Cali Alpert:
Welcome to Dropping In from Omega Institute, a podcast that explores the many ways to awaken the best in the human spirit. I'm Cali Alpert. Dropping in today, Tracee Stanley. Tracee is the author of Radiant Rest: Yoga Nidra for Deep Relaxation and Awakened Clarity. She's the founder of Empowered Life Circle, a sacred community and portal of practices and tantra teachings inspired by her more than 20 years of study in the tradition of the Himalayan Masters, and Sri Vidya Tantra. Tracee is devoted to sharing the wisdom of Yoga Nidra, meditation, self-inquiry, nature, ritual, and ancestor reverence. As host of the Radiant Rest podcast, she celebrates the rituals of rest, sacred dreaming and self-care. First of all, Tracee, thank you for joining us today on Dropping In. It's so nice to see you.

Tracee Stanley:
Thank you for having me.

Cali Alpert:
My pleasure. So sleep is something that most humans do at the end of their day. But I'm curious about the difference to you between sleep and rest.

Tracee Stanley:
That's a great question. And I think we can also start by asking ourselves, how often do we sleep for eight hours a night and still don't feel rested? And so rest to me is this place of non-doing. It's a place where there's the power of kind of inertia, even lethargy, that helps us to ground and to let go. And rest and sleep are not necessarily the same. So the question really is, how do I become more restful in my daily life so that when it's time to go to sleep, I'm not so exhausted that I wake up unrested?

Cali Alpert:
Do you have a sense of why it is that it's almost it seems like it's often a badge of honor to be tired, "I'm working so hard. I'm spending so much time with my family," as if there's something that people are earning by not sleeping or resting properly. It seems like that's pervasive in our culture. Do you agree?

Tracee Stanley:
I absolutely agree. I think the dominant culture wants us to be productive, and if we're not productive we're not valuable as human beings. So being able to do more and be more is celebrated. And if we look at someone who feels like they're doing less because they're resting or they're practicing self care, it's a question of, "Oh, this person is lazy." So which would you rather have in society, the label of lazy or the label of, "Oh, I'm really valuable because I'm productive and look at all the things that I have accomplished?" And when we accomplish without resting, then we become sick. It creates dis-ease in the body and dis-ease in the mind. And I can't tell you how many retreats I've taught and workshops I've taught where people come in and say, "I am so bone tired. I feel the exhaustion and I feel like if I don't change something in my life that I'm actually going to collapse."

So this is very pervasive. It's something that needs to change. I feel like it is slowly changing. There's a lot of people talking about the value of rest. People like Trisha Hersey from the Nap Ministry, people like Octavia Raheem are talking about it. I've obviously written about it in my book, Radiant Rest. But I think rest is something that we are all worthy of and it is something that we really need to reclaim. And we need to kind of stop the narrative that, "The more I do, the more I'm worth."

Cali Alpert:
Let's dig a little deeper into that. Where do you think that that comes from? I know that's a really vast question, but the idea about self-worth being commensurate with robbing yourself or taking care of yourself?

Tracee Stanley:
Well, I think we can probably trace it back to the invention of the light bulb and the Industrial Age. There was a time when, prior to that, we were really in connection with our circadian rhythms. It's like the sun went down and it was time to finish working because there was not any light. And when the light bulb was invented, it extended the workday and it created this age of production. And the more production there was, all of a sudden there was more money. And so I think that over time we've just become ingrained in this idea that we need to keep going. We don't listen to the cycles of nature. We don't even notice the cycles of nature because we're always working and we have different technologies that allow us to keep pretending that it's actually daytime.

And I think also the cell phone, the invention of the cell phone. I remember when I got my first cell phone in, I think it was like 1995, and I had this huge thing that was a brick. And at that time it was like if you didn't answer the phone, you had to be cognizant because it was so expensive, like you didn't use the cell phone. And so now we are available and expected to be available 24 hours a day. I can't tell you how many people I know that sleep with their cell phone underneath their pillow.

If you are available 24 hours a day, you are in this mode of vigilance. You're in this mode also of fight or flight because you're waiting for the ding, you're waiting for the phone to ring, you're waiting for that important email. And I think that this has just become a way of life that the powers that be want us to be in that mode because they can continue to sell us things, they can continue to keep us in kind of the rat race of being productive and never resting. Because when we rest, we're actually in more connection with our inner guidance, our inner voice, our inner wisdom, what we really want to do from our heart space and not from a place of, "This X, Y, and Z is telling me that this is what I should be doing in order to be valuable."

