How Yoga Unlocks Radical Self-Acceptance | Benjamin Sears | Better Man Podcast Ep. 025

Dean Pohlman: Hey, guys, it’s Dean. Welcome to the Better Man podcast. Today I am joined by Benjamin Sears, who is a yoga… Gosh, I don’t know how to describe it. Yoga expert, yoga guru, yoga entrepreneur who I’ve actually followed for a long time now. And we finally connected a few months ago to have this conversation. So, Ben, thanks and welcome to the Better Man podcast.

Benjamin Sears: Thanks, man. It’s an honor to be here. I appreciate your work out in the world. Bringing yoga to men who need it in whatever dose is appropriate at the time. And I, you know, thanks for your kind introduction.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah, of course. So you and I have relatively similar backgrounds in terms of how we got started with yoga. So my story, I had a bunch of knee issues, did some yoga, realized that I had really weak hips, weak core, weak ankles, you know, I thought it was really strong we’ve got some cool knee surgeries. Can you talk about your experience as a competitive athlete and kind of how yoga fit into that.

Benjamin Sears: Yeah. So there are sort of two parallel tracks that drew me into yoga. And I think without the physical track, I don’t know, I would have made it all the way in and the reason for that is that I had in my early twenties, I had two herniated discs in my lower back. I’ve had a sequence of knee surgeries, you know, all sorts of injuries and really it was the back injuries that drove me into yoga. Similar to you. You know, I had been very into sports. I think we played we both played lacrosse and yeah. And, you know, I just always loved being active. And what I know now is that based the way that I was training was completely counterproductive for the way that my body is designed from a structural standpoint, because basically I had this like hereditary slight like dysfunction in my lower back that causes my sacrum to be like push forward over my pelvis.

It’s actually very common. It’s called spondylolisthesis. And so all the training, all the training that I was doing, I was just layering on this like muscular cement around my body and tightening everything up to the point that the only hinge point I really had remaining was that one spot in my lower back where the two disks went. And so, you know, I knowing now what I didn’t know then, I think I could have been a better athlete and an athlete with a lot more longevity and been able to weight train and all that, just sort of done it differently.

So, you know, I got to the point where like in my early twenties I fit the modern definition or the sort of the silhouette of modern fitness, so to speak, from an aesthetic perspective. But was pretty broken. You know, my favorite thing recreationally to do is, is skiing. And, you know, I had a ski racing background. And just to give you a little context, you know, to go skiing, when I was like 20 years old, 21 years old, just for fun, I was no longer competing at this point. I was taking like 600 milligrams of anti-inflammatories and Percocet every 2 hours throughout the day. So by the end of the ski. Yeah, so like by the end of the ski day, it was like I didn’t even know where I was, let alone like if I had had a good ski day, you know what I mean?

Dean Pohlman: I mean, it sounds like you had a really good ski day, honestly.

Benjamin Sears: Yeah. I mean, I might not have even left the condo. I don’t know, you know, but anyway, that was obviously not sustainable. And then it kind of all came to a head on Super Bowl Sunday. I was living in Los Angeles, going to UCLA, I think was my last year. And I got rear ended on the way to a Super Bowl party.

And from that point on, basically any time I tried to do anything physical, my back would like go out or, you know, whatever that you know, whatever that phrase means, I would become relatively incapacitated. And so that, you know, I sort of went to yoga as like a last resort. And then parallel to that, you know, from a young age, I’d always been interested in esoteric ideas.

You know, I was that kid in like eighth grade reading Siddharth. And my family is, you know, my family is like Jewish, not very religious, but Jewish. And I remember one year on Yom Kippur, which is our like, you know, the day where you’re supposed to reflect on all the bad things you’ve done throughout the year kind of thing. I decided I’d been I’d been reading about Kundalini Yoga and I think I was like 15 years old, and I decided I was going to do 6 hours of Sudarshan Kriya as my, my Yom Kippur practice. So I was always a little like a little, just a little bit out there, you know.

Dean Pohlman: OK, I’m going to have to ask you, what’s what Sudarshan Kriya.

Benjamin Sears: So it’s basically it’s one of the one of the primary areas of Kundalini Yoga on a breath hold you pump your belly and repeat “wha hey guru”. And you do that 16 times. Yeah. So you basically you hold your breath and then you without any actual breath coming out, you pump your belly. Just the way that repeating those sounds would make your belly move. So it’s like there’s an internal sound to a guru and you just do it over and over and over again for many, many, many rounds. And so that was that was the way I spent I think my 16 year of Yom Kippur. Yeah. So anyway, all that stuff came together, yoga kind of fixed my back.

I was interested in the esoteric side of a and then, you know, the more like I guess emotional part of the story is that I was also processing what for me was a very painful loss. And yoga just felt like the only place where I like I was allowed to have any kind of feelings and I didn’t really know how to have feelings, you know?

Dean Pohlman: And I do know. So I do. I really do know. Yeah. Yeah, I was actually you. There’s a great video online from you and you talk about this. This is on YouTube. It’s called Yogi Benjamin series by Niels Alpert. Yeah. And you talk about that it was like you said, it was the first time you felt like you were free to feel emotions as a man. And, you know, it it opens up the… for me, it opens up the kind of cool connection that we’ve seen from people doing, you know, workouts with Man Flow yoga is that you just become more aware of yourself and more of more aware of your body. And so I’d just like you to kind of go into that. How did you you know, how did yoga help you access that, do you think?

Benjamin Sears: So, you know, I’m not exactly sure, to be honest. And I think like I think sometimes there’s there’s a tendency or a desire to to to play out a level of understanding that may not be real, you know? And I think sometimes in yoga, we get a little wrapped up in some pseudoscience. And all I can say is that it had something to do with just having to be with myself for the 90 minutes of a yoga practice and feel the experience to feel the inadequacies that I felt about myself from a physical perspective, to feel to be confronted by my injuries and the damage that I had done to my body.

And then just to be in one place where I was not allowed to leave. I think moved me in the direction of feeling these things. So, you know, and then also I think that there’s something about any kind of challenging physical activity that reflects back to you some of your like challenge points in that whatever is closest to the surface emotionally may well become more prevalent through that challenge. It’s just like any time you’re put under a level of duress, right?

