MatChat with Mina Blair

Apparently we breathe in and out about 22,000 times a day without thinking.  It happens automatically, a bodily function we take for granted, along with the heart beating and the body digesting.  But the ancient yogis discovered that there was much more to the breath when practiced consciously - what would happen if you paid attention when you breathed? Who better to ask than Devdas, lead pranayam...

Carmela Martinez is no stranger to the concept of letting go on many levels.  When she took over her father's printing business seven years ago in Montreal, Canada, she had some big shoes to fill.  The company was organised on old school, patriarchal values which Carmela quickly realised didn't resonate with her management style.  Enter: a challenging time of forging change that had her...

We spend a lot of time and energy clinging onto stuff, don't we!  Just think about it.  What are the things you are constantly striving for or fear losing - your looks?  Money?  Status?  A relationship?  It can get quite exhausting.  And it's a timely subject given we're being forced to think about what we really need in the wake of current food/energy/petrol supply issues. I invite...

It's simply a fact that empowering others feels empowering!  You've learnt some stuff in your life - specific skills, knowledge, and maybe you've had a few unexpected curve balls thrown at you that's given you wisdom and resilience - and now it's time to share that with others.  To give a leg up to those finding their own way on their journey.  It feels great, it feels rig...

There is a lot of discussion and information out there about the mind-body connection, isn't there.  It's a big topic.  But what does it mean?  And what can cause disassociation, a disconnect, between the head and the body? So this week I'm chatting with Joff Brown, a Functional Neurology Practitioner and Pain & Performance Therapist, to find out more.  He spends his personal ti...

Regardless of where we live in the world, what we believe in and what work we do, there is one thing every human being has in common: the need to eat.  Most people have to buy food, making choices about what to put into our, and our family's, bodies.  It's an ongoing routine that goes on automatic most of the time, I expect.  And perhaps now, with a pandemic-induced health awareness, we...

Phil Hewitt (UK runner, author and journalist) woke up to a sunny morning in Cape Town, South Africa and a day filled with his favourite sport, cricket.  He was thrilled to have got tickets and make the journey.  But by the end of the day, Phil's life had changed forever.  A decision to walk back to the city on his own led to a near-fatal knife attack, his life miraculously saved by a passing...

It's Mother's Day in the UK this coming Sunday, when we celebrate mothers, but it's actually a day that is difficult for many.  You may have lost a mother recently/prematurely, or desperately want to be a mother but can't for whatever reason, or have a difficult relationship with your mother, or have lost a child and are no longer a mother.  Yeah, it can be a pretty loaded day....

It's a solo episode this week as I share reflections on a recent trip to the Arctic!  It's my second trip to Northern Norway but this time in mid-winter, when the landscape is covered in ice and snow.  It's just as raw and rugged and awe-inducing as summer, but perhaps a bit more magical in the frosty glow. While there, I visited a Sami reindeer camp, where we could interact with th...

We arrive into this world and meet the people (or person) who are going to look after us, usually our parents.  From that moment on we are dependent on them/her/him until we are old enough to take care of ourselves and establish our own lives.  But this relationship, be it good or bad, easy or hard, joyful or painful - let's try to take the judgement out of it - remains part of our story. Reg...

It was just another day until Katy Parker was crossing the road and got hit by a van only a metre away from reaching the pavement.  Lying dazed on the ground but aware she had been badly injured, she was overwhelmed with a profound sense of gratitude.  Gratitude that she was still alive, she could open her eyes and see the sky.  Later in A&E, she was told it had been a very close call - a few...

To suffer is to be human, but this is a tricky question which might provoke an immediate "No!" for some or most people. Resisting or avoiding pain is understandable and perfectly natural! However, it's something I can explore with Baruch Zeichner who describes his life as a growth journey.  After gaining a Masters Degree in Counselling Psychology from college in New Hampshire, US, B...

What is unconditional love?  That's a big bite to chew, isn't it!  And to tackle this universal, eternal key life question, I invite my friend and fellow yogi Sarah Cox back onto the mat.  Loving should be so easy and effortless, I mean, we all have a heart, so what is the problem.  Well, it turns out that love is a risky business involving heartache and disappointment, depending on who...

