Splendid Yoga: Recent Episodes
Morgan Balavage
Are you a spiritual entrepreneur looking to increase your abundance? Well, listen up, because I’ve got some tips for you on how to create a passive income stream with an email funnel that will have you making money in your sleep.
Hey, yoga teacher! Are you SO ready to monetize your healing gifts while saving the world? You gotta get on Insight Timer!
Hey, meditation guide! Are you SO ready to monetize your healing gifts while saving the world? You gotta get on Insight Timer!
On a spiritual development journey? Do these top 3 meditations for spiritual development!
Haven’t been sleeping well? Desperately need a good night’s rest? Check out the top 3 meditations for sleep!
Can’t stop overthinking? Do these top 3 meditations for overthinking to quiet the mind.
Calling all spiritual healers and entrepreneurs! Check out these top 3 meditations for growing your business
Need to ease your anxiety? Check out the top 3 meditations for anxiety on Insight Timer!
What do you do when you feel like quitting everything??
As an entrepreneur, I often create in a vacuum, and it can be lonely!
It also means I talk myself out of quitting my business all the time.
I have to remind myself constantly to create for the sake of creation without any hope of fruition. I’ve had to change my definition of success to: if it helps one person, it was worth it!
Here are my top 10 techniques for talking yourself out of quitting:
Ever wondered how I afford to frequently travel to the most beautiful places on earth basically for free? I’m a travel hacker! For the last 15 years, I’ve been using the strategy of travel hacking to fund my many adventures.
To all the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed new yoga teachers, this blog is for you! I get it. Starting your journey into the world of teaching yoga can be extremely overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be.
Chances are if you clicked on this blog you want to learn how to prevent yoga injuries. Maybe you’ve personally experienced or witnessed a yoga injury yourself. Well, friend, you have come to the right place!
I’ve taught thousands of students in public studios, online classes, private sessions, retreats, in corporate settings, even as a college professor.
I’ve seen plenty of injuries from my beginner classes all the way to my advanced yogis.
I’ve seen yoga studios burn down from an instructor leaving a lit candle overnight.
I’ve seen students threaten to sue over the silliest of complaints.
Narcissism comes up a lot in my healing work. My client asked me to put together a lecture of strategies for healing from narcissism.
Here is the live event from Insight Timer:
The full moon shines a light on what is holding you back from achieving your goals.
The trick is to do practices to stay grounded a few days before, during, and after, to ride the wave of the full moon energy.
When you learn how to embrace the full moon energy, it’s a beautiful time to tap into deep creativity.
(Case in point: you’ll notice I usually publish a bunch of blog posts around a full moon 😆).
Wanna know how I take care of myself during this full supermoon lunar eclipse collective conscious craziness?
I’ve quit jobs for a variety of reasons, but usually, I quit because I move.
There definitely came a clear moment when I should have quit - and then I usually stayed, growing resentful, for way too long.
Finally, I found a job I couldn’t quit….because they laid me off!!
And it was the BEST because I knew I would NEVER work as someone else’s employee in that same, 40 hour a week, why-are-you-5-minutes-late, do-as-i-say way.
I know a lot of you feel stuck in your current job.
You need the money.
You need the health insurance.
You need the illusion of financial security.
Friends, what would it feel like if you quit your job tomorrow, made MORE money, and got better insurance??
Imagine what it would be like to enjoy your time doing the things you love, not bartering your time for a mediocre paycheck.
I’m going to tell you how to do it!
I’ve interviewed loads of entrepreneurs for my coaching business, my podcast, and my book. Want to know what they all have in common?
Juliana’s managed to use Clubhouse to sell out her private healing sessions for 2 months. Her best advice for healers starting out is: always get paid, even if through donation, because otherwise the energy of the work isn’t valued.
Let’s talk sales with yoga teacher Suzanne Dulin! She’s a genuinely brilliant engineer who was fortunate to find some incredible yoga teachers to guide not just her practice but her business as well.
Mags Baker is a digital mastermind, award-winning director, healer, and serial entrepreneur! Mags helps people of all genders manifest abundance, dream clients, soul mates, business achievements, and essentially anything into their life!
Jennifer Willemsen began her career as a psychologist, but her intuitive guides had other plans for her.
She helps women become unapologetically themselves. Yay! She wants women to know that they can be who they are and do what they want and THRIVE.
She wants women who have a dream to not get held up on money, mindset, or old-school expectations. She wants to help you go rogue!
She is one of those people who you just instantly trust with your life story, and while working in a sex-positive shop, would spend hours listening to people’s issues so they could find their pleasure....for minimum wage.
