Dr. Yoga Momma

Dr. Yoga Momma Dr. Yoga Momma is your guide for conscious, mindful and empowered living. Integrating psychology and

04/22/2026

A little practice to meet with your inner child on this Wednesday for wisdom.

Listen more on this conversation through Tend Her Wild where you find your podcast.

What spells are you casting?I’m not talking about witch craft, or even anything that woo-woo.What are the words you are ...
04/17/2026

What spells are you casting?

I’m not talking about witch craft, or even anything that woo-woo.

What are the words you are speaking? What are the words you are listening to? What are the words you are reading?

A friend shared a quote from the great Bruce Lee with me this week: “Don’t speak negatively about yourself, even as a joke. Your body doesn’t know the difference. Words are energy and they cast spells, that’s why it’s called spelling.”

Talk about being spell-bound - this quote hit me straight in the heart! We are all guilty of getting pulled into complaining, gossip, bonding over negative life events, and re-telling our stories of victimhood. We are also surrounded by negative media, slander of public figures, and a cancellation culture that is hell bent on division. It actually takes effort to steer clear of negativity because our brains are constantly scanning the environment for what is wrong.

Yet our bodies are constantly listening to us, and will thrive and return to their natural state of health and ease when fed loving, grateful, and hopeful words.

Your words are either chains or wings. Choose wisely.

Betsy

Join me in practice tonight, Friday at 4 pm or my regularly scheduled Saturday and Tuesday morning class at 9 am. See you there!

04/01/2026

What are you unlearning?

We had Sarah Van Cleve on the podcast last week and after questions for her, she asked us a question, “what are you unlearning”?

Would love to hear from you, too.

Check out this conversation, released Friday, and join her and I in the upcoming Radical Wellness workshop on April 12th at 1 pm.

03/26/2026

It’s always been.

Let The World Break Your Heart Open
from Wisdom Wednesday, February 4th

Is your heart breaking these days? Is it hard to process the division that is happening in our world? How do we keep our hearts open during what can feel like increasingly chaotic, dark times?

In this week’s Wisdom Wednesday we will explore:
1. The dance of dark and light in the world, and the hope the ancient yoga texts provide about how to stay open in the midst of crisis.
2. The power of our heart, and how to face our breaking hearts using the wound as the portal.
3. Why an open heart in dark times is not naive, but rather a form of courage.
4. What we can trust during these times.
5. A heart based coherence practice to return you to the best and most dear part of you.
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Wisdom Wednesdays are a free monthly webinar exploring the wise teachings from the disciplines of psychology, yoga, and meditation that offer us hope and heightened awareness as we traverse the challenging experience of being human.

03/18/2026

We’d love to know: what quotes have shaped your life?

Quotes:

“The women I love and admire for their strength and grace did not get that way because s**t worked out. They got that way because s**t went wrong and they handled it. They handled it a thousand different ways on a thousand different days, but they handled it. Those women are my superheroes.” -Elizabeth Gilbert

“The more scared we are of a work or calling , the more sure we can be that we have to do it. Resistance is experienced as fear. The degree of fear equates to the strength of resistance. Therefore the more fear we feel about a specific enterprise the more certain we can be that enterprise is important to us and the growth of our soul. “ Stephen Pressfield from “War of Art”

“The wound is the place where the light enters you. “ Rumi

“Love is the most powerful force in the world. If people tell you the opposite of love is fear, it is not so. Love just is. Love has no opposite, it’s the answer to everything, everything. Where there is disharmony, wherever there’s pain, whoever there’s hunger or wherever there is sorrow. Just send love. Not only to humanity, but to all of life. To the rivers, the oceans, the forest, to the animals the birds, the bees to air you breathe. To the whole cosmos because you are part of the one, we are all part of the one. There is no separation. “

-Delores Cannon

“Let your heart break, so your spirit doesn’t.” - Andrea Gibson

“Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act , just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.” -Rainer Maria Rilke “Letters to a Young Poet”…. and more….

The Liminality of Winter to SpringHow are you navigating this liminal space between Winter and Spring? Liminal spaces ar...
03/09/2026

The Liminality of Winter to Spring

How are you navigating this liminal space between Winter and Spring? Liminal spaces are places of threshold, like a doorway into something new.

Our brains resist liminal space. They prefer predicability, clarity and known narratives whereas liminality pushes us toward disorientation.

Spring, with its regeneration and unpredictability, demands tremendous energy! Often times energy that is hard to summon after a long winter.

This lethargy, common to Spring, can present as depression and irritability. This month in Wisdom Wednesday we explored depression from an Ayurvedic and spiritual perspective, not through the typical psychological lens from which we often attempt to understand it.

We focused on 3 different types of depression, but honed in on intrapsychic depression where the ego and soul have different agendas. There is often a clear task with depression, and that is to ask, “what does the soul want?”

