Daily Practice with Benita
I see you.
You know there’s a better way.
You’re done with numbing, escaping, people-pleasing, feeling like you’re missing something.
This podcast is your invitation to come home to your sexy feminine body and radical authenticity — through self-discovery, breath, movement, sweat, and the timeless wisdom of Ayurveda and hormone-smart biohacking.
Yoga, Pilates, and mindful strength training aren’t just practices here — they’re your sacred rituals to awaken your sensuality, radiance, and fierce feminine power.
A good practice is the one you do.
Daily Practice with Benita
Unfiltered Healing: My Story of Breaking Cycles and Finding Strength Through Daily Practice
A No-Shame Invitation to Reconnect with Your True Self—One Day at a Time
Ever feel like you've lost connection with your true self? Like you're carrying baggage—physical, emotional, energetic—that's weighing you down? I've been there, carrying everything from childhood trauma to addiction, disordered eating to toxic relationships.
The Daily Practice podcast isn't about perfection or performance. It's a gentle invitation to reconnect with yourself every day, to become more of who you truly are and less of who you're not. No guilt, no shame—just consistent, loving attention to your authentic self.
My journey from neglected child to drug-addicted young adult to thriving yoga teacher and mother taught me that transformation happens through daily, intentional practice. Whether it's yoga, meditation, journaling, weight training, or simply conscious breathing, these practices gradually strip away what doesn't serve you and reveal the radiant being underneath.
Women especially benefit from understanding their cyclical nature rather than forcing themselves into linear, masculine patterns. Your birthright is pleasure—to be wild, powerful, joyful, and playful. When we honor our natural rhythms and creative potential, we access wisdom and vitality that transforms not just our lives but ripples out to everyone we touch.
Each week, I'll share practical tools for establishing your daily practice, exploring topics from Ayurveda and biohacking to feminine cycles and spiritual awakening. Because remember—a good practice is simply the one you do. And when you forget or fall away from it, the practice is simply returning, without judgment, to begin again.
Subscribe now to join me on this journey of reconnection, where showing up for yourself becomes the most powerful gift you can offer the world.
This is the Daily Practice with Benita. Remember, a good practice is the one you do. Hello everybody, and welcome to the daily practice with me, Benita, I am so happy that you're here. I am so happy that you have found my channel. I am so happy to be able to share my practice, share the stuff that I've learned throughout my relatively short life, and I really, really, really wish that something I share a practice, an anecdote, a story, any nugget that comes out of my mouth will actually serve and help you on your journey, because that's what we're doing here. We're on a journey, so I'm inviting you to this space, to my podcast, to my youtube channel, to reconnect with who you truly are, with your beautiful, sexy, feminine body that is full of vitality and life force, your being as a woman to be wild, powerful, joyful, inspiring and playful, curious and all those things that really, yeah, bring beauty into this world, because that's what we are here to do to live beautiful lives, to live joyful, playful, fun lives.
Benita:Okay, that radiance, that joy is within all of us. Okay, remember when you were a kid. Just think about it. When you were a kid, what worries did you have have? Okay, what amount of imagination did you bring into your play, into your everyday. Everything seemed like an opportunity for joy, for laughter, for curiosity, all those things that make life more fun. Okay, so that's my purpose here to invite you to take a moment every day to do your practice, to reconnect, to become more of who you are and less of who you are not. Okay, there's no need to carry around shit that no longer serves you, whether that's physical stuff, whether that's certain body weight that is weighing you down, whether it's traumatic experiences that is keeping you in fear or holding you back from being the being that you're meant to be.
