Resting Deeply In the Divine with Hilary Jackendoff

This week I talk to Hilary Jackendoff, a yoga nidra and meditation teacher and trainer, and Human Design coach. She’s also a powerful, heart-centered woman. To me, Hilary is the ideal teacher: wise yet humble, evolved yet grounded, knowledgeable yet hilarious. 

In this episode, we talk about Yoga Nidra, states of consciousness, how Hilary came to the spiritual path, the importance of rest, making spiritual practices accessible, ashram life, and being seen by the Divine. 

We barely scratched the surface of what we want to talk about so look for a part 2 coming very soon, perhaps even in the coming weeks!

A quick note on the audio quality in this episode: Even though I used the same setup I always use for remote interviews, somehow my mic was too hot. So my audio will sound clipped or muffled in places. My apologies. Thank you for bearing with me. Apparently you never stop learning how to podcast well. 

Topics

1. Yoga Nidra

2. The Turiya State

3. Hilary's Story

4. What Yoga Nidra Feels Like

5. Non-Sleep Deep Rest (NSDR)

6. The Power of Deep Rest

7. Hilary's Vision & Mission

8. Making Spiritual Practices Accessible

9. Ashram Life

10. Until Next Time...

Transcript

Hilary Jackendoff 0:00

My mission in life is to help more people help as many people as possible realize that peace is available to them, realize that joy is available to them, that ease is available to them, and that self love and self acceptance have to exist. Like you have to develop into, into yourself and embrace the totality of who you are, including your shadow. And, and you have to show up in authenticity so that you can step fully into your purpose and be of service in this world and support people in transforming and moving towards peace, joy and ease in your own way. I would say that I'm using it as I would say I'm using it as a foundational tool for self inquiry and a path to self acceptance and self love.

Chad Woodford 1:20

Welcome to Spiritual But Not Ridiculous, a podcast that explores the world of spirituality from a grounded and clear-eyed perspective. I'm your host Jayadev, a yoga teacher, Vedic astrologer, attorney, and technologist.

On this episode, I'm talking to Hilary Jackendoff, a yoga nidra and meditation teacher and trainer and human design coach. She's a powerful, heart-centered woman, as you'll see. To me, Hilary is the ideal teacher, wise yet humble, evolved yet grounded, knowledgeable yet hilarious. In this episode, we talk about yoga nidra, states of consciousness, how Hilary came to the spiritual path, the importance of rest, making spiritual practices accessible, ashram life, and being seen by the Divine. We barely scratched the surface of what we wanted to talk about. So look for part two coming very soon, perhaps even in the coming weeks. And a quick note on the audio quality in this episode, you know, I take great pride in the audio quality of my podcast. And unfortunately, this time, even though I used the same setup they always use for remote interviews. Somehow my mic was too hot. So my audio, like my side of the channel, will sound a little clipped, or a little muffled in places, a little compressed because of that. So my apologies, thank you for bearing with me, as I continue to learn how to podcast. Apparently even after years of doing it, you still never stop learning how to podcast. Alright, so here's my conversation with Hilary.

Okay, so I'm here with Hilary Jackendoff, who is a yoga nidra and meditation teacher based in Los Angeles, and also kind of weaves them through all our offerings, human design, which we'll probably talk about as well. And yeah, we're sort of neighbors here in Los Angeles. So welcome to the podcast, Hilary.

Hilary Jackendoff 3:43

Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited for for our chat today.

Chad Woodford 3:49

Yeah, yeah, I think you and I have a lot in common, even though we sort of come from different. There's sort of some commonalities, but there's also a lot of differences in terms of what we're offering. So I like the overlap, the Venn diagram, or whatever you want to say.

Hilary Jackendoff 4:04

We have many, many common threads in our tapestry.

Chad Woodford 4:09

Yes, so. So I wanted to start by just talking a little bit about maybe we'll start with yoga nidra. Because I feel like it's something that a lot of people are familiar with, but also a lot of people are not familiar with. And it seems like it's what would you say it's one of your primary offerings?

Hilary Jackendoff 4:27

Yeah, I would say you're gonna do a certainly one of my primary offerings and running yoga nidra teacher trainings is a big part of of what I do. And it's definitely what I'm, it sounds so annoying to say like what I'm most known for, but I've been really committed to sharing this practice for a little over a decade now. And talking about it obsessively since 2008. So I've definitely consistently been spreading the word on yoga nidra as, as a powerful tool to really address like all the pain points that we're facing as, as human beings in the modern world.

Chad Woodford 5:11

It's a beautiful practice. I've experienced that a little bit myself. And I think you said at one point when we were talking before that it's like, I think you feel like it's the ultimate form of yoga, perhaps. But for people who aren't familiar with it, can you just say a little bit about what it is or where it comes from?

