sds podcast episode 500: yoda nidra with jes allen

Show Notes: http://www.superdatascience.com/500 1

SDS PODCAST

EPISODE 500:

YODA NIDRA WITH

JES ALLEN

http://www.superdatascience.com/500


Jon Krohn: 00:00:05 Welcome to the SuperDataScience show. For this special

500th episode, we're going to enjoy a mind-expanding

Yoga Nidra session led by the wonderful Yogi, Jes Allen.

Jon Krohn: 00:00:27 Jes Allen, can't believe you're on the SuperDataScience

podcast. It's wonderful to have you here. I was thinking

for a while, I was thinking for months when I noticed that

episode 500 was coming up, and what was months ago a

distant future. And now it's not that far away, episode

500 will be released very soon and we're recording it right

now. And so I was thinking to myself for months, I was

like, "What can I do that would be extra special for the

audience for episode 500?" And time and again, the idea

that kept coming back to me was you offering a yoga

Nidra practice. So now here you are.

Jes Allen: 00:01:09 Yeah. Thank you. I'm so excited to be here. I'm so happy

to be here.

Jon Krohn: 00:01:15 So I've known you for a long time. I started doing yoga

practice, the poses of yoga in 2012, I was living in

Singapore and once a week on Saturdays at this mixed

martial arts gym, I was a part of, they had this yoga class.

And I was sore a lot from all the mixed martial arts, And

so I was like, "I really need to stretch." So stretching,

that's what yoga is. And we'll get into this, but yoga is a

lot more than stretching, but that's what I thought at the

time. And so I went to the Saturday class and I remember

the opening up of my body, literally, I mean, the physical

postures are helpful for opening you up. I remember

feeling amazing in a way that I couldn't remember having

felt later that Saturday, later that day. So I went back,

started going back every Saturday. Left Singapore, moved

to New York, and not long after that, I went to a yoga

studio in Manhattan in NoHo and you were one of the

teachers there. And I had a class with you that was

incredible, completely beyond the quality of any yoga

class I'd ever had before. And at the end of the class, you



said, "All right, well that was my" ... I can't remember

what the classes were called.

Jes Allen: 00:02:40 They were really simple names, like strong, energize,

relax.

Jon Krohn: 00:02:47 Right. It wouldn't surprise you even with what I've just

said, and certainly just the way you know me, but I was

there for the strong classes, the strong yoga. So I would

come for your strong class and then at the end of it,

you're like, "At 10 minutes or something, I have another

class starting, a relaxed class in the same studio." And I

was like, "Oh, alright." And I stayed for that. So it was like

three hours or something of yoga with you just to kick

things off. And now I've been following you around the

world. So that was eight years ago. And I've gone on

retreats with you to Mexico, to Greece and have been to

classes at studios of yours, studios that you've taught at

all over New York. So anyway, huge fan. And I know

episode 500 is going to be amazing.

Jon Krohn: 00:03:43 So in episode 450, we had Steve Fazzari whom you've met

once, he came to a yoga class of yours once. And Steve

talked to us about the physiological benefits of yoga

nidra, like improves sleep, for example, is one of the

things that he talked about. And at the end of the

episode, he did a quick five minute run through of kind of

like the structure of a yoga nidra practice. And so for

today's episode, we're going to do a full practice. But

before we get to that, I'd like to talk a bit about what yoga

means and what it means to be a yoga practitioner. So as

I've now learned in the last decade, yoga is not just

stretching, and yoga is not even just the physical

postures. So what in yoga are called the asana, the

physical postures, that's part of it. But I mean, just tell us

more generally what yoga is all about.



