TRANSCRIPT
HARI-KIRTANA DAS: Welcome everyone. Thank you so much for being here for this month’s community conversation. I am very, very happy to welcome our special guest, Jamie Maniscalco, who is going to speak with us about her work in political activism and how her yoga practice is connected to the work that she does. You know, we speak a lot in these community conversations about the relevance of yoga to current events and the lives we’re living in real time in the modern world. And this struck me as a great way to explore how yoga is practically applied on the political arena. So Jamie, thank you so much for joining us for this conversation.
JAMIE MANISCALCO: Thank you for having me. I appreciate being asked.
HARI-KIRTANA DAS: So my first question for you is, which came first, yoga or political activism?
JAMIE MANISCALCO: It’s really interesting. They kind of congruently happen in but I would say yoga came first. I am 33 now, and I started practicing yoga for the first time… I was I was 16 in high school when I first started practicing and then when I was 18 year old, 18 years old, as a freshman at East Carolina University, we had to take a gym class. It was still that kind of college curriculum. And I took a yoga class.
And I was also working at the Adventure Center, which was in an on-campus job where we did rock climbing, kayaking and backpacking. And the director of that, his name was Brad Beggs, and he was an avid yoga practitioner and actually ballet dancer.
So there were two forces at the age of 18 that brought me to yoga. It was the woman who was running that yoga class, and then also working at the ECU Adventure Center and kind of learning about breathwork and the means of yoga to help you become a better rock climber, really was one of the other ways I got engaged with it.
HARI-KIRTANA DAS: Do you still do rock climbing?
JAMIE MANISCALCO: Once in a while? I live in Miami now, so it’s pretty flat. But I still have my shoes. I still have my shoes, and I can definitely still Boulder. But yoga, yoga and politics came around the same time because when I was 16 and 17 was when I first started registering people to vote with Obama’s first campaign in 2007. I would get to go to concerts for free because I was volunteering for his campaign to register people to vote in the crowds.
And then when I was, uh, when I graduated from ECU, I graduated a semester early in 2011 to work on Obama’s reelection campaign, as a field organizer, knocking on doors and recruiting volunteers out in rural eastern North Carolina. So the budding of my yoga practice and my political participation was at the same time.
HARI-KIRTANA DAS: Okay, that’s kind of interesting how they, showed up in your life at, at pretty much the same time, you know, and eventually your political work took you to Washington, DC?
JAMIE MANISCALCO: Yes, exactly. And that’s how I met you at yoga.
HARI-KIRTANA DAS: So, yeah. This is how I know Jamie. She was a regular at my yoga class at a studio here in Washington, DC. And, you know, that’s how that’s how we got to know each other for sure.
JAMIE MANISCALCO: Yeah. In 2017, I was working at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Or. No. Excuse me. We met in 20. 2014. Yes, it would have been after it was after Obama’s first election. So we met in 2013, 2014. And at that time I was working for the United States Senate, the committee that fundraises money for senators, on behalf of all the United States senators, and then they dole out that money to the seats that they need to protect the most.
So my trajectory through politics, I started as a field organizer, you know, just somebody knocking on doors, registering people to vote. And then I became a political fundraiser. So I’ve seen what it’s like.
And I’m still an activist, right? Every single election season I’m phone banking and knocking on doors and registering people to vote, even though this is what I do for a living as well. So I became a political fundraiser, and if I did not have my yoga practice to remind me of the interconnectivity, the interconnectedness of all of this, it would have been very hard to fundraise without yoga, and we could talk about that more.
But the political world that we’re set up in, I don’t believe corporations are people. I think that was a terrible Supreme Court ruling. But I did get involved in political fundraising because I saw that candidates need money to win and that energy exchange still matters, right? It matters that we’re raising money in a in an equitable and fair way. And it matters that these campaigns have… they’re startup companies, right. They need revenue to hire staff and and pay for materials.
So that being a yoga practitioner and having my meditation and breathwork practice, when I was confronted with raising $250,000 in three months for the Virginia speaker of the House definitely helped me get there.
HARI-KIRTANA DAS: Yeah, no pressure there. Yeah, that sounds like a cakewalk. Let’s talk a little bit more about that. There are there are two avenues I’d like to explore with you in this respect.
And the first is the connection between, or how your practice – yoga and breathwork – how does that specifically help you? I mean, in general, we can surely understand, you know, okay, I’ve got to raise like a boatload of money to help get these people elected. Take a deep breath. Okay? Now I’ll get to it.
Can you get into, like, some more details about how your yoga practice supports you in your hands on political activism?
JAMIE MANISCALCO: Yes. So everybody on this zoom understands that my interpretation of when I do yoga is I’m connecting to my Atman, right? Like my eternal soul. And I believe that every single one of us is a soul or a spirit in a body, and that we keep coming back.
