On and Off Your Mat Yoga Podcast

Do you love crystals as I do? If you’d like to learn more about them, how to care for them and how to use them, this episode is for you.

For today’s episode, I sat down with Pam Urbas and Andy Duchovnay. Pam is a Yin Yoga Teacher and Andy is an environmental advocate. Together, they are Spiritual Artists, Rockhounds, Sound Healers, and owners of The Indigo Sanctuary, an online source of hand-crafted and Reiki-infused products for yoga, home sanctuary, sound healing, gemstone healing, and meditation. They are lovers of nature and collect their gemstones and crystals themselves and their travels. They cut, shape, polish and incorporate them into spiritual artwork and malas. With that particular background, I thought it would be very interesting to sit down with them and talk about gemstones and crystals.

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We just transitioned our Premium Membership to this new platform: www.withribbon.com/u/erikabelanger. As a member, you can get a ton of exclusive audio and video content. We added a new library of almost 200 recorded full-length yoga classes in a Netflix-Style Membership. Finally, you can sign up for any live-stream class I offer! Everything yoga-class-related is now in the same place! If you’re new to With Ribbon, here’s a walkthrough video I recorded to help you find your way around.

Know that as you become a Premium Member, your contribution ripples to thousands of people every week, allowing me to offer accessible quality free content to a wide community of yogis. This podcast is one of the away I contribute to the community, and this membership is a way you can too. It allows you to share everything yoga offers with the world by supporting me in the creation and production of this podcast while I choose to keep it ad-free. 

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.

We are at episode 96, so getting close to our 100th episode. For the occasion, we have an incredible bundle of gifts for you! From yoga props to clothes, to classes, and so much more. We have joined forces with brands we love to celebrate the occasion: Athleta, Liform, Ajna WellBeing, Yoga Tune Up, Spritzs Wellness London, and some guests from older episodes for some books, including Jason Nemer from our episode on Acro-Yoga. To participate in our giveaway you have to vote for your favorite episode and you can do so here.

About our sponsors:

1. Athleta. They make yoga and fitness clothes, athleisure and so much more. Their mission is to ignite a community of active, healthy, confident women and girls who empower each other to reach their limitless potential. Instead of using fitness models, they have diverse women athletes of all ages, sizes, and backgrounds in their ad campaigns. They are a B Corp focused on fair trade practices, sustainable materials, and production. So Athleta has generously offered to give a $100 gift card for our giveaway.
2. Ajna Wellbeing is a sister-run company committed to creating holistic lifestyle and wellness products that are eco-friendly, sustainable, and beautifully designed. Their mission is to create a holistic health movement based on a mindful and intuitive way of being, healing, and thriving. Which is where the name stands for. They are gifting you an Ajna Wellbeing's Eco Yoga Bolster which is handstitched from recycled materials into this eco-suede-luxurious bolster. But that's not all. They are also adding an Eco-Lite Acupressure Mat & Pillow Set. This therapeutic acupressure kit harnesses your body’s natural healing powers. It’s also made from eco-friendly, non-toxic, plant-based materials, making it just as good for the Earth as it is for you so you can create a simple and effective way to find a moment of calm in your hectic day.
3. Check our next episodes to hear about the other sponsors!

1- We are all made of energy and are all vibrations. So are the gemstones. We, as humans can entrain our energy with the ones around us. The determination of the healing aspect of each stone has come from intuition and experimentation. And these findings have been validated through different cultures over time.

2- For empaths, it's important to clear any new stones and to clear them every time you use them or wear them. In all cases though, trust yourself with what you need and follow their intuition on it.

3- Sage, sound healing, moonlight, and saltwater are all good ways to clear stones.

4- When picking a stone, take a few deep breaths, hold the stone, notice what it's "saying" to you, how do you feel, if it aligns with what you're looking for or in need of.

5- As a practice, you can clear the stones, hold them, use affirmations with them, meditate with them, wear them on you, use them in home decor, on an altar, and in beauty routines. You can also place them in plants. Create a relationship with a stone. Add them to any healing or personal practices.

• What is the difference between gemstones and crystals?
• What makes certain stones healing? Or what gives them particular properties? 
• Do gemstones also carry energy from the rockhounds and all the people that have handled them before they got to you?
• Once we get new gemstones, how do we prepare them before using them?
• What are the rituals we can use to clear stones?
• What are some of the most common gemstones and their known effects?
• The color of the chakras and the gemstones doesn’t always align, why is that?
• Can you give an example of practice so we can use the gemstones?

Pam and Andy are Spiritual Artists, Rockhounds, Sound Healers, and Entrepreneurs and are the creators of The Indigo Sanctuary, an online source of hand-crafted, Reiki-infused, yoga, home sanctuary, sound healing, gemstone healing, and meditation products.

Pam is a Yoga Teacher, who focuses her practice on Yin Yoga. She has taught yoga in homeless shelters, nursing homes, senior centers, as well as in studios and gyms. Yin Yoga is a meditative practice that focuses on long holds of seated or reclined poses that work to unwind the body's deeper layers of fascia. Each pose is usually held for 3-5 minutes.

Andy is an environmental advocate, having worked for the EPA for 30 years. Before then, he represented organic food producers and was involved with the US Organic Food Production Law of 1990.

They are both certified Nepali Sound Healers trained by Grand Master Shree in Kathmandu, Nepal. Pam and Andy have conducted Yin Yoga and Yoga Nidra and singing bowl sound bath programs and conducted chakra balancing sessions throughout the Philadelphia area. 

They are lovers of nature and collect gemstones in their travels across the US. They cut, shape and polish these gemstones in their home lapidary studio and incorporate them into spiritual artwork and malas.

Pam and Andy travel extensively through Nepal and continue to work collaboratively with their business partners Jaki and Tulsi in Nepal. Pam and Andy believe in giving back, and they have established a scholarship program, which pays the tuition for two young girls in Nepal.

Website: www.theindigosanctuary.com (Coupon code 10% on their website: SpiritualArtist10)

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