Christy discovered yoga in 1996 from a book when she was living in Bolivia working with indigenous basket weavers. Four-wheeling on rugged dirt roads and carrying bags of baskets on her head as she trekked and waded through sometimes chest-deep rivers to reach remote villages left her with neck pain. The yoga exercises helped alleviate the discomfort. When she moved back to the U.S. two years later, she began taking yoga classes. And though she had planned to become an Anthropologist or Psychotherapist, she shifted course after being struck by the profound insights she was arriving at through the meditative element of the yoga. Christy has since dedicated her life to deepening her own knowledge of yoga and sharing it with others.
Christy Brown, Curator & Leader of Yoga & Meditation Retreats
Please introduce yourself! How did you discover yoga? And what drew you to teaching?
I started teaching yoga in the year 2000 when I was 29. I had recently returned to California after spending more than two years working with indigenous basket weavers in a remote part of Bolivia as a Peace Corps Volunteer. My first experience with yoga was in Bolivia from a used book. I had developed neck discomfort from bouncing around in a 4x4 truck while driving over boulders, through rivers, and across sand, often getting stuck in the process to reach the remote villages where I was working. I frequently had to hike further to reach the most isolated communities, sometimes wading through chest-deep rivers while carrying my backpack or a large bag of baskets on my head. And I was not doing any stretching.
To my surprise, the limited amount of yoga I was practicing helped alleviate my neck discomfort.
When I returned to the U.S., I moved to San Francisco, rented a closet-sized room in a townhouse with friends of friends, got a job as a Communications Manager for a large nonprofit social services agency, and started taking yoga classes for the first time at a neighborhood studio.
I had planned to start graduate school to become a psychotherapist within a year or two, but I was so taken with the depth of yoga that I started to shift gears.
The physical benefits were significant, particularly because I had developed digestive problems in Bolivia after experiencing severe malaria with multiple relapses, chronic Giardia, regular food poisoning, and stress from driving on the narrow dirt roads that wound through the Andes Mountains. Buses and other vehicles would regularly slide off these roads, plunging thousands of feet. At the time, they were considered some of the most dangerous roads in the world. I knew my chances of sudden death were higher, and I almost always had a stomach ache while traveling on them, especially by bus. But I made a conscious decision to stay in Bolivia. To this day, I am grateful for having made it out alive.
The yoga, along with removing gluten and dairy from my diet, improved my digestive issues. I did not understand it at the time, but I later came to learn that yoga is designed to optimize digestive health. Yoga builds digestive fire, and all the different poses help remove blockages and keep food and waste moving through the digestive tract. As I would also come to learn later, Ayurveda, yoga’s “sister science,” helps us determine our “constitution,” or dosha, our unique combination of fire (pitta), air (vata), and earth (kapha), which then helps us understand much about ourselves, including which foods are beneficial and which are not.
Though the physical benefits of yoga were incredibly helpful, the more subtle aspects of the practice truly amazed me.
Yoga requires the mind to focus inward as we attempt, for example, to mindfully position our body into different poses while engaging some muscle groups and simultaneously releasing others. This, by the way, is an example of how yoga can simultaneously build strength and flexibility. Yoga is an incredibly efficient practice that accomplishes many things at the same time.
With yoga, you do not need to know about the benefits or the philosophy behind it. If you do the practice, the benefits come. And through the body-mind-breath connection that yoga cultivates, we tend to arrive, just as I did, at philosophical understandings and insights from within, regardless of our level. This is why Sri K. Pattabhi Jois, the late guru of Ashtanga Yoga, famously said, “Yoga is 99% practice, 1% theory.”
A little over 25 years ago, I took a leap of faith, gave notice at my job, packed my things into storage, and signed up for an intensive three-month teacher training. I had this incredible experience of what felt like a red carpet opening under my feet each time I gave up a form of security in the direction of following my heart. During that period, I often recalled Julia Cameron’s quote from her book The Artist’s Way: “Leap and the net will appear.”
I have been teaching and deepening my practice ever since.
Can you share insights from your studies in India with renowned teachers like Sri K. Pattabhi Jois and S.N. Goenka? How have these experiences shaped your teaching approach?
Studying in India with S.N. Goenka, the guru of Vipassana meditation, and Sri K. Pattabhi Jois, the guru of Ashtanga Yoga, were my two most formative yoga experiences.
It was on my first trip to India, during my first year of teaching yoga, that I attended a 10-day Vipassana meditation course at the Vipassana headquarters in Igatpuri, where S.N. Goenka lived. He was in his early 90s at the time.
Vipassana is a non-denominational meditation technique based on feeling the breath and body. It was originally taught by Gautama Buddha and has been passed down from teacher to student ever since. A traditional beginning-level Vipassana course involves 10 days of silence (no eye contact either) and 10 to 11 hours per day of seated, guided meditation. Students are allowed to sit in any position that works, including in a chair if needed.