So when I get on my yoga mat and practice, it connects me and reminds me that this soul and this body is on a higher mission, and my higher mission and my dharma right now, is to ensure that I am helping to elect black and brown women, bipoc, bipoc men as well LGBTQ candidates and change who we are electing so that the outcomes reflect the democracy that we were created to be. So that’s a bigger picture, right?
But when I get on my yoga mat, all of that tunes out, and it’s the one hour where I’m connected to Source and Being and pulling that energy that we know that we can only get that prana, that can only be reinvigorated by practicing right?
And that prana and that energy that we create and we use in our yoga practice is then able to literally fuel me through the hard conversations. It’s able to fuel me through what can be a very contentious position. Right?
Because at the end of the day, I’m a Democratic operative working with Democratic operatives. So it’s not like I’m having hard conversations in my 9 to 5 because I’m surrounded and I’m in siloed by the Democrats. Because I’ve worked on Democratic campaigns and I’m not a debate coach. Right?
But the yoga practice with doing political activism in my personal time allows me to approach outside conversations in a balanced manner, because our society has become so polarized opposite, my yoga practice reminds me that it’s all still grey because I am working and we are all operating in a political structure that really makes it seem like there’s one side and the other.
But every day when I come to my yoga mat and I connect with source, I’m reminded that we’re all exactly the same, that we all have the same heart and blood on the inside, and that the tenseness and the separation is really all a facade.
And the reason I became a certified yoga teacher, right? I was practicing for almost 17 years. I just became a certified yoga teacher two years ago, about a year and a half ago. And the entire reason I became certified was because I noticed that I was able to walk into political spaces, whether they were fundraisers, whether they were rallies with a much clearer, much more clear mind and focus after I practice yoga that morning.
So the reason I decided, okay, this yoga practice makes me a better political operative. What if elected officials started doing ten minutes of yoga or ten minutes of meditation every morning? What if they were able to connect to Source and to their atman and to their dharma, and to realize that they’re not just out here to get votes and to raise enough money to win again?
To me, coming to the mat every day reminded me that I am of service to my community as an operative, and I my dream is that all elected officials find that space so that they can get connected to this eternal pool that we all come from to help reduce the separation.
That’s what it does for me. It makes it easier to converse about politics to people who believe the opposite of me. So that’s not necessarily what I do in my day job, but that’s more how it can relate to all of us, right? Like all of us have people who might want to talk about XYZ issues, school shooting, banning books, Israel, Gaza, whatever it is.
Those are political issues that are going on in our day to day.
But us as practitioners, connecting to Source, refilling our own prana, removing the veils and the walls of titles and remembering that we’re all one, and that we breathe the same air. That makes my decision-making process. And I’ve witnessed others change their decision-making process because you’re reminded that there’s no separation, that it’s all connected, it’s all one. And that what I’m doing with my energy, that those frequencies truly relay out and expand. So I know that’s a long answer, but that would be one of the ways.
HARI-KIRTANA DAS: It was a great answer. And it also answered the other part of my question, which was going to be, how does your political work integrate into your yoga practice and vice versa?
So you’ve already really spoken to that. And it reminded me that, you know, when I first started teaching yoga here in Washington, DC, I was speaking to a senior Jivamukti teacher who was here in D.C. and I, you know, thinking out loud, said that I was interested in teaching yoga, perhaps up on Capitol Hill. People who are engaged in in hill work are in a high stress, high pressure job and environment.
JAMIE MANISCALCO: Right. And they’re the people who literally tell the elected officials what to write and say. Nine times out of ten, these elected officials are not coming up on their own. It’s their staffers who are providing them with everything they need.
HARI-KIRTANA DAS: Right. And because I already was coming to yoga from a spiritual direction and a philosophical direction, as opposed to just a workout orientation. The teacher I was speaking to told me, forget about it. Those people aren’t going to be the least bit interested in spiritual anything. And I’m wondering if you think that’s true.
JAMIE MANISCALCO: I do not believe that’s true. I have a hard case example. I was just in Washington, DC April 18th or 19th and 20th like two weeks ago, and I currently am the training director of Emerge. So it’s a program that recruits and trains Democratic women to run for office.
So we don’t give out money we don’t endorse. We literally find women to run for office from school board, city council, up to Congress, federal governor. And we put them through a training program and teach them how to run for office.
We had an in-person retreat. We have a special training called Seated Together for Black women who are already elected officials. So they’re already a mayor or a city councilwoman, something of that, and they’re going to be running for higher office. So for Senate or Congress or something.
We had yoga and meditation to start the second day when I worked at the desk. And like the DNC, all these committees have retreats. They have retreats that are mostly geared towards donors and lobbyists, so that these folks can give a big check and come hang out with the senators and congresspeople and governors for a weekend and talk to them right now.
And now, more and more, those retreat agendas look like golf in the morning, skeet shooting in the afternoon drinks by the pool at three. But you’re starting to see more yoga and meditation on those schedules. Even for these virtual conferences that people do now.
