“I’m not going into my practice to look for a way out of life, but a way in...to experience the fullness of my life.”
-Jivana Heyman

In episode 7 of the Accessible Yoga Podcast, Amber Karnes and Jivana Heyman talk about duality—the up and down, light and dark, "both/and" nature of life. We talk about how attachment to outcomes and the stories we tell ourselves keep us in a place of suffering, and the antidote to that (spoiler alert, it’s non-attachment and acceptance). We discuss personal experiences and practical ways that we each work with our emotions and grief in our yoga practice. We also talk about the danger of spiritual bypass and how embracing the fullness of our human experience honors the yoga teachings and helps us accept ourselves as we are.

In episode 7, Amber & Jivana discuss: 

• How we are holding opposing truths at the same time and why accepting reality as it is helps us suffer less
• How social media gets us stuck in comparison and the tricks our brain does to try to protect us
• Jivana talks about how his mom’s death led to exploring his emotions as part of his yoga practice 
• Amber talks about how being grounded in non-attachment helped her cope with the huge grief and changes to her life and business post-COVID
• How to use your yoga practice to make friends with your mind, rather than trying to control or discipline your mind
• How Jivana’s journey of fatherhood and parenting his children helped him learn to give himself the tender compassion he gave his children
• Amber talks about a step-by-step way that she processes big emotions like anger
• Jivana discusses how he works with emotions in his meditation practice
• How spiritual bypass and “good vibes only” ignore the reality of life and stop us from
• When we use our yoga practice only for self, we miss a huge opportunity to realize our interconnectedness and honor the depth of the practice and our humanity

Today’s inquiry

Each week we’ll leave you with a powerful question. We encourage you to sit in inquiry with this question, write about it, discuss it with another community member on this path. Today, we invite you to reflect on this question:

Are you willing to accept all aspects of yourself? And if not, why? 

Get a transcript, links to resources, and show notes at accessibleyogatraining.com/podcast.

In episode 6 of the Accessible Yoga Podcast, Amber and Jivana talk about lessons learned from the Accessible Yoga Training. Jivana digs deep into the yoga philosophy behind this training that informs both of our work and the way we teach. We talk about shifting the power dynamic between teacher and student and what happens when we give students the tools to work with their practice, rather than insisting they fit into a preconceived notion of shapes or sequences. We also talk about how the Accessible Yoga Training builds community between teachers like us whose work sometimes feels isolating. 

• How the Accessible Yoga Training got started including Jivana’s background in AIDS activism, creating a teacher training for folks with disabilities, and the way the training has changed over the years
• How we make our classes more welcoming and safe by meeting our students where they are
• How as teachers we must make sure we aren’t viewing students as lacking something, and as students how we give away our power when we expect a teacher to fix us
• Through redistributing power, teachers can be an example of non-attachment
• How the Accessible Yoga Training helps our students find a way to practice safely and empowers teachers to innovate, not memorize shapes
• How skilled yoga teaching is like art - full of creativity and improvisation
• How we approach cueing multiple levels of a posture or practice at the same time
• How the Accessible Yoga Training has given folks direction for their work and helped teachers to step up as community leaders and share the heart of yoga

Today’s inquiry

Each week we’ll leave you with a powerful question. We encourage you to sit in inquiry with this question, write about it, discuss it with another community member on this path. Today, we invite you to reflect on this question:

What is my role as yoga teacher (in my classroom, in my students’ lives off the yoga mat, and in the wider world)?

Get a transcript, links to resources, and show notes at accessibleyogatraining.com/podcast.

In episode 5 of the Accessible Yoga Podcast, Amber Karnes and Justine Mastin  discuss:

• Justine’s yoga story: how she got started, what brought her back to the practice, and how she finally found her community at a comic book convention
• Why the geek community saw barriers to accessing wellness and how Justine came up with the idea for YogaQuest
• What to expect from a YogaQuest class, a narrative yoga class based in fandom stories
• Why representation is important for folks who are traditionally left out of wellness spaces 
• Specific ways Justine created her yoga spaces to be more welcoming to folks from the geek community
• How Justine stays in inquiry around cultural appropriation and how YogaQuest is like yoga-fanfic
• Narrative therapy and the power of stories to question social norms and create the lives we imagine
• Justine’s upcoming book and how it helps us to question social norms through the lens of pop culture

Each week we’ll leave you with a powerful question. We encourage you to sit in inquiry with this question, write about it, discuss it with another community member on this path. Today, Justine poses a 2-part question:

• What is the story of my life?
• Who are the important supporting characters? 

Get a transcript, links to resources, and show notes at accessibleyogatraining.com/podcast.

