Whale Song Mats:

0:14 hello and welcome to another episode of Live Love by Design TV I’m Karen Chaston
0:21 and today I have these two beautiful ladies with me in this gorgeous setting
0:26 Sasha and Michelle and they’re the founders of whale song mats sounds
0:34 interesting doesn’t it so tell us all about it ladies
0:37 Whale Song Mats it’s a eco yoga mat company that we founded about a year a year and a half ago
0:46 with the intention of bringing more awareness to environmental conservations issues as well bringing people back to their centre
0:54 on a mat that’s non-toxic and it’s made out of good materials
0:59 Oh beautiful so they are yoga mats and they are so what are they actually made of so they are
1:06 made of jute which is a really fast growing it’s actually in the grass
1:10 family an eco rubber that takes a lot less time to break down once it’s on even in a landfill biodegradable material yes
1:20 we’re really surprised how many people still use their regular mats that leak
1:27 toxic chemicals into your skin when you’re practicing on them and then they end up in landfill
1:33 would most people realise that though Yeah we were surprised that most people don’t
1:38 yes because I wouldn’t have known we don’t you don’t you don’t actually think to ask
1:44 what is it actually made of right right yeah so we thought we’ve got to change that because
1:49 you’re so close to your yoga mat yeah especially when you’re in the prayer
1:54 position and yeah and all of those positions you’re actually breathing it in yeah so I
2:02 got to ask you because you both have an amazing history
2:06 so Sasha you were born in Czechoslovakia yeah Czechoslovakia at the time
2:11 when it was still communist so the family decided not for us and we escaped so
2:20 your family had lived there for generations yeah Wow and so had it just
2:25 change over the generations or was it slowly brewing to a stage where they had to
2:30 say we need to leave yeah I mean our family’s from all over Europe but they’ve been in
2:34 Czech for a while but long enough to know they didn’t want our mum and dad
2:38 specifically didn’t want their children growing up in communism so that’s it they just made the
2:44 choice and wow it’s such a brave choice yeah yeah to escape was it easy to
2:50 get out no dad was connected so we got some papers and things to escape the
2:58 country but it was always going to be risk and yeah I remember driving up to
3:03 the border to Austria that feeling of yeah will we get through, fear yeah yeah so you
3:10 will four at the time yes Wow and I always say that memory sort ingrained in you
3:15 yeah definitely and then the two years following that in refugee camps
3:20 so we’re were they Austria Austria oh wow and what made you come to
3:25 Australia was it so was that always the destination or was it where ever you could go
3:29 yeah no my auntie auntie and uncle were here since the 60’s and on the beaches yes in Dee Why and since we
3:42 got here we’ve always been beaches peoples where’s Michelle was born in Australia I was Sasha jokes that I’m the sunshine kid. The one that was born into sunshine. I’m sure mum
3:57 carried her out for the first time and dolphins were leaping out of the ocean. Oh that’s beautiful as dolphins are full of oxytocin which is the feel good hormone
4:08 and every time everyone sees a dolphin you do automatically feel good don’t you they spread
4:14 that energy to you yeah underwater they actually buzz you so when you’re close
4:18 to them they’re clicking at you you can feel their vibration Oh wow that is amazing. so Michelle is a marine biologist is that correct yeah
4:58 what make you go into marine biology I mean I grew up next to the ocean and
5:04 always loved it I always thought I would do journalism and so I applied for that
5:09 when I finished school and then we went on a trip up to the Great Barrier Reef
5:13 with our geography class and we went snorkeling and I kind of separated from
5:17 the group I know what happened but I saw a shark and I followed it to the edge of
5:22 the reef and I had no idea that it could be so it just dropped off and there was
5:29 stingrays and all this array of fish under them and I was just like no
5:34 I don’t just want to write about this I want to study it all and I want
5:37 to be involved in helping save it and protect it yeah so it just shifted so was it a reef shark
5:46 it was yeah a reef shark I did not think it would be a big shark I still get nervous cuz I was like is he gonna turn back
5:54 and bite me did you find it very powerful the shark
5:59 I found him very I was so interested that he
6:02 was so calm as in like he knew what he wanted to do where he wanted to go away
6:07 from us but he was very calm and just very relaxed that I was relaxed
6:13 behind him as well oh wow that must be such beautiful moment I’ve got some photos of you which I’ll add
6:21 to the back of this episode of you actually swimming underwater and so tell
6:27 us what it’s like like how do you feel in that moment when you’re actually I
6:33 guess it’s like you’re in a different sort of hemisphere type thing isn’t it totally is
