From Mat To Money: How Daily Practice Builds True Wealth

In this episode of the Finding Harmony Podcast, Harmony and Russell sit down with longtime Ashtanga practitioner and certified financial planner Kathy Reisfeld to talk about money, dharma and what it really means to be wealthy.

Kathy’s story moves from physics and finance in New York City, through the shock of 9/11, to decades of Ashtanga practice and the creation of a Mysore shala in a renovated barn in the Berkshires. Along the way she has guided clients through multiple market crashes, bear markets and bubbles, all while keeping one eye on their portfolios and the other on what truly matters to them.

Together, Harmony, Russell and Kathy explore money as energy, the emotional baggage spiritual folks carry about finances, how to invest in a way that matches your time horizon and values, and why diversification is the financial equivalent of a well balanced yoga practice. They also ask tricky questions about capitalism, ethical investing and retirement, reframing them in terms of freedom, choice and dharma rather than fear.

If you have ever thought “I am spiritual, so I should not care about money” or felt totally frozen when it comes to investing, this conversation will help you breathe, relax and start treating your financial life as part of your practice instead of something separate from it.

What We Talk About

• Wealth as energy, not just money
  
• Kathy’s path from physics to finance to Ashtanga yoga
  
• New York, 9/11 and the first bear market she had to guide clients through
  
• Balancing a finance career and a serious practice
  
• The basics of investing for spiritual people who feel scared of money
  
• Ethical investing and spiritual discomfort with capitalism
  
• Retirement, risk and planning for contingencies rather than escape
  
• Money, houses and diversification
  
• Investing in education, travel and your own human capital
  
• Money as circulation and prana
  
• Kathy’s life now: a barn, a shala and a wealth advisory firm
  
  

Guest Bio: Kathy Reisfeld

Kathy Reisfeld is a longtime Ashtanga yoga practitioner and certified financial planner with more than twenty five years of experience helping clients reduce stress and worry in their financial lives. She began her career in New York City with Morgan Stanley, guiding clients through multiple market cycles, including the aftermath of 9/11 and the 2008 financial crisis.

A “math team kid” who once majored in physics before falling in love with economics, Kathy brings a clear, methodical mind to both money and practice. After decades of studying and practicing Ashtanga in New York with teachers like Guy Donahaye, she eventually moved to the Berkshires, where she and her husband Scott run Berkshire Wealth Group.

Kathy recently renovated a barn on their property into a shared space that houses their advisory office upstairs and a Mysore style Ashtanga shala downstairs, Ashtanga Yoga Great Barrington, where Tom and Mary Flynn teach and Kathy holds Friday classes. Her work is rooted in the belief that true wealth is wholeness, and that our financial, physical, mental and spiritual health are inseparable.

Relevant Links Mentioned

• https://www.instagram.com/ashtangagb/

  https://www.facebook.com/astangagb/

  https://www.ashtangayogagb.com/

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