Paul Dallaghan has a yoga retreat that I can only describe as the Richard Branson's Isand for yoga...

Any yoga "real thing" you'd like is there at his place in Ko Samui, Thailand (I've been to the place twice). For example: ayurvedic treatments, infrared saunas, pool, steaming showers, excellent food, exceptional yoga and pranayama instruction and amazingly beautiful accommodations by the ocean...

And he is one of the most humble people I know.

What We Talked About

He drops a bomb on me. I get news about his life right off the start which I did not know.
Paul does NOT get jet lag... and he gives tips on how to avoid it as much as possible
His start in yoga in New York after business school
Since he got clear that yoga was his thing, doubts melted away and he felt a surrendering come over him.
Paul is one of ONLY two students of pranayama and yoga master Tiwariji (of the Kayvalyadhama Institute in India) we talk about it and Paul says it all happened very naturally...
We talk about how he met him

One thing to notice is that every time he started building the beautiful retreat centers, he had NO money.
How the amazing yoga retreat he maintains in Ko Samui Thailand came to be in a very organic way
The daily contemplation practice that Paul does in 4 steps, to prepare for the day and practice
And how this practice continues to be very useful and helpful for him after more than decade of practice
Paul says: This practice comes from a place where we acknowledge that: "I need help because I don't know anything... And then there is life... And dealing with it... And that is why we ask for help"
The Gayatri Mantra and how it helps on clarity
He proposes we could all meet together in 20 years and see how the practices helped each of us
Paul notices as he sees students around the world a lot of tension in the upper part of the belly and why this is
What took Paul a long time to understand...

The beautiful yoga room at Samahita Retreat in Ko Samui Thailand About Paul

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Paul's International Teaching Schedule

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Transcript

Claudia A. Altucher: Hello, everyone. Welcome to The Yoga Podcast. I am over the moon to have this guest with me because I've been looking for him for over, I'm gonna say, seven to eight months, and he's just so busy, but I have Paul Dallaghan. He is the co-founder with his wife, Jutima, of Yoga Thailand and Samahita Wellness –

Paul Dallaghan: Ex-wife.

Claudia A. Altucher: Excuse me?

Paul Dallaghan: That's ex-wife.

Claudia A. Altucher: Oh, I didn't know. I'm sorry to hear.

Paul Dallaghan: [Laughs] Nothing to be sorry about, but yeah, go ahead.

Claudia A. Altucher: Oh, okay. So that's news, I guess. Last December, CNN named them as one of the top ten wellness resorts in Asia. He has been trained personally in a one-on-one capacity with Sri O.P. Tiwari, a true yogi master, master of pranayama, and head of the Yoga Institute Kaivalyadhama in India. And amazingly enough, Paul was also trained in advanced asana practice with the great Sri K. Pattabhi Jois, who's the man himself, the founder of the Ashtanga Yoga Vinyasa system as we know it. Both centers – I had the opportunity to visit it twice in the beautiful island of Koh Samui, and he is also, at the moment, on top of all of this and having two children, he has been taken by the Emory University in Atlanta in the USA in the field of biological anthropology, and he's following a Ph.D. program, bringing the yogic practices and philosophy to the scientific field. Paul, welcome. So grateful to have you on the podcast.

Paul Dallaghan: Yeah, thank you, Claudia.

Claudia A. Altucher: So it is 3:38. I guess there have been major changes in your life. I know you just returned from a teacher training in Thailand for a full month. Are you still in Koh Samui time or are you in Atlanta time?

Paul Dallaghan: I'm in Atlanta time.

Claudia A. Altucher: Yeah? You've totally recovered from jetlag, no problem?

Paul Dallaghan: Well, I'm in – I never – naturally, there's a certain amount of drag that goes with the flight, but I find that it's not that big of an issue, and especially, I suppose, when you just kinda regulate yourself or maybe some of the benefit of the breath practice, I think, helps a lot. I mean, I once asked my own teacher, Tiwari G., who had just flown back from Europe to India, I said, "How are things? Any jetlag?" ...