Sacred Rage: Using Anger as a Catalyst for Spiritual Growth
What happens when you love a practice but recognize the harm within its structures? In this raw and revelatory conversation, Harmony sits down with Zoe Ward—long-time Ashtanga practitioner, authorized teacher, and the voice behind @unrulyascetic—to explore what it means to dismantle a tradition from within.
Zoe spent years immersed in Mysore, studying with lineage teachers, and fully embodying the discipline that defines Ashtanga yoga. But somewhere along the way, she began to see the cracks: the privilege required to practice this way, the power dynamics that mutate devotion into dogma, the loss of autonomy when teachers dictate who you are and what's good for you.
This conversation doesn't shy away from the uncomfortable truths—the hierarchy, the gatekeeping, the ways we've normalized abuse while failing to normalize talking about it. But it also offers something essential: a path forward. Zoe shares how she's rebuilding her relationship with practice, helping others reclaim their agency, and creating space for people to trust themselves again.
Whether you're a devoted practitioner, a disillusioned teacher, or someone who's quietly stepped away from the mat, this episode offers permission to question, evolve, and find your own unruly path to freedom.
Topics Discussed:
- • The privilege required to practice traditional Ashtanga yoga
- • Power dynamics and hierarchy in yoga communities
- • When devotion becomes dogma and disconnection
- • Confronting harm and accountability in spiritual communities
- • Reclaiming autonomy and trusting yourself in practice
- • Finding the intelligence in the system without rigid adherence
- • Building community that doesn't gatekeep or sort practitioners
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00:00 - Introduction to Ashtanga Yoga Criticisms
01:11 - Meet Zoe Ward: A Voice of Change
02:35 - The Unruly Aesthetic: Challenging Privilege and Power Dynamics
03:56 - The Importance of This Conversation
06:11 - Welcome to the Finding Harmony Podcast
06:20 - Reconnecting with Zoe Ward
07:08 - Zoe's Journey in Ashtanga Yoga
09:26 - The Energy of Different Practice Sessions
13:31 - Zoe's Background and Family
18:19 - Discovering Yoga and the Path to India
23:31 - First Encounter with Ashtanga Yoga
28:15 - Transition to Ashtanga Yoga Practice
37:19 - Privilege and Support in Pursuing Yoga
38:18 - \#
40:09 - First Trip to Mysore
41:33 - Misunderstandings and Realizations
42:11 - Challenges in Mysore
43:05 - Confronting Issues in the Yoga Community
50:56 - Teaching Philosophy and Approach
54:01 - Navigating the Yoga Community
59:24 - Future Plans and Projects
Painter + Ashtanga Yoga Teacher
Russell Altice Case began painting professionally in 1991. However, as a person who wandered from place to place for over a decade, he didn't establish a permanent studio space until settling in San Francisco. In 2016 he has relocated his studio space to Calgary, Canada, where he resides and continues to create stunning works of art.
Russell has been practicing and teaching Ashtanga yoga for more than 25 years. An Authorized level II teacher through Sri K. Pattabhi Jois, a humble and refined teacher, Case is known for his joking spirit, and his perpetual eye toward social justice work. When Pattabhi Jois invited him to his pranayama class in 2007 he considered this distinction to be the highest grade.
First and foremost his work is convincing cynical skeptics to the efficacy of mindfulness practice, and his art work is distinctly post-structuralist as it weaves a range of intertextual connections and cultural motifs through its field of view.
That is to say..
Who are we looking at all these things?
Where does the seer reside?
Who is the one doing the looking at all of these things?
Finding Harmony Host / Coach / Spiritual Wellness Teacher
Harmony Slater is a Spiritual Wellness Coach whose mission is to support spiritually-curious entrepreneurs with “science-backed woo” to create a deeply fulfilling life and a business they love.
She's a National Board Certified Health Coach, Certified in both Quantum Coaching and in the Mastery Coaching Methods. She's also Certified Ashtanga Yoga Teacher, one of less than 20 women in the world to hold this honour, after training in India for 15 years.
She began travelling to East Asia in 2002 to study Buddhism, after completing two degrees in Philosophy and Eastern Religious Studies. In 2004, I began a life-long love affair with India, spending the next 15 years living there for extended periods of time immerse in Yoga practice, Vipassana meditation, Ayurveda, and Philosophy.
For the past 20+ years Harmony's been focused on sharing these deeper teachings + practices of multidimensional wellness to support women around the world in eliminating midlife burnout + restoring joy, to create a life and wellness business that nourishes both their soul and bank account. She's taught workshops and retreats in over 30 different countries.
She’s the host of the Finding Harmony Podcast, an active Board Member for the non-profit organization Yoga Gives Back, and has been featured in two anthologies on yoga, pregnancy, and motherhood in: ‘Yoga Sadhana for Mothers’ and ‘Strength and Grace: A collection of Essays by Women of Ashtanga Yoga.’
Zoe is a long time Yoga practitioner, pundit, and general pot stirrer. After a decade of practicing Ashtanga she stepped back to view the system, the community, and method through a more critical and nuanced lens. You’ll find her snarky, but considered approach on Instagram and Substack.