Jivana wraps Season 1 of the Yoga Revolution Podcast by reflecting on the writing, publishing, and promotional process he’s experienced over the past couple years. He shares about his history and experiences with both activism and yoga, including his first introduction to the practice (his grandmother), and how his connection to the practice has grown and changed throughout life. He also hints at some exciting offerings and happenings coming soon, including upcoming book clubs and forthcoming books, as well as where you can follow along with his work. Find the links below. Finally, Jivana reads a few sections from Yoga Revolution and offers suggestions for how to live our yoga practice authentically and connect our spiritual nature with our varied human experiences.Follow Jivana on Instagram.Listen to the Accessible Yoga Podcast.Learn more about Jivana's book.Learn more about Jivana.Pre-order your copy of Yoga Revolution at Shambhala, Amazon, or wherever books are sold.

As this season of the Yoga Revolution Podcast comes to a close, Jivana chats with Beth Frankl, the editor of his two books, Accessible Yoga andYoga Revolution, the book that inspired this podcast. Beth is an Executive Editor at Shambhala Publications, where she has worked for more than 23 years. She and Jivana discuss the book writing and publishing process, including where and how to begin, and how to compare publishing models (e.g. self-publishing v. working with a traditional publishing company). Beth also shares about some of the inspiring teachers, thought leaders, and authors she has worked with over the years and how the book writing process can be reflective, therapeutic, and, at times, quite challenging. The two reflect on the beauty of the writer-publisher relationship and how it's a form of collaboration and spiritual practice over both the short- and long-term.Learn more about Shambhala Publications.Learn more about Jivana's book.Learn more about Jivana.Pre-order your copy of Yoga Revolution at Shambhala, Amazon, or wherever books are sold.

This week M Camellia joins Jivana to take a deep dive into how we can challenge the norms and “rules” of Westernized yoga culture and co-create a culture that focuses on collective, rather than just individual, liberation. Melanie “M” Camellia (they/them) is a fat, queer, non-binary, neuro-emergent yoga teacher, writer, and advocate, called to create profoundly accessible spaces for self-inquiry. They believe that the goal of yoga is collective liberation and challenge contemporary yoga practitioners to dismantle the systems and beliefs that hold us all back. M is a co-founder of the Trans Yoga Project and serves on the staff of Accessible Yoga, among other roles within the realm of yoga service. Their teaching and writing often center Queer and Trans* identity, consent and agency, fat liberation, and disability justice in relation to yoga philosophy and practice, and they serve as a mentor for other yoga teachers and practitioners desiring to deepen their understanding of accessibility, trauma, and yoga as social justice. On this episode, M offers profound and heartfelt insight into what it means to invite agency and exploration into yoga spaces, the importance of learning when and how to say “no” and “yes” on and off the mat, and consent and power dynamics in yoga. They also provide specific examples of how to do this as yoga teachers and practitioners. Learn more about M and their offerings.Follow M on Instagram.Follow the Trans Yoga Project on Instagram.Learn more about Jivana's book.Learn more about Jivana.Pre-order your copy of Yoga Revolution at Shambala, Amazon, or wherever books are sold.

This week’s guest, Octavia Raheem, teaches us to slow down, prioritize rest, and honor our varied human experiences. Octavia is a mother, author of "Gather," yoga teacher, and founder of Starshine & Clay Online Yoga and Meditation Studio for Black Women and Women of Color. A deep listener and truth teller, Octavia is a gatherer and space holder for rest and awakening. As a teacher and leader she has the skill of hearing beneath the surface for what isn’t being said, yet needs to. Octavia has more than 15 years of experience and nearly 10,000 hours of leading classes, immersions, and trainings. She guides us toward resonance and connection even when the truths we witness, hear, and encounter vary from our own. Her conversation with Jivana touches on how these truths arise in today’s world, as well as what it means to practice activism as a form of yoga, the importance of mindful space holding and compassionate language, and how simply being is perhaps the most important practice of all.  Order Octavia's new book "Pause, Rest, Be," due out February 2022.Learn more about Octavia.Follow Octavia's inspirational Instagram. Learn more about Jivana's book.Learn more about Jivana.Pre-order your copy of Yoga Revolution at Shambala, Amazon, or wherever books are sold.

This week Marc Settembrino joins Jivana for a powerful conversation about living in a larger body, reclaiming the word "fat," righteous anger, and the disconnect between capitalism and the yogic teachings. Marc is a fat-queer educator, researcher, and yoga facilitator based in Hammond, LA, who envisions a world that celebrates diversity and promotes dignity. In 2018 Marc created Fat Kid Yoga Club, a supportive yoga community for folks with larger bodies to explore joyful movement and celebrate what is possible in their bodies one practice at a time. Marc describes their experience living in a larger body, how fat folks are often objectified simply for existing, and how asana helped inspire their teaching philosophy: to hold space for people to move their bodies freely and experience them in a way that is not attached to shame. Jivana and Marc also take a deep dive into the harmful impact of diet culture in Western or "American" yoga and discuss the problematic nature of our modern-day yoga mat. Learn more about Marc.Follow Mark and Fat Kid Yoga Club on Instagram.Learn more about McMindfulness by Ronald Purser. Learn more about Jivana's book.Learn more about Jivana.Pre-order your copy of Yoga Revolution at Shambala, Amazon, or wherever books are sold.

