Jaimal Yogis is a San Francisco-based surfer-journalist-dad. He’s also a speaker and has received high praise for his writing. His three memoirs – Saltwater Buddha, The Fear Project, and All Our Waves Are Water – have been translated into numerous languages.  Jaimal’s first children’s picture book, Mop Rides the Waves of Life, will be released June 30th, 2020 and is the first in a series. A frequent TV and media guest, Jaimal also speaks regularly at grade schools, universities, and businesses. He lives in San Francisco with his wife, Amy DuRoss, and their three sons.

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Contact Info

• Website: JaimalYogis.net
• Social Media (IG, Twitter, FB): JaimalYogis
• Latest Book: Mop Rides The Waves Of Life by Jaimal Yogis

Most Influential Person

• My mom. (She always did Yoga and meditation daily).

Effect on Emotions

• “I think mindfulness has enhanced the good emotions and it's helped me let the bad ones go.”

Thoughts on Breathing

• “Breathing is my mindfulness practice. The breath is always there. It's something to focus on and it's just so pleasant, just taking a breath and being there with it. It's amazingly rich.”

Suggested Resources

• Book: All Our Waves Are Water by Jaimal Yogis
• Latest Book: Mop Rides The Waves Of Life by Jaimal Yogis
• App: Headspace

Bullying Story

• Check out his story on Episode 228

Related Episodes

• 228 Fear Is Not Real; Jaimal Yogis
• 042 Surfing and Mindfulness; Ed Donato
• 111 Water and Mindfulness; Bruce Langford

Free Gift

Do you want to become more calm, relaxed, peaceful, and content? If so, you can learn how by downloading this free ‘Waves of Content' Meditation by Bruce Langford. Unlock the secrets of calm by downloading the meditation here at MindfulnessMode.com/wavesofcontent

Bruce Langford:

How much of an impact, if any, Joseph Campbell has had on you. He's known for The Hero's Journey. Has he had an impact on you and your writing?

Jaimal Yogis, (Ride The Waves Of Life):

Certainly. Yeah. I was a philosophy and religion major in college and read a lot of Joseph Campbell and The hero's Journey.

Jaimal Yogis, (Ride The Waves Of Life):

Well, we're all on an adventure. I teach a memoir class occasionally and I tell people, people always say, Oh, well I've lived a boring life, or I don't have much to write about. And I say, well, if you have a feeling you have been on this incredible journey in your world is incredibly interesting and rich because we are all we're all navigating incredible, challenges.

Jaimal Yogis, (Ride The Waves Of Life):

If we're alive as a human being, you know, we're aging, we're, we're, we're falling in love. We're getting our hearts broken. We're striving for a better job or missing opportunities. We're getting opportunities, whatever it is that you're going through. It's a, it's an adventure, it's a huge Epic adventure inside, whether you're, you know, climbing Mount Kilimanjaro inside or outside. And so I think that model of, of the hero's journey where you have, you know, Frodo out there on his adventure, you know, trying to get to Mort or and seeing how he, he gets beaten down and he, the darkness starts to overtake him at times and he becomes selfish and then he has to fight his way out of it. And, and just continually expand his comfort zone and realize he's made up more than he ever believed he was.

Jaimal Yogis, (Ride The Waves Of Life):

That's I think the experience, every person who has to overcome fears inside themselves has, so those, those great heroes stories I think are really inspirational. And it's interesting. I mean, we talked a lot in mindfulness and a lot of Buddhist teachers talk a lot about how we need to break through the stories that we tell ourselves, like the negative stories or the stories of, of who we are, but, and that's the sort of downside of stories that we're, we're habitually telling ourselves. Maybe I'm not good enough for 'em, I'm, I'll never be you know, realize that my potential or whatever it is that, you know, those fears and traumas that we've had in our past that set up stories about ourselves, or maybe there are stories of like, I'm so perfect. I'm better than everybody else or whatever, you know everybody has their own stories that they're running that can be limiting.

Jaimal Yogis, (Ride The Waves Of Life):

But the other side of the stories is that they are what moves us as human beings and what inspires us. And when you look at somebody like the Buddha who, whose story, we really celebrate this Prince who had to leave the riches of the kingdom to, and pleasures to find out what really creates true freedom. And it's a story that is so important, I think, as a foundational story of mindfulness, because we hear, we see sort of the modern billionaire or celebrity story playing out of like, you know, it's obvious that extreme wealth and pleasure doesn't bring anybody lasting happiness and, and the Buddha had the insight to leave all that and say, what can I find if I just watch my mind and just watch my thoughts? And so anyway, this is a long rambling way of saying, I think those inspirational stories, and that's a, my inspirational mindfulness story, the Buddhist historical story are so important. And so, yeah, I have tried to capture some of what I've gained from mindfulness in the story form and it's fun and challenging. Well, yeah.

