Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all. When an Emmy award-winning TV journalist crossed paths with a holistic health entrepreneur, a grand adventure happen bringing this duo on a lifelong journey of discovering mindful living. This duo is none other than Bianca and Michael Alexander. The husband and wife duo is admirable as they are harnessing their power of storytelling to help create a more just and sustainable world. Bringing their own uniqueness together, the pair teamed up to produce a lifestyle TV series known as Conscious Living. The lifestyle series travels the globe on a hunt for what it takes to be a more mindful human, documenting inspiring stories across 18+ countries from a Zen hot spring retreat in California to an Ayurvedic yoga detox in the Himalayas. The travelers of the world continue to share their incredible journey, bringing viewers to discover eco-friendly hotels, sustainable fashion, delicious vegan eats, and conscious traveling tips from Singapore to Berlin to the southside of Chicago in the latest season that just started airing in June on PBS. Come dive into our interview below to learn more about Conscious Living and uncover the practice of mindfulness living through the eyes of this power couple.

Where are you based?
Rancho Mirage, California - just outside of Palm Springs. After spending the last year cooped up in L.A. during the pandemic, we opted for a big city exodus and relocated to the Coachella Valley.

How did you two meet?
We met at a LGBTQ+ party in the Hollywood Hills, hosted by a mutual friend. In lieu of party favors, the host asked everyone to bring a gay friend. Bianca did, but I came solo. As a San Francisco native (known for its vital LGBTQ+ population), I learned that gay parties are often the best place to meet beautiful, interesting women. We literally bumped into each other - the rest is history.

Jejune learned that you both had completely different lives before Conscious Living. Bianca was a Hollywood entertainment attorney at Paramount Studios and a successful TV host, while Michael was a career environmentalist and holistic health entrepreneur with no experience in media. Why did you two decide to join forces to launch Conscious Living?
We each hail from such different backgrounds. I considered myself to be an educated person but knew nothing about how to take care of my health and wellbeing, not to mention the wellbeing of the planet. Before Conscious Living, I was a stereotypical stressed-out, overworked Hollywood executive. The closest I got to self-care was smoking cigarettes and bingeing on junk food or cocktails to anesthetize myself from what I was actually feeling: anxious, angry, and afraid. And then we met. When Michael and I first started dating, he cringed at my unhealthy lifestyle - from the food I ate to the toxic products I put on my skin, and even how I washed our laundry! One day, he mentioned that a cup of traditional laundry detergent kills one cubic foot of phytoplankton - a precious marine organism that scrubs CO2 from the planet and helps reverse global warming. Once I knew better, I did better. I started washing our clothes with eco-friendly detergent. We learned that the skin is the largest and most absorbent organ in our bodies and researched the best natural personal care products free of toxins like sulphates, phosphates, parabens, and aluminum that are linked to degenerative disease, then cleaned out the medicine cabinet. We came to understand that the power that made the body also had the power to heal the body, and began meditating, detoxing, and adopting a more whole-food, plant-based diet. This is where the journey of Conscious Living began.

What inspired you to create the PBS TV series, Conscious Living? Why did you want to focus on mindfulness?
We were shocked and frustrated to discover that it was near impossible to find mindful lifestyle programming on mainstream television. Each day when we turn on the news, we’re met with an endless stream of murder, chaos, and negativity - if it bleeds, it leads - washed down with pharmaceutical drug commercials to help us feel better about the toxic content we consume. Instead of complaining about the problem, we decided to be part of the solution and conceived Conscious Living on our honeymoon in Bali a couple of years later.

Conscious Living’s mission is to raise the vibration of the planet. Media – especially television given its frequency and reach - is such a powerful vehicle for global change. With our weekly TV series on PBS, we aim to inspire viewers to make the connection between their personal wellbeing and the wellbeing of the planet as a whole. Each episode highlights the journey toward adopting a more compassionate, sustainable, and socially conscious and worldview, giving us each the power to create the world we wish to see – with simple choices like how we shop, eat and travel.