Emily Sussell is the CEO of Abundant Yogi Coaching, a business coach for yoga teachers transitioning to an online coaching business. After graduating from college, Emily didn't want to work a "real job," so she taught yoga for 7 years. But she wasn't making a ton of money at first.
She creates amazing wigs for her clients, but she also realized that other wig makers were seriously undervaluing their work, so she started coaching them on how to make a profit.
Her biggest wins came from trusting that inner knowing and realizing that IT'S SO EASY for her to teach people this stuff because she loves it, lives it, and embodies it.
“Being a poet is a funny kind of jazz. It doesn’t get you anything,” John Berryman said. “It’s just something you do.” Just wait until Jo Heckett's voice rolls over you with her potent poetry - and I don't even like poetry, y'all.
After lockdown started, she noticed her friends and family were feeling overwhelmed, and that spending all day at home in their PJs didn't help, so she created a clothing line to help women feel beautiful and inspired to exercise their bodies.
Ashley Mansour is a book strategist and the founder of LA Writing Coach. Have a book in your soul ready to be unearthed?
She used to own a luxury airplane transportation business. This is the story of how she and her husband went 300k into debt to pay off their credit cards, mortgage, and student loans.
Buckle your seatbelt: Donna "Tiger" Willis takes us on a wild ride through divorce, Christmas Tree farms, and amassing and paying off 350k worth of debt.
Aline took out 80k in student loans to get her MBA and paid if off in 2 and a half years. This is how she did it:
Chloe Ward and her husband used the Dave Ramsey Envelope Method to pay off 114k of debt on 14 months. She and her husband amassed the debt between car payments, student loans, and credit card to pay for fertility treatment.
When I asked her what needs to change, she said, “Honest dialogue.” When she brought up manipulative and unethical sales practices, she got pushback and accusations that she wasn’t practicing gratitude or being a team player.
Because of the high turnover, the massive growth, the lack of clear leadership and expectation, she found herself struggling with managing the CPY studio while still needing to hold down a job as a hairstylist to make enough money.
She was made to feel ungrateful for asking for a raise. Her biggest message now is: know whatever happens in your past, it doesn't define your potential.
Which sounds more like you?
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You live life on your own terms → You’re fulfilling other people’s expectations of you
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You’re trust yourself implicitly → You look to others for reassurance
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You are filled with joy for everything you get to do in a day → You’re already exhausted thinking of everything you have to do in a day
If you picked the answers to the right, don’t fret. I’m here to help.
The corporate yoga community in general needs to be more open to receiving and acting on the feedback it receives, and he felt the managers didn't have the authority or training to make decisions that would make the studio a better place.
Tony’s business contracts with fitness professionals at a rate 3-6 times what CPY pays its employees. They offer everything from chair yoga to qi gong to hula-hooping.
Coach Nush loved the management at the Atlanta Corepower Yoga where she worked and experienced an incredible breadth of community that encouraged her to take a teacher training, try out, and coach two teacher trainings herself.
The pay structure was frustrating, as it was for many teachers, for the level of work and experience, but ultimately, it fed Kari's desire to be her own boss.
The toxic positivity - the "attitude of gratitude" - was used as a reason not to give her a raise for the work she was doing, and she found her requests for a more reasonable working wage fell on deaf ears, which was frustrating for a company rooted in feedback.
When I asked her what changed, it was all the things that have been recorded in lawsuits against the company, including the unpaid wages lawsuit for which the plaintiffs were awarded $1.65 million in a class-action lawsuit.
The corporate yoga model is emblematic of systemic problems that we as a patriarchal, capitalistic culture are realizing needs to change. On this season, I chat with a few Corepower Yoga teachers to figure out what we want that change to look like.
I was absolutely entranced by Lisa Rose, a sex, pleasure, & embodiment coach who helps women prioritize pleasure and have wayyyy more of it! She firmly believes pleasure is a revolutionary act.
Stephanie Bousley is a personal finance author and a HUGE inspiration in the student loan game. It's all about Stephanie found financial freedom, and she provides a treasure trove of unconventional ideas to help you do the same.
Kids, this podcast is NSFW!! We talk about the existence of sex, specific sex acts, and the other types of things you can imagine happen in a strip club.
We discuss how the decisions I made at age 18 allowed me to make my dreams come true at age 28, and why it didn’t need to take that long. We dig into clear sentience and how to develop psychic ability.
Did you know that instead of an uncomfortable annoyance every month…your period could actually help you make life easier?
How to keep the social media momentum going! Sign up for all those freebies, be willing to evolve, and keep studying yourself.
