Back in 2020 I started this Yoga off the Mat Podcast while I lived with my little family in Mexico...I was just starting to offer online trainings, do lives on social and overall put myself out there on the internet...I was healing from cancer, trying to keep my marriage strong and teaching a whole lot of Yoga trainings with people from all over the world, it was the best of times, and then it wasn't.
After nearly 5 years I'm reposting these...for those of you who are new to me, welcome! I've changed a LOT but the the foundation of my beliefs are the same:
ONLY LOVE IS REAL...
So enjoy these past episodes and stay tuned for some new content on a Yoga, on & off the mat and how everything we are looking for, are hoping for, is available if we only just take, one, deep, breath.
See you soon loves,
Marie
The moment you realize you’re off center can sting and not because you drifted, but because you start judging yourself for drifting. I’m back after a few weeks away, and I wanted to record a short, honest reset about what the practice really looks like in real life: you tighten, you react, you lose the thread, and then you get to choose your way back. I talk about the familiar gap between awareness and action. We often know we’re not feeling clear, grounded, or in the flow, yet we still spir...
16 Mar 2026
What Changes When You Believe You Are Holy
The words “I am very holy” can feel like a comfort… or like a dare. It really depends on what life has asked you to walk through. In this episode, I share a grounded and very personal reflection on A Course in Miracles Lesson 35, and why this line can feel hardest to believe right after heartbreak, public doubt, messy relationships, or those quieter moments when we begin to lose trust in ourselves. If your sparkle has dimmed a little… or if you’ve found yourself hesitating to be seen again… t...
9 Mar 2026
I Tried Ignoring The Dark; It Sent A Calendar Invite
Ever notice how the smallest acts—drinking water, taking a breath, choosing a softer thought—are the first ones we resist when we most need them? In this episode, we explore the quiet mechanics of resistance and the deeper resilience that forms when we stop fighting our own becoming. Instead of pushing harder, we look at what happens when we bring fear, judgment, and attack thoughts into the light—and allow willingness to do the real work. We trace how growth often starts in the dark: seeds s...
2 Mar 2026
Happiness is not the goal
What if happiness isn’t a goal but our natural baseline waiting beneath the noise? We open the door to that quieter center by looking at desire as a compass—what we truly want to feel—and then practicing small, practical shifts that bring peace into ordinary moments. Through A Course in Miracles and embodied tools from yoga, we explore how to soften the inner critic, listen to the inner teacher, and invite miracles, defined simply as shifts in perception. I share how the lesson these thought...
23 Feb 2026
Turns Out The Inner Critic Needs A Yoga Class
When the inner critic gets loud, most of us double down on control, comparison, and self-judgment. We tried a different way: letting all things be exactly as they are, even for a breath, and watching how quickly clarity returns. From the yoga mat to the checkout line, we unpack the “not good enough” loop and offer practical tools rooted in A Course in Miracles and Ashtanga Yoga to bring you back to center. We start by naming the critical mind for what it is: a habit of thought, not a verdict...
15 Feb 2026
A Return to Center ~ Episode 1
What if the most radical move right now is not to power through, but to come home? In this episode, we (me + my inner teacher) return to the mic with a clear, tender, and unsparing look at spiritual bypass, the long shadow of 2020, and the courage it takes to rebuild from love instead of fear. After stepping back from teaching, trainings, and the public eye, I explore the terrain from free fall to a steadier ground and name the idea that changed everything: an aspect of us never left. That is...
26 Jan 2026
From Yoga Circles To Inner Guidance And Forgiveness
31 Dec 2025
Danielle Laporte On Love, Courage, And The Real Work Of Healing
Start with the quiet truth: strategy can’t fix what fear is running. We open with Danielle Laporte naming meditation as her most powerful business move, not because it’s trendy but because clarity makes better choices inevitable. From there, we trace a path from performance to presence, where daily practice cleans up the inner noise so love can do the heavy lifting. We swap origin stories about discovering A Course in Miracles and how the teachings move from confusing to catalytic. Only love...
11 Dec 2025
We Heal Faster When We Stop Avoiding What Scares Us
What happens when we stop averting our eyes and decide to meet the dark with a grounded, loving spine? That question became impossible to ignore after a weekend that left me rattled by headlines, cultural narratives, and the quiet ways fear seeps into our habits. I turned to two anchors—yoga philosophy and A Course in Miracles—and followed them to an uncomfortable, liberating place: look directly at what hurts, withdraw your consent from it, and move your life in the direction of love with co...
