Dissect the stages of Yoga Nidra with me and my friend, Caley Alyssa. Together, we’ll dive into the emerging science behind deep yogic sleep. We’ll also provide tons of practical tips (hello, heated blanket!) as two busy moms and yoga teachers who practice Yoga Nidra regularly. Discover:
🔹 Misconceptions about the different brainwave states experienced during Yoga Nidra and how it’s NOT the equivalent of 2 -4 hours of sleep.
🔹 How Yoga Nidra works with the Koshas and affects melatonin production in your body.
🔹 The importance of setting an intention or sankalpa and how it can be used to address limiting beliefs.
🔹 The distinct structure and phases that culminate to create a Yoga Nidra practice.
We also cover – how long is “enough,” whether to practice in bed or on the floor, and all our hacks for propage. You’ll be excited to rest after this conversation.
Make your yoga practice 2x more potent in 1/2 the time with my Free Yoga Transformational Portal ✨
Join the Uplifted Membership: https://www.brettlarkin.com/uplifted/
GUEST EXPERT: Caley Alyssa | https://www.caleyalyssa.com/
Caley Alyssa is an Embodiment Coach, Founder of the Caley Alyssa App (Yoga, Yoga Nidra, meditation & seasonal resets) and creator of Sleep Academy, a Yoga Nidra Training program for hacking your habits and awakening your inner genius.
Academy of Yogic Sleep: https://www.academyofyogicsleep.org/
Find Us: @larkinyogatv and @caleyalyssa
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⚡️ 200-hour YTT
💕 Yoga for Self Mastery
Blog: Try This 30-Minute Yoga Nidra Script for Deep Sleep and Relaxation [+ Video]
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Transcript:
Brett:
Hello, my friends. I am so excited to be here today with my friend, Kaylee Alyssa. She is an embodiment coach. She is the founder of the Kaylee Alyssa app for yoga, yoga nidra, meditation. And she’s the creator of Sleep Academy, a yoga nidra training program for hacking your habits and awakening your inner genius. So I’m so excited to have her with me today. Kaylee, welcome.
Caley:
Thank you. It’s awesome to be here, Brett.
Brett:
Well, tell folks what Yoga Nidra is. Probably most people listening know, but it’s always nice to hear from teachers how they describe their work.
Caley:
Yeah, it’s great to be in a place where people know what it is. And it’s, you know, it’s been having a sort of resurgence in the scientific community, which is pretty cool. There are scientists out there who are pioneering that they’re coining the term non-sleep deep rest, which is the practice of yoga nidra. It’s a non-sleep deep rest protocol basically is in the scientific community, what it’s, what it’s being called. But it is a deeply restorative meditative practice. It’s also known as yogic sleep or psychic sleep.
So it’s got a lot of names and it’s a practice of truly regulating your nervous system. So you’re putting your body into such a profoundly deep state of relaxation that your nervous system can down regulate itself from being in a heightened state of anxiety or stress or whatever you’re experiencing into a really deeply restorative state. And so deep that we often actually access the same brainwave states that we do in a
asleep. And so our body in that state is able to heal, it’s able to truly get a restorative and reparative experience. So we’re allowing it to regenerate tissues. We’re also able to change our minds in that state. There’s a lot of research that’s been coming out about neuroplasticity in the brain and how yoga nidra actually can boost it by 50%. So it’s a deeply restorative and healing practice that also has the potential to help you change your habits and change your mind.
Brett:
Well, I’m excited to go into the science as much as you’re willing because I’m very nerdy and I love that science is catching up with what yogis have known for millennia. I also I want to ask you about the origins of yoga nidra because I came across a really interesting text that tied yoga nidra to tantra and that originally we were visualizing yantras on the body as opposed to just points on the body. It was really, really interesting. But I’m curious you as a
Caley
Yes.
Brett
facilitator of this and teacher trainer in this, what have you learned about kind of where this practice originated and where it came from?
Caley
It’s funny because there is no one point.
And it’s said that there is and people sort of like take ownership or, you know, say that it was their sort of discovery. But it’s for me, at least when I look back at the scriptures, like you said, there are so many ancient references in different ways and different places that I can’t exactly pinpoint one place. Now, Swami Satyananda is one of the founders of Yoga Nidra. It was, you know, written back in the tantric scripture.
his explanation of Nidra was sort of a state of the mind between wakefulness and the dream state. And so when you look at the history and the origins, you can see it woven in many different places. The Baha’i school of Nidra is one of the sort of original teachers of the technique, I would say. And so it’s…
you know, it’s kind of all over the place, which is great. And also, we like to have that, oh, this is the person. This is the thing. But there is no one, actually, from my research and what I found. You know.
