
Yoga Since 1996, Bitcoin Since 2020 | 21 Questions with Heather Larson
About this episode
Sats are satya. In Sanskrit, satya means truth. One sat is one sat.
Heather Larson has been practicing yoga since 1996 and stacking bitcoin since 2020. In this episode, she answers 21 questions in 10 minutes at the intersection of Bitcoin and Yoga. Her answers are surprisingly deep.
What you’ll learn:
- How yoga’s ethics (Yamas and niyamas) align with Bitcoin’s values
- Why financial sovereignty matters especially for women
- How to reconcile manifesting culture with Bitcoin’s proof-of-work
- The best asana to do when you feel stressed about money
- How the fiat mindset corrupted yoga… From Lululemon pants to Instagram aesthetics
🔑 There’s a Cashu eCash token hidden in this episode. First to scan it gets 2,100 sats.
🔑 There’s also a seed word clue hidden in this episode. Keep it for when Heather’s full interview drops. First to find all 12 seed words can sweep the wallet with 21,000 sats.
Good luck 🍀
About Heather:
Heather is a yoga teacher, Reiki master, and Bitcoiner. She offers value-for-value yoga classes on Nostr. She’s also the host of Radio Detox and works with Soapbox, Runstr, and Lightning News.
🧘🏻♀️destpinyarchitecture.net | ditto.pub
X (formerly Twitter): @writerHeatherL
Nostr: [email protected]
🔗 Referrals:
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About Ask a Bitcoiner 21 Questions
Guests try to answer 21 Bitcoin questions in 10 minutes. Fast format, real answers based on experience. Full interviews go deeper, and there’s always a hidden surprise.
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Chapters
0:00 Introduction — Heather Larson, yoga teacher and Bitcoiner
1:35 How the episode works — Cashu eCash token announcement
2:09 Q1: Have you ever talked about Bitcoin in a yoga class?
2:35 Q2: How would you explain Bitcoin to a room full of yogis?
3:14 Q3: Do you accept Bitcoin for your classes?
3:45 Q4: What came first — yoga or Bitcoin?
4:05 Q5: What do yoga and Bitcoin have in common?
4:41 Q6: Most yoga teachers are women, most Bitcoiners are men — what is that like?
5:54 Q7: What did you think when you first heard of Bitcoin?
6:15 Q8: What does financial sovereignty mean to you?
6:41 Q9: What would you say to a yogi who thinks Bitcoin is bad for the environment?
7:19 Q10: What is your favourite asana?
7:36 Q11: Manifesting vs proof of work — how do you reconcile the two? 8:43 Q12: What does proof of work look like to a yogi?
9:26 Q13: Is there an asana for when you feel stressed about money? 9:57 Q14: How has the fiat mindset impacted the way we practice yoga? 10:50 Q15: What is the biggest misconception about yoga?
11:19 Q16: How do you manage Bitcoin's volatility?
12:10 Q17: What is harder — self-custody or a headstand?
12:40 Q18: The wellness industry is expensive — how do you build a practice and stack sats?
15:54 Q19: What does life look like after yoga and stacking sats for a few years?
17:01 Q20: What is Nostr?
18:29 Q21: Do you practice more yoga in a bear market or a bull market? 19:22 Where to find Heather
20:19 Unclench everything
Not financial advice. Bitcoin and yoga are both practices. Do your own research on both.
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Full transcript
Ask a Bitcoiner 21 Questions — Yoga Since 1996, Bitcoin Since 2020 | 21 Questions with Heather Larson. Machine-transcribed; use the interactive transcript above to jump the player to any line.
