EP #153: How to Move Beyond the Limitations of Your Mind & Cultivate Happiness Within Yourself with Sarah Platt Finger, Co-Founder of Ishta Yoga

Welcome back to another episode of Everyday Endorphins, a mental health podcast focused on the importance of finding joy and happiness in daily living. I'm your host Stella Stephanopolis, and this week is dedicated to exploring how to move beyond the limitations of your mind, so that you can really cultivate happiness within yourself, rather than look towards things outside of you to bring you a sense of joy and fulfillment. Now this is loaded and this really is the premise of Everyday Endorphins is understanding the point around creating happiness rather than seeking it, and this conversation is deeply philosophical and deeply spiritual, so if you have trouble following along, come back to this episode a few times because there is a ton of wisdom shared by Sarah Plattfinger, who is the guest for this week's episode. Sarah is truly a multi-hyphen it. I think what really bonded me to come and reach out to her to be on the show is her passion for yoga. She is the co-founder of Ishto Yoga, which is a studio down in the East Village in New York City. She is the director of Chopra Yoga, and she co-authored a book with Deepak Chopra, called Living in the Light Yoga for Self-Realization. Her expertise is all around personal growth, fulfillment, and what it means to really expand your consciousness, and that's really what we talked about during this interview. We talked about some of the principles and practices of yoga that contribute to this understanding of quieting the mind and moving beyond those self-imposed limitations that we often set. We talked a lot about how spiritual growth and personal growth is often very quiet and invisible, and what's kind of happening in the brain and in our consciousness when we grow and when we go through hard moments in life. We also talked about what it means to tap into your divine power, the divine feminine, and we also talked a little bit about Tantra and how the practice of Tantra is related to spirituality and tapping into your divinity and what it means to truly feel embodied in yourself and living beyond the sensory realm. This episode may feel quite esoteric, but I promise you there is so much wisdom to be soaked in from everything that Sarah shares, so I'm really excited for you all to tune in. Before we dive into the episode, reminder to like, rate, and review this podcast on whichever listening platform that you prefer. Hi Sarah, thank you so much for coming on to Everyday Endorphins. It is such a pleasure to have you here. Thank you Stella, it's an honor and a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me. Yeah, we have so many topics to dive into today, but I'd love to start with sharing with my listeners how we first met and we're recording at the end of January, so it was probably about two-ish months ago that we met in New York at the One Girl Summit, which was such a beautiful event, really informative for me, really attending a lot of different panels and hearing from different experts in the wellness entrepreneur space, so I had a great time and it brought me to you, which really excites me as two fellow yoga instructors and enthusiasts in the yoga world, and I just loved getting to meet in person. It's not often that I meet my guests in person even before I get to do a recording. That was a really inspiring event. It was early November and the founder of One Girl, who is a friend and longtime student, created this organization to offer women and opportunity to come together to develop a sense of not just camaraderie, but also purpose and connection and inspiration, right? And there were several speakers and leaders. There was a sound healing that I was able to participate in. There was a panel discussion. A couple other really inspiring women talks about hormone health, about mental health, and I think I kind of represented the spiritual health aspect of it. And so I was in New York City and I live now in South Florida. I'm from New York and just kind of being there. And with such a beautiful diverse group of women of all ages, backgrounds, ranges, it just felt like a real tapestry of women who had a sense of self inside of them, but were also looking for opportunities to connect and grow. And I really love to teach to that population, not just in a yoga studio and a sticky mat, right? But in an environment where maybe there are people who are newer to the practice or newer to some of these techniques that I shared and feel like they can lend themselves to helping in other ways, whether it's mental, professional, social, organizational, right? Because yoga can, the ripple effect is great. So. And today we're going to talk a lot about some of the lessons that we can see translated off of the mat and into our life. That and you know, you mentioned this just now around finding that sense of self. That's going to be a big focus of our conversation today. And I like how you kind of shared how you were brought in to give more of like that spiritual wellness perspective. Because I think that is actually a really fundamental