Finding Harmony Podcast Episodes

It’s a very special Christmas episode! On this festivus morning, in the dark, on your mat, as you do your lonely yoga practice before your children awake, please feast your ears and bask in the wondrous splendiferousness energy that is Kino MacGregor! Enjoy this relaxed, informal, conversation between old friends chatting about old times, as if we were catching up at the local Coconut Stand in Gokulum after a challenging led class. We’re talking about just how hard this practice is and how ha...

Kia Miller is someone who lives a radiant and integrated life! She brings the inside to the outside world and in her meditations she brings the outside into her room. Sometimes that’s as simple as opening a window, even on the coldest of winter mornings. Kia describes her childhood as a paradise on the Falkland Islands amidst millions of sheep and a handful of shepherds and children. A paradise broken by tracer fire and the simple act of soldiers dying in front of her. Death is such a common d...

Mama, Humanitarian, Artist, Poet, Bestselling Author, Entrepreneur, Teacher, and Mentor… Elena Brower has woven together a transcendental tapestry of conscious awareness through myriad diverse roles and interests, all of which bring her joy, to create a life that exemplifies compassion in action. It was such a true honor and blessing to have this time to sit alongside Elena this morning. We learn how her journey along the path of yoga began, how it’s continued to blossom into a study and practi...

Today, we are absolutely delighted to present to you an amazingly self made woman. Babita comes from one of those rare villages in modern life, so ubiquitous in the developing world with hard-baked Nepalese mud floors and kerosene burners for cooking. And, that is in fact, how Babita learned to cook by her grandfather’s side. Listen in amazement as she tells the story of how she became an art and film student studying in Minnesota, and now a Barnes and Nobles best selling cook book author. Bab...

When Jeanne Heileman became a yoga teacher in 1996, there was no career for this field. She had the intention to teach once a week as a work supplement in the non-profit arts world to pay off her graduate school student debt. Three months after taking her first teacher training she found herself teaching 20 classes a week! A total life transformation that continued to evolve into her own style of yoga called Tantra Flow, which combines her 35 years of study in the practices and science of yogic...

Dear Happy Humans! It is with great pleasure that we introduce you today to an old friend, Gopi Kallayil! He’s an old friend of Russell’s. They met during his Silicon Valley yoga-missionary days during a very special dinner with Rep. Tim Ryan, “the Mindful Congressman,” at a time when it seemed that mindfulness and yoga would inevitably pervade every aspect of American life. Now though, Russell is a bit more bearish on the future of human civilization. Let’s see if Gopi can talk some sense in h...

Michelle El Khoury is not only a wellness entrepreneur with a PhD and over twenty years of healthcare experience, but she’s also a wife and mother to three beautiful daughters. Her journey took her from Trinidad to the U.S, where she climbed the corporate ladder in a successful career as a pharmaceutical executive. All the while, becoming more aware as she grew up in America, how our society here is less of a creole melting pot and more like a segregated tiffin box. During her second pregnancy...

Today we’re speaking with Sophie Cleere. A vibrant woman who’s paving the way forward to for middle-aged women everywhere. She’s a body-positive coach and conscious sexuality educator. Sophie’s on a mission to end body-shame and help women feel confident, sexy and alive, no matter what their age! After leaving behind her career as an Authorized Ashtanga yoga teacher, running a successful yoga business, Sophie recreated herself by reconnecting to her intuition and learning to listen more attenti...

South African born, Tarin Calmeyer, is a Virtual Corporate Wellness Specialist. She’s the founder and chief wellness office of Los Angles-based company: Remote Team Wellness. We catch up with her living her dream life in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico! Today, we’re talking about the importance of taking time for self-care and some easy ways to improve your mental health. After traveling extensively as a young girl with her missionary parents, she moved to the U.S for for high school and immersed her...

Do you want to experience the next level of freedom? Then learn to merge your analytical brain with your intuition in a systematic way through syncing your life with your menstrual cycle. Learn to predict your energy so you can reliably know when it’s a “hell yes” or a “hell no!” Menstruation is a topic we seem to talk a lot about as Ashtanga yoga practitioners. Our personal “moon days” as women, whether to take rest, or practice, whether this is a misogynistic tradition or something truly help...

The last time Russell saw Kerri Kelly they were getting robbed together on Chamundi Hill outside of Mysore, India. For Russ it was the best trip he ever had to India. Imagine an episode of West Wing where one of the communications staffers working for Josh Lyman took a yoga side-trip while on an important diplomatic tour, and got stuck in India with no money, passport, or visa. No way to leave the country and no way to stay. “DONNA!!!” Listen to this #funnynotfunny tale, as Kerri and Russell pul...

We’re living in a world full of constant pressure and distractions with a zeitgeist that reinforces “more, more, more!” In this episode of Finding Harmony, I’m talking with author, entrepreneur, business coach and thought leader for a new generation, Marie Forleo, about how she manages time, what self-care practices she personally prioritizes, and how she balances creativity and structure to optimize her innate sense of flow. If I told you that you could decrease your stress in only 5 days, tha...

