In today's episode I sit down with Tejal Patel (she/they) a first-generation Indian American yoga teacher, writer, podcaster, and community organizer. Tejal’s aim is to educate and empower individuals and groups around the world to practice yoga holistically and through a social justice equity lens.
We explore:
- Tejal's background Story & beginning Yoga Teacher training in 2012
- Seeking community through South Asian Teachers
- Practicing Yoga through a lens of advocacy, belonging and equity
- Integrating Social Justice into the Yoga Practices
- Understanding the barriers to the yoga practice for people
- Exploring accessible and pricing
- Integrating authenticity and capitalism
- How to find a balance with keeping integrity in the practices and making a living
- Using strategic planning and flexibility to forecast what is possible and the power in exploring your numbers
- Inviting in the idea of Mutual Aid for people that have more to give
- Exploring the overwhelm that can come from bringing social justice into the yoga practices
- Inviting in the uncomfortable and owning your own self awareness
- Finding a process system when you feel like you have done enough and how to find resources to move yourself forward
- Starting to broaden your scope and expand your perspective
- The power in continuing to try, learn and grow
- “Both” and “and” can exist together - expanding your network of receiving information
- Asking the question of what you think the practice of yoga is?
- Exploring where you get information and if diversity exists
- Untapped power of connecting and being a connector to increase our sense of belonging
Tejal can be found decolonizing wellness with the revolutionary Tejal Yoga Online, a primarily South Asian teacher-led yoga space, with the abcdyogi interactive community, an online hub for healing and learning, and through the Yoga is Dead podcast, e-book, and signature cultural appropriation training.
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