Hootsuite? Planoly? Later? Have you used these social media scheduling apps before? I’m going to talk about why I DON’T, and why I prefer to outsource small tasks on a project basis to a team of VAs I keep on retainer.
Ready to start writing? Get your meditation in, do some journaling or research, and learn how to edit yourself or hire someone to edit your writing.
YES, you need to interact daily in social media - so make sure you pick social media that you love!
We’re gonna go into this in WAY more details in the Money Manifestation Course, but here’s a very basic primer on how to use your existing network to find your best clients, and how to have the confidence to push through imposter syndrome.
This is a very basic rundown of why it’s SO important to have multiple income streams and how to create those active, passive, and semi-passive income streams you need to live life on your terms.
Maybe they’re annoyingly indecisive, a toxic workaholic, hindering your expansion, or maybe just a pain in the ass.
There’s plenty of reasons to fire a client, but the main one is: they cannot pay you enough money to deal with their bullshit anymore.
Maybe you need to focus on your mental health, are going in another direction with your business, or need to tend to personal matters.
There’s definitely a wrong way to fire a client.
We’re not burning bridges here.
We’re freeing the client to find the help they really need.
While every situation is on a case-by-case basis, here are some general rules to follow. ESPECIALLY, if there’s no bad blood between you and your client!
Have you been feeling bogged down and extra stressed lately?
Friend, a transformation is calling your name!
The universe aligned you with this post for a reason 😉
Wanna know a wonderful little secret to making money?
It’s probably not the “magic potion” you’re thinking of.
The secret to bringing in the money is…
Y’all have some SERIOUS debt. I used to too! It’s okay; you can actually use debt to your advantage as long as you’re mindful about it 😊 Listen up for my top 10 ways to pay it off.
This is how I learned all about money! This is how I got myself into debt, how I got myself out of debt, and how I now use debt to grow my empire.
What is the Clubhouse app all about?
Clubhouse, the most explosive social media app, is a combination of AOL chat rooms, podcasts, and talk radio.
If you have an online business, you must be on this app.
It’s an incredible place to network making fast connections to explode growth in your business.
We'll talk about how to get an invite for Clubhouse and how to monetize your Clubhouse experience.
This is the Clubhouse Kickstarter course I took to learn how to make money from my Clubhouse account. Highly recommend!!
Love is not exclusive to couples only. Celebrate the love you have for your best friend, your mom, and of course, yourself! Give yourself the gift of self-love this Valentine’s Day with these 14 self-care gifts.
Hashtags are POWERFUL!
They can also take a long time to work.
It’s a learning process!
One of the most common questions I get for anyone starting a new business:
“How do you find clients?”
It’s quite literally a million-dollar question!
One of the most common questions I get asked is: What do you eat in a day as a vegan?
First, let me say that veganism is NOT just about the food. It means you avoid cruelty in all consumable products and avoid products tested on animals.
You might be more interested in eating a plant-based diet.
That’s how my vegan lifestyle started!
Being vegan is completely life-changing. It moves you further away from violence to connect with your highest self. It also makes a huge impact on environmental factors and your overall physical and spiritual health.
I just interviewed Aline for my Manage Your Money Yogically podcast, and she shared how she paid off 85k worth of student loans in 2.5 years.
Take a listen: ( Apple | Spotify )
This is how she did it:
We are constantly making decisions that sometimes we don’t even realize. Our brains are on autopilot. Our brains have limits. The more decisions the brain makes in a day the more tired it becomes. Each choice depletes a little bit of our willpower.
When it comes to working we’ve all been told the same thing: DON’T discuss your salary!
But why not?
Most commonly we’re told:
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It’s rude
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It strikes a nerve
Here are 5 podcasts episodes for a better you that are guaranteed to shift your perspective and help bring you closer to joy.
I have the magic formula for crafting engaging, monetizable content that will have clients begging you to help solve their problems.
Are ready to live your best life in 2021? Then you’ve come to the right place! I’ve got everything you need to flourish in your dominant dosha below.
Living your life centered around your dosha can help soothe your mind, body, and spirit, making life that much more fulfilling. From the foods you eat to the colors you where can have either a positive or negative impact depending on your dosha.
My dear Vata, I’ve compiled the most optimal exercises, foods, colors, and meditations to help align your inner energetic forces of nature. Pro tip: You’re definitely going to want to save this blog to refer back to all year long!
January is here, and she’s brought her gloomy gray skies and briskly bleak weather: a.k.a soup season. Grab your large chunky knit blanket and your Instant Pot, because they’re going to be your side-kicks all winter long!
