Show Notes: http://www.superdatascience.com/500 1
SDS PODCAST
EPISODE 500:
YODA NIDRA WITH
JES ALLEN
Show Notes: http://www.superdatascience.com/500 2
Jon Krohn: 00:00:05 Welcome to the SuperDataScience show. For this special
500th episode, we're going to enjoy a mind-expanding
Yoga Nidra session led by the wonderful Yogi, Jes Allen.
Jon Krohn: 00:00:27 Jes Allen, can't believe you're on the SuperDataScience
podcast. It's wonderful to have you here. I was thinking
for a while, I was thinking for months when I noticed that
episode 500 was coming up, and what was months ago a
distant future. And now it's not that far away, episode
500 will be released very soon and we're recording it right
now. And so I was thinking to myself for months, I was
like, "What can I do that would be extra special for the
audience for episode 500?" And time and again, the idea
that kept coming back to me was you offering a yoga
Nidra practice. So now here you are.
Jes Allen: 00:01:09 Yeah. Thank you. I'm so excited to be here. I'm so happy
to be here.
Jon Krohn: 00:01:15 So I've known you for a long time. I started doing yoga
practice, the poses of yoga in 2012, I was living in
Singapore and once a week on Saturdays at this mixed
martial arts gym, I was a part of, they had this yoga class.
And I was sore a lot from all the mixed martial arts, And
so I was like, "I really need to stretch." So stretching,
that's what yoga is. And we'll get into this, but yoga is a
lot more than stretching, but that's what I thought at the
time. And so I went to the Saturday class and I remember
the opening up of my body, literally, I mean, the physical
postures are helpful for opening you up. I remember
feeling amazing in a way that I couldn't remember having
felt later that Saturday, later that day. So I went back,
started going back every Saturday. Left Singapore, moved
to New York, and not long after that, I went to a yoga
studio in Manhattan in NoHo and you were one of the
teachers there. And I had a class with you that was
incredible, completely beyond the quality of any yoga
class I'd ever had before. And at the end of the class, you
Show Notes: http://www.superdatascience.com/500 3
said, "All right, well that was my" ... I can't remember
what the classes were called.
Jes Allen: 00:02:40 They were really simple names, like strong, energize,
relax.
Jon Krohn: 00:02:47 Right. It wouldn't surprise you even with what I've just
said, and certainly just the way you know me, but I was
there for the strong classes, the strong yoga. So I would
come for your strong class and then at the end of it,
you're like, "At 10 minutes or something, I have another
class starting, a relaxed class in the same studio." And I
was like, "Oh, alright." And I stayed for that. So it was like
three hours or something of yoga with you just to kick
things off. And now I've been following you around the
world. So that was eight years ago. And I've gone on
retreats with you to Mexico, to Greece and have been to
classes at studios of yours, studios that you've taught at
all over New York. So anyway, huge fan. And I know
episode 500 is going to be amazing.
Jon Krohn: 00:03:43 So in episode 450, we had Steve Fazzari whom you've met
once, he came to a yoga class of yours once. And Steve
talked to us about the physiological benefits of yoga
nidra, like improves sleep, for example, is one of the
things that he talked about. And at the end of the
episode, he did a quick five minute run through of kind of
like the structure of a yoga nidra practice. And so for
today's episode, we're going to do a full practice. But
before we get to that, I'd like to talk a bit about what yoga
means and what it means to be a yoga practitioner. So as
I've now learned in the last decade, yoga is not just
stretching, and yoga is not even just the physical
postures. So what in yoga are called the asana, the
physical postures, that's part of it. But I mean, just tell us
more generally what yoga is all about.