pillar to our well-being. We think about like our spiritual health in particular. And I know that you have a background and deep expertise in yoga, founding Ishta Yoga here in New York City. Let's start there. I'd love to hear more about your entry point into the practice and your journey in path in yoga. Yeah. I mean, my background I grew up as a competitive gymnast. So I was always a mover. I didn't know at the time as a child growing up that gymnastics rather was sort of my own form of yoga coming into these different shapes. Like going upside down, swinging on the bars, balancing on a narrow balance beam. These were all shifting my mode of consciousness. There were opportunities for me to shift my mindset, which I really needed as an intense feeling child and a very empathic child. I needed an opportunity to kind of channel my energy. And that's what gymnastics did to me for me. And then fast forward, you know, graduated college. I went to live in Taiwan for three years. I taught kids English. I was dancing at the time. So I did some dance teaching as well and choreography. I lived there for three years. And I thought that I was going to actually find a home there in Taiwan. I was dating somebody who was from there. And I had started to develop a sense of connection to the people and to the culture. But after three years, I started to, there was the SARS epidemic, which is sort of the precursor to COVID actually that was in early 2000s. And I started to develop in Somia. I had a lot of anxiety that I don't think I really knew to name anxiety at the time. But I just felt like it was time for me to come back to the US. And I was called to do a yoga teacher training. And at the time, there weren't a lot of yoga teacher trainings. Just a few. This was again, like maybe 2003, about 22 years ago now. And even though it wasn't something that was very ubiquitous, I just knew that it was something I felt called to do and to share. When I came back to the US, I had reverse culture shock. I didn't really feel at home where I was. And I knew that Taiwan was not home for me either. And so I felt in this very in between state where I felt unsettled, unsteady, a little bit lost. And I had gone to take my first yoga class in a nearby studio at the time, was living with my parents in Long Island. I took this yoga class from this teacher who I'm close with now, Mary Jo Marciacello. And the first time I took that class, I felt like actually this is coming home. This is home for me. Home is a space inside of myself in my body, in the experience that I'm having. I actually can go anywhere in the world and return back to this space inside of me and know that I'm home. And it was just like a really transformative experience. And I was like, I need to learn more about this practice. I need to train this school of yoga. She directed me to Alan Finger, who is now my husband, who is the founder of Ishtayoga. And I did my training, 200, 300 hour. I started teaching a couple years after that. that Alan was in a transitional place in his business and he was partnering with another studio, another company, and realized that Ishta kind of needed to have its own home. This yoga system that had been integrated with another larger company at the time that was a little more interested in the physical practice of yoga, making it a set kind of experience and a more usable, a little bit more of a corporate feel to it, less attention to the breath, to the meditation, to the subtle aspects of the practice. And it was time to develop a home now for Ishta. So Alan and I and our partners at the time developed a studio in New York City. We called it Ishta Yoga. And then that became a home for other people who were looking for a space to connect, to feel welcome, to feel like they were part of a community where they don't have to be act, compare themselves. Yoga can feel very competitive and that is not the ethos of Ishta. It is a very welcoming, nurturing, elevating practice. And that has always been my intention as a teacher to allow people to feel a space at home inside of themselves, but also in the practice. And when they're in class, to feel like they don't have to reach to become someone or something else, that in fact, they're returning back to who they already are. That's such a beautiful journey that you've just described. And a few points that I want to call out. So the first, and maybe I'll work in reverse. The first point is, you know, when you step into a yoga studio as a practitioner of yoga, if you're just going to attend and take class, it's likely probably the one time in your day that you're giving yourself 60 minutes of uninterrupted time. And so as an instructor, and I teach about two to three times a week, which is not a lot, I teach part time, but given my full-time job and running the podcast, like it adds up, I sometimes forget what it's like to be a student and how good it feels to actually put your phone away, feel a sense of home and belonging in a space, and use that hour to really disconnect, rather reconnect with yourself, like disconnect from the outside world, and reconnect with yourself. And it's really such a powerful thing that