Wild Yoga Tribe Podcast Episode #55 – Yoga is Infinite – Yoga in Colombia with Laura Alvarez

 

Welcome to Episode #55 of the Wild Yoga Tribe Podcast! This week, I welcome Laura Alvarez onto the show. My conversation with Laura Alvarez, a yoga teacher from Colombia, was so lovely tuned into how vital it is to study the spiritual texts, sutras, and scriptures and how doing so, gives you a lens into your own mind and helps to truly provide you with freedom. 

I hope that this conversation made you want to dive into the spiritual texts yourself— the study of yoga is infinite after all! If you’re looking to tune into a podcast episode that is all about devotion to understanding the self and seeking depth in your own being, then this is the conversation for you.

Tell me more about Laura Alvarez

Laura Alvarez, whose spiritual name Sat Purkh Kaur, is a Kundalini yoga teacher from Colombia. She first started practicing Kundalini Yoga 25 years ago in Barcelona, where she was living for 8 years while attending university. She completed her Kundalini Yoga teacher training in Barcelona 22 years ago, and then soon returned home to Bogota, Colombia to open her own  yoga studio, Happy Yoga Bogota, is the largest and one of the oldest yoga studios in Colombia. It is a sister location of Happy Yoga in Barcelona.

Moreover, Laura also leads Hatha Raja Yoga Teacher Trainings and the Children Yoga Teacher Training. I am also a teacher in the Kundalini Yoga Teacher Training in Bogotá, Medellín and Cali. She also assists in teacher trainings held in Mexico, Chile, and Costa Rica. Laura’s passion is yogic philosophy, and she avidly studies Patañjali, the Bagavad Gita, the JapJi Sahib, and the history of Yoga and the philosophical currents of the East.

What to expect in the Yoga In Colombia episode of the Wild Yoga Tribe Podcast

Laura Alvarez was studying theatre in Barcelona when her sister decided to come visit. As her sister was feeling down and very sad, Laura asked her theatre professor what she should do with her sister to make her happy. He recommended going to Happy Yoga. Laura and her sister went many, many times together and Laura felt immediately connected to the practice, especially with meditation and mantra.

Yoga was a huge answer for Laura to all the big questions in life, all the big spiritual questions. And as yoga has been a part of Laura’s life for over half of her life, she feels like yoga has been a constant companion— an enormous part of our life that has watched her grow, a safe place to come back, always, whenever you need it. It’s a huge gift. Being able to share this gift with other, is a “double gift,” as Laura says. 

As a yoga teacher training, Laura highlighted how the study of yoga never ends. Laura is passionate about the yoga scriptures, sutras, and reading all the spiritual texts of yoga. I was grateful how she talked about how and why it is so important to study the texts of yoga— it helps you to study yoga with your mind, to start to say to the ego I don’t want to suffer more, I want to love more. Yoga is freedom.

Yoga is an opportunity to choose again. As a way of being, yoga gives us the ability to choose again, and again, and again, in every moment.

Laura and I wrapped up our conversation talking about yoga in Colombia, and what it is like for her to have a yoga studio in Colombia. Of course, we talked about what Colombia is like as a country as well.

Curious? Tune into the whole podcast episode!

Favorite Quote From Laura Alvarez

“In every minute, in every hour of your day, you are doing yoga when you are conscious of your thought, conscious of your words, and you say this is my ego. Yes, this is my ego. So I can choose again and I will choose love. This is yoga for me, an opportunity to do better. “

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Wild Yoga Tribe Podcast Episode 55 – Yoga in Colombia Laura Alvarez – Transcript

[00:00:00] Lily Allen-Duenas: Welcome back to the Wild Yoga Tribe podcast. Today. I am so excited to be joined by Laura Alvarez, also with her spiritual name of Sat Purkh Kaur. She is a Kundalini yoga teacher from Colombia and she first started practicing Kundalini yoga 25 years ago in Barcelona when she was living there for eight years while attending university.

