Please note, this is an automated transcript so it is not 100% accurate.

Guy (00:12):
We are recording Karl, welcome to the podcast

Karl (00:16):
Brother. How are you?

Guy (00:18):
I’m very well, mate, and all the better for seeing your smile and face on the other one coming on the podcast today.

Karl (00:23):
yeah, you too, bro. It feels like it’s been a long time. Hey.

Guy (00:26):
Yeah. You know, I I’ve often ponder, you know, the day before coming up when the guests are coming on the show and I realize, you know, cause I’ve known you at least three or four years now and um, yeah, through this work and it occurred to me this morning. I didn’t know why your yoga studio was called one big heart. And I just wanted to know where that name originated from. I can’t believe I haven’t even asked you that name.

Karl (00:53):
Um, I, the, the name and the logo itself, it, uh, it came to me on a teacher training. I was in Sri Lanka. Um, it was a yin teacher training. Um, we, we were heavily involved in meditation and uh, for a long period of time, I was thinking about, um, going down various routes in terms of opening with other people or doing things so by myself, uh, and the name came to me. Um, when I came out of a meditation one morning, for me, it re it was representative of a, you know, that, that extension of oneness, that yoga talks about, um, to say that, you know, I am no different from you. You are no different from me. We’re all intertwined. And we’re all connected on a, on a conscious on a, on a, on a universally conscious level. Um, and you know, I suppose the practice of yoga really itself is, is something that’s allowing us to get closer and closer and closer to that thing that we would call intuition.

Karl (01:58):
Um, which for me is really, is really just the, that the receiving of information without necessarily the English language, um, behind it, you know, we’re so used to, I so used to that form of communication, um, that, uh, that without, you know, we’re not, we’re not really, we’re not really tuned into feeling. Um, mm-hmm and if we can start to tune into feeling and we, we, we, that, that, that feeling starts to decipher itself into, into thought. And, um, uh, you know, I, I, uh, I love the, I love the quote from, from our, from our buddy Matt Omo, um, when it comes to into intuition when it comes to universal consciousness, um, no one can see wifi, but, but we believe in wifi. right. Uh, and so what, what is it that stops us from, from believing other universal messages? Um, and I think it’s that sense of ego, that sense of self, but yeah, coming back to the name of the studio, that’s where it’s at for me, man, the, the, the, the, uh, the, the universal connection that we all share through consciousness and through vibration.

Guy (03:10):
Yeah. Love ITM, mate. Love it. And, um, moving on from that, I was gonna dive into a bit of your background, but I still wanna prod a couple of things that you mentioned there, which I think will help as well because, um, yoga is predominantly perceived, or it was for me before I started doing it many years ago is almost, um, uh, the, a female thing, you know, the, the, the women will go to the yoga and the men will go and lift weights at the gym kind of thing. And they seem to feel like this segmentation, but beyond that as well, this was just my perception. Right. And just beyond that as well, um, the, the, um, the, the essence of what yoga truly is and what it’s for, um, was lost with me as well until I started, you know, diving it into this work more. What is your perception of it? Has it changed? And what would you say to listeners to especially men that may not have even been involved in yoga?

Karl (04:14):
Yeah, absolutely. Great question mates. Um, and you, you know, you’re not alone in that space. I, myself was, um, was once upon a time just heavily engaged in fitness, um, trying to create a, you know, a, a, a particular physical look for myself and achieve goals in that area. Um, and there is a, there is a, there is that feeling, um, generally around town that, um, that yoga is something for women. When we start to delve into the philosophy of yoga, yoga itself is, is a process. Um, and, um, the, the, the purpose of that process is to help us calm the fluctuations of our mind. So in traditional Sanskrit, they, the such, as of potentially, they would say, yoga’s, Chiha yoga is the calming of the fluctuations of your mind stuff. And that happens through the process of yoga. Um, when we look at the eight limbs of the TGA tree, yoga itself starts with, um, starts with intent and starts with the, you know, our moral, our moral outlook on the world and our personal code of conduct, we call them the Yammers and knee and the knee Yammers.

Karl (05:37):
So that, that, that version of the inner self, um, and the version of self that we put out to the world, uh, and it encompasses it can, it, it encompasses a, a, a far greater knowledge than just simply that physical practice on a map. I think that, um, perhaps the way that yoga looks from, from the outside, uh, can be something that makes us as a, as a modern people look at that and go, okay, well, that’s something for, that’s something for women, the shapes that they make, the way that people look through that. Um, and I suppose also bringing things back to the, uh, that underlying program as to whether, whether we’re more masculine dominated, whether you’re a male or a female, but just you’re in a, you’re in a, you’re in a dominance, whether you’re more masculine orientated or feminine orientated in you, energy levels.

