When you choose to train as a yoga teacher, there is a huge range of training that you can access. In the Western World you usually choose a 200 hour yoga course, or similar, to begin with, and then from there the world’s your oyster!
Read about some of my favourite teacher trainings over the past ten years and why my students are my biggest teachers…
Read MoreYoga nidra means ‘yogic sleep’. It is an effortless yoga relaxation and meditation practice that anyone can do, by themselves with an audio recording or with the guidance of a teacher in person.
Yoga nidra brings you to a deeply relaxed state of mind and body, whilst you are still awake. This is the state between sleep and wakefulness (called the hypnogogic state in psychology), where you float between consciousness and unconsciousness, being aware of the resting state of the body and mind as it is happening in the moment.
Yoga nidra has been shown to be effective in supporting and healing many areas of body and mind including stress, tension, anxiety, insomnia, pain, trauma, addiction and PTSD.
I have found yoga nidra to be one of the best ways to relax and release my body completely, and one of the easiest ways to enter the meditative space. It really is effortless.
In this blog I offer ten reasons why you should try yoga nidra, and a link to ten free yoga nidra practices on my website.
Read MoreEver since I can remember I have spent time on the beach looking for shells, pebbles, sea glass and treasures. It was a holiday ritual with my family every summer when we visited the Moray coast in Scotland, many happy hours were spent marvelling at what the tide brings in.
One of the little shells I look for is the European Cowrie, or in Northern Scotland the 'Groatie Buckie.' The process of gentle and mindful searching for these little shells brings peace and calm.
In my latest blog, find out how beach combing is yoga practice, and the significance of the cowrie shell world wide.
Read MoreI've recently started to swim a couple of times a week. I've always loved swimming, but never made it a regular hobby. I took my boys to baby swimming classes from about 6 months old as I know how important it is as a life saving skill, and also how much fun children (and adults!) have splashing around, jumping in and generally mucking about in the water once they are competent swimmers.
But there's something else that I notice when I swim, it's a quietness, a focus and an ease. When I swim it takes me to that quiet space of being that happens in meditation or deep relaxation. My mind quietens and I can just be with the action of 'swimming', of being in the present moment.
In this blog I talk about how we can use the hobbies and activities we lobe to drop into meditation, we can all do it, find out how…
Read MoreI love the autumn time, the leaves turning, the cosiness of the darker evenings where lights twinkle in warm homes and we can begin to hibernate. But autumn for me also comes with some challenges.
There’s a cycle to this rhythm of challenge and back to ease for me which I can observe. A cycle that usually lasts for a few weeks at time (but I sometimes notice it over days or longer over months). There’s usually a beginning, a growth phase, some status quo and then a challenge. Then back to the start again. I notice it in my activities, my nervous system, and particularly in my body and mind in the form of anxiety or overwhelm or tiredness. You may also recognise this in your own day to day life.
In this blog post I talk about what this cycle looks like for me, how I let go of challenges and the tools and techniques of rest and digest that work for me to get back to the beginning, to feel brighter and stay well. I also offer you a downloadable Yoga Nidra Practice – created in collaboration with my teacher Barrie Risman – to help you to let go of challenges this autumn and enjoy some rest.
Read MoreToday, 22nd May , is World Meditation Day. I wanted to share with you my meditation journey, how meditation is simple and effective and maybe inspire you to try it!
15 years ago in a California yoga studio, a shift in my yoga practice happened. One day on the mat I experienced a deep resonance as I moved in a sun salutation, like I had become one with the movement and the space around me. It felt amazing and I realised that yoga was not just a physical movement experience.
As I journeyed through my practice, widened my knowledge and trained to teach yoga I came to realise that what I had experienced in that California yoga studio was a meditative state through movement.
Meditation was something I was intrigued by, had sat and done guided by teachers and using recordings. But I didn't really understand what meditation was supposed to feel like, where it was supposed to take me or if I was doing it right. Recordings were lovely and relaxing, but there must be more to it than just following them and feeling rested. I wanted to really know how to meditate.
Four years ago I joined a meditation teacher training with Mick Timpson at Beanddo, Manchester. I didn't plan to teach meditation, just deepen my understanding of it. The accessible meditation tools I learned underpin every meditation I do, and actually everything I do in daily life. Read on to find out more about my meditation journey, why I teach meditation and how meditation might help you too.
Read MoreIt's almost time for yoga classes to return to in-person. We await the next level of restrictions lifting on 17th May, and government confirmation that we can get back to practicing in a room together in England.
But how are you feeling about this? The reality is that we're not all ready to plunge back into closer proximity to others, and that's ok.
I spent a lot of time last autumn, working out a comprehensive covid policy and procedure for in-person classes. When we were not in lockdown, we came together safely and I felt confident hosting and teaching classes because this was in place and we all adhered to it. We could still chat, make social connections and enjoy being together. Mums and babies, and pregnant ladies could make those important networks and share experiences. Students commented that they felt safe and it was joyful to practice together.
In this blog post I talk about how I am feeling as we go back to class and how my covid policy and procedures can help you feel reassured. Whatever the individual journey we have had to navigate and wherever we are on the scale of cautious to can't wait I welcome you to class whenever you feel ready.
Read More"Waiting is a state of mind. Basically, it means that you want the future; you don't want the present. You don't want what you've got, and you want what you haven't got. With every kind of waiting, you unconsciously create inner conflict between your here and now, where you don't want to be, and the projected future, where you want to be. This greatly reduces the quality of your life by making you lose the present.” Ekhart Tolle
We all find ourselves waiting. Waiting for this phase in human history to be over, for the solution, for the answer. When we project ourselves forward into a future we cannot know, we are missing what is happening NOW.
So how do we get to the now?
Read MoreWe all carry worry around with us. It’s a part of being human. We worry about things we can change and things we can’t change. Some of us worry more than others. It is ok that we worry. We all do it.
The tools and practices of yoga and meditation help us to calm the swirling thoughts of our mind by helping us to bring our awareness inwards, by helping us connect to the peace of the present moment. From this space we are able to take a moment to step back, view the world with more perspective, even change our perspective and then deal with the challenges in a calmer more responsive way.
Whether you practice yoga or meditation or not here are some simple ways to help you calm your mind and your worries and give yourself some space through being more present:
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It's now a couple of weeks since we sadly had to say goodbye to our beloved dog Duke.
We all resonate with losing a person we love. Losing a pet is a slightly different experience, for some it can be harder in some ways. I am not an expert in how to deal with grief of any kind, and I believe there can be grief in other situations not just in the death of a loved one. But I do want to share my experience of the early days after losing Duke and how my meditation practice has helped.
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