6:39 well I like to think of it as the only place the world goes quiet my mind is
6:44 just always constantly on and then underwater all you can hear is like the rolling of little rocks and snapping of fish as they’re cracking at the rocks
6:56 yeah it’s just such a magical experience to be underwater recently I’ve been
7:02 trying to get deeper in my free diving practice and that’s been a real kind of practice of stillness and to get into that other hemisphere as you say
7:14 relaxing I’m sure everything’s very very relaxing to be you know at a point where
7:21 the pressure is it’s it’s quite high but it’s bringing you down it just feels
7:25 like you’re going home yeah it definitely does make sense so how far down have you been so I’m up
7:31 to 26 at the moment oh wow I’m trying to get
7:35 to 30 this year okay so when you come up from there don’t know how far is it
7:39 before you have to go into one of those chambers and stuff like that
7:42 ah so when you’re free diving because you’re going with your own breath then
7:47 you don’t actually if you do it right not doing it too many times then you don’t have to worry about decompression
7:54 yes it’s just your own breath and your body is able to deal with the nitrogen
7:59 buildup whereas if you’re diving with a tank yeah it’s super unnatural for our
8:03 bodies so it’s easy to have nitrogen narcosis oh ok that is really interesting so obviously these girls are all about the
8:11 environment and protecting it and you’re about to go on a little overseas trip so
8:17 you want to tell everyone about that yeah so we’re about to go to New
8:21 Caledonia isn’t it yeah with a bunch of just inspirational women
8:25 Jess Lambert is one of them she was the designer for the mat yes they are just beautiful
8:30 Oh thank you yes she does incredible all freehand work and she does
8:35 incredible projects and she is passionate about ocean consolation as
8:39 well and SJ Sjana is going she’s a beautiful fairy you know that spreads
8:47 sunshine wherever she goes she’s got an amazing community that loves
8:53 her she does amazing yoga and she is beautiful all these beautiful women are going along and
8:59 the idea is to I guess raise awareness around ocean conservation and not just
9:06 that but just being mindful when you travels so eco- tourism and
9:10 treading lightly when you go and connecting with the cultures that are there yes I totally agree with that I don’t
9:17 understand people who go overseas into third world countries and say in a Hyatt
9:23 not that there is anything wrong with a Hyatt, you can leave the Hyatt and experience the area yes exactly
9:25 Not sure if I’d do an airbnb, who knows somewhere in the middle
9:35 it’s gonna be a beautiful inspiring trip and I think we’ll use the mats just
9:42 like that bridging tool to just raise awareness and yeah yeah
9:46 so obviously there’ll be links below at this TV show and on their dedicated web
9:53 page the mats now available for anyone to purchase yeah but we’ve got
10:00 the current mats that we have the three colors the original design
10:05 yes and the ones the Jess Lambert edition is coming out quite soon I think in the next couple of months. We’ll do a pre order run
10:14 Ok great so you do have one of them on the website yes we’ve got ones that we’ve got here there
10:20 which will will we’ve got some whales on them and yeah they’re available now and
10:26 the Jess Edition will be the same beautiful
10:29 material but it will have her beautiful line work so she does not do the handwork on every single mat no I was going to say that would take forever
10:47 obviously you look after yourself very well both of you has that always been a top
10:52 priority for you that comes under the all about me pillar Interesting question
10:58 not for me yeah yeah in a way I remember when was the shift though where we both
11:05 went yeah and something opened up in us where I think it was when I left high school
11:11 yeah it was definitely triggered by you you started before you had Tee yeah
11:17 you started exploring the worlds of yoga and health and wellness holistic wellness and then by you I went into my first yoga class and everything changed for me then and I was 20
11:30 I’m not so what the changing point was but there was a time when it was
11:36 McDonald’s every day oh everyday ha ha
11:40 and just didn’t really care but now yeah we’re really mindful of living chemical
11:46 free as much as we can and do you drink alcohol No I do yeah I mean the odd thing but not really which is great isn’t it because you do actually
12:00 feel freer when you you don’t have alcohol I just recently stopped drinking alcohol Oh good on you well its taking me 60 odd years well not 60 but 40 odd. I just know that when I don’t drink alcohol I work better
12:18 I think clearer I don’t make so many stupid decisions yeah yeah as we all can but more importantly I feel more connected yeah do you feel that yeah well
12:30 I’ve never I’ve never actually been a drinker okay I don’t know that
12:34 that I observe yeah behaviours yeah I’m quite happy to be in control of my actions and not have I guess