Like whatever’s closest to that, that surface point will come up and then it becomes about like does what you’re doing give you an opportunity to like process and use the feelings that are coming up in a way that’s productive? And does it give you tools to do that? You know, and that’s I think that’s really how yoga started to affect me and work on my psyche.

I remember like very clearly moments of like feeling also feeling in practice is like, oh, there there are feelings happening. I think I want to feel them, but I’m not sure if I’m like if I’m not scared about that, you know? And then another piece was this idea of like being a good person, right? Like being conscious and conscientious. And I remember like very clearly I was living in Soho at the time in New York City. And, you know, it’s like early on in my sort of like getting serious about yoga, I was like drinking my, you know, sprouted organic, free range vegan smoothie that I had just learned to make, you know, and I was like looking out the window and just thinking like, you know, one day I think I would be a good person.

It’s not that I was that terrible, but it was just like I remember sort of having that moment of like of, of consciousness that I think was brought on by the work that I was doing in the, in the practice, you know?

Dean Pohlman: Yeah. It just makes me think about how kind of being in being in yoga world, so to speak, might just gets, gets you to think about things like that more. Like, I just remember, I don’t, I haven’t been in yoga world in a long time, but when I first started yoga and I was getting into it and also doing yoga teacher training like I felt like I was in yoga world, you know, I was, I was going to classes like pretty frequently and, and, and I was going to and I was interacting with lots of other people who were really into all of yoga and, and, you know, I just, you start to think about things that you wouldn’t normally think about. You start to talk, you start to have conversations. Kind of like you’re reading something out of, you know, like a life coach book or.

Benjamin Sears: Yeah, and then there’s also I think there’s also an element of it where it’s like there’s this may have been inklings or like embers. And then you start to get a vocabulary around it and that’s the beautiful thing about community is you’re like, oh, you’re feeling this too, you know? And then somebody articulates their experience and that gives you a vocabulary to help delve into your own experience. And I think, you know, one of the best things about modern yoga is the community that it creates around studios. You know, even now online and being immersed in those scenarios and having sort of frameworks presented that allow you to to traverse your own inner landscape with a little bit of a map, I think is really the magic.

Because ultimately, I mean, that’s what all these practices are. They’re like maps that you use to go explore yourself but then, you know, there’s no it’s not like you get to a destination. You’re like just over and over, mapping the territory. And I think that’s why it’s important to you know, continue to develop your skills and techniques because the territory is going to change.

You know, your territory will will change. And you know what, what practice meant to me ten years ago, 20 years ago, five years ago is different than what it means to me now. But I do like to think of the idea of like everything to some degree as practice and I think that can be a very liberating way to consider life, even like in your interpersonal relationships, you know, not to be like overly detached or cold, but just like understanding that there is an element of practice to it.

It’s like I’m not I have not… I have not achieved any sort of pinnacle of, of functioning in any real way. You just have the opportunity to like reassess and refine and like and then fucking forgive yourself. And, you know, I mean, that’s a, that’s a, that’s a big one.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah. I mean, so it sounds like and this is a theme that, you know, you’ve probably heard a lot about if you’ve, if you’ve been, if you’ve done yoga before, if you followed a yoga instructors. But it’s the idea of a practice of just getting better at something. But it’s incorporating, you know, it’s thinking about how you do yoga, you know, and you do new poses. You, you try new things and you have to repeat things to get better. And it’s finding all these, you know, it’s finding that it’s finding that you can apply these concepts of practicing yoga to whatever whatever aspect of life or whatever practice in life, whatever it is you’re in life, you’re doing. So, you know, I think that’s I think it’s a really, really cool way to or it’s a cool avenue to learn about that

Benjamin Sears: No, just on that the idea of practice, you know, in the poses, I think that the poses are like really good tricks to keep you in, to keep people engaged in self reflection, right? Because it’s like, you know, or especially like these practices that have a certain hierarchy of series, you know, it’s like, oh, well I got to do level two, I got to do level three. And it’s like the, the real purpose of these different poses. It’s not like there I think there’s a little bit of oversell as far as like well, if you get to series eight, then you’re going to be in perfect health for your entire life.

And it’s like you actually don’t need to wrap your leg around your head with your… while Sitting on your own head in order to be healthy. But the process of trying to like continuously trying to achieve it has the potential to give you the opportunity to learn about yourself based on how you react to the fact that progress is never really linear you know, it’s like you think you think you’re going straight ahead, but really to get where you’re going, like the road curves and you have to stop and fill up your gas and then you need some snacks and you know, you might have to get a new car at some point, like whatever, I coudl beat the metaphor to death. But I think that’s really, you know, in some ways the poses are there to help you maintain your interest in the deeper goal of reconciling yourself, with yourself, you know?

Dean Pohlman: So that like that brought up that brought up one thing I’m going to ask you about in a second. But the one thing I want to go back to was, you know, how the physical experience and the challenge of yoga kind of opened you up because it’s not just, you know, it wasn’t just that you were it wasn’t just that you were, you know, doing exercise in a new way or focusing on your breathing. You were also pushing your body in new ways.

So it sounds like to me, it sounds like the the intensity of the workout was also was also opening you up.

Benjamin Sears: I think it really was a big piece of it. And I think that’s something that gets overlooked sometimes in the desire to find, you know, a sort of esoteric slash scientific explanation. Like, you know, I don’t honestly, I, I think that whether it’s like a chakra system or the magic square, body is a house metaphor that I use in teaching. Really, these things have as much resonance as you give them, you know? And so but I think that one of the reasons why people very quickly feel a tremendous amount of impact from doing practice is just that the intensity of, one, moving your body in a different way, the fact that it challenges you and faces you up against your limitations, I think can be very revealing and and rewarding.

And that’s why, you know, one of my first practices was the hot yoga practice, which is beautiful in its immediate accessibility to a profound feeling, experience and that to me is one of the great boons of that practice, which is no longer a primary practice for me and hasn’t been for a while, but was very impactful for me at that time.