Cali Alpert:
That's something that continues to baffle me often is that it seems that the more available we are for everyone else, and it seems like it's a societal compulsion to be so, the less available we are for us.

Tracee Stanley:
Yeah, absolutely.

Cali Alpert:
Why do you think we've gotten so far away from it, beyond the productivity and the culture of currency?

Tracee Stanley:
That's an interesting question. I feel like there's too many distractions. There's too many things to do. There's too much to acquire. There's too much of, "If I don't do this, I'm going to miss out." There's too much competition, "Well, this person has that and I want that too." There's too much looking outward for value as opposed to looking inward. And the more we kind of focus our awareness externally, the more we feel like we need to grab things in order to be able to be valuable.

Cali Alpert:
We still have a little to learn, don't we?

Tracee Stanley:
We all have a lot to learn.

Cali Alpert:
You've talked about the cultural blocks and the right to rest. Not only is it pervasive overall that often people believe that they have to earn the right to rest but that there's cultural blocks that are more pervasive, with women of color, for example, where it's construed as lazy if one takes rest. Can you speak to that a little bit and what kind of education does society need to wake up, as it were, to that awareness?

Tracee Stanley:
Well, I think it's always best to start within one's self to notice, "What happens inside of my body when I think about the idea of resting? What resistance do I feel? What messages did I get as a child about the worth of rest and my deservability to have it?" That's A. And then next is this idea that Black people have been told for eons that they're lazy. And we have to think about the fact that people were brought to this country as forced labor and being enslaved. And so there is something I would say in my DNA as a Black woman that speaks to this idea that my ancestors could have lost their lives if they were caught resting.

And so it's a two-sided coin. It's, one, that there's something in my DNA that I can viscerally feel that says it's not safe to rest because if I'm caught resting, I could be harmed. And then there's the other piece of what happens in society today, which is basically, "I don't want to be seen as lazy so I'm not going to rest because I know that there is this trope out there of people of color being lazy, not working hard enough, living off some sort of a dime or government assistance," whatever that is, that is an absolute lie and untruth, but that's what's out there.

I think being able to look within yourself first to see what biases are you holding around rest for your very own self and for your own family. Because the more you kind of have this inner oppressor, the more you are going to be judging others for resting, the more you are going to try to deny other people rest. And that is really dangerous, especially if someone is a leader, if someone is a CEO of a company, if someone is a head of government, because then you are projecting that out to everybody who is under your influence. And so that's what I would say is that start within, look at your biases within yourself, outside of yourself, and try to reframe if that's something that you really care about doing and being awake.

Cali Alpert:
To that point, is there anything that you would like to see society reframe in a larger way?

Tracee Stanley:
Well, I think it's kind of happening. And I recognize that I live in a little bit of a bubble because many of the people that I know and that I associate with, we're all talking about rest all the time and how to bring rest to people. But I think that when companies and CEOs start to talk about the value of rest, when they start to create rest pods in their offices, when they start to give people the types of breaks that are needed to not only have a maternity leave or a paternity leave, but also to have a grief leave that actually is more than a day or a rest leave, that that is what's going to begin to start to change and shift things. So when companies like Google start to do this or other big companies, and they're already starting, the head of Google has been talking about how he's incorporated rest in his life, that that's when it will start to trickle down.

But I don't think it will happen fast enough unless all of us who understand the value of rest actually decide to say, "Okay, I know I'm not a teacher of Yoga Nidra or I'm not a teacher of rest, but I can share how important rest is to one person in my life, to one beloved, and then I can allow myself to invite that person into resting with me," and starting to normalize this idea of rest. And I think that that shift is happening. I know early on people would say, "Wow, I can't believe you're so brave to have an automatic responder on your email that says, 'Sorry, I'm resting. I'm not going to return your email or your phone call right now.'" And after the pandemic, three years later, I see that responder coming all the time back to me when I send an email out. So just little things like that I think can help to spread, "Oh, I can give myself permission to not answer emails for a weekend and let people know that I'm resting."

