The difference in how I feel after a weekend away is noticeable from the outside! I’ve become more embodied and less in my head. We tend to move into functioning from the mind…thinking rather than feeling…in times of stress. In the last few weeks I have been making decisions about decisions! Trying to think my way though how I feel…but that doesn’t work. We need to feel into ourselves. Become intimate with who we are….after all intimacy can be seen as the phrase ‘into me see’. We need to know ourselves to function effectively in the world. To be able to listen to ourselves we need to know ourselves. How can we listen to our intuition if we don’t know how to hear ourselves.
So I’ve spent a weekend getting to know old and new friends better. One of those friends being myself! I’ve remembered why my New Years resolution was to get away for some sunshine every few weeks. We all need the escape from our lives to look back at our world and see what we are doing. The sunshine obviously helps, but the break from the normal routine is also good. As I have said before…getting to look at our world from a different viewpoint allows us to see things differently. Perception is subjective.
I have been able to truly appreciate how much I love my life in many ways. To re evaluate some of my priorities & plan to get some of the little stresses we all have tidied away or removed. I love teaching yoga, both classes and individually, and working with yoga therapy. This is my passion. However I have come into 2013 at a pace that is not feasible to sustain long term. Teaching yoga classes, doing yoga & TYM training, attending yoga workshops,doing up my house…all great but not leaving enough time to just be still. Even my daily yoga, pranayama & meditation practice…so important for keeping me happy…has often been squished into a time limited space, whereas I like to be able to just enjoy it for however long feels right. Always knowing I have somewhere else to go to or something structured in my day isn’t how I want to live my life.
Visiting the amazing villa in Ibiza where we are running our next yoga & wellness retreat was an inspiration too. Inspiring me to plan more yoga holidays, detox & wellness holidays, even more boot camp style weight loss & tone up holidays that give me opportunities to live the dream even more! Offering other people the opportunity to experience the magic of the island of Ibiza and the experience of feeling embodied in a body & mind that have discovered an intimacy with both each other & a connection to the universe. Being able to be the change I wish to teach others, as healthy & energised as my body & mind can be. Indulging in sunshine, rest, fantastic healthy food, yoga, meditation & the opportunity to discover ourselves & a different perception of our normal live. Something I need to ensure I both do more of and offer others more opportunities to do with me!
So some of my decisions have included plans to involve other teachers. Involving some of the wonderful people in my life more in the day to day running of the yoga studio in Cheshire. Freeing my time away from teaching a little more so I can have a life outside of my yoga studio. Allowing me the security of a trusted support network so I can relax again and enjoy the pleasures in my world. Plans to focus more on the joy of why I teach as well as what I teach.
So I am returning from a weekend away full of plans. However these plans aren’t plans to do, but plans to be. Plans to savour the rasa, the taste, of my wonderful life. Sometimes we are so busy doing, achieving, striving and anticipating we forget to just be. So I am reminding myself to be more mindful of savouring the moment. Of living in (& maybe for) today without continually having one foot in what could have been and another stepping into maybes and dreams!