[00:00:23] She did her yoga teacher training also in Kundalini yoga in Barcelona, and then returned home to Bogota, Colombia to open her own yoga studio called Happy Yoga. It’s actually one of the largest, and one of the oldest yoga studios in Colombia. I’m so excited to hear more from Laura about all of her story, her journey, her training, and her wisdom.

[00:00:48] Thank you so much Laura for being here on the show today.

[00:00:52] Laura Alvarez: Oh, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I’m happy to be here and just open to our conversation. Glad to be invited and so grateful.

[00:01:05] Lily Allen-Duenas: Me as well. Laura, how did you first encounter yoga for the first time? I know you were in Spain at the time, but how did yoga really come into your life?

How did yoga come into your life?

[00:01:18] Laura Alvarez: Okay. Yes, I was living in Barcelona and my sister was coming to visit me, but she was a little bit depressed. She was sad. So I asked one of my theater teachers, because I was studying dramatic art theater. So I asked my teacher what could I do with my sister?

[00:01:44] She’s coming here to visit me, but she’s sad. My teacher says, oh, you can go with her to Happy Yoga. It’s a yoga studio, and it’s very nice.

[00:01:54] So I say, okay. We go to Happy Yoga. It was a Monday. I remember. We had to do the yoga class on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,  Thursday, on Friday. 

[00:02:09] After she leaves, she leaves Barcelona better, and I stay. I went to yoga class all day, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, all day. It became my love. My heart opened and I discovered a practice when I can just close my eyes. Because I was studying theater, it’s  an open eye always knowing when we are in contact with the scene. We have always an eye an eye outside of us.

[00:02:48] So in the yoga class, I was just with eyes closed in meditation, the chanting, the mantra, it was like. Oh my God, this is wonderful. It’s magical. So I started and I never stopped. I remember that after two years, I discovered that what I am doing is Kundalini yoga and I have another yoga. It’s oh, okay. but for me, it’s just yoga and it’s a very good and beautiful door to me.

[00:03:26] Lily Allen-Duenas: It’s so amazing to hear that you came to yoga by trying to help your sister be happy. That’s such a beautiful introduction to the practice of doing this service, this act of service and love for your sister. So how do you feel like yoga has transformed your life or changed your life?

How has yoga changed your life?

[00:03:49] Laura Alvarez: I started when I was very young 25, 24 years ago, I was 19 years old, so I live in Barcelona and I was a stranger. I was Colombian. I speak Catalan. Of course I was a little bit alone there. So when I start my Kundalini yoga classes, it’s to be at home again, because I was in my heart again with me.

[00:04:19]I remember that I was crying during one year, one year in all my classes. I went there, the mantra started and I started to make asanas and to cry and I was saying, why I am crying. I am happy. I am here. I live. I study. I was so fortunate to be here. Why am I crying?

[00:04:45] And I don’t know, it was very nice to be there with me at home after one year I finally stopped crying but my life obviously changed because yes, I discovered another path. Another spiritual path, not just with religion, before that I have many questions, not many spiritual questions.

[00:05:12] And when I started yoga, I had all the answers and it was very important, a very huge answer to be just there, and to have the answers, and to have the way to answer myself to speak to me; and also yoga. I have more time in my life with yoga than I have right now, 23 years.

[00:05:39] So yoga, it’s like a friend who are, who is who can look me, grow. Yoga has seen me grow.

[00:05:51] Lily Allen-Duenas: Like a friend who sees you for you, for who you truly are seeing you without any artificial filters like that.

[00:05:59] Laura Alvarez: Yes. . I grew with the yoga practice around me.

[00:06:04] Lily Allen-Duenas: I’ve also had yoga in my life, for over half of my life as well. So I know what you mean, how it is like this kind of beloved friend, or this mentor or guide. It’s amazing how, for me, at least. Especially in the very beginning, cause I started when I was 16 it ebbed and flowed in my life.

