249 - Amplifying Ourselves and Others

Today we're talking about amplifiers--meaning people, things, situations that help others grow, become bigger, or extend. 

I'm here to amplify others. And I'm here to create spaces that support amplification.  I think so much of that comes through being honest with ourselves, and being curious and brave, and owning our voices--because that creates space for others to do the same. 

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The music for this episode is Threads by The Light Meeting.
Produced by: Grey Tanner

Transcript

Bonnie (00:00.918)
It's that time. We are here back again together. And just one pause moment because have you left me a note about the podcast? Because if you've been listening here for a second, I just want to remind you that it means a whole lot for you to leave a comment about the podcast, about listening to it and how it's impacted you or any specific episodes or anything that's brought up. So I love.

to read those and thank you for making the time for those. Okay, let's get to it. I put that out there because today I wanna talk about amplifiers. And when you share your words about something, the same as when I share my words about something, it makes a difference. And the way that we do it and the timing that we do it, I trust the timing of all things, y 'all. Like I just really do. But it creates space.

for other things. And today, let's lean into a little bit of conversation about amplifiers. So, to set the stage, to amplify something is to extend it, to enlarge it, to help it grow. And so that's what I'm talking about when I use the word amplify today, is to help something, particularly someone.

or some things, some projects, some whatever, grow or enlarge or extend. Okay, so that's the definition that we're gonna work with today. And this question then, I have really a series of questions, really, really how I hope to amplify others is to bring a level of curiosity and bravery to the table. And that when we ask questions,

And when we don't have to know the answers, that it creates a lot of space for room to grow. And that if we show up brave enough to sit in the conversation or to lean in, even when it feels sticky, even when it's not something that we particularly want in that moment, but we stay and we lean in, that we can't not grow. So what do you want amplified? How do you want to be amplified in your life?

Bonnie (02:25.492)
What are the experiences or the people around you that you are amplifying? We're going to say the word amplify so many times. This is like a squat for every time you hear me say the word amplify. Ready, set, go.

a story to begin us though. Y 'all know that if you've been listening for a second recently, I've been talking about the book that I am writing for yoga teachers. And it is a sequencing book and is especially highlighting the movement between places and how we get from pose to pose where there's a lot of books that are just about and yoga books and yoga manuals and yoga flashcards that are just postures. It's not about the sequence.

Or if it is a sequence, it's just a line of a posture, and less about the movement in the spaces between. But y 'all, that space is like the place where we play. It's the place where you personalize it. It's where small details make big differences. It's where the gaze that you look and how, where your gaze is and what you look at and how you move your toes and your fingers and your elbows and the sweep of things. Like all of it matters.

So I'm writing this book, right now I'm in the picture making stage and there are so many pictures. think I've had nine, I can't remember if it's eight sessions or nine photo sessions and we walk away with like 4 ,000 pictures each session. So it's a lot of content and a lot of work. I understand why it has not been made, but I am making it and it is something new that does not exist. And I am here.

creating this because I truly believe that it will amplify yoga teachers ability to show up in the room. I believe that it will amplify yoga teachers ability to step into their own creativity and own the hell out of their voice and bring their own personality to the experience. I believe that it will empower students

Bonnie (04:34.082)
to find freedom in their bodies. And that part of this is helping teachers find the embodiment for themselves so they can teach from a place where they feel moved. Because, I don't know, I much like this podcast. If I was sitting here talking to you and I half -hearted believed anything that I was saying, you wouldn't stay. You could feel it in my energy, but I believe in this shit. And...

and speaking from that place where I can't not say something.

So I'm creating this book. And as I have walked into the preparation for each of these photo days, which there's like five in a row that I'm currently in and tomorrow I have a photo day as I'm recording this podcast. And last week, I kind of have this moment as I go in the bathroom before I'm going to begin and I have a mirror moment.

I so encourage your own mirror moments. And it's by myself and I look in the mirror. I look at my eyes in the mirror and I say something and I don't really plan what it is but it's about the pause. And I look myself in the eye and I take a breath.

and I just look at myself and I pause. Truly it's just about the pause. And whatever comes out of my mouth, whatever I might say to myself is going to be exactly what I need to hear. If I slow down long enough and be where my feet are and what I'm currently in, I'm gonna be able to find the words to help myself walk forward and be brave and curious in whatever situation I'm in.

Bonnie (06:33.058)
Right? So last week, I am looking at myself in the mirror. I take a breath. I'm in a pause moment. And I said to myself, you set the tone of the rooms you're in.

So go make it good.