Pop the champagne and breathe a sigh of relief because 2020 is FINALLY over! We may have bid adieu to the best-worst year, but we’re about to welcome in a universally loathed tradition: New Year’s resolutions.
When we make mediocre judgments is it a lack of willpower, exhaustion, or maybe a little bit of both? It’s called decision fatigue. Decision fatigue is the deteriorating quality of decisions made by an individual after a long session of decision making.
HEY! You look like the kind of person that needs a self-care checklist.
Am I right?
You being someone who survived 2020?
Well, you’re in luck!
Did you know that millionaires have an average of 7 income stream?
You know what that means…
✨Then the universe aligned you to see this inspiring post for a reason! ✨
Time to start a business!
I’ve lost and gained hundreds of pounds throughout my life, and am currently 50 pounds lower than my highest weight.
(I hesitate to say that I’ve lost 50 pounds, because I didn’t lose them; I turned some of them into muscle, some of them into sweat, some of them into breathe. My weight fluctuates 5 pounds in a day, so the concept of losing a finite amount of weight is a moot point).
More impressive to me is that, by learning how to communicate effectively with my body, I fell madly in love with it, and it became easier to make decisions to support that relationship.
Y’all, can I just say it? 2020 has been fucking INTENSE.
Amid global suffering, life has drastically changed for many of us. The everyday stress we were once dealing with has now been elevated. The uncertainty that has always existed in the world has been magnified x 1000.
How do you even deal??
Do you identify and deal with it right away, the stress, the anger, the frustration?
Or do you compartmentalize?
I used to compartmentalize my stress...until it led to
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burnout
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poor mental health
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extreme fatigue
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panic attacks
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depression all the other wonderful symptoms that come along with it.
This was no way to live. I had to actively work with myself to calm myself down.
Right now you may feel like you have a brick on your chest, but I want you to remember to…
The first time I tried baking with a flax “egg,” I remember being SO relieved that I wouldn’t have to give up one of my favorite hobbies along with all animal products. Here’s how I veganize all my favorite recipes.
2020 is nearly over, and that means it’s time for an annual review!
Year-end reviews have become essential in my practice. It’s one of my favorite methods to help me set goals for a year filled with productivity, prosperity, and abundance.
Are you feeling uninspired, unmotivated, and unbelievably stressed?
Friend, it might be time for a
✨ Social Media Detox ✨
Well…we did it.
2021 is limping towards us, tired but not defeated.
You’ve still got a business to run.
Let’s make it easier.
These tools and products are perfect for the solopreneur.
On today's live coaching with Dorie Ekker, we dug into, how she can outsource her current social media managing clients, the rate she ACTUALLY needs to be charging for the value of her service, the average Instagram growth rate of 2% and how she skyrockets it to 20%. and how she can give herself the space and energy for her own creative healing pursuits.
Stacey Caldwell is a talented psychic who uses dream interpretation and tarot card readings to help her clients heal traumatic psychic wounds.
But she hasn't figured out a way to get paid for it.
Yet!
Join me for a web site audit!
Today, I give some business coaching advice to Jean'ae Pennington about how to get more sales from her Lucy J Accessories web site!
So you want to build an online course! 🎉
You’ve got something you’re good at, something you’re passionate about, and you want to teach other people how to do it.
SWEET!
I have some questions for you.
Maybe you have it in your head that once you reach a certain weight that you’ll be a different person. Or if you get a certain salary your life will be perfect.
That’s not how it works, my friends. (I say this as someone who has lost 50 lbs from my highest weight, and am still depressed and anxious af without my daily practice.)
What would you do if you have 6 hours of time to do anything at all?
Sleep?
Read?
Sex??
Nope!
You’re on social media.
Have you watched “The Social Dilemma” on Netflix!?
You guys, it’s SCARY-CRAZY!
This documentary dives into the science behind our smartphone addiction, how we’re getting played by the algorithm, and that social media is basically designed to get us to buy more stuff.
I’ll be the first to admit I spend WAY too much time on my phone. 🙋
Sure, I use my phone for work. But…. I also use it to mindlessly scroll on Instagram and rewatch clips of Schitt’s Creek on Facebook. (maybe I know the choreography to “A Little Bit Alexis” but that’s beside the point!)
Do you regularly drift away into your day-dreamiest daydreams? Or frequently replay the past like a movie? Feel like you’re sleeping so much but still not waking up rested? That silly mind.
Joy is your birthright! Why are you putting it on hold? Better question: Are you even aware you are preventing yourself from experiencing joy?