We can also look at, there’s a story about the Swami who I mentioned who, his experience of Nidra shares when he was working at sort of this, we can call it a kids camp in our version of what that would be in the West, but he was sort of like a janitor of sorts overlooking the school and he would wake up really early in the morning to clean the school and was once charged with taking care of the kids and making sure that they were okay during their early morning practices.
and so he would he would get up to like wash them and make sure they were okay, but then fall asleep and Later on down the road. They were performing and doing some sort of you know chanting and reciting of the scriptures and In in his wakeful state. He didn’t he didn’t know what they were doing. He didn’t remember or recall, but he
slowly started to be able to like recite exactly what the children were reciting and the scriptures that they were sharing To the point where he was like this is so strange I actually know all of this and so that was his experience of yoga nidra at first was falling into this sort of like trance like state in the early morning hours where he had heard them subconsciously Recite the scriptures in their texts and then later on realized. Oh, I know this I know this information. I’ve heard this somewhere before
And so that was kind of his, the way that he introduced Yoganidra into the field.
Brett
This is really interesting because if I’m just going to echo back, it sounds like he heard something when he was in this state of nidra, the state between waking and dreaming. And then because he just heard it during that brainwave state, he was able to remember it very, very deeply. Am I understanding that right?
Caley
And that’s exactly it.
Brett
And so that really leads me to wanting to ask you about the idea of setting an intention or a sankalpa when we come to do something like yoga nidra. I know, I mean, there’s so much we can dive into here. First of all, I just want to say I love nidra because we all need to rest. And a lot of times before I knew what nidra was, I would go to nap and feel like I didn’t really nap, but I didn’t really get anything out of lying down because I’m like, oh, I didn’t fall asleep. So this was just a waste of time. But now I just…
do Yoganidra and it’s so incredibly restorative, especially as a mom, I just find it that three or four o’clock hour each day, I need to do it. And usually for me, it’s just really going deep within myself, I have learned, and I want again your opinion on this, but Yoganidra is not designed to sleep to, it’s designed for us to be in this really incredible state between waking and dreaming, but.
that if you happen to fall asleep, what I tell people is that it’s fine because your body needed the rest. But let me just check in with you. Like, are you on board with that definition?
Caley
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You know, we come to the practice, and if we fall asleep, it’s exactly what you needed. So I always tell my students not to feel upset that they didn’t get the benefits, that they weren’t awake the whole time. That’s not the goal of Yoga Nidra, to fall asleep. It’s not. We use the natural, innate mechanism of falling asleep to get to that sort of bardo in between state. And so eventually, hopefully, the body gets enough rest where you can stay awake during the practice.
Brett
That’s exactly what I tell people too. I’m like, this is not the intention, but I think it’s good we clarify that because I think a lot of even yoga teachers think that’s what yoga interests for. They’re like, oh, this is a sleeping technique to help people fall asleep. So it’s important that we’re just intentional in how we describe that. That’s not the aim, but if it’s a byproduct, that’s okay. So coming back to this idea of an, oh yeah, go ahead.
Caley
It…
Yeah, I was going to say a lot of people actually use yoga nidra as inappropriately. They will say it’s like getting two to four hours of deep sleep and a nap. And it’s not. It’s actually not at all. It is not the same as getting two to four hours of sleep. Sleep is sleep. Yoga nidra is a sleep supplement. So what I mean when I say that is when you do the practice more regularly, you will be able to fall asleep easier.
longer and that’s because yoga nidra regulates our production of melatonin. So when we go into these sleep-like states we are actually producing more melatonin. We’re working with obviously our endocrine system and the pituitary and pineal glands and that is where the release of melatonin happens and so when we practice more we have more melatonin in our system which means when nighttime approaches when actual bedtime approaches then we fall asleep easier, we stay asleep longer
supplement. It is not the same as a nap and when teachers say that I’m like, oh no you still need sleep.
Brett
No, yeah, no, this is great. I love that you’re getting nitty gritty with us because there’s a lot of yoga teachers listening to this. And I think where I have heard, so let’s noodle into this a little bit, where I have heard it’s equivalent to two to four hours of deep sleep. When I’ve had teachers tell me that in like training programs even I’ve done, what they usually do is they end up talking about the different brainwave states. And then they’re like, oh, well in yoga nidra, your brainwaves are in the same pattern that it is during deep sleep. So do you wanna tell us a little bit about the brainwaves
unpack a little bit of like how this misconception happened because what you’re saying about melatonin I actually haven’t heard and that makes a lot of sense
Caley
Yeah, yeah. So the brainwave states, we have a few different brainwave states, obviously, when we’re awake and our eyes are open and we’re experiencing life on a general daily basis, we’re typically in beta. There are different levels of beta. We have a low, a mid, and a high beta. High beta is when we’re stressed or we’re feeling anxious, we’re in panic or having that anxiety feeling. And so the mid-beta range is where we’re aware of ourself and our surroundings. We’re thinking.
problem-solving or note-taking, you know, that kind of thing. And then the low beta range is where we’re more relaxed. Our eyes are still open. We’re maybe reading a book or like, you know, focused in some way, like we’re drawing or something like that. So that’s the beta range and that’s when we’re awake, eyes open. And then we drop into alpha. And the alpha brainwave state is very relaxed. We’re aware. This is typically when we’re doing yoga.
or meditation. So our eyes can be open or closed in alpha actually. It’s like a state of idling, you know, like we’re calm, we’re tranquil, we’re conscious, yet our awareness is most likely more internal. And so that’s that initial like pratyahara, that withdrawal of our senses when we go through the eight limbs of yoga, that’s that alpha brainwave state. And then we have theta and delta.
