Uncover Your Luminous Self with Tracee Stanley

• What can happen in stillness (5:46) 
• Changing the narrative in your life by learning how to trace your timeline back to original beliefs (14:52)  
• A pause Tracee would love for you to take (24:44)
• A new way to view discomfort and strategies to move through them (26:38)
• Coping with unpredictability and challenges when they arise (35:35)
•  

“I would say that [the pandemic] was like a global practice that we were all doing of stillness for a while and of being in that stillness, we started to realize that maybe we weren’t the people that we wanted to be. Maybe we weren’t the people that we hoped to be or that we really felt that we were inside. I think that this book is a way to get back to who you really are.” 

“I like to think about these obstacles and any kind of discomfort at all as a portal to more expansiveness. So anytime that I feel any kind of discomfort or resistance, I look at where is the resistance coming from and what is the antidote to the resistance.” 

NICOLE

Well, Tracee, it is such a delight to have you here. Welcome to the School of Self-Worth.

TRACEE STANLEY

Thank you so much, Nicole. I’m so happy to be here.

NICOLE

I’ve heard about you from so many really amazing women, that consider you a mentor, and as someone who was in the yoga world for a long time, connections through that space. I’m really excited to talk to you about this whole journey and to talk specifically today about your new book, The Luminous Self. Congratulations!

We get deep in this conversation, and it truly is such an honor to share space with this wise and powerful teacher. Her book is available for pre-order now, and we’ve got a special code for listeners where you can save 30%. Make sure to check our show notes to buy a copy of The Luminous Self. Okay, let’s get into this beautiful conversation.

TRACEE STANLEY

Thank you so much.

NICOLE

That is in itself a really big journey to put a book like that out into the world. I know there must be a lot happening with that. What I’d actually love to start with is a quote from the book, and then for us to kind of get into the conversation about what it is because this podcast is about the self-worth journey. And while you don’t use that language specifically, the book feels very much like that kind of internal journey. I quote here from the book, “The need to remember who we are may seem odd, but the true self is waiting to be recognized. Peeling back the layers that cover our inherent beauty and power might be the most important journey of our lives. If we are brave enough to follow the call inward, we can find a sense of freedom from the obstacles in life that keep us bound in suffering and conflict”. 

This resonated with me because so much of what I do and what I teach is also about that uncovering because I think so much of what you speak about in the book, about that reaching, we often have this experience of reaching for self outside of ourselves. And really, it’s that journey inward. I’m curious for you, when you were writing this book, what you were really hoping to do, like what you really wanted to share and teach people with it?

TRACEE STANLEY

That’s a great question. Thank you for that. I really wanted people to understand and have practices that could lead them to a place of more than just an intellectual understanding, but an embodied understanding that all of the gold and all of the treasure and all of the light and all of the expansiveness and spaciousness that we’re seeking, and the peace and ease, is inside. And that is worth everything. To me, that is where our self-worth and our worthiness lie. I feel like the overculture has done a really great job of distracting us so that we feel like it’s all external. And when we’re distracted and awareness is external, it feels like there’s no time and no space to be still and to be present, to be able to maybe move inward a little bit and find out what’s there.

NICOLE

I feel like I have so many questions, even just about that piece alone, and I will get back to that. One of the questions I have for you is because your first book was really around Yoga Nidra and rest, and its really how so many people I know in the world speak of you from that place, like how much you taught them about the power of rest. You do mention Yoga Nidra in the book, and you don’t actually have a Yoga Nidra practice almost until the end of the book, around ancestors, so I’m curious for what you wanted to delineate for people from that practice, to this one with this book.

