Episode 34: Susie Rubin: Finding strength and vulnerability through Yoga
Discovering the calm of yoga class at a local gym while her little kids were in the babysitting room was Susie Rubin’s introduction to Yoga. Fifteen years later, Susie is now an inspiring yoga instructor and teacher trainer. She shares how her understanding of yoga has deepened her compassionate view of others and acceptance of her own vulnerabilities. And how it helped when she was diagnosed with breast cancer last summer. We had a beautiful conversation. Even if you don’t know yoga, Susie will inspire you and really make your day.
Topics include:
Her early career as a copywriter with Conde Nast
No judgement, no mirrors: the positive early encounters with yoga.
Finding profound meaning in the motto: “The greatest teacher lies within”
Deepening her practice through study of yoga’s history and philosophy
Becoming a certified yoga instructor, now running a teacher training program
How yoga classrooms can be a microcosm of the world
Getting her cancer diagnosis and getting through it with yoga and meditation
How she saved her hair through “cold capping” during cancer treatment
Her advice for getting through anxious days of bad news
Practicing gratitude even on the toughest days
Susie Rubin has practiced yoga since 2004; receiving her first RYT 200 hours in Yoga, Meditation and Pranayama from NY's Integral Yoga Institute. In the fall of 2016, Susie completed a second 200-hour RYT focused on Hot Vinyasa, Yin Yoga and the Ashtanga Primary Series. Since then, she’s become increasingly drawn to the rigor, discipline and healing properties of a daily Mysore practice. In the Spring and Summer of 2018, Susie was fortunate enough to train among a small group of teachers led by Manju Jois. He, along with her teachers past and present inspire her to keep studying, stay humble and never forget the joy that compassionate yoga delivers. She recently completed her 500 HR RYT.
Resources:
Transcript:
Susie Rubin (00:38):
I felt so vulnerable and I was able to be vulnerable, but also I had this tremendous sense of empowerment where I knew that it was there. I pursued it. And I knew that anything that was gonna come my way, I was gonna be the one who had to do it. I was my greatest guru. So I did avail myself of the best doctors I could find and the best treatment. But at the end of the day for all of us, it's just you and your breath. Basically. There's not much else.
Betsy Bush (01:10):
My guest today is Susie Rubin. I think a lot of us discover yoga as I did when our kids are off at school. And we finally finally have the time and the need or yoga's calming influence. Maybe you like it well enough to think. Gee, I wonder if I could teach yoga. Susie has taken teaching yoga to a very high level, which we'll hear about, and it was also there for her when she encountered a serious health issue. Susie, thank you so, so much for joining me on the latest version.
Susie Rubin (01:45):
Thank you so much for having me Betsy,
Betsy Bush (01:48):
Susie. When I asked you to send me your bio, as I do every guest. So I would know how to introduce you. What you sent to me was the most illuminating description of yourself that I've ever received from a guest because it wasn't just, I went to school here. I worked there and then I did this. You really sent me something that really taught me a lot about you as a person. And I thought it was really illuminating. I mean, you said once a person has reached a certain age, the concept of presenting a bio is interesting, but it's like, which one of me do you want? Tell me about all those different people. Because I think like a lot of us, you encompass a lot of different people that you've been and are still becoming.
Susie Rubin (02:40):
Yes. So again, I agree with what you were just saying. Most of us at this point in our lives have worn many different hats, had many, many different jobs. I found myself in a position where every time somebody was asking me, what do you do? Or what's your work? I would go into a whole long explanation of everything that I used to be. I used to be a copywriter. I used to be a promotion person. I used to be working in PR. It occurred to me recently. I had written my last bio a couple of months ago, actually for an assignment in a yoga training I was doing. But none of us are a former, anything. We are all encompassing. We are really circumferential. This is what makes this population of people in my opinion. Okay. I'm a little biased, but so fascinating. And so rich, just because you don't do something anymore or you're not employed in that manner anymore, it does not negate the fact that you've lived these many, many lives. So I think that for me, just coming to this place in my life, I wanna own everything I've done. Even the things that are maybe not so pleasant or a little undesirable because, um, you know, that's what we learn in yoga. It's a big wide space and we can fill it in many ways.