Karl (06:35):
Um, you know, typically, uh, the, the, the, the mindset of the, of the common male is that, um, we’ve gotta be tough. We’ve gotta be robust. Uh, we’ve gotta be strong where the protectors, uh, and ultimately, what does that look like on a, on a, on a large scale? Um, well, that looks like war, um, and females are the nurturer, the caregiver, the lover. Um, and what does that look on, on, on a, on a large scale of things? Well, that looks like a, a softness, right? And so when you see movement practices like yoga, generally we, we would then internally, we, we just translate that into a, a masculine or, or a feminine sort of, um, modality.

Karl (07:32):
The process of yoga itself is, is actually it highly revolves around discipline. Um, it’s the, the discipline of the inner mind that allows us to focus our intent. Yeah. So when we look at the complete eight limbs of the UNG tree, we look at our inward facing self and our externally facing self, how we talk to ourself and how we present to the world. We look at USANA, which is poses and the movement that we do on the mat. We look at PR Yama, PR Yama is the way that we breathe, and there’s lots of different breath techniques through the practice of yoga. Ultimately it comes down to the fact that, uh, your breath is highly tied into your nervous system. And so if you regulate your breath in particular ways, then you are regulating your nervous system. When you’re regulating you’re nervous system, you can settle your mind to those, to, to have a more clear, conscious, concise, and disciplined version of self that doesn’t get carried away with lower mind chatter, um, PR Asana and PR Yama.

Karl (08:40):
When we put those two things together, that takes us to what we call a yoga Procher har, which is sense withdrawal. So sense withdrawal on a, on a basic level is just an example to close your eyes, right? You’ve removed one of your sensors, your other senses start to heighten. You heighten your hearing. Um, you heighten your physical awareness, and as we continue to practice our son and PR Yama together, then the, the, the senses, you know, if we were to put it into, into science, um, and, and what that, what science talks about in meditation is that the prefrontal cortex of the mind of the brain is, is starting to switch off. Now, the prefrontal cortex of the brain is which switched into what’s linked into our proprioception, which talk, which tells us, gives us the message of where we are in space. And the more and more sense withdrawal that we have, the more we open ourselves up to other, hear, hearing other internal channels, like what we mentioned before about intuition.

Karl (09:38):
Um, and then from sense withdrawal, we start to find focus. You know, the, the, the, the calming of the fluctuations of the mind is the ultimate goal, because they’re always in this constant state of flux, right? Everything that you see, everything that you feel, um, all of the conversations that you’re having with people, they’re all triggering thoughts and feelings in some sort of way. And so our attention gets really pulled when we bring things into modern society. You know, I think that yoga is more and more and more relevant in today’s modern society, because everything’s so fast paced. Everyone is so busy. There’s all of this information. That’s pouring into our eyes and at our fingertips all the time. Um, and so there’s so much distraction out there. You know, we suffer from bright, shiny object syndrome a lot. Um, and so to start to start to move, breathe, withdraw sensors, create focus, which we would call , um, in yoga is what then allows us to get to de, uh, which is the, the, the practice of meditation, where there’s no longer, there’s no longer, so much direct information from the brain down to the body, telling us all of the things that we have to do, but we switch over, we switch over our nervous system to parasympathetic, and we start to then become a receiver from information that’s inside us, already information that’s buried in our memory and places like that, the body itself is a, is a storage facility from memory.

Karl (11:22):
And, um, then, uh, yeah, we, we, we open ourselves to that universal consciousness and, um, and, and that takes us to becoming more and more at one with the universe that we would call some RD in yoga or the common, um, the common modern term for that is enlightenment.

Guy (11:42):
Yeah. Yeah. What a beautiful, yeah. Amazing explanation, mate. It is great. Just listening to you ex break all that down for all of us listening it. Um, it really, there’s a bird. There’s a bird outside. I can just hear him cheap in a

Karl (11:56):
Away’s there’s your distraction, Brian.

Guy (11:59):
yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Karl (12:02):
I can hear him. You too. He’s beautiful.

Guy (12:04):
Yeah, that’s alright. Part of, yeah, but, um, it really starts to, to unpack what it really means to have a practice. And the one thing I wanna highlight for everyone that to reiterate it’s a process, isn’t, it is not an end goal. It’s a destination, the process and the evolution of oneself, and being able to remove yourself from the external, cause we’re constantly looking for the external to validate as internally or a feeling or emotion and what, what you articulated so well, and what’s so amazing about yoga. It really is about for me anyway, getting your, bringing your power back, starting to know that you are the, the captain of your own ship. You, you are the pilot. And by having these practices and, and continually working on the process, it allows us to deepen our understanding of oneself and then how we present ourself to the world on a daily basis.

Guy (13:00):
Yeah. And then be able to connect with others on a deeper level. Cause you can see behind their facade and the, the front that they have been putting on because you are more connected in and you can connect to that deeper aspect of somebody else, which drives more compassion, which strives more kindness, which strives more love and certainly has a different, um, completely different trajectory than the world that we are living in right now. You know? And I, and I often wonder what it would look like if we all were starting to cultivate a bit more self-awareness within ourselves in today’s day and age.

Karl (13:34):
Yeah, absolutely.