Jes Allen: 00:04:42 Well, I have to comment on your language of stretching

and opening, because even those two words, you are

referring to them in your physical form, but it is still,

they're expansion words, they're words that also mean to

expand. And yoga, it means union or to yoke, but it's to

become unified consciously with the one consciousness,

it's to remember that we don't have to come together

because we're not apart. We don't have to unify, we are

unified. And so we expand our awareness of

consciousness through practice to remember that we are

consciousness ourselves, that the essence of us and all

things is pure consciousness. So as you stretch your

body, you stretch your consciousness. As you open your

body, you open your consciousness. You expand, you

expand your awareness of yourself, of how you hold

patterns, of what it feels like to be in a human form, of

how you relate to emotions and programming.

Jes Allen: 00:06:16 And as you become aware of yourself, you start to become

aware of your interactions with everything. So even

starting with the asana as a practice is incredibly

expansive. And I think we all experience that in the

beginning, we're like, "Wow. And I feel more connected to

myself." And life starts opening up because I'm opening to

myself, which is how we experience everything. And then

at a certain point, our curiosity, if we feel called to

continue to expand our consciousness, takes us into

different states of practice. And I think ultimately, as

starting also as a very strong yoga asana practitioner, and

then in my journeys over the past decade, coming down

to settling into a practice such as yoga nidra, which is

laying on the ground doing nothing, there has been quite

a journey. But this is where the expansion of

consciousness and understanding that has taken me ...

And I think it's just important to note that we're not

expanding consciousness, just our awareness of

consciousness. Consciousness is always expanding on its

own. So these practices bring us into relationship with



the natural expansion of life, as opposed to feeling like it's

something that we are separate from.

Jon Krohn: 00:07:51 A beautiful definition. So in this decade of practicing

yoga, you started off teaching these kinds of athletic

classes. There were meditative elements. It was through

my early yoga practices, and particularly through your

classes that I started to be present in the moment in the

room, in my own mind for a few instance. And I

remember thinking, being on a yoga mat, doing a yoga

flow and being like, "Oh wow, I'm here. I've got hands. My

hands are on the mat, there they are." And not being

caught up in the next thing that I need to do or things

that I'd done that day that I could have done better. And

so anyway, so you started with the physical, teaching the

physical asana practice about a decade ago, and that has

now transformed, as you're saying, to include things like

yoga nidra. And so yoga, it can be a big umbrella term to

capture the physical postures like asana, nidra, like you

said laying down, and surely not doing nothing, but not

moving.

Jon Krohn: 00:09:14 You can think of it as like a philosophy of life. There's

teachings, there's literature that you can read. I have

experienced that. I've been to your apartment in Brooklyn

and studied the Upanishads which are Hindu scripture

and studying those week after week with a group of

people. And there are books like that, the Bhagavad Gita

is a popular one in yoga. And so there's these books that

you can use to learn about yoga as a way of life, as

opposed to just postures. But what I'm specifically getting

to is today, what do you offer as a yoga practitioner? So

we're going to talk about yoga nidra a lot. So that's

obviously something that you offer and we're going to

experience on this podcast. You also have weekly online

asana physical practice. I know you still do retreats.

There's one coming up in Greece in September. And it



sounds like I've also heard you recently been getting into

coaching. So maybe tell us about all of those things.

Jes Allen: 00:10:26 Sure, yeah. So I guess I am an intuitive being and we all

are intuitive beings. And I've always related to myself as

an artist first growing up, this was really what it was for

me. So my path with yoga and practices have been really

circular and I'm a curious being. So I actually was a

gymnast growing up and I took my first yoga class when I

was 17. And it was a little slow for me at the time, but I

remembered understanding it because of the postures

and creating sequences and having body awareness that I

learned. And I understood it to be a self-discipline even at

that age. And there was something magical that clicked

for me in the opening of awareness. And like many of us

at that age, I was in a pretty nodded relationship with

myself.

Jes Allen: 00:11:37 And I did my first teacher training when I was 21. And

the most amazing thing for me in that training was

learning about the chakra system and the energetic

systems of our bodies, because this is how I really was. I

was looking for the magic, right? I didn't want the answer

in a scientific way. I wanted to understand life the way I

was understanding and receiving it, which was through

feeling and awe and magic and alignment synchronicity.

