The Funny Thing About Yoga

This week on The Funny Thing About Yoga, we’re joined by Charlotte Muller of Breathe Strength — yoga educator, studio owner, social media creator, and, like Giana, a fellow Long Islander.
This conversation felt easy, heartfelt, and deeply relatable, beginning with nostalgic hometown connections and bonding over the experience of young parental loss.
We talk about Charlotte’s path to yoga through grief, opening a studio during COVID, navigating major life transitions, and finding herself in the midst of unexpected, exciting new beginnings as she moves through pregnancy.
Charlotte’s passion for yoga and fitness shines through, and hearing how she uses social media and her platform to share her love of theming, sequencing, and teaching is genuinely inspiring.
From trusting you’re exactly where you’re meant to be, to noticing little signs, staying motivated when life hands you a whole lot of shit, making future plans, and embracing the messy beauty of building a life you actually want — this episode goes deep in the most grounding, human way.
A warm, honest conversation about resilience, reinvention, and connecting with someone walking a surprisingly similar path.

Find Charlotte Muller Online:

instagram @breathe_strength
tiktok @breathe_strength
website www.breathestrengthwellness.com

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🌊 Upcoming Retreats
Amalfi Coast Yoga Retreat: July 25 - August 1, 2026
Portugal Relax by the Sea Retreat: August 4-10, 2026

📚 Read the Podcast Blog:
The Funny Thing About Yoga on Substack

📲 Follow Us
Podcast: @thefunnythingaboutyoga
School: @cayayogaschool
Hosts: @gianagambino & @bradshawwish

🌐 More Links
gianayoga.com
bradshawwishyoga.com
cayayogaschool.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You start with a sore back, a little anxiety, or a desire to feel better… and somehow end up spending thousands of dollars on supplements, questioning your cookware, tracking your nervous system, and wondering if your WiFi is destroying your mitochondria.
In this episode, we unpack the wellness pipeline - the slippery slope from genuine healing and self-care into misinformation, obsession, perfectionism, and trying to do all the things.
We talk about the addictive pull of wellness culture, anxiety, OCD tendencies, the pressure to optimize ourselves, and how wellness can quietly become another impossible standard to live up to. Giana shares pieces of her healing journey, Bradshaw reflects on addiction and all-or-nothing patterns, and we explore the blurry line between being informed, being empowered, and getting completely consumed.
We get into supplements, faith, fear, balance, checking in with yourself, managing anxiety, and the question underneath all of it: How do we care deeply about our health without losing ourselves in the pursuit of perfect wellness?
A nuanced, personal, occasionally unhinged conversation about healing, control, wellness culture, and finding a little more honesty and balance along the way.

Want to support our podcast? Join our Patreon for extra content

** CHECK OUT OUR 300-HOUR PROGRAM **

🌊 Upcoming Retreats
Amalfi Coast Yoga Retreat: July 25 - August 1, 2026
Portugal Relax by the Sea Retreat: August 4-10, 2026

📚 Read the Podcast Blog:
The Funny Thing About Yoga on Substack

📲 Follow Us
Podcast: @thefunnythingaboutyoga
School: @cayayogaschool
Hosts: @gianagambino & @bradshawwish

🌐 More Links
gianayoga.com
bradshawwishyoga.com
cayayogaschool.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We start with life updates: Giana’s baby shower and travels to California, Bradshaw reflecting on how Giana’s family reminds him of his own, preparations for the baby, and an update on Bradshaw’s shoulder recovery. Naturally, the conversation spirals into dogs, consciousness, and the complexity of the human condition before we finally arrive at today’s topic: “Why Yoga Communities Don’t Feel the Same.” About 13 minutes in, we get to the heart of the conversation and explore what’s shifted in yoga culture, and modern culture more broadly, that has changed the feeling of the yoga studio as a true third space. We talk about the impact of technology, Groupon and ClassPass culture, social media, COVID, rising city costs, and the commodification of wellness. Before social media, people primarily practiced in person, inspiration came from teachers and community rather than algorithms, and the studio often felt less performative and more like a homecoming, a sacred reprieve from daily life rather than just another fitness class. We reflect on the small rituals many studios once had: tea stations, couches, bulletin boards, workshops that felt social, post-class dinners, arriving early to settle in, doors locking at start time, and the unspoken intimacy of practicing in the same room week after week. Now, with preregistration apps, late arrivals, online classes, and endless studio sampling, yoga can sometimes feel more transactional and convenience-driven. At the same time, we acknowledge that many modern shifts have also made yoga more accessible and brought more people into the practice. This episode isn’t about saying things were better before, but about exploring loneliness, belonging, changing culture, and asking how we might cultivate deeper community again in a world that increasingly pulls people apart.