Betsy Bush (03:52):
So you started out like, I think a lot of us who, young women college graduates who go to this city and wanna be part of those busy office spaces, often in media or communications. I talked to Susan Pava, who started out in advertising. You started out in, in magazines, publishing and magazines. And you know, I think that was such a moment in time. I was so influenced by this idea that I'd be Mary Tyler Moore going off, working in a newsroom with lovable office mates. And what was that early life like for you?
Susie Rubin (04:30):
Well, opposed to you, I, as a child did not have that desire at all. I desperately wanted to be a housewife. That was really my main goal. And I was raised by a very feminist mother in the 1970s who kept at me and kept saying, you can do whatever you want. You can be whatever you want. But every time I told her, I wanted to be a housewife. She said, you don't wanna do that. So I feel like women of our age really grew up in, in a time where we were being told that we have all these options, but the options really needed to be tailored to what the movement was about or what our mothers wanted us to be. So I kind of graduated very aimlessly and had no idea what I wanted to do at all. I sort of bumbled into becoming a copywriter because I went to interview at a job, you know, at Conde Nast. And they put me up to GQ magazine who needed a copywriter and I passed the writing test. So that's actually my big training for that job. Little did I know that that would really be a tremendous platform for me, this was way before there was any sort of flexible work schedule or anything like that. And in fact, when I had my first child working at GQ, I was given one day at home, but only on the condition that I not tell anybody I had to keep it a secret and hide it. So that's kind of how I found my way into that field. And then as I was saying, just now it really blossomed into a wonderful platform for everything virtual. And did that work for many, many years in many, many different areas.
Betsy Bush (06:11):
Yeah. You had your own little copywriting business for a while when the kids were at home. Is that right? Yeah. So tell me about when you started doing yoga and how that kind of evolved for you as becoming more and more a part of your life and becoming a part of your identity.
Susie Rubin (06:31):
So I had tried yoga in my early years of going to the gym and whatnot, and it really didn't appeal to me at all. At that point, I just was all about, you went to the gym when you felt bad about gaining weight and you tried to lose weight. And I didn't see how yoga could really help me in that way. So I really did not get it at all. I had my third child and was home with the three of my kids. And I noticed that Equinox was opening or was open near me. And they had a beautiful babysitting room. So this is very inauspicious, but basically that's how I started doing yoga. I found my way into the gym and frankly just felt very uncomfortable in my skin at that time. And the yoga room was a small space with a very intelligent and interesting teacher named Susan Malcolm. And there were no windows, there were no mirrors and there actually were no windows either. But the idea of going to a safe space where I didn't feel like people were looking at me or judging me, I felt very comfortable. I had a peace for an hour in there, and that was just sort of the beginning I began in that place and just couldn't get enough of it after a certain beginning.
Betsy Bush (07:53):
You know, that's so interesting. You comment about there not being any mirrors. And I think, uh, that's so well, it's bad enough to feel other people are judging you, but to be constantly judging yourself because you're constantly referencing yourself in the mirror. And can you really concentrate on doing what's best for your body and whatever internal work you need to do. If you're always looking at your, oh, you know, my belly's so big and oh, look at my butt and all of that. I love the idea. And I think that's one thing I like about yoga is there is no mirror and I'm too busy doing what I'm doing to look at other people. And why would I look at other people except maybe it's like, what did she say to do with your hand? But tell me a little bit more about that idea of being in a place where you can practice yoga and this idea of not having a mirror and not judging yourself.