And so when we practice yoga nidra, we can go beyond alpha, we can drop into theta, and we definitely drop into delta. And also in yoga nidra, what happens is delta brainwave states can be present, that deep dreamless brainwave state, simultaneously with the aware and relaxed state of alpha. So two different brainwave states are actually present and can be present when we practice nidra.
Brett
this is so cool. So if we were sleeping we wouldn’t have alpha present, would just be purely in date delta.
Caley
Thanks.
Exactly or theta is actually also we can kind of toggle between the two Delta is the dreamless sleep state when we’re in that really deep unconscious. That’s our tissue regeneration That’s where we’re repairing our brain that’s associated with like deep healing states And so between alpha and Delta is that theta that theta state and that’s the really slow wave Activity that’s like deep relaxation deep meditation We’re dreaming. We’re daydreaming We are fantasizing
associated with our creativity and our intuition. And then there’s one other state gamma, which is actually above beta. Gamma is a super high frequency brainwave state, which means, you know, it’s going like this instead of the long rolling…
when you’re looking at a brain scan. And so gamma can be reached in meditation and really transcendental experiences in meditation. And if you’ve ever looked at Joe Dispenza’s work out in the world or listened to what he does, a lot of what Joe is teaching is a combination of Kundalini yoga, the breathing practices, paired with yoga nidra. It’s like this and then kind of watered down verbally so that we’re working with energy instead of chakras and the ancient yogic terminology.
into gamma. He’s causing people to like experience this super high frequency brainwave state and in gamma that’s like that’s when we can like heal instantly. That’s where we can cause great change in our physical body and in our in our health state. So those are kind of the ranges and in NIDRA the potential to drop into Delta and Alpha at the same time simultaneously and then play around with that really creative intuitive theta brainwave state as well.
Brett
So knowing all this and then it’s increasing the amount of melatonin in our body, which is going to mean we are better able to sleep when it’s time to go to sleep. I’m curious, what are your thoughts on the best time to practice yoga nidra? Because I know I had a teacher tell me that the best time to practice yoga nidra actually was in the morning, right? When you wake up. And I thought that was so fascinating. That’s not personally how I’m using it right now. I’m using it more as like that mid afternoon boost before, you know, kind of that second chunk of the day and dinner and putting my kids to bed.
But I’m curious, what have you discovered around the science of the timing of the best way to do it and also just your direct personal experience as a mom and a yoga teacher?
Caley
Yeah.
I think for me, I also like to practice around that afternoon time, same around like four o’clock. And I like to do that because I separate my meditation from my sleep state. So, you know, if, however, if you are experiencing issues staying awake in yoga nidra, I highly recommend doing it first thing in the morning right when you wake up, because then you’re rested and you’re less likely to fall asleep again. And so that’s, that would be actually
experiences in you know a challenging time staying awake. However you know when you when you practice Nidra and the intention is to stay awake then doing it in the daytime might be a little bit better than doing it really close to bed at night in the evenings. So that’s my direct experiences. I like a nice little afternoon Nidra exposure like I’m taking a nap but I’m not.
And then when bedtime rolls around, I’m ready for it. So you can play with it. I think it’s, again, it’s a personal thing, depending on your experience with the practice, your ability to stay awake, and just kind of what your day is like, right? If you have kids, you can only do things in certain windows.
Brett
Well, that’s my next question. So how long is your Nidra practice or what do you think is the ideal time? And I can definitely share how long I’m doing as well, but curious to hear from you.
Caley
Yeah, well, I just I gotta say I used this for my postpartum recovery after I had my daughter and it was so healing for me and then I could do long, you know, because she was sleeping all the time and so I was doing an hour, hour and a half as long as I could. Now it’s it depends on what I have space and time for but I try to get at least a 30 minute practice in. I feel like any less than that for me I can’t get as deep as I want to get. So 30 is kind of my bare minimum.
the Academy of Yogic Sleep a 30-minute practice feels really daunting for them and scary and overwhelming and that being said this type of meditation practice is so easy compared to any other practice because you’re laying down you don’t have to sit up you don’t have to be uncomfortable moving around in your body you know
So if you’re curious about length and you’re like, I just want to try five minutes, I would actually recommend going for like a 20 minute, your first yoga nidra experience if you can. And I think you’ll be shocked at how long you’re able to stay in the experience and do the practice.