Want to support our podcast? Join our Patreon for extra content

** CHECK OUT OUR 300-HOUR PROGRAM **

🌊 Upcoming Retreats
Amalfi Coast Yoga Retreat: July 25 - August 1, 2026
Portugal Relax by the Sea Retreat: August 4-10, 2026

📚 Read the Podcast Blog:
The Funny Thing About Yoga on Substack

📲 Follow Us
Podcast: @thefunnythingaboutyoga
School: @cayayogaschool
Hosts: @gianagambino & @bradshawwish

🌐 More Links
gianayoga.com
bradshawwishyoga.com
cayayogaschool.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We start, as usual, with some wandering banter touching on astrological shifts for Aquarius, shrinking brains, talking to sisters, and whatever else comes up along the way.

Then we settle into the heart of the episode: “Listen to Your Body”- a cue used constantly in yoga spaces, but what does it actually mean? And more importantly, is it really landing?

We unpack how disconnected many people are from their bodies, and how vague cues like listen to your body can miss the mark when students don’t yet know what they’re listening for. Giana shares an example from a semi-private session that highlights this disconnect, sparking a bigger conversation around the difference between discomfort and pain, comparison in class, overriding your own internal compass, and how easily students become further detached from themselves. We also explore how distractions, from external pressure to even the music in class, can pull people further out of their embodied experience.

From there, we talk about what it actually means to cultivate connection. As teachers, how do we offer language and options that help students tune in rather than tune out? How do we give permission for what they’re genuinely feeling?

We also dive into nervous system work and embodiment. Giana shares how years of deep flexibility were, in part, tied to an inability to fully feel sensation in her body, and how reconnecting through different healing modalities completely changed her relationship to movement. She can still access the same range, but now from a place of awareness rather than disconnection.

The conversation expands into what embodiment really means- mind, body, and spirit- and how pregnancy has added layers of distraction, discomfort, and change that have made feeling fully embodied more complex.

And because this is us, we wrap up with funny stories about Bradshaw’s unique gifts and the humbling experience of taking public yoga classes while injured.

Want to support our podcast? Join our Patreon for extra content

** CHECK OUT OUR 300-HOUR PROGRAM **

🌊 Upcoming Retreats
Amalfi Coast Yoga Retreat: July 25 - August 1, 2026
Portugal Relax by the Sea Retreat: August 4-10, 2026

📚 Read the Podcast Blog:
The Funny Thing About Yoga on Substack

📲 Follow Us
Podcast: @thefunnythingaboutyoga
School: @cayayogaschool
Hosts: @gianagambino & @bradshawwish

🌐 More Links
gianayoga.com
bradshawwishyoga.com
cayayogaschool.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode starts with some major life updates. Bradshaw shares the story behind his collarbone surgery, and Giana opens up about navigating iron infusions during pregnancy. As usual, one tangent leads to another, and we somehow end up talking about the Venice Biennale, tattoos, being emo, queer allyship, sugar addiction, and what it’s like to lose friends far too early in life.

Nearly 20 minutes in (classic), we finally settle into the heart of the episode, what to do when your yoga practice stops feeling good. We talk about pregnancy, injury, burnout, plateaus, and losing passion, those seasons when a practice that once felt nourishing starts to feel frustrating, stale, or disconnected.
More importantly, we offer ideas for how to navigate it, including nervous system regulation, taking intentional breaks, exploring other movement modalities, finding new teachers, shifting your goals, reconnecting to what first drew you in, and giving yourself permission to let your practice evolve with you. Bradshaw also shares his experience with SI joint dysfunction and how pain reshaped his relationship to movement.

We close with a bigger question. Did you love yoga, or did you love the transformation phase, the honeymoon phase of becoming someone new through it? Because even a “good addiction” can become unhealthy, and sometimes the path back is less about pushing harder and more about learning a new way to practice.
We also share funny stories about getting the ick before the ick was a thing, and trying to impress doctors with our anatomy knowledge.

Want to support our podcast? Join our Patreon for extra content

🌊 Upcoming Retreats
Amalfi Coast Yoga Retreat: July 25 - August 1, 2026
Portugal Relax by the Sea Retreat: August 4-10, 2026

📚 Read the Podcast Blog:
The Funny Thing About Yoga on Substack

📲 Follow Us
Podcast: @thefunnythingaboutyoga
School: @cayayogaschool
Hosts: @gianagambino & @bradshawwish

🌐 More Links
gianayoga.com
bradshawwishyoga.com
cayayogaschool.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.