FINDING HARMONY PODCAST
What is a spiritual practice? How does it work? How will it improve my life? How will deepening my self-care transform me? What strategies can I use to improve my life, increase my health, and create wellness? How can craft a life that I love?
The Finding Harmony Podcast gets to the root of all these questions. Each episode is full of inspiration, humour, honest observations, and actionable steps that you can integrate to enhance your experience of self-love, develop a connection to Spirit, and create a life you truly love.
Show Notes Below:
Sally Parkes Yoga School For Life
We start off this episode with a cautionary tale about what happens when you experience debilitating back pain and don’t listen to your body, but try to work through the pain. We dive deep into the troubling beginnings of what brought Sally to the this path of yoga in the first place. A path which she believes wholeheartedly saved her life.
Lady Lucinda on Solsbury Hill
We have to say that this wild episode is one of our personal favorites.
The drugs and name dropping is one thing… Twee references to the Royal family compound our glee!
But, what gets us the most is when someone has a sincere relationship to the healing power of practice. And Lucinda Leachman is the first to attest to how it’s helped her immensely. Using it as a somatic therapy, it’s helped her to process the past, let go of shame, and move confidently into an unknown future.
Michelle El Khoury and YogaMazia
Michelle El Khoury is not only a wellness entrepreneur with a PhD and over twenty years of healthcare experience, but she’s also a wife and mother to three beautiful daughters.
Her journey took her from Trinidad to the U.S, where she climbed the corporate ladder in a successful career as a pharmaceutical executive. All the while, becoming more aware as she grew up in America, how our society here is less of a creole melting pot and more like a segregated tiffin box…
She began to experience the transformative effects of the practice, which inspired her to dedicate her life to sharing these teachings, and seven years later, she opened a healing space dedicated to bringing yoga to pregnant persons, children, and families.
Solidarity with Basia Lipska Larsen
Our guest today is a dear friend. She is so delightfully effervescent and youthful in her attitude that she could’ve been sprouted out into the world like an Athena parading out of Zeus’s skull!
Basia Lipska Larsen is a passionately cheerful person, so much so that one cannot help but smile in her presence…
Stoking The Inner Fire with Sarah Hatcher
From skiing and horseback riding to fighting fires and then throwing herself fully into her Ashtanga Yoga practice, after being stuck in Marichyasana-D (a difficult twist in the Primary Series) for 4 years, she continued on with dedication and determination, to become a Fourth Series practitioner under the guidance of David Garrigues and Dena Kingsberg.
Alex South: No Pelvis Left Behind
“From menstruation, pregnancy, miscarriage, pelvic pain, endometriosis and fibroids, every pelvis has a story, and more often than not, we’re quite disconnected from it.” Please sit with us on this beautiful Sunday as we join our friend Alexandra South in a deeply personal story.
Jeanette Keane: Dance Me to the End of Love
The Finding Harmony Podcast has always been a play on words. How to find harmony in your life?
Uncovering that point when one hits rock bottom and discovers yoga as the secret key to ending suffering… Sometime after everything else has failed. Jeanette was fortunate enough to be introduced to yoga at a very young age through her mother. She’s an artist, a professional dancer, and skilled in Public Relations, Digital Communication, Marketing and Arts Administration. But even Jeanette explored many different avenues, looking for answers, before realizing that yoga held the perfect space for her to cultivate inner-peace.
The Three Stigmata of Mariela Cruz
It is with great pleasure that we introduce you to our great friend Mariela Cruz. Mariela is one of those phenomenal human that you might find in an Alexandre Dumas classic like ‘The Count of Monte Christo’ or ‘The Man in the Iron Mask.’
Someone who’s heart-centered and gifted with supreme powers of intelligence, wit, and physical prowess!
With 7 children, a lawyer, a gifted solo pianist, she also happened to finished Advanced A Series with Sharath Jois in Mysore, India. She was an ambassador to India on behalf of Costa Rica…. and the list of accomplishments goes on and on, reading like an epic novel. All this, and she still has half a lifetime more to live.
Come With Me To the Sea of Love
Isa’s story is shaped by her affection for depth, song, movement, water, wildness, and her love for family and children. She adores Pattabhi Jois and is not embarrassed by it. She loved him dearly and he continues to hold a place in her heart.
As a practitioner and mother of three Isa shares with us how her experience of practicing through pregnancy was very different with each of her children. Arjuna was born 2004 when Isa was in her twenties, her daughter Kailani was born 20014 when Isa was in her thirties, and baby Koa was born last year in 2020 at age 42. Isa shares with us her different approaches to practice that naturally took place with each pregnancy, as well as her different approaches to giving birth.
Deepika Rebel Rebel
Despite her extravagant appearance, party-girl reputation, and naturally rebellious nature, Deepika Mehta is deeply devoted and one of the most sincere practitioners we know.
In 1997, Deepika Mehta’s life was forever changed by a near-death rock climbing accident. Doctors told her she would never walk again. Not one to allow obstacles to deter her spirit and enthusiasm for life, Deepika sought alternative approaches and methods of physical and emotional healing including meditation, pranayama, dance, and yoga. She began her yoga journey with Sivananda Yoga, which eventually led her to Ashtanga Yoga and her future Guru, Sri. K. Pattabhi Jois in 2002.
A Rebirthing of Self
Becoming a mother is often a difficult transition. Especially for women who are dedicated Ashtanga yoga practitioners before becoming pregnant. We gain a beautiful baby, but our bodies go through a very intense process, not only from the nine months of pregnancy, but also through delivery, and also with a sometimes longer than expected period of recovery. Our physical self changes dramatically, and our spiritual, emotional and psychological selves are all undergoing a significant transformation also. Harmony and Bibi discuss the inner turmoil of wanting things to be like they used to be, and recognizing that they will never be that way, coming up against obstacles of time, obligations, responsibilities, and fatigue…
Ashtangorexia Nervosa
Bibi Lorenzetti is a new mother and an intensely dedicated Ashtanga yoga practitioner. What most people don’t realize is, like Russell and Harmony, Bibi shares body dysmorphia and has suffered with Anorexia Nervosa. In this episode we talk about how the urgency to “progress” at the physical side of the yoga practice, often comes at the expense of one’s health, which is traced more deeply to old feelings of insecurity. And how Bibi’s mindful and conscious approach helped to prepare her for pregnancy and becoming a mother.
Planting Seeds To Breathe
We are delighted to share this episode featuring an interview with my dear friend and Authorized Ashtanga Yoga teacher, Lara Land. As many of you may already know, Lara is the founder and director of the non-profit organization, Three And A Half Acres, whose mission is to teach yoga, breathing and mindfulness techniques to underserved communities.
This podcast touches upon some important topics like diversity (or lack thereof) within the Ashtanga yoga community. And how we, as practitioners and teachers, can learn to become more inclusive in our approach and attitudes to help support populations that would otherwise not be exposed to this practice.
The After Birth Experience
In this episode, I speak about what my personal experience was like after giving birth and how the practice of Ashtanga yoga helped to put the pieces of myself back together again.
Russell and I discuss different approaches to the practice postpartum, and how (after becoming a mother) your life will never be the same… Listen Now