Hilary Jackendoff 5:28

Yeah, absolutely. So the way I sort of present it to folks who are, you know, coming to it fresh. It's, it's a guided meditation practice yoga, "Nidra" translates to yogic sleep. So it's about learning how to, actually, this isn't a beginners presentation of it at all. Yeah, let's let's wander back. It's a beginner friendly, guided meditation that that helps you learn how to let go. That's that's sort of how I express it in a very simple way. And then, you know, when when folks are like, is that sounds great. Is it yoga, like, do I have to do exercises and be flexible? You know, because that's, it blows my mind. Like, that's still the first thing that people say. So it's definitely not fully in, you know, the sort of secular landscape yet, but it's definitely coming. So So I always try to make it clear that this is yoga, right? This is a yogic practice. This is a practice that builds awareness, that expands consciousness. But there is no movement involved whatsoever. So you practice from lying down yoga nidra, as I sort of mentioned a moment ago is yogic sleep, so sleep with awareness. So in addition to it being a meditation technique, and there are many, many sort of versions of yoga nidra, many different techniques that that fall under sort of the umbrella term of yoga nidra. In addition to it being a meditation technique, it's also a state of consciousness. So it's the state of consciousness. Whereby your body and your mind are asleep, you are likely in delta brainwaves, but awareness is functioning. So it sort of gives you this embodied experience of pure awareness, pure consciousness, beyond thought beyond the body, beyond the mind beyond this, the ego, right, and lets you drop into this pure place of, of knowing who we are beyond.

Chad Woodford 7:46

Wow, that's really beautiful. Yeah, I think, you know, as you're talking to you, what I'm thinking about is one challenge that I think a lot of us yoga teachers have who are trying to teach a style of yoga that's not Asana, you know, per se, the challenge we have is that it's this educational process where we have to kind of, you know, explain to people basically that, that yoga is so much broader than just stretching or just, you know, doing warrior pose or whatever. Right. So I think it's, it's beautiful, because it helps people to understand that yoga is what you were saying earlier, really, it's about it's any kind of practice, really, that is helping you to, to expand consciousness or to be more aware, you know, to kind of work with that more subtle energy in the body, right?

Hilary Jackendoff 8:33

Yeah, absolutely. Yoga Nidra is a, it can be considered a Tantric practice. And, you know, tantra, there's a lot of different definitions for the word Tantra. But one of them is to expand, right to expand consciousness. And yoga nidra very much expands our understanding of what consciousness is. And I mean, the coolest thing about it is there's no barrier to entry. So like if someone has never meditated before in their life, and they come to, for example, a group yoga nidra practice, and they're lying down nice and cozy next to someone who's had a daily practice for decades. There's no sort of, like, the person who's never meditated before it can go as deep or deeper than the person who has been meditating every day for 20 years. Because it's not dependent on gray matter in the brain to access the state of consciousness. It's simply dependent on your ability to feel safe in your body and your ability to trust that you're safe to let go.

Chad Woodford 9:45

Yeah, that's, that's powerful. I mean, it's great because it's so accessible, like you're saying, you can just, you know, for people who maybe are intimidated by Yoga, you can just show up and lie down on the floor, and that's, you know, what's more accessible than that? Really?

Hilary Jackendoff 9:59

No, I'm accessible, like, you know, and you don't even have to lie down, like if lying down is uncomfortable, you can sit up, you can lie on your side, like you can do whatever you want, you know, and you just allow yourself guided and practice this, you know, this, this attitude or you connect to this attitude of deep receptivity and allow yourself to simply surrender to this experience of non doing. And, yeah, you can't beat it. I don't want to sound like, Well,

Chad Woodford 10:33

no, I think you're right. I think you're right. Yeah. I mean, so that, you know, I think a lot of my listeners are into the more sort of, like nuanced, you know, esoteric. Philosophy and that kind of thing, and yoga, so maybe we can talk for a second about the different states of consciousness, right. So there's, there's sort of four states, right? There's sort of, there's a waking, sleeping as we would normally think about it, and dreaming. And then there's the fourth state Turiya state, right? It's so are we talking about Turiya state in Nidra?

Hilary Jackendoff 11:08

Yeah, effectively, I mean, that's, it's, it's that state beyond waking, dreaming, and sleeping, that state of awareness is sleep. And that's, that's the state of consciousness that is yoga nidra. And it's, it's kind of, you can understand it. I'm always hesitant to say like, it's enlightenment, right. But it's, there are there are levels of enlightenment not to do he's love to break everything down into like categories, and like, level one, like the tangibly add a name, we're going to everything. We just name it and claim it. But it's, it gives you a taste of enlightenment, right like enlightenment. All the mystical traditions characterize enlightenment, as this state of knowing, right? This indescribable state, knowing that is, is that it doesn't last very long. It's you can't really speak about it in words, you only know that you've experienced it. Typically, after it's occurred for most folks. Every time you experience it, you sort of deepen your connection to it. And it informs the way you show up and all of the other states of consciousness that you experience in daily life. Yeah, so like this little touch in to this mystical experience of enlightenment, this ineffable experience of knowing that there is awareness, there is consciousness beyond the form beyond the thought stream, and you touch into that space, and then you go back to your daily life after you know, a 2030 minute yoga nidra practice. And it just changes you just like, it just you just show up to life with a little bit more lightness with a little bit more ease, because you're not gripping so hard to the attachment to the ego to the self to your preferences to you know, it helps you to overcome the clashes, those different ways that we are as human beings.

Chad Woodford 13:23

Yeah. So that's so well said. Thank you for that. And I think, I think in terms of the benefits you're talking about, you're like a shining example of that. Right? You're, you're like one of the most joyful people I know. So the proof is in the Hilary.

Hilary Jackendoff 13:38

Yeah. I mean, it's been my primary practice for 15 since 2008. And that was really kind of what kicked off for me it was through this first experience of yoga nidra.

Chad Woodford 13:53

Yeah, yeah. Well, let's talk about that. Then. I mean, I'm curious to hear a little bit about your story. You know, how you got started. I know you say, you're on your website. You know, you you sort of encountered this this place in New Zealand, right. It was the first experience and then kind of went from there. So you want to talk about that a little bit?

