Nela - Men, where are you?

Why should yoga not be seen as something “female”, mysterious or alternative - or only for people in crisis? Why isn’t it as natural as going to the gym? I continue my talk with Nela Gorovic, medical doctor, psychotherapist and yoga teacher.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

But but there's only women. There's only women. And that's such a shame.

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Beyond the noise, a search for modern happiness.

SPEAKER_01 0:12

Just imagine what it would be if our children would learn that more naturally. Or as an adult now, when you look in the society, these people would acknowledge this just as much as they do like physical fitness.

SPEAKER_00 0:31

I continue my conversation with Nella, medical doctor, yin yoga teacher, and psychotherapist. We explore why yoga still has a slightly mysterious image for many people, even though it has become tricky mostly among the women. So where are the men? Where are you? Is there anybody out there? We also talk about why yoga and psychotherapy could help far more people. And why they should not be seen as something female, alternative, mysterious only for people in crisis. Oh dear men, why isn't it just as natural to go to a yoga studio as it is to go to a fitness center? And actually, could these methods be useful ways for more people to break the paradox of modern happiness? What is this coming into a mat, sitting with your legs across and praying position and just lay down? What is this? Listen to your body stuff. Why is that also for men? Why is that why should more people do this?

SPEAKER_01 1:46

Yeah, that's very interesting. First of all, the first uh barrier I hear people saying is that oh, I can't do that, or I can't sit with my legs crossed, or I can't do this or that, or um it's so important not to have expectations of everything being perfect on a yoga mat or going into the yoga studio with wanting to do good. So that's the first barrier. Uh I think a lot of people, if they didn't have that, they would easily come and just try to connect with themselves or slow the pace or whatever would work for them. But um I think we're afraid that we might look uh stupid or that we might not do as good as other people. So it kind of gets in the way of us actually connecting to ourselves and the body.

SPEAKER_00 2:48

And maybe also how can we say, is it some religious stuff with your hands on your chest and some mischanting, and you know it's it's a little bit too much for many people, don't you think so?

SPEAKER_01 3:01

I think so.

SPEAKER_00 3:01

Just so they don't, but it's but it's it's it's funny, isn't it, that fitness is is totally acknowledged. A lot of people go to fitness, they pray and they don't come actually. And then more men. But in a yoga sense, it's also trendy. A lot of more people, young people also go to yoga, but it's mostly women, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 3:24

It's mostly women, yes it is. I teach actually uh senior uh yoga, senior yin yoga, and I actually expected there to be men because like I thought maybe when they are uh elderly or when you are 60 plus you would think about like keeping your mobility in the joints, and like there's a lot of um uh health benefits from doing yoga and stretching the tissue, the muscles, the joints. Um but but there's only women. There's only women, um, and that's such a shame because I think a lot of um like a part of growing old as well, a lot of a part of um being able to manage like everyday activities is keeping the body uh healthy and being able to move um both physically and actually also mentally, like having the flexibility um physically and mentally. I think a lot of people would benefit from that, also men. So, why do you think um you don't see as many men in the yoga centers?

SPEAKER_00 4:34

Yeah, I'm a man and I'm very lonely. No, there are some men, but it's very few.

SPEAKER_01 4:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:41

I can't really explain it. You know, when I was in India, I was told that most mostly men practice yoga. Yeah. And and I think we have uh I think it's getting more trendy, but I also think we have to talk about it in another way somehow.

SPEAKER_01 5:01

Yeah, do you think do you think a lot of men still view yoga as a soft activity?

SPEAKER_00 5:07

Or I think yes, I think so. I think so, and I think also when we talk about this listen to your body stuff, yeah. Even for me, a few years ago. Yeah. Two years ago. Somehow this conclusion has made a good thing for me. You know, there's a good there's of course the bad stuff. Okay, uh, but the good stuff is that that uh I I feel my body much more. I'm very more much more sensitive. It means that I can actually have some very clear physical symptoms if if if something is not good for me. So in that way, you know, you could say I'm forced to listen more to my body, and now I just enjoy it and think that's a new start of life in life. Yeah. But it's it's for me, it has been very strange and still is to put words on it. It's a little female stuff, I think.

