Living In Alignment

Sophie Duncan is the founder of Aaoka Beauty, which was born from a desire to raise beauty consciousness through the lens of Ayurvedic wisdom.

A mother of two young children, Sophie’s holistic work promotes a deep connection to nature, nourishment, and natural, luminous ageing. 

She provides offerings that empower women to remember their innate radiance through all stages of life so they can take beauty back into their own hands.

Creating a new paradigm within the community, her content and teachings enable all to apply Ayurvedic wisdom in a tangible and time-accessible way.

Sophie offers an online membership called The Radiance Rhythms, as a means to working more intimately to discover many holistic ways to nourish you from within.

IN THIS EPISODE:

- Sophie's story, how she came to Ayurveda and the invaluable approach to ageing and beauty

- The key reframe and shift in paradigm that occurs through the Ayurvedic approach to beauty

- Unpacking how the face is a mirror for the mind

- Sophie's recommended tools and ingredients to get started on this path

- Her guidance for simple ways to support nourishment during the postpartum window for mothers

- What we need to understand in order to age radiantly

- Sophie's recommended reading

- The opportunity to join the Radiance Rhythms membership to work closely with Sophie

MENTIONED:

- Absolute Beauty by Pratima Raichur

- The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf

Born in Texas in 1953, Dr. Robert Svoboda is the first Westerner ever to graduate from a college of Ayurveda and be licensed to practice Ayurveda in India.

After being ritually initiated into the Pokot tribe of northern Kenya as its first white member in June 1973 he moved to India, where he lived from during the 70’s and 80’s, receiving his Bachelor of Ayurvedic Medicine and Surgery from the University of Poona in 1980. 

In his final year of study at the Tilak Ayurved Mahavidyalaya he won all but one of the University of Poona’s awards for academic excellence in Ayurveda, including the Ram Narayan Sharma Gold Medal.

During and after his formal Ayurvedic training he was tutored in Ayurveda, Yoga, Jyotish, Tantra and other forms of classical Indian lore by his mentor, the Aghori Vimalananda.

Author of over a dozen books, Dr. Svoboda has traveled extensively In the years since 1986, spending three months per year on average in India.

Laura Poole is a Vedic meditation teacher and founder of Mahasoma – supporting Vedic meditators and teachers with feminine-led Vedic wisdom, embodiment practices, and community.

Laura has trained intensively over the past 15 years with great masters in Australia and India.

She currently resides in Noosa on her 3-acre homestead, growing a syntropic food-forest and biodynamic vegetable garden. 

Laura shares the transformative wisdom of Vedic meditation, Vedanta, and Ayurveda, in an engaging, relevant, and humorous way that allows people to make deep discoveries about themselves and their purpose. 

She is a dedicated leader in the meditation space. Passionate about community and aware of its transformative power, Laura brings people together in uplifting shared experiences through Vedic meditation courses, events, and India retreats.

Her intention is to share simple ‘how-to’ techniques for creating awakening, balance, and harmony while supporting people to live a heart-based life in flow with nature.

Laura was also an original co-founder/co-creator of 1 Giant Mind Australia and its free Learn to Meditate app.

Author of the best-selling book Ayurveda Cooking For Beginners and creator of numerous courses and trainings on Ayurveda, Laura Plumb promotes sacred, sumptuous living through the Vedic sciences of Ayurveda, Jyotish, Mantra, and Devi Sadhana.

Laura is lead faculty for the Ayurvedic Integrated Nutrition 200-hour Professional Training and has studied with some of the great masters of our time, practicing and sharing what she has learned from the heart-centered wisdom schools of the world.

Laura’s blog is an inspirational resource for Ayurvedic nourishment and delight.

She is widely recognized for understanding and sharing the deeper principles of various Vedic traditions while making them accessible and relevant to modern life.

In this episode:

- Laura's story as to how she felt pulled to India and came to learn of the various Vedic traditions

- Laura's fascinating and pivotal first trip to India many years ago

- How we can amalgamate Vedic traditions into daily life

- How Ayurveda and Jyotish overlap

- The concept and approach to remedies through the Vedic lens

- The purpose behind Laura's first book, Ayurveda Cooking For Beginners

- Two of Laura's book recommendations

- Three of Laura's daily practices to align with Vedic wisdom

- So much beauty, metaphor, and more!

