Are You Actually Practicing Yoga? A Yoga Therapist's Honest Answer

What does it actually mean to practice yoga — and are any of us really doing it? In this rich and unhurried conversation, Harmony sits down with Tara Mitra: Ashtanga teacher, yoga therapist, and devoted Vedic chanting practitioner who has spent decades tracing the practice back to its roots.

Tara's path moved from high-stress corporate life in Toronto to studying Ashtanga with dedicated teachers in Canada and California, then four years assisting in the Mysore shala, and finally into the Krishnamacharya lineage in Chennai — where yoga therapy, pranayama, Vedic chanting, and philosophy became her deepest studies. Today she works with everyone from cancer patients to hospice clients, with the simple premise: if you can breathe, she can teach you something.

This conversation is a slow, deliberate unwinding of everything we think we know about yoga — and an invitation back to what it actually is.

In this episode you'll explore:

• Why 'nobody is really practicing yoga' — and what that actually means
• The journey from Ashtanga to yoga therapy: what made Tara go deeper
• How chanting and philosophy naturally shift the inner landscape
• Samasthiti as 'the pregnant pause' — and why skipping it misses the point
• The monkey mind: drunk, stung by a scorpion, and haunted — and what practice does to each layer
• Chitta vritti nirodha and what the Yoga Sutras actually say about the mind
• Spiritual bypassing: the 'good vibes only' trap and premature transcendence
• The radical practice of doing nothing — no phone, no tea, just thirty minutes at a window
• Ayurveda and the body's natural rhythms in the age of artificial light and screen time
• The pancha vayus and why pranayama is far subtler than it looks
• The breath as the great friend — and its connection to spirit in every tradition
• Redefining the guru: someone who isn't caught in your own distortions
• Sangha: why community isn't optional on the path
• How beginners should start: not by thinking
• The butterfly mind vs. the stability of genuine practice
• Boundaries as an expression of love, not a closing off
• Equanimity (upeksha) as a lifelong practice, not a destination

Connect with Tara Mitra:

• Website: taramitrayoga.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/taramitrayoga/
• Offerings: Yoga Sutras classes, Vedic chanting, Upanishad study, mentorship program

Resources mentioned:

• Yoga Sutras of Patanjali — chitta vritti nirodha (YS 1.2); the nine obstacles; YS 1.33 brahmaviharas
• Shanti mantra: Purnamadah Purnamidam (Brihadaranyaka Upanishad)
• Krishnamacharya lineage (Mysore & Chennai / Desikachar branch)
• Ashtanga trishthana — breath, drishti, bandha
• Ayurveda and the concept of natural daily rhythms (dinacharya)
• Harmony's upcoming Portugal workshops — harmonyslater.com/events

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