Hilary Jackendoff 14:10

Yeah, it was a nice segue. We just did that was smooth. So I mean, okay, so it goes back. I don't want to like give my whole life story but, but I kind of always had like, mystical leanings, like as a child, and very much had like devotional leanings, as well. As I found out later, much later in life. My mom told me that, that I used to when I was old, when we would walk my brother to school, Catholic school, and we would cross the street and I would run across the street and as soon as I got to the other side, I would run to the rectory lawn and prostrate myself in front of the Virgin Mary. Oh, wow. Yeah. And then when I was about five or six, I I created a prayer shrine like a prayer corner in my room, and had like my rosaries, and my scapular, and my Bibles and my, my statues of Mary and Jesus. So I was raised Catholic and Jewish, and I sort of developed a pluralistic approach to spirituality. I'm pretty young, because of that, sort of multicultural, multi multicultural, like, because of those different religious backgrounds that I was exposed to. Then in college, I started studying different religious traditions and kind of deepen my connection to that, you know, sort of many paths up the mountain approach, studying Taoism and Buddhism, and, you know, studying mysticism, the philosophy and mysticism. And then after college, I started practicing meditation and a Buddhist community in Philadelphia, and Kadampa community. And the practices that I was nothing against these practices, they're beautiful. For so many people who are at the right stage to receive them, sure, of a particular quality of awareness have a particular kind of mind. There's so many meditation practices, and that's the beauty of it, like we, not everything has to be for everyone. So suffice it to say, the Kadampa Buddhist practices were not for me, it was brutal. Me, like, sitting in like a pool of my own mental mess every time and I know, that's normal for a lot of meditation practices, for people to kind of have to overcome this hurdle. But I was dealing with a lot of anxiety at the time, and did not support me. And then it was I was traveling,

Chad Woodford 17:05

was it too? Was it too austere? Or too, like, you know, almost too simple? Or what was the

Hilary Jackendoff 17:11

there was minimal guidance, the sets were long, so the sets were usually an hour. And the guidance was pretty much restricted to inhaling white light and exhaling black smoke. And, you know, I mean, there was some more to but but that was it, as I understand now, and as I understood, like, you know, when I started my meditation teacher training, the practices it didn't, they didn't properly internalize me. So I wasn't in the parasympathetic nervous system. During the, like, I wasn't drawn in. So I was in this very, you know, conscious mind very cognitive state of being I was in. I wasn't in the state to drop into meditation. So I wasn't guided in.

Chad Woodford 18:07

Or sounds like you were you were too aware of how much you were thinking in a way. And there was no, there was no technique to get you out of that, right. There's a great, you probably know, this quote is a great quote from I think it's a Zen tradition, where they say, when you first start meditating, it feels like sticking your head in a garbage can. It's like that.

Hilary Jackendoff 18:33

It did, it really did. And for those folks that want to just keep sticking their head in the garbage can and wait for it to get better. Fantastic. But, you know, I was 21 years old, and that was not working for me. I was trying, you know, I was I was showing up

Chad Woodford 18:54

yeah but, but that wasn't enough.

Hilary Jackendoff 18:57

Yeah. And, and I had started practicing yoga, not long after, and that's that's um, yeah, that's that's a maybe a different story for a different time. How is that story for now? I don't know. Well,

Chad Woodford 19:15

I guess you know, I mean, tell tell any story you want but

Hilary Jackendoff 19:23

you know, I was sitting on a flight to Los Angeles and ended up sitting next to a a well regarded as it turned out, yoga teacher seems so peaceful and like so calm, and it turned out later, you know, like many of the people in yogic positions of leadership, he was also a sexual predator. And he wasn't a teacher for me, at any point, but he asked me into the path. And he said, like, you're right for yoga, and I was like, oh, right for yoga.

Chad Woodford 19:59

That's a strange way to put it anyways. Yeah,

Hilary Jackendoff 20:05

yeah, that's what he said. He probably says it to every pretty young girl.

Chad Woodford 20:10

Although, you know, it does conjure up what does that mantra is? Yeah, it's the mantra where the talks about, you know, you reach a point where your, your, your mental state or your state of yoga is so rife that it's like, it's like a creeper. Vegetable, who just falls gently off of the vine or whatever it was, that was

Hilary Jackendoff 20:35

Maha Mrityunjaya mantra? Yah, yah,

Chad Woodford 20:38

yah, yah, yah, was a ripeness reference, I guess,

Hilary Jackendoff 20:45

bring from the cucumber from the vine. I thought that was a bit well, we can get into the esoterics of mantra another time. But anyway, I started practicing yoga. And then I ended up traveling to New Zealand with my boyfriend at the time. And I was basically trying to break up with him. And so failed on a pretty big hike that we were supposed to do together. Because the notion of like, five, six nights, camping and hiking and carrying packs and doing food and like when we were like, on the verge of breaking up, sounded like a hellscape. My husband, you know, and we're not on the verge of break up like that. It's a challenge to do that to a relationship. And so I basically was like, Hey, I'm not gonna go on this hike, like, let's take a break. And I'm gonna go to this Ashram, I'm gonna go to this yoga retreat instead, and do a little bit of, you know, self inquiry, really, and kind of figure out where I'm at. And then I rocked out to this ashram in New Zealand. And it was quite clear that I was this was not like a yoga retreat. This was not something like that. It was something I did not yet understand.

Chad Woodford 22:12

Is hard work or a real traditional Asana?