So I had a rough start in my healing, my early 20 healing

years. And when I finally really came back to yoga, it

started with the asana, and it was so important for me at

the time because it gave me confidence to change my life.

It showed me that I could learn things and build strength

and figure out tricky asanas. And it empowered me to go,

"I can change my life. I can figure these things out." And

that was really important to me then.

Jes Allen: 00:12:43 And since then, basically I started practicing and teaching

at the same time, in that way. I had been practicing for a

while, when I came back to it, I was like, "This is what I



have to do. I have to teach." And so my practices in my

teachings have gone like this. So as I have ... One in front

of the other, like little steps, like a little track. And so I

would have an opening in myself and feel called towards

something. And then once I would feel like it was

embodied in my being, I would want to give it back. And

so one of my favorite things to do, and what I started

doing early in my teaching was cultivating my own

classes at different venues in New York, in the early days

in Brooklyn. And then I started leading retreats.

Jes Allen: 00:13:37 So retreats have been just the most magical experiences

for me to create over the past five years. I've led, I think,

17 retreats in that time. And it's just the most amazing

thing to bring. As you have felt a couple of times, a group

of human beings together in a particular place, for a

particular amount of time and just really dive in and like

magic is super available. So that is a forever passion of

mine and I'll always be offering those. It's tricky in the

world right now, but we are going to Greece in a month.

And I'm working on Bali or Morocco over the winter. So

that's happening.

Jon Krohn: 00:14:29 Just talk quickly about the retreat experience. I don't

know, I've only done yoga retreats with you, so I might

not have a really good understanding of what they're like.

But I might have thought prior to going on them with you

that a yoga retreat was this kind of intensive physical

practice. And of course, I expect the same kinds of like

you're saying, as I open myself physically, I'll open mine

and I'll have this amazing positive experience, getting just

a good break away from the world and do lots of yoga with

cool people and talk to them. But, the way that you

structure your retreats, and it sounds to me like the way

you increasingly structured them is so that yes, there is a

physical practice. So probably twice a day. So there's like

a morning practice and evening practice on most days,

but there's tons of other deliberate practice of journaling,



of answering tough questions together in a structured

way, of getting to know what people are like in a

structured way and what your own mind is like and what

you are like and what you want and what you could be

doing and what you could do in the future. And, yeah.

Jon Krohn: 00:15:48 I mean, I guess I'm trying to make a case for yoga retreats

in general, and yoga retreats in particular with you. But if

you want to get away from the regular patterns that

you're in, in the other 50 weeks of the year and spend a

week or two of your year, just taking a step back and

thinking about, "What am I doing?"

Jes Allen: 00:16:13 Well, that's what retreat means, right? It means to step

back. It means to withdraw yourself from a moment. And

I know that you meditate every day. And one aspect of

meditation is just in the beginning, to just become a

witness to your mind and to your life. And we don't give

ourselves enough time to really see how we're living and

see how we're seeing. And so when we intentionally

remove ourselves, we can go on vacation and that can

feed us in a million ways. And when you retreat, you

drawback consciously and engage in inner practices,

things I'm doing now are like asana in the morning,

meditation, yoga nidra, again, sound, cacao ceremony,

silence. All different kinds of workshops to awaken you.

And this really has been my path with practice is finding

all these different things to serve as mirrors to who we

are.

Jes Allen: 00:17:19 I have told myself that I'm on a path of many mirrors

because this is so exciting to me to go in. I started with

asana and at a certain point ... And then the energetic

systems. And then I moved into chigong, and I moved into

meditation, and I moved into cacao and journaling and

different aspects of meditation and yoga nidra and more.

But each of these little things showed me a different

perspective of myself, a different piece, a different way to



see myself, a different way to experience myself. And this

helps us see the world in that many ways. If I can see

myself in this many ways, I can only access in another

being as much as I've access of myself. I can only access

in life as much as I have accessed in me. So the more I

understand how diverse and expansive I am, the more

diverse and expansive my life can be.

