Have you ever thought about the role that the body plays in… prosperity? In this fun meeting of the minds, Chara and Michelle Boulé discuss what has led Michelle to where she is today. With Michelle being a dancer, Chara was curious about the connections between how she moves, lives in her body, how she is in the world, and how that translates to how she supports others in breaking through the things that hold them back.
Michelle Boulé is a Dancer, Healer, and Transformational Life and Business Coach with a unique methodology that creates profound change for her clients.
She’s been featured in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Thrive Global, Bloomberg Businessweek, Dance Magazine, and The Today Show, amongst others.
Her work, which includes online group and private coaching, speaking, and in-person retreats, gives creative artists, entrepreneurs, and professionals all over the world the clarity and tools they need to manifest their visions and align with their truth confidently.
With over 25 years of practice in somatic therapies, energy medicine, mindset psychology, spirituality, and her award-winning international career in dance, the heart of her work is LOVE. After 21 years of living in New York City, Michelle now resides in Missoula, MT.
Resources & Mentions:
Follow Michelle Boulé on Instagram - @michelle.boule
Michelle Boulé’s website: https://www.michelleboule.com/
Who doesn’t love a story of embracing change and seeing where it will take you? In this conversation between Chara and long-time yoga teacher, trainer and mentor Julie Smerdon, we hear the story of how Julie came to yoga, or how yoga came to her. It’s one of the more colorful and beautiful stories of how yoga can genuinely change lives and it’s full of harrowing moments and profound wisdom.
Resources:
What are the most important synergies between yoga and psychology? Chara speaks with Dr. Lauren Tober about her evolution as a yoga teacher and psychologist and how that has been informed by the ways that yoga and modern-day psychology have slowly moved toward each other over the course of the last couple of decades. We explore why and how yoga is an important context for yoga teachers and students to become more aware of and how to live and practice in a world where nearly everyone is touched by trauma of some kind. We also hear about Lauren’s upcoming Mental Health Aware Yoga course!
Resources:
Dr Lauren Tober’s Mental Health Aware Yoga Training - http://www.mentalhealthawareyoga.com/hybrid
Dr Lauren Tober’s website - https://www.laurentober.com/
iRest Institute - https://www.irest.org/
The honest, fresh and activating energy of Reggie Hubbard shines through as he speaks with Chara about his passion for yoga, politics and activism. They dive into his background, ambitions and what motivates him.
Reggie started Active Peace Yoga with a mission to make the practice of yoga and living the yogic lifestyle more accessible to all - regardless of race, gender, body type or practice level - to form peace of mind and general well being as a foundation, not as an afterthought.
Buckle up and enjoy, as you are in for an enlightening & fun conversation.
Resources:
Active Peace Yoga - https://activepeaceyoga.com/
Bronnie Ware shares with Chara some beautiful and inspiring lessons she has experienced. She has walked through life with her eyes and heart wide open and has generously shared the lessons of living and dying in her books, The Top Five Regrets of the Dying, Your Year for Change, and Bloom. Dig into this episode and embrace the richness found in living that fills the gaps in our understanding of who we are and why we’re here.
Resources:
Bronnie Ware’s books - https://bronnieware.com/books/
Chara speaks with David Charlton and Ranju Roy to dig into some deep questions about life. They look at the many fibers that make up who we are in this moment and what the process looks like in getting to know yourself. They discuss the struggles and pitfalls that come up and the overall beauty within the gift of knowing yourself.
Resources
Embodying the Yoga Sutra: Patanjali for the 21st Century workshop - https://www.sadhanamalayogatraining.com/patanjaliforthe21stcentury
A diving off point for a deeper inquiry into the practice of Living Like You Love Yourself. What are the life challenges that keep us from holding ourselves in more sacred, informed and loving ways? What is our relationship with the concept of self love and how does that bleed into our actions with ourselves and the world? In this episode we explore a view on the elements of "living like we love ourselves" that provide a context for this season of conversations and sharing.
A deep dive into the nature of consciousness, supported by the yoga sutras and our experience of everyday life! Michael de Manincor returns to the podcast to share wisdom and insights into the most challenging questions of our existence. In this brilliant conversation we wonder about unanswerable questions and how asking them can change who and how we are forever!