Benita:The daily practice. So what I really also want to emphasize here in the beginning is that I'm not saying oh, hey, you have to do one hour of meditation every day. Oh, if you don't do your yoga practice every day, you're a bad person, you're a bad student and you fail. No, there's no, never, never, never, never, never, ever. Any guilt, punishment or shame in anything we do, but the invitation is to just have the intention of actually, each and every day, reconnecting with yourself, your power, with your true self and your femininity and your playfulness, and all those beautiful, juicy and fun things about who you are, okay, not what somebody wants you to be or whatever your story about your past makes you think that you are. If it makes you feel less worthy, less beautiful, less anything deserving, okay, because you are meant to be. Beauty, joy, laughter, whatever it is, whatever purpose is, that's what your daily practice is going to bring you closer to.
Benita:All right, why do I have authority? Or and I have let some of it go I still have shit and baggage and stuff and triggers and physical stuff and mental stuff, emotional stuff, energetic stuff. But I look at my journey and I've come pretty far. I have gone from a person, a girl, who suffered a lot of neglect and manipulation, being surrounded by drug use, alcoholism, lying, you know kind of hard stuff as a kid, to being a teenager who's looking for love and acceptance and connection in all the wrong places, ending up with a pretty severe decade or so more maybe, of eating disorders, of being bulimic and orthorexic or binge eating or whatever you want to call it, and kind of overcoming that, but only through drug addiction. There was a good chunk of my 20s where I was actually pretty severely addicted to, I would say, mostly cocaine, but other substances were definitely in the mix and, in the midst of that, being in extremely unhealthy relationships, to the point where I got severely physically assaulted by one of my partners. So, okay, that's a lot of stuff, but I'm doing pretty well now. Okay, I have a wonderful husband who takes care of me. I have a beautiful daughter who I love and who's teaching me so much about love and joy and play and curiosity, and I have a little dog. I have enough, you know, financial freedom to kind of live my best life and not worry about the little stuff. And I have done a lot of work to get here. The daily practice and the good practice is the one you do. I try to practice every day.
Benita:All right, how did I specifically end up practicing yoga? Learning about Ayurveda, about fitness, about biohacking, about maybe some of the more esoteric or occult even practices that have genuinely transformed my entire life from being basically a drug addict, loser, addicted to asshole boyfriends and and really horrendous substances, to being actually a thriving mother and teacher. The daily practice.
Benita:I came to yoga from, actually from a background of combat sports, from Muay Thai. When I was 15, I was seeking attention from boys and the boys in my class wanted to, or they were going to boxing training and I would listen to these boys and they sounded cool and they were interesting and they were cute and I wanted to be like them. So I was like, okay, I'm going to start boxing. Okay, I was at 15.
Benita:So from the age of 15, 16, up until I was in my early 20s, I was living, breathing, just everything in my life was about Thai boxing. I would go to school, study and do Thai boxing. I would train, I would starve myself to make a weight class. I was in this really unhealthy pattern of just okay, yeah, like I said, it started with trying to get acceptance or attention from these boys who were into boxing, but then it transformed into this thing where Thai boxing training, developing the skills in that, as well as controlling my weight through food and really, really intense training in Thai boxing was a way to control the chaos in my life. Like I said, in those teenage years my home life was really chaotic. My mom was really suffering from severe mental problems and substance use problems and obviously those reflected in my life, and then I was trying to like, just take charge or control the stuff that I could, which was what I'm eating, how much I'm training, how I'm performing at school, and that became the whole focus and that gave me a purpose and meaning in life. Okay, fast forward to maybe 20, maybe 2009,. So 2009,.
Benita:I suffered my first pretty severe knee injury. What did that mean for me? End of my life, felt like it. I couldn't train anymore, so I started drinking again, which I had done previously, you know, as a as a kid, as a teenager. But uh, after my knee injury, I was trying to fill the void by pouring alcohol into it. Okay, bad, bad approach.
Benita:So one friend had started practicing ashtanga yoga and she seemed to be thriving physically, mentally, spiritually. I was looking at her. I was like, hey, like you're doing this thing, what is it like? It's interesting to me? And I got into yoga and I started going to ashtanga yoga school as much as I could, going several days a week, as much as I could. I was going several days a week going to take an introductory course in this practice and I was like, how is this so difficult? I am an athlete. Why is one hour of stretching making me ache? Or why is it so hard and why am I exhausted, or why is it so? And I am I exhausted or why is it so?