you describe and to be able to cultivate an environment that's conducive for people, to feel like they have a sense of connection with others in a place where they can really connect to themselves, is so important. And I think that's actually something that makes me feel really grounded in my own yoga practice, and why I even wanted to do my teacher training now four years ago, almost four years ago. It was about for me, deepening my own practice, and why did I want to do that? Well, why did I have the love for yoga? It was because it was a space for me where I felt I could return to my own home. And now it's an interesting perspective as a teacher, A, how do you cultivate that? But B, how do you continue to strengthen your own practice as a student? And that's just something that I've been thinking about, in my spare time, that brought up for me. Right, because as a teacher, I think what fortifies us as teachers is being students, being lifelong students, and as you know all too well, the practice and the science and the tradition of yoga is vast. It's kind of, you can never fully embrace it all because there's so much to it, not just it's so much beyond the physical athena when it comes to the history, the philosophy, the rituals. And of course, you can go into the more science-based background and anatomy and biomechanics. It's just, and as we grow and evolve, the practice of yoga expands and evolves with us and with consciousness, even though the source of it goes back thousands and thousands of years. So I think just keeping a space of curiosity alive, I think that is such an important aspect of a teacher, because it can be very easy as a teacher to be like, "Well, now I know it all, and I've mastered this, and I really think of myself as mastering anything because I'm constantly wanting to learn more. I'm constantly trying to keep the neural pathways, firing and awakening in new ways. That's what keeps me engaged as a teacher and also as a student. I also have a daily, my own home practice that I do every morning, every morning I do my own home yoga, asana, pranayama, meditation. And that really sustains me, but I feel so inspired by different teachers and in this age of information, like digital technology, we do, we're so lucky that we have access to all these incredible teachers all over the world. It's never been more prolific, like the opportunity to learn these wisdom traditions. It's kind of ironic, right? Like it's technology that's growing, which some people can say, yes, in many ways, it can be scary, but it can also be an opportunity for us to continue to expand our awareness and seekers. Absolutely. And I think you can make that argument for technology in general and wherever you want to apply your learnings. You bring up a really great point around the asanas only being one part of the practice, so like the physical causes, only being a sliver of the pie of what yoga really is. What would you say to people who meet the practice with some sort of resistance, being, oh, like I just, I want a more intense workout, or oh, I'm not flexible. These are things I hear time and time again. And I'd love to hear from you how you would challenge people to become more curious about the ways that yoga can show up for them and not necessarily in the physical, but more so in the spiritual and emotional benefits that we get from the practice. Well, really, it's up to the individual. What they want to get out of the practice. So I would never kind of try and sell someone on it if they aren't interested, if they didn't ask me. I never push it on anybody, right? It's just like, oh, what do you do? Oh, my yoga teacher. Then if they have questions and follow up, I follow up. But I really believe that something, when we talk about like spiritual growth or evolution, it's a very individualized thing, right? That one has to feel inside of themselves, right? It's sort of like a spark that comes. And then once they have that sort of desire or hunger to learn more, then I could talk forever about the way in which it will not just calm your nervous system and slow down your heart rate and your brain waves and all the physiological benefits of it. But also just in being able to be with yourself, to be able to sit and be with yourself 'cause at the end of the day, that's all we have, right? We have our own internal space. That is the only thing that we ever have any control over. It's the only thing that we can have any sense of real agency. We can never control the outside world. We can't control our friends, our relationships, our peers, our employees. We can't control what happens, natural disasters. It's, that is beyond, and this is a premise, is a real foundational wisdom of the practice of yoga, is that like you're not the doer. But there is an aspect of awareness inside of yourself that you have the power to shift and change and expand. And if you desire that, you can create that. And once you know how to do that, it's like, you're free, you've cracked the code of that of like, because it's all an inside job. You know, happiness, joy, freedom, love, compassion, everything we desire and look outside of ourselves for is right