Jes Allen: 00:18:26 And something I want to just highlight is that when we

talk about yoga and we talk about expanding

consciousness or expanding our awareness of

consciousness, it's like, "What's the point? What's the

point in all of this?" There's like a lot of big, fancy words

and that's cool to be spiritual and everything, and like,

"Yeah. I'm one, and [inaudible 00:18:57] conceptually."

But what is the point? What's the point in doing practice?

What's the point in showing up every single day? And

then we get into this big word, which is healing. Healing

is the point. We are wanting ... I think all of us are

wanting to live a life of less suffering. And we are part of a

collective evolution that is at the pace that it is at. And

the first thing we do is heal ourselves.

Jes Allen: 00:19:29 As we heal ourselves, we create a ripple in consciousness

that continues to stimulate awakenings all over the place.

And that's how the one organism of humanity wakes up.

But even just for us on an individual level, if I can observe

my life without so much attachment to outcomes,

expectations, stories of the past, things that I want,

things that I'm not okay with, if I'm able to loosen my

grip, can I live with more grace? Can I feel more joy? Can

I feel more gratitude? Can I allow things that are

uncomfortable for me to come through my field and move

out without completely destroying my day or longer than

that? And so these practices are really like, can you

associate yourself? Can you learn to relate to the part of

you that is unchanging? The conscious witness that we

all are, can you relate to that? Enough that the



fluctuations of life and the mind no longer with you

around like a ship out in a storm.

Jes Allen: 00:20:38 And when we can do that, we just naturally become more

loving and more compassionate and more understanding

of the fluctuations of everything around us. So if I can

show up and say, "I'm working myself towards

understanding the one consciousness and surrendering

over to an evolutionary current that I am not in control of,

but I am a witness to. Well, now, I'm so free." I'm so free

to step into life and be forgiving of everything that I can't

control and return to what are the universal truths? My

teacher Yogarupa Rod Stryker, who I received my yoga

nidra training with that I resonate with the most, he says,

"If it's not true for everyone, it's not true." And this is

something I come back to, if it's not true for everyone, it's

not true. And that's not to say your experience isn't valid,

your feelings aren't valid, all of them are true and valid,

but what is the ultimate truth? And can I remember that

peace in myself so that I'm not only just Allen who lived in

Brooklyn for 12 years and just moved upstate and used to

teach there, and now does this, right? I'm not only those

things. Which is challenging and confusing to be my

emotions, my actions, my relationships, that's hard. So

I'm not only that.

Jon Krohn: 00:22:18 All right. So obviously your retreats sound amazing. Yoga

retreats in general sound amazing and can be hugely

fruitful, but not everyone, especially in a pandemic can

get up and fly to Greece. So how are ways that people can

engage with you to get mentorship in some other way?

Jes Allen: 00:22:38 Yeah. Well, one thing that the pandemic has definitely

opened up, it has been the online platform. And I started

a Patreon account really as like a response to all of the

yoga studios getting shut down about a year and a half

ago. And it's been such an amazing opportunity to share

content. And so I've got that platform that has tons of



asana practices, yoga nidras, meditations, some

workshops, and I get on and do lectures every once in a

while. And what that has really opened for me is this

understanding of empowering the practitioner at home so

that we aren't actually relying on going to a yoga studio

every single day, or even going on retreats which is

something that you might only be able to do once a year,

if that anyway. And what has become very apparent to me

is that what we need is more practitioners as opposed to

teachers. There's a lot of teacher training programs out

there, and that's great. And also you spend a good

amount of time learning how to teach in a teacher

training, which might not necessarily be what you want to

do. And I believe that we need to all be in practice. This is

how we are waking up to ourselves and to our life.