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Jes Allen: 00:04:42 Well, I have to comment on your language of stretching
and opening, because even those two words, you are
referring to them in your physical form, but it is still,
they're expansion words, they're words that also mean to
expand. And yoga, it means union or to yoke, but it's to
become unified consciously with the one consciousness,
it's to remember that we don't have to come together
because we're not apart. We don't have to unify, we are
unified. And so we expand our awareness of
consciousness through practice to remember that we are
consciousness ourselves, that the essence of us and all
things is pure consciousness. So as you stretch your
body, you stretch your consciousness. As you open your
body, you open your consciousness. You expand, you
expand your awareness of yourself, of how you hold
patterns, of what it feels like to be in a human form, of
how you relate to emotions and programming.
Jes Allen: 00:06:16 And as you become aware of yourself, you start to become
aware of your interactions with everything. So even
starting with the asana as a practice is incredibly
expansive. And I think we all experience that in the
beginning, we're like, "Wow. And I feel more connected to
myself." And life starts opening up because I'm opening to
myself, which is how we experience everything. And then
at a certain point, our curiosity, if we feel called to
continue to expand our consciousness, takes us into
different states of practice. And I think ultimately, as
starting also as a very strong yoga asana practitioner, and
then in my journeys over the past decade, coming down
to settling into a practice such as yoga nidra, which is
laying on the ground doing nothing, there has been quite
a journey. But this is where the expansion of
consciousness and understanding that has taken me ...
And I think it's just important to note that we're not
expanding consciousness, just our awareness of
consciousness. Consciousness is always expanding on its
own. So these practices bring us into relationship with
Show Notes: http://www.superdatascience.com/500 5
the natural expansion of life, as opposed to feeling like it's
something that we are separate from.
Jon Krohn: 00:07:51 A beautiful definition. So in this decade of practicing
yoga, you started off teaching these kinds of athletic
classes. There were meditative elements. It was through
my early yoga practices, and particularly through your
classes that I started to be present in the moment in the
room, in my own mind for a few instance. And I
remember thinking, being on a yoga mat, doing a yoga
flow and being like, "Oh wow, I'm here. I've got hands. My
hands are on the mat, there they are." And not being
caught up in the next thing that I need to do or things
that I'd done that day that I could have done better. And
so anyway, so you started with the physical, teaching the
physical asana practice about a decade ago, and that has
now transformed, as you're saying, to include things like
yoga nidra. And so yoga, it can be a big umbrella term to
capture the physical postures like asana, nidra, like you
said laying down, and surely not doing nothing, but not
moving.
Jon Krohn: 00:09:14 You can think of it as like a philosophy of life. There's
teachings, there's literature that you can read. I have
experienced that. I've been to your apartment in Brooklyn
and studied the Upanishads which are Hindu scripture
and studying those week after week with a group of
people. And there are books like that, the Bhagavad Gita
is a popular one in yoga. And so there's these books that
you can use to learn about yoga as a way of life, as
opposed to just postures. But what I'm specifically getting
to is today, what do you offer as a yoga practitioner? So
we're going to talk about yoga nidra a lot. So that's
obviously something that you offer and we're going to
experience on this podcast. You also have weekly online
asana physical practice. I know you still do retreats.
There's one coming up in Greece in September. And it
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sounds like I've also heard you recently been getting into
coaching. So maybe tell us about all of those things.
Jes Allen: 00:10:26 Sure, yeah. So I guess I am an intuitive being and we all
are intuitive beings. And I've always related to myself as
an artist first growing up, this was really what it was for
me. So my path with yoga and practices have been really
circular and I'm a curious being. So I actually was a
gymnast growing up and I took my first yoga class when I
was 17. And it was a little slow for me at the time, but I
remembered understanding it because of the postures
and creating sequences and having body awareness that I
learned. And I understood it to be a self-discipline even at
that age. And there was something magical that clicked
for me in the opening of awareness. And like many of us
at that age, I was in a pretty nodded relationship with
myself.
Jes Allen: 00:11:37 And I did my first teacher training when I was 21. And
the most amazing thing for me in that training was
learning about the chakra system and the energetic
systems of our bodies, because this is how I really was. I
was looking for the magic, right? I didn't want the answer
in a scientific way. I wanted to understand life the way I
was understanding and receiving it, which was through
feeling and awe and magic and alignment synchronicity.