Guy (13:35):
I think there’s a hunger for

Karl (13:37):
Yeah. Yeah. And that, you know, that, that word that you’ve just used there awareness that that’s, that’s key. That’s the absolute key. We, we, through the practice of getting still, um, we start to de develop that skill of awareness, like awareness itself is a muscle. You know, I, I, we can often find ourselves lost in, in imagination or traces of thought or in a conversation for really lengthy periods of time. Um, and not be aware of where, where we’ve taken ourselves in our mind or how we got there or how it’s then affecting and impacting our day. And, um, you know, so bringing things back to that, that discipline, I think the more awareness that we can develop over what our tend are, what our tendencies are, what our general kind of inner language is to self. Um, and when we catch ourselves in those places, we, we have this beautiful moment there where there’s a choice.

Karl (14:45):
You’ve gotta have the awareness first, but once you catch yourself, then there’s a choice that we can present to self of. Well, is that conversation helpful for me right now? Or is it detrimental to me right now if that kind of conversation continues along and along and along, or what’s the consequences, what’s the risk? What are the outcomes? You know? Um, and I think, I think we’ve really lost ourselves in, in, in modern society where we, we, we struggle to remember that we have choice, right? We we’re, we have, we have a lot of belief systems that are programmed into us that are developed through our younger years and then, and that the, we either create them ourselves or they’re handed down to us by other people, you know, um, to put things in a really, um, clear example. One of the things that I deal with all the time is in the studio is people with flat feet, people with flat feet, they think that that’s just them for the rest of their life.

Karl (15:49):
Um, that they’re, they’re probably gonna have ankle issues. They’re probably gonna have knee issues. Those things might stem into issues with their hips and therefore, and then into their spine and all because they’re flat footed because when they were a kid, they were told that they were flat footed. Um, they were given special shoes perhaps to try and create that re recreate that Archway and their foot, which never really works. Um, and so there’s a, there’s a belief system then in someone that, well, this is just me, but that’s actually not the case. Like the flat footedness can be corrected when you start to learn how to engage with your big toe and start and learn how to engage with your feet differently, which then changes a lot of things for you, you know, just on a, on a simple, real, simple, physical level, um, yeah. Belief systems that we, that we have stored inside us, that we, some, a lot of the time, we don’t even know where they come from. Um, they’re controlling all of these Ts that we would say in yoga of RTI, the fluctuations of the mind that they, that are making our decisions go in a specific way.

Guy (16:54):
And then where you highlighting, it just comes back to awareness. Right. And actually once you start to become aware of those beliefs, then, then seeing there as an opportunity or a challenge to explore that as opposed to just

Karl (17:06):
Accept. Absolutely. That’s how it is. Anything that you’re aware of. You can change. Yeah. We’re we’re, we are, we are intertwined in this, in this continual process of change. We have, we have belief systems that people don’t change. Right. It’s a real common saying, oh, that’s just here. Or that’s just her. Yeah. Nah, she’s never changed now, but we’re, we’re, we’re in cons, we’re in a constant state of change, right? The only, the only thing that is permanent across the entire universe is in permanence itself. And so if change is all around us and in us all the time, then the best way forward is to embrace the change, lean interchange and look at what can we do to navigate steer around dissolve, diminish the, the belief systems that are at our core that are then controlling your life

Guy (17:56):
A hundred percent mm-hmm . So when did change occur for you? Cause I, I only found out today that you had a, you had a background in it. Yep. Uh, the other thing you spoke about as well was power lifting. Yep. Which I was fascinated in. Yep. And clearly, you know, you, you, you own and run a yoga student, you know, so there’s been a big transition. Massive. Um, so where, where did, I don’t wanna say the crack started to appear, but where did like the, the shift start happen? Because I’ve had, I mean, I know you’ve tuned into my podcast a few times. I’ve had over 220 guests on the show and there’s normally this slow burning, creeping up that leads to defining moments that really changed the trajectory of our lives. And it sounds like you’ve definitely had one.

Karl (18:43):
Yeah, for sure, mate, for sure. Um, yeah. I, I had a, I had a, I had a really healthy and successful career in it. Um, towards the end, I suppose I lost a, I was a bit disheartened and I lost a little bit of interest. Um, you know, if we take things back earlier, um, I was diagnosed with depression in my teens, uh, and I was medicated. Um, I felt that, um, that the medication just made me worse. It never made better. Um, because I thought, well, if I need to take a pill to be normal, then there’s something wrong with me. So, right. That actually compounded some of my, some of my negative belief systems. Um, and I took my I’d weaned myself off, um, antidepressants, and then, um, you know, didn’t know where to go. Didn’t know what to do. And uh, oh, sorry.

Karl (19:36):
That’s my, let me do, let me just get that off. Um, that’s okay. And, uh, so, you know, then moving into my, moving into my late teens, early twenties, well, I just did what everybody else did and started drinking and taking drugs. Well, not, I mean, not everybody does it, but like, it’s a pretty, pretty general thing. It’s pretty rife amongst, um, amongst our late teens and early twenties people. Um, but you know, and, and so that, that probably compounded and, and impacted my depression further. Really for me, I had this negative belief system within me that I needed to look a particular way to be accepted. So I, I, through primary school through high school, um, I B I was bullied. Uh, I was always being told that, um, I always been told that I was too skinny. Uh, my fingernails were too long.

