Do you, as a yoga student or teacher, ever wonder: how much of modern yoga, or the yoga I do, bear connection to the Yoga tradition or roots of the practice? There is I guess behind that, the question of whether it matters if what people are practising today and calling yoga bears connection to…
If there’s one question I really don’t like and never liked it’s: “Are you happy?” Podcasters and lifestyle experts have joined the legion of psychologists of our time to bring to the forefront of our attention the question, “am I happy?”. Combine this with the massive rise in talking about mental health, the question and…
We all want more positive, less negative, in our life and in our mind. We all have feelings and thoughts; we have ups and downs – and the share of each isn’t necessarily fairly distributed from person to person. How do we live a whole life that is capable of managing positive and negative, ups…
I’m usually weary of articles headed “X number of steps to…”, and you certainly get enough of them, not just all over social media and adverts on websites, but in the yoga world too. If only it were that straightforward to lose weight/find your soul mate/increase your wealth/do a handstand/change your life. Either the “steps”…
How are things, are you still feeling summer vibes? We had a good run of sunshine here in the UK. I sense corona fatigue out there, or people busy and needing to get on with it and the adaptation to changes. We humans are incredible that way. Some of you may have had losses. I’m sorry, really…
One of the buzz phrases of our current time is ‘live in the now’. I think Eckhart Tolle, the gazillion dollar best selling author of the book The Power of Now, has a contribution to that. Plus the rise of the self-help industry and the social media life-take over has meant we are constantly bombarded…
Yesterday, the skies were crystal clear and the sun beat down on us all day in London town, turning the city golden for a whole afternoon before the sun set. Today… ha, what an entirely different ‘world’… parts of the country battered by a cyclone and the rest of the land (including this capital city)…
There is popular article in this weekend’s Guardian newspaper, based on a report that says young people are shunning hedonism for… yoga and wellness. There’s been a huge growth in festivals embracing wellness, wellbeing events and celebrities turning their life around and then launching books and podcasts “telling us” how to be well and happy.…
I was recently invited to an afternoon for ‘Yogis of Colour’. Receiving the email with that header subject sent an arrow into my heart – but it wasn’t a harmful blow. More like a strange hello. The inviter’s intention, as she went on to explain, was a blunt one: she had decided she was sick…
One of the most rewarding aspects of my job as a teacher is witnessing a person pursuing the practice in defiance of whatever obstacles (mental or physical, usually both together) get in the way of that. Things like ‘I’m too stiff’, ‘I can’t make the time’, ‘I have too many responsibilities’, ‘my mind won’t keep…
It could be the March air, that time of year that is neither completely this (Winter) or that (Spring). It could be that with another year passing I’ve suddenly found myself at the threshold of middle age, or so society terms it. It could be that as my meditation practice deepens and widens, I am…
Meditation Myth Busters Ok, let’s do this. Let’s bust the myths flying around out there about meditation. Myth Buster: We’re all meditating Technically, meditation is a word that refers to when you’re in the state of meditation. When we sit, or pause or lie down (yes that’s allowed) to meditate, what we are really doing…