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese

The Upanishads

CONNECT WITH LAURA:

Maya Tiwari is an Ayurveda Matriarch, Peace Leader, Humanitarian, and a best-selling author of multiple books. She has been in the field for more than 35 years.

Fondly called Mother Maya, or Maa, she established the first Ayurvedic school in North America in 1981 (the Wise Earth School of Ayurveda) and founded the Mother Om Mission, a charitable organization that works in the at-risk communities of New York. 

Among the many gems she has restored to the earth-based education of Ayurveda are the sadhana of food, breath and sound; the earth therapies of Pancha Karma, and the long-lost lunar education for women’s healing.

Maa has been meticulously trained in the Vedas, Vedanta, Ayurveda, Sanskrit, Vedic Chants, and also in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra.

A life-threatening ovarian cancer survivor at age 23, she has personally helped thousands of women to heal from devastating disorders.

Maya served for two decades as a Vedic monk, belonging to India’s prestigious Veda Vyasa lineage. 

In 2010, Maya made the radical decision to renounce her monastic title to be of wider service to the populations in need.

Through her global work, Maya promotes practices that invite inner peace, ancestral wellness and that which creates harmony with Mother Earth.

Spiritual pioneer, Maya is a regular Featured Speaker at the Parliament of the World Religions.

Maa is also the recipient of the Dhanvantari Award and AAPNA’s Rishi Award for her outstanding work in Ayurvedic medicine.

BOOKS MENTIONED:

The Path of Practice

Ayurveda: A Life of Balance

CONNECT WITH MAYA:

Kaya Mindlin is a trusted teacher guiding many of today’s yoga teachers and longtime practitioners. Mature seekers resonate with her authentic approach that synthesizes the mystical and practical. With over 20 years teaching experience and the blessing of her gurus as a steward of the vedic tradition, Kaya expertly weaves yogic practice, storytelling, sanskrit recitation, vedanta, shaktism, vedic astrology & ayurveda in her rich programs. Her Supreme Release Yoga works gently and deeply with the subtle spine as a sacred pilgrimage site. While many are first drawn to her fierce stewardship and commitment to breaking yogaland myths on social media, they find their yoga home in her inclusive and deep approach that prioritizes a loving teacher-student relationship in which anything can be fodder for spiritual growth. Kaya lives in the US with her husband, a masterful Vedic Astrologer and their two children.

Some of the episode highlights:

• Learn of Kaya’s personal story, including how she was raised and then came to finding the Vedic traditions
• Guardianship and gatekeeping of the yogic tradition
• Ganesha’s relevance to protecting the sacred
• How we can qualify, be ready or eligible to receive the deeper teachings
• The concept of Adhi-Kāra
• What prepares us to be ready to receive the teachings
• The role of storytelling
• Weaving the teachings into daily life and embracing the householder tradition
• Motherhood and the divine mother
• Kaya’s reluctance to recommend books (& why)
• A couple of recommended Yogic texts to read
• The concept of Śruti and deep listening

Receive 15% off ALL of Kaya's online offerings with the code: LIA15

Online courses to highlight:

Katie Rose is a yoga teacher, ayurveda guide and author with over 25 years of experience in the world of wellness alongside many thousands of teaching hours under her belt. She is a doula and teacher for the Australian Doula College.

Katie was the manager of the prestigious TriYoga centre in London before moving to Sydney and opening Samadhi Yoga in 2004 followed by Jivamukti Yoga Sydney which at its peak was a four-studio business.

Her popular online courses have helped hundreds of women from all over the world in empower themselves.  Much of Katie’s work focuses on the Australian seasons, landscape and Indigenous culture and she has a keen passion for respecting First Nation’s wisdom as well as animal rights and the environment.

She is the founder and host of the annual Bhakti Women’s Online Yoga Summit and the author of several internationally available books published by Rockpool Publishing including ‘Mindful Living’ and ‘The Yoga of Birth’.

