Resonance – Episode 40
Verbatim Transcript
Speaker: Viktoria Levenberg
Guest Speaker: Kara-Leah Grant
Kara-Leah Grant: I was like, you know, classical overachiever, intellectual, in my head, completely
emotionally shut down. Didn’t know that any of that was actually happening, though, until the
wheels started to fall off. Is that my life imploded, because all of a sudden, aiming to be a
diplomat, waking up in a psych ward. A lot of people on the spiritual path aren’t really seeking
spirituality. Most people actually just wanna enjoy their life. What’s the most rebellious thing you
can do? Is open into the joy of awareness, no matter what is going on.
Viktoria Levenberg: How much more would you enjoy your life if you simply chose to choose joy,
no matter what? In today’s episode, you are going to hear from Kara-Leah Grant, a yogi, a
Tantrika, and an incredible human who deeply, deeply embodies what it is like to live a life of
embodiment, alchemy, liberation, and awakening. And you are going to learn about spirituality,
yoga, Tantra, all the things, so that you can reconnect with the truth of who you really are, of the
truth that you already know inside you, that anything is possible. You can choose to have it right
here, right now. Let’s begin.
Viktoria Levenberg: Welcome to Resonance, the podcast for high performers and entrepreneurs
who wanna do life, work, and success differently. I am your host, Viktoria Levenberg, and I’m
obsessed with efficiency, productivity, and planning in a way that harnesses your energy and your
natural rhythms, while keeping you in alignment and integrity. Because I have figured out that
lasting success is not about the hustle. It is about being in resonance. Let’s begin.
Viktoria Levenberg: Alright, so look, if you have ever felt like you’re living a life that isn’t yours, or
like you didn’t know where to go, it feels like you’re kind of a bit out of place, and maybe you’ve
been driven by all these false ideas and it’s starting to bubble up into your conscious awareness,
but you’re like, oh, I don’t know, I don’t want to look at this stuff, I don’t know where to start. Or
maybe you’ve wondered, like, what is all this spirituality and yoga and Tantra stuff about? Or like,
what are these yogis doing behind closed doors? Like, what are they actually doing there?
You’re gonna get answers to that and so much more. By the end of this episode, you will have the
exact step-by-step framework towards awakening and liberation, your exact next right step, so
that you can stop outsourcing your power away to others or to your conditioned mind, and
instead choose to live the life of your wildest dreams, right here, right now.
A little bit about Kara-Leah. She is a mentor, a teacher, a writer, a Tantrika, a yoga teacher. She is
an incredible person, and I, like, honestly feel so honoured to know and receive teachings from
her. Like, I refer to her as my Tantra teacher. And I have had the privilege of enjoying quite a few
of her containers, both in person and online, you know, from sort of like three-day immersions, to
masterminds, to a retreat that we’re about to go to in just a few weeks, actually, which is very,
very exciting.
And truly, you know, she is incredibly humble, as you will hear in the episode in just a moment.
But I genuinely believe that there is a level of shakti, of power, that gets transmitted when the
teacher themselves truly embody what they’re teaching. And, like, Kara-Leah is that. Like, she is a
living, breathing example of, you know, someone on the path towards awakening and liberation.
And some of the really interesting parts of her story that truly drew me towards her work is that
she went through Kundalini awakening herself, which, like, the modern world would call
psychosis. And she writes, she’s got a book about it. Like, it’s a really, really powerful story. I
highly recommend you get the book and give that a read. But in the meantime, like, this episode
will also give you the TLDR version of the story. And she’s just, like, so real and unapologetic
about being herself. Like, I honestly see that as such an inspiration of just, like, yeah, like, let’s
enjoy life and just be here now and have the best time while we’re at it.
So I think you’re gonna love the episode. Enjoy. Without further ado, I’ll see you in there.
Yay, welcome to Resonance. I am so grateful to have you on the show, and it is so cool how the
dreams we dream eventually turn into reality. Like, I vividly remember, just as I was thinking of
starting this podcast, I already knew you. Like, I had done some in-person immersions with you. I
was like, I would love to have Kara-Leah on the podcast to share her story. And here we are today,
the dream’s coming true. So thank you from the bottom of my heart for saying yes.
Kara-Leah Grant: My pleasure. I mean, I love to talk, ha ha, and we get to talk about all the really
cool, fun things.
Viktoria Levenberg: Yes, exactly. And, you know, I would love to, as we kind of start to talk about
the cool, fun things, perhaps for people who haven’t heard of you before, who don’t know you,
you know, haven’t heard your story, would you be able to share a little bit about yourself? You
know, who you are, where you’re from, some of the key things that led you to today?
Kara-Leah Grant: Yeah, so I’m coming in hot from Nelson. That’s Nelson, Canada, not Nelson,
New Zealand. We’ve got, like, a couple feet of fresh snow. It’s February. Just wanna give a shout-
out to Splore Festival, because Splore started today, and it’s the last ever, it’s the last year of
Splore. Yeah, yeah. And I’ve spent many a beautiful, incredible time at Splore as a presenter, as a
teacher.
I have been teaching yoga now for over, for 20 years. Yeah, 2006. 2006.
Viktoria Levenberg: Wow.
Kara-Leah Grant: I started teaching yoga. And when I say teaching yoga, I mean yoga, right? Like
awakening, liberation, the enjoyment of life through the frameworks, the teachings of Tantra and
the practices, which include but are not limited to Tantra.
Viktoria Levenberg: Yes, I love that. And I’m so excited to get your perspective on that as well,
because there’s so much misinformation out there. So I love that you’re here, and you’ll be able
to shed some light on the truth that Tantra and yoga really is.
Kara-Leah Grant: Yeah, maybe a little bit, a little bit, I know a little bit. Yeah. So I guess in terms of
my journey, huh, I mean, just feel into, like, what is most important here. Hmm. Yeah, I was, I was
like, you know, classical overachiever, intellectual, in my head, completely emotionally shut down.
Didn’t know that any of that was actually happening, though, ha ha. Yup, until the wheels started
to fall off.
I entered adult life and just, I had such a strong sense of justice. And as a woman, as a young
woman, I read all the feminist texts as a teenager. And I just, I had this sense, and we’re talking,
like, I graduated high school in 1993, and I kind of thought the world was, you know, liberating
and all this stuff. And then I go out into it, and I’m being confronted with sexism and just mean,
being mean, you know? And I was just like, what the f*ck? I don’t wanna play this game.
And as a young woman, I could feel the game I was meant to play, and I was just like—am I
allowed to swear? I’m just like…
Viktoria Levenberg: Yeah, yeah, you’re allowed to swear. We’ll pop this one as an explicit one. Go
for it, ’cause I know, yeah, let’s just, I don’t want you to filter yourself.
Kara-Leah Grant: Yeah, I’m expressive. And so I went through this. I was at university. I wanted to
be a diplomat, ’cause I wanted to be in the corridors of power and supporting people to connect
and communicate, da da. I did Mandarin Chinese at university. Wow. And yeah, I got 90s. I got
90s in freaking Mandarin. And I did eight papers when everyone else was doing six. I got invited
to do honours in three subjects. I was on my freaking way to being, like, Helen Clark, you know?
Mm hmm, mm hmm.
And then the wheels started to fall off. I dropped out of university. I went into journalism. I got an
inside look at how media functions and was just like, we’re just making shit up, man. Mm hmm.
Like, because we were, we were being told, you have to be objective. But there was no
understanding of internal filters, internal bias, and all that thing. And I’m like, but, but, but
objectivity is impossible because we live in a subjective universe.