So I had a rough start in my healing, my early 20 healing
years. And when I finally really came back to yoga, it
started with the asana, and it was so important for me at
the time because it gave me confidence to change my life.
It showed me that I could learn things and build strength
and figure out tricky asanas. And it empowered me to go,
"I can change my life. I can figure these things out." And
that was really important to me then.
Jes Allen: 00:12:43 And since then, basically I started practicing and teaching
at the same time, in that way. I had been practicing for a
while, when I came back to it, I was like, "This is what I
Show Notes: http://www.superdatascience.com/500 7
have to do. I have to teach." And so my practices in my
teachings have gone like this. So as I have ... One in front
of the other, like little steps, like a little track. And so I
would have an opening in myself and feel called towards
something. And then once I would feel like it was
embodied in my being, I would want to give it back. And
so one of my favorite things to do, and what I started
doing early in my teaching was cultivating my own
classes at different venues in New York, in the early days
in Brooklyn. And then I started leading retreats.
Jes Allen: 00:13:37 So retreats have been just the most magical experiences
for me to create over the past five years. I've led, I think,
17 retreats in that time. And it's just the most amazing
thing to bring. As you have felt a couple of times, a group
of human beings together in a particular place, for a
particular amount of time and just really dive in and like
magic is super available. So that is a forever passion of
mine and I'll always be offering those. It's tricky in the
world right now, but we are going to Greece in a month.
And I'm working on Bali or Morocco over the winter. So
that's happening.
Jon Krohn: 00:14:29 Just talk quickly about the retreat experience. I don't
know, I've only done yoga retreats with you, so I might
not have a really good understanding of what they're like.
But I might have thought prior to going on them with you
that a yoga retreat was this kind of intensive physical
practice. And of course, I expect the same kinds of like
you're saying, as I open myself physically, I'll open mine
and I'll have this amazing positive experience, getting just
a good break away from the world and do lots of yoga with
cool people and talk to them. But, the way that you
structure your retreats, and it sounds to me like the way
you increasingly structured them is so that yes, there is a
physical practice. So probably twice a day. So there's like
a morning practice and evening practice on most days,
but there's tons of other deliberate practice of journaling,
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of answering tough questions together in a structured
way, of getting to know what people are like in a
structured way and what your own mind is like and what
you are like and what you want and what you could be
doing and what you could do in the future. And, yeah.
Jon Krohn: 00:15:48 I mean, I guess I'm trying to make a case for yoga retreats
in general, and yoga retreats in particular with you. But if
you want to get away from the regular patterns that
you're in, in the other 50 weeks of the year and spend a
week or two of your year, just taking a step back and
thinking about, "What am I doing?"
Jes Allen: 00:16:13 Well, that's what retreat means, right? It means to step
back. It means to withdraw yourself from a moment. And
I know that you meditate every day. And one aspect of
meditation is just in the beginning, to just become a
witness to your mind and to your life. And we don't give
ourselves enough time to really see how we're living and
see how we're seeing. And so when we intentionally
remove ourselves, we can go on vacation and that can
feed us in a million ways. And when you retreat, you
drawback consciously and engage in inner practices,
things I'm doing now are like asana in the morning,
meditation, yoga nidra, again, sound, cacao ceremony,
silence. All different kinds of workshops to awaken you.
And this really has been my path with practice is finding
all these different things to serve as mirrors to who we
are.
Jes Allen: 00:17:19 I have told myself that I'm on a path of many mirrors
because this is so exciting to me to go in. I started with
asana and at a certain point ... And then the energetic
systems. And then I moved into chigong, and I moved into
meditation, and I moved into cacao and journaling and
different aspects of meditation and yoga nidra and more.
But each of these little things showed me a different
perspective of myself, a different piece, a different way to
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see myself, a different way to experience myself. And this
helps us see the world in that many ways. If I can see
myself in this many ways, I can only access in another
being as much as I've access of myself. I can only access
in life as much as I have accessed in me. So the more I
understand how diverse and expansive I am, the more
diverse and expansive my life can be.
