Finding Harmony Podcast

Harmony sits down with her fellow Canadian and spinal energetics colleague, Mel Brandt — chiropractor, coach, and founder of a new paradigm for healer-entrepreneurs. After 18 years building a multidisciplinary chiropractic clinic in Kelowna, BC, Mel recently sold her practice to step fully into the work she believes she was always meant to do: helping healers clear the energetic and subconscious blocks that keep them playing small in their businesses and their lives.

What begins as a conversation about spinal energetics quickly opens into something much larger: the emotional roots of physical pain, the limiting scope of institutional medicine, the spiritual initiation of selling a business you built from scratch, and the deep identity work required to ask yourself, "Who am I without what I do?"

Mel shares how a back injury she couldn't heal using conventional methods led her to German New Medicine — and the revelation that her pain was actually part of a healing phase, not a sign that something was broken. She traces her path from that awakening through subconscious coaching, spinal energetics training, and ultimately the decision to fully release her clinic identity and build something new.

Together, Harmony and Mel explore why healers so often undervalue their services, what makes coaching categorically different from training, and why the discomfort of evolving is — for both of them — far less painful than the discomfort of staying put.

This episode is for anyone navigating a calling that doesn't fit inside the box they've been living in.

Key Topics Covered

Spinal energetics as a bridge between physical anatomy and energetic healing

German New Medicine and the emotional-conflict roots of chronic pain

Why BC chiropractic scope limits prevented integration of energy work

Identity dissolution: releasing 18 years as a clinic owner

The healer's wound: compassion, undervaluing services, and the fear of being salesy

Coaching vs. training — the mirror vs. the curriculum

Insurance-covered care and the mindset it creates in clients

Accountability, skin in the game, and 'jumping timelines'

Outgrowing professional communities without making it mean something about you

Spinal energetics as ritual: structure holding spontaneous transformation

About Mel Brandt

Mel Brandt is a chiropractor, certified spinal energetics practitioner, and business coach based in Kelowna, British Columbia. She founded and ran a multidisciplinary health clinic for 18 years, growing it to 16 practitioners before selling in early 2026 to focus entirely on her coaching work. Mel now helps healers, coaches, and practitioners expand their impact, clear subconscious blocks, and build businesses that are aligned with their deeper purpose. Her current signature programs blend spinal energetics, subconscious work, and business strategy for practitioners ready to move beyond the treatment room.

 

Guest Links & Resources

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/melbrandtrewired/

https://melbrandt.com/beyond-the-table

 

Host Announcement: Portugal Sessions

Harmony Slater will be offering in-person spinal energetics sessions in Portugal this summer:• Lisbon (Agora Lisboa): June 25–28• Faro: July 8–12DM @harmonyslaterofficial on Instagram to book.

The Inner Rejuvenation Codes: https://harmonyslater.kit.com/inner-rejuvenation-codes-mc

Join the Lightworker Mastermind:  https://harmonyslater.com/lightworker-mastermind

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Harmony on IG: https://www.instagram.com/harmonyslaterofficial/
Finding Harmony Podcast on IG: https://www.instagram.com/findingharmonypodcast/

FREE Manifestation Activation: https://harmonyslater.kit.com/manifestation-activation

What does yoga actually mean? If you answered 'union,' Harmony and Russell have a fascinating surprise for you. In this deeply rich conversation with Sanskrit scholar and Ashtanga teacher Zoë Slatoff, the trio explores the ancient philosophical roots beneath the practices many of us do every day.

Zoë is the author of Yogavataranam: The Translation of Yoga, A New Approach to Sanskrit, Associate Director of the Yoga Studies MA program at Loyola Marymount University (Los Angeles), and a PhD candidate whose dissertation may permanently change the way you think about what yoga is for.

The conversation moves from Zoë's early years in Brooklyn and a pivotal Rodney Yee VHS tape, to engineering studies at the elite Cooper Union, to teaching 16 yoga classes a week in New York City, to the magic of Lakshmi Puram in Mysore before the internet existed. It arrives, finally, at the big philosophical question at the heart of her dissertation: how did yoga go from meaning separation to meaning union?