Right. Not everybody comes together in person. I have done five minute breathwork sessions during their virtual conferences and actually here in Washington, DC, I mean, excuse me, here in Miami, although it’s not political, I work with two hotels down here. I teach two yoga classes a week at two different hotels, because that’s really all I have time for on a weekly basis.
But a lot of corporations end up having their annual retreats, annual meetings at these nice hotels, and at least twice a month now I’m being asked to teach yoga at those corporate retreats.
So that was truly my goal was to find spaces where elected officials and CEOs are already gathering, because I used to plan those retreats so I know they could put yoga on the schedule in the morning, and you’re seeing that more and more and more, and you’re getting more interest, from these progressive organizations who want to provide this as a service not only to the electeds, but like to their staff members once a month, have somebody come in and do virtual yoga or chair yoga.
And the great thing for us, right? Like, I have a degree in political science and I have a degree in philosophy. So I came to yoga for the spiritual and philosophical. I came to yoga because I went to an asana class and loved it. Right? I stayed for yoga because of the philosophical and the spiritual benefits that I have witnessed for myself personally.
But the cool thing, cool thing is yoga has become westernized into a workout so much even compared to ten years ago or 15 years ago when I started in politics that is becoming more and more like accepted in corporate environments.
So I highly encourage any of you who are connected to like a corporate entity or anything, right? Your career or your work. When you’re having those annual meetings, offer to lead ten minutes of meditation offered to lead 15-20 minutes, an hour of yoga because the final thing I’ll say about it is the science is now catching up with what we have always known as practitioners, right?
So the great thing is we can bring this to elected officials. We can bring this to corporate C level folks and not necessarily lead with spiritual and philosophical. We can lead with 15 minutes of sun salutations. Is the same benefits as a 45-minute cardiovascular activity, such as walking or jogging, right? We know from science that ten minutes of meditation is a way to improve the neuro connectivity in the brain.
So the cool thing now is that I think the reason we’re going to be able to bring it into more of these professional, corporate and political spaces is because the science is now proving it, proving us right, and then we can always trickle in and kind of bait and hook the spiritual and philosophical benefits as well.
HARI-KIRTANA DAS: All right. Well, thank you for that. Uh, encouragement for, um, all of us who have both a connection to teaching yoga and to organizations or corporations that might w elcome that kind of experience.
JAMIE MANISCALCO: And even nonprofit boards, right. Those nonprofit boards have meetings, you know, you know, and there’s always going to be a 30-minute break before, you know, a break. What about when they come back from the 30-minute break? It’s ten minutes of breathwork or five minutes just teaching them box breathing. And there’s been so many elected officials who will call me and be like that box breathing thing. I do it all the time now before I go on stage. So it’s just giving them those little pieces that can build up to bigger later on.
HARI-KIRTANA DAS: I want to toss it out to everyone else who’s here for our conversation. We’ve been. Two of us have been talking for a while. I’m wondering if anyone has any questions or comments. Uh, questions for Jamie or comments about, uh, their own experience of what Jamie’s been talking about. If this is something that sounds familiar or something that. You would feel inspired to do in your own realm of influence. And any. Anyone have any questions for Jamie?
JAMIE MANISCALCO: Yeah, something I had talked to Harry about when we were preparing for this, and I don’t want to forget to say it is. You can always invite the mayor, the city council person, the commissioner to one of your classes. Right. Think about it that way.
Especially if, like, you’re a newer yoga studio or the mayor was just elected, right? These elected officials want to be seen at local businesses. Right? And then it’s also like bait and switch again a little bit. Right. Please come to our new yoga studio. We would love to have you as the mayor there as our guest, please take a yoga class. Right.
So that’s like another entry point as to how the worlds could start to collide. And even if you’re like, oh my God, I don’t know, an elected official that feels so presumptuous just to invite them to my yoga class. I guarantee you that if you send some emails and phone numbers and make some phone calls to like school board members, city commission folks, city council members, maybe even the local state rep or state Senate in your area, they may come to one of your classes because one, it looks good for them to be out there doing a healthy lifestyle activity. Two they’re getting connected to a small local business, and three, we’re spreading political prana, right? We’re exposing them to the benefits of yoga and meditation by inviting them into the space. And then who knows how the ball can get rolling there.
Maybe they start coming once a month. Maybe they invite another elected official. Maybe they come to just at least the two annual big events that the studio has because they feel connected to you now. So I just wanted to throw that out there, especially if you have some elected officials who care about senior issues. Invite them to the senior chair yoga, you know.
HARI-KIRTANA DAS: That’s actually a really cool idea. And it didn’t occur to me at least that July and August would be months better spent for a politician in their local communities rather than on the fundraising circuit. Because yes, people that you’re looking to get the big donations from make themselves scarce in in July and August. So that makes an awful lot of sense.
JAMIE MANISCALCO: Yeah, August and September especially. They want their faces out in the community and meeting as many new voters as possible.