Jes Allen: 00:23:55 And so I have recently started mentorship for

practitioners. So I've been doing mentorship for teachers

for many years, newer teachers, teachers who want to go

deeper, and that is really amazing. And I love to get into

that work from that teacher mindset. And I've started in

the past few months doing mentorship for practitioners.

So basically that looks like us meeting and dissecting,

like, "Let's look at what's happening in life right now. Let's

look at what you're feeling on creating, expanding,

opening within yourself." And then the past really like

decade or more than that, of me being super living and

practice, living and practice. And navigating my life

through practice, I'm able to help you build a practice for

yourself. And navigate where you want to go and give you

the tools so that you feel empowered to be able to take

these tools into your own life, even when I'm not around.

Jes Allen: 00:25:01 And that's really the goal is to empower your own

intuition and feel like you have enough tools and enough

knowledge that you can care for yourself and that you

have antidotes and medicine in your life to come to every

day. And this has been an amazingly rewarding practice



for myself to offer in this kind of way and see people start

to blossom and just get so excited about practice and

empower and empower them to take control in their own

life and on a regular basis. I don't go a day without

practicing. I can't imagine what that would be like,

however, it doesn't look the same every day. And that's

important to know too.

Jon Krohn: 00:25:53 That sounds really cool. And so a yoga practitioner can be

anyone, right? So a yoga teacher, we kind of think of that

as like, "Okay, maybe you need" ... I mean, you don't

actually, but you kind of think of it as needing a formal

qualification and then being qualified, stand in front of a

room and talk to people. Being a yoga practitioner means

just practicing the teachings of yoga and experiencing

more connection with everything around you.

Jes Allen: 00:26:19 Absolutely. And this is the key to us. We're not all going

to be yoga teachers. We're not all going to be meditation

teachers and spiritual teachers, but we are all beings of

yoga or beings of spirituality. And we can be that.

Jon Krohn: 00:26:37 Beautifully said Jes, and I'm looking forward to reviewing

the recording and experiencing everything you just said

there again, because that was awesome. I guess we

should get into the yoga nidra practice. I mean, I think

we've teed it up really well now. So we had a bit of an

introduction to yoga nidra in episode 450 with Steve, but

you teach yoga nidra from a different lineage. So I think

we might as well just hear it fresh from you. So what is

yoga nidra? What are we about to experience?

Jes Allen: 00:27:13 Yeah. So actually, the lineage that I am teaching in is the

Shri Vidya tradition, my teacher is Yogarupa Rod Stryker.

These practices and the interpretation of yoga nidra, the

way that he has received them from his teacher and were

passed to me are from the Mandukya Upanishad. So

straight from the upanishadic literature, which speaks to



the four states of consciousness and the actual technique

of yoga nidra, and yoga nidra of being both a practice and

a state. So when you say yoga, yoga is not just a practice,

there are yoga practices, but yoga is a state of being, it's

the state of being connected consciously. Nidra means

sleep, which Steve probably spoke too. And so yoga nidra

means sleep with yoga or sleep of consciousness. So it's

to come into a state where you've rested your entire body,

mind, all of that is asleep, but consciousness is still there.

Consciousness still exists.

Jes Allen: 00:28:47 So the way I have also been passed information in this

lineage is through having a handful of different intentions

for the practice. One of those being healing and general

healing, which is what Steve really spoke to in the

physiological healing of the body, the nervous system,

getting immense amount of rest, which is so, so, so, so,

so important. Another intention that we'll be diving into

today in the practice is a cognitive practice, which allows

us to associate ourselves with the witness consciousness

and then observe the way our mind is producing thought

and what is retaining through our days, through our life.

And if those things are beneficial to us or not. And then if

we want to continue to explore how to work with our

awareness to perhaps bring more grace into your life.

There is also a transformative practice, which we can take

things that are triggering or activating, or that we're

having challenges with in our life and bring them into this

soft state of yoga nidra and activate them in our being.

And then ask for resolution or healing imagery not

necessarily mental-based conversational solutions, but

felt energetic healing for these things to bring ourselves

into a state of peace and to be able to work with them

with more grace.