Congratulations! You’d like to start your own business, and you’re wise enough to know that asking someone else who’s done it before will skyrocket your business. Yay!
Would that life were like yoga, our bodies gravitating towards the things that feel good. So often, the pain has been normalized, and so we gravitate towards that instead. How do you unlearn that?
Although Thanksgiving is a holiday centered around non-vegan food items, vegans don’t have to miss out! Here are 5 vegan Thanksgiving dinner recipes you must try!
My MOST successful passive income stream is through affiliate relationships.
I've made $$$THOUSANDS this year recommending stuff I would recommend anyway.
Are you overbooked, overworked, burnt out, and STILL looking to take on more?
Y’all, I know that feeling all too well. Back in my corporate days, I was the go-to person for everything.
EVERYTHING.
How do you feel about money? Honestly. What comes up in your body?
Is it a bit of a sensitive topic?
Would you rather:
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Clean your house → get a housekeeper
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Overwork yourself → hire a VA
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Run errands with your kids → get a nanny
✨ Say YES to what inspires you
✨ Say YES to what frees you
✨ Say YES to opportunities
✨ Say YES to your own schedule
✨ Say YES to living life without strings
✨ Say YES to living life without worrying about money
🔥 I’m the smartest
🔥 I’m the best in my field
🔥 Why can’t people get on my level?
🔥 I don’t need anyone’s help to succeed
I can choose to see the scorpion parade as a gift, a sign of protection as I move through some deep inner healing.
My mind turns in a myriad of ways, but the Yoga Sutras narrows it down to correct perceptions, mistaken perceptions, imagination, sleep, and memories. Your brain is constantly running through these 5 categories. It’s a jumbled-up thought flow that barely catches your attention ... unless you're really thinking about it.
Here is the root of your suffering: Every lie that’s ever been sold to you is about disconnecting you from oneness.
This morning, I went to go to my meditation practice...and I was attacked by a case of the But Firsts.
....but first, I needed to take the dog out.
....but first, I got caught up in some emails.
....but first, a neighbor wanted to have a chat.
And before I knew it, it was time for my first client.
ACK!
Have this happened to you?
I LOVE having a minimalist yoga kit (Ideally, it’s just me and the beach, lulus optional), but there are a few things I keep around in bulk because I end up recommending them so much I decided to start selling them myself!
Fortunately for you, I have a magic formula for crafting engaging, monetizable content that will have clients begging you to help solve their problems.
Why is making money from your content so damn difficult? You pour your time and energy into creating content you think your audience will love yet they’re not converting into clients. This seems to come easy for everyone else, but you’re only pulling in 3 measly likes and your signup page is collecting virtual cobwebs. What gives?
Once you start getting clients, word of mouth is the most powerful form of marking. A Facebook ad is not going to sell your services, but, your customer’s best friend who already took your course and loved it will.
I went live in my Manage Your Money Yogically Facebook group after having this conversation with a few clients.
Especially when you first start digging into something new, it can seem like there are already a TON of people who are offering the same thing you want to sell.
This is called market saturation, and it’s a complete myth.
I talk about it in my video here:
Ever dream of hosting your own podcast? Anchor.fm makes the process painful and SUPER simple. No joke, I set up my podcast, Splendid Yoga: Manage Your Money Yogically, in less than 10 minutes!
You’ve got the same 24 hours as Beyoncé, baby ..... except that she has sort of has more because she’s outsourced most of her life.⠀
You’ve gotta learn the tricks of the wealthy to LIVE LIFE ON YOUR TERMS UNAPOLOGETICALLY.⠀
But do it from a place of service.⠀
Here’s how to get in touch with my guest Amy Jahn:
Mutual Awakening
Here’s how to get in touch with me, your host: Morgan Balavage:
Splendid Yoga
Manage Your Money Yogically
If you want to work with multiple demographics, you need to offer different services.
Everyone thinks they’re for everyone, alright?
You aren’t.
If you have a teacher who doesn’t teach to your learning style, you won’t learn as much as you could.
If your yoga teacher asks you to do things to your body that don’t feel good, you’re not going to learn how to practice yoga as well as if you have a teacher who makes your body feel good.
If you hire a massage therapist and the way they work makes you more tense, you won’t heal as much as someone whose touch makes you melt.
If you hire a coach you don’t respect, you won’t achieve your goals as easily as if you work with someone whose advice you’re going to take because you respect how they run their business.
I am DEFINITELY not for everyone.
If I’m being honest, the only thing I’m really good at is teaching yoga.
I’ve studied it for almost 2 decades and taught for half that, and I’m a great yoga teacher.