[00:06:26] It really wasn’t that constant companion until the last, we’ll say seven years or so, but the, but just knowing it was always there, always there to support, and to help me. To help just to help. It has felt so integral to who I am today. I love how you described it.

Teaching yoga makes it more real; it’s a double gift!

[00:06:47] Laura Alvarez: Yes. Yes, exactly. It’s like, it’s always there. No, I have my journeys in my life and I know that when I need it, I can come back to me. Come back to my practice. And I am with me. I am at home.

[00:07:04] I am in a safe place. And this is very important because right now we are in difficult times. We’re always changing and it’s very hard at times. No? So when we, when you have just a safe place to come back, always when you need it it’s a big present. It’s a big gift to yourself. And of course, when I discover that I can just share this gift to the other people, it was a double gift. And when I share my practice, when I share what I love it become, it becomes more, more real, more true. 

[00:07:55] Lily Allen-Duenas: Yes I always say I’m a student, and I’ll be a student of yoga for the rest of my life. It’s an enormous honor to be a teacher as well; very humbling. There is so much more, I feel like when I learn or understand, by being able to share it cause sharing it is a gift. It’s an aspect of connection, of community, of coming together and experiencing things together. You’re right. It makes it a little bit more real.

The study of yoga

[00:08:24] Laura Alvarez: Yes. Yes. I am a teacher trainer. So you also have to study and It’s very interesting to study because it never ends and never ends to study. I want to study, the Upanishads, and it never ends. The Vedas and it never ends. Patanjali, it never ends. The Bhagavad Gita and I can read it again and again and teach it and when I have to teach it one year after. I come again to the book and it’s like a new book. It’s like a new text. No, it’s oh, wow.

[00:09:06] Lily Allen-Duenas: Yes, you can bring so much of yourself to the book and read it through the lens of what you’re going through. Right now and how that can apply or how, what’s going on in the world. I just feel like these books. As you said, it’s infinite. You’ll never be done cause there’s always more to learn in the subtleties or yeah.

[00:09:26] In the phrasing it is a gift and I would love to hear about it. As a yoga teacher, trainer Laura, how is that experience? How has that been like for you, because I know you lead yoga teacher training, not just in Colombia, but also in Costa Rica, and Mexico, and Chile. So could you tell us more about what you love about teaching yoga and being a yoga teacher trainer?

What do you love about teaching yoga and being a yoga teacher trainer?

[00:09:52] Laura Alvarez: Okay. Yes, what I love is to share about yoga philosophy, because most of the people say, oh no, this is philosophy. This is very hard. I will not understand it. I just want to do asana as I just want to do pranayama. I just want to do meditation, but I discovered that when you explain with passion with love the yoga scriptures. It’s like a, wow, like discovering know, it’s wonderful. It’s very interesting. And I say, yes, of course you can discover some very interesting things making asana as of course, but also reading, because when you read, you are also reading yourself, you are also discovering yourself.

[00:10:40] So that’s my passion. My story, the history of yoga and the history of philosophy and the mind discovering. I explain all the things that I love in my trainings with so passion when, with so much love that it’s another tool to go back to your heart. It’s another tool to open your mind? No, it’s another tool to open your consciousness.

[00:11:11] Lily Allen-Duenas: Did I hear you correctly? When you just said the yoga scriptures are a tool to go back to your heart and open your mind,

[00:11:18] Laura Alvarez: Yes.

[00:11:18] Lily Allen-Duenas: Right? Ah, I love that because I think there are a lot of yoga teachers around the world. Not all of course, not all, but a lot that maybe don’t spend that much time reading the yoga scriptures.

[00:11:33] I love how you’re highlighting, not just why you love them, but also why you think they’re important to read.

Why is it important to read the yoga scriptures?

[00:11:43] Laura Alvarez: Yes, it’s very important. When we have the popular eight branches, it’s a very popular, part of the big philosophy yoga, but in one of them, if you remember Niyamas we have Swadihaya. Is the practice of reading or returning to the yoga scriptures and discovering by reading, by studying, discovering of course, yourself.

