Conversations about Yoga... Ayurveda... Life!
Hi! We're Maria & Chara...
Modern yogis (and yoga teachers) with lots of questions about how to live, age, parent, and just be more vibrantly engaged in the process. Join us for conversations and interviews dedicated to uncovering what it takes to “grow up” in a way that feels balanced, authentic, graceful and juicy!
Episode 9: Embodied Anatomy with Leila Stuart
Maria and Chara sit down with Yoga therapist, yoga teacher trainer and author Leila Stuart, the creator of an approach to yoga and yoga therapy known as “Embodied Anatomy”. Leila shares details of her long, varied and unconventional history with the practice of yoga and how that inner work created the foundation for what she now shares with the world. Her most recent book is “Pathways to a Centered Body” and she’s currently at work on a new book! Enjoy this deep and joyful chat between three passionate and engaged teachers.
Episode 8: Navigating coronavirus fears and realities
We’ve been getting questions from students and clients about the coronavirus. What’s the best thing to do? What should be avoided or embraced? So we decided to sit down and talk about what we know, what we don’t know, and what we’re doing to navigate the choppy water of this pandemic as it ripples through our lives and our communities.
Episode 7: A chat with Isiah McKimmie - The Yoga of Sex
Relationships and sex therapist Isiah McKimmie is out to help people see the deeper side of sex and themselves. On a journey of self discovery herself, we talk about what makes sex healthy, why ageing can actually improve your sex life and how Ayurveda’s third pillar of health contributes to our ultimate desire to live in alignment with our true nature. Also Chara finds out what a sexologist is! Don’t miss this beautiful and wide ranging discussion!
One of the most qualified Sex and Relationship Experts in Australia, Isiah holds a Masters degree in Relational Psychotherapy, a Master degree in Science in Medicine (Sexual Counselling/Psychosexual Therapy), a Post-Graduate Diploma of Sexology and a Certificate from the prestigious Institute for the Advanced Studies of Human Sexuality.
Isiah is compassionate, understanding and absolutely non-judgemental. She’s built her reputation on getting results and helping her clients live happier lives.
- Ashram where Isiah is currently living: https://www.sripuram.org/
- OMG YES Website: https://www.omgyes.com
- Isiah's Courses: https://www.isiah-mckimmie.com/courses/
Episode 6: Eating like you love yourself: The ancient approach to a healthy diet
- Why Chara wrote her book after initially resisting the pull to focus her Ayurvedic teaching around food
- How organising the book in seasons allowed Chara to address both the Ayurvedic approach to food and the application of ayurvedic Principles to people’s daily life
- How the sister sciences of ayurveda and yoga differ in their intentions and approaches to eating.
- How the oversimplification, “eat for your type” or “eating for your dosha” doesn’t give people enough information to be really useful and apply ayurveda to daily living life.
- The central theme of Chara’s application of Ayurvedic principles is the emphasis on intuitive non-restrictive eating, but how do we develop the ability to trust ourselves to individualise our diets
- We review how every person and everything has certain qualities, and that we want to use the things and foods in our life to bring our qualities into balance. See episode 3 on Ayurveda for more detail https://www.blissbodyandsoul.
com/podcast/.
- We use the example of Kale to explore how a person’s qualities meet a food’s qualities, and how, if the rough dry qualities of kale don’t agree with you, you can prepare it is a way that will yield its nourishment in a way that work for you.
- We explore some of the mistakes and myths around ayurvedic and healthy eating:
- What does it mean to eat someone else’s diet?
- What does it mean to neglect the fire inside?
- Agni: want to read more?
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- How do you cultivate the fire inside?
- When should we eat?
- What is “eating in a minefield?”
- Why we eat? And how that affects the fire inside.
- What we eat and how it affects the digestive fire
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- Tuning into the strength of our digestive fire when making choices about what and when to eat.
- Juicy hungry versus “hangry”
- Chara’s thoughts on meal planning.
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- What does ayurveda say about snacking?
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- Three rules for eating like you love yourself:
- Eat seasonally
- Keep your fire burning
- Choose balance
- Three rules for eating like you love yourself:
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- We talk about weight: how thinking about losing weight or being a right weight is not helpful and constructive. How our cultural messages about what healthy is are not useful for most people to eat like they love themselves.
- How harmonising the when, what, how and why we eat helps.
- How the messages from the world around us can interfere with tuning into how to eat and be in a body in a way that is right for you as an individual?
- How the goal for healthy is about connecting to and coming back to your true nature.
- How to find what is truly nourishing for you?
- How the accessible yoga movement and the body positive movement has broadened available images of what healthy and well can look like.
- How Chara is trying to change the paradigm of what healthy looks and feels like with the concept of eating like you love yourself.
Episode 5: A chat with Deacon Carpenter - A Modern Ayurveda Story...
Chara has a conversation with a Deacon Carpenter a Clinical Ayurveda specialist, entrepreneur and author who’s road to becoming a modern healer has been anything but ordinary! From his awkward overweight beginnings as a teenage immigrant from the UK to the USA, to healing himself at an early age with the help of Ayurveda and yoga to a lifetime rollercoaster ride through the healthy and not so healthy worlds of fashion, media & advertising, technology, pharmaceuticals and the military industrial complex. He’s learned first hand the secret to what holds us together, tears us apart and ultimately heals the mind, body and soul… and it might not be what you think! Definitely have a listen!
Episode 4: Evolving your yoga as you "Grow Up"
J Brown Yoga Talks Podcast: J interviews Chara: https://www.jbrownyoga.
Episode 3: A simpler look at Ayurveda
Maria and Chara engage in a juicy conversation about Ayurveda, diving into the basics of what it REALLY is, what’s important to know about it, how to use it in your life and why you should. Chara talks about why Ayurveda is such an important tool for yoga teachers (or anyone who teaches anything) and shares her experiences with applying the ancient science of living in her yoga classes and in her life.
What every yoga teacher should know...
- First and foremost it's important to know YOUR intention as a teacher and how that intention aligns with your true nature (natural tendencies). Do you want to:
- Just practice yoga (and teaching keeps you doing that)
- Share what you know (about yourself and yoga)
- Support students in some way
- Transform students in some way
Whatever your intention it's vitally important to be honest with yourself about what it is, because it informs what and how you teach!
- Every student in your class needs something different
- The class you're teaching could just as easily be creating imbalance as contributing someone's state of balance.
Our role as teachers is to…
- Connect - Make the effort to understand who the people in your class are?
- Be aware - What imbalances are showing up in the space? What is the potential impact of the environment? What’s the potential impact of the practice?
- Inform - What is the process of knowing yourself, What are the signposts of self awareness, how much is too much?
- Empower - Invite your students to take flight, own their practice (without cutting them loose, which can be anxiety forming)
Episode 2: Tools for living
Chara and Maria talk about their “tools” for living a good life! Influenced by yoga, ayurveda and many bright and beautiful teachers, the two discuss the values and emotional qualities that have helped them navigte the bumps in the road to becoming their best selves.
Episode 1: Who we are and why we're doing this...
In this inaugural episode we talk about what brought us together and why we were compelled to do this podcast. What are the questions that infuence our daily experiences, what are the issues that we find ourselves trying to unravel and what we want to talk about and share with you on this glorious adventure.
You can find more information about Maria at: http://www.yogaforgrownups.com
Looking for Maria...?
You can find her on her website (www.yogaforgrownups.com). Or just CLICK HERE