I'm entering my final few weeks here in New Zealand, and the book is...oh, how do I put this...very much not done. 😅
On the bright side I did submit my proposal to a publisher!
I would really feel so much better if I had a working draft complete, so for the next three weeks I'm going to give it all of my attention. Time to go 'balls to the walls', as the kids say.
The problem, really, has been my recent introduction to (and understanding of) Claude Code. Holy heck is it a game-changer for everything that I've wanted to create (outside of the book).
For context, I built this entire website in about two hours (going from idea to domain purchase to execution). And then I ran out of credits.
^^ Speaking of...I'd love if you joined me for that event. It's happening in the evening EST and will be recorded if you can't make it live.
What's it about? It's about releasing the desperate, anxious energy around what you want—so you can actually receive it.
Here's the thing: when you want something so badly that you're constantly stressed about it, you're actually pushing it away. Your nervous system is in fight-or-flight, not receptivity.
In this workshop, we'll guide you into a deeply relaxed state where you can connect with the version of yourself who already has what you desire. Then—and this is the cool part—you'll create and record your own personalized hypnosis track in that state. For the next week, you'll listen to it and literally re-enter that relaxed, magnetic frequency.
Think of it like this: instead of white-knuckling your manifestation, you're learning to embody the calm certainty that it's already on its way.
Please join us! There's only a few spots left :) - Ethan ॐ
P.S. as always, if you care about this work, please consider pre-ordering the book. This helps me fundraise for a proper book editor, and gives publishers confidence that it will not be a flop!
Ethan Hill Owner, Yoga with Ethan
Ignorance is Not Bliss : Sneak Peek
As a child, I once ran at full-speed across a concrete driveway, turned a corner, and tripped over a fence post i didn’t know was there, gouging my knee straight into the rough ground. Seconds later I was awash in pain, the cold, grey pavement now flowing with rivulets of my warm, maroon blood. Now here I am, safely typing these words into a machine in a cabin out in rural New Zealand, two decades later, with nothing to show for that fateful day but a faint discoloration on my kneecap. How did i heal so completely? I wasn’t supervising the intricate process of cells clotting and stitching, collagen fibers weaving and white blood cells marshaling, that’s for sure. If I had been, i would have required a verbosely detailed checklist of what came after what to oversee the whole operation. And even then, i undoubtedly would have skipped a step or two or million out of distraction or laziness.
That there is an unstoppable Force guiding life towards wholeness and coherence—knitting wounds closed without being asked, beating the heart without being reminded—and that this Force asks nothing from us but allowance, is the most miraculous of all miracles. How scientists can get so obsessed over decay and breakdown (entropy) that they brush by its counterpart (exotropy, or the Universe's magnificent insistence on keeping things organized) is, to me, both laughable and infuriating. Sometimes i want to shake people by the shoulders and scream from the rooftops: Rejoice! Healing is inevitable! All you have to do is say yes (or, more precisely, stop saying no)! And what’s more, access healing requires nothing more extraordinary than to stop doubting its presence and power.
This fact applies to the mind just as much as the body, for, while the mind can also trip, fall, and bleed, it can also be made new. That is, this Force is the only thing which can unimpress the very mind which would resist its unimpressing. Sure, there may be a few faint scars here and there, the past still subtly revealing itself in its structure and personality for a time, but the injury or trauma is no longer to the point of running the show, the way a bashed knee forces the rest of the body to compensate with a limp.
This is what non-attachment—vairāgya in yoga, or aparigraha as it appears in the yamas—actually is: not a technique or discipline, nor something the self does to itself, but the removal of the one thing preventing healing from occurring on its own. When you remain attached to a sensation—when the saṃskāra is allowed to fire so that the impression is endorsed—you are, in effect, re-opening the wound which has been so diligently attempting to close. The body would heal the knee perfectly well if you didn’t keep smashing it into the pavement every afternoon. The fear-based impression would heal perfectly well if you stopped believing its accuracy every time it surfaced.
It is great to hold non-attachment as a virtue forward, but what about that which one has already attached to, or can’t seem not to attach to? Well then one needs to learn let go. Consider, for instance, that attachment to sensation is just the natural consequence of a mind tightly holding onto its viewpoint—insisting that its perception is correct and its evaluation warranted. Letting go and non-attachment, then, are not two separate things, but the same event described from two different angles. From the perspective of the chain, it's called non-attachment — the mind simply does not grip the sensation that generation produced. From the perspective of the one sitting with the sensation, it's called letting go — listening closely, rather than fighting the presence of what has arisen.
It is no accident that when Patañjali tells us how the fluctuations of the mind are stilled—just a few sūtras after his famous definition of yoga—he names only two ingredients: abhyāsa-vairāgyābhyāṃ tan-nirodhaḥ: “through practice (abhyāsa) and non-attachment (vairāgya), the fluctuations cease.” And of the two, the tradition is unequivocal: vairāgya is the more essential, for practice without non-attachment is just the ego in a spiritual costume, gripping the meditation cushion the way it used to grip the career ladder or the relationship or the identity. One can sit for ten thousand hours and emerge more entrenched than when they began if the sitting was performed in the spirit of acquisition—acquiring calm, acquiring insight, acquiring spiritual status—rather than in the spirit of release.
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