You spend too much time DOING, and not Enough BEING

I reflect often on what life is really all about, and sometimes you just find a quote or a poem that nails it (hence the above by Rupi Kaur).

Whilst it feels amazing to achieve goals and to see progression (we are human after all, so we are hard wired that way), sometimes we can experience life just simply being, and enjoying existence. I think it’s easy to feel guilty when allow ourselves to be in a state of being instead of doing in this “busy” society we live in.

My personal yoga journey has taken me through many different phases of experiencing my mind and body and the relationship between the two. When we make time to experience this in the “self” on our mats, those lessons and reflections then start to cross over into every day life too. I’m not sure when or how I would have had the time to reflect if I hadn’t made time to practice.

In fact let me list just a handful of my yoga “phases” I’ve been through over my 11 year journey so far:

• Thinking yoga was too “spiritual”, so not wanting to try it

• Assuming I wouldn’t be able to do yoga because I’m not flexible

• Deciding to finally try it, because I felt physically incompetent

• Wanting to be more flexible

• Feeling weak and wanting to improve my strength

• Experiencing crazy knee jerk reactions in the mind when feeling any type of strain on my physical body

• Avoidance of certain poses because I “hated” the sensations felt

• Avoidance of going to classes I deemed “too advanced” because it made me feel bad about myself because I compared my practice to others

• Developing an obsession for hot yoga, and breaking down in tears one day as I didn’t see an improvement in my overall strength after doing back to back classes

• Realising that whatever was actually going on in my head that day would unravel on my mat - i.e if I felt distracted I would lose balance, or if I felt sad I had to practice with my eyes closed

• Realisation that it created space for me when I felt complete overwhelm

• Realisation that little by little, my body was becoming 0.1% stronger and 0.1% more physically capable each time I practiced

• Running to yoga every day as a form of escapism from dealing with emotions and complexities in my life that I didn’t want to face

• Wanting to achieve poses, finally cracking some of them

• Wanting to show the world what poses I could do

• My ego pushing me too far and injuring myself in yoga

• Feeling the disappointment of an injury that took 1 year to fully recover

• Not really caring much for yoga poses anymore, and certainly not caring about the ones I couldn’t do

• Experiencing yin yoga and going weekly and experiencing a much higher quality of sleep

• Wanting to improve my mobility and active ROM

• Slowing down my practice and realising that I still had so much strength to develop and I couldn’t control my body as much as I thought

• Realising that practicing 3 times a week is enough

• Realising that other forms of exercise and movement are very important for the body and we shouldn’t just rely on yoga

• Releasing all expectations of how I thought my practice “should” be

• Realising I don’t have to push my body in extreme ways when I come to my mat to call it a practice

• My time on my mat can be ANYTHING, a couple of wiggles here and there if my body and my mind doesn’t feel too happy, or even just childs pose for a few minutes

• Yoga has allowed my body to build the strength and mobility to move with a balanced sense of effort and ease

• Yoga continues to allow me to see myself fully and to understand my body better

• I am on a long lasting journey with the mind and body that will still take many more twists and turns, and unfold many more layers

So this led me to this movement medicine series I am sharing on Mondays at 6.30pm on Zoom. Not everything we do and experience has to be ground breaking achievement deserving credit and merit.

In fact, too much of that pressure can completely remove the joy of physical movement and can actually create a tension and stress around simply moving your body. We become self conscious and overthink something that is supposed to come completely naturally to us - MOVEMENT.

SLOW, JUICY, EMBODIED, DYNAMIC AND LOVING MOVEMENT

So join me, we’re moving in a way that builds strength and agility but still feels nourishing, and acts as medicine to our sticky spots and stressed bodies and weary minds.

Upcoming dates!

Monday 28th June @ 6.30pm

Monday 5th July @ 6.30pm