Season 2, Episode 4 - The Inner Work of Inclusion: Yoga Philosophy for Thriving Workplaces with Jeremy David Engels, PhD
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Yoga Philosophy for Everyday Living, Season 2, Episode 4
Inner Work of Inclusion featuring Jeremy David Engels, PhD
SHOW NOTES
The Inner Work of Inclusion: Yoga Philosophy for Thriving Workplaces, Season 2, Episode 4
Join me for this episode featuring guest Jeremy David Engels, PhD, a cofounder and teacher at Yoga Lab, which offers science-based yoga and meditation classes that emphasize mindfulness and functional movement. He is the Liberal Arts Endowed Professor of Communication and Ethics at Penn State University and has written extensively on community-building, peace, and justice. His newest book is now available! Living Namaste, A Practical Guide to Mindfulness, Yoga, and Building Community (Inner Traditions, June 2026)
Listen as we explore:
🌿 How to build community and care for one another at work.
💛 The significance of mindfulness and yoga practice is about remembering to return to a state of awareness, presence, and connection.
✨ Svadhyaya as a practice to understand our own patterns, assumptions, and reactions so we can genuinely see others and how it can help navigate a challenging team dynamic.
💛 The practice of namaste to respond thoughtfully even when under workplace pressure.
🌿 The benefits of practicing empathy and gratitude.
🧘♀️ The internal work of inclusion.
✨ How to start a practice when you don’t know where to begin
For leaders at all levels and those who are navigating challenging circumstances at work, this episode is for you!
IN THIS EPISODE:
Learn more about our guest:
Liberal Arts Endowed Professor, Penn State University | Co-founder, Yoga Lab | Author, Living Namaste (Inner Traditions, June 2026)
Author: Living Namaste, A Practical Guide to Mindfulness, Yoga, and Building Community By Jeremy David Engels
Jeremy David Engels, PhD, is a cofounder and teacher at Yoga Lab, which offers science-based yoga and meditation classes that emphasize mindfulness and functional movement. He is a Liberal Arts Endowed Professor of Communication and Ethics at Penn State University and has written extensively on community-building, peace, and justice.
RELATED LINKS:
Author’s website: https://jeremydavidengels.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jeremy_david_engels/
Blue Sky: https://bsky.app/profile/jeremydavidengels.bsky.social
• Living Namaste review on Kirkus Reviews
• Living Namaste interview on VITA magazine
Living Namaste is available now everywhere books are sold!
A practical guide to embodying the principles of “namaste” in everyday life
Jeremy David Engels reveals the deeper meaning of “namaste” as a transformative principle for building connection and community. With practical strategies, mindfulness meditations, and self-study exercises, he shows how remembering your own and others’ divinity can foster self-awareness, compassion, and stronger relationships, empowering you to create more meaningful connections and support mutual growth.
“An appealing manual that offers encouraging methods for pursuing a happier and more connected life.”—Kirkus Reviews
• Defines the meaning of “namaste” and explains how to apply it in daily interactions to build stronger communities
• Offers practical strategies to develop self-awareness and compassion, foster deeper connections with others, and support mutual growth
• Includes exercises, mindfulness meditations, and svadhyaya (“self-study”) practices to deepen personal growth and understanding
TRANSCRIPT
(Please excuse any errors in the transcription.)
speaker-0 (00:04)
Yoga is a living, breathing, evolving practice where we get to connect to more of who we are, let go of the chaos and the suffering, let go of the attachment, and really connect to our true selves.
speaker-0 (00:18)
Hi, I'm Monica Phillips. I'm the founder of Spark Plug Labs. We do executive leadership coaching for individuals, teams, and groups. I started this video podcast series, Yoga Philosophy for Everyday Living, to bring some of the ancient wisdom of yoga to show you how it helps us overcome fear, deal with a world full of anxiety and stress, and so much change.
speaker-0 (00:44)
I'm a certified yoga teacher, and I'm excited to share these episodes with you, full of interviews with world-class leading yoga authorities across the US and Canada who teach globally. I hope you enjoy them. Please join me off the mat. Welcome to Yoga Philosophy for Everyday Living. I'm your host, Monica Phillips, and today's conversation is leading with courage in uncertain times.
speaker-0 (01:11)
Monica Phillips (00:01)
Hello and welcome to Yoga Philosophy for Everyday Living, where we explore how ancient wisdom supports modern leadership, work and life. I'm your host, Monica Phillips of Spark Plug Labs. Today's episode is the inner work of inclusion, yoga philosophy for thriving workplaces. Joining me today is guest, Jeremy Engels, liberal arts endowed professor at Penn State University, co-founder of the Yoga Lab and author of
Monica Phillips (00:26)
Living Namaste, a Practical Guide to Mindfulness, Yoga, and Building Community. That book comes out in just a couple weeks. And Jeremy, what is your previous book called again? Mindful Communities?