So I was already questioning and coming up against it. And I went, I just, I just bailed on it all. I
went overseas, basically. I was just like, OK, I’m going overseas, ’cause I just can’t deal. I can’t deal
with this. I basically didn’t know how to be an achiever within the world I was beginning to
recognize without playing a game I didn’t want to play. And I was so identified with being an
achiever that it was like—
And yeah, so I went overseas and travelled. Ended up in Whistler, Canada. Fell in love with it. Oh
my goodness, I was waitressing. Beautiful place. Hello, money. Really good money. And I was
working as a freelance journalist, cover stories on Peak News Magazine. I wrote a screenplay that
won a national award. I was go-go dancing. I was go-go dancing, and so fun. Oh my God. Like, we
got to dance at World Skiing Snowboard Festival. It’s, like, the world’s top skiers and
snowboarders, and there’s 10,000 people there, and it’s a massive big jump set up, and it’s
nighttime, and we are on either side of the jump wearing crazy-ass costumes. The DJ’s playing.
We’re dancing. Like, and there was, it was rockstar-style partying, shit tons of drugs, all the
things. And I was doing a lot of yoga.
Meditation, seeking, reading all the books, and which is where things started to get really
interesting, ’cause I was doing less party drugs, but I was starting to work with psychedelics and
cannabis and exploring, spending a lot of time by myself in the forest or in the bath or whatever.
My relationship was going sideways. I didn’t know how to deal. And I ended up at my first ever
music festival, Shambhala, which coincidentally is 30 minutes down the road from where I now
live.
Viktoria Levenberg: I love this full circle moment for you at this point in your life right now. Yeah,
hundred percent.
Kara-Leah Grant: Like, oh, oh. So go to Shambhala with my fiancé and have this awakening into
unity consciousness and all that is, and which becomes quite ungrounded. And five days after,
when we get back, I’m doing—I start speaking a different language, and I’m not—I’m like
simultaneously silencing myself because the relationship’s gone sideways, so I’m not
communicating my inner world because it feels dangerous to do so.
And anyway, my fiancé basically takes me to the psych ward, checks me in, and yeah. And that—I
was 29. It was bang on. It was literally the day of exact Saturn returns that—wow, yeah. It was so,
you know,
Viktoria Levenberg: And it was a full moon or something as well?
Kara-Leah Grant: It was a new moon.
Viktoria Levenberg: New moon, that’s right.
’Cause I had two episodes of going into the psych ward, and both of them were new moon. My
cycle started both times, and like I literally—like it was just, there was just so many things going
on.
But the short version, ha, is that my life imploded because all of a sudden here I am, you know,
aiming to be a diplomat, Helen Clark style, mm hmm, waking up in a psych ward, mm hmm. And
that really fucked with my sense of identity. And so even though I’d gone through this, like,
awakening, it was not abiding.
And when I kind of woke up in the psych ward, I was completely back in conditioned mind,
identified all the same, all the same gunk is running. The only difference now is all the gunk is no
longer unconscious and controlled and managed.
And I can’t stay in Canada. Well, I couldn’t. There was no way to stay in Canada because I didn’t
have—I’d been freelancing, you know, and I was recovering from psychosis. My fiancé had broken
up with me. We’d been living together. So I had to come back to New Zealand, which I did not
want to do, and confront all of the stuff that I’d unconsciously run away from when I’d left when I
was 21.
Yeah, and so that was the foundation. That was 2004. That was really the foundation, the massive
pivot, turning point in my life. And I’m like—it was hell, and I’m so grateful for it.
Viktoria Levenberg: Yeah, like you’re smiling so deeply. Like, I can feel the joy. Yeah.
Kara-Leah Grant: It is. It’s just like, wow. Like, at the time, like, yeah, yeah, because I didn’t know
any better. I didn’t know any better. Like, if I had known, if I had the teachings and the practice—
Viktoria Levenberg: Yeah, you didn’t have anyone to help you integrate, to ground, to process.
Like, not only were you dealing with the awakening, you also were dealing with all the
unconscious stuff that was bubbling up, all by yourself.
Kara-Leah Grant: And life implosion. And my conditioning was to be alone because people are
dangerous, ’cause everyone leaves me and blah blah blah, yeah, yeah. Like, it’s hilarious. And
remember, this is 2004. The internet is a baby. The internet’s a baby. And so I didn’t even—I
didn’t even find out or—I knew something spiritual had happened, right? But the doctors are
like, it’s psychosis, it’s mania, you’re bipolar. And I’m like, sure, whatever you say, just I—
whatever. I’m going—I’m gonna go fix it myself.
But it wasn’t until 2006, and I went and did a workshop with Swami Shantimurti, which—hope
I’m getting his name right. He’s passed now. He was a beautiful New Zealand teacher. And he was
teaching on the chakras, and he started talking about Kundalini and how a lot of people end up in
psych wards. And I was like, hmm, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Um, hello, right?
And so I went up and had a chat to him, and he was like, yeah, sounds—he’s like, yeah, yeah. And
so he gave me some practices, and that gave me a sense of, OK, I know what I need to do now. I
need to do—I mean, I was already doing a lot of yoga and a lot of meditation, and I just started
doing more. Like, literally for the last 20-odd years, I have lived, breathed, read, studied, practised
yoga and yeah, yoga, yeah, yeah. So that’s kind of like the story.
Viktoria Levenberg: Yes, I love that. And also, by the way, on that, you know, sort of the two
decades of experience and embodiment of yoga, and I still love the humility that even you as a
teacher come in and say, well, I only know a little bit, you know? It’s funny ’cause it’s like the
more we know, the more we understand that we actually don’t know anything.
Kara-Leah Grant: Yeah, I mean, it’s absolutely true, you know? Like, I’m just finding my way. I’m
just finding my way. And, you know, humble is actually—I like to have a word of the year. My
word for this year is like—uh huh—humility and humble, yeah. You know, like I’m on these lands
now, Turtle Island. I’ve been doing a deep dive into the First Nations history here and Indigenous
ways. And I go to a drumming circle every Friday, which is beautiful and amazing.
And there’s a teaching here that I will not do justice, and I apologise for just not being able to do
it justice. But in essence, it’s the Seven Grandfather teaching, and it’s the seven different animals,
and they all represent a different quality. And I love the simplicity of it. And the wolf is humility.
Hmm, alright? And yeah, and I just—I’m just like, yeah, humbleness. What does it mean to
embody humbleness? And just having that as a central pillar feels really, really important for me
right now.
Because I am feeling like a level of liberation, freedom, that I’m very aware of the way that the
mind can co-opt stuff and that identity can sneak in, and all the times that that has been
happening in the past when I was not aware of it makes me go, ooh, I wonder where I’m not
aware right now where that is happening. So humbleness, having that as just that anchoring and
that reminder feels really beautiful for 2026, yeah.
Viktoria Levenberg: Yes, yes. And it is so important, especially in the field of work, you know, that
both you and I are in, is there is a degree of humility and humbleness needed for ourselves, as
you say, to be aware of where we are not aware, so to say, ha ha. And also to recognize that in
others as well.
You know, like when you are working with people, whether it is teaching asana or any other
practice, any other face-to-face human connection, we can only speak from our lived experience.
Like, there has to be a degree of humility in knowing that the person sitting in front of you is an
expert in their own life, and no one can tell them what is true for them, truly, except for
themselves.
Kara-Leah Grant: Yeah, I love when I work with people to ask questions, you know, mm hmm,
because of that. Like, we all, you know, ultimately what we are is awareness, and there is that
access to the wisdom field, and we all have that. And it’s simply the degree to which we feel in
touch with or connected with or allow it to come through. Yeah.
And that feels really important for people to recognize as students or clients is your own wisdom.
And like anything, it’s the nuances and there’s a dance. Because sometimes people will use that
as a way to avoid receiving teaching that is actually gonna unlock the jail cell that they put
themselves into.
Viktoria Levenberg: And then that’s ego, conditioned mind, right? That’s sort of like trying to trick
them back into their old habits and patterns.
So yeah, as you say, this, yeah, it is such an intricate dance.
