A Grateful Life

Five years ago in meditation, Rachel Allan (she/her) was given a quest to start the 40 for Tea podcast. 

She ignored this guidance for a couple of years, but after finding herself sobbing on the floor with a broken heart, she asked herself what she would most regret in her life if she died today. The answer was not what she expected…. the 40 for Tea podcast. 

So as the world went into lockdown, Rachel began this quest of having forty cups of tea and forty conversations with extraordinary humans from around the world.

In the episode, you’ll hear Rachel and I talk about intuition, including how to cultivate it and gather the courage to follow it, as well as the intention and essence behind the 40 for Tea podcast and the key pieces of wisdom that came out of these forty profound conversations.

Beyond the podcast, Rachel is a certified Professional Certified Coach (PCC), specializing in life and leadership innovation and executive coaching. Her work centers on deep listening, presence, and meaningful dialogue, fostering personal insight, authentic connection, and real transformation.

Her passion lies in helping people return to themselves - out of the noise and into clarity, calm, and connection. Nothing is broken, we only remove the friction.

Connect with Rachel Allan at https://rachallan.com/

Get the last place on the Australian 2025 Mental Health Aware Yoga hybrid training on the 12-13th of April at https://www.mentalhealthawareyoga.com/hybrid

Join my Embodied Yoga Nidra workshop in Brisbane on the 26th of April 2025 at https://www.yogapsychologyinstitute.com/calendar 

Find out more about our wonderful sponsors:

• Organic India at https://www.organicindia.com.au - use the promo code GRATEFUL15 to get 15% off your next order
• Yoga Australia at https://yogaaustralia.org.au

This podcast is for general informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional advice or training. Please consult a qualified healthcare professional for personalised guidance or come and join one of our programs at the Yoga Psychology Institute for professional training. While we are grateful for our guests and sponsors, any statements, claims or endorsements made are their own, and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the Yoga Psychology Institute.

Did you know that yoga nidrā is not just an evidence-based relaxation practice, but she’s also the goddess of sleep and dreams in Indian mythology?

In this podcast episode, I sat down with Uma Dinsmore-Tuli (she/her) to talk about all things yoga nidrā. 

For those of you who know me, you’ll know this is a practice I’m very passionate about, and it truly was an honour to chat with Uma in this episode, as she’s really a pioneer in the areas of women’s yoga and yoganidrā.

Uma first fell in love with yoga in 1969 at the age of 4 and has been practicing and sharing yoga in various ways since then. She is a yoga therapist, the author of six yoga books, including Nidrā Shakti, which you’ll hear about in the episode today, as well as the Co-founder of the Yoga Nidrā Network. 

Recovering intuitive embodied and cyclical wisdom is at the heart of her writing and her approach to yoga therapy, and her practice and teaching respects the cyclical powers of the living earth, and honours human life cycles as spiritual initiations.

In this episode, we speak about:

1. The goddess of yoga nidrā, 
2. Yoga nidrā as a radical rest practice, 
3. If it’s really true that a short yoga nidra practice can replace hours of sleep, 
4. The psychological and spiritual aspects of yoga nidrā, 
5. How to practice yoga nidrā with an ADHD brain, 
6. What a feminine approach to yoga nidrā looks like, 
7. What it means to be post-lineage and 
8. Uma shares her own daily yoga practice with us (I love asking people this question!).

Connect with Uma Dinsmore-Tuli at https://www.yoganidranetwork.org

Join the Australian 2025 Mental Health Aware Yoga hybrid training on the 12-13th April at https://www.mentalhealthawareyoga.com/hybrid

Join my yoga nidra workshop in Brisbane on the 26th of April 2025 at https://www.yogapsychologyinstitute.com/calendar

Practice yoga nidra with me online at https://www.meditationpuresimple.com

Find out more about our wonderful sponsor, Yoga Australia, at https://yogaaustralia.org.au


This podcast is for general informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional advice or training. Please consult a qualified healthcare professional for personalised guidance or come and join one of our programs at the Yoga Psychology Institute for professional training. While we are grateful for our guests and sponsors, any statements, claims or endorsements made are their own, and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the Yoga Psychology Institute.