And I think the pure sort of like blunt instrument intensity of that experience brought me to this place of like “I can’t help but feel my feelings” almost because I was like in a fight or flight state of like I’m going to die and I want to get out of here more than anything else in the world. And like, what’s that about? You know, and then I think that intensity brought me to facing up to feelings that I had about some of the things that I sort of intimated towards earlier pointed out as far as, you know, some loss in my life around that around that time. And and, you know, and then yoga became a catalyst to want to change some things um, yeah.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah, that’s cool because, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s just kind of a different way of thinking about I think most people think about, you know, yoga. You’re just getting into a softer space. You think you’re getting into a softer space where you’re more calm and meditative more. Yeah. And maybe, maybe, maybe getting into a more now, I don’t know. It’s 2022. But I’m going to say getting into more of like a feminine side, a side of things just.

Benjamin Sears: Yeah, I think you can. Yeah, you can think like in allowing, you know, a state of allowance, a state of a state of, like you said, soft observation.

Dean Pohlman: You know, like there was but it’s a contradiction because yours was more in the, you were in a really, you know, physical, intense state and that got you there.

Benjamin Sears: It allowed me to use a skill that I already had, which was stoicism. I learned that very early in my life in order to kind of cope and survive and then I think that at a certain point that skill became counterproductive for me. You know, it’s like you don’t want to wear your heart on your sleeve all the time, but there are moments in solitude where it’s not about being a good soldier, you know? And, and yeah, if you don’t allow yourself to address the, the question that’s closest to your heart, then that’ll literally destroy your heart.

Dean Pohlman: So we talked about this kind of exploring the poses and you know, some people can get so I think some people can lose interest when they’re doing so, you know, kind of the same exercises then over and over again and to me the way that, you know, you, you find interest is you try to, you try to experience the, the subtle changes in your body when you’re doing these poses. Can I, can I extend a little bit more in my arm here? What if I, if I turn my head a little bit more as my facing straight forward and turn it in, you know, so what what do you find helps people in your practice and also in the students you work with? What do you find helps people stay consistent and motivated to do yoga continuously?

Benjamin Sears: Well, one thing that I wanted to touch on that you pointed out is this idea of like perpetual calibration as a focal tool, as a tool to develop what I call focal fortitude. Right. And so what that means is that oftentimes in yoga, we’re told that the pose hold that hold the pose like hold the pose in stillness and this is really like to me, it’s a shorthand because it’s a little bit inaccurate because what you’re saying, which is like this ongoing exploration of polarities and inner landscape is what creates the sort of illusion of external stillness.

Like if you could think of a quote unquote advanced physical practitioner who looks very still in a pose is not still because they’re still, they’re still because everything is moving equally in opposite directions in order to to present a vision of centered-ness. Right? Whereas like if the pose is being pulled in one direction more than the other, then you are off center. And that’s when you fall. And that’s like someone who’s just sort of like trying to find their balance. So I think what you pointed out is something that’s very important, which is that the way and this is something that has shifted for me a lot in teaching where what I’m really interested in now is helping people develop the ability to like cross reference and center themselves in space on their own personal grid as opposed to hold a pose and follow rules or go really hard in one direction.

And I think that’s a really important jump in awareness within the physical practice that is also really powerful because then you have the opportunity to make your practice not just about how deep you’re going, but like… So it’s like instead of practicing to get into this shape that looks cool in a photo, which honestly you might just be sacrificing or over compromising in order to do so. It’s like, really? How do you instead orient yourself to taking pride in this like ultimate experience of embodiment where like, you know, it’s very simple, like, you know, your left hip is when you turn right and you know that like throughout the body there are all these diagonal sort of counterpoints and counterpoints where like if your chin goes back your, you know, your hips go forward or whatever, like, you know that just like to, you know, and then as a teacher, you start to see these like energetic lines through the body that are not in any way esoteric.

It’s just like you see how energy is moving and then you, you can help people, you know, move currents rather than hold a pose. And so my hope is that that kind of philosophy can motivate people to stay engaged, not to just in a single pose, but in a practice. I think another reason like to really answer your question, which I didn’t really do, I more just talked about some shit that I’m interested in.

Dean Pohlman: Focal calibration. Yeah, yeah. I’ve got a lot of words to look up after this. A lot of, a lot of Ben isms.

Benjamin Sears: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, we do, we do who we are, you know, I like, I like language, you know. Yeah. And so I think, you know, one reason people keep coming back to practice is they feel good, they feel better, you know, and, and whether like, for me, I didn’t go to yoga, like, physical yoga practice, like, thinking, like, I want to deal with my emotions or understand myself better. I just was like, I want to fix my back and you know? And then stuff started happening to me on a, on a deeper level. Just I think any time that you do something that that forces you to concentrate and be still and, um, regarding remember, like, look at yourself, you know, it, it’s going to do something. And that’s my real hope for the practice as it continues to grow and evolve in the world is that I don’t care, you know, what practice you do or if you know Sanskrit or you don’t or whatever.

I just hope that there can continue to be a delving into self-reflection that goes beyond like I know where my foot is and, and motivates and empowers people to learn how to respond and as opposed to react. Because I think it’s something that’s very important in this in this world today, you know, where people become so like everything becomes so binary. And like, I think some people are getting way too soft and some people are getting way too hard. And, you know, I’ve always my entire life just like wanted people to just kind of, like, listen to each other and be honest, you know?

Dean Pohlman: I mean, it’s it’s a very lofty goal.

Benjamin Sears: Yeah, for sure. But that’s why it’s so important to manage your own mind, right? Because, like, what? You know, you can’t you can’t fix or change anybody. You can just hopefully lead from the front to some degree and forgive yourself for your own trespasses, you know?

Dean Pohlman: So so I’m kind of curious if you can if you can answer this, maybe in maybe in a couple of points or you identify a couple aspects of how you approach yoga practice. And you might have already answered this, but you know, we talked about becoming less reactive. We talked about being more thoughtful, we talked about being better able to manage yourself and your emotions. Are there certain aspects of how you practice yoga that you think have been helpful for making you stronger in those regards?

