Life in Balance

As the world opens back up again in the wake of the pandemic, you might be feeling a lot of different emotions around what that will look like or feel like for you. That's certainly true for Stef and Nicole, who in this episode, speak candidly about where they're at mentally and emotionally with the global reopening. Will things go back to the way they were? What's the best way to move forward? How can we prepare ourselves to adapt to what comes next? Tune in to hear how they're navigating the transition between what we’re experiencing right now and what’s going to come when we’re back out in the world.

This episode mentions 2 previous podcast episodes: 

Living with Intention with Malaika DosRemedios: https://anchor.fm/dashboard/episode/e12bf60

Finding Five Minutes: https://anchor.fm/dashboard/episode/evca9b 

We hope you love this episode as much as we loved recording it! Want more balance in your life? Subscribe to our podcast to automatically receive new episodes, share the love by giving us a 5-star review, and follow us on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/lifeinbalance_project/.

The ancient history and philosophy of the yoga tradition run deep, but how can we apply it to modern, everyday life? In this episode, Stef and Nicole talk with Hali Schwartz, who has been teaching yoga and yoga philosophy for decades.

Hali has been steeped in the world of yoga since she was a small child. When she was barely five years old, her mother met a teacher from India, and this would mark the beginning of her life spent being immersed in the practice of yoga, and later, in the study of its various traditions. When she was a teenager, she went to India for the first time to live with her mother at the yoga institute in the north-western Himalayas, where she studied, hatha yoga, pranayam and meditation, as well as Sanskrit and yoga philosophy. Hali leads yoga history and philosophy teacher training programs in Toronto, where she now makes her home, as well as leading yoga retreats, and philosophy trainings in India, the UK and the Caribbean.

This conversation explored so much about what the wisdom of yoga can offer and how to really bring yoga philosophy to life, like listening to your inner voice, ways of looking at and experiencing your life's purpose, the relationship between success and failure, and more. 

We hope you love this episode as much as we loved recording it! Want more balance in your life? Subscribe to our podcast to automatically receive new episodes, share the love by giving us a 5-star review, and follow us on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/lifeinbalance_project/.

To learn more about Hali and her work, visit www.yogahali.com. 

Anyone who's been to a yoga class knows that working with your breath – how to become aware of it, shape it, and work with it – is often as important as the asana itself. With the breath being the vehicle for prana, the life force or vital energy, pranayama is a way of directing that energy through the body with specific breathing exercises.

In this episode, Stef Stanfield and Nicole Catenazzi discuss some of the ways to work with the breath to elicit different feelings and functions in the body, and they break down some of the barriers to pranayama practices. They also explore how getting familiar with your breath on the mat is a great stepping stone to let it live as a practice that you can draw from in your normal day-to-day.

We hope you love this episode as much as we loved recording it! Want more balance in your life? Subscribe to our podcast to automatically receive new episodes, share the love by giving us a 5-star review, and follow us on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/lifeinbalance_project/.

In this episode of the Life in Balance podcast, we're joined by our very first guest, Malaika DosRemedios. Malaika is a multi-faceted and empowering warrior, who helps souls of all ages with cultivating harmony within, to live a life full of vitality and wholeness. Through the ancient practices of the yoga tradition, holistic nutrition and fitness coaching, she has dedicated her life to helping others breathe and live with intention.

In conversation with Stef and Nicole, Malaika shares how yoga has helped her get through hard times with depression and anxiety, how she learned to listen to her inner voice, and the wisdom she's gathered along the way. 

In addition to being a yoga teacher (ERYT-500+), Malaika brings her experience of yoga Nidra, pranayama, personal training, and holistic nutrition coaching to finding balance in her life, and the lives of her clients.

You can learn more about Malaika at https://www.malaikayoga.com/.

This episode contains explicit content (foul language). Listener discretion is advised! 

We hope you love this episode as much as we loved recording it! Want more balance in your life? Subscribe to our podcast to automatically receive new episodes, share the love by giving us a 5-star review, and follow us on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/lifeinbalance_project/. 

Self-confidence, or lack thereof, is a hot topic in today's go-getter world. While motivational messages might be well-meaning, the truth is, sometimes they can make you feel like you should be more confident than you are. So how does one navigate fluctuating levels of self-confidence? In this episode, Stef and Nicole discuss their relationships with confidence. They explore what can yoga teach us about self-confidence, and consider some of the things we can do to build confidence.