there within us. But we just have to know how to sit and be with ourselves. And that's the hard part. Like that's the kind of bridge we have to cross. That's really well said. And it's hard to even really conceptualize personal growth, spiritual growth, because it's so internal, you can't see it. Someone else can't see what's going on at the inside. So it's really difficult sometimes I find even carry a dialogue about spiritual growth and personal growth, because it's something you can't necessarily see. You have to really rely on how you feel and how certain things resonate for you at certain points in your life. You made a really great point that I wanted to bring up. about how at the end of the day you only have yourself. And I was actually thinking that as you described your experience of moving to Taiwan and feeling a sense of connectedness there and then moving back to the States and feeling a sense of reverse culture shock, which is ironic because you're not from Taiwan. So in what world would you not feel connected to the place that you're actually from, right? And when I reflect on my own journey and we've talked about this previously, when I went to Bali to do my yoga teacher training, it was such like an idealistic world. Like, you know, like, I graduated from college and I knew I had a job lined up a few months later so I had security. And I was going to do this beautiful program. Something I'd always wanted to do in a beautiful place in the world. I traveled a lot that summer. Like, it was absolutely amazing. And to be in a place like Bali where there's so much healthy food that's accessible, the culture is so family oriented. Like, I genuinely felt like the purist version of myself. It was amazing to also go somewhere on your own. I was like 21 at the time. Like, it was just so special in ways that I'm sure you can, you know, relate to. And then to be thrown back into New York City, I moved home to my parents' apartment. You know, starting a job in the corporate world, there was a lot of change. A lot was happening all at once. And I started to grow a sense of resentment towards that transition because it was really hard for me to feel like I was, quote unquote, "regressing" in my life by moving back home and not being right by the beach. And like, I wanted to do the hour of yoga in the morning and then the 30 minutes of breath work and then the walk on the beach. And it's like, you can't do that when you're in New York City. You just can't. And I had that kind of reverse culture shock. And then I realized to wrap up my long-winded story, I can't rely on a circumstance and environment, something outside of myself to make me happy because things are constantly changing. So while I can acknowledge the beauty of feeling a sense of connectedness, tubing in Bali and to having that experience, that's not what's making me whole. That's not what's making me healthy. I have to come back to these inner tools, inner strategies that I carry within me inside of me that I can bring wherever I go. And it's really hard. It's actually really hard to do, like creating that personal shield, like an invisible shield, not letting things permeate. Do you have strategies? Do you have tips? What's your insight on that? Because I have him crack the code. No, it's such a good point that you make. And I think this happens to a lot of people when they go through teacher training and they have such an inspiring, expansive journey. It's very transformational. You meet people that you feel deeply connected to. You are doing yoga, meditation, these contemplative practices, daily, where you're able to create a certain mindset. And then when you go back into, quote, unquote, the world, especially the cement jungle of New York City, which is, by the way, I think the most enlightened city because if you can keep your nervous system and check in New York City, you really can do it anywhere. It's a kind of city where it forces us to learn and know how to pull our senses inward to find a space of calm when you're traveling the subway or walking amongst crowds. So New Yorkers intuitively and inherently know how to maintain a sense of centeredness. I really think the ones that are consistent there for an extended period of time. I, like I said, have my daily practice that really fortifies me. And there's a great quote in the yoga sutras of, potentially, which is kind of the classical text of yoga, a lot of modern yoga is based off of. And he says that practice, when done, on a committed basis, when you come back to your practice in a committed way in all earnestness, it becomes your foundation, right? So when you return back to something over and over and over again, that becomes you. It's like neuroplasticity in the brain. You create a groove in your mind. So when you come to your own, to your mat or your home practice and you continuously come back to centeredness, deadiness, balance, integrity, whatever it is that you desire to create in your practice. And you do that every day. That becomes the bedrock of everything else in your life. And wherever you go, there you are. And that is what the practice is carving, for you, the inner space, right? That