Benjamin Sears: Yes, definitely. I think just purely the container of practice has given me the space to keep myself mentally, spiritually and physically healthy. It’s, you know, and I’ve made mistakes and gone too far in one direction or not. But I think just purely like what’s sacred about practice is that if you look at it from like if I really cull down some of your philosophy into like a really simple paradigm, right? It’s like, OK, so the belief is that there’s something sacred inside you that exists inside of everyone. And it’s like this bubble concept where like I’m a bubble inside my bubble is this, you know, omnipresent reality that is timeless and nameless that also exists inside all the other bubbles and outside the bubble. Right. And so there is there’s this like movement in practice towards in an experience of non-duality where it’s not like I and you and me and mine, but an open awareness and so the sacred piece of practice is that you’re you’re enabling connection to that element. And the way that you do that is just through paying attention in a special way. And so there’s no you know, you don’t have to be religious or you can be and and the sacred piece is the attention. And the individual is also sacred, right? Because the individual is made of life force, you know, and life force is sacred.

So the way that you pay attention to yourself is really what makes the practice sacred. It doesn’t matter that you wear a cool yoga outfit or not or know a mantra or don’t, you know. And so I think just creating that container where it’s like during this time I’m going to operate differently than I do in the rest of the day. I’m going to be conscious of minimizing my distractions. I’m going to set some boundaries for myself, you know, and those boundaries can be very simple. They can be around how you’re breathing. They can be around a mantra you repeat to yourself. They can be around the way that you want to focus and concentrate. You know, I’ve gone in a lot of different directions with this, and now it’s like in the physical practice the immersion in myself comes from the way that I’m paying attention to my body and my inner mirror and referencing myself in space and then trying to respond kindly when I’m not living up to my goals and dreams about what I want my physical body to be able to do. That’s why I enjoy linear practices like Handstand, for example, because it’s always going to reflect your foibles and imbalances and at the same time give you an opportunity to accept where you are and just be in the joy of moving in the moment.

Because there’s another thing which is just that it feels really good to be move your body, you know, and the sooner people start, the better, the better they feel. And then as they go, it’s important to refine, you know, because you don’t take the same medicine for your whole life, you know, in most cases, right? Like you change the dosage, you shift something in a certain time.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, so if I could zero in on one thing that you, that you said in that response, it’s, it’s, it’s the attention, it’s the complete immersion in what you’re doing. Whether it’s, maybe it’s maybe you’re doing a routine and you’re doing a session or practice and you’re going to focus and you say, I’m going to focus on my breath this time for 45 minutes, 30 minutes, however long you have, I’m going to focus on breath. Or maybe it’s, you know, maybe you decide to take a body focus. You’re like, I’m really going to pay attention to what my body’s doing and my technique. Or maybe you’re just going to pay attention to your mind and you’re your. Yeah, I’m just going to pay attention to what my thoughts are and try to be more compassionate to what’s coming up in my head.

Benjamin Sears: So anything like the attention and anything can be a mantra to pull you back up out of the well of distraction and potential you know, negative, you know, self-talk and patterning or whatever. And so one thing I like, you know, I’ll give you an example of that, like in teaching, introducing a simple physical concepts in the beginning of practice, whether it could be like the rotation of a shoulder or how to, you know, how to use your foot in a certain way or something, and then returning to that and sort of like cross-pollinating that concept in different postures so that the postures all become delivery systems for information about someone’s body and then that’s also like an anchor that people can come back to, right?

So it’s like and I think it’s a very, very cool way to learn because then then you sort of feel like, OK, this is how I learned that thing about my, my hip of, well, it’s tried in this posture, let’s try it in this posture, and then people start to make their own realizations. And that’s, I think, very inspiring as a practitioner. And it’s a nice way to ground yourself. So like that idea of, you know, as a practitioner saying like, OK, I’m going to focus today’s practice in every posture. I’m going to consider and apply how to support my lower back from whatever concepts. Right?

And then you just start playing it throughout the poses. And not only do you learn about yourself, but it keeps you engaged or, you know, you could focus on like for example, maybe there’s like a type of energy that you’re you’re just like your soul is like craving. You’re like, man, I need love or I need calm or, you know, so then it’s like rather than like forcing yourself to feel those things, you can just check in with where you are relative to that watermark throughout a practice and then operate in a way that might send you in that direction, you know? Yeah.

Dean Pohlman: Well, I want to I want to shift the focus a little bit here because you’ve been in you’ve been a yoga instructor for I want to say it’s like, early 2000s?

Benjamin Sears: 2005.

Dean Pohlman: 2005. Yeah. You were focused. You were you were featured in Yoga Journal and in like 2008, I can’t remember..

Benjamin Sears: I think it was 2017. OK, so I mean, I did like a series of collaborations with them you know, over a few years. It will now sort of defunct program that they had going OK, but so but yeah. And then someone from Yoga Journal came to one of my retreats that was fun. They, you know, and they said some nice things and I’m grateful that they did yeah.

Dean Pohlman: That’s Luxe Yoga retreats on my bucket list one day. Yeah. I don’t know.

Benjamin Sears: It’s going to be easier now because now we’re in Montana, you know, for the forseeable future.

Dean Pohlman: I was going to say, I don’t know how I’m going to get away from my, from my, from my family for, for a week. I’m going to go to yoga for a week. I don’t know how my wife will reply me, uh, leaving her with a child for that. But yeah, so, you know, I guess I ask that because you’ve been in yoga world for a long time, and I’m kind of curious because, you know, in the last I came into yoga world in 2011 I think. And that was your kind of at the time when, when I don’t know if shift is the right shift is the right word, but it’s definitely that was definitely around the time where we started seeing yoga become kind of a more mainstream form of fitness sort of speak. Right. We see athletes doing yoga. We heard about yeah, we heard about NFL teams. You know, we heard about college football teams doing yoga on Sundays the day after football games, you know, so I’m kind of curious, have you noticed a shift or have you noticed specific shifts in the physical practice of yoga? In terms of, you know, our and I’d like to hear specifics, too, like are people incorporating elements of string training into, you know, aside from what I’m doing with Man Flow Yoga and the focus on muscle activation, have you seen other aspects of more mainstream mainstream fitness kind of filtering into yoga? And what have those been?