Cali Alpert:
That was a word that was coming to mind as I'm listening to you talk about that answer, is that just by virtue of having a conversation like this and you being such an advocate and the work that you do, feels like it's granting a permission slip to a lot of people. I'm curious about how you came to caring about this topic so much. I know bits and pieces about your studies with sutras and your earlier spiritual life, but I'm curious if we go back even to you and your upbringing. Did you have models for rest or lack thereof that might have informed your interest in this topic?

Tracee Stanley:
Yeah, that's a great question. So luckily, my dad, one of his favorite sayings was, "Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise." I don't even know if I could count the number of times I heard that growing up. And what I saw from his modeling was that when the sun went down, he was ready for bed. He was in bed at nine o'clock with my mom. There was no late night anything happening. And so when he was going to bed, he was very strict, he was a disciplinarian, everybody was going to bed. And of course, this is before we had devices. And there was no TV after a certain time, it was time to sleep. And then in the morning, it was time to wake up. So in some regard, he was actually in tune with the circadian rhythm because he would wake up early, he would go to bed pretty much right after the sun was going down, maybe an hour or two after.
And the value of what he talked about was that I saw that him being rested actually made him more productive and more clear and more creative and that he would come up with innovative ideas for his business that other people would say, "Oh, you can't do that. Nobody's ever done that before." And he would just say, "Okay, watch me." And I never saw him be tired. I never saw him exhausted. I saw him working really hard, but I would say that he was working really smart. People will say, "Oh, you're working smart," that's how he worked, and it paid off for him in many different ways.

Cali Alpert:
So in keeping with your dad's traditions and everything that you learned as a kid, do you think that your expertise in your career now is based on that from a conscious choice or by osmosis?

Tracee Stanley:
I think in the beginning it was a little bit like I wanted to emulate my dad. And then I think once I got older, I was never interested in going out. I'm introverted, number one, so I was never interested in going out and I always loved just being up early. And I realized, I think, when I started my career in film, that all of my other friends who were executives, they were going out late and partying and this and that and coming in whatever they were coming in at in the morning. And I always felt like that was a real gift to be able to wake up early, to be okay going to bed early, not feeling like I was missing out on something by not going out. And I feel like it also gave me, in my career, kind of an edge of just being fresh.

Cali Alpert:
And now a word about Omega Teachers Studio. Get ready to be inspired from your very own cushion, yoga mat or couch. Omega Teachers Studio brings your favorite teachers direct to you live and online from their studios for one plus hour classes on topics that matter the most. They're easy to fit into your schedule and affordable too. Learn more at eomega.org/studio. To receive a 10% discount on any Teachers Studio tuition, enter the code DI10 when registering. That's the letters D and I and the numbers one and zero. Now back to our episode.

Let's talk about your passion of Yoga Nidra and something that you teach and obviously write about. I think a lot of people, myself included, think of it as a deep meditative practice, guided meditative practice, but aren't aware of the depth of it being like... The yoga of sleep is the literal translation, right?

Tracee Stanley:
Yes.

Cali Alpert:
I'd love to hear you talk a little bit more about that. I've heard some of your analogies about dissolving into the body and a tortoise that sort of reverts back into its shell. And those are such beautiful and poetic ways to look at it. I'd love to hear more about that.

Tracee Stanley:
Yeah, so the most common translation is the yoga of sleep. And nidra comes from two words, ni meaning void and dru meaning to draw forth from. So if we think about a void being both empty and full, it feels like there's some magic that is happening in this void. And so the void space is actually kind of the fourth state of consciousness. So when we're in or practicing Yoga Nidra as a technique, we are moving through the waking state, the deep sleep state, the dreaming state, and then moving into this other state that's known as turiya, which is also considered to be a void space. And it's also considered to be samadhi or a form of samadhi, which is said to be peace beyond words. And if we think about this idea of samadhi, samadhi is the final goal of yoga. So what I love about Yoga Nidra is that it is actually the technique that leads to the state of yoga, the state of samadhi, the final goal of yoga.

And yet Yoga Nidra is also a goddess who is said to be the one who has the shakti of repose, and she's the one who is actually kind of holding us and presiding over this beautiful technique of sleep and rest. So we can think about the idea of these states of consciousness being similar to our brainwave states, and that most of the time, if we're in delta or theta state, we're not super conscious. We're either in a deep meditation or we're in a deep, deep sleep. And the idea of Yoga Nidra is that there's a part of us that is always awake and aware. And so we can simultaneously be in this deep, deep sleep and yet also aware that there's a part of us that is awake and watching the process happening. So a lot of times people will say that Yoga Nidra is sleep with a slight trace of awareness, but it also also feels like a hovering in the liminal space.

