Episode 13: Easing Holiday Stress Through the Six Loving Exchanges

Welcome to Mental Hygiene, a space to care for the mind like we care for the body, daily, gently and with love. Posted by Yogi Chiru and Susan Huu, this podcast brings ancient Yogi wisdom into modern life, offering practical tools to cleanse the mental clutter, restore inner stillness, and reconnect with your true self. Take a breath, you're exactly where you need to be. Welcome to Mental Hygiene. Hello everyone, welcome to Mental Hygiene Podcast. My name is Susan and I am with my teacher Yogi Chiru. Today we're going to speak a little bit about holiday season because it's right upon us right now. Yes, it's nice to be here again. I am Yogi Chiru. Nice to be here with you Brenda and all our listeners, exploring. How do we keep the mind peaceful and holiday season? Holiday season is such a beautiful time. Everyone's celebrating, we are getting to the spirit of celebration and gift giving. But sometimes I feel like we also lose a little bit in touch of what holidays are about, but rather creating a lot of tension, a lot of stress in a body and in a mind. So Yogi Chiru, what are some of the stress that we typically see during this time of the year? Oh wow, okay. We say the word "Holy Days", right? "Holy", holy means a days that are our own holiness, right? Our sacredness. This is where every spiritual culture on the planet of these days that should increase our prayer, our devotion, our love. Over a time, it started to become less spiritual, less holy. And then more material, materialism. So, we want to try and live if possible, keep it in balance, right? Don't lose the sacredness of the "Holy Days", right? So we can see this time of the year when the planet is going around the sun and certain parts of this planet gets cold, right? That's when somehow this season becomes very festive. I mean, people might speculate on whether Christ was born on the 25th of December, maybe not, right? As a high probability, not. It's a time when a lot of the planet emotionally gravitate to sharing goodwill and have a certain level of rever for the birth of a saint, right? A saintly being. So they choose a certain month, they choose a certain year. But it brings out a certain level of prayer that should grow with it. But it creates a lot of tension because what happens is our marketing people hijack the holiday. It's like, okay, we're going to take over this holy day and we're going to emphasize that for people to be happy on this day, they need our gadgets, our material assets, right? So it's not that gifts were not there, right? We see if in the story of Christ, the three wise men, when they did the astrological chart, right? There were wise men, there were astrologers. They figured out how the movements of the planet, oh, on this day, there's certain special person will be born. We find out in the yoga culture, the yoga culture, the wise men, the astrologers, wait, whoa, this is going to happen. Avatar is coming. This is going to, so it's so intune with the yogic culture as well. But when they, when the three wise men showed up, they didn't just show up with bare hands, what did they show up with? The gifts to offer to this holy person, this person who is virtually evolved. So I think that's where that reciprocation of love, right? But then, so gifts is a big part of the season when it creates a lot of tension. Kids are not happy with the gift of the day. Kids are not happy because the gift is too expensive. And all their competition, whether I'm getting a better gift or I'm giving a better gift, even though we can see even from the tradition, gift giving is really coming from a place of celebration from that love. But sometimes we get lost when there's so many options. And while all the advertisements, social media is just telling us we can buy this, we can buy that when you get this gift, then you're getting a good gift. And then things start to lose its initial meaning of why we're doing it in a first place. Yeah. And then I grew up in the leaves. It is a saying. January is me, girl month. In other words, in January, people are, it creates January, December is so much stress on spending, spending, spending. January everyone is stressed out, how am I going to pay my rent? Who are going to pay my bills because they're excessively spent in December. So that creates more stress, tension with our economics, right? Tension with relationships. One of the tension that I would see happen is family members come together. Supposedly out of love, but because they have political differences, sometimes religious differences, it creates tension. And so. Totally. Yeah, sometimes even when families are gathering together for the five minutes, everyone's coming out of that place of love. But then when inevitably different discussions start to happen, and even within a family, we see that division. We'll start to be divided into different groups and different opinions. My pull away that love, which initially brought everyone together. And then stress comes more and more holiday season. Sometimes when people going back to see family their first reaction is like, okay, this is going to be very stressful time. Rather than this is a time of celebration of gather. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have to meet this person, right? Let the whole, the sacredness of the holiday empower us with courage, courage to come together and to put our differences aside and reverberate with each other on the force of love. That is called back to yoga. Back to when two people come together out of love. The two people are coming together out of love because they recognize and this person's heart is a soul and right next to them is God. So when two, when people come together, it's a spiritual experience. But it can only verse, connect to that high spiritual frequency. If people can start to see, oh, there's God in their person's heart. We have a trainer ourselves again and again to see that. Otherwise, we think, oh, it's just this person with earth, water, fire, air, this body. But we know the body changes. At one point, the body is animated. At another point, the body is lifeless. So what's the difference between the living and the dead body is this spirit soul, the atma and the divinity God within the body. So if we can resonate with each other like that, then we're thinking, oh, wait, the three wise men came and they met a holy person. When you go to your family lunch and dinner and all that for this holiday season, recognize your family members are also a holy being. But now, as God is also in their heart, and if we can have this perception, everyone is a holy divine spiritual being beyond the craziness of the mind, the thoughts and the emotions, beyond the body of skeletal and blood system, beyond that, connected that sweet soul in there, then it becomes a beautiful love and exchange. So beautiful, I love you. We share how you're seeing that our body made off the earth, water, fire, air, either is constantly changing. And even those different belief systems that we hold onto the identities that we put on ourselves, those false labels, those temporary labels, they are also constantly changing. But if we can start to recognize, even underneath those layers of our religious beliefs, our political views, we still have that divine spiritual being right next to the God in the heart, then we are really able to see each other on a much, much higher frequency to connect from that love place. Yes, and that's what the holy seasons right? Holy holy seasons should be. Let's raise our vibration. All the rest of the year, we've been treating each other as these bodies, as these mind and thoughts and emotions. Let the holy seasons break through those and connect us to the higher spiritual being whom we are. And if we can resonate there, then we can take the holy season, throughout all other seasons right? That's a new year to the rest of the year, we can be able to drop the tension and be with our family members on a higher frequency. Right? This is what the Yoga called "Jay Teachers". First, I'm a spiritual. Second, I'm a male. Turn. I'm a bellissian. Fourth, I'm a whatever political, all the second tertiary. Let's put those aside and connect to the first Domino. We are a holy spiritual being. That's so beautiful. I will start saying that rather than seeing as the holiday, seeing as the holy days that we get to celebrate. Yeah, the days of holiness with our family and friends, because we can see them on this spiritual plane that they are. Mm-hmm. Amazing. And, yeah, so that's sometimes we have the tension just coming from the family gathering. Other times, it's also on our way there to visit a family that can also be very stressful during the season. Flights are being delayed. Sometimes we lose our luggage. Sometimes, I don't know. A fortunate event happens when there's different kind of natural disasters that's coming up. And a lot of unpredictable things that happen that can cause a lot of tension in a body and in a mind as well. Yeah, so when there's a lot of action, we say in yoga, a lot of rajas movement, there is bound to be purification. Mm-hmm. So, fire, right? A lot of passion, a lot of fire is going to purify our, we say, our desires. So, a lot of times, when we, especially in the season, things might not always go the way we plan. Right? Not like you said, natural catastrophe. Your flight is booked. You just left home and then halfway there, your flight got canceled. How do you keep your mental peace? There is accidents. And like you said, you lose your luggage, so much travel. Things, people do lose their luggage. So whenever you go to any kind of tension like that, just pause and think, wait, I'm still alive. I still have my breath. I still have my eyes. Okay. I'm going to be late for my flight is rescratchable, I'm going to be late. It's better safe than late. And then early and, catastrophe. So our, you know, if Krishna or Mother Nature sends a tornado, a hurricane or a snowstorm, pause, take the risk. Don't take the risk. And so, okay, it's okay to be late. Maybe you won't arrive on one of the holy days, but you'll arrive for another one. Right? Rather than driving through the snow, use the intelligence. We won't arrive. We'll reach late. Better safe than sorry. And so if certain things don't go your way, don't lose it. And when people are boiling, they can't get their senses satisfied. What do we do? We release the anger and the frustration on another human being. So try not to, try and keep your mental peace. Try and, okay, I have to go with the flow of the universe. Right? Some people got on their plane, they got sick, some people drove before the storm cones, they got sick. Oh, as we were about to stop, there's a reason why it happened like that. It's incoherent, it's slow. Right? We have to start to resonate that there is a divine hands behind everything. So in the yoga culture, Krishna gives Arjuna a beautiful analogy. He says, everyone in this material world sees the pearl necklace. Wow, so beautiful. No one sees the trend, which kills the necklace together. So when we're in this world and things are going good or bad, that's what we see. We don't see the divine hand, the trend behind who is orchestrating everything. So when we get setbacks, especially in this season, I mean, there's also a lot of scammers out there. So have to be extra safe, pick pocketers. So do all the best you can do to keep safe, but then there's a trend behind who is dangling and you have to fall into that. Okay. What am I supposed to learn from divine hands in this scenario? This is how we get through our obstacles because the senses want to enjoy. But when the senses, the pleasure for the senses get pulled away for a while, that's when we lose it mentally. But we know, okay, it's only going to last for a while. How long is this snowstorm