Kara-Leah Grant: Yeah, it’s a dance. And ultimately, it’s all shakti.
That’s the thing. It’s all shakti. All of it. It’s all a play of that.
Viktoria Levenberg: Yes. And tell me more. ’Cause I, you know, as for someone who might be
listening who’s not a yogi, and when they hear you say, I embody all things yoga, they’re like,
wait, what do you mean? There is more than asana? And what is Tantra? And what is Shakti? You
know, like, yeah. Can you share a little bit more about what that means to you?
Kara-Leah Grant: Absolutely, I can share that. I don’t know if I embody all things that are yoga.
It’s—yes. So, hmm, let me feel into this. Yeah. Hmm. And you know, what I share is gonna be
imperfect. It’s gonna be through my lens as a Western white woman, grew up in the mid ’70s,
’80s, ’90s.
And so the first thing I would say, if you genuinely give a damn about it, is go to the source. Go to
the closest source that you can. And so I just want to start by naming some of my incredible
teachers, like Shiva Rea, embodiment teacher, incredible. She is such a Tantrika. She’s so devoted,
so devoted. And then Christopher Wallace, an amazing scholar practitioner who really turned me
on to the fundamental teachings of Tantra, the philosophy, the worldview. Christopher Tompkins.
Who taught me Uchara practice. I realized the other day, I’m like, wow, the longest relationship
I’ve ever had is with Uchara. Ha ha.
Viktoria Levenberg: And that’s pretty freaking great.
Kara-Leah Grant: Yeah, yeah. I mean, we’ve been together for 15 years, and we were daily for six,
you know, so yeah, yeah. But yeah, to get back to your question—yoga, wow. What is yoga? Yoga
is a—it is a system. It’s a way of being in the world that leads to awakening and liberation.
Awakening being knowing who and what you are, which is not the story of me. It’s awareness. It’s
consciousness. It’s essence nature.
And classical yoga was more transcendent. It was more about leaving this human body, this
material existence, and transcending it all. Where Tantra was far more embodied. Embodied
liberation. Tantra is like, we are here in this material existence, and so let’s enjoy it whilst at the
same time liberating so we don’t become, hmm, possessed by sensory stuff. Right? But it doesn’t
mean we don’t enjoy sensory stuff, but it doesn’t control us or dominate us. So there’s
awakening, liberation, and enjoyment.
And the interesting thing about yoga, classical yoga—so people have often heard of Patanjali’s
Yoga Sutras, so that’s a fundamental yogic text. Yoga tends to be more, hmm, people would leave
the household, leave their regular life. They would go off and they would practice and do all the
things right there. Whereas Tantra—and it also has sutras, there’s so many, there’s like hundreds
and hundreds of Tantras. Tantra is also the word for the text. One of my favourite is the
Recognition Sutras. I love the Recognition Sutras. It’s only 20 sutras long. It just cuts to the chase.
And the thing with Tantra, it was a household tradition. Yes. So you had a family, and you had a
partner, and you had a job, and you were a Tantrika and whatever that looked and felt like for
you. But at the same time, Tantra is known as the dangerous path because there’s a knife’s edge
there.
So if we look at modern yoga, postural yoga as it’s taught in yoga studios, most of it anchors into
the worldview of classical yoga, but some of it, some of it does reference as well, or
predominantly, classical Tantra. And so when I went and did my teacher training in 2010 with
Shiva Rea, Prana Flow and Yoga Trance Dance, that was anchored in Tantra worldview. And I
didn’t know that going into it. But that was when—so I’d been doing posture yoga and I’d read
the sutras and I’d been doing classical yoga until then—but when I discovered Tantra, that was
when I discovered Uchara.
And it’s a particular practice that comes from the 10th, 11th, or 12th century approximately, and
it is an extraordinary, extraordinary, extraordinary multifaceted practice. And I did that practice
sporadically, regularly, for five years before starting to do a thousand-day practice of it. And it was
sometime around there, around 2017, I was like, what’s this Tantra thing about again?
So that’s when someone—Sarah Hon, actually, Sarah Hon, who Rise Yoga with Adele—they do
amazing embodiment, Tantra-grounded stuff in New Zealand, so shout out to them—she
recommended me. She’s like, oh, go check out Christopher Wallace’s work. Mm hmm. And that
was the lightbulb moment because those were the teachings, the worldview that I was missing.
So this is a fundamental teaching from Christopher Wallace, from Tantra, is that you need
alignment of the worldview, the practices, and the fruit in order to realise the fruit.
Viktoria Levenberg: Yes. Oh, I love that.
Kara-Leah Grant: It’s critical. And this is why so many so-called spiritual seekers are just fucking
around. I don’t know any better. I don’t know any better because you don’t know what you don’t
know.
Viktoria Levenberg: You’re just misguided.
Kara-Leah Grant: Exactly. Don’t you know? I didn’t know I was fucking around. I had no idea that
was me. Yeah. And likely I’ll probably look back in five years’ time and who knows, think
something similar.
But worldview is the philosophy, the underlying teachings on the nature of reality and the nature
of self. And then the practices are whatever you’re doing—pranayama, meditation, visualising, et
cetera. And then the fruit—awakening, liberation, and enjoyment of life, for example—is what
arises as a result of the practices within the worldview.
And what I find really interesting is that if you are practising the practices with the worldview of
classical yoga, there ain’t no enjoyment of life, how to be in regular life contained within that
worldview. So it’s not that complete from that perspective. It’s awesome if you wanna go to the
monastery or to the hermitage or to the forest or to the cave. But if you’ve got a two-year-old
waking you up every night, Tantra helps with that.
Viktoria Levenberg: Yeah, exactly. It is for everyday people. Like, as you say, for householders.
Kara-Leah Grant: It is—but only still, you know, like yeah.
Viktoria Levenberg: I’d love you to say a bit more about that because you mentioned that knife’s
edge, kind of dangerous. And I don’t know if dangerous is necessarily the right essence, but it’s
sort of careful maybe is a word that’s coming to me. Dangerous, yeah. Tell me more about that.
Kara-Leah Grant: Because it can take you further into ignorance as well.
Mm hmm. Right. So that’s one thing about dangerous. You know, most people, or a lot of people
on a spiritual path, aren’t really seeking spirituality. They’re not really looking to become
enlightened. Like most, you know, and this is what I said really. I’m like, oh, most people actually
just want to enjoy their life. They want to have a good partner they feel excited about going to
bed with. They wanna have good relationships with their kids. They wanna have friends that they
dig. They wanna go out and have a good time. They wanna have the money to pay for it. They
wanna have a job they enjoy. Mm hmm. That’s what they’re looking for.
And I think what happens is there’s a recognition that the myth that we’ve been sold in our late
capitalist, consumer, colonial, patriarchal, completely corrupted society doesn’t fucking deliver
the goods.
Viktoria Levenberg: No shit
Kara-Leah Grant: Right?
Viktoria Levenberg: Yep.
Kara-Leah Grant: And it doesn’t even deliver the goods to the billionaires because you can’t tell
me those guys are joyful. They ain’t.
Viktoria Levenberg: No. They’re not. They’re miserable.
Kara-Leah Grant: No, exactly. So nobody’s getting the goods.
So yeah, there’s this moment, I think, for most of us where we’re like, what the fuck, this is not
working. So we go to spirituality thinking that if I become spiritual, then this shit’s gonna work.
Now, there is an element of truth because when you know yourself as that, right, as awareness,
and you begin to realise that every single being is also that, when the interconnectedness begins
to drop in, then how on earth can I harm another? Because it’s like harming myself. And there is
more ease and joy, et cetera, that begins to arise.
But it just doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re gonna have a great partner or pay off your
mortgage or have a great career or any of that stuff.
