like a lot of people at least I could speak for myself we've we turn to yoga to find that spiritual depth, that kind of connection, that inner light, that recognition and not every class delivers that, and so it can be both the deepest practice and the most empty workout type of experience.

Kasia:

So how has your relationship to it changed and like what does it look like now?

Stephanie Phelan:

to it changed and like what does it look like now? Well, first of all, like what you're really expressing is like where I've really the fusion that I've created with my offering, right, like what you were saying, what you get out of the class is no matter what's happening externally. I continue to deepen into what I'm offering. So, for me, I teach the class I would want to take and that's what I would want to experience. Right, I would want to experience the depth, but not necessarily like give you scripture, right, but if you go to a class with a teacher, they don't even have to say anything. You'll feel that depth, right, you feel it when somebody is deeply rooted, immersed, if they meditate, if they live their life in this way, through the and you know, it's like one of the things about teaching yoga is that if you're teaching it for me, then it's essential that I live it, and if I'm living it, then you're experiencing it with you when you're in my class, hopefully. So one of the things that happened very early on for me is that I have this reverence for teachers. I thought it was audacious to become a teacher. I mean, my teachers were really like deeply steeped in a lineage, and so it was like and there weren't so many of that teachers at that caliber those teachers that I studied with were like direct descendants of the teachers who taught it. Like from India, right, like Patabi Joyce who was the Ashtanga teacher, like taught Sharon Gannon and David Life. And then they evolved and they took that practice and maybe they modernized it, maybe in a way that was a derivative, but it was so steeped in the wisdom and so essential. Like my first classes in yoga, you had to chant. They were an hour and a half, you came early, you did not drink water, you did not leave, but it was beautiful, it was not punitive in any way, but it was very rich and there was always a Dharma talk and the Dharma talk like I learned so much, all of the tenants of the practice were a part of those initial classes that I took. So then, if you, you know, fast forward, like to classes where that's not even part of the, you know the context isn't even there, the context isn't even there.

Stephanie Phelan:

So, to go back to my experience, after I did my first teacher training, I did five more. I did so many teacher trainings, studied with so many people, it just felt like I didn't know enough to teach. So I literally did so many teacher trainings and from so many different points of view, which at the time felt very chaotic and confusing, because each teacher training had a very strong point of view about this is how you teach yoga, this is how you practice. But ultimately what that gave me is like there's many ways up the mountaintop and all of that are flavors. It's like you're cooking and so I have all of those spices, all of those ingredients inside of me.

Stephanie Phelan:

And then I went and got my master's in counseling psychology. I was so curious and so wanted to enrich what I was offering and to have it be so deep and purposeful and meaningful. So at the time, getting to this point where I'm at now, that's why when I look back I go, oh my God, what were you thinking? But I'm going, god, but look what you did. I forget that I did all of those teacher trainings and workshops and, you know, got my master's degree and I'm like oh, yeah, oh, and I volunteered for two years before I taught.

Stephanie Phelan:

Like that doesn't happen anymore. Teachers just come right out of teacher training. And I'm not judging at all, like I'm not saying that people shouldn't do that but for me. I volunteered for women in homeless shelter. I worked with kids who were like on their last leg before going like juvies. It was so powerful to be of service for two years learning how to teach, and then, when I did my final teacher training not my final, because even after I taught, even after I moved to Marin and I'd been teaching I've been teaching 20 years now but even after teaching for 10 years, I still did another teacher training here, because there's always so much to learn.

Kasia:

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Kasia:

Now back to the episode, and one of the things that I heard you say is that you know there's like this element of so many different spices that you're able to kind of you know the metaphor of spices, or the teachings that you're able to bring into your class, and I think that that is definitely shows through in the style of your teaching.

Kasia:

But the other thing that I thought was really interesting that you mentioned was that it is so important for you personally that you're sharing, that you also walk your path, like as a teacher, as a student of yoga and the Dharma, and I think that this particular topic is going to be really interesting for people, because we're living in a day and age where religion is really on the decline, something like the stat that I remember from last year when I was looking at it is it's about like 30%, maybe 40% of people in the United States identify as spiritual gnomes, which are they do not have a religious affiliation, and there's like this huge void, I think, around that deeper connection that people are seeking.

Kasia:

I think that that is like such an universally human existential thing and yoga I mean even as you're describing it there's so many different flavors that come into your teaching and your practice. What does your spiritual practice look like and like what do you lean on in order to foster that connection and how? You know? Let's start there and then we can go to like how can people who aren't part of necessarily like a specific community. Find elements of that, because I do think that is missing in society and what we're seeing is like workism filling the void, addictions filling the void, because there is there's something is missing when we don't have that deeper thing to connect to. So what is your spiritual practice look like?