Karl (20:31):
I looked girly. Um, and so for me then moving into adulthood, I had this belief that, you know, not, not, it wasn’t so defined for me at the time. I just, I just, um, knew I, I had, yeah, I had this knowing inside me that if I didn’t look a particular way, I was never gonna, I was never gonna get the girl. I was never gonna be seen as a strong, healthy male. So, you know, I, uh, I hit the gym. I hit the gym from about the age of 19. By the time I was about 25. Like that was for me, that was my daily. Like, I, I became obsessed. I became, yeah, I became obsessed, I suppose I could say. Um, and by the time I was 28, 29, I was long distance runner, long distance cyclist, power lifter, amateur obstacle, course racing and all of that sort of thing.

Karl (21:33):
Um, cause I spent a lot of time in the gym and really wasn’t getting the goals that I wanted. So I, I, then I looked at my nutrition. Uh, I was like, okay, I need to fix something up here. Otherwise I’m just never gonna get to that beast of a beast of a man that I defined in my head that I needed to look like and needed to be. Uh, and so my training was going up and up and up and up and I like it was impacting my body. I was sore all the time. I was walking around seven and a half percent body fat ringing, wet, like squatting squat and double more than double body weight. Um, like I looked like I could step on stage at any moment and, and compete. Um, but yeah, I was, I was broken. I, my, I think, I think I, I used the gym a lot to help me with my anger issues that were, that were a direct result of my depression and my anxiety and this feeling of not being accepted.

Karl (22:32):
And, uh, you know, I used to, I used to, sometimes I used to look for arguments to get into throughout the day and then hang onto that. So when I could get to the gym, I was like fired and I was like, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. And I would walk outta there like, whoa, like, that’s how you lift man. That’s how you do it. Um, but then the impacts on my body were just, they were just starting to get too much. And, uh, yeah. Um, you know, that I, I, I, I lent on the fact that I was so fit to then like allow myself to drink copious amounts of alcohol on the weekends and take drugs. You know, I, I think that there’s a big misconception between fitness and health. They’re not the same thing. Fitness can lead to better health. Like there’s fitness is a requirement of health, but there’s a lot more that goes with overall health and wellness than just being fit.

Karl (23:38):
Like I could, on my record for plank is like nine minutes. Um, I could step into a push up challenge and be professional footballers in push up challenges. Um, but I wasn’t, I wasn’t fucking healthy, man. I wasn’t healthy at all. And it was showing in my body, it was showing in my mindset and, um, you know, real quick jump across to yoga was that a friend was doing a cert three in fitness or a cert four. She was using me as a crash test dummy to stretch, to practice her stretching on P and F P and F stretching. Uh, I started to recognize that after she would do that and I would leave, I was in this big state of calm and everything was cool. And I wasn’t. So in my mind all the time and, um, made the, the, I was working for a government at the time. I was a project manager by this stage. Uh, and, uh, they had a wellbeing program where they put yoga on at lunchtime and I was like, sweet. I’m gonna get involved with, with a bit of that, cuz I’m feel starting to feel good from this stretching stuff. I meant the first time I landed on a mat and um, came out of Shavana at the end of my practice. Um, I’d noticed that there was this big shift in my mind, uh, and that led me to then seek out more and

Guy (25:08):
More. How old were you

Karl (25:08):
At that point? So that was, that was me at, um, that was me at 30. That was, um, that was 2012. That was 2012 when I, when I found yoga. Okay. Um,

Guy (25:20):
Did, did you, um, sorry to interrupt, but I’m just curious, did you, at that, at that point at 30, when you hit the mat for the first time, did you feel within you that you were running away from something deeper through your fitness, through all your exercise in as a way to, to, for not to confront something that was maybe underlying that’s just me again, assuming here, but was you aware of that at this point in time?

Karl (25:51):
No, I didn’t. I, I knew that I knew that I, I knew that I didn’t like life. I mean, I look, I had a shit load of fun on the weekends and I had a pretty ordinary week every week, you know, um, I would be sitting at my desk, tapping my fingers at three 30, waiting for the clock to click over at four o’clock so I could get in the car and just bang to the gym. I knew, I knew that there was, I, I, yeah, I knew that I didn’t like life, but I didn’t quite understand. I didn’t understand what, where that was coming from. I didn’t realize that that was an inner me that had some unresolved stuff to look at. I just thought that, you know, there was problem, there was problems with the world. right. Yeah. You, you think this about me? You think that about me? You think this about me? Well, fuck you, fuck the world. I’m just gonna be an animal. Um, you know, deep inside, I knew that I was a loving kind person. I was that through my relationships. Um, but at the same time I could be totally oblivious and arrogant to a lot of people as well. Mm

Karl (27:02):
Yeah.