[00:12:11] Always, we are always using our senses. No, we are always with an open eye looking outside, but when you start to read that kind of text the vedas, the Bhagavad Gita, all the sutras of Patanjali when you start to read that you discovered that you are not with an eye outside, but we are looking for you seeing you studying yourself.

[00:12:44] You are making the more important practice of yoga. And that’s the yoga with your mind to just start to enjoy your life, to start to say to your ego. I don’t want to suffer more. I prefer love. I don’t want to be more afraid. I prefer to be open. And that’s an exercise that you make with your mind.

[00:13:13] So when you start to train your mind, it’s like freedom. It’s like yoga. It’s a, it’s like a yoga practice. It’s not just in your mat. It’s not just with your body. No it’s not just in the Asana, of course in the Asana. It’s a big part when you do that. But when you are reading, it’s a kriya. 

[00:13:34] That’s what I share in my teacher training. Of course I share all the technical issues? No, of course I share the kriyas the Asana, the mantra, the pranayama, the meditations, the kundalini yoga all the Kundalini yoga flowers. No, of course I share all of that, but while I love more, it’s the student of yourself, of your mind and of course of your ego, ego versus spirit, no. Of your ego versus atma or soul? No?

[00:14:16] Lily Allen-Duenas: Yes.

[00:14:16] I love how you said yoga is freedom and it’s using the mind and studying yoga to engage the mind, and then to be able to have that conversation mentally with your ego saying, I don’t wanna suffer more. I don’t want to keep doing the same thing over again. I don’t want keep repeating this cycle.

[00:14:37] So important to have that conversation with ourselves and it can only happen in silence or, you know, I’ll say in silence, because if we are constantly watching news on our phones and distracted, how can we have that conversation with ourselves? Or how can we take the time to observe.

[00:14:58] To observe and be still and notice, ah, those are my habits. Ah, those are the patterns. And I do find that Asana, a practice for me still is, in silence is a conversation where I’m noticing, oh, that’s an ego creeping up in that pose or noticing, oh, I’m feeling more of this. I just find so much in the Asana as well as the time in meditation mantra, pranayama, it’s all cultivating that inner stillness so that conversation can occur.

[00:15:30] Laura Alvarez: Yes, 

[00:15:30] Lily Allen-Duenas: Wonder. Yeah. Laura I was wondering, who’s been your greatest influence on your path of yoga?

Who’s been your greatest influence on your path of yoga?

[00:15:39] Laura Alvarez: I have many sources of inspiration. Of course I have my yoga teachers, the one who taught me Harbind Singh and Hari Dev. Of course my mentors but I am curious. So for me, for example, a year ago, I was very interested in Chinese medicine. All the meridians and how you can use the Asana, you can use your yoga practice, your Asana for your health because it’s a very energetic practice. And the yoga practice the Asana, the muscles in the Asana, it’s like a needle. Just refreshing all your meridians or your energetic channels. So I was very interested, I don’t know, for 10 years in Chinese medic medicine and the yoga practice. How both of that practice are nourishing.

[00:16:41] And after that, I started to be interested in all that philosophical studies and history studies of yoga. So for me, the most important it’s that you have to have an open mind. Of course you have your mentors, of course, but also you have to be a student.

[00:17:03] Always studying, always curious, always wanting to discover more and more, eh, things, more and more steps of deepness. The body, the breathing. The prana what it means, prana what is the other vayus for examples, what it means, apana what it means, samana just to discover.

[00:17:31] And when you start to, to be more and have a point of view more and more deep. Wow. I want to be here. Always because it’s very good. A very good way to also learn about science, about the medical discovery of right now. No, of neuroscience, it never ends. 

[00:17:57] Lily Allen-Duenas: No, it doesn’t, it just grows and grows. The deeper you look, the more you see. Oh, it just keeps going.

