TEACHER: Alex Shimo
THEME: Beyond Reactivity
MEDITATION: The Observer
INTERACTIVE PRACTICE: Holidays in Hell

“Maybe there is no actual place called hell. Maybe hell is just having to listen to our grandparents breathe through their noses when they’re eating sandwiches.” Says comedian Jim Carrey, recalling a grandfather who passed turkey sandwiches out his nose while opening Christmas presents around the family tree. The holidays can be a time of joy and magic and fairy elves singing happy happy. They can also be a time of intense looping family dynamics and near psychosis-inducing emotional triggers. For the interactive practice, we’ll record various hilarious and truly awful scraps of real-life dialogue, then dramatize them in pairs, all while practicing how to keep our Zen cool.