Guy (27:03):
So once you got on the mat then for that first time, and then sort of started to recognize, like there was a, like you said, like a piece within yourself and started to, to go from there, moving forward. Um, then what happened? Because I’m curious to know, because you know, 10 years had passed in that time. Yes. And, and you, you know, you openly talk about these things and you reflect upon it, and you’re an amazing example to other people, by the way, you live your life and conduct yourself. Appreciate that. So there’s still a huge transition from that guy to the guy you are now. Absolutely.

Karl (27:38):
You know? Yeah, for sure. Um, you know, so I did a couple of 10 week programs at work. Um, and I, I, I sought, uh, I sought the contact details of the teacher who ran the class, you know, in the meantime, in between the two, 10 week programs that I did, there was another teacher who came in and did a 10 week program. And I did two of her classes and I did not go back. She was not the teacher for me. Uh I’m you know, I’m sure she is an amazing teacher for a lot of people. I’m sure she’s transformed a lot of people’s lives. She just, I, I didn’t connect with her. I didn’t resonate with her. Um, and, uh, Pilates, I tried Pilates as well. That wasn’t a thing for me. I was, you know, I, I didn’t that I didn’t get that feeling from Pilates and that’s not to say anything bad about Pilates either.

Karl (28:27):
It’s an amazing modality. And I do refer people to that. Um, but, uh, yeah, I, I made the executive decision. I started, you know, the, okay, here’s the big switch for me mate. I was driving home in the car one day. It was only a 20 minute drive to work. I was and I’ve, and I pre my driving record was shit. Right. It wasn’t until I was 30, that I had held a license for the E for the equal amount of time that I’d been without a license. I’ve been through some pretty ordinary stuff with driving yet. Cause I was cause I was erratic. Wow. And I was, I was, I was, um, aggressive. Um, and so I, I had this moment in the car one day, I distinctly remember it. I was like, what I got, I was, I was watching my thoughts and I, and I recognized that all of a sudden I was driving around feeling joy and happiness and ease. And I was thinking about PO positive outcomes of what my afternoon might look like as opposed to driving my car, thinking about all of the problems that I might run into and how I was gonna combat those problems.

Karl (29:40):
And that switch for me went, dude, you’ve, you’ve changed something in, you has changed and this is brilliant. You’re no, you’re, you’re, you’re, you’re not depressed. You’re not anxious. Um, you don’t have that feeling like you want to go home and slam a six pack of beers, like, and get drunk and forget about things. Um, not that I did that during the week much, but that was absolutely my weekend go to, um, and so I made the decision then to go and find the teacher who was, who taught us at work and become a member of her studio. Uh, and I would, I, I, I would like, so I was already very much in routine. My training was a routine, was a routine. My running was, was a routine. My cycling was a routine and I was like, okay, if I drop this and this and this in the morning, then I can go and practice at her studio, which is 10 minutes down.

Karl (30:41):
It’s a long distance from my house, but it’s only 10 minutes down the road from work. So I would get up at, um, I, I got into the habit of getting up at four 30 drive, getting myself ready, going to her studio, practicing three to five times a week and rocking into work and just feeling like the world was my oyster. Like nothing, nothing was too hard, all of a sudden, you know? Um, and so I practiced there for three years and then I decided I wanted to know more about the practice. I decided that I sh perhaps should look at teacher training, uh, not with not, no, no idea that, that, that I should change my career. You know, like I did. Okay. I didn’t like my job, but I did bugger all. They paid me very, very handsomely. Um, and I only had to drive 20 minutes down the road back.

Karl (31:35):
So there was less chance that I was gonna lose my license again. um, but there was another big moment. So teacher training was a three month process. There was another big moment for me in teacher training after coming out of our first four day weekend, all of a sudden I had this realization, holy shit, dude, you’ve just been gifted with the tools that let let’s you help another human get out of the shit that they might fucking be in. Like you’ve been in. And I, it was like, I just, I just felt like it was my duty to then I had to, I had to then step into that realm of teaching once I, once I’d become certified and, and knew more and more and more, um, that idea that I could help someone come out of depression, come out of anxiety, get off drugs, get off alcohol, get off prescription drugs, whatever it was.

Karl (32:34):
And cuz I would never wish that upon anybody to, to feel the way, way that I was feeling. And I couldn’t see that until I came out of that and had hindsight to look back, you know? Um, and uh, then the, the universe would have it that I was made redundant from my job just at the same time that I got my certification. And I was like, I, I, I’m not happy here. Um, I ain’t going, I ain’t, I don’t wanna work for anybody else. I don’t wanna be told what to do. Um, I now have this gift, well, I’m gonna open a studio. And so one big heart was born. That was 2017, um, that I opened the studio. So I’ve now been a teacher for seven years. One big heart’s been in play for, uh, for five years now. And uh, yeah man, we, we, we transform lives of thousands of people every year through the practice of yoga dude. That’s what we do. Um,

Guy (33:30):
Yeah, no, I know, I know it’s incredible. You trained under Duncan

Karl (33:34):
Peak. I did train under Duncan peak. Yes. Um, he, he’s a world renowned, um, teacher, his training comes from Baron Baptist in the states. Um, yoga Australia last year actually sent him overseas for the, to be the ambassador for, um, for yoga of Australia. Um, and you know, I’ve kept a re his, his organization’s called, um, uh, power living. I’ve stayed really close knit with power living over the years. And these days we actually, um, we through one big heart, um, licensed the power living teacher training model, and we’re now producing teachers into the community. Yeah, man, keep the, keep the mission, keep the mission, expanding brother, keep, you know, if we want to get yoga to more and more people and have more and more people transform their lives, we need more and more teachers out there. It’s just as simple as that and quality teachers, you know?