Viktoria Levenberg: Yeah, yeah. And also, like, what came through for me right now is like the
realisation also becomes that it doesn’t actually—it doesn’t matter if you’re liberated if not
everyone else is either. If there’s still someone sitting out in front of your local Countdown store
and can’t afford to put food on the table for their kids because it’s—you realise that you are all
interconnected and sort of it, yes, you know, be the change you wanna see in the world. And it
doesn’t end there because that’s when you get into spiritual ego.
Kara-Leah Grant: Yeah. But I think when we’re being the change, when we’re genuinely being
that, as if we’re being everything that crosses our path, that is actually all we can do. But what
crosses our path, like, you know, like my friend Rana…
Viktoria Levenberg: If you’re enjoying this episode, you will love my free newsletter, Flourish
Weekly. It is an email that you actually wanna read, and you will be the first to hear about new
offerings, events, and upcoming episodes of Resonance. The link will be in the show notes below,
and you can also sign up through my website, viktorialevenberg.com, or by heading to the link in
my bio on Instagram, @viktorialevenberg. Now let’s get back to the episode.
Kara-Leah Grant: Okay, so yeah.
Being the change—I’m big on this right now. And like, the FBI files have just come out, and like,
what are we doing right now? My sense is that all I can do as an individual is really ground into
what I value and embody that with what crosses my path. And so I want to give a shout-out to
Rana—Rana Hamida. Apologise, Rana, if I pronounce your last name incorrectly, ’cause I always
just use Rana.
So Rana is a good friend of mine, and she is Palestinian, been in New Zealand for a very long
time, grew up in Syria because her father was a refugee from, I think from the Nakba. He was two
years old, I think, when his family fled. And she has been doing incredible, amazing things. She’s
been on the flotilla. She’s been twice, I think, and ended up in Israeli jails. And she is so, like,
hmm. And it’s such a good example of—now, not all of us are going to take that kind of action in
that kind of way. The trick is to know, to recognise when you are being called in your life and step
up and step up and step up.
And when I reflect on my role and what I’m here to do—who knows, maybe nothing. You know,
whatever. Like, there’s nine billion of us on this planet. What feels most important though, like
when I started to recognize the amount of power that gets generated through a committed
tantric sadhana, which is one of the reasons why it can be dangerous, is because if you generate
that much power and you cannot hold it, and your shadow acts out with that level of power, you
can create harm, suffering, and karmic consequences. This is why it’s dangerous. One of the
reasons, right?
So, ’cause tantric sadhana is freaking powerful. I began to—again, another beautiful teaching
from Christopher Wallace, love that man—he does a teaching on the impure motives or
ineffective motives for spiritual practice and the pure motives or effective motives. And out of
that, he gave a prayer. And the prayer is very simple. It’s: May I practice out of love for myself.
May I practice out of a desire to know the truth. May I practice for the well-being of all beings.
And so I began to say that every time I practised. Mm hmm. And then I began to recognise that if
I attune and live from love, truth, for the well-being of all beings, I never have to really make a
decision. There isn’t really any conflict. It becomes real clear. Is this or is this not? And it means I
cannot be tempted by power, prestige, money, all of the things, because it’s out of alignment
with truth, love, and the well-being of all beings.
Yes. Now, it’s a practice, right? So there may be times when I’ve not been able to embody that
fully. But it really helped me to recognise—like we look at Epstein, for example, and all of those
things—is that if we are attached to power, attached to money, or if we’re afraid of what might
happen, then that will compromise us and corrupt us.
If we choose what we’re aligning to and we commit and we vow and we devote and we become
that completely—and what I notice is that it begins to generate a field of that, a field of love,
truth, and the well-being of all. And over time, it means that that is what I experience in my
world. I mostly experience—I find that people are more truthful with me, especially men. It’s
really interesting. Sometimes I’m like, did you just say what you just said to me? Are you even
aware of what you just said? Because truth comes out.
And so my world, my experience of reality, starts to become a representation of the values, of the
alignment that I’m holding. So therefore, with the Epstein case, yes, when we’re all outraged and
how do they behave like this and da da da, what happens if we ask ourselves, well, where have I
compromised for power, for prestige, for money? Right? And how do I wish those people
behaved? How do I—yeah, yeah—and become that. Because if enough of us do that, if enough
of us anchor into that and radiate that into the collective field, that becomes the dominant
culture.
But if we’re afraid and attached and corruptible. Right? And I think back to when I was a young
woman coming into the world and dealing with freaking men—oh my God—you know, wanting
to take advantage and just navigating all of that. And it’s apparent that if I trade this or give this
up or do that, you know, I get that. And there’s so many situations where the boundaries are
nebulous and the pressure is on. And you know, I fell at different points in time. That’s being a
young woman in this culture.
Viktoria Levenberg: Yep. Hundred percent. And the silence around it and the stigma and the
shame around talking about it. Like I know you’ve recently started stepping into this space and
sharing it with your community, which I applaud and I think it’s so important because it’s like
those secret whispers in the hallways. It’s like, yeah, me too. Like, yeah.
Kara-Leah Grant: Or watch out for him. You know? Yeah.
Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Let me just ground in right now ’cause there’s so many different
pieces around all of this. So we talk about how we show up in the world, right? How we show up
in the world. Hmm.
I just want to give a shout out to all the survivors of—oh my God, me, why? Why I start to go of
the Epstein—but then I’m just like, so many survivors, so many in the world, survivors in the
world who have experienced sexual assault, sexual abuse, sexual violence. Right? Of all genders—
nonbinary, female, male, all the things in between, full rainbow. And just acknowledging that.
Just acknowledging that. And acknowledging—I just want to acknowledge, ’cause I know this
from personal experience—when we experience those kinds of violations, it radically rewires our
system in ways where the impact rolls out over decades. Yeah.
You know, like, I mean I’ve been doing very deep work around rewiring myself into wholeness.
And I have all the knowledge, all the tools, all the capacity to be able to go in and do it. And it’s
hard. Really hard. And I do it and I’m doing it. And right now I’m noticing with this in the field that
I’m moving into layers that I haven’t encountered before.
And so literally every night what’s happening for me—I’m going to practice and I go deep and I’m
working with Uchara, I’m working with mantra, and another little layer related to experiencing
abuse as a child—sexual abuse as a child—will start to come up to be dissolved. And I’ll be like,
uh huh. Yeah. Yeah. And it’s ongoing.
And at the same time, I know that there will be a point where that is just no longer this. It’s just
done. But this is what I mean. Like, I have this—this is the work I do with clients. And so I am so
grateful that I know how to do this. And I don’t think people understand how it—it’s not an event
that happens to you that makes you feel a certain way and you just have to deal with the feelings.
It’s an event that happens that rewires your operating system on the deepest level of the
unconscious so that until it gets rewired, it will continue to operate in a particular way. So it
shapes you. It creates you.
And I just remember having a conversation with another survivor of childhood sexual abuse, and
she was like, have you ever wondered who you might have become if you hadn’t gone through
that? If you hadn’t had to carry that, deal with that, put so much bandwidth into that, suppress
it, repress it, deny it, end up in psychosis, right? Ever wondered? Yeah.
And I was just like—I can’t.
Viktoria Levenberg: No. ’Cause this is where you’re at right now.
Kara-Leah Grant: But I think it’s still very, very important to acknowledge though, because all
those humans that have experienced it—the collective waste of human potential, of human
glory, sacrificed on the altar of that. Mm.
Right. But this isn’t the end of the story. And that’s why I think it’s important to realize that when
I look at the world right now—and obviously I’m seeing a narrow bandwidth according to what
the algorithms are deciding to give me, ha ha ha ha, out of the dark woods of the algorithms, like
oh my goodness—but at the same time, what I’m sensing and what I’m feeling is that there is a
potentiality or a possibility for there to be a radical shift.
In the way that society functions, and yeah, you know, because we can't pretend anymore.
