After hearing concerns on social media of Matt and I practicing yoga and prayerful meditation, I knew it was time to invite my dear friend Amber Mattingly, DMin to the podcast to share her story. This is a faith-based episode that addresses the biggest fears and questions around these practices.

Amber began yoga when her son was newly diagnosed with autism. She was overwhelmed, frightened for his future, worried about her marriage, and frustrated at life. At the height of this experience, she stopped sleeping for a whole year. She was not the youthful mom coming to yoga to learn handstands and complicated poses. Instead, she was the young mom barely able to make it through the day who ended up spending most of the time crying on her mat.

For her, yoga is a tool that reconnected her with her true self, strengthened connection with something greater than myself, and built relationships based on humility, compassion & radical amazement!

Amber met Pema while pursuing her Doctor of Ministry degree in Compassion based Leadership and they wondered what might happen if people from different faith traditions shared a prayer/meditation practice. Would they grow spiritually together while deepening their connection to their own faith tradition? This curiosity lead them to develop a study that included Buddhist and Christian practitioners. What we found were some hidden treasures!

Find out more about Amber: https://ambermattinglylivefree.com/

Read Amber and Pema's book: A Leap of (inter)Faith