I found some new adornments for the heartspace space. German porcelain found in Rotorua.

#heartspaceyoga #yogabycandlelight #love #peace #happiness #heartspace #yoga 

I have just been to a fantastic workshop with Yin Therapy, the couple I am going to do my second teacher training with. I have worked through this already in my first teacher training, but its always great to refresh and be reminded how important it is to recognize skeletal variation.

Our bodies, our bones, our looks, our characters are completely different. While 1 yoga pose might be easily achievable for 1 person is might be completely impossible or extremely hard for another. It is so important to practice body awareness in your yoga practice.

A bit of a silence theme for me this week. this is the reading I chose to share in sessions this week and the card I pulled from my art of attention deck from Elena Brower.

#silence #heartspaceyoga #meditation #heartspace #yoga

I have observed a pattern within myself of being brought out of balance regularly by opinions and judgement of other people, articles I read, information I digest.

What I learn each time is to come back to my own inner truth. We all have wisdom residing on the inside, which we regularly shut off by the outside noise, by the rational mind or by adhering to / following what other people think is good or not good for us.

Fact is that we are all absolutely different individuals. Not everything works for everybody. Your truth is not my truth, my truth is not yours.

It is also fact that on pretty much every subject if you google and research it you can find papers and evidence on either side of the view. Be it vegetarianism / veganism / meat eating, be it natural alternative medicine / conventional medicine, immunizing / not immunizing, there are thousands of theories about how and what we should eat, what we should and should not being doing to avoid this, that and the other thing and just as much evidence that exactly this is bad for you for this, that and the other reason.

Also the mindset is important when we do things. For example there is no point having a coffee and chocolate and feeling bad and guilty about it. You might as well really enjoy it and make the most of it. There is no point of stressing every night about nutritious meals for your family if the stress and worry makes you sick – you might as well go to the beach one night and have fish and chips together and a good time – its probably healthier overall for everybody. I am not promoting eating unhealthy foods, I just think the pressure we put ourselves under these days to do everything just right and avoid xyz and do the very best for our families & the planet can cause more stress, worry and illness than slacking off a bit and actually enjoying the ride.

I always come back to my common sense, to my gut feeling, observing my experience with whatever – if it makes me feel good – perfect, if it makes me feel contracted or bad – I stop using or doing it.

Fact is also that pretty much everything we do by just existing we damage the earth and natural resources in some way. We can’t all go back to being cave people. There are too many people on this planet, doing too much damage. However we can use resources mindfully and if we all did that we could possibly reverse some of the damage.

Also fact is that there will always be someone who doesn’t agree with whatever you figured out to be really good for you. We have to learn to accept other people’s opinions and let them have theirs.

I have some strong opinions about some things and find it hard to digest, if someone doesn’t agree with whatever I am so passionate about.One example is my mum. She and my dad have been battling different health issues in the last few years and I have been trying to introduce some things to help themselves. However most of the time, they are just brushed sideways as hocuspocus, which was particularly hurtful, since I studied homeopathy and my mum told me she doesn’t believe in that. Its learning to accept that everyone has a different path and different beliefs. What works so well for me and my family might not be right for her at all. Another example is that I don’t want a smart meter on our house, and the process I had to go through with all sorts of electricity companies to avoid getting one of those being treated like an alien from another planet. Or Fluoride and Chlorine in the water, or water pollution, or….. We have to learn to let go of the expectation that everybody has to agree with us. Letting go of judgment.

And always come back to that inner peace, the inner knowing, the inner wisdom, acceptance, surrender.

How to plug into that wisdom – meditation, stillness, turning off the devices, turning off the senses and listening, celebrating every day what we have, the beauty we are surrounded with, the blessings and resources we have in our life.

And here we go another opinion piece to digest this time of my own doing.

Have a good day everyone – enjoy this crazy world!

#yogaoffthemat #yogawisdom #keepingsaneinaninsaneworld#findingstillness #innerwisdom #intuition #connection #meditiation

I have to admit I am NOT a morning person. I have always struggled with getting up in the morning. The thing is my life is so busy with 2 children, 2 businesses to run, 1 community platform to run, a houshold and garden and the usually duties that come with it there is not much time left to restore me. So really the only time where I get quiet time is in early morning. I have started doing my yoga practice early morning after yoga teacher training, but in the big school holidays and in the process of setting up the studio I slipped out of my habit – so easy.