is there everywhere you go at any time. That's why it's so powerful. And unfortunately, it's, I don't know, it's not a great selling point. It's not like you said, you can't see spiritual growth, right? So it's not as Instagrammable as a headstand is. You know who are like going upside down and bringing your head to your toe. So it's the subtle thing, but it's long lasting. And in a world that's constantly changing and is very unpredictable to have the steadiness inside of yourself is invaluable. It's such a gift. Probably one of the hardest things to be able to, I don't know if we can ever fully master being one with ourselves, but getting pretty close to it is pretty difficult. I think there was a study done years ago on how people would rather tolerate horrible electric shock pain than sit in silence. Yes, I heard that too. I forget where I learned this, probably in a neuroscience class or a positive psychology class when I was in college. But it, I mean, it makes sense. Think about how often we attach onto certain things because they feel familiar and we'd rather just crave the familiarity than the discomfort of like stepping away or being alone. It's crazy. And then especially in a city like New York that's incredibly overstimulating, I'd like to think that growing up here, I feel like I've navigated finding a sense of being centered pretty well. But even in recent times, in the past year or two, I found it really difficult to not feel overstimulated, truthfully. And I know like I do a lot. I'm always running around, always doing something. I don't know if it's always to my benefit. But I feel like sometimes it's really hard to not get distracted by everything that's happening. And I guess this can get into a whole slew of other things like the comparison mindset and the downfalls of social media and all of that. But it really is difficult to create the space to be still because oftentimes we want to fill up the space with distractions. And I think yoga is a great example of creating that stillness. But even meditation too, you know, meditation might even be more effective for some people. Oh, absolutely. Because when you meditate, you sit in stillness and silence. And the meditation technically is part of the yoga experience. But when we talk about, when most of us think about yoga, we think about the yoga asana. And that involves moving your body. And even though it can be like a moving meditation, right? It can kind of set that pace in your mind, or you quiet your mind. It's extremely potent and effective. But as you mentioned, ultimately, to be able to sit and be still for an extended period of time, you know, that is the experience of yoga, right? Union. It is a state of being, right? That we can only ever access when we go still and we quiet the fluctuations of our mind and we rest back into the part of ourselves that is unchanging. That's infinite and unbounded. And we can find tastes of that when we do certain things or when we watch a beautiful sunset or, you know, if a runner's high, right? But to kind of sit and allow yourself to be absorbed into that, right? And Sanskrit is called Samadhi. And it's the state of yoga. It's like something that you take with you in every life circumstance and in every kind of trauma or tragedy that comes up to be able to have a space inside of you that you know is attainable in times of trauma, but in times of quiet that you can allow yourself to go quiet and rest there. Yeah, it's just, it's truly a gift that keeps giving. When I know that breath is really important in yoga too, like learning to move with the breath, learning how to harness the power of the breath to come back to the self. And I would be curious to hear more about how breath plays a role in the practice of tantra and how tantra plays a role in the practice of yoga and bringing it all the way back to this theme of going inwards. Where does. tantra fit into this too. 'Cause I know there's a lot of misconceptions out there. Maybe this is juicy or partly. (laughing) I am so curious. You're more about your expertise in the practice of tantra. Well, I'm sorry to disappoint your listeners. I am not gonna talk about some esoteric sexual practice, but maybe you'll have another guest on. That can do that for them. I like my background in tantra is more about, yes, the tools and techniques that are available like breath, pranayama, mudra, which are hand gestures, mantra, which is sound, vibration, bandas, right? The locks that direct our energy, the chakras, which are the wheels of or the junction points of the different subtle elements that live within us. So and run along the central channel, the spine. So there's these different aspects of tantra that are meant to help to awaken the divine, essentially the infinite consciousness inside of us. And tantra is a really beautiful practice because I think of it as a non-dualistic practice, meaning the tantra sees everything in this realm of awareness, the material or atomic realm as an expression of the divine. It is ultimately a field, right? But a denser field of energy that is able to bring us back to the source of intelligence that we all originate from. So