Stephanie Phelan:

That's so interesting. You know I realized that I didn't actually completely answer the question before. Like I talked about, like the seriousness with which I take this offering as a teacher. You know I take it very, very seriously and it's very important to me. I don't take myself seriously but I take, you know, I mean I'm not like oh, I'm so important, but I just feel that it's a privilege and it's also, like you know, part of my counseling psychology training.

Stephanie Phelan:

It's like you're holding people's, like you know, part of my counseling psychology training. It's like you're holding people's psyche. You know the things that you say, the way that you touch, the way that you offer, like you never know that my brother's not in that room, feeling that on that day you never know what a person is experiencing. So I feel such care and the way that I've been able to stay anchored and grounded and it's a continual practice're saying, in terms of its explosion and it's everywhere and some of it is just, you know, it feels like Eastern gymnastics more than it feels like a yoga class. It's none of my business and if people are enjoying it, like great, you know. But in terms of like, what aligns me as being purposeful and offering something that I think would be meaningful physically and spiritually and in terms of life guidance.

Stephanie Phelan:

So I write, I meditate, I contemplate, I listen to. I'm incredibly curious. I listen to tons of podcasts, I watch documentaries, I read. I'm so interested in the human condition, I'm so interested in human beings and Harper I forget Harper's last name, but they were castmates together on Saturday Night Live and it's a documentary on Netflix and it's really about this person, harper, who was a writer for Saturday Night Live his transitioning into a woman from a man.

Stephanie Phelan:

So you would think, like what does that have to do with yoga? Like why are you sharing that story with students? Because we're connecting with our shared humanity. And here's a person who could not live in his authentic skin for 55 decades of his life and that awakening inside of him, where his authenticity was no longer up for discussion, it was like essential that he make that choice. And I'm like that's what we're teaching here. You know, to come into your, to your truth, and to be that person. So that's my practice, that's my soil, is like being awake to the world. It's not like going into a cave and meditating. You know, I've done 10 day silent meditation retreats. I meditate, I read Ram Dass, I read Eckhart Tolle, I read all of that stuff, but I balance it also with listening to tons of podcasts about really interesting people doing really interesting things, so that my practice is fueled by all of it. You know, life stories.

Kasia:

I so appreciate kind of the connection between what sounds like the esoteric teachings and the wisdom with, like, our modern world, and that's honestly some of what can make finding that spiritual connection when we're not part of some sort of a specific religious group which I think the majority of, or a growing minority and a majority of people feel called to. I think being able to bridge that gap is so important and it's, I think, increasingly more difficult for us, since there's like a lot of noise out there, but it sounds like really finding what resonates with you and like continuing to cultivate a blend of it. Sounds like really finding what resonates with you and like continuing to cultivate a blend of it. Sounds like practice with reflection and with human experiences and stories that almost like bring the wisdom, the ancient wisdom, to life right Like the story of authenticity or the story of hardship or the story of witnessing the difficult thing be impermanent and pass you know what it is.

Stephanie Phelan:

It's connectivity. It's like where are we all connected? Like, if you can, in the short amount of time you have in class and you spoke like people don't necessarily have a lot of people have faith, so you don't want to in any way discredit, like where they get their faith from, if they go to the synagogue or the church or wherever they get their, you know, religious connection. If that's happening, you can still come to yoga. It doesn't have to be a religious experience, but also as a human being. Like if we're practicing yoga and we're not becoming more self-reflective, if we're not seeing our connection in one another, if we're not holding space for the person who's transitioning into a woman and recognizing our story in that it's not the same story. But it is the same story, right? It's the story of being comfortable in our skin. It's like living out loud, it's feeling permission to be fully yourself. And isn't that the same story? And shouldn't we, you know, take that as an invitation to be kinder to all people and to ourselves? You know? So that I feel like all of that potential is in what I'm offering in class. And you know, and I think it has to do with how yogis take their practice off the mat.

Stephanie Phelan:

You know I lead retreats and I was on a retreat and it was like we were in Morocco and it was a very challenging retreat. But what I found interesting is that people don't necessarily see the challenges they face off the mat as part of the practice. And that blind spot is the shade that I want to lift. You know, I want people to write and also if I see it in someone else, I'm like okay, that's been you and it still may be you, so that person is teaching you who you don't want to be and what you can open up and find compassion for that person.

Stephanie Phelan:

For whatever reason, they're still unable to have that self-reflective awareness that what they're doing is unkind and holding space for that unkindness is challenging. And they're practicing yoga and we're like, wait a minute. Like this practice is not just warrior two, you know it's not getting your foot behind your head, it's not getting up into a handstand, you know it's being kind in the most challenging of circumstances. It's not like I have money for this experience and I want it. You know it's like yes, you did, that's true, and you deserve the highest caliber experience of whatever it is that you want, but life is life, and sometimes there's an earthquake, you know, and sometimes things happen, and how do we become fluid and gracious in those situations?