Jes Allen: 00:18:26 And something I want to just highlight is that when we
talk about yoga and we talk about expanding
consciousness or expanding our awareness of
consciousness, it's like, "What's the point? What's the
point in all of this?" There's like a lot of big, fancy words
and that's cool to be spiritual and everything, and like,
"Yeah. I'm one, and [inaudible 00:18:57] conceptually."
But what is the point? What's the point in doing practice?
What's the point in showing up every single day? And
then we get into this big word, which is healing. Healing
is the point. We are wanting ... I think all of us are
wanting to live a life of less suffering. And we are part of a
collective evolution that is at the pace that it is at. And
the first thing we do is heal ourselves.
Jes Allen: 00:19:29 As we heal ourselves, we create a ripple in consciousness
that continues to stimulate awakenings all over the place.
And that's how the one organism of humanity wakes up.
But even just for us on an individual level, if I can observe
my life without so much attachment to outcomes,
expectations, stories of the past, things that I want,
things that I'm not okay with, if I'm able to loosen my
grip, can I live with more grace? Can I feel more joy? Can
I feel more gratitude? Can I allow things that are
uncomfortable for me to come through my field and move
out without completely destroying my day or longer than
that? And so these practices are really like, can you
associate yourself? Can you learn to relate to the part of
you that is unchanging? The conscious witness that we
all are, can you relate to that? Enough that the
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fluctuations of life and the mind no longer with you
around like a ship out in a storm.
Jes Allen: 00:20:38 And when we can do that, we just naturally become more
loving and more compassionate and more understanding
of the fluctuations of everything around us. So if I can
show up and say, "I'm working myself towards
understanding the one consciousness and surrendering
over to an evolutionary current that I am not in control of,
but I am a witness to. Well, now, I'm so free." I'm so free
to step into life and be forgiving of everything that I can't
control and return to what are the universal truths? My
teacher Yogarupa Rod Stryker, who I received my yoga
nidra training with that I resonate with the most, he says,
"If it's not true for everyone, it's not true." And this is
something I come back to, if it's not true for everyone, it's
not true. And that's not to say your experience isn't valid,
your feelings aren't valid, all of them are true and valid,
but what is the ultimate truth? And can I remember that
peace in myself so that I'm not only just Allen who lived in
Brooklyn for 12 years and just moved upstate and used to
teach there, and now does this, right? I'm not only those
things. Which is challenging and confusing to be my
emotions, my actions, my relationships, that's hard. So
I'm not only that.
Jon Krohn: 00:22:18 All right. So obviously your retreats sound amazing. Yoga
retreats in general sound amazing and can be hugely
fruitful, but not everyone, especially in a pandemic can
get up and fly to Greece. So how are ways that people can
engage with you to get mentorship in some other way?
Jes Allen: 00:22:38 Yeah. Well, one thing that the pandemic has definitely
opened up, it has been the online platform. And I started
a Patreon account really as like a response to all of the
yoga studios getting shut down about a year and a half
ago. And it's been such an amazing opportunity to share
content. And so I've got that platform that has tons of
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asana practices, yoga nidras, meditations, some
workshops, and I get on and do lectures every once in a
while. And what that has really opened for me is this
understanding of empowering the practitioner at home so
that we aren't actually relying on going to a yoga studio
every single day, or even going on retreats which is
something that you might only be able to do once a year,
if that anyway. And what has become very apparent to me
is that what we need is more practitioners as opposed to
teachers. There's a lot of teacher training programs out
there, and that's great. And also you spend a good
amount of time learning how to teach in a teacher
training, which might not necessarily be what you want to
do. And I believe that we need to all be in practice. This is
how we are waking up to ourselves and to our life.
Jes Allen: 00:23:55 And so I have recently started mentorship for
practitioners. So I've been doing mentorship for teachers
for many years, newer teachers, teachers who want to go
deeper, and that is really amazing. And I love to get into
that work from that teacher mindset. And I've started in
the past few months doing mentorship for practitioners.