Brett
So when you were doing those longer yoga indigas, like wow, yummy, 60 minutes, 90 minutes during your postpartum, were you staying awake for that whole time or were you letting yourself fall asleep? I’m like, I wanna hear more about the super long one.
Caley
Yes, you know, sometimes yes and sometimes no. Sometimes I would fall asleep. But it’s the ones where, and if you’re listening, you’ve done Nidra, you’ll know what I’m talking about. It’s the ones where you kind of like dip in and out of consciousness. You’re like, oh, did I fall asleep? I’m not sure, but I’m back.
Oh wait, I think I did it again. That’s the sweet spot. That’s like when we’re right on the fence of falling asleep but not. That like, when we’re kind of gently backing back, bouncing back and forth between that awareness and not aware. I’m here, I’m not here, you know, that is exactly where we want to be. So if you’ve experienced that in your practice, you might have fallen asleep, you might not, but that’s the theta brainwave state that we’re, that’s like the sweet spot in NIDRA.
Brett
Well, I think it’s so important you’re telling everyone this because I think otherwise we might think, oh, I’m failing, right? Like I don’t, you know, I’m going in and out of consciousness and it sounds like actually that’s exactly where we want to be. I know for me, I do a yoga nidra that’s in the Uplifted app. So I do it to my own voice, which I know is weird, but I just love this particular one and it’s 20 minutes. But I do set a timer on my phone as well for 30 minutes because I so often…
fall asleep because I need that rest. So that’s a little pro tip for people listening too. Like if you’re doing a yoga nidra, you might also want to set a timer, like an alarm, because it can happen that you’re just kind of gone. I love, yes, totally. I love what you said about how this is easy and easeful. And I know that there’s a lot of type A kind of people, perfectionists listening to this podcast.
Caley
Hehehe I’m sorry. 100%
Brett
And I definitely relate to those terms where we might have or someone might have, or what would you say to the person who has maybe this belief that meditation has to be seated or that if they do a meditative practice that’s lying down, it’s like less than or doesn’t count as much. Or they just kind of have some of these beliefs that like, you know, getting under a blanket or doing it in bed. Also, we should talk about the bed compared to the yoga mat. But first of all, what would you say to someone who is thinking?
you know, is this really a legit meditation practice? And I feel bad that I’m not doing something like more proper and seated on a cushion.
Caley
Yeah, yeah. So to those naysayers, I would say lean into the science. There’s so much research now out there, and this is what we teach in the Academy of Yogic Sleep. We really heavily lean into the science-backed information around yoga nidra. And so when you lean into the science and you look at the effects and the benefits of yoga nidra, specifically we’ll highlight neuroplasticity. So what happens when you’re doing a lying down meditation is that we build up stress in our body on a daily basis. We have chronic stress, which inhibits our brain’s ability
by disrupting its formation of new connections and its ability to adapt. And so when we lay down, we can relax. It induces a deeply relaxive state which counteracts the negative effects of stress. And so by activating our body’s relaxation response, yoga nidra basically effectively reduces our stress hormones if present in the body. And when our stress hormones are reduced, it promotes this calm and receptive state.
we can actually experience neuroplasticity and change our brains. So you’re not setting up and the reason is because you don’t want to cause stress in your body. There are techniques like Vipassana for instance, the 10-day silent meditation sit. It’s there we call them strong a detan sits where you’re not to move a muscle and it gets very uncomfortable. Your muscles start to spasm and twitch and a leg goes numb and you don’t move and the reason is because that is a different technique. That is a witnessing technique where you
sensation in the body and you use the sensation as a portal to go deep and as you go deep into the sensation then you can experience the other end of the meditation. This is yoga nidra is different it is not a witnessing technique it is a relaxation technique and so the whole point and the reason why it works is because we’re laying down so to the naysayers I say lean into the science look at the you know the effects of neuroplasticity in the brain
and how effective it is. And that will give you enough motivation to experience the practice.
Brett
I love how you say that it’s not a witnessing technique. And I completely understand what you’re saying because it’s not like in meditation where I’m like, okay, I’m gonna observe my thoughts, right? And I’m kind of stepping into that role of the witness. At the same time, I do feel like we are thinking or putting points of light or we’re going through a process of points in the body, right?
So maybe you can talk a little bit about what those points are, why are they where they are, why are they valuable in yoga nidra, are they always something that we need to focus on? And then I’m going to circle back to the bed question. I’ve written it down, so we’re not going to skip that.
Caley
Great.
Yes.