Katie helps women go from feeling stuck and overwhelmed to living a life that is vibrant, creative and abundant. 

She lives in Sydney, Australia with her partner and her five children in a loud and busy household where her meditation practice keeps her sane!

Within this episode:

• Katie’s past life calling and blessing of good karma with her teachers
• Unravelling the esoteric and feminine approach to Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras
• The value of inner authority when understanding yoga related texts
• Weaving the masculine and feminine qualities into daily life, personally and professionally
• Being in relationship with the subtle yogic body, the pranamaya kosha, in a practical way
• Katie’s capacity to utilise her time and presence with depth
• How Katie has curated her career with boundaries and devotion to her family
• How Katie embraces the role of matriarch in her home
• Building community, bringing people together both in person and online
• The challenges and biggest learning from hosting online live summits
• Katie’s favourite book recommendations on Yoga and Ayurveda
• The controversial book Katie is currently reading and the biggest takeaway from it

Mark Breadner is a luminary in the world of yoga and meditation education, boasting over five decades of devoted practice. Known as a teacher of teachers and Australia's longest-serving yoga educator, Mark is the creator of YogaCoach and a certified somatic psychotherapist. He has dedicated his career to empowering yoga teachers to become transformational leaders. Beyond training thousands of yoga and meditation teachers, his expertise has led him to become a "Body/Mind" coach for Olympic Gold medalists and World Champions in swimming & surfing. His passion and focus aim to foster a new generation of yoga teachers, providing essential skills for this deeply transformative practice and teaching.

In this episode, uncover:

• Mark’s introduction to yoga through his mother as a child
• How Mark came to yoga and came to teaching as a teenager
• What Mark’s practice and life looked like in his early days
• Mark’s experience of traveling India years ago and what it showed him
• Mark’s vision and mission for yoga teachers and facilitating teacher trainings
• What prana is and why this understanding is fundamental to the practice and path of yoga
• The basics of subtle yogic anatomy
• Misunderstandings and risks around the Breathwork trend and pranayama
• How the Western interest in science needs to be paired with Spirit
• How Yoga is now part of the fitness movement as an alternate fitness offering
• Seeing the body through the lens of yoga
• The questionable value of Western anatomy and physiology in the context of yoga
• What we lose through the commercialisation of yoga
• How Yoga Teachers can avoid becoming a commodity
• How yoga could be at the leading edge of the health and wellbeing industry
• How a Yoga Teacher can find their niche within their work in the world
• Yoga without asana
• How mastery of mental stability must arise before building prana
• How to get the most change and improvement in your body whilst being kind to oneself
• The essential, holistic, sequential approach to yoga
• How to live yoga and embrace being an energetic, subtle being
• The value of fasting as it pertains to yoga
• Mark’s 3 recommended books
• His message to yoga teachers 

UPCOMING EVENTS:

2023:

NEWCASTLE Sept 16th

CENTRAL COAST Sept 17th

BRISBANE Sept 23

SOUTH SYDNEY Sept 30

BALI Meditation Training Immersion Oct 27-31

FREE BREATH CHALLENGE: https://challenge.yogacoach.com/

Octavio Salvado’s mission is simple: to share Yoga with the world in the way that it was intended – as a spiritual science, not an exercise routine.

Everything he teaches is lineage-based, integrated over decades of a hardcore commitment to personal practice. Octavio considers himself a student above all else - a relentless student with unwavering commitment to this extraordinary path that has the potential to truly heal, realign, and empower the world.

As a teacher, Octavio has a firm resolve to spend his life helping other dedicated students find more depth in their practices, and more purpose, self-reliance, joy and freedom in their daily lives. He holds absolute certainty that Yoga, when practiced correctly, can provide this.

Octavio currently lives in Bali with his amazing wife, Emma and their two wild kids, where together they run The Practice – a Yoga institute dedicated to keeping the tradition alive.

Paula Crossfield is a Vedic astrologer and Business Coach dedicated to helping a million spirit-led entrepreneurs make more money and impact so they can bankroll the change they want to see in the world.