So basically that looks like us meeting and dissecting,
like, "Let's look at what's happening in life right now. Let's
look at what you're feeling on creating, expanding,
opening within yourself." And then the past really like
decade or more than that, of me being super living and
practice, living and practice. And navigating my life
through practice, I'm able to help you build a practice for
yourself. And navigate where you want to go and give you
the tools so that you feel empowered to be able to take
these tools into your own life, even when I'm not around.
Jes Allen: 00:25:01 And that's really the goal is to empower your own
intuition and feel like you have enough tools and enough
knowledge that you can care for yourself and that you
have antidotes and medicine in your life to come to every
day. And this has been an amazingly rewarding practice
Show Notes: http://www.superdatascience.com/500 12
for myself to offer in this kind of way and see people start
to blossom and just get so excited about practice and
empower and empower them to take control in their own
life and on a regular basis. I don't go a day without
practicing. I can't imagine what that would be like,
however, it doesn't look the same every day. And that's
important to know too.
Jon Krohn: 00:25:53 That sounds really cool. And so a yoga practitioner can be
anyone, right? So a yoga teacher, we kind of think of that
as like, "Okay, maybe you need" ... I mean, you don't
actually, but you kind of think of it as needing a formal
qualification and then being qualified, stand in front of a
room and talk to people. Being a yoga practitioner means
just practicing the teachings of yoga and experiencing
more connection with everything around you.
Jes Allen: 00:26:19 Absolutely. And this is the key to us. We're not all going
to be yoga teachers. We're not all going to be meditation
teachers and spiritual teachers, but we are all beings of
yoga or beings of spirituality. And we can be that.
Jon Krohn: 00:26:37 Beautifully said Jes, and I'm looking forward to reviewing
the recording and experiencing everything you just said
there again, because that was awesome. I guess we
should get into the yoga nidra practice. I mean, I think
we've teed it up really well now. So we had a bit of an
introduction to yoga nidra in episode 450 with Steve, but
you teach yoga nidra from a different lineage. So I think
we might as well just hear it fresh from you. So what is
yoga nidra? What are we about to experience?
Jes Allen: 00:27:13 Yeah. So actually, the lineage that I am teaching in is the
Shri Vidya tradition, my teacher is Yogarupa Rod Stryker.
These practices and the interpretation of yoga nidra, the
way that he has received them from his teacher and were
passed to me are from the Mandukya Upanishad. So
straight from the upanishadic literature, which speaks to
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the four states of consciousness and the actual technique
of yoga nidra, and yoga nidra of being both a practice and
a state. So when you say yoga, yoga is not just a practice,
there are yoga practices, but yoga is a state of being, it's
the state of being connected consciously. Nidra means
sleep, which Steve probably spoke too. And so yoga nidra
means sleep with yoga or sleep of consciousness. So it's
to come into a state where you've rested your entire body,
mind, all of that is asleep, but consciousness is still there.
Consciousness still exists.
Jes Allen: 00:28:47 So the way I have also been passed information in this
lineage is through having a handful of different intentions
for the practice. One of those being healing and general
healing, which is what Steve really spoke to in the
physiological healing of the body, the nervous system,
getting immense amount of rest, which is so, so, so, so,
so important. Another intention that we'll be diving into
today in the practice is a cognitive practice, which allows
us to associate ourselves with the witness consciousness
and then observe the way our mind is producing thought
and what is retaining through our days, through our life.
And if those things are beneficial to us or not. And then if
we want to continue to explore how to work with our
awareness to perhaps bring more grace into your life.
There is also a transformative practice, which we can take
things that are triggering or activating, or that we're
having challenges with in our life and bring them into this
soft state of yoga nidra and activate them in our being.
And then ask for resolution or healing imagery not
necessarily mental-based conversational solutions, but
felt energetic healing for these things to bring ourselves
into a state of peace and to be able to work with them
with more grace.
