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:
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.
A Mother’s Devotion with Pranidhi Varshney
Happy Mother’s Day! We are so delighted to share this conversation with you this morning. This is an important week and an emotional one.
Pranidhi Varshney is the founder of Yoga Shala West, a community-supported Ashtanga Yoga studio in West Los Angeles. She is also mother to two children who she describes as “courageous and wise little beings.” The thread that runs through all her work is the desire to build community and live from the heart.
The Caño Cristales of Emilia Arenas
It is our honour to share with you all a conversation with our dear friend Emilia, who teaches Ashtanga Yoga in Miami. We met her many years ago on tour with Paramaguru R. Sharath Jois, and we are excited to talk with her again. We found out about her childhood in Bogatá and the impact of the Medellín Cartel on her family, and we talked about the American appetite for narcotics that sewed that destructive force in her life. This led quite naturally to a frank conversation about NA and AA and the role those positive communities had in getting her clean and sober and becoming now a “mamá caliente.“
Sara Intonato: Learning To Thrive
It’s one thing to manage your own life, and another to do it in an emotionally intelligent, and self regulated way; Even more so, to embody the spirit of the bodhisattva, to serve and lead other parents through their own journey with Neurodiverse children.
Sara Intonato is someone all can learn from. We believe you will love hearing her story and may even take away some gems for how you can manage, cope, and thrive as a parent! Parenting and practice is never easy, but when done with the right intention, your practice can help you become an even better parent!
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.
Electric Man : Stan Woodman
What makes someone electric?
In today’s episode we’re going to find out.
Stan Woodman joins us in conversation. He has that beautiful esprit de corps that comes from overcoming adversity with a team in fellowship, even in the face of great tragedy there's still Love in the group.
Stan has a confidence in him that he is loved and will always be loved. Not in an arrogant way whatsoever, but as a man who loves all beings and naturally sees Love within them.
IKEA, ABBA and Lisa Lalér
Sweden is famous for IKEA, ABBA, Minecraft… and Spotify!
Today we speak with the lovely Lisa Lalér, who was born and raised in Stockholm in Sweden.
We’re extremely grateful that Lisa opened up to us about her turbulent childhood and the trauma accumulated in her body which manifested as stiffness; so much so, that when she came to the practice of Ashtanga yoga she was praised as the stiffest student Maria Boox had ever seen!
Karyn Grenfell: A Hero's Journey
Karyn Grenfell has a very particular and idiosyncratic way of living her life. She is not dissimilar to a Tibetan nun, simply here and present, offering goodness to all beings. She’s not bored. Or at least she’s come to terms with a certain pace of life. And, she’s inculcating that same quality of patience and peacefulness in her child. Karyn is keeping alive traditions that feel as if they belong in another century, a predigital age, activities that keep her refreshingly grounded and self-aware.
If you’re at all in doubt about the value of an Ashtanga Yoga practice, or if you’re fretting and insecure, be assured that the 20 years of practice in a dark room at 3:00 in the morning DOES HAVE an effect…
Ann Svärdfelt: A Field of Swords
It is our pleasure to introduce you to Ann Svärdfelt. Her experience of Mysore is unique. She came to Ashtanga Yoga later in life, already with small children, and as a responsible adult. Many of you know her as the proprietor of the Santosha Cafe. Her experience of Mysore is unique. She stepped into the practice from a very different space than many of us, who were in somewhat of a state of arrested development, bugged out drop outs, wannabe hippies, overgrown, and still living with our parents.
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.
The Goddess Solution
We had a delightful morning interviewing Lisa Marie about her new book: The Goddess Solution: Practical Wisdom for Everyday Life. As it turns out, Lisa Marie is a Goddess, named after the King’s wife, Mrs. Presley. We discovered through our conversation that you are a Goddess too… And that even Russell could use this book (if so inclined)…
Laura's Dharma
We caught up with her in Porto Alegre and asked her about how she came to be an Ashtanga Yoga teacher. Its a wild and incredibly cute story the way she tells it; but, actually, she’s quite serious. She gave up her life, legal career, and car when she decided to move to India to study. Her father disowned her, but then took her back, after she founded an orphanage in Nepal, and put an abuser of young children in prison.
Mark Robberds: God of Thunder
Obviously, Mark Robberds isn’t actually the ancient Norse God of Thunder. He is actually quite soft spoken and has a gentle moderate spirit. We touch upon several historical incidents that reinforced patterns of normative behavior in our global community and how these somewhat dramatic events effected each of our lives.
This conversation is a lively one! We are exploring issues of psychology, science, physiology, and philosophy.
If you have ever wanted to sit back and chill with Mark, bask in his beatific presence while making snarky remarks, and digging in deep to what our core values really are, this is your day to do it. ❤️
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…