[00:18:02] Laura Alvarez: Exactly. In my Buddhist, in inspiration, I have Thich Nhat Hanh 

[00:18:08] I love to read the Thich Nhat Hanh books handbooks. I love to read to Chan mantras. Of course, I love to read Rumi and Khabir poems, and I love to to have the recitations of the Guruana text, the J jib.

[00:18:29] but I don’t know. I have many sources and I love to be open, not just the Kundalini yoga teachings, but just open. No, the Vava teachings, the Hari Krishna’s teachings, the Buddhist teachings. And I want to be  open to learn. To learn my practice. Of course, my practice is a Kundalini yoga practice. My teaching, when I teach yoga, I teach Kundalini yoga, but in my home, I’m just open.

[00:19:00] I’m open I want to be more and more enjoying what all my big brothers and my big sisters have to teach me.

[00:19:12] Lily Allen-Duenas: Yes. I think that the best is to be open and willing to learn with humility from any teacher that comes up, even in the form of a book. I think there’s so much to learn from all the traditions and I’m very similar. We also read very similar things with Rumi, Khabir, and Thich Nhat Hanh. He is just an incredible,

[00:19:34] prolific writer and I find so much soft compassion and in his words. It’s so simple, but it resonates so. 

[00:19:46] Laura Alvarez: Yes. I love him. I was with him in Plum Village, many times I go 

[00:19:52] Lily Allen-Duenas: Oh, 

[00:19:52] Laura Alvarez: village three or four times in my life and, oh, it’s so nice. He was so big, so humble.  

[00:20:03] Lily Allen-Duenas: That’s amazing. I always wanted to go to plum Village and hopefully in my life I’ll get to.

[00:20:11] Laura Alvarez: Have to do it. He’s not here right now with 

[00:20:14] Lily Allen-Duenas: I know.

[00:20:14] Laura Alvarez: But plum village has his spirit and it’s very nice.

[00:20:20] Lily Allen-Duenas: So Laura, a question I ask every guest on this show is what is your personal definition of yoga? 

What is your definition of yoga?

[00:20:30] Laura Alvarez: Yoga it’s a way of being, when you can choose again, when you remember that you can choose again and that you can choose love. You are doing yoga. When you remember that you can look with a different eyes, your life, your decision, a discussion with your partner, with your kids.

[00:20:57] When you just have the possibility to say, to make and stop and say, okay, no, I can just start again and put in my eyes another lens and put in my voice another voice and just start to more open and more lovely and making yoga. for me, it’s a way too way of being it’s a possibility to choose again and again.

[00:21:28] In every minute, in every hour of your day, you are doing yoga when you are conscious of your thought, conscious of your words, and you say this is my ego. Yes, this is my ego. So I can choose again and I will choose love. So do it again, try again. Louder. I can try again and I will do it and I do it. And I, when I do it, I am just doing yoga.

[00:22:03] This is yoga for me, an opportunity to do better. 

[00:22:07] Lily Allen-Duenas: Absolutely. And I love that reminder that it’s always an opportunity to choose again.

[00:22:14] Laura Alvarez: Yes.

[00:22:15] Lily Allen-Duenas: Always, and our minds, love to criticize ourselves, judge ourselves, sabotage but just reminding, okay. Take a breath. I can choose again right now. And even if you aren’t satisfied or proud or very happy with how you just handled something.

[00:22:33] It’s amazing. You get to choose again. I think that really embracing that and feeling that and breathing space into that, it helps things feel more expansive. Like possibilities are more open. 

[00:22:47] I think right now with everything going on in the world, It’s easy to feel very tense, small, and scared or tight, very tight.

[00:22:59] I think it’s amazing to just, okay. Breathe deeply and choose again and feel that space.

[00:23:05] Laura Alvarez: Uhhuh. Exactly. Because Yoga, it’s not a moral, it’s not like you are going to be a good person. You’re going to be a peacefully person. No, you are just going to be you and you, sometimes you are a horrible person of course, but you can choose again. No, it’s not another moral practice. No, it’s not another religious practice. It’s not another dogmatic practice. No, it’s just opportunity to choose again, not to be more and more you and choose again.