going to last? Not forever, wonderful. How long is the ice going to be icy on the road on a forever. So just wait, just be patient, be patient, tolerant. And then we can really have a beautiful, a happy, right? This is called a happy season. You can have a happy season if we're using the higher intelligence connecting to the higher cell. Hey, can you hear me? Okay. Yeah, so just like the holiday season, I really, it's every single day of our life, everything, pretty much most things that's happening, we have absolutely no control. And if we're constantly feeling stressed thinking I can change the outcome to make it in my favor, whatever I want, then we are going to live under stress. But if we can take a step back, recognize that that divine thread that's really arranging everything perfectly and use every opportunity. And the loose luck luggage as an opportunity, what can I learn, what can I be more careful in the future, or how is this situation helping me to evolve? Then we become stress free and we start to truly embody that practice of feeling, feeling tolerate, feeling steady, even in happiness or in the stress. And healing renonks, oh man, detached from the things that we love. It's material things. We're going to come back again. They came once, come back again. You lose them. You're going to come back. Right. This is, we have to live like this otherwise if you just give in to the negativity all the time, the soul is, you know it inside you, we're not happy. When you can rise above it, we know I'm living a dormant life, a saint life, a happy life. Yes. And that's everyone's glowing for that piece in the holiday season that beautiful. It's really coming from that with in if we're able to shift our internal landscape how we respond to situations, then no matter how chaotic the external might be during the holiday season, we can still find the same amount of feeling grounded and feeling connected with ourselves, but also with every limited year, our family, our friends that we get to spend time with. Yes. So Yogi Churu, from a more traditional Yogi's way, how do we celebrate without really indulging in our senses, overly spending, but still able to share that loving exchanges with one another? So in the Yogi culture, and never there's a festival time, a holy time, we express because remember we have this force we call love in the heart. So we can express that love to another living entity. And so in the Yogi culture, we exchange gifts, right? But we exchange gifts in certain ways. The gift that I'm going to exchange with another person, it is within my karmic economics. It's not over. I won't stress out in January because I didn't overspend the gift of me because what I'm really sharing with the person is not the gift. It is the mood and the force of love that I'm exchanging. See when something is given with love, it doesn't matter how great or small it is. The love people are, can feel and they can reciprocate with it. If someone doesn't like someone, if someone is just exploiting someone, you can give that person a dime, the biggest dime on a rock. It's not not a love, it's not a reciprocation won't be as pure. So it doesn't matter, so give a gift which is within your karmic budget where it doesn't stress you out. And then give it out of love, recognizing you love this person. And just this is an extension of my love to you. And if the person who's receiving that gift does the same thing, they bought a gift within their karmic wealth. And they give it out of love. Not, oh, I am wealthy, I can look what I'm giving you. You better recognize that's not what is never sweet. You can give a small gift or a very fun, but if it's in the karmic wealth, it's the love that people want. And if two people are exchanging gifts from the heart, then that's the spiritual world already. We are qualified to go back to the spiritual world because in the spiritual world, that's how the relationships with God takes place. Everything is done, not calculating how much I am, how much I'm gonna get, no, it's out of pure love. And it's within my, Kota, it doesn't stress me out. Karmic Kota. So we give gifts out of love. Another way in the season and we do this one, a big time over the holy season will be feasting. So, in the yogi culture, we cook for another person out of love. That person eats the food out of love. And when they eat it, they can taste the love in the food. So when the yogis cook, they always cook out of love for God. And so they offer their food to God first. And then they're hungry for it. God, please let them enjoy this food. Right? So after God eats the food, they share it to the people. They can feel the love. The person when food is cooked with love, you can taste it. If you go to a restaurant where the person who's the chef is only there to make money, yes, they have a love to cook. That's why they are our chef. But if they're just, "Oh, yeah, I need to make this money." That vibration goes in the food. It's different than when it's home meal. So over this holy season, what happens? A lot of people, a lot of families and friends come together for home exchange of love, true food. It's amazing. It's one of the most beautiful things to see. I mean, I remember growing up, we would have a go from one house to another. I would go to relatives first, right? Cousins, aunts, uncles, house, this house. And then it didn't end there. Go to these friends house. That friends house. And what did my friends parents do? Oh, here's a slice of cake, Charlie. Oh, here's a, it's a, it's a season of express in that force of love from the heart. And that's the true food, yes. We, you know, you don't have to go to our restaurant on these days. So many of us, we have this experience where we, when we think about foods, the things, the most tasty things are never coming from Russia. It's my grandma's cooking, my mom's cooking. And it's because of that same love that's infused in a food that even