Susie Rubin (08:51):
So in yoga, there's a very famous expression and, and it's the greatest teacher lies within. I finish all my classes with that phrase. The greatest teacher lies within. And I even use my copy experience to write my own tagline, which is, "your guru is you." And the reason why I bring that up is it brings me to a second piece, which is really important as well. And it's probably at least as important as this idea of no mirror resonating with me. The idea is that we're really responsible for ourselves. We're our greatest teachers. We are all in the same position. We are all one, everybody is struggling. People come to yoga and they think they're the only one who can't sit still. They're the only one who can't meditate. They're the only one who can't get into whatever pose of the day, but everyone is struggling and everyone is the same in that way. So that vulnerability piece where you're okay, admitting it. And then furthermore, the piece that you really have, everything you need, you are a perfect being. It's just a matter of cultivating what you want for yourself, but make no mistake about it. I mean, I think that even, even the monks, you know, sitting and meditating all day, they have doubt, they have insecurity. They're human beings. It's part of the human experience. So the coupling of the humility of feeling like you just wanna be a little more comfortable in your skin, along with the idea of, I'm just going to use this practice to learn about myself, as opposed to a world. For me being raised with, you know, I was raised Jewish, but it just the idea of an external God or an external judgment never made sense to me. And that when I went into the yoga studio, it's like, I'm responsible. I'm the person, I'm my guru. And that just really, really hit home with me. And I've used that my whole life ever since I've gotten there. I mean, I think it's a very valuable lesson for us all.
Betsy Bush (10:54):
So tell me, how did you decide that the path you wanted to follow was one of being a yoga instructor or a teacher and what's involved in that?
Susie Rubin (11:03):
Yeah, so I never had any designs on being a yoga teacher at all. I went on for many, many years, I would say over 10 years, just taking my classes at the time. Aside from Equinox, there were just little yoga studios all, all over. So I would just pick a day, every single day, I went to a different place. I was in Irvington and I went to Hastings and I went to the church in Larchmont and I, I just found any practice that I could really attach myself to and stayed with that teacher from Equinox. And that's an important thing because often people will say, I don't know if I should take an advance class or this class is too hard for me. And my advice to people is always just find a teacher you can connect with. It really does not matter. You really can just sit on your mat and breathe and that's totally fine. So I had connected with this teacher and I went to her and said, I just wanna learn more about yoga. I'm considering a teacher training just because I love it. And I really wanna learn more of the philosophy, the Sanskrit, the history, and she really got behind it and encouraged me. So my youngest was getting ready to start high school. And I decided to go we live here in Scarsdale. So I decided to go to a place called Integral Yoga, which is in the West Village. And it's a full Ashram, it's in a big brownstone. It's been there since the 1960s and the guru who started that is a man named Sri Swami Satchidananda, who actually gave the invocation at Woodstock. He was the first speaker at Woodstock. So if you, uh, if you Google that, you'll see the Swami there. Wow. But my feeling at the time really wasn't intentional about becoming a teacher. I just felt like I live in a very proscribed environment. I drive my kids in a carpool. I have play groups, I do all that stuff. I make my dinner every night for my family. I need to somewhere that is totally outside of the realm of what I do. Totally outside of my comfort zone. So that's really what motivated me in the beginning, just to have an experience that could sort of broaden one of my interests, but also just to see where it might take me. On the first day that I went to the ashram, I left the house. I said to my husband I'm really good with anything. I just don't wanna be put in a position where I have to be standing and chanting in a circle with musical instruments and dancing and freeform. And of course, when I got there, that's exactly what the first day entailed. So that was pretty much it for me. I was totally humbled and I left that and I said, I really want to be a good yoga teacher. I really wanna help people find the journey that I found with it. That was my beginning.
Betsy Bush (13:45):
So what is involved? I mean, there are requirements of a certain number of hours of training before you can be a teacher. Uh, what is that whole process like?
Susie Rubin (13:56):
There's a national organization in the United States called the yoga Alliance and schools are usually called yoga Alliance certified. And your first level of certification is a 200 hour yoga teacher training. And so the first one that I did at integral was a 200 hour. There are certain broad based requirements. You need a certain number of hours in anatomy. You need a certain number of hours in active teaching, observing classes and all sorts of things. But really from there, every school is completely different. So at the ashram, I really learned a tremendous amount about history and philosophy and meditation and breath work. Now where I teach, which is at Lifetime, I run their teacher training programs with two other teachers and we have a completely different curriculum. So even though it's set by the yoga Alliance, it's very, it's kind of open to what the particular school specializes in and what they're looking to convey.
Betsy Bush (14:55):
Hmm. You wrote in this wonderful bio that you sent to me, you said I'm a woman who's learned more in my yoga practice than anywhere else in my life. Yes. And I'd love to hear more about that.