Hilary Jackendoff 22:16

Oh, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I rolled up on a Friday. And they were doing a havan, like, a Maha Mrityunjaya, havan outside. And everybody's in their robes and their shaved heads and their Tilak. And, you know, the whole whole nine yards like that was my entry.

Chad Woodford 22:36

For my audiene who's not familiar, a havan is a fire ceremony? Yes.

Hilary Jackendoff 22:40

Yeah. So it was celebrating the founder of the ashram 25th anniversary, Swami. So the 25th anniversary, taking prednisone Yes. And it was quite an experience. And I was like, What did I where am I? What is?

Chad Woodford 22:58

Right? So you were hesitant. I mean, you weren't like, this is great. You're kind of hesitant,

Hilary Jackendoff 23:02

super hesitant. And then the, you know, like learning schedule of the of the week. It's like, you'll be doing hours of karma yoga, you'll be chopping wood, you'll be sweeping the floors, you'll be cleaning the rooms, you'll be weeding the garden, the yoga action. And I was like, okay, so I paid to work. Got it. Then I did yoga nidra. And I was like, This is it.

Chad Woodford 23:31

So that was that was the hook. And that was

Hilary Jackendoff 23:35

I didn't know I was like I am about this. This is

Chad Woodford 23:40

like right at first right away. First of all,

Hilary Jackendoff 23:43

this morning of the second, like the first morning that I was there. I rolled that on a Friday. And that are 12 o'clock, I should say on Saturday, yoga nidra. That was

Chad Woodford 23:55

powerful. So maybe we should pause for a second and just clarify. So earlier you were saying that it's it's yogic sleep, but there's different experiences of what we might call sleep, right and yoga nidra. So, sometimes you're literally maybe just asleep, but sometimes you're more in this turiya state we were talking about. So just for the listener who hasn't experienced this, like, whatever your experience is, is okay. But, you know, in the ideal in the ideal sort of experience of yoga nidra Are you kind of aware, you know, are you what is the sort of the interior state like?

Hilary Jackendoff 24:48

Well, I would hesitate to say the ideal state because it's all perfect, right, Hillary? No, way you can fuck it up man. No way. It is effortlessness embodied, um, you know, over like, here's the thing, if you like yoga nidra, is that you're playing the long game, you're playing the long game. It's the variety of experiences that you'll have in practice are infinite, like I cannot possibly begin to address here, the range of things that will come up the range of experiences on every level of your being mental, physical, emotional, you know, spiritual psychic, every single level of your being will be affected, and you will have transformative experiences. But ultimately, the the experiences don't matter. Right? We know that. In the yogic tradition, we are not against thing, we are just simply open to receive

Chad Woodford 26:02

practicing, because we're not attached or not attached to any outcomes. We're not attached to having a certain experience. Yeah,

Hilary Jackendoff 26:08

yeah, presumably. Um, so but with yoga nidra. Like, that's, that's the thing like we are, we're letting go of expectation. And we're allowing our experience to unfold over time, we're allowing our relationship to the practice our relationship to the state of being to reveal itself to us. And, you know, the best thing about, well, one of the best things about yoga nidra is the fact that for so many people, meditation is hard. So many people meditation, yes, it's true. It's, it's a should, it's something that they doctor told them to meditate because of their blood pressure, or, you know, their therapist told them that they need to meditate to regulate their emotions, like they know that they need to do it. They know that it's good for them, but they don't want to because it's hard. And because most of the time, when people first come to meditation, they have the experience that I described, that I had, which sucked. Like it just Yeah, hard, and life is hard, and you don't want to do more things. If you don't really sense that there's going to be a payoff, like you people want instant results, for better or worse. It's just weird, most of us, and yoga nidra. And like, you know, it's not to say that I don't have a seated meditation practice, like I do. Against other meditative techniques, I practice a range of them. But yoga nidra tends to be for people of all levels of experience, a pleasure. Something that you want to do. So you feel naturally, spontaneously and deeply drawn to your practice, because it feels really good. It's like a treat. Yeah, it's like a treat. It's like a treat. And you know, no matter what the quality of your experience is, you're receiving amazing benefits. Like, even if you're fully present. And you feel as though you're not dropping in, because you know that that drop in is something that you're desiring. And you maybe you've had it before. And so you're getting a tap, and you're like, but why am I not melting? Why am I not dissolving into bliss. And you have that like desire attached, right? And the quality of your practice is just not hitting that that just, you're just not getting there, and you're totally present. And you're like following every instruction like to the letter and you're just so there that you're like you just can't not be there, right. And sometimes we are a little experience chasing, we don't want to be present in that quality of mind. We want to get it like turiya state. But even if you're fully there and your experience in practice, you know, six days a week is you just showing up and following the instructions, you're building gray matter, you're shrinking the amygdala, right? You're building neural pathways between body and mind. You're learning to, you know, witness and welcome whatever is arising. You're strengthening your trust in your ability to move between you're strengthening your trust and ability to move between different different experiences, different sensations. So

Chad Woodford 29:55

yeah, yeah, what so what a great advertisement for meditation. That was that was Fantastic. Yeah, that's why, you know, I think, Well, for me, you know, I teach meditation as well. And part of what I tried to do to make it some are more accessible and less like a like work is, is to frame it, you know, sometimes I'll say like, you know, meditation is just sitting for 10 minutes or sitting for a certain amount of time, there is a technique, but the most important thing is that you're just doing it, you know, it doesn't matter if you're doing it well, or whatever. I'll also say that it's just a time for you to sit, sit there and fully accept yourself, you know, are these kinds of simple things, even though the technique that I offer is based on kriya, and a mantra, but But yeah, and you know, and then again, like the in the mantra is another way for it to be more accessible, because then you're just working with something that helps the mind to kind of have something to chew on. Right. But, but Yeah, but you're, I think your point was, the Nidra is a great entry point. It's kind of it's kind of like for me, you know, I teach a lot of kriyas and a lot of the kriyas that I teach, they really put you very effectively and very efficiently in this meditative state. And so I think that's kinda what you're saying about Nidra, right, is that it's putting you in a state, especially if you do it consistently over time, where then you just start to it starts to bleed over into your life, and maybe you then find sitting meditation easier, or, or deeper, or that kind of?