Jes Allen: 00:30:21 There's also the practice of sankalpa, which Steve may
have spoke to also. This is a practice of creating a resolve
for yourself that is like an intention that is almost
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something bigger than you think that you can do on your
own. So you call for divine intervention. Yeah. So it
should be a really big intention, something around eight
to 12, eight to 18 months even. A goal this big, right?
Nothing that you're like, "I can do that next month." At
least a year your calling in this prayer. And then the
primary intention and at the basis of all of this is spiritual
awakening or becoming unified with consciousness and
resting in that one consciousness. So there are several
different kinds of techniques to work within these spaces.
And they're almost a progression. Not that one is better
than the other, but that we have to first heal our bodies,
understand our minds, transform our perspectives, create
goals from a pure place, create fulfilling lives for ourselves
from that awareness, and then be able to rest back
enough to awaken into the magic of truth.
Jes Allen: 00:31:50 So the way I use these techniques is they're all over the
place. They're not this linear progression that our mind
wants to grip onto because we have that past, future
ladder mentality, but everything is circular. So they work
together. And part of practice is knowing when one can
come in and [inaudible 00:32:16] when they shift. It's very
deep. It's extensive. One thing I do want to share that was
one of the greatest insights I have received through this
work is that when you set up the conditions for healing,
healing happens on its own. And we're really attached to
us being the doer and us changing ourselves, whether
that's through physical change, we feel like we have to ...
I'm using my hands here because we feel like we have to
grip and change and mutate, and that is only our will
that creates change in our life.
Jes Allen: 00:33:01 But that's not true. We do have to be an active
participant, but our soul calls us into alignment and it's
just our job to walk towards our own soul, our own
vision. And healing is really the natural state. So we talk
about this as like a remembering of who we are. We're not
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learning something new, we're just uncovering the truth.
And so when you lay yourself down and you come into a
space of unity, you remember. And that healing starts to
happen on its own because as your body, not even your
mind, but as your body and your cells, your nervous
system start to remember that you are safe, you are
loved, you are held by this earth that you came from her,
that we are connected to one source. All of these other
fears and anxieties, they start to dissipate. The more that
we remember our truth, the more we see the illusions of
these fears. And so we can work into the healing through
coming into love, coming into love, coming into love
instead of how do I get through this pain? How do I get
through this pain? How do I get to this pain?
Jes Allen: 00:34:22 So the yoga nidra practice that we are going to be diving
into in this episode is the cognitive practice that I spoke
to in which we will use entering the state of yoga nidra as
a foundation for us to bring awareness to our mind, our
days, how we are seeing, what we are remembering. And
get a better perspective, even an eagle-view of our life. So
for this practice, you will want to be laying down and be
comfortable. Being comfortable is one of the most
important things in this practice. But we'll give you a
moment just to set up, you could lay down on the floor
with a blanket underneath you and a pillow underneath
your head. You could lay on a couch, you could lay in
your bed. It doesn't matter as long as you're comfortable.
It is recommended, although not necessary, if you're in a
very light-filled room to cover your eyes with a light piece
of fabric. And if you're cold at all, to place a blanket over
knee, over your chest or over your legs. If you are placing
a blanket over you, it's recommended that the fingertips
are exposed. So you can just let your hands slip out the
sides, or even create little tents underneath the blanket
with your hands so that the fingertips are sensitive and
aware of space around them without weight.
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Jes Allen: 00:36:12 So just making your final adjustments here, and perhaps
even fidgeting a little bit in the body. If there's excess
energy, you could squeeze your hands and squeeze your
feet just for a moment and then exhale and let them go so
you can feel that release. And then you'll just want to
commit in this moment to being still throughout the
duration of the practice. If you feel the urge to move or
adjust now, just do it so that you can say, "Okay, now I'm
comfortable enough to be here for the next 15 minutes."
Just notice your breath. Now allow your body to open to
the earth. The back body to become sensitive to the draw
of gravity. Perhaps even feeling how deeply held you are.