Susie Rubin (15:09):
I feel like the yoga room is a little microcosm of our society. You know, I remember in my childbearing years when I took my first Lamaze class and we were among six couples in the room and I left and I said to my husband, okay, well we had the class clown and we had the nonbeliever and we had the little one who gets into mischief. You know, I was like the one trying to be perfect. So it's not unlike that in the yoga studio, you have the naysayer, you have the insecure one in the corner who thinks just cuz they're in the back row, nobody can see them. You know, you have the puffed up one, who's in a handstand on their pinkies. You know, you have everybody going on at once. But what I have experienced is that everyone is sort of there for the same thing. They are looking to be accepted. They are looking to feel comfortable in their own skin. And they're looking for that special something that mysterious thing that, you know, we all have that we all feel like, oh, if I could just, you know, get the Zen feeling or I could just do that pose or, you know, it's very much like anywhere in life, you know, this false sense of, you know, if I can just attain that or achieve that, I'm gonna be really happy. And I just love the space. I love the vulnerability. I love that I can be vulnerable with my students. And I don't think that that's until recently, it just, there wasn't a platform for that. You know, there wasn't diversity talking there wasn't, you know, people expressing their own experiences. I recently just saw an interview with a woman who talked about being in a law firm. And until her eighth month would not tell anybody she was pregnant because she wasn't supposed to be pregnant. And she, you know, meanwhile of course she's pregnant, you know? So that's more, I feel like the world that we're coming from, hopefully our children are no longer in that world. And we aren't either. But I would say, I don't know if I answered the question, but I think I tried,
Betsy Bush (17:09):
I love the idea of each of these spaces and the people in them, you know, microcosms of the world and actually microcosms of a classroom. I think that's classic. Right. And you see that as a yoga teacher, it's like, oh yeah. Why don't you tell me about, you know, we come hinted at this at the beginning, you've come a long way. You've been teaching for several years. Actually. How long have you been teaching? I've
Susie Rubin (17:33):
Been teaching for a little over seven years now.
Betsy Bush (17:35):
Wow. That's great. Yeah. And then this past summer you had some bad health news. Can you tell me about that?
Susie Rubin (17:44):
Yes, certainly. So I was diagnosed with breast cancer in this past June. I diagnosed myself, I had found the lump and I've had two instances in my life where my intuition saved a life. This time it happened to be my life. And the last time was when my youngest child was born. I just had a sense that something wasn't right. And it wasn't. So thank you to a, an emergency C-section she's just great and fine. So it started off as just a vague. Something's not right here. I went to my doctor who told me everything's fine. It's nothing to worry about. I had my mammogram, it was beautiful and clean and I kept pushing and sure enough on the sonogram, they found the teeny, you know, teen, you never wanna hear that. It's just a teeny tiny thing. And in, in my case, thankfully it was a very low stage and there wasn't any spread, but I did receive chemo and had quite an aggressive treatment. And so during that period, obviously I was devastated, shocked, whatever you wanna say. Sometimes I would just lie on my yoga mat, even though I was too tired to practice or whatever, it was like coming home to a place for me, where I just felt secure and comfortable when it was a world that was very insecure and very uncomfortable for me. And the interesting thing about that period was also the meditation piece. I think that most people, most of us have a struggle with meditation. There are some people that I've met that say they absolutely love to meditate, but nine times out of 10 people have a struggle, even if it's just the struggle of sitting still. And what I found during this time was it was the easiest time for me to meditate. I think it gave me a sense of time standing still for a moment. It gave me a sense of I'm still breathing. I'm still here. I'm still the same person. Even though this thing happened to me, I'm not a victim. And getting back to those initial state treatments for me about the two things I loved the most about yoga, I felt so vulnerable and I was able to be vulnerable, but also I had this tremendous sense of empowerment where I knew that it was there. I pursued it. And I knew that anything that was gonna come my way, I was gonna be the one who had to do it. I was my greatest guru. So I did avail myself of the best doctors I could find and the best treatment, but at the end of the day for all of us, you know, it's just you and your breath, basically. There's not much else everything else comes from that.
