The Yoga Mat as Home: Asana and the Art of Coming Back to Yourself

The Yoga Mat as Home: Asana and the Art of Coming Back to Yourself

Most people come to yoga through a posture. A class at a gym, a video, a friend who dragged them along. They show up thinking asana is yoga — and in a way, that's a perfect place to start. In this episode we explore Asana, the third limb of Patanjali's Eight Limbs of Yoga. Not as a set of shapes to copy, but as an energetic invitation — a practice ground for learning how to meet yourself with steadiness and ease. We talk about the Sanskrit roots of the word, the sutra Sthira Sukham Asanam, what the mat reveals about how we handle challenge and change, and why in Kundalini Yoga we practice with eyes closed. The posture is the direction. You find your own way there. :::::: About Imagine Yoga Academy We are Pedro and Daniela, co-founders of Imagine Yoga Academy. Since 2012, we've trained over 900 Kundalini Yoga teachers across Switzerland (Geneva, Zurich, Lugano), Spain (Madrid, Málaga), India, and online, always free of dogma, taught as a method of self-knowledge rather than a system of rules. 🌿 Our 200h Kundalini Yoga Teacher Training in Zürich, Geneva and Lugano from October 2026 to July 2027 Nine months. Fifteen people. One way through. For people asking what comes next. 👉 https://www.imagineyogaacademy.com/200h-kundalini-yoga-training-geneva-lugano-zurich/ [https://www.imagineyogaacademy.com/200h-kundalini-yoga-training-geneva-lugano-zurich/] 🌀 Imagine Sangat [https://www.imagineyogaacademy.com/sangat-kundalini-yoga-online-practice/] — our online membership in English A community where your practice can live, even in the busy seasons. Your first step into the Imagine path. 👉 https://www.imagineyogaacademy.com/sangat-kundalini-yoga-online-practice/ [https://www.imagineyogaacademy.com/sangat-kundalini-yoga-online-practice/] 🎁 Free gift — Come Back to Yourself: [https://imagine-academy.kit.com/e761702a5b] Three guided audios. 5 minutes each. 👉 Find us: Web: www.imagineyogaacademy.com [http://www.imagineyogaacademy.com/] Instagram: @imagineyogaacademy.eng [https://www.instagram.com/imagineyogaacademy.eng] YouTube: Imagine Yoga Academy [https://www.youtube.com/imagineyogaacademy] LinkedIn: Imagine Yoga Academy [https://www.linkedin.com/company/3219382/] Love & strength, Daniela and Pedro.

Ishvara Pranidhana The Art of Letting Go Without Giving Up

There's a phrase that came to Pedro in Amritsar and hasn't left him since: I need a place to rest my head. Not the body. The head, where the ego lives, plans, calculates, and tries to control everything. Ishvara Pranidhana is the fifth and final Niyama in Patanjali's system. It asks you to act fully, show up completely, and then release your grip on the result. Not passivity. Not blind faith. Something more demanding than both. In this episode, Pedro talks about the need for control and why it eventually costs more than it gives back. About a real form of optimism that doesn't deny what happened but asks: what do I do from here? About the difference between being the author of your life and being a co-author. And about his own lifelong pattern, the Pranic Body, Karma number 8, and what it feels like when everything seems to rest on your shoulders. This is also the final episode of the Yamas and the Niyamas series. Pedro closes with a reflection on what these ten principles are together, not a checklist, but a foundation. :::::: About Imagine Yoga Academy We are Pedro and Daniela, co-founders of Imagine Yoga Academy. Since 2012, we've trained over 900 Kundalini Yoga teachers across Switzerland (Geneva, Zurich, Lugano), Spain (Madrid, Málaga), India, and online, always free of dogma, taught as a method of self-knowledge rather than a system of rules. 🌿 Our 200h Kundalini Yoga Teacher Training in Zürich, Geneva and Lugano from October 2026 to July 2027 Nine months. Fifteen people. One way through. For people asking what comes next. 👉 https://www.imagineyogaacademy.com/200h-kundalini-yoga-training-geneva-lugano-zurich/ [https://www.imagineyogaacademy.com/200h-kundalini-yoga-training-geneva-lugano-zurich/] 🌀 Imagine Sangat [https://www.imagineyogaacademy.com/sangat-kundalini-yoga-online-practice/] — our online membership in English A community where your practice can live, even in the busy seasons. Your first step into the Imagine path. 👉 https://www.imagineyogaacademy.com/sangat-kundalini-yoga-online-practice/ [https://www.imagineyogaacademy.com/sangat-kundalini-yoga-online-practice/] 🎁 Free gift — Come Back to Yourself: [https://imagine-academy.kit.com/e761702a5b] Three guided audios. 5 minutes each. 👉 Find us: Web: www.imagineyogaacademy.com [http://www.imagineyogaacademy.com/] Instagram: @imagineyogaacademy.eng [https://www.instagram.com/imagineyogaacademy.eng] YouTube: Imagine Yoga Academy [https://www.youtube.com/imagineyogaacademy] LinkedIn: Imagine Yoga Academy [https://www.linkedin.com/company/3219382/] Love & strength, Daniela and Pedro.