Literally every class I’ve taught for the last several years, a student has told me it’s their favorite yoga class they’ve ever taken.
That’s because I really, really love it.
But I couldn’t make enough money teaching yoga.
So I hired a coach to figure out what my block was.
Here’s what I learned:
People don’t value yoga.
Money is not worth stress
Let me ask you something:
Have you ever been around someone who is really stressed out?
A stranger yelling at a bank teller because they overdrew their account?
A toddler throwing a tantrum because they didn’t get candy?
Do you run to that person?
Does your energy crave to be around that experience?
I got an email that someone had canceled a subscription.
My heart sank.
I felt like I had failed someone.
I felt like I had failed myself.
I took a few breaths and checked in with my body.
It felt: sad. Heavy. Defeated.
I opened the email.
I couldn’t pass an algebra test until I was in college.
I was in all advanced classes, skipped two grades, and was deemed Smart by everyone who could test me.
I started working for AOL around the time I was trying to pass pre-algebra in 7th grade.
I cried after every test, even while I was being published in books about kids and the Internet.
I took the same algebra class for nearly a decade before it finally made sense in my brain.
(Turns out I have ADD and dyscalcula. I didn’t learn this about myself until my 30s.)
Here’s the link to the Facebook ad I boosted that went viral 💛 Here’s how I interpret the numbers:
For all y'all who want to start a podcast, here's the free email guide I used to start mine:
Here’s how to get in touch with my guest: Melissa Corter:
Melissa Corter
Here’s how to get in touch with me, your host: Morgan Balavage:
Splendid Yoga
Manage Your Money Yogically
I was an employee for most of my life.
I let someone else dictate when I had to be somewhere and how I spent my time and what I did with my body and what I wore on my body and what my time was worth.
It sucked.
Tune in for some ideas on how to negotiate for your own affiliate relationships, and to get an idea of what it's like to work with me as a coach.
Marketing is kind of like translating: you need to learn how to speak someone else’s language to convince them to let you help them.
Join us here: www.facebook.com/groups/splendidyoga
and here: www.facebook.com/morganbalavageyoga
and here: www.instagram.com/splendid.yoga
and here: www.splendid.yoga
Join us here: www.facebook.com/groups/splendidyoga
and here: www.facebook.com/morganbalavageyoga
and here: www.instagram.com/splendid.yoga
and here: www.splendid.yoga
Do y’all know the importance of having an emergency fund?
Um...you’re about to.
Especially if you are in debt, you need $1000 just in case what is happening right now happens.
It’s not too late!
Here are ten ways to save up a thousand bucks during a recession pandemic disaster.
Join us here: www.facebook.com/groups/splendidyoga
and here: www.facebook.com/morganbalavageyoga
and here: www.instagram.com/splendid.yoga
and here: www.splendid.yoga
Y’all, I’ve been baking bread for decades, and this is the easier, most delicious, most fulfilling toasty toast you’ll ever make.
This one is to focus your eyes.
Nice if you’re studying a bunch (hi, students!).
Relaxing if your eyes are tired. This is a grounding, breathing exercise
because you need to calm tf down.
Try this one before your day begins.
Lay on your back, with your legs up the wall, if that’s comfortable for you.
This is a grounding, breathing exercise
because you need to calm tf down.
Try this one before your day begins.
Ever take a trip into the future?
Ever lose a night’s sleep wondering what’s going to happen?
Ever flip out over all the terrifying, terrible things that might happen?
Ever get so excited about something that’s going to happen that the reality of it is a letdown?
I’ve got some news for you, friend:
The future is none of your business.
The infinitude of the present moment is your business.
Here’s how to manage future-tripping thoughts: It used to be that, to practice yoga, you needed to be celibate.
That means no sexual experiences of any kind, including self-pleasure.
The idea is, sexuality is purely a form of humanity. To transcend sexuality, and therefore your humanity, is to attain enlightenment.
That’s not always relevant in this day and age. Not all of us can be celibate; humanity would cease to exist.
Nowadays, it’s interpreted a bit more loosely.
So what does it mean to practice sexual purity?
Take a listen:
The Yoga Sutras insist upon sexual purity, but its meaning has changed over the millennia.
It used to be that, to practice yoga, you needed to be celibate.
That means no sexual experiences of any kind, including self-pleasure.
The idea is, sexuality is purely a form of humanity. To transcend sexuality, and therefore your humanity, is to attain enlightenment.
That’s not always relevant in this day and age. Not all of us can be celibate; humanity would cease to exist.
Nowadays, it’s interpreted a bit more loosely.
So what does it mean to practice sexual purity?
