284 - Living Beyond the Manual

Living according to traditional manuals and social rules can bring certain kinds of comfort and stability and it can also limit us. 

To break free from more rote kinds of living is to re-story ourselves, and that takes curiosity and courage. 

Today we explore how to find and embody more of our authenticity and impact as humans, teachers, and leaders. 

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Listen to Bonnie's other podcast Sexy Sunday HERE

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

Transcript

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (00:01.336)
Hello, welcome to the podcast. And I'm gonna be real, I've tried to start recording this podcast like eight times now. Right before I just pressed record, I took a moment, I paused and I was like, what do I really want to say? Because I know the story, I know the theme, but like, how do I begin this? And what I wanna say is that I really used to follow the rules in a lot of different ways.

And I literally leaned on the manual that was given to me. And we'll give you some more context here and used it above.

looking for opportunities to be empathetic. Was I still? Yes, I was still empathetic, but.

I let it dictate my decisions outside of humanness. And I've been that place. And I think deeply what I want to share today, because I think that if you're here listening to this podcast that you're interested in, what does paying attention mean in your life? it means something bigger. It means paying attention to the insides of you and the insides of the people next to you and the strangers in the grocery store.

It's bigger than, than sometimes the stories we tell ourselves and the stories we tell ourselves sometimes change because we change and we give ourselves permission to look at ourselves. And I guess I just really want you to know that you're not alone and figuring shit out. And that when you decide to restore yourself, when you decide to tell a different story about who you are and what you want and what you believe and the ways to do things in the world.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (01:51.01)
that it's not easy. It is like so not easy. You are absolutely free to choose.

You're free to choose and free to move. And that looks different for each of us. And we're holding different responsibilities. This doesn't mean like.

move to another country at this very moment it might for somebody.

but that it's a law of work. It's a lot of play. It's a lot of holding yourself. It's a lot of giving yourself an and, like, this can really suck and this, like the only way forward is through, right? There can be an and in that. And I have been in places where I have followed the rules and I have been in places where I set down the rules.

and where I continue to this day to re-story myself to what it means to be a human, a woman, a mother, a sexual person, a teacher, a mentor, a friend, a sister, a daughter, all of the things.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (03:06.152)
And you know, I'm gonna talk about yoga and I'm gonna talk about being Mormon and other things here probably.

But I think it all can have lines drawn to whatever it is that you're currently in and currently choosing and how you wanna ask questions about it. And how you wanna bring curiosity and courage to not just a single moment, but to your entire life and how it really requires both of those things. It's not a one stop, you're done, but an over and over and over.

So let's give some more context. When I was Mormon, I was a leader of the women's organization for five years. And what that means is that in our congregation, for those of you who might not be familiar with Mormonism, within our congregation, there is the organization of the women. And with the organization of the women, then,

There are somebody who is the leader and helping organize the caretaking of each other, the lessons, the activities, and then they have people to support them. And everything is volunteer and show up and do the things. You know, I loved it for so many reasons and I love the things that he's able to create in that time. I loved what I was able to give others during that time and

I would say at the beginning of that time, this was a combined two different times that this five years is two different times back to back, but there was a move in between, a move of states. And that at the beginning of this five years, we were given as a leader in the organization, right, in that congregation, it's given a manual, right? It's a bound book with some words that some people have made up.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (05:19.182)
This is a podcast about everything's made up and we're all making shit up and you get to make up things too for your life. That's what this podcast is to in general and also this episode. But somebody at some point wrote down like the guidelines of this is how things are run. This is how we make decisions in these certain ways around these certain topics.

This is the organization of XYZ. And sometimes it was literally like three or four sentences. And we're like, well, that's what it is. That's how we do the things. And y'all, I think I feel slightly embarrassed by how much I would say, well, the manual says, well, the manual says, and it feels a little laughable because here I am, but it's because I have freed myself from it.

And I have not been a part of the Mormon church for like nine-ish years. So a lot of my adult life, like all my childhood, grew up in the church, married in the church, married young in the church, had my kids' in the church, and left a little bit before my ex and I was parted ways in our marriage. like he had also left the church, we did that together. And...