every experience, every sensation, every feeling, every action is an opportunity to bring us back to the source of our true nature. Nothing is good or bad, right or wrong, light or dark. Those are all just fragments of the mind or illusions of the mind because the mind plays in duality, right? Our brain works on binaries in duality. And so we will always, if we're in our mind, perceive the world in this binary way. But tantra is really about, the word tantra comes from two words, tanoti, which means to expand and triati, which means to liberate. And the word tantra is also like, it is a text, but it can also, the triati can also be a word for an instrument. So we think of, you know, the correct pronunciation is tantra, but I'll say tantra, right? Tantra as a practice to expand and liberate our consciousness to this expansive field of awareness to stretch our consciousness into that infinite field of awareness and then weave it back into every moment of our living. And we can only do that when we transcend or move beyond the limitations of the mind. And so there are many practices like breath or visualization, iconography, mantra. These are all opportunities for us to move beyond the cerebral intellectual mind and touch that space of infinite unbounded intelligence. But it's not that we just hang out there in that space. And this is very much an ishta component, right? What I, again, am trained in and the teachings that I very readily teach, it's about bringing that then into your physical body so that you become the embodiment of that divine energy. And one other thing about tantra that is so, I think special and unique that really inspires me is the celebration of the physical body, right? That your physical body is not an impediment or a obstacle to freedom and liberation. But in fact, it's the gateway in, right? If you want to experience freedom and liberation, you have this technology of your human physical body to utilize to go there. And so it's very empowering, right? And there's a celebration of the feminine in tantra, the divine feminine, it's a very feminine practice whereas a lot of some spiritual practices can be very linear and you have to get somewhere and master this before going to that or develop heat in order to feel freedom. Right? There's none of that really forcing or straining in this practice. It's yes, you can work. Yes, you can develop that heat, which is called tapas, heat for transformation and that is necessary, right? In some cases to be able to quiet and steady the mind, but ultimately it's like you are already there. As you are, you are inherently a field of infinite intelligence. It's just remembering that and knowing the way into access it. That was such a great description of my brain was like on fire. I'm so happy. Pops, some questions. The first thing I want to point out is how you brought up the divine feminine, which I love. And I remembered like a few years ago, one of my good friends, we were talking about this concept of the divine feminine energy in the context of dating and it became this like thing between us where we always talk about like, oh, we're like in our divine feminine or like, oh, this action leads us to our divine feminine and it sounds kind of silly to people who don't understand what that term means or subscribe to the silly for to these spiritual practices. But it is interesting when you think about Hantra or like the divine feminine even being an energy that's gendered and the ability to move with ease and like, not be the doer, but just let things kind of be in flux and in flow. But I think about, you know, when we create our own suffering and struggle and pain, it's often because there's a resistance to what we want versus like how the things just naturally are. And so perhaps tapping more into your divine energy and if you're a woman, your divine feminine energy, I don't know if men also have this too or maybe I'm going to be able to, I don't know, but like tapping into your divinity, perhaps one actual like strategy you can take is learning to kind of loosen the grip on needing to control things or that resistance. Would you say that's part of the practice of leaning into your divine power as it pertains to what we're talking about? I mean, yes, definitely. And just to kind of make the distinction about these energies as we call them diviner, masculine energy, we both have them. And that is in yoga, you know, you're the sort of masculine energy might be called Shiva intelligence. And it's what resides at the crown of the head has kind of signified as all knowledge, right? There's just like wisdom that connects you to that matrix of all possibilities. And the divine feminine is called Shakti. And she rests at the base of the spine. And Shakti and Shiva, when it's kind of like the Yin and Yang, you know, from Chinese medicine, there's the Yin, which is the lunar feminine receptive and then the Yang, which is the solar masculine, masculine, more active. And so we have these elements, those aspects of those energies within us. The divine feminine is the part of us that is creative, that connects with nature that is spontaneous, that is in flow, right? And that