Jeremy David Engels (00:39)
Yeah. So, and in February I had another book published, there were two this year. and it's called on mindful democracy, a declaration of interdependence to mend a fractured world.
Monica Phillips (00:53)
like that is exact. We're going to talk about that because that is exactly what we need right now in this moment. Just a quick intro, because I started this podcast to really shine a light on this ancient wisdom of yoga and how it informs how we can be better in the workplace. Most of us show up in a workplace and we want to feel good and workplaces invest in inclusion and well-being, but the day-to-day experience often falls short.
Jeremy David Engels (00:57)
Thank
Monica Phillips (01:22)
And so what if the missing piece isn't a better policy, but a deeper practice? So Professor Engels, Jeremy Engels is a communication scholar and yoga community builder, which you'll hear more about. His new book draws on yoga philosophy to explore how we genuinely show up for one another. And so Jeremy, how did you come to see the ancient teachings of yoga as a lens for this very contemporary issue of building community and care for one another at work?
Jeremy David Engels (01:51)
Yeah. And, thanks for having me on the podcast. This is wonderful. And, thanks to everybody who's listening. It's great to connect. you know, yoga is not one thing and it's never been one thing. it's ancient and contemporary at the same time. And one of the things that I love about the practice of yoga and meditation is that they are always changing and adapting, to meet the needs of the present moment.
Jeremy David Engels (02:22)
And the word yoga, it's interesting in Sanskrit, it has over 80 different meanings and they often contradict each other. It's pretty cool to read the old dictionary entries to see this. But one of the meanings that's really consistent is union, connection. Marriage is another way of saying that. Yoga is about connecting things that our culture has disconnected. So,
Jeremy David Engels (02:52)
the mind and the body, the body and the breath, my day-to-day living and my deeper intentions and purpose, me and you, us and them. And so I think that yoga and the teachings of yoga are so relevant to the, you know, the many challenges that we face today in the workplace, beyond the workplace, in our culture and our politics and our classrooms.
Monica Phillips (03:22)
Yeah, really well said. can you talk a little bit more about your previous book, Mindful Democracy? And we were just talking before we pressed record. I struggle with these spaces that we've created in society today that are so polarized. And even like the operative bipartisan, it means there's us and them. And when you declare yourself a candidate for any political race, are
Jeremy David Engels (03:42)
Mm-hmm.
Monica Phillips (03:51)
immediately alienating half the country. We find that people will not show up for work in a place where the company or their boss or their employer or their team has a political stance that is not there, that doesn't support their own. We find that in communities, people don't want to move to an area where it might be too liberal or too conservative. So I started the yoga festival, the Lafayette Yoga Festival last summer because I wanted to create these spaces where
Monica Phillips (04:20)
If we come together, when we breathe, when we meditate together, we have world peace. Tell me more about what that mindful democracy means to you.
Jeremy David Engels (04:30)
Sure. So when you think about democracy today, I mean, you summarized it so nicely there that we have been conditioned, educated, maybe conned into thinking that democracy is a war between two political parties and it's all about which party is going to win an election or whatnot. And really democracy is a practice of how on a grassroots community level,
Jeremy David Engels (04:59)
We work together to care for ourselves, to care for each other and to care for this miraculous life that we share. So in the book, I try to help people imagine what democracy might look like if we set aside the battle, if we set aside the war and instead started from common ground. All of us suffer. All of us want to be happy. All of us care about people in our lives.
Jeremy David Engels (05:29)
Um, all of us care about things in the world. Um, but so often our labels get in the way of that. Like the moment somebody is like a Democrat or a Republican, um, you don't need to know anything else about them because it's like, know, everything about them. Um, but we're so much more than labels. Um, we're people. And so I think that if we can get back to this level, like you said, of.
Jeremy David Engels (05:58)
recognizing that we are embodied beings living a shared life together, it becomes possible to start to reimagine and practice a different kind of community building that's not about, I call it in the book, enemieship. Enemieship is when we come together in opposition to a shared enemy. And that's like what all of our politics is today.
Jeremy David Engels (06:27)
Enemyship is not friendship. And what we need is friendship. We need genuine practices of solidarity, of care. And it's amazing to me when I talk to people who vote differently than I do, if we set aside our labels, but instead focus on, well, how can we care for each other? How can we collaborate to achieve certain goals that we share?
Jeremy David Engels (06:56)
Those labels don't matter anymore. And it becomes possible to relate and communicate in ways that often seem impossible on a national political level. So the book re-imagines what democracy would look like. And the really cool thing about the book, think, my PhD is in the field of rhetoric, which is the study of the power of
Jeremy David Engels (07:23)
language and words and symbols to bring us together to pull us apart. And I wrote a big part of my dissertation about the Declaration of Independence. And this year is the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, which I think we're going to celebrate with like a big UFC fight on the White House lawn or something like that.
