The Mentor Sessions

Octavia Raheem first wrote a book called Gather where she talked about gathering ancestors, gathering courage and gathering rest. Then she wrote a book, Pause Rest Be, about how rest has served as a tool for courage and resilience for her and the people she’s worked with. 

And lucky for us, Octavia has written a new book called Rest Is Sacred, that takes these ideas and weaves them together, taking her readers into a deep place inside themselves

Octavia F. Raheem (she/her) is a wife, mother, three time author, rest coach, and restorative + Yoga Nidra Teacher. She is the founder of Devoted to Rest® a transformational rest focused immersion for visionary leaders. She is a true luminary in the areas of rest, restorative arts, wellness, and yoga. Octavia has been featured in The New York Times, Forbes, Yoga Journal, Well + Good, Tricycle, at Essence Festival and more.

You can listen to our previous conversations- 47: How To Hold Space and 107: The Power of Rest

In this episode, you’ll hear:

• why rest is sacred for Octavia, and all of us

• what rest can help us reclaim

• why our culture makes rest so challenging for everyone

• rest in the most practical terms 

• what Octavia does for her practice and how she makes time for it
  
  

Learn More Octavia:

• Ocativa’s Book Rest is Sacred

• Follow Octavia on Instagram

• Octavia’s Website

This episode is brought to you by OfferingTree, an easy-to-use, all-in-one online platform for yoga teachers that provides a personal website, booking, payment, blogging, and many other great features. The best thing about OfferingTree is you can get up and running in 10 minutes with no tech skills needed. As an added bonus, If you sign up at www.offeringtree.com/mentor, you’ll get 50% off your first three months (or 15% off any annual plan)!  OfferingTree supports me with each sign-up. I’m proud to be supported by a public benefit company whose mission is to further wellness access and education for everyone.

I have been an active participant in the yoga industry since the early 2000s, and I have never really understood how brick and mortar yoga studios, especially locally owned ones without corporate backing, made it work. 

I’ve been curious about it, and I have seen a few studios run incredibly well and last a long time, but we all know those are the outliers. These spaces are so important for us as teachers and students, and for the wider community as well, but they so often struggle to survive the impact of late stage capitalism. 

And that was true even BEFORE the pandemic, when so many of our favorite local businesses closed down. There are not that many yoga studios that have been around for a long time, but we are VERY lucky today to hear from one of my old friends, Deb Flashenberg who has had a thriving locally owned yoga studio in New York City since 2002. AMAZING. 

(and if you want to listen to my previous episodes with Deb please check out 31: How To Work With Pregnant Yoga Students and 104: Postnatal Considerations in Asana with Deb Flashenberg)

In this episode you’ll hear:

• what the vibes were like back in 2002

• what changed in the landscape between 2002 and 2019

• how and why Deb and the Prenatal Yoga Center survived COVID

• what the “comeback” post-COVID been like

• what thoughts and advice Deb has for people thinking about opening up a brick and mortar space now

Learn More From Deb:

• Prenatal Yoga Center website

• Prenatnal Yoga Center on Instagram

• Postnatal Yoga Teacher Training

If you are a yoga teacher trying to make anything close to a full time income with your work, then you are an entrepreneur. Many of us resist that truth, or we at least resist some of the work that is associated with being a small business owner.

That is why today I’m so excited to introduce you to Jackie Murphy. She is here to give us all a business strategy pep talk!

Jackie Murphy (she/her) is the host of the Studio CEO podcast and helps yoga teachers become profitable CEOs by offering them the most effective marketing, sales, and business foundation strategy in the industry. Using her 10 years of experience teaching, opening studios, and leading teacher trainings, Jackie is changing the $115B yoga industry by putting more money in the hands of the people who actually teach yoga.

In this episode, you’ll hear:

• the differences between thinking like an employee and thinking like a CEO

• how to change the way you are working to make a more sustainable living

• what helps students show up to class consistently 

• integrating the philosophy of yoga into ethical and profitable business and what that looks like in action

• how to understand the tension of teaching a spiritual and healing practice inside of late stage capitalism 

• the best way to think about selling

• the importance of having a clear niche and how to do it effectively 

Learn More From Jackie:

• The Yoga Boss Group

• Follow Jackie on Instagram

• Like Jackie on Facebook

OfferingTree is a proud sponsor of this episode and I am honored to be an affiliate.  Visit OfferingTree at www.offeringtree.com/mentor and you’ll get 50% off your first three months (or 15% off any annual plan).   OfferingTree supports me with each sign-up and I’m proud to be supported by a public benefit company whose mission is to further wellness access and education for everyone.