Guy (34:30):
Mm. Yeah. And what have you noticed over the, the last five years in, in terms of, um, I guess where people are at from, because you, you, you are in the, the cold face. If you like with people, they, they walking through the door, you’re seeing many, many people every single day and, and a five year period is, is such a great timeframe to maybe notice trends or, or notice in difference in people or the type of people are walking through from then to now, as it changed much. Like what have you seen in those five years?

Karl (35:04):
Um, I think I’ve look, obviously I’ve seen a lot. Um, and I do, I do get around. I, I notice that things are a little bit different, like, like location based, um, you know, where I’m in Camden, where, uh, where an hour from Sydney. I notice the demographics out here are different, um, in terms of age. Um, uh, and I notice that I think in general mindset is a little bit different as you go into the city. People are more aware of what overall wellness is. Um, mm-hmm, mostly what I see, what I see is people, people, people who are stressed and they don’t recognize what stress is. I can, I can hold a conver. I can hold a, a, a, a 62nd, two minute conversation with somebody who’s telling me about all of their problems and how busy their life is and how they’ve got no time.

Karl (36:03):
And I, and I pose the question to them. So do you con you’d say that you’d live a pretty stressful life then? Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. I don’t live a stressful life. That’s, that’s really common. Um, I see. And so I probably see, I see a lot more anxiety than, than I do depression. Um, I see, I see people really with a, with, without an understanding of, of their body or how to move, you know, we, we help people. We help people with, um, severe injury. We help people with ruptured, spinal discs, bulging, spinal discs, fractured vertebra. Um, uh, we help people lose weight. You know, we had a student last year, um, who lost 40 kilos with us in the 12 month period, doing hot yoga. Now, PE most people wouldn’t even contemplate that yoga could do that for you, but I tell you what, you do five, you do five hot yogas a week.

Karl (37:08):
You are sweating that out on the mat, you know, and your mindset starts to change. You start to eat differently. You start to look after yourself differently. Um, at SOS so’s recent trend. What I’m seeing is that people are struggling to get back into their healthy habits. A lot of people have had had healthy habits. Uh, a lot of people are recognizing, like, I recognize that full on aggressive training in the gym, whether that’s group training, group fitness training, or outdoor group fitness training, or, um, you know, heavy lifting, whatever it is that there’s no longevity in that. And they need a better balance. I, people are starting to recognize that, which is beautiful. Um, but people, people have a little bit of a hangover from everything that’s happened for the last couple of years. And they’re really struggling to get themselves back out there and doing, doing the good things. That’s, that’s the trend that I’m seeing at the moment. You know, I have, I hold many phone calls with people on, uh, uh, as the days go throughout the week. And, uh, the, the biggest thing is I used to be fit. I used to do this. I used to do that and I just have lost it all. I think that’s the biggest trend at the moment.

Guy (38:24):
Mm yeah, no, we’ve seen the same thing from running the workshops and being able to get back out there, you know, and people are coming in there. There’s a lot of tension being held in the body. There’s a lot of trepidation, not quite sure. Yeah. Which is way forward. And, and you know, the one thing, what I love about what you create in the yoga studio and, and what we do at retreats and things is, is bring people together. And when, when people walk through that door and that they come in, they’ve obviously made a decision that some stay some part of themselves to go. I want, I, I want to change. And then you realize we all carry shit. We’ve all got our faults. We’re all doing the best we can with what we got. And when you bring people together that start to recognize that and see the humanity in each and every person within that room, then we start to connect again, we start to open up again. We start to be a little bit more, um, vulnerable and, and share and, and, uh, own where we are at as opposed to run away from it. And that’s then that connection of a community and being held together and you realize shit, I, I had all this in my mind. I was thinking, there’s gonna be this, this and this, but actually, you know, it’s this over here and to connect like that is something deeper, um, is so crucial for any kind of wellness or healing or inspiration.

