Discovering the Luminous Self: Insights from Tracee Stanley with Guest Host Ali Owens

Derik Mills interviews longtime friend and colleague Elena Brower about writing poetry, teaching yoga, friendship, and podcasting. They discuss Elena’s debut collection of poetry, Softening Time: Collected Poems.

Elena shares an inspiring encounter she had a Glo student who had taken classes with her online. Derik and Elena also turn the conversation inward, discussing the therapeutic journey from poetry to prose as Elena shares about her book of poems and her upcoming book.

In a previous episode of The Glo Podcast, Elena took over the microphone to guest host. Her guest was Jeff Rosenthal, co-author of Make No Small Plans: Lessons on Thinking Big, Chasing Dreams, and Building Community. Listen to her episode, Community is a Powerful Human Technology, featuring Elena Brower and Jeff Rosenthal.

Closing the chapter on this heartfelt conversation, Derik and Elena speak about dreams, the practice of Buddhism, and how to persist in creative endeavors. Both share about their insights drawn from the lectures of professor Douglas Brooks. (A number of Dr. Brooks’s are available on The Glo Podcast as episodes.)

Elena recommends a few books as well. Find them on her Bookshop.org page, where she offers reading recommendations on poetry, Zen Buddhism, perceptive parenting, on death and dying, art and writing, inspiration for daily living, leadership, yoga, mental health, and essential oils.

Key Takeaways for this Episode

(0:00:01) - a journey of friendship and business

(0:06:32) - the impact of curiosity

(0:16:36) - exploring personal growth and healing

(0:34:38) - exploring dreams and Buddhism

(0:46:41) - the art of practice and compassion

(1:00:58) - book recommendations from Elena

Links:

Elena’s Website

Elena on Instagram

Being You: A Journal by Elena Brower

Practice You: A Journal by Elena Brower

The Practice You Podcast with Elena Brower

Elena’s reading recommendations on bookshop.org.

Professor Douglas Brooks's New Winter Sessions for 2024

GLO classes:

Elena Brower on Glo

Join our conversation with host Rachel Autumn and Darby Ray, a trauma-informed yoga teacher. Darby discusses how yoga spaces can be a sanctuary, supporting students’ experiences with stress and trauma. In the compassionate world of trauma-informed yoga, personal agency and resilience are at the heart of a healing practice.

Darby has been teaching yoga for more than ten years, and is a passionate advocate for bringing trauma informed practices into wellness spaces. She’s worked in different treatment centers and communities, offering yoga as a modality to assist the body’s inherent capacity for healing and growth.

The conversation covers how to navigate the delicate balance of personal boundaries and growth within yoga, we share candid reflections on maintaining focus amidst distraction, and the power of listening to one’s body over external cues. Breathwork, often a cornerstone of yoga, is dissected for its dual role as a grounding force and a potential source of discomfort, prompting a deeper conversation on offering choices and normalizing a spectrum of responses. Moreover, we tackle the practical aspects of teaching, like the use of consent cards for hands-on adjustments and the necessity of self-care to sustain the quality of teaching, especially in group dynamics post-pandemic.

Included is a discussion about the art of crafting a yoga practice rich in options and variations that honors all bodies and abilities. Rachel and Darby explore the challenges of online instruction, affirming the critical role of language and pacing when visual cues are absent, and how the universal benefits of trauma-informed yoga that can extend beyond trauma survivors to anyone coping with life’s stresses.

Key Takeaways for this Episode

(00:00) Introduction to Darby Rae

(06:53) Addressing trauma in classes 

(11:27) The language of trauma-informed teaching

(18:00) Teachers' responsibility in trauma-informed classes

(24:01) Creating a supportive and flexible classroom environment

(26:31) Step-by-step exploration of trauma-informed yoga practice

(34:27) Importance of self-care in yoga teaching

(37:11) Building a trauma-informed public yoga class

(45:12) Trauma-informed yoga classes online

(51:02) Collective Resilience yoga teacher training

Links:

Darby Rae on Instagram

Darby Rae Website

Collective Resilience

Hala Khouri

Kira Haglund

Santa Monica Yoga

Exhale to Inhale

GLO classes:

Listen To Your Body Qi Gong with Stephanie

Regulate Emotions Flow with Elena

Nervous System Gentle Flow with Divya

Grief Support Hatha with Ivorie

Join Glo Teacher Annie Carpenter as she interviews Richard Rosen, a revered teacher in the yoga community, for an enlightening chat about breath, practice, mentors, and finding your voice as a teacher.

Their heart-to-heart talk explores the essence of persistence in yoga and how commitment enriches both our practice and life’s purpose. Richard shares about his influences and mentors, and how he evolved his own yoga teaching voice. He and Annie talk about Pranayama and how it is often underestimated in an Asana practice, and they explore the concept of karma. Richard caps off the chat with a poem that is a lighthearted reminder of life’s unpredictable nature.

