So last night it was my sister’s 21st birthday dinner. I had prepared to say a few words and was planning to read a beautiful poem she had written when she was only 12. Even though I speak in front of people all the time as a yoga teacher I was feeling really quite nervous. I used to suffer terribly with social anxiety and would avoid any public speaking moment like the plague. Some might say it was a safe environment surrounded by family and friends, however people who have felt the deep rooted fear of social anxiety disorder will tell you that this is the worst kind of situation in which to stand up in front of everyone. The feeling that everyone knows you well makes the fear of being vulnerable all the more acutely painful and challenging.
I limited myself to only one glass of wine, as I know I don’t feel my best the next day after more and one is more than enough for me. However my nerves were not subsiding so each time the waiter topped up the wine I was very grateful for more to dampen the feelings. Before I knew it I was really quite tipsy and joined my cousins outside for a cheeky few drags on a fag. As an ex smoker when I drink more than a few glasses it is not long before the old desire to join the smokers rears its head.
So here is my quandary; is it ever OK to drink more than you know is enough for you, to purposely drink to the point that you know you will feel bad the next day? I know to some people this is likely a ridiculous question and they would say ‘Hell yes’ as the drinking culture and especially binge drinking culture is so socially acceptable. Then there is the yoga and conscious crowd who might say drinking at all is really not part and parcel of living a conscious life, which I can absolutely see the merits in.
As a teenager and young adult I spent a lot of time altering my state of mind with various substances. It was a constant search for a different feeling and sensation. You might call it ‘numbing out’ and I’m sure it was. But for me it became the thing I was really good at, it was one of my talents and I loved it, I was in love with the feeling of altering my state of mind. I remember on my yoga teacher training in India someone asked our Swami yoga teacher about the rules stating it was not allowed to smoke weed and what that was all about as India is often associated with marijuana. He responded by explaining that the effects of diligent yoga practice over time has very similar effects to smoking weed, although it is completely natural within the body and completely controllable unlike drugs which you can’t control from one moment to the next. Therefore it is dangerous to combine yoga and smoking weed, and of course the various health negatives etc.
These ideas were very interesting to me as I had a very ‘drug like’ experience during my time in India at the Shivaratri festival. During this festival the tradition is to stay up all night chanting the names of Shiva, mantras such as Om Namah Shivaya and many more. I managed to stay up till about 3 in the morning and only went to bed after experiencing feelings which were so intense and strange I can only liken it to taking drugs. After many hours of chanting I started to feel the different parts of my body vibrating at such speed it was making me feel physically sick. The kind of sick you feel when you are having such a strong high that your body can’t keep up and wants to do something in order to regain balance. It honestly was not a great feeling and after a while of trying to calm the feeling down I scuttled off to bed burying my head and trying to make the feeling go away.
I have also found it very interesting that yoga people often tend to be those who have had some kind of misspent youth, they have dabbled in this or that and are now reformed characters who get high on feeling great every day. Which you build up from a daily yoga practice combined with being in alignment; heart, mind and body and looking after yourself in the most nourishing way. My own personal journey down the path of moving on from my old binge drinking and unhealthy mind-altering ways has been a long and winding one. When I returned from India I felt so fantastic that I had no need for any artificial stimulants for months and months. When that feeling wore off as Western life filtered back in I was back to old habits although much reduced and less frequent. Since then I have been making promises to myself about how much I drink and working on starving the very resilient ‘social smoker’ that lurks in my depths. And there are still times when I break my promises and drink too much and smoke some cigarettes. At the time I think it’s wonderful and so reminiscent of my youth, that familiar feeling of altering my mind (especially if it has been a stressful day or I am numbing uncomfortable feelings of being vulnerable) that I feel must have got it wrong in my sober moments and it’s actually absolutely fine and I should be doing it all the time! Until a few hours later or the next morning when I remember I broke my promise and therefore am out of integrity as well as hung over – nothing too fantastic about that.
So I think my conclusion is, as it has been many times before; keep trying, every day try to be my best self and some days I will smash it and others I will fail. As long as I am honest and always clean up the messes I make with grace and wisdom that is all I can ask of myself. Also, clearly do more yoga, drink less wine and seriously there is nothing to be gained from smoking fags apart from stinky breath and impaired lung function. Life is a series of learning experiences and one day I am hoping to learn that hang overs are never nice (especially once you get past 30!). Thank you for listening to (reading) my mental babble, it has been a pleasure.