Betsy Bush (20:28):
I think of this as, you know, finding inner strengths or I assume you practice yoga daily, that there's the health aspect of yoga and practicing daily that would also have helped you, you know, in your treatment and recovery. I mean, you do not look like someone who just had cancer.
Susie Rubin (20:51):
Thank you.
Betsy Bush (20:51):
No, seriously not. I think you even shared a secret about why you still have all your hair.
Susie Rubin (20:58):
Not a secret. I'm happy to tell the world. Um, so I'm not a big poster on social media. And um, my sister has an expression. It's something like an after reporter or, you know, a post reporter or something like that. And the idea is that I'm not very good at talking about everything while I'm struggling through it. But once I feel like I've kind of got my brain around it, I wanna share it with everybody. If I feel that it's helpful. So I did not really show my face on social media during the time, but once it was over, I felt really strongly that I had to share two pieces of information. The first was about a, a simple, but not easy process of cold capping your hair. And I did that. I wore, it's literally a cold cap. It has a cap with dry ice in it. I had a person helping me do it, not for everybody, but really was something that was very important to me. And not at all from a vanity standpoint or maybe a little bit, if I'm honest about, I just needed to know that I had control over something and I could control that, hopefully, which I really did. So not to get too far off the mark, but there's a lot of things about women's health that are for whatever reason, a little mysterious, one of them might be menopause. And I don't know why, because it's simple, women's bodily functions. And every time you go to the doctor and you tell them about a symptom or something that you're having, at least any doctor I went to, all they told me was, Hmm, don't worry. It's gonna go away. And I kept thinking, this is this, isn't some rare disease. This is women's bodies. And we don't even know what to do with them. Most women don't even know what's down there. You know? So same with cold capping. It's there, it's available. As I said before, it's not for everybody, but it's literally putting a cold cap on your head. Why doesn't everybody know this as an option?
Betsy Bush (22:57):
And how long does it stay there? Is it during treatment or, yeah,
Susie Rubin (23:01):
It's a whole process. And again, I was lucky in that. I only had to have four treatments of chemotherapy so that would've made me lose all my hair, but my, it wasn't a sustained treatment program. You only have the cap on while you're being treat the day of your treatment several hours after, I guess, with a very unmedical explanation, something about chemo burns every, you know, burns your hair follicles and burns everything in your body. They burn out the cancer. So that's why you lose hair. And if you can maintain the cold and freeze it up, the follicles are able to hold on the hair. So that's what I learned. There's a protocol in between that you follow, but it's pretty much the cold cap.
Betsy Bush (23:42):
I can't believe this is the first time I've heard anything like that. Yes. And getting the word out. I hope more people if they're faced with that sort of, cuz it is so drastic, right. And it's such a telltale sign to the world, right. That, oh, if someone's lost their hair, they're dealing with cancer and maybe it's not an option for everyone, but it should be an option for more people. I would think..
Susie Rubin (24:04):
I mean, it's quite pricey depending on which format you use. And again, there's many different ways to go about it. But just to know that you have an option just to know that you can take some level of control and feel like you're doing something because you're not really doing much when you're being treated, you're just showing up and sticking out your arm and being there. So this made me feel like I'm actively doing something to perpetuate a better feeling for myself and for my family and for my friends, because it can be very jarring to see a person that you're not accustomed to seeing sick. And I think that is such a telltale sign. I'm not at all about everyone having to do it. I just think like everything we should know about the options and make our choices,
Betsy Bush (24:53):
Right. What is a day like for you as a yoga teacher? Do you get up as yoga? The first thing you do in the morning, I'm just curious to know what life is like.