TRACEE STANLEY

Well, what I felt and what I have noticed from my own practice and also from teaching so many people the practice of Yoga Nidra, is that once you start to become still enough and rested enough, there are some things that start to bubble to the surface. A lot of what bubbles to the surface can be this idea of the kind of mass that you were holding and the positions you were holding, the jobs, the relationships, all the things that you were holding that are actually not in alignment with who you really are. And those things come up. Then sometimes there’s a place of integration that needs to happen, a practice that needs to be given to help dissolve the discomfort that can arise from being rested. Maybe some people can relate to this idea of when they finally come to their rest practice, they actually realize how exhausted they are, right? This is very similar. You start to realize, ‘Oh, these things are not in alignment. How do I actually work to transition and transform them so that they can lead me deeper into who I am, as opposed to further away from who I am?’

It’s a great question that you ask, because this book was actually the first book that I went out with, and then I was asked to write the book on Yoga Nidra. What I realized when I came back to this work was that Yoga Nidra needed to come first, not only for me as an author but for anybody who is interested in the things that I’m writing. The depth of Yoga Nidra needed to come first to soften us up a little bit, to tenderize our hearts a little bit more, for us to have things rise to the surface that we really were now ready to look at and were able to hold the space to look at because we were practicing being still and really partnering with the unknown in the practice of Yoga Nidra. We don’t know what’s going to come to the surface.

NICOLE

Remind me again of when the last book came out?

TRACEE STANLEY

That book came out in March of 2022.

NICOLE

It was right around that space of the pandemic. Were you noticing at that particular period, which was less than a year and a half ago, if people were over-amped? It was so intense, the experience of the pandemic, and what you found at that time for people?

TRACEE STANLEY

I found at that time that people were in that space of, “Oh, I have a little bit more time to rest, and I’m going to take advantage of this time to rest’. But then when I rest, I realize how exhausted I am, how much grief I have – not only for what is happening in the world but for the life that I had prior to the pandemic. That I’m not sure what’s going to become of that life if and when the pandemic is over. And at the same time, the uncertainty, and the fear of being in this void space, of being in this kind of liminal in-between space of not knowing. Those were all the things that I was noticing. And what I know is that Yoga Nidra is a salve for those things. It’s a salve for grief. It’s a way to be able to hold grief and to hold uncertainty, and to partner with the unknown. I feel like Yoga Nidra was a very profound practice. I also think the book came out at the exact right time to help to address some of these issues that we were all feeling.

NICOLE

And that book is Radiant Rest. It was so powerful, and really what you felt like is, over time, we’re essentially back to our lives. I wouldn’t say it’s the same as pre-pandemic, but we’re back to a full-speed kind of life these days. What are you hoping that this book is going to address for people then?

TRACEE STANLEY

I really think it will address the transitions that have come forward, the noticing of the things that are not in alignment, that were not in alignment, that we don’t know what to do with anymore. I think a lot of people have talked about relationships kind of falling away during the pandemic and not coming back when everything feels like it’s coming back to whatever the new normal is. So many different relationships, so many different jobs. And I think that because we had that period, and I would say that it was like a global practice that we were all doing, of stillness for a while, and of being in that stillness, we started to realize that maybe we weren’t the people that we wanted to be. Maybe we weren’t the people that we hoped to be or that we really felt that we were inside. I think that this book is a way to get back to who you really are.

NICOLE

Well, that is beautiful and powerful and what I would say is a big journey. That’s my own personal experience. I’m curious if you could share a little bit more about what that has looked like for you. You have stories in the book itself, but if you could give us a little bit of your background and what that uncovering of yourself looks like?

TRACEE STANLEY

What I would say about my background is I grew up in a very strict household, wasn’t allowed to have friends over, wasn’t really allowed to go anywhere and do anything as a child, and then finally had some freedom when I was in my later teenage years and kind of traveled the world. And what I would say is that because my parents were very strict, what I didn’t know is that it created this atmosphere of isolation and created me to be an introvert. 