[00:23:47] Lily Allen-Duenas: Yes. So Laura, I’d also love at this point of the conversation to ask you about what it was like to open a yoga studio in Colombia, one of the first and how has that been like for you since you first opened it?

What was it like to open a yoga studio in Colombia? 

[00:24:01] Laura Alvarez: I was very young when I opened it. I was 26 and I remember that I said, I will open it and it’s necessary. It will be successful if the people need it. So I will do it for many years, but I can close it whenever I want. Now I say to my guru, to my spirit, to, to God now I say to God, if you want, I can close it, but if for you, it’s okay. It’s okay that I continue to have my yoga studio open. So I’m just in your hands. That’s what I say at 26 years old, when I opened my yoga studio and after each year, I repeat it. No, I close in December the yoga studio for holidays. And I say to God, if you want, I reopen in January, if you want, I can just close it because it’s not for me. 

The yoga studio is for the people 

[00:25:08] Laura Alvarez: No, it’s for the people. It’s for my people . It’s not for me. And this is not just words. You have to trust me. It’s not just words. It’s true for me. If I have to close it, I will close it. And if you want. To, if you want that, I will continue. I will be here for one more year. That’s my way. That’s my story. This is my key to success. Just to have a conversation with my guru and just to be in his hands.

[00:25:45] Lily Allen-Duenas: Oh, that’s amazing. That, that lack of as I said earlier, like tightness, like gripping, you’re not gripping your yoga studio saying it’s mine. It’s mine. It’s mine. You have this open palm and you’re saying it’s yours. And that’s amazing what a gift to give you. Yeah, it’s yours. It’s not mine. And that’s amazing.

[00:26:05] I would love to hear about how yoga is like in Bogota or in Colombia. Is yoga very popular or when you opened that yoga studio when you were 26, was it something that people knew what it was? I’d love to hear more about yoga in Colombia.

What is yoga like in Colombia? 

[00:26:22] Laura Alvarez: Yes it becomes more and more popular by the years. No, right now it’s very popular. Of course the hatha yoga practice is more popular than Kundalini yoga. The Vinyasa practice. Also hot yoga it’s very popular, but I think that it’s like in all the big cities it’s like this, no, you have more people going to yoga.

[00:26:52] In the gym just to have another body practice and they start to, they start with the body and after they start to discover more things. Now they start to discover yoga,it’s not just the body. It’s not just Asana as, but right now it’s very popular. We have many yoga teachers. We don’t have many yoga studios because of the pandemic. Many yoga studios have closed, but we have yoga teachers in the gyms, in the office, in the schools, in the universities. So it’s very popular.

[00:27:40] It’s very popular in the big cities. Of course, for the people who have the opportunity, the money to pay for a yoga class or the money to pay for a gym. It’s not for everyone. No, of course not. But that’s why we have in our school, we have a program, a social program, big social program to try to arrive with the yoga teachers in those other places, not just for the people with the opportunity, but just with, for the other people in jail. For example, we do yoga in jail. We make yoga for the people who are in the peace process. We have just in Colombia, we are in the middle of a peace process, so for the people who are recovering from the trauma situation, violence situations, and we are beginning to sow seeds.

[00:28:45] Lily Allen-Duenas: Yes.

[00:28:46] Yes. 

[00:28:47] Laura Alvarez: There also, because we have a very hard country. It’s not easy here for everyone, but if you can just share your practice and just sow a seed in different places, you are making a very good work and a very important and huge work.

[00:29:09] Lily Allen-Duenas: I cannot agree more. I think planting seeds is part of yoga too. It’s part of being on the spiritual path is just being willing to plant the seeds and hope that fertile soil will sprout them.