Jeremy David Engels (07:48)
I think there's going to be a Formula One race in Washington, DC. I'm not quite sure. I'm going to be there a couple of days before the fourth signing some books and talking. So we'll see. I thought it'd be really cool to rewrite the Declaration of Independence as a declaration of interdependence, emphasizing what we share. And so that really is the centerpiece of this new book is this declaration of interdependence. And
Jeremy David Engels (08:14)
it's deeply inspired by my practice of mindfulness and meditation and also yoga.
Monica Phillips (08:21)
I really love that. I like to ask myself the opposite of a situation. If I'm struggling with something, if something doesn't seem aligned or feel right to me, I think what's the opposite of that? And usually it's love. So usually when we're struggling, it's fear. It's that I'm a huge fan of the book, The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership. And there's this under, you know, below the line living that scarcity, fear, and
Jeremy David Engels (08:36)
Yeah.
Monica Phillips (08:48)
Not a lot of good comes from that place because we're stuck. But when you move above the line into abundance, knowing that if I have abundance, it doesn't take anything away from you. And I can have full abundance and so can you and so can you and so can you. We can all live our full life exactly how we want if we lead with love. And so a lot of people, think, would say when I'm afraid of something and I'm angry, it's like, OK, well, what do you love? I love trees. OK, I love my family. Cool.
Monica Phillips (09:17)
And then you start to hear all these interdependencies, these commonalities, these parts of the community that bring us together. I love the bakery at the corner of my street. It's like so joyful. And that's where we can really start to make progress. Okay, well, if you love the bakery at the corner, how could we bring more community into this space?
Jeremy David Engels (09:38)
beautiful. mean there is so much more that unites us than divides us and we belong together. We belong to each other and when you enter that space of love and gratitude as well, like I love doing gratitude practices with people. What are you grateful for? we don't disagree about politics but we're grateful for the same things.
Jeremy David Engels (10:07)
And we're grateful for the trees. We're grateful for that bakery. What can we do to help the trees? What can we do to support the bakery? What can we build together? We're in a completely different space of community building and leadership and citizenship than we would be if we just focused on what we're afraid of or what makes us angry or resentful or yeah.
Monica Phillips (10:34)
It's hard to carry those big emotions and they're good. They're helpful as a warning signal only and then to say, okay, how do you want to activate? How do you want to shift that scenario? What could you do? Do you want to let it go and not let it disturb your mindset? Right? These are the four locks of the yoga Sutras. Do you want to see others with love? If you're feeling a little jealousy, use that as a signal to yourself to say, Hmm, what is it about that? That I also want because that's the feeling I'm having.
Jeremy David Engels (10:51)
Sure.
Monica Phillips (11:01)
As you were speaking, I was thinking of the Pat Benatar song, We Belong. I think that was the theme song for this episode.
Jeremy David Engels (11:05)
Nice, nice,
Jeremy David Engels (11:10)
I love it. Yeah. If we have a theme song, that should be it. That's brilliant. I love it.
Monica Phillips (11:15)
In your new book about to come out, Living Namaste, you talk about three reminders. I am divine, you are divine, and live the word together, noting that the significance of mindfulness and yoga is about remembering to return to a state of awareness, presence, and connection. Can you talk about those concepts and the sequence and why that matters?
Jeremy David Engels (11:37)
Sure. So I think of yoga as being a practice of mindfulness. You know, the present moment is the only moment that exists. And of course the past influences the present and the choices that we make in the present will influence the future. And so in that way, the future and the past are real, but the past is gone. Future hasn't happened yet. The present is the only space of freedom.
Jeremy David Engels (12:06)
and one of the, the ancient words for mindfulness in Sanskrit and Pali also mean to remember, mindfulness is a practice of remembering to come back to the present moment when your mind wanders off. It's also a practice of remembering what you've learned from your practice. And so the living namaste book follows three reminders.
Jeremy David Engels (12:36)
three mindful reminders. The first is I am divine. And why is that significant? What does that mean? The word namaste is a really common greeting in India, a parting as well in Southeast Asia. And for most people, a lot of the time it's just a synonym for hello. It's a greeting.
Jeremy David Engels (13:04)
But a number of teachers of yoga and meditation went to, from the United States, from Europe, from North America, went to India, they went to Southeast Asia during the late 60s and 70s and learned from master teachers and then brought what they learned back with them. And Ram Dass was one of those teachers. His name is probably familiar to some of your readers.
Jeremy David Engels (13:31)
And when he came back and was teaching people about yoga and meditation, he said that namaste means more than just hello. It means the divine in me bows to the divine in you, or the divine in me acknowledges the divine in you. And that's become a really common definition of namaste. And we traditionally close our yoga practices now by saying namaste.