Bruce Langford:

You know, I'm just wondering what kinds of, what kinds of fears your boys have, and what, how they express their joy. And what's it like having these three dynamic kids around you and then, you know, how do you learn from them?

Jaimal Yogis, (Ride The Waves Of Life):

Well, I mean, talk about the hero's journey. I mean, there's never been anything more difficult than being a, for me than being a dad. But also there's never been anything. That's been a greater joy. And they are wild boys, four, six, and 8; Finn, Eben, and Titus. And they passionate. They love to wrestle and I, and beyond boys, but they're also so observant and so present. And every, every moment is a rollercoaster where, you know, you're one minute you're in this, you're, you're at the river and you're enjoying skipping rocks and like having this gorgeous moment. And the next minute, you know, one of them's on the ground and has just, you know, thrown a rock at his brother's head.

Jaimal Yogis, (Ride The Waves Of Life):

And, and, and so I think as a mindfulness practitioner, who'd gotten fairly good at sort of navigating my own world. Early is better than I was before learning mindfulness. Then all of a sudden, you're back in these really sharp emotions that you haven't felt since you were a kid, as a dad and having to make quick decisions. And so I think that's one of the reasons I wrote mop was because I felt confronted with fear and anger and stress in a new way, being a dad, you know, you lose all your time, you lose the ability to go out surfing or go out exercise and, or cut out your mindfulness practice as long as you used to be able to in the day. And so you really have to live the practice. And so it's, I find ruse that it's all about mindset.

Jaimal Yogis, (Ride The Waves Of Life):

Like if they're being really crazy and I have the mindset of, Oh my gosh, when is this gonna stop? I'm just so tired. We didn't sleep last night. And now, you know you know, now they're writing on the walls or something. I just, that's my story that I need to sort of crack and, and then reset. And it's really like taking a breath and realizing that in that story of negativity and say, actually, this is such an incredible opportunity to try to approach the situation, the announce of calm and go to them and say, okay, guys who drew on the wall, you know, instead of who drew on the wall. And it's so interesting, cause they're looking at the gift that you can give your children is being able to demonstrate how to approach a problem calmly.

Jaimal Yogis, (Ride The Waves Of Life):

And then when you mess up, I think, give them the gift of saying, Hey, you guys see how I just reacted in a way that wasn't helpful. I don't want to do that. And I, and that's a technique that I think I've really had to learn as a dad is seeing when I haven't reacted mindfully or haven't been a good demonstration of I'm riding my emotions and say to them, you guys, I went over the edge there. I, and I apologize. And I'm learning too. And they really respond well to that. I think it helps us see each other as like it helps them understand that it's okay when they make a mistake too, and that they can admit that and learn from it. So we're all, we're all in the mindful boat together, failing the stormy seas.

Jaimal Yogis, (Ride The Waves Of Life):

Right. Well, I know that you said you're working on another book. What other projects are you working on? Jamal? have a lot of things I'm juggling right now, Bruce. I have like I said, the hero's journey is, is one that's been important to me and I have a graphic novel series that is a fantasy series that I'm working on with a wonderful artist named Vivian Truong. Who's a British artist. And so we have a series with Scholastic. That's about a girl who finds moves from the States to Hong Kong and she finds a dragon egg and it hatches. And this is just pure fun. I love this story so much and it's helping me integrate, I would say my love of adventure stories and fantasy with some of my love of these Eastern traditions that have informed my mindfulness practice.

Jaimal Yogis, (Ride The Waves Of Life):

So that's a blast. And then I'm working on a documentary of the first Bangladeshi, a female surfer, which is called The Most Fearless. This is about a young woman … girls don't even swim in Bangladesh after puberty. And these kids live on the longest beach in the world, 80 miles of unbroken sand, and great waves. And this girl said she wanted to surf and she got teased mercilessly and very conservative cultures. And, you know, you shouldn't be out in the water with the boys and she persevered. And so we're doing a story about her and I'm here and I have some other various film and TV stuff going like adaptations of my books that are a lot of fun. And hopefully, those will happen. It feels like the hero's journey being, doing any Hollywood projects, but fingers crossed that we're having a lot, it's a lot of fun to even dream about it.

Tune in to the episode to learn more.