So if you've ever been in that space between being awake and being asleep and it feels like this kind of sweet spot of... And I feel like we only really get to notice that space when we're falling asleep in a place where we're not supposed to be, where you feel like you're about to nod off and you feel that sweetness coming to you and then you're like, "Oh no, I have to wake up." There's this ability that happens, the more you practice Yoga Nidra, to be able to hover in that space, to be able to hover in the liminal space, the in between space.

And I think that that is really powerful because normally we just either ignore that space or we don't get to savor that space because we have an alarm clock that wakes us up or there's something fearful that comes up because that space is a void and that space is unknown and we want to try to avoid most of the time the unknown. So Yoga Nidra is a powerful practice to be able to kind of partner with the unknown and explore the unknown and explore that liminality and know that it's a sacred place to be able to rest.

Cali Alpert:
Do you do it daily?

Tracee Stanley:
I do it once a day.

Cali Alpert:
And so do you guide yourself or do you use somebody else as a guide?

Tracee Stanley:
I self guide, yeah. I do have a few friends that I absolutely adore who have amazing nidras that I'll pop in every once in a while. So Yoli Maya Yeh is someone who I really love. Chanti Tacoronte-Perez is someone that I love, Uma Dinsmore-Tuli, John Vosler. I have a few people that I keep on my phone, that I love.

Cali Alpert:
Brief question as a follow up to the nature of the voice of a guide through Yoga Nidra, because it can sound to a newcomer a little... The first time I heard it when I was guided through my first Yoga Nidra practice there was a robotic, very calming, but very even and almost disorienting voice. It felt initially like an affect because I had no frame of reference. And now I see that that's a common part of, I guess, people that are trained. Is that an intentional thing or is that... 

Tracee Stanley:
That's so interesting. I would say that it depends on what tradition you were trained in. It probably depends on who trained you. I am familiar with people who have said, "Oh, there's this person who does this nidra and it's a robotic voice." And what I would say is two things. One is that we're all learning as we're learning to teach. And there are people who don't want to give any inflection or any kind of preference to any part of the body or any part of the direction because Yoga Nidra is this practice of non-doing. It's the practice where when we finally move into the deepest part of the practice, it's a place of no thought. So if I start to give the sexy librarian version of the Yoga Nidra and I'm like, "Relax and feel," then all of a sudden it starts to try to evoke some emotion.

And so Yoga Nidra is this practice that is a pratyahara practice. So pratyahara is the fifth limb of yoga, which means to withdraw the senses. You spoke about the turtle a little while ago. And so this idea of pratyahara is like a tortoise withdrawing its limbs into the shell. That means that the senses, the five senses, we start to withdraw those senses inward. One of the other really beautiful definitions of pratyahara that comes from Swami Veda Bharati is that it is the withdrawal of the senses so that we can re-assimilate into our true nature. We don't want to do anything that is going to distract from reaching that or touching that or glimpsing that true nature.

That's why I think a lot of times the voice can sound robotic to people. And I think that when you're practicing Yoga Nidra, or if you want to try Yoga Nidra, I highly recommend listening to a couple of voices and feeling into, "Oh yeah, this is a voice that I can listen to." Because if you're constantly judging the voice or the voice is annoying you, you're not going to be able to deeply rest. I think the other thing about the voice is this idea of transmission. And so the more we practice and the more we remember our deepest practice that we've ever had as a teacher and we remember our relationship with Yoga Nidra, the goddess, and then we teach from that place, I feel like that has a transmission that has a quality that helps to invite people and also invite the goddess herself to come and rest along with us while we're practicing.

Cali Alpert:
To the point about our truest essence, our inner being, self-inquiry is a big part of what you teach and advocate for. I'm curious where you are with your own self-inquiry practice. Is that an ongoing thing?

Tracee Stanley:
Every day.

Cali Alpert:
Yeah?

Tracee Stanley:
Every day, yeah.

Cali Alpert:
What does it look like for you?

Tracee Stanley:
It looks like for me asking the question, what is the most important question that I want to or need to ask myself? And what is the question that I don't want to ask? And those are the questions that I sit with.