Benjamin Sears: There’s just so many more options in the definition of yoga has broadened so much. And I’m not going to get into the conversation about what is real yoga and what is not real yoga.

Dean Pohlman: thank you. [Dean Laughs]

Benjamin Sears: I don’t feel like Anybody ever handed me that. I don’t feel like anybody ever handed me that torch or to carry your cross to bear. And I don’t want to bare it. I just want to, you know, do my practice and enjoy it. And teach people things that I feel work to enable them to, you know, understand themselves better and enjoy moving and be a little kinder to themselves. So, you know, I think one of the one of the cool things about the modern, you know, this moment in time is that so much information available and there’s been a lot of integration and sort of collages created of different practices that all kind of look… sort of relate to yoga but wouldn’t maybe fall under what people would have traditionally thought of as yoga.

There’s been some upgrades for sure as far as like the information that we have is the information that is available now. Compared to when I started, it’s like there was a lot of lack. I had very well-meaning, wonderful, like good hearted teachers that also lacked a lot of information about basic anatomical, you know, sort of like universal truths about how shit works. That would have really helped me a lot, you know, and and so there was a beauty to that time, which is that we all just believed so much in what we were doing. And the power of that belief is hyperbolic. And I don’t know that I would trade those experiences. At the same time, I wish I knew a little bit better how to rotate a knee back then, you know what I mean? And how to activate my, you know, popliteus and plantaris, the inside and back of my knee to help make space back there and give myself, you know, I think I would have saved myself ten years of frustration trying to fix my knees had that information been more readily available back then. So I think people nowadays have an incredible opportunity to just get great information.

So then the challenge becomes like having a good filter and having the discipline to stick with something long enough that you still get something out of it, you know, rather than digging so many shallow wells, you know, that sometimes that attitude frustrates me because I appreciate so much the experience of truly being a student and truly having a, you know, a practice that forces you to to kind of get through the acidity, to get to the sweetness. And then there’s like the Groupon culture where, you know, it’s like I’ll take ten different classes this month and maybe something will stick. I didn’t really like that class because we did the same thing twice. And it’s like on the one hand, I get a little Grinchy about that. And on the other hand, it’s like, all right, cool. People are moving, you know what I mean? And that’s, that’s great. You know, I think somewhere there’s a balance between like, every yoga experience is a social experience to post about. And, you know, also the deep, introspective aspect and here’s what I think, like really this is what it comes down to.

No matter who your teacher is, no matter where you practice, like you’re going to have to figure some things out yourself. And take some accountability. And I think ultimately develop a practice that also involves maybe just sitting still for 10 minutes with like not without doing anything other than just being with yourself, you know? And I think that’s the practice that a lot of us hide from the most. But I do think that it’s it’s it’s important, you know?

Dean Pohlman: Yeah. I mean, I was reading a I was I was actually watching a video today with with some some feedback from from one of our customers who was talking about how he had tried a bunch of yoga, but nothing really found the right fit. Like it just didn’t resonate with him. And I think that is one good thing that there’s there’s so many different types of instructors and there’s so many different types of yoga that you can you know, you can literally bounce around hundreds, thousands, probably tens of thousands different instructors if you’re including all the different instructors who are online to find something like, oh, this is me like this. This makes me like, this is what I’m looking for. This is like who I’m jiving with. So I think in that regard, it’s great that there’s so many different ways to practice.

Benjamin Sears: And it’s like anything else, man, any any boon has its has its upside and its downside. You know, it’s like everything has a Shakespearean hue to it, right? It’s like you’re the greatest, the greatest, you know, this positive is also the greatest negative, right? It’s like all of this availability, but then it’s also, you know, like we’re all attracted to our imbalances so it’s very it’s very typical that you or I or anyone will just land in a practice that sort of like continues to bolster the things that you gravitate towards while leaving a number of blind spots. And I think for better or worse, like, that’s a role that I accepted playing as a teacher where it’s like I will help people find their blind spots and then I will help them figure out how to light up those areas, whether they’re mental or physical. And that requires taking some chances as a teacher and, you know, figuring out how to do that in a way that’s respectful and kind, because I think that teaching has an aspect that’s motivation. But I also think there’s been a devaluation of instruction in our culture that leads to people being surprised when they’re when they’re taught. And then it you know, we’re all so sensitive and we’re also like we’ve all become so vulnerable, right? That it’s like, oh, man, I didn’t like that class because, you know, she told me, she called me out and it’s like, man, really like the teacher’s job is to shorten the arc of suffering of the student. And sometimes that just means telling the truth. But it’s not personal. It’s like you’re you know, your foot’s in the wrong place. Doesn’t mean I don’t like you. It just means if you move your foot there, it’ll help you figure out something that’s actually going to save you time.

So you while you can’t remove anybody suffering, you can’t do the work for anyone, you know, what we can do as teachers again is provide a map, shine a light on the part of the map that maybe someone’s not looking at and and, you know, and then adjust our communication based on the scenario. It’s almost like in you know, like in in martial arts or like I had a little foray into the boxing world right after college that was short lived because I just wasn’t that naturally good at it. And I you know, as much as I enjoyed the training and the camaraderie, I just didn’t really want to get my nose broken a bunch of times.

So so, you know, but there’s this thing in sparring, right? Where it’s like, don’t give any more than you would want to take. But it’s not just that. It’s like, don’t give any more than, you know, that your partner can really take. And that’s an important thing to develop as a as a teacher is how can you be direct and clear and coherent. But only through experience can you really know what someone’s going to be ready for and you’re going to take some chances and you’re going to fail, you know, a few times and. Yeah, yeah.

Dean Pohlman: So I also I also wanted to ask because I noticed you got back into into weightlifting recently

Benjamin Sears: oh, I love it.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah. How long were you out? I mean, how long did you stop weight training for you?