HARI-KIRTANA DAS: Okay. So something you alluded to. Earlier when you were speaking about the integration of yoga from a philosophical standpoint with what you do. Our political environment here in America is ultra-polarized. And, you know, there’s this idea. There’s one side, there’s the other side. And, you said that your yoga breathwork meditation practice helps you to remember that it’s all gray area. You know that that things are actually much more connected than they appear to be on the surface.
So in yoga philosophy, we have this idea of transcending dualities that a lot of metaphors are used in yoga, wisdom texts: heat, cold, happiness, distress… and being equipoised in all, all circumstances without getting caught up in these dualities. And they’re specifically mentioned as attachments and aversions, in the Yoga Sutras. And these are obstacles to yoga.
So I’m wondering how you reconcile this idea of transcending dualities with political action, where you’re clearly taking a side, taking a stand on, on a particular angle of vision when it comes to, policy? Yep. So how so? So talk to me a little bit about how you see that relationship, the relationship between transcending dualities and active engagement with one party.
JAMIE MANISCALCO: Yeah. So I’m obviously actively a Democrat. Have been always will be right now at least, considering who stands for what, how I transcend duality is I go back to ahimsa. Do no harm. Right.
So yes, we are in a country where there is a Democrat and a Republican side. And literally the Constitution was set up for all third parties to fail. That’s like the basis of our Constitution. We set up a two party republic. That’s what the paperwork says. And that’s why we have what we have. And that’s why no matter how many independent or third party people run, the structure is set up for two parties. So yes, there are two. There’s a duality and there are two parties. This is where what I’m saying right now is subjective, right? This is my definition of it.
I find that I, in this realm of blue, red. Right? Wrong. Conservative. Liberal. Progressive. Right wing. I just always go back to ahimsa, right. And that is also that also comes from what I learned in philosophy about do the most good for the most people.
Now that philosophical that has its own, we could do a whole class on that, right? How the most good from the most people. What does that mean? What is the vague lines? How do we know? How can we actually put metrics behind that? But in this, in this world where I have to operate as a Democrat on dueling sides, any position that I fight for or any issue I become aligned with, it’s because I believe I’m operating from the the position of ahimsa of do no harm.
I believe that… so how does this, like, translate to real life issues, you know, so ahimsa do no harm, I believe that, there is a bigger impact of harm to a woman or a person who can be pregnant and their family if we force them to bring a child into the world, because that has economic and lifelong repercussions. Right?
So my view of ahimsa in that very black and white issue is doing whatever’s best for the person and the soul that’s already here on the planet: the mother. Right. And I know these are controversial topics, but this is how I view it, right?
I view operating, from non-violence, ahimsa. I live here in the state of Florida, right where the governor passed the do not say gay bill and where he passed a bill that says trans children or people who are transitioning can if they are considered younger children, they can’t have access to their transition medication anymore. They made that illegal. Right?
Well, my view of ahimsa is that’s not helping the soul and the spirit that’s within that body that’s only harming them. The same thing with banning books. People could have views. We have a First Amendment that says there’s freedom of speech. We’re all allowed to like and hate certain things. People say.
But if you apply Ahimsa do no harm to freedom of speech. Everybody should be able to say whatever they want. Everybody should be able to read anything they want in this country. So do no harm to me means don’t put up boundaries and situations that don’t allow people to express themselves freely in in the context of looking at our constitution and applying the do no harm to it.
I can take this a step further. Finally, I would say, you know, I grew up around a lot of LGBTQ folks. I have two aunts who are gay. My godfather’s gay. I myself identify as bisexual. Right? Like, I very much grew up in the LGBTQ community, LGBTQ community. So when it comes to the law that was passed in 2016 where same sex couples could get married, that’s ahimsa to me. That’s doing no harm. All that’s doing is allowing people who love one another to come together and love one another. And it’s not saying that other people can’t do that. Right.
So again, that is very subjective, but that’s how I get past the, the red and blue and the and the black and white and the conservative and liberal, it’s like, okay, screw all those labels with my decisions and with my work. What am I doing to promote ahimsa? No harm? What am I doing to propel people’s access and free will and their ability to educate themselves? That’s how I kind of operate in that very dualistic world. But I would love to open up that conversation if people are open to it.
HARI-KIRTANA DAS: Yeah, I would love to hear more from others. You know, I think, uh. As you do that, you know, ahimsa is the first ethical, imperative of yoga. So you can look at a policy position and evaluate it from that perspective first. Well, does this do harm? Uh, if so, to who? How much harm does it do? Or is it something that, relieves or removes harm, you know, that sort of thing.
You know, there are also other values that yoga presents us with, even though it says that we should transcend dualities. Yoga also has its own set of values truthfulness, purity, mercy, and simplicity among them. And I think these are also ways that we can look at political action or look at policy and think, well, how how does a particular policy compare to value.
