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Robbie Wood 2/6/26 Robbie Wood 2/6/26

Find Healing and Vitality with Traditional Chinese Medicine and Yoga

Drawing from the earth-based wisdom of Traditional Chinese Medicine, yoga, and meditation, guest Jennifer Raye offers modern insights into using yoga postures, healing foods, herbal medicine, meditation, and other practices to balance the body and mind in an accessible and holistic way.

Jennifer Raye is an internationally recognized Chinese Medicine practitioner and yoga and meditation teacher. She holds a doctorate in Traditional Chinese Medicine with professional licensure in acupuncture and herbal medicine. Her unique approach also includes integrating Ayurveda, holistic nutrition, somatic studies and therapeutic movement. She maintains a private medical practice and teaches online and in person.

This episode discusses Jennifer’s book, Wisdom of the Earth, Wisdom of the Body: wisdomofthebodybook.com

Learn more about Jennifer: jenniferraye.com

DR TRUJILLO’S COMMENTS: Jennifer Raye has done a wonderful job of integrating Chinese Medicine, yoga, and Ayurveda in her book Wisdom of Earth, Wisdom of the Body, which carried into our conversation. I love the view that we are microcosms of the larger world, and that changes in the outer world such as seasons also affect us. To me, this is a demonstration of the Oneness that is at the heart of yoga philosophy. In addition to discussing basic principles such as vital energy (qi or prana) flowing through channels in the body (meridians or nadis), we discussed imbalances that might occur in winter and spring, and how to make lifestyle changes that help us return to balance.

THE YOGA HOUR LISTENER COMMENTS: If you were ever curious about Traditional Chinese Medicine, Ayurveda and Yoga this is the podcast for you! Jennifer Raye is a very well studied practitioner of these modalities and in this engaging conversation she shares her passion and knowledge for our listeners.

Laurel Trujillo 1/29/26 Laurel Trujillo 1/29/26

Cultivate Radiant Living and Nourish Your Soul

How can we empower food to work in favor of radiant living and soul nourishment? Nutritionist Sue Van Raes shares practices that can help us understand what satisfies our true hungers. We can learn to trust the wisdom of the body’s signals for self-care and building resiliency.

Sue Van Raes is a functional nutritionist, food psychology specialist, and wellness expert who is dedicated to helping women who are stressed out about food finally make peace with their plates. She is the founder of Boulder Nutrition where she offers many programs to support nutrition for the body/mind/spirit. Sue draws on her personal and professional experience providing a body, heart, mind, and soul approach to stop stressing and start living. Sue’s insight on nutrition, food psychology, and yoga has been featured in numerous publications, including People Magazine, The Chopra Center, The Sacred Science, and the Elephant Journal. She is the author of the book we are discussing today, Food and Freedom: Discover Your Personal Recipe to Eat, Think and Live Well

THE YOGA HOUR TEAM COMMENTS: I really enjoyed this conversation between Sue Van Raes and Dr. Trujillo. They spoke about hunger in its different forms, physical, mental, heart hunger and soul hunger. Sue’s extensive knowledge of how hunger works in our bodies and her spiritual understanding supports us in being able to nourish ourselves in a healthy balanced way. Most of the program was spent on mental, heart and soul hunger. Physical hunger was described in Sue Van Rae’s previous appearance on The Yoga Hour.
I appreciate how she said that we often get these other hungers confused with physical hunger and try to satisfy these hungers with food which doesn’t address our core desires. An important piece of advice she left the listeners with is to simplify. Trying to do everything and perfectly just increases our stress levels and throws us off balance. When we feel more balanced in all ways we can make conscious choices about all areas of our lives, including food, and everyone benefits.

DR TRUJILLO’S COMMENTS: This conversation with Sue Van Raes about her book Food and Freedom asks wonderful questions about how we nourish ourselves at the level of the body, the mind, the heart, and the soul. In addition to reviewing the hormones leptin and ghrelin, which control hunger and satiety in the body, I appreciated the information that Sue shared about how stress impacts our eating, along with some breathing practices that can help relieve that stress. I enjoyed our discussion of “glimmers" which are the opposite of triggers, and are something that we can look for whenever we claim a mindful moment in our day. We discussed how emotional eating can be a teacher for us, and the importance of self-compassion as we work to try to improve our diets. I highly recommend this conversation for anyone who is curious about how to better nourish themselves fully.