Mei Lai Swan joins Jivana to discuss what it means to experience deep interconnectedness, the ethics of yoga, systemic and cultural trauma, and trauma-informed yoga teaching. Born on the unceded indigenous lands of Australia, Mei Lai Swan is the founder of social enterprise yoga school Yoga for Humankind, offering specialized trainings in Trauma-Informed Yoga and Embodied Social Change. Dedicated to the paths of yoga, meditation, and community practice for over 20 years, Mei Lai Swan’s approach to yoga is deeply embodied, inclusive, and inquiry-based. She is an experienced yoga teacher trainer and certified Embodied Flow facilitator with a professional background in music, community development, and social work. Mei Lai specializes in trauma-informed yoga and social justice, somatics, and nada yoga (sound and mantra). She and Jivana consider how power dynamics and social conditioning affect how we teach yoga, the collective responsibility to heal trauma, and, interestingly, the connection between astrophysics and yoga.Learn more about Mei Lai.Follow Mei Lai on Instagram. Learn more about Jivana's book.Learn more about Jivana.Pre-order your copy of Yoga Revolution at Shambala, Amazon, or wherever books are sold.

This week Itzel Berrio Hayward joins Jivana Heyman for a warm and dynamic conversation about our innate divinity, finding unity in diversity, and the relationship between social justice and yoga. Itzel is a compassionate and fierce advocate for love. After serving as a public policy lawyer for 13 years, Itzel left her legal career and founded Attuned Living, a mindfulness and wellness organization that helps individuals heal the sense of separation they feel from others—or even from themselves. Her unique work—based on the teachings of yoga, mindfulness, and compassionate communication—ranges from promoting social justice work within organizations and communities to guiding individuals on their search for personal and professional fulfillment. During their heartfelt chat, Jivana and Itzel consider the following: How is our spirituality connected to our humanity? How do we avoid making the yogic teachings overly dogmatic while still keeping the tradition alive? And, how can we connect those teachings to our modern-day, human experience for the benefit of all?Learn more about Itzel and Attuned Living.Follow Itzel on Instagram.Learn more about Jivana's book.Learn more about Jivana.Pre-order your copy of Yoga Revolution at Shambala, Amazon, or wherever books are sold.

This week Jivana shares a heartfelt conversation about yoga service with teacher Adrian Molina. Adrian has been teaching yoga since 2004 and has an extensive worldwide following through his platform and school of yoga, Warrior Flow. Even with his wide-ranging reach, Adrian remains humble, warm, and dedicated to using the tools and practices of yoga to benefit others. He is also a writer, meditation teacher, sound therapist, End-of-Life Doula, Mental Health First Aid facilitator, an ambassador for Accessible Yoga and Yoga for All, and soon to be a TCTSY facilitator. Adrian is recognized as a community organizer and founder of The Warrior Flow Foundation, a 501c3 nonprofit that brings the benefits of movement, therapeutic and accessible yoga, mindfulness, and stress reduction tools to schools, shelters, hospitals, police, first responders, and hospice care. He is also the co-founder of Warrior Flow TV, an online video platform that makes fitness and yoga accessible to anyone, anywhere, anytime. Jivana and Adrian discuss what self care means in the context of yoga service, how teaching is also a form of self care, and why bringing yoga to unusual places, such as hospitals and police stations, combines spiritual practice and social justice and is, in many ways, the path to a true yoga revolution. Learn more about Adrian and Warrior Flow.Join Adrian's Instagram community.Join the Warrior Flow Instagram community. Learn more about Jivana's book.Learn more about Jivana.Pre-order your copy of Yoga Revolution at Shambala, Amazon, or wherever books are sold.

On Episode 12 of Yoga Revolution, despite a few connection issues along the way, Jivana and De Jur Jones share a moving conversation about teaching yoga in prisons, trauma-informed yoga, generational trauma, and yoga service. A yoga devotee since 2001, De Jur attended Loyola Marymount University’s Yoga Therapy program and teaches a therapeutic style of yoga suitable for most students. Along with having taught countless mainstream classes, De Jur offers programs to incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people, unhoused populations, mentally challenged seniors, foster youth, those in recovery, human trafficking victims/survivors, and staff who serve all these groups. De Jur is a contributor to the Yoga Service Council’s best practices book series “Best Practices for Yoga in the Criminal Justice System," an Accessible Yoga Ambassador, and a featured model in “Accessible Yoga, Poses and Practices for Every Body”, “Yoga After 50 For Dummies," and "Embodied Resilience through Yoga: 30 Mindful Essays. De Jur co-chaired at the 2019 International Association of Yoga Therapists Conference and moonlights as a flight attendant. From prison lockdowns to class cancellations to navigating endless streams of bureaucratic red tape, De Jur offers a glimpse into the various difficulties she encounters teaching in prisons, as well as how problematic the (in)justice system is, particularly for folks of color. She also offers pointers around shifting language to be more inclusive and equitable (as well as her hilarious, yet useful phrase and practice of “third eye rolling”). Learn more about De Jur and her offerings. Learn more about Jivana's book. Learn more about Jivana. Pre-order your copy of Yoga Revolution at Shambala, Amazon, or wherever books are sold.

This week's guest is Rane Bowen (he/him), a long-time student of yoga and meditation. He shares his personal journey with stomach cancer, how the practices helped him cope with the emotional difficulties of a terminal (mis)diagnosis, and how he's deepening his connection to his Maori heritage. Rane has an insatiable curiosity about the yoga teachings and how they can help people in their daily lives and in overcoming adversity. Alongside his wife Jo Stewart, he teaches yoga at Garden of Yoga, a home-based yoga studio, and co-hosts the Flow Artists Podcast, which features teachers and thinkers about yoga, meditation, social justice, and more. Jivana and Rane discuss how the yoga teachings connect to death and how spirituality can help us address suffering and tap into a deeper level of compassion. The two also consider how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the way we care for others and view freedom and collective care. Take a class with Rane.Follow Rane on Instagram.Listen to the Flow Artists Podcast.Learn more about Jivana's book.Learn more about Jivana.Pre-order your copy of Yoga Revolution at Shambala, Amazon, or wherever books are sold.