Typically the soul is asking for a bigger journey according to Dr. James Hollis, a Jungian psychologist. He writes that “It is always easier to walk in shoes that are too small for us, than step into the largeness that the soul expects and demands.”

There is a guided practice at the end of the webinar that offers space to acknowledge and hold your stuckness, as well as your own expansiveness, so you can build a bridge between the two.

Hope you are navigating this time as well as possible. If you’d like to mark the actual entry into Spring, join me for a special Spring equinox practice and ritual on Saturday, March 21 @ 9AM CST either in person or via zoom.

This quote by Pema Chodron always speaks to me the moment the airplane pops through the turbulence to a vast blue sky. ...
03/06/2026

This quote by Pema Chodron always speaks to me the moment the airplane pops through the turbulence to a vast blue sky. I literally took this photo today en route to Denver.

For today’s Tend Her Wild podcast, Kate and I each assembled our 11 favorite quotes without sharing prior to the episode.

This quote was the only overlap we had!

Our other quotes seem to circle around themes of love, womanhood, courage, and living big.

I loved this episode. And thanks to past guest Dr Ren Stinson for the idea!

Healing Retreat with Dr. BetsyBlue Spirit Retreat CenterNosara, Costa Rica May 9-16, 2026Just a few rooms left - Sign ...
03/02/2026

Healing Retreat with Dr. Betsy
Blue Spirit Retreat Center
Nosara, Costa Rica
May 9-16, 2026
Just a few rooms left - Sign up closes soon

Feeling overwhelmed and anxious by life and the state of the world? This intimate retreat (fewer than 20 participants) is a chance to work deeply and personally with Betsy on aligning with your personal inner healer.

It has been said that the antidote to anxiety is creativity. When we can channel our energy into creative pursuits that align with our personal true north, we not only find relief but also purpose.

Betsy is excited to announce that broadway director and born creative Kristin Hanggi will be joining us on retreat to bring her magical perspectives on how to reclaim your inner creative intelligence as a living healing force.

Days include meditation, yoga, journaling, vision work, intuitive practices, imagination exercises, blueprint mapping, and embodied ritual. Plus plenty of time for swimming, walking on the beach, and nourishing your body with healthy fresh food.

Out with the Old & In with the New: Navigating Liminal Space in Springwith Dr Betsy Brandl RippentropWednesday March 4th...
03/02/2026

Out with the Old & In with the New: Navigating Liminal Space in Spring
with Dr Betsy Brandl Rippentrop
Wednesday March 4th, Noon CST

March into April is a liminal time. The weather ping pongs between Winter and Spring. Our moods alternate between irritability and fatigue. We feel excited about change but also feel resistance to the change. We have hope for something different but then wonder if this is really possible. Any of these sound familiar?

This time of year is often marked by highly variable emotions and energies that sometimes make us feel unmoored. We are going to explore this seasonal juncture point with lots of practical tips for moving through it with less suffering.

In this month’s free Wisdom Wednesday, we will explore:
The 3 tasks of Spring: Cleanse. Choose. Connect.
Depression, why it is often most intense in Spring, and rethinking it as signal rather than a pathology.
What is required of us in liminal spaces.
Creating space and tenderness for our newly emerging life.

Wisdom Wednesday is a free online webinar offered the first Wednesday of each month. Even if you cannot make it live, register and we will send you the replay.

Link to register in bio.

The amount of energetic shifts and change happening right now is mind boggling.We are experiencing the shift of Winter t...
03/02/2026

The amount of energetic shifts and change happening right now is mind boggling.

We are experiencing the shift of Winter to Spring as the light continues to increase and the weather warms. We have moved from the year of the snake (shedding) into the year of the fire horse (swift movement forward).

We may be feeling the shift of our mood as Spring time ushers in increased irritability and feeling both wired and tired. Culturally we are experiencing rapid technological change, climate anxiety, political upheaval, and increased intolerance for inauthentic systems.

This time would be what psychologists often call liminal space - that elusive threshold between what once was and what could be. We are still holding our old identity because the new one isn’t yet fully formed.

These liminal spaces are a period of dismantling before reorganization is possible, and they are some of the hardest periods we traverse. They are also ripe with potential. And are sacred.

Join me this coming Wednesday for a new Wisdom Wednesday where we explore liminality, markers of such time periods, and how to use this time to seed possibility versus get lost in the chaos and heaviness that are also present.

Betsy

02/25/2026

a little practice to ground within yourself.

Season 4 of Tend Her Wild has started! Hard to believe we’ve been at this for almost 200 episodes! 🙌🏽We released a new ...
02/07/2026

Season 4 of Tend Her Wild has started! Hard to believe we’ve been at this for almost 200 episodes! 🙌🏽

We released a new one that interviews our brave neighbors in MN and the power of love and solidarity. This art is from one of our guests who is channeling her righteous rage into creating beauty.

Check out episode 187 - and keep whooshing love, support, money and prayers to Minnesota!❤️

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