Awesome, awesome, yes. Okay, so there is, so Brett, you were saying you have a 20 minute one on the Uplifted app. I have a 20 minute body scan for a busy mind, and I have a lot of other 20 minute practices as well on the Kayley Alissa app and on YouTube, but this one specifically, the 20 minute body scan for a busy mind takes you through these points that you’re talking about. And so in Nidra, there’s a portion, basically what you’re guided through are the koshas, the layers of the body, if you’ve studied yogic philosophy. And if you’re here,
With Brett, I’m assuming that you know what the koshas are. And if you don’t know what they are, they’re just layers, basically. We go from our physical outermost gross body into the innermost layer of our body, like peeling back an onion in yoga nidra. And one of the layers is the physical body. And in order to relax the physical body and systematically also shut down the nervous system stress response and down regulate our nervous system, there are certain ways that we move
through the physical body in certain points that we focus on. Now there’s this image out there, you guys can look it up, it’s called the homonucleus man if you haven’t seen it. It’s this depiction of what a human being would look like if we focused on the areas that are more innervated than others and gave them the appropriate proportionality in the actual physical structure of the human being. And so when you look at the homonucleus man, his lips are huge and his hands are huge and
And so in NIDRA, we focus, really focus on those parts of the body when doing the body scan. And there is a method. There’s a sort of, you know, we do right side first. And why? Because the right side of the body is connected to the left brain. And our left brain is our analyzer. That’s the constantly thinking, projecting into the future, planning the past, sorting, sifting through information. So when we can activate and shut down the left brain with the right side body.
first and then we go into the left side body in order to get the right brain activated. Then we can be in our right brain more for the experience of Nidra, our present moment mind and have that beautiful experience. But back to the story or the purpose of the body scan, it is the way that you move through these points of the body is specific and it’s targeted and it’s meant to do a certain thing for your nervous system. And you can, I play with my body scans a lot at the time.
for digestion or circulation or something else, I might do a different version of a body scan, maybe starting at the mouth, entering into the throat, going down into the intestines and the belly, and then something like that. But it’s got a purpose and a reason that I’m doing that for. Generally, I stay with a very traditional method of right side, left side, back side, front side, whole body integration. And it’s based on the homonucleus man, so you can look that up and check it out online.
Brett
Yes, I’m familiar with that image and I absolutely love it. I never really thought of that image in tandem with the points that we do on the body with yoga nidra, but it does make a lot of sense. Obviously, someone can study so much deeper with you and we’ll give them all the info on how to do that, but would you be willing to break down for listeners just at a really high level, kind of the different phases of a yoga nidra practice? Like I know for me, I like to start.
with diaphragmatic breathing, like deep diaphragmatic breaths, and then usually the points, and then usually there is some visualization and other elements that go in. But is there kind of a roadmap or different phases or structure that you like to talk about or think of for a really beautiful yoga nidra practice?
Caley
Yeah, there’s definitely a structure. There’s a lot to the yoga nidra that I don’t think that people know. And so there’s a lot of people out in the world who aren’t certified to be teaching nidra. And to you, I say, please get certified because you’re in people’s heads. You’re in their subconscious space. And it is vital that you know what you’re doing in there because you can cause harm in that space. And so there is definitely a structure to follow with nidra. There is an initial relaxation where you just sort of integrate their body and their presence into the space, into their, you know,
this moment in the practice. And then you would hit on the sankalpa, which we haven’t really talked about today, but sankalpa is a big defining characteristic in the practice of yoga nidra. It’s like an intention, but it’s backed by really powerful emotion. It’s like a supercharged magnetic intention. And after the sankalpa, you would move through what we call the rotation of consciousness or the body scan and that after that point the body scan is typically where we introduce the breath.
So we go from the physical body to the energetic body, right, in the layers of the coxias, the pronomia coxias, the breath layer. So typically that’s after the body scan.
And then there’s this pairing of opposites section, which is really interesting. And I’m not sure if you know about this section, but the pairing of opposites also helps us to really understand our minds. What we’re doing in that section is we’re calling on the experience of duality or polarity, meaning I would ask you, recall what it feels like to be in pain. What does it feel like to experience pain? That could be emotional pain, physical pain, any kind of pain.
And then I would ask you to recall what it feels like to be in pleasure, the experience of pleasure. What does that feel like in your body? And so you’re bouncing back and forth between these opposites, these seemingly opposites things. And then I ask you to feel them both at the same time. So we’re integrating feeling them both at the same time. Now you do this within a 90-second window because our endocrine system, when we’re feeling something in our body, it takes about 90 seconds for the chemicals to be released and for us to feel it completely and then for the feeling to go away.
So you introduce the opposite within that 90-second window. And what that does is it bridges the gap between the two neurons in your brain from pain to pleasure. And so then when you’re outside of your NIDRA practice and your eyes are open and you’re walking around in your world and you experience a painful moment or you injure yourself and you’re like, ah, you can get to the pleasure experience much quicker because you’ve already practiced it in your mind and you’ve already connected those two neurons within your NIDRA.
