Let the ego go and let you be free!

Bringing your personality onto the mat

Before I did my teacher training I practiced 3-4 times a week, I did a mixture of classes and self practice but always got more out of the classes I went to as I got distracted easily in my self practice. During my teacher training I was practicing yoga every day…. I did a month long intensive training course and by end of week one I was really hurting. My body ached all over, my wrists felt weak in my chaturangua, rotating my shoulders in downward dog caused my face to wince in pain and my hamstrings felt tighter than ever. I started to question the benefits of doing yoga every day and worry about the negative effects it was having on my body.

I remember during an afternoon break this being the topic of conversation among most of the group. We were all exhausted , sore and worrying about how we would physically and mentally get through the next 3 weeks of the course. There was no doubt we were all fully committed to each practice, were eager to learn and apply our learning’s from the previous days but our egos were the problem, they were very present on the mats and the effect was quite interesting. We had all pushed ourselves too far. We hadn’t listened to our teacher’s constant requests to bend our knees, take modified poses and take child’s pose when we needed to.

As we went through the course we slowly learned to listen to our bodies and often learned that by doing a modified version of a pose you could connect to it in a totally different way and deepen our learning as well as our practice. By week three the flipside had happened…. We were being a little too kind to our bodies. I noticed it in my own practice- I was pulling myself back from my usual version of the pose and overthinking how it looked and felt. It was a strange few days of practice, I sort of felt lost and confused as to what I should be doing – do I straighten my legs in down dog or do I go for the bind in my side angle stretch….

But then I had a moment… I was in warrior 1 with my arms overhead shoulder width apart and the teacher gently put my palms together, my instant reaction was to pull my shoulders down away from my ears but there was to tightness or tension to release, my arms were perfectly straight. I just smiled, I had been overthinking and worrying when there was no need- it didn’t really matter what version or modification I took of the pose. I know it might sound really simple and obvious to anyone reading this but it was a real eye opening moment. If we had taken a snap shot around the room and looked at all the different warriors we would have seen 23 different variations, each one an individual interpretation of Warrior 1! At that moment I made a promise to myself to always bring my personality onto the mat and to really encourage my students to follow their own bodies and bring their own poses to life on their mats.

Here I am 4months on and I love the individuality I see in classes and I really enjoy seeing different students interpret instruction or visual cues. Before I became a teacher I remember being in classes and wanting to move my body slightly differently to the way the teacher had said but rather than listening to me I followed the instructions even if it compromised my pose. Now that I am a teacher I see how crazy that thought process is, watching students take on their version of the pose really connecting to their own bodies on that day is a lovely thing to watch.

Some students need to be directed and guided through every stage of the class and they rely on you to almost be the puppeteer as their bodies move to the strings attached to your words…. There is nothing wrong with this, it’s a personal preference and can often lead to a very deep practice but for anyone reading this who has ever felt like taking a child’ s pose when it wasn’t offered or wanting to smile in your balance…. Next time go for it! It is your practice; every day you step onto the mat will be a new experience. Leave your ego outside and bring you onto the mat. 

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Can you live in the moment? If you can't control it, let it go!

Can you live in the moment... Learn from yesterday, live today and let tomorrow happen tomorrow?

I am a worrier, I have always been a worrier! My mum is a worrier as is her mum, my nana- so it is in my genes. It is natural for me to stress about the little things, hang onto things in the past and overthink things in the future. This is how I always justified it to myself, but then I look at my brother- same genes, we definitely look related but personality wise there are some striking differences in how we approach things. This is not a biology lesson so I won’t get into who got the better pick of the genes but it is enough to say that my little brother has definitely taught me a thing or two on living in the moment.  So he is 5 years younger and even though our circumstances are different I have always been fascinated by his ability to deal with the here and now,  learn from past experiences but let them go, taking the lessons from them and also keep open minded about the future, not over questioning what is coming up, not needing to have everything set in stone. This is more me!