Hilary Jackendoff 31:27

Absolutely, it's, you know, and one of the things that all that I'll say is, with with Nidra, like, you said, like it puts you in that that meditative state and, and I mentioned earlier, that part of my challenge with that Buddhist technique was the fact that my awareness wasn't internalized. And I, after I did my meditation, teacher training, and I learned about meditation theory, and I learned about, you know, how to introvert consciousness to access the meditative state. The methodology employed in yoga nidra is is so powerful at doing just that it's so deliberate, it's so systematic, and the precision of the technique. You know, like, when I when I lead teacher trainings my students can, like, they're kind of blown away, like after they teach Nidra to a friend or a family member, and their friend or family member, usually who doesn't meditate is like, oh, my god, that was amazing. Like, I went somewhere, I felt so peaceful, like I, I wasn't thinking, and they're blown away by the fact that they were able to facilitate that experience for someone. And most of the people that I train, many of them aren't yoga teachers. And this is the first teacher training that many of the people that I that I trained have done well, and yeah. And the technique works, like the precision of the technique facilitates an introversion of consciousness and a withdrawal of the senses. It facilitates pratyahara in such an efficient way, in such a simple way. And in a way that's so simple for people to guide, right, like it is. It's beautiful, like there's no barrier to entry. And it's, it's, it just works. It just works well.

Chad Woodford 33:38

Amazing. And, and we should say, you have a nidra teacher training coming up in the spring, in the spring,

Hilary Jackendoff 33:48

finishing one up next weekend. And then right now the waitlist is open for folks to kind of express their interest. And then applications will open. Yeah, soon. Soon. So it'll be starting in February.

Chad Woodford 34:07

Amazing. Yeah. I mean, yeah, sure. After all that I don't know how anybody can not sign up for your thing. So

Hilary Jackendoff 34:17

world needs more well trained yoga nidra teachers so badly. And, you know, especially the, the practice is getting more and more traction in mainstream society, like it's getting to be more secularly well known because of Andrew Huberman, the Stanford neuroscientist, who has been sort of presenting it to to the scientific community to his large podcast audience to his social media following he's been calling it non sleep deep rest. And fair enough, like whatever is going to bring more people to the practice. I'm so here for it. Like,

Chad Woodford 34:59

right here. clunky it's kind of a clunky expression that I mean,

Hilary Jackendoff 35:03

NSDR. It's a little clunky NSDR but it is non sleep deep rest, right like and more and more. But that's like a very simple sort of way to just get people on board with the idea that rest is important. And rest is a physiological biological necessity. It's not a luxury. It's not, you know, it's not lazy it is your body needs to regain hormonal homeostasis After navigating the stresses of daily life.

Chad Woodford 35:34

Yes, amen. to that. I think rested more, I think the whole world have changed. Honestly.

Hilary Jackendoff 35:41

That's been my vision, man, that's been my vision since 2008. It's like everyone would be more peaceful, kinder, emotionally regulated, like, when we're not well rested, when we're not well slept. And you're going to do it helps to address issues with sleep as well. And trauma, healing trauma. It like it. When we're not getting the rest that we need. We are not functioning optimally on a cognitive level. We're not processing and integrating our emotions properly. Like, we're, we're we're a mess.

Chad Woodford 36:18

Yeah. But like reminder. Yeah. So isn't. So your mission is to help people learn? Yeah, what is your what would you say your mission is, you know, why? Why are you doing what you're doing?

Hilary Jackendoff 36:31

At work, because I cannot have external authority and must work for myself. No, because, you know, my mission in life is to help more people help as many people as possible, realize that peace is available to them realize that joy is available to them, that ease is available to them. And that self love and self acceptance have to exist, like you have to develop into, into yourself and embrace the totality of who you are including your shadow. And, and you have to show up in authenticity. So that you can step fully into your purpose and be of service in this world and support people in transforming and moving towards peace, joy and ease in your own way. And that's what I want to facilitate. I just want to bring as many people as possible into self acceptance, self love, so that they can step into authenticity, purpose and power and bring about more joy, ease and peace.

