Happy International Yoga Day 2025!

Happy International Yoga Day!

Today, on 21 June 2025, we honour International Yoga Day. A moment to pause, reflect, and connect with ourselves. To mark this special occasion, I’ve brought together three guests on my podcast (thanks lafdies):

Melinda Ferrier - Professional Orgnaniser & KonMari Consultant. Yoga Student
https://www.livelifeorganised.com.au/

'I think I started because I thought it would be good for me, because with running, I thought I needed to be doing a little bit more cross training, working on my strength, my flexibility, my balance, and also aging.
And hearing that it's so important for women to be doing all of this, I thought righty o, I'll start going. And then I started enjoying it. And I could feel the benefits of it. I think that's why I've kept going.' Episode 3

Rebel Tucker: Yoga Therapist, Senior Yoga Teacher, Yoga Teacher Trainer & Mentor, Yoga Australia Board Member
https://yogarebel.com.au/

I feel like I am who I am because of yoga. And when I say that it's not because of the fancy poses and the flexibility and the mobility and the health benefits. But primarily for me, it's been the benefits for my mind. I think that yoga essentially for me in certain times of my life has been life-saving. It's kept me together.
It's helped me pull myself together in moments of great adversity and challenge. He was 25 and he took his own life. He had been diagnosed back then with manic depression. Yoga was the thing that allowed me to accept what was going on, to be able to ask some of the tough questions of the universe and of myself. What is yoga? Well, if we took it strictly by a little old book written 350 BC, Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, which is considered a great summary of yoga. Essentially, yoga would be defined as a still mind. And I actually really like that. So, I think of yoga as a set of practices and philosophies to help us live well.
Now, for me, one of the most powerful things in helping us live well is the mastery that we have of our mind. And yoga as traditionally defined is yoga is the cessation of the fluctuations of mind. And when we're able to quieten our mind and experience yourself as that which is observing our mind thinking and our body doing things, we can see that we are more than our body, more than our mind, more than our thoughts.
We have our experience as that. Being that pure consciousness yoga to me is anything that gives us that experience of being our true nature, experiencing our true essence. It's an experiential practice. We could say it's philosophical and that it's a set of philosophies, but ultimately it is definitely something that is an experience.
It's a way to experience life, a lens through which to look at life and to interpret the world. And the act of quieting down our mind allows us to be with what is, with what actually is, rather than what we might be imagining or hallucinating or hoping for, that we actually get to be with what is and be present.
So for me, yoga is anything that teaches us to quiet our mind and experience the present moment.’ Episode 2

Justine Janssen - Senior Yoga Teacher, Yoga Teacher Trainer & Mentor, Former Studio Owner.
https://embodywellbeingonline.podia.com/

'I think for me, the best way I can describe it is that yoga is like my ground. It's a real way for me to feel stability and to feel gravity, and it has been that important because in times where life has been on fast forward and might not have been consistent in its pace, yoga's really helped me physically, emotionally, mentally, in all of the ways for myself, just being a person in the world.
It's not. All roses. There's lots of different challenges and adversities that we all face day to day, and I think yoga has been, uh, such a beautiful ground to hold me when times have been tough as I've moved through a practice that had started in very hot classes, Vinyasa, uh, and I grew and learned to teach and.
Move my body and open myself up and explore all of the different ways that yoga adds to health in my body. I was also experiencing on levels that I would never have been able to grasp before starting just how much that affected my mental and emotional state and capacity. So I think yoga has been something that has held me in good mental health.
It has supported me in my body when I have been under stress or duress, and even in terms of just my day-to-day health. I've noticed over the years that there's been such a supportive aspect of yoga, just being in my life, uh, not getting sick as often, being more resilient in my body, within my organ systems, within my circulation, my lymphatic system.
Just all of the ways that I think sometimes we. Forget about and we just think that yoga's going to help us become more bendy. I think that, you know, me staying in it for so long has enabled me to see that that full blossoming of how much it can affect body and mind connection. A lot of us don't realise about that mind body connection until we start practicing things like yoga.
Yeah. And the different responses. It gives us choices to. The way that even, uh, the physiological aspects of being able to breathe deeper to being able to breathe in different techniques, in different ways assists you with not only this physicality in health and wellbeing, but also. Really comes in through the way that we're able to breathe more deeply to the places within us that might not have been recognised.
So our emotional state, our mental state, the way we might do things in the world, we just start to be able to breathe better.'

To explore what yoga means to them. 2 of them who are also yoga teachers share how it’s transformed their lives. Stick around until the video at the end. You’ll hear their heartfelt stories and find inspiration for your own practice.

Why International Yoga Day Matters

As we honour this day, it’s worth remembering that yoga belongs to everybody. Regardless of age, flexibility, or background. It’s an invitation to slow down, tune in, and reconnect with the most reliable anchor we have: our breath.' Episode 7

The real yoga happens off the mat. Here’s what I’ve learned and what I hope you take into your own life today:

Yoga is personal Everyone’s yoga looks different. That’s something to be celebrated. Your practice might mean:

• emptying the mind
• a soothing pranayama
• a strong flow
• Mantra meditation
• Self-inquiry with your mentor or study the scriptures
• Or something else whatever you need at that time.

As Rebel notes many yogic practices are science-backed.

Consistency is more important. A few minutes of daily practice. Whether a posture, breath-work, or meditation etc. Can create ripples of well-being throughout your week. 

It lives in the messy moments When things aren’t smooth. Feelings ripple, days pull us in a thousand directions. That’s when yoga becomes a tool. It’s not about folding yourself into the required 'shape'. It’s about using what you've learned in your practise and bringing it into your own life.

3 Simple Ways You Can Celebrate Today

• Take 5–10 minutes for a short yoga practice.. No mat required! It can happen on the floor, in a chair, or even standing.
• Set an intention—a gentle reminder of why do you practice yoga? What do you want from it moving forward?
• Reflect on what yoga means to you and what it has helped you with.

One Final Thought...

If you can breathe, you can practice yoga!

Cheers

Liz