Cali Alpert:
Don't want to ask because that's where our inner narrative, the...

Tracee Stanley:
Yeah, where's the resistance? Where's resistance showing up? Where are the obstacles showing up? What is my soul's whisper asking for? I have a practice that I do daily called mind mapping. And one of the little bubbles in the mind map is looking at the obstacles. And then the other bubble, there's a few bubbles in the mind map is, what is the whisper of my soul saying right now? And so that leads to a lot of different kind of inquiry within the day.

Cali Alpert:
Do the answers differ that much day to day?

Tracee Stanley:
Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Sometimes the obstacles stay the same and you're like, "Okay, I need to keep working on this." And sometimes you get surprised by what comes through. It's a really beautiful practice and it's a great way... It's just one of my rituals that I use to start the day.

Cali Alpert:
So you have been in deep writing world. You have a book that's coming out September 2023.

Tracee Stanley:
I do.

Cali Alpert:
With Shambhala Publications?

Tracee Stanley:
It is, yeah.

Cali Alpert:
Would you like to share a little bit about it, what we can expect?

Tracee Stanley:
Well, I would say that it is a continuation of practice and exploration of that liminal space. And Yoga Nidra, as well as yoga, of course, is all about finding the true self and touching the true self. So one of my favorite yoga sutras is Sutra 136 that talks about this place within us, within each of us that is a effulgent, that is more brilliant than a thousand suns and it's a place that is beyond all sorrow. It's a place that's beyond all conditioning that was there before we had a name. It will be there when we no longer have a body. And to me, that is why I practice yoga because I want to know that place.

Yoga Nidra is a beautiful practice to be able to know that place. And yet there are other practices that I feel help us to kind of unwind and dismantle some of our thinking and the way we beat ourselves up and the way that we hold onto things from the past. And so this book is really a little bit of memoir and at the same time, it's filled with practices that I have done and that I have taught over the last 25 years that help us to find that freedom, that help us to find that place within us that is really truly who we are. And that's the book.

Cali Alpert:
Just that?

Tracee Stanley:
Just that. Just the few practices that I have, yeah, to be able to share.

Cali Alpert:
Finally, I have three questions that I like to ask everybody that visits us on Dropping In. The first one is I'd like to grant you one wish for our listeners and viewers. What would it be?

Tracee Stanley:
Well, I think that my one wish would be that you find that seed within your own heart, within the cave of your heart, that contains the entire cosmos. And that you realize that we are all connected and that you drop all of the things that keep you from being connected and keep you in the illusion of being separate.

Cali Alpert:
What's one thing you wish for yourself?

Tracee Stanley:
One thing that I wish for myself is freedom and liberation.

Cali Alpert:
And finally, what is something that you'd like all our listeners and viewers to take away from this conversation today, if nothing else?

Tracee Stanley:
If nothing else, the importance of rest. And to really consider to contemplate, what is your relationship with rest? What is your resistance to rest? And give yourself a few moments to be able to take in resting, take in the beauty of repose, of letting go, of surrendering. It doesn't take a long time. It can be three minutes and that's all you need.

Cali Alpert:
So if people would like to find out more about you and what you're working on, your endeavors, your teachings, where can they find you?

Tracee Stanley:
They can find me at Tracee, with two E’s, yoga.com, that has all the things. And you can also, if you're interested in my book, Radiant Rest, you can go to radiantrest.com and you can find out about the virtual book club and all the different things there.

Cali Alpert:
Thank you so much for taking the time. It's such a pleasure to talk with you.

Tracee Stanley:
Thank you so much, Cali.

Cali Alpert:
Thank you.

Tracee Stanley:
I really appreciate it.

Cali Alpert:
Thanks for dropping in with Omega Institute. If you like what you hear, tell your friends and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps new listeners find us. If you'd like to see what we look like, watch the video version of Dropping In on Omega's YouTube channel. Dropping In is made possible in part by the support of Omega members. Omega members enjoy a host of beneficial experiences when they donate to help sustain Omega's programming. To learn more, visit eomega.org/membership and check out our many online learning opportunities featuring your favorite teachers and thought leaders at eomega.org/onlinelearning. I'm Cali Alpert, producer and host of Dropping In. Our video editor is Grannell Knox. The music and mix are by Scott Mueller. Thanks for dropping in.