Karl (39:45):
Yeah, absolutely. You know, I there’s, there’s this big, there’s this big part of us. There’s this big part of us called the ego, right? The ego wants to the, the ego wants to hang onto our problems. The ego is scared of the ego has a fear around putting our problems out there to the world because we have this fear that we’re gonna be looked upon that, that we’re different. We’re broken, we’re weirdos, we’re whatever. But essentially coming back to what I said about the name of one B heart at our core, we’re all the same. You know, we all experience, we all experience emotional turbulence. Um, and that, that emotional turbulence is actually resolved when we share it with people because I, you know, one of the people wanna help everybody really at, at our core, everybody really wants to help everybody get over stuff that doesn’t necessarily mean that we all know how to help people get over over stuff. But, um, yeah, we’re, we’re, we’re precious. We’re precious about our problems because of the fear, um, that we’re, we’re, we, we all experience, even though our, even though our, even though our situations and our life experiences are very, very different. The translation of that life experience into feeling and into emotion and into thought is often. So, so, so the same, even though they might come from two very different experiences, you know, mm-hmm

Guy (41:20):
Yeah. A hundred percent. I’m curious as well. The question I wanna ask you is, um, cuz we’ve kind of, obviously the last two and a half years have been, um, a very interesting time and challenging for all accounts, you know, especially us as business owners, you know, we, um, as living flow, we lost, I think 85% of our business overnight just gone like evaporated, you know, and, and it, and it presents different challenges and it presents, and it’s almost like, um, that pressure kind of makes us, I guess, search for deeper aspects of ourselves and how we navigate these times and how we can learn from them, gain the wisdom from them and continue to ideally come out the other end of better human being and put our best foot forward going forward. I’m curious to know, like what have, if you had to encapsulate, what have you learned about yourself over this time, over the last two and a half years and, and what has that done for you now where you’re at today as you move forward?

Karl (42:26):
Great question. Thank you for me. The last two years have really solidified my passion and my purpose. Um, you know, when the, when the, when the idea started getting spoken of, you’re gonna have to close your doors. I like, I was like, thi this will not kill off one big heart. This, this is what, where’s the opportunity. How do I evolve and change and work with the current situation that’s landing in front of us. Um, and so I think that it’s, for me, it’s really, it’s really helped me remember, um, my intelligence, my creativity, my flexibility, my adapt adaptability, um, and that came and that, that came from that pressure man that, that CA like, you know, we, we, we, we often we need to be, we need to be put in the pressure cooker for the stuff to come up really, really strongly. So that the noise in here is loud enough and you can’t ignore it anymore. You know, it’s like everything for our, our environment. It always has the potential to, to trigger us. Um, and through your awareness, what, what, what’s that trigger saying to you? What’s your normal go to place and is that gonna create positive outcomes or reduced outcomes and make a choice? Which, where am I going from here?

Guy (44:13):
Mm-hmm, beautiful. It’s like, um, if you look at a jellyfish, it contracts and is through that contraction when it expands out, that’s what propels. Absolutely. And I love that analogy cuz that’s exactly how I saw the last two, two years, like this huge contraction to allow us to step into a greater expansion of ourselves as we move forward. If we choose to, I’ve got a, I’ve got some questions I wanna ask before we wrap up Carl kind of like, um, uh, one is, has there been a new habit or skill you’ve introduced, uh, into your life over these last kind of few months,

Karl (44:51):
Months and new habit or skill? Um, I, yeah, there’s a couple of things. Um, I think for me creating a dedicated focus when it comes to work, um, has been a new, a new habit for me. Um, you know, right now we’re sitting in my office, I’ve ran my business for I’ve ran my business for five years. I’ve only had an office for 12 months. Um, I used to work here, there everywhere, sometimes in the studio, sometimes on the lounge, sometimes in the garage with a beer in my hand. Um, , uh, you know, still, still enjoy a drink, although I’m, I’m off it for 75 days at the moment I’m doing the 75 hard challenge. Um, that’s a big thing that’s come to me from the last 12 months is that if, if everything was to go to shit tomorrow, would I allow, w am I in a position where I can pull through?

Karl (45:55):
Um, yeah. And, um, would that transition be seamless or would that transition be a massive challenge? Like the last time? Um, no, that, that the focus that I have, um, now in doing, doing the, doing the tasks that I need to for the greater good, right. Um, because it’s just a, this is a, this is a national, it’s a global mission that, um, that we have through one big heart and the more and more people we can reach, the better the world becomes. So that’s, uh, that’s a thing for me. I segregate specific times for working. I come into my nice clean, tidy office. I sit down, I do my jam and then when it’s knock off time, it’s knock off time, like pull up stumps and go and have some fun, um, and, and relax. Right? Cause work is, work is obviously a stressor for everybody, even when you, when you absolutely love it.

Karl (46:59):
And it’s purpose and passion, there’s still a lot of stress that comes with that. Um, and another, another really healthy habit for me, that’s come particularly in the last, in, in the last six months is my, um, commit in back into my training. So over the last few years, I’ve been really flaky, um, in terms of how often I’m getting into lift and how often I’m getting onto the mat and how often I’m meditating. Um, but I’ve become really, really consistent with that. So I just mentioned to you, I’m doing 75 hard, I’ve got two training sessions a day, 45 minutes. One of them has to be outside. Um, there’s a whole heap of other things. I won’t, I won’t bore the people with all of the things, but, um, it’s really, it’s really driven my focus because we mentioned before fitness and health are two different things, but you’ve gotta be fit to be healthy. Um, so the, the matter, the more I can look after my body, the less of a burden I am to other people and to myself. Yeah. So I think it’s R routine brother. I beautiful to put all that simply routine.