Jeremy David Engels (14:01)
So I wanted to do not. Yeah.
Monica Phillips (14:02)
in practice, by the way. Now, when I did my yoga teacher training, it was kind of coming out of fashion. We did a lot of trauma teachings and inclusion work. there was a big movement in the yoga communities that taught me that because that word means so much and in India, it's a greeting, not a departure. And like, yes, do we
Jeremy David Engels (14:10)
you
Monica Phillips (14:31)
Is it a safe space? I don't know that I could say that for everyone in the room. I want to create that. So I end with usually like, you all be well, may you all be at peace, may you all move through your week with ease or something like that. But if others want to say it, I'm not attached to it one way or another. I just don't personally say it because I find it is nuanced. And
Monica Phillips (14:55)
I'm not of that culture, so I bring it into my spaces and then others can decide how they want to experience it.
Jeremy David Engels (15:02)
Yeah, I think that's great. mean, I think that's the decision every yoga teacher makes for the space. you know, when I close my practices and say namaste, I explain it. And, you know, it becomes an invitation for people that they can heed or not. And in the book, I talk about how you don't have to say namaste to feel the spirit of the word.
Jeremy David Engels (15:30)
you can infuse any greeting, any parting with that same spirit of recognizing the divine in yourself and the divine in another. So recognizing that there's dignified, there's something worthy in each of us. And I think that's such an important reminder, especially in a culture that
Jeremy David Engels (15:57)
has a tendency to play up our insecurities that often has a scarcity mindset. And that can make us feel really insecure in who we are. So connecting to that sense of worthiness, connecting to that sense of miraculousness, I think is really important. so the first reminder becomes, I am divine. And for me, that means both recognizing
Jeremy David Engels (16:27)
you know, the fact that we deserve to be here as individuals, that we have just as much a right to be, you know, alive and to be respected as anyone else. And it also is a way of connecting to this inner place of awareness and peace that all of us are capable of. And
Jeremy David Engels (16:55)
This is a space of, of mindfulness to me of mindful awareness. So the first reminder is an invitation to practice, to practice coming back to this place of peace when the mind wanders off and coming back to this place where we recognize that in each moment, in each present moment, we can step back from our habits.
Jeremy David Engels (17:25)
from our conditioned responses to the world, from the ways that our culture tells us we have to be or what we have to do, we can step back from that place and recognize those habit energies in ourself and choose to react to things differently, to respond to things differently.
Jeremy David Engels (17:48)
when it would be common to respond to an event with fear or hatred or anger, we can step back from those responses and choose to lead instead with love or to lead with gratitude or compassion. That to me is really what it means to connect to the divine in ourselves. I think it's important.
Jeremy David Engels (18:12)
to be able to connect to that divine in ourselves before we try to recognize the divine in others. I think it's really difficult to recognize the divine in others if we ourselves are locked in a state of reactivity, fear, anger, frustration, resentment. And so that's the reason that the personal practice comes first.
Jeremy David Engels (18:36)
And then the opening to others, recognizing that other people also have that same divinity and connecting along that space to others, that space of love, that space of compassion, that space of gratitude. And then the third reminder, living the word together is an invitation to build communities where we support each other.
Jeremy David Engels (19:02)
and where we work together to care for each other and for the life that we share. And so that's really the trajectory of the book. And like I said, whether you say namaste or whether you don't, it's possible to bring the same set of practices into your life, whether you're a yogi, whether you're not.
Monica Phillips (19:25)
When I think about the Patanjali's, you know, the eight limbs of yoga or ashtanga, I think of this, you when, and then you say you're a yoga teacher to someone and they're like, oh, I'm not flexible or it's too slow or it's too fast. There's always some judgment around what yoga is or isn't. And most of the time I feel like every day we are living yoga. It's a foundation of breath.
Monica Phillips (19:51)
of mindfulness, of awareness, the yamas and the niyamas and everything you're talking about in terms of the divine within and without and within the communities, I hear this practice of svayayya, this self-awareness, the self-study as a foundation to see others. We first have to understand our own patterns, assumptions and reactions. And because we're human, most of the time there's some kind of judgment. We just can't help it.
Monica Phillips (20:19)
We are living the world through our own experiences, our own body, our own perceptions. And when we hear that judgment, that's the invitation to pause. It's hard. It is a practice. And even as yogis, we mess up. And so we need to go back to the practice and think, like, what do I need in this moment? Maybe I should stop talking.
Jeremy David Engels (20:40)
No, I think it's great. I love the dialogue and I think you're absolutely right. I mean, when you think about the, you know, the eight limbs of yoga, the Shtanga, you know, the Yamas and the Niyamas are the ethical foundation of a yogic life. And that's really what we're talking about here. We're talking about self-inquiry, Svijaya, self-study, recognizing our patterns.