can kind of tap into feeling, to sensuality, to sexuality, to pleasure, right? These are all aspects of the divine feminine from a yogic perspective. And then that masculine energy is the energy of just a being, of presence, of showing up, of being in your knowing and feeling that. So they are both aspects of the divine. You're right, the divine is not gendered, but we just call them in order to distinguish the qualities of these energies of one being receptive and of the material world and the other being more present and of this transcendent realm. And when these two dualities merge, we feel the experience of yoga. We are no longer identifying ourselves as a body or a mind or an identity or even in space and time. So it is, yes, it's a bit like esoteric, right? And it is hard to wrap your mind around because the mind wants to make sense of everything. That's its job. So it kind of requires a little bit of a, it's through direct experience, right? But most of our awareness can know that, right? That's why we have words to it. And then you're like, my mind's on fire because all this stuff is coming up. And that might be because your essence, your soul, is like, yeah, I know what you're talking about. Yes, like I've had that experience in some way, right? Yeah. Exactly. I was going to say it's the lived experience that actually allows you to internalize everything we're talking about and make sense of it and how it applies to your own world. And I appreciate that you shared kind of the distinction between both of these energies because you're right, both of them exist in everyone. And I had to like kind of take an audit in my life and see where I kind of lean more towards to give a bit more attention to the other energy that might be a bit depleted. And so something I've really been working on is leaning more into the feminine energy and leaning more into that and seeing how that can positively impact my life in certain ways because I think in many ways being more in the masculine as a woman has definitely benefited me and I've been able to do and achieve a lot of things because I think the masculine is more of the doer. Of course, everything in moderation. So when you kind of over-index on one, you start to experience some determinants to what that could look like. So I think again, it's like finding that balance. And the last thing I want to share here, which you brought up, was around de-identifying from the body and realizing that we're not our thoughts. You made an interesting point actually about the power of utilizing your body and like having those somatic experiences to connect more to that divine energy. But and I don't know if I'll be able to articulate this really well. But something I've been thinking a lot about is when we want to like de-attach from things, a mechanism that I've tried to adopt or a mindset shift is seeing myself witnessing my life being lived through this physical body. So like I am not this body that I am just experiencing life through this. That is actually a lot to me to create space between the thoughts in my head and what's actually right in front of me. I think that is also different than what you were sharing earlier, I think, which is about how we actually utilize this body that we have to find more connection to these powers within us, you know, essentially. So it's an interesting comment because we want to feel connected to our bodies, but I also think that in a way, learning to separate the self from the physical body actually gets your big closer towards that enlightenment or expanding your own consciousness. Well, again, it kind of comes back to seeing everything, you know, we can call them like densities of energy, right? Or densities, if everything in this realm is an expression of consciousness or energy, a density of energy, then everything is part of that divine energy, right? So your body is as well. It's not separate from it, but it's a denser field of awareness. It's a denser energy that we can touch and taste and smell and sense and feel. And so that experience, the senses experience, right? The experience of interpreting the world through our senses is a way that we interpret reality and we interpret consciousness. And this might be a little bit enigmatic, but I'm going to go there. But the yogis would say that is not the entirety of reality. Your senses are limited and quantum physicists say this, right? Our universe is predominantly made up of dark matter and dark energy and nobody knows what the hell that is. But because we use our sense of taste, touch, smell, sight, sound to interpret the world, that is all that we experience and that is what we base our reality off of. And so if we really want to know who we really are, which is beyond our senses, we have to go still and quiet and move beyond the sensory realm. Does that make sense? And then just add one more point to it. You don't just hang out in that alternate realm because that would be very dysfunctional. Like you need to balance your checkbook and pay your taxes and go to work like you do. So then it's kind of like you immerse yourself in this ocean of intelligence for an extended period of time, five