LYT

Category: Podcasts

  • 181 | Monday Motivation: Habits Matter

    Today’s podcast is about habit formation, and this is in lieu of New Year’s resolutions and goals because most people don’t achieve them. The problem is that they try to change too much too fast. Habits, on the other hand, are tiny little actions that build up, like compound interest. 

    In his book The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg talks about starting super small with habits. For example, if you want to start running, for the first week you would just have your shoes out and look at them. Week two you might put them on and lace them up. In week three you might walk around the block. 

    Listen to the episode for a look into the science of behavior change. I cover why creating a positive feedback loop and working on the identity behind your actions can make a huge impact on your brain.


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  • 180 | Second Act | with Barbara Majeski

    180 | Second Act | with Barbara Majeski

    In 2015 life was going pretty well for Barbara Majeski. She was a married stay at home mom in New Jersey. She had received a Humanitarian Award for her work advocating for children and adults with special needs. Then her marriage suddenly came to a complete crash and burn – and she was diagnosed with colon cancer.

    She got to a point during her chemo treatment where she thought she wasn’t going to make it out, and started to wonder about her legacy. She listed the things she was most proud of in her life – putting herself through college, taking care of her brother with special needs and advocating for people who didn’t have a voice. 

    Then she realized that taking care of her brother had given her the greatest gift – the gift of purpose. She asked the Universe to get her out of cancer and chemo so she could continue to use her voice for the greater good. 

    The Universe delivered, so Barbara hired a media trainer and started putting herself out there. Since then she’s appeared on media outlets like the Today Show and is building a brand about finding happiness and living a good life with purpose.

    There are so many great lessons from this interview including:

    • Confronting our own mortality
    • Using your experience to help others
    • Not letting perfectionism, comparison and fear get in our way
    • Not waiting for things to be handed to you
    • Ending a marriage with love and positivity
    • Women backing other women
    • Barbara’s upcoming podcast


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  • 179 | Cultivating Kinship

    179 | Cultivating Kinship

    Today is usually a Wednesday Q&A. But instead I’m using this holiday as an opportunity to ask the question, how can we cultivate more kinship with one another? Kinship is the way we connect to each other as human beings. How can we be more aware of everyone around us and our different cultures, religions, faiths and backgrounds?

    The world is a divisive place right now so this holiday season, especially with this new decade coming in, presents a wonderful chance for us to really operate at a higher frequency. One of the ways we can cultivate a greater sense of kinship is recognizing that we consistently impact others with our choices. 

    So goodwill to all. As much as I want for myself, I want for others as well. So I’m here for you and sending you all kinds of hugs. If you celebrate Christmas, Merry, Merry Christmas. If you celebrate Hanukkah, Happy Hanukkah. If you celebrate Kwanzaa, Happy Kwanzaa. Whatever you’re celebrating today, let’s celebrate kinship, that we all are interconnected. And let’s show up big today and into this new decade so we can help our world and all beings in it. 


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  • 178 | Monday Motivation: IMPROVE Yourself

    178 | Monday Motivation: IMPROVE Yourself

    There’s always room for improvement on how we behave, move, respond and live our lives. And that’s a good thing. Because it means that we can be better than we were in the recent or distant past. In yoga in particular we’re always pursuing a higher consciousness and a higher state of being.


    As much as we’re aware of this, it’s also easy to get our head in a space where we’re not thinking about how to improve. So I created an acronym to make it easy to remember that our mission is always to evolve.

    Listen to the episode to find out how to support your own evolution even when you’re weighed down by self-criticism, trauma or judgement of others. 

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  • 177 | Friday Fun: Functional Movement

    177 | Friday Fun: Functional Movement

    We need to add more fun and functional movements into our exercise programs because things like crawling and jumping can help us so much physically and emotionally. 

    For example, crawling makes us stronger, more mobile, more coordinated and more integrated with our core. If you haven’t done it in a long time, it doesn’t feel as easy as you think. And it’s also incredibly playful. There’s so many different ways of crawling, including like a baby, bear, crab or commando style. 

    So go out there and have fun with movement, even in yoga! Life is too serious. Let’s be lighter and let’s help each other out by giving ourselves permission to be centered in joy and spirit. 


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  • 176 | Wednesday Q&A

    176 | Wednesday Q&A

    Today I’m back to answer your questions on Wednesday Q&A. Keep them coming – I love taking this time to find out what you’re thinking and doing what I can to help you! Plus one of the questions in this week’s Q&A actually gave me the idea for a class, so look out for that on my LYT™ Daily.


    Your questions:


    • How do you treat and modify to avoid yoga butt? 
    • What kind of skin products do you use? 
    • I noticed that you don’t do pranayama in your classes but I feel like my breath is bigger than it ever has been. How do you explain that? 
    • How do you keep that euphoric post-teaching feeling and not experience an adrenaline dump?
    • Do you teach arm balances like crow pose or eight-angle pose?


    Do you have a question?


    Resources

  • 175 | Monday Motivation

    This past weekend I saw Madonna perform for the first time. This has been on my bucket list forever. I was a huge Madonna fan growing up. I love her work ethic, her discipline, her drive, her charisma, her courage and that she’s completely independent of anyone’s criticism.

    I saw her in a small Broadway theater as part of her Madame X tour, and going into the theater we all had to turn off our phones and put them into these bags, which were then locked. So we could hold on to our phones, but we couldn’t access them. 

    This meant that nobody could record her on stage, but also that everyone was much more present. Sadly, I don’t even remember the last time I was around 3,000 people and no-one had their phone out. 

    Can you bring this rule into your life and have some technology-free time? Let’s put our phones out of sight and spend time truly engaged in what we’re doing.

     

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  • 174 | Friday Friendships

    174 | Friday Friendships

    There’s so many wonderful ways to connect with people that we didn’t have before because of technology. However, the connection can be somewhat superficial. I’m not saying it doesn’t matter, but it doesn’t go to the depths that face-to-face friendships can go into. 


    Research shows that Americans are becoming more and more socially isolated. The impact on health and longevity is huge because people who are isolated are more likely to die prematurely than people who have strong social relationships. The effects of social links on life span are actually 2X the effects of exercising and equivalent to quitting smoking!


    In this episode I use the acronym FRIEND to talk about all the ways we can nourish and cultivate friendships in this modern life. 


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