A Grateful Life

On Lowering Your Threshold for Joy with Kelly McGonigal

Before I spoke with Dr Kelly McGonigal (she/her) on the podcast, I spent a day reading her new book on joy. That evening, when I walked into a yoga class and the teacher asked how I was, I heard myself say, ‘I am so good.’ It took me a moment to...

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On Turning Inward, Mental Health and Yoga with Dr Lauren Tober

Think of the last time you were so absorbed in something that the world fell away. A good book. Hands in the garden. Watching the ocean. For a little while there was no to-do list, no worry, no self-judgement. Just the moment itself.  These ordinary...

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On Asana, Pranayama, Mental Health and Yoga with Dr Lauren Tober

Ask most people what yoga is, and they'll picture the postures. Maybe the breathing. And fair enough, it's what we mostly teach, and what most people think we're doing.  But in Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, asana barely gets a mention. So what are the...

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On the Niyamas, Mental Health and Yoga with Dr Lauren Tober

In this third episode on Patanjali's eight limbs of yoga, we’re exploring the niyamas and how they can support mental health in our yoga teaching. While the last two episodes were on the yamas, on how we engage with the world, in this one, we turn...

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On the Yamas, Mental Health and Yoga with Dr Lauren Tober

Welcome to the second episode in a special five-part pop-up series on Patanjali's eight limbs of yoga, exploring what each limb means for us as yoga teachers supporting our students' mental health. In the last episode, we explored ahimsa. In this...

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On Ahimsa, Mental Health and Yoga with Dr Lauren Tober

Welcome to the first episode in a special five part pop-up series on Patanjali's eight limbs of yoga, exploring what each limb means for us as yoga teachers supporting our students' mental health. We're beginning where Patanjali begins, with ahimsa....

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On Interoception and the Wisdom of the Body with Dr Lauren Tober

Your throat tightens in a conversation, a few seconds before you've worked out why. You feel a flutter of anxiety in your belly before your mind catches on to what’s happening. Your body is always talking to you, sending signals from the inside, all...

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On Yoga as a Work-In, Not a Work-Out with Indu Arora

Some things are simple by nature and we tend to complicate them. Others are complex by nature and we dilute them. Indu Arora (she/her) is a Yoga and Āyurveda teacher, mentor and author who has been sharing yoga philosophy, yoga therapy and Āyurveda...

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On Abuse, Power and the Guru Myth with Uma Dinsmore-Tuli

It starts small. A teacher who tells you rather than asks you. A little too much praise when you fall in line, a little too much silence when you don't.  Most of us have felt it and shrugged it off. Uma Dinsmore-Tuli has spent years mapping exactly...

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On Living Ritual with Tracee Stanley

Every Monday morning, as the sun is coming up, I walk down my friend's garden path to her house for tea ceremony.  Gentle music. Incense. Bowls of tea. A handful of women from my little town, sitting together in silence. There is some kind of alchemy...

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On Aerial Yoga as Therapy with Jo Stewart

Before I met Jo, my mental image of aerial yoga was mostly circus-like. Beautiful, yes. Fun, sure. Relevant to the yoga teachers and therapists I work with? I wasn't convinced. Boy, was I wrong. Jo Stewart (she/her) is one of Australia's most...

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On Sacred Places, Big Leaps and Following Your Bliss with Charley Patton

What does it take to leave behind everything you've built, cycle 8,000 miles across the world, with no clear plan for what comes next? I recorded this conversation live at the Bali Spirit Festival, sitting across from Charley Patton, co-founder of...

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On Losing a Parent and Choosing Life with Bex Tyrer

What does it look like to say yes to life in the very week your father has died? I recorded this conversation with Bex Tyrer (she/her) at the Bali Spirit Festival in Ubud, exactly one week after her father passed away at the age of 98.   I wasn't...

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On Motherhood and Menopause on the Road with Janet Stone

​​I met Janet Stone at the Bali Spirit Festival in Ubud last week, where we sat down together between workshops to have this conversation. Janet is an internationally recognised yoga teacher who has spent decades travelling the world with her two...

On the Wisdom of Psychosis with Anneke Sips

What if psychosis isn't the opposite of sanity, but part of a spectrum of human experience we all share? Anneke Sips and I were supposed to record this episode together in India. But when her Emirates flight was cancelled, our plans unravelled, the...

Dr Sreejit - On Panchakarma in India

What does it really mean to go to India for Panchakarma? Before I came to Kerala, I had a vague sense that it would be nourishing, restorative… maybe even a little luxurious. And while there were moments of deep care and tenderness, what I’ve...

Amy Landry - On the Ocean of Yoga

Most of us come to yoga through the body. But at some point, many practitioners begin to sense that yoga is much deeper than the postures. In this episode of A Grateful Life, I’m joined by yoga teacher and author Amy Landry to explore the...

Elaine Aron - On the Enlightened Highly Sensitive Person

Today’s episode is truly a podcasting highlight for me. I’m joined by Dr Elaine Aron, clinical and research psychologist and internationally bestselling author of The Highly Sensitive Person, a groundbreaking book that has been in print for nearly...

Richard Miller - On Innate Wholeness and Awakening

What if nothing is fundamentally wrong with you? What if awakening isn’t something to achieve, but something to remember? In this episode of A Grateful Life, I’m joined by Richard Miller (he/him), PhD, to explore some of the biggest and most...

Jai Uttal - On Seeking a Guru

What does it really mean to have a guru? Is this path still relevant today? In this episode on the A Grateful Life podcast, I’m joined by Jai Uttal as he takes us on a journey to India in the 1970s to explore the guru-disciple relationship. When Jai...