11 Dec 2025
Your Parents are Saints
What if the fastest route to spiritual alignment runs straight through your relationship with your parents? We go there with honesty and care—naming resentments, reframing old stories, and practicing forgiveness not as a pass but as a path back to power. Instead of debating who was right, we focus on the only leverage that changes our life today: perception. That’s the heartbeat of Yoga Off the Mat and the core of A Course in Miracles—shifting from fear to love so the past stops writing our p...
11 Dec 2025
Scooby-Doo, Billionaires, And Why Love Needs A Game Plan
What changes when we stop avoiding the dark and decide to look—calmly, clearly, and with love? We open this conversation with shaky news and heavy feelings, then move toward grounded practices that help us keep our eyes open without losing our center. Drawing on yoga philosophy and ideas from A Course in Miracles, we explore how avoidance quietly empowers fear, and how attention infused with love withdraws our consent and restores agency. We talk about teaching kids that love still wins whil...
11 Dec 2025
Invest In Love: Healing Scarcity And Owning Your Worth
What happens when spiritual service meets the very real cost of doing the work? We go straight at the tension between worthiness, pricing, and integrity, using a Facebook post that sparked judgment as our doorway into a deeper practice. Along the way, we unpack how scarcity hides under the mask of compassion, why victimhood and entitlement are two sides of the same coin, and how receiving can be a courageous act that keeps communities resourced. I share the unglamorous realities behind “free...
10 Dec 2025
You have one Problem
In a world that feels overwhelmed with problems—global health crises, economic instability, shifting education systems, uncertainty about the future—it’s easy to believe we’re drowning in complexity. But what if, beneath all the noise, we truly have only one problem? In this episode, we explore a radically different way of approaching today’s challenges: through the remembrance that we are connected to the Divine. That the same intelligence that orchestrates the Universe—making flowers bloom ...
10 Dec 2025
"Inner Family" It's not what you think...
In this intimate and insightful episode, we explore how our inner energies shape the way we show up in our closest relationships. The conversation begins with a moment of unexpected acknowledgment—a new friend noticing the radiant harmony between Marie and her husband. Their dynamic, she observed, carries a higher frequency, one grounded in mutual respect and a deep honoring of the divine masculine and feminine. Drawing from A Course in Miracles, we explore the idea that everything in life is...
10 Dec 2025
Lessons from Cancer Part 2
The Deeper We Go, The Lighter We Get: Love Lessons from Cancer (Part 2) In this powerful continuation of Love Lessons from Cancer, we explore what it truly means to heal from the inside out. Cancer is an intensely personal journey, and while no one can walk it for us, we can love each other through it. In this episode, we dive into the inner work that transformed a diagnosis into a doorway—one that opened toward mental, emotional, and spiritual healing. Meditation became the strongest form of...
10 Dec 2025
From Diagnosis To Devotion: Choosing Love Over Fear In Breast Cancer
Fear can calcify in the body—or it can become a doorway back to love. Marie opens up about her breast cancer journey and the surprising ways yoga philosophy, A Course in Miracles, and evidence-informed practices reshaped her choices, biology, and beliefs. From the shattering grief of losing Larry to the unexpected arrival of Daniel, she traces how unprocessed emotion and nonstop hustle hardened into a wake-up call in her right breast, the energetic “masculine” side. What followed was a radica...
10 Dec 2025
Pilot Part 2 ~ My Yoga off the Mat story
In this episode, we explore the unexpected turning points that happen not in a yoga pose, but in the space between our thoughts. Our story begins with a book—“A Course in Miracles.” The moment it appeared, there was an instant pull. Even without fully understanding the text, something deeper was happening. The words on the page seemed to work behind the scenes, rearranging inner patterns, shifting spiritual alignment, and touching a part of the psyche that analytic thinking couldn’t access. E...
19 Nov 2025
Meeting Marie - My Yoga on the mat Story
Greetings, I’m so glad you’re here. I’m your host, Marie Russel, and this is Yoga off the mat. In this podcast, I will explore how we can use the philosophy of Yoga & principles from A course in Miracles, to transcend some of the seemingly difficult poses, situations, relationships, that we find ourselves in, off the mat. I’ll be sharing stories, tools, practices that I’ve learned, sometimes the hard way, in how live with a lot less fear, and a lot more love. It a practice in how to...
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