Perimenopause, Cravings & Hormones: Your Body Isn’t Broken, It’s Speaking w/ Sema Özpekmezci
The Uplifted Yoga Podcast
Do cravings, fatigue, or hormonal shifts have you feeling like a stranger in your body? In this episode, I’m joined by Sema Özpekmezci for a grounded, compassionate conversation about chronic illness, women’s health, perimenopause, hormones, and what it really means to listen to your body. We explore how midlife changes can feel confusing and how symptoms like cravings, energy dips, mood shifts, and inflammation can become invitations into deeper self-understanding. Sema also shares a powerful way to think about your hormones as the “CEO” of your body and why food, stress, blood...
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Nervous System Science Every Yoga Teacher Should Know
The Uplifted Yoga Podcast
What’s actually happening in the body when yoga helps you “calm down”? In this behind-the-scenes lesson pulled directly from the Uplifted 200-Hour Yoga Teacher Training, we explore the nervous system science behind yoga, and why practices like breathwork, inversions, mantra, repetition, and Savasana can profoundly shift your stress response. You’ll learn why yoga isn’t just about relaxing, but about building awareness, resilience, and the ability to move skillfully between stress and recovery. We explore: 🔹 How yoga activates the parasympathetic nervous system 🔹 Why slow...
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How the Divine Speaks: The Neuroscience of Sacred Storytelling (Part 2)
The Uplifted Yoga Podcast
Why do the world’s great spiritual traditions teach through stories, imagery, and metaphor instead of simple instructions? In this episode, I’ll explore why metaphor changes us in a way facts alone cannot and how imagery bypasses the analytical mind to speak directly to the nervous system, imagination, memory, and body. Building on Part 1, we’ll dive deeper into Tantra’s vision of awakening as a love story between Shiva and Shakti: awareness and energy, stillness and sensation, consciousness and embodiment. I’ll explore: 🔹 Why metaphor activates the nervous system differently than...
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My Yogic Decision-Making Framework: How to Find Real Clarity
The Uplifted Yoga Podcast
How do you make a big decision… yogically? In this episode, I explore what happens when you deeply desire something — a new job, a baby, a retreat, a training, a relationship — but don’t actually have the capacity to hold it right now. This is a conversation about desire, capacity, and the real conditions for clarity. Because so often we think we’re confused, when really what’s happening is that one part of us wants something badly, and another part of us knows we don’t have the bandwidth. In this episode, I explore: 🔹 The difference between desire and capacity and why both...
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Somatic Coaching to Break Family Patterns with Amy Hunter
The Uplifted Yoga Podcast
What if the patterns running your life didn’t start with you? In this conversation, I sit down with Uplifted alum Amy Hunter to talk about the deeper work of somatic coaching, recovery, and healing family-of-origin patterns. Amy has taken multiple trainings inside the Uplifted ecosystem — including 200-hour, 300-hour, Kundalini, Embodied Yoga Life Coaching, and most recently the AI course — and now brings all of that into her own coaching practice. Together, we explore what it looks like to move from self-awareness into real change. In this episode, we cover: 🔹 How somatic coaching...
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What Is Bhakti Yoga? Krishna’s Most Confidential Teaching (Bhagavad Gita Chapter 9)
The Uplifted Yoga Podcast
What if the deepest spiritual secret wasn’t hidden somewhere far away, but woven into your ordinary life right now? In Chapter 9 of the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna reveals what he calls the “king of knowledge” and the “most confidential secret”. A teaching so simple and intimate that most people overlook it completely. This episode explores the heart of bhakti yoga: devotion, relationship with the divine, and the radical idea that the sacred permeates everything. We explore: 🔹 Why Krishna says the divine is both everywhere and beyond everything 🔹 The paradox at the center of yoga...