Take a listen:
This is a simple breathing meditation.
Breathe in for 5.
Hold for 6.
Exhale for 7.
Focus.
These are long seconds.
Nothing fancy.
You’ve just gotta sit there and breathe.
Let’s do it.
This is a simple breathing meditation.
Just a few minutes to bring some sweet energy into your day.
Nothing fancy.
You’ve just gotta sit there and breathe.
Let’s do it.
You'll want to be laying down for this one.
Are you having a difficult time letting go of something, or someone, from your past?
This will help.
This is an energetic cord cutting for releasing your attachment to something that isn't serving you.
It's nice to do all year round, but it's significant to do on new years of all cultures and full moons.
Y’all, Taylor Lancaster is one of my best friends and Buddhist and vegan mentors.
Find him on insta @tenderliving
He was awarded the congressional Medal of Honor for his protest against GMOs, traveled on his bike for 2 years, and just finished the PCT.
He was also molested as a kid, raped, and beaten up for his queerness.
He lives life on his own terms, which is why he inspires me.
We chat in Maui about his sobriety, how that affects his queerness and his internalized homophobia, and whether any of this is real.
You can listen to this one doing whatever. We’re going to talk about the sutras.
Here’s the translation I like: https://amzn.to/2M2Pozf
The Yoga Sutras are instructions on how to become whole.
Here’s what’s holding you back:
Ignorance
Selfness
Grasping
Here’s what to do about it:
Live ethically (we’ll talk about how to do that soon)
Practice meditation
Seek wisdom
Let’s do it.
Rumi was asked:
What is poison?
Anything beyond what we need is poison.It can be power, laziness, food, ego, ambition, vanity, fear, anger, or whatever.
What is fear?
Non-acceptance of uncertainty.If we accept uncertainty, it becomes adventure.
What is envy?
Non-acceptance of good in the other.If we accept good, it becomes inspiration.
What is anger?
Non-acceptance of what is beyond our control.If we accept, it becomes tolerance.
What is hate?
Non-acceptance of people as they are.If we accept unconditionally, it becomes love.
So how do you love unconditionally, tolerate what is beyond your control, seek inspiration and adventure, and know what it is exactly what you need?
Do you sleep through the night?
Me neither.
When you wake up in the middle of the night, is it because you’re so excited about what’s going to happen the next day, like a kid before she goes to Disneyland for the first time?
Sometimes, that’s the case for me, usually right before I travel.
Usually, I’m thinking about all the stuff that’s stressing me out.
(Sometimes that’s travel, too.)
Recursive thoughts, or the 3am thoughts, as I like to call them, are those pesky memories and worries that sneak into your subconscious and just won’t let go.
They wake you up in the middle of the night because your body, in its 2 hour sleep cycle, hit a spot where some of that stress was stored.
Your body feels that stress, and your brain, to protect itself, starts thinking all these thoughts to explain why you woke up.
In the vulnerable darkness of sleep, it’s easy for those recursive thoughts to sneak in and set up camp.
This is a simple breathing and observational meditation to help you when those thoughts settle in.
Let them be.
Then let them go.
“Who knows where thoughts come from? They just appear!”
That’s a quote from Empire Records, a movie that came out over 2 decades ago (omg).
It stuck with me as a teenager, when my boarding school friends and I would watch it over and over again. We still quote the line to each other in our various Facebook activities.
It’s come up a lot in my meditation studies because the practice of meditation is basically side-eyeing your thoughts into oblivion.
In this seated meditation, you’ll learn how to label your thoughts.
Thoughts are either the past
memories
emotions
regrets
moments you’d like to experience again
attempts to understand the meaning behind things that happened
or the future
goals
to-dos
fears
moments you wish you could experience now
attempts to find to security in a plan of what’s going to happen
Label your thoughts.
Let them float on.
Until there are no more thoughts that come from the outside: the past, the future.
Then you can find peace in sitting still with only your intuition for company.
This is a meditation to help you gain clarity.
Perhaps you’ve not been feeling well but aren’t sure why.
Look, go see a doctor, different kinds of doctors.
But the body knows what it needs to heal.
Let’s ask it.
We’ll do this one lying down, as close to the ground as you can get.
May you be filled with joy.
May you be at peace.
May you move with kindness.
This is a loving kindness meditation. You offer joy, peace, and kindness to the people in your life you love in order to make it easier to offer the same joy, peace, and kindness to the people in your life with whom you have some conflict.
It’s a tool for inner peace and forgiveness.
Here’s how it works physiologically:
Your memory is only as good as the last time you remembered something.