Laurel Trujillo 1/22/26 Laurel Trujillo 1/22/26

Mindful Democracy: Declaring Our Interdependence

Professor Jeremy David Engels, scholar, longtime student of Thich Nhat Hanh and author of On Mindful Democracy, shares how mindfulness is not only a path to personal peace, but it also opens us to vital practices for renewing interconnection and democracy itself.
#kriyayoga #mindfulness #democracy #oneness #karmayoga #interconnection #interdependence

Dr. Jeremy David Engels is Liberal Arts Professor of Communication and Ethics at Pennsylvania State University. He is also a longtime teacher of mindfulness, meditation, and yoga, having studied in both India and the United States. He is an award-winning scholar, and has published numerous books and articles about democracy, community building, deliberation, and peace, including the book we are discussing today, On Mindful Democracy: A Declaration of Interdependence to Mend a Fractured World.
WEBSITE: JeremyDavidEngels.com

THE YOGA HOUR LISTENER COMMENTS: If you are a student of "Eastern" philosophy and have wondered how the teachings of Buddhism and Kriya Yoga can guide us in maintaining a healthy democracy, you will love this discussion. As the United States celebrates 250 years of the Declaration of Independence in 2026, this is an auspicious time to remember that democracy is a practice too. I really enjoyed how Jeremy used the technique of mindfulness to help us during a time when people seem so divided.

DR. TRUJILLO’S COMMENTS: I found this conversation with Jeremy Engels to be very inspiring and hopeful, as is his book On Mindful Democracy. I love his definition of democracy as a practice, and one that we do together to care for each other and the life we share. Jeremy stresses the importance of an embodied experience of our interconnection, which can be accessed through many pathways including meditation, yoga, and religion. This interconnection, our recognition of our interdependence, is both the root of yoga and the basis for this new Declaration. His book includes 27 insights, including "There is no way to Democracy, Democracy is the way”, which describes democracy as a spiritual power. Another insight is “Changing your mind is not a weakness, it is the work of a brave soul”. In this, the year is the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, this new declaration based on our interdependence is very needed and welcome.

Laurel Trujillo 1/16/26 Laurel Trujillo 1/16/26

Healing the Earth with Ancient Wisdom

Explore how the spiritual principles of yoga offer hope for our ecological crisis. Dr. Christopher Chapple reveals ancient wisdom for healing ourselves and our planet—inner and outer—through Earth-awareness, mindful living, and inspiring eco-activism.
#kriyayoga #ecology #yamas #niyamas #bhagavadgita

Christopher Key Chapple is Doshi Professor of Indic and Comparative Theology and founding director of the Master of Arts in Yoga Studies at Loyola Marymount University. He has written more than twenty books, including the book we are discussing today Embodied Ecology: Yoga and the Environment. He serves on the advisory boards for the Forum on Religion and Ecology (Yale), the Jaina Studies Centre (London), the Dharma Academy of North America (Berkeley), and the International School for Jain Studies (Delhi)

WEBSITE: bellarmine.lmu.edu/yoga

THE YOGA HOUR TEAM COMMENTS: This was a delightful conversation helping the listener understand how the teachings of yoga can help us live a life that better cares for the self, the earth and all of its inhabitants. Christopher Chapple has a conversational storytelling style that you could listen to all day.

DR. TRUJILLO’S COMMENTS: This discussion with Christopher Chapple about his new book Embodied Ecology encourages us all to pair our contemplative practices of yoga and meditation with action on behalf of the environment. We discussed how the yogic ethical principles of nonviolence, non-possession, and purity all lead us to concrete action in the outer world: to minimize harm to animals, to consume only necessities, and to be mindful of pollution and avoid it. This episode also includes Chris reading some passages from the Bhagavad Gita that describe the qualities of a yogi that are inspirational.