Aunty Jacqui Jarrett (she/her) is a proud Dharawal & Gumbaynggirr woman, elder & traditional owner of the Sydney Basin in Australia. 

As soon as Aunty Jacqui joined the Mental Health Aware Yoga training last year, I knew that I wanted to invite her on the podcast to speak about her life and work.

Aunty Jacqui's yoga practice is intrinsically tied to her cultural obligations and responsibilities as a custodian of the land, and through the practice of yoga, she shows continual cultural connections, practices and knowledge of First Nations people. She is the founder of Nura Yoga and offers Yoga on Country classes which she shares all about in this fascinating podcast episode.

In this episode, Aunty Jacqui shares about how it wasn’t until she found trauma-sensitive and Mental Health Aware Yoga that she finally started to see herself represented in contemporary yoga. She also shares about the ways that she brings yoga onto Country and how she has been applying the principles of Mental Health Aware Yoga in this space.

We also explore the similarities and differences that Aunty Jacqui sees between yogic practices and wisdom and the wisdom and practices of Australia’s First Nations people.

Truly it is an honour to have shared the teachings of Mental Health Aware Yoga with Aunty Jacqui and I’m excited to share this episode with you today.

Connect with Aunty Jacqui Jarrett at https://nurayoga.com.au/

Sign up for the 2025 Australian Mental Health Aware Yoga training at https://www.mentalhealthawareyoga.com/hybrid

Stay connected by joining our email newsletter at https://www.yogapsychologyinstitute.com/join/

Find out the latest events at the Yoga Psychology Institute at https://www.yogapsychologyinstitute.com/calendar/ 

Find out more about our wonderful sponsors:

• Organic India at https://www.organicindia.com.au - use the promo code GRATEFUL15 to get 15% off your next order
• Yoga Australia at https://yogaaustralia.org.au

This podcast is for general informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional advice or training. Please consult a qualified healthcare professional for personalised guidance or come and join one of our programs at the Yoga Psychology Institute for professional training. While we are grateful for our guests and sponsors, any statements, claims or endorsements made are their own, and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the Yoga Psychology Institute.

What if yoga was built on a system of caste apartheid? If the very philosophies and practices we engaged in for our personal and collective liberation were actually deeply unjust and harmful for many?

Can we still practice and teach yoga?

Where do we go from here?

These are questions that we’re exploring today in this thoughtful, heartfelt and somewhat controversial interview on the podcast with Roshni Lakhani and Bess Prescott.

Roshni (she/her) is a scholar, educator, and facilitator, specialising in the intersections between language, caste, and power in South Asia. Raised in a caste-privileged Gujarati Hindu family in London, Roshni was immersed in South Asian spiritual traditions from a young age. She holds a BA (Hons.) in Sanskrit and South Asian Studies from SOAS, University of London. Her current work combines personal insight with academic depth, examining how systems of power shape modern yoga, south asian society and its diaspora.

Bess (she/her) is a yoga practitioner and teacher interested in the intersection of yoga, human rights, history, ethics, politics and environmentalism. You might know her as the co-founder of Creature Yoga, in Byron Bay. Bess is deeply curious about how yoga can do good in the world, how it has contributed to harm, and how as teachers and practitioners, we can be aware of tradition while refusing to uphold dogma, hierarchy, patriarchy and caste apartheid.

Connect with Roshni Lakhani at http://www.roshnilakhani.com/

Connect with Bess Prescott at http://www.bessprescottyoga.com/

Join the free Info Session for the hybrid Mental Health Aware Yoga training at https://www.mentalhealthawareyoga.com/hybrid/#info-session

Sign up to the 2025 Australian Mental Health Aware Yoga training at https://www.mentalhealthawareyoga.com/hybrid

Join the Brisbane Yoga Nidra workshop and find out latest events at the Yoga Psychology Institute at https://www.yogapsychologyinstitute.com/calendar/

Stay connected by joining our email newsletter at https://www.yogapsychologyinstitute.com/join/

Follow up resources provided by Bess:

• Interrogating Yoga training with Roshni and Bess https://bessprescottyoga.com/upcoming/interrogating-yoga-50hr-advanced-ytt/ 
• Are you looking for me? poem by Kabir
• The work of Johannes Bronkhorst, particularly Buddhism in the Shadow of Brahminism
• Thenmozhi Soundararajan, The Trauma of Caste (2022): An urgent call to action to end caste apartheid, grounded in Dalit feminist abolition and engaged Buddhism
• The Trauma of Caste (w/Thenmozhi Soundararajan) from the Conspirituality Podcast https://open.spotify.com/episode/4w1pkTeGV4MsM7A3lX21S9?si=W0ofTNPQTNGCJ3R8g2QRWQ 
• The Trauma of Caste with Thenmozhi Soundararajan from The Love of Yoga Podcast https://open.spotify.com/episode/6D34vASw3gRZCzZQXjntdE?si=9MvHnkxJRne8eSyHjut4Nw&nd=1&dlsi=9c2dfc4ef6fd4238 
• Annihilation of Caste by Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar (1936): A lecture that was never permitted to be given due to its incendiary nature, this book was self-published and immediately became the eye of a storm. Radically against the Brahmanical caste system and Hinduism, it argued for a society based on equal opportunities for all. You can find PDF copies of this floating around the internet.
• India Untouched: Stories of a People Apart documentary https://www.cultureunplugged.com/documentary/watch-online/play/5752/india-untouched-stories-of-a-people-apart

Find out more about our wonderful podcast sponsors:

• Organic India at https://www.organicindia.com.au - use the promo code GRATEFUL15 to get 15% off your next order
• Yoga Australia at https://yogaaustralia.org.au

This podcast is for general informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional advice or training. Please consult a qualified healthcare professional for personalised guidance or come and join one of our programs at the Yoga Psychology Institute for professional training. While we are grateful for our guests and sponsors, any statements, claims or endorsements made are their own, and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the Yoga Psychology Institute.

My friend Libbie Nelson (she/her) is over 80 years old and has been contemplating death.

In our conversation on the podcast today, Libbie and I talk about the five stages of a person's life, from student to householder, forest-dweller, renunciate and death and how thinking about death can actually help us to wake up and really live our lives with intention.

Libbie has been teaching and sharing yoga for over 50 years and has a long list of qualifications, including physiotherapy, yoga teaching, yoga therapy, naturopathy, acupuncture and ayurveda and is a graduate of our Mental Health Aware Yoga training.

In the episode, we also talk about the changes Libbie has seen over the past 50 years in the yoga world, what it was like studying with BKS Iyengar, who is renowned for his sometimes aggressive and inappropriate teaching style, and Libbie’s key takeaways from the Mental Health Aware Yoga training, despite having 50 years of yoga under her belt before joining the training.

Connect with Libbie Nelson at https://www.healthiemoves.com

Listen in to a previous episode with Zenith Virago on Death Dying and Living a Good Life at https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/zenith-virago-on-death-dying-and-living-a-good-life/id1193048930?i=1000497348664 

Join the Mullumbimby hybrid Mental Health Aware Yoga training at https://www.mentalhealthawareyoga.com/hybrid 

Find out about our latest offerings at the Yoga Psychology Institute at https://www.yogapsychologyinstitute.com/calendar 

Join our email newsletter and be the first to hear when new episodes and trainings are announced at https://www.yogapsychologyinstitute.com/join 

Find out more about our wonderful sponsor, Yoga Australia, at https://yogaaustralia.org.au 

This podcast is for general informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional advice or training. Please consult a qualified healthcare professional for personalised guidance or come and join one of our programs at the Yoga Psychology Institute for professional training. While we are grateful for our guests and sponsors, any statements, claims or endorsements made are their own, and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the Yoga Psychology Institute.

Have you been diagnosed with Autism or ADHD recently? Or love or work with someone who has? You’re going to love today’s podcast episode!

Monique Mitchelson (she/her) is an Autistic and ADHD’er Clinical Psychologist and the host of the very popular Neurodivergent Woman Podcast. We take a deep dive into her lived and professional experience of living a neurodivergent life and cover so much in today’s episode, including:

1. What the terms neurodiverse and neurodiversity actually mean
2. Why many Autistic people prefer identity first language
3. How Monique came out publicly as Autistic when she started the Neurodivergent Woman’s Podcast and what that was like for her and her career
4. Interoception and some of the challenges that Autistic folk have with noticing, interpreting and acting on internal cues, and what therapists and yoga teachers can do to support their students and clients to cultivate more interoception,
5. Potential sensory challenges of yoga classes and therapy spaces, and how we can make these more friendly for neurodivergent folk.