Susie Rubin (25:04):
So I like to say that I practice every single day, but life gets in the way of our yoga practice. Just like it gets in the way of a lot of things I mentioned before. Some days you just don't feel like anything, but your mats there. So you can lie down on it. I practice mostly Ashtanga yoga, which is a very old sequence of poses. It never changes. It's the format and the basis, the foundation of all the yoga we do in the United States, it's the foundation of power yoga. And so I love it because it's adaptable. It's very consistent. And it's a platform where you become the variable. So when you do something the same every day, you change in the format. So format doesn't change, but you are the change. So when I practice, which is as often as I can, I try to practice in the morning, I'm just more alert and awake. I do. As I said, I'm involved at Liifetime. I teach many classes there and um, also do the trainings there. So I practice there a lot. That's sort of my home studio. I have never really been a person who loved private. I feel like yoga is a community. It can be a community of two people. Once you have two people, that's a community, but it always felt a little strange to me to be leading a person or sitting there while they're doing it. I try to really connect in a different way. So
Betsy Bush (26:32):
How often do you teach?
Susie Rubin (26:34):
I teach about five days a week. It depends, you know, we pick up classes for each other and yeah, I teach in Chappaqua also. So between the two,
Betsy Bush (26:43):
How large are those classes? Just out of curiosity when you're yeah.
Betsy Bush (26:46):
Post COVID, it's a little different because people are just starting to come back to the gym pre COVID. I mean, we have an enormous studio at lifetime. So at that time there could be anywhere from, you know, 30, 40 people in the room, sweating together, mats right on top of each other, you know that I started in the basement of a church. Yes. And so there would be maybe five people in there. It really depends, you know, what the format is, but hopefully now people are feeling more confident to come back. I went back right after, you know, right. I think I've been back for, uh, a year ago, September and stepping back into the studio, even with our masks and all that was the same feeling that I describe of just doing anything I could do just to get to that mat. You know, it's like a life raft. So for me it was a wonderful community just to, I never shared what I was going through with the people in my community, but just that I could go there every day and I could be in that, I'll call it a sacred space cuz that's what we call it there. And regardless of what you think about the expression, it's just really a place where you come as you are, you come as you are. And even though you might wanna say, oh, I'm so happy and I'm so Zen, it might be a terrible day for you. So you just sit with it. You just sit there.
Betsy Bush (28:05):
What advice do you have for anyone who might want to follow this path of really serious yoga practice, whether it leads to teaching or not?
Susie Rubin (28:16):
I would say the first thing that you need to understand is that you're going to be in a community of people that get it. They're gonna be all the different ages. They're gonna be all different sizes, shapes, colors, whatever you want. But everyone in that room is looking for a similar thing that you are looking for. They all feel uncomfortable. They all feel a little awkward. They all think they're the O you know, we all, I should say, think that, you know, we're the only people who can't do it and just find a teacher that resonates with you or find a group where you feel comfortable and then just open your brain up and just go because it's not about what it should be. It's about what it is. And just the way I just said, you know, come as you are, just come as you are, just explore it and see where it takes you.
Betsy Bush (29:05):
You're saying find a teacher that you can follow. Are people following you? Do you find that you're mentoring others? I'm sure it's true. Whether maybe you're too modest to say
Susie Rubin (29:16):
I do find that mostly because we train teachers. So we host 200 hour trainings that's been going on ever since I came to lifetime this year, we'll be starting our first 300 hour training, which is sort of the next level of training. And I think that when you get it and you find that the practice is valuable to you, it's like a light bulb goes off. And whoever is the person that illuminated you or brought you into that space usually is a person for you that you look up to that you really are inspired by. So to answer your question directly, yes, I do feel that I do that for people. I think that people see me in that role. I'm not secretive about the journey that got me there. There's a little something of humility that people can maybe relate to. And then they can see it as a path, as a way to either make their life a little more manageable or really to pursue it and study and learn more about what it is to become a teacher and become a teacher.
Betsy Bush (30:24):
Well, I would say you are such a wonderful example of what the practice I love this term of practice, as opposed to there's something about the practice of yoga and other things as well, that implies that you've never fully arrived. You're always still on that journey.