What You'll Learn in This Episode

Why "yoga" in the Yoga Sutras means separation—not union—and how Advaita Vedanta changed everything

The role of the Upadesha Sahasri (attributed to Shankaracharya) in bridging dualism and non-duality

How Pattabhi Jois used to quote ancient Vedantic texts every single day in conference in Lakshmi Puram

Why the neti neti practice ('not this, not that') is a powerful tool for modern meditators

How Zoë began her Sanskrit journey in Mysore and transformed it into a published textbook and academic career

What it means to teach Sanskrit in a way that actually serves yoga practitioners (not classical scholars)

The magic—and the chaos—of traveling to India without the internet, using hand-drawn maps and STD phone boxes

Why Zoë believes dualism and non-duality are ultimately describing the same thing, just from different angles

Guest Bio: Zoë Slatoff
Zoë Slatoff is a Sanskrit scholar, longtime Ashtanga yoga practitioner and teacher, and author of Yogavataranam: The Translation of Yoga—a groundbreaking Sanskrit grammar textbook designed specifically for yoga practitioners who want to read the texts that inform their practice. She holds a master's degree from Columbia University in Asian Languages and Cultures, is completing her PhD at Lancaster University, and currently serves as Associate Director (and incoming Director) of the Yoga Studies MA program at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. She also teaches Sanskrit online through the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies.

Resources & Links Mentioned

Yogavataranam: The Translation of Yoga by Zoë Slatoff — available wherever books are sold (new edition coming soon)

Yoga Studies MA Program at Loyola Marymount University — visit lmu.edu for admissions info

Sanskrit classes online through the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies — check Zoë's website at ashtangayogasanskrit.com

Yoga Gives Back — the charity whose fundraising gala reunited Zoë, Harmony, and Russell in LA

Harmony Slater's Portugal intensives — Lisbon and Faro (end of June through mid-July); details in show links

The Being Gathering festival, Portugal

The Inner Rejuvenation Codes: https://harmonyslater.kit.com/inner-rejuvenation-codes-mc

Join the Lightworker Mastermind:  https://harmonyslater.com/lightworker-mastermind

FIND Harmony online: https://harmonyslater.com/
Harmony on IG: https://www.instagram.com/harmonyslaterofficial/
Finding Harmony Podcast on IG: https://www.instagram.com/findingharmonypodcast/

FREE Manifestation Activation: https://harmonyslater.kit.com/manifestation-activation

What does it actually mean to practice yoga — and are any of us really doing it? In this rich and unhurried conversation, Harmony sits down with Tara Mitra: Ashtanga teacher, yoga therapist, and devoted Vedic chanting practitioner who has spent decades tracing the practice back to its roots.

Tara's path moved from high-stress corporate life in Toronto to studying Ashtanga with dedicated teachers in Canada and California, then four years assisting in the Mysore shala, and finally into the Krishnamacharya lineage in Chennai — where yoga therapy, pranayama, Vedic chanting, and philosophy became her deepest studies. Today she works with everyone from cancer patients to hospice clients, with the simple premise: if you can breathe, she can teach you something.

This conversation is a slow, deliberate unwinding of everything we think we know about yoga — and an invitation back to what it actually is.

 

In this episode you'll explore:

Why 'nobody is really practicing yoga' — and what that actually means

The journey from Ashtanga to yoga therapy: what made Tara go deeper

How chanting and philosophy naturally shift the inner landscape

Samasthiti as 'the pregnant pause' — and why skipping it misses the point

The monkey mind: drunk, stung by a scorpion, and haunted — and what practice does to each layer

Chitta vritti nirodha and what the Yoga Sutras actually say about the mind

Spiritual bypassing: the 'good vibes only' trap and premature transcendence

The radical practice of doing nothing — no phone, no tea, just thirty minutes at a window

Ayurveda and the body's natural rhythms in the age of artificial light and screen time

The pancha vayus and why pranayama is far subtler than it looks

The breath as the great friend — and its connection to spirit in every tradition

Redefining the guru: someone who isn't caught in your own distortions

Sangha: why community isn't optional on the path

How beginners should start: not by thinking

The butterfly mind vs. the stability of genuine practice

Boundaries as an expression of love, not a closing off

Equanimity (upeksha) as a lifelong practice, not a destination

 

Connect with Tara Mitra:

Website: taramitrayoga.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/taramitrayoga/

Offerings: Yoga Sutras classes, Vedic chanting, Upanishad study, mentorship program

 

Resources mentioned:

Yoga Sutras of Patanjali — chitta vritti nirodha (YS 1.2); the nine obstacles; YS 1.33 brahmaviharas

Shanti mantra: Purnamadah Purnamidam (Brihadaranyaka Upanishad)

Krishnamacharya lineage (Mysore & Chennai / Desikachar branch)

Ashtanga trishthana — breath, drishti, bandha

Ayurveda and the concept of natural daily rhythms (dinacharya)

Harmony's upcoming Portugal workshops — harmonyslater.com/events

The Inner Rejuvenation Codes: https://harmonyslater.kit.com/inner-rejuvenation-codes-mc

Join the Lightworker Mastermind:  https://harmonyslater.com/lightworker-mastermind

FIND Harmony online: https://harmonyslater.com/
Harmony on IG: https://www.instagram.com/harmonyslaterofficial/
Finding Harmony Podcast on IG: https://www.instagram.com/findingharmonypodcast/