She believes that when spiritually grounded business owners are aligned with their purpose and the planets, they can earn massively and give back in profound ways to inspire a positive change in our culture – in fact Paula is able to give back and donate five figures every year from her overflow (that’s in USD!).

Her insights on astrology and business strategy have helped her clients build sustainable five+ figure per month incomes while still embodying their values.

When she's not helping her clients with proven strategies paired with astrology’s auspicious timing and insight, you can find Paula working in the garden on her 160 acre homestead where she and her husband are regenerating the forest and land for future generations.

In this insightful episode:

• Paula shares the incredibly aligned, moving, and synchronistic story of her path
• Learn the influence of Paula’s first trip to India on the trajectory of her life
• Understand the distinct elements of Vedic Astrology
• Understand how Western astrology is different to Vedic astrology (the “eye of the veda”)
• Hear of the value of remedies in Vedic astrology
• How Jyotish (Vedic Astrology) is tied into Yoga and Ayurveda
• Learn how we can see ourselves through our unique stories and then gain headway to move forward well in life
• Discover the 3 key aspects of your chart which are the most valuable to pay attention to
• Three essential books to read
• Unravelling narratives and the resistance to wealth for those in spiritual communities and work
• Money as Shakti and Karma
• Building wealth into one’s business with the purpose to purely give back
• Paula’s empowering offerings and courses you can access

Vikram Jeet Singh took his first asana class in 2006. After steady practice he went on to finish a 500 hour Teacher Training in Kerala, India in early 2008. After teaching part time for a few months, Vikram was called to switch careers and ultimately left a HR job to pursue full time yoga teaching. 

Over the course of the years gone by he has accumulated more than  11,000 hours of teaching experience across the US, Canada, and India. Vikram is an Ayurvedic practitioner having completed his studies from the Kripalu School Of Ayurveda.

Vikram completed his training with Bernie Clark in November 2015 and is a certified Yin Yoga Teacher. More recently, Vikram received authorization from Sharath Jois to teach the Ashtanga primary series.

Being born AND growing up in India, Vikram has always been fascinated with the rich history and stories from the Indian culture which were a big part of his childhood. His passion for sharing this wisdom and deep desire to study Yoga History & Philosophy has lead him to be part of the lead faculty for Modo Yoga, where he teaches modules on the history of yoga alongside the wisdom of the Yoga Sutra, Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads. He also runs mentorship courses and workshops for teachers, studios and practitioners to help bring yoga in every aspect of our lives. 

A strong advocate of true diversity & inclusion, Vikram consults yoga teachers and studios on cultural appropriation, decolonisation, and inclusion in both yoga and related spaces.

Vikram loves to share his culture and experience of growing up in India, and believes that all practitioners at some point, should visit the birthplace of Yoga. To help support that initiative, he hosts annual retreats in India, where he currently lives - in Goa - with his wife, Melissa and their daughter, Satya.

In this episode we uncover and learn:

• The presence of Yoga as being woven into the fabric of daily life as a child in India
• The influence of Vikram’s grandfather, planting seeds of yoga throughout his upbringing
• The cultural context of yoga
• The current yoga culture and trends across India
• What a genuinely culturally immersive experience of India is
• What yoga means and looks like in India
• Misrepresentation VS Cultural Appropriation
• How to not cross the line of ethical representation of yoga
• What drives the misrepresentation of yoga
• What we can do to have integrity in presenting yoga
• What reflections and questions around inclusion and diversity we should we be having a community
• Diversity VS Decolonisation
• Reverence and sanctity in preserving yoga
• Contemplating the desire for Guru and lineage
• Why some Gurus fall from grace
• How the teachings of yoga traditions are not dependent on a Guru
• The value in considering your own composition and mental qualities to know which schools and systems would be ideal, regardless of trends
• How all roads of yoga lead to the same place or end goal
• Taking ownership of our path
• The hustle culture of studentship in yoga
• How Vikram can support you if you’re a student, teacher, or studio owner, in sharing history, philosophy, and ethics
• How Vikram’s courses and offerings can support you as a student seeking more depth of knowledge without the YTT price tag