The learning journey I’ve been on regarding hypermobility is incredibly personal. I was plagued with nearly constant minor and serious injuries most of my life. As a dancer that seemed normal, but it was very difficult and I was often injured more than anyone else I knew. I worked so hard to “build more stability” and “get out of my patterns of gripping” and some things did help quite a bit, most notably Feldenkrais.

But it was really only in the last ten years, as information about hypermobility started to spread first through the movement world, and then through into the mainstream culture, that I began to understand my body and how to work with it effectively.

I’m so happy to report that despite being about 7 years past due for when it was suspected I would need a full hip replacement (get the full backstory here) and having a toddler and very little time for self care, I have less pain now then I ever have in my whole life!

Learning about how to work with hypermobility in myself and my students has been nothing short of life changing for me.

And understanding how to work with hypermobility is particularly important for yoga teachers! That is why I’m so thrilled to finally have Libby Hinsley on the show today. 

Libby Hinsley (she/her)  is a Doctor of Physical Therapy, personal trainer, and Yoga Therapist specializing in the treatment of people with hypermobility syndromes and chronic pain As a person living with Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, she is passionate about raising awareness about hypermobility syndromes in the yoga community and beyond.

In this episode you’ll hear:

• a deep dive into different kinds of connective tissue and how they respond to load

• what is different about the connective tissue of someone with HEDS symptoms

• all about the EDS diagnosis

• some common co-occurring conditions that are good to know about

• the science behind the heightened interoception and decreased proprioception of someone with HEDS symptoms and how to work with that in a yoga class

Learn More From Libby:

• Libby’s website

• Libby on Instagram

• Anatomy Bites: use coupon code MENTOR at checkout for 10% off

• Anatomy Bites On Demand Courses: use coupon code MENTOR at checkout for 10% off

• Hypermobility Hub

This episode is brought to you by OfferingTree, an easy-to-use, all-in-one online platform for yoga teachers that provides a personal website, booking, payment, blogging, and many other great features. If you sign up at www.offeringtree.com/mentor, you’ll get 50% off your first three months (or 15% off any annual plan)!  OfferingTree supports me with each sign-up. I’m proud to be supported by a public benefit company whose mission is to further wellness access and education for everyone.

Holding grounded space as a teacher is one of the most important and most hard to teach skills for new yoga teachers. How can you be confident doing something you are new at? Do you need to actually be confident? What do we do when challenging situations knock us off our center?

To answer these questions and more, I’m so honored to have my teacher and friend Ethan Nichtern with us today. Ethan Nichtern (he/him) is a renowned contemporary Buddhist teacher and the author of Confidence: Holding Your Seat through Life’s Eight Worldly Winds and several other titles, including the widely acclaimed The Road Home.

In this episode you’ll hear:

• how we define confidence, and why as a teacher of buddhism, Ethan wanted to write a book about it

• how a conversation about privilege and social location is necessary when talking about confidence

• the myth that Buddhist teachings advocate for overcoming a sense of self and how fits into a Buddhist book about confidence

• a overview of the 8 worldly winds and how they show up in our lives

• US election thoughts and predictions! 😬

Learn More From Ethan via his socials below:

• Instagram

• Threads

• YouTube

I had a profound conversation with yoga teacher and writer Karin Lynn Carlson (she/her) and I can’t wait for you to listen.  Karin is a thoughtful teacher and a beautiful writer and has so much to share on the intersection of ethics and yoga teaching. This episode is packed with both valuable insights and practical advice.

We talked about implementing a code of ethics akin to those in social work and discussed problematic behavior and abuse within the yoga world. Karin offered insights about how to support survivors, foster a healthier yoga community and move forward together. These are crucial topics as we envision a future where yoga communities are more accountable, supportive, and ethical. 