Resources:
The Yoga Institute - https://yogainstitute.com.au/
What if the most powerful tool for waking up is sleep itself? Chara and Lucy chat with Lucy's dear friend, John Vosler, holistic wellness educator, conscious coach and yoga nidra guide and deeply wise soul about his practice of Yoga Nidra “Yogic sleep” and its potential to transform the way we relate to ourselves and the world around us.
John Vosler’s passion is providing education on how thoughts, emotions and physical being are connected.
As an energetic bodyworker for more than 25 years, John is able to assess each client and determine the best modality or combination of modalities to help them connect with their divine consciousness and inner healer.
Through meditation, movement, holistic bodywork and Conscious Coaching, John’s Los Angeles-based wellness practice has empowered countless clients to improve their lives. Executives, athletes, celebrities, busy moms and burnt-out professionals are attracted to his intuitive awareness and vast knowledge of the science of meditation. And, his infectious humor and compassionate heart make working with him a joy-filled experience.
Resources:
iRest website: https://www.irest.org/
IAM yoga nidra website: https://amrityoga.org/yoga-nidra/
Lucy and Chara are joined by Maya Breuer, to talk about the shape and future of yoga as a tool for connection across and within cultures. Maya shares the story of the creation of the retreat for women of color and how she sees yoga alliance expanding its focus and reach to better include and support its diverse membership and ever-broadening reach.
Maya Breuer, Yoga Alliance Vice President of Cross-Cultural Advancement, supports diversity, inclusion, and cross-cultural competency across all Yoga Alliance activities. In doing so, she builds relationships with community leaders and leads the evaluation of incoming grant requests to Yoga Alliance Foundation. Celebrated as one of America’s distinguished Black Yogis by Black Enterprise magazine, Maya, president and co-founder of the national Black Yoga Teachers Alliance, is a preeminent yoga instructor, practitioner, author, community activist and consultant with a career spanning over three decades. She has been training and certifying yoga teachers throughout the United States since 2001 and offers a bi-annual Yoga Retreat for Women of Color at the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health. Her mission and dharma has been to teach yoga and empower individuals to renew body, mind, and spirit to achieve health and well-being.
RESOURCES & MENTIONS:
Website: http://www.mayabreuer.com/
Unity in Yoga Podcast: https://www.yogaalliance.org/Membership_Benefits/Unity_in_Yoga
Yoga Retreat for Women of Color at Kripalu: https://kripalu.org/presenters-programs/yoga-retreat-women-color-rediscover-your-divine-self
Yoga Alliances Teaching for Equity program - https://www.yogaalliance.org/Foundation/Teaching_for_Equity_Program
International Gathering Sanghas
Bell Hooks - Sisters of the Yam
Chara and Lucy connect with Jana Long, the founder and executive director of Black Yoga Teachers Alliance, in an exploration of the stories that define who we are and provide a foundation for who we can be. We get a look into a life touched by 50 years of yoga practice and we get a sense for why Yoga Journal named Jana one of it’s Game Changers!
Resources & Mentions:
Black Yoga Teachers Alliance (BYTA) - https://blackyogateachersalliance.org/
Facebook Page - Black Yoga Teachers Alliance - https://www.facebook.com/blackyogateachersalliance
Power of One Yoga Center - https://powerofonecenter.com/
Facebook Page - Power of One Yoga Center - https://www.facebook.com/powerofoneyoga
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/powerofoneyoga/
Documentary - The Uncommon Yogi by Jana Long - THE UNCOMMON YOGI
What is pain and how can the tools of yoga and yoga therapy best acknowledge, manage and heal the complex experience of those living with it on a daily basis? Lucy and Chara speak with Yoga therapist, researcher and author Marlysa Sullivan about her work in Yoga therapy and pain management and how yoga provides a holistic lens for understanding and alleviating the root causes of pain.
Marlysa's Bio:
Dr. Marlysa Sullivan is a physiotherapist and yoga therapist with over 15 years of experience. Marlysa balances clinical research and practice with education, speaking and writing. She is the Physical Therapy Coordinator of the Empowered Veterans Program at the VA. This is a comprehensive pain care program that integrates whole health coaching, psychotherapy, and mindful movement with a chaplain, psychotherapist and physical therapist. She trains physical therapists as well as offers the mindful movement component integrating therapeutic pain education, mindfulness, acceptance and commitment therapeutic principles with movement practices. She is an Assistant Professor in Yoga Therapy and Integrative Health Sciences at Maryland University of Integrative Health and holds an adjunct position at Emory University, where she teaches the integration of yoga and mindfulness into physical therapy practice in the DPT program. She is the author of Understanding Yoga Therapy: Applied Philosophy and Science for Well-being and co-editor of Yoga and Science in Pain Care: Treating the Person in Pain, as well as several peer-reviewed articles.