I hope you will forgive my silence for the past few weeks and months. My journey with Love Yoga Online and my own personal journey has been in transition and I was hoping to resolve it all neatly, package it up prettily and communicate it to you wrapped in a bow and smelling sweet. However as I am learning again and again life doesn’t usually happen so neatly!
As many of you know I launched Love Yoga Online just over a year ago and have been loving building our community and developing the class videos and content for the members. There have been many ups, downs, rounds and rounds as you can imagine as a first time, solo entrepreneur! At the end of 2012 I realised that in order to allow Love Yoga Online to become the very best it can be and offer the most useful, inspiring and loving teaching and support to our community it needed to move into a new phase. I had come towards the end of my resources and what I could do as a one woman band. Also it wasn’t an ideal situation for me as I had just married my beloved husband and was working away like a crazed woman with little time for much else – not quite the epitome of a yogic goddess, and certainly not the devoted wife 🙂
Since then I have been searching inwardly and outwardly for better balance and the next step for Love Yoga Online; the person, people or organisations I can bring in to take the website to the next level. And I haven’t got a clear answer yet! But I can promise you I am working on it and there are some very exciting opportunities out there. I believe wholeheartedly that online health/ yoga/ well being resources and communities such as LYO can change people’s lives for the better in so many ways. Therefore I am completely committed to creating a wonderful outcome from this transition. I thank you and am hugely grateful for your love, support and understanding.
As LYO members you are the life, soul and most important voices of our community so I would love to hear your feedback, ideas and concerns – all welcome! What would you like from Love Yoga Online and how I can I help to make that happen for you? Feel free to email by return or post on the community forumhttp://www.loveyogaonline.co.uk/ask-a-question.php.
So this is a confessional post. I work with the Handel Group of life coaches and I have a number of promises that I aim to keep each week. Part of staying in integrity and in alignment with my dreams is to keep the promises I make to myself and if I don’t keep them there are consequences. In this case one of my promises is not to smoke; I used to smoke every day when I was younger and tried everything to give up. Over the years I cut down and cut down and the only cigarette I couldn’t quite rid myself of was the one with an alcoholic drink. Another unattractive habit I picked up when I was younger is drinking far too much in the name of fun – although it is more often than not as a means to escape uncomfortable feelings and situations.
So last night I slipped and fell off the wagon, I had far too many drinks and I smoked a number of cigarettes. As part of my consequence for doing so I need to own up to it publicly on here, share my flaws and be completely open about it. I feel terrible, as you can imagine!
I have felt the pressure building up over the days and weeks and knowing my tendency to numb out and avoid bad feelings I threw myself headlong into being super good at my promises and my practices, my yoga and meditation. Last night it all got too much for me and I felt so bad that I felt whatever I did I couldn’t make it worse – as anyone who has ever had too much drink knows that you can feel a lot worse.
So this my confession, I am just human and I have my weaknesses and flaws even though I strive to be the best version of myself.
The start to my weekend went like this; bright and early wake up on Saturday morning, before the sun was up in these English winter months. I needed to get my body going after a slightly heavy meal on Friday evening so I chose a vigorous Sun Salutation practice with Lucy. It is fast and fun, she includes lots of standing poses, just what I needed to get my circulation going as well as flush out any toxins and heaviness. The video is filmed on the rocks by the sea in Cornwall, with the bright sun shining and waves crashing, what stunning imagery to start the imagination juices flowing.
Once I had completed my asana practice I moved onto a meditation with Deepak Chopra. The Chopra Centre is currently running a 21 day meditation challenge for creating abundance, they post a new audio meditation each day for you to practice. The centring thought for this day was ‘Everything I desire is within me’ and the Sanskrit mantra was ‘Ram…ram…ram…’ We are now on day 7 of the challenge, which I have taken on, and I am finding the short but very potent meditations are a fantastic way to start the day. I have a mediation practice, however sometimes I wonder if I am doing it right or getting anywhere, so it is very refreshing to be guided by the awesome Deepak Chopra and having a clear focus for the practice.
I am practicing the lesson of putting that which nourishes me at the top of my priority list, which is I’m sure partly why we so often do our practice first thing in the morning, it is the most important thing we do in the day and it is from there that the rest of the day unfolds.
This is something I most certainly need to contemplate at the moment! Having been swept along by the vata season and doing a million and one things, with just as many possible outcomes and options, I am very much being drawn into the future and trying to work out what will happen. In order to stay in action I have been doing exactly that – maybe being too much in action – busy, busy, busy! If I am completely occupied (usually with work tasks) I can’t think about the future and what may happen and try to work it all out. This is OK for a short time but, like any avoidance strategy, it can start to take over and create imbalance.
