Eric Oliver

And it's just simple sort of stretching.

And the reason why I focus on yoga is I think a big part of

Living better is this two-step process of on the one hand, recognizing where our imbalances are and then learning to let go of them.

And one of the things that I try to teach them is that letting go is not a passive activity.

We often think about letting go as, oh, I'm just gonna let go of it and just kind of kick back.

And that's not really how we work.

If we really want to let go, that's a vigorous, engaged activity for us.

It's about actively pushing back against these habitual patterns, these kind of system one and system two thinking routines that typically dominate our consciousness.

In cultivating a more deliberate way to live, we have to kind of push back against those mental habits.

And that takes a lot of work.

It's a very vigorous, engaging activity.

And interestingly, yoga is kind of an interesting metaphor for this because when we're doing yoga, we're not just simply just kicking back and stretching.

We're engaging some muscles to loosen up others.

And so I think the yoga practice, at least as far as like the physical asanas that we do in the West, which we call yoga, are really good lessons in that engagement with letting go.

They are.

I have one experience in particular that stands out.

So when I was younger, I used to go backpacking in the wilderness by myself.

And for anyone who's done this, backpacking by yourself in the wilderness is both exhilarating and horrifying.

It's really scary, especially at night when you're there and you feel very, very vulnerable.

And then there are all the sounds of the wilderness kind of coming up and it's in the dark.