Laurel Trujillo 12/18/25 Laurel Trujillo 12/18/25

Lift Your Heart with Sacred Poetry

Ivan Granger is a poet and editor of The Longing In Between: An Anthology of Sacred Poetry from Around the World. He shares sacred poetry that can lift us up, inspire our days and take us to a deeper understanding of the Divine—a beautiful way to enter the holiday season.
#KriyaYoga #SacredPoetry #Oneness #meditiation #TurningInward
WEBSITE: Poetry-Chaikhana.com

Ivan Granger is the founder and editor of the Poetry Chaikhana, a publishing house and online resource for sacred poetry from around the world. He is the author of Real Thirst: Poetry of the Spiritual Journey and edited the book This Dance of Bliss: Ecstatic Poetry from Around the World, as well as being the editor of The Longing in Between: A Poetry Chaikhana Anthology, which we will be discussing today. His poetry and translations have been included in several magazines and anthologies.

THE YOGA HOUR TEAM COMMENTS: This conversation with Ivan Granger beautifully highlights poems that reveal the sacred unity of human experience across cultures worldwide. A wonderful contemplation for the depths of winter.

DR. TRUJILLO’S COMMENTS: As the days grow shorter, and the nights lengthen, our attention is naturally drawn inward toward the sacred. In this conversation with Ivan Granger, poet and editor of the book The Longing in Between, we shared sacred poetry from the Christian, Sufi, Hindu, and Buddhist traditions. The poems speak of gratitude, deep inner joy and love, liberation from obstructions, mindfulness and non-attachment. I found our conversation uplifting and nourishing in this holiday time of busyness. I encourage you to take time to listen and fill up your inner wellspring.

Laurel Trujillo 12/4/25 Laurel Trujillo 12/4/25

Optimize Health and Well-Being Through Restorative Sleep

By integrating cutting-edge science with the ancient wisdom tradition of Ayurveda, Dr. Suhas Kshirsagar and Dr. Sheila Patel, authors of Awakened Sleep: An Ayurvedic Approach to Getting Deep Rest and Unlocking Optimal Health, share how we can have a balanced, restorative sleep that can unlock our full human potential.
#kriyayoga #ayurveda #insomnia #sleep #awakenedsleep

WEBSITE FOR THE BOOK: Awakened-Sleep.com

Dr. Suhas Kshirsagar (BAMS, MD, Ayurveda) is one of the most prominent Ayurvedic physicians in the United States with over 35 years of clinical experience. He is the director of Ayurvedic Healing, an integrative wellness clinic in Santa Cruz, CA. Dr. Suhas is also the author of several books including The Hot Belly Diet and Change Your Schedule, Change Your Life and is a sought-after speaker at Ayurvedic and wellness conferences both nationally and internationally. He is an advisor and consultant at Chopra Global and Chopra Foundation and has chaired and designed curriculums for several Ayurvedic schools. You can find out more about Dr. Suhas at his website AyurvedicHealing.net

Dr. Sheila Patel, MD, FA, AFP is a board-certified family physician and former Chief Medical Officer for Chopra Global. For more than a decade she practiced full-spectrum family medicine in rural communities, and currently maintains an outpatient primary care practice in Southern California where she combines the wisdom of Ayurveda with the tools of modern medicine to help patients heal from a variety of acute and chronic conditions. Dr. Patel is certified as an instructor of Ayurveda, yoga, and meditation and is current Chief Medical Officer for the Gaja Collective where she is lead educator for the Chopra Ayurvedic Health certification program. She also served as the clinical research director for the Chopra Foundation and has co-authored multiple published research papers on the benefits of meditation and Ayurveda. You can find out more about Dr. Patel at her website DrSheilaPatel.com

THE YOGA HOUR TEAM COMMENTS: Through their understanding and practice of Ayurveda, both Dr. Suhas and Dr. Sheila offer a unique perspective on the issue of sleep that is a problem for so much of our western population. What I really appreciated is their discussion of how good, restful, restorative sleep is not only important for our physical bodies but is deeply connected to our experiences of spiritual enlightenment. Dr. Suhas quoted the Bhagavad Gita and the Yoga Sutras saying that deep restorative sleep can bring us, each night, closest to the highest state of consciousness-nirvikalpa samadhi and we shouldn't waste the opportunity. Dr. Patel shared that these sleep rhythms are natural to us and the techniques they share in their book let us get in touch with the natural part of our self. She says that these small practices reconnect us to who we really are. I highly recommend this conversation.