I really followed some rules. was a, there was plenty of some bending of things and doing whatever I wanted, but also there was, there was some rule following. And in some of that timeframe, when I was this leader of the women's organization, I really leaned on this manual because it felt sticky otherwise, right? Like, well, if I start to, if we, if we don't do it this way, then what's the right way quote unquote, right?

and how do we like stay consistent? And it felt like, well, that's like the book that's like has all the answers. Somebody has said that it's done this way. So that's the way we do it.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (07:23.82)
And I can say, I can think of so many times where like, the manual says, and now in this work, and if you've been listening to this podcast for a minute, you might be doing some laughing with me because there's so many ways to be right. And I heard from somebody, two different people actually recently who have come to flow school with me, two different teachers. So let's look just to yoga for just a second.

and they came to the in-person immersive flow school experience, they came to different ones, like year apart. And one of them, they don't live close to each other. So these are individual conversations. And one of them says, hey, I'm in my 300 hour training right now. And what they're trying to teach as like sequencing and what the information they're giving is so little. And

And from what we learned in flow school and what I learned from you and doesn't make sense. And like just like her whole take on like how they were guiding sequencing and how grateful she was for flow school. And this other person talked about how they just did a training at a studio that's more that's a corporate run studio.

with a lot of studios all over the place. And now she did this training over this past weekend and she messaged me and she was like, my gosh, the way that they're talking about sequencing, she was like, I knew that they had a way, but like to really hear it and to have been in flow school and to like really understand the concepts of like movement and this approach to sequencing and now to see this approach, like this isn't it.

And I think it's responses like these that remind me that there's more than one way to be right. And while I've had a period of my life that I strongly was like, the manual says this is what we do. This is how we do it. You know, I did the things. I really did them. I got married when I was 20. And if I first baby at 22,

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (09:51.534)
And I love being a mom. And I felt like, you know, that was like the thing that was like, this is what you do. And it is what I do. And it is what I love. And I'm more than a mom. And changing my spirituality or expanding, I would say expanding my spirituality and leaving the church and redefining my spirituality and redefining what marriage meant to me in my non-monogamy experience.

at the end of my marriage and then like being divorced and having kids and then having a lover and having him live with me and defining what it means to be a business owner and an entrepreneur and what it means to be a sexual human and very much like have experiences that he didn't have when I was younger because of my Mormon upbringing.

to redefine who I am and to give myself permission to play with my voice and experiment with my body, not even sexually, like literally, just like to play, to be like, what would it feel like if I gave birth without any drugs for my last child? Okay, let's see what that feels like, right? Like that's play and experiment with my body. It's all the way to being like, what would it feel like to

Jump in the water naked. What does it feel like to do 100 pull-ups today? I'm like, I don't know, whatever it is, right? So to give myself permission to play, to dance, to not have to have all the answers, to not have to prove anything, to not have to produce anything, to still be of value, to not have to...

convince anyone that they have to have what I have in order to be whole humans. But truly to meet people, I remember they are whole without me, which is not what the church teaches, right? And that there is something that somebody is lacking and that we need to bring them to the church, which is gonna be the absolute right decision for them. So.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (12:12.14)
This is part of my upbringing and part of my experience and I cannot escape from that. I'm not trying to escape from it, but it can let it inform how I move in the world now. And part of why I believe what I do and part of why I said there's more than one way to be right. Especially when I hear people who have these experiences saying like, well, this is the right way for yoga. And I know yoga has been passed down and is a traditional practice.

And it comes from some tricky places too that were not also very inclusive. And of course it's gonna, it's like, it's gonna be once it turned into a physical practice, cause yoga wasn't always a physical practice, right? But once it turned into physical, there was gonna be certain people who could do that. It'd be a certain type of person with certain type of flexibility and time and interest and perhaps money and in some cases, And availability. And so the same as like I look at,

like different types of bodies can go towards different things. And I love that yoga is for everybody.

