It’s been a lovely month of ‘false spring’ with the warmer temperatures making it easier to get outside tidying the garden after Winter & making plans for the sunnier months. I’ve not only been doing this with my garden but also my own mental & physical health. Personally I like to do an annual MOT, some stuff involving professionals […]
Tag: yoga and depression
7 ways to open your heart with yoga
At the beginning of this year I was still very much focusing on healing. Both from spinal surgery and also from cumulative stresses from the last year. I felt that I had lost my bounce, my enthusiasm for life and that smiles did not come as readily to my lips or my heart. So I […]
Building a Yoga toolbox for treating yourself with TLC
why do I want to call the yoga I teach YogaTLC. It’s yoga where we treat ourselves well. We don’t push ourselves into contortionist shapes but we use the physical asana (postures) to heal not harm. We aim to move out of our comfort zones but not be competitive. We are honest with ourselves and kind to ourselves. We provide our body with the nutrition we need, mentally, physically and emotionally only ingesting that which does us good.
I want yogaTLC to give us a toolbox from which we can take the things that allow us to heal
yoga helps the clouds to clear & the sun to shine through
Yoga practice allows us to see the world with clearer vision and more open hearts. Yoga allows the right frame of mind, focus and time to experience calm, joy and wonder at our world in this moment. It is this that allows the chinks of sunshine to peep through however thick the cloud cover may initially appear!
This weekend I have spent in the company of some wonderful people and this has also reminded me of how the quality of what we ingest from the world affects our moods. What we eat, who we spend our time with, the media that we come into contact with…all the things that we take in through our senses are ingested and processed and affect our moods and our potential for living in the moment. Yoga practice brings such rewards, such joy and such long term changes in how we live externally that it is more than worth learning to make time for. It also may provide more lessons for living off your mat than you ever expect!! So take a moment to look at what you are ingesting through your senses, not just in your food, but the company you keep and the activities you spend time on.
moving from fear to love with yoga
Backbends are about trust, in yourself and others. Being willing to open to possibility, to love and to life Backbending doesn’t just open our pelvis, where we hold emotion, our throat allowing us to communicate and our heart opening us to give and receive love…it opens us to possibility, to accepting fear as a challenge not a restriction. I now feel the spontaneous urge to open into a backbend more often! Personally in opening my heart I have been open to the possibility of being vulnerable in love. I’ve observed old ingrained defences and barriers come down. I’ve noticed myself change and explore a new spaciousness at my heart and in my soul! I am learning that another side of fear can be fun, and that accepting that fear exists and I will never totally remove it has allowed me to expand my potential, emotionally, physically and psychologically. I love yoga cos yoga has helped me to love!! We all get scared. You can but recognize it as a part of our ego; accept it’s there but don’t allow it to restrict your potential. Releasing the resistance to being vulnerable. Accepting that fun and love counteract fear is all part of the joy of yoga practice. It’s not about achieving the final posture..but more about how the physical representation of that posture tells you how far you have come on your personal journey.
all work & no play
For me, I am trying to schedule in more time to just potter. Days where I have no schedule apart from to enjoy my practice, wander down the river with my dog and notice. I think that is the important lesson for me..to remember to notice! To allow my senses to become more sensitized to smells, to touch, to sound or just to being open to the world I move through every day. During meditation I often feel that the birds start to sing or the breeze to touch me. Whereas it’s more likely that without thoughts and actions constantly intruding on my senses, they are more able to open to the experience of the world around me. Noticing the birdsong or the smell of grass on the breeze that day-to-day life forgets. Try to, just for a week, allow your self a few minutes every day to just sit and notice the world around you. To relax your control on your senses and experience and opening, a letting go of the self control. A sense of just being in the moment with what ever arises.