And then that feeling of being held, give your body any
amount more over the rest. Become aware of yourself in
the space.
Jes Allen: 00:38:27 There is a floor or a piece of furniture underneath you,
walls around you, sealing above you, and you are
occupying this space, and this space is holding you. Just
becoming aware of any sound, allowing your
consciousness or your awareness to just travel to one
sound and the next not lingering too long on any sound.
Rather just tuning yourself to the textures of this space.
Bringing your awareness to your breath and specifically
down to your belly, and just gently beginning to shape
diaphragmatic breathing. So on purpose, breathe into the
belly and breathe out of the belly.
Jes Allen: 00:39:52 So the chest here is more or less still, and you're directing
the breath down into the diaphragm. We'll breathe like
this for about a minute, consciously shaping the breath. I
think two more breaths. After that second exhale, just
allow the breath to return to a natural state, just simply
observe the breath flowing. You'll make an intention for
yourself here to stay aware throughout the practice. So
there's a good chance that the body will sleep and a small
chance that the mind could even sleep. But our intention
is for awareness to remain, so just say to yourself three
Show Notes: http://www.superdatascience.com/500 17
times mentally, "I will stay aware throughout the
practice."
Jes Allen: 00:42:12 Now please bring your awareness to the third eye center
or the space right in between your eyebrows. And notice
as you do this, a gentle energy emerges. It might feel like
a soft light, but there is a presence here. And just notice
that presence that is already existing, but it awakens
through your awareness. And then bring your awareness
to your throat center and notice that same light or energy
emerging with your awareness in the throat. Right
shoulder joint, a light or awareness comes from inside the
body. Right elbow, same light or presence. Right wrist,
light inside the body, energy from within. Right thumb,
pointer finger, middle finger, ring finger, pinky finger, all
emerging light. Again in the right wrist, presence of
consciousness. Right elbow, right shoulder joint, same
light or presence emerging from within. Again in the
throat center, feel that light. Left shoulder joint, again, a
presence emerging from within the body, creating
softness. Left elbow, inner presence. Left wrist, light
emerging. The left thumb, pointer finger, middle finger,
ring finger, pinky finger, full energy and light.
Jes Allen: 00:45:03 Left wrist, presence from within. Left elbow, left shoulder,
inner light. Throat center, awareness. Now in the heart
center, feel an energy, a light presence emerge with your
awareness of the space of the heart. Same awareness over
to the right side of the chest. Back to the heart center.
Awareness now in the left side of the chest. And heart
center, feeling that light. Awareness, again, in the throat
center. And landing the consciousness in the third eye
center, the space right in between the eyebrows, and just
allowing the consciousness to remain. Notice here that
the consciousness bears witness to these energy points,
and observe as you allow all of these points of energy or
light to illuminate at the same time from within. Watching
the brightening of these lights. Allowing that energy to
Show Notes: http://www.superdatascience.com/500 18
keep the body soft, bringing your awareness back to the
dark space behind the brows, behind the forehead, the
dark screen of your mind.
Jes Allen: 00:47:23 And beginning 30 minutes ago, recall on that screen what
you are doing. And then begin to trace back your entire
day until this moment in 30 minute intervals. Just
allowing yourself to pass over interactions, actions,
thought, feeling, right until you woke up this morning. A
few minutes to do this.
Jes Allen: 00:48:06 (silence)
Jes Allen: 00:49:29 As you approach the morning, can you see yourself in bed
right before you woke up, and recall any dreams from the
night, encouraging the mind to continue to move in
intervals through the evening of sleep. And then perhaps,
becoming aware of the moment right before you fell
asleep. Allow yourself now to release the hold of memory
and draw back so that you may witness anything that
was less than beneficial, or didn't sit in the most pleasant
resonance from even just this day. And just from the state
of witness, gently assess, invite awareness to these areas
of your life. With compassion and mere awareness, but
awareness doesn't judge, simply witnesses. Can you allow
everything that you've drawn out of your mind to exist
and bring yourself back to the witness consciousness or
the place in you that sees. And arrest in this
consciousness as self. Without moving the body at all,
simply become aware of the breath in this state. And
again, keeping the body very soft, bring your awareness
back into the room, feeling yourself again, in this space,
on the surface, contained. I'm taking just another
moment to hold close to you anything that you'd like to
carry with you outside of this practice, you could even
plant that like a seed in your heart.
