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Today, I connect with the creator of ChiroYoga, indigenous healthcare advocate, and human movement educator, Dr. Samarpan Buchhalter. In this episode, we dive into the power of silence, how indigenous tribes use plants and spirit to heal the human body, the challenges of living in the jungle, navigating through fear, and learning to channel your energy. Dr. Samarpan shares his journey into creating ChiroYoga, his learnings in India, and some key pieces to finding your soul’s calling that he’s learned by living in the Amazon.

Meet Dr. Samarpan:
Our guest today is Dr. Samarpan Anand Buchalter, a chiropractor, isolated indigenous healthcare advocate, 500-hour certified yoga teacher, and the creator of Vishva Shanti Yoga Retreats, an adventure-based retreat organization working to protect and restore our ecosystems, partner with and support Indigenous peoples, and manifest peace in the world through yogic immersion in the natural world and by initiating social and environmental justice movements

He completed his 200hr yoga teacher training in Hatha Yoga in Bali, Indonesia and his 300hr Akhanda Yoga training in the birthplace of yoga in the Himalayas of Rishikesh, India before going on to pursue his doctorate in chiropractic and creating his program “Power of Life Yoga” that he taught in prisons to adult and juvenile inmates

His full evolutional journey began after breaking his back twice when he was 16 from competitive mixed martial arts and barely surviving a near death experience in the form of a traumatic brain injury from a high-speed skateboarding accident at 18. After over a decade of chronic debilitating pain, he combined his regular chiropractic regimen with the practice of yoga and truly began to heal on every level, thus leading him to create ChiroYoga: the practice in which healing and movement unite

He is now a representative of the Yanomami Indigenous People of Maturacá from the Brazilian Amazon Rainforest as he begins work on developing healthcare initiatives aimed at addressing musculoskeletal pain, malnutrition, and other ailments that they suffer from. His work gives shines light on the unprecedented atrocities that have been perpetuated against the Amazon rainforest and the indigenous peoples by the government and corporations that have resulted in the current dire situation, raising the voice of the indigenous civil rights movement as they fight to protect their sovereignty, culture, and end the 500 year genocide against them.

In this episode you will learn:
How Dr. Samarpan found, merged, and created Chiro-yoga
The difference between yoga in its original culture vs the version we get in the west
The origins of yoga positions and what the purpose of yoga is
What Dr. Samarpan learned from living with the indigenous tribes of the Amazon
Why plants and spiritual practices are able to cure major illnesses when used as some of the indigenous tribes do
How to Navigate through fear
Learning to channel your energy