Svadhyaya — The Niyama That Asks You to Look Inward

What does a crisis reveal about who you really are? This week, Daniela reflects on Svadhyaya — the fourth niyama and the yoga practice of honest self-observation — from a deeply personal place. Days after two major earthquakes struck Venezuela, she sits with the grief, the impotence, and the question that surfaces for so many people carrying a country inside them: why us, why again? Svadhyaya isn't comfortable. It doesn't promise peaceful discoveries. But it offers something more valuable: the capacity to witness yourself clearly in the middle of chaos — without judgment, without collapsing. In this episode you'll learn what Svadhyaya means in Kundalini Yoga, how the concept of Sakshi (witness consciousness) works as a practical tool under pressure, and a specific Kundalini Yoga meditation for stress and sudden shock that you can try today. For anyone sitting with something hard right now — this one is for you. The Imagine Podcast is produced by Imagine Yoga Academy, offering Kundalini Yoga Teacher Training 200h online and in-person in Zürich, Geneva and Lugano. :::::: About Imagine Yoga Academy We are Pedro and Daniela, co-founders of Imagine Yoga Academy. Since 2012, we've trained over 900 Kundalini Yoga teachers across Switzerland (Geneva, Zurich, Lugano), Spain (Madrid, Málaga), India, and online, always free of dogma, taught as a method of self-knowledge rather than a system of rules. 🌿 Our 200h Kundalini Yoga Teacher Training in Zürich, Geneva and Lugano from October 2026 to July 2027 Nine months. Fifteen people. One way through. For people asking what comes next. 👉 https://www.imagineyogaacademy.com/200h-kundalini-yoga-training-geneva-lugano-zurich/ [https://www.imagineyogaacademy.com/200h-kundalini-yoga-training-geneva-lugano-zurich/] 🌀 Imagine Sangat [https://www.imagineyogaacademy.com/sangat-kundalini-yoga-online-practice/] — our online membership in English A community where your practice can live, even in the busy seasons. Your first step into the Imagine path. 👉 https://www.imagineyogaacademy.com/sangat-kundalini-yoga-online-practice/ [https://www.imagineyogaacademy.com/sangat-kundalini-yoga-online-practice/] 🎁 Free gift — Come Back to Yourself: [https://imagine-academy.kit.com/e761702a5b] Three guided audios. 5 minutes each. 👉 Find us: Web: www.imagineyogaacademy.com [http://www.imagineyogaacademy.com/] Instagram: @imagineyogaacademy.eng YouTube: Imagine Yoga Academy LinkedIn: Imagine Yoga Academy Love & strength, Daniela and Pedro

Tapas — The Third Niyama: Fire, Discipline, and the Will to Live Fully

Tapas is the third Niyama in Patanjali's Eight Limbs of Yoga. It is commonly translated as discipline. But the teachers left us something deeper than that. In this episode, Pedro Misle explores Tapas as the inner fire that makes you want to be here. Not motivated in the productivity sense. Not disciplined in the punishing sense. Alive in the fullest sense. Engaged with the journey. Curious about what's possible. Unwilling to let the days pass without really being in them. What you'll explore in this episode: • Why Tapas may be the epicenter of the entire Eight Limbs path, and what falls apart without it • The difference between happiness, gratitude, and genuine engagement with your own life • Why the absence of excitement, not sadness or burnout, is the real warning sign • Three honest, practical ways to tend your inner fire starting today • How the Niyamas build on each other: from Saucha and Santosha to Tapas This episode is part of an ongoing series on the Eight Limbs of Yoga, exploring how Patanjali's ancient framework applies to modern life — attention fragmentation, compulsive productivity, emotional avoidance, and the quiet human need to feel genuinely alive.Tapas in Kundalini Yoga is not about intensity for its own sake. It is about the willingness to show up for your own life, repeatedly, honestly, and with full presence. One question runs through this entire episode: Are you excited to be alive? Not happy. Not grateful in a performative sense. Engaged. Curious about how deep the rabbit hole goes. Press play and sit with that question. :::::: About Imagine Yoga Academy Imagine Yoga Academy is a Kundalini Yoga school founded by Daniela Troconis and Pedro Misle, training teachers internationally since 2012. The Level I 200h Kundalini Yoga Teacher Training runs in Zürich, Geneva, and Lugano. Yoga Alliance certified. Taught in English. The hybrid format combines monthly in-person weekend seminars with weekly live online sessions, lifetime access to the full online curriculum, and a four-day closing retreat in the Swiss Alps. We teach Kundalini Yoga as a method of self-knowledge, free of dogma, with no affiliation to 3HO. Since 2012, over 900 practitioners have trained with us across Switzerland (Geneva, Zürich, Lugano), Spain (Madrid, Málaga), India, and online. 🌿 Our 200h Kundalini Yoga Teacher Training in Zürich, Geneva and Lugano from October 2026 to July 2027 Nine months. Fifteen people. One way through. For people asking what comes next. 👉 ⁠https://www.imagineyogaacademy.com/200h-kundalini-yoga-training-geneva-lugano-zurich/⁠ [https://www.imagineyogaacademy.com/200h-kundalini-yoga-training-geneva-lugano-zurich/] 🌀 ⁠Imagine Sangat⁠ [https://www.imagineyogaacademy.com/sangat-kundalini-yoga-online-practice/] — our online membership in English A community where your practice can live, even in the busy seasons. Your first step into the Imagine path. 👉 ⁠https://www.imagineyogaacademy.com/sangat-kundalini-yoga-online-practice/⁠ [https://www.imagineyogaacademy.com/sangat-kundalini-yoga-online-practice/] 🎁 ⁠Free gift — Come Back to Yourself:⁠ [https://imagine-academy.kit.com/e761702a5b] Three guided audios. 5 minutes each. 👉 Find us: Web: ⁠www.imagineyogaacademy.com⁠ [http://www.imagineyogaacademy.com/] Instagram: @imagineyogaacademy.eng YouTube: Imagine Yoga Academy LinkedIn: Imagine Yoga Academy Love & strength, Daniela and Pedro