In this episode, you’ll hear:

• the importance of implementing a code of ethics in the yoga community

• boundaries, teacher-student relationships and who is responsible for holding the container

• the essential role of believing and supporting abuse survivors in the yoga community 

• advice for teachers who are struggling to move forward after their teachers have let them down

Learn More From Karin:

• Return Yoga

• Karin on Substack

• Yoga Club community

How to teach yoga in a trauma sensitive way is a conversation that floods mainstream yoga spaces these days. And with good reason; almost everyperson in the world has had some experience of trauma, so our yoga classes are filled with people who have had exposure to trauma.

It is very easy for yoga and asana to be taught in ways that are not trauma sensitive. Being aware of teacher-student power dynamics and how they impact students with trauma is paramount to skillful teaching. 

That is why I am so happy to introduce you to Jenn Turner (she/her). She is a trauma-informed therapist and yoga teacher, and has been at the forefront of combining those two modalities since the early 2000s. 

She has also been involved in two different spiritual and healing communities that experienced abuse of power by the leader, as so many of us have. She has advice and a way forward for communities that have experienced this kind of harm.

In this episode you’ll hear:

• what  has changed the most in the landscape of trauma sensitive yoga since 2008

• what is most important for yoga teachers to know about when it comes to trauma informed practice

• how power, self reflection and holding containers are all things we need to be thinking about as yoga teachers

• what communities and individuals can do when they recover from abuse inside places that are supposed to be healing spaces

Learn More From Jenn:

• Center for Trauma and Embodiment

• Trauma Center Trauma Sensitive Yoga

• Jenn on Instagram

This episode is one of the most important interviews I’ve ever recorded. Our guest, Katie Blecker (she/her) is here to talk about two of my favorite things, accessible yoga and teaching yoga. And even better, we are going to talk about the intersection of those two things in a conversation that is LONG overdue on this podcast: Making the vocation of teaching yoga accessible to all yoga teachers.

Katie Blecker (she/her) is a yoga teacher, disability advocate, and visual artist. Her work as a trauma-informed, adaptive yoga facilitator centers supporting folks of all ages who live with chronic illness and pain, disability, and chronic stress using tools such as therapeutic asana, pranayama, and meditation. She believes deeply in the power of restorative yoga practices to support our self- and community-care. Katie is also a member of the LGBTQIA2S+ community. Her lived experience with multiple complex chronic illnesses informs her worldview and inspires her passion for disability advocacy and accessibility in yoga. 

In this episode you’ll hear:

• what it is like for Katie to live and teach yoga with chronic fatigue syndrome

• a message for new yoga teachers, especially ones that may not fit the dominant culture yoga teacher mold

• some of the accommodations Katie has to make personally to make the practice of yoga teaching accessible for her

• what yoga studios can do to make teaching more accessible

• a deep dive into healthism and how it shows up in western yoga culture

Learn More From Katie:

• Katie’s Website

• Connect with Katie on Instagram

The yoga world has changed so much in the last 5 years, and more and more yoga teachers are finding they need to build and create their own opportunities to teach. Even before the pandemic it was nearly impossible to build a full time career teaching group classes at studios. The pay is too low, the opportunities too rare and the workload is way too high to exclusively teach at a yoga studio. 

But paving your own path can be challenging, especially if you don’t see anyone like you doing it. That is why I’m so excited to introduce you to Emily Anderson. No one is paving their own path better than she is. 

Emily Anderson (she/her)  is a self employed yoga therapist in training. She shares yoga as a way to reconnect with the body and mind, process trauma or pain, and to build resiliency in a fatphobic, ableist world. Her virtual studio All Bodies Welcome Yoga centers folks who are fat, chronically ill, disabled, and/or looking for an accessible yoga class outside of diet culture and fitness spaces. Emily invites students to explore with gentleness, empathy, fun, and patience, and to shed body shame and comparisons.

In this episode you’ll hear:

• what led Emily to want to be a teacher and her journey from student to teacher 

• what it is like to train to be a yoga therapist and Emily’s teaching schedule

• how Emily got established in her local community and created her own teaching opportunities

• the kind of business education that is missing from foundational teacher training

• how Emily supplemented the missing business education with her own research

Learn More From Emily + Resources Mentioned:

• Emily’s website

• Emily on Instagram

• Small Business Development Centers

• SCORE Mentors

• Emily’s Marketing Coach

• Inner Peace Yoga Therapy

• A video of Emily’s first yoga teacher, Arthur, and his journey to regain mobility (tw: some weight loss talk)

• Joseph Le’s Yoga Toolbox