JAMIE MANISCALCO: Like, for example, some crazy policies that are some crazy laws that are being passed in the South, like in Georgia, you can’t give a bottle of water to somebody who’s been standing in line to vote for four hours. That is not ahimsa, that is not promoting democracy, that is not making it so that unable bodies can, you know, like there are certain laws that are almost the opposite of do no harm. And that is how I surpassed the duality.
HARI-KIRTANA DAS: And, and you know, the, the polling place, the polling location where people are most likely to stand, have to stand on line for a very long time are the neighborhoods are the parts of community that are purposely underserved and therefore the opportunity for people in those areas to be heard is purposely diminished?
So yeah, it’s pretty clear that policies like that – laws like that – are not being enacted with ahimsa in mind, but rather with control and power in mind.
Let me go to the chat. We have a couple of comments there from Narayani: I’m a teacher three blocks from Capitol Hill here at Saint Mark’s, D.C.. So Saint Mark’s is a church here in Washington, D.C., where they have, uh, wonderful concerts and also a long standing yoga program would love to invite any and all teachers and ideas to get those, uh, staffers, if not the members themselves. Yes, that would be. And Saint Mark’s is is very close to Capitol Hill. So, Narayani, if you want to elaborate on that, please, uh, go ahead and unmute yourself and talk to us a bit.
From Jennifer: I was subject to several months of antagonistic meetings with local lawmakers. I live in Pennsylvania. Last year, as a result of my participation on the board of a local nonprofit, I just want to say that I deeply appreciate what you are sharing today.
JAMIE MANISCALCO: Thank you. Yeah. And like whenever you have a chance to even speak to an elected official. Casually, right? You could say, well, what do you like to do for fun? How do you spend your time? How do you unwind? How do you relax, right? If you ever have a chance to talk to them in that position and then maybe you suggest, have you tried yoga and meditation? Right? Just like how it takes people seven asks to go vote or donate to a political candidate. Flip it on their head, right? It might take them 7 or 8 asks to get to a yoga class or meditation, but you could be one of the asks. Yeah.
HARI-KIRTANA DAS: It’s a good idea. Narayani. Go ahead.
NARAYANI: Hi. Excuse me. I’m in the middle of Kriyas. But I couldn’t resist this topic. I’m a longtime climate change activist, longtime yoga teacher. And just quickly, for me, the activism became of course, my practice. And the number one rule was I could not get angry. If I was angry, I had to stay home. There’s no benefit in being angry at a protest. And so I would try to and purposely engage the law enforcement and the people on the so-called other side.
In terms of Saint Mark’s, we I mean, if there’s any teachers in the area that want to come and guest teach, we have, of course, classes every day of the week, but Friday and we should somehow brainstorm and make a big push to get those people on the Hill because we’re so close to them or go into their offices. I’ve often thought of that.
JAMIE MANISCALCO: A really easy way to make sure that any member of Congress or their staff know about stuff. All of the emails for the press people are always public, right? Um, so it’s always really good to email the communications director or the press secretary because it’s their job to look at their inbox. The other thing too… I would love to brainstorm offline with you because like the DK and the D triple C, they have about 40 staffers, right, who are in their 20s and 30s. And we can…
HARI-KIRTANA DAS: Can you define those acronyms please?
JAMIE MANISCALCO: Yeah. So the over on Capitol Hill, right next to the Supreme Court, there’s something called the DSCC, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. There’s something called the D triple C Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
They are offices where there’s a bunch of operatives, like 30 to 40 people like me. And those committees’ jobs are to fundraise on behalf of members of sitting in the Senate and Congress, and then to also kind of be just their political operations on the back end.
They help them with talking points. They help get the word out. They help. They just help support sitting members of Congress and senators with money and kind of communications. Right.
But both of those organizations have 30 to 50 staffers. So even if we just start by offering yoga to those two organizations where there are staffers there also, the other thing is the reason those offices are on Capitol Hill is because when the senator or the congressperson has to make fundraising phone calls, they’re not allowed to do that inside their United States Capitol office building.
They have to leave federal property to do fundraising. So these are also the buildings where every single day, multiple senators and multiple members of Congress go in and out the door, get into what we call call rooms.
So there’s a bunch of offices, and they sit there and make fundraising phone calls, or they sit there and have political meetings outside of their official office. So I would love to collaborate with you and figure out, like, even if it’s once a quarter, how can we do yoga for the D, triple C, and the desk?
NARAYANI: Love to Jamie.
JAMIE MANISCALCO: Yeah, I’m gonna drop my email on the chat right now.
NARAYANI: Perfect. Thank you.
HARI-KIRTANA DAS: And while this is what we were just speaking about, is specific to our nation’s capital here in Washington, D.C., this is something that any yoga teacher or studio… this this can be applied in state capitals.