Not every practice of yoga though, physical practice is for everybody. And not everybody may be at the same time. So I want to say all this to preface that I am not against a practice of yoga, a physical practice of yoga that is the same every time you go to class. Ashtanga, Hot 26, AKA Bikram, 26 and two sometimes it's called.

Baptiste yoga, lifetime yoga. Like there's a lot of roteness with that. yoga six, there's a lot in there. like there's a prescriptive method for moto yoga and for core power. And some of these, if you're listening, you're like, well, I don't even know what you just said. That's totally fine. And there's, there's bound to be more like this is the way you do it and different studios and different teachers to say, this is the way you teach yoga and you don't teach it another way. Why would you do it?

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (14:13.068)
that other way that would be boring or not smart, not intelligent enough, that's not kind enough, that's not how you do yoga, and there's a lot of belief systems around it. And I guess I feel both soft about this and fiery at the same time because I have been in those places, friends. I have been in those places where I thought that the manual was the way to do the thing.

But sometimes when you follow that, you don't really serve the people.

And sometimes our nervous systems need the same practice every time. And there's so much swirling in life that you're like, I'm going to, maybe I practice asha. This is not me speaking. And there's so much in my life that is constantly changing. need to go show up to a place where it's the exact same practice every time. Cause that's going to be able to ground me in myself right now in this season of my life. Go do that. Go do that. Or there's something about the heat and hot 26 one is like,

so freaking hot in that room. There's something about that that you need right now and those particular poses, even though they're like super non-inclusive, you do it this way, there's no other way given, right? Like that or nothing and stay in that hot room. And maybe there's something to that that you need. Go get it. Go get it. And for those people who have been trained by those lineages of like,

this is how you do the thing and this is not how you do the thing. And cause you're told both by being given a manual of like, this is the way it means it's also you're given that this is not the way if you are, if you go outside of that manual. And I have been there, I have been there and there is more than one way to be right. So I guess I just want to give this as an expansive conversation because

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (16:15.968)
because I have been privileged to watch teachers come into flow school and find trust in themselves, not just trust in the practice and the way that it changes their lives. And I know that I felt like my life changed when I became a teacher, right? If you're teach something like the way you

have the opportunity to embody something when you teach it. And when you embody it, when you cultivate your own practice with it outside of a studio practice where what are you living? How are you showing up? How are you playing? How are you allowing yourself to be moved? And I can go right to the physical. Can you move yourself physically and be moved? How do you drop into that? And I feel like so much of my work is helping teachers drop into the body experience, the feeling of it, where there's some

rules, quote unquote, of yoga, where you do this pose and this pose and this pose. And, and that's the order of the things. And that's what's been taught. And that's what's been passed down. And maybe that's what you've come from. And maybe you're coming from restorative and Yin and Hatha classes that are not flow based. And you're like, I don't know, this is just like, we are way over here and I'm not even in any flow place at all. And so it's a whole other language and there's just so much room.

There's so much room.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (17:48.226)
and

part of the gift of sitting in the same rooms with yoga teachers who have found themselves more as they have taught. Because you teach a thing, you find it in you more, right? You embody it more, you learn it more when you teach it. And so sitting in these rooms and watching teachers be able to hold a hand to their own heart and learn how to build trust in themselves. Because anywhere we move in the world, gosh, y'all, it's a ride.

Life will be lifeing until we're not alive. And we have to figure out how to trust ourselves first and foremost before anything or anyone else. And what I teach in flow school is this combination of tradition is the manual. All right, here's the things. But then let's bring in movement science. Say, okay.

