Yoga Stories with Matt and Monica

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Yoga Stories with Matt and Monica

Matt & Monica

29 episodes

7 months ago

OK, so January is almost over, but that doesn't mean we cannot still develop some new habits and work on those resolutions we made at the beginning of the year! Monica tells us it only takes 21 days to develop a new habit - so why not use that power to achieve something wonderful? Our idea (and we don't claim it's original!) is to encourage you to start a personal (yoga) practice. Something simple. Something sustainable. Something you will do every day, and will see and feel a benefit from. ...

Show more...

Religion & Spirituality

Health & Fitness

All content for Yoga Stories with Matt and Monica is the property of Matt & Monica and is served directly from their servers with no modification, redirects, or rehosting. The podcast is not affiliated with or endorsed by Podjoint in any way.

OK, so January is almost over, but that doesn't mean we cannot still develop some new habits and work on those resolutions we made at the beginning of the year! Monica tells us it only takes 21 days to develop a new habit - so why not use that power to achieve something wonderful? Our idea (and we don't claim it's original!) is to encourage you to start a personal (yoga) practice. Something simple. Something sustainable. Something you will do every day, and will see and feel a benefit from. ...

Show more...

Religion & Spirituality

Health & Fitness

Episodes (20/29)

Yoga Stories with Matt and Monica

Starting a Personal Practice

OK, so January is almost over, but that doesn't mean we cannot still develop some new habits and work on those resolutions we made at the beginning of the year! Monica tells us it only takes 21 days to develop a new habit - so why not use that power to achieve something wonderful? Our idea (and we don't claim it's original!) is to encourage you to start a personal (yoga) practice. Something simple. Something sustainable. Something you will do every day, and will see and feel a benefit from. ...

3 years ago

1 hour 1 minute

Yoga Stories with Matt and Monica

Farewell to 21 (part 2)

How quickly and dramatically can things change? In a global pandemic, the answer is "VERY"! In the last episode Monica was looking forward to Christmas in Slovakia and her birthday (and New Year) in Sicily. However, Monica is now in splendid isolation at home after testing positive before trying to take the flight to Sicily. Matt was busy preparing for a Christmas for seven family members, but in the end it was three people and one dog - everyone else at home also having caught Covid... We c...

3 years ago

47 minutes

Yoga Stories with Matt and Monica

A Farewell to 21 (part 1)

We decided to celebrate the end of the year by listening back to the guests we had over the last year; to share the impressions we had, the lessons we learned, the beautiful stories shared. However, we were really only half way through when time was up (a booster vaccination appointment was calling!). So this is just part 1. We will talk about everyone before the year is out... (hopefully!) What have we learned? CHANGE. Everything changes, and we are certainly not the people we were at...

3 years ago

56 minutes

Yoga Stories with Matt and Monica

Yoga Stories: Michael

Born in the US Pacific Northwest, Michael was a bookish child, not so comfortable in his body. He grew up in a loving family, but one that had no specific religious or spiritual practice. Realising he was good at school work, he decided to be really good at school. This eventually led to a full ride scholarship to University. It was while at college that he discovered dance, and took his first yoga class. Soon he was a regular at the local Bikram studio, as well as adding dance to his degree...

3 years ago

58 minutes

Yoga Stories with Matt and Monica

Yoga Stories: Shannon

Born in South Africa, Shannon had an idyllic childhood including time at a catholic boarding school. Sensing the world was bigger than what she saw of it in her home country, she moved to London and enjoyed all the big city can offer. Along the way she became acquainted with yoga and meditation, but it wasn't until she went on a month long Buddhist meditation retreat that her life turned a corner and she set out in a different direction. Eventually she ended up working in France at a meditat...

3 years ago

50 minutes

Yoga Stories with Matt and Monica

Yoga Stories: Tessa

Tessa is half-Belgian, half-American and is a teacher at Yyoga in Brussels. Monica and Matt chat to Tessa about when and how she discovered yoga - as a student in Florida. Tessa seems to have taken a very different course through life after her introduction to yoga than the one she had envisaged when she went to the USA to complete post-graduate studies. Tessa found yoga (or yoga found Tessa) after she had already instigated a spiritual practice. Her yoga practice helps to put her in a place...