Benita:And I realized that I was doing it wrong because I was trying to compete. I was used to competing, I was used to figuring out how to be as strong, fast and skilled as possible so that I could beat somebody up as effectively as possible. That was my mode of operating. Well, that's pretty crazy for a 20-year-old girl, anyways. So that's what I was doing in Ashtanga yoga classes. I was trying to compete. I was seeing these girls, these women, like just going into the craziest shapes, these little pretzels or whatever. And I'm like how, the how in the world are they doing that? Why can I not do that? Why is this so difficult? And that's when I, through practice, started realizing that no, no, no, okay, I can't just push, push, push. I have to relax into it. Okay, why are we breathing? Okay, that's one thought I had always at the end of the class. When we're just sitting around and breathing, I'm like this isn't burning any calories, this isn't exercise, this isn't working out. Why am I just sitting around when it's supposed to be exercise class or whatever? Or that's what I thought.
Benita:You know, it was so hard for me to settle in to myself because I was so much in that masculine of competing, of performing, of doing the thing, of doing the thing better than others all right than others, all right. I wasn't at all connected to that softness, that juiciness, that playfulness, that beauty, that joy, that pleasure of being in my body. It was about doing with my body. It was about doing with my body. Years went by, I kept practicing. In the beginning it was very religious. I was very, very, very deep in that Ashtanga Yoga world and if it wasn't six days a week practice I was failing. I felt, and I don't. Having said that, I don't regret having gone that far, you know, or that intensely into it in the beginning, because that laid a beautiful foundation, even though, maybe for the wrong reasons, I actually learned so much about those shapes, those postures, those breathing techniques, about my own body and to everything that exists, just by being in my body and finding ways to relax into certain shapes and then finding meaning and connection in just just sitting, just sitting fast forward several years.
Benita:You know, I had a lot of falling off the wagon and hopping back on and always trying to come back to my daily practice. Okay, how did I fall off? Like I said, there were episodes of drinking drugs, bad boyfriends uh, still kind of, when there wasn't drugs. Uh, reverting back to certain disordered eating habits, all related to just wanting to feel Loved, connected, feel like I matter.
Benita:You know, a lot of those desires to dampen or numb our feelings come from, just like a yearning to be loved, to be loved.
Benita:Where my mom had kind of checked out when I was still very young and I didn't have a connection or a support from the person who was supposed to take care of me, I started grasping at it. Okay, if I drink, I don't feel it. Oh, if I get validation from these boys or men, it feels good. Oh, they want me, they want my body, so that must mean that I matter and I'm loved, that I'm cared for. Okay, if that wasn't available. It was like okay, this drug makes me feel like I'm powerful or strong or motivated or whatever. That wasn't available. It was like okay, well, if I eat this brownie, I feel some sort of satisfaction. Oh, but now I feel disgusting, so probably gonna go vomit it out. Those are all symptoms of the same stuff which is just wanting to feel held, loved, connected, at peace.
Benita:Sometimes I'd forget to do my daily practice and I would go back into those patterns, but more and more, after what has it been? Almost 20 years, you know, 17 years, something like that. I I'm actually at a point where I am Really friends with my body and I'm like, hey, okay, like, let's eat ice cream. Today I just baked a beautiful birthday cake for my daughter and I am enjoying it so much. And it's not about like, oh, I need to eat this so I can forget about my mom who doesn't love me enough, or in the right way I'm like, no, this is a pleasurable, joyful thing that I'm doing to celebrate my body, to celebrate reality, to celebrate my life. So there the daily practice, and a good practice is the one you do.