Now, how do we label these words of movement science on top of this? So we understand the why behind it in these other ways. And then the big, the big one is, and how do we feel it? How do we feel it so that we are moved and so that we move others because we're moved, because it's inside of us, because it's an embodied experience, because we are embodied, we are in our own bodies and we do such a good job of trying to escape ourselves.

or to put the responsibility on someone else or some other system on the practice of yoga. And it is that, but also if we're gonna lead the room, we have a responsibility to hold that. there's several layers of creating enough form so that there's enough flow, so there's room for flow. And as a teacher, that's part of the service that we give in the service industry, is holding the container.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (19:46.05)
to provide a space for others to find their flow. And our ability to embody that experience, to be in ourselves and not have the students be showing up for us, but us showing up for them. Remembering what is ours and what is theirs. And when you're feeling a thing or feeling like activated in some way because of something a student is, the way their face is looking or something they say, or their experience with something like it.

where do we take responsibility and integrate? Any words we get back are opportunities to learn whether they're words where people loved it or people didn't like it, what can we learn from it all? And we're there as a service. This is an opportunity to be with real people and to build trust with people, to build trust with ourselves that we can meet the room.

and

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (20:48.494)
Tomorrow, I'm gonna be flying to the UK. Last October, so about eight months ago, I flew to Switzerland. And these are the only two times I will have ever been in Europe. I've not done a lot of travel in my life. And mostly stayed home with my kids. And my kids are now 19 and 17 and 14. And I have four more years and then my youngest will be graduated from high school. And it's gonna be another stage of my life.

It feels exciting and terrifying. And I'm starting to be like, okay, there's going be something else to grow into. Where can I move forward, but not burn out and continue to grow where I am and.

Feeling emotional.

So I'm going to the UK tomorrow night I fly because I have some people who message me and they're like, hey, we have a studio just outside London and we'd love to host you for flow school here. And that's how I've flown. That's how I went to Switzerland as well.

It was somebody reaching out to a dumb flow school with me online that said, I have a studio. Will you come to flow school and hosted at my studio and then feeling so honored that I would come, but I just felt so honored that they would invite. so that's like such a beautiful place to be at. Like I want to be in rooms where we both simultaneously feel honored to be there.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (22:12.952)
that like the gift is truly each other. And that is how I'm going over now. And I don't have, I have no other connections at the moment that are thing for next year. So this might be it for a little bit. Maybe there wouldn't be nothing next year. Like this kind of the plan at the moment because nothing's brewing and, and I'm going to go and there's going to be 10 people this next week that I can be with. And, and it's going to be the perfect group and people from

all different places, people don't necessarily even teach in English. And I could not have imagined that this is where I would be in my life. And then the gift of sitting with leaders.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (23:02.2)
who are willing to look at how they are owning the room and their voice and the impact on it and how to trust themselves to guide, to use their voice, to re-story themselves.

to step into a version of themselves that feels more honest and more in line with who they are as they lead from a place of embodiment, of being moved and knowing that when they are moved, when they are connected to themselves and they're connected to what they are giving and they have trust in those things, that then their leadership in the room is bigger than what you're too, right? It's bigger than tree pose.

It's bigger than Shavasana. Like the energy that we carry, the way that we show up, the tone of voice we have, the trust we have in ourselves is a felt thing. The empathy we have meeting others as we trust them to hold themselves is a felt thing.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (24:15.488)
not having to prove anything is a felt thing. To give our students the understanding, the experience of them not having to prove anything is a felt thing. Us meeting and being humans and sitting in a circle where there is no head to the circle, but that we rise together is a felt thing.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (24:43.384)
This might work.

I love giving it to the yoga community.

I love it because there's this element of physicalness, of the practice with the body that feels really important. It's touchable. And also this, the parts of us that are untouchable too, and how they melt together and how it really gets to be a space where we celebrate all of the parts of us and all the parts of us are welcome. All of them.

So if you are coming from a practice where it is always the same thing and you're like, I think that there's something more, there is. And if you're always changing practice and it's something different and you want something that's the same every time, there's that too. And all of them get to exist. And the ways that we talk about the different ways to move our body really matter.

And as I listen to people who've been in flow school, who talked to me about the trainings they're going to and the ways that some people from these other trainings are still training people to say like, well, that would be boring if we did that, or that doesn't work if we do that, or we don't help people get on and off the floor once we're in flow, because that's not how you do yoga, but that's my friends, like real life. How do we get on and off the floor? How do we teach that?