years later, even decades later, when we think about that food, we still bring back the same loving expression that's being shared from the person that's cooking to us. Yeah, it's amazing, right? The home cooking, the loving cooking, the food from the heart. It's beautiful. It's, you can taste it. And that's why it's a, it's a loveless time of the year. A lot of home cooking. See, whoever is the chef, they're preparing for like a week, two weeks ahead. A lot of love, right? I think, how am I going to prepare this for my loved ones? How am I going to cook this for my loved ones? Cook that for my loved ones? Cook this for their loved ones. And then just spiritualize it. Yes, my loved ones are created by God. Let me offer the food first to God and then give them God's. So in the yoga culture, we call it prasadam, God's mercy, our God. God left over is a spiritualize, right? That's the mood. Because you love your family members, let's give them a sanctified food, spiritual food and non-violent food, it's possible. And then when we are eating during the holidays season, we're not just gratifying our senses. We can also turn that back home, a part of our spiritual life. But remembering where does the food come from, the source of the food, the people who has made this food available for us, so that even while we're eating that food, we are feeling satisfied, but we're also offering back our love back towards the world, towards God. Yeah, and then what do family, oh, this tastes so good. Thank you. The love comes out. Absolutely. Right. This is great. How did you cook it? Do I need it? The recipe, how to swallow? Because the main ingredient of the recipe is love. That's also a part of the celebration. There's the people that's cooking. There's also the people that's receiving that food, really being appreciative of that foods. Then love starts to naturally flow between parts and cells. Right. And then you have that aspect of reciprocating the love through food. And then the third way, how the yogis exchange in holy holidays, holy days, is also a time to find someone who they can trust to reveal their inner evolution. Maybe you have a little weakness with certain aspects of your evolution, but you want to reveal your mind and confidence not to everyone, but find someone who you have lover and trust. And so this is another aspect of how in the spiritual community, an exchange of the heart and mind, we reveal our growth, our challenges to someone who really loves us and that person is not going to hold it against us. I think a lot of people sometimes reveal their minds to someone, but the person who they reveal their mind to is not there, well, we're sure. And then I wear down the road or six years down the road, the same person who use the same thing you reveal to them in secret. They use that against you to push you down or to you have this issue. That's not what we're referring to. Referring to in the evolved yogic community, when you reveal your mind and confidence to someone, confidence, you confide in them. That person is so evolved, they will never use it against you. So it's truly a place, a person where you can feel so safe to share your mind, your heart, your struggles even. And they are there to support us. They may not have the solutions, but it's a place where we can feel safe enough to have a place to reflect, to work through our evolution. Yeah, and so we see it in the yoga culture. We see it in agrippa as a Christian and a Christian culture, right? People who would go to the church and they would have the priests behind the curtain and see the priests. The priests didn't see them. They didn't know who but then it's a place where my dear father and so on and so I'm having this issue with this, this, this. And just by you saying it. You know, we're already starting to heal your mind and heart. And then the priest didn't hold it against the priest even though how you look whatever, right? But then the priest gave you some encouragement, right? And tell you know, let's evolve slowly. You can't transform overnight. But so I saw that growing up in the Christian culture. When I came to the yoga culture, it's still there. One of that in the yoga culture, we don't put something in the church. You'll meet the person face to face and you, hey, I trust you. And normally it's like to the teacher or some advance, someone who's advance. That's not a near fight. Someone who is still going, you know, to find out and then you can reveal I'm having this issue, this issue, this issue. How can I overcome it? And that person out of love. They've been through it before. They're so evolved. So they can empathize with you and they can help you to overcome it. So normally this is not a way of exchange of love. It's the one you can find someone who's very evolved. They won't call it against you or they won't use it against it because they've been through it. You know what you're going through. So this is how we exchange another form of love, especially in holy, holy festival. We find someone. Because from year to year, season to season, months to months we go through different things. So, right. A lot of time, the human community does it. They try to tell one of their friends, well, I'm going to do it, but their friends not evolve. Their friends use it against them. Not only it's not helpful, but also it closed the heart, the virus. Closed up, yes. Rather than opening. So on the other side of that, if we can also be backwards and cool your friend, your family can trust so that when they come to share their mind and a heart, we create a space where we're not judgment, so we're not going to use it against them, but rather allowing them to heal, give them the words of encouragement. Yes. And that's why we teach. So, we teach. We empower people, our teachers empower us, our teacher help us through our issues. It's got, we continue the lineage, right? And at the end of the day, God knows everything we're