minutes, seven minutes, ten, whatever you got two minutes. Just go there, experience it, soak it in like you're taking a dip in the ocean and then bring it into your body and it is. Shall we have a whole process of integrating it, but even just kind of feeling like, okay, I feel this in my body now. And then you bring that with you, right, into your work, into relationships. It's like you remember, okay, I've had a really rough day, but you know what? This isn't permanent. This is all temporary, right? But that experience, immersing myself in that ocean of intelligence, that is the only reality. That is the supreme reality. And that is what is permanent, right? That is the only thing that lasts eternally. Yeah, this is so well said and I need to come take a class. I think I would really, really enjoy it. There's a lot that you've had me think about today, Sarah, which I'm so appreciative of and hopefully we get to do a part two down the line because I think we could keep talking about this for hours. And it's very esoteric. So we could keep mowing. But to bring it back to truly the theme of everyday endurance, which is about anchoring onto those moments of joy in life, creating your own happiness and finding things that just spark you up. I would love to hear from you about first, the way that you define happiness. And second, what is something that actually brings you a bit of joy and endorphins every day? I mean, I think that happiness or joy, right? Because I think joy is more of a state of it. It's like our natural state of our essence. Our soul is joy. You know, it's like what and who we really are when we tap into that experience of the true self. So for me, happiness, joy, it's really just knowing who you really are. It's for me knowing who I really am. And that who I am is not dependent on what I have or how much I make or what I look like or any of these external things. I can enjoy the world. I can enjoy the material world. I don't have to disassociate from it. I know that I'm in it, right? But I don't always have to be of it. I can also feel, you know, and relate to people like you, people who are communities, people who are like feeling that too, because I think in this time that we're in in our world and our life, we need to remember that. It's a memory because it's so easy to forget because we are bombarded by so many other value systems that are not in alignment with this idea that you and your nature are perfection. You know, so that and then what do I do for joy? I mean, my daughter brings me so much joy. We just have so much fun together. She's funny. She makes me laugh. She's just very different than I am. She is not a yoga practitioner. People always ask me, do you do yoga with your daughter? No. I did when she was three and now she's 13. And she's just not interested in doing yoga with mommy. But she has an intelligence. She's very, you know, self assured and she has an outlook in life and an authenticity that inspires me. And so and just I find pockets and moments of joy with her every day. That is my joy and my dog and my husband too, but I gotta give salt to my daughters. But she put my husband in first. But there's a special connection. I think you know this with your relationship with your mom. It's just a special thing. It's a very unique one. My mom, actually, the person that got me into yoga. And I was young. I was like nine or 10 going to these adult open levels, vinyasa, shonga classes. And I grew to like it. But then at first I didn't really like it because again, I was like, I don't want to lay up my mom. I don't want to go to yoga. The irony now is like, well, look at where we both are, right? So we became a yoga instructor. She still loves the practice. We go to yoga together sometimes, although not as often as I'd like to or we probably should. We should definitely practice more together. So in fact, we're all started. But yeah, the mother daughter relationship is really, it's a unique one. It's a special one. I loved your responses, Sarah. And really just so grateful that we got to sit down today and connect. And really this was an amazing learning opportunity for me. I feel like my mind has been below. And I think still, you can really think about now. But for those who are tuning in and want to stay connected to you, where can they follow you and find you and reach out if they have any questions where can they find the studio and just be a part of your world. Yeah, so I'm on Instagram at Sarah Platt finger. That's my whole name. Sarah with an H. It'll be on the show notes. I'm sure. My website is Sarah Platt fingers. and that shares a lot about where treats I have coming up, trainings, courses, classes, and the Ishto Yoga studio is on Broadway between 11th and 12th Street in downtown Manhattan and you can find more about classes or trainings on the Ishto Yoga site. It's Ishto Yoga.com. Amazing. Well, thank you so much. It was such a pleasure to have you on the show. Thank you, Stella. The pleasure was all mine. Such a joy. I'm glad to have you here. Thanks again for tuning in and reminder to keep spreading in Dorfens and finding the things in life. That brings you joy. Until next time.