Viktoria Levenberg: No
Kara-Leah Grant: Or we can, sure. You can pretend, go back to your, you know.
Viktoria Levenberg: But I feel like it's getting harder.
Kara-Leah Grant: Opportunity. Yeah, there's an opportunity here, and I'm fully in it. I'm just going,
let's go. Hello. Let's go.
And I'm, you know, when I sit and do practice every night, and I'm going in, and I'm dissolving the
stuff in my field, I do that knowing that it supports the dissolving in other people's fields as well.
That's it. That's it.
Yeah. And then when I go and teach, and I'm working with a room and a collective field, like
when Into the Fire, right? We've got Into the Fire Museum in Toowoomba in April.
Viktoria Levenberg: Excited. Right, this episode will air before that as well, so if you do have any
last minute spots available, hello. It'll be in like, how long?
Kara-Leah Grant: Yeah, so, um, I'm doing this with Lady Fem. She's so—we've got freaking epic
DJ, somatic facilitator in the house. Hello. Let's go. Sound system.
But one of my intentions that we are in Topua, and we're at a retreat centre I've been at many,
many, many times. I have a deep relationship there with the land and the people. And it's
sometimes said that that area is the heart chakra of New Zealand, of Auckland.
And then when you feel into it—I was feeling into this the other night—the Beehive in Wellington
kind of like third chakra. Mm. Mm-hmm. The power centre, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
And so what I see right now happening in the globe is that we are shifting from being a culture
dominated by third chakra stuff, which is power, but also the demon of the third chakra is shame.
Right? And we are moving from that into being a culture that is dominated and ruled by the
heart. Yes. By the heart, which means we're gonna have to grieve. We're gonna have to grieve,
right? And we're gonna open to love.
So when I feel into Into the Fire, we're gonna be in Topua, and I like to work group field, group
intention. So part of what we're gonna be working with is what does it feel like to move from,
right, that to that, so we can generate that as a field and radiate it through the whole of the
country.
Viktoria Levenberg: That's it, that's it.
Kara-Leah Grant: Just for—. Just for fun. Just for fun.
Viktoria Levenberg: Exactly. Because that's what it all comes back to is joy, you know.
And also, like, you know, as a fellow survivor myself as well, um, you know, I honestly—I'm
actually grateful. Similar to what you shared earlier about your story of Kundalini awakening and
all the things you had to go through, because it's shaped you.
You and I are able to work with what's in our field, and through that, show others that it's
possible to do it for themselves as well. And that is such a privilege.
Like, I find that one of the greatest gifts of all is, you know—and you know—we know this, like
the heart's energy field is, I think, something like 1,000 times greater than the brain's. Like it is all
this interconnected web that even the Institute of Heart Math is proving through actual, like,
nerd graphs that I won't get into too much right now.
But it is just so cool to really contribute to this collective elevation, as you say, from this power-
shame dynamic into love and grief.
Kara-Leah Grant: Yeah, absolutely. And fierce freaking love.
Like, the Aubrey Marcus podcast has just come out with, um, Demi Martini. I don't know if you've
been following that at all.
Viktoria Levenberg: No, I haven't. Uh, no. But I, yeah, will…
Kara-Leah Grant: Just—I wanted to mention this really briefly, because what you say kind of ties
to it.
It is imperative. Imperative. To recognize that it is absolutely critical to do whatever we can to
prevent suffering before it happens. Yeah. One hundred percent.
Prevent abuse before it happens. Prevent murder before it happens. Prevent torture, sacrifice—
all. Prevent. Prevent. Freaking prevent.
You know, and then if it has happened already, work to alchemise that and turn it into—find the
gold and alchemise it, right?
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Preventing and stopping and no. No. No. Freaking no.
Mm-hmm.
And the reason I say that is, you know, like d Martini on that podcast, he was like, oh, these are
neutral events, and there are benefits to these things.
And it was just like, no. Like no. There is no benefit to a child being murdered. Like no. It's just no.
Prevent. Prevent. Prevent.
And after the fact, if something has happened, then we alchemise, then we work with it.
Um, yeah. So critical to understand, ’cause the teachings, the spiritual teachings, get bastardised,
co-opted, spiritually bypassed.
Viktoria Levenberg: Yeah.
Kara-Leah Grant: Because love, unconditional—like I orientate to unconditional love—and there's
a fucking fierceness in that, right? There is a, yeah. You know, there's a fierce—
Viktoria Levenberg: It’s like this mama bear that will murder for love, basically almost. It's like this
fierce, like, I will fight for this.
Kara-Leah Grant: Yeah.
You gotta have—you gotta have both. Love is not passive, and love does not mean that you're
condoning the things and all of that. Like, yeah.
Just phew. Hmm. Yeah.
Viktoria Levenberg: Ugh. Just letting that land.
Kara-Leah Grant: Hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
Viktoria Levenberg: So that is Tantra. Hahaha.
Kara-Leah Grant: Well, I mean, I don't know.
Viktoria Levenberg: I mean, you cannot describe—you—we could spend, you know, like a lifetime
in practice and conversation around Tantra.
And I feel like, as you say, to your point, you know, you were doing tantric practices for seven
years and still like, what is it? And got led to Christopher Wallace's teachings, and even then, you
know.
I don't know about you, but my lived experience is that I can read a text over and over and over
again and get something new from it every time because we change, our perspective changes.
And so, um, you know, I sort of say like, oh, this is Tantra with like a little smirk, because it's
actually—it’s impossible to put into a container. It's uncontainable. It is so much bigger than our
human mind could comprehend.
And we love putting things into like a little—
Kara-Leah Grant: We love to put a bow tie on. Yeah.
And I'm not, you know, like, I'm not the person to ask, right? Like Swami Laxmi—I mean, he's
dead now—but you know, the people to ask are those in lineages with deep practice and
sadhana and study and, yeah.
And at the same time, like it's interesting because, you know, I started teaching yoga, and then I
was immersed in Tantra. It's like, then am I teaching Tantra? But am I a Tantra teacher?
And I can share through my lens what I've learned and point you towards the deeper. The
deeper—go to my teachers, go to their teachers, go to their teachers, go to their teachers, you
know.
Um, so I've recognised that I have a, you know, I function as like a bridge in some ways.
Yes.
And I'm really, really good at practical application of teachings in daily life in order to support the
liberation process and the awakening process, which is not an intellectual pursuit. This is not
about knowledge.
This is about a shift in how you experience self and how you experience reality.
You know the shift's working when your experience of reality changes, not when you begin to
have different experiences.
Viktoria Levenberg: Mm-hmm. Exactly.
And that's what I love about your teaching so much as well. And, um, you know, what's coming to
mind is I was listening to your Joy Rebel podcast the other day, and you were talking about your,
um, daily mantra chanting practice.
And, you know, I think you were talking about how, like, you made it a, um, you know, secondary
awareness practice here or like this—you adapted it this way, there, that way, there.
And I'm like, this is Tantra in real life. Like this. And bringing it, as you say, into the modern lived
experience.
And I personally find that so many people, um, hesitate to even step into any kind of spiritual
practice. You know, it's like I hear this all the time, like, it's not for me. It's too hard. I'm too busy.
You know, all the stories we tell ourselves. So it's like, well, how can you make it easy? How can
you make it fit into your life?
And I would love to hear your take on that, you know, for someone who doesn't—or doesn't yet
practice yoga every day—and understands, knows in their deepest of deep beings that this is
something that they feel called towards.
Like, what advice or guidance or where would you point that person?
Kara-Leah Grant: So first, clarity of desire.
Clarity of desire.
All right. Do you wanna show up and practice every day or not?
Mm-hmm.
All right, we'll start there. So those of you who don't—you can hit pause, or you can listen out of
interest.
Um, if you do, right, I wanna show up and practice every day—awesome.