Jeremy David Engels (21:09)
our habits and learning how to not necessarily blame ourselves or judge ourselves for those habits or patterns because they're things that we've learned. They're things that we've picked up along the way. They're things that are endemic to our culture. But we have this capacity to notice them as they arise in ourselves and to pause and to step back and then to make a choice to live with
Jeremy David Engels (21:39)
non-violence, ahimsa, right? To live with truthfulness and compassion, satya. To live with generosity, you know, all of the yamas and nyamas. And then to infuse our breath with that, right? Pranayam. To move with ease and stability, asana. It's...
Jeremy David Engels (22:09)
It's such a beautiful practice.
Monica Phillips (22:12)
It is, yeah. And I imagine in your work at the university, at the college, you sometimes come into interpersonal conflict. Maybe. There are some politics. I wonder how do you bring in this yogi mindset as a manager, a colleague, someone navigating a hard team dynamic, and how can you share that in a way that helps listeners resonate with something they might be experiencing in the workplace?
Jeremy David Engels (22:25)
We're human beings, right?
Jeremy David Engels (22:41)
Sure. You know, I think it's important to recognize it's challenging, right? In moments of conflict because those are the moments in which our habits come to light. know, they just come out. But I try to remember that a lot of, not all, but a lot of the...
Jeremy David Engels (23:11)
know, arrogance that you encounter in others, maybe the anger or whatever else it is, it's coming from a place of pain. It's coming from a place of suffering. It's an expression of that. And so a lot of times when I'm dealing with someone who is upset, I'm dealing with someone who's in pain. And I myself have been in pain and I often am in pain.
Jeremy David Engels (23:37)
That's part of the human experience. And so we can meet on that common space, right? Like I know what it's like to, to go through that. And I know a lot of times that in moments of pain and suffering when tempers rise and voices rise, actually the best thing we can do is go for a mindful walk together or take a few deep breaths together and get out of our heads and into our bodies.
Jeremy David Engels (24:05)
to reconnect with the ground and the earth and the air, and then to come back to things with a fresh perspective. And so, you when I think about meditation practice, I think, and I talk in the book a little bit about this, of how, you know, often we react to things and we say things that we don't mean or that we wish we could take back.
Jeremy David Engels (24:34)
You know, all of us have sent a text or an email that we went, I wish I could have that right back or said something in conversation. That's it's human. It's just part.
Monica Phillips (24:44)
feature on the inbox is very helpful.
Jeremy David Engels (24:46)
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I have, I know not often, but there've been a couple of times where I've called an email back after I've sent it. And, but we can also cultivate this space of responsibility is what I think of it, like being responsive rather than reactive. And the amazing thing about spaces of responsibility is that we can expand them and cultivate them together.
Jeremy David Engels (25:13)
And so in an interpersonal dynamic, we can work to create a space of responsibility together where we're both trying our best to respond to a situation rather than just react to it. And I often find with my students, because there's a power dynamic there, right? I mean, as a professor and a student, but if I invite my students into that space of responsibility, like we're going to co-create this space together.
Jeremy David Engels (25:42)
They feel so much more empowered actually about the interaction that we have and the decisions we tend to come to feel so much better. So, you know, I try my best and again, it's not easy. We're human. We're not yogi gods like, you know, Vivian Cananda talked about, or, you know, I mean, I read about the Sidhees and book three of Patanjali and these great yoga powers, right? And I'm not at that level yet.
Jeremy David Engels (26:10)
I don't know. Maybe you are. Exactly. Yeah.
Monica Phillips (26:12)
students, I'm not your guru, right? I'm your guide you. I love that you use the word co-creation. As a coach, I trained through the Coactive Training Institute. it is all that is the foundation that it is not a mentor relationship, a sponsor relationship. As a coach, you are here guiding together and that the ability to even teach and offer up coaching skills to people in the workplace is this invitation to co-create.
Jeremy David Engels (26:23)
Yeah.
Monica Phillips (26:39)
to design an alliance together, to say this is what we need from each other when we step into these shared spaces. All of us interact with people at some point in our lives, right? Whether we're living a pretty isolated life or not, we have needs, we come into people and that can cause conflict, right? Someone's having a bad day and you get too close to them in a parking lot. Someone is daydreaming and they forget to start to go with the green light, right? You see it in the car all the time.
Jeremy David Engels (27:06)
yeah, yep, yep. And I love, yeah, the co-creation is beautiful and thinking about this is something that we're building together. And I try to remember and try my best at work, you know, in the classroom for me or, you know, as a yoga teacher. Thich Nhat Hanh, the Zen master was, you know, one of my meditation teachers and
Monica Phillips (27:08)
Yeah.