Chad Woodford 37:49

Wow, amazing. Amazing. Yeah. Yeah, I love it. I love it. You know, it's, it's, I love it too. Because, as I think, you know, a big part of the kind of purpose of this podcast and the theme of the podcast is, is exploring spirituality from, you know, more of a kind of grounded and, and level headed perspective and trying to answer the question, you know, how do we make the spiritual practices more accessible to people? And how do we help more people to become more aware and to expand consciousness, but also just to feel better, and to feel their feelings and to get in touch with, you know, a deeper part of themselves, with their intuition and, and through that process to really become more whole people so that we can, you know, I think, change the world is how I feel about the power of these practices. So, so I like this, because for me, it's great, because it's an accessible entry point for people. And I think they can kind of wrap their heads around it, it doesn't sound so I mean, you can, you know, you can talk about it in a way, like, we have been a little bit that, you know, you're you're accessing these other states of consciousness, but, you know, you can talk about it in a way where it's just helping you rest, you know, and it can be almost like a gateway into other things, you know, so, so I just love that. Because, you know, my mission too is to, to help people to do all the things you're talking about to relax, feel better and expand consciousness because I feel like, I feel like any of the problems you look at in our world right now, you know, if you trace the root cause of it back far enough, I think it is what we've been talking about. It's the fact that people are not aware, not self aware. They're in a dense state of consciousness and they're, you know, they're, they're stressed out, they're anxious, they're, you know, they're too easily sort of falling into these conditioned ways of thinking and being right so, so yeah, I guess what I'm what I'm trying to say is that you have a nidra is such a Simple was so powerful and effective way for people to kind of get into the spiritual path in a sense, would you say?

Hilary Jackendoff 40:08

Yeah, it's Yeah, I would. And it's, it's, there's, it has so much utility, like I am, I call myself, I call myself, I call myself a mystical pragmatist, like that is, like I want to offer pragmatic tools, pragmatic tools that like serve a real function in daily life and enter, accessible, easy, enjoyable, and create transformation that ripples into every layer of your being, you know, and it's like, it's not complicated. If you just show up, and you lie down, and you and that's the only 20 minutes that you take for yourself all day. Perfect, and you just had a little bit of a rest, you just shut your eyes, like gave your senses a break, gave your eyes a break from screens, softened your muscles, like freed up a little bit of energy for cognitive function, like by releasing the tension from your body, like, you know, just that just 20 minutes lying down, listening to a guided meditation to just put you into a slightly more relaxed state. It's going to transform the rest of your day. You do that every day, drop into the deeper layers experience, the healing that it creates, you know, on our nervous system level, experience the benefits for sleep, like and then the spiritual benefits. It's like it has so much utility.

Chad Woodford 41:44

Yeah, yeah. It's beautiful. Well, we spent we spent a good chunk of time talking about yoga nidra that's how that's how rich and and fascinating. This this practices. It's pretty great.

Yeah, so you and I have both spent time living in an ashram studying in ashrams. You were in New Zealand, and then I think you were in India, right? Is there anything else about ashram life that we should talk about? I mean, there's it's such a rich topic, I guess. But it sounds like Oh, I think I was, I mean, I saw I just happen to see on your website that, you know, you talk about his experience, but then you kind of talk about how you moved away from that. And you realize maybe that, you know, that the practicing with a quote, unquote, Guru is maybe not the way for you are the wave for everyone. You know, I thought that was interesting, because I had a similar experience.

Hilary Jackendoff 43:05

Yeah, yeah. So I, after that first experience in New Zealand, it led me to the better part of a decade, committed to this this traditional guru based lineage, the Bihar School of yoga, Satyananda yoga. After the ashram, in New Zealand time, I went the following year to India. And honestly, I had like the most profound spiritual experience, one of the most profound spiritual experiences that I've had in my life meeting Swami Satyananda, the lineage head of, of the Bihar School of yoga. And he was, it was a year before he passed, and meeting him was just like, to, the only way that I can describe it is heart opening. But that doesn't mean like, that people say that all the time. You know, like, it doesn't. I can't fully express what it was, it was, you know, like the mystical experiences, we can't really put names to them, we can't really put words to them necessarily. So it was it was really, really profound. And it led me to the realization that I had to go deeper into this lineage. And then I went and spent two years living at an ashram in Australia following that, and that's where I did my my teacher training.

Chad Woodford 44:35

So yeah, so what was it about about his his presence in particular, was it just like, who was he radiating and kind of this? This kind of present like, what was it about him?

Hilary Jackendoff 44:48

He was, God. It sounds so stupid. He was pure love and light. He was pure love and light. And, you know, his teachings in the earlier years and because he had been teaching and you know, sort of leading and creating this spiritual community for since the 1960s. After he left his ashram, Swami Shivananda ashram in Rishikesh. And he went off to start this, this particular school of yoga. And his, the way that he presented in earlier years, his teachings, His books, His set songs, it was very masculine, it was very, you know, to poskitt focused very hard line like yogic austerity, like, hard line stuff, right? very dogmatic. And then, as he moved through life, in his 70s, and in his 80s, his focus turned entirely to bhakti. And his It was as though like, you know, it was like, it took him decades to get to the heart. And, and I don't know, right, like, I didn't know him in the 70s in the 80s. Like, I didn't know him then but his presence was just so pure, and the level of depths with which he saw each person in the room, like, you know, the phrase art, like, you know, how I had Darshan. Like, yeah, it was like, it was being seen by, by it was like, being seen by the Divine, like, it was like, he was embodying divinity, and then sending that out to every single person that, you know, stood up to introduce themselves in turn. And it was it was just beautiful. And it was like, yeah, yeah. And that was that was when I was like, okay, whatever this is, this is what I want more of. Yeah. And

Chad Woodford 47:19

yeah, that's beautiful. Yeah. You know, it took me decades to get to the heart too and I'm not even sure I'm there yet. But, but yeah, I mean, it it reminds me of what you're describing reminds me a little bit of, you know, the stories you hear about Neem Karoli Baba, Ram Dass's is guru, and even toward towards the end Ram Das. There's this great book by Pete Holmes. Comedy Sex God. Where he Yeah, you know, yeah. And yeah, the way he describes his time with Ram Dass sounds like what you're talking about this just you're in this field of like, pure love, and it's just like your marinating in it almost. So yeah, that's, that's good. And why Yeah. So that, would that experience, why wouldn't you go into it? more deeply? Yeah, yeah. So yeah. So then you went and studied in Australia. And so would you say that that that training or that experience was primarily bhakti focused then?