Whaaat?
Okay, so you know when you save a document, it saves the most recent version with the edits?
It’s kind of the same thing with your memories.
When you think of someone, your neurons are tugging at the last time you remembered it, like your computer pulls up the last time you saved a document.
So what your body experiences is what you felt the last time you were thinking of that person.
You can train your brain to think peaceful, loving, kind thoughts about even the cruelest people.
It will soften them.
But more importantly, it will soften you.
Perhaps you have some travel in your future.
Here’s a simple visualization to protect you in times of stress.
Like…..going to the airport.
Like…….being around family and alcohol.
Like…………….life in general.
We’ll spend a few minutes grounding, and then you’ll glow, like the sun.
Like the sun, you have an infinite resource of energy at your disposal.
Like you, the sun exists in and of itself, not for anyone else.
That it so happens to provide energy for all life on earth is a coincidence / miracle.
That you so happen to provide sweet, protective, light-filled energy for those around you - that’s a choice.
There is no peace in the future.
There is peace in the present moment.
There is peace in the now.
But we love to think about the future.
I do, at least, especially in the middle of a big project.
I’m in a masters program to study acupuncture and herbs, and man, it’s fun to think about what it’s going to feel like when I’m done.
I’m years away from being done.
I don’t want to live the next years of my life waiting for something to be over, missing the sweetness of the present.
So I practice in the morning, breathing, being present,
confident in the knowledge that I am right where I need to be,
and feeling deeply grateful for it.
Here’s the thing with peace: it only exists in the present moment. Here’s the thing with our minds: they love to live in the past and the future.
w. t. f.
How is peace even possible, if our egos are trained to ponder the past for lessons and protect ourselves from the future? Let’s sit with it.
You can listen to this one sitting, standing, laying, or moving around about your day.
We’re gonna focus on your face.
What’s it like to have no facial expression?
What does it feel like for all the muscles in your skull to completely relax?
It’s a poker face, but more than that, it’s a moment of peace.
It’s a moment of not judging the world.
That’s what facial expressions are: our judgments of the world.
It’s not a negative or a positive thing. It’s just a reality of having a human body.
But it’s tough for the facial muscles, moving around all the time, smiling at this, scowling at that.
Let’s give ‘em a break.
How would your life be different if you started today what you wish you'd started 10 years ago?
How would your body feel if you’d gone to that fitness class you’d always wanted to try?
How would your career be different if you learned a new skill?
How would you relationships be different if you’d been kinder 10 years ago?
Let’s find out together.
Are you a highly sensitive empath? Do crowds drain you? Can you feel all the energy in a room? Are you exhausted feeling everything all the time? Here, this will help.
Tonglen is a Buddhist meditation wherein you breathe in the hard stuff and breathe out the good stuff.
It's usually the opposite!
I use it to deal with anxiety and fear.
How do you talk to your intuition? Here's a simple method to bring you clarity on what you should be doing with your life.
Let's do a breathing exercise to get deeper in touch with your intuition.
Nadi Shodhani, or alternate nostril breathing, balances the body, soothes the nervous system, and grounds your energy.
Then we can dive deeper into your intuition.
Have at it.
You think you’re attached to a person, but you’re attached to the experience you had with them.
This post is inspired by my recent adventure to Kauai, where United forgot to pack my boyfriend and I any food we could eat.
This is all about learning how to have a hard time, with grace, with growth, with love 💛
What you’re experiencing is called yearning.
What you’re experiencing is called yearning.
It’s draining.
Not good or bad.
But it’s distracting and draining and usually doesn’t serve.
Anxiety is a human condition. We really like to worry about all the stuff that isn’t happening right now! It’s part of the challenge of being human: evolving to remain present with what is instead of worrying about what isn’t.
Here’s how to snap yourself out of it:
It’s not a deal-breaker for me, but my Lululemon Aligns last longer and I would buy them again over these.
These are my most repurchased leggings, but only because Lululemon lasts longer and so I don’t need to replace them as often.
They’ve resisted taking on my funk even after teaching and taking many a hot yoga classes, but the waist has gotten a bit looser and I find myself having to scootch them up after about a year of weekly use.
So, not all of these restaurants are strictly vegan, but many offer vegan options on and off-menu.
Here are a few sure things, some of my favorite local vegan dishes, starting with the restaurants that are exclusively and strictly vegan:
I have not worn deodorant or anti-perspirant for many years, but it wasn’t until the wonderful sprouts sellers at my local farmers market clued me into fenugreek that I (and perhaps those closest to me) truly started enjoying my deodorant-free lifestyle.