I loved books and I loved science and I loved reading. Then when I was in school as a young girl, I was also bullied. That really created even more of an isolation and introversion. But when I think back to who I really am and what happened before those times, or the times that I felt joy and the times that I felt lots of fun, it always was connected to something greater than me. Right? And what I realized is that that introversion was something that was learned, that wasn’t something that was innate. So being able to reclaim curiosity, to reclaim being able to be in relationship with people and feel open has all been part of the journey. But I wasn’t able to access that part of myself until I started yoga practice, and until I started specific practices. Those are the practices that I have in the book. I thought about this a lot, and I thought about the book as a time capsule. That if I were to be able to bury a time capsule for people to find practices toward liberation, that these would be the practices that I would want them to find. There are a lot of practices in the book. And there’s a reason why there are so many practices: Because I feel like each one of those practices is a portal towards awakening. Each one of those practices, when I did them myself, were a portal to understanding a part of myself that once I got into that deeper understanding, it led to just another piece and another piece and another piece. But I think in order for us to really be in this kind of path of awakening, we really need to be curious.

NICOLE

So many things come up for me when you say that. But I actually would love to go back to the personality piece first, because it’s something you address in the book and I found it to be really interesting the way you include it in there, because I think a lot of us think that we are our personality. Like, I’m outgoing or I’m in charge for women who are strong, I’m bossy, or whatever it is. If you could speak more about how you started to unpack that for yourself, learning that you were not exactly what your personality was.

TRACEE STANLEY

I think the first time that I really touched that in a really deep, profound way was in my previous career, I was a Hollywood film producer, and I would always have these moments where I would almost hear in my mind, “You don’t have enough time. There’s not enough space. There’s not enough time. There’s not enough time.” But then logically, I would look at the calendar and I would say, ‘Oh, no, I know exactly how much time this one thing is going to take, or these ten things are going to take, and I do have enough time, so what is this narrative that keeps running that I don’t have enough time?’ Because it makes me feel as though I’m always on edge and I can never relax into what it is that I’m doing. I can never really enjoy what it is that I’m doing because I’m always afraid that I’m not going to have enough time.

I started to think about this, and I thought about one of the yoga practices that I had learned, which was a yoga practice called Vichara. And it’s this practice of deliberation, deliberating until you can find the cause or the root of something. I started to do this practice, called the timeline practice, which is in the book, where I basically just sat myself down, closed my eyes, and thought to myself, ‘When was the last time that you felt that you didn’t have enough time and space? And when was the time before that and the time before that?’ And I kept going all the way down the timeline until I could remember the very first time. It was a time when I was about six or seven, and there was a little girl in my church who was kind of the Belle of the Ball, really beautiful, very outgoing. The kind of little girl that every other little girl was looking at and going, wow, I wish I could be like her. Unfortunately, there was a fire in her home, but she wasn’t able to escape the fire, and she died. Then I overheard my mom talking to other people from the church, and I overheard her say, “She just ran out of time. She didn’t have enough time.” And I realized that I had taken that statement as a little girl and basically carried it with me throughout my life as a narrative that, “Oh, there’s not enough time. I could run out of time.” Eventually, I forgot the source and then just held it as a belief. And that became part of my personality. The part of my personality which that informed was the part of me that could multitask, the part of me that could juggle a million things, the part of me that was always rushing, the part of me that wasn’t resting, prior to learning the practice of Yoga Nidra.

When I finally became acquainted with Yoga Nidra, that began to soften, I think, even the awareness, the spaciousness, that even allowed me to take the pause in those moments to trace back to that original belief. That, for me, then became, “Okay, now I know what this seed is. What is the antidote to the seed? What is the antidote to this narrative? That I don’t have enough time, I don’t have enough space.” And I just flipped it very clearly. Every time I start to feel (because I noticed also that there was a vibration around this narrative that I would start to feel it in my nervous system), that every time I would start to feel this or every time I would start to think this, I would force myself to stop. And I would just repeat to myself three times with three deep breaths, “I have enough time. I have enough space.” That was literally my affirmation for probably about six months until I felt it unwind. I felt it unwind itself.

NICOLE

I really love what you’re sharing about how there was just something so old, and this is what so many of us know, something old informed a behavior that became, for you, this experience of rushing all the time. Would you say since then, you unwound it, it took you six months to basically unwind it, that it’s become something where you’re like, “Oh, I can choose?” That’s actually what I heard, you found out that you could actually choose to rush or not to rush?