Benjamin Sears: You know, so I started tinkering with more strength work, maybe about seven years ago through the movement world, like through, you know, I was inspired by, you know, portal and that kind of stuff. And so that was kind of how I started crawling back in, you know, and got on the gymnastics ring, started taking hand, bouncing more seriously. And then in the last, like I said, you know, and then I started doing some lower body like loaded lower body training, which was very helpful for my knee as it turned out. And really, in the last like year and a half, I’ve gotten really excited about and interested in, you know, just the real basics, like just just Front squats and deadlifts and and I just really enjoy it. I like picking heavy shit up off the floor. I’m not naturally very like thick or like, you know, squat designed person. But I enjoy the, the, the linear aspect of the practice of weightlifting where it’s sets and reps and it’s very clear. And, you know, I think that there’s a tremendous opportunity for meditation within that context, for example, in between sets, right? Like if I’m on a long rest because I’m trying to build strength, I’m on a two to four minute rest, like I can stare at my phone and swipe and swipe and swipe, which I am not, you know, immune to. Or I can set that timer and sit there and observe my breathing. And that’s, you know, I think just like transcending the distraction and the temptation in those moments makes it as much of a meditative practice as anything else that you would do.

I also simply like, I don’t know if it’s as a man, I can only speak as a man. That’s what I am but as a man, I feel good walking around a little bit thicker, a little more bouncy, a little more buoyant, a little more boisterous, a little more just badass, you know? So and my training has changed so much with all the mobility work that I’ve integrated into my practice in the last few years. I don’t really feel like I’m missing anything. There are definitely poses that I don’t do anymore, but I don’t really care about them. And I’m not saying that no one else should care about them. I’m just saying I personally like, you know, I’ve accepted that, like there’s there’s a finite amount of time for training and practice. And there are things that I want to prioritize. And those priorities might mitigate the potential to express other, you know, skills or things like that. But I have some cool photos of some weird shit that I did ten years ago, you know, so that’ll those will live for all posterity.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah, exactly. I think so. So I also, you know, I weight trained until I was 22, took a break for a while. And then I was on and off and I finally got back into it. I can’t remember if it was two and a half years ago or one and a half years ago or a little over a year but it was about a year and a half maybe. I can’t remember. Anyways. So but, but I realized like your body can really, you know, we talk about yoga in terms of ways to correct imbalances. That’s one of the main things that we talk about is you can correct muscular imbalances. Whatever we decide that wants to mean within that specific context, but when you are doing a lunge with one leg forward, well, obviously one like I guess be forward and then you switch sides and you’ve got your only your body weight. It’s really easy to like do things differently or incorrectly because you’re only holding up your body weight, now if we add some actual significant weights to you

Benjamin Sears: load.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah, we add some load.

Benjamin Sears: Stress reveals compensation patterns and foibles. And that’s why, you know, stress is not a bad thing. It’s about the insight that you can take from the stress to operate differently. And I think whether it’s weight training or yoga, it’s like if you want to get better at a yoga posture or you want to get better at a lift, the the opportunity exists to use the information that you’re getting to understand more about yourself. It’s like, OK, what is the limiting factor, right? Like in is it just brute strength or does my you know, does my back hurt when I deadlift because I’m not getting into a hip fold, you know, does what’s the, you know, and that’s where I enjoy the mobility work because it’s so scientific, right? It’s such a process. And I like working with yogis on that kind of thing because it’s like well, you could just keep trying to beat that, you know, round peg of the posture into the square hole of your body. Or you could be like, Wait, let me break this puzzle down into smaller pieces, which is very similar to life, right? It’s like you’re facing, like you’re your day of work and there’s so much to do. And what you to do first is they just start small, you know, like start with one thing. And I think with injury also, which is something that I really like, I love working with injuries because oftentimes I think the the answer can be just to make the problem smaller, right? In a way that can be quite tedious.

But if you bring an attitude towards these things that’s like doing this practice is an opportunity. It’s not an obligation, you know, and just like that simple shift of mindset, which can be easy to forget, I think can be can be really like so powerful. You know, everything can give you an opportunity to get insight and then you can use the insight so that it’s not just an ephemeral experience of of realization and understanding, but you return to it. You know, it’s like if you have an experience like on psychedelics or something like that, right? It’s like it could just be you had a fun time once and wow, saw some cool shit. Or it could be like, I learned this thing and now I’m going to like read. I’m going to integrate that through meditation into my life, you know, because, you know, that’s yeah. I mean, I just, I don’t know, I love when I especially getting to talk about it, it reminds me how much I love this stuff, you know, and how impactful I think it can be. And I think one of the other things that’s so important is just like the community aspect of it, I do so much solitary practice, you know, I really value the time where I get to be around people and practice with my friends and, you know, not that sort of thing.

Dean Pohlman: Well, I think that one thing you brought up, which I think a lot of strength trainers could benefit from or anybody who does strength training is incorporating some of those aspects of yoga practice into the strength training. So like you said, yeah, and we’ve got a few things that you could you could actually do instead of, you know, instead of scrolling right during during breaks, you could, you could just focus on your breathing or you could just stand there and, you know, experience whatever emotions are coming up. So I think that’s I think that’s something that people who do strength training can can learn from yoga.

Now, I want to ask you I want to ask you one question that, you know, I don’t have a really I haven’t really specifically.

Benjamin Sears: Sorry, One thing I want to say about that is with regards to strength training, you know, I think it’s like either like if you’re there with your you know, your buddies and you’re lifting, like enjoy those moments together, you know what I mean? If you’re lucky enough to be doing that in a group like or with a pair with a partner or whatever, like be there for each other present and engage and put your phones down, you know what I mean? Because these are the moments. Moments of friendship are truly alchemical, you know, and magical. And then if you’re alone, then allow yourself to truly be alone, you know? And of course, it’s not always going to be like that. There’s going to be a moment when you’re at the gym and you just have to send an email in between sets because if somehow you found a moment to crank in your practice or your session in between all the other stuff you have to do. But I you know, I’m really trying to be more conscious of like my walk home or whatever, like how am I, am I in my phone or can I just open my awareness and allow myself to to immerse in the moment?

Because it’s actually highly possible to have tremendously beautiful and profound moments of awareness. Anywhere, literally anywhere at any time. Yeah. You know, because for them, the magic is inside. The fucking chemicals are inside, you know what I mean? It’s just stimulation outside that, that create, that that creates and elevated experience within you that makes you feel a certain way. So it’s like we can do that to ourselves also with more consciousness.