3 years ago

47 minutes

Yoga Stories with Matt and Monica

Yoga Stories: Tara

This episode introduces us to Tara - who studied with Monica in Mysore. Tara is based in India but has also lived in Europe. She is a student and teacher of yoga, as well as an artist and mindful cook. Tara's introduction to yoga came from two sources - a grandmother (who instilled the Yamas and Niyamas in her), and later family friends. That introduction was significant - not only did Tara start to learn yoga asanas, but her eyes were opened to the vastness of artistic expression once relea...

3 years ago

55 minutes

Yoga Stories with Matt and Monica

Yoga Stories: September catch up with Monica and Matt

Summer is almost over - but you wouldn’t know that from Monica’s regular comment on the weather! This summer has been one of growth for both Matt and Monica. With yoga studios in Belgium allowed to reopen, and with Matt having completed a teacher training course, things have, inevitably, changed. Have we been able to embrace this change, as yogis do? As the young people would say “it’s complicated”. Or maybe it isn’t. So will Matt teach, Monica wants to know… we discuss callings, gurus, “inn...

3 years ago

49 minutes

Yoga Stories with Matt and Monica

Yoga Stories: Klara and Sigrid

In a recording made during the heady days of summer, Monica and Matt talk to Klara and Sigrid, teacher and student at Reykjavik Yoga in Iceland. Why Iceland? We noticed that after Brussels, Reykjavik is the city in which we had the most listeners. So we wanted to meet some of them! Klara was born in the Czech Republic but has traveled the world since then. Yoga was seeping into her life from an early age with an interest in rocks and crystals and wondering what chakras were... in Ireland she...

3 years ago

1 hour 5 minutes

Yoga Stories with Matt and Monica

Yoga Stories: Shilpi

Shilpi is originally from India but now lives in New Jersey, USA, with her husband, daughter, son and enormous dog (Cosmo). Shilpi was introduced to yoga by her Dad when she was a youngster. It was a very physical practice with very little theory but she continued to practise up until moving to the USA. She has recently taken up yoga again, but perhaps this time with more emphasis on yoga's philosophy and theory. Shilpi's most common practice is the Vipassana form of meditation. And mindfuln...

3 years ago

50 minutes

Yoga Stories with Matt and Monica

Kleshas - part 2

In this second episode on the Kleshas, we look at Asmita - ego, and Avidya, the mother and father of all Kleshas. We spend quite some time examining our own lives to see how much we have identified with different roles - professional, family, social. Identifying too much with any of these roles - motherhood included - is going to involve some suffering at some point. We also look at the idea that egoism can be negative as well as positive - thinking you're not good enough is just as damaging...

3 years ago

59 minutes

Yoga Stories with Matt and Monica

Kleshas: Part 1

In this episode we begin a discussion on the Kleshas - impediments, obstacles of inflictions that inhibit our spiritual growth. We decided to discuss them backwards - starting with abhiniveśāḥ, the fear of death. And after observing that we don't talk a lot about death in our cultures, we spend a considerable time talking about death... dveṣa is aversion - or attachment to past pain. Not letting go of pain from the past can lead to a lot of unhappiness. Attachment is most ofte...

4 years ago

54 minutes

Yoga Stories with Matt and Monica

Sanyama: Dharana, Dhyana and Samadhi

We're back! In this week's episode, before talking about the last three limbs of yoga from Patanjali's sutras: Dharana, Dhyana and Samadhi. But before we get to concentration and meditation we have to confess that we're not going to be able to share much about Samadhi. There's a very honest discussion about "Why do we do this?" "This" being yoga rather than the podcast 😁. And why do we talk about that? Well, Matt has a confession to make. Don't worry, it's not too shocking. We discuss...