SPEAKER_01 6:07

Yeah, it might be. I think in our culture connected's more female energy, um, but I really think that a lot of men, um or a lot of people in general, you say, Oh, it sounds weird, like listen to your body. And I think you're right, it sounds weird. It's not about doing something weird or something new. Actually, I think we we are born with listening to our bodies. Um, when you look at babies, they actually only do that, right? So they cry or they move, they do whatever their body is telling them because they don't know about uh time, about activity, about production, or so so they're very intuitive, and I think we really are intuitive, and we some somewhere along the way forget that, or we learn to live in a way that the either the society or our parents or where we come from, the the surroundings kind of shape us in a way so we don't listen to the body. So it's not really about doing something new or weird, it's about going back to like an intuitive way of living and having more connection to the body sensations.

SPEAKER_00 7:29

It isn't also like so that sometimes when we, you know, I mentioned fitness centers centers, you know, the way we look at our physical body, then we have to achieve something. Right. You know, we go to this fitness center and then or we run and it has to be one minute faster. And we might even have a podcast in our ears, so so we always have to do something. Right. So you also talked about yin creating calmness and silence, didn't you?

SPEAKER_01 7:59

Very much, and also just a space for being, which is very um underestimated. Again, we have so much emphasis on uh doing things and not on being, and in that way it might sound weird or actually even scare some people to like what am I gonna just lie on the mat and do nothing? So quiet. Yeah, and and some people uh I mean I teach even without music, so it is a very quiet place. You might hear yourself breathing or you might hear others breathing, but other than that, it's just um a space for whatever comes from the inside, and we're not used to that. We're used to um keeping up with things and keeping ourselves busy so we actually don't listen to the body. And I think a lot of us know that. I think um a lot of people kind of know this kind of um unease when they slow down or when they sit um quietly. They kind of make up things, that's what we do. The mind makes up things we have to do so we keep ourselves busy so we don't listen because we're not used to it or are uncomfortable with it. But finding a safe place to do that or learning how to connect with yourself on the yoga mat or off the yoga mat is one of the places where you can actually go deeper and find out what um what's underneath the uneasiness.

SPEAKER_00 9:47

And I know that you have the same view as me. Yoga is not the answer for everyone, of course.

SPEAKER_01 9:52

No, definitely not.

SPEAKER_00 9:54

But still, you know, it could be an answer for more people.

SPEAKER_01 9:58

Yeah, it's it's a way, it's it's one way of going into the body and uh one way of connecting to something deeper inside yourself and also um making the space to actually see what you feel inside.

SPEAKER_00 10:15

I would like to tell you a little story, you know. I I I I uh just after my conclusion, about one month after, you know, I was recommended to go to a fitness center.

SPEAKER_01 10:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:27

And I did that. And and then I I I I I hate fitness centers. I'm sorry, but I don't I never liked them, but okay, I try. And then I had this incident where I actually for fell. And you know, because I had this conclusion, it frightened me a lot. There was a lot of people in the fitness center, no one reacted.

SPEAKER_01 10:46

Right.

SPEAKER_00 10:46

So I just stand up and okay, and and then I just thought that would never have happened in the yoga center.

SPEAKER_01 10:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:54

And why do I tell it? Just because for me, when I come to a yoga center, there's also the atmosphere around it, which is you know, you can feel people are more calm, actually. Can you follow this?

SPEAKER_01 11:05

Yeah, very much. So there's both both the approach or like people being more calm, but I think there's also a sense of taking care of each other, because you can't really do yoga or you can't really go into a deeper connection with yourself without also getting into a deeper connection with other people. So even though sometimes it can look like you're doing yoga for yourself or doing psychotherapy for yourself, we have to see how many um kind of side effects that has outside the yoga mat. So I think that's why the different the experience could be different in a yoga sense, or definitely would be, I would, I would definitely say. Because people, when you're more connected, when you're more calm, more at ease.

SPEAKER_00 11:54

You don't have to achieve I don't know one minute faster here.

SPEAKER_01 11:57

No, and you actually care. It's hard, it's hard to care about people. It's even hard to care about yourself if if you're on a high pace and stressed and in survival a lot of a lot of the time. Did you go back to the fitness center? No.

SPEAKER_00 12:15

No, actually, I don't know. I said that said goodbye. Yeah. And I I and I felt good about it. It's it's not I I I people who get benefits from going to fitness centers, go to fitness centers, you know. Yeah. It's not about nothing is right or wrong. But when we talk about this, the pace in the society, the stress epidemic, then I just can't help think that thinking that that it's very interesting what you do, you know, combining medical yen yoga and psychotherapy, because somehow, you know, from some would call it great alternative. Yeah. But why is it alternative? It seems so logical for me now.