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Stop Trying to Be Calm: Kali & the Stress Cycle
The Uplifted Yoga Podcast
What if stress isn’t actually the problem? What if the real issue is that your body never got to finish the stress response? In this episode, we revisit one of the most powerful conversations we’ve ever had on the podcast: why healing isn’t about becoming calm all the time and how sacred rage, movement, and emotional expression may actually be the missing piece to your healing. Using the archetype of the Hindu goddess Kali, we explore the difference between suppression and regulation, why so many yogis get stuck in spiritual bypassing, and how somatic practices help the body finally...
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How the Divine Speaks: Sacred Symbolism in the Gita, Bible & Upanishads Part 1
The Uplifted Yoga Podcast
Have you ever noticed that when humans try to talk about God, awakening, truth, or the divine we almost never explain it directly? Instead, we tell stories. We say life is a battlefield. God is a shepherd. The soul is a river returning to the sea. The self is two birds sitting in the same tree. Across cultures, centuries, and spiritual traditions, mystics don’t simply define the divine, they paint it. In this episode, I take you on a kind of devotional poetry slam through sacred metaphor. We’ll explore passages from the Bhagavad Gita, the Upanishads, the Psalms, and yogic philosophy to see...
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What Makes a Great Yoga Teacher Training? Your Questions Answered
The Uplifted Yoga Podcast
Thinking about doing a yoga teacher training—but not sure how to choose the right one? In this bonus FAQ-style episode, I’m breaking down the questions I hear all the time—from “Will I actually finish?” to “Do I have to want to teach?”—and giving you a grounded, honest framework to make the best decision for YOU. Because not all trainings are created equal… and the difference isn’t just curriculum—it’s support, structure, and how you’re held through the experience. We’ll explore: 🔹 Why most people don’t finish yoga teacher training 🔹 The biggest mistake...
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7 Ways To Cultivate a Yoga Practice That Sticks
The Uplifted Yoga Podcast
If your yoga practice keeps falling off… you’re not the problem. In this episode, I share 7 simple, realistic ways to create a yoga practice that actually sticks—even in busy seasons of life. We explore how to: 🔹 Redefine what “counts” as yoga 🔹 Build consistency without perfectionism 🔹 Create anchor practices you can rely on 🔹 Eliminate decision fatigue (so you actually show up) 🔹 Make your practice feel good again Whether you're short on time, energy, or motivation—this episode will help you reconnect to a practice that supports you. ✨ Make your yoga practice 2x...
info_outlineWhat if stress isn’t actually the problem?
What if the real issue is that your body never got to finish the stress response?
In this episode, we revisit one of the most powerful conversations we’ve ever had on the podcast: why healing isn’t about becoming calm all the time and how sacred rage, movement, and emotional expression may actually be the missing piece to your healing.
Using the archetype of the Hindu goddess Kali, we explore the difference between suppression and regulation, why so many yogis get stuck in spiritual bypassing, and how somatic practices help the body finally complete the stress cycle.
We explore:
🔹 Why stress is not actually an emotion
🔹 How Kali represents sacred rage, truth, and transformation
🔹 The hidden cost of suppressing anger, grief, and overwhelm
🔹 Why calm isn’t always the goal of healing
🔹 How somatic movement helps complete the stress cycle
If you’ve ever felt like you were “bad at healing” because you couldn’t stay calm… this episode is for you.
💮Sign Up for the Free KALI YOGA CHALLENGE: Get my Kali Guidebook as an instant download and move through the challenge starting on June 19th → https://www.brettlarkin.com/kali?utm_medium=social&utm_source=podcast&utm_campaign=general
FREE Practice: Divine Feminine Yoga for Beginners | TANTRA AND SACRED SEXUALITY
Relevant Blog: Kali Mudra: What It Is and How Do You Do It?
Relevant to Today’s Episode:
📚 Healing with Somatic Yoga Book
🎧 Also Listen to:
#324 – The Importance of Emotional Processing and Regulation: DENT Model Trauma
#325 – Archetypes, Dreams & Why Nightmares are Good with Kari Hohne
#345 – Somatic Shaking: What Is It? Why Does it Work?
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