In episode 4 of the Accessible Yoga Podcast, Jivana Heyman and Nicole Cardoza  discuss:

• Embracing failure and the ability to try new things with resilience, even when things go wrong
• How looking at our work and activism with many different angles and approaches helps us stay flexible and keep the confidence to move forward and just do what needs to be done
• Giving ourselves grace & accountability through failure
• Waiting for permission vs. knowing your lane vs. taking responsibility for jumping in where you do have privilege
• How actually putting ourselves in the way of rejection or failure lets us get better and move forward
• Failure as a practice and learning from failure in asana
• Showing up for ourselves in difficult moments
• Reclaiming our right to be well and what wellness means to Nicole
• Lessons learned from creating the Anti-Racism Daily newsletter

Today’s inquiry

Each week we’ll leave you with a powerful question. We encourage you to sit in inquiry with this question, write about it, discuss it with another community member on this path. Today, Nicole poses a 3-part question:

• What does it look like for your community to be well?

• What’s standing in the way of that?

• What can you do as part of your wellness practice to dismantle those obstacles?

Get a transcript, links to resources, and show notes at accessibleyogatraining.com/podcast.

In Episode 3 of the Accessible Yoga Podcast, Amber Karnes and Jivana Heyman discuss the responsibility of yoga teachers to have a commitment to accessibility in their group classes and how we can’t let ourselves off the hook by saying, “I’m just not the teacher for everyone.” In this episode, we discuss:

• Making a commitment to accessibility and how that’s different from trying to please everyone
• The importance of creating a culture of permission and safety in our learning spaces
• When a “safe space” for some feels unsafe for others, how we can hear difficult truths without getting defensive
• Are you giving yourself a pass by saying, “I’m not the teacher for everyone.”
• The commitment of yoga teachers to creating equitable learning environments
• Creating a culture of safety and openness where students can feel safe in their bodies
• Shifting from the role of a fitness instructor to a guide who holds space for our students transformation
• Being open to inquiry takes the pressure off us to have all the answers and helps us play to our strengths as yoga teachers
• Shifting away from a physical focus toward the subtler teachings of yoga transforms the way a group yoga class looks
• Thoughts on “advanced” practice and trauma-informed teaching

Each week we’ll leave you with a powerful question. We encourage you to sit in inquiry with this question, write about it, discuss it with another community member on this path. Today, we are sitting with this question:

What does having an “advanced yoga practice” mean to you?

Get a transcript, links to resources, and show notes at accessibleyogatraining.com/podcast.

In Episode 2, Amber Karnes interviews Kelley Palmer, writer, yoga teacher, wellness advocate, and community organizer. In this episode:

Each week we’ll leave you with a powerful question. We encourage you to sit in inquiry with this question, write about it, discuss it with another community member on this path. Today, Kelley poses a 2-part question:

When you think about working toward equity, justice, and liberation, what are you willing to release? What are the obstacles you perceive to releasing those things?

Connect with kelley:

In episode 1: 

• Amber talks about her work: community-building around yoga, social justice, and body image
• Jivana shares his background with yoga and social justice including how he got started with yoga, how Accessible Yoga came to be, and how his participation in AIDS activism laid the groundwork for his work today
• How a community of practice (like the global Accessible Yoga community) supports marginalized practitioners and teachers to be of service and stay connected to one another
• Yoga is not just about a personal practice to make us feel better, our opportunity is to use our practice to create more well-being for all
• “Yoga is supposed to be peaceful, why are y’all so angry and negative all the time?” We discuss spiritual bypass and why the yoga teachings are not just about “love and light.”
• The harm that is done when spiritual teachings are used to ignore or downplay the harm that happens in our own lives, our yoga communities, or the world
• Yoga gives us the tools to sit with discomfort, but only using yoga to end our own suffering means we miss an opportunity to use our practice to be of service and lessen suffering for others
• Jivana shares about his experience working in AIDS hospice and how that shifted his understanding around healing, death, and yoga
• Service is the expression of an expanded mind and an ability to stay open to others’ humanity
• Figuring out “your lane” in social justice by honoring your body, knowing yourself, getting beyond shame, fear, and confusion, and managing your mind
• We’ll also share with you our plans for this podcast going forward

Each week we’ll leave you with a powerful question. We encourage you to sit in inquiry with this question, write about it, discuss it with another community member on this path. 

This week’s question comes from Rachelle Knowles (she offered this during her workshop on the Bhagavad Gita during the St. Louis Accessible Yoga Conference last year). 

“If the battle is inevitable, what kind of warrior do you want to be?” 

Get show notes, downloads, and transcripts at accessibleyogatraining.com/podcast.