Hilary Jackendoff 48:18

No, that was the full yogic tree. It was a it was a two year teacher training. That you know, it was a yoga teacher training. And we, the curriculum was really wide ranging. So we studied bhakti yoga, we studied Yanni yoga, we studied Karma Yoga, we studied the Gita, we studied the sutras like everything plus asana, pranayama, Mudra, Bonda, yoga, Nidra 1000, meditation techniques, not 1000 You know, so and we, over the course of two years like went pretty deep through our own personal sadhana and then in these intensives these residential intensives but I lived at the ashram through the two years like as a resident outside of the residential portion of the training. So I was getting like, you know, the deeper studying the deeper teachings with with senior teachers. I was running the the fire ceremonies the the havens every week. I was getting like the real ashram training where like, you know, like, you hear over the loudspeaker, like, someone didn't show up to teach their class and you're in your office, and then you're like, Oh, I hope they don't find me. I don't feel like teaching and then literally, someone comes to your door and it's like, you you need to go and teach right now. There's 30 visitors waiting in the sadhana Hall and you're teaching right now, and you just like run across the campus. So Like, just sit down and hold space and just like shift gears immediately. And just like that, that experience of like always being thrown into the deep end always being pushed outside of your comfort zone. Like the ashram life is very trial by fire. And it's also like living inside of a pressure cooker. Like having all of your thing, all of your issues triggered, because you're living in community with you get triggered when you live in communities anyway. But then you're also having these these sort of playful teachers that are like, kind of poking at you a little bit and testing you a little bit. It's like, oh, well, she doesn't want to go to the farm. She doesn't want to do manual labor. So let's put her on manual labor every day this week,

Chad Woodford 50:52

and see how you just gotta be my awesome experience to a tee. Yeah,

yeah. Yeah, man. It was great. I love Yeah, yeah. For me, living at the ashram was one of the hardest things I ever did. But it was so good for my ego, and so good for my confidence and everything. Because like what you're talking about, yeah. So often to there, you're asked to spontaneously, you know, step up or step into a role. And it really is a beautiful reminder of how you can, you don't have to be so prepared, you don't have to be, you know, quote, unquote, ready, you just, if you just do the thing, it'll flow out of you, you know, in most cases, and that's a great experience to have. And then yeah, just Yeah, running into all these ego traps and the LSVT. Like you're saying, living in community where, like, for me, my expectation was that people would be like, Oh, well, there'll be less triggers, because people will be, you know, committed to treating people or whatever. I don't know. And so yeah. So, yeah.

Hilary Jackendoff 52:03

Oh, my God, it was like, you know, what, the lesson that I learned, I learned a lot of lessons and like, it is a fine line between sort of cultures, like it's a fine line in Ashram life between sort of gently kind of poking at people's egos and pushing them outside of their comfort zone, maybe a little more than they'd like, maybe a little harder than they'd like. And it's a fine line between that and cultures of abuse. Yeah, it's, you know, it's, and for people who have a history of mental, mental health issues, or a history of, you know, being in abusive relationships, like ashram life is gonna be, it might not be correct, like, but if you're showing up,

Chad Woodford 52:58

I was gonna say, I think part of what I experienced anyways, was, I think so often, the guru or the or the head of the ashram or the teachers. I think they think that the practices and the lifestyle are a panacea, like it's a solution for anything, but I don't think it is, I think you're saying, yeah, what you're saying could be mental illness, or it could be a lot of things that you should go somewhere else to deal with.

Hilary Jackendoff 53:21

And we at the ashram, where I was like, it was, God, I could talk about this all day, there's so much there. But we were generally pretty careful around who we allowed to stay long term as residents and there was an application process and a mental health screening and a physical health screening and the ashram residents were aware of the people that were coming in to join as residents and were aware of their medical health history. You know, and like, there were agreements in place where if someone came in on medication, they had to agree to remain on medication. So like, there was there were there were systems in place at this particular ashram to kind of guard against environments that wouldn't be healthy or safe for people. But then the people that were sort of healthy and we kind of came in, you know, pretty okay, kind of got poked the most, so it was, yeah. But I have so much fun. Like, it was so hard, but it was also the most fun I think I've ever had in my life. Like, it was joy and play, and like, you know, my teachers were my friends. And it was really, we, you know, and it wasn't serious. Like, there was some kind of old heads that were kinda a little stodgy sometimes and kind of uptight about the way rituals were done and like, would kind of pull you up on everything. But in general Like we it was really, it was beautiful. I had an incredible experience.