Jeremy David Engels (27:36)
He had a phrase he used that I love. He said, there is no way to peace. Peace is the way. And what he meant by that was that you can't fight a war for peace because the act of fighting the war undermines the goal of peace. The only way to have peace is to be peaceful. and so if I want to create an environment at work in the classroom,
Jeremy David Engels (28:05)
that's truly inclusive and open and respectful of diverse opinions and perspectives that invites participation, like a truly co-created space. And that's what I want. I have to embody that myself because the people around me are gonna respond to that.
Jeremy David Engels (28:32)
And so that's what I really try to do in these spaces is to do my best to embody the kind of world that I want to live in.
Monica Phillips (28:40)
That's so beautifully said. I love that you brought up Thich Nhat Hanh. There's a quote, walk as if you are kissing the earth with your feet. And I feel that in my body when I share it. And I sometimes will step outside for a quick 10 minute break between meetings and just walk as if I'm kissing the earth with my feet. And I can feel this calm come over me and I feel connected. And it's even just such a peaceful practice.
Jeremy David Engels (28:48)
Yes.
Monica Phillips (29:09)
And I find that you mentioned rhetoric and words and symbols. I have a Buddhist statue behind me. I live near a Buddhist monastery. And these symbols, even walking past the Buddhist monastery, I feel peace come over me. Is there a symbol or a phrase or something that you use to ground yourself or that you offer to others?
Jeremy David Engels (29:29)
I love that quote that you mentioned actually, and I will bring it up when teaching yoga too. I mean, it's really cool actually to practice a pose like warrior one or warrior two, and to imagine that your feet are kissing the earth in that pose. It totally changes the nature of the warrior, right? You're not fighting against anything actually, you're embodying the best parts of yourself. And so,
Monica Phillips (29:50)
Yeah.
Monica Phillips (29:57)
Yeah, I like to say expand your arms out like offerings of peace, right? What are you offering out instead of like resisting, but you're like, want to reach even more people so you get even a little longer through the arms, even a little taller through the crown of the head.
Jeremy David Engels (30:04)
I love it.
Jeremy David Engels (30:08)
Thank
Jeremy David Engels (30:15)
I love that. Yeah. I mean, it's, those are moments where, you know, the study of rhetoric and language really comes together nicely with our yoga and meditation practice because it's a, it's a skill to be able to.
Jeremy David Engels (30:32)
invite our students to have these really beautiful experiences, right? And I can tell just from talking with you that you're an amazing yoga teacher just by the way that you use language and like those are some beautiful cues that you're talking about and you know another reminder I guess, I'm kind of along these same lines and I think that people who know me really well would say that this is probably one of the things that they most associate with me is that
Jeremy David Engels (31:00)
I call everybody friends. And that's my, I don't know, my friend and how are you my friend? And I say that in emails and I do it in my books. And it's just a reminder to me to try to meet people in that space of co-creation, of collaboration, of community, of compassion, of communication, as opposed to a space of, you know,
Jeremy David Engels (31:28)
know what divides us. So I love the poet Walt Whitman. He's my favorite and some of his most beautiful poems have that word friends and it's like this just lovely invitation to come a little bit closer and let's like really be ourselves and share what we share and build something beautiful together. Yeah.
Monica Phillips (31:57)
After After Shell Silverstein, Walt Whitman Leaves of Grass was the first poetry book I read that really drew me into the power of words and poetry. I loved it all. So it's fun that you brought that up. I would love to hear a little bit more about Yoga Lab. You and your wife developed a yoga studio. Can you talk about that?
Jeremy David Engels (32:09)
Cool. Yeah.
Jeremy David Engels (32:18)
Sure. Yeah, our, yoga journey, we, you know, we started practicing yoga when we were in graduate school, mainly as a way of stress relief. And that's something that brings a lot of people to yoga. And then when we moved to this little college town where we live now, State College, Pennsylvania, we connected with a nice community here. And, and I think that's the other aspect of, of yoga.
Jeremy David Engels (32:48)
you know, yoga studios that is so beautiful and lovely is this, you know, we get to practice together. You get to be part of a community. You're not alone. And, and we, you know, we trained to be yoga teachers. went to India and studied there. We had a lot of experiences that, you know, took us around the world and, know, there were injuries and there was retraining. mean, there's a lot.
Jeremy David Engels (33:17)
but it led us to a really beautiful place with two other couples in town, coming together and saying, you know, it'd be really cool if we could create a yoga community together, if we could create a yoga studio together where, we really are embodying the kind of world that we want to live in. And, so we opened up yoga lab 10 years ago.
Jeremy David Engels (33:43)
And this year will be our 10 year anniversary. we made it through COVID, which is good. Yeah. That was a, that was a challenging time for small businesses, especially yoga studios. But it's become my favorite thing about where I live. And there's so many things I love about it. mean, I love Anna, my wife and Kristen, our other owner are just
Monica Phillips (33:48)
Congratulations, no that's incredible.
