What happens when a devoted academic lets her inner knowing take the lead?

In this episode, Laura Alyn sits down with Dr. Johanna Mosca—Ph.D., educator, yogi, and Sedona resident—for a rich conversation about the dance between intellect and intuition.

Together, they explore:

• What it means to feel your way into major life decisions
• The limits of reason and the power of habit
• What schools are missing when they focus on resumes over character
• The importance of fun

This is a conversation about redefining education, following the body’s wisdom, and trusting that the adventure is the way.

🌱 Coming Soon from Johanna
Soon, Johanna will be offering enlightening, fun workshops designed for the Human Resource departments of large companies. These sessions will help participants integrate the principles we talked about in this episode—bringing more consciousness, creativity, and emotional intelligence into both work and home life. It’s all about elevating performance from the inside out.

For more on Johanna, visit https://www.yogalife.net/

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ASTROLOGY SNAPSHOT

Johanna is a truth-seeking soul (Sagittarius Sun) with a grounded, service-oriented heart (Virgo Moon). She communicates with clarity and structure (Mercury in Capricorn), dreams of harmony (Neptune in Libra), carries deep emotional wisdom (Saturn in Cancer), and transforms through bold self-expression (Pluto in Leo).

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INTUITION & INTELLECT

LA: “How do you define intuition?”
JM: “Inner knowing. It’s a feeling.”

Intuition-Led Experiences for Johanna

• “I feel like these red rocks drew me here. They drew me here with a knowing of the heart. And now I live here.”
• “It was one of those gut decisions, I went on a retreat in Peru. At the end they offered a 300 hour Shamanic Energy Medicine Training… I muscle tested and got such a radical yes that I instantly signed up.”

LA: How do you see these two different ways of knowing (Academic knowledge and Shamanic knowledge)?

JM: It doesn’t seem cerebral to me because [they are both just] a part of me. One of my favorite yoga teachers said, ‘I could never be a devotee to one guru, they’re all my gurus.”

LA: How important is reason?

JM: Well, I truly believe that the reasoning is done by 10% of our minds and 90% of our minds are habit. I am now looking at [my mind like] ‘you’re thinking that, but do you really believe that and is that really essentially true to you’ and that’s why I do these balance exercises (like Psych-K) every day because I wanna know if what I’m thinking is really true for every part of me and is the highest good.

THOUGHTS ON EDUCATION

JM: “I loved school. I love sitting in the front. I love being the first one to put my hand up with the answer. Learning to me is life. Contributing [to knowledge] and teaching is also life.”

JM: “What I’m about is heightening consciousness and performance.”

JM: I taught high school English. I was a teacher trainer in New York. I taught in prisons. I went back to school to become an administrator.

JM: “It was a thrill of my life—the Ph.D.”

JM: “There’s always something new for your heart to get excited about, thrive about, want to know more, and want to integrate to make life richer.”

Q: What do you wish school did differently?

JM: I would like life principles to be taught in education. There should be less competition. We need more ways to allow students to feel proud of their uniqueness. We need to praise individuality instead of conformity. And to instill deep-rooted values.

JM: When I was in school, it was all about building up the resume, but now nobody cares about my six page resume. What people care about is how many followers you have. Kids today will have a good social media page, but where’s the character? I’d like schools to teach character and integrity with modeling.

LEARNING FROM NATURE

JM: I go on a prayer walk every day. Being out in nature is the biggest clearing for me, I feel all the heavy energy, figure out why it’s here, and let it go.