Thu, Jun 12, 2025 10:23PM • 12:59
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John,
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welcome to reclaim your worth with Gene, a podcast where we dive deep into the stories of self love, self value and self respect. Each episode is a journey into the heart of what it means to reclaim your worth with real conversations that will inspire you to celebrate the person you see in the mirror. Let’s get started.
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You today, I have an amazing, amazing person, somebody who has been a huge mentor for me throughout my mental health journey. We have Ashanti mosey. She is a pre licensed mental health counselor with many, many hours of yoga instructions. She’s a yoga instructor who blends the practices of therapy and yoga to guide individuals towards healing and self discovery with a deep understanding of the mind body connection. Ashanti uses a holistic approach that integrates evidence based counseling techniques with mindful movement and breath work to promote mental health and emotional well. Being welcome. Thank you so much for having me. I’m really excited to be here. Thank you. Thank you. Well, first, I want to set the stage about my relationship with you. I have been practicing yoga with you for a little bit over a year, and you have been a life saving experience for me throughout my mental health journey, I have cried
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with you. Yes, I have laughed,
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and you have seen me throughout everything. And in case you’re wondering, anytime that I say which has been just something so good for me to repeat what you say in the classes when you look in the mirror, do you praise or do you judge?
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And so anytime that you hear me say that this is the person where it came from. So tell me a little bit about yourself. Yeah. Well, first, I just want to say thank you so much for just creating this safe space and platform for people like me and people like yourself to talk about mental health on as well as how to reclaim your worth using your own guidance and your own mental health. So as much as I’ve you know, you feel like you’ve learned from me. I’ve learned so so much from Eugene.
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So I started my journey in mental health about, wow, it’s been about four years now. So I started my internship during Coronavirus, and talk about mental health difficulties and times where I’m trying to connect with people online, which was really difficult because we are such social people. You know, I do believe we’re social individuals, and we need that connection, and so trying to have that online already is difficult. So I kind of started my mental health journey and career in a tumultuous time, and so since then, it has given me the expansion to grow into more somatic healing. That means healing of the body, using our body for healing and using yoga as a space to create that healing. And I know we’re going to talk more about yoga and mental health and how it connects, but I got started because it was a hard time for connection for everyone, and trying to, you know, invite connection for others, using online platforms is really how mental health and yoga merged for me, well, I have to think about going back to your classes. You get different people from different walks of life. For me, was military, sexual trauma, and I know probably other people walking, you know, their own personal journey. And so tell me a little bit about your teaching style, and how do you adjust the kind of like, the different levels, to what people specifically need? Yeah, so I’m a very individualized teacher. You’ll often see that in yoga, you may have a plan, right? And you may, as in life, we often have plans for things, and we want things to go a certain way, but yoga has really taught me to lose that amount of control in my life. And what I mean by that is I can come in with a plan, and then I come in and maybe I meet an individual in class, and they need something else than what I’ve prepared. They need a different type of lesson. They need a different type of message. And my goal is to be flexible and adaptable, because everyone’s needs are different, right? And while I can attune to every single need in this space, what I can do is check in with those that may be needing a little bit of extra for today or different themes that come up from talking to people. So my first goal is to create a community in class, create a structure.