Dean Pohlman: So you know, we kind of talked about it where you had your, you know, your, I don’t know what you want to call it, your breakthrough with yoga, but one of the things that we’ve explored a lot on this podcast and where I found that we’ve had some really powerful dialog is talking about breakdowns or talking about major life transitions and working through them. And I’m curious for you, do you have a particular moment you do you have a particular situation where something like that happened and outside of yoga or outside of, you know, some of the things that we’ve already discussed today, what were some practices that helped you through that so like if you had major, maybe you moved, maybe you had a different injury, maybe you know, you lost somebody, maybe it was a relationship change what was something that kind of, you know, really, really, really hurt you or really just changed your life and how did you work it out?

Benjamin Sears: Well, basically, I mean, every one of those things that you just said I’ve gone through like every other human being has, and I’ve had my practice there as a as a backbone, you know? And I think, you know, for me, one of the things is like to return to that idea of opportunity, not obligation, right? Where it’s like, am I grasping for my practice and forcing myself to do it so that I can, you know, have this one shred of of normalcy in my life? Or am I am I enjoying the opportunity to utilize the moment to practice? And then even though I might have a plan for a certain practice, like, can I gentle up on myself a little bit, you know, and still get the work done, but maybe it’s a deload day, you know, that kind of thing.

And then honestly, like, I think one of the most profound practices that I’ve engaged in in recent times is just literally it’s so simple, Just telling myself it’s OK. Like you’re OK, man. Like, literally, I’ll just say that to myself, like, you know, going through some hard shit late at night, you know, not able to sleep and feeling like tomorrow’s already lost and just it’s like, yeah, you’re OK, man. Like, literally, that’s how I talk to myself. Like you’re OK, you know, or like, I’ll tell myself I love you. I mean, it sounds so absurd, like, but it’s literally like, I’ll just be like, I love you, I love you, you know, I’ll listen to music that I like and, you know, like, love songs or like just beautiful tracks and just think that, like, the song is sung to me. Like the song, you know, like how you sing along to a song. It’s like I’m singing this to myself. It doesn’t have to be to a lover, right? It’s like or to any, you know, I can’t think of one at the moment, but you you know, that’s a that’s a practice that I’ll do just like randomly and and then again, coming back, I’ve gone so full circle with all this stuff where, like, now I’m really back into weightlifting and training and, you know, I’m like taking creatine and whey protein and like, you know what I mean? Like, that kind of stuff.

And, but also my meditation practice has really come full circle where there were a lot of it had a lot of trappings. I did a lot of mantras. I used to chant. I used to do a ton of different breathing exercises and again, I’m not in any way like when I say that I’ve moved on from something, it’s not a judgment on that thing because it had its utility in that moment. It’s just like where I am now that I know what I need to do is sit the fuck down and not do a practice. Like my practice is to not practice in a way, you know what I mean? So and then my other practice is to have some stamina when it comes to real life, real work stuff because I’ve organized my life for so many years around minimizing my responsibilities in order to maximize my study you know, like I respect a lot, like you’re your life, you have a wife, you have kids, you have I forget how many kids you have. Yeah, you have one. OK, so wife kid, like there’s a level of responsibility there that I don’t have. You know, it’s not something I mean, it’s something I would like to do at some point, but you know, I’ve been very mobile.

You know, I ran those retreats. I studied. I use the retreat center is a lab to develop the practices that I that I train people to teach when I teach teacher trainings. So, you know, there’s also an aspect of like right now as I work on this Montana project and try to settle down there, you know, there it’s like there are these moments of like, amen, put your money where your mouth is. All this like practice and self-reflection. It’s like, can you have can you use it to have stamina to to deal with the, you know, inherent challenges of putting everything I have into this project? In a way that’s like totally terrifying and also also really exciting.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah, I think those are all I think you talk about some great mindsets and some great practices in there.So thanks for that reply. All right. I’m going to move on to my rapid fire questions, which aren’t really that rapid fire. So what’s what do you think is one habit of belief or a mindset that has helped you the most in terms of your overall happiness?

(Thoughtful Pause)

Benjamin Sears: Mm I think I keep believing in love. Yeah. I, you know, as much as I’m terrified of heartbreak and and perpetual perpetrating heartbreak upon someone else, even though that’s not really ever how it works. Completely. I just, you know, I, I believe I keep believing in love and I keep believing in my I keep reminding myself of my inner goodness and utility in this world that, like, I’ve got something to offer. And that’s why, for me, work is so important, because when I work, I’m reminded of that, you know, um, and my schedule can be a little, like, real intense and then sort of like, interim phase and then real intense and then interim phase, you know, because I do all this immersive work in that kind of thing.

Dean Pohlman: So, yeah, I think it comes through. I mean, I can you know, I’ve only had so many conversations with you and so many text messages, but, you know, and from what I, from what I see from, you know, what you share with people on social media, it does look like you are, you know, that you find good through your work. You know, you’re not just doing it because you you know, why you would just do that. There’s probably a lot of other things you could do. But, you know, it looks like you’re really bringing good into the world with what you’re doing.

Benjamin Sears: I think I’ve reconciled myself to the fact that, like, I don’t have to be an absolute master of any one thing because I’m not but my ability is like, I’m a good curator. And, and I think that, you know, I’ve landed in this place where it’s like, I have to, I have to remind myself what I’m actually trying to do because it’s easy to lose sight of that where it’s like, what I’m trying to do is set of conditions for people to have beautiful, joyful experiences on retreats and trainings, et cetera, and at the same time to be inspired to appreciate precision and appreciate, like, putting intention into what they’re doing, whether it’s like, you know, like a simple meal at home like can be so magical if you just do it, you know, and then like back to the whole physical thing that you were talking about, about like loading a lunge versus like an unloaded lunge. Like the one of the I think from a physical perspective, if there’s like maybe one thing to leave yoga people with in from this conversation, it’s like put in tension in your tension. And tension is not a dirty word, but sometimes in yoga it is. Right. But it shouldn’t be because it’s like if you’re holding yourself up in any position, there is tension. So make it conscious and put it where it can’t. Where, where, where, where, put it where it’s useful to support space where you need it.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah. What is one thing you do for your health that you think is overlooked or undervalued by others?