Guy (48:12):
Yeah, yeah. Focus routine. Um, has there been a book that, uh, jumps outta you that you’ve read that’s made an

Karl (48:22):
Impact on your life? Um, yeah. Right now I am reading, um, the, um, the biology of belief, Bruce mm-hmm , it’s been sitting on my shelf. It’s yeah. Bruce lived. Yeah. It’s been, it’s been sitting on my shelf for ages. Um, and I’ve, I’ve finally, I’m cracking into it, um, uh, still in the early, still in early stages. Um, but I, you know, I think you, you introduced me to the concept, um, of that our, our, our physical self is 73 trillion cells all communicating together, um, to, to create who we are. Um, I really like the way that Bruce breaks down the, um, breaks down the misconceptions around evolution, the Darwinism, the theory of the Darwin’s theory. Mm. Um, and I, you know, I love the way that he uses science to describe how, um, every, every single cell is a fully functioning, almost thinking like conscious organism that that’s, that, um, plays a part in the greater network and the greater scheme of things. Yep. Another really good one that I read was the, the way of the superior man, David, I can’t remember his last name, the way of the superior man. Um, for men out there who are struggling to find themselves, I would highly, highly recommend that you grab yourself a copy of that, the way of the superior man and dive into it, learn about what true masculinity is. There’s a massive part of softness to, to MAs to true masculinity.

Guy (50:19):
Yeah. No two books, two books I’ve read. Yeah. It’s fantastic, mate. Thank you. It’s interesting. I just mentioned for everyone as well. I dunno if seen it, but there’s a Bruce Lipton lecture on YouTube. It’s about two and a half hours long and he’s actually in a foreign country and he has an interpreter, so he speaks slower and then the interpreter interprets and it is phenomenal because the pace he actually speaks at, it allows you to really digest what he’s saying. And it is a mind blowing, um, uh, YouTube. I’ll make sure it’s in the show notes for people, if they wanna

Karl (50:59):
Fast

Guy (50:59):
yeah.

Karl (51:00):
It’s and he’s got a lot to say.

Guy (51:01):
It’s incredible. It is incredible. Yeah. And it’s kind of, every, his work is distilled into this two and a half hour lecture. And by the end of it, you’re just like far out, like why doesn’t everyone know about this kind of thing, you know? Um, last question for you Carl, before we wrap her up and that is with everything we’ve covered today. Is there anything you’d like to leave the listeners to ponder?

Karl (51:27):
Yeah. Uh, for sure, man, I it’s, you know, it’s really simple. It’s really simple for me. Um, if you can start to become inquisitive about why you are the way you are, um, and whether that’s taking you to places of positivity or negativity, the further you dive into that questioning of self, we would call it in yoga, the practice of self study. Um, the more opportunity you provide yourself to start to unravel negative belief systems that are at the core of controlling a lot of who you are. And of course we have positive belief systems too. Yeah. Um, but the negative ones are the ones that keep us stuck and stop us advancing. Yeah. Get, get inquisitive about who you really are, cuz you’re not, you’re not all of the handed down belief systems they’ve been given to you by somebody else or interpreted through your mind based on an experience that you’ve had through someone else. That doesn’t mean that they’re true.

Guy (52:49):
Mm. A hundred percent mate, a hundred percent. Thank you. And if people wanna check out, um, more of your work, um, your website, are you active on social media as well?

Karl (52:59):
Absolutely. Brother. Yeah. So we’ve got the website one big heart.com AU. Um, we are on Instagram as one underscore big underscore heart. Please give us a follow. Um, we’re on Facebook as well. You’ll find us on Facebook. Um, and another good source of, uh, perhaps finding out a little bit more about yoga is our YouTube channel. You can site search us up on YouTube and you’ll get to do a free meditation class with me. You’ll get to do a free Vinyasa class with me, which is a strength based practice. And you get to do a free yin class with me. And there’s a whole snippet of other things that are on there. You’ll see me. Uh, you’ll see me go do 40 days of, uh, 40 days of throwing myself in the river in Camden, in the middle of winter where the water temperature was six degrees for cold water therapy, all sorts of things. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely give us a follow on, on instant and Facebook, but please people that’ll be amazing.

Guy (53:54):
No worries. Well, all the links will be in the show notes as well below. So if you’re on YouTube, 18 Spotify, whatever you’re listening, you can just pause here right now and jump below and uh, keep in touch with Carl. Carl, thank you for coming on the show mate, it’s been, uh, a beautiful conversation. It’s great to finally get you on and uh, thank you for all that you do and uh, for your support over the years as well. So I look forward to sharing this with everyone and helping, uh, continue to get these great conversations with people like yourself out

Karl (54:22):
There. Ah, thank you, brother. Appreciate you have gratitude for you all the.