Jejune loves that Conscious Living travels the globe on a hunt for what it takes to be a more mindful human. What is the creative process like? How do you find these places that align with the purpose of the series?
Our creative process is very organic - a natural outgrowth of how we live our lives. For example, on our first episode this season on PBS, we’re in Berlin, Germany. Most of the stories featured were a function of doing our stumbling best to be mindful during a three-month stay in this eclectic city. One day while enjoying on a walk-in nature in the famous Tiergarten Park, Bianca stumbled upon an indie Berlin band, The Flavians, whose music we featured in the intro and outros of this episode. A few days later, we attended a sustainable meetup for Fashion Revolution, an organization we’re part of in the U.S. There, we sampled an incredible vegan alternative to the ubiquitous shawarma lamb meat you see on every corner in Berlin. It was so delicious, we came back the next week to film their East Berlin café, and discovered they also make vegan currywurst (Berlin’s famous sausage dish with Indian seasonings)! Later, we volunteered to model in a flash-mob runway show to support garment workers, filmed that event, then met an upcycled designer who turns trash into fashion treasure. The entire episode arose from our quest for mindful adventures - and just letting the camera roll.

How has producing Conscious Living impacted your life?
Producing Conscious Living has been a profoundly humbling experience. The hardest thing about producing a show called Conscious Living is actually trying to be a conscious person. Producing this show has been a powerful mirror we’re forced to look at every day, showing us how far we still have to go in order to walk our talk. In many ways, we fall short. We often joke that we’re two of the least conscious people we know. But that’s what motivates us to get up each day and produce the next episode: to highlight people who are creating solutions to our biggest planetary challenges, whether choosing compassion and love in the face of fear and hate, or giving up their privilege in order to make the world more just and equitable. This show motivates us to be better human beings.

Have you guys encountered any difficulties filming the show? If so, can you share with Jejune what they were?
When we first launched Conscious Living in the early aughts, the idea of a mindful lifestyle TV show was not well-received by industry insiders. At the time, environmental sustainability had just become a buzzword. “Going green” (from recycling to swapping light bulbs) was all the rage, but not personal health and wellness. So, we doubted our vision. Listening to naysayers, we put a pause on the show for two whole years, waiting for the right Hollywood producer to validate our idea and give Conscious Living the “greenlight”. It wasn’t until we left L.A. and moved to the energy vortex of Sedona, AZ for a spiritual sabbatical that we were able to unplug from the matrix, so to speak. From a place of meditation, stillness and introspection, clarity emerged. We were guided to double down on our vision and produce Conscious Living ourselves.

At the time, neither of us had ever attended film school or received any professional training on how to produce a TV show. We just went out and bought a camera and started shooting stories that inspired us. Later, we taught ourselves how to edit and cobbled together our first few episodes. Around the same time, YouTube and other video streaming platforms launched, which finally gave us the power to produce and distribute our own original content — without the blessings of Hollywood insiders. Being independent without major sponsorship hasn’t been easy, but the moral of the story is this: believe in your vision, especially when no one else gets it.

The new season of Conscious Living is currently broadcasting nationally on PBS stations -- Congrats!! Can you share with us what this new season will focus on? How is it different from the previous seasons?
Thank you! This season of the show, season 4, highlights our adventures through Germany, Bali, Singapore, Japan, India and many other exciting destinations. This is the first season filmed exclusively from the road in all 13 episodes. The previous 3 seasons of Conscious Living (available on Amazon Prime) were shot mostly in-studio and include travel adventures, along with lots of fun recipes, interviews, DIY tips and more. In our latest season, we’ve loved literally being on the road and exploring the mindful side of destinations we always dreamed of visiting.

What do you hope the viewers get out of watching Conscious Living? Why is it important for people to practice mindfulness?
We hope viewers will be inspired to embrace a more mindful approach to life and to realize we don’t have to give up the things we love, like great fashion, tasty comfort food, and travel. You can also have a ton of fun on the journey.

Mindfulness and specifically meditation is proven to reduce stress and create a greater sense of balance, peace and overall well-being. It’s also linked to higher intelligence, stronger willpower and a greater sense of personal empowerment. It also leads to making better choices in what we eat, how we communicate with others and how we choose to travel through our lives. If carving out time for a meditation practice seems daunting, even just five minutes of stillness per day can help clear the mind and lead to better decision-making. The Calm app is a great place to start. Their daily ten-minute meditation is our essential self-care reset between taping shows, especially on busy production days.