Benita:Okay, just going back briefly to the yoga journey. So it's been long, like I said, it's been since, um, the early or 2000, let's say seven or eight, was my first contact with yoga and since then it's been going deep and wide. So, whether it's ashtanga yoga going really really deep, going all the way to india to practice it, becoming a yoga teacher, but then also finding freedom in letting that kind of really intense discipline off ashtanga yoga go and coming back to a wider, more curious and playful and softer approach to the practice of yoga, finding yin yoga, finding yoga nidra, finding all these different practices, hatha, you know, I've even been to goat yoga, whatever that is, you know, and and I've really found that a good practice is the one you do. I've sat for two weeks in silence at a Buddhist meditation retreat. That's a different practice and that's where you actually just meet your mind. You meet your mind, you meet your awareness, you meet a whole different layer of being than you would through a physical, dynamic movement practice.
Benita:I said after my first silent meditation retreat that the meditation retreat is like a slow roast. Takes a while for you to get there and you are in this pot and you're sitting there and everything's cooking and it's like slowly, slowly it's it's actually becoming juicy and you know ready and all those things, and then you come out of it and the effects last You've kind of like done the practice, you've done the slow roast, and the effect of that practice lingers and even if you kind of, after the meditation retreat, after several days of sitting in silence meditation retreat, after several days of sitting in silence. Even if you don't stick with an hour every day in the morning and the evening or whatever it is, even if you just do like a couple of minutes little mindfulness, you kind of stick with that juicy, presence and wow and appreciation of reality as it presents itself and seeing through a lot of the masks and facades that people are trying to keep up, and you see reality more closely to what it is. Meditation retreats are like a slow roast Okay, when I get there fast, you take acid. That's like the microwave. Okay, one minute Boop and you see stuff, you get it and you know it and you're like okay, yeah, like okay. You see energy, you feel energy, you know, you know you. You get a whole new perspective, very, very similar to the insights that you might get from actually sitting in silence for a week or two. But the effects go away, they just wither away pretty quickly unless you really really take time to integrate, unless you, after your journey, take time to slow down, breathe, sit, silence, meditation. You know, that's what I've really noticed Meditation retreats, slow roast, taking acid or mushrooms, microwave Effects come fast but they also go away fast.
Benita:I don't know if you guys know this, but it's actually true that when you put food in the microwave it heats up fast but want to share with you about my journey and the wisdom I have learned, integrated, applied, whether it's from reading books, from doing contemplative practices, doing physical practices, from learning from stupid mistakes that I keep repeating. But I won't anymore and I'm trying to be of service the best way I can by sharing my journey and sharing my daily practice with you. Okay, okay, okay. I didn't even get into all elements that I want to share in this practice or in this podcast, so you can expect everything I just talked about. Everything I just talked about Looking at the raw, unfiltered, authentic and like fucked up things that happen in our lives.
Benita:Looking at the root causes, looking at the stuff that is from your childhood, is from when your mama was carrying you in her belly, or even from, I don't know, past lives might exist, maybe. Maybe there's stuff from your ancestral lineage that we're carrying today that are causing our lives to be less than they can be, because, remember, your birthright is to be playful, feminine, sexy, powerful, intentional in your existence, living with endless curiosity and finding joy, laughter and just having fun and enjoying this life. Pleasure is your birthright. You're meant to enjoy this existence, all right. So that's what I want to help you do with a daily practice, and a good practice is the one you do. So whether it is, like I described, yoga, meditation, journaling we're going to look at journaling a lot. Writing stuff down is so magical and powerful. We're going to look at what it means to live an ayurvedic lifestyle and how that relates to biohacking that has become more and more popular.
Benita:How is biohacking applicable to women, who are cyclical beings? I just started bleeding yesterday. So all last week I thought the world was ending, I was going to get a divorce and I wanted to start a new life somewhere, because everything felt like garbage. But I'm like, okay, I'm just going through this cycle, I'm going through this thing and next week I will feel so much better, and I do. And now I'm feeling in a space where I have emotional release and stuff and I am in a position to actually share and show up in a different way, different way where last week, um, in the luteal phase, is like almost impossible for me to focus on anything.
