Spira Power Yoga's Podcast

Get to know Damithia. She has been teaching yoga for 20 years; her business is Thrive Centered, a trauma-sensitive, mindfulness, and liberation practice. She is also a sound bath artist.
Listen to our conversation as we discuss the joys and the pitfalls of the current yoga culture.

“Well, hate may be too strong a word… but maybe not. It depends on how you define yoga.”
But then why teach it? Why still love it?

To answer that, we have to go deeper.
What is yoga, really? And is what we practice in the mainstream still yoga at all?

Dora sat down with Anna — former 200-hour trainee, now teacher, mother, poet, and all-around lovely human — for a warm, funny, and deeply honest conversation about the potential of yoga to transform our lives and perhaps even help heal the modern mental health crisis.

There is lightness, laughter, and deep sorrow woven through this short exchange as they explore some of the biggest questions of modern life:

How do we live more meaningfully?
What are we actually chasing?
And what happens when money, comfort, and happiness stop being enough?

Without giving away the beautiful ending, perhaps the answer is this:

Find a story worth living for...

You can find Dora at: spirapoweryoga.com
and Anna at: pidgepost.com and pidgepost.substack.com

#SpiraYoga #YogaJourney #Mindfulness #YogaTeacherTraining #AuthenticLiving #Community #Growth

A call for gentle, spacious discourse among all human beings.

Verbal violence begets physical violence.
Democracy depends on open, respectful exchange of ideas.
Both democracy and peace begin with you—how you speak with your friends and family,
how you hold space for disagreement.

Are you curious about the other?
Can you recognize that someone who disagrees with you is a human being, not a label?
Can you see that no label, ever, can fully describe a person?

Anger is not the answer; direct your energies towards spending love, curiosity, and humility.

Democracy depends on the open, respectful exchange of ideas.

There is a lot of fear around AI, and as with anything else, it can be misused and harmful. But as I just found out, it can also be helpful.
As a small business owner and teacher, I just don't have time to generate new content as frequently as I would like for my Podcast channel and blogs. AI to the rescue!

I just wrapped up teaching my 8-month Yoga and Mindfulness Journey. To my surprise, one of my students told me that he put some of his notes into AI, and it generated a very enjoyable podcast.
I was blown away! Apart from the total butchering of Sanskrit pronunciation, it did an amazing job highlighting some of the lessons and, most importantly, distilling the essence of the teaching.

Listen to this 20 minutes and learn the true essence of yoga and mindfulness.

This is also a useful listen if you are thinking of taking Dora's 200HR Yoga and Mindfulness Journey and are curious to learn why it is so very different from the other compressed short yoga trainings, then give this a listen. (and yes, it is so different that even if you already have a 200-hour certificate, you will not regret doing it again) 

EPISODE DESCRIPTION

Dora is the owner of Spira Power Yoga; she teaches mindfulness, resilience, and burnout prevention classes and yoga teacher trainings. 
Cam is a yoga student at Spira Yoga who is seeking a new journey at midlife.

We sat down and recorded a few casual conversations about life, yoga, philosophy, and books.

This recording is our first conversation. Enjoy!

This episode is our second meeting where we tackle the midlife issue, meaning of life, you know, just light conversation :-) And pros and cons of technology.

Dora is the owner of Spira Power Yoga; she teaches mindfulness, resilience, and burnout prevention classes and yoga teacher trainings. 
Cam is a yoga student at Spira Yoga who is seeking a new journey at midlife.

We sat down and recorded a few casual conversations about life, yoga, philosophy, and books.

This recording is our first conversation. Enjoy!

Below you will the timeline:
 -              Gratitude

 1.35      Orientation to place in life

 2.15      Involuntary nature of interest

 2.55      What about this studio drew my attention

 3.30      description of something "missing" 

 4.12      Autopoietic

 6.30      the persistent draw of yoga practice

 7.50      Hard to put a finger on it

 8.27      difference between yoga and manipulative bodywork

 10.15    sacred nature/all in one place at one time

 10.15    Operation of imagination 

 11.55    Loving attention 

 12.39    Maya - illusion

 15.15    Teacher 

 15.70    What is real (figure it out?)

 16.45    Assertion: growth only happens under adversity

 17.30    Love and grief 

 18.15    lila, dukkha

 18.41    Figuring it out 

 18.45    Trickster 

 18.73    Deadly serious game (nobody gets out alive not even Jesus Christ)

 20.15    Everyone is a teacher 

 20.22    Definition of adult: taking responsibility for one's actions in an honest manner (that's teaching

 20.55    Useful pattern of behavior (not necessary to figure it out)

 21.62    Joy of sharing motivates teaching 

 21.74    Not cling the o outcome 

 22.12    Attempt to manipulate blocks flow of information 

 22.71    Not feeding the beast limits a certain growth (maybe good future conversation

 24.70    "Beast " of capitalist culture/ teaching as opposed to "following"

 25.02    Teacher shows way (not one you "follow ") from the book Desikachar - The Heart of Yoga

 25.62    Sticky nature of popularity 

 26.02    Quality of exchange with students after closing "robust" studio.

 27.12    Fundamental motivation to act 

 28.02    Sense of wonder

 29.72    Paradox of the world 

 30.92    The journey is the point 

 32.02    we mentioned author Jonathan Haidt , The Happiness Hypothesis, The Righteous Mind

 32.02    Book mentioned; Fourth Turning

 35.42    Relationship between the state of physiology and familiarity with the 

 36.07    Culture and nature (epigenetic brothers; error to separate)

 37.47    Put a pin in nature/nurture dialog

 39.16    What is truly necessary ("real need")

 40.12    Living necessity/need for order

 41.40    Attempt to come back to topic of Fourth Turning and the hopeful message that we are at the end of a speculum (a length of time roughly equal to the potential lifetime of a person or, equivalently, the complete renewal of a human population).

 43.32    Proposition: we carry history in our bodies (attribute nose comment to Sadhguru)

 43.32    What do we (mid-life and elder) need to let go of, and what are the essential elements of history that the youngsters are ignorant of? Need to "hold space for something greater."

 44.47    timeline of yogic teaching

 46.32    The nature of how we create love and foster relationship does not change; we (as a species) sometimes forget how; that's what changes.

 46.47    Nature of verbal language

 47.62    Fear of and clumsiness with emotion

 50.82    Communicating is "the practice"

 52.52    Perception of, "not being right" as a primary threat

 53.32    Beauty of living yoga: allow self to tease back reality

 54.42    Responsibility to create as little harm as possible