Jes Allen: 00:30:21 There's also the practice of sankalpa, which Steve may

have spoke to also. This is a practice of creating a resolve

for yourself that is like an intention that is almost



something bigger than you think that you can do on your

own. So you call for divine intervention. Yeah. So it

should be a really big intention, something around eight

to 12, eight to 18 months even. A goal this big, right?

Nothing that you're like, "I can do that next month." At

least a year your calling in this prayer. And then the

primary intention and at the basis of all of this is spiritual

awakening or becoming unified with consciousness and

resting in that one consciousness. So there are several

different kinds of techniques to work within these spaces.

And they're almost a progression. Not that one is better

than the other, but that we have to first heal our bodies,

understand our minds, transform our perspectives, create

goals from a pure place, create fulfilling lives for ourselves

from that awareness, and then be able to rest back

enough to awaken into the magic of truth.

Jes Allen: 00:31:50 So the way I use these techniques is they're all over the

place. They're not this linear progression that our mind

wants to grip onto because we have that past, future

ladder mentality, but everything is circular. So they work

together. And part of practice is knowing when one can

come in and [inaudible 00:32:16] when they shift. It's very

deep. It's extensive. One thing I do want to share that was

one of the greatest insights I have received through this

work is that when you set up the conditions for healing,

healing happens on its own. And we're really attached to

us being the doer and us changing ourselves, whether

that's through physical change, we feel like we have to ...

I'm using my hands here because we feel like we have to

grip and change and mutate, and that is only our will

that creates change in our life.

Jes Allen: 00:33:01 But that's not true. We do have to be an active

participant, but our soul calls us into alignment and it's

just our job to walk towards our own soul, our own

vision. And healing is really the natural state. So we talk

about this as like a remembering of who we are. We're not



learning something new, we're just uncovering the truth.

And so when you lay yourself down and you come into a

space of unity, you remember. And that healing starts to

happen on its own because as your body, not even your

mind, but as your body and your cells, your nervous

system start to remember that you are safe, you are

loved, you are held by this earth that you came from her,

that we are connected to one source. All of these other

fears and anxieties, they start to dissipate. The more that

we remember our truth, the more we see the illusions of

these fears. And so we can work into the healing through

coming into love, coming into love, coming into love

instead of how do I get through this pain? How do I get

through this pain? How do I get to this pain?

Jes Allen: 00:34:22 So the yoga nidra practice that we are going to be diving

into in this episode is the cognitive practice that I spoke

to in which we will use entering the state of yoga nidra as

a foundation for us to bring awareness to our mind, our

days, how we are seeing, what we are remembering. And

get a better perspective, even an eagle-view of our life. So

for this practice, you will want to be laying down and be

comfortable. Being comfortable is one of the most

important things in this practice. But we'll give you a

moment just to set up, you could lay down on the floor

with a blanket underneath you and a pillow underneath

your head. You could lay on a couch, you could lay in

your bed. It doesn't matter as long as you're comfortable.

It is recommended, although not necessary, if you're in a

very light-filled room to cover your eyes with a light piece

of fabric. And if you're cold at all, to place a blanket over

knee, over your chest or over your legs. If you are placing

a blanket over you, it's recommended that the fingertips

are exposed. So you can just let your hands slip out the

sides, or even create little tents underneath the blanket

with your hands so that the fingertips are sensitive and

aware of space around them without weight.



Jes Allen: 00:36:12 So just making your final adjustments here, and perhaps

even fidgeting a little bit in the body. If there's excess

energy, you could squeeze your hands and squeeze your

feet just for a moment and then exhale and let them go so

you can feel that release. And then you'll just want to

commit in this moment to being still throughout the

duration of the practice. If you feel the urge to move or

adjust now, just do it so that you can say, "Okay, now I'm

comfortable enough to be here for the next 15 minutes."