Sats are satya, you know, sats are true. You know, one sat is always one sat So I would attack it from the angle of ethics aligning yoga yoga's ethics aligning with bitcoins ethics Hi everyone, welcome to ask a bit coin or 21 questions. I'm your host sata Gomez and I am joined by the lovely Heather Larson who's helping me with my breathing There we go Heather will answer or try to answer. Yeah, 21 questions in 10 minutes about yoga and bitcoin. How are you Heather? I'm great, so you know, thank you for having me on My pleasure Do you want to give the audience a brief intro? A brief intro before we start or do you want to go straight into it? Absolutely, I can do a brief intro, you know, I'm a bit quainer and yoga teacher
I love to talk about bitcoin and yoga, so you've you've now like brought together all of my special interests all in one and A lot of people know me from radio detox or soapbox sessions You know, my day job is is working in a variety of bitcoin and and noster, you know tech startups from So box to rigley you even find me on lightning news. I know I'm forgetting one up runster So you know keep keeping with the fitness health and wellness That wee bit coiners love so much Amen Okay, so you know the deal 21 questions 10 minutes I'll read the first question and then I'll start the timer and I almost forgot before we start Of course, there will be the cashew e-cash qr code somewhere popping up and the first person to spot it And scan it will get the 2100s at so good luck awesome and we shall start first question
Have you ever talked about bitcoin in a yoga class or workshop? Yes, I have it just kind of organically happened once because I was playing some music on wave lake in a yoga class And somebody liked the music and I said well that song happens to be by ainsley Castello a very solid bit coiner And so this was technically after class, but yes, I it has happened once organically of course was wasn't trying to orange pill the yoga class wasn't trying If If you had to explain bitcoin to a room full of yogis using only concepts from your practice, what would you say? I would go with the ethics and the values the namas Urgamas and nianas I would I would talk about the ethics like a staya non-stealing or satya, which is truth And by the way, sats are satya, you know, sats are true, you know, one sat is always one sat so You know, I don't know if yogis would appreciate sats or satya right out the gate But I would I would attack it from the angle of ethics aligning yoga yogas ethics aligning with bitcoins ethics
Do you accept a bitcoin for your classes? I do I have done that on noster. I have accepted zaps for people who attended my online classes I have always as a as a rakemaster accepted or told people I would accept bitcoin Nobody's actually paid me in bitcoin for rakey, but for yoga. Yes, I can I have zapp right on my site I've I've the traditional payment rails as well, but yes at nbitcoiners and when you pay in bitcoin 10% discount for you Nice what came first for you yoga or bitcoin chronologically yoga Yoga since 1996 so this is my 30th year of yoga and for bitcoin We'll just say class of 2020 because that's when I got deeply into bitcoin What do yoga and bitcoin have in common? Uh, the ethics and the values um, there's probably about 21 different things I can come up with As far as like both are misunderstood both are ethically aligned
There's so much that the coin and yoga have in common, but I would say the ethics the the low time preference the tendency towards study um Being deep rabbit holes that I will go down and never get out of um bitcoin and yoga are are definitely aligned Um, and I think that pointers are definitely aligned to yoga as well. I should give it a try So in my experience most yoga teachers are women, but most big pointers are men You exist in both spaces. What is that like? Oh, it's hard. Uh, you know, I've existed soapbox We're very uh developer oriented and you know in Nostradevs a lot of men mostly men bitcoiners a lot of men these these are male heavy spaces I've always worked in male heavy spaces though Uh, from radio and records rock and roll um, I think the only women Intense fields I've been in have been you know social work in yoga and so it's it's trying to Stand out and stand up for myself as a woman, you know, I'm on a tear right now
I'm trying to ensure that when I do a bitcoin event if I'm speaking on a panel and bringing another woman with me Or setting up women to be on panels. If you define not there, we we did this in DC for runster We had ainslie Castello, Catherine and Ella Huff on a Gen Z women in the point panel I didn't have to be there. I didn't have to be on the panel gloriously davitar my friend an amazing musician Did that panel for me in DC? So that's that's kind of my point. I spend sticking point right now is What did you think when you first heard of bitcoin? My first thought about bitcoin that was that it was a finance and trading Trading was my first thought and I thought that it was like you needed a robin hood app to do Yeah, really that was my first impression of bitcoin. It was very wrong Uh, but I think a lot of people probably share that too What does financial sovereignty mean to you? Uh, financial sovereignty means independence. I think for women especially, you know, to be able to have money
Uh, that you Can access and husband or partner cannot access or does not know about. I think that's been a huge issue for Uh, myself in the past and many women that I know that is that is the sovereignty issue What would you say to a yogi who avoids bitcoin because they believe it's bad for the environment Oh Yeah, that is the fun speaking right there, but yeah, you can't tell somebody that so you know I I wouldn't encourage people to study the work of bitcoiners like margo paez and daniel botan People who really understand energy and and mining and how you know bitcoin mining is actually a net positive For energy and it's it's it's not what people think it is. It's not the stigmatized version of Just fun that people think it is What's your favorite a sauna? Oh, I'm gonna I'm gonna be honest, and I'm gonna say child's pose It's it's not one of the fancy ones. It's just you know you you're practicing yoga if you get on your mat and get in child's pose and you