Chad Woodford 55:06

You know, the fact that they did all the screening was sounds nice because the ashram I lived at didn't screen as far as I was aware, but I've been part of, you know, plant medicine and ayahuasca communities where they do screen so I can see where that's a real benefit. And I wonder if maybe that would have helped us. But yeah, in terms of what you're talking about, I'm reminded of when I was at the ashram that I had this experience where I was really spinning out, like, I was really sort of judging everybody who was there. And I was, I was thinking, like, Oh, nobody here is really practicing, or nobody here is really like benefiting from the practice. And all these stories, I was telling myself and, and so I eventually, this woman, one of my friends, one of the teachers pulled me aside at one point and said, you know, what's going on with you? You seem, you know, totally distraught, you know, and I was like, Well, I told her, you know, what I was thinking, she's like, you know, people who are here, like, they need to be here, because they have all these issues. You know, it's not a place for people who are like, already enlightened or something. And I was like, Oh, I had my, like, Shutter Island moment where I was like, oh, like, I'm, I'm the one with the issues, you know.

Hilary Jackendoff 56:18

Man, I, I had, I was always triggered, I was always head tripping. And, you know, it was, it was really hard. I remember the woman that ran the ashram or founded the ashram. She said that, or one of the senior residents, I don't remember exactly who it was, almost 10 years ago. She said that the ashram is is a place for the best and the brightest and the broken, and the destitute. And I was like, huh, yeah. Very day to day, I mean, honestly, like, the number one lesson that I learned, was how to hold space for myself, because nobody asked how you're doing. Nobody said, Do you need a hug? And no one said, you know, like, you look emotional. You look, you've been eating lunch every day alone for a week now, nobody asked anything. You learned how to keep your own counsel, and you learned how to deal with your shit. Wow, that was really powerful. Was that?

Chad Woodford 57:33

What a great asset to have. What a powerful thing to have your back pocket? You know?

Hilary Jackendoff 57:39

100% like I cannot. I'm so grateful to have learned that lesson. Like,

Chad Woodford 57:45

yeah, yeah, it was. Well, yeah.

Hilary Jackendoff 57:50

It was. It was transformative. I mean, you just learned that like, the the ups and downs, like when you were in sort of a level moment, you know, on the Human Design front, like I was amplifying everyone's emotions all the time. That's now that I understand that was what was happening. So I was just always riding these waves. And I would be like, tripping out, like, ready to like, run screaming from the gate. Like, and then when I would have moments where I felt kind of level, I was like, Oh, this is good. This is I'm gonna go up, I'm gonna go down. And I'll come back to this, this midpoint, at some point. And that's going to be this is just the way life is.

Chad Woodford 58:32

Yeah, kind of gives you it gives you what Krishna gave Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita in a sense, which is the feeling that no experience is too big for you to handle, you know, you start to have that experience. Yeah, yeah. No. Because you know, for me, like, too many times I had my bags packed and I was ready to go, you know? And it was like now that I've now that I survived that experience, and I lived in kind of like a concrete cell with a tiny window and no heat. You know, I can almost live anywhere now. You know, nothing is like that bad really. Compared to

Hilary Jackendoff 59:09

Wow, we had a little bit more Creature Comforts in Australia. But I mean, it wasn't a concrete cell like it was it was definitely a little more vibey than that but no heat. Like no air conditioning, like I used to sleep in the summer, it would be like 115 degrees. And I would sleep with like, I would sleep like naked with a wet dhoti over me, but in the middle of the night, it would dry and then I would have to go wet it again. I would have to go like walk downstairs outside to the bathroom and re soak the dhoti and you know, around the poisonous spiders on the way like literally in the bathroom. redback spiders eating whole lizards. Yeah, there was some hardcore or hardcore lifestyle. They're

Chad Woodford 1:00:04

the things I do to bring these beautiful practices that practices back to the people really don't know, do the price we paid? Well, I mean, I'm sure we can get like you said we could talk about ashram life for hours. But there's so much we could talk about. We could talk about mantra, we could talk about, I mean, we haven't even touched on human design, for example. I know. What I'm doing is I'm kind of winding down here. So just yeah, just to tee up things for another time, perhaps, but we're gonna do Yeah, yeah, we can have we can have a part two. Yeah. Cuz I also, you know, I think it's interesting. We're both sort of I'm from New York. I'm from New Jersey. We live in Los Angeles. That's a whole other topic we could talk about. Oh, my gosh. But yeah. But yeah, I think we've covered enough ground today. And I just wanted to mention a couple of things. In terms of how to find your, your stuff, you're at meditationchick.com. Right. And you have some beautiful yoga nidra recordings on Insight Timer, so you can go there to check those out. And then in terms of what's coming up for you, you've got Mexico retreat happening in late March. And like we said earlier, you're the the ninja training is happening in the spring. And anything else I missed?

Hilary Jackendoff 1:01:26

Now, I think the retreat in Mexico, just in case anybody is interested. It is a yoga nidra and human design retreat. So it's about weaving, weaving pragmatic strategies for energy management and cultivating self acceptance and self love through human design. With deep subconscious work through yoga nidra to transform beliefs and patterns and yeah, and it's gonna be incredible jungle ocean. Beautiful, beautiful community it's just north of Sayulita in San Pancho, so you can actually walk on the beach to Sayulita. It's about a 20–30 minute walk.

Chad Woodford 1:02:11

Yeah, wow. That's I love that area. I've done I've done a yoga retreat and Puerta Villarta and spent some time it's lately to last year, if you go to the retreat, and you go to Sayulita, you have to go to Mary's tacos in Sayulita. Okay. All right. Noted. That sounds amazing. So, so yeah, so Well, thanks for doing this. Hilary. It was so much fun.

Hilary Jackendoff 1:02:36

Thank you for having me Chad. I am excited for our next conversation and I mean, appreciate appreciate the opportunity to nerd out. And yeah, share these these tools and teachings. Thanks, Chad. All right, thanks.