[00:29:24] Laura Alvarez: Yes, exactly. And, not just for the, not just for the, for a few people. No, but for everyone,

[00:29:35] Lily Allen-Duenas: Yeah, absolutely. And that’s when I think of seeds, I think of having a lot of seeds in your hands and scattering them, really being willing to just let go of all of these and just give,

[00:29:46] uh, the seed.

[00:29:47] And so also Lara, I would love for you to talk to us a little bit about Colombia as a country. Maybe some of our listeners have thought about visiting, or maybe don’t know that much about your country. Would you mind sharing with us?

What is Colombia like?

[00:30:02] Laura Alvarez: okay. Yes, we are. We are in Latino America. This is a very interesting country because we have cities in different altitudes. So it’s one country, but with differences. With different cultures with different ways to cook, ways to dance, ways to also to speak because everyone here speaks Spanish, but with many different accents. So it’s a very rich country, very different, very. Yes, very multi diverse.

[00:30:46] We have the mountains. We have the beach, we have the jungle. And it’s very. Chaotic, but also very warm, very human. You always have the opportunity to have a very nice conversation with everyone in the street. It’s intense here in Colombia, everything it’s intense.

[00:31:17] We love the intensity of war. intense. We have the jungle intense, the animals are intense, everything it’s wow, intense. No? So it’s a very good country to visit and just to have the possibility to travel and to know the differences. Also to understand all that they’re recovering, not the came back to the peace.

[00:31:52] To the peace way, how can we be, how can we be in peace? How can we do it? Because we are in a drug war, in a war for many years. So how can we make our peace? Changes? No it’s very interesting for, also for the world, for the world, because it’s not easy.

[00:32:21] We have to make an effort and a very big effort to, to change and to just come back to another kind of practice, not of practice to, to have money and to have political decisions and social decisions, how to change a country in war to a peace country. It’s a very good time right now. It’s very interesting for the world. I think that we are making an experiment

[00:32:54] And it’s a very interesting experiment.

[00:32:56] Lily Allen-Duenas: Yeah, you described it so well, and I’m grateful for you shining a light on all the different aspects of Colombia, not just the location or what the people are like. So thank you very much Laura. I know that I’m going to put your website and your social media information. In the show notes, as well as on my website, while yoga tribe.com/yoga in Colombia.

[00:33:20] But if you wanted to just verbally let them know Lara where they can find you. You’re welcome to do that now.

[00:33:27] Laura Alvarez: Yes, we can. You can find me just in Happy Yoga, Colombia. Happy yoga, Colombia and Instagram, Happy Yoga Bogota in Facebook, Happy Yoga Bogota in YouTube. We have a very big youTube channel with many practices there. And it’s also Happy Yoga Bogota. And in Twitter, in TikTok, we are also in TikTok.

[00:33:54] Lily Allen-Duenas: Way to go. I’m just getting my own TikTok going. So

[00:33:57] good job. 

[00:33:59] Laura Alvarez: I open TikTok always when I open TikTok, I say, oh, I have to be here. Really? I have to be here. but I’m trying to be there. 

[00:34:11] Lily Allen-Duenas: Perfect. And so thank you so much, Lara for having this beautiful conversation with me. I have loved having you here.

[00:34:18] Laura Alvarez: Oh, thank you. Thank you, Lily. You are so wonderful person. I love your voice and I love your love.

[00:34:24] Lily Allen-Duenas: Thank you. Thank you.

[00:34:25] Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of the Wild Yoga Tribe podcast. My conversation with Laura Alvarez, a yoga teacher from Colombia was so lovely as we tuned into how vital it is to study the spiritual texts, sutras, and scriptures of yoga and how doing so gives you a lens into your own mind and helps you actually reach freedom. I hope that this conversation made you want to dive into the spiritual text yourself. The study of yoga is infinite after all. If you’re looking to tune into a podcast episode, that’s all about devotion to understanding the self and seeking deeper levels in your own being then this is the conversation for you. Thank you for listening to the wild yoga tribe podcast. Be well. 

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