One Sacred Pause

This week Jessica is joined by yoga teacher, pregnancy yoga teacher trainer, author, and mama to 4 children, Catherine Mathiesen. The women talk about becoming a mother for the first time, motherhood, and how we define femininity. They also talk about fear and childbirth, and how we can create a new narrative for this life-changing experience. Learn more about Catherine and her book, offerings, and teacher trainings at www.yogamamma.no

Jessica talks with herbalist, mother, small business owner, farmer, and nutritionist Hillary Sargent about the power of plants and high quality body care products to positively impact your life. The women discuss raising children while running a small business, and the choices we make to find a work/life balance when we work for ourselves. Hillary shares her favorite plants to work with, and her opinions on wildcrafting and sustainability. Check her website out at www.twopoppiesapothecary.com

Do NOT miss this episode! Jessica keeps it all in the family when she talks with her aunt about being a yoga student and teacher for over 47 years. The women discuss how Anne got into yoga as a new mother in the early 70’s, the teachers she has studied with, and the experiences she has had traveling the world to study yoga. They also explore ethics, privilege, cultural appropriation and diversity in yoga, and the one teacher they both wish they could have studied with before his death.

This week the podcast is all about an emerging market in Norway — bedrifts yoga, or company/corporate yoga. This is an area that many yoga teachers are interested in, and is a great way to supplement a teaching salary. Mikkel shares what led him to co-found his company, bedriftsyoga.no and how it has grown over the last two years. Jessica and Mikkel talk about pricing, scheduling, marketing, corporate recruitment, teacher recruitment, how to teach a corporate yoga class, and how to prioritize your time as both a yoga teacher and a business owner.

Join Jessica for the Season 3 Finale, where she talks about the life of death with yogi, energy healer, and Death Doula Leslie Conner. This episode is one that Jessica has wanted to record for a long time, and is a topic that is often hidden behind a veil of fear or uncertainty in the Western world. Leslie shares about how she was called to this work, and why working with an end-of-life doula can change the experience of dying for both the person transitioning and the loved ones and care takers left behind. She talks about the empowerment people can feel when they are given the choice of how to take control of their death narrative, rather than feeling like a “burden”, or not wanting to express emotions for fear of upsetting loved ones. The women discuss the differences between a Birth Doula and a Death Doula, and talk about how normalizing (and even celebrating death) can be healing for everyone involved. Tune in to this heavy hitter that will make you think about your own beliefs around death.

Tune in to this week’s episode for a dose of inspiration! Jessica chats with Tendai Angela Jambga, a Zimbabwean yoga teacher who now calls Norway home. The women discuss what spirituality means to them, how they hold boundaries as teachers and in life, about the importance of community, and the exciting work Tendai is up to in Africa. Tendai has brought yoga + meditation to a children’s home, and hopes to make a case study and proposal from the results she has seen in these abused and traumatized children — increased socialization, trust, and confidence, decreased anxiety and fear-based reactions, and greater connection to community, to name a few. Learn how Tendai wants to help these children (and others in 3rd world conditions) heal forward, rather than stay stuck in a pattern of just treating their trauma.

Solo episode with Jessica! This week’s episode is also this season’s episode with just Jessica and no guests. Jessica gets a lot of questions about how to handle stress, anxiety, and feeling overwhelmed, and in this episode she shares that her practice of saying no is a way to deeply nourish and support oneself. She dives into the topic of boundaries, and being aware of energetic exchanges with partners, friends, co-workers, and students/clients. This is a very personal episode where Jessica shares more of her “behind the scenes” of being a teacher and a yoga business owner.