Jan and I spent a lot of time asking ourselves: what exactly is the magic of what we do in our retreats, workshops, and classes?
On the surface, it looks like a lot of things. In fact, we made a list—Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy, mindfulness, creativity, art, polyvagal theory, guided visualization, breathwork, conversation, and more. It’s a long list of powerful modalities.
But the thread that ties them all together?
We teach deep listening—of the intrapersonal variety.
We help people learn to listen inwardly: to their own bodies, intuition, inner wisdom, and quiet knowing. This kind of listening helps participants create lasting, meaningful change in their lives because it’s guided by deep connection to the self.
Then, the other day, I was listening to The Good Life Project with Jonathan Fields and Emily Kasriel, talking about the power of interpersonal listening—the kind that happens between people. And it hit me (though it probably shouldn’t have): we teach that, too!
When we practice listening to one another with compassion, curiosity and pure acceptance, we also strengthen our capacity to listen to ourselves the same way. Interpersonal and intrapersonal listening—they’re flip sides of the same coin (when done well), really.
Research already tells us that interpersonal connection improves emotional and physical health. But this podcast conversation added another layer for me—the power of understanding the world through someone else’s perspective.
That’s when my ever-creative mind started spinning with what-ifs.
What if the practice of deep listening—both inward and outward—could help us move beyond the rigid piles that “sorting hat” of social media and polarized culture keep pushing us into?
What if communal healing could happen when people with different beliefs, backgrounds, and experiences sit together in curiosity rather than judgment?
What if learning to hear our own truth made us better at hearing each other’s?
I’ve seen it happen. I know it works.
So lately, I find myself wondering what it would look like to bring this kind of deep listening into the everyday world—into yoga studios, coffee shops, and community spaces.
Not as a program or a pitch, but as a practice.
I’m kind of digging the experiment of it—asking a question that splits a group into piles, engaging them in internal practices, and then guide them to turn toward one another so that they can learn that we all have life experiences that have led us to our viewpoints, no matter how disparate! Then close with commitments to self and others to create meaningful change.
Because maybe (just maybe) yoga, mindfulness, and creativity aren’t just tools for individual wellness. Maybe they’re the quiet, revolutionary practices that can help us remember how to be human together.