#64: Chelsey Forbes
Chelsey (@goodcheech) teaches yoga in New York and beyond, with a Katonah-informed practice prioritizing restoration, philosophy, and play.
Those in NYC can catch her at Live the Process this September, where she’ll be leading three classes centered around Channeling the Current (more on that below). She’s also co-hosting a retreat in Azenhas do Mar, Portugal next week — and if you’ll be in the area, there are still a few spots left. “Retreat is ideal for everyone but also if you’ve just gone through a break up and need to get over something,” she says. “Or just yourself.”
Health Gossip with Chelsey
Libra/Gemini/Gemini
📍 Tristate Area
What does health, or being healthy, mean to you?
So the thing is, we are all aging. Like right now. What is healthy for me today may not necessarily have applied to last week and will most likely change by 77. For most of my younger years (I’m very young, but in some ways, pre-historic), I felt like my body was just constantly working against me. Some of that was on me and some of it is just the circumstances given in this life and human body. Being healthy means constantly refining, honing in, setting up the conditions for yourself, and having the prescience to know what’s coming.
How would you describe your current lifestyle?
Everything, everywhere, all at once.
How do you start and end your days?
I‘ll give you the good day version, albeit that I’m not teaching at dawn.
I wake up around 6 and lay face to face with my animal. The undisturbed eye contact is crucial. Her breath after the fifth stress yawn is my alarm clock and then she basically goes ape shit until I get up to feed her.
The white noise goes off. I rip off the mouth tape, the eye mask, the toe spacers (if they’ve lasted through the night), the ear plugs come out. I eliminate and splash my face with cold water. I put the kettle on. I wait in total silence. Hot water with lemon and obviously 8,000 other things. I’m really into Shilajit and this Korean Bamboo Salt my acupuncturist just put me onto.
I’m not gatekeeping, by the way — it’s just a lot.
I fill a bowl of water for my altar, I light my candles and incense, I sit and begin my Sadhana practice which combines Vedic meditation, japa mantra, kriya, and pranayama curated (mostly) every 40 days by one of my absolute favorite spiritual teachers, the one and only Tony Lupinacci.
This is pretty extensive, so if my child has not yet risen again and I’m lucky enough to really land in trance mode, I’ll sit outside on my tar beach (roof) for a bit. If it’s walking time, then it is what it is and we transition to a strong pour-over with collagen, coconut, or cow’s milk depending on what’s available. Then we go park mode. I love talking to my neighbors in the dog park.
The rest of the day typically consists of walking, reading, writing, teaching, practicing, cooking, studying, cleaning, sifting, ruminating, calling everyone I know, romanticizing, dinner-ing, praying. If it’s summer and I’m home we are beaching every Monday and sometimes then some. I do not own a full length mirror.
The nighttime routine is slightly calmer and occasionally more rushed than morning. It is still regimented, mostly skin and sound. I love my friend Rachel’s new toner.
Other than that I’ll spare you the details. I’m not gatekeeping, by the way — it’s just a lot.
Was there a moment when your relationship to your health changed?
I have always been obsessed with the mind~body connection and I use the word “obsessed” now knowing that too much of a good thing can be a bad thing. My mom always used to say, “no matter how shit you feel on the inside, you better look real good on the outside.” A few years ago, when she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, I started to really consider how much of that statement was cause for her own undoing. It’s not my story, but it’s never lost on me that it could be. What trips me out is how HEALTHY and radiant her spirit once was and how it’s flipped.
Yoga found me during childhood and every time shit hits the fan, I’m reminded that it’s going to be a forever kind of thing. Being that I am a highly spirited, introverted extrovert, I still try very hard to balance physical and emotional well-being that is derived from nostalgia as well as curiosity, but not paranoia or psychosis. I don’t want to hate what I love to do and this is where discernment comes in. You can have a good body, be good at yoga, and still be a deeply troubled and unaware person.
I stopped doing drugs, I stopped hanging out with people and in environments where I felt unwanted or hazardous, I did ketamine therapy. I stopped trying to impress. I went back to my coloring books and reading before bed.
Do you have a spiritual practice?
Tongue scraping. Using my bidet. Inhaling. Listening. Walking the person I live with who has four legs. Eating on retreat. Eating… Reading the room.
What’s your relationship to self-healing?
It’s complicated because I complicate it. I’d like to become more tactile and organized, and to really stop asking people for advice when it’s inside. I remember once, in an Ayurveda training, hearing the teacher say “excesses and deficiencies are often the same” and feeling so personally attacked. Now, I see that you really have to know yourself to heal yourself, and that knowing comes from staying with yourself. I often claim to refuse being a victim although I wish that our systems weren’t so beyond fucked and that I had endless resources to it all. I wish I wasn’t financially illiterate and that that didn’t have an effect on my self-healing. If I was, my answer would be: quicker than fast.
I’d like to become more tactile and organized, and to really stop asking people for advice when it’s inside.
Do you work with any practitioners, texts, or modalities on a regular basis?
My acupuncturist is everything to me.
Does voice memo-ing count as a modality?
When do you feel the most nourished?
When I leave my acupuncturist’s office and have an immediate aversion to my headphones. Teaching in Elizabeth Street Garden.
How do you reset?
I press the button and voila! Magic. Just kidding. I follow the inhale and the exhale.
My friends have a mending shop in the West Village that I stop into when I have to pee or when I’m having an existential crisis. It is so inspiring and mystical in a very New York way that you would have to experience to understand. I have loved watching their dream come to life over the past few years and it’s a reset in remembering that I’m not far behind. They have their original staff, the organization is top-tier, and absolutely no one is too cool to be welcomed. It is a community of care, rewind, romance, and redo. I recommend to not go in when you’re in crisis as that is my job, and they’re working.
Do you have a favorite meal? What do you keep stocked in your kitchen?
Proper Jamaican breakfasts. I’m a market girl when I can be. A gelatinous bone broth will always reign far more supreme than a boxed one, it’s just science. I stock up on broths for my freezer. Pickles. Candy.
Fuck, marry, kill: three health trends of your choice.
Fuck: flossing, marry: soaking my beans, kill… talk therapy.
What advice would you give to your younger self?
Keep crying. You are not drama, no one is mad at you, it’s perfectly okay to feel it all. Eventually, it will end.
To the person reading this?
Don’t You Worry ‘Bout A Thing
Don’t Worry Baby
Don’t You Know That?
Don’t Dream It’s Over
My teacher Nevine recently just told me to just keep “channeling the current.” I tend to set myself up in a bigger shoe than is necessary and then I just end up fighting for my life and drowning out. I grew up in a fishermen’s town where you wake up and just feel and smell the minerality within every pore. For a long time I tried to escape.
A few years ago I got pulled into a riptide on my best friend’s birthday. I love the water so much and even still feel like I’ve forgotten how to swim. I actually want to sign up for lessons. This summer I went surfing with professionals and traced the tide with my fingertips. I have never felt more alive or connected to my own presence. Moral of the story is: we are made up of mostly water, not just a sack of bones waiting to decay. Learn good technique, trust the timing, and then ride the wave.
A teacher is the channel and medium for insight. Having a good teacher will leave you in a better position with regard to yourself and your surroundings. None of us are ever bigger than the game. Play it well.
What would you like to see or create more of in the world?
More playing, fairly. Learning how to listen differently.
I want to create and facilitate more accessible and inclusive opportunities for people to sense that they are making real contact with their bodies, imaginations, and breath. Especially anyone that has ever felt left out. I see you. Also, the freaks.
so beautiful ! 🤍