During my yoga classes this week I encouraged my students to be in the moment, not to hold onto a posture they felt they didn’t go far enough in, or wonder what was coming next in the sequence but to totally focus on each posture as they did it. Also reminding them that their version of the posture was right for them, I asked them not to be influenced or distracted by what others were doing in the room. The goal was to assist them in realizing that every one of us is the best version of ourselves. The result was very mixed, some people took notice and let the frustrated faces and noises go, focused on their own practice and pose…others ignored every word and continued to struggle to go deeper into every posture, watching and copying their neighbours, taking a pose and then almost looking up searching for the next one as if the idea was to get into and out of as many poses as possible in the quickest time. No matter what I said or suggested it was as if they were focused on not hearing the words.

I don’t for one minute think I am on my own, most peoples pace of life causes too much stress and worry over things we can’t control. Whether it is things that are in the past or what may happen in the future. Rather than beat myself up for not connecting with those yogis who didn’t want to try and live in the moment I let it go and resigned myself to the fact that maybe on that day that was the practice they needed for them. 

After some lengthy heart to hearts with my brother I decided to take a leaf out of his book and try to live more in the moment. This is a lot easier said than done, especially for someone like me, however it is also quite a nice sense of freedom. As I am in my late 20’s I have many years of habit to change but I do stop myself now when I find my little worry hat popping out and ask myself a simple question- can I control it? If I can’t, rather than going over and over it in my head wasting time I accept it and try to take a learning from it. It is certainly harder to stick to this off the mat, on the mat I have found a new appreciation for my yoga practice and the daily surprises it throws at me. Sometimes it’s the ease in which I move into postures and other times its what I find challenging in my practice but to be honest it keeps it interesting, I am always learning both in my own practice, classes I attend and every time I teach.

Maybe the next time you are doing your yoga practice, at home on your own or in a class, try to be in the moment, to connect with each posture and make it yours. Off the mat maybe try to live in the day and not worry so much about what you can’t control, learn from it and then live it.

xxx

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Be the best you you can be…. No one else can be a better you!

Have you ever been in a situation where someone tells you to do something and you really don’t feel comfortable doing it, for whatever reason, but rather than speak up you get caught up in the banter or cave under pressure and end up falling flat on your face…. Well this happened to me this week- Literally! However, once I got over the bruised ego and nose… I actually started to realize the link between this on the mat experience with the day-to-day fears we all face… and more importantly how we deal with them.

It all started when I went to a Dharma Mittra yoga class…. It was my own fault because I didn’t check to see what class it was. I actually thought I was going to a Vinyasa Flow class… It was a very challenging class and although the teacher was very advanced as were a few of the students, I struggled through it and felt totally out of my comfort zone. It really challenged what my whole yoga practice is about and went against my own teaching.

In my classes I encourage students to focus on their own mat space, to make the practice their own and to listen to their bodies. However in this class I felt a pressure to do poses I knew my body was not flexible enough for and that I wasn’t confident with…. So rather than challenging my body and working deeper into the new poses I constantly went too far and was left frustrated and totally lost my concentration on my own practice. I was trying a forearm balance, without my usual safety net of the wall behind me, and I felt the fear and gave in to it! I literally fell flat on my face and my body did a very ungraceful wallop onto the ground behind me. I had instant flashbacks to when I was a child and tried to do something crazy on my roller blades when my mum told me not to and ended up crashing to the ground. The only difference was this time my mum was not there to pick me up! I peeled myself off the ground and honestly had to hold back the tears…. For the rest of the class I just tried to hold myself together and stop my bottom lip from wobbling. I was so relieved when it was over and I could leave the class but I was totally shook for the rest of the day.

Later that evening I was trying to work out why this experience had gotten to me so much. Was it that I was upset that I couldn’t do all the poses? Was it because I had lost concentration and fallen? Or was it because no one came to see if I was ok and pick me up? I couldn’t answer it. It was only during the week when I thought back on it that I started to make sense of it all. It had absolutely nothing to do with yoga it came down to my belief in me. As soon as the class started and I saw some of the poses being pulled out of the teachers bag I thought ‘I can’t do this’ and rather than focus on my own practice, as I preach to my students all the time, I let what was going on around me totally influence me because I lost my confidence. The confidence to listen to how I felt, to voice my opinion and stay true to me.