Human beings have had a relationship with the plant world since we were formed.  We rely on it for food, fuel and food for raising domestic animals which also sustain us.  But we have also relied on plants and herbs for medicinal purposes and for helping us heal.  Herbalism is a tradition found in every culture in the world, anywhere plants grow. Which is why I'm excited to chat with Dee Atki...

I'm sure I'm not the only one who finds regular meditation challenging to maintain in all the busy-ness of daily life, but Burkhard Langemann is very clear that it's an essential practice we need to do daily.  Like brushing our teeth.  Hygiene for the mouth and hygiene for the mind, he says. Burkhard should know, he is a Psychologist by background and is currently a Yoga & Medit...

I'm always curious when I sense - hear, feel or see - fear of change.  It's like we think that a state of things-must-stay-the-same is a safe, secure place, and that change is scary or dangerous.  Fear of change is actually fear of the unknown, the not-knowing.  But the reality is that change is happening constantly, it's something we can neither control nor resist or avoid.  And ch...

I celebrate the start of a new year and my chosen theme for the year, resilience, by inviting fellow yogi Reva Myers onto the mat for a chat.  We met on Bali nearly five years ago where we shared an intense month on a yoga teacher training course, a life-changing experience for us both.  She returned to the US with a dream to live the life of a travelling yoga teacher, going wherever the spirit wo...

It's the end of another year and a natural pause for reflection.  So this week I'm sitting on my virtual mat on my own and sharing some thoughts on the year that's gone.  What will you take with you into the new year?  What have you learned?  Do you need to make some changes to the way you behave, to what you value and to your attitude?  I think in the end it's about discoverin...

One of the key learnings in the ancient yogic scripture The Bhagavad Gita , is: " It is better to strive in one's own dharma than to succeed in the dharma of another.  Nothing is ever lost in following one's own dharma. " Dharma is Sanskrit for purpose, for one's calling.  It's the thing you've come into the world to do and it resonates deeply in your heart.  It...

Humans have been treating their ailments for thousands of years in one way or another, leaning into what Mother Nature offers.  Conceived in 1796 by the German physician Samuel Hahnemann, homeopathy joined the ranks of traditional (I don't like the word 'alternative'!) medicine and has been helping people heal ever since. I ask Lone Pedersen what she has discovered during the 20 yea...

Christmas is soon upon us with all the excitement and expectation that that implies!  It's a time of celebration and joy, of course, but it can also be a difficult time, of stress, as you strive to make it whatever you feel it needs to be.  If you celebrate Christmas, you will have developed a relationship with it over the years, and perhaps wellbeing tends not be on the (very long) seasonal...

This week I'm exploring the gut with Nutritional Therapist Nicola Russell.  It's so much more than a 9 metre long tube where stuff goes in at the top and waste comes out at the bottom!  It produces more neurotransmitters than the brain.  It regulates and self-cleans itself.  It controls our mood.  We discuss all this and other interesting facts as Nicola takes us through her own gut jour...

It feels like we at times fear or fight change in principle, that we'd prefer things stayed the same.  And yet change is all around and within us constantly without our control!  Take the female body.  From the moment of birth, it's an ongoing growth that shifts into monthly cycles, pausing only for the 9 month wonder of pregnancy if and when that occurs, before it gears down into peri-...

This is Part 2 of a discussion with Ciara Roberts, a holistic kidney expert with lived experience of dialysis and transplantation.  A yoga teacher and naturopathic nutritionist of 10 years, she is also the author of Wholly Aligned, Wholly Alive: Awakening your inner physician . Having chatted about Ciara's health story in Part 1, our focus moves onto the importance of honest conversations abo...

This is Part 1 of a discussion with Ciara Roberts, a holistic kidney expert with lived experience of dialysis and transplantation.  A yoga teacher and naturopathic nutritionist of 10 years, she is also the author of Wholly Aligned, Wholly Alive: Awakening your inner physician .  Ciara shares her health story which started at the tender age of four, when a strep throat infection led to permanent ki...