So if you are fortunate enough to have this opportunity because you live in a state capital anywhere, or if you live in a province capital or if you’re in Ottawa. These ideas of how to engage people who are either directly the politicians or the people who work for them, their staffers… this is just a really, really excellent idea that that that can be actually all the way down the line, even if you’re not in a state capital, you know, they’re still in your town.
JAMIE MANISCALCO: I was just gonna say, you have a city commission. You have city councilors, right?
HARI-KIRTANA DAS: You’ve got a school board, you’ve got all that stuff. Um, now let’s look at the other.
JAMIE MANISCALCO: Sorry, I wanted to… before you asked that question. Also protesting. So I have done led yoga at protests before. Right. So when the six week abortion ban was passed here in Florida, there was about 40 of us who camped out on the grounds in Florida, at Tallahassee. And every morning I was providing a just not paying, but as a service, I was providing yoga to the protesters. Right.
So like that’s another way too, if there’s if you want to go provide yoga to those college kids who are protesting right now on a campus near you, like, imagine that in the news, right? That kind of stuff, those mindful activities. So it doesn’t just have to be with the Eeecteds. I just wanted to throw that in there. Yeah.
HARI-KIRTANA DAS: No thank you. That’s actually really a really good thing to point out. I have also done this. I have gone down early in the morning to encampments, uh, where protest protesters are feeling a little ragged. Bye bye. You know that time and having someone lead them in some really conscious breathing and movement?
JAMIE MANISCALCO: It sets the vibe for the whole day. And yeah, catch that catch a video of us doing that you know.
HARI-KIRTANA DAS: Yeah. It just it, it just feels good to be able to be of service to those who are making a sacrifice to undergoing some austerity for the sake of pushing back against something or promoting something that is a worthy cause.
So there are I wanted to bring up. I wanted to ask you about anger following up on something that Narayani said. But first I want to ask you about something that Nancy posted in the chat. Who are the Republican organizations to offer yoga to please?
JAMIE MANISCALCO: Same thing. It would be the same thing. So they have something called an RSC Republican Senate Campaign Committee. They have a Republican Congressional campaign committee, and both sides have this for all the lieutenant governors in the country, all the attorney generals in the country, all the governors in the country. They all have what are called associations for those folks.
And then also, when you look at in your state, every state has different political organizations that do stuff on the ground. Right? So offering services to those, whether it’s your Planned Parenthood or your local Democratic or Republican committee. Right. It doesn’t just have to be those elected officials. This is something that we could bring into those who are doing other advocacy work.
HARI-KIRTANA DAS: All right. Thank you. You know, it makes me wonder, you know, in sports you have competing teams. And so there’s competition. But then you got the all-star game. And, you know, people from different teams show up and, you know, now there it’s a more collegial situation.
And I’m wondering in our polarized political environment which I think.. from what I understand… there’s a guy I see on social media, Jackson. He’s a congressman from North Carolina, I think, who just got his district pulled out from underneath him. And he does social media posts that are basically civics lessons about all right, here’s what you see in the media. And here’s what actually happens behind the scenes. And it’s so performative what we see in the media as opposed to what actually happens when Congress people try to get something done.
So I’m wondering if beyond what we see in the media, if there is something more collegial going on behind the scenes that allows for non-violent communication between different people who represent different points of view.
JAMIE MANISCALCO: Yeah, I would say that there definitely is. So I worked in the I worked a lot in the Virginia State House and Senate. Like their local state House and Senate, and it would usually be something that was hosted by like an advocacy group or a different like law firm. And nine times out of ten, it’s like a drinking event, right?
It’s this law firm is having their annual martini thing, and that’s where the Democrats and Republicans come together and hang out and do talk to one another for two hours, like there are things like that happening.
And then when you really talk about like truly passing legislation, they’re not cussing each other out and acting like animals behind the scenes. Right? Like they have to get bills passed. So. Maybe in the in actually the United States Congress they’re doing that. But in your own like state houses and senates, they have to be collegial to be able to one get reelected. Two, they want to be collegial because they all want to get on the committees and get appointed. And those committees are chaired usually by somebody of the opposite party.
So I would just echo his sentiment of like, it’s really not as bad as it looks like. Again, it’s that fake duality that they’re trying to make us all buy into. And when I talked to a lot of people about this is. There are so few people that are at the margins. It’s just they’re so loud and they have so much money on both sides, right? The super liberal progressives and the super conservatives, there’s just a lot of money behind them, and there’s so many more of us that are in that middle gray area.
So there is a lot of discourse on the back end that is not visceral between both sides, for sure, and communication, but they’re all at drinking events, so let’s make yoga events for them to come to instead.
HARI-KIRTANA DAS: I think that would be healthier.
JAMIE MANISCALCO: Yeah for sure.
HARI-KIRTANA DAS: Okay, so now on the other end of the spectrum, we have anger. And I know a lot of people shut politics out because when they look at it, they just get angry. Yeah. What to do about people who just, you know, shut it out. Right? Just because it makes them so angry.