Jeremy David Engels (34:11)
the most amazing yogis that I know and the most amazing women that I know. And they do such a beautiful job with the space and the community. But, you know, we get to take each other's classes. We get to hang out and do yoga teacher training together. And I love all of that, but I just, love more than anything that it's a space in our community where people can gather.
Jeremy David Engels (34:39)
No matter who they are, they don't have to be affiliated with the university. They don't have to believe any certain particular thing. People are there because they want to feel better in their bodies. They want to reconnect with their breath. They want to feel more connected to the earth and to each other. And, I love being part of that. I mean, it's just, it's amazing.
Monica Phillips (35:04)
People do want that, yeah. And so this is the invitation, right? Step into a yoga studio, meet someone who wants to join that with you, walk outside, go to your local park. This time is going by so quickly. I'd love to ask you a couple more questions. Bringing it back to the workplace. What does a leader who is genuinely practicing self-awareness and empathy actually look and sound like from your rhetoric, symbols and communication?
Jeremy David Engels (35:22)
Sure.
Monica Phillips (35:34)
words and action just on an everyday basis. What is that?
Jeremy David Engels (35:40)
think that...
Jeremy David Engels (35:43)
A leader who is genuinely practicing these things is someone who simply through their presence invites others to practice these things too, because we recognize in them a kind of peace, kind of compassion, a kind of equanimity that we ourselves want as well. The best leaders that I've
Jeremy David Engels (36:11)
been around and I've been really fortunate to have some great, you know, department heads, some great people at the university, some great mentors, great yoga teachers I've studied with. They're people that are open. They are honest. They're not duplicitous. they're not, in Thich Nhat Hanh's tradition, he talks about how some people have like forked tongues.
Jeremy David Engels (36:39)
Meaning that like they'll say one thing to your face and then they say something completely different behind your back. That's destroys trust quicker than anything else. A really good leader actually wants what's best for you and wants what's best for the community. And puts those things above their own ego. And I don't know when I encounter people like that, I want to be around them.
Monica Phillips (37:06)
Mm-hmm.
Jeremy David Engels (37:06)
I want to work with them. I want to collaborate with them. I want to build something better with them.
Monica Phillips (37:09)
Yeah.
Monica Phillips (37:14)
I love all my word of the month is equanimity. And it really is this invitation to be at peace and all in the middle of all of the chaos and tension like to, to be the peace that allows for the peace to, you know, reject the chatter and the clutter that can infect our minds. Yeah, and it's so I do a lot of work. My work is in leadership development. I really focus on advancing women leaders in the workplace.
Jeremy David Engels (37:17)
it's-
Jeremy David Engels (37:34)
Yeah.
Monica Phillips (37:43)
and the people I know who are the most satisfied in life personally and professionally and thriving all the ways, they have brought in others and helped them rise up. And then, you know, every time you do that, they're like bringing it right back to you. There is no losing when you are, you said it earlier, right? When you show up with empathy, when you offer generosity, it only is like one plus one equals five or even 10.
Jeremy David Engels (38:12)
Yep. That's just so well said. in my, um, mindful democracy book, I, I say, I try to the line exactly. I was happy with it. said, happiness is not like an apple pie with a limited number of slices. I get one and you don't. I mean, it's not like that at all. Actually. It's additive. It's, um, exponential. Um, the more that
Monica Phillips (38:37)
I'm actually talking to this as an apple pie. That's really funny. well, there's a story. I don't know if you ever read this, the warm fuzzy story. Oh, I'm going tell you about it and I'll share, I'll send it to you afterwards. I grew up with this. It was like in the Gloria Steinem, my very hippie mama days where she like brought all these resources into us. And it was in one of the books we had as kids. And it was the, everyone shared these warm fuzzies all the time.
Jeremy David Engels (38:40)
Yeah, I was thinking.
Jeremy David Engels (38:45)
No, I don't know that. Tell me about it.
Monica Phillips (39:05)
And then one day this person came to town and said, if you share all your warm fuzzies, you'll run out. You really need to save those for only the most important people in your life. But here's a bag of cold Prickly's. So if you don't want to give out a warm fuzzy, you just get out a cold Prickly and you just save the warm fuzzies for only the most important people in your life. Don't give out too many because you will run out. And then, you know, eventually in the story, they realized that the warm fuzzies can never run out.
Jeremy David Engels (39:31)
Yeah.
Monica Phillips (39:31)
Is this invitation for us to recognize that we can offer we can choose to offer love to everyone, but it is a choice
Jeremy David Engels (39:39)
Yeah, it is, it's a choice and it's a practice, right? It's building that capacity to be able to, I don't know, to make love your reaction to things, right? As opposed to something else. And I think that's a lot of our practice actually is to cultivate these new habits, habits of love and compassion and warm fuzzies as opposed to cold pricklies. I love that.
Monica Phillips (39:53)
anymore.
