Are you someone that is busy, looking to get it all done, but you want to feel better in the process? If that’s you, today's episode is for you.

I sat down with Tara Stiles. Tara is a wellness expert, bestselling author, and the founder of Strala Yoga which is a combination of yoga, tai chi, and Traditional Chinese and Japanese Medicine. Tara’s bestselling books have been featured in The New York Times, Vogue, Elle, Harper’s Bazaar, InStyle, Esquire, and Shape. Tara’s work has been used in a case study by Harvard University, she is a sought-after speaker on topics of entrepreneurship, health, and wellbeing, and she has lectured at venues that include Harvard and New York University. Tara works with The Alliance for a Healthier Generation, an initiative with the American Heart Association and the Clinton Foundation that combats childhood obesity. Today, we sat down to talk Her newest book, Clean Mind, Clean Body: A 28 Day Plan for Physical, Mental and Spiritual Self-Care.

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1. Tai Chi principles can inspire the way you move in yoga. It teaches you softness. Softness is the quality that makes anything possible. You can do move if you're not rigid. Let the breath begins, the body follows.

2. physical mobility links to the emotional connection; it allows you to see how everything is in conversation with everything else.

3. Spiritual self-care is any practice that helps you reinforce positive beliefs about yourself and continue to grow into a better person.

4. Focus on feeling-based goals instead of achievement-based goals. Notice how you feel and make changes based on how you want to feel.

5. When you listen to yourself and get sensitized to your signals, you learn to connect what feels good to what is truly supportive for you. Get to know how good it feels to be good to yourself.

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I’ll be leading an Eco-Luxury Yoga Retreat in Mexico, in November 2021. I heard you, you’ve been craving to immerse yourself in yoga, nature, and community again so you can feel renewed and re-enliven. Many of us are suffering from zoom fatigue. So I’m offering you to hit the beach and the reset button so you can let go of this last year. You’ll find all the info for that retreat at erikabelanger.com/yoga-retreat-mexico.

In parallel, I have launched a Go-Fund-Me campaign. I know yoga retreats are an investment and I know how hard the last year has been. Yoga retreats were in my personal growth, so I wanted to give back. I’m raising money while investing alongside the community to make the experience of a yoga retreat available to students who wouldn’t be able to participate otherwise. If you’re able to donate anything you could transform someone’s life. And if you’re in need you can apply for the scholarship. And either way, I’d love for you to share it with the people you love and on social media. That’s a simple way you can directly impact others’ lives in a positive way. Find the Go-Fund-Me Campaign here.

Why did you write a detox / self-care book? Did something in your own life prompted you to write this book or did you see a need around you?

how did you choose the practices in the book?

Can you explain the qualities of tai chi that we could bring in any movement practice we do and in our lives in general?

Why did you consciously start with the mind and spirit before addressing the body?

What does it mean to clean our minds?

Can you give examples of practices to clean our minds or keep them clean?

How do we move from a clean mind to spiritual self-care?

How do we take care of our bodies with food while staying truly connected to what we need?

What is the role of mindset in exercise and movement? How could we approach yoga differently?

Tara Stiles is a wellness expert, bestselling author, and the founder of Strala Yoga. The Strala approach combines yoga, tai chi, and Traditional Chinese and Japanese Medicine to help people release stress, heal, let go of negative habits, and move more easily through everyday challenges. Tara’s bestselling books, which have been translated and published in multiple languages, include Strala Yoga, Make Your Own Rules Diet, Yoga Cures, and Slim Calm Sexy Yoga, and she has been featured in The New York Times, Vogue, Elle, Harper’s Bazaar, InStyle, Esquire, and Shape. Tara’s work has been used in a case study by Harvard University, she is a sought-after speaker on topics of entrepreneurship, health, and wellbeing, and she has lectured at venues that include Harvard and New York University. Tara works with The Alliance for a Healthier Generation, an initiative with the American Heart Association and the Clinton Foundation that combats childhood obesity, in order to bring Strala classes to more than 30,000 schools around the United States. She also supports the BOKS program, which delivers Strala classes and wellbeing resources to educators across North America. Her newest book, Clean Mind, Clean Body: A 28 Day Plan for Physical, Mental and Spiritual Self-Care(Dey Street Books), was released December 2020. 

Strala Home: https://stralahome.com/

Link to her book: https://www.tarastiles.com/boo

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