Kintsugi means “golden journey.” It’s the ancient Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by binding the pieces back together with lacquer mixed with powdered gold. As a philosophy, it treats the breakage and repair of something as part of the history of an object, rather than something to be disguised, discarded and forgotten. This is exactly what Mae Yoshikawa has courageously done with the pieces of her life’s story, time and time again. And what remains is the most exquisite work of art to...

Kayoko was born in Tokyo as the country was rebuilding after WWII. She moved many times with her family to different parts of Japan, as her father was transferred to various jobs within the banking industry. She grew up in a very traditional Japanese family, which meant she intimately experienced the differences between how girls were treated compared with boys. For example, she explained her dismay to her mother as her brother was put in a far superior school then she was, and he mother simply ...

We are delighted to introduce you to our dear friend Krista Shirley. Currently residing in Orlando, Florida, Russell met her years ago, while recruiting teachers for the Jois Foundation. Harmony insists she knew her first (and evidently all our friends knew Harmony first and better!) - LOL Krista is a voracious learner and she takes this infectious energy, AAA-type personality, to her whole life, business, motherhood, and Ashtanga yoga practice. If it can be said of anyone, it has never been mo...

Kaitlyn Rose Holsapple believes that the body is our most sacred guide. Her work now is focused on helping others integrate their past pains so these hidden shadows no longer subconsciously drive the choices in life. As a Somatic Yoga Therapist, she helps clients connect with the innate, intuitive wisdom of the body. This wisdom is present in “every” body, and helps up to organically move stages of healing. Our guest today, Kaitlyn, is someone who recovered from PTSD as a result of being victim...

Miranda Mitchell is an Energetic Alignment Coach and Traditional and Quantum Human Design™ Specialist who helps thought leaders align energetically so that they step into creating more impact with sustainability and ease. Before becoming a Human Design Coach, Miranda was a personal trainer and Ashtanga yoga professional, assisting with Krista Shirley in Orlando Florida! In today’s episode you’ll learn about Human Design and how it can help you in your life. We’re also talking about injuries, re...

If you thought you knew John and Julia Scott, you’re going to get a whole new look into their personalities here on our podcast today. You’ll hear about John Scott’s roots growing up in New Zealand and the similarities between clans, even from different parts of the world. Our conversation looks at how ancient rituals from different cultures effect us still to this day. We’re asking some difficult questions, like can anyone ever really teach you anything? And how can you claim your own sovereig...

Born in India, growing up in Dubai, and then returning to India for college, our guest today might have a name that sounds like she’s from Europe, but she deeply connected in mind, body, and spirit to her native roots as a Christian-Muslim Indian. Some of our questions today are centered around how we can honour the roots and history of yoga while it’s become a global movement being absorbed into many different cultures and contexts. How do we keep yoga authentic, without becoming fanatical? W...

Yoga is a journey of un-layering that we embark on again and again, each time we peel back another covering of our inner light the process of transformation takes place. It’s shedding the masks we wear to navigate our way in the world and place down the “airs and graces” we often take up to make ourselves feel superior to others. It is becoming who we truly are. More natural. More simple. More real. In this episode you’ll hear Philippa Asher and I peel back the layers of the Ashtanga yoga pract...

Our guest today is a lovely Elvish woman, who could’ve easily descended from a family of Wood Nymphs. Ellen Johannesen was born in Norway but has spent many years living abroad, mainly in India and Nepal. She was first introduced to yoga during her career as a professional dancer and has been teaching now for over 20 years. In 2002, she co-founded the first Ashtanga studio in Oslo, Norway, where she headed up the Mysore program. However, her time in India led to a growing interest in Buddhism, ...

PART 2 with Dominic Corigliano A "Trance State" is a state of semi-consciousness in which a person is not self-aware and is either altogether unresponsive to external stimuli. It is also a state of mind that we can enter into through Yoga Practice. We're talking about Trance States with Dominic Corigliano in this Part 2 continuation of our Part 1 (Episode 65 - Listen on iTunes) conversation. Whether you call it an auto-hypnotic state or a trance state, yoga can be used as a technique that we u...

Dreams of becoming a Professional Golfer crushed by debilitating back pain sent Rob Lamport on an epic search in Secret India for the esoteric teachings that could free him from his body pain. He lived in Mysore and practised with B.N.S Iyengar as well as Pattabhi Jois and Sharath Jois. Learn why you might want to be careful eating too many bananas! After his first trip he swore to never go back to India (like so many of us!) but after a few months away, he began to miss it and so decided to ...

Our guest today is a dear friend. She is so delightfully effervescent and youthful in her attitude that she could’ve been sprouted out into the world like an Athena parading out of Zeus’s skull! Basia Lipska Larsen is a passionately cheerful person, so much so that one cannot help but smile in her presence. When we know someone as well as we do Basia, our conversation becomes much more casual. You’ll hear Russell teasing Basia recklessly as he does, and getting a few verbal pokes back as well. ...