The Nourished Woman with Keri Marino

Awakening the Nourished Woman Within

• Keri Marino • Episode 1

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Have you ever noticed how your relationship with yoga transforms the longer you practice? What begins as a simple desire for flexibility or stress relief gradually reveals itself as a gateway to your deepest self.

Yoga offers us this remarkable journey from surface-level goals to soul-deep transformation. As your body develops muscle memory and your nervous system attunes to the practice, you begin accessing parts of yourself that may have remained hidden for years. These are the layers where your authentic desires live—not the should-based goals society imposes, but the heart-led longings that feel like coming home to yourself.

These desires aren't small. They're expansive visions of living with joy, channeling your unique gifts, experiencing deeply connected relationships, and having abundant energy for the things that matter most. The beautiful paradox is that manifesting these desires requires both more consistency in your practice and a gentler approach—one rooted in devotion rather than obligation.

When yoga transforms from something you do to how you live, everything shifts. You're no longer forcing yourself onto the mat because you "should"; you're showing up because it nourishes you at every level. Your practice becomes a sacred container holding all of you—body, mind, and spirit. Even short sessions of 15-30 minutes carry profound power when approached with this reverence.

Perhaps most beautiful of all, this devotional practice connects you to something larger than yourself. Each time you roll out your mat with love rather than criticism, each breath practice and meditation becomes an offering—not just for your own wellbeing, but for those who came before you without these tools, and for all who will come after. This is soul work disguised as yoga.

Ready to deepen your relationship with your practice? Join our community of women exploring this path together in the Nourished Woman Sanctuary.

 Connect with me on Instagram @The_Nourished_Woman or visit www KeriMarino.com to learn more about mentorship opportunities.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Nourished Woman podcast, a space for women on a growth and healing journey who are ready to live more joyfully and feel deeply at home within themselves, body, mind and spirit. I'm Keri Marino, your host, somatic yoga therapist, mentor and mama of three. Let's dive in. Every single one of us comes to a yoga practice or the growth and healing work, because there is some sort of longing from within for a better version of our lives. And it may be a pretty superficial desire at first. Perhaps you want to be more physically fit, or you want to have a cal fit, or you want to have a calmer mind, or you want to be more flexible or have better joint health, and that's totally cool. Like so many of us walk into a yoga studio or roll out our mat for the first time and click play on a video simply because we've got some sort of a desire and somebody told us this might help, and so we tried it out. But as you go further into that and as you become deeper in touch with yourself, these bigger desires and these soul longings start to emerge. And these are beautiful aspects of you that sometimes can't be accessed until we've got a little bit of yoga under our belt, because, truly, one of the greatest gifts of your yoga practice is being able to access and have awareness of a connection to these deeper layers of yourself. And once you've started to get some muscle memory of that, once your nervous system has become more attuned to that and you can really find your way into those soulful layers of yourself, you'll you'll know, you'll feel brave enough to explore even bigger desires for yourself. And these desires are oftentimes really deep desires like the feeling of being at home within your body and the feeling of channeling your gifts into the world in the most heartfelt, sacred way possible, or giving birth to this totally new version of you, not from a place of I should, but from a heart, intuitive I keep saying it, but I mean it soulfully resourced place inside of you. That is like I am here for joy and I am here to play, and I am here to experience the most life-changing version of my marriage that is so full of love and playful, and I am here to be the kind of mother that absolutely enjoys my children and has plenty of energy and is not depleted or drained, and has plenty of energy and is not depleted or drained. So those like, oh, like, oh, my gosh.

Speaker 1:

I get so excited just thinking about what these desires are for you and I want to acknowledge that you being able to actually embody those desires and to live as your version of the nourished woman and to show up at that high level of energy, it takes more consistency on your part. It takes a different kind of presence and your old model of how you show up, how often you practice yoga or how busy you allow your schedule to be, or how little time you take to really nourish yourself in a mindful, conscious way or to process your feelings or to love on yourself and even just to ask yourself what you want and what you need. In order for you to channel that soulful longing from within you. It requires more, and this is where your yoga practice not only can help you find your way into this part of yourself, this deeper aspect of self and I like to use the word self with a capital s, because I mean whole self, your body, mind, spirit and life like that unification, that integration, that harmonious coming together of every part of you. It requires more and that more can come from your yoga practice, because when you practice yoga, you are not just doing something physical for your body, you are accessing your deepest parts of self. You are coming into the pause, the space between all of the thoughts. You are leaving the world of push and perform and coming into a place that is neutral and whole and here to channel your gifts in the wonderful way that only you can. And so each time that you sit down and you do a meditation or you do some breath work or you do your yoga practice, whether it's restorative or active, if you are weaving in these connections to your deepest self, then you are giving yourself the bandwidth to go out and live that version of your life that you so magnificently want to, and I want to acknowledge that this will come easier later on.