Second thing: prioritise it. Make it the No. 1 thing in your day that everything else wraps around.
Mm-hmm.
And that can look so many different ways, right? It can look so many different ways.
Um, for some context, uh, so I'm a single parent. I've been running my own business, um, and
I've had a daily practice since 2006.
And I have always practised. Even when I had a newborn. Even when I was, like, running an online
yoga magazine, teaching six classes a day, renovating a house. I was pregnant. I was working full
time and commuting an hour and a half a day. And I still practice.
And so here’s how I would do that is, one: I got really, really good at, uh, stacking my practices.
And what I mean by that is, when I was on the bus, I would silently chant—this is my morning
commute—I would chant the entire time. Forty-minute bus ride, forty minutes of chanting in my
pocket. And then I had a ten-minute walk. This is when I was working as a speechwriter for, um,
the Ministry of Social Development in, um, in Wellington. Ten-minute walk I did as a walking
meditation. So I got to the office and I’ve already done fifty minutes of practice, right?
Viktoria Levenberg: Mm hmm.
Kara-Leah Grant: And I had a yoga mat rolled under my desk. And at lunchtime, I’d go down onto
the lawn at Parliament and do my yoga practice for like twenty minutes, half an hour, and eat
lunch, right? So now we’re up to, what, an hour, an hour ten minutes of practice. And then I’d
commute home and do another forty minutes of chanting, yeah. So I’ve almost done two hours
of practice, and I’ve woven that into my daily working commute life, and hasn’t taken any extra
time at all. What else am I gonna do in the bus? Why, I’m gonna scroll Instagram?
You know, exactly. Like, and this is what I mean about prioritising. Like, to be honest, anyone who
tells me they ain’t got time to do yoga practice, I’m like, “You’re full of shit. You just don’t want
to.”
Viktoria Levenberg: Show me your screen time and we’ll talk again.
Kara-Leah Grant: Exactly. Show me your screen time and then we’ll talk again.
You know, and even, you know, with a newborn baby—with a newborn baby—I would do Yoga
Nidra every day, because when my baby nap, I lay down and listen to Yoga Nidra. And this is the
thing you gotta understand too, is that your practice is there to support your life. That’s it. It’s
there to work with what’s going on for you at that time. So your practice needs to shift according
to your life cycle, according to how old you are, according to your commitments, etcetera.
Viktoria Levenberg: Mm hmm.
Viktoria Levenberg: Alright, maybe you’re tired. Maybe you don’t have the time to get extra
sleep. Maybe life’s just a lot right now, and maybe the demands are getting too much, but you
need a quick fix right here, right now.
You may have heard me speak about how incredible Yoga Nidra can be to give you rest that is five
times deeper than sleep. So in fifteen minutes, you could get the equivalent of up to one, or one
and a half hours of sleep. If you can carve out fifteen minutes in your day, I can guarantee you,
you will feel more energised. And I have a little nifty giftie for you. I would like to offer you a free
Yoga Nidra recording. The link is in the show notes below. Simply click the link. It’ll send you
straight through to a download so that you can finally get a little bit of that rest that you and your
nervous system so, so deeply desire.
And so when you start to recognize that, all of a sudden, practice—I mean, for me—it is just, I still
practice. I know, like I do an hour of chanting every morning, and sometimes what that means is I
wake up, I start the timer, and I lie in bed and I chant. And sometimes I dip into sleep again and
come back up, but I’m playing with how—where I can stay going into sleep—can I stay, can I keep
chanting while I’m, you know, um.
And then sometimes I chant while I’m doing the housework, yeah. So yeah. Um, and the other
thing I would say—this is stacking, stacking is big—the other thing I would say is give yourself a
forty-day commitment, right? Because when we say, “I’m gonna practice every day for the rest of
my life,” the mind goes, “Fuck that shit,” ha ha ha. But when we go, when we go, “I’m gonna
practice for forty days in a row,” it, it, it like activates the achievement part, the dopamine, right?
And it’s a cheap, it’s a cheap a bowl, cause it’s only forty days. And if you, yes, get start again,
right? So it’s a really good way that—to use the brain chemistry to support the process and make
it a bare minimum doable.
So when I was doing a practice for one thousand days in a row—same practice every day—my
bare minimum was ideally eleven minutes a day, was it. But I also gave myself permission that if it
was a, you know, whatever day I could do it, the, the real, short version would take me about
three minutes.
Viktoria Levenberg: Mm hmm.
Kara-Leah Grant: And the benefit of that is that if you think about making a pearl necklace, every
day you practice is a pearl, so there’s a thread of continuity that happens because you are
demonstrating your devotion no matter what. And what begins to happen is that, I mean, for me,
I notice the benefit. I notice who I—who I—how I feel, um, what it does to my body, um, and
especially now, like I just turned—I turned fifty last year—and I notice having got twenty, twenty-
five years of asana practice under my belt, I’m like, “Damn. I’m so glad I started practicing in my
twenties,” because I am reaping those rewards and gold now. Like, hello, let’s go.
So being able to notice and acknowledge the benefits and rewards as they are happening, and
recognising that small incremental changes on the daily add up to a massive life shift. So now I do
five sun salutations every single morning, mostly, uh huh. And then I also do other practice
sometimes, you know, but I noticed, I’m like, “Wow, those five daily sun salutations, they really do
a thing.” But most people would be like, “Oh no, I have to do so much, and then it’s gonna make
a difference, and…
Viktoria Levenberg: It has to be an hour, otherwise it doesn’t count,” and la la la la la. It’s like,
just, what’s the minimum viable dose?
Yeah, just start with that until you get into a rhythm, and then you can start to challenge yourself,
right? Like, how—
Kara-Leah Grant: Yeah.
Viktoria Levenberg: Or not, or just recent lore. Well, I feel like we always have like our edge
changes the more we get used to it. So as you say, you can rest in that familiarity, and you also
build up tolerance and capacity to do more once you’ve already got that baseline set.
Yeah, but that baseline could be as much as one, two, three minutes, as you say.
Doesn’t have to be two hours of chanting every day. So I’m glad you said that as well, cause I
didn’t want anyone to get scared off by that.
Kara-Leah Grant: No, no, no, totally. Like, I mean, I, I, you know, I practiced, you know—like
yesterday I did an hour of chanting, and then I did my sun salutations, and I did a chakra practice,
and then I did mantra practice, and you know, like it—I cause what else am I gonna do if I’m not
working, parenting, like what, what, what am I gonna do? You know, muscle practice, cause it
really is just like diving into the inner world, being present, enjoying life. Like, practice is life, life is
practice.
Viktoria Levenberg: Exactly. I love that. Practice is life, life is practice, yeah. And with that, I’ve got
two more questions for you that I would love to hear from you.
Um, the first one is—and I ask this, this is my signature question that I ask every guest who’s
come on the podcast—um, which is: if there was just one thing that resonated with the listener,
like long after the episode ends, what do you wish that one thing would be?
Kara-Leah Grant: Ah. What I would really love people to receive, drop into, know, is that the
inherent nature of the self in the universe is the joy of awareness. And what that’s pointing to is
that when we drop into, know ourselves as awareness, essence, nature, consciousness, there is
this ineffable—I don’t know if that’s a word, but I think it is—this, this, this joy. It’s not an
emotion, it’s like… and like… that underlies and is available in every single moment, even when
we’re feeling grief or fear or anxiety or panic or terror or whatever it might be.
And I road tested this. I road tested this. So I’m speaking here from direct experience, and I’m
continuing to road test it. I’ll let you know if I ever go anywhere where it’s not available. But
whatever you’re experiencing, underpinning, infusing it, is the joy of awareness.
And the invitation there is not to learn that as a fact, but rather to get really curious. Huh. Hmm. I
wonder what it would feel like to know myself is the joy of awareness. Hmm. I wonder what it
would feel like. I wonder—and play with it. Go explore, find, discover, open into that place.