Show Notes: http://www.superdatascience.com/500 19
Jes Allen: 00:54:16 And when it feels right for you, you could very gently
move your fingers. Take a deeper breath in. I like to place
my hands on my belly or my heart as the first movement
to keep things gentle without jolting too much out of this
sensitive space. I'm just feeling my palms and the breath
meet each other. Whenever you are ready, knowing that
you could just continue to lay right where you are, you
could also shift to a side, come up to sit and eventually
invite yourself back into your room, the waking part of
your life. So welcome back from that exploration.
Jon Krohn: 00:55:52 Thank you.
Jes Allen: 00:55:53 Thank you. I just want to note that, again, this is a
practice that helps us to just bring more awareness into
our life and it's something that you could even do as a
cognitive practice before you go to bed at night, like five
minutes to retrace your day. And it improves memory in
general, and it's also just really good for maintaining
awareness in our life and being able to assess and shift
anything that isn't really serving us. And when we do it in
that state of yoga nidra, we're also able to relate to that
unchanging piece of us that is it is not our mind, but can
work with it.
Jon Krohn: 00:56:52 Yeah, I had not done that before. I had not gone through
a nidra practice like this before, and I've done nidras with
you, but I think it was before you started studying this
particular lineage. And I really was blown away by how
many things I've already done today. We're filming in mid-
afternoon and wow, so many things already happened.
And you talked a lot about healing and something that
occurred to me just now is how happy I am with so many
of the things that I did today that I feel like I was kind to
people around me and I was taking on kind of the right
priorities for my day. But there were also a couple of
things that came to mind that I was like, "Huh." There's a
little thing that like it definitely had been better, that
Show Notes: http://www.superdatascience.com/500 20
interaction could have been kinder there. And yeah, very
cool Jes. It does sound like something that would be
super helpful at the end of the day, in particular laying in
bed. And maybe even then bringing that piece into my
sleep.
Jes Allen: 00:58:08 Yeah, if you practice enough, you'll start recalling your
subconscious dreams, which that's a whole other topic
but it has a lot of information, just information about how
the mind is processing our desires in our life.
Jon Krohn: 00:58:32 Nice. Well listener, I hope you enjoyed this extra special
episode 500 of the SuperDataScience show. Jes, how
should people be aware of everything that you do,
everything that you have to offer? How can people follow
you in the world?
Jes Allen: 00:58:49 Well, I have an Instagram, this is the way of the world
today. It's just my name, it's Jes Alan. I do spell my name
with one S, so it's J-E-S A-L-L-E-N. The handle has little
dots in between each of the letters, but you should find
me anyway, just my name. And my website is also
jesallen.com, and you can find all my retreats, my online
content, mentorship programs. I'll be coming out with
some group programs also soon that will be accessible in
the virtual world. So both, all my content and interactions
are on both of those platforms and they seem to be best
and easiest. There's also some free content on
SoundCloud as far as yoga nidras, and some meditations
go, so you could also start by tuning in there.
Jon Krohn: 00:59:42 Yeah. Perfect. Thank you, Jes. And we will include links
to all three of those Instagram, website and SoundCloud,
which I enjoyed in the run-up to filming this episode as if
I needed extra content to be sure that this was the perfect
thing for this episode. I did thoroughly enjoy a couple of
nidras that you had up on there, on SoundCloud. All
Show Notes: http://www.superdatascience.com/500 21
right, thank you so much Jes. Have a wonderful rest of
your day and we'll catch you again soon.
Jes Allen: 01:00:14 Yeah. Thank you so much for having me, it's beautiful to
be here.