It was a huge group in a huge hall, perhaps 200 to 300 people, mostly Indians. Women were on one side, men on the other. The first three days were among the hardest of my life. I was frustrated that my mind would not stay still, and I kept falling asleep. My head would nod, and I would crave to lie down and rest.
On the third day, I started to panic. I was thinking (as I was supposed to be meditating), There’s no way I can do this for 10 days. I have to get out of here! Oh my God, what am I going to do? My mind was spinning out of control.
Out of desperation, each time I exhaled, I silently repeated to myself, Calm, Christy. Calm, Christy. Calm, Christy. I did that for about 10 minutes. Then, all of a sudden, something extraordinary happened. My eyes were closed, but the static of light and dark that I saw through my eyelids came into focus as a beam of light from my third eye. In that moment, my mind stilled and remained still for the rest of the course.
On the fourth day, it was as if all the sadness and fears that had accumulated within me and my body up to that point in my life rose to the surface. I re-experienced all the emotions. I wept silently the whole day. Tears streamed down my face during all the hours of meditation. I felt incredibly sad and scared, but I also sensed that it was a catharsis. And it was.
The fifth through the tenth days were life-changing. During those days, I experienced a sustained and profound calm contentment, inner bliss, and a subtle awareness that is hard to put into words. But I was forever changed. I came to experientially understand yoga’s ultimate goal, discovering one’s true nature.
The profound experience I had during those final five days of the Vipassana meditation course became my unspoken goal in teaching yoga, to help others experience their true nature and genuine happiness, happiness that is not dependent on anything or anyone outside ourselves.
I had also gained an incredible appreciation for the value of silence, and to this day, I spend most of my time, when I am not teaching, in silence.
The following year, I went back to India to study for a month in Mysore with Sri K. Pattabhi Jois, who, again, was the guru of the Ashtanga Yoga lineage. He was also in his early 90s at the time and still in his original shala, or “practice space.” In the mornings, I would practice with him and his grandson, Sharath. In the afternoons, I studied pranayama with another Indian master who lived in Mysore. Pranayama refers to breathing exercises designed to control and regulate prana, and prana refers to both “breath” and “life force.”
It was important to me to study Ashtanga Yoga, which was my practice at the time, in India with the guru. I wanted to immerse myself in the cultural, spiritual, and philosophical roots of the practice. It was an incredible experience.
It feels as if there is a spirit and wisdom in the practice, in the lineage, that a guru passes on to a student. That spirit is still with me. Every time I teach, “Guruji,” as we called him, is with me, and I am aware that I am part of a lineage, part of passing that lineage on to the next generations. S.N. Goenka is with me too. I strive to share yoga and meditation in a way that honors and respects their ancient roots and the gurus with whom I have studied.
How do you integrate diverse philosophies; Yogic, Buddhist, Taoist, and Indigenous wisdom, into your retreats and classes?
I integrate philosophy into my teaching less through what I say and more by how I lead the practice. For example, yogic philosophy explains that the “seer” or “self” abides in his or her true nature when the mind is still and free of thoughts. Only when the mind is still can we perceive reality clearly. Otherwise, we are influenced by our thoughts and are likely to misperceive reality.
So, I attempt to guide the practice in a way that helps students calm their nervous system and quiet their mind so they can, hopefully, experience the incredible gifts associated with stillness, whether for a fleeting moment or the duration of the practice. This includes experiencing our most subtle, innermost “layer” or kosha, which, according to yogic philosophy, is anandamaya kosha, or our “bliss body.”
“Yoga bliss” is real. When we engage in a deep yoga practice, the result is often a feeling of bliss. And, by the way, “deep” has nothing to do with how advanced the poses are. By “deep,” I mean a deeply focused and meditative practice.
Similarly, according to Buddhist philosophy, which is a parallel practice and shares many of the same ancient roots as yoga, we are inherently wise, kind, compassionate, and already enlightened. Like clouds obscuring the sun, our conditioning and thinking mind obscure our inherently enlightened true nature. So, I teach yoga as a moving, breathing meditation, which, when taught and practiced skillfully, naturally quiets the mind and opens the heart, the doorway to an enlightenment experience.
I also impart philosophy through readings and word choice. For example, I encourage students to be kind and compassionate toward themselves as they practice, including toward those tight hamstrings! Kindness and compassion are central tenets of Buddhism.
And just about every time I have taught during these last 25 years, I have quoted H.H. the Dalai Lama. During Savasana (corpse pose), at the end of the practice, when students are lying down in a comfortable, supported, resting position, I slowly guide them (with a long pause between each cue) to relax their feet and legs, hands and arms, belly, throat, jaw, mouth, lips, teeth, tongue, eyeballs, eyelids, skin of the face, skin of the scalp, ears, inner ears, temples, and the space behind the forehead.
I then conclude with these words by His Holiness (followed by five to ten minutes of silence):
“Breathe in compassion for yourself, breathe out compassion for others.”