Opposite section also has a lot to do with our neuroplasticity. And then we get into the creative stuff after the pairing of opposites. Then we get into the visualization and the creative intuitive mind and then we go into the bliss, the bliss body, which is the last layer. And that’s experiencing bliss yourself as more than your body, connected to source, to spirit, your ancestors, whatever it is that you’re having them call in or focus on for that Nidra.
Brett
I love the breakdown and yes, it’s so, and I can see why you need an hour to do all these sections because it’s a lot, right? And it’s like always hard because I feel like I’m constantly putting things that are 20 minutes, 30 minutes, and you know, you have to skip. I love the opposites. It’s not something I teach frequently, but when it’s been taught to me, I remember one of my favorite teachers, she would just do quick visuals. So she’d be like, you know, she’d be like, see a bonfire, see the,
Caley
Right? Exactly.
Brett
texture of freezing snow or something. Like we should put things in your mind’s eye that were very contrarian. And I love how you just gave us the science behind that. And it makes so much sense. So I absolutely am so grateful for you for that. I would love to dig a little bit more into the Sankalpa because we did mention that at the top of the episode. It was something I wanted to circle back to when I did some yoga nidra training and study.
I was very intimidated by the sankalpa, at least the way it was presented to me in the training I did. It was like, oh my goodness, it was like this super deep, you know, meat. And it almost became something that was very abstract and I wasn’t able to hold on to. So I’m wondering if you can tell listeners a little bit about the sankalpa, both, you know, the origins and respecting it as part of the practice, but also like how you work with it in your day-to-day Yoganidra practice in life, or if you’d be willing to share some examples of sankalpas.
Caley
Oh yeah, definitely. There’s Sankopa, there is a lot to it, so it can feel intimidating. And when I do my teacher training, this is probably one of the parts that we spend the most time with. And it’s because people are very interested and it’s meaningful, it means a lot, you know, to figure out what your current Sankopa is, and it holds weight, it’s gravity. And so what I say to you is just start from where you are and don’t worry about finding it right now,
might not present itself to you in the moment and it might take some time to uncover as these things sometimes do. So there are a few ways that we can use a sankalpa in the practice of yoga nidra and one of those ways is to address a limiting belief that we hold. So it can be really effective for shifting our limiting beliefs and for replacing it with something that is much more higher serving.
We can also use a sankopa to experience the direct embodiment of a quality or something that we’re noticing in others that we really are longing for in our own life. And so it’s important to note that this isn’t, a sankopa isn’t something that we’re like going out and searching for external. We have all of the parts and the pieces that we need within us to bring our sankopa forward and to feel it and manifest it in our life.
You know uncover the little seeds that are lying there dormant within us and then nourish them and feed them so that they can grow and develop
So there’s the limiting belief, the direct embodiment. And then there’s the mahasankalpa, which is like your life’s purpose, what you’re here for. Yeah. And it can be hard to start with that one, because it’s like, well, sorry, I don’t know if I can cross on here. It’s a lot. It’s a lot to think about your life’s purpose. And if you don’t know your why and you haven’t gotten there yet, then that can be very stressful, 100%.
Brett
Yes, I think that was the one that I was assigned to work on. I was like, oh boy.
No.
Caley
Yeah.
Brett
And so, but the other two that you described, it sounds like I could work with a self-limiting belief or I could work with a word or something that I want to embody and then I could potentially change by some culpa every six months or something like that.
Caley
So I recommend keeping the sankopa until it has completely happened, until you’re embodied with that quality, until you’ve manifested that reality into your world. I keep it until it’s fully complete. And then you know it’s time to move on to the next one. I will say a good way to think about it, a good place to start is with your limiting beliefs. That’s like the easiest entryway into our sankopa. And so we in yoga history and philosophy, we call these samskaras.
Brett
Mm.
Caley
negative samskaras are like a low self-esteem or a fear of failure or you know guilt or shame or addictions addictive behaviors resentments those are all the like little negative samskaras that live within our bodies it’s like we think of them as pathways that we’re walking again and again and again they’re just deeply ingrained and they’re sort of like subconscious they’re not within our aware minds our conscious aware minds and so exploring the
practice we’ll start to unveil some of these samskaras that we hold and then we can use those and change them to become our sankalpa. That’s the easiest kind of entry point I would say to start.
Brett
So let’s give people a practical example of this. Let’s say that I have a fear around teaching yoga. I’m scared to use my voice. I know I want to be a teacher, but I haven’t taught anyone yet. And I just think, why would anyone want to hear what I have to say? How would I kind of transform that into a sankalpa that I might use in yoga nidra?