From your years of traveling and experiencing mindfulness, what are some of the most important lessons learned to be a more mindful human? How can individuals start this practice at home?
Everyone is on a different path, but for us, meditating, living a vegan lifestyle, being sober, and healing the emotional pain body form the foundation of our everyday mindfulness practice. This allows us to be more present and make better choices that create a more just, sustainable world. We have to be the change.

Emotionally, whatever we don’t express, we repress. If feelings go unprocessed, they can overwhelm us and get trapped in the body, causing emotional triggers that disempower us, making us feel anxious, angry, depressed, or afraid. As an African-American woman, I inherited a vast emotional pain body from my ancestors, many of whom were slaves held in captivity against their will for generations. Just like we inherit our ancestors’ eye color, intelligence, or physical attributes, we also inherit their emotional pain. These emotional triggers can be cleared for good through energy work like Reiki, crystal or sound healing, or one of our favorite modalities: Emotion/Body Code sessions, founded by Dr. Bradley Nelson.

Adopting a whole-food, plant-based diet can reduce your carbon footprint by up to 78% and minimize the risk for chronic illnesses like diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, arthritis, and even cancer - not to mention alleviate allergies, irritable bowel syndrome, and even erectile dysfunction. There is a huge calming energetic benefit of not ingesting the vibrational death and suffering of other sentient beings. It’s super easy to go vegan nowadays with countless delicious options at grocery stores that delight the taste buds from great plant cheeses, butter, ice creams, and meat alternatives. Eating out while vegan is also easy - our favorite app for traveling vegan around the world is Happy Cow.

What time does the show air on PBS if our readers want to watch it?
You can find the local listings and airtimes for the show on our website here https://consciouslivingtv.com/watch-now-on-pbs, or stream the show anytime via the PBS app.

In the last 2 years, Covid19 has taken over the world and lock has been in place. Travels were restricted everywhere. How has it impacted the progress of both the series? Did the shoots carry out pre-pandemic?
Fortunately, we finished most of the travel and filming for this season prior to lockdown. The silver lining of the pandemic for us has been more time to spend in post-production, the most-time intensive aspect of producing a TV show.

How have you been staying positive during the lockdown?
Meditation. We begin and end each day with meditation. Without it, we’re not sure we’d still be married, let alone producing a show about Conscious Living. These have been extraordinarily difficult times. We’ve felt ourselves on the edge countless times, and pausing for a relationship walk in the fresh air, a yoga class, or even a few minutes of meditation bring us back to center every time.

Which part of the world or experience is your favorite so far?
There are too many to mention - from a digital detox in Umbria, Italy to dipping in the healing hot springs of the oldest monastery in the U.S. near Big Sur, California. But our most impactful experiences have been in Asia - from Bali to an art Island in Japan, floating down the sacred Ganges in India, to a yoga detox in the Himalayas that draws upon the 5,000-year-old wisdom of Ayurveda.

Which experience did you learn the most memorable lesson?
While living in Chicago, we produced an award-winning story on the health benefits of a 30-day raw vegan detox led by an African-American restaurateur. At the time we were still just vegetarian, but within the first two weeks of the program, we slowly transitioned to a plant-based diet and learned first-hand how to reverse disease with what you put on your fork. In addition to losing weight and clearing up old allergies, we felt smarter and less bloated than we’d ever felt in our life.

We documented a similar experience this season with “Disappearing Diabetes” (episode 9 on PBS), a story about an African-American pastor who reversed a type-2 diabetes diagnosis simply by going plant-based.

What is your motto in life?
The great Indian saint and our guru, Paramahansa Yogananda says “The way to freedom is through service to others. As you forget self in service to others, you will find that, without seeking it, your own cup of happiness will be full."

To learn more about Conscious Living and this power couple, please follow her via the below platforms:
https://consciouslivingtv.com/category/travel
Conscious Living App - https://www.pbs.org/show/conscious-living/
Instagram - @ConsciousLivingTV
Facebook - @ConsciousLivingTV
Twitter - @ConsciousTV

Explore Consciously Through The Eyes of Bianca and Michael Alexander