Breathe. Yeah, that's that easy and also that heart So there are a lot of posts about manifesting in the wellness space and bitcoin is about proof of work How do you reconcile the two? Well, and yoga and the sutras. They're actually you know There is something to the manifesting idea, but it's not called manifesting per se It's called bovina which is calling into existence and you know You still do have to do work if you want to manifest, you know You don't just sit there and go I'm manifesting a Ferrari and it appears right you still have to actually like go make the money I think you know It's the same with bitcoin, you know, it's it's proof of work and it's it's energy and it is it is a system of math That's a system of science and and you know software development if you really want to go down the rabbit hole But you know both how proof of work and you know you can't you can't fake the funk, you know, you can't fake bitcoin You can't copy it, you know, you can't and the same thing with yoga, you know show up Do the work you do your best and you detach from the result and the same is true with bitcoin and sometimes it's gonna be up
Sometimes it's gonna be down. You just have to chill with it. Just got to ride the wave Yeah Um, so how does actually proof of work look to a yogi Proof of work comes in I think a feeling which I guess is not the the best form of proof of work But it's you begin to feel different you begin to transform bitcoin does this to you too, you know You begin to feel a transformation. No, maybe you're standing taller. Maybe you're breathing deeper Maybe the space, you know Between these interrupting thoughts maybe maybe that space is is broader Deeper as well and maybe there's just more More peace comes to be and that's that's what's going to you know bring that to you Is there an assana or posture viewers can do if they feel stressed about money Ah, that's that's a good one. I would I would say child's post because you know You're going to
Lay your head on the floor. It's kind of like cuddling into yourself and you breathe that, you know That is something you can do or you could also just sit up straight in a staff pose, you know Align the spine breathe deeply and center and both of these can be centering and very grounding How has the fiat mindset impacted the way we practice yoga? Oh Oh gosh, let's start with the Lululemon $100 yoga pants yoga yoga yoga has become so much about it. You know, we can blame it. Do you remember this it's It's so much about aesthetics or looks or how we look in the pose and it's it's very nice when you find a yoga studio that does not have mirrors You know, you don't need mirrors to practice yoga. You don't need fancy pants. You don't need a whole bunch of things You know, like I started out with yoga with a $5 book and a very bad fitness mat and here I am 30 years later Still in love with yoga Because I connected with it on that level of feeling like it changed me, you know, it doesn't have to be
Expensive retreats and expensive, you know fiat yoga pants What's the biggest misconception about yoga? The biggest misconception about yoga is that it's fitness Because it is so much more than that is is an ancient system thousands of years old that if you practice it It can bring you peace. It can bring you alignment. They can bring you whatever you put into it is what you're going to get out of it and uh Although big coins only 17 years old. It's kind of the same. Whatever you put into Bitcoin is what you're going to get out of it How do you manage Bitcoin's volatility? Oh Oh, man, I don't want to look No, I actually like I have the price action on my my screen every day So I kind of I'm aware of it, right? I'll miss see it one way or another or Bitcoin's winners Gonna let me know or Nostra's gonna let me know what the price is doing. So I just kind of go Okay, I'm in this for the long haul. Hold up here at the time. That's 10 minutes. However However, we did have a few glitches
So I'm gonna add a few seconds onto the clock. We're gonna add about I'm gonna say 20 seconds on to the clock um The question we're on currently is Bitcoin's volatility You may continue with the answer or we can move on to question 17 Okay, let's talk about it. 17. Let's see. I knew I couldn't do it. Okay I'm already But your answers are really good and I think that they're super helpful. So an additional 20 seconds added to the clock and um I'll have to read quickly. Okay, so starting and What's harder to do self-custody or a headstand? I'm gonna go with headstand. I both headstand has to do with fear or self-custody pretty much I think just has to do with taking action The wellness industry is expensive. How can we build a wellness practice and save in Bitcoin at the same
time that was a long question the alarm just went off again Oh my gosh, I can okay Okay, so how can we see the blockers been confirmed? Um just so we did this with a new Joe as well um the block is unconfirmed You're gonna see like in the episode it'll go more Unconfirmed, but we will continue and I didn't mention this for the full interview, but there is a 12-word seed phrase that the audience can try to find We will go over time again with this we'll get through the rest of the questions and There will be a seed word clue somewhere in here. So audience stay watching because you're gonna want this clue So that you can eventually swipe the wallet with the 21,000 sats Let's resume ready ready Okay, so I'll read the question again. The wellness industry is expensive How can we build a wellness practice and save in Bitcoin at the same time?