Benita:Okay, so, looking at the cycles, our feminine cycles, looking at how that relates to biohacking, which has become such a big thing, and I think there are more and more people in the field of biohacking that are women now and that are talking about the importance of honoring and becoming more and more aware of your cycles and and actually not expecting yourself to perform and feel and act and behave the same way every day of the month. That's what dudes are for. Okay, they're supposed to be there for us to be stable, to hold shit together. That's not our job. Okay, you're supposed to be that wild, emotional and you know it's the Shakti, it's that creative energy that animates and that is where that intuitive wisdom and understanding of how life exists and comes to be that creation is within you, and that's what your cycle is. So it's not something to be ashamed of or something to be hushed away.
Benita:You know that the word taboo comes from I can't remember which language. It's some Polynesian language and means menstruation. Taboo is something you're not supposed to talk about, because boys are fucking scared of it because they don't have it. They're scared of blood, because they're like oh, that actually reminds me of the fact that these women are so powerful. They carry life, they create life within themselves, and boys can't do that, so they're scared of it. They don't want to talk about it, they want it to be hush, hush, they don't want to hear it, they don't want to see it, they don't want to think about it. So it's our job as women to talk about it, to acknowledge it, to honor it and to celebrate that creative potential that's inside of you. Okay, that was a lot.
Benita:So your cycles, biohacking how do they relate? What are you supposed to do in each phase of your cycle? Okay, what about weight training? Is that for dudes? Okay, no, so I have found so much strength and personal power in actually lifting heavy things, and this is going to be a whole episode on its own. Also, like, how can I apply some of the principles from yoga into weight training?
Benita:Okay, can going to the gym be yoga? I think it can. Yoga. Yoga means union. Yoga means yoking, coming together with your highest self, with your divine self. You can definitely do that at the gym. Okay, gym bros, it's just a shift in your mindset. Okay, yoga chitta vritti nirodha. Okay, it means yoga is mind control. It's about controlling the fluctuation of the thought forms. Okay, you can do that at the gym. You can do yoga at the gym by lifting weights, by you know, doing all that stuff that makes your body feel strong, sexy, beautiful and have amazing longevity.
Benita:We're going to look good naked when we're 50, when we're 60, when we're 70, okay, that's what we're doing. That's what we can do. Women are beautiful at every age, and I'm going to also be talking about how I relate to makeup, to plastic surgery, to cosmetic procedures and all the crazy things that women do to look a certain way, to have a youthful appearance. But what does that mean from the inside? What are you doing energetically? So we're going to have a whole talk about what does that mean? What's a daily practice of being beautiful? Okay, what can we do that doesn't involve like cutting ourselves up, because that sounds like mutilation, that sounds like violence. Okay, uh, this is a lot already.
Benita:Uh, I was just going to talk a little bit about introducing myself and about the content of this podcast and the channel, but I hope you are really getting the point, you're really understanding that, understanding that I just want to share my path, my practice, and I really, truly, genuinely hope that I can be of service by sharing this stuff, because it's been a fun journey, it's been a long journey, it's been pretty hellish in some parts, and I've had a lot of time. I've been lucky enough in my life that I've had certain freedoms to devote big, big chunks of my own personal time to spiritual practices, to fitness, to figuring out the reality of reality, and that's what I want to share with you. So it's not about perfection or performance or anything like that. It is definitely about just establishing a daily practice to connect with yourself, with the highest, most aligned part of yourself, and that's it. What should you expect from this podcast, from this channel?
Benita:I'm going to post every week a new episode on the podcast, each time touching on some of the topics I've described here, inviting you to connect with yourself, looking at life through the lens of shedding stuff that doesn't serve you, shedding things that no longer belong to you, that you can feel free to leave in the past. It's not about denying stuff that has happened to you. It's about freedom to be who you truly are and realizing that is things that make everybody's life on this planet more fun and beautiful. Okay, women are amazing and you are amazing and you've had a hard life. You've had fucked up, shit happen to you.