And if you wanna do a little more sort of intellectual stuff, go read the Recognition Sutras.
Christopher Wallace has a beautiful translation, and it is in the prologue. That teaching is in the
prologue of the Recognition Sutras. And the thing with the prologue and a Tantra teaching: if you
get the prologue, you can ditch the rest of the book. Hahaha.
Viktoria Levenberg: We’re really efficient here.
Kara-Leah Grant: Yeah, well, that’s how they, they would do it. They would write it. They just put
the, the teaching would be boom, here it is.
Viktoria Levenberg: Mm hmm.
Kara-Leah Grant: And if you get it, you get it. Ditch the rest of the book, and if you need more,
read the rest.
Viktoria Levenberg: Mmm hmm, mmm hmm. Mmm hmm, yeah. And I really love when you say,
“What would it be like to live in joy and awareness?” And just in general this question, like, “What
would it be like to dot dot dot?”
I vividly remember you sharing that, um, you know, in, in a couple of containers that you and I
have shared together. And it’s, it’s—it opens up a whole world of possibility, because it takes
away this lens of must and, you know, kind of the, the logical mind. And it’s just like, “Well, what
would it be like? Let’s just play with that for a moment.”
Kara-Leah Grant: Yeah. Totally. Let’s see. What would it be like, yeah.
Viktoria Levenberg: What does it feel like too?
Kara-Leah Grant: And it’s, yeah, I call it embodied inquiry, and it’s one of the major ways I work
with clients. It’s like, “Who do you wanna become? Alright. What would it feel like?” And the
thing about that is that when we genuinely, with sincere curiosity, open up to feel a thing, it will
reveal any beliefs or feelings that are in the way of us living from that place, which means that we
can then, yeah, dissolve in the fire of awareness those beliefs or those feelings. So then the
runway is clear, and we can just see that, like, “Oh, I am that expression. I’m that. Oh yeah, joy of
awareness. I am the joy of awareness,” you know.
Viktoria Levenberg: Exactly. It’s like—and, and that’s the value in being able to have someone to
mirror that back to you. And, and that’s my second question is, you know, if someone’s like really
lit up by everything that you’ve shared, and they wanna learn more about you, about your work,
you know, can you share how people can work with you? Where can they find you?
Kara-Leah Grant: Mm hmm, yeah, for sure. Um, I have Joy Rebel coaching, right? Joy Rebel—
what’s the most rebellious thing you can do is open into the joy of awareness, no matter what is
going on. Um, yeah. So Joy Rebel coaching. So people can work with me one-on-one, and find me
on my website, karaleah.com. I’m on Instagram, karaleah at karaleah108, uh. And then, yeah, Into
the Fire immersion—if you’re in New Zealand, come join us, come join us for four days, three
nights in Taupo at the Tohara Retreat Centre. It’s gonna be lit, yeah.
Viktoria Levenberg: I am so excited. I’ll be there, you know, yeah. Good fun. Um, you’ve got two
books as well. Are those available—
Kara-Leah Grant: Actually three.
Viktoria Levenberg: Yeah, oh! What’s the third one, um?
Kara-Leah Grant: The No More Excuses Guide to Yoga.
Viktoria Levenberg: Oh yeah, I love that. Forty days, so there’s forty days.
Kara-Leah Grant: Yeah, and forty days is like, if you need support with a home practice, it gives
you the psychological underpinnings, this worksheet. It’s legit. You cannot do that book
without—and, and I get—I literally guarantee: do that book, do the worksheets, and you will
practice for four days in a row. Um, and then the No More Excuses Guide to Yoga is confronting
all the fears and ideas that like, “I’m not flexible, I’m too old,” yeah. Um, plus it’s a really good
reference guide to an overview of yoga that—I wrote it before I knew about Tantra, so that’s
really interesting. Um, so it’s more classical yoga. And then my memoir is Sex, Drugs and Mostly
Mostly Yoga.
Viktoria Levenberg: I, yeah, just swallowed that up in like four days, I think. It’s one of the fastest
books I ever read. Um, so, you know, it’s, uh, for anyone who’s listening and was like really
intrigued by Kara-Leah’s intro and her story earlier on, like, read the memoir. You know, you
basically share so much in there that’s totally unfiltered, and I find that it really opens your eyes
to, um, Kundalini awakening and, and your lived experience. I think, uh, it’s, it’s such a powerful
read, um, yeah.
And do you have a podcast?
Kara-Leah Grant: Uh, I, I have done two in the past—Conversations with Kara-Leah, yeah, Pillow
Talk. Oh, the Joy Rebel podcast, that—
Viktoria Levenberg: Yes. That’s, that’s the one, yeah.
Kara-Leah Grant: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That one is on—you can find it on my website or on—
Viktoria Levenberg: Perfect.
Kara-Leah Grant: Yeah.
Viktoria Levenberg: And, and I’ll make sure we link all that up in the show notes as well, so plenty
of ways to find you. Um, definitely. You’re—I mean, and, and as someone who has worked with
you, you know, and in various different containers, I can vouch for just the transformative power
of, um, the space that you hold. And I’m just so incredibly grateful that I got to meet you, that I
get to work with you, that I get to bring you to more people who are in my community as well.
And just thank you from the bottom of my heart. Thank you, thank you, thank you for coming on
and sharing your story and your wisdom and your joy and your energy. I can really feel it, and I’m
super, super grateful. Thank you.
Kara-Leah Grant: My pleasure, my pleasure. Blessings, blessings, and just so much gratitude to
the lineages, to all the teachers, masters, and gurus. Huh. May all beings be free. May all beings
be free. Hmm.
Viktoria Levenberg: Hmm. What a conversation. Huh. How are you feeling? Yeah, hahaha. I
thought so. Kara-Leah definitely shakes people up. She definitely shook me up the first time I met
her, and it was the best thing ever.
And you know, as I reflect on our conversation just now, there’s a few themes that really came up,
um, that I just wanted to share with you and reflect on for a moment, um, as well.
And one of them that’s coming up is like the most prevalent one to start with, is the reality of
emotions being a spectrum. And Kara-Leah said this so wisely, you know, it’s like there is this
dichotomy when, when our collective consciousness is operating from this solar plexus, this third
chakra area of like power versus shame. And then as we’re moving up into the heart, there’s
gonna be love, and that’s gonna come with grief.
And that is, you know, I’ve spoken about this before as well, but it, it is so truly potent that
emotions—your emotional landscape, your lived experience—is a kaleidoscope of emotions. And
it is truly like actually so cool and unique to us as human beings that we get to feel and
experience this plethora of emotions.
And I think that we need to stop—not start—I think we need to stop labelling them, because like
one emotion isn’t better or worse than the other. It is just energy, emotion. It just wants to be
felt. And the more you can allow yourself to feel the grief, to feel the shame, to sit in the shit, the
more of the joy, of the love, of the power becomes available to you, because it is a two-way
street. It goes both ways.
And so, you know, I, I can speak to this from personal experience, right? Like before I got into a
lot of this stuff, I was like a total robot and basically had no feelings, and thought that it was a
great thing. But it’s like my spectrum of the lived experience was so narrow, and it was so sad and
boring. And of course, as it began to expand, it’s like you feel more, you feel more of everything.
Like you can’t just be selective with, with what you feel. And some of you listening might be like,
“Oh, that sounds really intense,” but that’s where your mentors, your guides, you know, with the,
these safe containers come in, because once you learn actually how to sit with, how to devour,
process these emotions, you realise it’s just another part of the experience.
And that’s where having a regular practice comes in and is so important. So, um, yeah, I just
wanted to speak to that for a moment, because it’s, it’s—I almost see them as like going hand in
hand, as sort of the, the practice is there to support your path towards awakening and liberation.