What is Santosha? The Yoga of Inner Contentment and Lasting Peace

We spend a lot of time waiting for the right conditions before allowing ourselves to feel at peace. I'll relax when. I'll be happy when. I'll feel complete when. But the finish line keeps moving. And before we know it, our peace becomes entirely dependent on circumstances we can't control. In this episode, we explore Santosha — the second of the five Niyamas in Patanjali's Eight Limbs of Yoga — often translated as contentment. Not complacency. Not passivity. But the practice of returning to the part of you that remains whole regardless of what life brings. We also look at what Santosha is not: it doesn't ask us to approve of suffering, ignore loss, or stop acting in the face of injustice. It simply points us back to something beneath all of that. Something that cannot be touched by success or failure, by praise or criticism, by what we gain or what we lose. Santoṣād anuttamaḥ sukha-lābhaḥ — through Santosha comes unsurpassed happiness. Not because life becomes perfect. But because we stop searching for lasting peace in what is constantly changing. This episode is part of our ongoing series on the Eight Limbs of Yoga — a practical exploration of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras through the lens of Kundalini Yoga and modern life. In this episode: * What Santosha really means — and what it doesn't * Why contentment is not the same as resignation * How the mantras Sat Nam and Sa Ta Na Ma connect to this teaching * The difference between circumstantial peace and inner stability * How Kundalini Yoga practice supports the cultivation of Santosha :::::: About Imagine Yoga Academy We are Pedro and Daniela, co-founders of Imagine Yoga Academy. Since 2012, we've trained over 900 Kundalini Yoga teachers across Switzerland (Geneva, Zurich, Lugano), Spain (Madrid, Málaga), India, and online, always free of dogma, taught as a method of self-knowledge rather than a system of rules. 🌿 Our 200h Kundalini Yoga Teacher Training in Zürich, Geneva and Lugano from October 2026 to July 2027 Nine months. Fifteen people. One way through. For people asking what comes next. 👉 ⁠https://www.imagineyogaacademy.com/200h-kundalini-yoga-training-geneva-lugano-zurich/⁠ [https://www.imagineyogaacademy.com/200h-kundalini-yoga-training-geneva-lugano-zurich/] 🌀 ⁠Imagine Sangat⁠ [https://www.imagineyogaacademy.com/sangat-kundalini-yoga-online-practice/] — our online membership in English A community where your practice can live, even in the busy seasons. Your first step into the Imagine path. 👉 ⁠https://www.imagineyogaacademy.com/sangat-kundalini-yoga-online-practice/⁠ [https://www.imagineyogaacademy.com/sangat-kundalini-yoga-online-practice/] 🎁 ⁠Free gift — Come Back to Yourself:⁠ [https://imagine-academy.kit.com/e761702a5b] Three guided audios. 5 minutes each. 👉 Find us: Web: ⁠www.imagineyogaacademy.com⁠ [http://www.imagineyogaacademy.com/] Instagram: @imagineyogaacademy.eng YouTube: Imagine Yoga Academy LinkedIn: Imagine Yoga Academy Love & strength, Daniela and Pedro