131: What Practice Looks Like During Heartbreak with Sara Avant Stover
Today on the podcast I am introducing you to someone very special to me: one of my most important teachers, Sara Avant Stover. I started studying with Sara privately in the fall of 2012 and what I learned from her radically altered my life path. I went on several deep, immersive retreats with her, the last one in 2016.
Since the last time we saw each other Sara has suffered several very intense heartbreaks and gone deeper into her practice than ever before. Surviving these challenging times and coming out more whole and happy than ever before has expanded her teaching immensely and I’m so honored to share her deep wisdom with you today.
Sara Avant Stover (she/her) is a Certified Internal Family Systems (IFS) Practitioner and teacher and mentor of women's spirituality, empowerment, and entrepreneurship. She's also the author of The Way of the Happy Woman , The Book of SHE , and Handbook for the Heartbroken.
In this episode, you’ll hear:
about the heartbreak journeys that led Sara to write this book
the aspects of Sara’s heartbreak journey that she struggled with the most
a deep dive into Internal Family Systems and how it helped both Sara and I heal from trauma
what Sara has seen change in the landscape of online yoga and meditation and teacher trainings since she started offering them in the early 2000s
advice from Sara about building a career as a yoga teacher right now
Learn More From Sara:
This episode is brought to you by OfferingTree, an easy-to-use, all-in-one online platform for yoga teachers that provides a personal website, booking, payment, blogging, and many other great features. If you sign up at www.offeringtree.com/mentor, you’ll get 50% off your first three months (or 15% off any annual plan)! OfferingTree supports me with each sign-up. I’m proud to be supported by a public benefit company whose mission is to further wellness access and education for everyone.
Recent Podcast Episodes
If I were to ask you what the purpose of asana is, what would you say? Would you say it was to feel better in the body? To build strength and flexibility? To prepare the body for meditation practice? To help people connect more deeply to their breath and themselves?
These are all beautiful answers!!
But if you gave a very specific movement cue or alignment principle when teaching asana, and I asked you what the purpose of that was, what would you say?
I think many of us value clarity and specificity in our teaching, but because of the way we were trained to teach movement, we fall into highly dogmatic or aesthetic based cueing even when that doesn’t honor our values.
Today’s podcast episode is a deep inquiry into the purpose of asana, especially as it applies to teaching movement in a specific and precise way.