12:45 chemicals to sort of alter my natural state that what feel I also feel the older you get you’ve only got so
12:53 many more days left you don’t want to waste the next day yes which you can
12:57 tend to do so they tend to do yeah yes but anyway
13:01 so the next one is obviously all about relationships and you have children you
13:06 don’t and more importantly you’ve got a great relationship between each
13:12 other yeah and considering there’s nine years between you yeah yeah this is a great
13:18 number nine is the birthing number so I always love my numbers which is why I have nine areas of
13:23 life and everything else in the live life by design whole plan but was it always
13:29 that good yeah it’s shifted because when Michelle was born I guess I was more
13:35 like her mum like a babysitter you know especially when you’re a teenager though you wouldn’t have
13:41 wanted to baby sit would you oh no I loved it I just took her everywhere oh yeah just to all my places
13:51 then when she got a little bit older it shifted and we just become best friends which is great and then the next pillar
14:01 is all about your expertise so obviously creating a new business how has that been That is not our expertise Ha Ha its becoming your expertise
14:07 the amount we are learning is astounding yeah I think we both simplified it a lot which is
14:19 actually probably good because we might not have done it if we did not know how much work there was yeah well what’s one
14:31 advice you would give to someone else who’s just out in out oh no what your
14:36 learnt my advice would be to if you can have a mentor who has done something similar and who has advice that they are happy to give you
14:43 I’m not sure we really had that a mentor is good well it gives you direction even if they are only a little bit further down the road They don’t have to be doing the same thing just something similar
15:42 the last pillar is all about your wealth creation so at the moment obviously
15:47 starting the business it seems the flow of energy is probably going
15:50 more out then in yes but we’re just at the starting point in terms of getting
15:57 serious with it yes we’re a little bit and dad’s always sort of I mean he’s the
16:06 same he is very giving that he’s always told us us that you know we need to be a
16:10 little bit more business minded so you have a mat and you have a mat so you need to learn to receive so yeah women
16:20 know how to give but coming the receiving that’s a really interesting perspective
16:24 so work on the receiving side of it and know that it is a well so it will come
16:31 in and it will flow out but it’s about letting that well fill up
16:34 Yeah right yeah I have to say that we did yes we were just able to donate a little bit of our proceeds which was really exciting yeah where did you
16:44 donate them so this first batch of mats we were
16:46 really focusing on reef health around the world coral reefs are bleaching and
16:51 it’s a massive issue that a lot of people are misinformed about so we’re trying to kind of bring
16:56 awareness to it and so there’s these bunch of amazing
17:00 they’re pretty young actually young kids in Tahiti in Moorea and they taking
17:06 small fragments of coral that has survived and growing them in places that
17:11 so they have died and they are called Coral Guardians so it regenerates yeah it regenerates and
17:17 more and more we’re finding out the science world is looking at how to make
17:20 them quickly grow right so I think these guys are just doing what they can at the
17:25 moment but it’s so amazing so all the tourists that go there so what happens to
17:29 the environment if the coral depletes so the coral is basically like a
17:34 keystone part of the reef so the great barrier has been there for 10,000 years
17:39 and in other areas even longer and it’s basically like
17:43 an animal plant symbiotic relationship so it’s both at the same time and if we lose the coral there is nothing that can
17:52 replace it to a T in the ecosystem you can have algae to kind of
17:57 have the same function but because the coral is so many species are dependent on
18:01 that then it’ll have this knock-on effect that we honestly have no idea
18:05 it’s almost like losing trees oh yeah we wouldn’t be breathing
18:13 oh that’s very beautiful well ladies I just have loved speaking
18:19 with you we’re going to show you some mats now which will obviously be part of this
18:24 show and also make sure that you reach more importantly actually purchase
18:30 one of these mats because not only is a benefit beneficial for the environment
18:34 it’s beneficial for you do you really want to be breathing in toxic waste from
18:41 the actual you know the cheap mat that you’re doing your yoga at and when you think
18:46 about it a cheap mat and the yoga it just sort of doesn’t fit with the whole
18:51 philosophy of yoga does it no so well done is there anything else you’d
18:57 like to say to our viewers Oh no thank you thank you so much okay we’ll see you
19:04 again Bye