TRACEE STANLEY

It’s interesting. I think that part two of that was I could choose to rush, or I could choose to not rush. The next piece of that was this practice of Yoga Nidra transforms our relationship with time and space. I noticed that I could do and be in a space of a minute without rushing and accomplish the same thing that someone else who’s rushing, and needs 15 minutes to get done because there’s just a different cadence. It’s just a different vibration that starts to unfold when you become acquainted with your rest itself. Right. And that rest itself is clearer. That rest itself doesn’t need to go through from A to Z to figure out a problem. The rest itself can go from A – to the answer, without going through all the mechanisms of the mind to get there. That would normally happen because there’s space in the mind. That’s my experience.

NICOLE

Well, when you share it that way, it feels like all the things that so many people want of space, time and really speaking in. And when you speak that way, I also hear that you move more intuitively through things. Would you say that is an access point that Yoga Nidra gives you, to lead really intuitively, versus logic or using cognitive decision-making power to figure something out?

TRACEE STANLEY

Yeah, I think that intuition and knowing definitely lead the way, but I think the foundation that supports it is past experience, logic, and intellect, but it’s definitely not led from a place of feeling the urgency that can be in ourselves, really, and in our DNA. It’s not led from that place. In a lot of ways, it is letting go of the hold or the grip that the overculture has on us, that tells us we have to do, we have to hurry, we’re going to miss out. And it allows us to actually be in the cadence more of nature, which is not rushing. Nature is intuitive and you don’t go out and plant a seed and the next day the seed is like fully bloomed into a flower.

NICOLE

Right. I’m curious then because you had your own experience of rushing from when you were a kid, how do you deal with it now? Because when you were sharing that, it was so profound, because that’s such a personal thing that you move through. And we live in a culture that does that all the time. I mean, you refer to it in your book too, where everything is faster, more, and you talk about memory too, which I’d like to get into, but I’m first curious about how to handle the fact that we live literally immersed in a world that’s constantly on the clock, to do this next to this. We’re all getting calendars and alerts and beeps and things. How do you navigate that?

TRACEE STANLEY

I don’t really allow myself to be in that space, to be honest. I think that there are sacred boundaries that we need to create around what is our capacity. My capacity right now in this launch period, is two podcast interviews a day, spaced out over X amount of time, so that I know I can still do my practices in the morning. I know that I can meet with clients and not feel rushed. Right. I know that when we try to hop on and the Zencaster isn’t working, that it’s not like a freak-out crisis moment. Let’s just shift to another platform and keep it going. I think that we have to create boundaries. I started to create those boundaries when I was still in my Hollywood job. The way I did that at first, was I don’t answer the phone after 07:00 pm. And that was like mind-blowing to people because people were sleeping, and still do sleep, with their phones under the pillow. And you’re expected to be available 24/7 for things that are not urgent. Right? Because everybody else is in the urgency, they’re in the crisis. It’s like, well, is this really urgent? Is this really a crisis? So that was the first boundary that I started to set, and then I started to move that into weekends. I don’t work on weekends. I’m going to read scripts on the weekend, in the morning, and then I’m going to be done. I know it takes me an hour and 10 minutes to read a script. I’m going to be done and be with my family and with the things that are life-affirming for me. That was the other thing, I’m only saying ‘yes’ to what’s life-affirming. If it feels extractive or it feels exhausting, then it’s a ‘no’. I’m very aware that that’s a privilege to be able to do. But I think that we can all find little sacred boundaries to create, that will help us to reclaim time and space for ourselves in a way that feels nourishing.