In this episode, we mention a previous episode from the Life in Balance podcast called "Who Do You Think You Are?". Check it out here: https://anchor.fm/dashboard/episode/enjntj 

We hope you love this episode as much as we loved recording it! Want more balance in your life? Subscribe to our podcast to automatically receive new episodes, share the love by giving us a 5-star review, and follow us on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/lifeinbalance_project/

Plain and simple: many of us hold a lot of shame around failure. Whether we feel like we've failed ourselves or we've failed others, confronting failure in the moment is never a nice feeling. In today's episode, Stef and Nicole share some of their most memorable failures and have a conversation around how we can navigate failure, have grace with ourselves, and not let the emotional memory of the failures keep us stuck in the past. Because at the end of the day, we can’t change the experience of failure but we can change how we perceive it.

This episode contains explicit content (foul language). Listener discretion is advised!

This episode mentions the "How to Fail" podcast with Elizabeth Day.

We hope you love this episode as much as we loved recording it! Want more balance in your life? Subscribe to our podcast to automatically receive new episodes, share the love by giving us a 5-star review, and follow us on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/lifeinbalance_project/.

"Let it go." Whether you've heard that cue on your yoga mat or are belting it out with Elsa from Frozen, we've all heard how important it is to let go of things that no longer serve us. But as we all know, letting go is easier said than done. In today's episode, Stef and Nicole unpack some of the meaning behind the phrase and share their personal experiences of how they came to let go of things that no longer served them – be it, relationships, thoughts, beliefs, or things. 

We mention a couple of our past episodes in this one: 

Letting Go of Expectations: https://anchor.fm/lifeinbalance/episodes/Season-1-Finale-Letting-Go-of-Expectations-eho14r 

Going Back to Basics, A Call for Simplicity: https://anchor.fm/lifeinbalance/episodes/Going-Back-to-Basics-A-Call-for-Simplicity-ef0ikk

We hope you love this episode as much as we loved recording it! Want more balance in your life? Subscribe to our podcast to automatically receive new episodes, share the love by giving us a 5-star review, and follow us on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/lifeinbalance_project/.

In this episode, Stef and Nicole take a trip down memory lane to reflect on their experiences in yoga teacher training (YTT) programs. They share what made them decide to take a YTT, how they picked their programs of choice, the favourite parts of their learning experience and how their practice and interests have evolved. This is a great episode to listen to if you've ever been curious about what a yoga teacher training program is like or if you've considered taking one yourself! 

We hope you love this episode as much as we loved recording it! Want more balance in your life? Subscribe to our podcast to automatically receive new episodes, share the love by giving us a 5-star review, and follow us on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/lifeinbalance_project/

In today's episode, Stef and Nicole explore what it means to be a beginner. Depending on the experience or your ego, being a beginner can feel anything from exciting to frustrating. Whether you're starting something new, or you're returning to something you haven't done in a while (and your skills feel a bit rusty), what do you make it mean about yourself when you have to begin again? What can our yoga and meditation practice teach us about embracing being a beginner?

From step-backs to setbacks, this episode is all about looking at the different ways in which we experience being a beginner and what we can learn along the way.

In this episode, we reference two previous podcast episodes:

Letting Go of Expectations: https://anchor.fm/lifeinbalance/episodes/Season-1-Finale-Letting-Go-of-Expectations-eho14r 

Finding Five Minutes – why is it so hard to make time for yourself?: https://anchor.fm/lifeinbalance/episodes/Finding-Five-Minutes-Why-is-it-so-hard-to-make-time-for-yourself-evca9b 

We hope you love this episode as much as we loved recording it! Want more balance in your life? Subscribe to our podcast to automatically receive new episodes, share the love by giving us a 5-star review, and follow us on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/lifeinbalance_project/

In today's episode, Stef and Nicole explore what it means to be a beginner. Depending on the experience or your ego, being a beginner can feel anything from exciting to frustrating. Whether you're starting something new, or you're returning to something you haven't done in a while (and your skills feel a bit rusty), what do you make it mean about yourself when you have to begin again? What can our yoga and meditation practice teach us about embracing being a beginner?

From step-backs to setbacks, this episode is all about looking at the different ways in which we experience being a beginner and what we can learn along the way.

In this episode, we reference two previous podcast episodes:

Letting Go of Expectations: https://anchor.fm/lifeinbalance/episodes/Season-1-Finale-Letting-Go-of-Expectations-eho14r 

Finding Five Minutes – why is it so hard to make time for yourself?: https://anchor.fm/lifeinbalance/episodes/Finding-Five-Minutes-Why-is-it-so-hard-to-make-time-for-yourself-evca9b 

We hope you love this episode as much as we loved recording it! Want more balance in your life? Subscribe to our podcast to automatically receive new episodes, share the love by giving us a 5-star review, and follow us on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/lifeinbalance_project/