Susie Rubin (30:43):
You really are. And we do a simple four step meditation. And the simple four steps are one is that you have a willingness to come into stillness, which is this different for everybody, for some people that means swimming or running or walking or sitting still, or whatever that is. The second step is just to notice the natural rhythm of your breath. It's something that we do over 10,000 times a day, and we don't even think about it. So that's a huge statement in and of itself. The third step is to notice any sensations in your body that are connected to your breath. And this is a tough one for people because you have to acknowledge what's there. And it's very uncomfortable for most of us, cuz it's not beautiful and pleasant all the time. But what I wanted to get to you to answer your question was this fourth step. It's a word in Sanskrit. It's called Pecka and it means equanimity and balanced. And the idea when you talk about a practice is that that fourth step is that you are practicing equanimity. You are practicing balance so that even though you're sitting perfectly still or you're, you know, your eyes are closed or whatever you're doing, you might feel like there's a RA. You know, there's a freight train going through you. And just by practicing, just by practicing that feeling, it's like anything you do, you become more adept, you become more skilled. And then when life does throw you that thing, you've already practiced what it feels like to have some level of peace and balance. So it's a lifelong practice, which you never really achieve because, because that's not the goal, the goal is to be in the moment and to try and find joy and practice what that feels like. Even when it's not there for you.
Betsy Bush (32:35):
That's such a wonderful message. Especially in these times, you know, here we are, we're out of COVID pretty much, but we are into a really horrible conflict in Ukraine. And a lot of us are just on edge. Yes. Wondering what's gonna happen. And how is this all going to end and feeling so much pain for the civilians, the population in Ukraine that are being, you know, in that whole country being destroyed by bombs, it's extremely upsetting.
Susie Rubin (33:10):
Devastating.
Betsy Bush (33:12):
Do you have call me words for those of us who in this moment are completely fr and don't know where to find solace. I'm always reaching for my phone for the latest news, but that's not calming. I
Susie Rubin (33:25):
Would say that's, I don't have many calming words, but I would say that's probably not a great idea for us. No. In fact, when we do our teacher trainings, we do a whole piece about mindful eating and, you know, managing stress and all that, that kind of stuff. And one of the things that we talk about with cleansing is going on media cleanse. So there is the notion that, you know, we put a lot of images and things into our heads and into our bodies and just like people smoke cigarettes and you know, do all that and eat terrible foods and drink too much. You know, it's same with these images. And I'm not saying in any way to turn a blind eye, I think that educating yourself is critical and reading is critical. But I also think there's critical mass where it's too much. And so turn off the TV a little bit, you know, you don't have to see the same thing 500 to times to feel compassion, especially when it's a situation like this. I would say the calmest word is not the word itself, but the concept, which is what we've been talking about, it's a practice try, you know, understand that it doesn't mean you're gonna feel fabulous. It just means that you're practicing feel fabulous. You're practicing, not being afraid.
Betsy Bush (34:45):
That's wonderful. How do you end your sessions? Why don't you take us out here? Because I love this calming feeling and I wanna leave our listeners with the sense that your students have when they finish a class with you, what do you say?
Susie Rubin (35:00):
Okay. Allow the eyes to close. And if you aren't comfortable closing your eyes, just allow them to rest on something that isn't moving. Let all the breath, leave your body, then close your mouth and let the breath come in through the nose, fill yourself up like a huge container of possibility. Open the mouth when you're ready and release the breath, then take both of your hands, press them together and draw them into the heart center. As you bow the chin to the chest, just a moment of gratitude. And I say to you, [indecipherable]. The greatest teacher lies within each and every one of us. And may the light of truth overcome all darkness. Namaste.
Betsy Bush (36:00):
Namaste.
Betsy Bush (36:03):
So I have some big news for my listeners. The Latest Version was never meant to be my final version. So I'm taking my own advice and I'm rebranding the show. Project: Reinvention with Betsy Bush is going to be a deeper exploration of reinvention and evolution across a wider range of guests. Did you know people in their twenties and thirties also wanna talk about reinvention? I think we're gonna have some great conversations and I hope you'll be there for us. So the next episode of the latest version is going to be our finale. We're going to take a break and then we'll relaunch the show in May. This feed will also be the feed for the new show. So you don't need to look for us anywhere. Just be there for us. When we relaunch, I think you're gonna love the new show. We've had 35 great episodes of The Latest Version. And I so appreciate your being with us over this past year. It's been a wonderful year of evolution and exploration, and it's only going to get better. Thank you so much. I’m Betsy Bush, and this is my latest version.