Benjamin Sears: In the yoga community, I would say probably eating a significant amount of protein from animal sources and again, I’m not here to judge anybody else’s thing. I was a vegan for a long time. You know, I live in Montana now, you know, my friends bring me boxes of elk and I work with a ranch in Paradise Valley. I get a quarter of a cow, you know what I mean? It’s like so I think that maybe I can make that less, you know, specific and more general. And I think it’s like, how about this? How about I think one thing that people can do for their health that is undervalued is be honest with themselves about what things they’re doing for them, for their health that are working. And what things they’re doing for their health that are habitual and make them feel like themselves, but aren’t working.

Because feeling like yourself doesn’t necessarily mean that the shit is working. It’s like if you get a really good adjustment in yoga from a good teacher, you’re going to feel off center when I see my handstand coach, right? Like he puts me in the center, but I’m like, Whoa, where? What? I guess I have been not on my left hand at all since the last time I saw you, you know what I mean? So it’s like that’s where the that’s where a coach or a teacher or a mentor is so important, you know, to to remind you, like, where you are in space and how to reference yourself, but also to remind you that, like, it’s OK to be off center because we all are, you know what I mean?

Dean Pohlman: Yeah. Like, I almost thought you were going to go somewhere else with that and say that’s, you know, not eating meat because you’re… Yeah, I guess I was going in the sense of you know, don’t do something that like in this in this example, it’s don’t do something that you think is healthy just because of a certain dogma, even when it’s even though it’s not healthy. So maybe, maybe don’t do things according to dogma, especially when the opposite is true. I’m having trouble formulating that into a sentence, right? But I think you get the gist.

Benjamin Sears: No, I think it’s like it’s like follow the dogma, but don’t be a dog, you know what I mean? Like, don’t just be sitting there waiting for another bone from, you know, from the lineage or whatever, you know, like, use your own intuition also, but then recognize when you’re confusing, you know, familiarity for intuition.

Dean Pohlman: All right. So what is the most important activity you do for overall stress management? You’ve probably already talked about it, but maybe there’s something else.

Benjamin Sears: Yeah. I think, you know, my first instinct was just to say my practice in general, because I notice a difference when I’m out of my practice if I’m traveling or, you know, I don’t get to do something for a couple of days or I see some old friends and go out and behave differently than I normally would, that kind of thing. So I think routine you know, developing a routine is very powerful. You know, I encourage people to develop a routine, a routine that’s achievable and realistic, you know, and then also to have like check ins throughout the day with yourself on your mental state and and have some tools in your toolbox as to like how to self-regulate. Because it’s like you might feel great for the hour or 3 hours or however long you practice. You might have a frustrating moment. You might feel good at the end. But then it’s like, what do you do to manage your mind when it gets real? Outside of like, oh, this is stretching was hard today, you know what I mean? And that that I think is, is, is, you know, the hope of the day that these pieces, you know, these skills that we develop can transcend the yoga context into the, you know, the human layer you know, of life.

Dean Pohlman: Cool. All right. Now, big question, what do you think is the biggest challenge facing men and their wellbeing and their wellbeing right now?

Benjamin Sears: I think the biggest challenge facing men and their wellbeing is not dissimilar to The challenge facing any human and their wellbeing. I think that, you know, this digital world that we live in can be incredibly toxic. And I think it’s you know, I think that just the challenge is to remember that how you affect your yourself with your thoughts and your small circle is what matters most. You don’t have to win arguments on the Internet and you know what I mean? Like. Yeah, and that there’s people around you that really deeply matter and so start close in, you know, and and I think that is is is really important for for just overall health. And then I think that, you know, this I you know, I think there’s something about the like comparing yourself to strangers on the Internet thing that I think is very prevalent today. Um, but I think that competition has always been a part of life. So I think ultimately the challenge is to carve out the time to develop the mental tools and emotional tools that you need to manage the stress in harder moments, acknowledging that there will never be a stress free life, but how we handle it and how we set up conditions to live can facilitate and empower a better experience of being alive even in those moments.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah, that was a really good answer. I like it. Um, well, we’re about that time. So then what’s the best way for people to follow you to learn more about what you do? All the cool stuff you’re doing with Lux Yoga and beyond

Benjamin Sears: So Instagram is a big outlet for me. I post, you know, just tutorials and practice, pieces of practice, and ruminations and stupid jokes and funny stuff and all my events will always be promoted there. So that’s @Benjamin.Sears. The Instagram for Lux Yoga is just @LuxYoga. Lux Yoga. I have two websites BenjaminSears.Yoga and LuxYoga.com, which is about to undergo a significant overhaul. And then I’m always, always encourage people to just reach out if they’re interested in, you know, one on one stuff, anything from a consultation to a, you know, mobility program to teacher development so that my email is [email protected] and I answer all those emails myself and you know, I love to talk shop so I think those are the best ways to get to me right now.

Dean Pohlman: All right, Ben. Well, I hope that I can come to a Lux Yoga retreat soon. Honestly, the space sounds amazing. I’m looking forward to it that.

Benjamin Sears: Well, I really think there’s a big opportunity. I think there’s a big opportunity for you and I to put this out here on the on the podcast. Now, I think there’s a big opportunity for you and I at some point to as I build that space out to do a really, really cool collaboration for men in Montana. And it’s something actually that a friend of mine and I have been talking about in different, you know, at different levels men’s retreats in this beautiful nature space that can be as simple as just like getting outside and doing some practice and is involved in working with some of my friends who are, you know, very high level hunters and fishermen to really get outside. You know, so, you know, this is all stuff that we’re we’re cooking up over the next few years.

Dean Pohlman: All right. I’m definitely intrigued. And I think we need to set up a test trip where in which I get to come and we get. Yes, for sure. And then and then everyone else can come. But yeah. Yeah. Cool. All right. Well, you and I, let’s stay in contact. Everybody else thanks for that. Thanks for listening. And I really hope you enjoyed this this episode. Ben, thanks so much for joining me. It was awesome.

Benjamin Sears: Thanks for having me.