4 years ago

1 hour 2 minutes

Yoga Stories with Matt and Monica

Yoga Stories Episode 12: Pratyahara

How do you talk about withdrawal of the senses? (Or indeed how do you present that in a photo?) That's how pratyahara is most often translated. The fifth limb of yoga is perhaps something that happens to you when you practice consistently, rather than a recognisable practice or tradition that you can follow. After our discussion about Prana, however, it makes more sense in that context: by making the mind the master of the "sense organs" you can learn to put them under your control, allowing ...

4 years ago

54 minutes

Yoga Stories with Matt and Monica

Yoga Stories Episode 11: Pranayama

This week, after a week off, Matt has baked diabetic cookies for Monica. They turn out to be not so bad in the end... Our discussion focuses on Pranayama. More than breathing exercises, it's a way to expand and control Prana, the energy that animates not only us, our minds and bodies, but the whole Universe. Matt gets very excited about the reading he's been doing on Prana, from Vivekananda's lecture series. Intensifying, concentrating and controlling Prana are ways to "put more coal i...

4 years ago

55 minutes

Yoga Stories with Matt and Monica

Yoga Stories: Daša

This week Monica and Matt chat with Daša Lakner, founder of agniyoga studios in Ljubljana, Slovenia and the teacher with whom Monica completed her first teacher training. Recently a mother for the second time, Daša manages to have an in-depth conversation with us while pushing her new-born son to a local castle to help him sleep! (This does mean you will occasionally hear the joyful sounds of children playing and birds singing.) Daša was exposed to yoga from an early age, but also was induct...

4 years ago

44 minutes

Yoga Stories with Matt and Monica

Yoga Stories Episode 10: Asanas

Monica and Matt examine the third limb of yoga: asanas. The discussion gets perhaps more serious than one would imagine for the topic... and Oréo can be heard begging for Monica's coconut cookies! There's not much to go on in Patanjali or the Gita... so Monica turns to the Hatha Yoga Pradipika (HYP). A marvellous handbook for yoga but it only refers to sitting postures. So where do the standing asana (postures) come from? Of the modern posture styles best known in the west (Hatha, Vinyasa, ...

4 years ago

55 minutes

Yoga Stories with Matt and Monica

Yoga Stories Episode 9: the Niyamas - part 2

This week we continue our discussion of the Niyamas, the things yogis should be doing to bring their practice into every aspect of life. Tapas, a kind of self-discipline that helps build the fire inside that burns away impurities, is a concept familiar to many people of faith. Svadhyaya is the study of the self - reflection on your actions, characteristics, the direction you are taking and the environment in which you are living. But of course it must be done without too heavy of a cri...

4 years ago

59 minutes

Yoga Stories with Matt and Monica

Yoga Stories Episode 8: The Niyamas - part 1

In this episode Monica and Matt discuss the first two Niyamas - Saucha (or is it Shaucha?) and Santosha - purity and contentment. Saucha can also mean cleanliness and we discover that what comes out of people can be as "defiling" as what goes in - an idea we look at from the New Testament. We also talk about interdictions on certain foods for observant Jews as well as Muslims. Preparations to commune with the divine, including those related to Saucha can be useful to put you in the right stat...

4 years ago

1 hour 2 minutes

Yoga Stories with Matt and Monica

Yoga Stories: Ashoka

This week Monica and Matt speak with Ashoka Mody, an economics professor at Princeton. Born and raised in India, Ashoka's first asana practice began between graduating from High School and going to University. The Ashram providing the classes was just opposite his school. A great believer in chance/coincidence/conjuncture, his journey led him to begin transcendental meditation and then on to study with Swami Akhandanandji in Vrindavan, the town where Lord Krishna grew up. After moving to the...

4 years ago

43 minutes

Yoga Stories with Matt and Monica

OK, so January is almost over, but that doesn't mean we cannot still develop some new habits and work on those resolutions we made at the beginning of the year! Monica tells us it only takes 21 days to develop a new habit - so why not use that power to achieve something wonderful? Our idea (and we don't claim it's original!) is to encourage you to start a personal (yoga) practice. Something simple. Something sustainable. Something you will do every day, and will see and feel a benefit from. ...