Oh begin where you are, you know, again, it's not about the Lululemon pants, you know, it's it's about How can I do yoga? How how can I or how can I stay fit and and and be well? And meeting yourself where your finances are at, you know, you don't need the stress of overextending your finances And spending beyond what you can afford, you know, I do have a friend Excuse me I do have a friend who spent about a hundred thousand dollars on her her wellness And she was able to cover it and it was it was something that She had been through something and and her her health and wellness had badly suffered And and she said this is an investment of myself and I'm doing it and she just had that firm belief You know that bovina that calling in or manifesting that I'm going to spend what it takes on my wellness. So that's that's like one It's a mindset Where you do that and like for me, I've I've not gone that route I've been like Let me live within my means because I'm on a stack sats like yeah Maybe I don't need a chair, but I do need a meditation cushion
So it comes down to the you know economic trade-offs that we all face But certainly you have to find a balance between putting your wellness first and also, you know Putting your stacking first for the long term and and just kind of breathing into it again. It's always breath right Breathing and doing okay, I can stack sats and I can meditate because you know to be honest breathing is free You know sitting down and deep breathing and trying to you know bring it down a six breaths a minute You know if you can do that you're you're breathing you're meditating you're practicing yoga You know, it's that simple that is free You know, and I've also been able to offer In the past I've been offering you know online yoga classes through Noster and anybody could attend There was no gatekeeping and and if people wanted to send me sats afterward They could send me sats afterward on Noster. So, you know, I think that's a powerful way to do yoga Where it's the the people who participate, you know, give you You know the value that they perceive that they received and so you know people spent a few sats on me Great and if not they got to have yoga in an affordable way
Yeah What does life look like after practicing yoga and stacking sats for a few years? Oh, it's it's a shift, right? It's a mindset shift It's a calmness and an optimism that I think that you don't get if you're engaged in in fiat world or fiat fitness You know that's in which I you know refer to fiat fitness as like the the very centralized form of fitness, you know if you're You know part of a big gym or big fitness conglomerate, you know, whereas yoga you don't need to do that You know, that's not the way of yoga to have a you know a McDonald's version of yoga You know and then Bitcoin changes you as well and I think both things change your values and change your priorities In a more wholesome way to where there there should overall be less stress when you kind of adopt this way of life where it's like I am saving in the hardest money possible like I have a future now and I'm confident in that and I'm also practicing yoga
You know, so that's a change as well What is Noster Noster is notes and other stuff transmitted over relays and it's an acronym for protocol You know protocols versus platforms, but uh Noster is many things. Noster is basically rebuilding the internet so that it is open source and free You can join at ditto.pub. That's what we made at soapbox, which is a little bit beta But it's kind of the super app where we can pull Every aspect of what you might want online and to kind of one thing if you want video if you want pictures If you want articles if you want to share like Twitter But it's unsensorable and that's the magic of Noster It's also compatible with the rails of Bitcoin and Lightning and you know, that's why there's a lot of Bitcoiners on Noster But Noster is whatever you want it to be and I know that sounds very generalized and generic But it is it is the answer to a closed internet where you can be de-platformed where you can be censored
But it's it's like if you pull together Twitter, Facebook, TikTok and everything else and it just gave it one login one profile And you get to take your audience with you for the rest of your life You don't have to move between them. You just you have one Community and many possibilities and that's I guess the best way to put Noster It's a more sociable wholesome and free internet experience just it's just kind of rebuilding the internet to what it was supposed to be in the beginning Yep And last question Do you practice more yoga during a bear market or the bull market? Oh, well, you need it more in the bear. I don't know if it's about practicing more I think it's about practicing differently. I think you know when you when things feel bearish I can tend to go more towards philosophy more towards the sitting in meditation more towards the nourishing practices where when it's bullish I get into that height, you know, I get into that that energy that that high energy and you know
Then maybe I want the vinyasa then maybe I want you know that challenging practice That's going to make me sweat, you know, because I'm feeling bullish and sometimes it flip flops But you know the practice you have oh depends on many factors the seasons of your life and yes bull and bear markets as well Well, there we have it 21 questions about Bitcoin and yoga. Thank you once again Heather Can you remind people where they can find you? Find me a Noster ditto.pub you'll find me there the username is is Heather Larson or make songs longer because If what happened in 1971 hadn't happened we would have longer songs songs have gotten shorter over the years So there's there's that there's my website destinyarchitecture.net if you want to read my 21 ways Bitcoin and yoga are aligned We've got that there for you and Twitter is writer Heather L and we'll also see you in Las Vegas at the end of the month Awesome. Thank you very much, Heather Thank you cider. Yeah, hit me up anytime
Questions about yoga or anything, you know always around. Do you know how to get a hold of me? I Well, thank you I'm unclean your butt cheeks Cuz you don't know you're doing that either you know and or your evening could be your job if you're if you're well-practiced and unclean your butt cheeks That's good with the job Where are we holding the stress state where are we holding let go let go but I don't want to fart on air
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