NICOLE

I also get caught up in this and the social media and all these things of having a business, and I also found (using your language), sacred boundaries. But I actually made a commitment to read a lot of books, and reading books actually has pulled me off my phone, which I really like. And that’s one of the reasons people are like, “Do you want to read so much? Doesn’t that feel like pressure?” I’m like, “No, reading books does not feel like pressure.” Reading a book over lunch, I can get 20 pages done of some. I like to read novels mostly, this cool, wonderful world that’s really creative. I feel much more relaxed because I’m not scrolling. Then I go on a walk with my dog and I might check my phone at a later time, but it gives me a lot of space. But it’s an interesting thing because I chose something that I really love, to replace something that was really intense and not working for me. Anyway, that came up when you were speaking, because it has become my sacred boundary to read instead of being on my phone, instead of the things that are asking for my attention all the time.

TRACEE STANLEY

Beautiful. I love that. I would just suggest for anybody who’s listening to just maybe even pause this for a second and think about some of the boundaries that you can create within your family, within your business, with friends, just to reclaim a little bit more space.

NICOLE

Well, it leads me to the part of your book that I really tuned into because I feel like it’s where people find a lot of challenge, and it’s the area about resistance and obstacles and how you shared about how to look at them, rather than avoid them, to help yourself with it.

And I’ll share them. Procrastination, doubt, fear, anger. Then we’ve been talking about urgency. And I’m curious, do you still practice it daily? Oh, my dog cares about this one. Do you practice daily? How do you look at it when you feel that resistance or obstacles come up? Any of those five, what is it that you start to do to address it? Because I know the tendency would probably be to shove it down or to avoid it because it’s uncomfortable, we don’t want to deal with it. How do you like to approach it?

TRACEE STANLEY

I like to think about these obstacles and any kind of discomfort at all as a portal to more expansiveness. So anytime that I feel any kind of discomfort or resistance, I look at where the resistance is coming from and what the antidote to the resistance is. I have a daily mind-mapping practice where I’m actually able to look at the obstacles. My mind map has an obstacle bubble. And in the other part of the mind map, it has an auspicious action bubble. That’s where I create the actions that are the antidotes for the obstacles. If I’m feeling, let’s say, procrastination, that’s one that I definitely can attune to because I experienced that – okay, it’s procrastination.

What is the seed of this procrastination? Usually, for me, it’s some sort of fear of moving forward. Then when I start to address it, instead of facing the fear head-on like a bull in a china shop, let me chip away at it little by little because I’m doing this daily mind mapping practice. What is one thing that I can do today that is moving towards that goal, or that thing that I’m procrastinating towards? It only has to be a little micro movement because tomorrow I’m probably still going to have that procrastination in that obstacle bubble. But I can do another micro movement. And before I know it, by the end of the week, or by the end of maybe two weeks, I’ve now moved through and completed whatever that thing is. I’ve moved through the fear. That’s how I really like to work with obstacles. I feel like the mind mapping every day is something that takes less than 5 minutes to do and is really powerful. It really does shift the neural pathways in the brain because it gives you a different way of looking at some of the things that we want to avoid. And avoidance is a form of procrastination.

NICOLE

Absolutely. Well, that’s what I liked when you listed it out and that there were different practices in there. And as you were speaking, it led me to how many practices there are in the book, like you said, this is the book that if people would bury it and dig it up, this would have everything in there. 

Where would you begin to start for someone who is new to this and saying, ‘OK, Tracee, yes, I’m in. I want to uncover all these pieces of me. And yet how do I begin? How do I start to tackle anything that relates to me having this discomfort? I’ve never really practiced sitting with my discomfort on this’. How would you help them start to tackle it and look at it?

TRACEE STANLEY

Well, the first thing I would say is having a support system is really important, especially if this is the first time that you’re looking at some of these things. So if you have a mentor or you have an elder or you have a therapist, somebody that you can kind of share the things that you’re learning, even if you have a buddy who wants to go through the book along with you so that you have someone to talk to, is really a great idea if this is your first time going through practices and inquiries like this.

