The Yoga Show Yoga Journal

Our final guest of the year, our upcoming January/February cover star is Lalah Delia.
Lalah is a spiritual writer and wellness educator, and the founder of VibrateHigherDaily.com, an online school that shares its name with her best-selling book, Vibrate Higher Daily, dedicated to all things high vibration, self care, and self empowerment. 
“Just because you feel lost doesn't mean that you are. Sometimes you just have to relax, breathe deep, and trust the path you're on.” Delia writes in the book. 
Because New Year’s is a time when we usually reexamine our paths and make resolutions for the future, we caught up with Lalah to talk raising vibrations and forging ahead through tough circumstances. 
Remember to rate and review us wherever you get your podcasts. And if you want to hear someone on the show, direct message Lindsay on instagram at @linds.tucker

Sahara Rose experienced plenty of false starts and moments of self-doubt on her way to becoming an ayurvedic expert, bestselling author, and modern master of ancient wisdom. On her journey toward discovering her own dharma, she learned that feelings of unworthiness can have many voices, but overcoming all the reasons *not* to do something is crucial in fulfilling your life’s purpose. Sahara Rose (@iamsahararose) writes about this in her new book, Discover Your Dharma, A Vedic Guide to Finding Your Purpose. It’s a friendly field guide for getting sh*t done, with tons of tips from Ayurveda.

Tracy Davis is a Volunteer Yoga Teacher inside Arkansas' Toughest Prison. Davis met Jerome Bargo after he won a years-long battle in federal court to allow practicing yoga in Arkansas' prisons, which he'd escaped multiple times. His last escape, in 1988, earned him spots on America’s Most Wanted and Unsolved Mysteries. After being on the run for 15 years, someone recognized him from TV in a restaurant—and he was sent to Arkansas' Varner Unit high-security state prison where he's serving a 140-year sentence. In Varner he found yoga, and it changed his life. Tracy joins host @linds.tucker to talk about how the practice is transforming the lives of our society's most forgotten population: prisoners.

This week we chatted with Ginny Hogan (@ginnyhogan_), a standup comedian and yoga teacher with Yoga Alliance who writes for outlets such as the New Yorker, The Atlantic, and Vulture. After leaving a data science job in Silicon Valley, Hogan started a blog comedically analyzing data from her own dating profiles and online dates. Once she found her voice in comedy, Hogan also started down the road to health and wellness by quitting drinking and getting her 200 hour YTT certification. We caught up with her to talk about dating and YTT in the time of COVID, and how to kick a smartphone addiction--or not.

For decades, the practice of Yoga has been co-opted by white America. This has led to a commodification of the practice—of which the implications have been both harmful and far reaching. Yoga teacher and wellness consultant Anusha Wijeyakumar is one of the many voices calling to return the notion of yoga back to its roots and make the full practice accessible for anyone interested in learning the 8 limbs in a way that’s respectful and non-appropriative.

Her new book, Meditation with Intention, came out in January, and you can pre-register for her Intro to the Bhagavad Gita course as early as Friday February 26, at yogajournal.com/courses.

Follow Anusha @shantiwithin on Instagram
or visit www.shantiwithin.com/shop where you can order Anusha's book and find out about her meditation & coaching program
For an excerpt of Anusha's book, visit https://www.yogajournal.com/meditation/the-life-changing-daily-meditation-that-takes-just-5-minutes-a-day/

Shayla Stonechild started the Matriarch Movement (matriarchmovement.ca) two years ago to turn the tide on the mainstream narrative regarding Indigenous women that objectifies their bodies and their culture. What started as a social media platform to amplify the voices of Native women and create a community for sharing stories of empowerment, prosperity, and resilience has in two short years become a full-fledged non-profit hosting wellness workshops and retreats specifically for Indigenous youth who don’t often see themselves reflected in the wellness space.  
“I realized there was a lack of representation for Indigenous women in the state of resilience and excellence.” “We're always deemed as missing, murdered, and vulnerable, and we're always in a state of survival. And I thought, "The Matriarch Movement will be like a shift and a rise and a reclamation of who we are as Indigenous people, but specifically women."                
Today, there are more than 4,000 documented unsolved cases of missing and murdered Native women and girls in the United States and Canada, according to a 2020 report by the Sovereign Bodies Institute, a research nonprofit tracking gender and sexual violence against Indigenous people. And experts say these estimates are low, thanks to underreporting, racial misclassification, poor record keeping, and institutional racism affecting law enforcement and the media. 
For this crisis to even begin to be addressed, Shayla says, Indigenous women must be respected and valued and perhaps first and foremost, be seen.