Just notice your breath. Now allow your body to open to

the earth. The back body to become sensitive to the draw

of gravity. Perhaps even feeling how deeply held you are.

And then that feeling of being held, give your body any

amount more over the rest. Become aware of yourself in

the space.

Jes Allen: 00:38:27 There is a floor or a piece of furniture underneath you,

walls around you, sealing above you, and you are

occupying this space, and this space is holding you. Just

becoming aware of any sound, allowing your

consciousness or your awareness to just travel to one

sound and the next not lingering too long on any sound.

Rather just tuning yourself to the textures of this space.

Bringing your awareness to your breath and specifically

down to your belly, and just gently beginning to shape

diaphragmatic breathing. So on purpose, breathe into the

belly and breathe out of the belly.

Jes Allen: 00:39:52 So the chest here is more or less still, and you're directing

the breath down into the diaphragm. We'll breathe like

this for about a minute, consciously shaping the breath. I

think two more breaths. After that second exhale, just

allow the breath to return to a natural state, just simply

observe the breath flowing. You'll make an intention for

yourself here to stay aware throughout the practice. So

there's a good chance that the body will sleep and a small

chance that the mind could even sleep. But our intention

is for awareness to remain, so just say to yourself three



times mentally, "I will stay aware throughout the

practice."

Jes Allen: 00:42:12 Now please bring your awareness to the third eye center

or the space right in between your eyebrows. And notice

as you do this, a gentle energy emerges. It might feel like

a soft light, but there is a presence here. And just notice

that presence that is already existing, but it awakens

through your awareness. And then bring your awareness

to your throat center and notice that same light or energy

emerging with your awareness in the throat. Right

shoulder joint, a light or awareness comes from inside the

body. Right elbow, same light or presence. Right wrist,

light inside the body, energy from within. Right thumb,

pointer finger, middle finger, ring finger, pinky finger, all

emerging light. Again in the right wrist, presence of

consciousness. Right elbow, right shoulder joint, same

light or presence emerging from within. Again in the

throat center, feel that light. Left shoulder joint, again, a

presence emerging from within the body, creating

softness. Left elbow, inner presence. Left wrist, light

emerging. The left thumb, pointer finger, middle finger,

ring finger, pinky finger, full energy and light.

Jes Allen: 00:45:03 Left wrist, presence from within. Left elbow, left shoulder,

inner light. Throat center, awareness. Now in the heart

center, feel an energy, a light presence emerge with your

awareness of the space of the heart. Same awareness over

to the right side of the chest. Back to the heart center.

Awareness now in the left side of the chest. And heart

center, feeling that light. Awareness, again, in the throat

center. And landing the consciousness in the third eye

center, the space right in between the eyebrows, and just

allowing the consciousness to remain. Notice here that

the consciousness bears witness to these energy points,

and observe as you allow all of these points of energy or

light to illuminate at the same time from within. Watching

the brightening of these lights. Allowing that energy to



keep the body soft, bringing your awareness back to the

dark space behind the brows, behind the forehead, the

dark screen of your mind.

Jes Allen: 00:47:23 And beginning 30 minutes ago, recall on that screen what

you are doing. And then begin to trace back your entire

day until this moment in 30 minute intervals. Just

allowing yourself to pass over interactions, actions,

thought, feeling, right until you woke up this morning. A

few minutes to do this.

Jes Allen: 00:48:06 (silence)

Jes Allen: 00:49:29 As you approach the morning, can you see yourself in bed

right before you woke up, and recall any dreams from the

night, encouraging the mind to continue to move in

intervals through the evening of sleep. And then perhaps,

becoming aware of the moment right before you fell

asleep. Allow yourself now to release the hold of memory

and draw back so that you may witness anything that

was less than beneficial, or didn't sit in the most pleasant

resonance from even just this day. And just from the state

of witness, gently assess, invite awareness to these areas

of your life. With compassion and mere awareness, but

awareness doesn't judge, simply witnesses. Can you allow

everything that you've drawn out of your mind to exist

and bring yourself back to the witness consciousness or

the place in you that sees. And arrest in this

consciousness as self. Without moving the body at all,

simply become aware of the breath in this state. And

again, keeping the body very soft, bring your awareness

back into the room, feeling yourself again, in this space,

on the surface, contained. I'm taking just another

moment to hold close to you anything that you'd like to

carry with you outside of this practice, you could even

plant that like a seed in your heart.