Jeremy David Engels (40:08)
Such a beautiful story. That sounds like a Shel Silverstein story, actually. Yeah, that's great.
Monica Phillips (40:14)
Yeah, yeah. So I'm so impressed that you found your way to meditation as a teen boy. What for someone who wants to get started, but doesn't know where to begin, how do they, what's the entry point? How do they show up for this deep reflective work to connect to the divine within?
Jeremy David Engels (40:33)
Yeah, the entry point is wherever you are right now. And that is the beautiful thing about meditation is that, you know, when I first started practicing meditation, I was under the wrong assumption that, you know, meditation means sitting in perfect stillness, not moving a muscle, not thinking any thoughts.
Jeremy David Engels (40:59)
And if I had a thought, it meant I was a bad meditator. If I moved, it meant I was a bad meditator. But I think we have to set aside that judgment. Um, and our bodies are always moving because we're always breathing and our hearts are always beating. And so we're moving. Um, and our minds are made to think. Um, and that's great. We need more thinking in this world. Um, but I think that anyone, um, at any point can,
Jeremy David Engels (41:29)
begin to become more sensitive to their breath and just begin to start to notice the rise and fall of the inhale and the exhale. And if you're mindful of your inhale and then you watch your mind wander off, you're practicing mindfulness because you're attending to what's actually happening in the present moment. so
Jeremy David Engels (41:57)
When I start to work with people who haven't meditated before, I say, we're just going to take three breaths together. That's it. That's all we need. And sometimes that really is literally all you need. Like, I start all of my meetings on campus with everyone in the meeting. invite them to take three deep breaths together. And
Jeremy David Engels (42:22)
It's amazing how it helps people to fully arrive in the space. And I've never heard anyone say, I didn't need that. All I ever hear is, I really needed that. And so if watching the breath.
Monica Phillips (42:31)
Bye.
Monica Phillips (42:38)
It's not natural, right? Because we breathe autonomically. It happens no matter what, because we're alive. So we're breathing. And when we bring our intention to it and our awareness to it, it changes everything the way we experience it.
Jeremy David Engels (42:53)
Yep. Yeah. And if mindful breathing is not your bag, might become your bag at some point. That's okay. I invite people to put their feet on the ground and just to notice the connection between their feet and the earth. and to do the same thing, you know, to kind of watch that for just a few seconds. And if your mind wanders off, bring it back.
Jeremy David Engels (43:22)
those simple, simple, simple practices are the foundation. You don't have to spend 20 minutes, 30 minutes, 10 hours. Sometimes it's beautiful to do that if you have the time, most of us don't. But just starting with those little simple practices and noticing what happens and remembering to continue to practice. And then coming back to that sense of stillness,
Jeremy David Engels (43:51)
in moments when you need it, because we all need it. I think it's a really nice, simple way of getting into the practice.
Monica Phillips (43:59)
I love that invitation. It's so accessible. It reminds me of the quote, where your attention goes, your energy flows, whether it's breath or noticing your feet. I'm at a standing desk right now, so I can feel my feet. I decide. And it's a practice of embodiment so that we can all start to connect more to the divine, as you've shared so eloquently throughout this episode.
Jeremy David Engels (44:07)
Nice.
Jeremy David Engels (44:12)
Sure.
Jeremy David Engels (44:22)
Yeah.
Monica Phillips (44:23)
Yeah, well, thank you so much. I'm so glad to know you. So Professor Jeremy David Engels, he's liberal arts and doubt professor at Penn State University. His website is super simple, jermydavidengels.com. I can't wait to read on mindful democracy, a declaration of interdependence to mend a fractured world. It's exactly what we need right now. And it just sounds like an incredible.
Monica Phillips (44:49)
story that you've come weave together through that book. then Living Namaste is, I think it's available on Amazon right now, maybe just for pre-order, probably everywhere where you can find books. Is that right?
Jeremy David Engels (45:02)
Yep. Yep. It's a pre-order and it'll be out I think June 16th.
Monica Phillips (45:07)
Nice. And so it's a practical guide to mindfulness yoga and building community. And if anything in this episode, sit out for you, check out his books, order them online and you're coming to Berkeley to speak in a week or two.
Jeremy David Engels (45:24)
Yeah, I'll be, I'm gonna pull up my calendar here. I will be at the Bay Area Book Festival giving a talk on.
Jeremy David Engels (45:35)
May 29th, and then I'll be at Book Passage, north of San Francisco on May 30th. And yeah, so if you're in the area and you wanna come out and connect, I would love to meet you.
Monica Phillips (45:37)
Alright.
Monica Phillips (45:53)
Yeah, I will be there. So looking forward to seeing you in person. Thanks again. I can't wait to meet up and keep in touch.
Jeremy David Engels (45:56)
awesome.
Jeremy David Engels (46:03)
Cheers. Thank you.
(46:05)
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