going through. So, God always send the right person to help us to overcome it. We just have to find the right person. Mm-hmm. It's so beautiful. So, holiday season, we have a lot of different stress. We have a lot of reasons why we might struggle mentally, physically, but we also have all those incredible tools. Some of them are so simple. Eating foods, cooking food for our family, friends, out of that love, exchanging gifts, but rather than being pulled away by the materialism, by how much I can give, competing, the best gift, give out of love, but also giving without our means so that we are not creating tension on our own mind or our own body just by giving that gift. And then also be that friend, be a friend to someone, be a mentor to someone, confining someone that you can trust. That's how we can allow that true love, that beautiful flow, the energy to flow between hearts, and then we tap into the essence of those holidays. All the days, right? Mm-hmm. The soul, the spiritual being, and that's what the wise men, the wrought gifts for that sacred soul. And everyone, you know all your friends, all your friends, they have a sacred soul inside. So, let's treat them like that. If you were to meet Christ, if you were to meet Muhammad, if you were to meet Christ, how would you treat them? So, there's one's heart. So, you just got to treat everyone in a loving way. Beautiful. Eritre Ruhu, guide us through a meditation, a short meditation so that we can have some tools to calm the mind, to focus on that loving exchange and to open up heart in this very holy season of the year. Of course, good. So, come into a nice comfortable seated posture. Bums on the knees, that's the tip of the thumbs, tip of the index fingers. Close the eyes softly. And center the mind into the present moment to your breath. At the entrance of the nostrils, as the air moves in and out. And see if you can identify the slight temperature change. The incoming breath is slightly cooler. The outgoing breath with your body's heat is slightly warmer. As we enter into the holy season, let's explore the sacredness, bring this gaze into the center of the eyebrows. And as you gaze there, I want you to recognize. We holy the days where we celebrate sacredness and holiness. We can do it through exchange of gifts. But it's not about the cause of the gift. It is the mood of giving. And contemplate a few family members and friends who you are going to buy a gift for within your karmic well-wid won't stress you out. And know that you're doing it from your heart to their heart, heart of pure love. Because you're doing it within your karmic well, and you're doing it out of pure love, you can live with the reciprocation that you get. It is inevitable. Some of your family members will love the gift. Someone might not. You know you're doing it within your capacity and out of the pure goodness of your heart. Another way we can express our celebration in these holidays, cooking food for the loved ones. So if you are a chef and you're going to cook food for your family members, know that day. You're going to use a lot of ingredients, fruits, vegetables, water. But the main ingredient in that food is the love for your family members and friends. And if you're not a chef, you're going to be eaten. Know that you'll be eaten the food that's provided to you from Mother Earth. But also with the love from Mother Earth and the love from the person who cooked it. It is really an exchange of heart, space, energy. And also from year to year, month to month, week to week, we go through our ups and downs. The holiday seasons, if you can find a family member or a friend to reveal your mind in confidence, someone who has been through the tribulations you're going through, they are already over a period. They can empathize with you out of love. And if you are in a position to be that person for another person, do it out of love. Reciprocate with them. Listen to them. Hear them out. Don't judge them. So we all have thoughts, empower them to get to the standard of purity. And then this way, if we can live through this holiday season, then we won't give into the materialistic dominance we can give into the spiritual dominance. Spiritualize. Recognize. The season is created by God. The gifts are created by God. We just have put God in the center. God loves us. Provides all. He gives all the wealth, all our emotions and mind. And God creates our family and friends to reflect that love to them. It's very helpful to be alive, grateful for the season, to be happy, to be married with pure love from the heart. Bring the gaze back to the breath, take a deep inhalation, exhale slowly, breath to normal, palms to the heart. Go where the brain is called towards the higher self, namaste. Towards the Lord in the heart, open the eyes, how you own that self. Thank you, O G. Cheru, for such a beautiful meditation. And for our friends who's listening, if you know someone who might be having a lot of tension, this holiday season, this holy season, send them this recording of the meditation, send them some, do something out of your love, give them a little gift that's within your means, cook something for your family, friends, be that person that they can confining. And let's tap into the true season of this holy season. Yeah, share the podcast with them as well. Thank you all so much for being here with us. We look forward to evolving with you as well in the new year. Yes. Thank you all so much. Arion, that's up. Arion. Thank you for joining us with Mental Liging. Our ancient wisdom meets modern life, one breath and a time. If this episode brought you peace, insight or inspiration, we invite you to subscribe, leave a review, and share with someone you love. To go deeper, connect with Yogi Cheru and Susan Hoo, follow the journey on Instagram at Mental Hygiene Podcast. Until next time, keep your mind clear, your heart open, and your spirit grounded. Be well, be still. [Music]