As well as having a lived experience of Autism and ADHD, Monique is the Co-Director of Divergent Futures training. She consulted on the Australian National Autism Strategy and co-authored the book ‘The Neurodivergence Skills Workbook for Autism and ADHD’ so she knows a thing or two about the topic!

Connect with Monique Mitchelson at https://www.moniquemitchelson.com/

Sign up for the free legal workshop for health professionals on the 31st of January 2025 at https://www.yogapsychologyinstitute.com/legal/ 

Get the early bird price for the hybrid Mullumbimby Mental Health Aware Yoga training at https://www.mentalhealthawareyoga.com/hybrid 

Join our email newsletter to be the first to hear when new episodes and trainings are announced at https://www.yogapsychologyinstitute.com/join

Find the latest events at the Yoga Psychology Institute at https://www.yogapsychologyinstitute.com/calendar

Find out more about our wonderful sponsors:

• Organic India https://www.organicindia.com.au/ (use the promo code GRATEFUL15 to get 15% off your next order)
• Yoga Australia https://yogaaustralia.org.au 

This podcast is for general informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional advice or training. Please consult a qualified healthcare professional for personalised guidance or come and join one of our programs at the Yoga Psychology Institute for professional training. While we are grateful for our guests and sponsors, any statements, claims or endorsements made are their own, and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the Yoga Psychology Institute.

I hated anatomy when I studied it at uni (can anyone else relate?). So when Leila Stuart reached out about coming on the podcast again to chat about her work with embodied anatomy, I was a little unsure about whether it would be interesting! But this episode is anything but boring!

Leila spoke about burnout on the podcast last year, and it was such a popular episode and resonated for so many people. Leila is a pioneer in the field of embodied movement education, she’s a retired clinical massage therapist, a yoga teacher and therapist and the author of the new book Experiential Anatomy: Therapeutic Applications of Embodied Movement and Awareness.

In this episode, Leila shares how in writing her book on experiential anatomy and refining all the practices, she wrote herself back to health after years of burnout. What a testament to this work! 

In our discussion we explore the importance of interoception and embodiment on our mental health and sense of self in the world, and how having both a top-down and bottom-up approach to anatomy can help us to not only be safe and stable in our bodies, but also to understand ourselves better.

Leila also shares a simple but really effective way to get back into your body and cultivate interoceptive awareness.

It’s a wonderful episode, and I cannot wait to share it with you!

Connect with Leila Stuart at https://www.leilastuart.com and get a 20% discount on her book here using the code LEILA20.

Join the Embodied Yoga for Nervous System Regulation Workshop in Brisbane in February 2025 at https://www.yogapsychologyinstitute.com/calendar

Get the early bird price for the hybrid Mullumbimby Mental Health Aware Yoga training at https://www.mentalhealthawareyoga.com/hybrid 

Get on our awesome email newsletter to stay up to date with all our offerings at https://www.yogapsychologyinstitute.com/join

Find out more about our wonderful sponsor, Yoga Australia, at https://yogaaustralia.org.au 

This podcast is for general informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional advice or training. Please consult a qualified healthcare professional for personalised guidance or come and join one of our programs at the Yoga Psychology Institute for professional training.

Om swastiastu, greetings from Bali!

I first heard about Umā sitting in a women’s circle in Byron Bay, Australia, and the way my friends described her made me want to meet her immediately. You'll understand why when you listen in!

Umā is the founding director of SATYA - the Synergistic Alignment of Tantra, Yoga & Ayurveda, and lives in Bali, Indonesia. Born in Kenya of Indian descent to a Hindu family of Freedom Fighters, at 20 Umā moved to Bali and entered into a 14 year apprenticeship in seclusion with her Shaivite guru in his hermitage.