And I just nodded at myself and I was like, yep, that's it. I get to set the tone of a room and that's an important piece of thinking about amplifying others and the people that are with me, helping me create this book and the way that I know the way that I show up in that room is going to affect them. so whatever, whatever energy I arrive with is going to extend out of me.

and amplify onto whatever other energy is there, right? That doesn't mean I'm responsible for anybody else. That doesn't mean that I'm the only energy at play because we all know that each of us bring our own stuff to the table and whatever kind of day we might be having. But as the creator of this project, I know that my feet planted a short

I know what the hell I'm doing. know why I'm doing it. And walking into that space is so important. I'm here to amplify others. I'm here to amplify these other artists that are helping me. And I will call them artists as much as I will call myself an artist. And we have this moment before we begin where I say circle up and there's like three or four of us depending on the day. And we put our hands together in a little circle. So

Bonnie (08:21.75)
all of us together. Let me take a breath and then I say something again I don't plan it but we just have this conscious moment of acknowledgement and I acknowledge them in some ways and this last week one of the things that I said was that I am I'm grateful that we could create something that feels like an open window.

Bonnie (08:51.5)
and that if I'm going to lead people and create in the world, let it be that. Let my creations and let my showing up be an open window for someone to either come in or come out.

Or perhaps it is just opening their window where they get to look out and be like, what else is there? And can I hear the thing? And how does an open window all of a sudden invite a whole breeze into your home, into the room that you are in? And how does that affect the entire feeling? Because y 'all know if it is pouring rain and your doors are all closed, it changes drastically if you open the door and the rain is pouring and all of a sudden you can hear it.

and your entire mood is shifted and the smell hits you and the sound hits you and it's alive. So how can I be an open window? And that, my friends, is amplifying each other. And I want to be someone in the world that helps create amplifiers for others and that makes the kind of difference where it is small pieces

of something that somebody can pick up and turn over, flip in another direction and integrate into their own life that then expands them. Because when I think about the people that have inspired me or that continue to inspire me, they are people, it really has been always a lookout at people that are amplifying me and they don't even know it. And maybe you're listening to this podcast and maybe you've listened to me for years.

been on Instagram for 10 years and for those people, oof, okay, here's the emotion. For those people who have been with me for 10 years, which I know that there are some, or even if it's like more than five years, because this past five years has been a lot of change for me that if you have been with me that long, this podcast hasn't been alive for 10 years, but if you've been on Instagram with me for that long, you have watched me transform.

Bonnie (11:03.188)
And Instagram has been as wild as it is to claim, but it has been a platform that has helped amplify who I am. But it's not the platform's fault. not, it was just a space, but I was able to use it to amplify myself. Because you can do it to your own damn self. I can look myself in the mirror and say, hey, Bonnie.

I see you and I can take a breath and I can say be an open window yeah or be where your feet are.

Bonnie (11:48.49)
and I can take that pause moment and I can say something to myself that changes me from the inside out. And I know that that affects any room that I am in. So friends, how do you create a space to help amplify others?

I think this is a nuanced question. And really if we're trying to amplify others, we have to create space. We have to take away things so there is actually room to move. We have to say, what if I took away like 70 % of what's usually here? And then say, now play with what's left.

And in some ways that's what I do with flow school, right? I'm like, okay, let's set down all sun salutations. Let's set down like any learning that you had of like, this is the way to teach a class and let's change it. Let's reorder it. Let's set down 70 % of what we have been taught and play with the 30. Because we've created space now where there is nothing, we can now fill it with something new. That is a way we can amplify what we are doing, who we are and how we help others. That.

is very significant.

So if you are looking to amplify others, one, have to remember that we know not all of the answers. That was a weird way to say that. We do not know all the answers. And we don't know the answers for ourselves sometimes, and we definitely don't know it for other people. And I think that others are amplified when we are our most honest, true selves. And I really believe that

Bonnie (13:33.13)
our bodies are powerful indicators of our honest living.

Bonnie (13:43.092)
And what I mean by that is that I think the power of yoga is hopefully a building of a relationship with yourself to listen on the inside, to listen to that voice that's an observer inside your head. And that that's really like the soul speaking to you where you can have thoughts about your thoughts, right? Like it's that internal voice that is the observer and to build a relationship with that self.

is going to be pivotal in the ways that you show up in the world and in the ways that you can help create space for others. And really it is your own individual bravery in being honest about what you need and what you want and how you want to live and what questions you do not have the answers to, but you're willing to show up anyway. And it is hard. It is so hard.