To invite students out of Savasana in a gentle and meaningful way, I often ring my antique Tibetan bells, which my dad brought back for me after a monthlong trek into a remote part of Nepal. Or I will read or recite an inspiring quote or poem in a soft voice that could come from any of the above traditions.
Some of my favorite readings are Native American because I love the emphasis on honoring the sacredness of nature and the Earth and remembering future generations in our every intention, thought, word, and action.
I also incorporate readings into Yin Yoga practices. I love reading Rumi poetry from the Sufi tradition, a mystical branch of Islam, as well as quotes by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In my teaching, and through the readings I share, I try to include guidance and wisdom from as many cultures, races, and religions as possible to encourage a spirit of inclusiveness and oneness, one that transcends the societal, racial, and political divisions we as humans so often create and that ultimately hold us back.
And lastly, Taoism is at the heart of Yin Yoga. I have studied Taoist philosophy extensively and incorporate it into whatever style of yoga I am teaching. Taoist concepts can apply to anything and everything we do. A fundamental concept in Taoist philosophy, for example, is to conserve our precious, vital life-force energy, to not waste it, and to “accomplish more by doing less.”
So, for example, I might say during a Yin Yoga practice:
“Linger in the pause that follows each out-breath until the urge to inhale arises on its own. Less doing, more allowing, starting with the way we breathe the breath that we all share.”
What inspired you to start Inward Bound Yoga Journeys, and how has your vision evolved over time?
Prior to discovering yoga, I had a passion for travel, learning about different cultures, and studying languages. My parents met in India when my dad was a Peace Corps volunteer there in the ’60s. Spending time with their Indian friends, as well as friends from other parts of the world, was a part of my childhood.
Eager to get out there and explore the world myself, I decided at the age of 12 that I wanted to be an exchange student for a year during high school, study abroad in college, and become a Peace Corps volunteer myself. When I was 16–17, I spent a year in Brazil, where my Brazilian host mother became my first spiritual teacher.
In college at U.C. Santa Barbara, I majored in Latin American and Iberian Studies, an interdisciplinary major based in the Spanish and Portuguese Departments, with a Certificate in Global Peace and Securities, an interdisciplinary program within the Political Science Department. I continued my studies in Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Italian, and I spent a summer studying Spanish in Madrid. After college, I traveled throughout Europe, worked for a year at Hispanic Business Magazine (based in Santa Barbara), and then spent more than two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in Bolivia, which I spoke about earlier.
When I discovered yoga, my focus shifted entirely to yoga and to spending as much time as possible in India.
After teaching weekly classes for about five years, I started to feel the travel bug calling me back to other parts of the world. That’s when I began leading yoga retreats a few times a year and eventually came up with the name Inward Bound Yoga Journeys, inspired in part by Outward Bound, which offers transformative outdoor education adventure expeditions.
For 20 years leading up to the pandemic, in addition to leading retreats, I primarily taught weekly classes and, later, teacher trainings in Marin County and San Francisco. Then, as we all know, the pandemic changed everything. All the yoga studios where I’d been teaching closed. I moved from Marin to a tiny cabin a couple of hours’ drive north, in a beautiful, somewhat remote natural setting that I had bought some years prior. I proceeded to spend most of the year alone and silent, surrounded by nature. It was an absolutely wonderful personal retreat that allowed me to focus on my own practice. By the end, my reservoir felt replenished, and I’ve continued to live a retreat lifestyle.
When I emerged from the pandemic a year or so later, I decided not to return to teaching weekly classes and instead to focus more exclusively on leading local and international retreats.
So Inward Bound Yoga Journeys represents coming full circle for me. It combines my love of travel, culture, languages, beautiful architecture and design, indoor-outdoor living, and an organic, locally sourced, gluten-free, dairy-free, plant-based diet with teaching yoga, living a retreat lifestyle, and spending time in nature in a way that I can share with others.
I find that combining yoga, meditation, and mindfulness practice with travel is incredibly potent. Yoga and meditation help us stay present and grounded, which enhances a travel experience tremendously and cultivates a healthy, wholesome, intentional way to travel. And, of course, while on retreat, we focus on self-care, on optimizing our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being and longevity.
I encourage anyone considering attending a retreat to avoid thinking of it as a selfish indulgence. Rather, caring for ourselves in this meaningful, heartfelt, healing, inspiring, expansive, and potentially transformative way, through deepening our practice, can make a tremendous difference in our ability to support our loved ones, be positive members of our community, and contribute to the world from a place of calm, compassion, insight, and optimal health.
Finally, being on retreat with like-minded others and practicing together cultivates sangha, or spiritual community, which, as Buddhism teaches, is one of the “three jewels”, all of which are considered essential for spiritual fulfillment: the Buddha (which represents that we are all already inherently enlightened), the Dharma (spiritual teachings), and Sangha (spiritual community).
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