Living It

Abby Maslin is the bestselling author of Love You Hard: A Memoir of Marriage, Brain Injury, and Reinventing Love, a powerful story of transformation and resilience in the wake of tragedy. Abby is also a special educator with a background in the healing arts, a certified movement therapist and yoga teacher who often writes on the topics of healing and emotional resilience. In this conversation, we talked about:

- How her husband suffered traumatic brain injury after a viscious attack

- The journey through his recovery, how the experience tested her

- How faith is an active practice

- How she maintains her faith in herself, her marriage and the world

Mari Andrew is a writer, illustrator, and speaker who shares her work daily on Instagram @bymariandrew. What started out as making one drawing a day for a year as a form of self-expression following a season of grief and loss has inspired over one million devoted fans. Through her art, writing, and speaking, she discusses the powers of uncertainty, sensitivity, setbacks, and finding small joys all around us. Her first book, Am I There Yet?, debuted on The New York Times Best Seller list. Mari is an avid traveler and dancer who calls New York City home. In this episode we talked about:

- Using art as a tool for self-reflection

- What life seasons are and why they’re important

- How to cultivate resilience

- How we use self-reflection to recognize our true identity

Kino MacGregor is an international yoga teacher, author of three books, producer of six Ashtanga Yoga DVDs, writer, blogger, world traveler, and cofounder of the Miami Life Center, Yoga Challenge and OmStars. In this conversation, we talk about:

- What Tapas means to Kino MacGregor

- How yoga asks us to change our lives

- What yoga has helped Kino change in her life

- How to maintain discipline with social media

- How to juggle multiple projects and still maintain a practice.

Mo Gawdat is the author of Solve for Happy: Engineer Your Path to Joy in which he applied logic and problem-solving to the issue of happiness to create an algorithm to reach a state of uninterrupted happiness regardless of the circumstances of life. In 2014, Mo’s equation for happiness was put to the ultimate test when he lost his son Ali to preventable medical error during a simple surgical procedure. That led Mo to dedicate his life to share his happiness message with one billion people around the world. Solve For Happy is the pillar for this mission, #OneBillionHappy, Mo has committed to as his personal moonshot. In this conversation we talk about:

- Mo’s formula for happiness

- Why happy emotions are anchored in the present

- How to prime the brain for happiness.

- Spiritualities role in happiness

- Practices to cultivate contentment

Petra Kolber is an author, speaker, podcast host, and a wellness leader who is known throughout the industry as a crusader for change and a beacon of authentic happiness. Her first book, The Perfection Detox: Tame Your Inner Critic, Live Bravely and Unlash Your Joy, a practical program that helps replace destructive perfectionistic mindsets with concrete strategies.

As a two-time cancer survivor, Petra is passionate about waking people up to the precious gift of time. Her mission is to inspire people to move more and fear less, so that they can stretch their dreams, strengthen their courage muscle and build an inspired life, full of joy and gratitude.

In this episode we talked about:

- When a perfectionist mindset is helpful and when it's problematic

- What is a perfection detox

- The difference between reflection and rumination

- Common limiting beliefs

- How to clean up our thoughts and inner toxicity

Jennifer Pastiloff spent the first part of her life thinking she was a bad person because of something she told her father before he died when she was just eight. She moved in and out of depression and tried to control what happened in her life with her eating. At the same time, without letting anyone know, she was also losing her hearing. Through her yoga practice and writing she began to face these challenges, redefine her own life and explore what it means to be human. She shared her experiences in a real and vulnerable way publicly on Facebook and in her online magazine The Manifest Station. She began teaching and leading retreats called On Being Human. And she has written a book, also called, On Being Human in which she shares her own triumphantly messy story. In this interview, we talk about:

- How to quiet our Inner Asshole

- What are the bullshit stories we tell ourselves and how we rewrite them

- How our bodies carry our stories

- What is listening hard

- How we let go of what no longer serves us so we can be where we actually want to be

Susanna Barkataki is a diversity coach, inclusivity trainer and yoga culture advocate and the Founder of Ignite Institute. She is honored to have worked in education, training and social justice for over two decades. She studied with her family and Masters in India and the United States in the Hatha Yoga tradition. Today, she trains yoga teachers, studios, nonprofits and businesses in person and online to become leaders in equity, diversity and yogic values so they can embody thriving yoga leadership with integrity and confidence. She believes we can grow our businesses with integrity and confidence by leading with our hearts and our values. In this interview we discussed:

- What is cultural appropriation

- When cultural appreciation becomes appropriation

- How we can use our energy for the greater good

- What teachers can do to educate themselves

- How to share that knowledge with students

Michelle C. Johnson is a social justice activist, anti-racism trainer, yoga teacher and author Skill in Action: Radicalizing Your Yoga Practice to Create a Just World. With over 20 years of experience leading dismantling racism work and working with clients as a licensed clinical social worker, Michelle has a deep understanding of how trauma impacts the mind, body, spirit, and heart. Michelle leads Dismantling Racism Trainings with large corporations, small non-profits, and community groups. She teach workshops in yoga studios and community spaces nationwide. And she gives talks and interviews to address the heartbreak dominant culture causes and to inspire change that allows people to stand in their humanity and wholeness. In this interview we talk about:

- Michelle's yoga journey

- How dominant culture harms the collective good, not just the oppressed

- What is skill in action

- How yoga guides Michelle off the mat

- How yoga can guide us in facing social injustices

- How racism steals from the wholeness of our experience

Dianne Bondy is a social justice activist, author, accessible yoga teacher, and the leader of the Yoga For All movement. Her inclusive approach to yoga empowers anyone to practice - regardless of their shape, size, ethnicity, or level of ability. Dianne is revolutionizing yoga by educating yoga instructors around the world on how to make their classes welcoming and safe for all kinds of practitioners. In this interview we talk about :

- Dianne's yoga journey

- How a body-shaming father led to an eating disorder

- How yoga helped in her recovery

- How diet culture keeps us from knowing our true selves

- Why we lie to ourselves

- How we can live our truth

From living in a group home for at-risk youth to becoming a renowned yoga teacher and musical innovator, MC Yogi is on a mission to bring good music and good energy into the world. Having grown up immersed in hip hop culture before finding yoga in his teens, he naturally began to integrate the two, setting yogic wisdom to hip hop beats.

In this episode, we talk about:

- MC Yogi’s turbulent childhood and how he changed his own self-destructive behavior

- MC Yogi’s journey to become a yogi, musician and artist

- The role grace played

- Using discipline, discernment and devotion as guides

- Preconceived ideas about what hip hop is and how MC Yogi is using it for inspiration