JAMIE MANISCALCO: Well, I’m going to use I statements, right? I hear about this a lot living in Miami. And because my friend group down here is not a bunch of politicos, like when I lived in D.C., my friend group down here is a bunch of hippie yoga beach people, right? That’s who I am friends with in Miami.
And a lot of them often say things like, oh, I can’t even tune into it. It messes up my frequency, it affects my energy, or it just makes me so mad. And then I can’t think clear headed. And what I say to them is it’s a privilege to tune out, right? That’s a very privileged statement, to say that I can’t even deal with it, it makes me so angry because. And I’m getting somewhere with this.
But at the end of the day, we’re the stop sign is in your neighborhood. That’s a political act. What they’re teaching in your schools. That’s a political decision by a school board. How much your property tax rates are, which in Florida, they just tripled. And that’s primarily everything on first thing on people’s minds. That’s all political.
So how I like to approach people who are like, oh, I can’t even watch the news. I can’t even listen to the politics. It makes me so mad. Or it impacts my energy or like, I hate it. It drains me. I come at it with love, right? And I don’t come at it like you’re wrong. I come at it with, well, do you realize that everything in your life ends up having a political piece to it?
And they’re like, well, that doesn’t matter. Votes don’t matter. It doesn’t matter if I vote. And I just start to use real life examples, and I have the privilege of being able to say, I worked on a campaign in Virginia where it was decided by one vote, and that meant there was a different leader.
I’ve worked on campaigns where people won by 11 votes, and I think that because so many people are just scrolling and all of our brains are such in a hyper state of just duality and anger, that when I start to speak to those people, I try to just bring it back to the personal.
The saying is, is all politics are local. I say all politics are personal, right? Um, so I remind them a few things. One, if you’re getting so angry by external stimuli, you need to be doing some internal work anyway. You need to be doing yoga and meditation anyway, because if you’re that easily agitated by an outside influence, something’s going on within your own soul that you need to work on, right? Or your own body. So it starts within yourself.
If you find yourself too angry to look at the news, why is that? What else is going on in your life? Right? Most people get so angry when they look at the news because they feel they can’t do anything to control it, but then you remind those people that we actually still do live in a democracy, and a democracy is a participation sport. If we don’t participate, it goes away. Right?
So encouraging people and friends and family members, you know, and tell them that like, hey, I just met this operative who talked about there was a race in Newport News, Virginia that was won by one vote that they had to pick out of a hat, right? Because it was won by one vote twice. And then they literally picked a name out of the hat to decide it.
Every single individual person can have an impact. If people are getting very, very angry because they hate to see that the school books are being banned in their district, you can go and give comment at a public school board and be a voice on the record to help propel things forward. I think a lot of the anger around politics is because people feel that they absolutely have no control in the process, and that’s what they, whoever you identify they as, want you to think. They don’t want you to remember that this is a democracy, that you yourself could put your name on the ballot at any time. If you don’t like who’s representing you, that you yourself can donate or give money or time to the people that are frustrating you?
And right now, in 2024, I know that most people would rather tune out of the news and never participate again. With the cycle that we have coming up and who’s running for president. But I would just remind them… my mnew phrase is democracy is a participation sport. And if we all just get angry and tune out, then it’s just going to crumble. And none of us want one person telling us all how to live our lives.
So I just try to bring it back to those real life examples and say, hey, if you’re that angry, do you want to come to a yoga class and then try to watch the news? Like, I try to make a joke out of it, but I also try to get them to see that you’re letting external stimuli upset your own homeostasis, but you actually can still have an impact on that external stimuli rather than just looking at it. You can do something about it, you know. And that doesn’t stick with everybody. But for some people it does, especially people who don’t talk about political stuff. Ever.
HARI-KIRTANA DAS: No, I think that’s a great response. Uh, and, you know, just the suggestion do five minutes of pranayama before you look at the news, just to get yourself into a good headspace so that you can see what’s happening without flipping out about it.
JAMIE MANISCALCO: Right? Like us as yoga practitioners, we know what our own mental state is for the most part when you wake up. So if you’re already pissed off, don’t go look at the news. And then don’t blame the news for being pissed off. You’re already pissed off.
HARI-KIRTANA DAS: It requires a little bit of extra self awareness, but of course a yoga practice hopefully will help us in that respect as well.
JAMIE MANISCALCO: Exactly.
HARI-KIRTANA DAS: Other questions or comments for Jamie as we head into the home stretch of our conversation for today.
JAMIE MANISCALCO: Diane had like, a hand raised. At one point, I thought.
DIANE: Actually, you answered the question. Um, beautifully. So, um, just thank you for being here. This is a really, um, good, good talk, good conversation. So I appreciate your presence.
HARI-KIRTANA DAS: All right. Thank you. Diane. All right. Um. Anyone else? Lynette. Go ahead.