But I wrote the book in a way where I feel that the practices are cumulative. I think about this idea of the ‘revealing’, right? Like we’re peeling back the layers, and once we peel back the layers from the first couple of chapters and we have a little bit of an understanding of that, then we’re ready for the next practices. I make suggestions around how long you should do these practices. And the more you do them with devotion and consistency, the more powerful they are. I would really suggest having a support system, a friend, a therapist, a mentor, and then going through the book slowly, because we do a lot of these things with the same urgency that the dominant culture wants us to have because when we have that urgency, we miss things. If we think about taking this sweet medicine just little by little, read and then go live life and see how these things percolate within you.

NICOLE 

When you say that, I think about all the things I like to rush and then the things that I have to always practice slowing down. I’ve been doing some Yoga Nidra at home, and there’s a part of me that often doesn’t really want to lay down for 20 minutes. That just seems silly and ridiculous. And then I’m like, “No, Nicole, you need it. Just go do it.”. And then I always pop up and I have so much energy, I always come out of it feeling so good, and knowing this is why I should keep doing this, because I feel so much better at the end of it, whether it’s the end of the workday or just wanting to do it in the middle of the day. But I think about that. It’s like that resistance. I don’t want to do it, and yet let me just do the one thing that’s going to help myself through it. I love that because, again, it sounds like in the book, it’s starting from the beginning, picking one. I think you do say in the book if this isn’t working for you, you can move on. You don’t have to be attached to the order that’s right, in which things are going on in there.

TRACEE STANLEY

Yeah. There will be some practices that will totally speak to you. Then you know, okay, this is my practice. I’m going to do this one for 30 to 60 days. And they’re not long practices. I think you hit on something really important when there’s the resistance to practice, right? Because sometimes we do have that feeling like, “Oh, this is silly, it’s not worth it.” And then if we start to dig a little bit deeper, it’s like, ‘I’m not worth it’. Then we have to really ask ourselves these questions of what messages did we get around rest? What messages did we get around the worthiness of being devoted to a practice that can heal us or make us a better person? I think that is something we all need to really embrace, as you talk about it in your podcast, is this idea of we are all born worthy. There’s nothing that happened to us in life to make us unworthy. And that’s what I love about some of the yoga philosophy, it tells us that there’s this place inside of us that is a place in the heart, in the lotus of the heart that is beyond all sorrow, it’s beyond all conditioning, and it’s pristine, effulgent, worthy, beautiful, powerful, and knowing. The place that these practices bring us back to, is to understanding who we really are.

NICOLE

That’s so profound. I feel like because yoga was my journey too, that’s where I started to understand that I could not be on call for my job at the paper, to separate myself, to have mental space, and then also to understand that I was not my thoughts. That was a whole, very long journey practice to really see that and then coming back into it.

I’m curious for you too, if this ever happens, sometimes I notice it’s like, how do we separate ourselves from that and yet still live life? And I think that’s always the integrated part of what is the biggest challenge? You can step into it and say, “Okay, I am worthy of these practices. I am worthy of all of this.” Yet still be able to handle challenges or unpredictable things. You talk about many of your own experiences in life with relationships and other pieces, and at this point in your life, how would you say when the unexpected occurs, or like a pandemic or something really challenging? What is your “go-to”, to really cope with it?

TRACEE STANLEY

That’s a great question. It depends on what’s happening. But I think that in any crisis, there is this level of uncertainty. I really feel it’s Yoga Nidra, because you are moving into this space of the hypnagogic, which is the space between being awake and being asleep. You’re in the liminal space, and you’re kind of hovering in that space. This is a practice that actually holds you in the liminal and allows you to dissolve the fears that might be around that, or at least to become familiar with that space. I think for me, it’s all about what the reflection is. In the pandemic, it was kind of like we’re in this place of uncertainty. Let me make a list of the things that I’m afraid of losing. Right? And then what can I do about those things? There are some things I can’t do anything about losing, but I know that if I’m afraid of losing my mom or my stepdad because they’re older and they have co-morbidities, then I’m going to spend as much time on FaceTime as I can with them, talking with them, hearing stories from them. I’m also going to keep myself away from them to keep them safe. I’m going to do whatever it is that I need to do to keep them safe, which is those two opposites. It’s like stay away and be close. And how can I bring those two things together and integrate them in a way that makes sense? Being able to really bring these practices in and recognize patterns, I think is really important. There’s one question that I refer to in the book, which is what are the lessons that we’re tired of learning? And I think that’s a really great question to always ask yourself and then to ask yourself, why do you keep learning them?