SPEAKER_01 13:00

Yeah, I think I don't I don't look at it as as an alternative. I think I look at it as not being a part of what we offer in general in the hospitals and at your doctor where you go. Um, but just because it's not offered as a part of the health system doesn't mean it's not beneficial or doesn't mean that it can't help. Unfortunately, like what I do, people have to pay to come here. Um, so it's not something that you can get just by going to the doctor.

SPEAKER_00 13:36

Nela, you know, I'm working, we'll we'll we're looking in new ways how to break this paradox that I call it in modern happiness. We live under better conditions than ever before, and still many of us struggle mentally.

SPEAKER_01 13:51

Definitely.

SPEAKER_00 13:52

You mentioned the stress epidemic. You meet people coming here with their life issues. I do. Can you follow this about modern happiness that I talk about, the paradox?

SPEAKER_01 14:02

Yeah, I think it's very relevant actually. I see a lot of people come in here and they are like a lot of things are in place in their life, they're working or have a family, and on the outside everything seems as it seems as it should, or as people expect it to be. But then again, they come here and they don't feel happy or they don't feel grateful about their life and or they feel like they're stuck. Um so there can be a lot of difference between how things look on the outside. It can look like a good life or a perfect life, but if that's not connected to how people actually feel, if people are unhappy, unsatisfied, if they're in crisis internally, that often kind of puts another layer to it because then they feel ashamed about not being happy about their life. And it can be very hard to come here and talk about it. So a lot of people actually really need this because there's such a big difference between the outside and the inside. And some of the things that we can do in therapies actually kind of examine why it is they're feeling how they're feeling about their life, and to make that difference smaller so actually they feel more that they belong in the life that they have, or they are more satisfied, or often it it has to be some changes that people have to do in life to kind of be more at ease.

SPEAKER_00 15:45

It's very interesting because you we we start this talk when you also say you had some crisis and you made Yin Yoga. Yeah. And I've had it was the same for me, and I've also made other people's, but but this is not just for people with crisis. Definitely not. And that's that's uh what I see that's the the crisis. It's actually in this pace we live in our minds in this modern world, you know, also breaking new social media. We we we uh we need actually to get a little bit away from everything, to calm down, silence, find ourselves. Because we're not good at it.

SPEAKER_01 16:23

Yeah, so you don't have to be in a crisis, you don't have to have a mental illness to be in psychotherapy, definitely not.

SPEAKER_00 16:30

I think that even yin yoga, you don't have to be a disaster crisis before yin yoga is good. It's good in your normal everyday life.

SPEAKER_01 16:38

Yeah, I think if we had normalized those things like connection to the body, connection to your feelings, if we had spaces that we can um be in a conversation and actually feel at ease afterwards, if we had that in our normal life or we we were taught that being um children and grown-ups, we wouldn't need this, which was which would be amazing, like if people could feel better uh without um having to go to therapy or having to do something to feel better. So being connected to the body either by yoga or other things, just imagine what it would be if our children would learn that more naturally. Um, or as an adult now, when you look in the society, if people would would acknowledge this just as much as they do like physical fitness, as you were talking about earlier.

SPEAKER_00 17:36

And may I give you another example? Yeah. You know, we talk a lot about mobile phones and our children and ourselves, we use them too much, and we all know this discussion. You know, one thing that I have noticed from myself that I really love one thing about yoga studio is I always switch my phone totally off. And then one day I met some I had I made a made a workshop in in uh high school, and there were some young people I talked to them after 17 years, I think. And then two of them said that they actually liked that was what they liked most about yoga when they went to it, because they could they just natural, put it away.

SPEAKER_01 18:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:20

Isn't it funny that we have to go to yoga to do this? Yeah, it is because if you go to fitness, you see people with the i airpods, you know. You don't do it. Many people don't do it, you still have your mobile phones.

SPEAKER_01 18:32

Yeah, so we actually crave spaces where we can be away from um noise, away from distractions. I think I I agree very much on that.

SPEAKER_00 18:47

My conversation with Nella convinced me that my project and this podcast is on the right track. On a personal level, I know from my own body and mind that walking on the bridge between Eastern wisdom and western science has actually helped save my life. The better I take care of my body and my mind, the better the rest of my life becomes. It is really that simple. At the same time, it is becoming more and more obvious to me that many people in our modern world could benefit from some of the tools found on this bridge. So I will continue my search, even into the more mysterious part of it. Because why not? Maybe there is something to learn out there. I mean, when I was a child, acopulture was often seen almost like witchcraft. Today, those needles are actually used in the Danish maternity ward. Are you curious about my project? Quietly against the pace of our time.