Speaker 1:

Or yoga therapist, what our yoga practice is like? It's really hard to actually separate it from life, because yoga is the way that I live my life, it is the devotional practice, it is the grounding force that I turn to over and over again to hold me as I move through my days. So, yes, formal practice is part of that, like I do meditate and roll out my yoga mat and do breath work and chanting and so many different aspects of formal practice, but also it is simply who I am as I move through the world and I know many of you listening to this like. It is simply who you are to live from the vantage point of yoga, as this guiding force and place that you are held and supported and this source of nurturance in your life. And if you are not there yet, then this podcast is just as much for you. This is absolutely a place for you to start to build the habit, build the muscle memory, learn how to weave it into your life so that it is simply something that you move through your life with, being held and nourished and supported by.

Speaker 1:

And I want to just love on you wherever you are in this journey and also love on that part of you that is doing the brave work of saying I want more and I want better and I'm not going to sit here and pretend that I can just keep showing up the same way and actually feel the difference that I want to feel in my life. And I also want to love on the part of you that's learning that she can't force that, that it's not about forcing something or putting pressure or letting fear or scarcity be a motivating force, but we are resourcing this action and this follow through as a devotional practice. You are rolling out your yoga mat because there is love behind it and because you know that this is the thing that helps you and nourishes you and supports you, and it's simply something that you want to do. You're not doing it because you think you should. You're not doing it because you think your body is not good enough as it already is. You are loving on yourself through this practice.

Speaker 1:

You are offering this practice up to something bigger than you and this, this like funnels out, like these things that you want, these soul longings. They're not just for you. They're for your babies and they're for past you and your ancestors and the women who came before you, who didn't even know how to put words to her feelings or didn't know that she could reach for the things that you're reaching for and the level of abundance that you are creating the space for in your life, and these are for the women who will come after us and all the other people on the planet. Like this is a devotional work that you're doing. This is a sacred thing that you are here to cultivate, and so your yoga practice is not like. It's not just this three-dimensional thing that you're doing. It is this sort of cosmic thing that you are tapping into, and when you do it more consistently and I don't mean like it has to be a 60 or 75 minute practice, but I mean as that sort of I live my yoga practice and I weave my practice in regularly and routinely in the ways that really work for me, like for me as a mom of three. I can tell you that I rarely practice yoga for an hour at a time. In terms of, like, formal practice. My yoga practices are much more likely to be 15 to 30 or 45 minutes, including any version of how I practice yoga.

Speaker 1:

So you've you've got the freedom to make your yoga practice work for you, and this is the like loving kick in the booty to tell you to think about it as something more and to recognize that that stuff that you're craving soul, deep and heart led and intuitively called to it requires a different version of you. The kind of version of you who pays attention to how full she is when she's eating, and the kind of you that actually does the things that nourish you more often and manages your time and energy in a different way. And I know that, if you're listening to this podcast, that yoga is part of that tool, those mystical tools in your tool belt that you're using. So I want to encourage you that, wherever you are whether you already are living this as your truth, or whether you are opening yourself up to this, or maybe this is a brand new concept that you devote a little more sacredness to every yoga practice that you do.

Speaker 1:

It is not simply breath work, it is soul work. It is not simply you doing a meditation on insight timer and just like trying to calm down your crazy monkey mind. It is you aligning your energies. It is you making that space. It is you already stepping towards whatever it is that you're calling in, without having to force it, but opening yourself up to receive it. If this episode resonated with you, I'd love to hear about it. Send me a message on Instagram at TheNourishedWoman, or on my website, carriemarinocom, and if you're looking for deeper support, mentorship or a space to feel held, I'd love to have you join us inside the Nourished Woman Sanctuary. The beautiful music that you're hearing is from Shawn Johnson and the Wild Lotus Band, and you can find them on all streaming platforms.