Discombobulated

Discombobulated – to feel bemused, confused and disjointed.

Being centred feels great. You feel happy, content, peaceful and able to cope with whatever life throws your way. However my emotional centre, I recently realised, was totally dependent on other peoples reactions to me and feelings towards me. If other people had a negative reaction to me or what I said I often felt really un-centred, off kilter, downright discombobulated. The closer the person was to me, the more discombobulated I felt. What a preposterous state of affairs…

How long had this been going on….oh…only 38 years!

Well, no more. Dont live in the past, but learn from it.

Today is the first day of not feeling discombobulated, of bringing that centre back into my actual centre….me… and I’ll be using yoga every morning to help me do it.

Namaste

x

 

Yoga for your liver

This is the time of year for indulgence. Family, friends, feasting and generally being festive. But who takes the brunt of our decadent behaviour? Our poor old liver.

As the main detoxifying internal organ, our liver works hard for us. So give it a little love this festive season.

Here is a great clip by YogaMint that has a yoga asana and a delicious recipe both dedicated to being ‘joy to your liver’.

Namaste

x

Moments

Life is a bunch of moments strung together, so it really is important to ‘live in the moment’…otherwise…where are you living?

We are always getting ready to live but never living. Ralph Waldo Emerson

My love affair with yoga continues because it helps me treasure my moments. My yoga class may sometimes be the only time all week I actually do live in my moment, but sometimes that wonderful feeling of presence creeps off my mat and into my day . When it does, it’s not that life is better, but I feel life, in those moments I don’t live in my head I live in the present, senses come alive and there is a different energy that flows.

So if there’s one thing you do for yourself this week – treasure your moments!
Namaste

x

Yoga at Bedtime

Busy, busy, busy. We spend our lives rushing around, so it’s great to be able to squeeze in a few minutes of yoga here and there if you can’t get to a class.

One of the most beneficial times to do yoga is just before bed. It helps me relax down and ‘let go’ of the day. Often it’s so hard to stop the mind whirring around, blocking the deliciousness of sleep, but yoga (even a few minutes) allows me to make that transition, telling my body and mind that it’s time to take a timeout. So, to show us a bedtime sleep routine that hits the spot in under 4 minutes…here is Sadie Nardini. Enjoy…

Namaste

x

Yoga for Stress

Stress is a modern disease, often it feels intangible, bit lately I can vouch for its existence. Having started a new job after being on maternity leave, I can honestly say I now know what stress is! Life is about balance and for the last few months I have had none. My yoga has slipped, my eating is not so great and as a result I’m tired, stressed and cranky…not the person I want to be.

Enough is enough, we all have to take responsibility for our own wellbeing, so it’s time to get back on that proverbial horse and get my life back in balance. As a start I found this relaxing, stress relieving sequence from Tara Stiles.

Enjoy!

Namaste

x

Yoga for toes

I can’t say I often think about my toes, but after my husband recently broke his I’ve learnt a lot more about how important they are!

So in honour of our humble toes that do so much work for our bodies yet get such little recognition, here is a short video on yoga for toes!

Namaste

x

Back to basics

Life often gets in the way of my yoga class attendance, that’s OK, annoying, but OK…it’s what life is like!

This means that I have to focus more on my home practice which enables focus on specific areas. Today I decided to get back to basics and really enjoy my sun salutation, rather than just seeing it as ‘the bit in between the standing poses’.

I found this great little clip of Eoin Finn of the Blissology Project leading a simply sun salutation in a beautiful field… peaceful and inspirational, just what I need when life is just the opposite! Enjoy…

Namaste

x

Are you a yoga explorer?

Every moment of every day is different. So every yoga practice is unique.

With this in mind why not venture into your next yoga class as an intrepid explorer, not knowing where the journey will take you. The landscape of our body changes continuously and yoga poses offer us an opportunity to explore and find out where we are at.

Today I felt like I really climbed my mountain pose, my warrior was more timid than usual but my crow seemed to squawk a little longer than normal…. basically I discovered that my arms were strong today, but my legs weren’t up to much. It felt good to explore the poses rather than trying to do what I did last time, the cookie cutter approach to yoga and to life just doesn’t work for me.  So now when I grab my mat I like to think that I’m traveling into the great unknown, that vast inner space of me…and who knows what I’ll find there next time!

Namaste

x

Yoga for big kids…

Yoga for children is all about animal poses, pretending to be a tree, a dog, a dolphin… a great way to get them involved.

But why do the kids get to have all the fun?!

Yoga poses were obviously called animal names for a reason so why not get in character and move your way through the animal kingdom.

Waggle your tail in dog pose.

Rise like a cobra ready to strike.

Meow like a cat and moo like a cow.

We’re animals ourselves, so get back to your roots and have some fun on your mat!

Namaste

x

Yoga makes my life better.

Yoga makes my life better. I can’t say it more simply than that.

Struggling to balance a career-job, mummy duties, wife, friend and all the other roles that we play I’ve realised that all I need is yoga to make it all work.

Ok, that may seem a little extreme, even a little cultish! But in reality yoga just works for me. I miss it terribly if I can’t get to my mat, but it is more than the physical practice,  it has changed the way I see things, people, life – all in a positive way. When I do make sure I have some time in my life devoted to it (not just the odd stretch and downdog daydream at my desk) it really does make my life better.

Yoga is about the union of you to you and amongst all those roles I play it is the true time I have just for me. So yes, yoga makes my life better and by doing so makes all those around me better too.

Namaste

x