Caley
Great, so let’s work with this. So if you are a fearful person in general, I would say it’s probably not just lies with teaching yoga, but it probably is infused in many other places in life. And so you have to kind of look underneath the fear. What does the fear represent? What does that mean for you? If you are afraid of stepping into a room and using your voice, it’s because you’re afraid of being judged. You’re afraid of what people might think of you. You don’t want to be talked badly
You don’t want to mess up. You know, there’s a lot of things that are underneath the fear And so when you can look at what’s underneath it, then you can realize. Ah, what would be the antidote for this thing? What is the antidote for my fear? What is the antidote for my, you know fear of being judged or you know, maybe it’s actually Underneath it all maybe it’s a real low self-esteem and you just truly believe that you’re not worthy of something Um, or maybe it’s you don’t trust you don’t trust yourself
that you can do it, you don’t trust that you can do it well, you know, so there’s a couple different sankalpas you can work with. You can work with something like I am worthy. It’s a positive present moment statement and it’s short and succinct. You know, you don’t want some verbally flowery long-winded sankalpa, you’re gonna forget it and it’s not gonna be as potent, right? It’s not gonna be as powerful. So even something like I trust, I trust could be your sankalpa. That’s simple.
I trust, I am worthy, something like that. The biggest one I see is worthiness. When you distill down the issue, the samskara that people are dealing with, when you distill it down to its roots, it most always brings us to a place of feeling like we are not worthy of something. And so the I am worthy is a very easy, impactful sankalpa to start with.
Brett
And then I’m using that, I think it was one of the second things that we did when you outlined the different pieces for us. Is that then something that I’m supposed to do and bring back at the end or try to think of later? Or I just kind of set that intention at the top and then let it go?
Caley
Great question. I do both at the beginning and at the end. So it’s important to bring the sankalpa in at the beginning, and we do that before the body scan. And that’s because you want it to be present and to infuse your whole practice. You want the essence of your sankalpa to be there, so that really and truly by the end of it, you are feeling that. And then you bring it back again in the bliss state, when they’re in that floating away in the ether, and they’re just blissed out, and they’re experiencing themselves as more than their body, then you bring the sankalpa back,
like the real truth of it really resonates and they can see that it’s it is true it is true where the beginning of the practice they might not quite yet believe it it’s like a new kind of oh that’s there I’m not sure I’ll play with it you know whereas and when you’re in that bliss state yeah go ahead
Brett
I love that. Yeah, because I mean, that’s why you, I was just gonna say, that’s why you need to stay awake, right, so you can be in the bliss state and, you know, experience it and bring that back. You know, as we start wrapping up, I want to make sure we get all the practical little tips from you as a yoga nidra expert and trainer of yoga nidra teachers. I know I kind of playfully mentioned the floor and the bed earlier, but I do think this is a serious conversation because I have done both.
Caley
Right.
Brett
I’m curious what your thoughts are on, I think what I’ve heard from teachers is that you definitely want to practice yoga nidra on the floor because your bed has the association of sleep and so it’s more likely that you will fall asleep. Thoughts? Yeah.
Caley
Mm-hmm, yep, that’s it. Yeah, you just said it. Yeah, but you know, if you practice in your bed and you never fall asleep, then keep practicing in your bed if you want to. But if you’re someone who struggles to stay awake and you’re practicing in your bed, then yeah, shift it up, do something else. Practice on the floor, on a couch, on a cushion, whatever you got.
Brett
I love having the knees elevated like a bolster under the knees or a pillow under the knees. I find that just absolutely essential for my low back and the more people I talk to, pretty much everyone’s low back. Do you have any additional thoughts on like props, support? I also love being covered by something. I use a heated blanket, which is pretty decadent, so I definitely recommend everyone do that. But in terms of just like props and things, scents, you know, how can we just make this feel incredibly nourishing for us?
Caley
I would love to have that.
Yeah, prop out. I highly prop out, especially if you’re doing longer nitras. You’re going to need it. You’ll see the back of your head will start to get a little uncomfortable, and your heels, the backs of your knees, all those kind of areas. And again, the purpose of this is not to feel discomfort. It’s to relax. So if you need more props to make yourself more comfortable, use them. And remember, you’re not moving. And if you’re doing an hour and a half practice lying down, you might get a little chilly. So you’re going to need a blanket.
to not have any sort of distraction lightwise in your eye space. A soft pillow, nothing too hard on the back of the head or too thick, because you don’t want your head really high up above your spine. So yeah, bolster underneath the knees, blanket over the body, eye pillow over the eyes, little pillow under the back of the head. That’s generally the props that I use. But like I said, prop out. If there’s something else you need that’s going to make your experience more comfortable, use it.
Brett
One expert I studied with, he said that you don’t want your feet covered and you want your hands exposed and not under the blanket for when you do, you know, the points on the toes and on the hands, something like that. And I was just like devastated. I was like, no, that can’t happen because I just love the fuzzy socks and I love being covered in a blanket. But I was just curious, do you have an opinion on that or know any of the science of where he maybe was thinking about that from?
Caley
I do not, I’ve never heard science around that. I don’t know if it exists. If it does, I would love to see it. So if someone out there is listening and you know that there’s science to back that up, then send it to me. I have not seen it and I cover my feet and I wear socks. Yeah, yeah.