Now don’t get me wrong – I am not suggesting that everybody get up at 5.30 and take up what I do. We all are so different and have to find what works for us.  I have had morning practices throughout the years on and off and when I do them I feel great and its the most beautiful start to the day. I am just reluctant to get up, because I go to bed too late (which I am addressing too, by going to bed earlier). I have found for me it is unsustainable not to do them, because I get angry, grumpy and I feel I didn’t have any time to myself and then being resentful. In my stage of life where the kids are around every day I very rarely get time to myself and even if they are at school I am either working or people are popping in and out, couriers coming, phones ringing etc. I just can’t get the quiet time during the day and in the evening I am too tired. So morning it is for me.

I always say to my students that everybody is their own best teacher. This is what I have identified for me to be good and necessary. My needs change all the time so do my routines. And everybody has different routines and nourishing rituals and if not I highly recommend to find nourishing routines that suit each individual. I have some others, like taking Lucy and the kids for walks in the park, but I need some solitude to clear my head on a regular basis otherwise I feel flustered and scattered.

If you haven’t done yoga before you might be thinking you need to look fabulous, have fancy leggings and be at a beach with a sunset in the background and bend your leg behind your ear. Like so many things yoga these days is being commercialised to make you want that fabulous body, those fancy leggings, the unachievable looks, the beach and peace that is emanated from those glossy magazine images and facebook posts. That is not yoga – that is marketing…

The ultimate goal of yoga is to still the mind. Like Pattabhi Jois so beautifully said “Yoga is an internal practice. The rest is just a circus”.

Originally the yoga asanas (yoga poses) which today we mainly know in the west as yoga were only practiced to have a healthy and flexible body to be able to sit in long periods of mediation to still the mind.  I attach an image below of the 8 limbs of yoga that the serious yoga practitioner attempts to live by. As you can see the Asana practice (postures) are only a small part of a full yoga practice. Many of us already practice yoga with the moral code and personal conduct already being present in many people’s lives.

However we also have to view our potential yoga practice in a practical way. Not many of us in the western world have the time to sit under a tree all day trying to still our mind with long meditation practices to reach Samadhi. So yes the physical postures are immensely beneficial to our bodies that are often forced to be in a static position all day (office / desk) or being overused in physically challenging jobs doing repetitive movements (pack-house, building, pruning etc). So it is really important for most of us to bring balance back to bodies with yoga postures.

In my classes at Heartspace Yoga I teach gentle and basic Hatha Yoga and Yin Yoga. Both styles are achievable for most of us. They are gentle forms of yoga and my focus is on creating a moving mediation. So while we do the postures we focus on our breathing and on stilling the mind. In all of my classes we have brief meditations at the beginning and at the end of the class, there are some Pranayam / Yogic breathing exercises and the postures. My aim is for my students to leave relaxed, energised, detoxed, with an open body and mind, with batteries charged and a calmer nervous system.

Most of us lead lives that are too full, with to do list that are too long for anybodies good. In the western world especially we have a society that is stressed, depressed, depleted, chronically ill and reaching for more and more accomplishments until our bodies completely crash. Yoga can help you to bring balance back into your life, find clarity in your head as to where to go next by stilling the mind, allowing our bodies to heal and restore by calming the nervous system, be more present in your life and make better decisions. There are many studies available online that proof the manifold benefits of yoga.

The Hatha Yoga I teach is a mix of standing and floor based poses with dynamic movements that work on the muscular system, increasing strength, balance and stamina. The Yin Yoga is mainly floor based with long held poses (2-6 minutes), which works on the connective tissue, Facia and Joint Health. Yin Yoga is a beautiful practice to balance out physical practices that you might already be doing. Ideally both styles are practiced to benefit the whole body.

The first session is free for new students – so why not come along to try yoga and bring more balance into your life and body. For more information you can check out my website heartspace.nz or like my facebook page https://www.facebook.com/heartspacenz/.

If you have any questions, please e-mail me [email protected] or call me 021 – 104 56 66.