Wind Down with Jana Kramer and I'mheart Radio Podcast. So excited to have doctor Chelsea Jackson Roberts on the show. She has a blog called Chelsea loves Yoga dot com, so she's been a part of the Peloton family within their yoga community for two decades. She incorporates hip hop, electronic R and B a saana. She's an expert in slow flow restorative yoga. She prides herself in creating classes that leave her students with a strong sense of belonging
and accomplishment. Chelsea earned teaching credentials and later completed her MAA, followed by her PhD from the Division of Educational Studies at Emory University. Really excited to talk to her as I have been told to do yoga a time or two. Let's get her on. So I'm really excited to talk to you because whenever I go to therapy, my therapist is always like, she wants me to do yoga so bad. I mean it is. It is one of the things.
She's given me. Everything in my toolbox and I've done every single one of them, but yoga.
Yeah.
And I when I was reading your breakdown, I was like, man, this is A. I don't know if my therapist set this up or like what she's doing right now, but it's it's interesting and I'm curious to kind of get your I obviously you're you know the Star Peloton yoga, you know instructor, and I I want to write like there's a there's every part of me that goes I want to try it. I have tried it in the past and just for me personally, and I'm not like trying to uh. I don't want to be rude or
anything like that. I was just like I got bored and then I'm just like I can just because I stretch after I work out. I liked the hot yoga because I felt like at least I was burning. But when I'm doing yoga, I go I just feel like I'm wasting time and I don't have time to waste because I've got two kids, got one on the way,
I'm and so I struggle with with it. But I've heard so many amazing things about yoga m hm that I'm like, I really want to try, but it's like, how do I block my well, I've got a million things I need to do. I'd rather go for a run, burn more calories or lift or something like, please tell me that my way of thinking is awful and I need to stop.
Not at all, not at all, It's not awful. You do not need to stop. I think that the first part is that you're acknowledging that there's something that is that you haven't a version there. It's just like I heard everything that you just said. You said, so it feels like a waste of your time. It's like and the way that I started practicing yoga was because of hot yoga, Like that was I was a hot yoga girl, went multiple times a day like that was my jam,
and it made sense to me. And then it wasn't until I started to branch out into some other classes, specifically ones that really centered a meditation, and I too thought it was the most boring things in the world, and I didn't understand why people did it, but I saw the result of it. You know, when you meet that person, they're not necessarily like this fake happy like this, like and even like even preaching like positive mindset, like
no shade to that, Like, they're not even that. It's just like you can just tell that they're like really anchored and who they were and I was drawn to that, and I met people who coincidentally or maybe not coincidentally, they also practiced yoga, they also practiced meditation, and so it just made me more curious. I think about other things that do not capture my interests, like what you
were saying about, like I'm gonna get bored. Like in most of the time, it is something that is a challenge, but it's only this internal challenge, Like it is challenging to be still to sit with myself, to know that I'm dedicating an hour or even thirty minutes can be critical in my day, and it's only to center and
listen and to feel everything that I've been experiencing. No, I gotta go, Like I was terrified that if I took too much of a pause, if I took too long of a shavasena, I felt like I was going to go to this deep dark place and I wasn't going to be able to come back out of. Like you know, when you have experienced the people who are listening may have experienced like crying and shavasena like that
is normal. That is like one of the most natural responses to facing confronting everything that our body has been holding. So imagine if that's coming out of us, now, what have we been burying inside of us? We aren't really resisting being still and listening.
To Yeah, I could definitely relate to a piece that because I remember when I was going on my back into church and face journey. I used to like when they would do the worship songs, I would be fighting back tears and I remember, you know, telling my girlfriend kat I, go, why do I always I just feel like I want to crash because you're holding something back from you. You gotta release whatever that is in you. And I could see how that could relate in you know, do that pause in that silence.
Yeah. I think that anything that again centers our body, our emotions, our experiences, our feelings. I think that anything that makes us listen to ourselves is going to tap into that part of us, that part in yoga we call it kundalini, the part of us that has lied dormant. And I always imagine this big experience like this snake
was going to be I have like this explosion. It is as simple as that cry at the end of Shivasna and being honest that you've been holding a lot like as a mother, as a parent, as a person, as a human like all of that, and so same thing. That's one of the reasons why I do gospel yoga on Sundays is because not because I'm trying to convert any body to be anything that they're not or anything different, but instead that also happened to me when I first heard a gospel choir and I just cried, and I
was just like, why is this happening? And so the same thing can happen with yoga. Care time is one of the traditional songs that you hear. There are music that you hear in traditional yoga and meditation spaces. I have no idea what they're saying a lot of the times, like I know what certain words are, but there's a resonance that goes beyond language, that goes beyond the barriers that actually can was disconnected, and I think music in particular is a way for us to find that commonality.
And also it can be quite emotional for sure.
Yeah, it's interesting too on the meditation side, because again, you know, my therapist was always like yoga, meditation, like and goodbye. And so when I met my fiance, you know, he's he would be like I like to do like a five to ten minute meditation. So I was like, oh, that's that's cool. And one day he asked me to do it, and I was like, uh sure, Like okay. It was the best five minutes ever. I felt recentered, I felt balanced, I felt like I had I had
more energy. And so now when he asked me, I get more excited about it, where I'm like, hey, you want to do that like five minute ten minute meditations?