I was faced with another situation this week where I was asked to interview for a job totally outside the world of yoga. There was a little part of me that thought ‘Oh I should do this’ I felt the fear again, in a totally different context this time but instead of caving in to it I felt the fear and followed my heart and my own voice. I politely declined the opportunity to interview and thanked the person for thinking of me. I packed my bag and went to the studio and taught one of the best yoga classes I have ever taught. I also went to a yoga class and found myself able to do poses with ease, which my body often struggles with. I fell out of a few handstands and lost my balance a few times but I stuck with them and felt so proud of myself.

Life constantly offers us choices and puts challenging situations in front of us but no one can choose the right path for anyone but themselves. I know sometimes I will make the wrong choice and I will fall flat on my face but I will also learn from my mistakes. Once I know that the choice I took was mine there is no need to cave into any fear or pressure.

As one teacher in a class I was in this week told us all- Be the best you you can be, because no one else can be a better you! 

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Changing your life doesn't mean changing you!

So here I am 3 months on…. and what a crazy three months it has been. My life has totally changed, my daily routine has transformed, my yoga practice has come on in leaps and bounds but yet I am still me! I am not sure what I expected, I guess with so much change in my life I thought I too would change but in fact I just found me again.

On the surface it might look like I am different, I am definitely happier- I wake every morning and love knowing that I am working to my own timetable. Friends have told me I am more relaxed, I am happier in myself and look better…. They keep talking about how I have changed so much- this is all great to hear and I do feel better but honestly I am just me but I was always me.

Before when I was working long hours, I was stressed, I wasn’t happy and I wasn’t listening to me…. This past few months I have learnt to be a little bit more self-focused and aware and I am trying to go from dreaming the dream to living the dream. Honestly, it has been challenging at times. There have been a lot of bumps along the way, some hurdles, some falls and I have definitely taken a few rides on the emotional rollercoaster but as I have learned this journey is like a never ending marathon…. There is no sprint and no race to a finish line.

People often ask me is it hard to keep motivated and do I miss the structure of an office environment- my honest answer is not at all on either fronts. I have always been very self motivated and driven so now that I am working for myself I am even more motivated. I might not be in an office environment but I have my own routine…. Slightly different from the rush hour commute but I know myself that I need to have a routine so I get up early and walk or run grab a coffee and sort out my inbox before doing my morning practice! I do it like this because I know if I tried to do my yoga before sorting my emails I would not be able to concentrate. After my practice I get into my day… teaching, studying, writing etc. Every day is different and quite surprisingly I am really enjoying that part of it. So although I didn’t struggle with these elements that doesn’t mean I haven’t had my tough times, my worry days or ‘what am I doing moments’ but these are just natural- or so I am telling myself!!

Having worked in the corporate world for 10 years I was used to getting a regular pay check at the end of the month…. This was probably the biggest shock to the system. Funny really when you think about it because I chose this, I knew when I gave up my job I was giving up that security but the first month when it came to pay day… I had a massive wobble! But rather than caving in to the fear and mass sending out my CV I calmed myself down and came back to my dream… I knew that I had to keep believing in me because if I didn’t have confidence that I would succeed how was I ever going to make this work. So although it was a challenge I became stronger from it and came back to that ‘what’s the worst that can happen’ idea!

It was a big adjustment going from loving yoga to making it my career, all of a sudden I found myself stressed at the thought of making enough money in order to stick to my dream and this was tough. There were a few days where I thought to myself I just can’t do this, I was stressed and worrying constantly and thinking too far ahead. I came back to my mat and to my own yoga practice and it really calmed me. I came back to what had given me the courage to make the move in the first place and I listened to me. I wasn’t actually panicking I was listening too much to what other people were saying and doing. So I took a bit of me time, got my focus back and picked myself up.

Something I am working on is learning to take me time… I used to live for the weekends! Friday afternoons were about clock watching and waiting for 5.30 to come the weekend was me time but I don’t really have a day off anymore. Don’t get me wrong I’m not saying that in a bad way it’s just different now. I have the freedom to plan my days as I want to but I also have the full responsibility of my income. I could just teach a few classes a week and take some days off but living in London that wouldn’t last long. So there is a balance between working hard, keeping up my own practice, teaching a mix of classes and trying to let myself switch off from it all. I’m sure I’ll get better at it but for now I am enjoying being busy.

In short I’m quite enjoying living my dream….