‘Hooray! Yoga classes can start in person again from May 17th! Everything can go back to normal!’
This is how most yoga teachers and students are expected to be feeling. We have been told that lockdown is hard, teaching online is second best to in-person classes, and that we should all be champing at the bit to ‘get back to normal’…but what is normal?
Throughout life, you may find yourself overworked, underworked, and in general, living in extremes. You can’t wait for the weekend and you’ve planned back-to-back activities and/or you’re going to do absolutely nothing. Both of which leave you feeling like the weekend wasn’t long enough. We’ve created an “on/off” way of being. We become so focused on the doing or not doing, we’ve lost touch with our internal ebb and flow and the interconnectedness of life. However, it’s in these moments, through observation and connection that joy, peace, and compassion await. Through modern-day meditation, you can access these moments by redirecting your energy from depleting thoughts and attention to balanced thoughts and attention. (more…)
A few weeks ago I was walking through my local park at the innocuous time of 3:35 pm on a Tuesday afternoon. I work from home, our house is on the market and we had a viewing, so I headed to a cafe in the park to be out of the way.
Once in the park, I noticed a youngish man, dressed all in black with his hood up, walking towards me. I smiled at him in my usual friendly fashion and he suddenly moved towards me, lunged at my handbag, which was slung across my body and yelled, “Give me your wallet!” I initially shouted “No!” He then showed me a knife, and I swiftly changed my mind, ducking out of my handbag, and watching as he walked off on a path in the undergrowth. As he was taking my bag I yelled at him, “Why are you doing this?” – twice. I don’t know why I did, it was just instinctive. But I also genuinely wanted to know – it seemed like such a ridiculous thing to do.
A nearby jogger who had seen what just happened came over and stayed with me while a called the police – luckily I had my phone in my hand and he hadn’t taken it – and then began the job of dealing with the consequences of that ten seconds. (more…)
“Spilling your guts”, “gut instinct”, “listen to your gut” – the gut has long been linked to a deep decision-making process. Amazingly, these sayings are more than metaphors, as this complex organ literally does function as another ‘brain’ in the body. Recent research has found that there are more than 100 million brain cells in the gut, more than in the spinal column and the central nervous system!
As more and more research is done, it seems that the gut is not only important for our physical health but our mental health too. And yoga can play a crucial part in the health of your gut too. (more…)
Stressed? Busy? Juggling too many balls? Trying to tick off an endless ‘to-do’ list? This seems to be most of us, especially if we’re lucky enough to live in the buzzing capital city of London.
What with work, family, a social life, and the mental load that comes with that trio, it’s easy to let this frenetic ‘get-things-done’ attitude spill over into our yoga practice – ‘Done my morning yoga practice!’ ‘Tick!’ (more…)