Moving through the hatha flow with Kirsty kept reminding me to be present, feel the body, stay with the sensations and at the same time not aim to be picture perfect, but accept what I bring to the mat today. In this way each pose felt like a special gift to myself, I wanted to linger in the sensation and drink it in fully, rather than race through till it’s complete and already moving on to the next.
It is when life gets busy, stressful and you feel you may not have time for your practice, or your exercise, or your self care routine, then it is even more important to sanctify those parts of your day. To keep filling yourself up, making yourself feel like you are worth it, to give you the best possible foundation for the day ahead at work, or give you the presence of mind you need to look after the kids on your own again. I am still in the process of learning this too 🙂
Good Morning! Some of you may have noticed I haven’t posted for a few days; I didn’t do my daily practice on Friday which I put down to having an incredibly long day, although afterwards I can see that is an excuse which I could use most days! However yesterday I was inspired to practice with Chris in his mini Ujjayi breath intro and workshop. The inspiration was sparked by a Yoga, the Brain and Mental Health conference I went to on Friday night.
Throughout both the lecture by the lovely Dr David Beales and Heather Mason the breath featured heavily, much more than the physical postures (asanas). I was very interested to hear how clearly Chris explained the importance of the breath, even saying that Ashtanga Vinyasa is meditative breathing practice for restless people, which is an image I love!
Dr Beales recounted a quote from a book by Ronald Ley, “Breathing is exquisitively sensitive to stress” and reminded us that mindfulness is the conscious of your breath to maintain present moment awareness. Heather talked us through a plethora of scientific research which time and time again found Ujjayi breathing affects the physiology is such a way to decrease activation of structures in the body which have a potential to increase the likelihood stress and poor mental health. For example the slow consistent pressure on the lung wall through Ujjayi breathing activates slow adapting stretch fibers that indirectly activate parasympathetic response, which is the ‘rest and digest’ action of the nervous system, promoting calm and relaxation.
Therefore Chris’s video was a reminder to myself of the importance of and a useful brushing up tool on my Ujjayi breathing and my ability to teach it to my students. Thanks Chris xx
This morning I decided to challenge myself with Jock’s 35 minute practice which is for intermediate and advanced students. I know Jock is incredibly strong with a very advanced practice so I was ready for it! The sequence started with extended side angle pose (utthita parsvakonasana) which is one of my challenge poses, so I tried not to grit my teeth as I moved into my uncomfortable version of the pose. From here we swiftly moved onto pigeon pose (eka pada rajkapotasana) which can bring many yogis up against all kinds of resistance, me included. As the practice continued I started to feel that maybe I was not quite as advanced as I thought 🙂 And my especially vata body at the moment, feeling dry with aches in the joints from the autumn season and from lack of adequate rest, was resisting in all kinds of ways!
As I continued with the practice, modifying the poses which I have not yet progressed to which is very good for reminding the ego of it’s place, I started to smile at the dive straight in, no chit chat and ‘don’t f**k about’ vibe to the practice – I love it! Sometimes yoga in the west can get a little too sugary, lovey dovey and smoochie smoochie. As much as I LOVE the nurturing aspects of yoga, it was certainly a fun change of pace to jump into this hardcore, super awesome practice with Jock. Enjoy!
She says at the start to take some breaths for yourself, remember to offer this time and energy and practice as a gift to yourself. This was timely advice as I find when I get busy and a little overwhelmed with what is going on the first thing to slide is my time to take care of myself. This just tells myself that I am not as important as this task or that project, which doesn’t reinforce that I am worthy and special. I have learned the lesson time and time again that it is in trying times in which my practices and self care are the most imperative. So this is me getting back on track with my self care and self love practices and feelings; also today I made myself the most spectacular smoked salmon, asparagus and goats cheese salad, booked a hair appointment for tomorrow and booked time with myself to do a mini spa and nails this week, all to reconnect with myself. Just little things feel so good, and rather than expecting others to ‘make me feel good’ I can take responsibility for how I feel leaving me more space to love others rather than blame them.
Reminded that meditation is natural and we all do it, even without realising, which for me makes it feel much less out there and New Agey. As someone who is learning to bring meditation into my daily practice being reminded of the history, science and methodology is very grounding.
Clare gives us three core aspects of guidance to meditation; presence, breath and the witness effect. Time to practice 🙂
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