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Or, you know, being able to say who we are, you know, through our practice, and then being able to guide each person individually. And as you know, Gene, from taking my classes, I kind of use that hour as a power, hour of empowerment, a time of just saying, How can we show up for ourselves? You’ve done this great thing just for you, and that’s exactly what therapy is. And I think that’s where the collision starts to happen, right? You take that individual time to get support for you. And for some people, yoga is more than enough therapy, right? The traditional realms of talk therapy are not going to be the same, especially since COVID. And so now we have to adapt and move and grow. And so for me, growing is yoga therapy, you know, moving our body as a way to heal our body. You have people as myself coming in with, you know, stress, yeah, anxiety and much more, you know, what are some of the modifications that you do throughout your your teaching that can help those with that, you know, with whatever they bring to to the table, yeah, um, so, you know, I think, not only do I provide body modifications, right, it’s very simple to use a prop, right? And sometimes we think about props in life, just as same as getting help, you know, again, another collection and another collision of that therapy and yoga, using props is not a crutch, you know? I really want to emphasize that, because we all need a helping hand on different days, right? And so you may have a day where you don’t need a prop and you feel good, right? Just in terms of our mental health, we feel good, right? We can handle things individually, where another day you might need to make that phone call to the friend just to get through the day, right? And that’s just exactly what a prop is. And so guiding people to understand that props are there to support you, and just like you’re there to support yourself, the community is there to support you. So a non judgmental zone is really, really important. So being able to provide my background in mental health. I think people come to me often with that mental health idea and open up. I love that. I love to get to know people individually. And so what that means is then creating a safe space in the environment that looks like maybe music that we all know and that we can smile to and laugh at, then maybe jokes making fun of myself, right? Because sometimes we have this idea that our body has to look perfect and be perfect, and we’re worried about the way our clothes look, and really, we’re here to just be in the moment and take care of yourself. So not only do I provide props in terms of modification, but also whole Safe Space sensory modification, you know, through the waving of our SCENTED TOWEL, that’s a sensory input to the music that we listen to, to the feeling in the atmosphere. As soon as you come in. It’s really about energy, and we all have it. And so I take a lot of pride in creating a safe energy in the spaces that I work in. You know, you’re so right about community. As I was writing my book, reclaim your worth, what I really focused on in throughout my journey was the cheerleaders and protectors, and that has been, for me, just the people that you practice with in the structures, they’re so invested on on your well being. So for me, that has been just an environment where I can be myself. You know, I can cry, I can smile, I can laugh, and I’m not ashamed of myself. So tell me something. What do you tell somebody who is wanting to explore, you know, yoga? What will you tell them about? What first step to take? I think the first step is realizing that yoga is more than just the movement of our body, right? I think of yoga as a tree, and it has many limbs. It has eight limbs, to be exact, and that means really embodying a sense of being for yourself, and that starts with getting to know yourself. So I’d be curious, what do you like to do? You know? Who are you by yourself? Um, what types of breathing Do you enjoy? Right? That’s another part of yoga. Sometimes sitting down and taking a deep breath, you don’t even realize that you’re doing yoga. And that is really powerful. And so I would first connect with yourself. Who are you? What do you like? What do you need? And as as we talked about in the beginning, when you look in the mirror, you know, do you praise or do you judge? How do you respond to you? And then you know, more practical ways look on YouTube. You know, I find that YouTube has so many different people that look different, that say different things. You need different things, right? And so finding what moves you and what you enjoy. Some people move a little faster, and they like a little heat, as I know you do in terms of yoga and pilates. And some people like a little bit slower right and slower movement and finding what works for you, and then after you feel comfortable doing that, next step is finding someone else that you know, maybe who does yoga. You know. I think we’re only probably about three degrees of separation from someone that you know who does yoga. So check in with your community and what they enjoy. So first step, learn about.
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Yourself. Next, look at a YouTube video or two, and then check in with that community. So you have talked about the mental health benefits of yoga. Yeah, I will talk about my own experience. I did high impact my entire life, and lifting weights and just, you know, doing classes and the results that I saw with yoga in the first three months I did not achieve in a lifetime. So talk to me a little bit more about you know, what are some of the body results you can expect when you do yoga? Yeah. So again, a lot of people believe that yoga is just moving very slowly, breathing intently. You know, we often see lots of jokes about yoga, but I think yoga is now mainstream, right? And what that means is yoga is in the forefront of social media, yoga is in the forefront of fitness. Yoga is now. And what that means is your body is going to respond, because your mind also responds. So coming onto the mat, you may find that your balance starts to be a little bit wobbly, right? You’re like my body doesn’t make the shape that other people make, right? But again, back to tuning into yourself when you connect with yourself and connect with your progress, one day, you’re struggling to stand on one foot, and the next day, you’re holding up a tree pose with your leg in the air and your hands in the air, feeling so proud of yourself. And so it’s about those incremental goals. And so from your body, you can feel some intensity in the arms, shoulders, legs, a full body workout, if that’s what you want it to be. As I said, yoga is a spectrum, so it doesn’t have to be just that. But if you’re looking for the heat and the fitness, it’s there.
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I’m chuckling over here because my husband was one of those people,
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and I took him to yoga. It was the floor class he couldn’t move the next day. Oh, my God,
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I’m so glad he learned Yes, yes, yes. So I just want to say thank you. Thank you for your time today. I always, you know, you have been such an amazing contributor to the improvement of my mental health. And I always tell people, you know, find what works for you and go at your own pace, because at the end of the day, the competition for me is is within myself. So thank you. Thank you.
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Thank you for joining us on reclaim your worth with Jean. If today’s episode resonated with you, don’t forget to subscribe and share it with someone who needs to hear this message. Remember, your work is never up for negotiation, and it’s for you to keep go out there and tell everybody until next time, take care and keep shining you.