DR. TRUJILLO’S COMMENTS: I appreciate how Drs. Suhas Kshirsagar and Sheila Patel include all three aspects of ourselves in their discussion about the importance of sleep: physical, mental/emotional, and spiritual. This conversation illumined the importance of our dosha, or Ayurvedic mind-body constitution, on our ability for restorative sleep. Advice for improving our sleep was discussed, including a brief bedtime ritual where we can settle our thoughts from the day, plant positive intentions for the night and next day, and end with gratitude. Listeners will benefit from this conversations framing of how to make our sleep part of our spiritual practice.

Laurel Trujillo 11/26/25 Laurel Trujillo 11/26/25

Discover the Gift of Presence

How can we live life fully, with presence and reverence? Author and teacher Elena Brower helps us explore the many aspects of ourselves to get to the heart of who we are. She invites us to come home to ourselves with love.
#KriyaYoga #HoldNothing #BeginnersMind #Mindfulness #meditation

Elena Brower is a mother, mentor, artist, teacher, best-selling author of several books including the book we are discussing today, Hold Nothing: An Invitation to Let Go and Come Home to Yourself. She is also the host of the Practice You podcast. Elena has taught yoga and meditation since 1999. After graduating Cornell University in 1992, she designed textiles and apparel for almost a decade before focusing on yoga, meditation, art, and writing.

WEBSITE: ElenaBrower.com SOCIAL MEDIA: @elenabrower

THE YOGA HOUR TEAM COMMENTS: The thing that stood out most to me about this conversation with Elena Brower was the way she embodied the teachings of her new book, Hold Nothing. She was thoughtful, reflective and honest. It was reassuring to hear that we can "empty ourselves out and start again!" And, Dr. Trujillo added that emptiness is full of potentials. A thought provoking conversation to fuel your day, for sureThe thing that stood out most to me about this conversation with Elena Brower was the way she embodied the teachings of her new book, Hold Nothing. She was thoughtful, reflective and honest. It was reassuring to hear that we can "empty ourselves out and start again!" And, Dr. Trujillo added that emptiness is full of potentials. A thought provoking conversation to fuel your day, for sure

DR. TRUJILLO’S COMMENTS: I enjoyed this conversation with yoga and meditation teacher Elena Brower about her book Hold Nothing. Elena’s presence and honesty about herself and her spiritual path was engaging. We discussed the importance of practice, respect, presence, and listening, and explored the idea of Beginner’s Mind. We close the episode with a discussion of some of the benefits of a steady meditation practice which were inspiring.

Laurel Trujillo 11/21/25 Laurel Trujillo 11/21/25

Awaken The Calm Center

Psychologist and author Steve Taylor invites us into The Calm Center—a space of stillness and presence within. In this conversation with Dr. Trujillo, he shares reflections and meditations that can guide us toward spiritual awakening and peace, amid life’s turbulence.
#kriyayoga #meditation #mindfulness #presence #silence

Steve Taylor, PhD, is the author of The Calm Center and many other bestselling books. He’s senior lecturer in psychology at Leeds Beckett University and the author of many best-selling books on spirituality and psychology. Eckhart Tolle has referred to his work as 'an important contribution to the shift in consciousness that is happening on our planet. He has just published a new book of spiritual poetry, Back to Stillness. Visit him online at www.StevenMTaylor.com. FB: SteveTaylorAuthor IG: @SteveTaylorAuthor

THE YOGA HOUR TEAM COMMENTS: Steve Taylor’s poetry is perfect for this time and season, and hearing the poetry read in this episode was beneficial for coming into the calm center. Just listening, I felt drawn inwardly and was touched by the way Steve expresses the things that pull us away from being in stillness and what takes us away from being mindful—this poetry is so honest. And his poetry reminds us of what is important: space is spirit, empty of time…. meditation creates space in our being, the universal space. This poetry is an embodiment of spirit and why we practice gratitude.