Kasia:

So huge, the and statement there, right Like, yes, these were the hopes you are. Oh, somebody actually said this the other day. Inherently, we are all worthy and deserving, but we are not necessarily entitled to the experience that we want. Right, what did you say? That was so good, so good, so good we are. We are all and deserving but not entitled. Worthy but not entitled. I think that that is so, so huge, you might be, during that in a Dharma talk so cute.

Kasia:

Well, I think that was my therapist. So, dr Steph, shout out to you.

Stephanie Phelan:

I mean that's what I mean, like for me, like everything is alive, every moment of every day is like an opportunity to take that into the practice and the offering as a teacher. And then you know you say, like what is my practice? Trying to live my practice. It's hard, it's hard to be a good person, yeah.

Kasia:

I have to ask you a very practical question because I feel like especially yoga teachers or meditation teachers of which you were both, so this is great or psychologists, you know, like anyone who is also being of service, where the work do is so tightly connected to also their personal practice, who they are. I mean, you spoke to the alignment that you practice every day and some of your Dharma talks come from things that you are experiencing. There's a very personal aspect to that. I'm curious how do you juggle that with also the fact that your work is also in a way providing for you and offering you? In many ways it's connected to like survival right, like literally bread on the table, rent being paid.

Kasia:

How do you balance those two things? Because there you know at least I'll speak for myself work can often trigger like a very survival, like experience. There's like fears they're enough, or stress because there's too much right, or I'm happy because there's too much, but also overwhelmed, but it must be so much harder when that work is also so deeply personal. So how do you juggle that? What has your experience been with that right Like work-life balance? But not really it's not the balance, it's more about your relationship to it that I'm curious about balance.

Stephanie Phelan:

It's more about your relationship to it that I'm curious about. For me, living the practice is not work. It's beautiful. It's so beautiful.

Stephanie Phelan:

This has been a very reflective time for me. Your inviting me so generously to this podcast has been. It catalyzed this deep reflective time for me to stop and to think about and to examine all that I poured into this path and two decades of life experience, and the beauty of it and the privilege of it is the offering. It makes me worthy of the time that I spend doing the things that I do. That enhance my offering right. Like the way I live my life.

Stephanie Phelan:

I don't feel like that's work, even though that is fused into my work. The challenge for me is monetizing that. You know, like that's what's challenging and that's the part that I'll be like what the heck were you thinking? I mean, I was a network news producer with a 401k right and paid vacation and made good money and I think to me that's the most challenging part of my path and I think some teachers have found tremendous success at that. So for me I would say that it's just trying to find a way to stay true to what's important to me, like the values I have with what I'm offering and not let the uncertainty of the financial realm of the practice be a part of my experience. It's just like be where my feet are, trust the universe, keep offering, keep doing what you're doing. You're going to be fine. You've always been fine. You'll be fine.

Kasia:

What an incredible perspective. I think that that is just such an important perspective. It sounds like there's an element of becoming consciously aware of that thought pattern and not allowing that to become. You right, like to witness it, but not necessarily be constantly experiencing that fear or that scarcity or, you know, being pulled into the unknowns, and these are like very real human experiences that all of us feel and but to not allow them to like take hold.

Stephanie Phelan:

it sounds like Everything I go through goes through like the sifter, like when you're sifting flour, like all of my life experiences get sifted through that and that's like the illumination that becomes part of my offering as a teacher, right? So it includes my own human experience, right? The comparative mind, comparing oneself to other teachers or other styles of teaching or other people's lives and the foundation that they may have, that I don't have and I'm like that's all part of my practice as a teacher is to not deny the humanity of who I am and to feel that somehow, as a teacher, you could avoid any of that. You're just living your life like everybody else's, and just because your particular form of employment, work is of a spiritual nature, you're still in this world and of it and maybe not of it, but of it in terms of, like the requirements right, I still have to pay my tax.

Kasia:

Well, I think that you bring up such an incredible example, I would say, in how it is that you handle this particular situation, because I'll speak from my own experience, but I do know that this is a very common one in at least my friend group, and what I've seen in this community, which is the very often we can separate, like you know, the work self from the spiritual self from the like, I don't know mom self, right, and I think that there's an element of actually not doing that that you're describing, which is that, okay, you are a yoga teacher, a meditation teacher, of course, and you also practice this yoga and you practice this, this meditation, and it's actually very personal for you, and it also pays your bills, and you have to pay taxes on your earnings or your business every year, and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, right, and I'm curious, what would you say for people out there who struggle with that, and these especially people who actually have like a job that they maybe don't feel as connected to, but they want to feel that connection that they feel in yoga, off of the mat, right, when they're going to their accounting job or their coding job or whatever it is, you know, barista job like.