Jes Allen: 00:54:16 And when it feels right for you, you could very gently

move your fingers. Take a deeper breath in. I like to place

my hands on my belly or my heart as the first movement

to keep things gentle without jolting too much out of this

sensitive space. I'm just feeling my palms and the breath

meet each other. Whenever you are ready, knowing that

you could just continue to lay right where you are, you

could also shift to a side, come up to sit and eventually

invite yourself back into your room, the waking part of

your life. So welcome back from that exploration.

Jon Krohn: 00:55:52 Thank you.

Jes Allen: 00:55:53 Thank you. I just want to note that, again, this is a

practice that helps us to just bring more awareness into

our life and it's something that you could even do as a

cognitive practice before you go to bed at night, like five

minutes to retrace your day. And it improves memory in

general, and it's also just really good for maintaining

awareness in our life and being able to assess and shift

anything that isn't really serving us. And when we do it in

that state of yoga nidra, we're also able to relate to that

unchanging piece of us that is it is not our mind, but can

work with it.

Jon Krohn: 00:56:52 Yeah, I had not done that before. I had not gone through

a nidra practice like this before, and I've done nidras with

you, but I think it was before you started studying this

particular lineage. And I really was blown away by how

many things I've already done today. We're filming in mid-

afternoon and wow, so many things already happened.

And you talked a lot about healing and something that

occurred to me just now is how happy I am with so many

of the things that I did today that I feel like I was kind to

people around me and I was taking on kind of the right

priorities for my day. But there were also a couple of

things that came to mind that I was like, "Huh." There's a

little thing that like it definitely had been better, that



interaction could have been kinder there. And yeah, very

cool Jes. It does sound like something that would be

super helpful at the end of the day, in particular laying in

bed. And maybe even then bringing that piece into my

sleep.

Jes Allen: 00:58:08 Yeah, if you practice enough, you'll start recalling your

subconscious dreams, which that's a whole other topic

but it has a lot of information, just information about how

the mind is processing our desires in our life.

Jon Krohn: 00:58:32 Nice. Well listener, I hope you enjoyed this extra special

episode 500 of the SuperDataScience show. Jes, how

should people be aware of everything that you do,

everything that you have to offer? How can people follow

you in the world?

Jes Allen: 00:58:49 Well, I have an Instagram, this is the way of the world

today. It's just my name, it's Jes Alan. I do spell my name

with one S, so it's J-E-S A-L-L-E-N. The handle has little

dots in between each of the letters, but you should find

me anyway, just my name. And my website is also

jesallen.com, and you can find all my retreats, my online

content, mentorship programs. I'll be coming out with

some group programs also soon that will be accessible in

the virtual world. So both, all my content and interactions

are on both of those platforms and they seem to be best

and easiest. There's also some free content on

SoundCloud as far as yoga nidras, and some meditations

go, so you could also start by tuning in there.

Jon Krohn: 00:59:42 Yeah. Perfect. Thank you, Jes. And we will include links

to all three of those Instagram, website and SoundCloud,

which I enjoyed in the run-up to filming this episode as if

I needed extra content to be sure that this was the perfect

thing for this episode. I did thoroughly enjoy a couple of

nidras that you had up on there, on SoundCloud. All



right, thank you so much Jes. Have a wonderful rest of

your day and we'll catch you again soon.

Jes Allen: 01:00:14 Yeah. Thank you so much for having me, it's beautiful to

be here.


sds podcast episode 500: yoda nidra with jes allen

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