About started off with five minutes with you.
Yeah, It's almost like he knew that I couldn't handle thirty.
Absolutely, he sounds like he's a great meditation teacher, because I think that that is the who doesn't want to meditate. I think that we are definitely in the era like the soft life, like the wanting the things to like the presentation on TikTok, like get ready with Me, it just looks so immaculate. I live for all the satirical like you know, like get ready with me after three
hours of sleep, and you know it's like that. And I think that the more that people are honest with the journey that it took for them to lead up to a meditation, that may last thirty minutes even but it's not always as beautiful, like I'm not just walking floating around our space. You know, it's hard, it's there are those days that I don't want to sit down at all, and I think that, Yeah, the way that we see it portrayed is that it's just it should be easy. It's not. It's right.
Yeah, So walk me through what would be your advice to get me started into your class's yoga mindset?
Yeah, I think that you started off really great and strong by just getting a sneak peek into it for five minutes, just like any workout, because meditation is a workout, please believe it. I don't want to overwhelm myself, burn myself out. Go wait, train, go get on the bike, go run to the point where I'm just like I can't do this for the next ten days. And so the first thing I say is start with that five minutes.
Start with a deep breath that lasts for thirty seconds, like so that you don't overwhelm yourself and tell yourself that this is too hard. Right, So that's number one. Number two is tap into the curiosity that led you to say that you wanted to try meditation in the first place, and just know that it doesn't have to be perfect, just simply showing up to say I'm gonna have my cushion, I'm gonna try my best to close
my eyes. Like you're already setting your intention for it and the next time you come back, maybe it'll last a little bit longer. And for me, I just like to integrate it. I'm all about practicality, Like if it's not practical again, I'm a new mom and I'm realizing how thank you and thank you for paving the way. I know the Witch's meeting for the first time, but now that I'm here, I look at parents in general, where I'm just like, y'all were doing yoga well before
you know, I even knew what yoga was. And so that's a part of the meditation to integrate it into your life in a way that's so practical that it just makes sense that, oh what I need to have this tough conversation with someone that I've been dreading having that I go to the meditation that I did the day before. Right, it's not supposed to be in isolation where it's just like, uh, I'm doing yoga. This is
yoga for thirty minutes. No, the yoga begins when you step off of the mat or when you're just trying to get to the class and someone cuts you off
in traffic like you wanted to make sense. And so when you think about this is a waste of my time in the thirty minutes, And I'm talking about myself because that's who I was and still am sometimes honestly to where it's like, But I know that in the long run, whatever I'm learning about myself, about my body, about my relationship to challenge to celebration, like whatever that relationship is, it's going to be all the more I'm going to be all the more aware when I encounter
it out into the world.
Right. I mean, I've never wanted to do yoga so much, Right, I mean I want to do it right. I'm like, let's do it.
Yeah.
I'm like, I let me go to my peloton app right now and right because now I just we all need that pause.
We do yeah. And I say, for the folks who you know you asked about my class, I always want to say, what makes it unique is the music for me? And what I like people to know that I've been waiting for you, whether you are into trap yoga, whether you're into country, I've done it all metal yoga, like whatever it may be. I want you to understand that we've been waiting for you. So if you are that person who's just like, yeah, this is so boring, I try doing that to a little UZI Bert and tell me if.
If you can challenge, challenge accepted, let's do it. I'm going to slide into your DMS and be like, all right, girl, you got me see you next week. I'm so excited because I could do yo goa pregnant, which is great because there's a lot of things I can't do right now. I'm not running as much and so so this would be a nice moment for myself to have me and a.
Lot of folks who you know are used to those intense workouts. You can use it for a recovery day and still be mindful, like so mindful that you're listening to your body that you come back even stronger to your workout the next day, like yoga and meditation, like it makes sense, like once you get into it, and I'm not here to like again to convert anybody to doing anything they don't want to do, but for me, it has been a life, life changing tool to help me navigate. Yeah.
Well, I think you know a lot of our listeners to deal with anxiety depression, and we talk about that a lot on the show. So I think this is something and I think that's another reason why my therapist has always pushed me, or I should say push. She's always encouraged me to try and I just haven't been
open to it. But you know, now, just recognizing and seeing what meditation has done, how Okay, I need to incorporate more because this is what my body is actually needing, as opposed to me stressing out about making sure I hit my three to five miles. You know, it's like that's not what my body actually wants.
Yeah, exactly. And sometimes that is the hard part about doing yoga because you're just like, I don't want to hear that. I want to hear that I need to go run this marathon right now, and maybe this is the year that I need to rest. And yeah, it's hard. It's a hard lesson.
And that's when the emotions will come rest. Well, girl, congratulations with your new babes, and I'm so excited to check it out. I'm going to let you know because I will try it, I promise, and I'm looking forward to it. So thank you for coming on you. Thanks, I appreciate you. Bye Chelsea nye mm hmm