Hi everyone. Welcome to episode 65 of the Let's Talk Yoga podcast. I hope you are doing well. I have an

exciting conversation lined up for you on the show today. We're talking about decolonizing

mental health, the trauma of cultural appropriation for people who live and are from the culture of

yoga, and a deep dive into compassion and what it means

to be compassionate. And all of this is possible only because I found this really, really amazing

guest to have this conversation with. And that's Ekta Hatangadi. Ektah is a social worker,

a private practice psychotherapist, a mindfulness trainer and

coach. She's got over 16 years of experience of working in the non-profit space in clinical and

program roles across India, the U.S. and Canada. She's currently based out of Canada and she introduces

herself in today's show. And Ike and I talk about a whole range of topics. We start

with just what is decolonizing mental health and what is good mental health. And from there,

we branch off into cultural appropriation of yoga and the trauma that generations of people have

faced because these practices have been appropriated by the West and the implications

of that. And from there, we jump into our core topic for today, which is all things compassion.

And Ekta talks in the, she tells you in the show how compassion is really central to her life

and her personal journey. But she talks about what it means to be compassionate. And I ask her

about, you know, is compassion a learned behavior or is it something you are born with? Is there a

compassion meter? How do you measure your compassion? And we get into the conversation around

mindfulness practices. And does being mindful make you compassionate or

are you compassionate and hence you become more mindful? And Ecta brings so much clarity to all these

questions. And we even talk about things like mental health in the yoga community. And of course,

I asked her on how you can increase your own capacity, your ability to be compassionate.

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