LYNETTE: I was actually going to email a couple of our senators who they give us little, dictates of what they do in Washington. And we have a couple that have been when they make absolute efforts to reach across the aisle and get some legislation through, I send them a little note saying, thank you very much, because you’re doing, you know, because they’re actually making an attempt to at governance. They’re not just. And so that’s kind of what a little bit that I do just to, to show people that, they’re appreciated when they make those efforts that they’re not staying on party line.
JAMIE MANISCALCO: They have multiple email addresses from you. Right. And I’m sure your email has a signature line about who you are and what you do. So when and if you’re ever ready to do this, to bring in politics and yoga together, your email address is already in their inbox, so they’re more likely to open up your emails.
LYNETTE: Well thank you.
HARI-KIRTANA DAS: Any anything else? Uh. Questions or comments for Jamie. I know I have one which I find I think it just jumps out to me is a kind of obvious question. Um, when I think of places I would live other than Washington, D.C.. Florida doesn’t really rank really high on my my list. What brought you to Miami?
JAMIE MANISCALCO: Owning my own company in the beach. To be honest, I live. I’m born and raised on Long Island, and I’m like a beach girl. I also have really bad eczema in the cold. Like, my legs get super dry and it’s just really bad.
So I came down to Miami when I was 19 and I was like, oh my God, I want to live here one day. And then I was going to move here in sorry. I came here in 2009, and then I planned to move here in 2019, after the Virginia election in 2019, no matter what because I was working for Governor Northam, and then the blackface scandal happened and I started my own business. So once I started my own business and I could live wherever I moved to Florida.
I would say, though, Florida is more purple than you think. And I do have one client. Even though I have a full time job, I’ve kept one of my political clients because his name is Nate Douglas and he is a 23 year old black gay kid who was already an elected official. He was on the soil and water board, and he’s running for state House here in Florida.
We also have the first transgender woman ever running for state House in the Tampa area of Florida. And we have repealed the don’t say gay law. And here in Florida this November on the ballot, we are able to vote whether or not the six-week abortion ban stands. So like all the other states that got a chance to vote on it, we might be able to overturn it in November. That’s happened in every other state where it went to a public vote. And we also have recreational marijuana on the ballot in 2024, in Florida. So the tides are turning down here, hopefully.
HARI-KIRTANA DAS: Okay.
JAMIE MANISCALCO: I don’t think it’ll ever be blue any time soon. And I personally hate Ron DeSantis but also the last thing I would say, the reason I think things could be the tide could be turning again is property taxes truly have tripled, right?
People’s property taxes used to be $800, and now it’s literally like $4000. And just within two years. So the reason I moved here was for the beach and for love in a way. But there’s also there’s ground to be made here. There’s a lot of momentum here in Florida. People do not like the culture wars that were brought to their doorstep here.
HARI-KIRTANA DAS: So, so hope for the future.
JAMIE MANISCALCO: Yes. A little bit.
HARI-KIRTANA DAS: Good. This is something else that Jamie and I have in common. She’s a South Shore Long Island girl in there, a beach, aficionado. I’m a North Shore, Long Island guy. I didn’t didn’t hang out at the beach so much.
JAMIE MANISCALCO: Yeah, I was I was born in Oceanside and in the same hospital that my mom and my grandma were born. So we’re very much beach people.
I would really love to just close by saying, I encourage you all to to spread this however you can, right? Maybe make it part of your 2024 goal is to somehow invite an elected official to one of your classes or, you know, offer to do yoga for your state party on the Republican or Democratic side, right?
It’s getting more and more popular, uh, to have yoga incorporated into political and corporate activities. So again, at the final thing I’ll say, although this is a political prana talk, these corporate entities currently have almost just as much power as politics, right? So even if you just start bringing yoga and meditation into corporate spaces, it has a very similar impact in my opinion. What I’ve seen.
HARI-KIRTANA DAS: A wonderful, wonderful advice and very expansive way of looking at how yoga can save democracy.
JAMIE MANISCALCO: Literally. Hopefully.
HARI-KIRTANA DAS: Jamie, thank you so much. This was really, really wonderful. We have some nice comments in the chat from Nancy. I’m not political, but you have given me lots of information to pass on to my UU congregation who is political. So that’s very nice. And some thank you’s from Tammy and Amanda and Lynette and Jennifer.
So yeah, I very much appreciate all of your being here today. And Jamie, thank you so much for having such an enlightening, thought provoking conversation with us. We really appreciate you and the work you’re doing and the way that you are connecting yoga to political action.
JAMIE MANISCALCO: No problem. I really appreciate being here and I know some of your faces. I am usually somebody who’s just like here during the conversation. So I’ll be back next month. Maybe I won’t be on camera, but I’m usually cooking lunch and then coming off mute during this time, so thank you for having me, Hari. It was really special.
HARI-KIRTANA DAS: All right. Thank you very much. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day, and I look forward to seeing you all again next time.
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