Benita:It's also not about claiming that we're better than others, or claiming that you're a saint and oh, that wasn't really me, so you didn't have an agency, or you can't take responsibility for your past actions or bad stuff that happened to you. That's not what we're saying. I'm saying that that aspect of you that ended up in a fucked up situation whether it's a really toxic eating pattern, drug habit, relationship you know, those things are things from the past that have kind of attached themselves to you. They are external to you and you allow them in. Nothing can exist in your life without your consent.
Benita:So this is also about radical self-responsibility. Everything that exists in your reality right now, you have chosen it actively or passively, consciously or subconsciously, and that is the stuff that we're here to unravel. So we're gonna look at all that stuff in the subconscious and the conscious mind, your belief system, and what is the stuff that's keeping you stuck in some shitty pattern and just joyful and of service. Right, it's not just. You know self-improvement, you know self-love, self-care. Self-improvement isn't selfish. We're doing this so we can be better people for others, so we can be better mothers, you know. Spouses, girlfriends, you know boss or employee or co-worker, whatever your role in life is currently Doing. This work is going to help you be better at what you are doing. Or if you want to transform your life completely, if you want to get married, if you want to have kids, if you want to make more money or whatever, this stuff of coming back to yourself each and every day through a daily practice is going to help you achieve all that. Okay, so I'll be posting weekly to this podcast about this length Now we've been going on for 40 minutes already.
Benita:Maybe I'll sometimes try to keep it more concise. I might have guests on. I might talk to my husband if he agrees. I might talk to friends, other teachers. I might be sharing conversations with some other thought leaders, industry leaders. Just my intention is to help you come back to yourself each and every day, without shame, without guilt, without performance. Just showing up every day. Performance, just showing up every day. And if you forget one day, if you forget for a whole month, even a year, just having the courage, having the self-forgiveness to always just come back and remember yourself. If we fall off the wagon, it's just about coming back on. We fall off the wagon, it's just about coming back on.
Benita:Also, on my YouTube, I'm going to be sharing simple techniques on how to practice. Okay, I've already recorded some. I'll be posting those soon on the same handle daily practice with Benita and those clips will be short, some will be longer, but they will be just simple tools on how to practice how to sit in meditation, how to stretch, how to do certain other self-care practices evening yoga, morning yoga, certain breathing practices and, as we move forward in this journey together, there will be more advanced practices and possibly also some kind of members forum where we can talk and you'll be able to talk to also other people who are on this journey of establishing a daily practice to reconnect with themselves, to become everything that they're meant to be. So I'm so excited to have started this journey with you and I am so, so, so grateful that you have tuned in and listened, and I am so, so, so grateful that you have tuned in and listened and let's start our daily practice today.
Benita:So I'm inviting you to, just wherever you are, not if you're driving or maneuvering any other vehicle, but if you're in a space where you feel relaxed, calm and undisturbed even if you're listening with your headphones in a cafe or in a public space just see if it feels comfortable for you to close your eyes gently, inhale through your nose, exhale through your mouth, relax, relax your shoulders, your jaw, your neck. See how it feels to just touch the tip of your nose to the roof of your mouth, behind your teeth, behind your front teeth. Inhale through your nose, exhale through your mouth, two more timesaling and exhaling. Inhaling and exhaling, and that's it. Maybe you notice that you feel a little bit softer, more relaxed, more centered, more focused right now. And hey, thank you for tuning in to the Daily Practice with me, .
Benita:Benita, please do subscribe to this channel. Like I said, I'll be posting every week. Share with somebody who might want to join this journey of connecting with themselves every day. And, yeah, I will hope to see you soon. If you're watching on YouTube, please do drop a comment. I'm also thinking about having a video format for the podcast as well, but that will be a little bit further in the future. But I'll meet you here again soon. A good practice is the one you do, thank you.