In our conversation today Umā shares about her extraordinary life experiences, as well as generously answering my questions about whether she believes that we all need to go into seclusion with a guru like she did to live a deeply spiritual life and how she balances living in the world and running a business with her spirituality.

Connect with Umā at https://umainder.com/.

Get your free ticket to the Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam) Mental Health Aware yoga book launch at https://www.yogapsychologyinstitute.com/calendar. 

Find out more about the Embodied Yoga for Nervous System Regulation Workshop in Brisbane in February 2025 at https://www.yogapsychologyinstitute.com/calendar. 

Sign up for the hybrid Mullumbimby Mental Health Aware Yoga training at https://www.mentalhealthawareyoga.com/hybrid.

Get on our email newsletter to stay up to date with all our offerings at https://www.yogapsychologyinstitute.com/join.

Find out more about our wonderful sponsor, Yoga Australia, at https://yogaaustralia.org.au.

This podcast is for general informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional advice or training. Please consult a qualified healthcare professional for personalised guidance or come and join one of our programs at the Yoga Psychology Institute for professional training.

There’s been a lot of attention about the menstrual cycle and perimenopause in the media in the last few years, but what happens after we cross the threshold of menopause?

Today’s episode with Ana Davis (she/her) is the final installment in this three-part series on the cycles of a woman's life. In the first episode, we spoke about menstruation, in the second episode we explored perimenopause and in this episode we’re pulling back the curtain on post-menopause.

Listen in as Ana talks about menopause as an important rite of passage, how you know when you’re through menopause, how we can still live in a cyclical way of life even when we’re no longer menstruating, and how we can live and practice yoga in a way that is deeply supportive of this time of our lives.

Connect with Ana Davis at https://www.anadavis.com 

Connect with Bliss Baby Yoga at https://www.blissbabyyoga.com

Join one of our in-person events, including a book launch at Radiantly Alive Yoga in Ubud (Bali) and Yoga Pod Saigon in Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam) at https://www.yogapsychologyinstitute.com/calendar. 

Sign up for the hybrid Mullumbimby Mental Health Aware Yoga training at https://www.mentalhealthawareyoga.com/hybrid 

Get on our email newsletter to stay up to date with all our offerings at https://www.yogapsychologyinstitute.com/join.

Find out more about our wonderful sponsor, Yoga Australia, at https://yogaaustralia.org.au 

This podcast is for general informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional advice or training. Please consult a qualified healthcare professional for personalised guidance or come and join one of our programs at the Yoga Psychology Institute for professional training.

Ana Davis (she/her) wrote a ground-breaking book on yoga and menstruation, and she was one of the first women I ever heard talking and writing openly about perimenopause.

Today’s episode is part two in a three-part series on living and practising yoga in tune with the different seasons of a woman's life, and in this episode, we’re looking at perimenopause.

My guest, Ana Davis is a feminine yoga teacher and trainer from Bliss Baby Yoga, and the author of the seminal book, Moving with the Moon.

Join us for this conversation where we explore what perimenopause actually is, when you might first expect the early signs of perimenopause to arrive (much earlier than expected!), what these signs might be, and what we can do, from both a lifestyle and yoga perspective to really support this phase of our life.

Connect with Ana Davis at https://www.anadavis.com

Connect with Bliss Baby Yoga at https://www.blissbabyyoga.com

Join the Mullumbimby hybrid Mental Health Aware Yoga training on the 12-13th April 2025 at https://www.mentalhealthawareyoga.com/hybrid/

Find our global directory of Mental Health Aware Yoga Teachers at https://www.mentalhealthawareyoga.com

Find out about the next book launch event at https://www.yogapsychologyinstitute.com/calendar/

Join our free Mental Health Aware Yoga Facebook community at https://www.facebook.com/groups/mentalhealthawareyoga

Download the free Patañjali's Eight Limbs of Mental Health Aware Yoga ebook by Dr Lauren Tober at https://www.mentalhealthawareyoga.com/8limbs

Find out more about our wonderful sponsor, Yoga Australia, at https://yogaaustralia.org.au 

This podcast is for general informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional advice or training. Please consult a qualified healthcare professional for personalised guidance or come and join one of our programs at the Yoga Psychology Institute for professional training.