NICOLE

Yeah, that’s a good one. That’s like, I hit you in the gut. You’re like, ooh, same lesson over and over again. It’s time to be curious there.

TRACEE STANLEY

Exactly. I think one of the things that I also noticed in my time in Hollywood when I left my job and started my own company, and the reason I did that was because I wanted things to be more spacious, to be slower, to be more intentional. I wanted to have more time to read and meet the directors and writers that I wanted to work with and do the kinds of projects that I wanted to do. What I noticed was all of a sudden, the pace of what I was used to was different. I started to notice that I was addicted to the crisis. I was addicted to the emergency that would come up, that needed to get fixed, and then I had to do another inquiry into what’s the seed of this, and then I realized I’m validating myself by being the one who does the fixing. Am I actually looking for the crisis? And then do I have to look even deeper? Am I doing anything subconsciously that’s causing the crisis? When you think about this idea of procrastination, it’s like if you procrastinate and wait till the last minute, things start to get really tense, and you get to be the one to fix it or to save it. I think that happens a lot in our society, and we don’t even realize it. To circle back to your question about how do you deal with crisis, I think that we should all look at what is happening in our bodies when this crisis is happening, what’s happening in the mind. Can I create a new neural pathway right now about how I think about crisis? Can I come up with an antidote that takes me in a different direction to that which I normally go?

NICOLE

So beautiful. Well, Tracee, there’s been so much wisdom in what you’re sharing and for sure in the book, so I know I could talk to you for so long, and it is time for us to do our rapid-fire questions. Well, the first one is if you’re a TV watcher, what did you last watch on TV?

TRACEE STANLEY

I’m currently watching Dark Winds.

NICOLE

Dark Winds? I haven’t seen that. What is it about?

TRACEE STANLEY

Dark Winds takes place on a pueblo in Navajo nation, and it’s basically about this indigenous, I think he’s a lieutenant, whose son was murdered, and he’s looking for all the clues to find out what happened to his son. But there’s lots of witchcraft and mystical things happening at the same time, as an underpinning. It’s a very cool show.

NICOLE

Well, I will put it on my list. Okay. What is on your nightstand?

TRACEE STANLEY

Oh, that’s a good question. On my nightstand are mugwort oil, African dream oil, a dream salve, my dream journal, my night mask, my eye mask, and I know I’m forgetting something. Oh, yeah, my tourmaline crystal.

NICOLE

Cool. I love the dream part in the book. I was like, I want to do that. Have a dream journal. She shares all about that inside. Okay, when was the last time you tried something new, and what was it?

TRACEE STANLEY

The last time I tried something new? Let me think about that. The last time I tried something new is recently because I’m doing a course. It’s a 13-week course on advanced ecotherapy, and we’re in week three, so that’s new.

NICOLE

That is definitely new. Amazing. Okay, last one. What are the top three most used emojis on your phone?

TRACEE STANLEY

The heart fire, the one with the little artsy candle, and the lotus.

NICOLE

Beautiful. Well, Tracee, really, truly, it’s such an honor to have you on the podcast. I love having you here. And so, everybody, please make sure you go out and buy The Luminous Self.  Sacred yoga practices and rituals to remember who you are. We have a little discount for you if you preorder. And Tracee, please let us know what your actual publishing date is?

TRACEE STANLEY

October 10.

NICOLE

October 10. So preorder. By then, we’ll have the link in our show notes, and if you use the discount code listed in there, you can get 30% off. So, Tracee, I’m so grateful to you for this conversation. It’s so beautiful. I’m so glad you were here with us.

TRACEE STANLEY

Thank you so much, Nicole, it’s been an honor.