And on that path, you are gonna encounter a lot of the stuff that you’ve been repressing and
suppressing and pushing down into your unconscious, and it’s gonna bubble up. And so you
better have some tools and consistent practices and mentors there to support you, um.
The other two things that kind of really stuck out with me from this conversation—and we didn’t
get to touch on this one in, in our chat with Kara-Leah, but I just wanted to bring it into my little,
um, outro here—is the, um, idea of us acting in alignment with what we feel called to do. And
she gave this really great example of her friend who, you know, is, is truly an activist and, and
standing up for what she believes in and putting herself on the front lines, etcetera. And rightly
so, Kara also spoke to the fact that that is not everyone’s path, and that’s okay. Like, again, it
doesn’t make someone else better or worse.
Um, I think there is a fine line between hearing the call and responding to it, versus feeling like
you need to do something just because everyone else is doing it, and it’s like an ego thing to
status prove to—then it’s not genuine. Like, it’s not you.
And I was recently at a event called Relax Money Live with my financial coach and mentor, Kate
Northrup. And I had the privilege there to also witness, uh, Lynne Twist, who is like the legend in
the space of money and abundance. She wrote the book The Soul of Money, um, and, uh, I can’t
remember the title of the other book off the top of my head, but anyway—incredible person.
She’s, um, the founder of The Soul of Money Institute. She also runs a non-for-profit called
Pachamama Alliance, which helps restore, you know, the Amazon forest and works with the
indigenous, um, people of the Amazon, and she’s amazing.
Um, and so I got to hear her and her partner, um, who she calls her work wife—I love it—Sarah
Vetter speak at this event. And of course, we touched on that as well, right? Because like, let’s be
honest, we don’t have to, uh, even turn on the news to know that kind of shit’s kind of hitting the
fan for us collectively, right? Like things are a little bit—they’re bubbling up, um.
And she phrased it so beautifully. She said, you know, “I choose to be a pro activist.” And I—that
resonated with me so strongly, because like that’s something I identify with as well. It’s like, I
know, at least for now, in terms of the events that are happening in the world right now, that like
my path isn’t to be in the activism space, and I’m okay with that. But I choose to be a pro activist
in the way that I focus on what I can influence, focus on what I can do best to help the collective,
to help those are who are ready and willing to be helped, so that they can then in turn ripple out
that positivity, that joy, the, the ability for us to co create a better world, basically.
So it’s like, yeah, I just wanted to share that little nugget with you, because I think that’s kind of,
um, very much in alignment with what Caroline was saying, and we just didn’t get a chance to, to
speak to that, um.
But if you also feel like a little bit torn, you know, with the things going on in the world, and
there’s a feeling of guilt or something like, “What am I doing about it?” It’s like, well, you get to
do other things as well. It’s like, I would honestly encourage you to ask yourself as like, “Well,
what are you actually here to do? Like, how can you best contribute?”
And if that means that that’s baking lasagna for your neighbour who’s struggling and going
through grief and on her own right now, that’s you being a proactivist, my friend. Like, just being
of service in the way that is right for you, your environment, your community in the moment.
Huh. Hmm. Just letting that land, um, because the last piece I wanted to touch on is also pretty,
pretty big.
And I just love so much that this came through. It just reinforces, you know, the capital T truth
that this really is, and it is such a foundational pillar of my teachings, you know. Like even inside
of Efficiency Made Easy, what do I do with my clients is like we start to dig into the why, the
identity, the values. Like, cause if what you’re doing is not aligned with your values, who you are,
what you want, then it’s never gonna work out because you’re gonna be self-sabotaging it
unconsciously.
And so even like Kara is, um—I don’t think it—I can’t remember which of the sutras it was, but
she spoke about this teaching of Christopher Wallace where like there needs to be alignment
between worldview, practice, and the fruits. And as soon as you align your worldview and your
practice, the fruits will come. Like, that is literally what we’re talking about here.
Um, and so it’s like alignment: knowing what your values are, knowing who you are, knowing
what your identity is, what you stand for, what you, you know, do not tolerate, and being in
integrity with that, and being—your word matters more than anything.
So rather than focusing on what other people are doing, and how other people are pissing you
off, or how the world is whatever it is, it’s like, how about—and all of us could do this, myself
included, and I’m sure Kara-Leah will also put her hand up—it’s like, how about we just like turn
the spotlight back on ourselves and take responsibility for our part in the game, and be like,
“Well, where in my life am I out of integrity right now? Where am I out of alignment? How can I
come back into alignment? How can I get back on the horse,” right?
So that would be like my main invitation for you from today’s episode, is just pop that spotlight
back on yourself. Point the mirror back on you. Where are you out of alignment? And without
judgment, without getting into a shame spiral about it, can you let that be and make a conscious
choice as to how you decide to move forward.
Because one of my mentors says—and I, my gosh, I repeat this all the time. I even taught a yoga
class about it today—the degree to which you accept what is, is the degree to which you have
the power to do something about it.
The degree to which you accept what is, is the degree to which you have the power to do
something about it. This is why I keep going on and on and about awareness. Awareness is
always, always, always the first step towards change. You cannot change something if you are not
aware of it. You cannot do something about it if you don’t accept it for what it is. So please be
honest with yourself. You don’t have to tell anyone. You have to go on a podcast and do what
Caroline and I do and tell our stories to the world, unless you want to, of course, you know, DM
me.
Um, but just be honest with yourself. Be honest with yourself. So many of us are lying to
ourselves unnecessarily and creating a lot of unnecessary suffering, um. And as Kara-Leah so
nicely put it: a waste of unfulfilled human potential, which is like an achiever’s worst nightmare,
right, is not fulfilling on your greatest, wildest dreams.
So those are my little reflections—little, maybe big, uh. I really encourage you to check out Kara-
Leah’s offerings. There are so many of them. She’s honestly so incredible. She’s such an
inspiration to me, um.
If you are in New Zealand and you happen to be free in April, I think it’s April 10th to the 13th,
hey, I would love to see you in Taupo. I will be there. I’m signed up. I cannot wait for the
immersion. It is gonna be so, so good. And check out her work. Listen to her podcast. Connect.
Read her book. Uh, honestly, she is like—again, so humble, but I’m gonna tell you something—
like it is so rare for us to have access to a teacher who has studied tantric text so deeply, so
profoundly, and has the ability to translate it into like such a practical 3D modern world reality.
So like, this is—bringing her onto this podcast is honestly like one of my dreams come true. And,
and I hope that you, um, yeah, you get a chance to explore her work a little bit more deeply.
So with that in mind, I hope you enjoyed this journey of realising that you can just choose to have
joy right here, right now. You don’t need anyone’s permission. You don’t need to be like, “I gotta
do more work, I gotta fix myself, I gotta heal myself.” None of that matters. You can just choose to
feel joy now. Have, live the life you wanna live right now. And that’s how easy it actually is.
Thank you so much for listening. I will see you next week. For now, so, so much love to you.
Mwah.
How valuable would it be for you to get more done in less time while having more energy?
Imagine the things that you could achieve if you finally stopped running on empty and instead
learn to cultivate peak performance in your work, life, and business. We did just close enrolment
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In case you’re wondering if this is for you, well, look: does any of this apply? You might have big
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physically exhausted, but your mind just won’t stop. Perhaps you feel a low grade of anxiety
throughout your day, like even when you’re trying to rest. And maybe you spend your day
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The views and opinions expressed by guests on Resonance are their own and do not necessarily
reflect the views of me, Viktoria Levenberg, LVNHealth, or anyone working within the LVNHealth
brand. This space welcomes a diversity of ideas, experiences, and stories, and part of Resonance
is learning to take what aligns and gently leaving the rest.
Also, while I am a National Board Certified Health and wellness coach and deeply passionate
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Resonance does not substitute personalised medical, psychological, or therapeutic advice. Always
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