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (26:16.888)
How do we teach that in a way that makes sense for people? So, and is actually successful for a lot of bodies in the room. How do you teach transitions so that it's not just about the postures, but it's how everything else moves in between. How do you let your arms be a part of it? like, it sounds kind of nerdy and a weird thing to put in this conversation, but this is all about transitions, transitional practice and

It is a full body experience and oftentimes we forget about arms. When are you leaning arms and are you leaving enough space to teach specific arm movements because it really affects the flow.

and

I love that people find me often when they are in transition, when they're like, I want something more. I think there's a bigger version of myself and I'm ready to trust that version or I want to build a relationship with that part. I guess it's true. And maybe, maybe people find me because that's the work I'm always doing myself, you know, and I, maybe we are serving different versions of ourselves all the time.

and maybe the students that come to your classes, like there's something, a part of themselves that they see in you or would like to see in themselves of you. And I'm always in this place of exploration and curiosity, courage within myself to say like, who am I, who am I today? Who do I want to be? What parts of myself do I need to look at or to acknowledge or talk to? What parts of myself do I need to befriend?

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (28:03.054)
How do I get weirder? How do I get softer? How do I get bolder? All at the same time.

It is an honor to be here, to be listened to, like listened to, here by you, to know that we exist in this world and I exist in this world.

And neither of us will forever, but in this moment, we do. And the things we do really fucking matter and they create ripples.

that we're going to fill in years to come and it might not we might not fill the ripple for years but it's there and that's important it's really important thank you thank you for making space today and

spending a little bit of time with me. And if you're curious in joining me in flow school, flow school immersives, I'm be, so right now it's July 1st, 2025, as I'm recording this, halfway through the year. And this is a big one for me.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (29:30.178)
Things are always evolving and trainings I offer. Opportunities to step in with teachers. Online Flow School is always available. I've changed the format for online Flow School. So Flow School's calling you, but there's not an immersive experience where you can be in person with me in the room right now. Like you can come in November, November 10th through 14th. That's coming up next in Portland, Oregon. I love it when Portland, because it's my home place. It's so good.

and the folks coming, it's so good. So that's an option. And if you wanna come online, it's such a beautiful thing that I'm making and are doing an online monthly membership. And you're like, how can a membership be beautiful, Bonnie? It is. A monthly membership that's beautiful because the real juice is being able to have our faces talking.

together live and to be able to work at a pace that makes sense for you and your life, to have both. And so this gives that rather than a container of six to eight weeks, you have the lessons, you have a suggested order of classes for flow school where I talk to you, you can put me in your ear, you can take me with you while you're cooking in the kitchen, you can be there, you can take a lesson a day.

and flow school and you come to the lives and then we get to talk and you get to bring something, a flow that you make. We get to talk about craft, like it gets to be this in between space. So if that calls you, that's there. It's a new iteration of flow school. Been alive for two months as I'm recording this today. So it's gonna change and grow and evolve and I'm excited for that. And the immersives in person are still gonna exist.

So if that's calling you, that's there. I'm also gonna start to step into teaching in person in Portland. I'm gonna be renting a place and teaching weekly classes. So that's gonna be coming in September. So stay tuned. And wherever you are in the world, thank you. Thank you for being here. If you wanna connect more, you can reach out to me. Hello at Bonnie Weeks or find me on the gram, carrot underscore bowl underscore Bonnie.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (31:56.11)
We can chat.

and I hope you're living your best life. And if not, I hope that you're brave and curious enough to give yourself an and. Say like, this is hard, or maybe this isn't my best life and.

Maybe I can ask more questions. Maybe I can give myself permission to think a little bit bigger. Maybe I can be curious about this story I tell myself, right? Give yourself an and, because my guess is that you're doing so much better than that you think you are.

I think you won't be listening to this podcast otherwise.

Truly, truly. If you're a teacher out there in the wild world,

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (32:54.624)
I'm here celebrating you. You're making ripples that you don't even know. And that's important.

Okay love, still next