This week's guest is Anjali Rao, a yoga teacher, social justice activist, community organizer, multi-cultural training specialist, and cancer survivor. Anjali is an Indian American from Bangalore, India. Her work explores yoga philosophy and history, integrating marginalized voices using storytelling, imagery, and poetry. Jivana and Anjali discuss the intersection of yoga and social justice in the context of the modern world, capitalism, and the yogic texts (the Bhagavad Gita and Yoga Sutras). Anjali also offers her wisdom about how to use our yoga practice to "bridge divides" within our many communities.Learn more about Anjali.Follow Anjali for inspiration on Instagram. Learn more about Yoga Revolution by Jivana Heyman. Order your copy of Yoga Revolution at Shambala, or wherever books are sold.  Also by Jivana Heyman:Accessible Yoga: Poses & Practices for Every Body (2019, Shambala)The Teacher's Guide to Accessible Yoga: Best Practices for Sharing Yoga with Every Body (2024)Connect with Jivana:www.jivanaheyman.com@jivanaheymanfacebook.com/jivanaheymanwww.accessibleyogaschool.com@accessibleyogaschoolfacebook.com/accessibleyogaschool

J. Miles joins Jivana this week to discuss what it means "to go through the fire of life" as yoga practitioners and the importance of maintaining our practice as yoga teachers. Creator of Maha Vira Yoga, J has been dancing to the rhythm of life since childhood. A yoga practitioner, martial artist, bodyworker, retired breakdancer, community activist, and the son of a Baptist minister, J has been learning and studying Eastern arts and philosophy for nearly two decades. Over the years, he has crafted a style tempered by real life experience, humor, yogic philosophy, and the importance of breath as a guide and source of strength. He opens up about what it means to teach yoga and live as a Black man and how to maintain a feeling of joy and abundance despite various challenges in his life and community. Jivana and J describe the theme of this episode as "spiritual practice as compost" and explain why cultivating good soil helps to cultivate a good life.Learn more about J.Follow J's journey on Instagram.Contact J about trainings, private sessions, and more. Learn more about Yoga Revolution by Jivana Heyman. Order your copy of Yoga Revolution at Shambala, or wherever books are sold.  Also by Jivana Heyman:Accessible Yoga: Poses & Practices for Every Body (2019, Shambala)The Teacher's Guide to Accessible Yoga: Best Practices for Sharing Yoga with Every Body (2024)Connect with Jivana:www.jivanaheyman.com@jivanaheymanfacebook.com/jivanaheymanwww.accessibleyogaschool.com@accessibleyogaschoolfacebook.com/accessibleyogaschool

Michelle Cassandra Johnson joins Jivana to help answer the question: How do we realize a world in which we can all be free? An author, yoga teacher, social justice activist, intuitive healer, and Dismantling Racism trainer, Michelle approaches her life and work from a place of empowerment, embodiment, and integration. Whether in an anti-oppression training, yoga space, intuitive healing session, or this podcast, the heart, healing, and wholeness are at the center of how Michelle approaches her work in the world. She and Jivana consider how our individual choices affect our community's wellbeing and what it means to be in service to each other. Michelle reminds us of the importance of maintaining our own spiritual practice when showing up for the collective good and teaches us how to connect to the wisdom of our ancestors.Learn more about Michelle and her trainings.Purchase Michelle's new book Finding Refuge.Purchase Michelle's renowned book Skill in Action. Learn more about Yoga Revolution by Jivana Heyman. Order your copy of Yoga Revolution at Shambala, or wherever books are sold.  Also by Jivana Heyman:Accessible Yoga: Poses & Practices for Every Body (2019, Shambala)The Teacher's Guide to Accessible Yoga: Best Practices for Sharing Yoga with Every Body (2024)Connect with Jivana:www.jivanaheyman.com@jivanaheymanfacebook.com/jivanaheymanwww.accessibleyogaschool.com@accessibleyogaschoolfacebook.com/accessibleyogaschool

This week on Yoga Revolution, Jivana speaks with Susanna Barkataki, an Indian yoga practitioner in the Shankaracharya tradition who supports practitioners in leading with equity, diversity, and yogic values. Susanna is founder of Ignite Yoga and Wellness Institute and runs 200/500 Yoga Teacher Training programs. She is an E-RYT 500, Certified Yoga Therapist with International Association of Yoga Therapists (C-IAYT). She and Jivana discuss how to find unity in diversity, creativity as an alternative to cultural appropriation, and the harm caused by spiritual bypassing and separation. Learn more about Susanna. Learn more about Yoga Revolution by Jivana Heyman. Order your copy of Yoga Revolution at Shambala, or wherever books are sold.  Also by Jivana Heyman:Accessible Yoga: Poses & Practices for Every Body (2019, Shambala)The Teacher's Guide to Accessible Yoga: Best Practices for Sharing Yoga with Every Body (2024)Connect with Jivana:www.jivanaheyman.com@jivanaheymanfacebook.com/jivanaheymanwww.accessibleyogaschool.com@accessibleyogaschoolfacebook.com/accessibleyogaschool

The first Yoga Revolution guest is Kelley Nicole Palmer, a creative, space holder, and advocate whose work centers around organizing, re-imagining, and leaning into wholeness together. An E-RYT and Accessible Yoga teacher and trainer, Kelley graciously wrote the foreword for Yoga Revolution and shares how yoga offered tools for "transmuting anger into action" and a path to activism. She and Jivana discuss the connection between our inner lived experiences and the way we act in the world, the importance of dismantling systems of oppression, moving beyond the physical practice of yoga, and more.  Learn more about Kelley. Learn more about Yoga Revolution by Jivana Heyman. Order your copy of Yoga Revolution at Shambala, or wherever books are sold.  Also by Jivana Heyman:Accessible Yoga: Poses & Practices for Every Body (2019, Shambala)The Teacher's Guide to Accessible Yoga: Best Practices for Sharing Yoga with Every Body (2024)Connect with Jivana:www.jivanaheyman.com@jivanaheymanfacebook.com/jivanaheymanwww.accessibleyogaschool.com@accessibleyogaschoolfacebook.com/accessibleyogaschool 

Welcome to the Yoga Revolution Podcast! In this introductory episode, Jivana offers an overview of his new book Yoga Revolution and shares the inspiration behind the book's primary question: "How do we live yoga now?" He discusses how the spiritual teachings can guide both inner and outer revolutions and why so many yoga practitioners and spiritual leaders--many of whom are interviewed on this show and in the book--connect yoga with social and racial justice. Listen for a short reading and to find out what's coming this season on Yoga Revolution.Learn more about Yoga Revolution by Jivana Heyman. Order your copy of Yoga Revolution at Shambala, or wherever books are sold.  Also by Jivana Heyman:Accessible Yoga: Poses & Practices for Every Body (2019, Shambala)The Teacher's Guide to Accessible Yoga: Best Practices for Sharing Yoga with Every Body (2024)Connect with Jivana:www.jivanaheyman.com@jivanaheymanfacebook.com/jivanaheymanwww.accessibleyogaschool.com@accessibleyogaschoolfacebook.com/accessibleyogaschool