All right. Here we are. This is Jay Brown Yoga Talks podcast. My name is Jay Brown. If this is your first time here, welcome.

Everyone else.

What's up?

How is everyone doing?

How are you feeling?

If you are listening to this at the time of its publication and you live in the United States of America,

I wonder, is it just me or does the feeling of uncertainty and anxiety level around that feel ramped up as we get closer to this election that is upon us.

And, you know, we're actually going to talk about some of that stuff next week here on the show.

But not today, because I think in order to try to have conversations about incredibly divisive or challenging topics that often bruise friendships and, you know, there's a reason why there's that cliche of you're not

supposed to bring up politics or religion at the family holiday, you know?

So in order to be able to handle those situations, at least for myself, I need to get my own internal state in order.

I need to feel like I've got a good handle on how I'm responding to things rather than just

reacting to everything.

And I've often used this expression over the years.

I've talked about my yoga practice being a way to develop self-management skills.

And what I mean by that is the experience I provide myself in practice is intended to be a behavioral precedent of sorts, a way of establishing a pattern of me being with myself and moving

through the world in a way that I would wish to,

rather than forever being in some like fight or flight kind of mode of just trying to survive,

you know, like to feel like I get to steer the ship some rather than forever being pulled along.

And if you listen to this show on the regular, you often hear me say that all of us will

keep our wits about us and that we are managing our stuff.

And that's what I mean that there's an internal process of managing your emotions and responses and your

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