Resources & Mentions:
Marlysa's Website: https://marlysasullivan.com/
Books & Articles Discussed:
Books Lucy recommended:
John Sarno - “The Mindbody Prescription” & “The Divided Mind”
Alan Gordon - “The Way Out - Healing Chronic Pain” - includes the concept of neuroplastic pain
Who could you be if you knew that just by loving yourself you could change the world? Chara and Lucy speak with yoga teacher, social justice educator and author Jacoby Ballard about the beauty, power, and challenges of making a difference in the world by starting from within. They discuss Jacoby’s new book and his path as a queer activist, educator, and advocate for the power of self-love, compassion, and practice to connect and elevate us.
Resources & Mentions:
How can yoga support us in improving our relationship with our bodies? This was the question that we explored with psychologist and yoga therapist Janet Lowndes, a dear friend of Lucy’s and a woman who is doing amazing things in the world. Her Melbourne, Australia based practice assists people with eating disorders and body image challenges. So we talk about the part that yoga plays in creating and solving this problem in our modern world! Fabulous conversation. The first of Season two!!
Info and resources:
Janet Lowndes is Founding Director and Principal Psychologist at Mind Body Well, a private practice in Melbourne providing outpatient therapies for people with Eating Disorders and concerns about eating behaviours, body image and wellbeing - from a Non-Diet, Health at Every Size® perspective.
Her approach is one which emphasises wellbeing rather than weight, focusing on embodied self compassion and interoceptive awareness. She believes that Yoga is an act of embodied liberation, and she encourages yoga teachers and therapists to provide weight inclusive spaces which celebrate the wonderful diversity of bodies and minds.
Here's where you can find her!
Touching base to let you know what’s coming up in Season 2 and to introduce you to my guest Co-host for the season!
Resources & Mentions
Elements of Yoga Ayurveda for Yoga Teachers Course
How to find yourself is a question that new age self help… and yoga, to some degree, have made infamous. But it's a journey that all of us are consciously or unconsciously engaged in every day. In this final episode of season one of the podcast, Maria and Chara unpack the principles and particulars of self seeking. What does it really mean? What does it look like? And more importantly, what makes it all worth doing? We talk about all of this and provide some clues for the seekers and sleuths out there.
What do we all need to know as human beings walking around on this earth with a pelvis? What are some of the misconceptions around what the pelvic floor is, how it supports and impacts our experience of living and how to keep it (and us) healthy In this penultimate episode of Season 1 of the Live Like You Love Yourself podcast, Chara and Maria speak with , yoga teacher, podcaster and pelvic floor health specialist Shannon Crow about some of the confusion that we all experience around this vital aspect of our being and what we can do to own and nourish who we are by educating ourselves about the pelvic floor.
Resources & Mentions:
A beautiful moment of connection and introduction. Saved from an earlier start at the podcast, this unpublished conversation was one of the first recorded conversations we ever had. It was a “first meeting” on air and has turned out to be a sweet goodbye to a beautiful friend. Chara interviews Maria about her life, her discovery of yoga and what she’s learned along her journey of teaching and practice.
What is the role of yoga in times like these? Who must we be as practitioners to experience its full potential and ours as well? How can we characterize the dance that yoga and modern science are currently engaged in, and what are the potential pitfalls and windfalls of this pairing? What does the world need from yoga teachers right now? These are just a few of the inquiries that shaped our conversation with Dr. Michael de Manincor - Director and senior lecturer at the Yoga Institute in Sydney Australia. It was a delightful connection with a few interesting surprises along the way!
References & Resources:
A candid conversation with Maria and Chara about the challenges of living and how our yoga can serve us when aspects of life (like Covid and cancer) take us by surprise. The conversation started as an inquiry into what the world needs from yoga right now. Our answer came through the lens of our own current struggles and hopes for the future.
Resources & Mentions