Brett
OK, great. I feel better about that. I think I’m going to start working with the Sankalpa of I Trust. I think that’s such a beautiful one. Or I Am Safe or I Am Worthy. These are just such, such great ideas. Is there anything else in terms of just the practicalities of setup, whether it’s integrating scent or I know we talked a lot about props, but I’m just kind of thinking of everything we could possibly micro-optimize here.
Caley
Yeah.
Well, I’ll go back to sankalpa actually. And so if you’re, because this is really important, if you’re thinking about practicing nidra and you want to play around with your sankalpa, there’s a few things, there’s five important things I would say to do. So the first one is pick a sankalpa that resonates for you, something that’s meaningful, something that you feel deeply, something that you really desire, a heartfelt longing within you. The second is make sure it’s in present moment language. So if I was to pick a sankalpa because I was experiencing disease or illness in my body
I am healing. I am healing.
It would actually be much more potent and powerful if I chose something. I am healed versus I am healing because it’s already done. It’s already happened. There is no question. It is not in the process of happening. It has happened. Do you see what I mean? So, um, so that’s two is do it in the present moment now, like it’s done. The third is positive language. So no, I am unlimited.
means not right so if you’re creating a son culpa you got to be as clear as possible don’t put any negative language in there okay and then the fourth thing is make it concise and short which I mentioned already and the fifth thing is make it about you it’s not for material gains you’re not using your son culpa to get rich right this is this is something that is truly meaningful and impactful and going to help you for the better and society for the better so you keep that in mind as you’re as you’re creating these those are the five
would leave people with. And then in terms of scents, you know rosemary is a really good essential oil for meditation, anything like that that’s gonna, or you could also you know super enhance the relax of qualities and use something like a lavender or something like that. I have an aura mist that I created actually specifically for yoga nidra that I sell in a collaboration with Kalex Collective so you can check that out. It’s beautiful just kind of spray around your you know your person in your room. It’s a wonderful place to start.
But yeah, that’s it. Oh, in terms of also external noise, I would say, when you’re practicing, especially moms. If you have like a sign you can put on your door, you know, that says, practicing, do not disturb, or just something like that so that your kids don’t come in and, you know, bug you. Or definitely turning your phone on airplane mode. Just give yourself all the like potential distraction pitfalls, take them away.
Brett
Hmm.
Caley
bellows on the door so nobody comes in whatever you need to do but it’s really vital that if you’re gonna relax you relax give yourself the time and space to do it
Brett
Absolutely. And also because if your phone does ring when you’re in that deep estate, it’s very jarring. So it’s not just like selfish self-care here, folks. Like this really is, you need to protect your nervous system when you’re going into some of these deeper brainwave states. And so I just love all these tips. I feel like we learned so, so much from you. I’m so grateful that we got to have this conversation. I know I’m walking away with new ideas and I’m just so grateful that you shared with us. Tell folks where they can connect with you. I bet a
A Yoga Nidra, if you have a free one on YouTube, we can put that in the show notes. I know you do train Yoga Nidra teachers. Guys, if you’re listening to this and you have the uplifted app, we do have a little Yoga Nidra program in there, but it’s not like a full on certification. Most of what I’ve learned from Nidra are from my teacher Mona Anad in New York, and I did my certification with Rod Stryker. But if you wanted to really deep dive and do like a full Yoga Nidra teacher training, Kaylee is someone that I really trust. We have…
mutual friends, I’ve just seen her build her business and her work over the years. And obviously she has so much expertise. So tell them a little bit about just, yeah, how they can stay connected.
Caley
Awesome. Thanks, Brett. Yeah, so we run the Academy of Yogic Sleep, which is a certification program for anyone who wants to use this as a healing modality in their practice. So we’ve worked with doctors, therapists, sound healers, yogis across the board. We’ve had ex-military veterans in our program, which is like para rescue men, you know, really burly, like men who show up to heal and learn to become healers, which is beautiful. And so that’s called the Academy of Yogic Sleep. We run that twice a year.
cohort begins in March of 2024, so it’s kind of right around the corner. And you can find us at academyofsleep.org. And then I also have, on the Kali Alyssa app, I have tons of yoga nidras, like probably 200. So many nidras are on the app. And then I also release a few free ones on YouTube. I think we’ve got like six or seven free practices on the Kali Alyssa YouTube channel. So you can find us there as well. And dip your toes in. And yeah.
Brett:
Beautiful. I’ll put all those links in the show notes. I’ll do Nidra with you maybe later today, like change up from the one I always do. And thank you so much for being here. And everyone make sure to prioritize self care today. Take some time to take care of you, whether that means yoga, Nidra, meditation, some cat cow, you are the leader and star of your own life. You need to take care and manage your own energy. And it’s so beautiful that we have these incredible tools like Nidra to help us in that quest. All right, bye everyone.