Kasia:

How can they bring a smidgen of what you're describing, of that connection, into their day-to-day life when they don't feel that personal connection per se to their work? I?

Stephanie Phelan:

believe that, like everything has deep purpose that we do bring by choice to each experience that we offer. So, like, what is my purpose? My purpose is to be a barista who is kind to the customers who come into the and treat everybody as if you're serving, like a worthy human being, like if you're an accountant. Like not to feel. Like, oh, I have to become a yoga teacher to live a meaningful life. Like it's just so, not true. Like it's like, whatever you do, you bring your humanity to that experience, you bring your humor, you bring your kindness, you bring your. I just don't see it as like you have to be a preacher or a meditator or a Zen Buddhist or a yoga teacher to live like a person of consequence, with humanity and kindness and goodness, and to feel that your life is purposeful.

Kasia:

What a beautiful reminder and note to land on. I think that that element of bringing your presence, bringing your values, it sounds like bringing your heart to the things that you do. I think, leading from that place, there's so much power there. I mean, I'm even thinking about you know, I consult on the side in tech and I definitely bring that part of myself to the work that I do. I mean, I'm working as a product person, so I'm thinking about the features that we're building, but I'm bringing, like my moral compass, my ethical values, my thoughts, not just for the team that I work with, but also the people that will be using this product, into that as well.

Stephanie Phelan:

And, yeah, I think that's such a powerful shift because that changes the dialogue Well it's this very common thing that we do, which is like I want to do something more meaningful, but the truth is that wherever you go there, you are Right.

Stephanie Phelan:

So, and if you think becoming a yoga teacher gives you a free pass and somehow, like you wake up with, you know, this halo over your head and you see rainbows everywhere.

Stephanie Phelan:

It's like I'm you, you are I, we're all like in this. Together, we're all rolling up our sleeves building the plane while we're flying it, trying to figure out, like, how to get to where we want to get, to be in the present moment and, ultimately, inside of all of that is our capacity, no matter what our circumstance, is, to be somebody who wants to be awake, somebody who wants to be more self-aware, aware of the effect we have upon one another. That is like the lesson I learned from my yoga teacher, sharon Gannon, who, when she wrote me a thank you note for the Today Show story, said the greatest impact we have is the effect we have upon one another. I was a network news producer. I was not a yoga teacher when she wrote me that note, and it's like it was who I was and what I brought to her experience and that experience, and so in every moment.

Kasia:

So well said. Oh my gosh, Stephanie, I could keep chatting with you, but we are over time, so I would love for you to leave the audience with where can people find you? If there's anything you want to share with them about things you have coming up, et cetera, please do, and I will link everything below so you don't have to spell anything out or anything like that. Right, we never even got to aging. No, we didn't get to that. That might have to be a part two. I was just like we're going with this flow.

Stephanie Phelan:

We're just going there.

Kasia:

Part two we had a. Dharma talk just now. By the way, it was literally a Dharma conversation. That's what just happened, Awesome.

Stephanie Phelan:

So my website I'm offering in March one of my favorite locations, haramara Yoga Retreat. That's in March of 2025. And then in September end of September, october of 2025, a yoga retreat in Sardinia. And the beauty of retreats is like oh, you have to come, kasia, you have to come.

Kasia:

It sounds so amazing. It sounds amazing, it's so beautiful.

Stephanie Phelan:

So those two retreats obviously my classes, my website, I don't know yeah.

Kasia:

Amazing. Well, thank you so much, Stephanie, for joining today. Thank you for speaking with me and with this audience. It was really a joy. I appreciate it.

Stephanie Phelan:

I appreciate the invitation. It's really a joy. I appreciate it. I appreciate the invitation. It's such a privilege. You're so lovely. I'm just so grateful to have you in my universe, and I also love what you're doing with Inflow. I think that's very beautiful. So thank you.

Kasia:

Thank you, all right. Thanks everyone for listening. See you next time. Thank you so much for tuning into the other way. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a five star review. It really helps the podcast grow and I'm ever so grateful. If you want to stay connected, you can find information on how in our show notes. And finally, if you're curious about inflow and want free resources around cyclical living or moon cycles, check out inflowplannercom. And, of course, for all my listeners, you can use the code podcast10 and that's all lowercase podcast10 for 10% off any purchase. All right, that's all for today. See you next time.

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Kasia Stiggelbout

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