Bonnie (14:43.744)
and it is emotional and it is joyful and it is terrifying and it is all of the things just as it should be, just as it should be. But there is a freedom that comes when you can live in that honest sort of way. And all of a sudden you can set down your walls and we have walls up sometimes for really good reasons and there can be a lot of hurt and pain that might have come into our lives and

And it is very hard to move with walls built strong and sturdy and thick.

So figuring out how to create an open window for yourself so that you can help create open windows for others is going to be some of the greatest gifts that you can give other people and yourself. And we're never done. Newsflash.

Newsflash, we're gonna be doing this for a long, long time. And I kind of love that. I really do. I really do.

Bonnie (16:02.312)
Yeah, I think that my own, as I sit here reflecting my own honest living, I'm figuring out what the hell that even means from day to day because it means something different day to day. It's not like an overarching, this is what it means to be honest, right? It's like, what is it today and how can I be humble in where I'm at? I want my current circumstances.

are and what I know or don't know and how can I show up as a learner and be honest.

Bonnie (16:41.386)
And it can be scary because you have to trust yourself.

And I think creating a space where others can be amplified is creating an open room.

Bonnie (17:00.438)
And if you're listening to this podcast, you're probably somebody who really wants to do that. Who wants to show up and impact other people's lives so that they have room to grow, so that they own themselves. And both of you can be big and enlarged and amplified in the same room and bounce that energy and grow together. I think you're probably one of those people if you're listening to this podcast.

you're one of maybe those people that will look in the mirror and talk to yourself like me because we're the nerds out here saying like, okay, self, what you doing? Because really in the end, we're only ever left with us. We know this. So we got to develop this relationship. And if we develop that with ourselves and are honest with ourselves, we can create space where others are amplified and where we can amplify the ideas and the projects and the things that

are dear to our hearts, we can do that too.

So today.

wherever it is that you land and maybe you're going to go teach a yoga class and maybe you're going to be with your children that are under five years old and maybe you're going to be taking care of an aging parent and maybe you're going to be with your teenagers or a lover or some co -workers. Maybe you will see nobody today and you will be alone. Wherever it is that you land,

Bonnie (18:35.872)
I hope you play with this idea of taking away 70 % of what you think should be or has to be there. Create a little bit of room and make a new rule and say, ooh, if there's all this room, then let's play with this 30 % that's left in this way and create the arbitrary rule of just that moment. You say, okay, now the game is this.

Now we're going to play with what's left in the room that's been created in this way. And that can, I mean, this is kind of like rather philosophical and not very specific, but I hope this makes sense.

very much like

If I, here's a really random idea. If I think about making hamburger tacos, I grew up watching my dad brown the hamburger meat and make the tacos. Well, my lover, I told him that I wanted a hamburger tacos with burger, with beef burger. And I saw him boiling the ground beef.

And I was very confused. So I have never seen that before. So apparently it's a thing that happens and apparently it's a thing that happens often in restaurants. It gives a really nice crumble. It's really like soft, tender meat for those of you who are meat eaters. And it's really delicious actually. But the meat was like totally submerged in water, which I have never seen.

Bonnie (20:26.004)
And so this is a very random, very random example, but just this idea of what if you threw out the idea that you knew how to do the thing and that this is the way it's done and this is how it's being created and this is the rule and what if you said, what if it's not? How else, how else could I do this thing? And you boil your meat.

Boil your ground beef that's like gonna be flavorful, all the things, instead of browning it, even though for 40 years of your life, that's only way you've seen it done, right? What changes, what opens up in your brain because you allowed for some space to see something else and maybe 70 % of setting things down is too much. Maybe you're like, what's 5 % different? What's a 5 % of space that I can create?

and let that be enough. And use that space to think about how you are amplifying the room that you are in and how you're setting the tone and what you're bringing to help enlarge or extend or expand whoever is there with you. And maybe it's just you today and maybe it's your sweet two -year -old and maybe it is somebody else.

But I think we do this together. I think you being here listening to me is part of this circle of amplification. You're amplifying me at the same time as I'm amplifying you. I hope you've also kept track of how many squats you're doing every time I say the word amplify.

You are doing something powerful and important no matter what room you are in. It is being amplified by you even if you are not consciously aware of it. So I hope you take that mere moment. Look yourself in the eyes and pause. Recognize that you affect every single room that you go into and do it on purpose. Do it on purpose. Do it brave. Do it curious. Because you're changing the world. You are changing.

Bonnie (22:40.588)
the world one room at a time.

Bonnie (22:46.427)
Thank you for being here with me. Now, let's go amplify some shit, yeah? Until next time.