Join us for this conversation that is as informative as it is inspiring.

Key Moments

(01:33) Annie Carpenter and Richard Rosen intros
(11:05) teaching yoga
(14:12) pranayama
(20:03) teaching yoga philosophy
(22:09) the evolution of yoga practice
(28:13) life's phases
(34:40) exploring mortality … and a poem to lighten the mood

Links:

Annie's SmartFlow Yoga
The Nest Yoga Studio (Oakland)

GLO classes:

Take Classes with Annie Carpenter on Glo

Jo Murdock is committed to creating wellness spaces and practices where self-care and healing is not a privilege but a right. She emphasizes the role that representation and shared experiences play in creating safe spaces to practice, where people of color and the LGBTQIA+ community are welcome in wellness spaces.

But her conversation with guest host Rachel Autumn isn’t just about obstacles; it’s a celebration of real solutions to address the root chakra issue of diversity in the wellness community. Rachel and Jo don’t shy away from discussing the financial realities of being yoga instructors and the steps they’ve taken to get a seat at the table and a place in front of a class of students.

Jo has championed developing scholarship funds at yoga studios and created a nonprofit, Reimagine Our Wellness, to foster accessible and equitable wellness spaces for people of color and the LGBTQIA+ community.

KEY TAKEAWAYS FOR THIS EPISODE

(00:01) Inclusive yoga and wellness spaces

(05:01) Exploring social equity in yoga

(11:41) Barriers and representation in yoga spaces

(20:48) Scholarship fund for underrepresented communities

(38:22) Navigating diversity and inclusion in yoga

(54:09) Yoga teachers' responsibility and compensation

(01:06:30) Expanding the vision of reimagining wellness

(01:13:09) Reimagining wellness and community support

Links:

Jo’s website

Jo’s Instagram

Jo’s YouTube Channel

Jo’s TikTok

Glo instructor Kia Miller recounts her transformative journey of self-discovery through yoga and meditation. She describes how her Kundalini practice helped reframe her sense of self and examine limiting beliefs.

Kia shares how a summer-long spiritual retreat surfaced deep-seated negative patterns. As her practice unfolded, she began releasing layers of self-doubt and reconnecting with core human emotions like joy, fear, anger, and sadness.

Listen as Kia and host Derik Mills discuss yoga’s potential to align our body, mind, and spirit. Kia draws comparisons between humans and musical instruments - both capable of beautiful vibrations when aligned. As their conversation continues, you’ll join an enlightening exploration of dreams and Kundalini kriyās, learn about yoga’s power to disrupt negative patterns, and its potential to bring out our deeper wisdom.

Key Takeaways for this Episode

1. (0:00:00) - Inner life exploration through yoga, self-healing, and emotional awareness. 

2. (0:18:40) - The infinite journey: The impact of yoga on personal transformation and self-discovery.

3. (0:23:49) - Kundalini yoga and kriyās: Shifting the autonomic nervous system and awakening energy.

4. (0:37:22) - Yoga and elevated states of consciousness: Overcoming self-doubt and negative patterns.

5. (0:47:08) - Kriyās for personal growth: transforming our state of being and healing the mind.

Links:

Kia’s website

Kia’s Instagram

GLO classes:

Kia Miller on Glo

Marc Laws discusses his inspiring journey from professional soccer player to sports therapy practitioner to yoga teacher with a popular following on Glo.com. In this deep-dive conversation with host Derik Mills, Marc shares about the life-changing power of yoga, discusses how he discovered a yoga teacher who changed his view of life, and shares insights that he discovered when he was an ultra-competitive professional soccer player who later became a sports medicine therapist and then yoga teacher.
Marc also mentions how thankful he is for the Glo team’s work in making yoga more accessible worldwide. He believes that the skills developed in yoga allow people to live with more love and connection in their lives.

Key Takeaways

(00:00) Yoga, sports, and gratitude
(09:01) Discovering the power of yoga
(18:45) Influences of soccer on yoga teaching
(28:35) Reflections on identity, empathy, and parenting
(40:22) Yoga's impact and reach
(51:47) Exploring personal practices and relationships
(58:53) Gratitude for team, teachers, community

Links:

Marc Laws' Website

Marc on Instagram

The Glo Podcast: How Understanding Neuroscience Can Expand Your Yoga Practice, with Celest Pereira on Apple Podcasts

GLO classes:

Marc Laws' classes on Glo

Guest host Ali Owens visits with Tracee Stanley, author of Radiant Rest: Yoga Nidra for Deep Relaxation and Awakened Clarity and a new book, The Luminous Self: Sacred Yogic Practices and Rituals to Remember Who you Are.
Tracee opened her first yoga studio in Los Angeles in 2001 and has been a Hollywood film producer. She is the founder of Empowered Life Circle, a sacred community and portal of practices, rituals, and Tantric teachings inspired by more than 25 years of studentship in Sri Vidya Tantra and the teachings of the Himalayan Masters.
Tracee and Ali discuss yoga Nidra, a meditative practice that is sometimes called “yoga sleep.” Yoga Nidra can help practitioners reconnect with their true nature, paving the way for personal transformation and collective healing.
The conversation wraps up with Tracee emphasizing the need for practices that are not just for us, but for the collective, and how we can use them to heal the world.
Links:
Tracee Stanley’s website
Radiant Rest by Tracee Stanley
The Luminous Self by Tracee Stanley
Tracee on Instagram
GLO classes:
Ali Owens’s classes on Glo

Jeni DelPozo realized that she had a passion for dance at an early age, and has transformed that passion into a love of all things fitness. Jeni’s Glo classes focus on strength training, cardio, mat Pilates, and HIIT.

Jeni describes herself as “slightly obsessed with fitness,” and says that she loves strength training, boxing, cycling, and yoga. She finds connections amid all of these forms of training and fitness because of her deep roots in Pilates. “Pilates is the base to all of my training. No matter what workout I’m doing, Pilates is the foundation for my body to take it on,” Jeni says.

In today’s episode, we’ll be discussing the cognitive benefits of dance. Jeni will also be sharing some candid insights into her experiences with burnout and how she manages it. We’ll touch on how reading books unrelated to fitness provides an escape and a sense of balance.

A few key points in the episode:

(0:00:00) - Jeni DelPozo chronicles her career path from dancing to fashion, then to fitness and wellness, touching on her strategies to avoid burnout and engage her online students.

(0:12:02) - She stresses the significance of comprehending the business aspect of fitness, using her fashion industry knowledge, and advocates for integrating physical and mental exercises.

(0:16:55) - Derik and Jeni discuss how Jeni's collaboration with Glo has simplified her workout concepts, along with the benefits of her Pilates background in offering effective workout strategies to clients.

(0:28:54) - She addresses burnout and self-criticism in fitness careers, offering her methods for self-reconnection and understanding the motives behind workouts.

(0:35:28) - Jeni reveals her recent interest in reading fiction for leisure and her passion for running, alongside her plans to get a lifting certification.

Links:

Jeni’s Website

Jeni on Instagram

Jeni on YouTube

GLO classes:

Jeni DelPozo Classes on Glo

How can the practice of yoga transform your approach to one of life’s most enduring challenges—parenting? Meet Sarah Ezrin, award-winning author of The Yoga of Parenting: Ten Yoga-Based Practices to Help You Stay Grounded, Connect with Your Kids, and Be Kind to Yourself. She’s a mother, yoga teacher, and freelance writer. 

In this week’s interview, with guest host Ivorie Jenkins, a Glo teacher, Sarah Ezrin opens up about her struggles with postpartum depression and anxiety, and how she successfully navigated these challenges using different modalities, including yoga, meditation, and medication. She shares her insights into the concept of Kleshas, the obstacles that life throws at us, and how changing our approach to obstacles can change our lives.

Together, Ivorie and Sarah explore how parenting can be a yoga practice all by itself. They discuss the art of balancing your yoga practice with the challenges of raising children. Stick around till the end to find out about Sarah’s East Coast author tour and also how you can connect with her. 

Links

Sarah’s Website

Sarah on Instagram

GLO classes:

Ivorie Jenkins Classes on Glo 

Listen in as our guest, Glo teacher and celebrity wellness coach Amy Rosoff Davis, shares her perspective on accepting benefits of meditation to help stay in the present moment despite the challenges of juggling a fast-paced lifestyle. As a wellness coach, mother, and entrepreneur, Amy is all about finding balance when possible, not only in her professional and personal life, but also in her fitness journey. She tells of feeling torn between work and parenting, and how she continues to work toward a journey to embracing imperfection and finding joy in mindful movement. 

Amy shares her wellness routine and the supplements she uses to maintain her health. Amy also gives us an insider’s view of her work on the Glo platform and her excitement about working with the Glo team and teaching on the Glo platform.

A few key points in the episode: 

[00:02:25] Acceptance and growth in meditation. 

[00:04:15] Work-life balance struggles. 

[00:07:38] Body freedom and self-love. 

[00:12:00] Sway back and abdominal work. 

[00:17:01] Addressing pain and making changes. 

[00:19:29] Behind the scenes working with team Glo. 

[00:23:15] Connection with online community. 

[00:29:20] Infrared sweating and heat. 

Links:

Amy Rosoff Davis on Instagram

Amy Rosoff Davis website

GLO classes:

Amy Rosoff Davis classes on Glo