FREE Manifestation Activation: https://harmonyslater.kit.com/manifestation-activation

What if the most devoted yoga practice isn't happening at 5am in a Mysore shala — but in stolen afternoon hours between school pickups, on the floor of a LifeTime gym, to whatever music felt right that morning?
Harmony and Russell sit down with Tina Bock — Authorized Level 2 Ashtanga yoga teacher, mother of two, eight-year Abu Dhabi expat, and lifelong New Jersey girl — for exactly the kind of conversation Ashtangis have been having since the first Western students sat outside the shala gates with instant coffee and nowhere else to be.
Warm, funny, philosophical, and completely real.Tina received her Level 2 authorization from the K. Pattabhi Jois Ashtanga Yoga Institute in Mysore, India under the late R. Sharath Jois. She has been teaching since 2012, has taught workshops and teacher trainings in more than 14 countries, made nine trips to India for ongoing study, and is currently practicing what she calls the "Seventh" and final series: parenting.
Her path was not a straight line. From a 200-hour training in Goa at 22 (chosen because it was a thousand dollars for the whole month), to years of private lessons in Abu Dhabi palaces, to nine Mysore pilgrimages, to learning Third Series after her first baby was born — this is a portrait of what it looks like when practice truly lives inside a life, rather than sitting apart from it
The Inner Rejuvenation Codes: https://harmonyslater.kit.com/inner-rejuvenation-codes-mc

Join the Lightworker Mastermind:  https://harmonyslater.com/lightworker-mastermind

FIND Harmony online: https://harmonyslater.com/
Harmony on IG: https://www.instagram.com/harmonyslaterofficial/
Finding Harmony Podcast on IG: https://www.instagram.com/findingharmonypodcast/

FREE Manifestation Activation: https://harmonyslater.kit.com/manifestation-activation

What if the practice isn't about becoming better at yoga — but about seeing more clearly who you are?

In this rich and contemplative conversation, Harmony sits down with Ricardo Louro and Inês Brilhante — founders of Ashtanga House Faro in Portugal's stunning Algarve region — to explore how studying Vedanta philosophy in the lineage of Swami Dayananda Saraswati has completely transformed their relationship with Ashtanga yoga practice.

This is not a conversation about perfecting postures. It's a conversation about what postures are actually for.

IN THIS EPISODE:

The core Vedanta teaching — 'jiva jagadishvara' : the essence of the individual self, the world, and the creator are one

How Ricardo went from asana obsession and identity-building to genuine inner freedom

Why Inês finds Vedanta's teaching on impermanence invaluable as a mother, teacher, and business partner

The practice of shravanam (deep listening to teachings) as a form of yoga in itself

Mantra japa as a daily foundation — and how it freed Ricardo from needing to complete a full series to feel 'done'

The 'polishing the mirror' metaphor: what it truly means to use yoga as a tool for self-inquiry

How to begin studying Vedanta (recommended: Swami Sarvapriyananda on YouTube)

The Dayananda Saraswati lineage and why studying in your own language matters

Ines and Ricardo's path to founding Ashtanga House Faro — from Coimbra and Portimão, to Mysore, to the Algarve

 

CONNECT WITH ASHTANGA HOUSE FARO:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ashtangahousefaro/

Website: https://www.ashtangahousefaro.com/

 

HARMONY IS TEACHING:

🌿 Agorayoga Lisbon — June 25–28 | All details in show notes

🌿 Ashtanga House Faro, Faro, Portugal — July 7–11 | 5-Day Mysore Intensive (includes pranayama, chanting, embodiment practices, working with the elements, and energetic field exploration)

 

RECOMMENDED RESOURCE:

Swami Sarvapriyananda on YouTube — accessible entry point into Vedanta philosophy

 

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

Asana practice is a tool for purifying the mind — not the ultimate goal of yoga

Vedanta provides the philosophical framework that gives physical practice its deeper purpose

Mantra japa trains the quality of single-pointed attention required for genuine study and practice

Shravanam — dedicated listening to teachings — is itself a form of yoga

Understanding impermanence reduces suffering and creates practical lightness in daily life

The practice of yoga is ultimately about seeing yourself more clearly — polishing the mirror

 

If this episode resonated, please leave a 5-star review and share it with a practitioner who's ready to go deeper than the mat. 🙏

The Inner Rejuvenation Codes: https://harmonyslater.kit.com/inner-rejuvenation-codes-mc

Join the Lightworker Mastermind:  https://harmonyslater.com/lightworker-mastermind

FIND Harmony online: https://harmonyslater.com/
Harmony on IG: https://www.instagram.com/harmonyslaterofficial/
Finding Harmony Podcast on IG: https://www.instagram.com/findingharmonypodcast/

FREE Manifestation Activation: https://harmonyslater.kit.com/manifestation-activation